CHAPTER 28: THE EMPTY FLOWERBED
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2015
It had just gone seven when the bell chimed, not the one at the old gate but the one attached to the front door, which they seldom ever heard because, well, because people always rang at the gate. Odd, Cynthia thought. Did we forget to close up last night? Maybe it was a neighbour from down the glen who had noticed the dog had got out again and was bringing her home. But no, she could see, in the garden, the young Irish setter burrowing her nose through the most recent snowfall, playing, not a bit bothered by the wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown, Cynthia hurried to the front door, nearly tripping on a toy truck on her way.
'Good morning, Mrs Knight,' said the unknown woman on her front porch, and though it was she who had come uninvited and unannounced, it was Cynthia who was made to feel instantly inferior, never mind her own class and breeding, which was not insignificant. The woman was beautiful, there was no denying, and she carried herself with an air of intense professionalism. Everything from her black, shined court shoes to her pinstripe pencil skirt hitting her so perfectly at the knee that is was almost certain she had had it professionally tailored, to her dark, salon-treated hair that fell in perfect waves down both shoulders. Even her smile seemed expertly trained.
'Hullo, can I help you?' said Cynthia, holding the front of her dressing gown closed and trying not to stare at the woman's perfectly sculpted eyebrows. Behind her came the quick patter of feet, and her two-year-old launched himself at her legs, wrapping arms around her knees, eager to play. She proficiently wrangled him round in front and stroked his fair head.
'Thank you, yes. I am here to speak with your husband.'
'Regarding . . . ?' She glanced beyond the woman's shoulders but saw no car, and the gate was still closed. How had she not sounded the alarm?
'Mummy, I hungry,' said the little boy, tugging at her gown.
'Hush a moment, love.'
'A private matter, Mrs Knight,' said the woman, flashing a cordial but uninterested smile at the child, 'though nothing indiscreet, I assure you. Is he at home?'
The question was a mere pleasantry; those dark, incisive eyes suggested that she already knew the answer.
'Um, yes, shall I go and . . . Sorry, who did you say you were?'
'Call me Eucleia.'
Cynthia's eyebrows arose. 'What, like the Greek spirit of good repute?'
The woman looked equally surprised, her countenance of total composure shifting to something more human. 'You know your mythology.'
'I studied the classics. And Henry knows you?'
'No, but I am hoping we share a common interest. I expect we may.'
'Well, we're about to sit down to breakfast. Come in, please. It's too cold to be standing with the door open like this. I'll put on the coffee.'
'Thank you. Mrs Knight.' She entered the house and waggled her fingers at the young boy, who stared up at her with wide-eyed curiosity. She followed mother and son further into the house.
Cynthia Knight was not alone in receiving an unanticipated early-morning visitor while still in nightclothes.
'Sally,' said Thomas Dryers with a surprised but pleased smile. Despite wearing only flannel bottoms and a white vest, he appeared unabashed to be caught so underdressed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to see him like this at such an hour. She'd never been to his flat before—Yard colleagues did not make habit of socialising beyond the occasional pint (at least, not in her experience)—but she offered no immediate explanation as to why she was there now.
But the unusual visit didn't seem to perturb or worry him. Dryers rolled wet hands in a towel, which he flipped over his shoulder to hold the door for her so she could step inside the overly warm room. 'I was just doing the washing-up,' he explained.
'Fancy that, a man who does the washing-up,' she said, snapping open the buttons on her dark-grey pea coat and fanning herself with its lapels.
'A bachelor's gotta keep the place tidy,' he said. 'You never know when you'll have an unexpected guest.' He winked. 'Welcome to my humble abode. Coffee? Tea? I make a mean brew.' He led her into the kitchen, which, being a rather cosy flat, was not far from the front door.
'No,' she replied coolly. 'You're alone then. No one in the bedroom?'
He chuckled good-naturedly, then put on an air of self-pity. 'Just me, I'm afraid.'
Dryers poured himself a mug from the coffee pot and looked her over. For a breath of a moment, she waited for him to comment on the fact that she was wearing day-old clothes, reeked of coffee, and had bags under her eyes from too many hours on her feet and not in a bed. She waited for him to deduce, correctly, that she had spent the night working down at the Yard, and maybe even hazard a guess as to why. But he didn't. He probably didn't see any of that. He just sipped his coffee with a dopey kind of grin, waiting for her justify her coming.
'Good.' She pulled back a chair from the dining table; it screeched along the lino and hit the wall. 'Then wipe that idiot smile off your face and sit the fuck down.'
His smile froze, leaving him with a bemused sort of expression as he tried to understand the joke. But Sally Donovan was anything but a jokester. Not one thing about her spoke a playful kind of language at all, not her eyes (sharp as flint), not her mouth (ruler straight), and certainly not her tongue. 'Do it,' she said.
'What's going on, Sally?'
'That's Sergeant Donovan to you, you shit,' she said, and she moved so quickly he didn't even have time to brace. Next he knew, the coffee mug cracked on the floor, the front of his vest had been seized in her fist, and he had been shoved down into the chair. She stood in front of him, huffing, and pushed the curls away from her face. 'Who do you work for?'
'What?'
'Answer the question!'
'You, I work for you! For DI Lestrade, Gregson, the Met— What the hell are you doing?'
'Do you know what is happening down at the Yard right now, right this bloody second?'
'N-no! Jesus, Sally, what—?'
'Sergeant Donovan.'
'Sergeant Donovan, I'm sorry! Christ, tell me what—'
'We're flooded, flooded, with homeless berks, men and women, with the initials KON. Or KN. Or ON or KO, every Kevin, Kim, and Kendall you've ever met, every O'Neil, O'Nolan, and O'Malley-are-you-sure-it-wasn't-an-M bimbo from Twickenham to Brentwood, all of them convinced that they're next on the chopping block and seeking police protection. Only four people knew about those initials, Dryers. Only four of us knew what was next: Gregson, Lestrade, me, and you. Someone let the cat out of the bag. It wasn't the chief superintendent, it wasn't Lestrade, and it sure as hell wasn't me. Guess who that leaves.'
'Oh, come on—!'
'This is exactly why that information wasn't made public, why we didn't tell the other officers. You knew what the consequences would be, didn't you? So you let it slip, you flood the Yard with more work than we can handle to what, distract us? Keep us busy processing all these potential victims while your buddies go after the real KON? Who is he!'
'My buddies? What are you saying? I didn't let anything slip, and let's get real here. Anyone might have figured out that name pattern by now. But I didn't say anything!'
'Anyone might have figured it out, sure. But the timing is awfully suspicious, wouldn't you agree? John Watson is sent those flowers, and twelve hours later the whole homeless population knows about KON?'
He blinked, putting on a damn good show of confusion. 'What flowers? I don't know anything about flowers.'
'I'm not an idiot, constable. Stop! Keep your arse in that chair. I see what's been going on, how you've been playing your cards all this time.'
'Honestly, Sal— Sgt Donovan, I don't know what you're on about. But . . . Okay.' He held up his hands, a gesture of goodwill, surrender, placation, she wasn't sure yet. 'Come on, let's talk it through, yeah? I've got nothing to hide. I've just been doing my job, I swear.'
She scowled. 'Which job? Are you a new recruit, or were you chummed up with Moriarty from the start?'
