[A/N - Okay, so I guess I'm continuing! You people are a pack of legends - I'm sorry that was so needy, and never meant to bring on any guilt, but it means a hell of a lot to me what you've all been saying. All my hearts, and from the bottom of them - Sal.]
Jim
"What do you mean the fucking bloody bastard drawings are gone? Gone where?"
"Gone. Nicked, ironically. Darcy's been attacked."
"Wait!" And I grab her back from the door. She spins with one hand pulled back in a claw. Ready to scratch my face off should I try to keep her. "We can't go charging out of the building right at this moment."
"Oh, really? Stop me."
"Dead American, Danielle? On the concrete? Cops coming? It's maybe just a little bit suspect, don't you think?"
"You can't go charging out of the building. I was never here. Treads!" The cat comes running by me and bounds up onto her arm and she says, with a finality and a sweetness, the neither of which I like the sound of, "Goodbye, Jim. Thanks for everything. I mean, you're a bastard, but… well, thanks."
And then she and her eternal gratitude are gone.
To the empty space she leaves in the doorway, I say, "Don't mention it."
And really don't, please. Don't talk about what happens if Danielle never comes back this time. No point in talking about that; she's not exactly inconspicuous. If she runs, I'll find her. Even if she can retrieve the drawings, she's still not safe from MI5, not by any means. She's right, though; if I express anything more than outraged middle-class interest in the fact that a foreign businessman has chosen my home as the base to throw himself tumbling from this mortal coil, I'll be inviting investigation. And that fire extinguisher that should be in the hall is still sitting in my kitchen. Not being here would do exactly the same thing.
I can't follow her. Not just now.
When I go to hide the fire extinguisher, the briefcase is still sitting on the breakfast bar. For one, I take it off. I went over before why it shouldn't be up on food preparation surfaces, Mr Steele, thank you… For another it's time to get a look at the contents.
Now, what I could do is reproduce for you in facsimile everything that is given to me and read by me. You'd get a giggle, like I do, out of the myriad ways parties on both sides of the pond will try to justify themselves.
The Americans aren't shy. They'll say 'by any means necessary' and 'lethal force'. This is on the contract signed by the new president of Goganye, Nkwambe King Jnr, to have his father's killers brought back to his country for punishment.
Brits are a bit more self-conscious about it. I have photocopies of the Official Secrets act where Danielle Mies and Jonathon Darcy have signed below, swearing to keep safe everything they know that might impact on the commonwealth. Unfortunate they actually got around to signing. It means that what they've done isn't just burglary, but high treason. That's a shade worse when it comes to the court case.
Brits use words like 'neutralize' a lot more freely. Aw. Isn't that nice? Neutral. Not too hot, not too cold, this pre-emptive strike action is just right.
Anyway, it really doesn't tell me much I couldn't have guessed. Nkwambe King was starting to lean towards the right. And towards being utterly tyrannical. For reasons best known to themselves, given that the country has nothing to offer and couldn't even have been much of a threat to them, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland decided that he should be removed from power. And living.
That's only sensible. Living people have this terrible habit of talking about it when a conspiracy topples everything they've ever worked for.
The thief was hired to remove 'certain documents, details of which are to remain secret' from King's compound, and the trigger-happy SAS sharpshooter was seconded to MI5 so he could… do the obvious. The latter just so happened to be the son of a dead MI6 agent…
I hate that phrase. 'Just so happened'. It never means anything of the sort. Sounds so simple, so easy, and it never, ever is.
Out of interest, out of curiosity, I cross-search the terms, 'Mies', 'Security Service', 'Auguste Gilè'.
And I get a page about that troublesome painter full of scandal and intrigue about the people he hung around with in his lifetime. Pablo Escobar, Patty Hearst and, amongst others, social event and rumoured spy, Arthur 'Art' Mies.
The daughter of a 'friend' posed for the barbarian princess, remember? The Lady and the Tiger.
There's more to this. I knew Danielle hadn't told me everything, but this, this is a whole new goldmine underneath the old one. Whenever the Brits send the rest of the Americans yelping back off to the New World, she's still going to have them to deal with and this, this tale unfolding, this could be the key.
While I'm at the computer, I log on and check the Lo-jack transmitter I attached to Treadstone's collar. I've got her in Soho. I make a note of the address, and once I've done a bit more digging and it's safe to leave, I'll see her there.
