CHAPTER 8: MIDNIGHT AT BOROUGH MARKET

FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 2015

She stood at the window, the light from the setting sun carving her into a silhouette. John watched as she fingered the curtains—brown-and-gold twill damask—and picked at the imperfections: loose threads, a forgotten pin, uneven stitching.

'I never could get them perfect,' she said. Her voice travelled across the room as though through water. An ocean.

'They look perfect to me,' John said. He unstuck his feet from the floor where his shoes were growing down into the wood, like roots. As he moved toward her, he trailed dirt and left deep scratches in his wake.

She looked over her shoulder, her face still shadowed, but a smile coloured her voice in shades of honey. 'Of course they do, to you, you goon. But then, you never see the cracks in the statue. You never hear the flaws in the music, the dropped notes, dissonant chords. Or, rather, you choose not to.'

He didn't understand her, and she turned back to the window, her hands on the curtains. She was near enough now to touch, and he reached forward and brushed his hand down her long hair. The strands caught in the dying light and glowed like embers before falling like rain through his spread fingers and upon the floor. She drew the curtains closed to block out the natural light entirely. Only the pale light from the lamps remained. Now, when she turned to him, he could see her clearly: the soft lines around her eyes, the pink hue in her lips, the faded splash of childhood freckles across her nose. But something was wrong: her eyes. They were the wrong colour.

'John,' she said. Still, she smiled, but her eyes sparkled with tears. Slowly, she lifted a hand to his cheek, and he saw that her fingers were freshly severed, every one. She dragged her hand against his cheek in a caress, leaving behind streaks of shining red. He felt her warm blood cool on his hot skin.

'You never told me about him.'

'I . . . I couldn't.'

'You never told me he was dangerous.'

He tried to take her wrist, but it was like trying to hold a river. 'I didn't know,' he said in a whisper.

'You never told me that his hands were made of fire. That he destroys everything he touches.'

'I didn't—'

'You never told me his voice summoned storms.'

'I swear, I never—'

'You knew. Deep down, my love, you knew. You chose not to see the flaws in the diamond, its surface blemishes and deep-down cracks. You were blinded by its brilliance. But you see them now, don't you? The cracks.'

Behind him, John heard the front door open, groaning like a tree in a gale. He turned his head to look over his shoulder, but Mary caught his jaw with the palm of her bloody hand and kept his eyes fixed on her.

'It's the tempest,' she said. 'The boughs are breaking.'

Then she kissed him lightly on the lips; he tasted the iron in her blood. But the moment he tried to pull her closer, she pulled back, stepped around him, and started toward the door where stood a dark figure, waiting for her.

'Don't go, Mary,' he said. 'Please.'

Her feet halted. She looked back over her shoulder and smiled with teeth made of glass. All the warmth was gone, and in its place, ice. 'I am not Mary.'

Mary's visage crumbled away like dry, falling leaves, and in her place, John saw the Woman. Behind her, stepping out of the shadows, was Moran. He twirled a silver scalpel in his hand, and his eyes were as black as night. As she passed Moran on her way to the door, she kissed him, too, chastely, like spouses, not lovers. Then she crossed the threshold and pulled the door closed behind her, leaving John and Moran alone in the room, a room which had just become a small, cold box constructed of close, steel walls.

Moran smiled. 'Johnny boy.'

A cry tried to burst through his throat. But his jaw was locked and kept the sound trapped. His arching back brought him off the sofa, and when he fell back again, he was wide awake. Nevertheless, the bitter dregs of panic sat in the pit of his stomach and threatened to push up in the form of bile. He flailed once, and next he knew, he was on the floor, knees stinging and nails scraping for purchase.

He was quickly regaining his wits. 'A dream, a dream,' he whispered urgently to himself while at the same time suppressing the urge to retch. But he couldn't stop his arms from shaking, and doubt clouded his mind. Desperately, he sought the gun lying just out of view beneath the sofa; it was his touchstone, and the moment he felt its cold steel, he knew he was awake—it was always so hot in his dreams. Hot like fired iron.

For a few moments, he knelt on the floor, digging clenched and trembling fists into his stomach in an effort to keep them still but with the opposite effect of rocking his whole body, a body that told him that it needed to break, to cry, but he refused its pleas. Not here, not now. Not while he had his wits about him. He had to be stronger than that.

