The Enigma Variations. Chapter Fifteen/? Dangerous Men
Title: The Enigma Variations. Chapter Fifteen/? Dangerous Men.
author: ghislanem70
rating: NC-17
word count: 6,400 this chapter, 64,400 to date.
warnings: Spoilers for S2Ep3 The Reichenbach Fall; explicit sex, graphic violence, reference to sensory integration syndrome, suicidal ideation.
summary: Post-Reichenbach, John finds he's still got one thing left to live for.
disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, BBC et al.
All men dream: but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day
to find that it was vanity;
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,
for they may act their dreams with open eyes,
to make it possible.
This I did.
- T.E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Drogheda, Ireland. A hostel.
The atmosphere in their little room was, as it only could be, both surreal and comfortingly familiar, all at once. They were together, yes; but they were not what they had been. “I won’t go back to the way things were,” he had said to Sherlock: and of course now, they couldn’t - even if they both wanted that.
John was sitting on the edge of the tiny bed, where his life had just changed, where a dream he had once thought denied him forever had come true against all odds. It still felt like a dream, as long as he didn’t look too hard around the edges at the many unanswered questions. On both sides, he fully recognised. He looked out the window through the little clear space where Sherlock had rubbed his fingertips and gave Sherlock’s hand a final squeeze. It was still night, or very early morning, and the street below was dark.
Sherlock was fully awake, and he scrutinized John’s watchful face, the set of his shoulders. Clues to what was clearly a different John Watson than the one he had left behind in London. How different, remained for him to deduce. John started getting dressed with swift, jerky movements and Sherlock knew that John had no intention of lingering here.
What had happened between them this night still had Sherlock’s emotions reeling, his body singing. He found it impossible to comprehend how John could possibly want to do anything other than stay here, in this strange anonymous room, indefinitely. Now that they had found each other, they would make plans. Plans very different from those he had envisioned. He felt like shouting his elation to the rooftops. He was like a man saved by an unlooked-for reprieve from the gallows.
“Sherlock - we can’t stay here. We have to find O’Neill,” John said. “You said you knew where he was going.” Now John turned to look at Sherlock, his face impassive. “You said he was being . . . watched.”
Sherlock nodded, eyes wide. Even John’s voice was different. Hard. The rising emotion of moments before came tumbling back down just as quickly. He wondered if John had been like this in Afghanistan. And then he wondered if this supposition was just an excuse not to admit the obvious - that whatever John was now, it was all down to him. He reviewed dark images of the last days in London: Moriarty. The newspapers. Poisoned children. A little girl’s scream. Lestrade, giving him the caution. A desperate plan. The rooftop. The fall. John mumbling weakly, “Oh, God, no. . .”
How to begin. His mouth opened and closed and he tried to hold John’s gaze, tried to show him his true feelings, true intention.
“Sherlock. I realise that your brilliant plans are much too - complicated - for an ordinary idiot like me. But I’ll try to keep up. Use small words if you feel it will help,” John said with polite sarcasm.
Sherlock considered this. “You think I didn’t tell you because I think you’re -“
“ - an idiot. Exactly. But it’s never spoiled my aim. Not yet.”
“But I’ve told you, John. Why won’t you believe me?” He had theorised that once John had a chance to think, he would understand. Not forgive; no, not that. But it didn’t seem that John was there. Yet.
“Let’s just say I’m willing to be persuaded,” John said. “Start talking.”
“O’Neill’s going to Dromintee,” he said rapidly. “It’s over the border, in Northern Ireland. Two stops up the Belfast line, outside of Newry. He’ll turn around and take the train straight back to Dublin on Sunday, we think. We believe he’s visiting his mother.”
John pulled the little chair out and sat carefully on it. Sherlock’s newly-awakened heart sank further. John didn’t want to sit with him, on the bed. John rubbed his chin thoughtfully. This distracted Sherlock. He had an impulse to touch that roughness. . . and then, too, he wanted to remind John that he needed to shave because his faint stubble didn’t match his dyed hair, but thought the better of it.
“‘We think. We believe.’ I see. And who, exactly, is minding him in your absence?”
