Chapter 6: When the Police Are Out of Their Depth
Sherlock watched the front door with a mixture of fascination and impatience. He had been waiting for a chance to enter the Lyceum Street brothel for a good ten minutes, hoping for a gap in between clients entering and exiting. He thought 8pm was an early enough time—aren't people still at home eating their corned beef—but he hadn't countered on the late workers, leaving their places of employment, probably about 7pm, stopping by the shops to pick up a bag of carrots for their wives, calling by a brothel for a quick shag before returning home to their loving family.
Sherlock gave up his covert operation and strode over to the door. He rang the doorbell, and was surprised to find that a young man answered instead of either Cynthia or Mark, the owners. Sherlock stepped inside the entranceway, paid his twenty-five pound door fee, then asked if he could have a quick word with Shelley as he followed the man into the parlour.
"A quick word?" the man repeated with a furrowed brow. A quick word was apparently not on the list of services to request, unless 'quick word' was a euphemism for something else.
Sherlock cleared his throat and glanced around. The parlour was crowded this evening. He was glad his first visit to the brothel had been on a relatively quiet Tuesday, otherwise he may never have returned. Tonight, Thursday night, was positively crawling with people, and a handful of them were only half-dressed.
"With Shelley, yes," he answered in a low voice, suddenly conscious of his audience.
"She's with a gentleman."
The young man gestured to the lounge chairs, presumably inviting Sherlock to sit on one, and made to disappear into the back room.
"If you could just let her know I'm here, once she's, ah, done," the detective said, causing the man to pause mid-stride, "that would be great."
Sherlock forced a tiny smile onto his face, and attempted to remain oblivious to the laughter and inane conversation that filled the room. It grated on him of course, as did the feel of multiple sets of eyes that now may be fixed upon him.
"And you are?" The sarcastic tone and raised eyebrows just screamed indifference.
"John."
"John?"
"Yes."
The young man gave Sherlock the once over, then disappeared into the private area. Sherlock removed himself from the parlour and stood in the stairwell, away from prying eyes.
"John, my love, nice to see you." It was Cynthia, the owner. "Shelley's just busy right now. Why don't you come back at eleven?" The woman spoke warmly, with just an underlying hint of urgency, as if suspecting that Sherlock could potentially make trouble for one of her 'girls.'
Sherlock heaved a sigh and nodded imperceptibly. It looked like his efforts to see Shelley were going to be thwarted. He was curious that it was Cynthia who had approached him and not Mark. Perhaps she decided he needed a woman's touch to appease the beast within, or perhaps Mark was away, hence the substitute muscle this evening in the form of the annoying young man.
"Ooh, excuse me, love," Cynthia bid him, lightly touching his arm. It appeared that the phone was ringing, and as he hadn't yet been escorted from the premises, Sherlock remained where he stood when the ex-prostitute hastened away.
Loud thuds on the stairs prompted him to look up. A middle-aged gentleman with greying temples tromped downstairs. He wore a smart business suit, and was glancing at his watch as he descended. Wife and mistress, Sherlock concluded. Cheating on both with a prostitute. High-paying job. Little time for maintaining a relationship. The mistress obviously drains him emotionally as well. But he's late for dinner, and one he knows won't end in bed, therefore the date is with his wife and possibly her parents too, hence the quick detour to a North London brothel.
Sherlock hoped that this man had been Shelley's client, just so she would now be available to see him. Rose, he thought, correcting himself. Her name is Rose.
Sherlock glanced around. Nobody was paying any attention to him. With that in mind, he rounded the banister and swiftly ascended to the next floor. He crossed the landing and stood hesitating in front of the curtain that screened off the Fantasy Suite from the rest of the corridor.
He was about to part the curtain when it was suddenly brushed aside.
"Oh!" exclaimed Rose when she spied Sherlock. "Crap, John... I mean, Sherlock. What are you doing here?"
Rose grasped Sherlock's arm and led him away from the suite with a quick glance toward the stairwell.
"Nobody was watching," Sherlock replied, "so I thought I'd—"
"That's not good for security," Rose muttered as she dragged Sherlock along by the hand.
They stopped in front of the door to another bedroom.
"I haven't got long," Rose whispered. "But I have to shower."
Rose pressed a series of numbers on a keypad above the door handle.
"Come in," she said, when Sherlock hesitated.
Sherlock entered the room after her, taking in the details of this much larger bedroom. There were a couple of lockers, plus three dressing tables. Overnight bags lay haphazardly on the bed and dresses on hangers adorned the walls. Sherlock recognised the bag Rose had carried around to his flat the day before.
