Life After Death - A Post-Reichenbach Trilogy

Part Three – Unfinished Business

Chapter Ten

As the doors to her prison clanged shut, plunging them into complete darkness, Molly felt William go stiff and still.

'It's Ok, baby boy. Don't be frightened. Mummy's here,' she whispered.

The first priority was light. She needed to get the torch. William was clinging to her chest, pinning her arms to her body. She needed to free them. She pushed gently against him and managed to get her hands up to his face, where she cupped his chin.

'Sit up, baby, and let go of Mummy, just for a minute,' she coaxed.

Molly eased the toddler away from her and managed to get her arms free and raise them above his head, then brought down, behind his back and held him close. Every movement caused the hard, plastic edges of the cable ties to scrape against and cut into her wrists. It was so painful, it made her gasp but she had to ignore it. There were things she needed to do.

Leaning forward, she groped around in the dark until her hands touched the fabric of the overnight bag. She grabbed hold and pulled it towards her, feeling around on top, between the handles, until she found the clockwork torch. Holding it between both hands, she explored its surface with her fingertips, looking for the on/off switch. There it was – a shield-shaped, soft, rubber bulge, on the top side of the torch. She pressed it with her right thumb and heard it click, but no light showed. It was obviously not wound up.

Of course not, thought Molly. Would Bernadette have made it that easy?

She had to work out a way to wind it up. Feeling around the shape in her hand, she found the winding handle, folded into the back of the case. She managed to flick it out, with her thumb and, holding the torch in one hand, she used the middle finger of the other hand to turn the winding handle round and round. As the battery inside was charged, the LED bulbs began to glow, getting brighter and brighter, projecting a patch of light onto the ceiling of the metal box.

'OK, William, we can see what we are doing now, at least,' Molly said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible.

The next priority was to find out what food they had and, more specifically, what there was to drink. She needed to enlist William's help, partly to reduce the amount of movement she had to make, because the chaffing of her wrists by the cable ties was becoming quite excruciating, but mainly to get him involved in some activity, to occupy his mind and get him moving around, as it was deathly cold in the metal box. She shone the torch over to her left until it lighted on the plastic grocery bag.

'William,' she said, brightly, 'Look where Mummy is pointing. See the bag, baby? Can you get that bag for Mummy?' William lifted his head from her chest and looked in the direction of the torch beam. He saw the plastic bag. He crawled out from under her arms and toddled the short distance to the bag, grasped the handles and dragged it back across the floor to his mother, sitting back down in her lap.

'Here, baby, you hold the torch,' said Molly. 'Point it in there so Mummy can see what food we've got.'

William took the torch and directed the beam into the bag. Molly reached inside and started to take out what she found there.

Bananas. Slow release energy – that was good. Chocolate bars. Again, slow-release energy, and positive endorphins – that was good, too. Packets of crisps. Fats and carbohydrates – good. But the salt and the dryness – not so good. The crisps would make them thirsty and it didn't look as though they had much to drink. Just a four-pack of bottled water, with half a litre in each, was all the fluids they had. That was all there was in the bag.

That wouldn't last long, at all. She would have to ration the water. It had been really busy at work, too, and Molly had skipped two breaks. Neither had she managed to drink the cup of tea she made when she got home so she was already feeling pretty dehydrated – not a good place from which to start.

Because they had missed supper, Molly decided that first priority must be to eat something. She took one of the bananas and tore open the peel. Taking one bite herself, she took the torch from William and gave him the rest of the banana to eat, whilst she moved on to the next priority.

Although, it was not particularly chilly outside, the metal floor of the 'building' was sucking heat out of their bodies, conducting it away. She needed something to put between her bottom and the floor that could act as an insulator. A sheet of card board would have been perfect but there was no such thing in the box. She needed to keep William warm and, at the moment, his feet were on the cold metal floor, wearing only socks. Gripping the torch between her knees, Molly unzipped the hold-all reached inside.

Finding William's carpet slippers, she pulled them from the bag and put them on his feet. She also found his little dressing gown and draped it round his shoulders for now, whilst he was still busy eating the banana. She felt around in the bag again, getting right down to the bottom, and felt something she had not realised was already in there when she had packed, in a panic, earlier in the evening. It was William's thermal huggy blanket.