Sherlock took a chance, held out his hand, but John wouldn’t take it. Yet, he thought to himself. “John - just promise me - promise you’ll hear me out,” he said. John gave a tight little nod.
“Irene Adler.”
* * *
Sherlock watched John take it in. His dark eyes darted around the room, unwilling, apparently, to look directly at Sherlock any more. His soft nervous laugh was incongruous with his expression.
Sherlock was an actual sociopath, although he could feel himself learning, growing. Since John. He had always chosen to believe this a superior advantage, one of many he held over the ordinary people. Sherlock had seen the faces of many persons who had just been told that a loved one had been killed. So much caring. He had observed this, but never really understood it, before. John’s face looked like that now, and he found himself rummaging his mind palace for something, anything, that would help cushion the blow. His mind palace was remarkably bare of any data pertaining to such circumstances, however, and so he stared, watching John’s face drain of blood before his eyes.
“Irene Adler,” John said slowly, as though his tongue wouldn’t work properly. “But she - when I told you she was in witness protection program . . .?”
“John, Irene knew things - Moriarty told her things. Things about me, about Mycroft. And about other things. He knows her and she knows him. You can understand this, surely? It made her uniquely - useful. To my plan.”
“Your plan. Of course. Plan to stop Moriarty, yes? If she knows so much, why haven’t you done it yet? After all this time. And Karachi - you were there, weren’t you? You went to Karachi to save Irene Adler. And never told me.”
Sherlock stopped short, thinking hard. There was no possible way John could know about Karachi. Unless --“Mycroft. That day. Her file. Mycroft told you the truth; the truth as far as he knew it. And so, you did lie to me. I thought you were. You and Mycroft, together. Why would Mycroft do that, I wonder?” And he did wonder. Why Mycroft would possibly confide in John about something like that.
He filed this away for future consideration.
“Are you really that blind, Sherlock?” John hissed, voice low, because the walls in this hostel were paper thin and he knew better than to start shouting in this place. “Irene Adler played you. She lied to you. She sold you out to Moriarty. Now you’re telling me you’re with her? She’s alone with O’Neill? Selling you out again. Are you completely out of your mind?”
“John, you aren’t wrong about her - not entirely - but Irene has her own code of - honour, if you like. I know that won’t mean anything to you. But she believes she must repay me for saving her life. They were going to kill her, you know. Chop her head clean off, in point of fact. If she wanted to hurt me or betray me, she’s had as many chances as I’ve had to do the same to her.”
“You’ve never heard of the long con, then, I take it?”
“John - I don’t blame you. But do you know what her very last words were? In Karachi? They were on the point of executing her.”
“Well, what?” John said warily.
“It was to say goodbye. To me. That means something.” He thought about Jennifer Wilson. Scratching out her daughter’s name. He had never stopped to consider then, what it would actually be like: the last seconds of life. What one might say. What would be important. The word “Rachel” had turned out to be more than just a dying woman’s last words - a vital clue left by a clever woman to trap her murderer.
But on that day, the very day he met John, when the emotional resonances of that gesture had escaped him, John had tried to teach him something important. He had told him - a near stranger - with simple unguarded honesty about a moment in time when he had thought he might die. What his own thoughts were. And though he had never mentioned it again, Sherlock had puzzled over this, sometimes: what he himself might do or think or say in his last moments, if he knew death was coming for him. Now, of course, he knew for certain.
And so, he found he could not ignore the import of Irene’s own final message. Once it would have been just another opportunity to manipulate a pawn in the game, a confirmation of weakness. Now it induced in him a rather foreign feeling that only a very few people inspired. John, principally and above all others. Mrs. Hudson. To an extent, even Lestrade; Molly Hooper. On rare occasion, even his brother, his mother. Protectiveness; responsibility.
“Well, if you don’t doubt Miss Adler’s motivations, that settles it. Because it’s not like she’s ever fooled you before.” John glared at Sherlock and Sherlock looked back, hiding his chagrin. Remembering that body with the bashed in face, on the tray at Barts. A code; airline seats filled with corpses. “Right. Let’s talk about O’Neill. Just look at him. His face. His voice. ‘Balance of probabilities,’ you would say - I’ve been working on the assumption he’s Moriarty’s brother. Older brother, looks like. Not much of a stretch. Even an idiot like me can see it.”
