Chapter Fifteen- 2003 Cold Turkey Cases Part Seven
With an instinct that Lestrade would struggle to explain later, he instructed the driver to head south of the river to Rennie Street. Two days after his meeting with Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes there, the site was once again buzzing with activity. The police car tore into the site, siren and lights blazing, and he leapt out of the car almost as it finished rolling to a halt. He ran up the stairs of the portakabin site office, and burst in. The architect and site manager were deep in conversation over a set of plans on the table, and looked up, startled.
"I'm Detective Inspector Lestrade of the Metropolitan Police. I have reason to suspect a crime has been committed on this site, and I need to know if anyone here knows someone by the name of James McArthur."
The two men exchanged glances. One of them spoke up. "McArthur is the quantity surveyor for the site. He's been off work for the past week. We've called his office; they haven't seen him either. Neither his home number nor his mobile are being answered. Has something happened to him?"
"I'm sorry to have to tell you that yes, I do know where he is- he's dead and his body is at St Bartholomew Hospital's mortuary. His body was recovered from the river downstream at St Katharine's Dock."
They looked stunned. The site manager recovered first. "How on earth did he die?"
"That's what we are trying to figure out. There's been a suggestion that he was murdered. Would you have any idea why that might be the case?"
"James? Murdered? That's…preposterous. The guy was just a quantity surveyor, for Christ's sake. You know, they count bricks and estimate how much concrete we need to build the next floor. I mean there's no way it could be work related. Are you really sure he was murdered?"
Lestrade had no time to waste, so he decided to cut his losses at the site. "Have you got a home address? Or a phone number? I could really do with either right now." He needed to find Sherlock before it was too late, and instinct told him the fastest way was to follow the clues to the murder; He just might be able to catch up with a live Sherlock while he was still on the case.
It was the architect who thumbed through his contacts on his phone. "His home number is 0270-493 6869. Don't have an address."
"Thanks, I'll give you an update when I know more." And with that Lestrade strode out of the office, his phone already up to his ear. "Sally- get me a street address for the phone number 0270-493 6869. As quick as you can- it's a matter of life and death."
He was back in the car when she came back on the line. "It's SE17. That's in Southwark- Walworth, in fact, Guv- Number six, block E, Peabody Buildings, off 46 Rodney Road- about 10 to 12 minutes from where you are now."
He repeated the address to the driver and told him to get there as soon as humanly possible. The police car hit Rennie Street with lights and sirens on full and tore off, the mid-morning traffic scattering to the right and left as they ploughed their way across south London. The roundabout at Elephant and Castle slowed them a bit, but they made it up on the New Kent Road, before cutting off on Rodney Place and then left onto Rodney Road. Block E was the first of ten blocks of flats in the estate, built by the Peabody Trust in the 1960s. Number six was up on the third floor, the top of the low rise building. He banged on the door, but there was no answer. He gestured to the constable who had come up with him. "No ram, and no time to get a building supervisor up here. So let's do this the old fashioned way." Together they kicked at the door on the side with the lock. On the fourth attempt, the lock gave way, and Lestrade shouldered the door open.
He wasn't sure what he expected to find. After all, the body of the owner was already on a morgue slab at St Bart's. A quick scan around the living room revealed nothing out of the ordinary. James McArthur was a tidy man. It was when he started down the hall to the kitchen that he stopped, shocked by what he saw. There was an envelope pinned to the kitchen door, held there by a hunting knife stabbed right into the wood door. And on the envelope he could read the handwritten words "DI Lestrade". With a chill, Greg recognised the handwriting from the letter he'd read in the coffee bar not an hour before. Sherlock has been here.