Maybe I can solve all of Danielle's problems. The immediate ones, anyway.
Sherlock
She called. I'd forgotten about her; was supposed to call when the tail stopped watching the flat, but I forgot. First I was recovering after running. Then I had to have something to settle the nerves, balance out all the adrenaline. It was the only sure way to stay focussed, to be able to do what I've had to. There's nothing selfish or ill-advised about it; the only sure way to stay on task is to maintain a healthy, low-level buzz throughout.
I've been studying the drawings. All the little sketches, all the little notes around them. There are numbers on the corners of the pages and they are important. When everything is in order, there's a story there. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. 'Worth a thousand words' and all that.
The ending is missing, the big finale, but I think I know where to find it. But first I need confirmation that the story I'm reading in to this is true.
And if it is I need to sit down and write a list of all things I want from Mycroft, because this is good for all of them.
And then Danielle rang. Nearly told her she had the wrong number when she asked for 'Jeremy', but I caught it, just in time. Don't think she noticed.
"Are they gone?"
"Yes." They were gone when I got back, but as I say, she'd gone out of my head. "Are you nearby?"
"Ten minutes." I told her to come on over and she says, "I really can't thank you enough, you know. You've been very good. Can't believe my luck, you wandering across me at the gallery." I told you before she was 'nice'. It's really quite gratifying. I'm forced to wonder why she's going through all this now, but on a base level it's still very flattering to hear. I let her go and spent the ten minutes putting the drawings safely away, somewhere she won't look. Just in case.
She arrives just as she promised. Got changed somewhere too; now in a white vest and baggy jeans. And with the cat on her arm.
"This must be Treadstone."
I reach out, but he scratches. Danielle bats down the paw, apologizes; "He's met a lot of people this week. Give him a minute."
She puts him down, but he stays lingering around her legs, doesn't explore. For a second I watch. I'm usually alright with animals, and they're usually alright with me. Obviously I'm not offended or anything… it's just a cat, after all…
When I look back up it's down the barrel of another bloody gun.
"Give them back," she says.
Two options: pretend I have no idea what she's talking about, maybe get shot. Answer honestly, maintain some face, probably not get shot.
"To who? You or the gallery?"
Another Mexican gun, but not Darcy's. This one features the venerated Santa Muerta, or Saint Death, a figure somewhere between the Virgin Mary and the Grim Reaper. She didn't have it before, Darcy must have been holding it for her. "Give them back," she says again.
I say nothing, and get to meet Santa Muerta face to face; Danielle drops the gun back in her palm and hits me, hard, on the temple. I hit the floor. There isn't quite room for her to step inside, so she kicks me over before she closes the door. Then again. And another. I told you before she was strong, but she's vicious too. There's nothing clean about how she fights. Solar plexus, nose, groin, she's out to cause the maximum of pain, not to follow any sort of rules. Now, I can take a beating. God knows I've had to down the years. But ultimately even I have to curl up in a ball and ask her stop.
She does. A moment later, vicious claws open up parallel scratches down my face. A hand no less animalistic lifts my head by the hair and hisses at me, "Where are they?"
"Hidden," I spit at her, dismayed to find there's blood in it.
In stressed, pretty sing-song, "Hidden where, Jeremy?"
"Think carefully and you'll get it."
"Listen, love, not having the best night, alright? And I quite like your face, so don't make me peel it like an apple."
"No, honestly. You'll get the joke. You'll like it better if you do it yourself."
"Brave man," and she shoves my head hard against the floorboard.
"Ah-ah-ah, neighbours!"
"Let 'em come. Maybe I'll skin one of them instead. I know how good you can be to strangers, don't I?"
"Or do you?"
"We'll talk about who you are later. Right now, I want my fucking pictures back."
"They're here, Dani, if you'd only look."
She tries again to split my skull, this time on the leg of the telephone table. When that doesn't work she kicks me over onto my back and brings her foot down on my stomach. Grabs me by the shirt and hauls me back across the floor. All credit to her, she puts me in the comfort of the armchair before she puts the gun back to my head. "God help me, you wouldn't be the first I've killed. If they're so easy to find, tell me why I shouldn't."
"In case you can't, of course."
The gun falls. She starts to look.