'I . . . I understand what's going on here. I do. You've been burnt before, I get that. You didn't know who to trust, and those you thought you could count on turned out to be criminals. I get it. But I'm not one of them. I passed all the screenings back in November, right? After you'd dropped all those flies? Haven't I been helpful since?'
Donovan crossed her arms. 'Oh yes. Helpful. Well. It's all just a little too convenient, Dryers, how nicely situated you've been since all this began.'
He laughed in disbelief and shook his head, still playing the poor, hapless, bewildered scumbag. She loomed larger.
'You were the first officer on the scene when Mary Morstan's body was found. Keeping an eye on things, making sure they unfolded exactly like it had been planned, isn't that right?'
'I was on duty.' His voice was level, but he pleaded with her with his eyes. 'I got the call. And I phoned Lestrade just as soon as—'
'Were you in on it with O'Higgins? With Stubbins? Did you know about them, or did they not know about you?'
'Okay, now you're just sounding paranoid.'
'I trusted you, goddammit, I sent you in the ambulance with Watson when we recovered him from the convent. You knew exactly where he was at all times, from kitchen to hospital. Is that how Moran got away, how his trail went cold so quickly, because of you? Is that why no alarms were sounded when Watson left his hospital room, because you had fucked with our security detail? Is that why—?'
'Sally!'
She was trembling with rage, and when he tried to sit forward on the chair, looking like he was about to take her hands, she shoved him back hard at the shoulders. 'I'm not finished!' she said. 'You were the first to discover the missing evidence, to get us playing this bloody game, and you were assigned to recover it. But did you? No. Not a single lead. That night, at Borough Market. You drew Holmes away from the crime scene, sent him chasing after Watson. A bit eager to be rid of him? What were you afraid he would see? What's more, you were responsible for compiling the list of OTs, I gave that task to you, but did we save the right one?'
'Orrin Tippet was on the list!'
'But we tracked down the wrong ones first! It was you who suggested we search near Stonebridge when the real OT was all the way over by Elephant and Castle. We couldn't have been farther from the crime scene! You tricked me into trusting you. You lied to me!'
'I swear, I didn't. I never lied—'
'I've seen you fake a cover, Dryers. I've seen you put on a show. Your overeager helpfulness, your overbearing friendliness, pretending to be on my side when everyone else down at the Yard has been itching to put Holmes away and calling me bitch for defending his sorry arse. Well, I'm calling it now. You're a phony.'
'For God's sake, Donovan, that wasn't a cover! That was . . . Jesus, that was flirting.'
For half a second, Donovan stared, nonplussed. Then she threw her head back and laughed.
'What? What! Is it really so hard to imagine? That someone might fancy you?'
'Nice try. To fall for that, you must think me a real imbecile.'
'Quite the contrary, though at the moment . . .'
She crossed her arms again and lifted her chin, all humour evaporated. 'Don't cross me. You've seen what happens to those who cross me.'
Dryers snorted. 'Anderson. Now there's one I never really understood. What did you ever see in that guy?'
'Don't try to turn this back on me. You're the one in the hot seat.'
'My flat isn't an interrogation room. And I haven't exactly been arrested, have I? You come waltzing in here, no warrant, no backup, and just expect me to roll over and confess to something I didn't do? To being someone I'm not? Suddenly, you're not sounding so confident. Does the DI even know you're here?'
'I'm giving you a chance to come clean before I take this to the next level. Save yourself some grief, maybe even spare yourself Stubbins' fate.'
He spread his hands. 'I have nothing to give you. Literally nothing. I can't tell you anything because I don't know anything. I know less than you!'
'I don't believe you.'
'And just what am I supposed to say to that? What can I possibly do to convince you?'
She stared at him hard, not answering. Then: 'One thing.'
'Name it. Jesus, Sally, being on this end of your suspicions, even for an innocent man, is the most uncomfortable thing in the world. I'll do whatever you . . .' His voice trailed off as she pulled a small black box attached to a strap out of the pocket of her coat. 'You're not serious. An ankle monitor?'
'You know how this works. Extensive battery life, tamper proof, waterproof—you try to remove or destroy it, I'll know. I want to know where you are, exactly where you are, at every second of the day and night when I'm not dragging you around by your ear.'
'This isn't even legal!'
'Planning to run?'
'Think this through, Donovan. They'll find I'm wearing a monitor when I get down to the Yard. The metal detectors will sound. Not even the mail gets into the building without passing through inspection—how will I? Then you'll have to explain—'
'You'll not be going into work today. You've taken ill. Nasty case of flu. I've heard it's going around. You're going to call it in. And while I'm on the subject of communication, you'll also be surrendering your phone and computer. I'm going to see who you've been in contact with for the last twelve months.'
'Twelve months?'
'You want me to trust you? I want full access, and I want you to keep your mouth shut. Refuse, threaten to go to Lestrade, Gregson, or anyone else, and I'll take that as a confession. But if you've nothing to hide?' She shrugged. 'You've nothing to fear. Not from me.'
'Fuck's sake,' he said, breathing out a shaky sort of laugh. 'You're as scary as they come, Donovan. You don't give a bloke much of a choice on the matter. Gotta say, I'm a little less keen on you at the moment.'
'You're breaking my heart.' She tossed the monitor into his lap. 'Put it on. Lock it. Then hand over the key.'
It was Wednesday. That meant John had another session with Ella. But now it also meant that Sherlock would not be able to accompany him. His community sentence had begun, and the terms of this sentence—as delivered by his assigned offender manager—were non-negotiable. In addition to the non-molestation order (which happily prohibited him from any and all interactions with Anderson), Sherlock was also forbidden from patronising pubs or discos (which offered no temptation), from hiring private transportation like town cars and taxis (this was more of a problem), and from being on the streets past nine o'clock at night (an annoyance, given that he'd not obeyed curfews even as a child). He was additionally required to maintain a single residency (which he expected would soon come in conflict with his impending eviction), to report nightly via phone to the offender manager, and to submit to drug tests every Monday and Friday. The violation of any of these terms would result in further loss of freedom and an additional fifty hours per infraction to his sentence to a maximum of three hundred hours, and any infractions beyond that would convert his punishment into a custodial sentence to the tune of six-to-twelve months.
He had no intention of pushing things so far. So when the offender officer informed him that he would serve his time between the hours of two o'clock and five o'clock every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for the next sixteen weeks, he put up no fuss, only signed his name to the agreement form and set up a new count-down clock in his head.
While The Guardian was busy reporting Kitty Riley's arrest, Scott Anderson's termination, and the speculations regarding the details of an inquest into their supposed collusion, other papers in the city concerned themselves with continued editorials on the validity of the Bruhl girl's testimony and the Sherlock Holmes' criminal history, though the latter was now meeting with some backlash from readers and demands for proof. Either way public opinion swung, Sherlock Holmes was a hot topic grown hotter, so it was little surprise when the paparazzi, driven away from Baker Street by the police, flocked like pigeons to the hard shoulders of the M1 to snap photos of him in a reflective orange jacket, spearing rubbish—empty bottles, cigarette cartons, fast-food wrappers—with a stick. Within twenty-four hours, these photographs would appear on television, online, and in printed tabloids all over the city; BBC News, however, would use those photos in their story of how paparazzi presence on the motorway caused severe traffic delays and a three-car prang.
