Of Dubious and Questionable Memory
By Diandra Hollman
---
Day 11
---
I am back at the pool with Moriarty. Only this time he has two hostages,
knelt on either end, bound and gagged and with bombs strapped to their
chests.
"You have to choose," Moriarty says in his unhinged lilt. "The noble pet or
the tragic lover? You can only save one!"
I run through scenarios frantically in my head. Positioned as they are, I
would only have time to try to remove one bomb before the other went off.
Assuming I would be given time enough even for that. If I simply shoot
Moriarty, then his man with a hand on the switch will kill them both.
There is only one choice I can make. I press the barrel of the gun to my own
temple, keeping my eyes firmly on Moriarty.
He sighs dramatically. "Oh, Sherlock...WRONG answer."
One of the bombs explodes. Before I have time to register which one it was,
I am running in the opposite direction. I can stop the other one at least. I
have to try.
I am rounding the corner of the pool, just close enough to see the terror in
his eyes, to hear him try to call my name behind the duct tape over his
mouth.
The second bomb explodes and I fall to the floor. I am screaming, but I
can't hear it.
'I will burn the heart out of you...the heart out of you...'
No. Please no.
I close my eyes against the horror and when I open them again I am laying in
bed, looking up at a ceiling illuminated by the soft light of early morning
pouring in from the hall. A dream. Of course it was a dream.
I give myself a moment or two to calm my nerves before rolling over to face
Henry. It was his face I had seen, tear streaked and terrified.
I don't believe in ascribing too much meaning to dreams. They are little
more than a random collection of thoughts, fantasies and memories put into
some sort of order by an idyll, unconscious mind. Unfiltered by logical
thought. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are always without any
meaning. I have spent months believing John was dead and I needed to protect
everyone else who could be at risk - including Henry. Now that I know John
is alive...
Gruener doesn't need to threaten anyone else. I made the same choice in my
dream that I made when I jumped from the roof of St. Bart's, because it was
the only way I could save them. Like Moriarty, Gruener knows I would do
anything to protect those closest to me. Henry is safe as long as Gruener
believes he is dead. John is only safe as long as he believes I am
dead.
I frown as I wake up a bit more and take in the sight of Henry. He is still
not only wearing the pants he had on last night, he is now dressed in an
undershirt as well. This would not necessarily be odd were it not for the
fact that I distinctly remember him being naked yesterday morning and there
has not been a dramatic difference in the weather that would account for the
change. Even more bizarrely, he is already wearing his wristwatch.
'As if he had crawled into bed after a long night out and forgot to remove
it.'
He must have got out of bed sometime during the night.
Before I can work out what he might have been doing, a whine drifts in from
outside the door. Grace is probably overdue for her morning wee.
I try to slip from the bed without waking Henry, but his eyes open before my
feet can touch the floor. He blinks at me in the bleary manner of someone
who has only just managed to fall into a deep slumber. What was he doing all
night?
"It's all right," I whisper. "Go back to sleep." He clearly needs more rest.
I can ask what he was doing later. Or, more likely, figure out for myself.
He doesn't say anything, but he seems to relax a bit when Grace barks her
impatience.
I pull on my dressing gown and locate my shoes. Grace is already beside the
front door, vibrating with excitement.
"Yes, yes, hang on a tic," I mutter as I struggle to attach the leash to her
collar while she squirms.
The moment I step outside, I realize that it wasn't her urgent need to
relieve herself that had her so worked up.
There are four men crouched just outside the door, their backs to the walls
so they can't be seen from inside. All of them have guns held in ready
position. Were it not for the fact that the man nearest to me is Lestrade, I
would have sounded an alarm immediately. Instead, I stare at him in shock.
He presses his finger to his lips and holsters his weapon. Grace trots right
up to him and sniffs the cuff of his trousers. I have the fleeting thought
that she would clearly make a terrible guard dog. I say my next thought out
loud.
"Have you caught Gruener then?"
Lestrade blinks in confusion, shakes his head slightly and whispers "go.
Now," urgently. The other three men stream past me into the house before I
can muster up an objection.
"What are you doing?"
He guides me away from the door with a hand on my elbow. "Come here. You all
right?"
"Yes, of course I'm all right. What is going on?" Although the answer is
forming in my still-waking brain already.
Lestrade doesn't answer me. Instead, his hand goes to his earpiece and he
asks the person on the other end "are you sure?" He pauses, then says "okay,
bring him out."
They're arresting Henry.
I go back over all the data I've collected in the past twenty-four hours and
the conclusions I drew from it.
I got it all wrong.
"Will!"
"Stay back, Mrs. Taylor," Lestrade calls to Lillian. She obediently halts
her approach at her front walk, bundling her coat around herself nervously.
The car. She wasn't having an affair. The police wanted to question her
before they executed this plan to...to...
I thrust Grace's leash into Lestrade's hands and go back inside the house
before either of them can protest.
Lestrade's men are handcuffing Henry - having had to wait while he put on
the rest of his clothing. Their weapons are holstered, but they are
regarding him with a wariness that suggests they anticipate the possibility
they will have to reach for them again if he resists. They are treating him
like a dangerous suspect.
"On what charges are you arresting him," I demand indignantly.
One of the officers intercepts me, gently blocking me from getting any
closer.
"Abduction, wrongful imprisonment and possession of illegal narcotics for a
start," the officer cuffing Henry responds.
"It's all right," Henry calls softly. He stops talking abruptly as the
officer cinches one of the cuffs tighter than necessary.
"Quiet," the officer spits.
I have the belated realization that they could have shot him when they came
barging in here. Lucky for them they didn't, or whoever had pulled the
trigger would not be leaving this room alive.
"Those charges are false. I am here of my own free will." The drugs charge
is likely true, of course, but I can address that once I disabuse them of
this ridiculous notion that I have been kidnapped.
"He said you'd say that," the officer mutters, roughly shoving Henry toward
the door.
I try to step in his path, but the officer guarding me throws an arm in
front of my body. "Sir, stay back!"
