Sherlock ducked under the least crowded of the arches leading to the Apple Market, and then, suddenly made uncomfortable by the press of the crowd, headed to the northeast end, towards the London Transport Museum. He elected to cut around the outside of the main market with its arcades and piazzas, choosing instead the more open streets that reached around its perimeter, past the London Film Museum and the back of the Royal Opera House, heading for Floral Street.
He had originally planned to head for the Underground, but despite the benzos he was feeling distinctly jittery. He dug into his pocket and slipped another tablet into his mouth, wondering how much was too much. His cough had gone though, cured as if by magic and for that at least he was grateful. His breathing felt free and easy for the first time in days. No matter, he had time. It was still early. Plenty of time for a slow stroll to a station before finishing the day with a train ride.
The world felt shiny new under the December sunshine, the snow melted to slush by the grit on the streets crunched comfortingly beneath his feet as he walked, elated by the beauty of the day. He tipped his head back and allowed the sun to bathe his face for just a moment, narrowingly missing bumping into a lamp post in the process. He was well aware that the morphine was at least partly responsible for this new-found optimism but he didn't care. He was seventeen years old, and his future was all his own. He didn't have to listen to Mycroft or anyone else. In a few short days he would be eighteen and after that Mycroft couldn't touch him. What he needed was a way to get away entirely, to disappear for a few weeks, a few months even, find a solicitor, find a way to access his inheritance and then - well then he would decide what he was going to with the rest of his life.
He swallowed hard at the flood of emptiness that filled him at that thought. How would he fill his days? Who would he talk to? What would he do?
He shoved his hands into his pockets, walking faster, concentrating of the burn of the cold air in his lungs. He would find himself somewhere to live - a hotel room to start with, a flat later. The credit cards in his pocket would be worth good money, Steve had been right. There was no way to trace them back to him and he could sell them on when he got to Edinburgh. And that was in addition to the three hundred odd pounds in cash that he had found in the wallets that he had acquired from the tourists of on the tube. And there were plenty more where they came from. No reason to think that Edinburgh tourists wouldn't be just as easy to relieve of their possessions as those in London.
As if to prove a point, he allowed himself to drift into the crowds at the far end of Neal Street, bustling with Christmas shoppers their hands full of carrier bags; too full, as it turned out, to keep an eye on their handbags. Within minutes, Sherlock had two bulging purses in his posession. It was almost too easy. He felt something akin to guilt, an unfamiliar sensation. Ignoring it, he pulled out the stack of notes from the first purse, swiftly tossed it into a nearby litter bin and then repeated the act with the second. He told himself that it wouldn't do to be caught with multiple purses in his posession, that the last thing that he needed was to be done for petty theft, but in reality, he knew that there was a deeper reason. His own Christmas was likely to be bleak and lonely; he didn't want to destroy somebody elses by spoiling their day of meaningless consumer spending. Other people seemed to enjoy that sort of thing. The first purse was rapidly followed by the second as he imagined Mycroft's voice in his head. 'Sentiment, Sherlock? What use is sentiment?'
'Not sentiment, logic,' he told the invisible Mycroft and the whispering voice of his darker companion; the one who told him to steal, the one who told him to lie, the one who told him that if you kept people away then they couldn't hurt you.
Because it wasn't sentiment to dispose of stolen goods. If it had been sentiment, he reasoned, then he would have thrown the whole thing in the bin, or dropped it on the street in the hope that it would find its way back to its original owner. If it had been true sentiment - or worse still remorse, then he would have done a spot of reverse pickpocketing and returned the purse to its original owner. That was a skill that had served him well over the years, particularly during the harder years at school - liberating items from one individual, planting them in the pocket of another. It was amazing how satisfying stirring the ants nest could be. He had told himself it was about survival - a way to punish his tormentors, to keep the upper hand, but there had been times when he had done it just to stand back and watch the reaction. And what kind of twisted individual did that make him?
'Psychopath,' murmured one voice.
'Murderer,' whispered another.
But he wasn't. Not that. Not yet. Maybe not ever. He wouldn't go that far. No matter what, he would never take a life, he told himself. Not even if...
