Chapter 17
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act
(George Orwell)
Inspector of Police Ahmed El Idrissi regretted nothing. He put one hand on a hip, arrogantly held his gun so very casually in the other, and raised his head to defy the anger and the criticism of Sherlock Holmes.
"I do not understand why you are getting so upset, Sir," he said equably and with complete confidence.
"I follow the man because I know him to be a villain and a murderer. I enter the building and find him not only about to shoot the lady, but clearly also to then shoot yourself and your friend. So I shoot him first. Remove the danger. Public safety and the rule of law. That is my job, yes?"
And into the grim silence he added for good measure:
"Justice done, order restored. So what, please, is your problem with that?"
"Well. If you must put it like that….."
He aimed for indifference, nonchalance, swallowed his anger and disappointment, and recognised the need to be pragmatic and accept what could not be changed.
The policeman's view was the totally objective perspective of the outsider and the professional. So he shrugged himself into acceptance, capitulation. Closed his mind to what he could have learnt if Ajay Moopanar had not died. But concentrated instead on what could have happened afterwards if he had lived. How complicated things could have become Business or bloodbath or bathos. All three?
That without El Idrissii's intervention at some point there would have been at least one body on the floor…and the thought that Mary could have died after all - that they could have all died because of Ajay's anger and warped perspective - was sobering..
So perhaps Ajay's judicial murder was for the best result after all. Because when the local police force discovered their mistake the incident and the body would be buried with minimum fuss and maximum secrecy, then quietly forgotten about.
And what had been Ajay and the angry remnant of AGRA would simply melt into air, Into thin air.
Perhaps it simplified matters as far as real life and the real people he left behind him were concerned. And that the shadow over Tblisi would have to be lifted from another direction. In a less personal way A way that would not make the little family, his little family, suffer any more, and so unnecessarily.
He lifted his head, a brisk nod to El Idrissi signalled a silent acceptance of the viewpoint, recognition of the other man's dilemma, his split second decision to take action, what could not be changed as the result.
The policeman relaxed a little; he had recognised the man before him as a leader, a professional and now bowed briefly n acknowledgement, and finally holstered his weapon.
With a sigh, Sherlock Holmes looked around the room, the shadowy alien place where Fate had caught up with them all. And Death had unexpectedly visited a place that was not Samarra.
Mary remained on her knees. As if in prayer, as if in obeisance, eyes fixed on the dead man as the scene of crime technicians, as at death scenes all around the world, rolled and folded the corpse, impersonally but not ungently, into a standard blue body bag.
She slowly, as if alone in the room, put her clenched hands to her temple and bowed her head.
So. A pranama, he observed, a sign of respect if not devotion to Ajay, expressed in his faith. A sign of their joint past, her continuing commitment to the young man, even though he had wanted to kill her. Namaskara, he thought. So she understood the boy even now; his faith, his mindset. And still mourned his death.
He should have felt he was intruding on a highly personal moment of grief. But he was not like other people, and although the human part of him recoiled at some deep level, the larger part of him watched and assessed with his usual detachment.
So he watched her flinch at the sound of the plastic zipper running forward as the body was covered and rendered invisible and anonymous. But he avoided her eyes at such a private moment of farewell. He neither wanted to see her grief nor connect with it.
Her grief was only too evident, but she did not speak or protest. Reached out a hand back and to the side, but her husband, still and silent at her side, did not take it.
Instead John Watson looked off impassively into the middle distance. As if what had been Ajay Moopanar was already no longer there, or that he himself was in a different life, or preferably and more practically, in a different room.
For a moment his eyes met those of Sherlock Holmes, and there was a deliberate and unreadable blankness there that was untypical of the care giving side of the doctor..
"The police were alerted when Eshan Mohindra arrived at Mohammed V International Airport. His name has long been on our Most Wanted list," the policeman continued. As if the shooting of a man was normal or even commonplace. Which perhaps it was, for him, in Morocco.
"For what?"
"Murder, of course. You do not know? I tell you. Mohindra worked freelance for all the Asian and Arabic news agencies, but this was a cover. He was long suspected of inciting the death and violence he reported."
"An agent provocateur?"
"Just so. Also that he committed murder himself. He was wanted for murder by Interpol, and not just here in Morocco. Murder of a young politician in this very city, and of a policeman. Five years ago. He fled the country. We have been searching for him ever since. Our memories are long. Especially as he murdered one of our own."
"But this man was not Mohindra."
"You say so. But how do you know for sure? This man travelled on Mohindra's passport, the photographs tallied. Facial recognition spotted him at the airport. This was Mohindra, Sir. Trust me. I have seen Mohindra before, with my own eyes, when he killed my people. I would never forget him."
"This man was called Ajay Moopanar," Sherlock Holms pointed out. "And was two inches shorter than the passport says."
"How do you know what was on the passport?" The policeman watched something move in the face of the tall gaunt man before him. Not knowing about a rainswept churchyard, a file on a laptop, a drug, a betrayal and a collapse." And if the passport he lodged at his hotel was not really his, then how did he get it?" he persisted.
"I believe he stole it. And the fact they looked alike gave him the idea to use that particular stolen passport to travel on."
His mind jolted him into a sudden memory of a market café in Tblisi; of a wiry young thief who attacked him and stole his bag. And who must have stolen other things, and other bags, from other people, to fund survival and search after escape from his captors.
Stolen a bag from Eshan Mohindra, then? Who had been quietly passing through Tblisi by the old Silk Road when life got too hot for him in one of the world's many hotspots?
"This man was Mohindra," El Idrissi insisted,. "Who has ever heard of Ajay Moopanar? What was he?"
"A good man and an honourable one. Brave. A soldier." Mary Morstan, who had temporarily forgotten she was Mary Watson, spoke suddenly with a fervent quietness that made Sherlock Holmes wince, but touched Inspector El Idrissi not at all.
"So; still a killer, then And about to kill again. " He shrugged. "Kill or be killed. You were lucky I was here. It was Kismet."
He bowed formally to the three English people before any of them could reply and contradict, stepped backwards, turned on his heel and was gone, following the men with the body bag from the room.
