A Cold Case
This was originally meant to be a one shot. But readers asked for it to be continued. So after too much time, and too much real life interference in between, the story now goes on. This first chapter is amended slightly from the original to allow for development and story continuity. Apologies to everyone whose original reviews were lost in the changes.
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Chapter 1
'' A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief'
(Isaiah 53)
"No. Absolutely bloody not. No."
Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade slumped down into the Victorian armchair, dug his fists into his trench coat pockets and scowled at the man sitting opposite him in sitting room of 221B, Baker Street.
"Oh, come on, Lestrade. You know you don't mean it. Give me something."
"No."
"I need it. And you owe me."
"No. Not the state you're in. Rule number one, always. You know that."
They sat and glared at each other, neither intending to give way.
But under Lestrade's calm gaze - not arguing, not judging, just waiting - he found himself panicking.
No. No, no, no.
Get a grip. This isn't the start of it, just a part of it. The start of another beginning leading towards another end. Towards the real end. In fact.
Right. OK. Try again. It is important this, a step on the way back to normality- whatever normality is. But not everything about returning to noirmality. So be calm.
What is - was - the beginning of this journey to the bottom of the pit anyway?
Oh yes. Of course. That. That direct look. Not so much as a blink. Eyes and voice straight into the camera.
"Save him, Sherlock. Save John Watson. Go to Hell."
Oh, Mary! Mary, Mary, quite contrary…..what are you leading me into?
Get a grip, man! Ah, yes, that's better. Yes. A special case. The case of cases. The case that would take precedent over all others. The case with the plan, but not the detail. No experience quite like that, thank you, Mary. Except the going down to Hell bit. You knew I could do that for you.
Oh, but you are a clever woman Mary Watson! And with everyone's best interests at heart. Except your own. Because you knew you would not be here to be a part of it all, didn't you?. So you had to set things up. Wind me up, make me run.
So many ways to run down to Hell. And all of them hellish. Which is rather the point.
So.
Leaving John Watson's house without getting past his barriers and going to Bill Wiggin's cess pit. Returning home clutching a third hand crumpled supermarket carrier bag with a wide range of contents.
Yes. As far as a beginning can be established, that was the beginning.
o0o0o
She was standing at the bottom of the stairs. Waiting for him. Small and resolute and absolutely terrifying.
"You've been gone hours." Not an accusation. "So he let you in? You talked?"
To nod and agree would have been so easy. Except she would have known he was lying.
"No. Sorry to disappoint you He's rightly selective about who he opens his door to." There was a pause as her face dropped into sadness from hope. "He will never let me in, Mrs Hudson. He blames me."
"Well, he shouldn't." She was brisk and angry and righteous. Her belief in him was humbling. "Grief sends people loopy," she added. "Especially when mixed with a huge dollop of guilt."
She watched him open his mouth to reply, think better of it. So added for good measure:
"His guilt. Not yours."
He smiled then, a twisted thing that avoided the eyes of them both.
"Come inside and have something to eat," she urged.." You need to eat,"
"No. I….."
"Yes. Roast beef sandwiches and my home made mulligatawny soup. No argument, mister."
She caught his large hand in both her own. Brushed against and finally registered the disreputable carrier bag. Turned aware and disillusioned eyes to it.
"Don't tell me that's shopping."
"It's shopping."
"But not as we know it."
He did not deny it, nor answer with a joke. She knew what was in there. To deny her knowledge would be an insult and make her angry, when her sadness was already more than enough
"So you are doing what she asked, then? So soon? "
He had expected her to challenge him, to argue. But she had seen the recording with him. Sat with him, his hand clenched in hers, while he listened to Mary Watson offer him a case he could not refuse.
"No point in prevaricating," he said.
"You're not well. Tired. Upset. Just wait. Wait just a little bit. Rest first."
She was wheedling, trying to persuade. Not trying to talk him out of the situation she knew he was in, torn between a rock and a hard place. Just counselling things he did not recognise. Calmness and care.
"I can't. Must press on. For the best."
"You have a plan." She looked at him, looked hard. Statement, not question.
"Yes, of course. I …. need your help. Or, rather…. need you not to interfere. Not help. Just… let things happen around you. Let me run."
"You mean I won't like it. Seeing you doing - what?. Going down to Hell? For Mary?"
"And John. And Rosamund. Just following orders. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility. I don't have that option. This is all down to me. Once more into the breach, and all that."