"This is where we keep our stuff. Shower's this way."
"Bringing me in here can't be good for security either," Sherlock remarked dryly.
He glanced up at a whiteboard that had a list of female names along one side with days and times listed next to each one. He narrowed his eyes at a boxed off section in the bottom right-hand corner that didn't seem to belong to any worker in particular.
This Months Orgasm Tally!
Rose was rummaging through a sports bag before she entered the ensuite.
"Come in," she called back to Sherlock who was still scrutinising the tally marks on the whiteboard. "I haven't got much time, so you'll have to talk to me while I shower. I've only got a fifteen minute break."
Sherlock made a mental note to ask Rose about the tally later. He was curious as to whether they were keeping count of the number of times a client climaxed (surely that was every time?) or the sex workers themselves. More likely the latter. The tally seemed rather low. He also wondered if any of the markings belonged to Rose.
He paused before entering the bathroom and added an apostrophe between the word Month and the letter 's.'
Rose had turned on the shower and was testing the water temperature when Sherlock entered. She peeled off each of her flimsy garments and handed them to Sherlock.
"Can you just drop them onto the floor behind you? So how are you?" she asked, entering the shower stall and shutting the door behind her.
"Just wanted to make another time with you," Sherlock shouted over the water.
"What? Oh! Sherlock," she said, opening the door and sticking her head out. "Sorry, I need a costume for my next client. Can you be a love and fetch it for me? You know where they are. In our room."
Our room, thought Sherlock.
"The police constable uniform. And make sure you really push on that closet door to close it!"
Rose shut the shower door once more while Sherlock continued to stare in her direction for a few more seconds. Surely she was joking. He couldn't be seen wandering about a brothel fetching this and that.
He gave his head a tiny shake in resignation and left the ensuite. He couldn't talk to Rose while she was showering anyway. Crossing the dressing room floor he realised he would need the key code to get back in. Or could he figure it out?
He felt warmed by the unexpected mental challenge. It wouldn't hurt to take a quick look.
Sherlock opened the door to the corridor and bent down, narrowing his eyes at the keypad. The numbers one, two, three and four were all worn down more than the rest of the keys.
Oh for Christ's sake, he thought.
Quite confident that he now knew the sequence of numbers, Sherlock left the dressing room allowing the door to click shut behind him. He strode to the Fantasy Suite and ducked through the curtain. The door to the bedroom was closed and through it came the unmistakeable sound of two people copulating.
He dropped his head wearily and heaved out a sigh.
Hang on... are they...?
Yes, he thought. A very big finish. Well done.
He left the area through the curtain once more and strode the length of the corridor and back again, raking an impatient hand through his curls. Now that the deed was done, it shouldn't take long for the prostitute and her client in the Fantasy Suite to vacate it. As another couple ascended the staircase, and Sherlock rolled his eyes and tutted at his misfortune.
"Oh. Hiya," said the sex worker as she brushed past Sherlock. "Lost, are ya?"
"No, I work here, apparently," Sherlock replied.
Her companion, a nervous bespectacled type, avoided making eye contact with Sherlock.
"Oh! The new security! Welcome, darlin'!" she called back as the pair of them hastened for another room at the end of the hallway.
"Security," Sherlock muttered to himself derisively.
Sherlock backed himself against one wall of the hallway and folded his arms in front of him.
Okay. Security, then, he decided, and he exhaled deeply.
To his right, the curtain of his and Shelley's room parted, and Mister Loud Orgasm strode toward Sherlock. The new Lyceum Street brothel first floor security detail narrowed his eyes at the punter, silently urging the man to keep moving.
This the latter did, almost tripping over his own feet in his bid to leave the first floor as swiftly as possible.
Sherlock resumed a casual position, then made moves toward the curtained-off suite, having lost patience with the sex worker who hadn't yet emerged. He confidently strode into the room, barely glancing at the woman who was busily straightening the sheets.
"Make sure you swap the towel out," he advised her.
He crossed the room and stopped in front of the closet.
"You what?" she said, looking up in surprise.
"The towel," he replied, turning his head toward her. He made a point of looking at the mattress. "You haven't swapped towels." He returned his gaze to the closet. As he opened the doors, he added, "It's unhygienic."
Behind him, the prostitute clucked her tongue and muttered under her breath. Sherlock skimmed the collection of costume bags until he spied the one he had been requested to fetch.
Police constable.
