When they went back to Nigel's house James was restless. She could see the storm of thoughts, filling his muscles with the agitation of unanswered questions – the methodical processing of data and working theories leaving behind frustrating gaps he needed to fill. No sooner had she closed the kitchen door behind them did he let it all come bubbling to the surface.
"Whatever they wanted from Nigel they might not have gotten it," he pointed out abruptly, stopping his pacing of the kitchen linoleum. He followed the path his eyes had instinctively marked out for him, setting off into the house with an impetus which hadn't been there before.
Helen had long-since learned to simply follow when the Great Detective was at work – there was no distracting him when he got like this, no discussion. She never even batted an eye, following him into the lounge as he picked up the telephone receiver, and promptly popped off the speakers on the handset.
He'd meant that the walls might still have ears. Sure enough, she watched him pluck out a shiny new miniature microphone and receiver from inside the otherwise harmless device – a phone tap.
Watson held it out towards her with a knowing look – it seemed Mrs Griffin's instincts had been correct. It also meant they couldn't risk another word about it until the entire house had been swept.
Helen took the device from his fingers, "I'll go make us a cup of tea darling."
James nodded succinctly at the code, trying to ignore the lurch of nostalgia at the sound of their pet soubriquet and diligently carrying on the search. She didn't seem to notice anyway, heading off to the kitchen and filling the kettle. That was the thing about surveillance devices… they tended not to work so well when submerged. Magnus dropped it into a jug of water, setting the kettle onto the hob and turning it on. The noise would be distracting once it reached boiling point, the steam-filled whistle piercing and unpleasant to whoever was sat on the other end of however many microphones were hidden here. It would do as a good cover whilst they hunted. As would the laid-back American-style guitars of The Shadows' FBI, floating from the record player James had switched on in the living room.
Silently, methodically, they started to turn the place over, looking everywhere: behind the paintings and photographs, the mirror, under the furniture. James fashioned an ad hoc detector out of the radio in the kitchen. It picked up bugs on the light fittings and even tucked into the skirting board. Removing each one in turn they put them into the jug – counting on the fact that their enemies wouldn't risk revealing themselves for the sake of a few bugs, and come knocking on their door. Not when they had probably already inferred that their targets had gone.
Magnus and Watson kept up occasional, idle conversation that acted as code, stopping only briefly for an actual cup of tea. Eventually, certain that the kitchen was clear, Helen popped her head into the hallway to see if James had finished Anna's bedroom.
"James-" she stopped in her tracks.
Nigel's coat and shoes were still at the door.
He'd been gone a week now – evidently Jeanette hadn't had the strength to clear out his stuff, or even pack it away.
Coming to rest lightly against the bannister, Magnus watched James brushing Nigel's coat out of the way. He bent down to eye the collection of footwear lined neatly together like a hawk. It was strange… she could remember a time when that move had more finesse to it, when he would have squatted right down on his surprisingly athletic haunches to get as close as possible to his clues – in situ. A sign of his age, that the discomfort in doing so today was not worth the pride of being able to do the things he could fifty years ago.
James had obviously come to some kind of unvoiced deduction – otherwise the shoes wouldn't have become such a focus of enquiry. Silently he catalogued them: the pair of Wellington Boots nearest the door, the soft comfortable slippers, the Sunday bests, the work-a-day loafers of a school teacher – perfectly shined for the Monday return to school – the second pair… he reached to pick them up, lifting to study them in their entirety.
"Now, why would you need these old chap? Hmm?"
He didn't see Helen's silent, slightly lost-looking query, but he knew instinctively that it was there. That she had relinquished her hold on the bannister and straightened to attention in a bout of expectant intrigue, brushing down her skirt as she did so.
"All the other shoes here have an obvious purpose, they're kept neat and tidy – except these." He turned them on their side, inspecting the bottoms and frowning, picking at the sticky substance, "Gum, dirt, scuff marks from rubber and…" he frowned at the sides, noting a mark that looked a lot more industrial than one might expect for a coastal village. He dared a sniff, but there was only one overwhelming smell other than leather and feet – "alcohol. Look at the dirt," he picked a little off, presenting it to her.
"Grit and cement dust…" Helen looked to him, "a construction site?"