Sherlock bit his lip to stop himself literally roaring at John in frustration. “John,” he began, but John looked down, scrunching his eyes shut and pressing his fingertips to the bridge of his nose as he did when he was very upset, when he was trying to shut out something ugly that Sherlock had done.
“John, there’s nothing - absolutely nothing like that, between Irene and me, if you’re still stupid enough to think such a thing now.”
Obviously, he should have said this to John before. They had been at such cross-purposes, for so long, and never more so than when Irene entered their lives. This was not entirely his own fault. Not entirely.
“We’re not a couple,” John had said, swiftly, definitively, at Battersea Power Station - and the ever-perceptive Irene Adler had just as swiftly retorted, “yes, you are,” which observation he had picked at in his the corners of mind for quite a lot longer than he would have supposed possible. “I’m not actually gay,” John had said, even more definitively.
His pain at overhearing these confessions had completely disoriented him. Still, despite the fact that he otherwise was perfectly aware that pain was usually a sign of something important being damaged, he had come no closer to understanding his own true feelings, then. Or John’s.
“I don’t think I can hear this now. ‘The Whip Hand.’ All those texts. The violin. That music. ‘Have dinner with me, Mister Holmes.’ Karachi’s a bit far for a date, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not what you think, it never was. Look - I could happily never see her, ever again - but I’d want her to be safe. Can you understand that, John? And you’re wrong anyway, that music -“
John shook his head, eyes still closed. “‘’Never see her again, as long as she was safe.’ I thought that was your plan for me. She’s the one that’s with you, and I’m the one that was left behind. Remember? So forgive me if I’m a little confused.” He opened his eyes and scrutinised Sherlock’s tense face, and he did think he could understand, a little. Maybe. Perhaps they were comrades-at-arms, in a peculiar way. He sighed.
He hadn’t come this far to let Irene Adler get in his way.
* * *
“All right, forget it. For now. Have you got a mobile?” he said. Sherlock fished it out of his pocket and handed it over. “No, you. Call Miss Adler. Call her now. Ask her where O’Neill is right now, this very minute. And get your bloody clothes on.”
“What do you intend to do?” They had gotten so very far from what he really wanted now, what he needed to tell John. The feeling of invincibility that had enveloped him as he lay in John’s arms was nearly gone. He didn’t want to leave this room, when it would probably vanish forever. They weren’t supposed to be talking of Irene Adler at all; far from it.
They were supposed to be talking about the fact that he had deduced what they must do now.
What he had thought he must do, before; that was all wrong. What John had been doing, too; whatever it was. All wrong. He and John, together now. Their long nightmare was over. They were fortunate; they were well hidden and disguised. They would stay hidden, go deeper. They would leave London behind forever. Start over somewhere far away, where John would be safe. Always. He would never try to solve another crime as long as he lived.
But John wouldn’t listen now; it was written plainly in his stony face, in the stiffness of his posture, holding himself as though he had just absorbed a painful wound.
Adler.
It was ordinarily rather easy to misdirect John, although he felt a pang of mixed resentment and regret that he should have to do so. He and Adler. An alliance of mutual benefit, for mutual gain. Eminently practical under the circumstances. Nothing for which he need be ashamed. The little touch experiments . . . well, in time, John would understand. Possibly.
Possibly he didn’t need to know.
“John,” he said. “It’s your turn. How did you discover I was alive? How did you find me?”
John was handing him his clothes, looking at his bare skin, his golden hair. The poor garments (Oxfam) felt harsh against his skin after the glorious soft leather of John’s glove. He allowed himself precisely ten seconds to replay his precious vivid memory of this, then put it away. Once he was dressed, he looked out the window one last time as the sun started to tinge the rooftops.
“We don’t have time for me to answer your first question,” John said shortly, pulling his laptop case over his shoulder and tossing the rucksack at Sherlock. “The short answer to the second is that I found a Starbucks receipt from Custom House Quay in a closet in Kitty Reilly’s old flat. It led me to O’Neill just yesterday, and I followed him. I didn’t have any idea at all of finding you. It was blind luck.”
“So I assumed. But what were you planning to do?”