"Oh!"
"Not to worry, You'll know when to step in. When I tell you the game's afoot….."
And then he stopped, exhausted, allowed himself to be led into 221C. For soup and succour. Knowing it would be for the last time for a long time.
o0o0o
Mary had given him his instructions. To find a target….
And the person who had brought him the perfect target had arrived on his doorstep months ago; even before the baby was born. At a time when he was spinning plates and sucking in too many manic cases to distract himself from John-and-Mary, from John-and-Mary-and-Infant-Watson, when everything happening around him, or about to happen, was both too much and not enough.
At first this visitor - client - seemed too ordinary and too vague. Bringing to him a case that was not a case. A case without form or facts. Mostly fears and foreboding and unformed threat.
Not that it seemed like that at the time. At the time it seemed ordinary and boring and all too vague. Not at all like the person who had delivered the perfect target to him one Tuesday afternoon between a canary trainer and a missing sapphire brooch.
Kind but quietly haunted. A round, bovine sort of face, faded brown eyes. Plain in looks, plain in deeds.
"Too many people are dying, the wrong people."
"It's a hospital," he had said dismissively. "That's where people die."
"Don't I know that?" A spark of irritation; she had said this to people before, and they had all just shrugged at best, ignored her at worst. "There's something wrong, Mr Holmes. I know it. And it all comes down to our benefactor….the man who paid for our wonderful new hospital to be built….so I'm a traitor biting the hand that feeds to even think what I can't help but think."
She looked away and fiddled with the strap of her big sensible handbag.
"He's a self made multi millionaire," she said. Embarrassed to be there, but impossible not to be. Driven by worry and instinct, restrained by feeling a fool, a traitor, a fantasist. He knew the look only too well. " Oozes charm and niceness. But to me….. he's too nice. Too charming."
"Go on."
"He's a little man with a big smile. He hugs people. In a way that….ughs me." she tilted her head in apology for the little joke. "I don't like the way he does that, or the way he looks at people when he thinks no-one can see him; cold and assessing, and always finding them wanting. But also as if he wants something from them. Like their souls. It's hard to explain."
His silence and neutral attention encouraged her to go on. Because he did not scoff like everyone else.
"The more I put my fears to one side and the more powerful he becomes…..the more uncomfortable I am. And I can't believe a man can make such power and influence without standing on a lot of toes getting there. And I feel that he is utterly ruthless underneath it all. And not in a nice way."
She smiled a little, apologising for her vehemence, shoulders sagging..
"I'm sorry. I'm wasting your time."
"No," he said. "You came a long way to tell me this. Opened yourself to scrutiny. I can't promise anything, but…..I'll look into it. Lift a few stones and see what lies beneath. Bit busy at the moment. But I'll get back to you."
She gasped with surprise, face shining, and he suddenly saw the attractive young girl she had been before life beat her down.
"You believe me?"
"I think I do."
And as he said the words, slow and quiet, he realised he did.
But it would many months before he would be able to keep his promise.
o0o0o
The aftermath of death had repercussions and responsibilities.
The mortuary at Bart's was eerily silent at 5am. The only sound the susurration of swing door hinges, the short squeak of shoe leather on linoleum. Overlit corridors and corners. Nowhere to hide.
Molly Hooper was there alone, and stood guard before the door. Her only weapons her clipboard and sense of propriety.
"What are you doing here?"
But the question lacked heat; she knew what he was doing there. Had almost expected him. Now Lestrade had finally left, post mortem witnessed, paperwork complete..
For a moment they simply stood and silently regarded each other.
He saw she had been roused early from sleep. Had barely tine to shower and dress before tumbling out the door and running back to work, running to greet the dead body of her god-daughter's mother. Her friend.
Yesterday's trousers, old comfy trainers, a sweater and shirt that did not compliment each other -snatched up, dressing hurriedly in the dark - , hair scraped unevenly back into a high pony tail. The collar on her white coat was still turned in, the sleeves pushed up past her elbows.
Had been called in especially, a demand for the best, and the best had done her job. He nodded at her, tension easing, oddly assured.
"I need to see her," he said.
"No, Sherlock, you can't. I can't."
"Yes, you can. I must see her."
The words were more forceful for being so unusually quiet. So quiet and controlled, for him.
Yet he was dishevelled, she could see, did not look as if he had slept. She knew him in all his moods and reactions, all his stresses and strengths. But this distraction and forcefulness contained a level of pain she had never seen in him before. Something personal and defying description. It made her catch her breath, and feel something akin to fear twist her heart for him.
