Devonshire Squires Chapter Twenty Three

He was part way through the seventh move of Suang Yang Bei Her Rou Ruan Chuan, as the White Crane spread its wings. The cramp across his Quadratus lumborum muscle which he was trying to ignore suddenly became a sharp stabbing pain that made him grunt and falter in the normally fluid shift of weight to his right leg. That set off an avalanche of associated pain, as the tendons attaching the muscle started to pull on the twelfth rib. He suspected that the rib was dislocated, cracked or broken. For the past six days, the pain had been stubborn, and was now becoming deeply annoying because it was getting worse, rather than better.

Sherlock dropped out of the Tai Chi position and sank to the ground, pulling his knees up to his chest and breathing slowly. Not now. He was waiting for Rob to show up, and didn't have time to try to work the cramp out.

A few moments later, the pain had eased enough for him to try to stand again. His mood darkened. The pain was drawing back into play his hypersensitivities just when he really could do without them. The tracksuit itched; he loathed polyester fibres and lycra that seemed to infest sportswear these days.

His attempt to use a mantra to calm himself didn't work. Finally, he sighed philosophically. The clothing wasn't ideal but beggars can't be choosers.

Not that he'd actually had to beg. After leaving Lestrade asleep in the middle of the night, he'd emptied the pockets of his discarded leather jacket, taking his wallet, burn phone and his lock pick with him. Wearing nothing but a sheet, he had beat a hasty retreat to the bolt hole, injected a hefty dose of morphine and slept for the next thirty six hours. When he woke up Sunday, he'd drunk a litre of water and then started to survey the damage.

Apart from the pain in his lower back and a rather spectacular black eye, the rest of the transport was starting to heal. He used Tai Chi techniques of gentle muscle stretches and meditation to restore reasonable levels of activity on Sunday, whilst pondering his next steps.

When Sunday night turned into the wee hours of Monday morning, he re-entered Lestrade's flat and, while the detective slept, Sherlock plundered his lap top, confident in the knowledge that he would not be interrupted because Lestrade was a notoriously heavy sleeper. It still annoyed Sherlock that his fit had woken the man up. If he hadn't fallen off the sofa, then Lestrade would have been none the wiser. The fit was a nuisance, and he knew the solution for them. Once in the bolthole, the morphine put him into a deep enough sleep that he didn't have any more problems. Yet another reason to keep using it.

On Monday, Sherlock used his burn phone to summon an old contact, someone who neither John Watson nor Mycroft knew, and whom Lestrade would have forgotten.

Two hours later, an Addison Lee delivery van came down the ramp and pulled into a vacant parking slot. Sherlock slipped into the passenger seat and eyed the man sitting at the wheel, which had specially installed hand controls. The driver was an amputee- his leg below the knee was a prosthetic one*.

"So, how's life been treating you, Rob?"

"Well, nothing to complain about. The phantom pain's a pain at times, but that's nothing new. How 'bout you, laddie?" The Scotsman was looking at the shiner with some consternation.

Sherlock ignored the question. "You've been promoted."

That drew a laugh. "Aye, that I have. I now dispatch courier vans for the whole of east London. I have a disabled guy who's the safest driver out of all of my lot, which is why I could liberate this special little Ford Transit to do your special delivery and keep it off the books."

"I'm grateful for the service. Especially if you've been able to get what I asked for." He'd not seen Rob in years, but he knew the Scotsman was reliable, and still felt he owed Sherlock something. Years ago, he'd saved the man's life when he'd had an accident in front of where Sherlock was busking, when he was living on the streets. He could see that Rob wanted to ask about the eye, but was trying to figure out how to do it. Tedious. He decided to forestall the pointless conversation.

"I don't have all day."

The big man laughed. "Always down to business with you, isn't it, Sherlock? Aye, well…now that you're famous and all, I cannae blame you." He reached into the back of the van and pulled out a series of packages, which he started to hand over to Sherlock.

"Right, first off, the stationery: one roll brown wrapping paper- extra long. Three rolls of duct tape, one packet of blue tack. Then there's the marker pens, thumb tacks, the ream of blank paper, the post-it notes, and twine. Three different colours, as your text said. That was a wee bugger, by the way. Brown and green are easy- garden centre material. But red's harder."

"And the laptop?"