After an hour's spectacle, the probationary officer was so infuriated by the 'celebrity' attention that he pulled all eight criminal offenders—including Holmes—off the motorway and assigned them to sorting recyclables indoors. 'Just today, don't be gettin' too cosy indoors.' The men were grateful to be out of the cold, if only for a day, and they joshed with Sherlock Holmes, that inscrutable detective-turned-crook, that his arrest was the best thing that could have happened to them. But the man didn't seem much for conversation. He shut up, did his work, and waited for those three hours to expire.
And so John went to Kilburn alone. He left Baker Street early and took a bus, even though the Central Line would have been quicker. Though he was feeling calm and in control (a steady two on the scale), he did not want to provoke feelings of entrapment by sitting in an enclosed steel carriage beneath the earth, like he had before. And he took other precautions: he took his pills, he texted Lestrade at every juncture (leaving the flat, boarding the bus, leaving the bus, and so forth), and in a deep pocket of his coat he kept his fingers curled around Sherlock's BK&T combat knife, sheathed, but sharpened. For the entirety of the ride, he was on high alert—eyes, ears, and soldier's intuition—and he reached Dr Thompson's office without incident.
They talked about Mary. They talked about the child that would never be. He had done it in writing already, so it was easier, somehow, this time. They talked about Sherlock. About what John had said to him.
'You once called him your best friend.'
'I did, didn't I? Feels like a long time ago now.'
'Is it still true?'
John thought. In the end, all he could answer was, 'It's the wrong word, isn't it?'
When he left, he felt lighter, but his leg was aching, and the cold wasn't helping. He texted Lestrade:
Heading home. Still
a mess down there?
A moment later:
It's Occupy Scotland Yard,
apparently. Want to give me
an excuse to disappear?
John was tempted to say yes. He knew how eager Lestrade was to help, but he felt funny asking it from anyone but Sherlock, and probably because he rarely ever had to. Ask, that was. Sherlock seemed to intuit his needs, sometimes before even John did, and next he knew, he had a glass of water in his hands, or the telly clipped on to distract him, or an additional light came on to dispel the shadows. Lestrade, on the other hand, was a man who waited for permission. He was grateful for that, too.
But today, he was feeling . . . stronger.
I'm going to take a cab.
The response was quick.
Are you sure?
Yes. I'll text you the cab
number. Just to be safe.
When the black taxi rolled to the kerb, he quickly sent off the number plate JS07 UYT to Lestrade, reminded himself to breathe, and pulled open the back door.
'Baker Street, please,' he said, and when his voice came out a little too soft, he cleared his throat and said more boldly, 'Quick as you can.'
Then he settled back into the warm leather bench and forced his muscles—all except those of the tightly curled hand in his pocket—to relax. Fifteen minutes to home, he coached himself as he stared out of the window, marking the path of the taxi as it made the first right turn onto Western Avenue, going east. So far, so good. His fingers rubbed the hilt of the combat knife like a good luck charm. Of all he had confessed to Ella, he had kept that detail to himself. They could address that particular paranoia later.
Right about the time Western Avenue became Westway, John pulled his eyes from the side window and found the cabbie watching him in the rearview mirror. His heart tripped, and he started a little in his seat. His grip tightened, and all his muscles went from lax to taut in half a second. But the cabbie's eyes fell away, and he thought that maybe he had been mistaken. He was overreacting, seeing things as he imagined they might be, not as they were. The man was probably just checking the traffic. The cool logic of it, though, didn't stop his heart from racing.
And then his mouth went dry when he noticed the man staring at him again.
Bad idea, terrible idea, he thought frantically. He snapped his head to the side window, and suddenly the city looked foreign. Was this even Westway? Were they travelling in the right direction? Mistake, mistake! In his other pocket, his thumb slipped across the screen on his phone. His brain screamed instructions: Text Sherlock. Call Lestrade. Demand that the cabbie pull over and get out. If he refuses, show him the knife. Use it.
John licked his dry lips, took a breath to speak, but before he could make a sound, the cabbie spoke first:
'Sorry, sir, I'm staring,' he said. 'But you're Mr Watson, ain't ya? Sherlock Holmes' mate?'
Get out! He knew what he would do—in two ticks, he could have the knife unsheathed and buried in the man's neck, severing the carotid artery with one clean motion. Let the taxi careen off the side of the road, let it smash into another car, he would bear it. It would be better than the alternative: a new hideout, the same enemy, and this time nothing to confess. Kill him now. Deftly, his finger flicked the button on the sheath and his muscles poised for action.
'Don't mean to be a rude,' the man continued on placidly. 'Just thought I recognised you. From the papers, you know? Started reading them a bit more diligently I did, after I met him. Well, I say "met", but it wasn't real proper. It was me what dropped him off home a couple weeks back when he was in a bad way. Doin' all right though now, innit?'
John stared at the mirror and the man's eyes, now on the road, but when they flicked back again to see him, John nodded. He swallowed the dryness in his throat, ran a thumb lightly down the blade and felt it split his skin. 'He's fine,' he said carefully.
'Glad to hear it. Seems an all right chap.'
They continued toward Baker Street at an unhurried pace. The fear was beginning to recede, but his guard was still raised to heaven.
'What's your name?' John asked, his tone interrogatory.
'Me? Julian. Julian Smalls. Name's on the plate back there, if you follow me.'
'How long have you been a cab driver, Julian Smalls?'
'Oh now, let's see . . .' Smalls flicked his small finger against the indicator and merged right, pulling ahead of slower vehicles. 'Thirty-two years now, innit? Getting to be an old-timer.'
'Did you know Anton Willoughby?' He checked the street again. They were still going in the right direction. He felt the warm blood sliding down his thumb and pressed the cut into his palm.
'Personally? Nah. Heard he been arrested's all. None of us quite know why though. Something to do with drugs, maybe. Word was he had a side business. What else could it have been but drugs? You read about that one in the papers?'
'What about Jeff Hope?'
Smalls chuckled a bit. 'Lord, that was a while back. Two thousand . . .'
'Ten.'
'Yeah, s'right. Turns out, man was a real nutter. Jesus, whenever we cabbies are in the news, it's only for something dodgy, innit? You must think we're all right nutters.'
John watched the Thameslink, red, white, and blue, trundle by on his right. 'So it was you who found Sherlock, that night.'
The man laughed. 'Nearly ran him over, I did. Man stumbles out into the middle of the road, no shoes, no coat, and it being cold as an ice box. Could barely talk, the poor bloke. Thought he should've gone to A&E, but he wouldn't let me take him there.'
'Why did you do it? Bring him home, I mean.'
Julian Smalls' eyebrows rose in the rearview mirror as he shot another glance back at John. 'Why wouldn't I?'
There was no more conversation for the rest of the journey, not until the cabbie took a left onto Baker Street and pulled to a stop in front of 221. John hastened out of the taxi, just to feel his own two feet beneath him again on unmoving ground, to feel the cold, clear air in his lungs. He was shaky, hands to knees, but he was home. Leaning the cane against the side of the vehicle, he unzipped the top of his coat, reached inside for his wallet, and approached the driver's window, giving himself an arm's-length buffer zone. He sucked his thumb quickly, tasting the bitterness of the blood on his tongue.
'Nineteen pounds eighty,' said Smalls.