The silence he left behind was stifling.
"We need tea," John Watson finally declared into the void. "I'll go find Karim, organise it."
And stepped away. Left the room.
Mary Watson got slowly to her feet, avoiding Sherlock Holmes' eyes.
"I'm sorry, Mary," he heard himself say.
"Why?" she shot him a look, angry and defensive. "You didn't know him. He meant nothing to you."
"No. But his death was untimely. And we needed to learn more from him. To get to the bottom of all this. His death is a setback."
"Setback."
She echoed the word. Then her face crumpled. "All the effort I have put in over the last three months, Sherlock. The danger. The fear. The loneliness. And then to nearly die when I thought it was all over, and I had seen the last of AGRA…with Ajay, suddenly in front of me."
Her voice trailed away. He looked at her, refusing to be touched by her feelings..
"Emotion now, Mary? After spending so long crossing the world and ruthlessly removing his lifelines? Your lifelines. Drawing him to you. You succeeded in your mission. You have nothing to regret."
He did not say the other thing Ajay's sudden appearance had proved. He bit the words back. She would realise for herself soon enough…
"Apart from abandoning John and Rosie. " She took a step towards him and lifted her head. "And drugging you…."
"Not the first time you have damaged me," he dismissed. "So what?""
"…I ran off and left my husband and child without a word. Without news or hope. How can they ever forgive me, Sherlock?"
" You ask me? When I did the very same thing to the people I…to the people closest to me? Well. Rosie is too young to know or to care. And she is being well looked after. Safe and well, as you wanted.
"John is upset because he could do nothing to help you. But then, you did not give him the chance to try. You remain your own person, and a professional, first and last. Not just his wife, not allowing yourself to be sheltered by his care."
"Will he ever forgive me?"
"For not letting him help you? Or for running away to protect him? That's up to you both. How you respond to him, to each other, from here."
She looked up at him, blank and unblinking.
"I don't even know why I'm asking you."
"Because you have no-one else. Because you have realised John thinks that you being you means he is inferior; lacking as husband, father, provider. That you are more dangerous than him. That he cannot change the heart and core of you, and you have refused to change yours for him. You are still….what you were. The best at what you were."
"Oh, is that a compliment, now?" There was a flicker of pragmatic humour returning, despite herself. He saw it flash across her eyes. "You must be slipping."
"Hmn," he responded. "I rather think I must be getting old."
He dipped his head so she did not see the sudden pain and exhaustion strike him. Relieved she did not notice.
Because she laughed then, and leant in on her tiptoes to put a light kiss on his cheek.
"I'm exhausted. It has been a difficult few months."
"So what have you learnt?"
She thought for a long moment, taking the question seriously, and then her voice was low and honest.
"That I could finally close doors of my past life without regret. Accept that was needed. That it was beyond time to do that. But I also learnt…that I could still do it. Be the professional, That as much as I have changed, there are parts of me that…stay the same. That I will always react and respond."
"You always knew that. And so did I. You shot me in cold blood, remember? " He paused, but could not refrain from telling truth.
"But John saw that in you for himself tonight. That you were prepared to kill Ajay, even though he was your friend and you had loved him like a brother."
Her mouth shaped the word 'yes' but no sound came.
"When we stood on that thin red line…between life and death when facing Ajay…it was me you turned to. Me you handed your gun without a second thought. Me. Not John.
"That was….pure instinct."
"I know. Hadn't meant to point that out. There's always something….."
"No, you're right. A debrief is no good if it only contains what you want to hear. But that moment…made me understand something." She paused, eyes dark and wide, a hand out towards him which he noted but ignored. "How much I would do - will do - for those I love. How much I have missed you while I was away. All of you. All three of you. And that….." she hesitated. "I would even kill my best friend to protect you all."
"You killed me."
"I don't mean you. I mean Ajay. He was like a younger brother, someone I trusted with my life. And yet, with my pistol to his head, I knew I could just shoot him if I had to. No regret. But would make sure, that if he killed me, I would kill him too."
She looked up into his face, deep into his eyes, and this time he did not look away.
"I am still a killing machine, Sherlock. Just as I feared. Despite being a wife and mother, I am still a killer. " She looked away. Three words came as if dragged out of her.
"I hate myself."
"That is not logical."
He resisted the temptation to reach out. To shake or console her.
"Can't help that."
"You feared being more killing machine than mother? That was why you asked me to kill you if necessary?"
"What good am I to Rosie? Or John? Being me? Drawing them into danger by being me. How much will John hate me for it?"
"Why should he hate you? He might be proud of you."
She huffed out a humorless laugh.
"Not much sign of that."
"He's hurting. Uncertain. Feels helpless."
"So you're a marriage counsellor now?" The amused tone was forced. And he had no reply that could help. She shrugged. Finally, visibly, drained.
"I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted."
He caught her arm as she passed him. Stopped her, swung her close.
"John's room. Not your room, where you have been the past two days."
She heard the authority in his voice, the determination in his face.
"I….he….might not want me there."
"It doesn't matter. You need to be there."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yes. He is balanced on the edge, Mary. This is your chance to re-establish yourselves as a couple. Perhaps the last chance. You know how good he is at cutting off his nose to spite his face, his bull headed inferiority complex as far as emotions are concerned. How he reverts to the impassive soldier when under pressure."
He tried a smile, but it was more of a grimace. This was not his field, not his intimacy. And yet he had to get the words out. "Break his barriers while you still can. Swallow your pride and your doubts. Go to him. Show him how stressful this has been to you. How exhausted you are. Act, if you have to. Be feminine. Make love to him."
She looked at him. Appalled at his words.
"'Make love'?" she flung back. "Not your usual terminology. And sod all to do with you anyway."
"To do with me when my family is fracturing before my eyes. And it was you who claimed me as family, not me. Not the other way round." His hand tightened on her arm. "Not my terminology? OK. Go fuck him through the mattress, then. But do it. It may be your last chance to play happy families."
She looked up at him, frozen and silent, for long seconds. And when she spoke her voice was hushed, anger - or emotion - beyond words.