“I’m not planning to do it - I’m already doing it. And we don’t have time for that story either. Short answer is, I’m following anything that leads to Moriarty. I’m following O’Neill because he’s going to lead me to Moriarty. I hope.”
“Lead you to Moriarty, you hope.” Sherlock said dully. Even his own lightning-fast mental processes could not immediately grasp this. That John would seek Moriarty out, alone. “No, John, you can’t. It’s everything I tried to protect you from. We’ll go back to Dublin, straight to the airport. I have some money. Enough. We’ll go somewhere far away. Estonia. Tibet - “
“It’s a little late, isn’t it Sherlock, for you to tell me what I can’t do. Moriarty took everything from us. For so long, I felt like it was all just a bad dream - but it’s not a dream. This is real. And I’m going to end it. When it’s all over, you can decide - if what you really want is Irene Adler -- ” He bit his tongue, wanting to curse they day Irene Adler came into their lives.
"You are a bloody idiot, do you know that? If I wanted to run away and disappear with Irene Adler, would I be here with you at all? God, John, you’re the world’s biggest fool if you’re going to keep on like this." He was looming over John, willing him to believe.
John seemed finally to be really listening. His shoulders relaxed a little. He looked carefully at Sherlock’s careworn face, anxiety and frustration and overriding it all, an emotion that was unmistakable.
“I am a fool,” he said, almost to himself, and took a step closer, not caring at all that he had to tip his head up to look into those haunted eyes. He hooked his hand behind Sherlock's neck and pulled him down. "All right, then. Whatever happened with you and her -- it's finished now. It's you and me, now."
"It was always you, John. Always."
Sherlock allowed himself to be held close, concentrating on actually relaxing into it, not stiffening or pulling away. The last thing he wanted to do: but his body still hadn't quite absorbed the fact that everything was different. He probably hadn't been this close physically to another person, like this, since he was a child.
“Tibet? Really? Sherlock, you need to start thinking -“
Sherlock stopped him with a kiss, not tentative this time. “I don’t care about - thinking,” he murmured.
“I never thought I’d live to hear you say that.” It was as close to an express declaration of love as he was likely to ever get from Sherlock Holmes.
The warmth and peace turned into heat that sparked through Sherlock fast and hard. "Please," Sherlock whispered. "We can stay a while longer." He was tugging on John’s belt, pushing him meaningfully back toward the little bed. “We’ve so much lost time.” But John was stronger than he remembered. Much. John braced his hands on either side of Sherlock's arms and held him against the wall. But at this, he was overtaken by the forbidden memory of the last night he had ever spent at home, in 221b. Mycroft. Up against the wall. The terrible thing was that drunk and enraged as he had been, every bit of that night was vivid, and it burned. The rage of believing he could never, ever have what was in the palm of his hand right here and now. The weight of lies, and of his own sin too, was still so heavy. He tried to erase them by kissing Sherlock long and deep and hard. And if he wanted to stay here too, more than he would let Sherlock see, there was something else he wanted even more.
“Not here. When we get home, we’re going to have everything, I promise you - but not here, not now.”
Sherlock was undeterred, but John was adamant. He clasped his roaming hand and held it tight.
“I want to go home, Sherlock - I want it so much. We have to finish this."
* * *
They quietly climbed down the winding stair. At the first landing, John stopped and turned.
“You still call me John, you know,” he said. “But I’m called John Blackburn, now. What do you call yourself?”
“Sven Siegerson. Miss Adler is called Ingrid Siegerson. From Oslo. We’re traveling as brother and sister.” His face radiated innocence.
John smirked, cocked a disbelieving eyebrow; which Sherlock took, all in all, as a good sign.
* * *
Dromintee, South Armagh County, Northern Ireland. A pub.
“She should be here soon,” Sherlock said softly.
The Three Steps pub in Finnegan’s Road had just opened for the late morning custom. John had realised that his Dublin suit was out of place and had changed into some of Sherlock’s limited wardrobe of faded jumpers and tees, worn jeans that he had to fold into cuffs. John hoped they both looked like backpackers now. Sherlock had a knitted cap pulled down over his hair to make himself more anonymous.