John fingered a twenty-pound note. 'And how much do I owe you for that night? I know Sherlock couldn't pay you.'
'Not a penny. Thank you, Mr Watson, but that was just one human being helping out another. I couldn't charge you that.'
John handed him twenty-five pounds. 'Thank you.'
Julian Smalls took the bills and exchanged it with a small business card. 'My number,' he said pointedly. 'If either of you ever need a lift, yeah?'
'Right. Thank you.' He slipped the card into his wallet.
It wasn't until he was back inside and standing at the kitchen sink to clean his thumb that it struck him, in the act of extracting the knife from his pocket, what he had been prepared to do. The victory—however small it had been—of taking a cab home on his own like a normal, unbroken adult, sank below the weight of knowing how close he had come to driving that blade into the throat of an innocent man, how right and necessary the action had felt, in the moment. What was wrong with him!
He dropped the knife into the sink and bent over the edge of it, weight resting on forearms as he gagged, his stomach writhing and knees shaking, and his thumb dripped red against the stainless steel basin.
When the nausea passed, he turned around and slid down to the floor, breathing hard. He wiped his sweat-beaded forehead with a sleeve and the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. There he stayed, caught in a stupor as five minutes passed, ten minutes, until his mobile sounded and he flinched back to life.
'How's traffic?' Lestrade asked casually, but there was a note of worry in his voice. John should have texted.
'Just got home,' he said, though less steadily than he would have liked.
'Everything all right?'
At last, he caved. Sherlock wouldn't be home for another hour, maybe longer, and he didn't trust himself to be alone inside his own mind. Not at the moment. 'Yeah. I am, but, um. If you're still looking for that escape . . .'
'You bet I am.'
'Okay. Yeah. And, um, I've got a name for you. Someone to look into.'
'. . . All right. Yeah, sure thing. I'll be over in ten.'
Ten minutes. That was enough time to pull himself together. He would take care of the thumb, put the knife away, upstairs in his bedroom where he wouldn't have such ready access, and figure out what he would say to Lestrade. The man was in therapy himself. He would understand.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
As Wednesday wore itself out and slogged into Thursday, the Yard dealt with the KON fiasco piece by piece, hoping to keep the situation under control and as uninteresting to the press as possible while at the same time hoping they had found and protected the intended victim. To no one's surprise, the endeavour to keep things hushed failed, and by evening, the reporters had gathered enough information to identify the unifying factor and how the initials fit with the rest of the Slash Man slayings. S-H-E-R-L-O-C-K and J-O'H-N-W-A-T-S-O'N.
There was an uproar. How dare the police keep this information from the public! How dare they let KONs walk around unprotected, not to mentions the CSs, OTs, and all of them! How dare they treat Sherlock Holmes as a hapless victim when he was clearly at the centre of it all! And then the speculation: Scott Anderson and the reporter for The Sun had figured out the pattern and were planning on going public. That's why he had been sacked and she arrested—for some reason, the Yard was willing to let the massacre play out. The public and the press stormed the Yard, demanding answers.
For the second day in a row, Thomas Dryers called in sick. 'Flu,' he said. Then, to add a bit of colour, 'Can't keep anything down.' Human resources told him to drink plenty of fluids.
Sally Donovan, meanwhile, was handed a thick file from IT in both print and electronic forms, pages and pages of data from Dryers' personal electronics devices. She began to comb through it, looking for suspicious patterns, untraceable numbers, midnight phone calls, hot words, and so on, and so forth, and on, and on.
Because Sherlock was once again obliged to the city of London for a three-hour block not including travel time, John relied on Molly and Lestrade to get to Bart's for his next PT appointment. Molly picked him up from Baker Street (she and Lestrade had recently begun sharing the car) to bring him in with her to work, and Lestrade took him home after his late lunch hour, at which point they talked briefly about the unlikely possibility of having found the right KON.
'Moran wouldn't be so sloppy,' said John. He stared straight ahead, through the windscreen, and rubbed the top of his bum leg absently.
Lestrade nodded. 'I agree. We were bound to have picked up on the pattern by now. He would know it. So it won't be quite as simple as finding someone who fits the victim profile. Not this time. There's something we're not seeing.'
'It's something to do with the flowers. Has to be.'
'We're not making a lot of headway there,' said Lestrade, scrubbing a hand across his chin. 'There are only so many ways to analyse a flower, and we've exhausted them all. Nothing seems to be serving as an arrow in the right direction. We did track down the man who ordered the bouquet from Rosemary and Thyme, based on the description. Like we suspected—ignorant homeless man in want of an easy pound. Says he was approached on a street corner, given the list of instructions and a fistful of dosh, and promised two hundred pounds for successful delivery.'
'Who approached him?'
Lestrade snorted. 'Tosser was sloshed when it happened, and still rat arsed when we talked to him next day. He lacked the wits to describe his own mother.'
'A deliberate choice then. A lush.'
'Yeah, probably.'
'Chances are,' John continued, and now his hand was just a solid grip at the knee, 'we are still missing an essential clue. With Orrin Tippet, we didn't get the pilsner until just hours before he was left on the tracks.'
'We can't just sit around and wait. I hate that.'
'I know.' They lapsed momentarily into silence. 'But if there's still something to come, it'll come to Sherlock. Like before. They're playing this game with him, after all. And he'll be the one to figure it out.'
'Speaking of the old dab hand in the brains department,' said Lestrade, treading carefully, 'how's he been?'
John shook his head, fixating more determinedly on the road beyond the windscreen, but he answered. 'Good and bad. But more bad, lately, than good. Spends more and more time locked away inside his head, and coaxing him out . . . Sometimes it's not so easy.'
Lestrade frowned.
'We both need this to be over, Greg.'
'I know. I'm trying to find a way to end it.'
'We all are.'
As for Sherlock, he was back out in the cold, this time in Battersea Park, shovelling snow from walkways, scrubbing graffiti off the war memorials, and cleaning up the rubbish. Uninformed, the press did now rush to photograph him like they had the day before, but this time, after ninety minutes' work, word spread among the homeless men and women who occupied the park, and they began to tail him. They kept their distance at first, but when they got bolder, they began whistling at him and calling out nasty invectives. Those who braved passing nearer either spit at him, cursed at him under their breaths, or dared to ask him who he aimed to slaughter next. One man even tried to egg him on, show what he was made of, and he'd give him what-for. Sherlock resolutely ignored them all as if they were nothing more than pigeons, but the probationary officer was getting hot and bothered at having to shout vague threats at the pests to move along or be run off. Then he rounded on Sherlock.
'Dammit, Holmes! Is this what it's always going to be like with you on the end of my leash? Sixteen weeks of this? Jesus.'
Sherlock didn't answer. The man was just another pigeon. Meanwhile, the other offenders just sniggered and kept on working. After all, they found the whole thing rather amusing.
It wasn't until gangs of teenage boys began hurling balls of slush and ice at Sherlock's head that the officer finally lost his temper and, like the day before, pulled them all off outdoor detail and back indoors to sweep out loos.
'Wipe that smug smile off your face, Moodie. This keeps up, I'll have you all working sewage, and you'll have Mr Holmes here to thank.'
Friday, March 6, 2015
In the hour before Lestrade was to hold a press conference to address head-on the allegations of wrongful termination in the case of former Yard employee Scott Anderson (Waste of time, he thought ruefully), he found himself at the end of another session with Dr Quinton.
