Borderline Chapter 17
"The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame."
Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Black Cat'
Hmmm, barley malt, Sherlock inhaled severely.
The moonlight came down in sharp shafts into the garage, illuminating the trail left by his nemesis, the warmth of footfall, the stirring of the dust, the evanescent clues that only he could see.
Rust.
Cut grass.
A disinfectant. Possibly Virkon.
The estate couldn't have been occupied by these degenerates for long, if there were still the traces of a working farm. He followed his instincts to the parked white van. It was surely the private ambulance in which the con artist had transported his victims.
There was a little thrill as he tried the handle of the van's back doors; that delicious, paradoxical feeling of the myriad possibilities that may happen. Oh, he missed this… Right now he missed the heavy comfort of a weapon in his hand, but he couldn't risk being mistaken for one of the perps if the cavalry showed up.
He shone the pen-light into the dark vehicle, to confuse any attackers. "Show yourselves!" he barked, but there was no-one there.
At least, no-one living.
On the floor was a large plastic zip-loc bag containing the Jane Doe's brain, Molly's Patient Zero.
Sherlock climbed up into the vehicle. There was a trolley with straps, possibly reserved for Wade's other victim.
Molly.
He sucked in a few more breaths, oxygenating himself deeply. The air was beginning to get stuffy with the funk of decomposition. He lifted up the bag with gloved hands and it dripped anonymous fluid onto the ply-wood floor of the van. On the stretcher was a sheaf of paper, which he discovered to be Molly's notes.
Molly.
Another incriminating heartbeat.
Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Ba-dum…
Molly… Molly... Molly…
Get out of my head!
He distracted himself by testing the stretcher, notes and surrounding areas with the home-made alpha detector. There were a few incidences of polonium contamination to note, but nothing to write home about. Barely above background levels really. Mind you, it wasn't a precise science, this polonium lark. More of an art really; the dynamics of the random spread of particles. Like a disease. Some would rub off, some wouldn't. It was a hit or miss business.
He left the items of evidence in the back of the van, went round to the cab and tried the steering wheel. The screen of the broken phone immediately started to fill up with pixels and went black.
Dear me.
Whoever had driven the van was extremely contaminated.
He closed the door gently, all the time aware that the enemy might appear at any moment, and scrabbling on hands and knees, kowtowed down to the front tires of the vehicle.
The expected profile of mud, organic matter and cattle faeces greeted him. He reached a little further under the chassis. A sticky white residue rubbed off on the soft leather of his glove.
Salt deposits.
Either these guys made regular day trips to Southend-on-Sea for cockles and a donkey ride, or he was onto something concrete.
A door banged on the other side of the garage, startling him. Someone had been watching him. Damn.
A lightning speed dash to the door only brought him more frustration. He'd narrowly missed the watcher, but at least he had a clue. For the second time he wished for a gun.
He chased the banging of doors out to a porch attached to what had once been a small dairy. Milk churns still littered the corners and an ominous collection of flies piled in drifts in every corner of the re-enforced windows. There were thousands of them, built up like black snow, probably attracted by the sweet perfume of slaughter.
The back door was open just a tad, its padlocks hanging open, recently unlocked. The mysterious watcher must have just come through.
Sherlock touched the handle, virtually vibrating with suspense; this could be the conclusion of his yearlong search for the last piece of the puzzle; the son of Baron Eduart Maupertuis, the bane of his existence since failing to secure an ID in Serbia. He could finally prove himself right. He could finally prove to his brother and the security services that he wasn't deluded. He was hot on the heels of the one man that could make it all good, close the case and give him back his life. All the possible outcomes flowed through his head in the split second it took him to wrench open the door and begin the chase.
John pushed aside yet another one of the hanging sheets in the maze of cubicles.
On the bed lay a battered and bruised figure. Her hands were bound to the frame with cable ties. The memory of her terrified face on the steps of 221 came back to him. The poppy girl.
He gave a little grunt of pity and regret.
Moving closer, he could see the puncture wounds in her arm and the tray with a used needle on the cabinet. Whoever had administered the drug had made a right hash up of it and jabbed her over and over again, trying to find the vein, like a bloody first-year medical student. He didn't need to take her pulse, it was obvious she was dead, but he did it anyway, tenderly, reverentially.
Poor thing. Must've been her first time. And this happens.
His jaw clenched in anger. He closed her eyes gently and drew a spare blanket over her head, before wrestling the sheet curtain aside and going back to the others.
"Call Sherlock and tell him we have her," Tom rasped. They spoke in hushed tones in the dark of the workshop, conscious of the possibility of being disturbed as they brought each other up to speed and planned their escape.