The Belstaff was, unusually, buttoned up to his throat, his shoulders hunched beneath it, fists rammed down into the coat pockets. He needed a shave, and food, exuded inner conflict and melancholy, for once not bothering to hide his eyes from her, their depth of expression.
She had to battle with herself to not reach out to him, offer comfort of some sort. Hung onto the clipboard with white knuckles to have something else to do with her hands, to ground herself. And be the barrier between them.
"No. It's not right. You know that. Not the done thing….."
His head came up then, a flash of the old Sherlock.
"And since when have you ever seen me do 'the done thing'?"
"Sherlock….."
"What do I have to do to persuade you, Molly Hooper? Recite love poetry? Take you to bed? Or simply manhandle you out of my way?"
"You wouldn't do that…." she whispered. Unsure about which particular threat made her step back a pace.
"Try me."
Two words only. Full of force, and all the power Sherlock Holmes could command.
"No," she repeated.
He stepped forward into her space, and she stopped breathing. Sucked in air again when he took her by the elbows. And she was still unsure if he was about to throw her forcibly out of his way when he bent his head to hers, his breath whispering onto her cheek.
"Please, Molly. Please." His voice was so deep, so gentle, it brought tears to her eyes.
"You never say please."
"I'm saying it now. Please, Molly. Pretty please one hundred miles deep."
She did not reply, simply looked at him, somewhere between strong and stricken.
"Don't punish yourself. It wasn't your fault."
He looked at her as if she had just crawled out of a hole in the ground.
"Molly. I am not going to sob over the corpse. I just need to know, That it is really Mary, That she is really dead. Please…understand…..only you can understand…."
And then she did understand. Understood too well.
Remembered him lying on the very same mortuary slab before her. Dead, yet not dead. Covered in blood that was not his own. Unmoving. To all intents and purposes a body smashed by a fall from roof to pavement. A corpse that opened it's eyes to offer a crooked smile, let her help him resurrect, rise to his feet.
And then keep that secret. Help pull off a magic trick as he disappeared into death and purgatory for two whole years.
And who now suspected history might have repeated itself: that he had seen a death that was not a death, Had seen John Watson grieve over another corpse on the ground that was no more dead than the other one had been…than he himself had been.
She said nothing. Nothing about their pact and that past, about hope and grief and clutching at straws. Turned wordlessly on her heel, knowing he would follow her.
Into the sterile room they both knew so well so she could gently draw the cover from the face of the woman who lay there.
Tumbling blonde curls, a young-old face once full of life and intelligence and character, but stilled and empty now and almost unfamiliar. Stilled and grey, and waxy in death..
He stepped forward and looked, expressionless but deeply focussed. A hand flickered out, hesitated.
"Don't touch," Molly Hooper warned.
"How many times have I examined corpses in this room, Molly Hooper? Do not over protect this one just because she was your friend."
"And yours," she batted back.
He made an almost wild gesture of frustration with one flashing hand, head turning, eyes restless. Sighed.
"I need to know it is really her" he said finally. "Not a look-alike, not a substitute."
"Of course you do."
They exchanged a look in silent communication that transcended words and years. She nodded slightly and waited.
"She has a scar…..under her left breast."
"How do you …? No. Never mind."
"Show me."
She put the clipboard down and stepped forward. Cupped the sheet around Mary Watson in a strangely feminine and pitiable gesture of modesty, using both hands to move the material, display nothing of the naked body, merely the scar.
He slid down to his knees by the corpse in one graceful movement, and leant forward to check what he had seen - felt - in life just once, so many months ago. His coat swept the ground around him, and as he bent his head he looked like a man praying before an icy Madonna. There was something collected and almost reverent in the tableau before her, a vision of grief and humility that stopped the breath in Molly Hooper's throat.
"Sherlock. Please…."
She had no idea what she was trying to say. Dropped a hand instinctively to his hunched shoulder; just the lightest touch.
"No," he commanded. Pulled away from her contact , tore his eyes from the cold corpse. "No pity. Not for either of us. For John, if you must."
He surged to his feet, and was gone. Silent, and without looking back.
She stood and looked blankly at the swing doors as they clattered closed behind him. Looked until they stilled, and all was silent again in the mortuary. And continued with her work.
o0o0o
Weeks and a world later, after drugs and death, dramas and destruction of too many dreams, Sherlock Holmes started to claw his way up from the bottom of a deep pit and to focus again on a wider world.