"I hate you."
"Good. That's good," he agreed. "I would, too."
Watched her leave silently, tucking her gun, without fuss, into her handbag. And sat back down into the armchair he had been in before their lives exploded.
He registered vaguely that he was shaking. That he was feeling old and exhausted and empty.
Then John Watson returned, carrying a tea tray that looked identical to the one the boy Karim had dropped lifetimes earlier, and with three cups upon it.
He stood in the middle of the room and looked round.
"She's exhausted. Gone to bed," Sherlock Holmes answered the unasked question.
"Ah. Right."
John Watson nodded, and moved to sit down and put the tea tray on the low table.
"No! Not here." The sharp words had him reacting, standing upright again, the tray still in his hands. "Take the tea with you. Upstairs. To your room, Share it with Mary."
"Oh. Really? OK. Don't you need tea? After all that?"
"I mean it, John. Go to Mary. Love her and tell her you forgive her for trying so hard to save your life. Yours and Rosie's"
"I don't know that I do forgive her." His face was hard, shadowed with effort, "I didn't forgive you for dying and saving mine….."
The voice was flat and stubborn, but honest.
"You should have learnt from that. Or pretend. Love her and reassure her. Show any compassion you learnt by not forgiving me for doing the same."
The look he got then was bright and sharp.
"I'm sorry, Sherlock."
"Don't be. You made no vow to me. But I made a vow to you. To protect you all, to always be there for you. Go and love your wife, Doctor Watson. And try to relax."
He settled himself more comfortably on the chair, turned determinedly away. The conversation was over, and he did not want to see his best friend's face.
He heard the footsteps walking slowly away. And released the breath he did not know he had been holding. Allowed the tension to seep from his bones And realised his jaw still hurt.
o0o0o
Alone and in the dark, he reflected on what had just happened. On the events of the last two days. He closed the door and the shutters of the room and took out his mobile phone. Looked resolutely at the wall.
At that time of night the line was clear, and the four thousand miles between the hotel room and Mycroft Holmes's office was as nothing.
"To what do I owe this communication, brother mine?"
He was at his most arch, most arrogant. And the younger brother reflected that his older brother probably already knew some of what he was about to tell him.
Nevertheless, he said briskly: "A debrief, if you will." And proceeded to recount the events of the night.
"…The English woman. That's all he heard. Naturally he assumed it was Mary."
"Couldn't this wait until you got back?"
The feigned disinterest and coolness from London did not fool him.
"I don't think so, do you? This has been on your mind for far too long."
"What? A seedy little assassination in Morocco?"
"The fear of a mole deep within the machine."
The silence was brief, but telling.
"Yet again, you speak gibberish. And I do not intend to humour you."
"Not on an open line, you mean? Why bother? If the interloper is as deep or as high as you may think, hacking into a scrambled line would be child's play."
"I could not possibly comment. You have always had such wild ideas."
"Mine? No. a little bird tells me all I know. What you would not tell me….."
"Do stop it. The incident is long over."
"But the file is not closed. Circumstances reopened it, and I dived in."
"Unofficially it s over."
"Certainly there are people who would like it to be.. But no. It's not over yet. Ajay was an independent witness. He reiterated what Mary had said, and there was no way they could have compared notes, fabricated a story. So it has to be true.
"Ajay said that they'd been betrayed. The hostage takers knew AGRA were coming. AGRA heard only a voice on the phone, remember. A voice that sent everyone to Hell. An Englishwoman. And a code word."
"Ammo. Yes, you said." The apparent lack of interest and engagement was palpable. But the younger Holmes knew the elder only too well. Could hear the concentration humming in his direction.
"How's your Latin, brother dear?" he asked smoothly.
"My Latin?"
"Of course, your Latin. The very first verb one learns to decline as a schoolboy. Memorising the tables of the tenses. Puts you off or makes you a Latin scholar for life. I know which I am, but which were you? Amo, amas, amat….." he recited.
"I love, you love, he loves….what?" Genuinely puzzled now, not catching up at the required speed. Distracted by the importance of the need for a solution.
Sherlock Holmes clicked his tongue deliberately against his teeth. The sound said:
Concentrate, brother.
"Not ammo as in ammunition," he spoke carefully as if to a child. "Amo meaning…."
The rest of the sentence hung in the air between them Elementary Latin. Amo; meaning 'I love' He waited two seconds for the British Government to catch up. To compute. To realise the importance of what he was not saying.
It seemed so long ago now. The darkened Cabinet briefing room. The moving screen, the doctored film showing the official version of the death of Charles Augustus Magnussen. And the act of being careless and carefree and high. Mycroft's voice: "…only the people in this room; code name Antartica, Langdale, Porlock and Love will ever know the whole truth."
Indeed so. If he was right.
Mycroft had always been know as The Ice Man; and not just to Irene Adler and James Moriarty. So Antartica was the perfect code name
Langdale was Sir Edwin. A play on his surname, a major landmark overshadowing his family estate.
He himself had always been labelled Porlock; a 'person from Porlock' had interrupted Taylor Coleridge's opium induced haze while writing Kubhla Khan. A 54 line poem never finished as a result, with the 'person from Porlock' ever more known as the disrupter of creativity. The sort of literary pun and accusation , a judgement against himself that would amuse Mycroft
The idea had been Mycroft's, years ago, and it had stuck. An insult more than a compliment; the connection the drug haze. But he himself had always empathised more with Stevie Smith's version of that person: ''along comes the person from Porlock, and takes the blame,' declared her poem.
Yes, yes. As always.
The poem came back to his mind, unbidden, as poems are wont to do. 'It was not right, it was wrong. But often we all do wrong.' he thought, the poem unreeling in his head, unbidden, as he waited for his brother's response
Waited patently. Because of the importance of the identity of the woman whose code name was Love….
Mycroft's voice interrupted his thoughts: uncannily quoting the poem back to him. Their thoughts meshing, as they sometimes did. Removing all doubt.
"'Oh, Person From Porlock, come quickly, and bring my thoughts to an end'," Mycroft quoted, almost absent mindedly.
