Sherlock

Ruby's as good at her word. She puts me back on my feet and now all I have to do is stay up here. It's just that having had my little sit down, I now feel a very long, dizzy way from the ground. Have to stick to the walls. Not leaning, not supported, just keeping a straight edge in the corner of my eye. Helps me orientate myself. I think I'm walking better than I was before the hit.

Which is lucky; no need to look too shamefaced when I almost walk into one of those cops I was looking for. A street or two away from the disturbance, glancing about like a cartoon rat before he sneaks a hip flask from his pocket and takes a quick nip of something that makes him shudder. Between the fingers of his right hand, an idle cigarette. I pluck it away and use it to light one of my own.

"Alright, Lestrade?"

"What the-… Jesus Christ, what happened to you?"

"Oh, honestly, you'd think I'd grown two heads the way everybody's getting on."

"Are you alright?"

"Tip-top. What brings you down this way?"

"You never did call me back with those names."

"It's been a very long day. Jon Darcy's one of them."

"Darcy," he says, looking slightly dazzled. Then points over my shoulder, out across the square, down that other street, where the police cars are parked on the kerb and the tape runs from them to the hotel like a contagion cordon. "But the guy we're looking for is-"

"You don't say? So what the hell are you doing over here then? And who's dead?"

He stands back, takes a breath like he's going to tell me, then remembers himself. "I can't discuss that with you."

"Oh, of course not. You're an officer of the law. What do you need a civilian like me for? It's not like I can help you in anyway. It's not like you've had that proven to you. It's not like if it wasn't for a civilian you wouldn't even have this case-"

"I don't even want this case anymore."

"Well, that's gratitude."

"I'm serious, Sherlock." Relenting, he points over my shoulder again. "Four men dead. All Americans. And another one jumped off an apartment building across town earlier tonight."

He didn't jump. Until I see him I won't know what did happen, but he didn't jump. Something was done to him, and I'd lay down a week's worth of junk it's been Mies that did it. These other four, now dead, they were sent to pick up Darcy, or to pick up Mies in hiding. They were revengers, a hit squad, and they were massacred. Darcy was backed into a corner; there were no other exits to that room he was in. At a guess, they put the door in and he picked them off as they entered. No problem for a sharpshooter, for a man who's seen it all before.

I tell Lestrade all this and he just sort of stares at me. He's not asking any of the right questions. Actually, he's not asking any. So I offer; "Have you seen the place where the first one was killed?"

"No."

"Well? Post-haste, Detective Sergeant; fetch the car."

He puts forth all the usual arguments. Can't just up and leave, in charge of people here, still an investigation going on, can't bring you, blah, blah, blah. Five minutes later, he gets the car. I meet him a couple of streets away so he doesn't have to explain me.

Inside that quiet metal box, the same background radio as a lift, the same awkward tone to break the silence, "So. Who kicked your face in then?"

"I could tell you, but then somebody else might have to kill you."

"Sherlock, what's going on? Tell me something. Anything. Just so I know we're not chasing our tails-"

"You're definitely not doing that."

"Is this all still MI5?"

"MI5 and whoever owns the dead Americans."

"So what did Charlotte Stendhal have to do with any of this?"

"Who?" Takes a moment, and then I remember. "Oh, keep up, Lestrade. Absolutely nothing. They thought she was… someone else."

"You said Mies before. I did hear that, y'know. There's somebody called Mies in it."

"Do yourself a favour and let her name wash away from you as a leaf upon water. Dangerous bloody name to know." Lestrade goes quiet again. For a moment, I almost believe that's going to be it, that somebody, for once, is going to take my sage advice and leave me be. I'm on the very cusp of developing a healthy respect for him based on his healthy respect for me. Then I realize he's smiling. I can almost hear it he's grinning so broadly. "What? What's funny?"

"That's who beat you up, isn't it? It was this woman, this Mies woman."

I tell him what he can do with his conjecture and guesswork, but he's laughing and doesn't hear me.

