Murder with Lens: A Sherlock Holmes Case (221B Baker Street Series)

by S. K. Lloyds

  “Oh. After you both went missing, yeah? Easy.” he said by way of explanation.

  “I should have called last night. It was irresponsible, but I was tired and I crashed. I’m sorry,” Reese told him. She also nodded at Young. The apology had stopped Lestrade in his tracks. In fact, Reese had called from the hospital in the afternoon, as soon as they’d arrived there, and explained. Of all of them, she’d been the mature one.

  Young spoke up. “We tracked your iPad to a park – the Victoria Embankment. It’s a high crime area. A theory emerged, Reese, that John convinced you to use your skills to track Sherlock there after he’d bought and used the drugs. On the surface, it’s plausible. Your primary loyalty has always been to the other Assets.”

  Sherlock snickered on the tail end of that, and Reese put a hand to her forehead to sigh. “Oh my God, Rose, please tell me you’re too smart to buy that theory.”

  “No, I believe you, Reese. I feel obliged to tell you what you’re up against.” The CIA Agent got to her feet and said. “Powerful people in the Met have been spinning this since your phone call. Some of them seem to deeply dislike Sherlock. They’re sure to suspend you and take your badge pending further investigation, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Immaterial,” he muttered. Released from his inspection, he rolled his sleeves back down over his bruised arms again. Sherlock pushed his hands through his thick curls.

  “Headache?” John bent to Sherlock to ask.

  He nodded.

  “Think you’re coming down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me know if you feel nauseous.”

  “Oh, there’s nothing left unless you count the orange juice. I got sick all over them when they put in the heroin. It’s been too long for me to take big pushes like that without getting nauseous. And that’s the tearing and bruising you see.”

  John straightened in surprise. “You remember?”

  “Relax, Doc,” Reese sighed, “That was deduction. Good deduction. He may be all flaky, but he’s still in there.”

  Young came to a stop at Sherlock’s shoulder and, for a moment, said nothing. She stood in the canned light of the shuttered office and watched him as if staring down a logic puzzle, while taking the Bar. But it would do her no good, and she’d worked with exceptional individuals since recruitment. So Young pulled over the chair beside Holmes and sat with him. “Sherlock,” she said gently, “I feel, in part, accountable for what’s happened to you. Normally, we, and by we, I mean the CIA, would have the manpower to safeguard all the Assets on this case. We’re well aware these are very difficult adversaries. Their Secret Society is well-established, known to be dangerous, and we’re outnumbered here. The attitude about Exceptional people in this building is very negative. They actually believe you’re a sociopath. The Club may be unshakable now, I understand that. It’s just another fact of life we may have to live with. But I know we involved you when we didn’t have the staff to protect you. That’s our fault.”

  He glanced aside at her, the jade green of his eyes lines around swollen pupils. “What do you want?”

  Her pale brows went up. She pinched her thumb and forefinger together in air, “The skills you possess are very rare, so rare if we weighed the potential of every soul in this building, we still wouldn’t reach a point where the scales would equal one of you.”

  Sherlock looked away from her in clear irritation.

  The fabric of her pinstriped skirt suit rustled as she got to her feet. “You’re no freak to us, Sherlock. We’d like very much to help you recover your memories now.”

  He groaned aloud, even before she finished the sentence. “You are not going to hypnotize me. It doesn’t work, for one thing, and for another, I don’t trust the information that comes out is genuine.”

  Young’s matte lips quirked. She was delighted. “Oh how intriguing.” She turned in her Asset’s direction. “You’re right again, Reese.”

  Standing with Lestrade, Reese shrugged. “Never gets old.” She artfully ignored the fact Holmes glared at her, openly.

  Then Young leaned over the desk and looked down at Holmes, “Who said anything about hypnotism?” When she straightened she looked at John. “I’m going to let you two talk about this for a while, then I’m going to ask you to let us recover his memory.” She turned for the door and paused. “I’m sorry if it seems disrespectful, Lestrade. He may be your masterpiece, but he needs us to restore him.”

  “He’s not mine to turn over.”