He had not used it for months. A hang-over from when she used to swaddle him at bedtimes, he had taken to carrying it around with him, like Linus in 'Peanuts'. But he had grown out of that particular habit about six months ago and the blanket had lain forgotten, inside the sports bag. What a lucky break. It would provide a little bit of insulation, if she could just manage to spread it on the floor and sit on it.

When William finished his banana, Molly opened one of the chocolate bars and gave him four squares, while she ate two, then she got him to stand up and hold the torch again, while she rolled over, onto her knees and spread the blanket on the floor. Not being able to move her hands apart made this manoeuvre so difficult but, eventually, the blanket was spread out and she rolled back onto her bottom, on top of it. It gave a small but very welcome degree of relief from the intense cold of the metal.

After some very painful manipulating, Molly managed to liberate one of the water bottles from the plastic rings that held them together in the four-pack, removed the plastic cap and, holding the bottle between her feet, pulled the plunger out to release the valve. She gave the bottle to William and he drank, thirstily, but she had to stop him after a few moments because she didn't know how long they would be in here. The woman had said 'a day or two', but that seemed pretty vague. She might have meant a week. Molly took one small sip herself, just to moisten her mouth, pushed down the plunger to reseal the bottle and put it back in the grocery bag.

The torch had been on for about twenty minutes and the beam was losing its power. It needed to be wound again. Molly thought it a good idea to get William involved in this practice, to keep his mind and body busy and, therefore, warm. She showed him how the winding handle worked and, after a few false starts, he got the hang of it and rather enjoyed the activity, especially as the beam got brighter, the more he wound the handle.

Molly looked at her watch. It was seven in the evening, William's bed time. Keeping to some sort of routine, she reasoned, would help her little boy cope with this terrible ordeal therefore he should 'go to bed'. She set about getting him ready.

His fleecy pyjamas would be warmest next to his skin, so Molly sat William in her lap, removed his top clothes, put his PJ's on and replaced his clothes, over the top. The next part of her hastily devised plan was going to be tricky. She figured that the sports bag could take the place of sleeping bag for William. He would fit into it, just about, if he curled up in the foetal position but she didn't know how he would take to being put into a bag. Making it into a game was the option most likely to succeed.

Taking out the story book, 'Where the Wild Things Are', Molly gave William the book to hold, in his outstretched arms, while she held the torch and read the story, with all the voices and sound effects, as she normally did. When the story was finished, she prompted him to turn to the page with the picture of the boat.

'William, would you like to sail away in a little boat, just like Max?' she asked.

William nodded, a little warily, as this was a new idea.

'Here, Will, this is going to be your boat,' Molly said, shining the torch into the bag. 'Let's make it cosy, first,' she suggested, as she spread his spare clothes out on the bottom, for a bit of padding and insulation. Wrapping him in his dressing gown, she encouraged him to climb into the bag and curl up, then gave him his Snoopy dog to cuddle. She spread hiss warm winter coat over him, like a blanket, and zipped the bag two-thirds shut, leaving a 'breathing space', at the head end. Following the order of the nightly routine, Molly said,

'Say night-night to daddy, William,' almost choking on the emotion that this provoked in her heart.

'Where daddy?' asked William, in a tearful voice.

'Don't cry, baby. Daddy will come soon,' Molly assured him, hoping against hope that this would be the case, although how he would achieve it, she had no idea. She pulled the bag close to her, curled up on the blanket, switched off the torch and, closing her eyes, tried to sleep.

ooOoo

At the end of his day shift at St Mary's A and E, John Watson changed out of his hospital blues and back into civilian clothes. Putting his hand into his jacket pocket, he took out his mobile phone and switched it back on. He had two texts and a voice mail from Sherlock. That was unusual. Sherlock never phoned – well, rarely – so his interest was piqued. He opened the first text and had to read it twice, to be certain he wasn't imagining things. It read:

Molly and Will kidnapped. Call me. SH.