'Well, detective inspector, I believe that's it then,' said Dr Quinton, making one final note in biro before setting the clipboard aside and folding his hands together over one knee.
'Right,' said Lestrade. Then a close-lipped grin. 'Seemed a quicker hour than most. Good thing, I suppose. Plenty to be getting on with.' He stood and closed the top button of his suit coat. 'Same time next week, then.'
'Only if you like.'
'What's that?' He stopped his feet from moving toward the door.
'You can come by any time you like, Greg. But officially, I'm giving my recommendation that you be taken off probationary status and fully reinstated.'
'Really?'
'The chief superintendent will be happy to hear it, I'm sure.'
'So I'm . . . what, I'm fine now?'
'Well, fine isn't a word we use. What you are is better equipped to handle your own distress, guilt, and grief with success. You have acknowledged the negative thoughts and emotions you have repressed and have dealt honestly with yourself in examining them. You have given voice to your fears and lessened their power over you by confronting them. And you have accepted that there are things outside your control. I won't say you're absolutely free of the things you've been wrestling with—none of us are, that's being human—but you have the tools now not only to cope but to overcome them.'
'Oh. Well. That's a good thing, I guess.'
'That doesn't mean you can't still come in and talk about them, when you need to. You're just not obligated anymore.'
'Right.' He rubbed the back of his neck, let out a little laugh, and then extended a hand. 'Well, thanks a lot, doc. This has . . . you know. Been good.'
'Take care of yourself, Greg.'
'Will do.'
'And that girl of yours. We all need a strong support system, and she's been your third leg.'
He laughed again. 'Yeah, she has. Don't worry. I'll not let her come to harm.'
For Friday's sentence, the probationary officer had a clever idea, if he did say so himself. At two o'clock, he collected the mobile phones from the offenders (as always) and piled the men into two matching transit vans and drove them south, beyond the city limits, to Honor Oak and the Camberwell Cemeteries. There, he divided the group, one going with the other probationary officer into Old Cemetery, and the other following him into New Cemetery, where he set them to work clearing away dead brush, maintaining clear walkways, and picking up whatever rubbish the wind swept in.
'Let's show a little respect, eh, gentlemen? Make this a nice place to be dead in.'
It was quiet in the graveyard, but for the occasional winter songbird. The trees stood like sentinels under a smoke-white mid-afternoon sky, and each grave rose out of the earth like stone flowers searching for sunlight.
Sherlock carried a rake and dragged a rubbish bin on wheels, stopping here to pick up a sopping page of newspaper, pausing there to rake long-dead leaves into a small pile to discard. As far as he could, he ignored the graves, the names, the dates, and the memory this placed stirred of the last time he had stood in a cemetery, not too far from this one.
A long, cold hour passed, and the men were quiet, working as they were meant to, until something captured Sherlock's notice, something bright red against the cold winter-grey world: a single, long-stem rose in half-bloom set atop a short, dark-grey headstone. This time of year, there were few visitors to cemeteries and so few flowers, only those placed at new graves or for anniversaries, and usually set at the foot of the headstone, often in a plastic vase. Different, he thought, but not odd, not notable, and he was on the verge of dismissing the flower as entirely inconsequential when his eyes fell to the words carved into the face of the stone: Ewan Nichols, November 22, 1984 – January 16, 2015.
For a moment, it felt as though he had gone deaf or the world had fallen utterly silent—no wind swept past his ears, no whistling birds, no scraping rakes. Perhaps it was the penetrating reality of the once-animated bones, including a now-cracked spine, lying six feet below his own feet, lying there purely because Sherlock had not acted quickly enough. Or rather, perhaps his sudden deafness was due to the blood draining from his head and pooling at his feet, which now carried him forward to the grave, to the rose. And as he lifted it at the thorny stem, he remembered another long-stem rose, and a note, which had led to a bird, a bird with clipped wings . . .
Between the waking petals, he saw, was tucked a small, brown, striated feather.
He abandoned the rake and bin and made a beeline for the probationary officer.
'I need my phone,' he said.
The man's eyebrows rose incredulously. 'Behold, it speaks!'
'It's urgent. My phone. Now.'
'Shut your trap, Holmes, and get back to work. You're on my time. And that means no phone calls.'
'This can't wait. I need to speak to DI Lestrade.'
'Not happening.'
'Give. Me. My. Phone.'
'Watch it there, son. You threaten me, and I'll consider that an infraction. You really want another fifty hours added onto your time? I sure as hell don't. But I'll do it.'
'You really want a dead body on your conscience? A man is about to die.'
'And just how the hell would you know that?'
'You couldn't possibly understand. Two minutes.'
'I'll tell you this just once more: I'll give you your phone so you can call up your detective friend. Then I'm calling it an infraction. Fifty hours? Five more weeks of this on top of the fifteen you have still to go? Is that worth it to you?'
Sherlock's mouth twisted in anger, and from behind gritted teeth he said, 'Fine. Now give it to me.'
Lestrade's phone vibrated in his pocket.
He would have to ignore it, for now. He was in the middle of a sentence, after all, and in front of a roomful of press, cameras, and microphones. Whatever and whoever it was would simply have to wait.
The phone stopped vibrating, and another reporter stood to ask a question. Then another phone vibrated.
From the corner of his eye, he watched Donovan, who sat on his left, slip her mobile out of her pocket and check the screen; then she angled it so he could see the caller ID: Holmes.
Distracted, he missed the last half of the question. 'Uh,' he said, trying to recall any buzzwords. 'Yes, yes, he did. Once Anderson stopped denying the charges, we took what else he had to say as confession. That's procedure . . .'
Donovan stood and excused herself from the room.
Out in the hallway, she put the phone to her ear. 'This is Donovan.'
'Someone left a single rose and a feather from a wren on the gravestone of Ewan Nichols.'
'Where are you?'
'Camberwell Cemetery.'
'What are you doing there?'
'Did you hear what I just said?'
'Yes yes, all right, a rose and feather. What does it mean?'
'It means tonight's the night. Cut the press conference short and get your people out there. You need to check all the graves, everyone who was a victim of the Slash Man.'
'Three bodies were cremated.'
'Which?'
'Simpkins, Tippet, and Winters. We never found Tippet's family, so cremation was the default action. Winters' mother couldn't afford burial, and Simpkins . . . well, he was halfway there already. The family didn't see the point in a casket.'
There was a long pause on the other end, and Donovan thought maybe her phone had dropped the call. 'Holmes? You still there?'
'What? Uh, yeah. Yes, of course. Look, you'll need to visit Ms Winters and the Simpkins family, too. Find out if they've received anonymous flowers recently, or cards, that sort of thing. But check the graves first.'
'We will. Meanwhile, you should get yourself out of that cemetery.'
He ignored that. 'And someone should see to John. Make sure he's safe.'
'I'm sending a unit to pick you up.'
'I'm fine.'
'Like hell you are. You're not playing the martyr or having a psychotic break on my watch. Unit's on its way. And Holmes. Matters of the Met are of somewhat higher priority than a community sentence, which I'll happily inform your offender manager if he gives you guff.'
'I . . .' Again, she wondered if the call had dropped. Then, 'Right then. I'm in the New Cemetery.'
'Cheers, Holmes.'