The Scot nodded. "Aye." He reached under the seat, and pulled out a rectangular soft-sided pouch, less than a foot long. "A Microsoft Surface. Better than a laptop. Think of it as a tablet on steroids; the keyboard detaches. I took the trouble to charge it up for you." He handed it over.

"Thank you." Sherlock had pulled the computer out of the pouch and flipped it open. "What about the clothes?"

"Hold your horses." Rob reached behind the seat and pulled out a gym kit bag. "Hope you haven't changed much in size. This is what I could find of the list. The only trouble I had was with the shoes- couldn't find that variety of Nike, sorry. Got you one that looks the same, but who knows; I'm nay good at what's got street cred these days; can't be bothered to waste money on shoes when I really only need the one." He sounded philosophical.

Sherlock started to open his wallet.

"Och, no. Laddie, put tha' away. I won't take a penny. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. This is the least I can do."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "It's been years since your accident."

"Aye- that's years that I would'nae had if it weren't for you. So, wheesht now and take the stuff. An early Christmas present."

Sherlock shrugged. "Suit yourself. But, I do have one more favour to ask."

"Just ask. If I canna do it, I'll tell you."

"I need a lift from here on Friday night; a pick up at 6.45- in a van like this. Only I'll have to be in the back; can't be seen."

That got him a look. "Who're ye hiding from, Sherlock?"

"None of your business.

"Don't be so cankert; it's your own good health I be wishing."

"Don't ask, because I won't tell. It's best you don't know. And, if anyone asks if you've seen me, you haven't."

Rob sighed as Sherlock got out of the van, laden down with his stuff. "Take care, will ye promise me tha' and all?"

Sherlock just gave him one of his manufactured smiles. "See you on Friday. Don't be late." And then he was around the corner and into the stair well. He waited until the van left, and then slipped into his bolt hole.

He spent the next 72 hours working on the make-shift evidence board he set up in the bolt hole. He lined the cement block wall with brown paper, held in place by duct tape, and then started putting up the evidence. The Surface device was useful for research- he could pick and choose between wifi users in the building to piggy back, confident that even Mycroft wouldn't think of bugging the Lestrade's neighbours.

The first task was to do a through research job on the Devonshire Squires, the Acton Aces and the Cunningham Chancers. Who they were, what their business was, who were the movers and shakers behind the fighters. As he suspected, there was a lot going on – and not all of it was strictly legal.

He missed a printer for the first day, then got fed up and just stored stuff on a USB that he always carried with him on his key ring. As soon as Lestrade left for work on Tuesday, Sherlock re-entered the flat and used the man's home printer. No one ever password protected a printer. He used his own paper, but used Lestrade's electricity to recharge the tablet. He warmed up and had a wash, used the loo and felt human for a while. He'd had two years' practice in being able to occupy a space without leaving any evidence. It was a luxury that here in Lestrade's flat he didn't need to hide his fingerprints. If they were found, then they could be explained by his brief stay on Friday night.

While he was in the flat, he sneaked a look at the DI's own home laptop. The password was ridiculously easy- a mixture of his initials, those of his sister and his nephew, Sam. Sentiment. Sherlock's estimation of both law enforcement agencies and the criminal classes had fallen when he realised how easy it was to hack into the remnants of Moriraty's network, as well as the computers used by his Fallen Angels. Compared with the challenges of using the dark internet while he was away, this work was a positive dawdle.

Lestrade made his life even easier by keeping on his home laptop his notes on what was happening once the Font Street case file was officially closed. Sherlock left a mirror virus- one he'd developed while he was breaking Moriarty's network. It simply copied everything that the user was working on that day and stored it in a file that was automatically uploaded onto dropbox just before the laptop was shut down. It was surprising how many users never questioned the little command box that came up demanding that a PC be kept on "while updates are being downloaded".

At midnight, Sherlock got onto dropbox and pulled down all the files. Over the next three nights, he read about John's finding the fingerprint on the body, his pursuit of George Hayter, the discovery that Sherlock's opponent was called Stuart Bradshaw. Little bits and pieces, but nothing that actually added up, according to Lestrade.

You see, but you do not observe. The police and John were just sniffing around without really understanding what they were looking for. They had no idea what the motive for the murder was, simply listing it as a possible burglary gone wrong. Sherlock knew better. The more he dug in to the City businesses behind the fight teams, the more he found. But it still didn't add up yet, because he was finding it hard to concentrate. The cumulative effects of the morphine were slowing him down. The drug made him both anxious and annoyed. Just when he needed to be at his sharpest, the fog of the opiate was getting in the way. But, without the morphine, the pain was a debilitating nuisance- it was equally distracting, and annoyingly, the pain was getting worse rather than better.

