Chapter Text
I couldn’t believe what I was doing.
I was running in the dark into territory that morphed into something alien and very dangerous by night, with a madman and an idiot at my side, neither of whom had any real claim on me or any connection with my life.
The only thing I knew was, despite my antipathy towards him, the only hope I had of getting my son back alive and unharmed lay with Sherlock Holmes.
We pounded across the cracked paving stones and plunged into the gloom between two of the tower blocks. I forced my feet to obey and outstripped Sherlock Holmes’ long legs to take the lead; the lighting was dim where both the ungodly and the just plain stupid had applied spray paint liberally over the street lamps. I knew from experience which walkway was the safest to use at night and which route to take to Toby Greaves’ home. All that could be heard was the slapping of our feet against the concrete surface and the dry rasping of our breath.
We rounded a corner and I led the way down an incline into the parking basement of a small block, instinctively hugging the walls and keeping away from the light. The lifts were, as always, out of order and the stairs stank of piss, fags and stale alcohol. It crossed my mind that there were worse places to live than Dublin Close, and this was one of them.
The way it happened was almost anticlimactic. Panting like a long-distance runner, I stopped at the correct front door and nodded wordlessly, bending over to recover. Breathing deeply, Sherlock Holmes examined the door, poking a gloved finger at the scarred wood. He pushed gently and the door gave way, having only been held on the latch. We looked at each other for a beat or two and then Sherlock Holmes pushed the door wide enough to slide around the jamb. He led the way into the hall; I followed silently with John Watson bringing up the rear.
They had cornered James in the squalid living room where he had clearly been hiding, my James. He was filthy dirty and shivering with cold, hair matted with dried blood from a scalp wound, but he was awake and although he was scared, he was clearly very angry too.
“I keep telling you,” he said, his treble voice shot through with desperation, “you’ve got it wrong. Toby was only taking delivery of some chemicals for me so no one at home would get suspicious and start asking questions. There wasn’t anything else in that parcel – no meth, no downers, no nothing.”
“You expect us to believe you?” The voice was still young but lower pitched, like someone in their twenties. It sounded angry and rough. “Your little friend told us a lot about you. Said you had a lab – a place where you could make things. All sorts of things, he said. You’re tellin’ us he was lying?”
“Sounds like it, Vince, dunnit?” Another voice; this one had some kind of speech impediment which made the owner sound as though he was speaking through a mouthful of something.
“Don’t make ‘im angry, kid,” the muffled voice continued. “’Ee’s ‘orrible when ‘ee gets angry, believe me.”
“Just give us the stuff and we’ll leave you alone,” the first voice continued. I heard James sigh in exasperation.
If ever there was a time for you to keep your mouth shut, James, this is it. I thought silently at him. Even as I did so, I could see it just wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m clearly going to have to say it yet again, aren’t I?” James retorted, his tone very clipped and short with anger.
“I think you’ve probably said quite enough for one day, don’t you?”
Sherlock Holmes stepped into the living room slowly and deliberately with his hands held loosely at thigh level. I made as if to follow him but John Watson held up a gloved hand to stop me with a finger of the other hand held to his lips. I shifted quietly and carefully until I had a vantage on the whole room, then I waited while the scene played out in front of me.
James stared at the new player in this drama. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.
A faint smile chased its way across Sherlock Holmes’ face. “I’m your guardian angel,” he replied crisply, “and if you have any sense at all you’ll shut up and let me deal with this.”
James looked as if he might argue but he was forestalled.
“Oi!” The muffled voice was shot with indignation. “I dunno ‘oo you think you are but you can piss off outta here unless you want more trouble than you can ‘andle.”
With my improved view of the tableau, I could see the speaker was Caucasian, in his late teens/early twenties, short and stocky with massive shoulders and a bull neck. His chest was so broad that his arms did not easily lie against his sides but rather stuck out at an angle, making him seem even wider.
Sherlock Holmes laughed humourlessly. “Are you threatening me?” he asked, disbelief colouring his tone.
“You better believe it,” the other one chimed in. He was the same age, slighter in build and evidently of mixed race, wearing a woollen hat pulled down hard over his ears. His speech was much clearer than his friend’s but his eyes had a wildness about them that made my skin crawl.
Sherlock Holmes walked deliberately into the slighter man’s personal space. “Now, I’ll tell you how this is going to work,” he began conversationally. “I am going to count to five. You and your friend here will use that time to disappear – I don’t care where – and in return I will not give the police your full names, addresses, telephone numbers and Facebook pages, is that perfectly clear?”
The two thugs exchanged incredulous looks and burst into laughter, the stockier one of the two making unnervingly high-pitched snorts.
“Listen to ‘im!” the slighter one said. I saw John frown out of the corner of my eye. “Think we’re gonna believe a load of old cobblers like that? Know my Facebook page? Bollocks! There’s some kind of protection thing on Facebook, ain’t there?”
“So you do have a Facebook page?” Sherlock Holmes replied pleasantly, “Thank you for that piece of information. It should make tracking you down so much easier – should I need to, of course.”