It was a game of divide and conquer.
The bodies of the Slash Man's dead were scattered. Ewan Nichols had been buried in Southwark and Lynette Avery in New Southgate Cemetery of the London Borough of Barnet, but the others were outside of the London altogether. Holden O'Harris was buried in a family plot in Alperton Cemetery in Wembley; even further out, Sam Jefferies had been interred in Easthampstead Park Cemetery in Wokingham. Cleona Winters lived in Caldwell of northwest London, but Mr and Mrs Simpkins were of Dartford.
In the interest of expediency, Lestrade enlisted the help of local police in Wembley, Wokingham, and Dartford, telling them where to go and what to look for and to report back to him immediately. He sent Donovan to Caldwell to talk to Mrs Winters and went himself to the London Borough of Barnet.
With half a dozen glaring eyes on his back, Sherlock was picked up by Donovan's promised unit. He left Camberwell Cemetery with the rose and feather in hand and was transported directly to New Scotland Yard. Lestrade and Donovan had already left, but John was there waiting for him, having been requisitioned early from Dr Thompson's office.
'What's happening?' asked John, hurrying up to him the moment they saw one another from opposite ends of the corridor. It was almost as if the limp was no bother at all. 'No one's told me anything.'
'This way, Mr Holmes, Dr Watson,' said one of the officers escorting Sherlock, and they were led around a corner.
Sherlock said to John, 'Someone left me a message.'
'What message? Where's Lestrade?'
'Following up on leads in the field. You and I are being held here as analysts.'
'From here? Why? What was the message?'
They were shepherded into a conference room. Chief Superintendent Gregson was on his feet on the other side of the long table, cleared but for a speakerphone, legal pads, pens, and two laptops; four others were in the room and swivelled in their chairs as Sherlock and John walked in.
'Mr Holmes,' said Gregson with a grave nod. Then he offered a cursory one to John, though no greeting. 'Our boys in the field will be calling this phone'—he indicated with a hand toward the speakerphone—'to relay what they find from their various locations. From here, we'll compile the data and see what we make of it. Your insights may be useful.'
Sherlock's back had locked into a solid line, and he held his hands behind his back. 'My sight is most useful when I can see the data for myself.'
'But you'll appreciate, I'm sure, that time does not permit us the luxury of sending you to each scene. And I don't care about your opinion of my officers. I have every confidence in them. If you would prefer, of course, you can wait in holding.'
'Holding?' said John.
'For your own safety, the pair of you. I can't have you rushing off like you did the night Orrin Tippet was murdered. I just can't have that. Which will it be?'
Sherlock glared, but his response was measured. 'We'll stay.'
The first call came in from Lestrade.
'There's a rose on the grave,' he announced to the room through the speakerphone.
Sherlock splayed two hands on the table and leant in, as though by getting closer to the phone he would be able to pierce it and see what Lestrade could see. 'Describe it,' he said urgently.
'Well, it's a rose. Single rose. Red.'
'No, describe it, Lestrade.'
'What, do you want me to count up the petals?'
Sherlock huffed angrily. 'If you thought it would help, yes. I need to know everything—what is its orientation, how has it been placed on the grave, is the flower in full bloom or closed, it is long-stemmed, have the thorns been removed, is it dark red or softer in tone, are there signs it has been sitting there for mere hours or multiple days, you see, this is exactly why I should be out there, seeing it all for myself!'
'Sherlock—' John said in a low voice.
'Keep it together, we're taking photographs,' Lestrade said tightly.
'What am I supposed to do with photographs?'
'They helped you before.'
Sherlock cast a quick, penitent glace at John, and his next words were ones of concession. 'Don't touch anything until you've taken them then,' said Sherlock. 'Every angle, light and shadow—'
'Mr Holmes, please,' Gregson said in a warning tone.
From Donovan came the next report: 'Mrs Winters was stopped on the street about an hour ago by a street girl who says she knew her son. Girl handed her a rose.'
The calls kept coming in, and what Sherlock had suspected from the start proved true: a single red rose had been left at every grave or at the front door of every home, save Mrs Winters'. Not one had been accompanied by a note or other marker to suggest what might happen next. Only Ewan Nichol's grave had seen the presence of a small brown feather.
Sherlock paced, steepled fingers to his lips and eyes far away while the others examined the photographs being sent from the various sites and analysed the information, which was, admittedly, very little. All anyone could determine was that the flowers served as a reminder of a growing garden of the dead. Beyond that, they presumably had no meaning. The hour was passing, the daylight outside the windows was fading, and they had not moved anywhere, as fixed as a grave marker in the ground.
Lestrade called the teams off; he and Donovan headed back to the Yard.
'If you boys want to head home,' said Gregson, 'I'll have a car take you—'
That's when John's phone sounded in his pocket. His eyes jumped to Sherlock's as he reached inside the pocket of his coat, which he had thrown over a chair, and checked the screen.
'I don't know this number,' he said warily.
'Put it on speaker,' said Gregson.
'Just watch it be a reminder for a long overdue dental check-up,' said John with wry humour as he set the mobile face up on the table.
He paused to draw a breath. Then, 'Hello?' But his voice came out weakly.
'Sorry, hello, is someone there? Am I speaking with John Watson?'
John looked up from the phone. American, Gregson mouthed, but Sherlock rapidly shook his head no and mouthed, Canadian.
'Yes, this is John Watson.'
'Mr Watson, my name is Sergeant Warren Shuster of the Calgary RCMP. This evening I received a call from a woman named Samantha Hillock. Tell me, sir, do you know Mrs Hillock?'
John looked stunned. 'Y-yes. Yes, I do. I mean, we've met only once in person, but—'
'Mr Watson, when is the last time you were in communication with Mrs Hillock?'
'Um.' John gripped the back of bent neck and balled his opposite hand into a fist; Sherlock read these as signs of impending distress and edged closer. 'A couple of weeks ago, I guess. She . . . she sent me an email, and . . . May I ask what this is about?'
'Sir, is it true that you sent Mrs Hillock a string of harassing emails over the past four months regarding the recent death of her sister?'
'What? No. No. It wasn't like that . . .' His face was reddening and his head shook where it hung.
'Harassment is a serious offence, Mr Watson, and international statutes not withstanding—'
'Pardon me, but I recognise an intimidation tactic when I hear it,' said Gregson, suddenly and loudly.
'Who is that?' said Sergeant Warren.
'Chief Superintendent Luke Gregson of the Metropolitan Police, London. Yes, hello to you too, sir.'
'Is this a joke?'
'Not remotely. We are currently in the middle of a very important investigation, sergeant, for which Doctor Watson here is serving a vital role as a consultant. So let's get straight to it the heart of the matter, shall we? What incident prompted this call?'
There was a pause on the other end, during which Sherlock imagined the sergeant from the Calgary RCMP to be pulling himself together. 'Mrs Hillock has made a formal complaint against Mr— sorry, Dr Watson regarding his repeated attempts to bully her into handing over certain of her late sister's possessions, an act stemming from Dr Watson's growing obsession with the dead girl, she says . . .'
'Jesus,' said John, turning away from the table and the others and toward Sherlock, who gripped his shoulder to steady him.
'. . . and tonight, she received what can only be perceived as a threat.'
'What was the threat?' asked Gregson.
'A dead bird in a paper bag, left on her front stoop. The bag was labelled From John.'
