Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? (44 page)

He proceeded to confirm what they’d already suspected about the weapon.

‘You said he offered cash. What did he pay you with?’

‘Gold.’

Lofthouse realized that Holmes’s money would now be just as real as his clothes. That power of agency was part of the concept of Sherlock Holmes. ‘For anything else,’ she said,
‘how easy would it be for someone in a perfect disguise to get credit?’

‘Once I’d got my deal, he came to visit me. He said he was interested in buying some items from me. I thought I was dealing with a corrupt copper who’d got himself into the
best possible place to prosper. He said we could scratch each other’s backs. I showed him the Bastard Scourge. He pretended that he didn’t know much about this stuff, then grabbed the
Scourge and used it on me. He made me dance like a puppet, saying lines like I was Sherlock Holmes. I . . . I got what he was doing then. I have never been so . . . not until now, all the time now
. . . He made me walk downstairs and get into a car. Then he made me sleep. When I woke up, I was in another room. It might have been quite a long time later – I don’t know. God, I
don’t like to think about . . . He used the Scourge to make me stand absolutely still, though every muscle was . . . and he picked up this . . . spanner, and . . .’ Ballard started to
sob, looking at Costain, shivering.

‘Fuck,’ said Costain.

‘It was after the second blow that I . . . went.’

They told him what they thought had happened afterwards, that their suspect had raided Ballard’s apartment.

‘He only got the list under the bed?’ said Ballard, his despair for a moment turning into surprise. ‘Then he
hasn’t
got everything.’

‘That is what we were hoping you would say,’ said Sefton. ‘Where’s the item that can locate a particular individual?’

‘You promise you’ll get me out?’

Lofthouse took a deep breath. She was about to negotiate with the dead. Not the sort of thing she normally found on her day planner. ‘We’ll do our best. You have my word as a senior
officer: if we ever discover we can save
anyone
, we’ll save you.’

Ballard wrote down the details and then, horribly, tried to keep talking, to say anything that could delay him going back to Hell. Lofthouse looked to Quill, not wanting to let
this continue, but then something started to haul Ballard backwards on his chains, which skittered across the floor, and he squealed like a pig. Lofthouse and the others ran to Quill.
‘James,’ she cried, ‘come back to us, please. We’re all here for you.’

He opened his red, sore eyes and glared at her with an anger that was only tempered by how lost the rest of his expression was. Sefton went to him and started to whisper urgently to him, to make
him say his name, over and over, to recall past adventures. Gradually, the trappings of Hell started to fade. The screams of Ballard as he was dragged down the hall outside vanished into the
distance. They were back in the apartment, even though now, to Lofthouse, it felt more like a stage set. Quill wouldn’t speak when prompted. He just kept shaking his head. Moriarty seemed to
have revived a little. As Sefton kept talking to Quill, he gained in structure and presence.

Finally, when they thought he was able to move, they supported Quill between them and got him to the elevator and out to the car.

Costain drove them to Marylebone station, and Ross and Sefton went to lost property. They had been rehearsing what Ballard had written for them to say. Costain and Lofthouse
stayed in the car with Quill. Costain hated seeing that look on Quill’s face, that damage that Hell had left in him. ‘After we’ve got him,’ he said, ‘Jimmy, will you
do me a favour and get some help?’

Quill looked up at him and couldn’t seem to settle on any gesture or expression. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘You have nothing to be sorry about.’ Costain took his hand.

The car doors opened, and Ross and Sefton got back in, Sefton carrying a bow and a single arrow. The wood of the bow looked extraordinarily old, the sort of thing a museum would have to keep in
controlled conditions. The arrow had a flint head, and there were just the sticks of faded feathers as flights.

‘I don’t know what this is,’ said Sefton, ‘and what Ballard wrote down is very basic.’ As he nocked the arrow, and with no skill at all aimed it up and out of the
passenger window, Ross started the engine and pulled on her seat belt.

Sefton let fly. The arrow shot into the air, higher and higher, out of sight. It stayed, however, in Costain’s mind, in his Sighted idea of where things in London were.

‘I’ve got it,’ said Ross, and turned the car to speed away from Marylebone, and then southwards.

‘Faster!’ cried Moriarty, gesturing dramatically towards the windscreen. ‘We may already be too late!’