He ripped open the envelope. Two sheets of paper, the first of which was a copy of an invoice but the second had a scrawled note in a now familiar handwriting:
"I hate leaving things unfinished. So here is the evidence you need to track down McArthur's killers. He organised the subcontractor for the driveway and private roads around the building site, to a McHafferty Tarmacadam Services company, based in Liverpool. He was working a scam on his employers- invoicing with vat, and then paying ex-vat and pocketing the difference. Apparently the boys from the blackstuff realised it and demanded a cut. When he refused, they tarred him and chucked him in the river. The post mortum results show he was still alive when he went in- cause of death was drowning. So, maybe they just wanted to scare him and it went wrong? Took three days for the body to drift downstream and end up in St Katharine's Dock. Check out invoice racks in site office- especially binder F- you'll find the evidence there if you compare with McHafferty's versions. Sorry, this is a bit rushed, but I thought you would like to know. Consider this a little thank you case. SH"
Oh, Sherlock –where are you?! Greg didn't want a solution to yet another case; he wanted to find Sherlock before he did something foolish. The DI had hoped this case would keep him going until he could catch up with him, and make sure he didn't deliver on the threat left between the lines of his letter to him. Now that the case was solved, he had absolutely no idea where Sherlock would go if he intended to do what the letter implied he was considering.
THINK- how would Sherlock commit suicide? That didn't take much effort- even he knew that it would be most likely through a drug overdose- and injected cocaine was most likely.
But where? Where would he go to do it? Presumably, he was living rough at the moment, because he said that Mycroft was staking out his flat. He could be anywhere- an underpass beneath any busy London road, an out of the way place where homeless people gathered to spend their nights. London was full of abandoned buildings, tunnels, old houses which had not yet been touched by regeneration, but were considered fair game for squatters.
He was getting a stress headache. He wished he had a cigarette. It would calm him and help him to focus. He simply didn't have the resources to explore every possible place where Sherlock might have decided to end it all. Unfortunately, he knew a man who did- or at least could use the CCTV networks all over London to try to spot him. He hated the thought of ratting out Sherlock to his brother, but if the choice was a dead Sherlock or an angry one, he knew which one he preferred.
On the other hand, he had no idea how to contact Mycroft Holmes; only that he worked for a little known department that had official ties to the Cabinet Office, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. Apart from ringing a switchboard at one of the other organisations, he had no idea how to reach him; it wasn't the sort of outfit to be listed in directory enquiries. He sighed, and took a deep breath.
He got on the phone to the office. "Donovan, send over two of the team to deal with a new case- James McArthur- that's the body that washed up in St Katharine's dock last Friday." He read out the address. "And I need the phone number of a man who is difficult to contact- Mycroft Holmes. Start at the Cabinet Office. Text me when you've got it."
He told the PC to stay put and brief the team when they showed up at the flat. He then went out to the car and told the Constable there to wait a moment. "I'm going across the road here to that newsagent because I desperately need a cigarette. I'll be back in a minute."
Rodney Road was a busy thoroughfare, so he walked down to the pedestrian crossing, and waited for the lights to change, then came back up the road to the newsagent. It was a typical south London corner shop, run by a smiling Asian middle-aged man. Greg asked for a pack of twenty Silk Cut cigarettes. The newsagent obliged and took his five pound note. As he rummaged in the till for change, he commented. "We don't get many customers asking for that brand; a bit posh for around here, if you know what I mean." Greg just looked up briefly and then went back to his thoughts about where Sherlock might have gone. As the man handed over the coins, he said cheerily. "Then, just like London buses, suddenly two in a single hour!"
Greg pocketed the coins and headed for the door. And then stopped. He turned around to ask the newsagent, "Could you please describe the other chap who bought them earlier?"
"Tall, dark hair, late teens or early twenties. Didn't say anything other than to ask for the brand; wanted the smallest pack- just five smokes."
Greg's eyes lit up. "Just how long ago?"
The newsagent thought about it. "Don't know, maybe a half hour?"
"OH, thank you!" and with that Greg dashed out to the pavement and looked across Rodney Road at the block of flats in which James McArthur had lived. It had a flat roof. Some hunch of Greg's breathed a "YES", and he tore off directly across the road and into the stair well. This time, he didn't stop at the top floor where Flat Number Six was, but carried on up to the roof.
When he came through the door, the area in front of him was empty. The view, however, was to the south, and rather mundane. He went around the corner of the doorway, and looked north, where the whole of the London skyline was visible- From Canary Wharf at the far right, all the way to Westminster's Houses of Parliament, with the City's skyscrapers and St Paul's Cathedral in between.