But there was movement in the flat, coming from the direction of Sherlock's bedroom. Oh god, had he heard? He'd been doing well with the night terrors, with hiding himself during his weaker moments, and Sherlock didn't know how much he was still struggling. And that was good. John didn't want him to. And in any case he was already calming. He didn't need to be brought back again from the brink. So maybe he could fool him, again. As smoothly as he could, he rolled himself back onto the sofa, grabbed the blanket, and hastily wiped the wet from his eyes, even as Sherlock's footsteps sounded in the hallway. Then he stilled and feigned sleep.

Next moment, the light in the kitchen flicked on with utter disregard for whoever might be trying to sleep in the adjoining room.

'John!'

It wasn't Sherlock's booming day-time voice (he must have been at least half-sentient of the hour), nor was it the voice he used to pull John from a dream; but it was urgent nonetheless. John opened his eyes in time to see Sherlock bending over the sofa to shake his arm. His face was in startling proximity.

'Are you awake?'

'Of course I'm awake,' John said, rubbing his eyes and sitting up. 'Impossible to sleep with you knocking about.'

'Get dressed, then. Lestrade just called. There's been another one.'

'Another . . . ?'

'Murder, John! Lestrade's sending a car.'

He disappeared back to his bedroom, and John trudged up to his. When he re-entered the sitting room, shirt buttoned to the collar, he found Sherlock fully dressed and shrugging into his coat, alert and agitated as though he had recently downed two or three cups of coffee. Cases had always had that sort of stimulating effect on the man. John, however, was still trying to slow his racing heart. He sank back down onto the sofa to put on his shoes.

'What time is it?' he asked while he laced.

'Half three. First officers are arriving on the scene right about now. The rest are en route, like us.'

'Lestrade wasn't kidding about using us, then.'

'Not remotely.'

He could feel Sherlock's excitement radiating from the man as if he were a furnace, and standing so close that he loomed. It felt to John as though impatience had assumed a physical form. A flicker of annoyance caused John to pause, which he shouldn't have. The tremor in his hands reignited. He tried to compensate for this by balling his hands around the laces and giving them a sudden yank. Without looking up, he said, 'What are you doing?'

'As your assistant, I took the liberty of fetching your coat.' Now John glanced up from his lacing, his mouth crooked ever so slightly with amusement to find Sherlock waiting for him with exaggerated patience, John's coat slung over an arm. When he stood, Sherlock opened the coat, an indication that he intended to help him into it. Indulgingly, John turned and slipped both arms into the sleeves at once.

'You won't make a habit of this, I hope,' said John lightly.

'Efficiency, John,' Sherlock said, clapping his hands on John's shoulders. He then bent over, picked up John's cane from where it leant against the sofa, and extended it to him with a perfunctory nod.

John took it and followed Sherlock out the door, confident that the most observant man in the world hadn't noticed anything at all.

'Where is the body?' Sherlock asked the moment his car door was closed and before Lestrade had even pulled away from the kerb.

'South London, Borough Market,' Lestrade answered. He flicked on the flashing red and blue lights, though not the siren. It hardly mattered, though, given the hour. The streets were untrafficked, quiet.

'A vendor?' John asked from the backseat.

'No word yet on who he is.'

'But you think he's one of the Slash Man's,' said Sherlock.

'I wouldn't have called you two up if I didn't. Initial report says he was found in the same condition as Sam Jefferies. Two kids found him, teenagers, called 999 about thirty-five minutes ago . . .'

Lestrade's voice seemed to meld into the background, his voice rumbling in harmony with the car's engine. Sherlock continued to ask questions, Lestrade continued to answer, but to John, it was noise. Just noise. The only words that registered were the echoing syllables: found in the same condition, same condition. Half naked, then. Beaten and bloody. The signature claw-like slashing along the sides and hips. Without being aware that he was doing it, John touched his own scars through his clothes, knowing where they began, where they ended, tracing them, the way they curved. He remembered how those nails had felt, how they had dragged through and ripped open skin, each time he struggled to get away. The pain that was mere prelude.

He hadn't seen the last victim, hadn't wanted to. Hell, he didn't want to see this one. But Lestrade needed Sherlock, and Sherlock needed him. And in some twisted way he hadn't quite worked out for himself yet, he needed this too, needed to prove to everyone—himself not least of all—that he could be useful again.

'Isn't that right, John?' asked Sherlock, turning his head slightly to speak to the back seat.

