Chapter Forty: Stockbrokers' Courier Part Five: Treasure Hunt
Greg learned very quickly that Sherlock's street knowledge of Brighton was almost as good as London. And he also learned why Sherlock was likely to win this event as easily as he did last year when it was in Cambridge. The consulting detective did not worry about things like pedestrian-only zones, one way streets and other niceties. He was just as likely to tell Greg to take a short cut straight through a car park, shopping mall or down an alley way full of delivery vans as he was to go on an obvious road. When he shouted "turn left after that white parked car", Greg ended up bouncing the Norton Ranger down a set of stairs to the street below, just to shave off a couple of minutes that would have been needed to access the road legally.
When Greg got to the bottom of the stairs, he turned back to shout at Sherlock. "We could get arrested for that, you know!"
"Not a chance, Lestrade. The local police know that any traffic violations they tried to prosecute would just end up clogging the courts. Everyone agrees to turn a blind eye for a morning, unless someone actually hits something, or someone. Actually, couriers are very safe law-abiding drivers, or they'd lose their livelihoods. It's only amateurs like me who will bend the rules quite so ruthlessly. Just be careful to avoid pedestrians, will you? Now get going, we're losing time."
At each destination, Sherlock vaulted off the back of the motorbike, ran into the business and got his clipboard stamped, picking up at the same time the next destination from Rob, who could only release the info on receipt of the code word unique to that destination and team. By the time Sherlock was on the back of the Ranger again, he had already plotted out their journey. No sat nav would ever be fast enough to compete with Sherlock's brain speed. While other navigators were keying in post codes and street names into their phones, Sherlock had already figured out exactly which roads were likely to be clearest at this particular time of day, and what traffic lights were so long that going a different route involving a greater distance would actually turn out to be faster.
Greg's only comment when they picked up their third code word was "They should think about handicapping you- it's too easy for you to run circles around the other teams." Sherlock smirked, "Don't tell me you're complaining, Lestrade; you're loving every minute of this. Confess- this beats that trip to Tesco you were thinking about." That made Greg laugh out loud.
As they roared from one to another of their destinations, Greg spotted other teams going about their business. The whole point of the race marshalling was to ensure that every team had a different order, so few of the teams ever ended up at the same destination at the same time, so how this was supposed to be revealing which of the teams were the scam artists behind the stockbroker thefts, the DI had his doubts. Maybe Sherlock just wanted someone to share in the fun.
When they crossed the finish line and handed the clipboard with the nine stamps on it, Rob was there to clap them in. "Always knew you'd do it, laddie. And that Norton is just suited to the hare-brained routes I'm sure you took."
Sherlock pulled off the crash helmet and shook his hair out. "What odds did you get in the end?"
"The best I could get you is a 3-to-5, so your bet returns you only £200 more than you bet." The big man handed over the cash. "Sherlock, you're going to have to come in disguise next year if you want to earn more."
Sherlock told Greg that he needed to watch as the other teams to come in. "Their reactions to their finishing positions will tell me a lot, and possibly enough to decide whether Pair 4 or Pair 9 is the prime suspect. Just go get a cup of coffee- or better still, have lunch. That way we won't have to stop on the way back."
Greg chose to have a sandwich and a soft drink at the café across the road from the finishing line on Marine Parade. That way, he could keep his eye on Sherlock and on the teams as they came in. He just had time to order his tuna mayonnaise baguette and settle into his seat looking out over the waterfront before the second team came across the finishing line. Thereafter, the teams came in rapid sequence, the two suspect scratch teams tearing across the last 100 meters in an almost dead heat. Greg finished his sandwich, downed the last of his drink and was crossing the road back to where Sherlock was lounging against the Norton Ranger. No sooner did the dark-haired pair hand their clipboard over to the race officials than the woman on the back had ripped her helmet off and started shouting in Greek at her fiancé.
By the time he reached Sherlock, the Greek man was shouting back at her. Greg looked enquiringly at Sherlock.
"Yes, Lestrade, my school taught Classical Greek, and the modern language was a breeze after that. These two are now the prime suspects. She's berating him for not taking the right turn on the last stop, and he's shouting back at her that she doesn't know her left from her right. They're both angry about losing money on a very large bet, and she just said they'd have to, and I quote, 'find another one soon' end quote."
"Well, that's pretty suspicious, I grant you that. What happens next?"
Sherlock smirked. "It's been bothering you, hasn't it? What I said back in London about the best way to catch the criminals is to do the crime myself? Well you can relax, Detective Inspector." If his emphasis on the title was a bit firm, Greg chose not to be offended by it. Sherlock was right, of course, the idea had worried Greg.
"You and I now head back to London. I will contact the various brokers' compliance departments to see where she is temping at the moment. Once I get the details about where she is working, I will get them to put her under surveillance. As they just lost a bundle betting on themselves, they will probably try again sometime next week, as soon as she spots another bearer bond going across her desk. In fact, I might even be able to talk the Compliance Manager of whichever firm she is temping with to lay a trap. When she phones her fiancé, I will show up first, in the right courier company gear and take custody of the package, before her boyfriend can get there. Then when he shows up, the City police can arrest them both, and I will pass over the evidence- with the leads to all the other cases. Getting them to confess to the others should be easy; now that we know who is involved, the evidence trail will be easy to pick up, and the other brokers won't be given a choice about keeping it quiet once the police know. Case closed."
He looked at the older man with a satisfied smile, and handed over an envelope. "Here's your half of our winnings, Lestrade. If you want to get back home to your shopping, laundry and cleaning, we should start now to be back to London before the rush hour starts." He put his crash helmet back on and slipped onto the back of the bike.
oOo
Greg dropped Sherlock off at Baker Street. The DI was still smiling by the time he rolled the Norton back into the garage. The day had been a pleasant outing, indeed. Nobody died, no one ended up in hospital, no crime had been committed, a case had been solved and he and Sherlock had ...fun. Well, he had anyway. Sherlock would probably have simply seen it as "useful". Whatever floated his boat, Greg decided, but secretly hoped there would be more like it in the future.