'Jesus, Jesus.'
Sherlock's grip tightened. 'What kind of bird?' he asked over the top of John's head.
'Who's that?' asked Shuster.
'Answer the question, sergeant,' said Gregson.
'Common blackbird, it looks like.'
'Was there a flower?'
'No,' said Shuster, sounding confused. 'Why would there be a flower?'
'Sergeant Shuster, you may want to send a couple of officers to Mrs Hillock's home to watch after her and her family, as a precautionary measure. Meanwhile, I suggest you check the gravesite of her sister, Mary Morstan, and get back to me with what you find.'
'Why? What will I find? What's going on?'
'We'll talk soon, sergeant.' And Gregson reached across the table and ended the call.
'She wasn't one of his,' John said to Sherlock, a constriction in his throat. 'Daz didn't kill her, it wasn't him. It was Moran. Moran killed her.'
'Chief superintendent,' said Sherlock, 'we have not checked the graves of the others.'
'Whose graves?'
'Those whose deaths are on the head of Sebastian Moran.'
'Who do you mean? Frank Vander Maten and Hugh Freemont?'
'And Tony Pitts, and Peter Caldwell, and Alexander Slough. This is Moran's garden, not the Slash Man's. Darren Hirsch has only ever been a trowel in Moran's hand.'
They called their people in the field and sent them to new graves.
Within the hour, the reports came in: single roses laid upon the headstones, and not a trace of evidence more.
Gregson was pacing now as he spoke on the phone with officers from police departments outside of London, in places like Crawley and Harlow, and the analysts argued which details were significant and which unimportant. John stood leaning on his cane, staring blankly at a spot on the table, his thoughts inaccessible. It had now been hours since he was pulled away from his session with Ella, so that meant hours more since he'd had a proper meal or medication. Surreptitiously, Sherlock slipped his phone from his pocket to check the time. That's when he noticed that, at some point during the commotion of phone calls and reports to the speakerphone, he had missed the alert of an incoming text. But when he went to retrieve it, his finger froze as he noted the number of the sender. Though untraceable in location, John's old number still had not changed.
Something cold filled him, racing from heart to fingertips, but on the surface he was as placid as a cloudless sky, so it was without a trace of reaction that he opened the text.
Not my garden, Mr Holmes.
Yours.
Head locked in place, his eyes only shot around the room: to Gregson on his phone, to the silent speakerphone, to the arguing analysts. And to John, who stood at his side. Not wanting to draw attention, he carefully lifted the toe of his shoe and swivelled it his foot at the heel so it knocked gently against John's foot.
John picked up on the subtly of his gesture at once, and indicated so by a small turn of his head. Sherlock lowered the phone and tilted it casually so John could read the screen. After three ticks of the clock, John said to the room, 'Sorry, is there a loo nearby?'
'End of the corridor near the lifts,' said an analyst, gesturing.
'Ta.'
Sherlock made no pretences, simply followed after.
Down the deserted corridor, they walked speedily until they reached the lifts, where John punched the down arrow, and they waited. But they were absolutely silent until the lift doors closed behind them and they were secreted away inside.
'Who was it?' John asked without inflection. 'Which of them—?'
'I don't know. But the whole operation has been compromised. The sooner we're out of the building the better.'
'We need to call Lestrade.'
'Soon. I need to think.'
No one tried to stop them leaving the building. It had gone dark, and it was cold. In their haste to leave sans suspicion, both men had left their coats behind.
'Have you any cash on you?'
'I have my wallet,' answered John.
They got inside a cab, and when asked where to, Sherlock said, 'Just drive.'
John shivered.
'By now he'll know we've left the room,' said Sherlock, looking through the rear glass as the lights from New Scotland Yard disappeared behind them. 'They'll be searching for us soon, so that doesn't give him a very wide window. He's going to act.'
'Then he's already got KON.'
'I have no doubt of it.'
'But where?'
Sherlock flinched as his pocket vibrated again. He hastily retrieved the phone. 'We're about to find out.'
Again, from John's old number, came another text.
One hour. Then you plant
another rose in an empty
flowerbed.
They read it together, looked up at one another. Sherlock shook his head, mouthing empty, but then John gasped. He gripped the back of the driver's seat to pull himself forward to the edge of his own and commanded, 'Newport Cemetery, Buckinghamshire. Quickly.'
The graveyard had closed at dusk, but the moon was bright in a sky mottled with untextured clouds. The given hour was nearly expired by the time they arrived at the closed gate. In haste, they skimmed along the outer perimeter, searching for a feasible entry point. In the end, they worked together to hoist and drag one another over an ice-cold, wrought-iron fence.
'Lestrade will have an easier time of it,' said John, landing hard and falling over into the snow. Sherlock grabbed his arm to pull him back to his feet, and while John dusted the snow from his trousers, Sherlock retrieved the cane. 'I expect he'll just break down the gate.'
Sherlock had waited a full thirty minutes before answering Lestrade's unrelenting phone calls. Only then did he announce that they were well without the city, that Lestrade's house was filled with vermin, and that perhaps it would be wise if someone trustworthy would follow after them.
Their shadows cut through stretching rows of white and black stones, deeper and deeper into the cemetery, past alabaster angels and marble shepherds and looming trees, feet dragging long paths through the snow as they made their way toward the little brick church with its single high turret lying at the heart of the graves, and then beyond. Sherlock did not turn his head when they passed within mere metres from his mother's grave, and he had erased from memory where he could find his father's. But when his own came within sight, that single slab of black granite that had yet to be removed, he and John both slowed, each of their own accord but in perfect synchronisation with the other, for each had his own reasons for needing to approach the grave of Sherlock Holmes with reticence.
'I've not been back here,' said John with a tone of confession, 'not since . . .'
'Nor have I,' said Sherlock, giving John permission not to finish. He couldn't tell John how many times he had heard John voice that regret from behind the veil of a dream. 'I should not have wanted to return. Nor should you have done.'
'No, I should have—'
'Keep your eyes peeled and your ears sharp. And keep close. They'll be looking for a chance to separate us.'
'Sherlock, look. The flowers.'
But it was impossible not to see them, laid against the snow that had fallen deeper here than in London. The clouds rolled over the moon, but their colour did not fade; and as the two men drew nearer, they saw a cluster of bright red flowers ringed by a crown of blue.
Slowly, Sherlock crouched before his own grave and plucked a small blue flower from the ring. The stem rolled between his forefinger and thumb, and each of its five delicate petals turned like the gown of a ballerina en pointe. 'Forget-me-nots,' he said, his breath rising like fog. 'And poppies.'
'Flowers for the fallen soldier,' said John standing just behind him, exactly where he had stood over three years ago.
The clouds rolled away, and when the moonlight struck the surface of the headstone, Sherlock saw his own name illuminated. But his was no longer the only one. Below it, but above the dates that marked the years of his life, were scratched the words John H Watson.
His heart felt squeezed as he dropped the flower back to the snow and stretched his hand to the cold stone to touch the J. His hand trembled a little and came away with dust.