John didn't bother to read the second text. He switched to phone mode and pressed Sherlock's speed dial icon. The answer was instant and the voice at the other end sounded tense and not a little panicky.

'They're gone, John. She took them!'

'Where are you?' John asked, getting straight to the point

'I'm on my way to the Isle of Dogs, East India Dock Basin. It's the place they were last known to be,' Sherlock rattled off.

'Bloody hell, it's going to take me at least an hour to get there at this time of day. I'm at St Mary's,' John replied.

'Just come, John, please,' Sherlock begged. That was not a tone that John was accustomed to hearing from the Consulting Detective, not ever wished to hear again.

'Hey, no sweat, of course, I'll come. Just hang in there, OK? And don't do anything stupid, before I get there, yeah?'

'Thank you, John,' Sherlock replied, with heartfelt gratitude. 'I'll try not to,' he added and broke the connection.

John Watson ran through the hospital and out of the front entrance, hailing a cab, as soon as he touched the pavement. He gave the cabby his destination and got straight on the phone to Mary, to tell her what was going on. After speaking to her, he dialled Mycroft's number to get the full story, including the identity of 'she'.

ooOoo

Sherlock sat in the back of Mycroft's car, as it drove along the A13, towards the Isle of Dogs and East India Dock Basin. He was trying to marshal his thoughts, organise his brain, but he kept hitting a blank wall. 'Fear is the mind killer' – that famous quote from Frank Herbert - kept running through his mind, like a loop of tape on a reel-to-reel, blocking out all coherent thought. He could not get that stupid phrase out of his head. He leaned forward, dropping his head into his hands and rubbing at his scalp with his fingertips, as if he might scrub the intruding thought away but it just would not go. He leaned back on the leather head rest and closed his eyes.

'How much longer?' he asked the driver.

'In this traffic, sir, twenty minutes,' the man replied, the due deference in his tone tinged with empathy. This may be his boss's brother but he was also a man whose family had been kidnapped at gun point by a vengeful woman. How ironic, he thought, that the very person to whom other people came to find their stolen relatives was now the victim of such a crime. Who could he turn to?

Sherlock thudded his head against the head rest, in frustration, and tried for the dozenth time to employ a meditation technique to clear his mind but Frank Herbert would not vacate.

At long last, they arrived at the East India Dock Basin. The car pulled off the road and drew to a halt, alongside several other vehicles involved in the search for Molly and William. The Basin was once part of the East India Dock, the hub of the spice and tea trade for the British Empire during the Nineteenth Century. Later, it was of huge importance to the War Effort, during WW2, as the place where the Mulberry Harbours were constructed, for use in the D-Day landings in Normandy. More recently, the dock had been mostly filled in, with the basin itself being transformed into a wildlife reserve.

It was a quiet spot, isolated, frequented only by bird-watchers and dog walkers. It was the perfect spot to dump a pair of child's shoes – or a child - with little chance of the deed being witnessed and no CCTV.

Sherlock was shown to a taped off area, just off the road but near to the water, where there were tyre tracks. The width and spacing of the tracks suggested a medium sized van, similar to the sort favoured by White Van men the world over. The tracks were fresh – very clean, not scuffed or worn down. There was a single set of foot prints, leading from the place where the van had been to the water's edge and back again, which might indicate that someone had gotten out of the driver's side door, gone to throw something into the water and then returned to the vehicle.

Acting on that assumption, police divers from the Port of London, based at Tilbury Docks, were preparing to enter the water to begin a search for whatever had been thrown in.

If traces of William were found, be it shoes or something more, it would prove that the kidnapper stopped here to dispose of them. But did it prove that these tyre tracks belonged to the kidnap vehicle? Sherlock surveyed the scene, recreating in his mind what had transpired here.

He looked at the tyre tracks and all around the immediate area surrounding them. There were no other tracks visible in the dry, sandy road surface. No other vehicle had passed here since it last rained, two nights before.

He got down on his hands and knees and looked at the foot prints. He had seen the images of the woman believed to be the kidnapper, alongside Molly on the CCTV footage from Molly's flat. Comparing the height and build of the two women, Sherlock calculated Bernadette's weight at around nine stones. William's weight was two stones. He looked at the degree of indentation the footprints had made in the sandy surface and performed a quick mental calculation. Then he stood up and gave a quick nod. These indentations were too shallow for a combined weight of eleven stones.