"Hmm," it was an inconclusive sound. He looked back at the inside of the shoe – they were old. Brought out of a cupboard at some point, brought back into use, "Wherever it was, it wasn't the garden, or a local pub… or a walk along the coast. Or a boat trip," he added as an afterthought. He put them back down, but Helen got the sense that it was merely a temporary arrangement, "I'll need to get them back to the lab," he continued, whilst searching the pockets of Griffin's coat. "Find out where he's been."
"You think he was working for them."
Watson locked eyes with her then, the crossed arms indicating her discomfort with the notion. The way she held herself back.
"Perhaps – conned, cajoled… blackmailed," he replied authoritatively, removing his hands now that he hadn't found anything, "it would've hardly been the first time."
She nodded resignedly, seeing his train of thought, "Otherwise what reason would they have to eliminate him?"
"Precisely. He must have found something important enough to…" the strength of his voice faltered a little and he blinked away that uncomfortable dampness in his eyes as privately as he could, "kill for." Having avoided tears, he looked around them with greater confidence, "So either he was working for them, or he'd been back to his old tricks and happened upon something he shouldn't have… which, given his family… his comfortable life style…"
"Seems unlikely," Helen finished. It sent a chill down her spine. Her friend's life reduced to a simple calculation. Whether or not he was useful, or a threat.
James started up the stairs, surprisingly fluidly considering his limp, and she followed only belatedly, back into the Griffins' bedroom. James was already in the half-empty wardrobe, rifling through the hangers. She knew what he was doing: assessing the shirts, trousers and jackets for anything that looked out of place. Hunting for the remaining bugs andthe sort of attire they were all-too used to seeing on Nigel in times of war. Boiler suits, casual work-men's garb that could be easily discarded, abandoned in a pinch for his invisible skin. Helen started helping, checking the draws methodically one by one, trying to ignore the fact that she was going through one of her best friends' underwear. There had to be something, and so they looked. Combing each cupboard and draw with forensic attentiveness, testing for false bottoms and hidden compartments in the furniture, before placing everything back exactly where it had been. As if the Griffins would be coming back for it sometime.
About an hour into their search, and the detector giving no further sign of any wires in the room, Watson halted with a sudden realisation, "No."
Helen stopped rooting through the penultimate draw on the bedside table and turned.
"It was a recent change…" James started moving towards the large wicker basket in the far corner, lifting the lid on the pile of dirty washing and turning his head with an arch twist to his brow. If Helen didn't know any better she'd say he was being squeamish, or a prude, but there was something intrinsically invasive about all this which was uncomfortable for them both.
"Time to air the dirty laundry?" She pulled a sad, ironic smile.
He twisted to meet her eye with the barest hint of amusement, "Literally," he agreed, before gazing back into the heap of clothes with determination. "Sorry old chap."
"Oh," Helen chided, coming over to join him, "as if he would've had any pride about this kind of thing."
They glanced at each other, sharing a melancholy smile that held all those pleasant memories of their ribald friend. Always so comfortable in his own skin, so unafraid of cracking undignified jokes to see a smile: it's why "Society" had hated him so. The Oxford gents with their clubs and soirees. Griffin had always down-played his own intelligence, hated to be the one elevated above others, but there was a reason he'd been allowed to remain within those hallowed halls – and to Helen's mind, to James', it was the right one. The man had been a genius in his own field. A great forgotten mind – intelligent, diligent, driven, creative – steamrollered and forgotten by the establishment out of a mix of academic greed, snobbery, and his own 'life's too short' attitude. Helen supposed she understood why he'd stepped back, retreated from the field once John's betrayal had simmered over, once he had control of his abilities and the chance to return. They'd all changed by then. Irrevocably so.
Their thoughts weighed heavy, the bitter-sweet joy disintegrating. James turned back to the task, rooting through item by item until, at the bottom – an old navy boiler suit emerged. He pulled it out with a sharp frown.
"Notice anything odd?" James hazarded proudly.
"Jeanette wouldn't have left something that dirty in the bottom of a laundry basket if she'd known about it. It would've gone straight into a soak."
"That too. Look at the grease marks."
"They've never been anywhere near an engine…" Helen surmised, "or even a tool shed – the wrong kind of dirt, wrong patterns."
"True, but look-"
James pointed out on one corner, the upper leg. A mark purposefully put on – too neat, too deliberate to be the result of actual work or a haphazard wiping of hands. It was the swipe of the flat of some knife, making a 'Σ' – the kind of sign only James, or maybe Helen, would notice.
