As I sat in the deafening, cramped and frigid compartment, behind a dying pilot, holding a child for whom I could do nothing, incredibly, imperceptibly, I drifted into sleep.
The grey scraps of cloud outside, tossed like leaves in a fitful breeze, shifted, becoming wind-tossed foliage. I was sitting not in a fragile device of metal and wood, but on a hillside, warm and secure in an ancient land. The foliage remained, a hedgerow bordering a field of summer wheat. The grain rippled with the breeze, the green wall danced, until in the midst of the leaves—or the scraps of cloud—I became aware of a Presence among the moving scraps of green or grey: a pair of eyes that were there and then gone, that met mine and were hidden again. Green, grey; there, gone; comfort, threat.
I must have made a noise, because the child in my arms stirred, pushing away the heavy coat to rub her eyes and look around her.
“What did you say?” she asked me.
“I didn’t say anything, honey.”
“Yes, you did,” she insisted.
“I fell asleep, and was dreaming. It must have been something about that.”
“I’m cold,” she complained.
“It won’t be much longer,” I said. She gave me a look that declared her lack of reassurance at the statement. “Here, snuggle back under the coat,” I suggested.
This must be what it felt like to be an Elizabethan noblewoman before a roaring fire, I thought: toasty warm in front, frigid in back.
“What was your dream about?” Estelle asked.
“Only a silly dream. A face peeping out from leaves.”
“My Papa made a painting like that.”
“Did he? Oh yes, I remember.” I’d seen it in a London gallery—heavens, only two weeks before? The Green Man, Damian had called it, a Surrealist rendering of the ancient pagan spirit of the British Isles, the surge of life in this green land. The figure was carved into church ceilings and pews, painted on the signs of public houses, leading processions. He was often shown as a face with branches bursting from his mouth and nostrils and twining about his head in the exuberance of life: a divine creature, speaking in leaves.
Jack-in-the-Green, Will of the Wisp, Wild Woodsman: The figure represents not just life, but the cycle of birth and death and birth anew. His authority and mystery stand behind such diverse characters as Robin Hood and Puck. Damian’s painting began as a study in green, a canvas entirely covered with leaves so precise, they might have been the colour photograph of a hedge. Only after examining the wall of greenery for some time, searching for meaning in the shades and shadows, did the viewer become aware that two off-centre points of light were not drops of water on leaves, but reflections from a pair of green eyes. Unlike the foliate heads carved into the stones of churches, nothing could be seen of the features—or rather, the skin seemed made of leaves instead of flesh—but the sense of watching was powerful. Not threatening, necessarily, just … eerie. Disturbing.
At the time, my thought had been, Next time I walk in the woods, the back of my neck will crawl.
Now I pulled my arms more snugly around the artist’s child, and raised my eyes to what I could see of Javitz. He had stayed reassuringly upright; there was no indication that he was about to faint away and send us spinning to earth. Still, I wanted to get down as soon as we could. The hour I had given him was less than half over, but the man urgently required medical attention.
I stretched out an arm to knock on the dividing glass. I could tell he heard me from the tilt of his head, but it took a minute for him to turn.
When he had done so, I held out my hand and slowly lowered it, palm down, to indicate that I wanted us to descend. He put up a finger, telling me to wait, then bent over his pad for a minute. He held up the message:
I’M FINE. BLEEDING STOPPED. NO REASON NOT TO MAKE INVERNESS OR FORT WILLIAM.
Inverness was some eighty-five miles from Thurso, or less than an hour with the wind at our back as it was. Fort William was nearly twice that. I shook my head firmly, mouthing, “Inverness, not Fort William.”
He shrugged, which I would have taken for capitulation except that I had a feeling that those scars were hiding an expression of stubbornness. He started to turn back, but I rapped hard on the glass, and spelt out in front of his eyes:
KEEP LOOSENING THE TOURNIQUET.
Not bleeding: Right, I thought. So why are you surreptitiously reaching down now to work the tie loose on your upper leg?
