References to non-consensual drug abuse and implied incest.

Chapter Twenty Five

Sherlock followed John's retreating back down the well-trodden path, through the wood. It had a few twists and turns, around mature trees and large bushes, but it led them, eventually, to the gap in the fence, where they paused to recce the landscape.

As predicted by Josie, they could see the main building of the old hospital,. It nestled in a dip in the land, surrounded by a network of tarmacked and paved, roads and paths – all sprouting weeds, now – that had previously provided access to the various parts of the institution, including the many small cottages that stood, in short rows and little clusters of three or four, dotted about the grounds.

The main building, illuminated by a huge gibbous moon in a cloudless sky, was a solid block of red brick masonry, four storeys high, with a footprint about the size of half a city block – pretty small by today's standards, but quite large for its time. The roof was flat in places, pitched in others and it sported several tall chimneys, some with missing or frost-damaged chimney pots.

The front aspect faced away from their vantage point and was served by a long, straight driveway, flanked by two rows of trees, all the way to the boundary wall and a pair of large, imposing, iron gates.

All the buildings were in darkness but for one cottage – the one closest to the main building – from which light spilled out, onto the overgrown garden, through two ground floor windows. On the cracked and crumbling roadway, in front of the cottage, stood a black Audi Q7, with tinted windows.

'What's the plan?' John asked.

'Turn off your phone.'

'What? I've put it on 'silent'…'

'No, turn it off,' Sherlock replied, taking out his phone and switching it off.

'Is that entirely necessary? No one will be able to contact us, now. How will we know what's going on?'

'We'll be able to see and hear what's going on. If they have scanners – which I strongly suspect they do – our phones will give us away. That would rather spoil the surprise, don't you think?'

Reluctantly, John took out his phone and switched it off.

'Now, what?' he asked.

'We skirt around the perimeter and see if we can discern where they're holding him.'

'What about that cottage?' John asked, indicating the illuminated building.

'It's my guess that the Combat 18 personnel are billeted there. As Josie said, the cottages are not secure. Arthur would be out of there in minutes – unless he was physically compromised, of course, but let's assume he isn't – not entirely, at least.'

'Shouldn't we at least take a look, check out your theory?'

'That would be a waste of valuable time. If we draw a blank in the main building, we'll consider that as a second option.'

'OK, so how do you plan to gain access?'

'Tradesman's' Entrance,' Sherlock replied and set off toward the main hospital building, skirting round to the right, in the opposite direction to the position of the lit cottage, keeping to the edge of the woodland to take advantage of the cover.

ooOoo

'What would you like us to do with him, Mr Holmes?' the Interpol officer asked.

'I would be grateful if you would hang on to him, for a day or two, just until we've rounded up these Combat 18 chaps. It would be most unhelpful if he were to tip them off that we're onto them. It would not be the first time that a source has sold out to both sides.'

'Very well, we will do as you ask. I'm sure you will be able to return the favour, before too long.'

Mycroft nodded, gave a tight smile and shook the other man's hand then turned and climbed into the waiting limo, next to Anthea. As the car moved away from the Interpol building, to retrace its journey back to the airport, Mycroft thought aloud.

'Just because Moran is the mastermind behind this operation does not mean that he is necessarily hands on.'

'No, sir,' Anthea agreed.

'So it is possible that Sherlock will not be confronted by his previous error of judgement.'

'Yes, sir,' she confirmed.

'One can but hope.'

'Indeed, sir.'

Mycroft had not been surprised to learn that Sherlock could not be contacted on the very mobile that Delaney had earmarked as the contact phone. It was typical of his brother that he would choose to block a line of communication. He really was not a team player, except in a team of two, and even then, he had to call the shots.

The closest anyone had come to being an equal partner was…John Watson? No, not even him. It was Molly Hooper. She was the only person who Sherlock had ever really listened to, and changed his ways accordingly. Though Dr Watson did come a close second. And Watson was with him, now. Mycroft hoped that the ex-soldier would, if push came to shove, keep his brother from imploding or pressing the self-destruct button.

Unfortunately, Frayne had not been able to confirm or deny that the derelict hospital was, indeed, where Arthur was being held. He had not been involved in that part of the caper, only the actual snatch. So it remained to be seen whether the current operation was to be a wild goose chase or not. Mycroft looked at his watch. The helicopter assault team should be arriving on the scene right about now.

ooOoo

As Sherlock led the way along the tree line, keeping well in the shadows but heading, inexorably, for the service entrance at the back of the main hospital building, John heard the unmistakable throb of an approaching helicopter.

'Speaking of spoiling the surprise,' he muttered.

'That could work to our advantage,' Sherlock replied, pausing to search the sky for the tell-tale lights of the chopper. A bright star just above the horizon, over to the north-east, was no celestial body, he concluded.

'That could be a very convenient distraction. While they engage with the enemy, we can slip inside and bag the prize.'