They ordered pints and toasted cheese sandwiches and settled down at a small table in the darkest corner in the back. Sherlock pulled out a map and they pretended to be planning a walking tour. There was a nearby mountain, Slieve Gullion, famous for its panoramic views as far as Dublin Bay in fine weather, and megalithic cairns at its summit. An old footpath leading up the mountain started near the pub.
“What’s the occasion for O’Neill visiting his mother, then?” On the short train ride from Drogheda, John had briefly and with little emotion told Sherlock the story of his discovery of Starbuck’s receipt in Kitty Reilly’s flat, of following the clue to Dublin; obtaining the Starbucks security footage of Moriarty and O’Neill, apparent twins, following O'Neill onto the train north.
The deeper story, that of Sebastian Moran, gambling schemes, a Dublin-based computer chip company, of pulling the trigger on a rooftop in Islington, could wait.
“It’s her sixtieth birthday,” Sherlock said. “A rare family gathering, evidently. We thought that Moriarty might come. But I don’t judge Moriarty to be a terribly devoted son. ”
“How, exactly, did you find this out?”
“I broke into O’Neill’s flat in Dublin while he was at work. Message on his answerphone. Child’s play.”
“At work. Right. Connolly Station. The Station Master.”
“Interesting, isn’t it? The smuggling one could do: unfettered access to rail cars, the ability to manipulate customs . . .”
“Are you saying you think O’Neill’s in on some scheme with Moriarty? A coffee at Starbucks isn’t exactly a covert operation. . . is that why don’t they use the same names?”
“Both brothers changed their names, apparently; or perhaps, the mother did. Mother goes by the name of Gillian O’Hare. We - I - haven’t pinned it down yet. No time.”
“Fine. So Irene is doing . . . what, exactly?” John said carefully, sipping his pint.
“She spoke with O’Neill on the train. She’s changed her looks, too; if O’Neill had any reason to recognise her before, which I very much doubt, he certainly won’t now. She let it be known that she was doing an article for the Guardian on Irish pub crawls, the live music scene, that sort of thing. Gillian O’Hare’s cottage is just up the road. He invited her to tea, and said he’ll show Irene around the village a bit. Quite taken with her,” Sherlock said evenly. “Which, of course, was the intention.”
“I thought she was a Norwegian from Oslo?”
“Not always,” Sherlock said, but did not elaborate.
* * *
A little group of happy, chattering people burst through the doors of the quiet pub.
John observed a woman with fair blonde hair, cropped short, and a fresh face scrubbed free of any cosmetics. This woman stood out from the group of dark-haired villagers. She did not so much as glance in their direction. John would not have known her but for Sherlock having disclosed that this was Irene Adler. The group filed to a table in the back.
O’Neill was among the group, urging his mum to take the best seat. Gillian O’Hare did not resemble her sons - she was slight, with small sharp careworn features, sad and rather puffy blue eyes under a fringe of carefully curled and dyed brown hair. Despite her drab appearance, Mrs. O’Hare was expensively dressed. She gripped O’Neill’s sleeve as she sat down somewhat unsteadily. John judged that she had been drinking, although it was just coming on noon. Irene declined to sit, saying she just wanted to snap some photos and didn’t want to disturb their birthday luncheon, but Mrs. O’Hare invited her courteously to stay.
“It’s good to see my son Mickey with such a fine looking lass, for once,” she said brightly. O’Neill smiled at Irene, but his eyes seemed restless.
John thought O’Neill’s smile not as happy as one would expect to see on the occasion of his mother’s birthday; but then again, perhaps they didn’t really get on.
Moriarty, of course, did not appear.
* * *
Before his miraculous discovery of Sherlock on the Belfast train, John’s plan had simply been to follow O’Neill, hoping that by some slender chance he should meet up with Moriarty; if not, to look for a chance to confront O’Neill and question him, quietly and in privacy, and by use of force if necessary, about where Moriarty could be found now.
That plan still seemed to John to be the only thing to do and he was burning with impatience to get on with it. He wasn’t sure how he would have pulled it off in this small village, exactly; but he felt the pressure of time ticking by, and despite the open green countryside surrounding this little village, he felt strangely claustrophobic as he never did in London.