"Indeed so." Drily, but a reply without irony or humour.
"You'd better be right, Sherlock."
And put his telephone down without another word.
o0o0o
Sherlock Holmes, sitting alone on the plane back to London - and back to Rosie - sat in the row behind John and Mary Watson the next morning; Mary in the aisle seat, John by the window, an empty seat between them and an entire world within that void.
From their careful body language he could not read what had happened between husband and wife during the previous night. And he closed his mind on the problem. Delicacy and detachment. It was none of his business.
He himself, alone in the adjoining bedroom, had slept little, turning the problem of Amo over and over in his mind. Ajay may have died before he could tell them more, but what he had said may have been tantalisingly enough to put him on the right track. About Amo, about an Englishwoman's voice. About a man with gold teeth….
His thoughts went round and round. And his jaw still ached….
o0o0o
Consciousness had not come back gently or easily, with smoothness or orientation. It ha come back with a jolt as strong male hands grabbed him by the shoulders and wrenched him up and forwards.
Pain, fear, an instinct for self preservation and protective adrenalin flooded his mind and his body faster than the instinctive thoughts that were telling him he was still lying on the hard wet cobbles of the pavement in Tblisi, that his head hurt, his jaw hurt, that consciousness might still be conditional.
That there were hands still on him - strong hard hands - and that he was still being attacked.
So he reacted. Faster than thought
"Argh!"
It started as a groan of pain, but came out as a challenging roar of anger and effort.
A cry of survival, of determination of self defence. Instinct drove his muscles forward, wrenching his shoulders out of the grasping hands, and a totally instinctive half shoulder spring exploded him off his back, up and forward and into a low crouch, swinging to face the enemy with hands as weapons.
Reacting blindly, poised to fight, hands flashing into clubs protecting his groin and his throat, ready to defend and survive.
"Sherlock! No! Stop!"
The words did not penetrate, nor the tone of them. In such a state of disorientation pain and panic, they were just sound. Threatening white noise. Sound to react to.
Nico Sologashvili had a rare moment of active fear. Flinging himself away from the unexpected attack, he took a sharp step backwards, hands raised in a placating gesture.
"Sherlock! Please!"
Yet even as he spoke, he knew Sherlock Holmes did not hear him.
This, he saw with something like awe, this was what an animal at bay - a dangerous animal at bay - looked like. From unconscious and shrunken to alert and totally reactive in a second.
He had been warned that Sherlock Holmes was formidable, he had seen in the earlier visit that the younger man was formidable. But the lurch of fear when unexpectedly confronting this machine whirling in self defence with a sudden, almost inhuman, surge of power, of electricity, was as unusual as it was unexpected.
He put out a hand, and it was blocked, knocked away in a fast riposte. He stepped forward, and Sherlock Holmes retreated.
"Sherlock. Its me. Nico. Sirius. If you prefer that name? I'm not attacking you. I saw what happened to you. On the CCTV from my house. I came out straight away. But they've gone, Sherlock. The men who hurt you."
The mindless creature before him shook it's head, turned to spin away, slipped on the wet cobbles and went down onto knees and elbows. A flailing of arms and legs, a scrabbling of feet. Nico Sologashvili reached out, caught the nape of a neck, and reeled back himself as the head jerked forward instead of back, hard forehead slamming into the bridge of his nose, making him see stars and taste blood.
His own reaction was to strike out, and a lucky, unsighted blow to the side of his jaw had Sherlock Holmes downed like a dead thing.
"Ra gaak ete?" the voice was sharp in his ear as his sister rushed past him to drop to her knees. "Is mok vda?"
"I haven't done anything," Nico Sologashvili could hear his voice, a little too fast, too high in pitch, as the shock registered. "And of course he isn't dead!"
"We must get him into the house. Safe."
She was kneeling on the wet ground, Sherlock Holmes' head in her lap. "Nico!"
The Georgian was still slightly stunned from the blow to his nose. Slow to react. And wary. Was Mycroft Holmes' baby brother really unconscious? Or was he pretending, and ready to attack again?
He stepped forward slightly.
"Are you sure he is out of it?"
"Of course! You hit him hard. And he's cold. A dead weight. See?"
The Georgian squatted down to look. And looked properly.
The face of a Grecian statue, remote and contained, not classical beauty but striking nevertheless. High cheekbones, a good nose, an over sensual mouth. More human, somehow, features more striking, but less aristocratic and ascetic than his brother.
The dark unruly hair was wet from the ground, and the feminine eyelashes fluttered against the alabaster pale skin. The body was unusually still and formless somehow, and the long wiry hands on the ground were turned palms up as if in supplication.
He watched his sister stroke gently along the unfeeling jaw line.
"He has been hurt. Why did you hurt him?"
"I didn't…not until I had to defend myself. Someone jumped him as he left here. Bashed him to the ground and thumped him. I saw it happen on the CCTV. But was too slow to stop it…"
He reached out a hand to press fingers into a cold unresponsive palm. Made a decision.
Shuffled closer. Put out his arms and eased them between back and knees. Struggled from kneeling to standing like a weightlifter, grunting with effort to lift his burden. Sherlock Holmes' head fell back, exposing a long throat, a prominent Adam's apple.
He was lighter than expected, limbs longer, trailing.
Nia skipped in front of him to open the front door of the house, and he was almost through the doorway when his burden came to life.
"Don't struggle. Or I'll drop you!"
The body in his arms stiffened, froze. Obeyed. And it was the work of a moment to step through the door into the hall, towards the sitting room, and to drop the Englishman onto the sofa, stepping quickly away, hands raised, to avoid further reaction and defensive attack.
"Thank you."
The words were so quiet he thought he had imagined them. "You saved me from more punishment. You came out. You didn't have to."
"No," he agreed. "I didn't have to. But it was my fault." Chose to misunderstand the implied compliment. "I recognised the man who attacked you."
"Yes."
"Who was it, Nico? Who?" Nia's plea was not answered directly. Instead her brother turned to his laptop, clicked buttons brought up the security camera recording. Stood to one side as she watched. Gasped. Put her hands to her mouth.