  “Ah, that’s right. I forgot. You didn’t raise him.” She said as the door opened for her – Scott’s doing. “Reese. Come with me, please.”

  ***

  The room selected was an old interrogation room, complete with an observational window. These had mostly been phased out in favour of video. However, John could see the charm of this type of a room sitting in a building that hosted a museum of crime. It could’ve been picked up, cinder by cinder, and brought downstairs. As it was, they’d had to ride the elevator to the lower floors to find this relic. Nothing about it was glassy or clear. And it was beige and dull green. Sherlock hated it immediately. He walked in, turned around, and tried to leave.

  When that didn’t work, he sighed, took off his coat, and draped it over a metal chair.

  To John, stood on the opposite side, in the observation room, the space looked cold and hostile. Three steel chairs, and a small square of white Formica table. Most of the room was empty. The lighting was so harsh that, under it, Sherlock’s smooth, white skin looked alien. His puffed pupils looked bizarre. He glanced indifferently at the glass, a strangely chic figure in his designer suit, perched as he was, and elegantly dark in his crisp shirt.

  “It’s bad, right? If Freak doesn’t want to remember, it has to be bad.” Donovan said.

  John tried to ignore this. He preferred Reese’s theory that Sherlock physically couldn’t remember due to manipulation: a carefully calculated mix of drugs.

  “Well, he is a bit of a control freak,” Lestrade sighed and bowed his head. Whatever passed through his mind, it mixed irritation with concern.

  “I always thought Freak was too crazy to know fear.” Sally Donovan laughed at herself.

  Special Agent Young stepped away from the observation room door and pivoted sharply to look out at Holmes. Beyond the glass, Reese opened the door and stepped into the room. Sherlock looked away at the wall.

  Young smiled tightly, “It has always helped me to think of them as half-gods, Sergeant Donovan; one half is utterly beyond us; but the flesh is weak. Be content they’re merciful. Hope you don’t witness the destruction caused by one who decides to do harm.”

  Donovan rolled her eyes. “What are they doing?”

  “Well,” Young sighed and pushed a lock of hair off her forehead. “Here’s the puzzle about Assets. Nothing is simple when it should be, and when it shouldn’t be, it’s easy as pie. They’re backwards people. They should relate to one another. But often don’t. High math, however, is like breathing.” She crossed her arms. “It’s all down to Reese now.”

  “And Sherlock,” Lestrade added.

  Inside the room, Agent Scott pulled a chair over by the door to wait. Reese walked in and sat on the table. She glanced over Holmes. “Just cool it, okay?”

  “This is your choice for relaxing.” Sherlock paced and waved his hands about. “There are no stimuli in here. It’s… depressing.”

  “Aw, come on. Don’t be childish.” Reese half-smiled, which effectively meant she found his misbehaviour appealing. “Now sit down. What’s going to happen is we’re going to walk through until we get a pattern. That pattern will be a memory. If it’s not a memory it’ll be a sign of how they constructed a memory block. We’re going to use cues to drop you back in the memory. You just try to talk. Got it?”

  Sherlock was arch. “Last time someone wanted to talk to me that badly, he was a sociopathic cabbie. What good are you?”

  Reese’s expression froze on annoyed. She upended her finger and pre
ssed it to the tabletop like she was hitting an On button. “Holmes, get here. I’ve been through the report. Let’s use it to deduce what happened to you. But don’t pussy out.”

  Holmes stopped close to the table and stared at her.

  She looked unblinkingly up into his face. Then she shook her head, “The fact he’s still stoned isn’t helping.” But at least his pupils were shrinking now.

  Inside the glass, Young held the button that would let them talk to the interrogation room. Her tone was all business. “Reese, stop making excuses and do your job.”

  “God,” Reese muttered under her breath. She turned her head away and rolled her eyes. When she looked back at Sherlock, there was some small trace of amusement on his face. It was much more helpful than his glare had been.

  Holmes pulled out a chair and settled into it so abruptly she jolted. He raised his head a little when she looked at him.

  Sherlock looked down at Reese’s legs. His brain stuttered to life.