Molly looked up at her fiancé, what little of him she could see in the dark, and marvelled at the masterful tone of his voice. This was not like her Tom. He'd put his long wool coat around her shoulders and even though it was scratchy, it was preferable to hanging around in a skimpy blouse that barely came down to her knickers. She felt even more exposed and vulnerable now that John was there.
She'd always been so strong, and she was not accustomed to being the victim.
John tried his phone, a wry little twist on his mouth at being told what to do. He was having trouble raising Sherlock. "He's not answering."
"Are you alright? Did they hurt you?" Tom turned to Molly, gently turning her chin up for inspection.
"Only my pride." She closed her hand over his.
"Tom, don't touch her, we can't be sure…"
"What?" Molly looked at John, startled, the reality dawning that she may have actually been inoculated with something.
John glanced involuntarily down at Molly's hands. "We've been in contact with the Health Protection Agency."
"Yes?"
"Molly, that body you were handling…"
"Yes."
"It was contaminated with polonium 210."
"What?"
"You might have ingested it. I'm sorry."
Molly let it all sink in for a moment. Polonium? She – she could die from that, couldn't she? Oh, God. "But I had gloves on the whole time."
"You could have brushed against the table, anything. But there's no way of knowing until they run some tests. We need to get you decontaminated as soon as possible. The HPA has crisis centres set up around the city-"
"Is that what they were up to?"
"We think it's probably a dirty bomb," Tom added seriously.
Molly sat down heavily on one of the plastic chairs at the gangster's card table. She stayed quiet for some time, looking at her hands, the bright red flashes on her wrists, and swallowing thickly.
"Come on," Tom said, finally, "I know it's a lot to take in, but we need to get you out of here. They could come back at any moment-"
But she interrupted him, suddenly coming back to life, "Sherlock's here?"
"Uh, yes," said Tom, the slightest cloud of annoyance coming over his face.
"There's a man… the Yugoslavian… he's crazy. He has it in for him. He's not going to stop until he kills him."
"I think he's aware of that," said John.
"You have to warn him," Molly insisted.
"I've tried. I'm… trying. " John was not having much luck with his phone. He cursed under his breath.
"He has it in hand, Molly," said Tom, "let's go."
"But you know what he's like, John, he'll take risks. He'll fall for anything that man does because he's addicted to the game. He followed the cabbie. He danced for Jim Moriarty… he's going to go down the rabbit hole this time and you have to stop him. He should never have come here."
"You have a point," said John, when she'd finished her tirade.
"We're leaving," said Tom decisively, and his fingers dug into her upper arm.
"Wait," she held up her hand, "what's that?"
There was a sound of a door and metal clattering to the ground and suddenly lights were being shone in their faces.
The lights were accompanied by Heckler and Koch carbines.
"Armed police! Get on the floor and put your hands behind your heads!"
He was out in the backyard of the decrepit farmhouse, the moonlight illuminating the long, gone-to-seed grass and cobwebs. It was surreal, quite beautiful. His feet spirited him along, crunching on the paths of litter and broken bottles. His mind was detached from what his body was doing. The ecstasy of running down the bad guy, cursing through his veins like a drug… the fireworks of solving the puzzle… of winning…
And then – a glimpse of the mysterious figure through the overgrown, fallow fields. He was gaining. He was actually gaining on him. The man's jeans whipped past the meadow-grass and willow saplings and then –
And then he stopped. The figure stopped dead in his tracks.
Sherlock kept running, formulating an attack, his brain calculating the best strategy.
The figure began to turn.
Sherlock continued forward, his heart racing, his feet pounding, beginning to wonder why the watcher had stopped.
The man turned even further. The moon highlighted the edge of a strong face, the scratchy stubble on his chin, the shaved head, the dead eyes and the determined expression turning to a cruel, confident smile.
No…
He was fully facing Sherlock now and Sherlock was gasping in shock and skidding on rubble and weeds and putting his hands down to stop himself falling and-
Falling and plummeting to his knees.
No, it can't… I can't…
It simply cannot be…
All the oxygen abandoned him and he just knelt there, stunned beyond words. His mind flailed for an answer, but none came. He was drowning in fear, a real and totally unexpected, irrational fear. It was like the blue screen of death. His body failed him in an almost Pavlovian reaction. The dog - the prey - the slave submitting to his master. It was like he was experiencing the pain of the whip all over again.
How had he been so stupid, so blind, he thought as the quarry turned and fled with a sadistic chuckle, how had he not seen this coming? He'd been chasing something he thought he'd left behind… Something, someone he never expected to see again.
His Serbian torturer.