"Sherlock….I am so sorry. This was meant to hurt me. Not you."
"No. Mine. I played up to you. Laid it on a bit thick. I knew your husband - your ex-husband -was a jealous man. I had not expected him to be quite so jealous. There's always something."
She turned to him. He was sitting up now, cradling his jaw in one hand.
"It IS my fault. I flirted shamelessly with you, and in public too."
"I know that. And I could have stopped you. I didn't. Could have left here afterwards by the back door. I didn't. Could have reasoned with him, pleaded for mercy. I couldn't do that. So…."
He shrugged, Twitched his mouth in an ironic grin. "You are both very eager to blame yourselves for this. Don't bother."
She turned to him, stroked a hand, quelled her anger. Grateful for his pragmatic calm.
"You look as if you are hurting. I'll get you some painkillers for that jaw….."
And she swept away. Leaving the two men to look at each Holmes was the first to speak.
"He reacted, as you wanted. Was that the reaction you expected?"
"I'm not sure. Just wanted to flush him out. Have her see him for what he is. A bully."
"Good looking and superficially charming, like many bullies. But you can understand a mutual dark attraction."
"She left him the very first time he threatened her. Jealous of her intelligence as well as her beauty."
"You knew how he would be. Yet you did not warn her."
"What would have been the point? It could have turned her against me. And then she would have been too ashamed to come home. After she left him."
"Not with Tamora there to broker peace."
"She was already dead. This was six months after the siege. When I was in the depths of despair without her. When everything Tamora had done was still being questioned. As if she had been at fault. As if she should have foreseen what was going to happen….."
He turned away, put a hand to his face.
"She has been dead a long time. Why are you still upset?" The tone was neutral, the face lacking any expression except a detached curiosity. Nico Sologashvili had expected nothing else.
"You wouldn't understand."
"No. But I understand the shadow over you. You knew where she died, and how. But you don't know exactly why."
"You do understand."
"Of course. I always understand more than I …..hmn."
He looked at the Georgian long and hard.
"Your sister will have had no opportunity to share with you certain information I gave her this evening. So….."
He took his mobile phone from his coat pocket, pressed buttons, sent the file he had sent and retrieved earlier to the Georgian's laptop. Repeated the concentration, the diary entries, the picture of the girl with the pearl earring.
At some point Nia returned, silently pressed a glass of water and two painkillers into Sherlock Holmes' hand, and watched the story unfold again.
Eventually he leant back and looked at the Georgian with a new sharp assessment.
"When you formally identified your wife's body - afterwards - were you shown photographs of the death scene? The hotel ballroom at the embassy?"
"A couple. Enough." His mouth twisted down at the memory and he looked away from those alien grey eyes that seemed to miss nothing yet still saw more.
"Hmn."
"Sherlock….."He waved away Nia's interruption.
"When I was here before I studied the crime scene photographs. Only later was I able to see additional photographs. A second set of photographs were taken which revealed several differences that open up alternative possibilities…."
The analysis that followed was detailed, intense, forensic. He did not spare Nico Sologashvili any of the photographs of his wife in death; photographs from official files, from HilaryWeatherstone's hidden hoard, from Embassy files.
"Where did you get all these photographs? I haven't seen most of them. "
"Because they are graphic. Truth is often harsh, especially when dealing with sudden death. People were protecting you. Also protecting their own backs by not releasing these photographs. They raise more question than they answer, you see."
"Yes?"
"There was a rumour your wife and Julia Tregarron were having an affair. Groundless of course a red herring. The Lady Ambassador was clearly having an affair with someone else. A Georgian national. Being very discreet. Using Tamora as shield and scapegoat."
"No! There is no way…."
"There is every way. And Tamora was a good victim. She was kind, you see. Cultured,tolerant, civilised."
"You say that as if such qualities are flaws."
"No. But they were qualities that made her malleable."
Sherlock Holmes turned away from the laptop to look at the Georgian; the agent, the art expert; but mostly at the widower.
Nico Sologashvili was sitting with clenched fists, tears dripping inelegantly from his face, eyes fixed on the images being shown on screen.
"I hope you aren't finding this too upsetting?" the consulting detective asked with distant politeness into the silence.
"It is…tearing out my heart," was the reply. The face suddenly naked. His sister reached out a hand to take a hand.
"It is merely fact. You should find the photographs reassuring," was the brusque response. "They show your wife was not to blame. In fact she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is clear from the photographs that she only died because she was close to Julia Tregarron in their hiding place; and the bullet that killed her passed straight through the Ambassador and had enough velocity to kill Tamora as well. Your wife was merely collateral damage."
"Merely?" Tamora's husband surged to his feet. "That is no way to describe….."
"The heart of your heart. Yes, I know that," Sherlock Holmes waved the emotion away impatiently. Only to choke and gasp for air as hands clamped angrily around his throat.
"That was a phrase between us only. Not for others. How did you know that? How?"
"Put me down, you madman!"
The attack had been a total surprise. And he was already in ain and weakened from the attack earlier.
"I mean it, Sherlock! My God, you are more impossible than your brother, and I thought he was a bloodless freak! How did you know our secret name for each other - Tamora and me?"
"Put me down!"
He hung between hands older and angrier than his own, but did not answer. Watched the brain behind golden brown eyes work out the answer for himself.
"When you were here before; when I was drunk; you…took advantage of that. Broke into my laptop. Found our letters - secret, loving, intimate letters. And you plundered them."
The silence was it's own answer.
"How could you do that? You utter bastard. How could you betray my marriage….my hospitality…. like that?"
"My job. People - their feelings, your feelings - don't matter. My job is truth and justice. You don't like that? And I thought you were a professional….."
"Not all the time! Not all the bloody time!"
With a roar of immeasurable anger the Georgian wrapped one hand round the younger man's throat, grasped his crotch with the other, and slung him forcefully at the opposite wall. Put out an arm to restrain his sister from rushing to the side of the crumpled heap in the corner.
Sherlock Holmes made no sound but crawled slowly to his feet. Wobbled erect.