  Abrasions.

  Uneven scuffs on her knees. From taking him from the Embankment. They were red, tender, but she ignored the discomfort. A little further up, her leg was bruised. That one… he didn’t know where it had come from. It was ubiquitous in shape, and older than the others, pale golden-brown now, meaning between 10 and 14 days old. Back before him.

  Memory cues. He leaned forward and picked up her hand. Sherlock turned it, pushed back the little leather bangles she wore to hide the wrong she’d done, and touched the scars. For such a little thing, Reese’s whole body jumped. Her fingers curled, though not quite into a fist. Sherlock watched her face. Her expression was immobile. She reacted exactly like she was frozen. No one ever touched them. Seeing the reactions she couldn’t control gave him some faith in what she was about to do to him.

  “Loosen your hand.” He said.

  Her hand uncurled, but mechanically. He could practically hear the joints groan. What it didn’t do was actually lose tension. If someone were to handle the scars often, she would learn to loosen her hand. “You cupped your hands after you cut your wrists, afraid to move them. They stiffened this way.” He spread out his hand and flattened her resistant fingers.

  Her face said Yes.

  “I’m going to be careful, Sherlock.” Reese spoke dryly.

  “Yes.” He gently laid one of her hands in the cup of the other on her lap. They closed together like a lily as soon as he released them, supple again. She gave her arm a shake – it was a habit – to dislodge the bracelets that hid her wounds.

  Reese exhaled and turned her chin just a little. “I don’t want to hurt you, but this isn’t going to be a walk in the park. It’s not in my power to make it okay, just to make you remember it.”

  He looked at the far wall.

  “Take off your jacket and roll up your sleeves. And the trick is to stop thinking about this, and listen.” she nodded.

  He took off his jacket and laid it carefully on the table. Rolling up the sleeves was particularly difficult. The bends of his elbows were horribly sore.

  Sherlock said nothing, though it did surprise him when Reese got up on the table and unscrewed three of the four fluorescent bulbs. The room wasn’t black, but the twilight conditions changed his perspective. His swollen pupils thanked her, but when the rods and cones in the back began the switch to mesopic vision, he was swept with cold.

  Fear.

  Why was he afraid?

  Because the Photography Club didn’t miss a trick. Sherlock rocked back in the chair. For a second the room had gone soft red. Red and loud and dark.

  Reese’s hand closed on his shoulder. “Okay, I said to listen, not rush in after it. Stop pushing. We have to kind of sneak up on it, all right?”

  Sherlock was still powerless to speak. He was no longer sure he wanted to do this. However, he knew this was just fear of the unknown. Obviously, he was alive. Fearing a memory was dysfunctional.

  “Okay,” she went to the door and opened it for Lewis.

  Scott and Lewis moved the table clear across the room to sit under the window. Now Reese could sit in the chair directly in front of him. “So the working theory is our memories are full sensory if repressed. That makes it bad, because it happens inside our heads like it’s real and right now, but it’s still just a memory.”

  She took his hands in hers and examined each of his arms for about two minutes.

  He shivered when her fingertip touched the bruises on his right arm. For a moment he lost his breath. A strange sensation filled his skin. He fought it down and started to pull away. Sherlock aborted that motion. “Reese.”

  “Stop it,” she told him. “I’m telling your brain where to start. If you muck with your reactions, I can’t read where to do next. Relax and concentrate, but don’t try to outthink it. But relax.”

  That cut it. He didn’t like this. He levelled a glare at her that she ignored. But then Sherlock shut his eyes and forced himself to do as she said. “Try again.”

  Her fingertip touched his arm. It felt like the echo of a point. A swell of euphoria reached across his skin. It was uncomfortable in company. Relatively low doses of cocaine always had the same result for Sherlock – a sudden, very pleasant flush of what he assumed was ‘normal’ human emotion, and a very keen yearning to be touched. It endured for 20 or 30 minutes, unless he was also smoking. That really made it intense. A shadow of that hypnotic feeling flooded his nerve endings. He put his head down. This tangled surge of feeling was what had gotten him into this mess. The problem being, it all went very far downhill from there, very quick.

