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Murder weapon: a knife. (Just an old kitchen knife, made only slightly more interesting by two careful letters on the bottom of the handle, in ink, covered over by a coat of clear nail varnish. Someone cared for this knife, shared a kitchen, didn’t want to lose her things (a woman, obviously). A kitchen knife, for making dinners and salads, not for stabbing fourteen year old boys in dark alleys. This knife belongs to a woman who shared a kitchen; lived in a group home. A shelter. A battered woman’s shelter. Brought her own things with her. But that was years ago now. In her own place now, polish is coming off and not been replaced. And her son; he’s sixteen. A history of violence. Someone’s picked up this knife in anger before. Fingernails dug into the wooden handle. Male. Her son’s? Her husband’s?)
CCTV footage rolling on the screen; two boys wandering into an alley; one, fourteen (the victim, lying in hospital now, stab wounds, critical condition) the other, sixteen (convoluted story about a tall man in a waistcoat who shouted threats; too convoluted, too detailed. Who remembers a waistcoat, other than me?). No one else on the street at all. One boy runs out (the elder). The attempt. Clearly. Caught just off screen. A silent street, the testimony. Stop the footage and pick up phone, text Lestrade.
Arrest 16 year old. Still have chat logs to sift through for motive. SH
The sound of throat-clearing. John. (Obvious. I can hear the edge of his voice, even in the clearing of his throat. Impossible to mistake.)
Spin around and see him standing by the door. Half-hidden behind the coat rack. Looking small. Bit ashamed. Hiding, but not consciously. Why? John. (How long have you been there?) Turn to face him. Smile. Haven’t seen him in three weeks. Off mooning around with Mary. Missed him. Can feel just how much I’ve missed him now that I see him. (A shocking amount.) Something looks wrong.
He’s had a haircut. (That’s not it.) It suits him.
“You’re late.” Hold out the weapon, still in the evidence bag.
“Took me a while to get here,” John says, sheepish, and moves toward me. Limping. Limping badly, using a cane. (New one now: wooden. Gift. Oh. Gift from Mary. She had to purchase it recently because John’s limp returned while they were away from London. She picked it out for him, thinks he likes it. He hates it. Makes him feel like an old man with an old man’s cane. His grandfather had a cane like that. The ugly metal one was better, more medical, less geriatric. More hopeful that the limp is temporary. This one suggests that he’ll just have to live with the limp, pretty it up a bit with a gnarled and bourgeois-polished stick of wood. No. It won’t do at all.)
Of course it took him a while to get here. On the fifth floor of the old police building. No lift. Oh, John.
That’s what it is, that’s what’s wrong. Knows it’s all in his head. Expecting me to tease him? Mock him? Look down on him for letting it creep back? (Would I do that? Maybe once. Not now.)
Frown. Can’t help it. Concerned. Why does the limp come back? Thought I’d cured that. Shocked it out of his system. His mind is tenacious and stubborn. Wants to punish John, somehow. Make him suffer. “I see.”
He limps heavily across the room toward me. Limp as bad as it ever was, possibly worse. Three weeks away from a case (away from danger, running in terror, having to pull out his illegal handgun) is too long.
(But consider: five weeks minus a case, living with me, didn’t bring his limp back. Six weeks, even. His normal workaday life, dinners out, watching telly, folding hospital corners, having nightmares: six weeks, no limp. Now: three weeks away. Terrible limp. So: the cure not just danger. But the potentiality of danger. Waking up every morning not knowing if today is the day we get shot at again, have to leap from a high place, hide from murderers or break into houses for evidence. Not just danger. Me. Three weeks away from me brings back his limp.)
(John’s well-being is entirely dependent on being with me. Satisfying. Bittersweet. But pleasing. Does he know?)
“The boy did it.”
“You’ve worked it out already?” John sounds disappointed. I preen a little. Yes, I did work it out already.
“CCTV.” Wave a hand. Don’t want to be too cocky when John is clearly feeling so low. “We know who did it, but no idea why. Still have chat logs to go through.” Motion to a laptop sitting on the table. He leans his (awful) cane against chair and sits. Peers at the screen. Absently rubs at his leg as he scans through the files. Haven’t seen his leg cause him this much pain since the first moment I met him. Can’t have that.
Solution: easy. (Send a few texts; arrange a meeting. Simple, really.)
Spend half the night being chased by a man I presumed was a potential killer (not an experienced one). Shots are fired; hit the wall rather than either of us. Arrest made (after John tackled the man to the ground and knocked him senseless, of course). John is panting, his leg is fine (it’s fine, it’s all in his head, it just needs a reminder). He pats me down roughly, suddenly afraid I’ve been hit without him noticing. Grabs my jaw and forces me to turn my head. Touches his fingers to my neck, my earlobe. Feel a slight burn. He pulls his fingers back and shows me. Blood. I was grazed. Didn’t even feel it. Now: it stings slightly.