"I'm sorry," Henry says as he is herded from the room. "I love you."
He isn't putting up any sort of fight whatever. Which, combined with my
observation that he was already dressed, leads me to the conclusion that he
was anticipating this exact scenario.
On the heels of this is another realization. His behavior last night. His
story about fearing I was having an affair with Lillian...it was a lie.
Offered up in order to discourage me from coming up with an alternative
theory. He knew what the presence of the car really meant.
'He said you'd say that.'
I know instinctively which "he" the officer must have been referring to.
Mycroft.
I retrieve my mobile and find my brother's name in the contacts. But I
realize the futility of it before I dial the number. If he is having Henry
arrested for kidnapping me, he must not be in contact with me. The number in
my phone for him - like all the other numbers - must not be real. All of the
evidence in my journal that I have spoken to Mycroft in recent months - that
he is aware of my current situation at all - has been fabricated.
Which means he can't be speaking with Henry either.
My eyes fall on Henry's mobile, still perched by his side of the bed. Did he
leave that intentionally, or did the police not allow him to take it with
him?
His lock code is the date we were married. Obvious. There is a note already
open that answers any questions about his intent.
'Look in the bottom drawer of my desk.'
He wanted me to find this.
The officer who held me back is speaking to Lestrade in the front hall when
I pass by. My stomach clenches a bit as Lestrade calls my name - not Will,
but Sherlock. I ignore it.
As I suspected when I searched the office yesterday, the bottom drawer of
Henry's desk contains a duffel bag and a laptop.
I am just about to open the duffel bag when Lestrade appears beside me, his
hand wrapping around my arm. "Evans," he barks to the officer who has
followed him. "Alert the bomb squad..."
"Oh, for God's sake. It's not a bomb!"
"How can you be sure?"
"Because he told me to look inside."
Lestrade raises an eyebrow. Clearly this isn't enough. What sort of monster
do they believe Henry is?
"Whoever he is - whatever he's done - I find it impossible to believe he
would do anything to deliberately cause me harm." Unless he meant for
somebody else to find that message. No, he knows enough about me to realize
I would have been the first to figure out his lock code. He wanted me to
find this.
Lestrade hesitates, clenches his jaw, then reaches in his pocket for two
pair of gloves.
Right. Everything in the house is probably considered evidence now.
I put on the gloves - annoyed at the delay this causes - and open the bag.
Beneath a folder similar to the one that contains the introductory notes I
read every morning is several bundles of euros and pound notes, several EU
passports, an unmarked jar of tablets, a gun and a memory stick. I open one
of the passports to find my picture beside the name William Smith. The next
one I open has a picture of Henry beside the name James Walter.
Lestrade gingerly lifts the gun from the bag and holds it out to Evans. "Bag
that, will you?"
"He's a spy," I mutter. It isn't a question. This is the sort of bag a spy
would keep on hand in case he needs to make a quick escape. Burn his current
identity and start fresh in a new city, new country.
"He was," Lestrade confirms. "Got out a couple years ago."
I open the folder. Like mine, it has a handwritten note on top of the rest
of its contents. But this one isn't in my handwriting. The ink is fresher
and the paper is less worn from repeated handling.
'My darling Sherlock,' it begins. 'By now you have probably realized that
you are here under false pretenses. I never meant to hurt you and I never
meant for this charade to go on as long as it has.
'You already know the drug you are taking is causing your memory loss, but
you may not yet know that it isn't contained in the tablets, but in the
herbal at the front of the tea cupboard. All the bags in that box are
already laced with one crushed tablet per. The rest of the tablets are in
the jar in this bag. By now the dosage should be minimal enough that any
doctor could manage your withdrawal in hospital if you choose not to take
them.
'I have been conditioning you to associate your name with feelings of
illness and discomfort and the name Will with pleasure. You insisted this
was the best way to discourage you from breaking our cover.
'The answers to any other questions you may have can be found on the memory
stick. It is the one you gave me four months ago when we came up with the
plan to go into hiding while you finished detoxing. For what it is worth: I
am sorry. For all the lies. For the suffering I have caused you. I never
wanted to hurt you, and I understand now that I will be if I allow this to
continue any longer. I love you. Until my body ceases to draw breath.
'Always.'
The note isn't signed.
"Conditioning," Lestrade asks, reading the letter over my shoulder.
"Operant conditioning," I mutter numbly. "He only called me Sherlock when I
was ill or in pain." My stomach rolls a bit uncomfortably. How did I never
make that connection?
Something from the secret copy of my journal comes back to me. The day he
came home at lunch and fucked me into two orgasms while saying both of our
names. Had I slipped?
Beneath the note are printouts of an obituary and a coroner's report. Again,
similar to my folder, but not identical. The obituary is dated from 2005 and
is for Andrew Gruener. The coroner's report is from November of last year
and identifies the remains of two men who were killed in an explosion as
Josh Amberley and Sherlock Holmes.
I got it all wrong.
"Gruener," Lestrade reads. "Is that the man you were asking about?"
"What is Henry's real name," I ask numbly.
"Thomas Schlessinger, according to his birth certificate. He's had a few
other names since. MI-6 knew him as James Armitage."
TS. JA. Was Andrew Gruener one of his aliases? One that "died" and was
therefore easily appropriated into a perfect foil? I skim the obituary. It
is vague and generic. No family. Few friends. Well liked enough by
coworkers. No details about cause of death.
I text Molly to find the coroner's report for me, only remembering that the
message will not actually reach her a moment later when Henry's phone screen
lights up with it.
I groan. "Ask Molly to pull the coroner file on Andrew Gruener, would you?"
I jam the papers back in the folder and grab the memory stick. NSY can have
the rest of the contents of the bag. I open the top drawer and retrieve the
other memory stick - the one with all the data on the Gruener case.
Obviously I was right about the case being fabricated to keep me from
"blowing our cover", but why did we choose this man?
"Where's Grace," I ask, suddenly remembering I left her with Lestrade.
"Ah...Mrs. Taylor offered to look after her while you get sorted."
I wonder how long that will take.
