Johnny Blue-Eyes
Chapter 12: Fire and Ice
Donovan wasn't religious, but she tossed up a quick prayer to any gods who might be listening before starting the questioning, because she had a feeling she was going to need the help. Pulling her small voice recorder from her pocket, she set it on the table in front of Mycroft Holmes. "I need to take a statement from you to help in our investigation of Rainer Lindt for child abuse. Do you mind if I record this conversation?"
"Of course you may." His voice was steady, smooth and cold as ice.
"Right." She repositioned the recorder on the table and starting the recording. His calm was obviously intended to give the impression that he was in control, but she suddenly realized that she knew better. His anxious glance after Sherlock had given him away. He was like a duck: completely composed on the surface, but paddling like crazy underneath. "State your name for the record."
"Mycroft Holmes."
"Can you tell me what happened tonight?"
"I broke into the flat and assaulted Mr Lindt," he said immediately. "Sherlock was following me. There is no need to involve him in this."
"We'll decide that later. You don't need to worry about Sherlock."
He leveled his gaze at her. "I always worry about Sherlock."
"Right. Well, the best way you can help him is to tell me what happened. If you'll just answer a few questions, please."
There was a brief hesitation before he responded. Then he reached out and tapped the pause button on her voice recorder. "Sergeant Donovan, I am willing to give you a statement," he said with his hand still resting on her recorder. "I know it is important for your case. However, there is no need for you to question Sherlock. My statement should be enough."
Donovan chewed her lip. "I—I can't make any promises, Mr Holmes."
For a moment, he simply sat and gazed at her. Sizing her up. She felt completely exposed under his appraisal. It was worse than being deduced by Sherlock. Much worse. He's like a duck, she reminded herself. He is trying to rattle you. With an effort, she gazed back without quailing.
Finally he sighed and said, "Very well." He pressed the record button on the voice recorder and said "I am giving this statement with the understanding that it will be sufficient to secure a prosecution and that my brother will not be approached to give evidence in open court, nor his involvement in the case become known in the press."
Donovan had to admire his dedication, although she hardly felt Sherlock deserved it. At least one of them would give her a statement. "Can you tell me how you met Rainer Lindt?"
He pressed his lips together and stared at the wall for a moment. When finally he started speaking, it was in a perfectly steady voice, as if he were discussing the weather.
"I was eight years old when my mother took me to violin lessons with Rainer Lindt. She chose him as an instructor because he had been a member of the London Symphony Orchestra, and also because he lived two blocks from the primary school I was attending at the time."
"What school was that?"
"Rutherford Primary School in Southwark."
Donovan pulled out her notepad and wrote that name down, with a note to talk to the headmaster about some of the other boys featured in the videos. "Ok, go on."
"The first lesson was perfectly ordinary. He taught me the parts of the violin and how to hold the bow. The second lesson started out innocently enough, but partway through he asked me to remove my blazer. Then he had me stand in front of him and placed his hands on my hands. Soon his hands moved lower, down my arms to my stomach. It made me uncomfortable, but I did not tell him to stop."
Mycroft broke off. He was staring straight ahead and sitting quite still, but Donovan could see the muscle in his jaw twitching slightly.
"Mr Holmes?" she prompted.
His eyes dropped and he blinked several times. She followed his gaze to his hands, which were folded on the table, and saw that his knuckles had turned white and there were indentations in the skin from the pressure of his fingers. A small crack in the armor.
"Mr Holmes, can you tell me what happened next?" she prompted again, a little more gently this time.
"He told me I was special. That I was. . . destined for greatness. He said that I would be a very important man someday." Mycroft's lip twitched. "It was what I wanted to hear. Somehow he knew that. Then he touched me inappropriately."
"Can you please be more specific? What do you mean by that?"
"He—" There was a long pause where Mycroft stared at his fingers laced together on the table. He seemed to be trying to force them to relax, but it wasn't working. "He placed his hands on the front of my trousers. He touched me on the genitals."
"Ok. Did he do anything else?"
"The following lesson—". Mycroft took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Just as Donovan was going to ask him again if he wanted something to drink, he continued, in a perfectly controlled voice, "He placed his hands inside my trousers, all the while telling me in my ear how special and important I was. I remember being very confused. I began to cry."
"I'm sorry. I know this is difficult."
"There is no cause for concern, Sergeant Donovan. I am not in need of your sympathy." His voice was completely composed, but his hands were telling a different story. They were clenched together so tightly that Donovan was sure he was going to have bruises.