Not that he had any choice in the matter, he realised.
The drugs had taken him close to death, and Culverton Smith had taken him even closer. It had seemed such a typically reckless and relentless Sherlock Holmes ploy, to take himself so close to the edge of destruction with drugs, to trap a villain but also release the hero, a melodrama pivoting on an aluminium cane and a deathbed confession.
But he was the only one who realised quite how much he suddenly meant it when he had said; "I don't want to die."
And had repeated and repeated the words with growing meaning. Confession and ploy but also revelation.
Facing down death was nothing new. But dancing with death before Culverton Smith and John Watson, and with such calculated deliberation, had shifted something deep within his core.
A revelation that the words he spoke were true. That after a lifetime of self loathing he had changed his mind. To his own astonishment, he realised the freak no longer wanted to die and spend his days with his eyes turned towards that endgame.
And it was this truth, rather than withdrawal from the drugs, that made him so slow and hesitant in recovery, so frail and shaky. Human. And so very, very careful in thought and word and deed. As if unsure who the real Sherlock Holmes was any more, and if that man he knew could ever return.
He watched the people who had always protested friendship prove themselves friends. Place themselves before him to guard and tolerate and humour his presence; to ease his addiction and grief and his loneliness, what they thought was still his penchant for self destruction.
They would think him mad if he told them. Told them how he felt, how their attention and devotion moved him so, in his newly naked and defenceless soul, to something close to tears.
Mrs Hudson's terse tenderness. Molly Hooper's speaking silences. Lestrade's brusque benevolence. John Watson's prickly presence, grumpy and begrudging, but finally there nevertheless. A constant rota of companionship that dulled and soothed, humbled and irritated in equal measure.
That morning had seen a tiny spark stir within him again; a little grey ember stir and think about returning to life and to brightness and heart. He hadn't been expecting it. But he felt the change moving unexpectedly within him as he awoke. He had always healed quickly, but this was something lse.
So he turned over in his bed, gasped a little, and lay still, almost shocked, waiting to see if the sensation was real, and where it might lead.
Lestrade arrived early for the breakfast shift as Mrs Hudson uncurled from her night on the leather sofa with a hum of protest ("bloody hip!") Chatted as she lathered two slices of toast with butter and grapefruit marmalade and delivered them with a large mug of builder's tea to the bedroom.
"Stop doing this."
He still lay, motionless but moved, in bed and watched her, as so often before, while she provided her own brand of tough love with toast.
"Doing what?" Deliberately provocative. This elderly lady who had held him at gunpoint and bundled him into a car boot….and had done so because she loved him fearlessly and without condition, he realised anew.
He wondered if those shrewd old eyes could see the change in him. If she would ever say if they did.
"Looking after me."
"When you stop looking after me," she snapped back, and retreated.
So, yes. She had seen. And approved. But now. Time to get back onto his feet, No more mollycoddling. Into battle.
He offered her disappearing back a smile, and felt encouraged. Invigorated.
To emerge, yawning, in pyjamas and dressing gown, carrying his plate and mug, to see a similar breakfast before Lestrade, who was sitting by the cold hearth and eating without even taking off his coat.
"Are you staying? Or just cadging breakfast?"
The voice suddenly sounded tart, acerbic, almost like his own again.
"And good morning to you, too," was the unperturbed reply. Then a sharp look, that lingered and scanned without apology.
"You look a lot better this morning. So you finally slept?"
He turned away with a shrug; too much perception eddying within the walls of 221B being directed his way.
And he heard a voice that sounded even more like his own change the subject and ask for something to do. Ask for cold cases to occupy his mind, reboot his brain, show progress of recovery and edge towards normality.
The sharp denial - absolutely bloody not - was the beginning of a return to their old selves, their old relationship.
Lestrade grinned at him, an acknowledgement. And he grinned back. Because he had thought until that moment he had forgotten how to.
It was a start. It was enough.
o0o0o
But the next evening there were manila folders in the old wrinkled leather briefcase Lestrade had kept since college, slapped down onto the dining table desk without fuss or explanation.
"Taking pity on the invalid," he said, offhand. "Cheaper than bringing grapes or a magazine. Half a dozen or so of very old cold cases. Light reading. No pressure."
For once, Sherlock Holmes was speechless. Still close to being an invalid, he felt the easy tears of the unwell rise behind his eyes. He had not expected Lestrade to relent.