"Did she contact you?"
"Not exactly. She ran DNA on a swab you gave her. Result set off alarms at
MI-6."
The swab I gave her. I did this.
Something must be written on my face because Lestrade gentles. "Look...why
don't you put some clothes on and I'll take you to the airport? There's a
plane waiting to take you back to London."
I look down at myself. I had nearly forgotten I am only wearing a dressing
gown and shoes beneath an unbuttoned coat. The sash on the gown is
dangerously close to unraveling now. Which might explain why Lestrade is
beginning to look uncomfortable.
I need a shower first though, because while Henry did a cursory wash up last
night, I still smell rather powerfully of sweat and sex.
"Right. I'll just wash up and..."
"You can do that later," he interrupts. "After we collect evidence."
Oh.
I stop moving and stare at him. "Evidence," I repeat slowly. "You want to
collect evidence for a rape kit?"
Lestrade definitely looks uncomfortable now. "Yeah," he mutters, his eyes
darting about.
"I see. And will you also be collecting samples from him?"
"Er..."
"Of course not. Because you have already come to the conclusion that I am
being held here against my will. What have I said about theorizing before
you have all the evidence?"
"Are you saying you're here by choice?"
"I'm saying I haven't been raped. And I will not consent to a
procedure which will only waste valuable time and resources to prove that my
husband and I had sex last night!"
"He's not your husband."
"What?"
"At least...not legally."
I blink and look down at my ring. Of course. Marriages between fictional
identities aren't legally binding. Especially if the proper paperwork was
never filed with the state - as is unlikely in this case.
"That doesn't change anything," I insist. "The sex was still consensual and
I will not submit to any sort of test that attempts to prove otherwise."
He hesitates, obviously considering whether or no he should press the issue
before deciding - correctly - that I will not be swayed. "Fine. But I'm not
takin' the blame. You'll have to explain to your brother why you're
destroying evidence."
My brother. Of course.
"Fine."
---
Lestrade waits with the officer left behind to gather evidence while I wash
up, dress and recover the memory stick from the hive. He doesn't try to stop
me removing all the data sticks, my laptop and both folders from the house.
He knows trying to keep me off this case would be futile.
I go to retrieve my coat and note Henry's still hanging in the cupboard.
This was not an accident, I know. It would be faster for the police to use a
clean spare coat than take the time to search his and ensure it is free of
anything that might cause harm or aid in escape. Not that this is common
practice, but in this case they knew they were dealing with a spy who would
likely have a contingency plan in the event that he was captured.
Oh.
The realization comes to me with sickening clarity. He does have a
contingency plan. He knew they would be cautious about any articles he put
on when they allowed him to dress, but that they were unlikely to question
anything he was already wearing as they believe they took him by surprise.
The fact that his gun was nowhere near close at hand probably confirms that
for them, but I saw it in his eyes. He knew. He deliberately left his gun in
the study, just as he deliberately put on pants, an undershirt and his watch
before crawling into bed to catch whatever sleep he could before I woke this
morning.
His hands were secured behind his back when he was escorted from the house.
But if they have allowed him to use the toilet since then...
"I need to speak to Henry," I tell Lestrade as I climb into the car he's
using to take me to the airport. It is the same car I spotted round the
block yesterday. Likely, the same one I saw in front of Lillian's house
three days ago. The one I stupidly took as evidence she was having an
affair.
He encouraged me to follow that deduction. He didn't want me to realize what
was really happening. Didn't want me to try to stop it.
"We'll arrange for you to sit in on the interrogation..."
"No, I need to speak to him now or there may not be an
interrogation. Can you contact the officer with him?"
Lestrade has always understood that it is unwise to distrust my instincts.
He pulls out his mobile and dials before handing it to me and pulling the
car onto the road.
It rings twice before a familiar voice answers. "We've just landed. I trust
my brother is on his way?"
"Mycroft."
He inhales deeply before he responds. "Yes." I know how to read the
slightest inflections in my brother's voice. I can hear the relief in it
now.
"Let me speak to him."
Mycroft's tone hardens again. "No."
"I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't a matter of life or death. I just need a
minute. You can instruct him to remain silent if that would ease your
apprehension."
He is silent for a minute. Then I hear a faint rustling, as if he is
gesturing to someone. "I'm putting you on speaker," he announces finally.
I relax a bit and, after waiting a moment until I can be sure he is
listening, I begin.
"I figured out your exit strategy. The fact that you obviously haven't
attempted it yet must mean either that you've not yet had an opportunity or
you've had a change of heart. If it is the former, then I beg of you to
reconsider. I know you believe it would be the noble course of action, but
your life is no longer yours alone."
There is a long silence and I wish I had thought to demand Mycroft put the
call to video so I could read Henry's face. There is a faint sound and
Mycroft takes the phone off speaker.
"I hope this doesn't mean you are letting sentiment cloud your judgment," he
says mildly.
"Don't start the interrogation before I arrive. And while I will allow your
need to disprove the kidnapping charge officially, I insist that you drop
the accusation of rape immediately."
"Yes," he mutters. "DI Lestrade said you were especially vehement in your
objections to that one."
"Yes, and if you insist on pursuing it you will only succeed in making all
the sordid details of our sex life part of public record. And there are
quite a lot of photos and videos to provide ample evidence of
consent, including one from last night that would render any DNA evidence
you might still be able to collect from his body redundant."
Lestrade shifts a bit beside me. No doubt my brother is reacting with
similar discomfort. I always suspected his insistence that I was still a
virgin was rooted in a sort of protective denial. He could no more imagine
me having sex than I could him. The proof in my journals and on our phones
would scandalize him.
"We can discuss this later. In private," he finally says.
"I won't change my mind."
"Fine," he says tersely. "Anything else?"
"Yes, I need a mobile with all of my contacts."
"Already taken care of."
"And let him shower."
Mycroft sighs heavily. "Right."
He disconnects just as we pull into the airfield.