"Julia Tregarron was having an affair," he said slowly, as if explaining the facts of life to a mall child. "She was using your wife as excuse and shield. I think the man she was having her affair with had something to do with the siege. I think Julia had something to do with the siege. I think Tamora found out. And she died tryng to stop Julia doing…whatever she was doing."
He looked into the ravaged face of Tamora Sologashvili's husband and continued regardless, without apology or pity.
"That Tamora, even when confronting terrorists and gunfire and possible death, was trying to stop Julia from doing…whatever it is she was doing. Plotting or stealing whatever it was about the exhibition she was plotting or stealing.
"But when Tregarron died she had something in her hand. Something I think Tamora was trying to stop her stealing. Something that then disappeared. Haven't worked it all out yet.
He shook his head in frustration. His head hurt, his jaw hurt, and the painkillers still hadn't kicked in. Perhaps two more might help?
"Someone shot Julia, Perhaps because of what she was stealing or plotting. Perhaps because of something else. Or all three. Trying to turn the siege to her own advantage. Or perhaps that was what the siege was all about? And Tamora got shot because she was also trying to stop Julia. But for entirely different reasons, wouldn't you say?"
The silence in the room was suddenly deafening. He took a deep breath and straightened his clothing, leaning away from the wall that had been supporting him to see if he could stay upright without it's help…..something in his head reminded him it had been a long day.
"If events at the end of the siege happened as I suspect…then your wife was not just a victim of betrayal and savagery; she was also a heroine. But you don't want to hear that either, do you?" he paused. "Self pity, Nico. Never attractive."
"You are….. "
"An utter bastard. Yes, heard you the first time."
He past the man who had just attacked him and sat back down at the laptop.
"But the question remains." His hands flew over the keys. Blended images. From the photographs patiently selected from embassy, police and Hilary Weatherstone's hidden files, from the house CCTV of that evening.
Of a big man with manicured hands, chipped knuckles. And gold teeth.
All the images were incomplete. Shadowy, grainy, distanced. But put them toether and there were enough features to identify a man.
"Two members of AGRA identified a man with gold teeth at the siege, being part of it. And later, torturing and questioning one of them,over and over, Because he could. But also because there was information he desperately needed to know About who had betrayed him during the siege, and why.
"And yet the long view was that the betrayal and siege had been against the embassy and the unity of Georgia, it's new role in the outside world. Not the siege makers themselves. So it is more complicated than I thought. I need to find this man, who he is and what he knows."
He turned from the grief stricken man to the quiet woman standing between them, who was looking cornered and lost.
"This is the man who attacked me tonight. Hit me so hard he almost broke my jaw. Now, it is not unusual for people to want to hit me - but this is different." The smile in his voice faded, the tone hardened.
"This man was with your ex-husband. Happy to do his bidding, and just as violent if not more so. So you know him. Who is he, Nia? And what is he to do with all this?"
She looked wildly about her for a a moment; but the eyes of both her brother and the conulting detective were on her.
"Tell him, Nia," her brother urged. "Tell him who that man is."
She hesitated for just one moment more. Then capitulated,
"His name is Rivaz. Rivaz is - was - my brother in law."
Into the silence Sherlock Holmes nodded, smiled without humour, face rigid, did not thank her for the information.
"Yes. Of course he is. That makes sense."
o0o0o
Back at Heathrow he had slid away from the Watsons as soon as he could, with just a brief word of excuse.
"I am needed in town…..go and reclaim your child. Learn to be a family again."
"You're not coming with us?"
He ignored the appeal in Mary Watson's voice.
"Things to do. Will be in touch."
And he walked away from them without looking back. Whatever issues the Watsons had was between them now. He had done his best for them, and now could do no more. He felt the same empty distraction, the same need to get away, as when he had left their wedding reception.
How long ago that now seemed! How much had happened in the interim, and so little for the better. He angrily stamped down on that line of thought. He had too much to do to lose himself in the past. To indulge in wishful thinking or sentiment.
Sentiment! Mycroft's jibe several days ago had struck deep. He had no time for sentiment. It rotted the soul. Denied Samarra. Yes. Mycroft was right. He had always hated that story.
There was nothing he could do to change the past. Only answer the questions and change the perceptions that had arisen…and wonder about all the new questions that needed answers. All the little locked puzzle boxes within the biggest box;be it treasure chest or coffin.
He claimed a taxi and directed the driver to 85, Albert Embankment. Impatient to find what Mycroft had done, had discovered, had decreed. And where it led them.
The post modern building -known by a variety of nicknames from Ceausescu Towers and Legoland to The Ziggurat - was distinctive and unique, and was home to the Special Intelligence Service of the British Government, otherwise known as MI6.
The woman who was sometimes known as Anthea was waiting for him at reception. Anonymous grey suit of quality, immaculate hair and make up, a deceptively vague and taciturn charm.
She greeted him wordlessly with a nod, gave him a pass on a lanyard, beckoned him to follow her. Stairs and anonymous corridors later, she opened a door and ushered him before her into a small room furnished only with two chairs, a small desk, and a raised blind before a darkened window.
He could see into the room beyond; a similarly neutral room. A man and a woman sat facing each other. Both tall, slim, aristocratic. Guarded body posture, unreadable expressions. No telltale mannerisms or movements. The civilised impassivity of the true civil servant.
The woman had something imperious something impossibly regal in her bearing, the very tilt of her cool blonde head. He knew her too well. Ordinarily.
The Virgin Queen at Tilbury; Joan of Arc at the stake; Marie Antoinette before the guillotine….ridiculously fanciful! Get a grip! You're tired and lacking focus…
"This is absolutely ridiculous and you know it," she said. Unbowed, quietly supercilious of her interrogator sitting opposite, an attitude barely disguised and verging on disdain. Far from prepared to accept her role as suspect. "How many more times?"
The interrogation had been going on for some time. Over and over. Both knew the game too well; the techniques, the demands on focus and patience. Round and round the mulberry bush.
"Six years ago you held the brief for foreign operations, code name Love."
It was not the first time he had pointed this out. Something they both knew, and had always known. Colleagues and almost friends for so many years. But never before facing each other across a table like this. With doubt and distrust. Dangerous civility.