He rose from the grey leather chair, reached out and tipped the files from the briefcase onto the tabletop; touched one as if disbelieving of it's reality, almost reverential.
"Thank you, I….."
"No. Shut up. Don't get maudlin on me. I'd never live it down. I smuggled these out of the archives, so don't tell anyone."
He shrugged off his coat and draped it over a chair, which he turned to face the television.
"And now I'm going to watch the football repeat while I'm here. Cup decider, Arsenal are favourite. So I'm busy for the next two hours. But you do as you please."
He turned away, switched on the set and left Sherlock Holmes to consume years of dusty paperwork.
o0o0o
If the pet dog that did not bark was smaller than a German Shepherd, the girlfriend was the murderer. Otherwise, her brother.
Suicide not murder. See Radzoff's February 1967 paper on blood splatter. (BMJ)
Check medical records of both suspects for allergic reactions and any prescribed treatments. Compare with victim's toxicology.
If Clarke owns/owned golf clubs he is the murderer. Check attic or family for long illegal mashie niblick.
This type of door lock is notoriously easy to open. Was a penknife among logged pocket contents of the original suspect? Or found at the scene?
No!XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Redacted
"What did you say? Did you ask me who won? Weren't you paying any attention at all?" Lestrade turned from the screen with a satisfied grin: Arsenal had won by three goals.
"Bit busy," was the slightly distracted reply. But Sherlock Holmes was smiling to himself, and sticking scrawled notes to the files, returning them carefully to the briefcase.
"What d you mean? Busy?" Lestrade finally paid the conversation proper attention, watched what was happening. "You mean - you've solved them all?"
The words 'all but one' was on the tip of his tongue. But he restrained himself. Slid that one file away and hide in an old copy of The Lancet on the table without comment. Lestrade did not notice the sleight of hand.
o0o0o
"I don't understand why you have come here to ask questions, Mr Holmes. It's years now. Since….since…."
She couldn't quite bring herself to say it, even after all these years. The reason he as standing on her doorstep. The file that had not been returned to the Yard in Lestrade's briefcase.
"Cold cases still need solving, Mrs Powers, There is no statute of limitations on murder. If his death was murder. Or just an accident."
He smiled reassuringly at her. That usually worked. As did not moving; immobile, poised, as if he could wait forever until she decided to let him in and just get on with things.
And perhaps he could, he reflected. Just get on with things again. He had already waited more than twenty years to solve the mystery of this death.…..a death relegated to a dusty file, just another unsolved case file Lestrade had pulled out at random, and did not know - neither of them knew at that moment - would turn out to be still so important to him.
She stood irresolute in the doorway for a moment. Small and waiflike, still pretty, her late sixties worn lightly. Thick greying wavy hair the true colour of a raven's wing held back in a clip, dark mouse bright eyes; he could imagine how attractive and mercurial she had once been, before life got her by the throat.
"Lake. Mrs Lake. My first husband died," she corrected, almost absently, as if doing so had become an irritating little habit.
"My condolences." Formal to the point of insincerity.
She did not reply, and for a moment they stood and examined each other, time suspended.
She wore lovat corded jeans, a sloppy grey cashmere sweater over black cotton shirt, old espadrilles. Anonymous, timeless, elegant. One small wiry hand clutched the door edge, barring his way into the large Edwardian terraced house up in a quiet and leafy part of London's Highgate. Four miles and a world away from Baker Street.
Six bedrooms, basement kitchen, modernisation within the last ten years, new plumbing so major room rearrangement….different husband, different name, same address…..
He lifted his chin and surveyed her calmly, although something deep inside him fluttered strangely with what might have been fear.
This was the first time he had stepped out of his diggings in weeks; had assumed the mantle of Sherlock Holmes again. The experience felt raw; new, uncomfortable, terrifying, and as if he had never done this before, as if he did not quite fit the job specification and was pretending. Pretending ….something.
But the case had called him, and he could not ignore it. Even if he had wanted to. So he had braced himself, had showered and shaved and dressed slowly, trembling with nerves and with scrupulous care.
Committed yet almost reluctant, regardless of a voice in his head that quietly screamed: "Too soon! Too soon!"
As if all this was something new that he did now. Something alien. Allowed the world to come to him. To bring him it's puzzles and imperfections, it's crimes and culprits, victims and victories. To push him into action, despite himself. And if he felt more like victim than victor….well, he had been ill. Exhausted, battered and grief stricken, punished for his arrogance and courage and driven almost to death by it.