His insides roiled in disgust.
He grabbed the bag, closed the closet door, found it didn't stick, opened it again then really rammed it home til it stuck fast.
"And you'd better disinfect that," he said, nodding to a dubious-looking phallic device that lay forgotten on the bedroom rug. "We've had complaints."
Sherlock folded the costume bag over one arm and left the room. The key code of 1-2-3-4 gained him entry to the dressing room where he found Rose, completely naked, twisting her hair up into a bun in front of a dressing table.
Sherlock tried to avoid looking at her. It was one thing to view her nude form when he was just about to have sex with her, it was another thing entirely in this context. He reflected on that time, not too long ago, when another sex worker paraded herself in front of him with the express intent of getting a rise out of him and throwing him off his game. The Dominatrix, Irene Adler, had failed in her attempt to seduce him, but now Sherlock had gained experience with this woman currently in his company. These days he held a record of their sexual encounters in his Mind Palace database that could trigger a response at any inappropriate moment.
"Oh, thank you," Rose said, relieving Sherlock of the bag. She chuckled lightly. "Oh don't be so shy!" she said, continuing to laugh. "You've had sex with me remember? Four times now, I recall."
"Well, this is different. This is your personal... grooming time, or whatever."
"I've done the grooming," Rose responded, her tone light and teasing.
Sherlock continued to avert his gaze and studied the names on the whiteboard. He wondered how many of the workers used a pseudonym. Probably all of them.
"Oh, okay, then," Rose said, breaking the silence. "You want to organise my visit to your place again. So what day and time? You now know I have uni lectures."
The trouble with Sherlock's own work was that he never knew when a client would just show up. He could always lock his door and ignore the doorbell during his...session. But now to choose a day. Any day, probably. May as well start with the first day of the week then. "Monday morning?" he suggested.
"No. Sociology."
Sherlock tutted. "Tuesday midday?"
"Can you pass me the hat, please?" Rose asked him, pointing to the costume bag that now lay on a chair behind her. Rose was still undressed, but she was holding her hair on top of her head. "So... Tuesday..." she repeated, deep in thought.
Sherlock unzipped the bag and pulled out the police constable hat. Rose put it on.
"See?" she said, her eyes glinting with mischief, "I do this..." she pulled the hat off, and her hair tumbled down around her shoulders. "But usually it's the client who pulls it off me."
Sherlock shook his head. "All this just for sex."
Rose shrugged, piling her hair back up again.
"Now," she said, rummaging in the bag. She pulled out a white shirt. "Tuesday, midday, you said?"
"Around midday," Sherlock answered. Are we still stuck on the same conversation? "Probably closer to eleven," he added.
"No, I have a lunch date on that day."
Sherlock sighed as he watched Rose pull on a very short black skirt. She tucked the white shirt into it. "Bullet proof vest?" she asked Sherlock, indicating the costume bag again.
"I don't think it really is," Sherlock deadpanned.
A tiny laugh escaped Rose before she donned the vest.
"Radio?" she prompted, holding out her hand.
Sherlock pulled out the accessories one by one and handed them to Rose. He continued to eye her "uniform" in distaste. Apart from the probably very impractical short skirt, she would look like a female member of the Metropolitan Police Constabulary to the untrained eye, he thought. And of course, Sherlock's eye was definitely trained.
Rose caught him scanning her from head to toe.
"See?" she said, "You like it now, don't you?"
"It's kind of disturbing," he answered.
Sherlock heard the door lock click. He immediately straightened up and folded his arms in front of him. He recognised the woman who entered as the prostitute he'd just encountered in the Fantasy Suite.
"Hey Lydia," Rose said, smiling at the woman via the reflection in the mirror.
"Should you be in here?" the woman, Lydia, asked, directing her question to Sherlock.
"He's just helping me with this," Rose replied. "Making sure it's authentic. He used to be a copper."
Sherlock gave Lydia a half-smile. Rose's excuse was quite pathetic, but it did help with his last minute decision to disguise himself as part of the brothel's new security "team." Lydia didn't seem to care. She disappeared into the bathroom without another word. Sherlock wondered how long he would be able to keep up his cover before he would be abruptly ejected from the premises. He suspected he would never be welcome again. It hardly registered as a problem with him now that he would have access to Rose's "services" from the comfort of his own flat. He fully intended never visiting this establishment again if he could help it.
"She won't be a minute," Rose told Sherlock in a voice barely above a whisper. "Can you wait a bit longer?"