The sight of John Watson waiting beside the idling private jet produces a
fascinating combination of emotions in me. Near as I can tell, I have spent
the better part of the past nine months believing him to be dead. Which
explains the relief and happiness. The apprehension and fear likely stem
from the more recent discovery that he has believed me to be dead as well.
This is mostly instinctive. It is unlikely he will react as badly as he did
last time I "died" as everyone seems to believe me to be little more than a
victim of some elaborate kidnapping scheme. But the memory of his rage
paralyzes me for a moment.
"I'll meet you back in London after we finish up here," Lestrade says
gently. "I can bring your dog with me if you like."
I was so distracted by the shift in everything I thought I knew - only
twenty four hours after having it all upended already - that I almost forgot
about Grace. Did we have a plan for her? Why did he get a dog knowing our
life here could be disrupted any minute?
"Not yet," I mutter. I don't know where she would stay in London. I don't
yet know where I will stay. Did Mrs. Hudson sell the flat this
time? For the time being, Grace is probably better off with Lillian.
Lestrade's hand clasps my shoulder. "You all right?"
I nod somewhat shakily and am surprised to find myself pulled suddenly into
a hug across the console.
"It's good to have you back."
I relax and breathe in the familiar scent of his laundry detergent, almost
entirely masked by the scent of the hotel room he has been staying in for
the past few days. I am safe. They are safe. I still don't fully understand
why I concocted Gruener, but maybe the new data on the stick in my pocket
will help me solve this new puzzle before the withdrawal sets in.
This last thought sobers me. I am still on a clock. I may be able to choose
when or if I take my next dose and forget everything I have learned, but the
idea of it frightens me more now than it did yesterday. How much could I
lose? How much can I expect to recover?
I remind myself - as I retrieve my bag and reach to open the door - that I
have all the data. And now I have the freedom to explore further. Do all the
research I want without fear. Get to the bottom of all of this once and for
all.
---
John
---
When an airbag deploys, it does so with a controlled explosion that leaves a
noxious odor in the air similar to gunpowder. It stays in the nostrils for
hours.
The last thing I remembered was Sherlock shouting my name. A warning. And
suddenly the car was moving in the wrong direction violently,
uncontrollably. The next thing I knew I was coughing from the acrid smell, a
dull pain and buzzing in my head blurring my vision. I strained to look at
Sherlock. He was slumped against the passenger door, frighteningly still. I
called his name and tried to reach for him, but the effort of moving sent a
fiery pain through my arm and left me gasping for breath.
My door opened and a man crouched beside me, hands feeling along my neck
carefully while a voice called "sir? Can you hear me?"
"Sherlock," I slurred.
"Is that your name?" His hands went through a routine check that I
immediately recognized, having performed it many times myself in the field.
"Did you lose consciousness," he asked and it occurred to me that I might
well have and that was why the paramedics seemed to have responded so
quickly.
A needle appeared in his hand. "I'm going to give you something for the
pain, sir. Try to stay still."
I hissed as he injected the drug into my carotid. I wondered vaguely why he
chose to give the injection in my neck, but I was grateful as it meant
relief would come faster.
The man disappeared from my side then. I lost consciousness shortly after,
but I thought I heard the passenger door open and the same man speaking to
Sherlock. 'He's alive,' I thought, relieved.
Everything after that was a blur. I remember coming to in the ambulance and
asking after Sherlock. I remember the confused expression on the paramedic
as she asked if that was the name of the person they should call - my
emergency contact.
Sherlock had vanished.
The next morning, Mary showed me the texts I had received from Sherlock
hours after the crash when I was too busy being sedated by concerned nurses
to worry about where my mobile had got to. She, Lestrade and Mycroft had
received similar messages. Sherlock was on the trail of a dangerous killer
who was so good that he had been getting away with his crimes for years.
Sherlock was deep under cover and we were not, under any circumstances, to
attempt contacting him as it could compromise the whole operation.
Once the pain from my injuries - mild whiplash from the impact, multiple
lacerations from broken glass and exposed metal and a broken arm courtesy of
the airbag - was more manageable and the nurses allowed me to keep my
mobile, I texted him awkwardly with my undamaged right hand. 'Where r u?'
I gave him thirty minutes to respond. Then I texted 'so help me I'll have
your brother run trace.'
The phone buzzed five minutes later.
'I told you not to contact me,' the text read.
'What happened? RU all right? Should have waited for ambulance. Could have
concussion.'
'Only a minor one. I'll be fine.'
An angry noise burst from me before I could stop it. The man was stubbornly
determined to get himself killed, one way or another.
'I had to leave before he came back to finish the job.'
'Your mysterious killer?'
'Yes.'
'Should have backup.'
'NO! I have to do this alone. You would only get in my way.'
I bristled and went to start another message detailing where he could shove
it when I remembered something he had said the day he jumped from St.
Bart's. "Alone is what I have. Alone protects me." It was a long
time before I understood that he had been protecting me. He was afraid if I
stayed with him I would get hurt. He jumped to prevent Moriarty's men from
killing me, Greg and Mrs. Hudson.
He was doing it again.
I decided this was not a conversation I should be having via text and tried
to call. It went straight to voice message and a moment later he texted
'Can't talk right now.'
I ground my teeth in frustration and muttered "you cock" even though nobody
could hear me.
After I allowed myself a few minutes to calm down, I called again. This
time, I left a voicemail.
"I can respect your conditions and I swear I won't try to contact you again
if you'll just promise me one thing. Don't disappear like you did last time.
Text me. Send me an email from an anonymous account. Send me a goddamn
postcard. Just...anything. I won't respond or try to contact you or do
anything whatever that might compromise you. I just...I need to know you're
still alive. Please, just...do that for me?"
I waited rather impatiently for a response, determined to show him I could
respect his terms in the hopes that he would accept mine. The mobile finally
buzzed and I sighed in relief as I read his simple response. 'Okay.'
For the next four months I got semi-regular messages from Sherlock. Most of
them simply said 'okay' or 'still alive', but there was the occasional
photograph devoid of context. A cow. A train platform. A sunset. A newspaper
piled with chips. I scoured them all for clues, trying to guess where he was
or find hidden messages in the grease stains on the paper.