And so, John resented being asked to sit back quietly in this pub and watch Irene/Ingrid weave her spell over these people for several reasons: not the least of which was that he didn’t care to sit beside Sherlock, watching him surreptitiously watch Irene Adler. He felt the unreal feeling almost of shock wash over him again that Sherlock was real, he was alive, he was sitting here with him at this table in a little pub in rural Northern Ireland, which caused him to vividly recall their case in Dartmoor.
Dartmoor. Another cozy pub. The emotional whiplash he had suffered there, determinedly suppressing his own inmost feelings. And now they were here in another cozy pub, and circumstances even darker and grimmer than those in Dartmoor. But for all, that John could not help finally smiling a little at the sight of Sherlock, looking peculiar but undeniably gorgeous in his disguise, scrutinising the map of local walking paths. He felt a lightness in his chest, something that had been very tightly wound coming slowly undone.
* * *
With one part of his mind, Sherlock was casually observing Irene Adler and the birthday gathering of the mysterious O’Hare/O’Neill/Moriarty clan, which had become raucous. Songs were being sung. Others in the pub joined in the merriment.
Another part of his mind was musing on the name: Three Steps Pub.
This name meant something. He was sure of it. He searched his mind palace, but it wouldn’t cooperate. He thought he understood why. Adjustments had to be made, of course, now that John was here. He didn’t allow himself to become frustrated, though. The places in his mind palace that he had closed off, places that led to John, he would open those wide again. Expand them. Other places, he might close forever. Soon, maybe, even those places devoted to James Moriarty. He sipped his pint, looked at his map, while the greater part of his mental faculties was devoted to searching John’s grave face, learning it all over again, surprised and happy to see his sudden unexpected smile.
John leaned in and pointed to the map, as though discussing their walking route. “Sherlock. This bar,” John said, now serious again. “I know it.” He looked around. It looked like any other bar in a small village. And small it certainly was - he had seen the sign on the way from the train station - Dromintee, pop. 354.
Some local men were crowding in, taking their usual seats. But other than a few quick glances, John thought that no one was paying them any mind. A small band was setting up, starting in with music, then singing Irish songs.
It was the singing that sealed it.
“It was more than thirty years ago, but I’m sure this is the place,” John continued, speaking softly so only Sherlock could hear. “The Three Steps Inn, it was called then. . . Captain Robert Nairac. I’ll never forget him. He was with the Grenadier Guards, a boxing champion at Oxford. He’d been undercover, trying to get local intel on the IRA. Pretending to be a folk singer. He was singing here, in the Three Steps one night; the men caught on, somehow, and dragged him out and drove him into the forest. They tortured him for hours, trying to find out who he was.”
“I remember now,” Sherlock said. “I have always particularly followed ‘no body’ murder cases, you know. They never found his body. The police found blood in the forest and a few bloody hairs, though. It matched Nairac’s own hair - recovered from his hairbrush. Just last year, the man who had driven the car was accquitted. He had hidden in America for all these years. Judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence! Ludicrous. But the local IRA captain had confessed at the time, I recall; but wouldn’t give up any names. Pretty competent forensic work, really, for 1977,” he allowed, which for Sherlock was spectacularly extravagant praise.
“They were nine men against one,” John said grimly. “But he never backed down. Nairac grabbed a gun and shot one. But the gun jammed and they beat him near to death. The IRA captain said: ‘He never told us anything. He was the bravest man I ever met.’ Rumour had it that they had put his body through a meat grinder - to hide what they’d done. They gave Nairac the George Cross. ‘For heroism and personal courage second to none.’”
“A posthumous George Cross. Little good it did him,” Sherlock said. John scowled at him fiercely. He raised his glass. “To Nairac,” John murmured quietly. Sherlock nodded, a little uneasily, but raised his as well.
“John - “ he said carefully. They had been so long apart, it felt both effortlessly right and agonizingly foreign to be with John, speaking to John like this. Regret was a weakness that he did not ordinarily permit himself - that was for ordinary people - and he had often observed that it served no purpose other than to cause further emotional pain and turmoil to those who either indulged in it, or were subjected to it.
While he might have once thought that the battle with Moriarty was just a game, a uniquely challenging game designed for play by a very select few - now he knew better. It wasn’t a game at all. He couldn’t let anything else happen that he would regret for the rest of his life.