'Yes,' said John, not at all sure what he had just agreed to. He became suddenly aware of his fingertips tracing the scars and pulled both hands away from his sides, shoving them between his knees to trap them for the duration of the drive.

When they arrived, Sherlock was the first out of the car. He was like a hound taken out to hunt after too long cooped up indoors. His face hid his enthusiasm well—as indifferent and unperturbed as ever—but John could see it in his long strides and quick steps as they passed through the dark market, empty but for the debris of plastic sacks, discarded newspapers, and other rubbish left over from the day. Sherlock and Lestrade strode side by side, leaving John to hobble along behind. Lestrade cast occasional looks of guilt and apology over his shoulder; but when he tried to slow and re-establish the pace, being mindful of John's limp, Sherlock only left him behind and kept talking, forcing Lestrade to pick up again.

John didn't mind—he really didn't. He didn't need coddling.

They soon approached the scene where yellow tape had already been drawn and the other officers were already milling about. Lestrade raised his voice to them: 'Don't touch anything!' He lifted the tape for both Sherlock and John to pass under. 'Forensics, you'll have second crack at it. But for now . . .'

He didn't need to finish. Everyone had already halted what they were doing, though not one of them in a way that could be described as deferential. They knew whom Lestrade had brought with him and that Gregson had actually sanctioned it (suggested it!), and they were all displeased. John felt the heat of their eyes on his face, and when he glanced around, he noticed that their gazes darted back and forth, from Sherlock to him and back again. Of course. They were a spectacle. One, a resurrected being; the other, a recent torture victim, still bearing the evidence in his scarred face and lame leg. Many of them had seen the convent, the state of the kitchen, a place by all rights and laws of nature he should never have left alive. He had no business standing there, like he was. Neither of them did.

John hadn't anticipated how starkly discomfiting he would find their gaze, and he realised that this was the first time in weeks, going on months, that he had been among so many people at once, and with all their attention on him. The seclusion of the flat had been a comfort, but now, he saw, also a crutch. Suddenly hyperaware of how he must look to them, leaning on his cane with his shoulders hunched against the cold, he felt conspicuous, self-conscious, naked.

Hurry it up, Sherlock, he thought, feeling ill. His chest was tight, his stomach upside down.

On the surface, Sherlock appeared to be feeling none of this. If he saw how some officers folded their arms at his arrival, and how others glowered, he gave no sign and proceeded to treat them all like wallpaper. He shut his ears to the pair whispering their disapproval on the edge of the circle, and he paid no mind when Anderson threw a pair of latex gloves on the ground antagonistically and stood, hands akimbo, as though in challenge. The only person he didn't discount outright was Sgt Donovan: he held out his hand to her, palm up, silently requesting a pair of fresh gloves.

She couldn't bring herself to raise her eyes to him, and her jaw was clenched tighter than a wrenched vice. But she handed him the gloves.

'A little space, thank you,' he said. However reluctant, they all obliged and stepped away from the body.

And John got his first look at the dead man. He blinked, and he was

suddenly on the ground, frigid, rigid like a new corpse, but with breath like vapour, blood like poison, and a draining heart that went

thump . . . thump

He blinked again, cleared his head. Not on the ground. Standing. And his heart was sprinting, not waning.

The body on the ground was not his own. But it had been brutalised. Illuminated beneath floodlights Lestrade's team had brought in, it held nothing back. John could see large, dark contusions colouring the bare torso from collarbone to pelvic bone. A red ring of chaffed skin wound round his neck. The dead man's face was awash in blood, which dyed his fair hair dark red, and John instantly suspected bashed in teeth, a caved in nose, broken jaw and cheekbones. This man had fought, and fought fiercely. What good had it done him in the end?

He saw, too, the vicious slash marks on hips and upper thighs, just like Lestrade had mentioned, and John's own flared up in horror and sympathy. The dead man's genitals were exposed and showed signs of abuse, as well—the skin, black and red and swollen. His trousers were left twisted around his ankles. He wore two shoes, but one was missing its laces, which had been used to bind the wrists. An absurd urge to draw his own together beset him, nearly overcame him. Stifling a whimper in his throat, he determinedly kept his hands apart—one on the cane, the other balled in the pocket of his coat. Both trembled relentlessly; he hoped the quaking could be passed off as a reaction to the cold.