Shortly after Sherlock's disappearance, Mary's past as an assassin caught up
to her in the form of a partner she had presumed dead. She ran as well,
leaving me a letter explaining that she needed to draw the danger away from
me and Rosie and even though she knew I wouldn't want her to do it alone, it
wasn't my battle to fight. One month later, Mycroft informed me that her
body had been found in a hut in Morocco. My only consolation was that her
killer - the partner she had supposedly betrayed - was summarily
"neutralized" by British agents during a raid.
The next 'still alive' text from Sherlock brought me to tears.
I started sleeping with my pistol under my pillow. I became absolutely
terrified for Rosie's safety and my own. Because if anything happened to me,
there would be nobody left to protect her. Of course that wasn't really
true. I had friends who could care for her. But I didn't want her to become
an orphan, however selfish my reasons may have been.
Five months after the accident, I got a text from Sherlock at near one
o-clock in the morning that said simply "I'm sorry, John." I forgot my vow
to not reply and tried to call back straight away, getting only a "number
not in service" message.
I didn't sleep much that night, and each time I did drift off I would wake
not long after from dreams of Sherlock calling my name much as he had just
before the accident. Pleading for me to help him. Save him.
Hours later, Mycroft knocked on my door and I knew what he would say before
he opened his mouth. He looked weary, deflated. Defeated.
I went into denial immediately, of course. I couldn't accept that I had lost
him again, especially so soon after losing Mary. It must have been another
trick - part of the plan to trap the killer he was chasing. It didn't matter
if the coroner's office in Sussex had positively ID'd Sherlock from what
little DNA could be recovered from the bomb blast, along with the remains of
a Josh Amberley, whose connection to Sherlock or the case he claimed to be
on was a mystery.
For the next three months I grew to understand why Anderson had been
consumed by conspiracy theories after Sherlock's "suicide". Every news story
about a difficult or unusual case being solved, no matter where it was, I
read while asking myself 'could this have been his work?' Did he find the
missing woman in Poole? Did his anonymous tip lead the French police to the
jewels stolen from a shop on the outskirts of Paris? Did he help identify
the archeological remains at a University of Liverpool lab based on how the
man had died centuries ago (he was murdered, after all)?
I kept all of this to myself, of course. It wouldn't do for a working single
father to show signs that the stress was getting to him. That he was
occasionally talking to his dead wife and chasing the ghost of his best
friend. I learned to put on a show for other people. Not that I didn't
grieve, but I convinced them I was coping with it better than I really was.
Everything is fine. I am fine.
I had almost convinced myself that was really true and I could move on with
my life and start over - maybe move to a different part of
England...somewhere rural where the need for doctors is desperate - when
Mycroft contacted me again.
A lab in Liverpool had run a DNA sample that turned out to belong to a
person of interest. A former freelance agent who had turned civilian and
then suddenly disappeared. James Armitage, née Thomas Schlessinger. A
brilliant young man with medical training who was able to use his cover as a
doctor with MSF to get close to key political and criminal players in
several African nations and, on more than one occasion, eliminate them in
ways that wouldn't rouse suspicion.
"We traced the source of the sample to a woman in Cressington Park. It seems
she ordered the test as a favor for a 'friend'. When one of my people went
to question her, they spotted her neighbor out walking his dog. The agents'
description of the man is a fair approximation of Sherlock."
Hope surged within me, even though I knew it was foolish. But this was
Mycroft. He wouldn't entertain the idea that Sherlock was still alive if he
didn't have solid evidence. Would he?
"Records indicate that his name is William Peters. There's very little
information on him - no employment history, no driver's license - but his
husband, Henry Peters, is a doctor at a University Hospital in Liverpool."
Mycroft handed me some photos - distant images of a man who looked
unmistakably like Sherlock dressed in clothing that didn't quite look right
on him (the coat is wrong, I realized later) and holding a small dog on a
leash. Another photo showed a man I didn't recognize standing in the front
garden of a suburban house, the same leash in his hand. "Facial recognition
confirms William and Henry Peters to be, in fact, Sherlock and Thomas
Schlessinger."
It was a lot to take in at once and my head very literally ached from the
effort. "How is...are you..." I shook my head and cleared my throat. Focus.
"What do you need me to do?"
---
The neighbor – Lillian – reported that Sherlock was suffering from a sort of
chronic memory loss. She described a man with apparently intact short-term
memory who was none-the-less incapable of retaining those memories for
longer than twenty-four hours and kept a journal so he could write down
everything he might need to recall after that interval. Things like her
name, his husband's name and how he came to be living in a suburb of
Liverpool. I knew of no medical condition that would exhibit such symptoms
and the existence of such a malady seemed downright impossible. It seemed
far more likely that everything he was doing - the stories he told Lillian -
was part of an elaborate plot to catch a killer.
"But why give Mrs. Taylor the DNA sample," Greg asked when he, Mycroft and I
debated the details of the case. "He had to know it would get the
government's attention."
"Yes, that could be precisely the point," Mycroft said. "He is aware of the
failsafes we have to alert us in the event that one of our agents may have
been compromised."
Mycroft had mentioned those failsafes before. The most common use for such
alerts was to identify possible breaches in security. Such as an attack on a
former agent or a spy in the early stages of Alzheimer's who could
unwittingly share state secrets.
"What if Armitage is the killer," I ventured. "What if this amnesia
ruse is Sherlock's plan to lull him into revealing everything?"
Mycroft was obviously displeased by this theory. "Contrary to popular
opinion, doctor, the government is not in the habit of contracting agents
with such loose morals."
"But he could have gone mad, couldn't he," I argued. "Sherlock once said
that when a doctor goes wrong they make the most formidable of criminals
because they have the knowledge and the nerve necessary to kill. Wouldn't
the same be true of assassins?"
"Or soldiers?" Mycroft let the words hang in the silence for a moment so I
could fully appreciate the implication.
"Regardless," Greg said. "He must still be in danger if he went to all that
trouble to contact you like that."