The first thing I’d learned about this aeroplane was that its 230 horsepower engine would take it 500 miles on a tank of petrol. On the trip up here, we had failed to come anywhere near that, but—so far—it appeared that our curse of mechanical problems was in abeyance. Theoretically, 500 miles would take us near enough to London to smell the smoke—although if Javitz’s hands were no longer on the controls, it could as easily land us in Ireland, France, or the middle of the North Sea.
How to force a man to your will when you could not reach him—could not even communicate if he chose not to turn his head? It was maddening, and his masculine pride was putting this child in danger.
I might have to break the pane of glass that separated us, even if it meant Estelle and I were in the full blast of air. The butt of the revolver would do as a hammer—but as I was reaching for it, I saw that Javitz had turned again, and was holding to the glass a longer message:
I KNOW YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT THE LITTLE GIRL, BUT HONEST, IF I FEEL MYSELF GOING THE LEAST BIT WOOZY, I’LL TAKE THE CRATE DOWN, NO HESITATION. I’VE BEEN WOUNDED BEFORE, I KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO BE SLIPPING AWAY, AND I WON’T TAKE ANY RISK WITH THE TWO OF YOU.
BUT I CAN’T HELP THINKING ABOUT A MAN WITH A RIFLE IN THURSO, AND WONDERING HOW MANY MORE OF THEM MIGHT BE SCATTERED AROUND SCOTLAND. THE FARTHER SOUTH WE GET, THE GREATER THE CHANCE WE LOSE THEM. WHOEVER THEY ARE.
IF YOU REALLY INSIST, AND YOU DON’T THINK THEY’LL BE WAITING FOR YOU THERE, I’LL TAKE US DOWN IN INVERNESS.
UNLESS THERE’S A WHOLE ARMY OF THEM, THEY WON’T HAVE A MAN WAITING IN FORT WILLIAM. OR GLASGOW.
YOUR CALL.
The farther you go, the harder it will be to catch Brothers, said a voice in my mind. I looked down at the burden in my arms, and pushed the thought away.
Javitz and I studied each other through the cloudy glass, me searching for a sign that his injury was worse than he was admitting, he waiting for my decision. Estelle stirred, and his eyes went to her, then came back to mine. His expression had not changed, and I could see neither doubt nor truculence there.
I mouthed, “Fort William.”
He turned back to his controls; the noise from the engine picked up a notch.
Chapter 13
Chief Inspector Lestrade picked up the latest report from Scotland, then threw it down in disgust. It said the same thing all the other reports had said: no sign of them.
Lestrade was not a man much prone to self-doubt, not when it came to his job, but in the eight days since he’d posted the arrest warrants for Sherlock Holmes and his wife, he’d begun to wonder if he might not have been rash. Granted, their outright refusal to appear and be interviewed had left him with little choice in the matter, but even then, a part of him had refused to believe that the man had anything to do with the death of that artist’s wife down in Sussex.
Yet, he was involved somehow. The name Adler could be no coincidence—the artist had to be related to Irene Adler, even if French records had been too thin to show precisely how.
Still, even if Damian Adler was a blood relation to the woman, what right did Holmes have to take matters into his own hands? An amateur investigator was a danger to society, and the man’s attitude towards the police was outmoded, self-important, and frankly offensive. It happened every time Holmes appeared on the borders of a police investigation. It hadn’t taken much urging for Lestrade to agree that it was high time to let Holmes know that a Twentieth-Century Scotland Yard would no longer tolerate his meddling and deceptions.
No matter how often the man had solv
ed a crime the police could not.
No matter the respect Lestrade’s father had held for the man.
No matter the reverence with which politicians and royals alike spoke of him.
Time to bring the old man down a peg, him and that upstart wife of his.
(If he could only lay hands on them.)
Except that now the man’s brother had vanished as well.
He’d had Mycroft Holmes in two days before, and—surprise—the man had answered not one of his questions to his satisfaction. He’d been even more irritated when, half an hour after the man left, an envelope with his name on it was brought up—left by Mycroft Holmes at the front as he went out. Having spent two hours in Lestrade’s office, he was now suggesting a meeting later that afternoon.
Lestrade had thrown the note into the waste-bin and got down to the day’s work, but at five o’clock, he’d found himself going not home, but in the direction of the suggested meeting place.