Sherlock crouched down beside the body, snapping on the second glove. He started with the hands, pulling the fingers apart, observing the pads and nails. He examined the shoelace binding the wrists. Pulling out a small magnifying glass, he moved up the arms, to the shoulders, neck, hairline. He lifted eyelids, pulled down the bottom lip, pushed in the skin at the cheek. He didn't say a word, but John knew he was collecting, sorting, and processing data—he had seen him do it this way a hundred times before.

His eyes were alight: studious and zealous all at once. He moved around the body with utter and enviable detachment, as if it were nothing more than a fallen log, just one in a forest of trees marked for the hewing. He might as well have been counting rings, examining lichen, sniffing moss.

Everyone's eyes—whether scornful or curious—were locked onto his every bird-like movement. Already, John was fading, melding with the shadows.

Sherlock circled the head, worked his way down the other side, and crouched down at the feet. There, with tweezer-like fingers, he reached inside the right pocket of the bunched trousers and pulled out . . . a small, white flower.

'What is that?' Lestrade asked, leaning in. The others inclined their bodies forward as well, unwillingly curious, though they didn't lift their feet.

The flower was crushed, its tiny petals wilted and torn. Sherlock rolled the stem slowly between his forefinger and thumb, looking at it from all angles. He sniffed it. 'Conium maculatum,' he said. He lifted his eyes to Lestrade's. 'Hemlock. And fresh. Couldn't have been plucked more than a few hours ago. Local florist or greenhouse. Bag.'

Lestrade signalled to one of his officers to pass Sherlock a plastic bag. The officer grudgingly complied.

He dropped the flower into the bag and returned to the pocket, extracting another flower, then another, then a rose petal.

'Has a right little garden in there, hasn't he?' said Lestrade drily.

'Hemlock,' said Anderson, suddenly, pocketing his Blackberry, still aglow. 'Poisonous, that is. Stem, petals, pistils. Was once used as a method of execution. Could be the bloke was poisoned to death.'

Both Sherlock and Lestrade turned their heads slowly in his direction, regarding him scathingly and with no small trace of irritation.

'That would account for the bludgeoning, then, eh, Anderson?' said Lestrade.

'Spare yourself some dignity by avoiding future Wikipedia recitations,' said Sherlock. Then, to Lestrade, 'Head of forensics, did you say?' Without giving Lestrade a chance to respond, he pulled off the latex gloves. 'The flowers are a message,' he said, sitting back on his heels, 'not a weapon. Run the tox screens—you won't find any poison in his system. Heroin, yes. But that's not what killed him.'

'Heroin?'

'The signs are obvious. Your Joe Bloggs here was a heroin addict, the habit that cost him his job in the medical field, his family, and ultimately his home. He's been living on the streets for two years . . . maybe thirty months, given the state of his teeth. Foil under the nails—he used gum wrappers, not a spoon, to prepare the drug. Callouses on the fingertips from burns over the course of months. Inner arm shows scar tissue where he injected. One injection site is red and puckered—fresh—there's dried blood around the wound, and an indention in the skin where he created his own tourniquet with a shoelace, his shoelace, before it was used against him to bind his hands. All evidence indicates that he was shooting up shortly before he was attacked. Eyes are still dilated—but of course, he is dead, after all, three hours at most—but also bloodshot. He was high when he died, still in the first twenty-minute rush, or he wouldn't have been able to fight as ferociously as he did.'

'Did he?' asked one of the officers, shyly.

'Of course he did, look at the body! There are signs of struggle on every inch of him.'

'You said medical field,' said Lestrade. 'You mean he was a doctor?'

'Possibly. Possibly a nurse or even a paramedic. Not enough data to be sure. But he has an educated knowledge of anatomy and veins and knows how to administer a needle.'

'Yeah, but with enough practice, anyone, especially an addict, could learn the proper way to—'

'Not like this, Lestrade. He was trained. It's obvious.'

'Obvious to a former junkie, at least,' said Anderson. He spoke at a coward's half volume, but everyone heard him clearly—his voice was full of acid. Sherlock blinked, clearly not expecting the charge, and his jaw tightened as his eyes stabbed Anderson from where he crouched beside the dead man. The uncomfortable silence hung just a little too long, until Anderson amended, 'Sorry, did I get that wrong? Not former?'

'That's enough, Anderson,' said Lestrade tightly.

'Not exactly a secret—'

'I said, can it.'

'So what's the message?' Donovan suddenly cut in.

