Chapter Twenty.
The next day passed quietly and without incident, Holmes staying in the flat, passing the time equally between thinking and trawling the internet, pursuing his theory and finally dismissing each possible line of enquiry, and resting as Watson had insisted that he do.
Mrs Hudson looked in on him regularly throughout the day, offering to make him something to eat at the pre-requisite times, dabbing at her eyes with a wrinkled hanky and sniffing constantly as she avoided looking directly at Sherlock, trying to hide her fear and her grief, then disappearing back down the stairs to indulge in the tears that never seemed to be very far away.
Holmes had been relieved.
He couldn't deal with her emotions at the moment.
He had too much on his mind.
Holmes was frustrated at first, because it didn't appear to be as simple as he had first thought.
Gypsys, Romanys and New Age Travellers still tended to move around in the winter months, mainly because locals got tired of the noise, mess, rowdy children and the increase in drunkeness and petty crime associated with their arrival in the area, and forced the police and local authorities to move them on.
Dead end number one, but at least it narrowed down the field a little.
Environmental protestors tended to set up camp and not move on until they were moved on by the police or they won their battle and moved on to the next crusade.
Dead end number two.
That still left travelling fairs, carnivals and circuses.
However, Holmes had not realized just how many of these there still were all around the country, travelling from county to county in the summer months, staying barely longer than a couple of days, plying their trade then moving on, and those were the ones operating legally.
Heaven knows how many more were fly-by-nights, unregistered and operating unsafe equipment.
There was also no word from Cassia Ingram.
Holmes had tried to reach out to her by text, using the mobile phone number on the business card that she had given to him, but she had failed to respond.
He took it as a good sign, although he was a little disappointed.
He assumed that there had been no more dreams or visions, and that hopefully that meant that the poor woman was gaining a little respite from the onslaught of violent and traumatic images.
He wished her more pleasant dreams.
Still, it didn't help him much.
During this quiet period, Watson had returned to his practice, spending his day seeing patients, catching up on paperwork and reading medical reports and test results, and trying to arrange for a Locum to cover the time that he was going to need to take to supervise Holmes recovery from the surgery and his period of convalescence.
As always, the two men kept in touch by telephone, mainly texting each other, but Watson had stopped by that evening to check on Holmes, to satisfy himself that he was doing as he was told. That he was eating, sleeping and conserving his strength and managing his pain and other symptoms, and they talked about Holmes investigations on the internet, and the more serious issue of his wishes should something go terribly wrong during the surgery.
Late in the day, Holmes had received word from Sir Frederick Penrose Gill that they had a slot at the hospital for him for the next day, for the MRI scan, and that evening, when he heard the news, Watson had offered to go with him.
However, Holmes had brushed him off, sarcastically declaring that he was more than capable of going alone, and although Watson had been a little hurt, he had understood his friend's need to maintain his independence and control over his own life and actions for as long as he possibly could.
So, the following morning, Holmes rose early, dressing slowly and carefully, ate nothing but a handful of pain pills and sipped a cup of milky tea, then he took a cab to the hospital.
The staff were all very friendly and polite, trying to put him at his ease while he endured their sympathetic looks and the claustrophobic feeling of lying still, nauseous and confined in the narrow metal tube, the thrumming and banging of the scanner driving him crazy and making his headache worse.
By the time it was over, Holmes was exhausted and his head felt like it was going to explode.
All he wanted to do was return to Baker Street and shut out the world.
He felt miserable and frustrated and knew that he would be poor company, even for himself.
However, his plans were thwarted when, arriving in a cab at 221B, after paying the driver, relieved to be home at last, striding toward his front door and blessed sanctuary, Holmes was startled to find Cassia Ingram rushing out of the cafe next door, heading straight for him, her eyes wild, voice high pitched, words tumbling uncontrollably and incoherently from her lips as she grabbed his hand.
She was hysterical, clawing at him and sobbing inconsolably, and Holmes could not understand a word that she was saying.
He really wasn't in the mood for this, but, he quickly realized that something significant must have happened, something that was threatening to tip Cassia Ingram over the edge of reason and sanity.
For one thing, she appeared to still be in her night attire, with just a light weight raincoat pulled over a pair of flimsy pink pyjama bottoms and a thin red T-shirt, and a pair of fluffy pink mule slippers on her feet.
Aware of how she looked, and the scene that she was causing and what it must look like to the neighbours, Holmes tried to calm her with soothing words, hushing her as he shepherded her along with him to the door, fishing out his key and slotting it into the lock, but Cassia Ingram was so hysterical she kept pulling at his arm, screaming at him, and the only words he could really make out were that he had to help her.
This could not go on.
Frustrated and impatient, Holmes knew that he had to do something, so, taking matters into his own hands, he quickly raised his hand and slapped her, hard, across the cheek.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's the only way..." He spoke in soft tones, placing his hands on both of her shoulders, as a suddenly stunned Cassia Ingram grew silent, swaying slightly, blinking rapidly, a look of complete shock on her face, but Holmes was grateful that she was quiet at last.
Holmes quickly grabbed her hand, opened the front door of 221B and hastily pulled Cassia Ingram inside behind him, closing the door to the street with his foot as he tried to usher Cassia toward the stairs.
