Jim's foster parents begin to ask questions when Jim finishes his last year of middle school without mentioning a girlfriend. They are very supportive, if a little nervous to bring up the subject of sexual orientation. They let Jim know that whatever he does, they will still love him, which, Jim thinks, is a little creepy, seeing as they only formally adopted him a year and a half ago. Anyone who can love so easily shouldn't be allowed to have children at all. Jim tells his foster parents that he just hasn't found anyone he likes yet, boy or girl. He is shy about the subject of sex, and lowers his eyes to the ground before glancing up a little apologetically. It's heartwarming, really. He's growing about a quarter-inch per month now, stretching into a gangly adolescent with dark fuzz on his upper lip. He's still quite short, but he is less easy to overlook, if you're walking on the street. He carries himself too well for a teenager, with a straight back and precise steps. More people are remembering him, which Jim dislikes. In the months after his fourteenth birthday, he begins to slouch.
Jim keeps an eye on the world for interesting goings-on, especially nearby. One of his informants alerts him that there's a high death rate in a small personal surgery in Hyde, and that a large number of bodies are cremated rather than being given a proper funeral ceremony. Upon looking into it, Jim discovers that several old women have left their doctor large sums of money, which didn't make much sense until you noticed that the same doctor had been caught back in 1975 for forging over twenty prescriptions for diamorphine. Jim wonders how many years it will be before anyone else notices old Harold Shipman and his neat little money factory. In the meantime, he contacts Harold, threatens him, and then asks nicely for a cut of the profits.
The investigation into the Penny Bell case of 1991 continues quietly, outside of the press, and Jim is only to catch scraps of information from his source in Scotland Yard. The police, it is said, are making little headway. Nobody can figure out who killed the businesswoman, and for what purpose. Nobody knows who she was going to see when she left the house, or why she mentioned an appointment that she hadn't marked in her weekly planner. Nobody can figure out why anyone would stab a nice lady like Bell fifty times. Jim knows, of course, but he isn't telling. His source in Scotland Yard tells Jim that there's this kid that keeps trying to get into the station, who tells people that she's trying to speak with a certain detective inspector who doesn't work there any more, in order to talk about the Bell case. Jim is interested in this little sound bite, but even under the threat of no payment, his informant won't tell him anything else about the crazy girl.
A month and a bit later Jim asks about the girl again, and his informant looks a little frightened. Even from across the park, in the telephone booth that he's calling the policeman from, Jim can see the officer's eyes widen.
"You didn't have anything to do with it, did you?"
This makes Jim frown. He hates it when he doesn't know about things. "Have anything to do with what, exactly?"
"Her disappearance. Sheryl Holmes. Sixteen. She's gone missing, about a week ago. Her family has got fliers up at the station down here. They've been calling practically every day for news."
Jim absorbs this information slowly, like a snake digesting a mouse. "Sorry, I don't know about any Sheryl," he says, after a moment of uneasy silence in which he can hear buses behind him on the roundabout, people passing by talking to each other in a myriad of accents. Jim is worried, but he is not about to show it. "I'll let you know if any of my people have got anything to do with it."
"It's a missing girl. She might be dead, for all we know. She's just a teenager, she can't take care of herself. Please, Jim, let me know if you find anything out. A girl's life is at stake."
Jim's lungs seem to have shrunken. His breaths are shallow, and his eyes are fierce and weasel-like as they glare across the park to the officer. "Pardon, me, officer," he says as sweetly and boyishly as he can, "But what you think is more often than not entirely invalid. I don't believe you have any fucking clue what you're talking about with this one. Your paycheck will be sent in a few days. Ta." He hangs up, and then holds the phone to his ear, pretending to talk to his grandmother, until the police officer leaves the park.
Jim can't find Sherlock Holmes anywhere, under any name. He has completely disappeared. The private school's registry, which previously had a file on him, ceases to list him as a student or even to mention him. Sherlock's brother is now away at college, and Mr. Holmes Sr. and his wife have moved out of London. Their address is now occupied by a young Russian family.
SH's account is still up, but he only posts brief, cryptic messages every few weeks. Eventually, the photo is removed from his profile.