“John, I know what we have to do. But never - sacrifice yourself. Not for me. What you said before, not stopping until it’s over - I don’t want you to be a hero. Not that way.”
John drained the last of his pint. “No, I don’t recommend it, either,” he said, his voice tight. “Nothing like a graveside visit to put everything in perspective. I want my life back. Our life back. I’m sure Nairac wanted his. He fought like hell. He had his own hero, you know.”
Sherlock looked down, recalling John at his grave. Unforgivable. “What do you mean?”
“Nairac. He said he wanted to be Lawrence of Arabia.”
* * *
“You’ve a nerve to come to the Three Steps, Mick O’Neill,” a grey-haired, burly man shouted across the little pub. The band stopped and hurriedly announced a break, and shuffled off to the back. Most people pretended they hadn’t heard, but everyone had, and a few patrons threw money on the table and left.
“That’s right, Gerry,” another shouted. “Liable to be bad luck, O’Neill.”
“‘Tis my mother’s birthday, Gerry. I’ll not have you lot spoil it,” O’Neill said, standing up from his chair. He looked as mild as he had in Connolly Station, John thought, unless you really looked into those black eyes.
Just like his brother’s.
He wondered how he had missed it before. That same mad undercurrent, like something demented swam just beneath the surface. O’Neill shook his head gently, as though dealing with very foolish but harmless children.
“Your mother ought to know better, too, man. You want to have a care.”
“You’ll leave her out of this,” O’Neill said. He was gripping the back of his chair and John could see that in a minute, he would be wielding it. No one could think him mild now. “Ma, go home. I’ll be along. It’ll be all right. I’ve a bit of business to sort with these idjits.” But Mrs. O’Hare stood firm.
“Mick? What’s all this? You men leave decent folks in peace. I’ve put up with enough of your brawling in my day, Gerry Murphy,” Gillian O’Hare said with spirit, and John revised his estimation of the woman as a timid shadow to her sons.
Gerry stalked around the room. “Best be off, ma’am,” he said with mock courtesy, holding the door for the women. “We’ve a deal of business with your son here. Like he said.”
“Ingrid, I’m sorry. Take her back home, please. Now,” O’Neill said quietly. Irene took Mrs O’Hare’s arm and pulled her out the door. On the doorstep, Mrs. O’Hare turned and spat in the direction of Murphy.
There was a silence. No one seemed to have noticed John and Sherlock in their quiet corner.
“What d’you reckon, boys? Time for Mick O’Neill to get a bit of a trimming,” Murphy shouted.
“Feckin’ right,” shouted another.
“Bar the door,” shouted a third.
“Now, lads, not here, I’m warnin’ you. I’ll have the Guards on you, don’t think I won’t. Take it outside,” the publican warned. He had a mobile in one hand and a bat in the other. John saw O’Neill’s hand in his pocket, maybe going for his own mobile.
“Where is it then, O’Neill? You can’t hide forever. Your brother neither.”
“I never hide,” O’Neill said. “Everybody knows where to find me if they want me. You’re all a pack of cowards.”
“That’s it,” Murphy roared, grabbing at him, ducking when O’Neill swung the chair violently at his head and howling when it cracked and broke across his broad shoulders. But he kept on and the three swarmed on O’Neill, pinning him and dragging him out the door. He didn’t call out for help. John could hear the publican, presumably calling the Guards on his mobile: “We’ve had some trouble down the Three Steps. . . “ He went into the back and John and Sherlock were alone in the pub. There was a sound of a car roaring by.
“We can’t let them get to O’Neill. Not before we do,” John said, “Let’s go.” He started out the door, just in time to see a silver sedan speeding off down the road.
“It depends how much trouble he’s really in,” Sherlock said. “I doubt they’ll kill him - not after taking him out in broad daylight.”
“Sherlock, I was nearly deployed here for a tour - I learned as much as I could. I ended up in Afghanistan after all. South Armagh County was always a republican stronghold, and still is. Even after the disarmament. MI5 arrested Continuity IRA members here for terrorism not two months ago.”