But none of that was an excuse. He was Sherlock Holmes, he reminded himself sternly, and what he did, who he was, remained unique and extraordinary. So he thanked heaven for the fact that when starting again he was away from a part of London he knew too well, people in the streets who recognised him as a regular face, a neighbour.
So now, facing Carl Powers' mother after so many years, he pulled himself up to his full height, and watched her assess him, this unexpected visitor who was delving into a painful past she would prefer to forget.
Would the height and the haughty stare, the impassive expression, the aura of arrogant intelligence, work it's usual magic and provide him with facts he could spin into a solution, a solution he had been seeking for so very long?
He had been a child himself when the mysterious death of a child in a swimming pool caught his imagination; not just the death itself, but also the mystery of the missing trainers the boy had worn to travel up from Brighton to a regional school swimming competition in London.
For those very trainers had then magically appeared in Mrs Hudson's empty basement flat years later; as bait, to tease and mystify, a ploy by arch enemy James Moriarty to draw him into The Great Game. Moriarty's great game. Against him. Against Sherlock Holmes. Only he hadn't known - not then - that somehow Moriarty had acquired Carl Powers' shoes, had known he had been fascinated by the case, had used those trainers to suck Sherlock Holmes into a game of death and destruction.
Large white designer trainers, cherished and cared for, Trainers that had had to disappear from the boy's locker - he knew now, having forensically examined them, analysed the mud on the soles and the dust on the linings, the chemicals in the laces - because they bore evidence, in the eczema powder Carl Powers used, that that powder had mixed with one of the most lethal known natural poisons, was the instrument of death. Reveal that the tragic accident, the fit in the water and the drowning, were no accident but a planned, careful, deliberate assassination.
Wherever they had been in the interim, ever since the events of Moriarty's Great Game, the trainers had sat in an evidence bag in the back of his bedroom wardrobe in 221B, Baker Street, gathering dust. But Sherlock Holmes had never forgotten them. Merely put them to one side until their time came.
He had examined the twenty year old shoes, with their new laces and twin blue stripes, well worn and showing their owner was fastidious and had weak arches. He had identified the poison, clostridium botulinium; seriously lethal and almost unidentifiable.
But he had been able to do nothing with the knowledge. Moriarty had engineered a showdown, and he, Sherlock Homes, had chosen the pool. The very pool where Carl Powers had died. Sentiment, was it? Irony? On reflection, a poor choice with too many escape routes, too many shadowy places in which to hide. And Moriarty had slipped through his fingers.
Only to die by his own hand later, on the roof of Bart's. Even though the body had disappeared, afterwards. A mystery to add to the mystery.
Sherlock Holmes had always worried at the unanswered questions: who was the killer? Why had he killed? Why had the killer kept the trainers all those years? As weapon, memento, insurance policy - or trophy? And how did they get into the hands of Moriarty, who had somehow known they would be the irresistible bait to bring Sherlock Holmes to his side?
And why?
"Hello, Sexy. I've sent you a little puzzle. Just to say hi."
Words spoken by a female hostage, but still Moriarty's words.
Carl Powers' death was the incident that triggered the beginning of Sherlock Holmes; the solver of puzzles and avenger of crimes. The final end of the boy William into his own enigmatic creation.
And what was it about him that, to Moriarty, offered the allure of him being the only challenger equal to his puzzles?
A complex allure that Sherlock Holmes flinched away from identifying, a thought that always made him take a deep breath.
"I'm going to be so naughty….I'm bored….this is about you and me. We were made for each other, Sherlock. I like to watch you dance….my dear… He pushed away the echoes of those words, that memory.
Concentrate!
"Thank you," she said finally. "I think. But why are you here?"
"Carl's trainers turned up. The ones that had gone missing. All those years ago. So I am returning them to you."
He reached into his coat, pulled the hefty paper evidence bag from the poacher's pocket in the lining. Held them out to her.
But instead of automatically taking the white trainers she merely looked at his offering and frowned.
"Why would I want them? After all this time? Or even at all?"
He continued to hold them out.
"A memorial to your lost son? Tidiness? An ending. The fact they have to belong somewhere."
"Carl is dead. And no-one here needs them." She stepped back a half pace, and he thought for one wild moment she was going to shut the door in his face. When he had so much to say, and to ask.