He knew the way this dark spiral went, the depths to which his mind could plunge him. He reached into his pocket, pulled out two more tablets, considered and added a third, and then crammed them into his mouth without hesitation, walking faster and humming under his breath to distract himself from the voices until the tablets kicked in.
Clonazepam wasn't a benzo that he would choose to use again. The buzz was good, but they didn't do what he needed them to; they didn't stop the voices. He briefly considered heading back to the market behind Oxford Street, to see what he could score there, but he needed to focus on the plan - get to Kings Cross, get on the train, get to Edinburgh before Mycroft and his minions picked up the trail and came to find him.
The initial elation from the morphine was beginning to wear off as he headed up toward the London School of Economics. His legs were aching and the bench inside the bus shelter looked very good indeed. He allowed himself a brief respite, stretching his legs out in front of him, resting his aching head back against the perspex wall. His eyes drifted closed and he only realised that he'd fallen asleep when he was jerked out of an inadvertent doze by the squeal of brakes.
Several people pushed past him to board the bus. The shelter must have been half-full and he wondered how long he had slept for. A quick glance at the timetable on the wall of the shelter told him that the bus was going in the right direction, and so feeling dazed and distinctly unwell now, he climbed aboard and handed the bus conductor a handful of coins for his fare.
He slumped down in a vacant double seat towards the back of the bus, too weary to even take his rucksack off his back, relying on the discomfort it caused as it pressed against his spine to keep him awake. He coughed slightly, then more vigorously, a deep insistent rattle coming from deep in his chest that went on and on, leaving him gasping for breath. He wanted to pull the bottle of magic liquid out from his rucksack and take a swig - anything to make it stop, but he knew that it would only make him more sleepy and he had to stay awake, more now than ever. He had to get to the station, had to get on that train, and then - then he could sleep. He could sleep for the five hours or so that it would take him to get to Edinburgh, and then when he got there he could find a hotel, no, a bed and breakfast - less chance of being picked up on cameras, and he could crawl into a comfortable bed and sleep and sleep.
Sleep. His eyelids felt heavy at the very thought of it and he dug his nails into the palm of his hand to wake himself up, wriggling his toes in his heavy boots, leaning back against his bag, anything to stay awake. The vent above him blowing warm air onto him wasn't helping his struggle, and he rested his forehead against the cold glass of the window, forcing himself to focus on the world outside. They were passing Russell Square now, and he idly counted blue plaques as they went, wondering why such a small area had inspired so much brilliance, or rather so much acknowledged brilliance because at seventeen he was already wise enough to know the difference. The bus rattled on towards Tavistock Square and the imposing building of the British Medical Association. More passengers got on the bus, but Sherlock noticed with amusement that the seat next to him remained stubbornly empty, despite the people now standing holding onto straps at the front of the bus. His cough seems to have one advantage at least.
The bus swung right past a Victorian church and rattled on up the road towards the station. Each stop seemed to take an eternity, the squeal of the brakes, the hissing release of the hydraulics as the bus stopped, the slow shuffle of the new arrivals, the clink of coins in the plastic cup as the driver was paid the fares, the slow whine of the ticket machine. The noises seemed to resonate in his aching head, and he was tired, so tired, every part of his body aching and it would feel so good to sleep.
He jerked himself awake again and stood, making his way to the front of the bus, hanging onto the overhead straps as he went, availing himself, just to wake himself up, of a wallet sticking out of the coat pocket of a man in his thirties, too busy chatting up a young mother with a toddler in a buggy who had perched herself on the low luggage rack to notice a scruffy teenager brushing his way past him to disembark by the British Library stop. Of all of the thefts that he had made that day, this was the one that Sherlock felt least guilty about, slipping the wallet into his pocket even before he got off the bus. The surge of adrenaline from the act woke him up almost as much as the biting cold that hit him as soon as the doors opened, and he headed towards the main entrance of the library before veering round it to the side. If the theft was linked back to him then at least they'd be following him into the library and not to his real destination.