  She traced from arm to arm. He got warm when she touched the first spot on his left arm. Heroin always made him hot. It slowed him down. It drew out the coke inside him, so he could experience it. But by the time she got to the third shot, Sherlock was struggling for air, and felt distinctly ill. He was getting too much too fast. Her fingertip touched the fourth injection site, and his stomach twisted from too much heroin. His breaths came out with short, deep grunts now.

  He felt horribly sick. Then he was… somewhere else. He couldn’t see properly, just darkness awash in red light and noise. On his left, his fingers were numb from the grip on his upper arm. He jerked hard to get to his feet. The needle sliced him. He made a low cry. Heat and sickness rushed him. His stomach contracted violently. The rope on his throat went tight and he almost choked on vomit. They dragged him back from the frothy mess.

  Full room.

  Roughly thirty people.

  In high spirits. Euphoric.

  This is a social gathering.

  It hasn’t happened in a while.

  Low red light. Photographers.

  Numbers exceed CIA conjecture.

  Improper injections on left side.

  Calloused hands with even wear.

  Handling suggests: Carpentry work.

  Doctor or nurse on right arm.

  Doctors had professional experience. They had access to drugs.

  ‘Don’t panic, Sherlock. If you don’t panic, we won’t need the ropes.’

  He looked at the speaker, a young woman with brown hair and grey eyes, very trendy American boy-cut on a pixie face and-. She ran a wet cloth over his eyes and stinging set in. The world went saturated and blurry. He could no longer see detail.

  ‘He’s ready.’

  Shadows moved and swirled around his dazzled eyes.

  A young man’s voice, close, but not yet at manhood.

  ‘Tell us about your relationship with Mycroft Holmes.’

  Mycroft? It was supposed to be Reese.

  ‘Yes, we know about Reese. But these are interesting times, Sherlock.’

  He wouldn’t talk about Mycroft at first. But the drugs were inexorable. Then Sherlock was glad of the distance between them, because he could no longer lie, and there was nothing he could hold back from them; however, there were questions Sherlock simply couldn’t answer: What was the scope of Mycroft’s powers beyond the British government; Mycroft’s ambitions and
his ethics; Anthea.

  At one point, he wondered if he was dreaming, and then, if he was breathing.

  The Photography Club knew something that had dawned on Sherlock when his brain flickered through the Indian restaurant and he’d fixed on the camera as they’d half-dragged him out to the waiting car. Mycroft Holmes not only had Sherlock under steady surveillance, he had London, and most of the UK in his palm. Turn out the lights? Mycroft could put them back on. Particularly if you turned them off over his younger brother.

  And if you had Sherlock’s ear, it meant you got Mycroft’s attention. Say, if you happened to have physical or ideological possession of Sherlock Holmes.

  Tearing pain blasted across his torso, he pulled against a crowd of merrymakers on his ropes. Epiphany dawned that this was actually his memory he was experiencing. The tug of war that strained muscle painfully across his chest and back… it was the past. It had already happened. It was over. He felt himself breathe deeply-

  He sat on his heels on a tile floor in the Yard. John had his face between his hands, and was shouting his name in a way that suggested he’d tried calling, and it hadn’t gone well. Sherlock’s hands were balled up in John’s coat. He opened his eyes, but his voice wouldn’t work. He could hear himself gasp for air. He buckled, nearly falling face-first against John’s jacket, without being able to do anything about it. Dimly he began to hear Reese’s steady voice talking. He listened to what she was saying, because she kept up a steady demand that it was crucial to his safety that he hear her. She was his epiphany. She was the one who’d talked him back out again.

  For a moment, he sank into a restful darkness.

  “-something he called the red house.” Reese wasn’t talking to him, but he could feel her voice vibrate. This was because his head was cushioned against hers. He tipped against the cocoa scent of her hair. “I’ve got the names of the streets, John. That will put us in the area. Let me talk to Lestrade and my team about how to go in. He’s going to need about a half hour to get back up to steam. Can you feel him shaking?”