I put my mouth close to John’s ear; he leaned towards me. “He’d never find either of their Facebooks in a month of Sundays,” I whispered, “Surely they won’t fall for that one?”
John merely smiled in reply and nodded back towards the unfolding drama.
“They’re right, you know,” piped up James from the sofa. I closed my eyes. James! I thought at him helplessly. “Facebook’s heavily protected; there’s no way you can find them blind.”
Sherlock Holmes swivelled to regard my son; his face was expressionless. “You,” he rumbled, “would do well to pretend that you are invisible. Better still, not actually here at all.”
James glared at Sherlock Holmes and stiffened his spine. “I know exactly who you are,” he said venomously, “and I don’t have to do anything you tell me to!”
Sherlock Holmes regarded the small, impotently furious person currently challenging him thoughtfully for a few seconds. “And if I were in your situation,” he said finally, “I would reflect on the fact that I am in very deep trouble and not be too choosy about exactly where my assistance comes from.”
Sherlock Holmes swung back to the two thugs, effectively dismissing James. “My offer still stands,” he intoned, “take it or leave it.”
The stockier thug suddenly produced a knife which he brandished in front of Sherlock Holmes with a grin. Next to me I felt John tense sharply.
Sherlock Holmes eyed the weapon speculatively and shook his head. “Wrong answer,” he told them. Never taking his eyes off the knife, he slid his hand slowly into his coat pocket and brought out a phone.
“For the benefit of those of us present who are unable to read,” he said, thumbing the keypad rapidly and reading aloud, “Suspects apprehended at victim’s address. Assistance requested although not strictly necessary.” He turned the screen towards the two thugs.
“This was sent ten minutes ago, before I set foot in this room,” Sherlock Holmes continued in a bored voice. “Detective Inspector Lestrade’s reply came in less than a minute. Now, how long do you think it will take them to get here, eh? Look, see for yourself.” He offered the phone to the knife wielder.
For one brief instant, the man’s attention shifted and Sherlock Holmes struck, catching him viciously in the kneecap with the toe of his bespoke leather oxford. I gasped, my fist in my mouth, as the thug howled loudly hugging the injured area with his left arm. Sherlock Holmes pivoted quickly, changing his balance and caught the man in the side with another swift kick, this time to the kidneys. The thug grunted in pain but seemed suddenly to remember that his assailant was unarmed. He brought his right hand, still gripping the knife, round in a slashing blow aimed at Sherlock Holmes’s face, forcing him to dodge quickly. The thug grinned nastily and advanced, unsteadily but with determination. His injured knee gave way and he stumbled, slashing wildly with the knife as he did so.
Sherlock Holmes gave a small yelp of alarm and suddenly, the flat report of a handgun rang around the small flat followed by an anguished cry of pain. The knife clattered as it dropped on the bare floorboards.
“Jesus!” the stocky thug whimpered, cradling his right hand against his body. “I’ve been shot! There’s a hole right through my hand!”
“Hold it!” John barked. My head whipped round to see John coolly lining up the barrel of a handgun on the other thug; he had the steadiest left hand I had ever seen.
I dashed out of the hallway into the room. “James!” I yelled, pushing past Sherlock Holmes and sinking down onto the tatty sofa to grab hold of my son, to reassure myself that he was alive. I think I shouted at him, I think I also buried my hands in his hair and pushed his head into my shoulder; I know I was crying.
Right on cue, distant sirens heralded the belated but welcome arrival of the police. John kept his gun gently circling between the two captives, but it became unnecessary when Sherlock Holmes produced a reel of duct tape from the depths of his voluminous coat and deftly secured the more active of the two men; he left the other one moaning on the floor.
I stroked James’ hair and looked through it for the source of the dried blood. James was shivering but he still tried to push my hand away. “Stop fussing, mum,” he protested. “They didn’t hurt me.”
Overhearing, John gave a huff of laughter. “Maybe not,” he told James in tones that brooked no argument, “but you’re still going to the hospital to be checked over, so get used to it.”
Hearing a metallic click, I looked up to see John engage the safety on his handgun and thrust it swiftly under his jacket against the small of his back.
Sherlock Holmes stood quietly, looking from the door to the sofa and frowning in concentration. He then took a few steps further into the room and approached a closed door to the rear left. He stopped and frowned at it, appearing to inhale deeply. A clatter of feet outside the flat made him turn his head and moments later a grey-haired, strongly built man pounded into the flat with an entourage of no less than three officers.
“Good job we were in the area,” the man offered, taking in the scene with a swift glance.
“Ah, Inspector Lestrade,” Sherlock Holmes greeted him in an expansive tone of voice, “how nice of you to drop in.” He pushed the bound and gagged man into the arms of a rather startled PC. “Just put the rubbish out while you’re here, will you?”
Lestrade nodded at the other thug who was curled in the foetal position, rocking gently and moaning with the pain of his shattered hand. “What’s wrong with him?” he demanded.
Sherlock Holmes shrugged indifferently. “Do you care, Inspector?” he replied. “He and his little friend there are responsible for the murder of a defenceless thirteen year-old boy and at least ABH on another, if not aggravated assault. And that’s just today. I don’t think you’ll want to waste too much time being gentle with either of them but for the record, his knife slipped.”