“Ouch,” I say, and touch my neck. Blood dripping from my earlobe.
“That was dumb,” he said. “If you were an inch shorter and you’d have a bullet in your brain. What were you thinking?”
I was thinking about you. You, John. Obviously. His limp is gone. Twenty-one days apart is too long. One burst of danger (a reminder of what his life is meant to be like, living with me, being with me) is enough.
For how long?
*
Head is burning. throat is raw and dry. Feel so cold I think the wind is passing through me; then so hot I need to push all the bedclothes off me. Desire to cough bested only by fear of coughing up all of my innards in one go. Sweating. Aching. Damp cloth John has placed on my forehead strangely soothing. (Because he put it there? Possibly.)
“You obviously haven’t been feeling well for some time. You should have called me.” John is moving the telly from the sitting room into my bedroom. I have no idea why.
“I prefer to text.” My voice sounds strange, strangled. Not like my voice at all. Alien sounds coming out of me.
“You should have texted me, then. Now you’ve got pneumonia.”
“I’ll be fine.” Admittedly, I don’t sound fine. I sound dreadful. Pasty taste of antibiotics still lingering in the back of my throat. Cough. (Ouch.)
He places the telly on top of the dresser, plugs in it. Switches it on. It’s too loud and he scrambles for the remote (shoved into his pocket). Mashes a button until the volume ebbs. He adjusts it so that I can’t help but see it; the flickering light is annoying at best. Want to ask why he moved the bloody telly, but talking might make me cough again. Unpleasant.
He flits around like a nervous rabbit. (Note: no limp. It’s been four days since I last saw him. No hint of a limp at all. Four days apart is all right, as far as John’s leg is concerned. My lungs beg to differ.) Picks up a glass and goes to the kitchen; fills it with water. Forces me to drink it. (Makes me cough.) Fills it with water again and leaves it on my bedside table. Returns to the kitchen; comes back with three oranges in one hand. He climbs into the bed next to me, picks up the remote, switches from channel to channel until he finds something he likes. Settles in, his shoulder against mine. (Perhaps moving the telly was a good idea after all.) He peels an orange and pops a wedge into his mouth, then points one in my direction.
“Eat.” I struggle to sit up a little more, complaining, coughing. He puts it in my mouth, reluctant as I am. Burst of sweetness. His finger brushes my lip, rests for a moment on my chin. He detaches another segment and hovers it near my mouth until I stick out my tongue to accept it. “Good.”
Four days is all right.
*
Body in the weeds, bloated and stinking. Donovan and Lestrade keep their distance. I don’t mind. The decomposing human body is just like a living one; a slightly altered set of chemicals inside a highly elastic container. Still human, still full of details. Marks on the neck (fingers), marks on the wrist (fingers), marks on the thighs (fingers), marks on the ankles (fingers). How many hands involved? Five different sets. Gang related. This man was strong, and he fought back. Took a couple of teeth with him.
See movement in the corner of my eye. It’s been a little under two weeks since I last saw him. (Visiting friends of Mary’s in Berwick-upon-Tweed; a golfing holiday, of all things.) John. Limping again. Look up.
“All right, John?” He’s coming down a steep slope; no one’s helping him. Using the cane again (the wooden one; poor John. It’s ghastly, and slightly too short for him).
“Fine,” he grumbles. “Fine.”
“How was golf?”
“More boring than you can possibly imagine.”
“Given how well you understand the depths to which my imagination can descend, that’s a truly frightening proposition.”
Fortunately, there is always something dangerous to do in London. Eleven days: too long for John and I to be apart.
“Send a text for me.” He looks up, startled for a moment. He hasn’t made it down to the slope yet. Stops, pulls his phone out of his pocket. Looks up at me.
Recite the number for John. It will be a long night.
*
The body was found by the landlady. (Consider: what would Mrs. Hudson do if she found my torso detached from my limbs and stuffed into a cricket bag in the attic? Scream, run away, cry and call the police, or scream, run away, call the police, and then cry? She is a practical woman, at heart.) I can hear John on the stairs. I already know what the evidence of the sound suggests: it’s been nine days. Nine days is too long. His limp has reappeared. It’s not too bad yet, not so much that he hesitates to take the stairs and grimaces in pain when he sits, but noticeable. The tap of his cane on the stairs.
I don’t turn to look at him as he walks in. I’m leaning over the cricket bag, looking for evidence before I turn it over. (Littered around the edges of the room: a rake, an axe, a handsaw, a machete, a chainsaw. None of which are the murder weapon. Marks on the throat, just below the point where the head was removed. Strangled. Something soft: a scarf? Pillowcase? Not rope. Cloth.)