Now Sherlock fixed his eyes sharply on Donovan, who was at last meeting his gaze with an air of defiance that dared him to impress. It looked like a staring contest, and everyone held their collective breath, waiting for one of two possible outcomes: Donovan would back down, or Sherlock would answer with an insult, and things would escalate from there.

But neither of those things happened.

'It's a threat,' Sherlock said, rising. He turned his back deliberately to Anderson.

'Against who?'

Sherlock's eyes slid sideways to meet John's, then away again. 'Me.' He cleared his throat. 'You're right, Lestrade—he was a victim of the Slash Man.'

'It's likely,' said Donovan. 'But we prefer solid evidence. DNA. That's not something you can know just by looking.'

'Have you met me? The marks on his hips and thighs—identical to that which was found on past victims.'

'It is compelling,' said Lestrade, his tone calibrated to diffuse the tension and remind everyone of the investigatory nature of their work. 'And very likely a match. There's no sign of bleach on this body—the last corpse reeked of it—so we're almost certain to get a viable DNA sample to run. Then we'll have to compare these marks to the ones found on Jefferies.'

Anderson sniffed. 'Or just get Watson here to drop his trousers and go for the live comparison.'

Sherlock whirled about with the speed of a tornado. 'Lestrade!' he bellowed.

But Lestrade didn't need the push. He had already grabbed Anderson up by the scruff of his coat and was dragging him away from the crime scene. 'The hell's wrong with you?' Sherlock heard his words, heard the scrape of shoes as Lestrade hurried the little weasel away, but he wasn't watching; his vision swam, and he saw red. His eidetic memory flared up, and instead of the body of an unidentified male on the ground, he saw John, John as he had been, that night in that walk-in freezer, seventy-seven days ago. Scarlet slashes marring every inch of bare skin. Crimson cutting into his memory. The rush and heat of blood that signalled both life and death.

'Holmes. Holmes.'

He flinched, drawn back to reality like a fish on a snapped line. 'What?' he asked, irritably.

It was an officer he didn't know very well; but unlike before, this time he had bothered to learn their names. As it turned out, it was useful to know who had your back, and who might turn. This one—Dryers, he thought the name was—had Lestrade's personal commendation, though Sherlock hadn't entirely made up his mind about him yet.

'Your man, Holmes. Just took off. You want someone to . . . ?'

Sherlock looked to the empty place where John had been standing just a moment ago. He spun, coat swirling around his legs, eyes piercing the darkness beyond the circle of artificial light. He thought he saw a shadow moving at the end of the row: it limped, staggered, and disappeared behind a booth and around the corner. His breath hitched. Sherlock pushed through two officers and strode swiftly in pursuit of the fading figure.

Damn that Anderson! he thought, picking up his pace to a jog. He mentally scrolled through his list of favourite ways to get the man sacked or permanently disabled as he rounded the corner and saw nothing but a dark, silent road and a parked lorry. But on the ground, behind the rear tyre, he saw the end of John's fallen cane, the aluminium reflecting the street lamps. Then he heard the retching.

Behind the lorry was John, bent double with his hand splayed against the brick wall of the side of the building. He had just finished vomiting and was now coughing and gasping for breath.

'Are you—?' Sherlock began.

But John waved him away with his free hand. 'A minute, Sherlock,' he said, breathless. 'Please.' His head bowed below his bracing arm, and he retched again.

For a short moment, Sherlock was torn between wanting to do something, anything, and giving John the space he had asked for. Then he supposed that the latter was an answer to the former. He retreated to the corner and nearly ran headlong into Donovan. Her shoes skidded on the gravel.

'Oh,' she said. Her eyes looked over his shoulder. 'Is he—?'

He grabbed her arm and spun her back the way she had come. 'Not now.'

With a sharp jerk, she wrested herself from his grip. That's when she heard the unmistakable sound of a man retching onto the pavement. She looked up at him with flinty, accusing eyes. 'You're a cruel man, Sherlock Holmes,' she said.

'Another time, yes?' he said icily.

'Bringing him here. In this state.'

'He wanted to come.'

'And you let him.'

'He's not a child.'

'He's not well.'

He scowled and stepped around her to draw her away from John, fully expecting her to follow. And she did. In a moment, she was right on his heels, determined to speak her mind.

'It's wrong—you know it's wrong. Treating him like he's the same as before, like nothing's happened to him. He shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be here. Lestrade won't tell you this because he thinks he needs you to solve this.'

'He does need me.'