Ross had no specialist driving experience and couldn’t help but wish that it was Costain behind the wheel as they raced down Bromley Road, into the heart of Beckenham, a
proper high street in what looked to be a nice commuter town. Mind you, Costain had no specialist training either, just years of experience driving for gangs. She had had to adjust to having in her
head a sense of direction being provided by something else, the arrow that she kept imagining plunging towards the earth somewhere in front of her. Several times on the way here, particularly as
they’d got closer, she’d had to change course away from it, unable to follow it as the crow flew, and had felt it pricking at the edge of her eye, insisting she pay attention to it,
which had nearly made them run into the back of a lorry.

She kept trying to find a left turn, and finally took the corner beside a pub called the Oakhill, going way too fast, only to have to pull up almost immediately in front of a row of bollards.
‘It’s right there,’ she yelled. She could actually see it in the sky now, forever descending, heading down onto the roof of a house ahead and to the left.

She pulled the key from the ignition and leaped out. The others followed. Sefton, still weak from loss of blood, was managing to stumble along. Quill came too, a grim, furious expression on his
face. They ran past a barber’s shop, and the arrow suddenly speared down and went through the upper-floor window of a little house with a neat garden, seeming to do no damage as it went. Had
they found Holmes this time before he’d found a victim? There was a front door and a window. Next door, someone had left an old chair out to be collected. Before Sefton could take the stick
of chalk from his pocket, Quill grabbed the chair, barely held on to it, ran at the window and rammed it through, smashing the glass and setting off a blaring alarm. Then he clambered up and leaped
through the frame, sending more glass flying.

Ross made herself follow, her shoes slipping on the sill, forcing herself to ignore the shards biting into her hand. Then she was through, and following Quill, the others right beside her, as he
pelted up the stairs. Quill wasn’t shouting anything about being a police officer, so she was glad when Sefton did.

The arrow was on fire, sticking at an angle out of the carpet on the landing. It burned to dust in the second she set eyes on it. Where was Holmes?

She burst into a back bedroom a second after Quill did, to recoil, coughing, at the taste of the air. An ancient charcoal burning stove was sitting by the bed, and on that bed lay an emaciated,
unconscious figure, his face covered – true to the story – in sticking plasters. Quill went to the window, found it locked and smashed it open. Lofthouse went to grab the body. Costain
and Sefton at the door were turning, wondering where in the house—

Holmes burst out of another room, a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, a knife in his hand, very possibly the one that had killed Richard Duleep. His appearance was flickering wildly. He
leaped forwards decisively, precisely, trained in the use of the weapon. Costain put his head down, ducked under his swing and ran at him, barging into him at the top of the stairs. The knife went
flying. Holmes took up a boxing posture, hands up in front of his face. Costain grabbed both his hands and kneed him in the groin, then kicked the crumpling figure down the stairs.

To their surprise, Holmes bounced neatly down like a tumbler, leaped to the door, flung it open and was out and away. With a bellow of rage, Costain raced down after him, got to the door, ran
out into the street.

After a few moments, they caught up with Costain. He’d stopped, looking around. ‘I couldn’t see him,’ he said, panting. ‘I just picked a
direction. We lost him.’ Ross, ridiculously, looked around, as if she might see him hiding in one of these perfect gardens.

‘And that arrow’s a one-time deal,’ said Sefton.

Lofthouse ran up to them, her phone in her hand. ‘I hauled the victim out onto the landing and opened all the windows,’ she said. ‘He’s still breathing. I’ve called
the paramedics.’

Quill sat down on the street, oblivious to the people now coming out of their houses, looking out of their doors. ‘Lost him,’ he said. ‘No, no, no.’

Moriarty stepped forwards, as if speaking for Quill. ‘Follow him!’ he bellowed. ‘Follow him, for he is fixed on his course now and he will strike! Stand clear or be trodden
underfoot!’ He turned and raced off down the street, back towards the car. Quill looked up, as startled as any of them, then scrambled to his feet.

‘Go,’ said Lofthouse. ‘I’ll take care of things here.’

By the time they got back to the car, Moriarty was pointing frantically. ‘Follow!’ he cried again.

‘I think,’ said Ross, as she opened the door for Costain to drive, ‘we may have found an expert in tracking Sherlock Holmes.’