But the man didn’t show. Lestrade stood in the crowded halls amongst the children and the tourists, feeling more like an idiot every minute. He went home angry.
His anger had become slightly uneasy when the man’s housekeeper telephoned bright and early the next morning to say that when she’d let herself into the Holmes flat that morning, her employer had been missing, and what was Scotland Yard going to do about it?
In fact, he’d been uneasy enough that he’d telephoned to the offices Mycroft Holmes kept in Whitehall. And when the secretary said that his employer hadn’t come in that morning, and yes it was highly unusual, Lestrade had rung the caretaker at Mycroft Holmes’ flat on Pall Mall: Mr Holmes had left Thursday morning, and not returned.
Not that there was much Lestrade could do about it yet. Mycroft Holmes was a grown man, and although he had not been seen since walking out the doors of Scotland Yard Thursday afternoon, there could be any number of reasons why he might have done so, and it was too early to assume foul play. The man had vanished on the same puff of smoke as his brother Sherlock, along with Mary Russell, Damian Adler, and Adler’s small daughter. To say nothing of Reverend Brothers and his henchman Gunderson.
Nary a sign of any of them.
Chapter 14
An hour south of Thurso, I was relieved when the clouds at least grew light enough to suggest where the sun lay. However, its location also was a sign that we were not headed towards Fort William. Instead, Javitz was either aiming us at the other goal he had mentioned, Glasgow, or at Edinburgh to its east. Both cities were approximately two hundred miles from the island where we had started the day: two and a half hours at cruising speed, a little less with the push he had on now.
Estelle fell asleep again. The weak morning sunlight took some of the bitterness from the cabin’s chill. Or perhaps I was fading into hypothermia. If so, I couldn’t rouse myself to object.
Two hours south of Thurso, the big engine showed no sign of slowing, and I could perceive no change in our altitude. Javitz remained upright, and his head continued to swivel as he studied the instruments before him, so I hunkered down in the furs and tried to emulate my granddaughter.
Our decision was made for us by the machine itself. I jerked awake at a change in the noise around me, registered briefly that we’d come a lot farther than Glasgow, then realised that what woke me was something drastic happening below. Javitz responded instantly by cutting our speed and nudging the flaps to take us lower.
A moment’s thought, and I knew what the problem was: The hole in our hull had given way, and was threatening to peel the metal skin down to the bones.
Land now, or crash.
For the first time in hours, we dropped below the clouds, although it took a moment before my eyes could make sense of the evidence before them: Somehow as I slept we had passed over all of Scotland, and were now in the Lake District—that could be the only explanation of those distinctive fells, that stretch of water in the distance. But on one of the aeroplane’s sideways lunges, I saw that below us lay not nice bare hillside, or even water, but trees.
Green, stretching out in all directions, unbroken and reaching up to pull us to pieces.
Oh, dear.
Javitz was no doubt thinking the same thing, only with profanity. I could see his jaws moving as he cursed the timing of our forced descent, then he pulled himself all the way upright and I caught my first glimpse of his injury: The clothing over the left side of his body, waist to knee, was stained with blood; the white silk scarf he had used as a tourniquet on his upper thigh ranged from dark brown to fresh red.
The flapping noise grew louder, while Javitz struggled to counteract the effects of an increasingly large metallic sail under our feet.
A giant hand laid hold of us and tugged, and the very framework around us began to twist: In moments, the aeroplane would be ripped to pieces.
Javitz turned and shouted, loud enough for me to hear, “Brace yourself!”
There was little bracing I could do, rattling around in my miniature glass house as I was. I threw my arms and body around Estelle, and told her in a voice that I hoped was firm and comforting that we were going to land but it would be a big bump so she was to stay curled up and not be frightened—but my words were cut short as the giant hand jerked us with a crack felt in the bones. Javitz cut the fuel. For a moment, it was silent enough to hear my voice reciting Hebrew. Then the world exploded in a racket of tearing metal and crackling trees, the screams of three human voices, and an unbelievable confusion of sound and pain and turmoil as we tumbled end over end and fell crying into the dark.