Jim is aware that he knows very little about Sherlock Holmes. He figures that the boy planned this disappearance. Jim admits that if this is the case, the plan has its benefits. On the streets, Sherlock will not have to dress as Sheryl. He won't have to bore himself to death with school or teenage life. He'll have access to street hormones as well as the near-infinite network of eyewitness information on crimes that exists among the homeless youth of London. If he remains in hiding until after his eighteenth birthday, he could emerge with an entirely new identity. It's a smart plan, as long as he can stay alive that long. Jim admires Sherlock's daring, but he rather hopes that Sherlock is as smart as Jim thinks he is. It takes a lot of brains to survive the underworld of London.
It's several months before Jim hears of Sherlock again. An arson case in Kingston-on-Thames is traced to its perpetrator, a good friend of Jim's. An anonymous tip-off led the police to the arsonist. Jim learns from his informant that it was a young homeless man who gave the information to the police. A weird-looking guy, the secretary at the police station said, very thin, with dark hair and, uh, sort of a girly look, I guess, not like gay but… you know, just one of those. Jim knows exactly what she means. He asks the secretary, before she hangs up, whether the homeless kid had any stubble.
"On his face, you know-or sideburns? Any kind of facial hair?"
The secretary seemed confused, but then decided that Jim must be looking for identifying characteristics. "No facial hair," she said, "but he seemed pretty young, maybe sixteen or so. He was all banged up, bruises all over his…uh, his right eye. He's pale, and has high cheekbones. He's got a black backpack, and he has that sort of American baggy-clothes thing going on. He was wearing all-black clothing when I saw him."
Jim is very pleased. "Did he leave a name?" he asks her, and this is when he learns the name, the real name. Before then he thought of the detective as SH or Sheryl Holmes, in his head.
"Sherlock."
Jim smiles, and without saying goodbye, he hangs up.
Sherlock doesn't always leave the same name with police, possibly because he doesn't want a reputation, but more likely because he doesn't want to be connected with the missing girl from an upper-class family who disappeared without a trace over half a year ago. Jim learns to look for the name Sherry Vernet along with Sigerson and the amusing, baffling alias Captain Basil. Under these aliases, and through the use of letters, e-mails and anonymous phone calls, Sherlock leaves tip-offs with the police, sometimes drawing detailed diagrams to explain why his conclusion is correct. Jim manages to get his hands on one after blackmailing the detective inspector in residence at that particular police station. The report on the embezzlement case was done in a haphazard, non-uniform style, but it contained all the facts that were necessary. By the end of the report, Sherlock had pinpointed one retired Mr. Trevor, aka former bank president James Armitage, as the culprit. The crime was simple and boring, done for a personal motive and without excessive bloodshed (ignoring the mysterious deaths of two of Armitage's co-workers), but Jim revels in Sherlock's deduction and precise logic. A boy like this could find Jim, someday, Jim thinks, and could destroy everything that he's built. It wouldn't take long, if Sherlock started looking, started making the right connections and noticing the patterns.
After Jim reads the report through, he looks over the physical manuscript just as carefully. It is, after all, a sort of contact with Sherlock Holmes. He finds fingerprints on the paper, and notices trace amounts of ash in the manila envelope that indicate cigarette use. Each detail is stored in Jim's mind like a fly in amber.
At Jim's secondary school in London, boys still make fun of him. They call him 'faggot' more and more, and Jim does nothing but smile. Peter, his old bully from Newhaven, committed suicide in early spring of this year, and his death was reported in the news. There isn't any pleasure, Jim discovered then, in making someone die simply for the purpose of revenge. Now Jim jovially bears all of the attacks with a nervous smirk and a mumbled protest. It's fun to watch the teachers worry about him, watch them fret when their star pupil is called names and pushed around. The best part, of course, is when one of them gets him alone. It's really the only time Jim gets to practice his dramatic range: between the crying, the wild protestations, and the confessions of affection intended to enervate his persecution, he feels he deserves an American Oscar at least. Playing gay, Jim thinks.
Jim doesn't like the idea of romance in the modern sense. He has no fantasies of co-dependent relationships or chaste kisses or sweet nicknames, unless perhaps they're ironic. When he lies in bed at night, after he's finished e-mailing serial killers and making clandestine phone calls to mob bosses, he doesn't think of love. As he touches himself he thinks of art, thinks of puzzles and stories and riddles: murder, war and crime for the sake of relieving boredom; blood spilled in the name of entertainment; a man who was once a girl; a detective who sleeps in the dark abandoned buildings with crack-heads; a hatred and rivalry mingled irreversibly, sweetly, with desire.