'It's freshly cut,' he said. Observe, he commanded himself, even as a kind of blackness threatened to overtake him. Use your senses. Think. 'But crudely. The wind and elements have yet to clear away the dust. And look there—the dust still rests on the surface of the snow. The snow is soft, so given many hours more the stone dust would have sunk deeper. This was cut within the last hour, once the cemetery had closed and nobody could see. A hammer and chisel. Ten millimetres, I'd say, given the . . . um . . .'—don't crash, don't crash, keep it online—'. . . the depth and, erm, the width of these letters.' His fingers skimmed through the W. 'Inexpertly done. Obviously. Intended as a threat, designed to unnerve . . .' But his voice was thickening, his throat closing off, and he couldn't keep on, but nor could he tear his eyes away from the horror that was that name on the grave.
John's hand found his shoulder and rested there. 'It's not real,' he said. 'Come on, Sherlock. It's not—'
In the distance, toward the tree line dividing one section of the cemetery from another, they heard a rustle and a snap. Their heads came up as one. Save for the moonlight, they might have missed it but saw it as it happened: a body, just a silhouette against a background of snow, falling out of the higher branches of a tree, sideways at first, until a rope around its neck jerked it vertical, and there, several feet above the earth, it hung.
'Oh my God,' said John, and he took off toward the trees.
'John!' Sherlock cried out. He scrambled to put his feet beneath him, then kicked up snow until he reached John's side. He seized his arm and pulled him back. 'Wait! We can barely see, we don't know who's out there—'
'That man's alive!' John argued. He stabbed a finger at the dark trees, and then Sherlock saw it, too: the twist of legs bound at the ankles, the jolting shoulders, and hands joined at the wrists—a live fish caught on a line. And John was running again.
They were moving so quickly that when they at last arrive at the tree line, John tried to stop too quickly and lost his footing, nearly dragging Sherlock down with him, but together they stayed upright. John cast aside his cane and reached for the swinging man's naked, twitching legs, which hung in the air just above his head.
'I don't have a knife, I don't have a knife,' John said, his voice pitched high and frantic as he tried to lift the man's weight off the rope. But the kicking legs bent at the knee and would not keep straight. 'God, Sherlock, we need to save him! He won't last!'
But nor could they reach his neck. The naked man's head was bagged, and the tightened noose cinched the black cloth firmly in place. Sherlock took a couple of steps back, the better to see, and traced the rope high into the branches where it twisted around a limb six or seven metres high. His eyes jumped to the trunk. He would have to climb.
His hands were numbing with cold as he gripped the first low branch and pulled himself onto the tree, feet scraping for purchase. Someone had secured the rope, so he knew there had to be a pathway up the tree; furthermore, he was an able climber. As he ascended in the dark, he heard John huffing below him, trying to get the man to keep his knees locked that he might heft him, but his words had no effect on the struggling, strangling man.
'Sherlock, we're losing him! We're losing him!'
He climbed faster, and though once or twice he nearly lost his way or his footing, he kept on until he reached the branch from which the dying man hung. It was then that he saw just how many times the rope looped the branch, the wetness of the rope, and the firmness of the knot. With no instrument, he would never be able to release the hanged man from the rope.
'He's not moving, he's not moving.' John's voice rose up through the lower branches, desperate and despairing, still grappling with the man's naked feet. Indeed, the body had stilled but for its swaying like a weight on the end of a string.
Sherlock estimated quickly. This branch—judging by its diameter, length, and quality—was not like the horse chestnut. This branch would not support the weight of two full-grown men. Apply the right amount of pressure, in the right place . . . it would fall.
Using a higher branch as balance, he edged out on the slick tree limb until he had passed over the rope and the branch sagged a little below his weight. 'Stand back, John! The branch is coming down!' And he bounced it once. Twice.
'Sherlock, you'll fall!'
'Pull the man back!' He bounced it a third time and heard the splitting of wood. 'This tree's coming straight down!'
'Damn it,' he heard John curse from below and watched him seize the man's ankles and pull him aside.
With one final downward thrust, the branch broke away from the tree, and Sherlock fell through the air with it. It crashed to the earth with a boom that shook the nearest graves, and he landed beside it on his feet, though he fell over as the pain resonated through his bones.
'Sherlock?'
'I'm fine,' he said through a wince.
'Sherlock, help me.' The panic had not left his voice.
John had used himself to break the man's fall, but then he had rolled the body off and onto his back. Now, he was kneeling beside the still body, hands fumbling at the noose, unable to break its choking hold. 'I don't have a knife, I left it, I left it,' he kept repeating. Sherlock crawled closer on hands and knees. In the dark, he could scarcely see the noose, but he knew how a noose knot worked. He pulled John's hands away and felt for the seven turns of the rope himself. He wedged a finger between the last two turns to loosen the hold on the bight; then he jerked on the opposite end nearer the man's throat and felt it give. He jerked it again until the noose was widened enough to slip off, and he pulled the bag away with it, only to see the face of a man who appeared dead.
Meanwhile, John was fighting the shoelace binding the man's blood-swollen hands, and when his fingernails proved ineffectual, he used his teeth, biting and chewing and yanking until he had enough slack to pull one hand through and free its prison. When he saw Sherlock had also released him from the noose, John pushed him back so he could get closer. 'Sir? Sir, can you hear me?' he said over the body, his hand rubbing the man's sternum. No response. John took the man's head in hand and tilted his jaw up, opening up the airway, and inclined an ear to listen, hovering just inches from the man's mouth and holding that position for what to Sherlock felt far too long. But he held himself back, waiting for instruction, if any were to come. Finally, John lifted his head. He pinched the man's nose closed and sealed his lips over the other's, and breathed. Sherlock watched the shadow of the man's chest rise. John released, took a breath, and breathed again into the man's mouth, slowly, and the chest rose again. Once more, John checked the pulse of the carotid artery. 'Damn it,' John whispered. And he rose up on his knees, locked one hand over the other against the sternum, and began chest compressions.
'John.'
'Shut up, Sherlock.'
'John, someone's coming.'
John cast a glance over his shoulder. In the distance, coming from the direction of the church, they both saw the beams of torches bouncing across the graves. John turned back to the man and continued the compressions.
'I'll phone for an ambulance,' said Sherlock, fumbling for his mobile and rising to his feet.
It was at that moment that the man gasped; his eyes flew open, reflecting moonlight, and he began to cough. Trembling, moaning, coughing, he tried to move, his hands scraping the snow.
Sherlock didn't know where John's sudden calm and control came from, but next moment he had laid a hand on the man's bare chest and spoke in a tone of assurance and authority. 'Sir, I need you to stay still,' he said. 'You're going to be all right.' He looked up at Sherlock. 'Tell me I'm not lying to him this time.'
Sherlock counted the beams of light. Six, and more bodies than that. And he recognised the man running in the lead. He lifted his own mobile high above his head, waving it so that its glow might be seen. 'It's Lestrade,' he said. 'This man's going to live.'
'Thank God.' John returned to the man. 'Help is on the way, sir. Do you understand? Can you tell me your . . .'
When he heard John's voice die away, Sherlock looked back down at John and saw him and the man staring at each other, both sets of eyes widened with shock. The first beams of light had fallen on them, illuminating their faces. Then the man lifted a shaking hand, slowly, and moved to touch John's face.
'You . . .' the man rasped. '. . . Death . . . stalker?'
To Sherlock's bewilderment, John nodded, a slow and amazed bob of the head. The astonishment never left his face, but he whispered back, 'Yes.'
At that, the man faded again into unconsciousness.