"Um. . .yeah. Mr Holmes, you know we have videotapes of the assaults, correct?"
"Yes, I have read the article in the Mail, although I do not consider that a reliable source."
"Right. I apologize that you had to learn about this case through the newspaper. Well, yours was the first video, and you've described exactly what happened on that tape. But—well, the others were more. . . extensive, but yours ended after the first three lessons. Can you tell me what happened next?"
Mycroft's lips pursed. "I quit."
"You quit?"
"Yes. I—erm—broke out into hives, actually. When my mother asked what happened, I told her I was allergic to the violin rosin. She canceled my violin lessons and let me take up piano instead."
"Oh. So you only had three lessons. And he didn't do anything else to you." In her mind, Donovan was reviewing definitions of degrees of charges: No aggravating factors, victim under thirteen years of age, contact with genitalia using the hand, no penetration—it was second degree sexual assault at best. Sentencing guidelines in the two-year range. It wasn't enough on its own, not after what she knew that man had done and how many victims were involved. But Mycroft's testimony linked the videos to Lindt, and that should help them nail him for a lot more.
"That is correct. So I didn't know—" He hesitated, then unlaced his fingers, reached out and paused the recorder. "You see, when Sherlock started taking violin lessons with Mr Lindt, I was away at school. I didn't find out about it until I returned home in June. At that point I convinced our mother to find him a different teacher, but I did not realize the extent of the violation. I wasn't even sure he had done anything untoward to Sherlock."
"Did you ever talk to Sherlock about what Mr Lindt had done to him?"
Mycroft gave a humourless laugh. "Sherlock would not have told me even if I had asked. That was outside of the nature of our relationship." Mycroft started the recorder again and sat back in his chair with his hands folded neatly on his lap. His knuckles had finally relaxed, but she could still see the indentations from his fingers.
"Did you ever tell your mother what happened?"
"No. I did not want to discuss what had happened. Of course, I did not know that there were other victims."
"All right, Mr Holmes. Thank you for your statement." Donovan shut the recorder off and tucked it back into her pocket.
"You are welcome. Are my brother and I free to go?"
"Just one more thing. I need to have a look at your hands," Donovan said, pulling out her phone. Mycroft regarded her skeptically.
"My hands?"
"Mr Lindt claimed he was assaulted. I need to gather evidence."
"Very well." He held out his hands, palms down. A slight but obvious tremor ran through them, and he watched them curiously.
"It's the aftereffects of adrenaline. It's normal."
"I am aware of the physiological response."
"Are you all right? Would you like something to drink?"
"No, thank you. I'm fine."
"Yeah. All right." Whatever you say, she finished silently, because no matter what he was playing at, he clearly was not fine. She quickly snapped several photos of his hands. No bruising on his knuckles, so he hadn't punched the old man. So either Sherlock was the assailant (likely) or Mycroft had assaulted him some other way. "Ok, I need to see your feet next. I'll need to take your shoes off."
He pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes and sighed. "Yes, all right." He started to bend down to untie his shoes, but she got there first. She untied his right shoe and eased it off, then his sock to find that his toes were purple and swollen. Damn, that looked like it must hurt, but he hadn't complained at all.
She snapped a couple of photos, then put the phone on the table and gently pressed her thumb down behind his big toe, feeling for broken bones. When she looked up at his face, he was staring straight ahead with a blank expression on his face. No emotion, no indication at all that he was in pain.
"I don't think it's broken. Would you like the station duty doctor to have a look?"
"No, thank you."
"Ok." She finished probing and put his sock back on, being careful not to jostle the injury. She marveled that he hadn't been limping, but of course he wouldn't. He wasn't the type to let on that he was hurt.
He tied his own shoe while she wrote a few notes on her notepad. When he was finished, he sat back in his chair and folded one leg over the other. His face was still a picture of complete calm and control.
"All right, Mr Holmes. Thank you for your statement. Given the circumstances, I will try to convince Mr Lindt not to press charges, but I can't make any guarantees."
"I understand that. Are we finished?"
"I'd like to talk to Sherlock, just for a minute."
"You recall our understanding."
"I won't force Sherlock to tell me anything," Donovan reassured him. Not that I could do that anyway, she added to herself. "But I would like to see what information he is willing to give."
"I cannot stop you from talking to him. And in fact, if he knew I was discouraging him from giving a statement, he would immediately become determined to do so, I'm afraid." He appeared to be about to say more, but suddenly stopped, pressed his lips together and stood. "I will be waiting outside. Please do not tell Sherlock I am waiting for him."