Cara Lavey was a production assistant on the BBC’s ratings-winner Sunday-night
Sherlock Holmes
series. This was, she wanted her friends to know, not all that
glamorous, and was a lot of hard work, mostly consisting of carrying things and making coffee, for actually not very much money, although there was a London living allowance.

After she’d had a few drinks, though, she would admit she liked getting to know the actors. Today was the midway point of filming on the last block of the last episode in the season.
Filming in the Southwark facility was coming to an end, and everyone was a bit thousand-yard-stare and sleepless, with mucking about on set answered not by laughter but by brusque calls to
concentrate. She’d been employed counting out properly hallmarked copies of the script, taking a brunch order for the assistant director and finding a floor plan of the consulting rooms set
to discover ‘which fucking marks are still here from previous shooting days’, as the director had put it. All of which was exactly what she’d signed up for, the hard yards she was
utterly willing to put in to get noticed, to be given more responsibility and work her way up.

‘Cara, you useless fuckwit, how’s it going?’ murmured Gilbert Flamstead as he wandered to the edge of the set, a grin letting her know that she was being complimented. Just for
once, she thought, it might be nice if he simply said nice things.

She would never dare insult him back. ‘Excellent.’

‘What terrible news. I don’t suppose anyone has seen my talentless fellow?’ They all suddenly turned at a shout. Onto the set had burst an extraordinary figure. It was Sherlock
Holmes. Meaning it must be an actor, or an impersonator, someone in cosplay? He looked bloody good, though. He had the face for it. Such a clean-cut look, like he was someone famous she
didn’t recognize. He was running towards them, security guards chasing him. Was this a comedy thing, a DVD extra they hadn’t been told about? Or, shit, was this a fan? A couple of the
blokes with tool belts tried to grab him, but he spun, hurling them aside with ease. In his hand now was something that looked like the handle of a whip. He brought it down with a motion like he
was miming lashing at something too.

Flamstead was glaring at him, unmoved, as the rest of the crew either retreated, hoping for the security guards to catch up, or stepped forwards defensively. ‘The Bastard Scourge
won’t work on me.’

‘Then try this!’ The man pulled a revolver from his coat and Cara suddenly thought it must be real. That he was going to kill them all. The man leaped forwards, grabbed Flamstead
round the throat, the gun against his head, and started backing away. Now, to Cara’s amazement, he looked like an entirely different excellent actor playing Sherlock Holmes. ‘I will
finish this!’ he called upwards, like he was calling out to God. ‘This surely must be enough! I will complete my side of the bargain!’ Cara watched, helpless, as he started to
drag Flamstead away.

By the time Costain had brought the car skidding to a halt in the car park of the Shoreditch warehouse, Quill’s team had no more need of the shouted directions of
Moriarty. The hostage situation was all over the news. Local uniforms had arrived outside, where stood a large group of employees, being pushed back behind a barrier. The media were also arriving
from all directions.

‘Are you up to this?’ whispered Sefton as Quill got out of the car. The emphasis on Moriarty seemed to have done him some good, but Sefton would have preferred it if Quill had let
them do this without him.

‘I have to be, don’t I?’ said Quill. ‘I have to try what you told me to do, only big time. Give me a sec to get into character.’ He took a deep breath, then pulled
out his warrant card and marched through the crowd, the others following him. ‘All right, the cavalry’s here. Move your arses.’ A combination of dropping the names of Clarke and
Lofthouse and sheer loudness got them to the centre of the developing operation, Quill being the highest-ranking officer so far at the scene. The top floors of the warehouse complex had been
cleared. Holmes had taken Flamstead to the roof.

Quill established that his team would report in with the uniforms keeping watch on the stairwell, ask about the latest developments and then come back down to await the arrival of a senior
officer assigned to manage the siege situation. When they got out of the lift at the floor with rooftop access, Quill went straight to the two uniforms waiting at the stairwell door and asked them
the situation like he
was
that officer. Having heard there’d been no contact with the suspect in the last ten minutes, he nodded to them and walked straight up the stairwell. Sefton
made himself adopt similar confidence and followed, Costain and Ross beside him. Worryingly, Moriarty, invisible to the police officers, came too. ‘I’ll try and keep him on his
lead,’ muttered Quill. ‘He’s got form for trying to throw Holmes from a great height.’