'And you're a package deal, right? So to hell with Watson then, is that it?'

He rounded on her. 'Don't pretend to give a damn.'

'I thought you gave one. At least where he's concerned. Did he tell you he's fine? That he can handle it? I thought you were a genius. Look at him. He'll put himself through hell all over again for you, if you let him.'

'He's not doing it for me. It's for her.'

Donovan's mouth fell closed.

'Now why don't you be useful for a change and get us a cab. We're going.'

He turned again, to return to the lorry, and this time she didn't follow. But he heard her footsteps carrying her, not back to the crime scene, but on toward the main road. She was getting them that cab after all—he hadn't actually expected her to.

He found John with his back bracing him against the brick wall beside the puddle of sick. His head hung low, but Sherlock could see that his eyes were squeezed shut as though in intense pain. He heard a noise like a sob, then his eyes dropped to where, between his knees, John's wrists were pressed firmly together.

Sherlock reacted. Away from the security of 221B, all those weeks of conditioning himself against intrusive physical contact whenever John was in a state fell to the wayside. He lunged forward, grabbed John's forearms, and wrenched his hands apart.

John screamed and jerked away from him, scraping along the wall and almost falling over.

'It's me, it's me!' Sherlock said, his hands raised now, a sign he wouldn't touch him again.

But John was still edging away, dragging his bad leg with him. One hand bore his weight and guided him against the wall, the other he held out in front of him, as though to keep Sherlock at bay. 'Tight and quivering, that's how he likes us,' John said. His voice was pitched high with distress.

'What?'

'What?'

John's eyes refocused. He looked at Sherlock, but it seemed that a few seconds passed before he knew him. Then he glanced around, up and down the dark street, as though reacquainting himself with where he was. He looked confused and distraught.

'What did I—?' he started, but stopped himself. He swallowed. 'You do it, then?' The abrupt steadiness in his voice was at odds with the signifiers of stress his body language spoke. His chest rose and fell rapidly with his heavy breathing and his fists were clenched at his sides. He took a step on his bad leg, wobbled, and fell back again, his back striking the brick wall.

'Did I do what?' asked Sherlock. He took a tentative step forward, but John's whole body flinched and his hand raised again as a barrier.

'With . . . Lestrade.' He nodded down the street to indicate the crime scene, but he couldn't seem to stop; his head kept bobbing. 'The . . . body.'

'Yes,' said Sherlock. He took a couple steps back to relieve the invisible pressure of his encroaching on John's walls. He retrieved the fallen cane. 'I've done all I can for the moment. Seen all I need to.' Keeping his distance, he extended the cane to John handle first. 'There's a cab waiting to take us home.'

John took the cane by the grip, set it upright on the ground, and slowly rested his weight on it, as if he expected it to fold under him. But he didn't move. Maybe he couldn't.

'Can I—?' Sherlock began.

'Good. I'm good,' said John. Then he stepped forward. And he began to move, as swiftly as he was able, toward the main road. The soldier's mask was back.

They found the cab parked and waiting for them, Sgt Donovan leaning down to talk to the cabbie. When she saw them coming, her spine straightened and she stepped back from the kerb.

'Get some rest, yeah?' she said to John, pulling the back door open for him.

He didn't answer, just slid into the car as quickly as his leg would allow. When she shut the door, he turned aside to hide his face.

Then she faced Sherlock. He stood rigid, awaiting her next words of insult and chastisement and preparing to meet them. But she said nothing. Instead, they stared at each other for a long moment, jaws tight and shoulders squared, the both of them. At last, Sherlock broke the silence.

'I won't work with Anderson. He's off this case.'

'Not my call.'

'I'm telling you how it is. You need me, not him.'

With that, he turned his back to her and walked around to the other side of the cab. To her credit, she said nothing, just disappeared once again down the nearest row of booths.

He pulled the door open, but just before he set foot inside, a movement caught in his periphery. Turning his head, he saw, at some distance behind, a figure standing in the mouth an alley, watching him. He squinted into the darkness. Given the height and stature, it was a man, but other than that vague detail, he could discern nothing more, not at this distance. Not age, not race, nothing. Could have been anyone.

He was torn. John needed to get home, but this man—whoever he was—might know something, might have seen something.

The figure raised an arm, pointed directly at him, and gestured for him to come closer before stepping back into shadow.

