Firstly, thank you guys so much for the lovely comments! I really, really appreciate the support and encouragement. :D
This chapter was ridiculously fun to write. I did a lot of research about the surrounding area (googlemaps is nothing short of a godsend) and, even though I'd picked the Black Bull simply because it was a pub in the town that I live in (in Wales), I found one that was literally a 2 minute walk away from the Royal London Hospital. It has recently been renamed 'Nakoda', but, eh, whatever. You can look it up on googlemaps, if you're as dweeby as I am.
Mercifully, the Black Bull was only about a five minute walk from the front doors of the hospital. He had almost expected for Harry to call him out to the furthest corner of London, to be forced into some obscure, miserable pub in High Barnet, to be trapped on the Underground for at least an hour…
But Harry had come to him.
That meant that something really was up, he thought as he navigated his way around a smashed bottle of Stella and onto a zebra crossing. He could scarcely remember the last time that she had ever gone out of her way for anyone that she wasn't dating. Her world rarely extended outside of her work, her friends and her love life. Family was somewhat of an afterthought, but he supposed that he couldn't blame her.
John hovered by the gate and waited for a bus to pass before he crossed the other half of the road. The clouds were spitting flecks of rainwater down and his leg was acting up, but he could already see the lit interior of the Black Bull. He was only a little bit late. He would get to sit down soon.
He waved away the lingering tug of guilt from behind his chest (he had only spent fifteen minutes with Sherlock and twenty-five with Ms. Monroe, but that was scarcely fair) and let himself into the pub.
It wasn't much warmer inside- somebody had left the window open and evening was beginning to fall- but Harry was sat at a table in the far corner of the pub… without a drink.
Well, that was odd.
"John," she breathed, leaning back from where she had been hunched over her phone. She kept it in one hand, occasionally letting her eyes flick back to the screen. "Thanks for coming. I'm glad I caught you before you went home."
He propped up his cane against the table and caught it when it almost slipped. Settling down was a bit of a production when his leg was feeling as stiff as it was, but he managed a grimacing smile and she reluctantly returned it. That was one of the few features that they shared- their mother's lips.
"Don't worry about it," he said. "Were you going to order something?"
"Nah. I really just wanted to- you know- get your opinion."
John wondered if it would be rude to flag down somebody and ask for a glass of tap water. He decided against it, inhaled, exhaled. Fine. He would bite.
"Alright. What's this about Alice, then?"
The story tumbled from her in fragments. She had been with Alice for nearly two months and Alice had been studying in Philadelphia for several years before she moved back to London. Her mother had died when she was just a girl. Her father and stepmother lived in Hampshire and they openly resented her relationship with Harry. She tried to distance herself from them as well as she could, but her father still called regularly- something about money and when she would get it and what she would use it for – that part was glossed over. She was sweet and soft-spoken and steadfast and everything had been going relatively well, as far as Harry had known.
"Then she went home last week to visit for a little bit. They coaxed her back. It's her little brother's birthday or something- the little brute is turning ten, maybe eleven. She was meant to come back this morning, then to have dinner with us later, but…"
"She didn't."
"No," Harry sighed, "she didn't. I waited at Waterloo for nearly two hours. She hasn't been answering her texts since she left. Or emails. Or, well, anything. I tried calling, but it went straight to the answering machine. I've left messages and I even sent her a bloody letter, except…"
She paused and pushed her fingers through thick, dirty-blonde hair. "I know what you're thinking, John."
"Do you, now?" John very much doubted it- he had been thinking about zinnias and wondering in the back of his mind if he had enough money in his pocket for even a half-pint of ale.
"I don't think that she left me. And- and even if she did, she wouldn't have left me to live with her parents. They're horrible to her. Even her brother is awful. If she has, then I'll drop it- but I want to hear it from her own lips."
John gave up with feeling for coins and leaned forward, elbows directly on the table, forehead creased in thought. This did sound unusual- there was no mistaking that- but…
"I want you to come to Hampshire with me."
And there it was. Inhale, exhale.
"Harry, I'm skint. I can't afford to trounce off to Hampshire on a hunch. I have things to do."
He didn't really have things to do. The only item that had consistently been on his schedule for the last month was 'babble at comatose patients who cannot physically leave when I bore them'.
"I've already bought your ticket."