Lestrade held Sherlock Holmes’ implacable gaze for a moment longer than strictly necessary then sighed. “Donovan, call an ambulance,” he said resignedly, then, “Oi! What the blazes do you think you’re doing with that? It’s evidence!”
Sherlock Holmes was on his knees jabbing at the threadbare sofa with Stocky Thug’s knife. He scowled up at Lestrade and snapped his fingers impatiently. Rolling his eyes at the policeman’s look of incomprehension, he snapped “Evidence bag!” Lestrade rummaged in his pockets and produced one, holding it open; Sherlock Holmes slipped the knife into it.
“Just tying up loose ends,” he said, surreptitiously pocketing something he had dug out of the sofa as he rose to his feet. Before Lestrade could comment, Sherlock Holmes motioned towards the closed door towards the back of the room.
“I think you might want to send in someone with a strong stomach,” he said quietly. Lestrade gave him a quizzical look. “Mrs Greaves,” Sherlock Holmes replied steadily. “I think she may have been dead several days judging by the smell. Whether the two morons you just arrested are responsible or whether she simply overdosed on something I will leave up to Anderson to discover; that’s probably just about his level of expertise.”
Suddenly, I experienced a strong desire to relocate somewhere else – anywhere else. I shifted around on the sofa to get my feet back under me. “Right, young man,” I said to James, nodding at the flashing blues lights heralding the arrival of the ambulance, “hospital-time for you.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, it’s only a scratch!” James objected testily.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” John murmured; Sherlock Holmes snorted quietly. I frowned at both of them.
“James,” I warned. He took in my serious expression and slumped in defeat, rolling his eyes.
“Alright,” he said in a resigned tone of voice and rose from the sofa. The action brought him face to face with Sherlock Holmes.
James stared up at his rescuer with a considering look on his face.
“Is this what you do, like, for a job?” he asked artlessly.
Sherlock Holmes nodded. “It’s not always as exciting as this,” he replied, “and John doesn’t generally…”
John coughed loudly, his eyes skittering towards the Detective Inspector. Sherlock Holmes smiled faintly and didn’t finish his sentence.
“But you solve crimes, don’t you?” James persisted, “You work for the police and for people who hire you. And he blogs about it.”
Sherlock Holmes nodded consideringly. “That’s more or less correct, yes,” he replied. His eyes on James were extremely sharp, his expression almost – approving, if that were at all possible. I felt suddenly unsettled.
“James,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “it’s very late. I think we need to get you into the ambulance now.”
Sherlock Holmes nodded. “Indeed,” he told my son, “despite the fact that most medical studies have about as much logic behind them as witchcraft, I am reliably informed by my friend and colleague the good Doctor Watson here, that after an experience such as you have been through tonight, an anti-tetanus shot at the very least would be a wise precaution.”
“And don’t think you’re going to escape scot-free, Sherlock,” the good Doctor Watson himself chimed in with a grim smile. “Don’t think I didn’t notice where that knife got you.”
John made a grab at Sherlock Holmes’ arm and pushed the sleeve of his coat up to his elbow, displaying a long, thin gash running down the outside of his forearm. He examined it critically.
“Butterfly stitches, I would think,” he said.
“You can do it back at the flat,” Sherlock Holmes said decisively, rolling down his sleeve. John shook his head smiling.
“No can do,” he said. “If James needs an anti-tetanus shot, so do you – I’m well aware that yours has lapsed even if you’re not – and I have none at home.” He grinned cheerfully. “Time for an ambulance ride, Sherlock,” he said, “we’ll take a taxi back when they’re done with you.”
Sherlock Holmes sighed and looked down at James. The two of them exchanged similar long-suffering glances then, in unison, picked themselves up wearily and trudged towards the door. John and I followed close behind.
“Do you smoke?” I heard James pipe up, turning his head towards Sherlock Holmes.
The tall man made a non-committal gesture with one hand. “I’m trying to quit,” he replied, “but I do occasionally when John fails to find my stash; he’s an absolute bear about smoking in the flat.”
“Quite right too,” John muttered; Sherlock Holmes ignored him but James nodded seriously.
“So’s mum,” he offered. “Uh, you wouldn’t happen to have any on you, would you? I could really do with a drag after that.”
“James,” I said from behind in low, warning tones. He gave no sign that he had heard, but his ears turned red. I smiled faintly at John who quirked his eyebrows in response.
Sherlock Holmes shook his head slowly. “Unfortunately, no,” he replied, “but I know a place that stays open till 2am – I think I could persuade the ambulance driver to…”
”Sherlock!” hissed John. Sherlock Holmes’ shoulders tensed slightly then relaxed again. He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“On second thoughts,” he said, turning his head in profile to look at James and rolling his eyes in John’s direction, “I think we’re going to have to do without.”
“You bet you are!” John muttered. He turned to exchange a glance with me and looked away again immediately to hide a giggle. I sniggered quietly and he turned back with a smile that was wide and genuine.
“Holmeses!” he exclaimed quietly. I shook my head in amused resignation.
“Hopeless,” I told him. As if he didn’t already know