For confirmation, he looked more closely at the prints nearest to the water, where it was believed this person had stood and thrown something into the Basin. Their weight was predominantly on the right foot and the left print was blurred, where the foot had twisted.

This person was left handed and had thrown something small, with an over-arm delivery, out into the deeper part of the basin. So, no body – however small – had been cast in here, in the last few hours, at least.

Turning to the officer in charge of the scene, he said,

'It was just the shoes she threw in, not the child. Over there, in the deep water.'

The man, who had been advised that Sherlock Holmes was coming to inspect the scene but not about his connection to the missing child, gave him a leary look and said,

'We can't know that, sir. If there's the slightest possibility that there is a child in here, we will keep searching – all night, if necessary. We're bringing in lamps.'

It was nearly dark. Sherlock was absolutely certain that William was not in the water, but the shoes probably were. If the shoes could be retrieved quickly, there may be trace evidence on them that might be of some use but the longer they remained in the water, the more such evidence would degrade. And, so far, this was the only lead they had. He was not sure how successful a dive would be, looking for a pair of children's shoes in the dark, even with lamps. This was feeling more and more like a dead end.

He made a decision, took out his iPhone and called John.

'Where abouts are you?' he asked.

John consulted the cabby,

'Stepney,' he replied.

'Look, John, I'm coming back. There's nothing to be gained here. Tell your cabby to drop you at a café – I don't suppose you've had supper – and we'll pick you up on the way.'

He cut off the call, turned to the man again and said,

'Tell them to look in the deep water, over there,' and walked back to the staff car. He climbed back in, grateful, at least, that his visit to this potential crime scene had evicted Frank Herbert from his Mind Palace and kick-started his brain. As the car pulled away, made a U-turn and headed back towards Central London, Sherlock texted DI Lestrade:

Where is the suitcase? SH

After a short interval, he received the reply:

Hall outside Molly's flat.

Sherlock texted again:

Keep it there. I need to see it.

John sat in the café on the Commercial Road, just up from Limehouse, tucking into an all-day breakfast and taking large swigs from a mug of strong tea. When on an investigation with Sherlock, it was always wise to eat whenever the opportunity presented itself, as one never knew when it might happen again, so he was making the most of this meal break. He was just sopping up the last of the egg yolk with a doorstep-sized slice of bread and butter when Sherlock appeared at the door of the café. John knocked back the last of his tea, as he stood up from the table, retrieved his jacket from the back of the chair and followed his friend out to the waiting car.

'How are you doing?' John asked, as the car pulled back into the stream of traffic and continued on its journey.

'I want to have a look at the suitcase that woman brought with her. It's the only tangible piece of evidence we have, at the moment.'

ooOoo

Pulling up outside Molly's building, the scene was far calmer than it had been when Sherlock left it, over an hour ago. All the Secret Service vehicles had gone, replaced by a single Met squad car and Lestrade's unmarked police car. As John and Sherlock walked up to the front door, away from Mycroft's car, it also departed. The two friends were admitted to the building by a uniformed police officer. The door to Molly's flat was propped open and they walked straight in. The suitcase that had been standing by the front door was now in the middle of Molly's sitting room, lying on top of a square of plastic sheeting, and Lestrade was sitting in the arm chair, waiting for them.

'Who has touched it?' asked Sherlock.

'Mycroft's mob got to it before we were called in. It's been dusted for prints, and checked for explosives by Anti-terror Division,' Lestrade reported, succinctly.

'And?' Sherlock asked, equally succinctly.

'Lots of dabs. If she's got form, we should know pretty soon. No explosives in the case. We've also had a tracker dog in. It would appear that both abductees walked out of the building and got into a vehicle parked two doors down.'

John gave Lestrade a sharp look, for his use of the term 'abductees' but Sherlock gave no sign that he had noticed the word. He was circling the suitcase, like a wolf circling its prey, pulling on the nitrile gloves that had been placed on top of the case, for his convenience. He knelt down and squeezed the two buttons on the locking mechanism, releasing the latch, and unzipped the case, opening it right up.

