‘Mr Holmes, allow me.’ Taking Sherlock’s leg, I pulled, twisted and pushed it until I felt the bones slot back into place. Someone in the crowd nodded in approval and allowed that I would make a good vet.
As Edwards carried the unconscious woman to safety, I turned my attention to the man on the ground. In the few seconds it had taken me to adjust his leg, I had watched Mr Holmes check all four exits from the Buttercross and realise, instantly, that these were closed. He’d noted Edwards carry the woman toward a waiting police van and seen his brother appear and disappear at the sight of trouble; not that this would be a problem. Lestrade had made a call to the Chief Constable of Hampshire, one of the few men in the county to possess a telephone. All the help I needed was available. I had no doubt that Mycroft Holmes was already in captivity.
‘You have three choices,’ I told his brother.
Since this was two better than Sherlock had imagined, I had his full attention. ‘You can be arrested and hope you die in prison…’
‘I doubt,’ he said, ‘that I should ever hope this.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-six,’ he admitted.
‘Hunter is thirty,’ I told him. ‘He is the coachman whose horse you killed in Kingston. He comes from a family that never forgets and has little interest in forgiveness.’
‘My other alternatives?’
‘Try to escape and be shot down.’
‘By you?’
I nodded. ‘By me, by my coachman, by that good detective standing over by the van. Does it make a difference?’
He allowed that it did not. ‘And my last choice?’
‘Work for me. I need a man who can throw himself in front of carriages, think on his feet, lie when necessary and hold up a mirror to dazzle the public. The work will be hard and dangerous, it will require levels of intelligence few men possess. You will have no official standing. In return, you will be provided with a pardon, lodgings, a housekeeper, funds, access to any delicate information you need, and an assistant.’
‘My brother?’
‘I have other plans for Mycroft.’
‘Then who?’
‘Me,’ I told him. ‘Your assistant will be me.’
‘What about Hunter?’
‘You will be working for me. I work for the Queen. Hunter is the Queen’s favourite coachman. He will growl at you and I will take care not to introduce the two of you before time, but he will respect your position.’
‘Which is what?’ Few of the crowd remained to see Sherlock Holmes pull himself to his feet, glance quickly around to check the alleys were still blocked and turn back to me. He checked from habit only, his decision already made, there are some things one can see in a man’s eyes. ‘What am I to be called?’
I shrugged. ‘Whatever is appropriate. Do you have something in mind?’
‘Consulting Genius,’ he suggested, with no appearance of shame.
I smiled, amused by his vanity. ‘I will put that to the Queen,’ I promised. ‘Although you might have to settle for a little less.’
False Light by Margaret Murphy
From her viewpoint high above street level Carol can see St. George’s Hall. Undergoing renovation, it is swathed in plastic, a colonnaded monument in bubble-wrap. To her right, the sun sinks low and golden over the Mersey tunnel entrance. She loves the broad sweep of steps down from the Greco-Roman facade of the museum. She walks slowly, taking her time, head up, shoulders back; it makes her feel grand, like a movie star. She wears a trouser suit-a good linen mix in pale green. Her hair, ice-blond and fine as spun silk, lifts in a faint breeze and she enjoys a moment of blessed coolness.
Carol has been working late on a new coleopteran exhibition. Her favourites are the iridescent types; they shimmer with false light-purple and green and electric blue-oil on water, prisms in sunlight. She checks her watch. Eight-thirty. Not too late to chance crossing the cobbled street into St. John’s Gardens.
The borders are planted with blue violas and pink biennial dianthus; warmed by the sun and enclosed within the walls of the old churchyard of St. John’s, the scent of violets and cloves is almost hypnotic. Laughter carries from one of the lawns to her right and she glances without turning her head. A group of students, talking, flirting, testing their knowledge of their current reading on their friends. Harmless.
She passes them unnoticed. She has learned the art of invisibility: Walk confidently but without show; look like you know where you’re headed; stare straight through a crowd, as though you can see your goal unimpeded by the crush-as though they are invisible. Never meet the eye of a stranger.
Traffic is heavy, belching hot exhaust fumes into the already hot and exhausted air. Too early for the clubs, but too hot to wait indoors for dark, the streets are already thronged with youths in white shirts, eager for the rut, eyeing the tanned girls who flaunt their toned midriffs and thighs. Liverpool city centre swelters in a brown heat haze, the crowds irascible and uncomfortable in their own skins: The heat has taken the fun out of the game.
Central station is empty. She walks invisible past the guard at the ticket barrier. She hears voices raised, laughter; it echoes, reminding her of swimming baths, caves. Cave men. The constant scream of a faulty escalator handrail, rubber on metal, sets her teeth on edge, but it is cooler underground, and she is grateful for this.
The voices grow louder, nearer. She sees them without looking, using her peripheral vision. An untaught skill, urban survival. Three boys-only three. They hoot and howl, pounding the air with their shouts. The space-the emptiness of the platform-lends them size and significance. She keeps her gaze steady and flat, moves to the shelter of one of the massive square pillars to escape notice.
A faint whine and a puff of warm air announce the approach of a train. She hangs back, waiting to see what the boys will do. The vibration passes down the line like a series of whip-cracks, then the first glimpse: twin aspects, insectile, emerging from the dark. The train slows and stops with an electrical sigh.
The boys jostle each other into a carriage to her left. She steps into the next. Four or five others sit at discreet distances, respecting each other’s space, taking care to avoid eye contact as they plunge into the tunnels and deep cuts on the edge of the city centre. Two disembark at Brunswick. Then she sees the three boys at the link doors; they peer into her carriage, grinning, making animal noises. She looks out of the window. They come in and she looks up again, alarmed, catches the eye of the man in the seat diagonally opposite. She sees him sometimes when she works late. Grey suit, tie loosened, respectable, early forties. He smiles and she is reassured. It’s okay.
The boys sit at the far end of the carriage, out of sight, but she can hear them; their laughter, their sniggers. A whiff of solvent and the squeak of a marker pen on glass-they’re vandalising the windows. She won’t look. A woman gets off at St. Michael’s; their mutual vulnerability allows a brief moment of contact. Carol sees her own fear reflected in the woman’s eyes.
The boys get up-she sees them ghosted in the window-it’s almost night and the steep embankments on either side of the track draw darkness down into the carriage. Two tall lads, one who looks younger, nervous. They are dressed in the uniform of sports gear, trainers, baseball caps. She takes her paperback from her shoulder bag and pretends to read. The largest of the three walks down the car and sits opposite, staring at her until she is forced to look up. He has short brown hair and grey hate-filled eyes. His mouth is twisted with fury-against what? She knows the standards: society, authority, the self; but looking into this boy’s eyes she sees his hatred is directed at her. You don’t know me, she wants to say, but the words won’t come. He continues staring and she looks away again. Her invisibility has failed her.