"Don't you want to know where they came from? Where they were? How I acquired them?"
He had rehearsed a speech. It wasn't needed.
"No," she said forcibly. "Not interested."
"But you should be," he blurted out. A most uncharacteristic behaviour.
"Why? Carl has been dead twenty years. My husband could not live without his favourite and drove into a tree less than a year later. Grief. The hearts burned out of us both. Why would you possibly think I would be pleased to be reminded of…that phase of my life?"
Her face remained expressionless, self control belaying the bitterness of her words.
"When the trainers were discovered…they were forensically examined." He did not say by him. He knew that would not impress her, that personal connection. "They still bore traces of clostridium botulinium, a very deadly poison. Which leads one to believe Carl was killed, poisoned. Did not die accidentally."
He had expected her to be shocked, appalled, or horrified. As most bereaved mothers would be. But this was no typical mother. So she simply shrugged a little, shook her head.
"Deadly, but easy to be created, even in a domestic setting. Accidentally, that is. Badly preserved food, a ruptured can contaminating foodstuffs without showing any sign…..any number of innocent causes could create that particular poison.. If it really was poisoning as you claim, and not just a fit leading to heart seizure, and drowning; the declared cause of death. " She had thought through this, before and often; he could tell. But she drew a breath now and passed her judgement.
"His death was accidental. Why are you resurrecting this…..tragedy? And coming to me with it?"
He blinked, startled by her detachment, but remained impassive. She looked petite and sweet, a trendy granny. But her thought processes, her objective intelligence and her reactions were forensic….not unlike his own. He felt a coldness creeping up his spine.
"I thought….you would want to know. To have Carl's possessions back. To move closer to an answer." He could hear his lisp returning in his uncertainty, the childish stutter threatening.
"I already have an answer. I always have. My youngest son is dead. Nothing will change that. The devil is in the detail but it makes no difference. Not now."
"I'm sorry. I thought…"
Yes. What had I thought? How long this case had preyed on my mind? That any step forward was good and would be welcome? That my obsession would also be hers? That she truly mourned still, and knowledge would bring relief, of sorts?
"I thought more knowledge would help. That I could find your answer."
"You think I have been looking for an answer for twenty years? One cannot live like that, Mr Holmes. One faces tragedy and to stay sane cauterises the pain, burns it out of the soul. Moves past it and lives, or dies inside trying. Picking at the scab does not help, and solves nothing."
"You speak as if you know….." The words stuck in his throat. He forced them out. "Your other children…?"
"My boys were all very different. Carl was the baby and the apple of his father's eye - sports mad, good at everything he tried. Swam and played cricket at county level, even at his age. A practical joker and a delight.
"Ricky was the artistic one. Painting, writing poetry, acting. Jamie was his direct opposite. Almost a genius from very young. as all maths geniuses are. He was a professor at twenty four, teaching and lecturing others. A great career…"
"What happened to him? Did he die?"
"Die? No Mr Holmes, he did not die. He got bored. Intellectual burn out. It happens a lot to young over achievers. No, it was Ricky who died."
"I am so sorry. To lose two sons in childhood…can you tell me what happened?"
Interest for it's own sake. Empathy. Sympathy. I must be getting old and feeble…
She still had not moved, still clutched the door edge with one hand.
"No," she said. Made a small movement of frustration. " Ricky did not die in childhood. He was an adult, on the verge of fame. His body was found washed up on the banks of the Thames estuary. Rainham Marshes. He had been in the water for many days, the coroner said."
"He drowned. Then? My condo…."
"No. Shot. The top of his head was blown away. So it took time to identify him. They could not tell if it was murder or suicide. Open verdict."
This time the memory was haunting, the harsh word speaking of too much pain to be contained any longer.
A cold chill made it's way along his spine and reached into the back of his brain.
"I am so sorry. To lose a second child must have been awful."
"Yes," she nodded. "It was. He was such a bright star, so talented….."
""There was a police investigation?" he asked delicately.
"Came to nothing" she was dismissive. "They always thought it was suicide. He had always been…..high mettled. A bit unstable, you might say. Like every actor, I suppose. He started his career on children's TV, and had made that difficult transition to adult television, to a lead role in a soap opera…..".
"Good for him!" the hearty response sounded false, even to his own ears, but she did not seem to notice. "I'm sorry; I don't think I have ever heard of him; I don't know the name Ricky Powers. But then, I don't watch much television Usually working,"
His self-deprecating smile was wasted on her. She did not notice, all her concentration turned inwards.