Mycroft Holmes, immensely uncomfortable with the situation despite his urbane veneer, did not reply or respond in any way. He hated to appear less than adequate to any situation, especially before the woman sitting within inches of him who had once been his mentor, beneath a bright overhead light that exposed everything, each to the other. And before the veiled attention of his brother. Whose idea this had been.
An idea he was steadily, increasingly, feeling was wrong. And to be wrong footed by both his brother and his professional equal was a position he was not used to and did not like.
She read his discomfort
"And you're basing all this on a code name? On a whispered voice on the telephone? Come on, Mycroft."
Overly calm, measured, an edge of scorn.
"You were the conduit for AGRA. Every assignment, every detail, they got from you."
A discreet accusation; telling her something they both knew, had always known..
"It was my job," she pointed out, without heat.
Mycroft Holmes unfolded his hands, banished the tension in them, leant back. A professional assumption of endless patience.
"Then there was the Tblisi incident," he continued relentlessly. "AGRA went in. " He paused for effect, to give her space to hurry in with an answer, an excuse, a plea. But she sat and watched him, impassive and unmoved. " And they were betrayed."
"Not by me." Calm, collected, giving not an inch. As if she was the interrogator. Certainly it was Mycroft, the real interrogator, who appeared more uncomfortable, unusually ill at ease.
Mycroft Homes did not reply to that. Simply looked levelly back at her. Lady Elizabeth Alicia Smallwood pulled a breath and sighed. As if far too well bred to show her impatience with her younger prodigy, her disappointment that he had put her in this position.
"I repeat. Not by me."
He did not answer, but looked away; just for an instant And she did not miss that break in the armour, that admission of unease.
"Mycroft, we've known each other a long time." Her voce was softer now. Almost gentle in its frustration. "I promise you, I haven't the foggiest idea what all this is about. You wound up AGRA and al the other freelancers. I haven't done any of the things you accuse me of. Not one, Not. One."
Mycroft looked away and down. Looked to his left. On the other side of the one way mirror Sherlock Holmes watched, impassive Watched his brother adjust his immaculate jacket, a rare nervous tick.
Throughout the long interview - which had gone round and round in fruitless circles, attempting to find a break in the repetition to prise out a lie, a slip; a mistake he somehow knew would never come, he had watched Lady Smallwood alone. He did not need to watch his brother. He knew what his line of questioning would be, his mental attitude, his physical stance.
He concentrated solely on Elizabeth Smallwood. Sitting erect in the hard chair, cool and collected as ever.
The pale grey paisley blouse was high necked and severe, robbing her of what little colour normally lay in her pale aristocratic face. She looked suddenly old, he thought. Lined and exhausted and wizened. Shrunken into herself.
The accusation had hit her hard. She had, he realised suddenly, shed her usual armour of accessories and make up quite deliberately. As if wearing sackcloth and ashes. To be naked before her judgement. To convey honesty and sincerity .
He looked more closely.
This was a woman used to objectivity, decision making, influencing the lives of people and nations. She could lie and manipulate and convince without even thinking about it. She had done so for years, without guilt or conscience if the work and the safety and interests of the nation demanded it.
Sitting across a desk in an interview room to tilt the world on it's axis was nothing new to this woman. And he reflected on this: how long had he known her? Known her strength and her power?
Nine years old. Trotting silently behind his mother, on best behaviour on a visit to Papa in his office for a reason long deleted. Identical dark corridors with shiny marble floor. a large wood panelled office bathed in sunshine. Papa sitting behind a huge director's desk, a slim blonde woman at his side.
Elizabeth Eastwood as she was then. A rising star, Papa had said, someone he was mentoring. The boy had not known that word. So was intrigued.
She spotted him looking at her, smiled gravely into his eyes rather than ignoring him as most people did.
"Hello, William," she had said.
"What's mentoring?" he had asked.
"Teaching," she had said. "And I daresay that will happen to you, one day. If you come and work here. Follow family tradition."
He had wrinkled his nose and frowned at that, and as Mother spoke to Papa, they had shared a grin that seemed secretive and a little wicked. For without words she had realised that becoming an instrument of government in a three piece suit was the very last thing he planned to do with his life, even if that was the family linage and his older brother's ambition.
That link, that empathy between them had held firm over the years. Despite her promotions to high office and marriage to Jack Smallwood. Even after the traumas of Sri Lanka and all that followed: Siward's catastrophic injury and retirement from government service, his new life. Even after William's transformation from precocious child to enigmatic, impossible Sherlock.
It had brought her to Baker Street to remove a blackmail threat. A trust in him as a person stronger than her trust of his brother as a colleague.
And now he had proffered doubts ad questions and may be thought to have betrayed her.
But in her very posture - leaning slightly back, head high, hands gripping the chair arms in a series of physical tells so unlike her usual polite civility that dictated her normal behaviour beyond all things, in such tiny signs of humanity and hurt and fear he saw the truth.
And it was clear from his single glance to the two way mirror, knowing his brother was there observing, that Mycroft saw this too.
Sherlock Holmes gave the unreflecting mirror a nod of decision. And left the room.
o0o0o
By the time she had regained her security passes, donned her jacket and jewellery, had taken a few moments pause in the senior ladies cloakroom to clear her mind and calm her breathing, he had made his way to her office.
The secretary's niche was empty; as tidy and anonymous as always. It was a relief to not have to negotiate and explain himself to the elderly lady who had always stood guard at the entrance to Elizabeth Smallwood's eyrie.
And now he emptied his mind and simply stood and waited.
She entered the room quietly, and to her credit did not stop or even break stride to find him standing beside her desk. A statue of a man at parade rest, motionless and without expression.
Tall, Byronic handsome, coat collar flipped high. So familiar, yet subtly different. Gaunt, withdrawn, not meeting her eye as he would normally, but concentrating on some fixed point on the wall opposite.
She walked up to him without hesitation, looked up into his face. He did not look down at her or speak. Waiting.
"This was your doing," she said without preamble. "Casting doubt on my integrity. My reputation. My honesty."
