Sherlock
You know, sometimes I feel like I must not be a very balanced person. A balanced, ordinary person wouldn't react to a betrayal and rejection like Lestrade's in the way that I have. Try and imagine that you live a life with very few role models, very few people to respect. Not that I viewed Lestrade as a role model of any kind but… But he was marginally less than unbearable and in my experience that makes him pretty much unique in his profession. Or it used to, anyway. Try and imagine what it's like to be a person who does not give up esteem and deference readily.
And then imagine them telling you they've turned into a mindless bloody desk jockey obsessed with clearance rates rather than convictions, happy to have the wrong man so long as he's there to have. What would you do? Have a stiff drink? Shout at the walls for a while, certainly. Punch something?
I'll be honest, I walked out of that little room fully expecting to roll back into that doss house bath and stay there until either somebody moved me or this month's rent ran out. It seemed a foregone conclusion. I didn't even argue it with myself, there didn't seem to be any point in arguing. And yet, I walked out of there and just came home. Didn't even want it.
Hit the comedown pretty hard, as you might expect. Actually spent the rest of that day in my own bath. Went into an awful fever, too, a side effect I haven't suffered since the very beginning. I broke it with ice, patience, and standard, pound-shop paracetamol. I can't keep anything stronger than that in the flat, it would be a breach of the safety and sanctuary. Spent the usual hours curled up and unable to uncurl, deeply nauseous and utterly stifled, but to hell with that. I'm done talking about that.
You see, dealing with Lestrade taught me one very clear, very simple lesson. Something I really should have spotted before now. I'm disappointed with myself. Could blame the withdrawal, of course, but then I'm finished with that now, aren't I?
Because I learned, and was left in no doubt whatsoever, that nobody cares. Nobody listens. Whatever you know, whatever you're going through, if it's going to make their life harder they will ignore it. I suppose it's fair enough when you think about it. Provided, of course, that it's a worldwide condition. If everybody's doing it you don't want to be the one doormat left in the world, do you? If that's the case, then I absolutely understand and I intend to hop merrily up on the bandwagon as soon as it's proven to me. I must be old-fashioned. Must be crushingly, laughably sentimental, because I had this ridiculous idea that some part of living in the world was trying to make it better.
Obviously I haven't been exactly pulling my weight for a couple of years but… Well, who could blame me, if that's what happens when I try?
So I've stopped dwelling on the pain, as far as is possible. And my reaction has been to do very well indeed.
The only needle I'm thinking of is the one at the Chelsea and Westminster which is responsible for the most recent Angel of Death killings. There's one ward sister there who Lestrade and his ilk would probably love to lock up, but it's nothing to do with her, it's in the needles themselves, a batch of tainted hypodermics sent in with the shipments. It could be national, and quality testing should be implemented immediately. At least, that's what the Health Secretary said after Mycroft told her about it. They've caught it in Liverpool and Basingstoke and Brighton so far, and it's only been five or six hours.
The only junk I'm thinking of is in a scrapyard outside Blackpool where I think they'll find the missing 747 from the airport. I liked that one. That was slightly comic, wouldn't you agree? A whole airplane just disappearing. It sounds like a magic trick rather than an actual criminal act. Actually, I'm not entirely unsure smoke and mirrors weren't involved. What I like most about it is how lighthearted it is. Contrary to the common assumptions floating about (if I hear the word 'terrorist one more time…), I'd wager that plane was taken for no other reason than the pleasure of taking a plane. There won't be a thing wrong with it when they retrieve it, wait and see.
In amongst the rioting and house-breaking and all the murders, it's just nice to see somebody having a laugh, that's all. Doing something a bit interesting. And the idea that it might just be sitting in a scrapyard, dear, oh dear…
I didn't see fit to bother Mycroft with that one, but twenty minutes ago I posted the theory to an online forum, posing as somebody from the area who had seen it. I think there must be police on the way there now; people are posting photographs. A noted newspaper cartoonist has thrown up a hasty sketch of a jumbo jet with a string of tinsel hanging from the wing and a star on its nose. There's a gent in a flat cap stood in the foreground saying, 'It's a Christmas tree, mate."
Don't know how he found out about it, but a text comes in from my brother which simply says, What kind of person might make a joke like that?
Oh.
Well, that's a thing about a joke, isn't it? You don't think much about where they come from because you're busy laughing. But he's got a point. Who steals a 747 to no purpose whatsoever in the middle of a crime wave that has most people afraid to leave the house? What's wrong with this picture?...
Oh, now this really is interesting. There must be more like this. There must be others that fit the conditions. The newsreaders are one. The mass death threats from disparate strangers at that wanker from the morning talk show, the one that just bellows at everyone, that's another. And there's a difference, there must be, between those and the rest of it. The masses are roaring, tearing themselves open as every urge suddenly becomes an imperative. Take what you want, kill them if you hate them, screw whoever catches your eye, do what thou wilt the whole of the law. And every so often, just out of the wailing, there's a little giggle.
Manchester. Yes, so fifteen men were shot dead but the internet is insisting to me that irate Liverpool fans are to blame. If they're still laughing then maybe somebody meant them to. And the street performers. I'm not being cruel, but who wouldn't watch a so-called living statue get kicked to death? Or anybody who counts 'standing really still' amongst their life skills…
No? Just me?
I knew Manchester was different, I knew from the beginning. So who's laughing? I put it to Mycroft, I'll get back to you.