In complete contrast to her emotional melt down on the street, Cassia Ingram was now almost catatonic, and thankfully, compliant, as she allowed Holmes to guide her up the stairs ahead of him, and up to his flat, his hand in the small of her back encouraging her upward.
Her sudden complete lack of emotion was even more disturbing to Holmes than her outburst on the street had been, and he suddenly realized that she was ill, and that this was something that he could not deal with and that he was going to need help.
She was standing in the middle of his living room, her face white, save for the spot of colour blooming on her cheek where he had slapped her, her expression blank, eyes still wide and wild, startled, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face, and her whole body was swaying and shaking alarmingly.
"Cass, come and sit down and I'll fetch you some brandy," Holmes offered.
He could use one himself, he realized, shocked by her sudden appearance and her outburst downstairs and still feeling wretched after his trip to the hospital.
He wanted to help her to a chair, but suddenly, some instinct was telling him not to touch her, that she might not react well.
"Cass? Did you hear me?"
Holmes began to wonder if the poor woman even knew where she was, who he was, and feared that he was watching some kind of mental breakdown.
His immediate instinct was to call Watson.
He would know what to do.
He reached into his jacket pocket but before he could pull out his phone, Cassia Ingram finally spoke.
Her voice was so low, so small, and distant, Holmes could barely hear her, but then she began to repeat the words, over and over and over again, her voice getting louder and higher in pitch.
"He did it again. He did it again. He did it again!"
Now Holmes understood.
"He's killed again?"
Cassia finally seemed to snap out of her catatonia, her eyes seeking Holmes out as she suddenly seeming to realize where she was, and she nodded.
"Another child?"
"A boy."
"Tell me, Cass. Tell me what you saw, what you felt, but this time I want you to concentrate on him, the killer," Holmes spoke quickly, excitedly, his mind racing as he tried to sort out the information that he needed and how to probe Cassia to get at that information without tipping her back into hysteria.
"Focus on his physical being, his build. Is he tall, or short, fat or thin, young or old, does he have a limp, or a scar, or some other identifying mark. Is he right handed or left? Does he ..."
"No!" Cassia shrieked, stopping Holmes in mid flow. "No!" she moved forward and was practically screaming the word in his face now, forcing Holmes to step back from her.
"No ..." she sobbed brokenly, her head bowing now, her loose, un-brushed hair falling around her face like a curtain.
"You must!" Holmes insisted, closing the gap between them once more and seizing her roughly by the upper arms, forcing her to look up at him once more. "You must Cass, while it is all still fresh in your mind."
"No, no, no ..." she sobbed forlornly. "I can't. Don't ask me, please, Sherlock. I can't ..."
"Cass, I know it is difficult for you, but you must. I have to know."
He tightened his fingers around the muscles of her upper arms, hoping that physical discomfort would somehow bring her to her senses.
"No, please ..."
"Cass!"
This time he shook her, hating himself for being so rough with her, whilst realizing at the same time that it was probably the only way he was going to get any sense out of her.
"No ... You don't understand, Sherlock ..."
She looked straight up into his pale blue/grey eyes now, her own over flowing with uncontrollable tears, but her voice, although shaky, was calm and low and throaty.
"For God's sake, Sherlock, I almost choked my friend to death!"
The confession was wrung out of her on a convulsive sob.
"I saw it, all of it! I was watching him. He had his hands around the boy's throat, and then they were my hands! I had my hands around his throat ..." she dragged in a ragged breath. "And when it was over, when I finally came to my senses, I had my hands around Maddie's throat," she spoke in a terrified, breathy voice now and began to rock backwards and forwards as Holmes took in what she was telling him.
"I was him! I could have killed her, Sherlock! I could have killed her! You've got to stop him ... Dear God, Sherlock, stop me, before I kill someone too ..."
Her breath finally ran out and suddenly, the life seemed to drain out of her before his eyes, her eyes rolling back into her head and she fainted dead away in his arms.
Reacting quickly, Holmes scooped Cassia Ingram up into his arms and managed to carry her the short distance to the couch, before his wobbly legs and quivering arms gave out on him.
He laid her down gently and positioned a cushion under head.
Holmes then fished his phone out of his jacket pocket and dialled Watson's number, calmly explaining that he needed him to come immediately and ended the call abruptly before Watson could ask any questions.
Holmes knew that the tone of his voice and his brusque manner would worry Watson and he would jump to all sorts of conclusions. Wrong conclusions, Holmes knew, but they would get him here quickly, and that was all that Holmes cared about at that moment.
Cassia Ingram was in need of medical assistance and Holmes did not have a clue what to do to help her.
He did know that something had to be done for her quickly, or there was a very real risk that she would descend into hysterical madness.
After he ended the call, Holmes went to the kitchen, found the brandy hidden away at the back of a cupboard and poured himself a small shot to calm his nerves, aware in the back of his mind as he did so that he was still taking strong pain medication, yet still horrified and shaken by what he had witnessed, and the significance of what Cassia had told him and his own physical deterioration.
Somehow, the killer was linked to Cassia Ingram, able to influence her reactions and even make her copy what he was doing.
Her worst fears realized.
Poor woman.
The killer could somehow control her through her visions.
But how could that be?
Did it really matter?
It could not be good.
Not good at all.
Yet ...
Even as he knocked back the shot of brandy in one gulp, and felt it burn its way down to his empty stomach, Sherlock Holmes was already trying to find a way to turn this new development to their advantage.