It was full of used clothes of all kinds - men's, women's and children's - the sort sold in charity shops, the sort that people were constantly being asked to donate, via plastic sacks, pushed through their letter boxes. Though used, they were freshly laundered and neatly folded. It was obvious that the kidnapper had never worn any of these clothes. They were just a prop. But there was something about this collection of clothes that was speaking to him. Unfortunately, Sherlock could not yet hear what it was saying.

This is significant, he thought, but try as he may he could not see why, so he filed it away for future consideration, closed the case, and stood up.

'What do we have on the woman?' he asked.

'Absolutely zilch,' Lestrade admitted. 'Your brother has taken charge of that line of enquiry. Unless we get a match on the prints, there's nowhere else we can go but Mycroft, of course, has access to other sources, not just criminal records'

'Ok,' said John, 'so just to recap, we don't know what vehicle was used – though possibly some kind of commercial van - we know they were headed east, at least up to the time when the shoes were dumped, and we know she is Moriarty's mother...'

'Allegedly,' Sherlock interjected. John looked at him, quizzically.

'We only have Molly's word for that. It hasn't been confirmed, so it can't be counted as a fact.'

'OK, we think she is Moriarty's mother and she has a gun - allegedly. Did I miss anything?' John asked. Lestrade shook his head.

'So, in other words, we've got sod all,' he concluded.

'Not quite,' Sherlock corrected him. 'We have the footprints and tyre tracks form the Basin and a clear full-face image from the CCTV. That's quite a lot to be going on with.'

'And we have a partial foot print from the hall tiles that is not Molly's shoe size,' Lestrade added. If it matches the ones from the Basin then we can link the two scenes.'

But did it bring them any nearer to finding out where Molly and William had been taken, thought John. He had no idea.

ooOoo

Back in his office, Mycroft sat with his elbows on his desk, fingers steepled under his chin, addressing his most senior aides, setting wheels in motion.

'We need to know this woman's name and whether or not she is Moriarty's mother, so get me a copy of James Moriarty's birth certificate. We must assume that she is resident in the Republic of Ireland, until we learn to the contrary. Send that full face image to every port of entry in mainland Britain. I want to know how and when she came in. Send it to motorway services, too, for comparison with CCTV records. Let's see if we can establish what she's driving. She may be travelling under an assumed name so see what names, if any, the ports come up with. Once we have a name, run it through all the car and van rental and sales records. What do we have on the jammer?'

'Still under analysis, sir, but we may have a manufacturer and a retailer quite soon. We are checking internet sites, as well as the usual sources.'

'Do we have a comparison of the partial footprint from the flat and the prints at the basin?'

'Still under analysis, sir.'

'Have the shoes been retrieved?'

'No, sir. The initial search of the shallow water was negative. They are broadening the area, into the deeper water, using lamps.'

'Does anyone have anything to add?'

No one spoke.

'Then, thank you, gentlemen – and lady. Keep me informed.'

They all filed out, except for Anthea.

'Do you need anything, sir?' she asked.

'Divine intervention would be helpful,' he commented. 'Is my car back?'

The answer was in the affirmative.

'Then I shall be at my club. Let me know if anything happens, please.'

ooOoo

Sgt Donovan came through to the sitting room, from the bedroom area.

'We're nearly done here, sir, she said. 'We just need to wrap up that suitcase and send it to the Home Office lab, with the other evidence.'

'OK. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave, now, gentlemen,' Lestrade stood up and indicated the way out. Sherlock gave him a look of incredulity.

'I'm sorry, guys, but this is a crime scene and it must be sealed off.'

'Greg, Mycroft's people have been over this place with a fine tooth comb. Every last atom of evidence has been gathered, bagged, tagged and removed for further testing, apart from the case and you're just about to do that. How can you justify asking us to leave?' John demanded.

'Look, John, you know how it is at the moment,' Lestrade replied. 'We have to do it by the book. I don't like it any more than you do. Please, don't make it harder than it is already.'

John turned to Sherlock and said,

'Come on, mate. Let's get out of here.'