"Agreed," Mycroft nodded. "We need to proceed with extreme caution."
To that end, agents were sent ahead to perform reconnaissance. With each
report they sent back, what had seemed impossible before began to look more
and more probable. Sherlock barely seemed to notice the rental car parked at
the curb in front of Lillian's house after the second day and even then he
seemed uninterested and made no attempt at contact. It appeared the DNA
sample was not the deliberate signal we had thought it to be, but
practically an afterthought. He was far more interested in testing bags of
tea, having discovered that some tablets he had given Lillian to test a week
earlier were sugar pills. She had not got results of the new tests back yet,
but I could guess at what she would find.
Sherlock's memory really had been compromised. Not by amnesia, but by some
sort of drug. He had already reached this conclusion and enlisted Lillian in
helping him identify the drug.
I tried to look at the case as Sherlock would. The tests he had Lillian
doing showed he wasn't entirely ignorant of his current circumstances. And
Lillian said he was keeping a journal of details he might need to remember.
Surely the fact that he was sending up a flare in the form of Thomas' DNA
would have been mentioned there.
Unless he feared Thomas might read it. Or we were wrong about why he needed
the sample tested.
"Maybe he doesn't know who Armitage really is," I suggested the next time we
met in Mycroft's office.
I saw Mycroft roll his eyes and hurried to explain before he said something
disparaging. "He didn't know Mary was a spy either. Not at first."
That shut him up for a bit.
"If he didn't mean to contact you," Greg said hesitantly, "Could he still be
in danger?"
"We haven't found any evidence of that." There was a definite note of
frustration coloring Mycroft's voice. "We cannot find any evidence that the
man he claimed to be after even exists."
"That doesn't mean he doesn't," I pointed out. "Sherlock has uncovered
patterns before in places no one else ever thought to look."
"Or maybe John was right after all," Greg offered. "Maybe Armitage is the
killer."
"That theory was based in the assumption that Sherlock isn't really
suffering from amnesia," Mycroft pointed out.
Greg sighed. "Okay, supposing he didn't knowingly contact you, the amnesia
is real and Armitage isn't the killer he's chasing who may not even exist.
Where does that leave us?"
The pieces all fell into place in my mind at once. "Sherlock isn't
investigating Armitage as a killer. He's being held hostage." I looked at
Mycroft and Greg, realized I had their full attention, and continued. "That
would explain everything, wouldn't it? He solved his own kidnapping, but he
knew he would forget so he gave Lillian a DNA sample, knowing that when she
tested it, it would send out an alarm."
There was a long silence while we gave full consideration to this new
scenario. And then Greg pointed out its biggest flaw. "Why did it take him
this long to work out?"
Mycroft had what turned out to be the obvious answer. "Because he was too
busy chasing a non-existent master criminal."
Greg's forehead furrowed. "So this guy kidnaps Sherlock, invents a case for
him to solve and then keeps him drugged so he can't remember any of it?"
Put that way, it sounded ridiculous. But nothing else we had come up with
made quite as much sense.
"Maybe it's about control," I suggested. "Or proving he's smarter than
Sherlock Holmes. Maybe he gets off on keeping Sherlock locked away, working
on a case he can never actually solve."
Mycroft inhaled deeply. "We continue with the plan," he declared. "Until we
have Sherlock and Agent Armitage in our custody, we cannot be certain of
anything. We must move quickly and carefully and keep the number of people
who know Sherlock is alive to an absolute minimum. Inspector, I want you to
lead the operation. I trust you will be discrete and insure my brother's
safety."
Greg nodded soberly.
And then as we got up to leave, Mycroft asked one last question. "Given my
brother's mental state, Doctor Watson...would you say he is capable of
providing consent?"
"Consent," I repeated stupidly.
Mycroft pinned me with a stare. "In your professional opinion, is his
ability to offer consent compromised by his condition?"
My mind struggled to keep up. "You think they're having sex?" The
possibility had not occurred to me until that moment, honestly.
"Based on Mrs. Taylor's testimony, it seems likely," he said with an air of
distaste.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. "Uh...it's difficult to say...without
knowing the details...without an examination and questioning..." My instinct
was to say no. That holding Sherlock hostage for months on end chasing a
made-up serial killer was absurd enough. That if they were having sex, it
was probably because Sherlock was manipulating Thomas somehow, the way he
used Janine to get to Magnusson. But I couldn't be certain of that either. I
couldn't be certain of anything that was happening in that house in
Cressington Park until we could get more information.
But when I looked into Mycroft's eyes, I saw that he was no more convinced
of anything than I was. "But...you need to file charges before you can do
any of that. So, I suppose...it's possible."
Mycroft pressed his lips together and nodded. "I thought so. Thank you
both," he said in a clipped voice.
I caught the stricken look on Greg's face as we left Mycroft's office and I
knew that if it turned out Thomas really had hurt Sherlock, he would never
breathe free air again.
---
After that, everything moved quickly, even if it felt excruciatingly slow.
Greg coordinated with the agents Mycroft had sent to Cressington already and
they worked on a plan to extract Sherlock and arrest Thomas before either of
them saw it coming. Lillian could not tell Sherlock that her tests had
confirmed he was right: one of the teas was laced with a narcotic compound.
It would be a while yet before the exact composition was worked out, but the
elements she had identified already explained his "amnesia". Did he even
remember giving her the samples? Or was he too busy trying to solve the
serial killer case again?
I insisted on being part of the rescue operation. After much argument,
Mycroft and Greg agreed to allow it - within certain limits. I told Molly
the absolute basics of the plan and my part in it for two reasons. I knew I
could count on her to keep it secret and not ask for any more details than I
could give, and I needed her to watch Rosie for me.
Early Saturday morning, I boarded Mycroft's private jet with him. If
everything went according to plan, the agents would have Thomas and Sherlock
waiting when we landed in Liverpool, along with a helicopter, which Mycroft
would use to escort Thomas back to London personally. I would accompany
Sherlock and perhaps get a head start evaluating his mental state.