There wasn't anything new on the DI's laptop about the case when he looked on Wednesday night, but he figured that changed because Lestrade was out half the night on Thursday. The bolt hole made it very easy to keep an eye on the detective's comings and goings. As soon as the weary DI had managed to drag himself into his car on Friday morning and drive off to New Scotland Yard, Sherlock was busy downloading.

By Friday midday, he was up to speed on what had happened at Fenchurch Street and the murder of William Kirwan. The City of London DCI Forrester was no slouch when it came to password protection, but Sherlock managed to crack it eventually- and from there into the Home Office's systems. He was mildly disappointed that it was almost as easy to hack into the HOLMES2 database now as it had been two years ago. Mycroft, you're slipping.

Between three and six o'clock, he had posted all the new information on his make-shift evidence board, trying to make the pieces fit together. Pacing, he tried to ignore the pain and focus, but it was proving hard. He fisted his hands in his hair and pulled, trying to get his nervous system to concentrate on something else. He put his coat on,too, growing more aware that the little room was too cold.

He was struggling to see the connection. Simon Waterman worked for RGL; so did the first dead man, the Devonshire fighter called Alexander Robbs. The man whose finger print was on the body, George Hayter, had just retired from Traderisk, a financial consultancy specialising in security. Both Robbs and Waterman had been working on a project for the same client- the Liberty insurance syndicate. Their work was a forensic fraud investigation into the sinking of the Greek oil tanker, Agrikoliades. It had gone down off the coast of Mozambique, on its way to Durban. He attached green twine to each of the sheets with their names on them, and pulled it tight to the ship, whose photo already had two other pieces of red twine attached to it. The first red string led to the ship owners, Ithaca Avin Marine. The second piece of red twine led to Elbourne Mitchell, a law firm based in Bedford House, who were handling the case on behalf of the owners. One of Forrester's case notes had mentioned another legal firm in the same office block, Barak Beevour, but it didn't specialise in marine law, as EM did. He'd put a post-it note with a big question mark over the Beevour firm, but decided to attach it by red twine back to Cunningham Lindsay, because Alec Cunningham had mentioned it was a target for one of the Cunningham Chancers' raids.

Neither police team, nor John, had been able to prove any link between Kirwan's murder and the Fight Club, but Sherlock knew better. He'd been able to track back through the courier despatch records of Elbourne Mitchell to find the pick-up of the legal document that Cunningham had mentioned as the reason why William Kirwan was on the otherwise empty floor. The package had not been delivered according to the case notes, but interestingly, there seemed to be no record at either the law firm or Cunningham Lindsey of anyone trying to track it down. Curiouser and curiouser.

What none of the investigators realised is that there was a lot of money at stake. The tanker was a very large crude oil ship, carrying over two billion barrels of crude oil. Even at today's falling prices that valued the cargo at nearly $100 million. The ship was nearly new and had cost almost as much to build- $93 million- as the cargo. Lose both and the insurance claim was startling. Had the ship been scuttled as part of an insurance scam? The fact that it was being investigated suggested so, but if so, why?

Alongside the sheet on which he'd written the name Cunningham Lindsay, he'd put up a series of post-it notes, with the fighters' names where he knew them. The Cunningham Clash. The Cunningham Chancer, etc He snorted. Sound like comic book superheroes. The work he'd done for the Geek Interpreter case made him aware of all sorts of silly name- the Hulk, Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, Captain America. Ridiculous. The names chosen by the fighters seemed equally juvenile. Even his own. He might be on the side of the righteous, but because he was more devil than angel, he had chosen it as appropriate. An unbidden echo of a conversation with a certain Irishman started up in his head.

Damn, damn, damn! He pulled his hair harder. His brain was getting distracted by pointless things. This is what he hated about morphine.

He was getting hot; his pacing and frustration were raising his body temperature. He'd slapped on three nicotine patches, partly to cover the needle marks, but also to help stimulate his brain to find a way through the opiate fog. But it wasn't working. Why would Kirwan be killed? Who benefitted? Why were the Cunninghams being so secretive? Wasn't it in their best interests to find out who was behind the murder?

When his phone rang, he knew it would be a text from the Devonshire Coach with the location of this evening's fight.