She caught his hands and held them down against the sticky surface of the table, her lips twisting into a serious, thin line. Her eyes had rings around them, but they were perfectly clear. Her speech hadn't slurred for a moment. Her fingers were clammy against his wrists. She hadn't even tucked her cropped hair back behind her ears like she always did when she was lying or when she wanted something. He thought long and hard about any other motivations that she could possibly have- and he came up short.
"Oh."
"The train is at half past five, so we'd better head up now. Come on."
Her coat, which had pooled around her waist when she had taken it off, was pulled up and secured. Lord- the black of her raincoat against her skin made her seem even paler.
She took his cane and offered him a hand out of the booth.
"John."
She didn't want to say it. She didn't want to ask. She didn't want to give him the opportunity to refuse.
"Please."
He took Harry's hand and let her help him to his feet. They both ignored the looks that they got from the bartender and headed out the door.
The train took an hour and fifteen minutes. The taxi from the station took twenty-five. They barely talked, for nothing really needed to be said. Harry's hands twisted the strap of the rucksack in her lap- the only betrayal of her fraying nerves.
John had once been told that he had a 'supreme gift for silence' and he supposed that it continued to hold true. He let Harry think as his mind floated back to the hospital on Whitechapel Road, to the new bouquet of flowers that sat on the sill, to their recipient. Sherlock would be where he'd left him when he returned. It was a small comfort, a vague point to keep his thoughts occupied as they careened through the thinning suburbs and into the dark country lanes. Even if it had been a clear night, even if they had been able to glance out the windows at the stars, the steady line of trees would have obscured most of them. It was a shame, really. London was terrible for even the most casual star gazer.
The trees around them became denser and denser as they continued on, until only the headlights of their cab and a few token streetlamps fought their way through the darkness. A wall, sturdy and unyielding, came into vision as they travelled alongside it. He watched the cold light flicker across the stone until they finally came to a stop before a set of gates.
"D'you want me to tap the horn?" The driver asked as he bent back to look at them. Harry was already halfway out the door, but she hissed a quick, "No, don't. Wait. Please," before stepping out and onto the gravel.
The house was beautifully located, tucked away into the furthest corner of the countryside where the hills stopped and the forest began. An empty field, bordered by a wall and a line of trees, led down to the road that they had arrived on.
Silver Beeches, a stretch away from Dockenfield Street.
The front gate was shut and Harry stood before it, hands resting on the rusting bars.
The manor itself, when one took the beautiful surroundings out of the equation entirely, looked as if it had been on the brink of collapse for years. Ivy climbed beyond the shambling trellises and pressed against the walls, vines digging deep into the mortar of the building. Moss flourished on the opposite side of the house, streaking across the walls unchecked. The weathervane that sat atop the chimney was bent and a flicker of light, as if from a distant, unseen window, warmed the far left side of the brick smokestack. The front window was lit and figures could be seen in the house.
John let himself out of the car and limped, rather slowly, to Harry's side. Her eyes were fixated on the form of a young woman in a long, blue dress. Even from their distance, they could see her shoulders shaking with laughter as she sat in the window.
"Is that-"
"No," Harry answered. "It isn't."
Despite a soft, nagging feeling that developed in the back of his mind, John caught the last train home from Hampshire. Harry paid- and offered to spot him the money if he could come back the following afternoon, after his appointment with Ella and his visit to the hospital. She stayed in a little hotel overnight after spending a long, long time at the gate. They had been forced to leave when they caught the silhouette of an enormous dog heading towards the entrance.
If Harry was going to go back there, with that beast out…
He sent her a text as soon as he arrived back at his bed-sit in London.
'Don't trespass. Be sensible.'
John lay on his bed for a good hour before he could get the recurring images of a distant woman laughing in a window and the slowly wilting zinnias on Sherlock's windowsill out of his mind.
Things I have learned whilst writing this chapter:
- Hampshire, from an aerial perspective, is just as desolate and depressing as Arthur Conan Doyle described it to be. Honestly. Wow.
- It costs £30 to get from London Waterloo to Hampshire. That is nearly four weeks worth of John's current food budget.
- Taxi fare would be extortionate from Hampshire station to the location that I picked for Silver Beeches. My god.
Nobody cares, but oh well.
The next chapter is eventful too, but in less of a 'consulting googlemaps' way and more of a… eh, you'll see.