Chapter 15
A crying seagull woke Damian. His eyes flared open, then squeezed shut against the pain. When he had himself under control, he looked first at his father, who had sat all night on a stool between the bunks, then towards the lump of bed-clothes opposite that was the kidnapped doctor.
Damian licked his dry lips; instantly, Holmes was holding a mug of water for him to drink. When his father had lowered his head to the pillow, the young man murmured, “Where are we?”
“Halfway to Holland, more or less.”
“Holland? Why on earth—?”
“It would appear that is where the wind and waves care to take us.”
“But we can’t go to Holland. What about this poor woman?”
“She, in fact, cast the deciding vote. Having treated you, she was loath to watch her work go for naught by permitting the toss of the boat to reopen your wounds.” What the doctor had said was, As the people in Wick seem disinclined to offer me employment, I may as well stay with the one patient who will have me. A sentiment that Holmes not only appreciated as a benefit to the lad in the bunk, but agreed with. Dr Henning had proved a surprisingly robust personality; he wondered what Russell would make of her.
Damian closed his eyes again, this time in despair rather than pain. “First a boat, then a doctor. I should have stayed in Orkney and let myself be arrested.”
An infinitesimal twitch from the bed-clothes betrayed the doctor’s reaction to that last word.
“If we are both in gaol,” Holmes said in a firm voice, “there will be no-one to prove your innocence. As soon as I assemble the evidence, we shall present it, and ourselves, to the police. Until then, subjecting you to incarceration will serve no end. And I believe we now must bring Dr Henning into our confidence.”
Without the slightest chagrin, the woman threw off the covers and sat up, blinking at the two men. “I’d like a cup of tea before we launch into explanations,” she said to Holmes, and to Damian, “How are you feeling?”
Holmes moved over to the stove while the other two concerned themselves with the sensations beneath the gauze. The doctor decided, as Holmes had earlier, that healing was under way, and no infection had begun.
He distributed the mugs, then pulled on a pair of stinking oilskins and a coat, stirred several spoons of sugar into a third mug of tea, and managed to get up the companionway without pouring it over himself.
The young fis
herman’s face was gaunt with fatigue and his fingers were clumsy as they stripped off their gloves and wrapped around the mug. Holmes laid a hand on the wheel and, as the beverage scalded a path down the fisherman’s throat, said, “Your sense of responsibility is admirable, but you have been on deck for twenty-four hours, and you would better serve us all if you had some sleep. I am perfectly competent to keep us on a straight course for two or three hours.”
Gordon said nothing, just savoured the hot, sweet drink while studying Holmes’ hands, the sails, the sea. When the cup was empty, he said, “If anything changes—anything at all—you’ll wake me?”
“I imagine any slight change will rouse you before I can call, but yes. If so much as a bird lands on the deck, I’ll shout you up.”
Without another word, Gordon walked across to the hatch, looking half-asleep already as his feet hit the companionway. When his head had disappeared, Holmes felt as if he were drawing breath for the first time in thirty-six hours.
It was, in truth, precisely the sort of undemanding distraction he required at this point: his eyes occupied with the shapes and heading of other vessels on the North Sea water while his mind took the Brothers case from the shelf to examine it. He even managed to get a pipe going, to assist his meditations.
The need to spirit Damian away had taken priority—although the urgency of an investigation did tend to lag when its main actor died—but he hoped that Russell had lingered in the burnt-out hotel where Brothers had gone to ground long enough to unearth its secrets.
Not that she would have stayed until daylight: The police were sure to arrive there, and Russell would choose the child’s safety and freedom over any gathering of evidence. She would have done the best search she could by candle-light, then slipped away—removing or destroying first anything that might lead back to Damian.
But competent as Russell was, it remained a frustration to walk away from a case before its conclusion. True, they’d had no sign that Brothers’ acolytes had either participated in or were poised to resume their master’s crimes, but there was an itch at the back of his mind, the feeling that some piece of pattern did not quite match the others. Although even now, with the first leisure he’d had in days, he could not decide where that ill-fitting piece lay.
The God of the Hive Page 5