“John.” He’s at the door now, he stops. I don’t need to see him to know that he’s fiddling with that pretentious wooden monstrosity. “Give me your cane.”
He limps toward me. I extend my hand back, don’t look behind me. Don’t need to see; I know how he looks, just now, a bit ashamed of the limp, confused by it, frustrated. Hoping against hope that I don’t mention it. (I don’t. I never do.) Hiding a little behind his over-long fringe (as if he can). He slips it into my palm. “Thank you.” Moment of indecision; axe? handsaw? The simplest is clearly the chainsaw. Walk over, pick it up, John’s dreadful cane in my left hand.
“Sherlock?”
Tuck the cane under my arm and pull the cord on the chainsaw. It starts up on the first try. Hold it in my right hand, drop the cane into my left. One single slice, right in the middle. The bottom half of the cane hits the floor. (Tacky golden tip, all chipped and ugly. Looks like someone’s chewed on it. Been getting far too much use.) I shut down the chainsaw.
Look over at John. He looks stunned. Confused.
“That’s terrible,” I say. “Tragic accident, your dear cane. What a shame.”
He starts to laugh.
I walk over to the door and pick up the plain black metal cane I brought with me, Hand it to John, handle first. “That will have to do instead.” It’s the perfect size for him; I ordered it to fit. (It helps, of course, that I know the exact length of his legs and arms, the choreography of his gait; I was able to specify the precise right size to suit. He will discover at some point later on that I had his initials engraved on it, just under the handle. Small letters: JHW, placed so he can run his fingers over them when he’s bored. He won’t notice now. He’ll notice later on, when he’s at home, and runs his fingers over the brushed metal.) Not quite as workaday as his original one (given to him by the hospital, no doubt, scuffed from previous use), but solid, unpretentious, and (above all) obviously temporary. “It couldn’t be helped.”
“Thank you.” He smiles at me. Surprise written on his face. Gratitude. Affection.
I nod, and go back to the cricket bag.
*
John’s set to meet me at Angelo’s for dinner. Mary is working tonight (is she, really? I wonder), so we have the evening to ourselves. No plans; we’ll see what turns up. I sit by the window and watch him approach. His steady gait is very slightly canted to the left; he’s favouring the leg again. Doesn’t know it, but he is. His body is fighting him, his brain is insisting on reacting to an injury that isn’t there. Not a full limp yet, but getting there. Six days since I last saw him.
Six days. Too long.
*
“You need to see me about twice a week.”
I tell John this while he’s sitting in his armchair across from me. He’s reading a medical journal. (His subscriptions still come to Baker St., even though he is no longer paying half the rent.) It’s a Thursday evening and Mary is meeting with her book club. He has a cup of tea in one hand. He needs another haircut. He looks up, through his fringe.
“What?”
“I’ve been tracking the progress of your limp.”
He blanches a little. I have not mentioned it at all until now, in spite its prominent appearance and disappearance over the last few months. He prefers to pretend it’s not happening, but this will be our singular conversation on the matter. I will get through it quickly and change the subject. “You require exposure to danger, or exposure to the potential for danger. I provide that. Somewhere between four and six days away from exposure to potential danger brings on the limp. If you see me at least twice a week, the limp will not return.”
Pause. He looks startled. I look down at the newspaper on my lap. Glance over the news. Looking for crimes involving ball bearings. (Important.)
“Of course, if you go on holiday or are otherwise barred from seeing me, I suppose you could put yourself in some danger once a week. That might work, it’s unclear. Easier to just see me though, I suspect.”
“I...” John doesn’t appear to know what to say.
“Mary has at least one night shift a week, and meets with her friends at least one evening after work. If you spend those evenings with me, you shouldn’t need to use a cane at all.” Don’t look up. I can hear him relax in his chair. He exhales in a laugh.
“I...see.” he say. I look up. He’s grinning at me. Impressed. Flattered. Still slightly embarrassed. I solved another problem for him. (Didn’t he realize?) “Amazing. You’ve got it tracked to the hour, don’t you.” He shakes his head. “That’s...amazing.”
“Well.” Look back at the paper. John’s compliments never cease to make capillaries bloom with heat under my skin.
“How long have you been working that out?”
Consider. “About four months.”
He stands, walks over to me. Sits down next to me. Puts the palm of his hand on my cheek, strokes me with his thumb. I turn my head and look at him, still holding the newspaper. He is beaming at me. He leans over and kisses me on the lips (lightly). “That’s a good plan. Thank you.”
I don’t know what to say to that. So I don’t say anything.
He stays sitting next to me, reading his journals. I can feel the echo of his lips on mine for the rest of the night.