Jim
I can't tell you how disconcerting it is to wake up because a cat has suddenly just leapt into your face. Must have fallen asleep on the sofa, and the way I jump awake it's a miracle I save the laptop propped against my knees from total catastrophe. No pun intended. This, by the way, is all thoughts I've put together in the few seconds since. My immediate reaction was along the lines of "Sweet fucking Christ," I think…
And now that the initial shock is over, and the laptop has been righted, and the offending cat is sitting on my stomach watching my face like it might explode any moment, I can start to figure out what the fuck is going on.
Slowly becoming aware of myself, I see one thing which explains it all; Danielle is leaning over the back of the couch, smiling, dead pleased with herself, and she has that laser keychain of hers in her hand again. "Good afternoon, Mr Van Winkle." The cat, I presume, is still waiting for the little red dot to appear on my forehead again, and is content to wait. Danielle reaches down and lifts up away from me. "Valentin and I were on our way to have his fuzzy little balls cut off, and Seb rang up to say you weren't answering your phone. So we rushed over, expecting the worst, only to find that you'd just crashed after a week and a half of overwork, and decided to give you a shock for having us so worried."
"Don't bring the brute animal into this; he only works as you will him-"
"What a way to talk about poor Sebastian!"
"-He's scratched me, fuck's sake… And what did you mean, afternoon?"
Stroking her vicious little friend, mumbling like it doesn't even matter, "S'three o'clock, darling." Considering I never meant to sleep I don't think it's an overreaction to try and sit up, or maybe it's the swearing she objects to. "Stop. Stop it. Stay where you are. All the messages on your landline are from Seb and your mobile's in your pocket so I should think you could have felt that go off. They found the plane, the Hell Bunny virus has been identified and they're working to isolate it, and I get these stitches out tomorrow so Thames Water is a-go. Anything else?"
Of course there bloody is! It's three o'clock in the day and I've just been wakened by a creature apparently composed entirely out of claws, there must be.
"…What did Moran want?"
"Nothing. He just called to check in and then worried when he couldn't get in touch."
"Can Valentin still make his appointment? Because I really want to tell you to go away and that would at least sound like I was being polite about it." She goes. Not all the way away, but into the kitchen. "And put your bloody Russian out on the balcony, would you?" Without a word, she goes about it. Valentin doesn't complain either, but then again, he's had a narrow escape today. So I sit up and check my messages, the various feeds from the clients and the police and everything else I've been watching. Much as I hate to admit it, I really don't seem to have missed much. "And go and check the call logs. He might not have left a message, but I'm waiting to hear from Peter Lorre. Number ends in 845, I think." This, again, she does without speaking. It's nice, actually, it's like having hands in other rooms without having to get up. "You know he thinks you're my secretary?" I already told her that. Couple of times. This time, though, it's not getting a rise out of her.
It's been Moran that's wound her up. Not through any fault of his own, just from the fact that when they spoke he probably would have been round about his final fling in Milan and she's still got stitches in.
So let's try something else.
"I was thinking about what you said, about faces."
As she passes back from the office, "Nothing from the creep. And you told me. Said it didn't go anywhere."
"But I keep thinking about it. Which means there's a way and I'm just not seeing it."
"Should I make you lunch?"
What? I'm telling her she was right. More than that, I'm asking for any further ideas on the subject, and she's more than smart enough to have picked up on that. And what do I get? Offered fucking lunch, that's what I get. Where does that make sense? What planet could she be on where that would make sense? Jesus, the sooner Moran comes back the better. I know where I stand with that man. I'm not saying he's thick or anything, but if you say something to him he just replies to it. In this fashion, you can have what we call 'conversations' with Moran.
Moran never comes back with terrible, damning talk like, "What do you want me to say?"
Because I'm too tired for any shite, "Tell me about Thames Water."
The rest is thieves' cant, all about building specs and access. As soon as Dani or any of her breed start using the names of security companies it's safe to switch off. They go into reveries, like Moran relating his sporting excursion. So I look over what's been coming in from the cops. Looking, in particular, for any mention of Friday Hill.
Don't ask me why I'm taking such an interest in 'the creep' over anything else. Maybe because he didn't ask for much. He was already set to go. He knew exactly what he wanted. All he needed from me was (his words, not mine) a disposal method. He wanted to leave them (his word, not mine) sleeping, but feared interruption, premature discovery. He loved the mattress idea. God dead excited about it. Now that I think about it, it's probably just his excitement. He asked me for a challenge. How can I fail to have sympathy and compassion?
Why, in his very first correspondence with me he told me in no uncertain terms how much he wanted to make an impact. Now, I ask you, if any living being should have made a project of him, with a mission statement like that, wouldn't it be me? And what's more-
…I'm sorry, I've lost that train of thought. I've come to something much more interesting.
"Dani…" But I've spoken too quietly and she doesn't come. "Fuck's sake, Mies!" and this time she comes running. I can do little more than stare into space, though, and she comes over, leaning in as if I'm sick. Stretches out a hand before she remembers and takes it away again.
"Jim? Jim, what's the-"
"I need a cop. Can you do that? Not a bent one either. Just a relatively clean, fairly straightforward cop. Just a fella who doesn't know what's coming to him. Or her, I don't care, but… Somebody who's in charge a bit, but not bent, I can't stress that enough. Can you do that? Name, phone number, details, family, can… can you-?" And bless her, she wrinkles her nose, looking deeply offended. "With your eyes closed," I guess, "and one hand tied behind your back. Don't let him know he's in danger. Call me in to approve."