Don't tell him? "All right. You can sit with Howard."
"Howard?"
"We saw him on the way in. Remember—Purple hair?"
His lip curled up slightly in distaste. "Oh yes. Howard."
As soon as Donovan entered the room where Sherlock was waiting for her, she knew she had made a mistake in thinking she could get a statement out of him. He was pacing the room when she walked in, scowling and muttering to himself. If he noticed her at all, he showed no sign.
"Sherlock, sit down please. You're making me dizzy."
"Soo sorry. I forgot about your vertigo," he snipped back at her.
"Just—can you sit? Please?"
"Fine!" he huffed and dropped into the hard metal chair. Donovan had to suppress a smirk: with his black eye and swollen lip, along with the rumpled ill-fitting clothes, he looked like a kid playing dress-up. Of course the jumper had to be green, didn't it? At least it didn't have a gold crest on it.
"Why am I here?" His voice had a sharp edge to it, and it immediately put her on edge as well.
"What happened to your face?"
"It was an accident, and it has no bearing on this case. What do you want from me?"
"I need to know what happened."
"Tonight? Didn't Mycroft already tell you everything?"
"He gave me a statement, but I'm not talking about tonight."
He snorted. "If you think I'm going to bare my soul to you, you're insane."
"Then who will you talk to? Lestrade?"
Another snort. "Hardly. Anyway, judging by the newspapers, you already know everything. Although I am surprised at your choice of confidants. The Mail? Kitty Riley? Honestly."
"That wasn't—I didn't—" Donovan spluttered. She stopped and took a calming breath. "That wasn't me. I asked her not to print that article."
"I'm surprised you didn't give them my name."
"I wouldn't do that!" she shouted hoarsely.
Sherlock smirked and leaned back in his chair while Donovan tried to get her breathing back under control. Damn him for baiting her! And damn herself for always falling for it!
"Will charges be laid against Mycroft?" That little smirk was still in place.
"I—I don't know. I can try to convince Mr Lindt not to press charges."
"Pity. It would be satisfying to see him in the dock."
Donovan sat back in her chair and folded her arms. What a complete git. In fact, 'git' wasn't a strong enough word. 'Arsehole' suited him better. Mycroft's whole goal had been to protect Sherlock, and now here was Sherlock, ready to sell Mycroft up the river just for his own amusement. It made her want to blacken his other eye.
Victim, remember? echoed Lestrade's voice in her head. Don't pick a fight. Stay calm. Don't let him rattle you. He was exactly like his brother, only they used opposite methods. Where Mycroft was ice, Sherlock was all fire, but it was still a mask. A self-protective ruse to keep people from looking too closely.
"What?" His smirk turned to a scowl under her scrutiny.
"I'm trying to remember you're damaged."
He sniffed disdainfully and sneered, "At least I didn't spend my childhood hiding from my alcoholic mother. Damaged indeed."
Donovan fought with herself for control. The only thing that was stopping her from leaping over the table and throttling him at this moment was the knowledge that he wanted her to. His whole strategy was to put her on the defensive. And it was working. With a supreme effort she kept her tongue and said nothing. She didn't trust herself to speak because she knew the first words out of her mouth would be to call him a freak, and then he would have won. Unconsciously she reached up to her throat and rubbed her thumb over the pendant on her necklace, an anxious habit that she had been unable to break.
Am I free to go?"
"Sherlock, please, just—"
"No. Absolutely not. Now either arrest me or let me go home."
Donovan shoved back her chair and stood. "Fine. You're not under arrest. Go on home."
He wrapped his (obviously borrowed) anorak around himself and headed out the door with slightly less drama than usual due to the lack of his long coat. By the time she reached the door, he was striding down the hall with Mycroft hurrying along behind. Sherlock's querulous voice carried back to her, "No, Fatso, I am not going back to your house. Leave me alone."
"At least come and get your things."
"What things?"
"Phone, wallet, coat. . ."
"Molly has them."
"No, she gave them to me."
"You wanker! You lied to me! I knew you were lying!"
And then they were out of sight around the corner. Mycroft's voice drifted back, placating but with a hint of smug superiority. "I thought it best to. . ."
"To what? Keep me prisoner?!"
The bickering voices faded out as the Holmes brothers moved out of earshot down the hall. With a deep sigh, Donovan shrugged her coat on and headed back to the parking garage. It was nearly two in the morning, but her unexpected night shift was far from over.