'Two minutes, John,' said Sherlock. He closed the door, held two fingers up to the cabbie through the passenger window, and took off with long strides toward the alley. As he walked, he reached inside his coat for his small, metal torch. It wasn't much, but, if needed, it would serve as a baton.

He slowed as he drew nearer the mouth of the alley where the night shadows made the way black as pitch. Swiftly, he clicked on the torch and inadvertently aimed it right into the face of—

He sighed out in exasperation. 'Ewan,' he said.

'Shit, man, get that thing outta my face!'

He lowered the beam to chest level; he had already seen enough to know that Ewan—a thinner, more junkie Ewan than the version he had seen back in October—hadn't gotten any sleep that night.

'Well?' he asked. 'Have you been waiting here all night?'

'Figured you might show,' said Ewan, 'what when I heard he'd gotten Holden.'

Sherlock stepped forward eagerly. 'Holden,' he said. 'That was the victim's name?'

'That was the man's name, yeah.'

'Who told you?'

'Man, I knew him, no one had to tell me.'

'No, who told you he'd been killed?'

'Word spreads.'

'Word spreads fast, apparently; he hasn't been dead three hours.'

'Yeah, well,' Ewan sniffed and rubbed his nose. 'We was friends.'

'Who supplied who?'

'Eh?'

'No. That's not it. You get high together, isn't that right?' He dragged the beam down Ewan's arms, to his singed fingertips, and back up to his bloodshot eyes. Ewan squinted and turned his head aside. 'Tonight. You shot up tonight. You were with him when you did. Did you see—?'

'Nah, man, I didn't see nothing. Course I saw nothing. No one ever does.'

'Tell me. What happened?'

Ewan sniffed again and shifted his weight. 'Weren't nothing. I took mine, he took his. Then I needed a piss. Wasn't gone a minute, not one sodding minute. When I come back.' He shrugged. 'Just gone.'

'Where were you?'

'A multi storey. Near Guy Street Park.'

About half a mile away, then. 'Cold night.' He noted Ewan's thin, flimsy coat.

'Yeah. Well.' He shrugged again. 'Went looking, you know? Ran into some blokes, friends. They told me. Said it was the Slash Man and coppers were on their way.'

'What blokes?'

'You know. Just some blokes. My people.' He moved agitatedly, constantly shifting weight and swinging his arms at his side, like he was about to take off. 'Wasn't gone a minute.'

'That's it? That's all you can tell me?'

Ewan glowered. 'I didn't come here to tell you that. Ain't nothing I got to say is of any use in finding the Slash Man. Nah. I come here to give you a piece of my mind, that's what.'

Sherlock's eyebrows lowered in genuine confusion. 'What?'

'Two people are dead, man. Raped and killed. Old Slash, he never did that before—the killing, I mean. Messed 'em up pretty good, but always left 'em breathing. Always. Then . . . then he got hold of your mate.'

'Stop right there—'

' 'At's when it all changed, eh? Course, could be 'cause you came back. Or maybe both things together. I dunno. All I know is, before your bloody resurrection, no one died. Now . . .'

'I see. So you've decided to blame me.'

'Yeah. Yeah, I have. 'Cause that's the other thing.'

'What thing?'

'I seem to remember you making a promise. In the pub, that night. You said we didn't have to be afraid of shadows no more. Said you'd find him. Said you'd kill him.' Ewan lifted his chin and licked his lips—confidence undermined by doubt. 'Last I checked, you ain't done nothing.'

Sherlock snorted. 'It's not so simple—'

'No? Been working on it since, what, October, have you? So. Here's how I remember it. That doctor friend of yours goes missing. You come to me, I tell you what I know. Then you find him, what, a day later?'

Sherlock didn't say a word. That's exactly what it had been.

Ewan shrugged again and wiped a hand across his nose. 'Case solved. Seems simple enough. You get him back, and that's that. Got what you wanted. So fuck the rest of us, eh?'

'Don't be absurd. I'm doing everything I can think—'

'Man, fuck you. Fuck you. I thought we was on the same side.'

Ewan turned sharply and retreated down the alley, kicking aside a construction cone and disappearing. The noise he made as he retreated echoed loudly in the alley and left Sherlock's ears ringing.

The cold was beginning to numb him—fingers and ears—but there was heat in his face. With a huff of anger, he clicked off the torch and returned it to his pocket; then he stepped back to the street and began walking back. But when he lifted his head, his feet stopped dead under him.

The cab was gone.