And then there's the flats. I'm afraid I have to look twice at the building. You see, it's a terrible place. The typical sort, brick on the outside, Scandinavian beech inside, the kind that appeals to people with money and no taste. Or money and coming from nothing and believing this is what money gets. Or with no idea whatever and only looking for somewhere to put an embarrassing family member.

We're roughly a minute's walk from where I live.

He's laughing at me again.

"Somebody died here, last night?"

"And you with all your skills, you didn't notice?"

"I was a bit busy."

"Oh really? Doing what, bleeding?"

"No, that hadn't started yet. We were still with running around the time you're talking about. Shall we?"

He still has access. There's a caretaker sitting worriedly in the hall, who hops to his feet the moment Lestrade walks in. I'm passed off as a potential witness, involved in the case, and somehow this seems to explain the bruises. We move through like residents. Lestrade's taking me to the roof, which is natural enough. But all the interesting things are on the way there. For instance, the dirty round marks on the hallway tiles are not from shoes but from the pads of bare feet. Raised up but not far enough apart to denote running. Someone walking tall. Somebody used to high heels.

And the marks on the stairs where someone has scuffed a new black shoe. Used to different stairs, deeper, a higher standard tread. American.

An empty metal bracket behind the fire door onto the roof. What used to be there?

And when we're looking down he points to show where the man fell and how he was lying.

No.

He was already dead when he was dropped, feet first, from a standing position. Which makes no sense because if you're canny enough to hold him up, you're canny enough to flip him forward, and this, all of this, it's not nonsense, because if you've got that brain then you're not doing this by accident and this, finally, is something just a little bit interesting, something a little bit more sexy than all the cat and mouse, not that that hasn't been fun, very distracting, an elegant, if painful way to pass a couple of days, but something different. The implication of a mind that understands…

"Do you know you're saying all this out loud?"

"…Yes?"

"In front of a police officer?"

"Take me to the body."

And he sighs and mutters and grumbles and can't do this, must be insane, blah, blah, blah, but he lets me back in the car anyway. Of course he does. He needs me.

Police? Do this themselves? My turn to laugh, I think…

Jim

People don't tend to think of me as scary, y'know.

Hugo does. But Hugo's seen me be scary first hand. No pun intended… Okay, yeah, pun intended. My point is, he knows it for a fact. But people looking at me for the first time don't see a scary person. And sometimes I think to myself that that's quite nice; it doesn't show. I can walk down the street or go for a pint or sit next to you on the bus and you don't have a fucking clue. Not that I'd want to sit next to you on a bus. All I mean is, it can be quite nice not to be outright scary. It's because I'm not generally seen, you see. People who are out and about and having to be seen to be scary all the time, they start to appear scary. It shows on them. Announces them to the world. But I'm usually much farther away.

I don't look like anything.

The last American sentry has been in the room with me almost a full minute before he sees me sitting on Steele's bed. Or Steele's former bed. Or the late Steele's bed. What's the grammar for dead people? Fuck it, anyway, he finally notices me, and that's the only shock I think I give him. The gun comes out quick, but in a millisecond he seems to have assessed me and found me to be no threat.

"You're not Steele."

"Neither are you, mate."

"This is Steele's room, what the hell are you doing here?"

"By which token I could ask you the same question."

"Answer the goddamn question."

Ah, poor boy – he thinks he's going to run me off by putting a gun to my head. He thinks I'm going to sit here and quiver and realize I've made a terrible mistake. Please. I've had guns to my head. I've been holding some of them. Even Danielle knew better than to try something so fucking basic with me.

The thing about a gun is, if you don't immediately fire, somebody's going to take it away and use it against you. And I do. Nice and fast, before he knows I'm doing it, I just take it out of his stupid one-handed gangster grip. It's backward, so I sit up and clunk him with it, round the side of the head. It puts him down, gives me enough time to get it the right way round.

"I fecking hate guns. Did you know you can shoot people with them?" So I dismantle it and I split the pieces up and now we can have a conversation like human beings. While his head's still spinning I move to the edge of the bed and put my foot on his chest. He's enough disorientated that this holds him down. "Now. I take it you're here to clear down the room in the wake of Mr Steele's untimely demise. And that's alright, because I already know most of what I need to."

He's still not scared of me.