"Looks like a Greek Sigma," though why he'd marked his clothes with that particular letter Helen wasn't sure. It was a common enough Mathematical symbol, it represented the summation of an equation, but apart from that it didn't mean anything to them specifically. She looked to James, confused as to what it might mean, "A message?"
"More of a sign post – I'd be intrigued to know what he made it with."
Now that he mentioned it, those marks looked distinctly reddish… as if the grease had been mixed with blood.
James began hunting for a bag of some description, picking up the boiler suit and taking it downstairs to the kitchen where there was an old brown paper bag from Jeanette's grocery shopping. Grabbing the suspicious pair of shoes as he went, he bagged the items up as evidence – the beer bottles could go in there too, when he found them.
Helen was looking at him with concern as he carefully folded the blue fabric, "It's his kit, James." His thieving kit. He had been back in the game.
Watson looked to her sombrely, thoughtfully. "Our well-dressed agent was, I think, trying to get something back – something they had come to Nigel specifically in order to obtain."
Clearly neither Nigel, nor his adversaries had wanted Jeanette to know what was going on – taking pains to keep it all hush, hush: keep her in the dark. So for them to come into the open like that, send an agent to take a prod at Nigel on his own front lawn meant they wanted something – badly. Something so important that they'd gone to the effort of coercing Nigel into their service in the first place.
"And he didn't hand it over," Helen concluded.
James nodded, "You don't kill someone as useful as Nigel – not unless all attempts to manipulate him have failed and he's threatening you. Using your own secrets against you… endangering your plans."
"Right, but if they're after Jeanette then they haven't found it." Helen reasoned aloud, "So he must have hidden it somewhere."
Watson narrowed his eyes again, casting them about as he nodded distractedly in agreement, "But where?"
0
They'd been here so long it was dark. James was sat on Nigel's armchair, parked immediately next to the radio – it had to be Nigel's chair – his fingers arched together as he entered that meditative state.
Helen sighed, looking out the kitchen window into the inky darkness, seeing more of herself – weary, in need of a good sleep, as usual – than the stars in the reflection. She'd already suggested they stay here overnight. She could take little Anna's room, James could… well, rest wherever he felt most comfortable. He hadn't objected to the suggestion – indeed, he hadn't said anything at all. He was too engrossed in his own thoughts, processing. Like a great chess master working out his next move. Busy playing out all the logical scenarios in his head from the facts presented, and deduced.
For the first hour or so he'd gotten up from time to time to verify something, but now he'd settled into the long-haul. Facts that could only be ascertained outside of the crime scene, theorems that would, perhaps, require a plan to reveal. He wouldn't move, wouldn't talk about it, and all their things were still in the car.
She'd had to remind him to start the filter on his machine and, in lieu of any nearby take-away restaurants, even attempted to cook dinner. Helen had never been a brilliant chef. Competent enough not to burn things, but in all honesty she just never had the time to learn. Baking was an entirely different matter, but the first time she'd had to cook herself a meal outside of some kind of camp situation, there'd been rationing.
When she'd moved to Old City she'd tried – she'd even mastered gravy for her meat and two veg – but she had never been so thankful than the day the warm-hearted Sasquatch who'd been brought bleeding to her door, had offered to make her a real dinner. His Sunday roasts were to die for, but more than that, she had come to rely upon him greatly. God, ten years flew by so fast, and in that time her Old Friend had made the Sanctuary just as much of a home as the London branch had ever been.
Turning off the tap currently rinsing out the pan, Helen turned to pick up what paltry excuse for a dinner she'd concocted and headed into the living room. Once his taste buds had been offended James wouldn't be able to stop talking about his thought processes. She planted one of the plates in front of him, on a small side table, and simply waited until surprise lit his face. The way the smell of food dragged him out of his internal world, back into this one – reminding him of his empty stomach. The way his discerning eye sceptically scanned for signs that the food presented to him was in fact edible. She sat across from him on the edge of the sofa, her back straight as ever, balancing her plate atop her knees as she started to redress her own dwindling energy levels.
"Thank you," Watson offered belatedly, taking the first tentative steps to taking a bite.
Blowing the heat from the food on her first forkful, she looked at him with that smile, "Don't thank me yet, I have no idea how it tastes."
He waited then, watching her chew and swallow the little bundle of food down with a studiously neutral expression. "And?" he cajoled after her extended silence, awaiting the taste report.