He tore his eyes off the view and looked back at the low wall around the block of flats' water tank. There sitting on the ground, with his legs stretched out in front of him, was Sherlock. His head was down on his chest, as if asleep, his arms lying lax beside him. Greg saw on the ground three cigarette ends, smoked right down to the filter, and then the two discarded syringes. Oh, shit.
His phone was in his hand and dialling 999 before he even bent his knee to put a hand to Sherlock's neck, feeling for a pulse. There was one- but it worried Greg almost as much as if there hadn't been one, because it was going at a rate that was ridiculously fast. He shook Sherlock's shoulders and called out his name. Sherlock tried to push his hands away. His eyes were open but there was nothing but a vacant look in them.
Greg laid him out flat, as he barked "ambulance" in reply to the question "which service do you require?" and he was put through to the Emergency Control Room. "I'm a police officer- there's a person down with suspected lethal cocaine overdose; send an ambulance to 46 Rodney Road, SE17, the roof of Peabody Buildings Block E. Hurry!"
The control room call handler said briskly "stay on the line, and we will help you take any emergency first aid needed before the ambulance team arrives."
"I'm switching you onto speaker phone, so I can help him."
"Is he breathing?"
"Yes- too quickly; it's more like panting."
"Are his eyes open? Is he responsive to your voice?"
"Yes to the first, not really to the second"
"Check his pupils please."
"Dilated – incredibly, can hardly see any iris at all."
"What makes you think it was a lethal dose?"
"Suicide note and there are TWO empty syringes on the ground here."
"OK, we need to assume the worst. What's his temperature?"
Greg was confused. What difference did that make? Still, he felt Sherlock's forehead with his hand. It was burning up. "He's HOT, very hot- and sweaty, now that you mention it."
"Have you got any way to cool him down in a hurry? He's in danger of stroke, cardiac arrest or respiratory failure."
"I'm on a roof, but have access to the flat one flight down. Should I leave him to get ice or water or something?"
"Can you end this call, and use your phone to try to get a neighbour's help to come to you? Keep track of his pulse and breathing- DON'T leave him!"
He did just that, phoning through to the PC he'd left in Number Six, who came dashing up the stairs with a bottle of cold water and a tea towel full of ice. Lestrade soaked Sherlock's hoodie and T shirt, then held the tea towel on Sherlock's chest, while keeping his fingers against an artery, which was standing out against the pale flesh of his neck. By this time, he'd reconnected to the control room call handler.
A shudder ran through Sherlock's body, and then his muscles began to contract in jerks. "He's seizing!"
The calm voice of the dispatcher told him to make sure he didn't hurt himself; put him in the recovery position to keep his airway clear, use something to cushion his head, but don't restrain him. "The medics will want to know how long the seizure is, so check your watch. Don't panic; it looks worse than it is, unless it goes on for too long."
Greg could hear the sound of a siren in the distance. Please be our ambulance and not someone else's. When it turned onto Rodney Road and came around the sharp bend. Sherlock's convulsion suddenly stopped and Greg sighed in relief, until he realised that Sherlock had almost stopped breathing. Oh shit!
His pulse was still going like an express train, as the ambulance crew made it up the stairs. They took over, slipping a mask with pressurised oxygen over Sherlock's mouth and nose. Greg stood back to let them measure vital signs. He told them what he had told the control room despatcher, and they slipped Sherlock onto a backboard to help lift him onto the collapsible trolley that had been brought up the stairs.
The ambulance left before Lestrade could get back into the police car, but they quickly followed it to St Thomas' A&E. On the way, his phone rang. Sally Donovan's number came up on caller ID, so he took it. "What?"
If she was taken aback by his abruptness, Sally didn't comment, because she could hear the police car's siren over the phone. "I got that number you wanted- like pulling teeth, but I'm texting it through to you now."
"Right. Thanks" and he cut off. The number came through about 20 seconds later. He hit dial and waited for it to ring. On the third ring, a female voice answered. "Hello, how may I help you?"
"I need to speak to Mycroft Holmes immediately. This is Detective Inspector Lestrade."
There was a very brief silence. "And what is the purpose of your call?"
Lestrade was in no mood for delay or politeness. "You can tell him to meet me at St Thomas's Emergency Department. His brother is dying from a cocaine overdose." He hung up. He'd done his duty to Mycroft; now he focused his thoughts on Sherlock.