"Hmn?" She pulled away from her own thoughts with an effort. "No. That was just the nickname we knew him by. And he adopted his stepfather's name. Richard Lake."
"No, sorry….."
"There was already an actor named Richard Lake, and the actor's union Equity, won't allow two people with the same name. So he adopted a stage name. Bit of a joke, really. He would become a young lake, he said; or on the way to being one. So he became known as Richard Brook."
The blow to the solar plexus hit harder because it was on the verge of being expected. And he rocked back on his heels. Sucked in air and tried to look unmoved but sympathetic.
Words forced their way through his teeth despite the shock.
"To lose two such talented boys must have been awful for you. And for their brother. How did Jamie take the news?"
She looked up at him and paused, and thought. Not what to say, he realised, but how to say it.
"Jamie has always been strong and self contained. A rock."
Nobody touches me and no-one ever will. I'm a specialist, you see….
"You might say he never really got on with Carl…attention usurped by a baby brother who was always doing practical jokes….."
I never liked him. Carl laughed at me…
"And what about his other brother?" He felt as if life had turned into a slow motion script; as if he was wading through thick mud. Treacle. Premonition.
"They weren't alike," she said, avoiding a direct answer. "Which is how it is with some siblings. Even though they were identical, of course."
He looked at her keenly, although she was avoiding his eye. He saw….a small wiry frame. Delicate bone structure. Blue black hair. Coal black shining eyes.
He felt cold. And a fool. And saw something familiar he should have seen from the first.
"Identical?" he echoed. And his voice was hollow.
"Yes of course. Twins."
"It's never twins."
She smiled then, a little superior, a little whimsical. Voice soft.
"But it has to be twins, sometimes. Because twins happen. Twins exist."
"No!" The word came out with intensity, and his hands tightened around Carl Powers' trainers. He blinked, coughed, gathered his wits.
"And how did - hmn - Jamie react to his brother's death?"
"I don't know. He has been…working abroad. I haven't seen him, been in contact with him, for some time."
He kept the shock and despair from his face with an effort. Even for him, it was an effort.
"So how….." the voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else; someone timid and frightened and small. "How do you know the body in the river was Ricky? Not Jamie?"
She smiled sadly at him, as if she pitied him for his stupidity.
"Because Ricky was a public figure. In a TV series. He had to be written out when he did not turn up for filming. So a death off screen. It caused a sensation at the time." She lifted her head now, superior and knowing and with that strange gleam in her eye he had seen before; at a pool, on a rooftop. In his nightmares…
He was grasping for something - anything - to say. Found something.
"I have an ear for accents, and have been trying to work out yours, Mrs Lake. So when did you leave County Kerry for England?"
"Very astute of you, Mr Holmes. I thought I had lost my accent, But perhaps the odd turn of phrase remains. Not that that means anything."
"And can you tell me another thing? Your surname? Before you became Mrs Powers?"
"It's a proud old Irish name, and- yes, you are right - from County Kerry. In the old Gaelic it means navigator, so perhaps I was intended to cross the sea to London to find the streets paved with gold."
"Were they?"
"Well, that is every Irish immigrant's ambition." A little smile
"Your name, Mrs Lake."
He didn't know why he was pressing He knew what the answer would be before she spoke. And a large part of him did not want to hear her answer. He was not ready for this. Not now. Not while he was still weak and shaking and convalescent. When the transport could not keep up with the brain. When the Mind Palace was threatening to overwhelm his transport, currently an unusually feeble frame.
When two obsessions met and touched and combined. Concentric circles. No such thing as coincidence. Two of a kind.
I have loved this, this little game of ours. But Daddy's had enough now….
The manic pitch echoed and echoed in his brain. And then stilled. Waiting.
"Not that it is important, or will mean anything to you…." she said; and was it his imagination that her pitch and intonation was suddenly so similar to those words that had haunted him for so long?
"But the name is - was - Moriarty."
TO BE CONTINUED…
Author's notes:
The reference to the streets of London being paved with gold come from the old Irish song, The Mountains of Mourne, which Don McLean released as a hit single in 1973. Based on the traditional tune Carrigdon, it was written by Percy French in 1896. The mountains of Mourne are in County Down, Northern Ireland.
The name Moriarty is an old Irish name from County Kerry, and translates from the Gaelic as navigator of the sea.