17.32 Meet at Wharfside Point South. Showtime 8pm, so be there twenty minutes early.

Sherlock was running out of time. Even though he wouldn't be fighting again for at least another week, Sherlock knew he had to attend. It was part of the deal; all the fighters on the team who could still walk had to be there at the venue. In any case, he was counting on it, because he needed more data. But he had to have a clear game plan, or at least an idea of what data he needed and how best to extract it from the people at the fight. Every time he tried to start a list, tendrils of fog just swirled. What a nuisance!

He moaned in frustration as another thought came out of nowhere. There was one solution to both the morphine mist and his need to find a solution quickly. An itch of anticipation crawled up his arm, and just the thought of it stimulated a dopamine rush. He glanced in the corner at the metal box. He'd not stored any cocaine there, because the shelf life was not as stable or long lived as heroin or morphine. He'd have to stop on the way.

By six thirty, as he dressed in the athletic gear that he would be expected to wear as one of the Devonshire fighters, he knew that the focus he needed was only minutes away. If he worked this well, he just might be able to crack the case wide open tonight. That would be good. He was beginning to realise that he wasn't going to be able to keep going for much longer without medical attention.

Sherlock sent a text to a number he had not used in years. Even before leaving Baker Street though, he'd checked that the person was still in business. Just in case had been his thought at the time. Now he knew the case meant now or never.

Moments later, out in the garage, hoodie up and gym bag by his feet, he was indulging in a few Tai Chi exercises in the dark. He thought maybe the weather was warming up, when he heard the metal door to the stairs open. He dodged between two parked cars, crouching down to avoid being seen. A woman who lived across the hall from Lestrade came out and went to her car. Watching her fumble her keys and then faff about getting her seatbelt on, he thought he might explode, counting the minutes before she left. Come on, come ON! When he was this keyed up, every second felt like a minute.

The lights were still on in the garage when the Addison Lee van come down the ramp. He didn't care anymore about being seen, just bolted to the back of the van, threw open the double doors and climbed in, slamming them behind him.

"DRIVE!" The baritone command was a growl.

"Aye and it's nice to see you again, too, Sherlock."

Sherlock just kept his head down, holding the gym bag. "No time for meaningless pleasantries. I have two stops to make. The first one is straight down the A10 to Hoxton station; once we get there, I'll tell you where to go. Just stop for a minute, then we go on to Poplar."

The Scotsman muttered. "Why not just order a bloody taxi, Sherlock?"

He snapped back, "Because eyes that I need to avoid are watching taxis. Now, that's enough breath wasted on talking. Just drive."

No conversation occurred for the next twenty three minutes as the van moved south.

Even though his head was down most of the time, Sherlock sneaked enough looks at the sat nav on the dashboard to keep aware of their progress. They passed the Suleymaniyeh mosque on the left and then carried on down the A10 as it became Kingsland Road.

"Do you want the station itself? If so, I need to turn right."

"No. Just keep going to the phone box on the left by the park and then pull in."

As Rob did what he was told, parking on the double yellow line, Sherlock spied a figure in the phone box. "Right, now take this and give it to the person in there, and bring me back what he gives you." Over the back of the seat came a hand waving two crisp £50 notes.

Rob put his hands on the wheel. "Nay, laddie. If the bloke I can see in there is selling what I think you're buying, then it's not something I'm willing to get involved with."

"It's important." He tried to keep the whine out of his tone of voice.

"Maybe to you, but to me it's the kiss of death. If I get caught buying drugs, that's my job. You once saved my life, you birk. I won't let you knacker it now."

There was a sigh of frustration from the darkness of the back of the van. "Then just stay here for a moment. I won't be long."

Sherlock popped open the back doors of the van and came out wearing his hoodie up and a baseball cap. The road wasn't particularly well lit, and the phone box was right beside the Geffrye Museum Gardens. He stifled the urge to look up at the nearest CCTV camera at the junction more than a hundred meters up the road. If he was lucky, they wouldn't recognise him. He didn't have to fake the limp, as a stabbing pain shot up his back.

In less than two minutes he was back in the car. While Rob pulled out into the early evening traffic, Sherlock was unwrapping the syringe. For the first time in days, he felt his mood lifting.

Author's Note: *If you want the back story to how Sherlock knows Rob, see Got My Eye on You, chapters 36-40, The Stock Brokers Courier