"Something's off about all of this," I said as I reviewed what Mycroft's men
had collected so far again. "The neighbor says she was suspicious of 'Henry'
from the beginning, but every time she tried to talk to Sherlock about it,
he got defensive."
"Yes, I thought that was irregular too," he admitted. "Mrs. Taylor had a
flatmate who was murdered by her domestic partner, so it's possible she's
projecting certain assumptions onto Sherlock."
"Okay. But, he solved a five hundred year old murder and she still didn't
recognize him?"
"People generally believe what they are told so long as they trust the
source of the information." Mycroft raised his eyebrow slightly. "And she
said she didn't recognize him without the hat."
I barely suppressed a laugh at that. The despised deerstalker. Though the
fact that people generally associated him with certain articles of clothing
- like a police officer in uniform - no doubt made it easier for him to
hide. He always was a fantastic actor, but he couldn't pull off disguises
well. "Do you think Armitage is really capable of keeping him in the dark
for this long?" I was finding such an idea increasingly hard to believe
myself. Sherlock may not have been quite as brilliant as he wanted everyone
to believe he was, but the more I thought about our kidnapping theory, the
more far-fetched it sounded.
"That is something I hope we will be able to determine soon, Doctor."
---
The helicopter was waiting for us when we landed, but there was no sign of
anyone else yet. This wasn't cause for alarm, really, but I still felt a
vague sense of dread when Mycroft's mobile rang.
"Yes," he answered. He was frustratingly silent while the voice on the other
end spoke. Then he said "thank you, I'll look into it," and hung up.
"Was that Greg," I asked.
"Yes," he said shortly, already dialing another number. "I need you to check
a name for me," he told this new person without preamble. "Gruener. Any
spelling. Cross check it with my brother and all of Agent Armitage's known
identities."
That must be the name of the killer he was chasing, I realized.
"Is Sherlock okay," I asked when Mycroft hung up again.
"Physically, yes," Mycroft said and had I not known the Holmes brothers long
enough to detect the slightest hint of affect in their voices, I would think
he felt nothing at hearing the news. But to me - if not to anyone outside of
the immediate family - it was obvious he was relieved. "I'll leave the
assessment of his mental state up to you. It seems he was highly agitated by
Agent Armitage's arrest."
I was still trying to process that information - and wondering what "highly
agitated" looked like when it came to Sherlock - when the first car arrived.
I scanned its occupants for either Greg or Sherlock, but I could only see
two agents I didn't recognize and their prisoner: a man I had only seen in
photographs.
I watched as Thomas was hauled from the back of the car and marched toward
us. He was tall - taller, even, than Sherlock possibly - and slender, but
even though they were hidden by the coat, his broad shoulders hinted at a
muscular upper body. I could easily imagine him capable of subduing Sherlock
and yet there was a hint of a fading bruise beneath his left eye. I couldn't
know for sure it was in the shape of Sherlock's fist, but I thought it
likely. This combined with the fact that he didn't seem to be resisting the
agents' rough handling in any way challenged whatever expectations I may
have been forming of him.
When his eyes met mine, I was startled by the intensity of his gaze.
Inscrutable but for an air of resignation that matched his general demeanor.
I tried to focus on what the agents briefing Mycroft were saying, but the
moment I looked away from Thomas, he spoke.
"Be gentle with him," he said so softly he could have meant the words only
for me.
My eyes snapped back to him. "Sorry?"
I felt Mycroft's attention turn to us as Thomas spoke again, this time a
little louder. "He believed you were dead."
Something about him scratched at the back of my brain. He was familiar
somehow, but I couldn't place him. "Have we met?"
I saw Mycroft gesture toward him and the larger of the two agents moved to
unlock the restraints at Thomas' wrists so he could maneuver the man's arms
from behind his back to his front. Once again, Thomas made no move to
resist, even as one half of the cuffs was obviously closed too tightly,
making him wince a bit.
It was only when he was shoved toward the waiting helicopter that his calm
appearance finally cracked and he stumbled as he tried in vain to halt his
forward momentum. The agent didn't give any indication he noticed the
hesitance and simply got on with the business of installing his suddenly
nervous looking prisoner in a seat before taking the one opposite.
A minor detail from his asset file came back to me then. He had a fear of
heights. Manageable, perhaps, in the enclosed space of an airplane, but in a
helicopter...
"DI Lestrade will bring Sherlock shortly," Mycroft said, drawing my
attention back suddenly.
The other agent had finished speaking to him and retreated to the car. I
wondered which agent had drawn the short straw.
I nodded.
"Agent Wilson will meet you in London."
"Right. Yeah. Good luck."
And with that, Mycroft boarded the helicopter, its rotors already beginning
to spin.
Less than five minutes after it took off, my mobile buzzed with a group
message to me and Mycroft from Greg. 'Bit late. S insisted on washing up.'
'Stop him,' came the reply from Mycroft.
'Tried. Said he wouldn't consent to a rape kit. Chewed me out for drawing
conclusions without evidence.'
Seeing those words on the screen gave me my first bit of hope that things
really would be okay. Sherlock was alive and he was being exactly as
difficult and uncooperative as I would expect him to be.
'A had a copy of Gruener's coroner report. S wants the original.'
Coroner's report. I wasn't the only one chasing a ghost all those months.
'First name?' Mycroft prompted.
'Andrew.'
'Thank you. We will look into it.'
By 'we' he didn't mean me, of course.
I got an incoming call from Greg shortly afterward.
"How is he, really," I asked.
"Oh, everything's tickety boo aside from the fact that he just learned he's
been shagging a spy who's got him chasing after a dead man."
I winced. "He didn't know."
"He suspected a lot of it, I think. Just not the spy bit. Says he's been
collecting data."
Of course he was.
"Listen, I thought I should give you a head's up: Armitage left a note
confirming that the drug causing the amnesia is in the tea. He also said
Sherlock's been conditioned to respond to the name 'Will'. Says he gets ill
if anyone calls him 'Sherlock'."
"What," I spluttered.