He put his hand on his friend's arm and manoeuvred him out of the flat. Out in the street, Sherlock seemed at a loss as to what to do next so John took charge and steered him round the crescent to the main road, where he hailed a passing cab. Neither man spoke, on the way back to Baker Street, and once inside the building, Sherlock went straight upstairs, whilst John knocked on Mrs Hudson's door, to break the news to her of the kidnapping.

When he walked into Sherlock's sitting room, the detective was standing at the window, gazing out into the night.

'Where the hell are they, John?' he asked. 'It's like they just disappeared into thin air. How could we let this happen?' Sherlock had never felt so impotent.

'Hard as this is going to be, Sherlock, we're just going to have to wait for this woman to contact us,' John replied. 'She must have some demands. Why else would she have taken them? If she was just going to kill them, surely she would have done it in the flat or even outside the flat. She needn't even have blagged her way in, need she? No, she will have some demands. They are hostages. And people who take hostages always have demands. She will call.'

Sherlock had turned towards John and the two men now stared at one another until John looked away, went into the kitchen and put on the kettle. It was going to be a long night, so they would need sustenance.

John woke up with a stiff neck from sleeping in the chair all night. He looked round the room. Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. Then he heard a noise from the stairwell and Sherlock appeared on the landing, carrying a bag of croissants, a bacon sandwich and a litre of milk, from the sandwich bar next door. Living alone had, it would seem, forced Sherlock to become at least partly domesticated.

He took some plates from a cupboard, arranged the food on them and placed them on the kitchen table, then set about making a pot of coffee. John staggered into the kitchen, sat at the table and rubbed his hands over his scalp before picking up a sandwich and tucking in. They were half way through breakfast when Sherlock's phone rang. It was Mycroft.

'I've emailed some information to you about Moriarty's mother. I've sent it to Lestrade, also. I take it there has been no contact?'

'None at all,' Sherlock replied.

'Well, look at what we have and then get back to me if anything occurs. The divers have been busy all night but nothing to report, yet.' Mycroft closed the connection.

Sherlock booted up his laptop and opened the email. The first attachment was a PDF file of Moriarty's birth certificate. It stated his mother's name as Bernadette Jamieson. There was no father's name listed but the child's name was given as James Moriarty. The next attachment was a copy of a passport application, in the name of Bernadette Jamieson, dated five years previously. The photograph was clearly recognisable as the woman who had shown up at Molly's flat the day before.

The next file was a CCTV image taken from a P and O ferry from Dublin to Liverpool, four weeks earlier, which showed Ms Jamieson boarding the ferry, in Dublin, as a foot passenger.

Sherlock opened the next attachment. It was a CCTV image of the same woman getting out of a Ford Transit van at the Hilton Park service station, south bound, on the M6, near Birmingham. The image was black and white so the colour of the vehicle could not be determined and, although the registration plate was clearly visible, a note on the document stated that the plates were false. This particular plate was registered to a different make and model entirely.

The final attachment was an MI5 document which showed a comparison of the foot prints found at the East India Dock Basin and a partial foot print taken from the Minton-tiled hallway in Molly's flat. They were a match.

Sherlock sat back in his chair and took his hands to his mouth, in the prayer position, whilst he considered this information. So, she was Moriarty's mother, she had been living somewhere in the UK for a month and she had acquired her vehicle on the main land. She had been at the basin, the day before and had, in all likelihood, thrown William's shoes into the water.

Unfortunately, this only confirmed what they already knew. It did not provide any new leads, other than the woman's name but there were no guarantees that she was still using that name so it may or may not be useful. However, Mycroft had stated, in the email, that they were circulating her photograph to all hotels, motels and letting agencies in the London area. Someone must recognise her. As Sherlock and John mulled over this data, Sherlock's text alert sounded. He opened his message box and read the text. It said:

Sleep well, Mr Holmes?

The number was withheld. Sherlock showed it to John, who, having read it, took out his own mobile and called Lestrade.

'She's made contact,' he said. After a short pause, while he listened to the reply, he said, 'OK,' and cut the call.

'He says to come to the Yard.'

ooOoo