Mycroft would find him eventually, he knew that, but if he could keep moving then he had just a chance of staying ahead of the game. He walked through the courtyard to the left of the main building, taking a side gate onto Ossulston place and then following the line of the building round, taking a circular route down Brill Place and then Pancras Road to enter St Pancras station. It wasn't his eventual destination, but he took the time to appreciate its Victorian splendor none the less. This was what proper architecture should look like, he thought. A young man a few years older than him was playing one of the pianos in the main concourse with blistering speed. Chopin, of course. Despite the poor quality of the piano he played it brilliantly, a music student at the Royal College or the Royal Academy without a doubt. And yet he played only for his own enjoyment, shaking his head at the tourist clinking a handful of coins uncertainly. These pianos were for people to play and enjoy, not for busking. Sherlock lingered for longer than he should have, intrigued by the man and his flying fingers. Sherlock himself was proficient at the piano, but not like this, never like this. His fingers were made for the violin and while he had passed his Grade 8 piano only last year with ease, this level of playing was something else entirely.
The man looked up at the end of the movement and grinned at him, mistaking Sherlock's admiration for his playing for something else. Sherlock flushed and moved on, embarrassed not just by the unwanted attention, but for having made himself noticeable once again. He dived into the gents toilets, where in the relative privacy of a cubicle he allowed himself another swig of his magic liquid. Almost immediately he felt an intense flush of well-being and the suppression of his cough seemed almost like an added bonus after that. Sitting on the closed toilet seat, he flicked through the wallet that he had pinched from the man on the bus. It contained a healthy amount of cash as he had suspected - wide boys always preferred a sheaf of notes to plastic and this man was no exception. The cards and wallet he disposed of in a bin on the concourse, tempted to give them to one of the homeless people huddling on benches close to the platforms, enjoying the relative warmth before they were moved on. They could make use of the cards, he knew, but he couldn't risk being recognised. He had made that mistake too many times already today.
He allowed himself a brief stop at a coffee shop to pick up a triple expresso with as much sugar as he could dissolve in it to offset the sedative effects of the oramorph. Sipping the coffee gratefully, he headed directly across the station towards the exit on the opposite side of the station. Cutting through St Pancras to Kings Cross had been a deliberate ploy, in the hope that if he was picked up on the CCTV cameras then at least Mycroft would assume that he was traveling from St Pancras itself. That should spread the search for him a little if nothing else.
The cold air made his chest ache and he muffled another spasm of coughing in his scarf, the oramorph seems less effective this time. He felt feverish, a sensation that he remembered well from childhood illnesses; his skin felt too tight for his bones, his legs oddly light, as if he was walking in clouds, his neck prickled and there was a buzzing in his ears that's knew had nothing to do with the drugs that he had taken.
Focus, he had to focus. He walked across the road, narrowly missing being clipped by a taxi in his hurry to get across to Kings Cross. He headed purposefully towards the departure board and saw to his glee that there was a train to Edinburgh leaving in fifteen minutes. He made for the platform at the far end of the station, open return ticket in hand. He was almost at the barrier when he saw them - two men who could only be detectives in ill-fitting cheap high street suits, showing a picture to passing travelers. 'Have you seen this boy?' He could imagine their questioning and the school portrait taken only a few months and seemingly decades of life experience ago that the sheet of paper in their hands would contain.
For a moment he considered risking it. He was close, so close, the train was waiting on the platform. He could make it, could get on board, find a quiet corner, lock himself in the loo even, stay hidden until the train pulled away, and then there would be several hours of glorious sleep to be had while the train carried him all the way up north to Scotland, and freedom.
He hesitated for just a moment too long. Just as he was turning to walk away, one of the detectives glanced in his direction and caught his eye. He saw a flash of recognition, and then he was running as fast as he could, away from the escalating shouts, away from the crowds, towards the entrance to the underground station. He sprinted down the escalators, head spinning, chest aching with the assault on his already protesting lungs, and by some miracle made it to the bottom of the escalators before the detectives. Letting the momentum from the escalators propel him forward, he ran across the ticketing hall, vaulted the barriers and headed as fast as he could for the platforms, somehow managing to get through the train doors just before they closed and carried him away. Wrong train, wrong direction, but it was an escape none the less.