He set off again, his increase in pace evidence of a renewed urgency to gain access to the building and locate the hostage. John fell in behind him, approving the plan. As he had pointed out earlier, Sherlock was a consummate professional when it came to sneaking around.

ooOoo

Inside the cottage, Colonel Sebastian Moran sat on a musty old sofa that had been hastily covered with a sleeping bag but still smelt of rat's piss and mould. Mick Robinson and Cameron Blake stood in front of him, at parade rest, with feet apart and hands crossed behind their backs. In the kitchen, two more men were engaged in preparing a meal for the party, on a camping stove fuelled from a large Calor Gas bottle, standing on the Marley-tiled floor. Outside the front door, another man was on guard duty, straining his ears and eyes for any suspicious sights or sounds.

'He had a bad reaction, you say,' Moran prompted.

'Yes, sir,' Blake replied. 'The SFX videos alone, I think, would have freaked him out but, in conjunction with the PCP in the water, it really flipped him over the edge. After we put him back on the bed, he was rambling about betrayal and deception, having a full blown paranoid interlude. I think Knowles might have overdone the dose. The man has no formal medical training, sir, I swear.'

'Damn! Well, the paranoia is fine, so long as he is lucid. When we film his statement, he needs to appear compos mentis, at least, otherwise it will be dismissed out of hand. How long has it been since he drank the water?'

'Nearly two hours, sir.'

'So the effect may have diminished a little?'

'Possibly, sir. He vomited the entire contents of his stomach but I suspect he had already taken quite a hit. Dissolved in the water, it would be absorbed very quickly.'

'Well, let's give him a little longer. I can smell supper. What are we having, hedgehog stew?'

'No, sir, lamb stew. It's a lot more readily available than hedgehog, these days. And boiled potato.'

'What's that noise?' Moran asked, suddenly aware of the sound of a helicopter, passing overhead.

'Go and see what's happening,' he ordered Robinson, who jumped to attention and then dashed off to check out the noise.

Once outside, in the dark, he and the man on guard duty stood on the garden path and watched the helicopter pass by, to the north of the hospital campus, and keep on going in a south-westerly direction.

'What's over there?' asked the guard.

'Wales and Anglesey, eventually.'

'Could be Search and Rescue, then, d'you think?'

'Maybe. Could be a training exercise.'

'Or it could be trouble.'

'Just keep a look out. If it comes back, it might mean we're about to have company,' Robinson instructed, then went back inside.

ooOoo

Knowles was reading his Bible, again, but, mercifully, to himself, sitting in the corridor outside the room where Arthur was being held. He had been told to keep an eye on the 'subject' but the lights inside the room had been disabled and he wanted to read, so he had come out into the corridor and brought the chair with him, to sit in the light.

He was beginning to regret taking on this case. These paramilitary types were a bit scary and he hadn't been paid, yet. He wondered whether he ever would be. He also rather felt that he had been thwarted in his mission. The young man had appeared to convert but then, when the evidence of his lover's infidelity was shown to him, he seemed to regress.

That video of the man with the young boy had really hit home. Knowles wasn't sure why that had been the biggest shock to his subject, because his partner had gone with a much younger person or because the younger person was not another employee, or so he assumed, so he did not fit the usual pattern.

Obviously the PCP which the subject had ingested would have enhanced his reaction. And that was the other thing. Knowles was not in the habit of using perception-altering drugs in his work. He preferred to rely on the power of persuasion and the words of the Lord. Speaking of which, he turned to one of his favourite, most self-affirming passages – Romans 8, Verses 31 -39,

'What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?'

Knowles revelled in the words, lost in his own personal rapture.

ooOoo

When they reached the rear entrance to the main building, John and Sherlock found it was boarded up, the boards nailed securely to the door frame, but, skirting along the rear wall, they found another door that had been forced, long before, which led down some steps into a sort of cellar. Taking out their flashlights, they identified it as a boiler room. And, at the far side, there was another set of steps leading up to an internal door. Sherlock made short work of the lock and they stepped out into a long, straight, corridor.

The floor was thick with dust and detritus, including the skeletons and decaying corpses of several pigeons, who had found their way in but failed to find their way back out again and had perished, weeks, months, even years before. At intervals along the walls of the corridor, there were signs and arrows indicating the direction of a stair well.

As it was clear from the lack of footprints, in the dirt on the floor, that no one had been in this corridor recently, the two men made for the stairs. The door to the stairwell yielded to Sherlock's lock-picking prowess and they climbed up to the next floor.

The internal layout of the hospital consisted of two long corridors, joined at each end by two shorter cross corridors, and lined with rooms on either side. Stair wells at both ends gave access to the other floors, and ancient lifts, half way along each long corridor, would have provided wheelchair and gurney access, when this was a functioning hospital. They weren't much use, right now. Even if they had been working, they would have been far too obvious.

Sherlock and John followed the corridor round to the other side of the building and came to a reception area and the public entrance. Here, they found the first evidence of recent occupation. Leading to and from the front door, were several sets of footprints in the dirt.

The two men followed these foot prints along to the second stair well. The door to this well was not locked and the stair case was illuminated, from above, by light leaking from the internal corridor, two flights up. Cautiously, silently, they began to climb.

ooOoo