"He says it was Sherlock's idea. Based on the way Sherlock reacted when he
read it, I'm inclined to believe that."
"Why would he..." I rolled my eyes as I reached the conclusion before I
could finish the question. "He thought he was hiding from a killer."
"Yeah. You can read the note yourself, but it seems like there's more going
on here than we thought. It might be difficult to get Armitage on anything."
There was a faint noise on the other end of the line. "I gotta go. I think
he just went into the back garden."
I had plenty of time to think after Greg rang off. Eight months seemed like
an impossibly long time for Sherlock to have been chasing a killer without
realizing he was being led on. And all of it - running off after a criminal
mastermind, faking his death - looked so similar to his strategy to take
down Moriarty's network. It didn't quite add up.
It was becoming obvious that the only two people who had the necessary
information to solve the mystery were Sherlock and Thomas.
After what felt like an age, the rental car finally arrived and I felt the
last niggling fear I had about the whole operation dissipate. Sherlock was
safe. He was alive. And, as he emerged from the car, I was surprised to note
that he looked healthy. Moreso, perhaps, than he had the last time I
saw him.
I was so distracted by his appearance and my general relief that he was
alive that I only noticed belatedly the wariness with which he approached
me. He held a bag in front of him like a shield and eyed me as if I were a
coiled snake he half expected to strike at any moment.
That image brought a sudden awful realization to my mind. 'Be gentle with
him. He believed you were dead.'
I regretted letting my anger and frustration get the better of me the first
time he came back from the dead. From his behavior, it seemed he expected
similar treatment the second time around. I didn't let myself think about
the implications of Thomas being the one to voice the appeal to my better
nature yet.
I reached for him slowly, guiding him toward the waiting plane with a hand
under his elbow. Once we were safely on board, I coaxed the bag from him and
set it on one of the seats before pulling him into an embrace.
"Don't ever do that again, you bastard," I muttered in his ear, being sure
to keep my tone light, even though it warbled a bit.
I felt a tremor go through him as he awkwardly, hesitantly returned the
embrace. "'m sorry," he mumbled.
"It's all right." I squeezed him just a little tighter. "It's all right."
I felt some of the tension ease from his body in the long moments before he
extricated himself. "John, I...I need your help."
"Of course. Anything."
"I only have a few hours, perhaps, before the withdrawal symptoms set in and
I have loads of data to go through." He reached into the bag and pulled out
two folders, thrusting them into my hands. "I need to catch you up. You can
start by reading these."
I blinked. "Withdrawal..."
"I've become addicted to a custom psychotropic that causes amnesia. Henry
has been lowering the dosage, but it would seem I'm not quite out of the
woods yet, so to speak. I've no intention of taking another dose unless I
absolutely have to, but judging from my notes, once the symptoms of
withdrawal start I will become practically useless. I will have to get as
much work done as possible before yes what is it?"
The captain had come back to do a cabin check midway through Sherlock's
explanation. She had then hovered beside us, waiting politely for a break in
the conversation. She smiled politely at Sherlock and held out the object
she had draped over her arm. Sherlock's Belstaff coat. "Your brother wanted
me to give this to you personally," she said. Her accent sounded
Scandinavian, but I couldn't quite place it any more exactly than that.
Sherlock took the coat slowly, looking at it as if he had forgotten its
existence entirely. I knew he once thought of the coat as a sort of uniform.
I wondered if it held a similar weight for him as my fatigues had for me.
"If you'll take your seats, we will be taking off shortly," the captain
finished.
"Thank you," I said. She nodded at me and made her way back toward the
cockpit.
I moved to take my seat. After a bit more hesitation, Sherlock searched the
pockets of the coat and triumphantly extricated a mobile. Then he dropped
the coat onto a seat opposite unceremoniously and sat beside me, his thumbs
flying over the keypad.
As usual, I was several steps behind him. In the same breath he had
confirmed that Thomas was drugging him AND suggested he was taking the drug
willingly.
Greg was right. Whatever was going on was more complicated than we
anticipated. And so far all clues seemed to point to Sherlock as the
mastermind behind everything.
I needed to catch up. And if he thought what was in the folders would
achieve that purpose and provide some much needed context then it was as
good a place to start as any.
I buckled myself in and opened the first folder.
Notes:
"Lucky for them they didn't, or whoever had pulled
the trigger would not be leaving this room alive." - This is similar to
the reaction he had in The Three Garidebs when John was shot. What
proved the "depth and loyalty of his love": his willingness to commit
murder if anything happened to him.
Making one of Sherlock's aliases William Smith was not a reference to
anything. It was the most common last name I could pair with the most
common of his first and middle names.
"...your life is no longer yours alone" is an
adaptation of "your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it." This is
from The Veiled Lodger when Sherlock discourages a suspect from
going through with plans to commit suicide. More on this character and how
it relates to Henry later.
Andrew Gruener is a modernized version of
Adelbert Gruener from The Adventure of the Illustrious Client. I
chose to go with a different name entirely instead of using some part of
that old fashioned name mostly because the only modern name I could get
out of it is "Del" and that's what the writers of "Elementary" did when
they did that story. "Elementary" also presented him as a sexual sadist,
so I felt it would sound like I was copying them. One of the aliases I
considered for Henry was James Winter as a nod to Gruener's victim in the
story: Kitty Winter.
Doctor Schlessinger is the real identity of the Henry Peters character in
The Disappearance of the Lady Carfax. James Armitage is an alias of
a minor criminal in The Adventure of the Gloria Scott (the first
case that Victor Trevor helped solve). Josiah Amberley is the antagonist
of The Adventure of the Retired Colourman who attempts to take a
suicide pill when Sherlock catches him. The fact that these are all
villains probably owes more to the fact that a list of these names was
more readily available to me when writing than it is any sort of clue to
Henry's persona.
"...when a doctor goes wrong they make the most formidable of criminals
because they have the knowledge and the nerve necessary to kill" is a
paraphrased quote from The Adventure of the Speckled Band.
And finally, I know this is probably about The
Night Manager, but it is so perfect:
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