He's dizzy and winded and on the floor under my shoe, but he's still not scared. When he gets up, when he gets his breath, he thinks he can take me and this is all just a stick in the road. These army types, they don't fear much. If you've gone private it's probably because you're that fucked up the proper boys don't want you anymore. Even the fear of death has usually gone a little bit dull.

The fear of a long painful one, though…

I shift my weight forward a little, onto that one shoe, onto his sternum. It's a big strong bone, but it's one inflexible piece. No bend in it, no give. And all your squishy bits are right there underneath it. Just a little bit of weight.

"All about who you all are, I've got that. All about why you're here…. Yeah, got that too. All about Mies and Darcy and what they're supposed to have done, that's handled, that's all got… There was one more thing though… Fuck… Fuck's sake, what was it… Before I leave, I should really remember."

On the pretence of staying comfortable, I shift my weight a little bit more. He's starting to come around a bit, and he's starting to get the picture. If I stand up he's well fucked. He puts his hands around my ankle, but hIs elbows keep banging the ground. He's got no grip, no leverage. I push down a little harder.

"Oh aye, that's it, that's what I wanted to ask." I have to shift forward so I can get a good look at him. Eye contact. That's important for proper communication. "Where did they take Danielle Mies?"

"I'm clearing rooms. What do I know about what they're doing now?"

"You're clearing rooms? Plural? So this isn't just because Steele's dead, this is because you lot are taking off soon. Or what's left of you, anyway." And he's starting to choke now, fighting harder at my ankle, but so long as I keep sliding forward I can keep him breathless, and he doesn't have the strength. "Which means you think you're near the end of your game. So where the fuck is Danielle, then?"

He tries to laugh because he's got nothing else. It doesn't move me. I make myself laugh along with him, and that takes it all away from him again. "Waiting for her goddamn friend!"

Yeah.

Oh, don't be thick! Of course it's a trap! They know they've stuck together this far, so they take Danielle and Darcy's sure to follow. But the fact is, they can't really know him very well at all. Darcy'll shoot all their fucking faces off before they can look up from Danielle's tits. I'm not worried about traps and neither's he.

"Yeah, but waiting where?"

By now by toe has reached that fleshy little sweet spot in the cradle of his collarbone and my heel is focussing most of my weight right between his ribs. If I stay like this, he'll suffocate over the course of twelve-to-fifteen excruciating minutes. He doesn't know the specifics like that, but he knows it's not going to be good and it's not going to go his way. He knows it fucking hurts, and after about ninety seconds he chokes something.

I ease back just enough to let him talk. Actually, if I stay where I am, it's twenty-to-twenty-five minutes. But to him, this feels better.

He says, "Warehouse. Fuckin' cat food factory. Five minutes from Heathrow. Place fucking stinks, you can't miss it."

"See? Not so difficult, was it?"

Me, looking down at him, almost smiling, I must look like a reasonable person. I must look like the kind of guy who believes in giving people a chance, particularly when they've been so cooperative. Because I'm not a threat, remember? I'm a nice guy, out of his depth, god knows what I'm doing here. Yeah. I'm going to take my foot away now and let him up, aren't I?

I stay exactly where I am.

He starts to realize he still can't really breathe round about the time I'm leaning down. It's a bit of a stretch to do it and keep the pressure on, but I need his phone. I fetch it from his inside pocket and scroll through contacts until he nods, indicating who's in charge at the warehouse.

I take a deep breath and press the green button, waiting for this one to die under my foot.

The answer comes, "What is it, Jimmy?"

"Oh, just Jim, thanks." I lean forward again. He's getting to the point where the dark slips in. He'll go to sleep with agonizing pain radiating out along his ribs and into his spine and up to his skull, and he'll hover there between living and dying for another ten-to-fifteen. I've done this a couple of times. You get the timing right; the last thing that guy sees as his eyes are closing is me, and I'm saying, "Are you a Jim too? What are the odds?..."

And I'm thinking to myself while he goes that it was really only fair that I got one. Danielle got one. Darcy got four, but then he's a professional. Only fair I do my bit, really.

People don't usually think of me as scary.

People are thick.