He still did not speak, but slowly his head came down. And as soon as slate grey eyes met pale blue ones, she reacted.
Her right hand lashed out and struck his left cheek with full force. The impact jarred her wrist up to her shoulder and made her fingers tingle. She had not realised she was so angry until she released the full force of it. And was instantly ashamed of herself.
Yet he did not move, or flinch, did nothing to avoid or dissipate the blow. As her hand dropped slowly back to her side - awkward, off kilter - and she watched the red flush of blood rising on his face from the impact, he quietly asked:
"Feel better, now?"
"You. Shit. How could you?"
After the weakness of reaction, it seemed a huge admission ofeven greater weakness just to ask the question.
"Because that is what you expect of me. Need from me. Forensic assessment and judgement. So that is what I do."
"Sherlock….."
"You were at the heart of this from the start. Oversaw the reopening of the British Embassy in Georgia. Finally sent in AGRA to break the siege when all else failed, Passed the still open file to Mycroft because of his history at the Georgian Embassy when you were promoted beyond past problems to more immediate ones. Thinking he would solve it. But he didn't.
"Then the unexpected reappearance of Ajay Moopanar brought the Tblisi siege back to the surface, so it was bound to interest you.
And when Mary Watson, or Morston, or Ro Adams, take your pick - revealed that the change in plan was authorised by the voice of an Englishwoman using the right code word, and was later verified independently by Moopanar - then you were the obvious candidate as traitor."
"But…"
"You cannot escape the logic, Elizabeth." He spoke over her with a forceful calm she could not deny. "The code word was 'Amo.' Not 'ammo' as in ammunition, as everyone would expect, but 'amo' as in the Latin verb 'to love.' And 'Love' has always been your code name within the service. A nice play on words. But a bit too simple for you, I would have said. Nor subtle enough, .
"As soon as this new information became common knowledge, you would be the immediate and obvious suspect. Far better Mycroft took control of the situation and ran with it, exploded it before you were exposed at a higher and less sympathetic level. So we moved on with this new information, to test and break it. Correct?"
"I…yes…I see. Yes."
"Good. How many people would know your code name to use and abuse it, trying to be clever by throwing suspicion onto you if the knowledge ever came out? How bringing the attack forward stopped the siege being broken? And hopefully killed everyone in AGRA who knew.
Does that not shift responsibility to a level above your own? So who - which 'Englishwoman' - could that have been?"
"Constance Protheroe? But she died last year. Diane Mathie, perhaps? She's now retired….."
"Hmn, Any more thoughts, pass them on to Mycroft. We have established you had no motivation and are in the clear."
"To Mycroft? But what about you?"
"I have.. other calls on my time. Investigating from the other end, you might say." He looked thoughtfully at her. Swayed slightly, frowned, and put a hand to his face, on the jaw where she had struck him.
"Are you OK?"
"You should know better than to ask."
He took a step back, inclined his head in a curt bow of farewell, took five long strides towards the door.
He had opened it and was halfway through when she called him back.
"I'm sorry," the words of contrition left her with strange reluctance. "That I hit you. It hurt…."
He tossed his head as if angry. Unreadable, unknowable even to her, as ever.
"Everything in life hurts, Elizabeth. If you let it."
"William…."
But she was speaking to empty air. He had gone.
o0o0o
Deep in thought, he left the Ziggurat behind and crossed Vauxhall Bridge, walking ever more slowly and burdened by his thoughts. Then he stopped, turned, and leant his hands on the parapet. Gazed down into the swirling brown water as it passed the cutwaters and disappeared.
It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.
When life places stones in your path, be the water. A persistent drop of water will wear away the hardest stone.
Until justice rolls down like water…..
As water retains no constant shape, in warfare there are no constant conditions….
His thoughts swirled in sympathy. Swirled and sorted and selected their places in the puzzle.
You think you understand. You understand nothing. Ajay, bitter and scathing, and knowing both too much and too little for his own good.
Six plaster busts… Six chances for knowledge and justice. Gelder's pottery, Dato's samples - thrown, smashed down, breaking into shards and just one containing a secret…..
Mycroft's brusque voice before the secret committee….; 'Code names Antartica, Langdale, Porlock and Love….'
And who else knew the identity of those code names?
"Do not minute this…."
Mary, looking into her phone, the camera turned on herself and Rosie. On John's screen, talking to Sherlock. Laughing and almost playful, but cynical too:
"You would be amazed what a receptionist picks up -" as she lowered her voice melodramatically and leant into the screen as if sharing a secret… "They know everything…."
Ajay telling his story: "He said it was the Englishwoman…"
"Don't minute any of this…"
"They know everything…."
Sherlock Holmes jolted into life, came back into himself. Turned his head to the right, turned back from where he had come. A first step, energy building. Back towards the Ziggurat the building he has just left.. Another step…..
"everything…."
He gasped, exclaimed, looked up towards Lady Elizabeth Smallwood's office, And broke into a run…..
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's Notes:
Hotel Cecil: There really is an Hotel Cecil in Marrakesh, just 200 yards from the Soukh Medina, and looks very like the T6T set. There is also a Hotel Cecil in Tangiers, one of the oldest and most famous hotels in North Africa.
Pranama: an overall title for the six signs of honour and respect in Hinduism, varieties of bowing, touching and reaching forward in reverence. Namaskara is folded hands touching the forehead;
Kismet: Fate or Destiny; a word of Turkish origin
The Person from Porlock: Stevie Smith's poem, Thoughts About The Person From Porlock, is a reflection on ST Coleridge's reflections on why his great poem Khubla Khan was unfinished. Porlock is a coastal village on Exmoor, Somerset.
Langdale Pike is a minor character in ACD canon. (And appears in a modern role in the first story in this trilogy, Things We Lost In The Flames.) It is actually a range of high hills in The Lake District, Cumbria, near Ambleside.
The events in Sri Lanka, and Siward Holmes's injury and change of career are covered in the previous O'Donnell story, The Magnussen Legacy.
Quotes on water from Nicholas Sparks, Autumn Morning Star, Martin Luther King and Sun Tzu.