She looked up from her second bite, a mysterious smirk that told him to try it himself. With a light sigh he acquiesced, and though it wasn't… terrible, it was probably the blandest sauce he'd ever tasted. He unconsciously pulled a face and she laughed.
"Marks out of ten?" she asked.
He cleared his palette before speaking, "A generous five. Better than the last thing you attempted to cook for me." How anyone could mess up a simple cheese sauce, he'd never know, but somehow Dr Helen Magnus had managed it.
"Well the ingredients were somewhat limited."
As she ate Helen let her eyes rove over the few items he had collected around him – like extensions of his mind-map, there to help him see the way. An address on a slip of paper, rescued from the rubbish, Nigel's diary. The empty beer bottles, the full ones too, they all sat alongside Nigel's bagged-up kit, along with the jug of drowning microphones. They had searched the house and garden for several hours, looking for what he might've stolen, or some clue as to where it might be – searching for some kind of microfilm, or artefact, buried treasure: to no avail. Nigel had been diligent, careful to keep his family out of it. It seemed plain enough to both of them that he'd hidden it as far away from his wife and child as he could. No doubt hoping to avoid them getting dragged into all this… all for nothing, it seemed.
"So…" Helen broached, "theories?"
He swallowed his mouthful, considering his reply, "Well, it's hard to say without knowing who this organisation is, or the nature of what's been stolen, as to where Nigel's hidden this… mystery item."
"No more clues on the agents then?"
"No," he breathed his frustration in deeply, "last year's calendar's already made it to the rubbish dump it would seem, and the diary's almost empty – purely academic: teacher-parent meetings, exams and the like. This address is in Nigel's hand but it's local. We should check it out tomorrow on the way home to be sure-"
"But you're not convinced it's of any importance?"
"It would've been rather sloppy of Nigel if it was."
Helen made a 'Hmm' of understanding as she finished another mouthful.
"No," he continued measuredly, "the only hint in the diary is a date about a month ago… a conference. In London."
"And he never came round to say hello?"
"God no, hadn't seen a peep of him since he'd moved here."
"So… a cover."
"Well the conference occurred, I found the leaflet – whether Nigel attended it or not is another matter."
"Alright, so if he was in London a month or so ago… is that where he found it? Hid it?"
"I suspect so. It could've been Oxford… it's an easy distance to cover, especially en route from London, and there's plenty of hiding slots in those old halls. I know Nigel's used them before – but the further one travels with these things-"
"The more dangerous."
Watson nodded succinctly, "The only thing I'm sure of is that it will be a place he knew we would look. That symbol on his boiler suit was left for us."
Not Jeanette. Not the police. Not the people who killed him. Somewhere only The Five would think to go.
"Like Oxford or…" he paused, suddenly very wary and subdued, and Helen knew precisely what he was going to say before he even uttered the word, "Whitechapel."
Nigel had never spoken of it. Ever. Not the detail – only the facts. The fact that one of his best friends had been the bloody killer that had terrorised London; that it was the price they had paid for their naivety, their innocent pursuit of knowledge. Jeanette would know the identity and temperament of the most notorious serial killer in history, that he had posed as a Nazi – but not how it had happened. She would know how deeply it had scarred Nigel, moulded him, but would not know it as who he was now. She hadn't been there. How could she? Why would she even think about it?
There was something off about this. If Nigel was leaving a trail only she and Watson could follow, protecting some secret only they could find… Helen's instincts were ringing.
"Was he protecting them, do you think?"
James focused on her suddenly, "Hmm?"
"Jeanette and Anna. Do you think he was protecting them… or just didn't want this to get into the wrong hands?"
James looked into her concerned eyes, reading quickly what conclusion she'd reached – he'd reached it long ago. That whatever secret Nigel had given his life to protect was most likely abnormal in nature: "Almost certainly both."
Author's Note: OMG life has been… up and down. Some really good stuff, and some really bad stuff have conspired to keep me so busy and/or exhausted I couldn't write :( :) but I am still alive I swear and I have no intention of leaving this unfinished. It just might take me a while.
The good news is the next chapter we get Nikola and John! :D YAY!
AConstanceC - :) thank you! Sorry I didn't update very soon :( glad you liked the house, it was fun trying to imagine it
JanSuch – good tip, problem is how do I describe it without giving too much away? You know when you know what's going on but you're not sure whether you're giving too much out at once and people can tell way too early? Yeah… and as promised, Tesla in next chapter ;)
Hope y'all continue to enjoy!