Sherlock shrugged resignedly. His whole evening was devoid of purpose anyway.
Rose kept fiddling with her hair and her hat, and not a moment later, Lydia emerged from the bathroom.
"I need a fag," she said to no one in particular.
Once the door had clicked shut again, Rose told Sherlock that Lydia preferred to spend her break out the back smoking. Instead of having a shower between clients, she gave herself a quick wipe. Sherlock shuddered at the thought.
"So..." Rose continued, turning around to face Sherlock. "Tuesday's not a goer. How about Wednesday?"
Sherlock exhaled noisily.
"Look," he said. "I could have clients at any time. Some of them just walk in off the street. Theoretically I'm available every day, but I may have to cancel at the last minute. It could get quite expensive if I have to pay you fifty pounds just for the exercise."
"Well, that's only if I've gone to the trouble of showing up."
"Then you'll need to supply me with a phone number so I can contact you ahead of time. This is such a simple arrangement, I don't know why we have to over-complicate it."
Rose removed her WPC hat and ran her fingers through her hair. She appeared deep in thought.
"Okay, fine," she said eventually. "I'll give you my number."
Sherlock drew out his phone and punched in the phone number as Rose recited it to him.
"And you should give me yours," she added.
Sherlock pressed the call button on his phone. They could both detect something vibrating in Rose's bag.
"All done," Sherlock said, ending the call after two rings. "Just as long as you remember that your missed call at 8:26pm was me.
The door to the room suddenly opened and a woman with far too much make-up on, Sherlock thought, stuck her head in.
"Your 8:30 cancelled," she informed Rose.
"What? I've just got dressed."
"Sorry, Shell! You've got no one til nine."
She shut the door on them and they could hear her footsteps hastening away.
"Great," Rose said, her shoulders drooping. "Well, I've got half an hour. What do you want to do?" She looked up at Sherlock and raised her eyebrows.
Sherlock noted the suggestive look Rose was giving him. "Ah. No," he replied. "Didn't bring any cash. Sorry."
A sly grin slowly appeared on Rose's face and she narrowed the distance between them. "You've been helping me tonight. How about a freebie?"
"Um. No," Sherlock stated, scanning Rose from head to toe. Really disturbing in that outfit, he thought.
Suddenly Rose's expression hardened, and with swift, precise movements she spun Sherlock around and slammed him chest first into a locker. She held fast on the back of his collar, leaning her body into him and using her leg as pressure against the back of his. Sherlock was still making sense of what just happened when he heard the unmistakeable click and felt the cool metal of handcuffs around his wrists.
"Rose," he gasped.
"Not Rose," she whispered. "Constable Rose."
Sherlock's head buzzed. What?
"You've been a bad boy," she whispered. "Don't be alarmed. I'm just going to search you."
"Um. Rose."
He felt the pressure of Rose's hand stealing around his waist, then slide down to his groin.
"Ah, that's...so..." she murmured, rubbing her hand across the fabric of his trousers, "...naughty."
"Rose," Sherlock said, with less emotion. He straightened up, which he now realised was easy to do as Rose's figure was so slight and she was unable to keep him pinned to the locker.
"Don't resist," she crooned, still massaging him. "It'll all be over..."
Sherlock suddenly turned around, breaking out of Rose's grasp.
"I said 'No'," he said coolly, looking down at her, his height now the full menacing detective. However, his hands were still bound behind his back.
Rose's smile faltered; she was no longer so sure of herself. "It was just a joke, Sherlock."
"I said 'No', yet you still persisted. That's sexual assault. Don't they teach you these things?"
Rose's face fell. "I'm sorry! I didn't..."
But Sherlock turned his back on her once more and commanded, "Cuffs."
Silently Rose retrieved the key from a little leather pouch on her 'accessories' belt and unlocked the handcuffs that bound Sherlock's wrists. He turned back around to face her, and rubbed at his wrists where the handcuffs had left a red mark. He was not impressed.
"You think you know what people want don't you?" he began. "You think you can read men's desires in their erect penises. Have you seen your clientele? Have you no respect for yourself? Are you really just a repository for men's semen?"
Rose had stepped back from Sherlock, her eyes wide, and her face pale as he delivered his tirade of abuse.
He regarded her for a few seconds, and when she didn't say anything, he strode over to the door and exited swiftly. As he marched down the corridor, then descended the stairs, he thought, Yep, never coming back to this establishment.
.
UPDATE 13th Jan 2016: This chapter has been edited to be consistent with changes made to chapter 1.