“I don’t particularly care if these men are IRA, RIRA, CIRA - what I do care about is that they think O’Neill’s hiding something. “Where is it?” they said.”
“Right then, let’s find out what they think our friend O’Neill is hiding. We’ll need to know where they’re going. And we need a car. We haven’t the faintest idea where they’d take O’Neill. And we can’t just go driving around, asking after local men.”
Sherlock pulled out his mobile. “Irene. They took him away in a car. Ask Mrs. O’Hare if she’s any idea where Gerry Murphy would have taken her son. Any idea at all.”
Even John could hear the woman wailing. “She’s certain? Good. Has she a car? We’re coming.” They started running up Finnegan’s Road, and came to a tidy cottage, clean and modern, right on the road. Irene was standing on the doorstep. She regarded John with those cool, ironic eyes, just as he remembered from Battersea Power Station.
“You’re still alive, I see. Again,” he couldn’t help saying.
She nodded gravely. “Thanks to Sherlock.”
Sherlock ignored them and strode forward, snatching the proffered key. “Where?”
“She says it could be any number of places - but Murphy’s brother has a sheep farm in Cullyhanna.” She handed him scrap of paper with a direction scrawled on it. Gillian O’Hare’s car was a new-looking Ford sedan. “If we don’t come back or call you within an hour,” Sherlock said, “call the Guards.”
“And tell them what, exactly?”
“As little as possible,” Sherlock said, taking the wheel.
Cullyhanna, South Armagh County, Northern Ireland. A farmhouse.
They hurtled down narrow country roads through green misty countryside dotted with cottages and farms. These little hamlets barely merited inclusion on any map, but they were able to find the turning.
They stopped and shut off the engine. Sheep were wandering the fields that led up a gentle slope. There was no house to be seen, but the rutted drive led around the slope. It was grey and misty and droplets fogged the windows.
“It’s two of us, and three of them. At least. Maybe the brother, too. I’ve got something that evens the odds,” John said. He pulled out binoculars, a huge hunting knife, his own Browning, and the gun he’d taken from Moran’s flat. He cooly checked that both guns were fully loaded and functioning, haunted by the vision of the doomed Captain Nairac, desperately pulling the trigger, only to have it jam.
Sherlock stared at John. Not John - someone with dark eyes gazed back at him: cold, deadly. A killer.
John looked away and pulled off Sherlock’s knitted cap, cutting at it with the knife. Then he pulled the improvised balaclava over Sherlock’s face and gave him the knife and Moran’s gun.
Moran’s was the better weapon and he wanted Sherlock as well armed as possible.
“I’m going to climb that little ridge, try to see the house. If it’s close, we’ll push the car up as far as we can with the engine off. We’re going to have to get out of here fast, and I don’t want to have to run very far dragging O’Neill.”
Sherlock watched John creep up the grassy slope. He nodded; the house was just around the corner. They quietly pushed the car up the drive as far as they could without coming into view of the house.
“I didn’t see any movement in there. We’re going around the back. I’ll get the door open. Stay behind me, and don’t come in after me until I signal. And don’t fire unless they have guns. If they have guns -“
“ -- I know, John. Shoot first.”
John checked his gun one last time.
Then he took out the black balaclava from the night he shot Moran and pulled it over his face.
“That’s right. Shoot first. Shoot to kill.”
To be continued . . .
Listen to Breakin' A Sweat: Here
back to Chapter Fourteen: The Macau Variation: ( Read more... )
next: Chapter Sixteen: The Brighton Variation: ( Read more... )
author: ghislanem70
rating: NC-17
word count: 6,400 this chapter, 64,400 to date.
warnings: Spoilers for S2Ep3 The Reichenbach Fall; explicit sex, graphic violence, reference to sensory integration syndrome, suicidal ideation.
summary: Post-Reichenbach, John finds he's still got one thing left to live for.
disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, BBC et al.
All men dream: but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day
to find that it was vanity;
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,
for they may act their dreams with open eyes,
to make it possible.
This I did.
- T.E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Drogheda, Ireland. A hostel.
The atmosphere in their little room was, as it only could be, both surreal and comfortingly familiar, all at once. They were together, yes; but they were not what they had been. “I won’t go back to the way things were,” he had said to Sherlock: and of course now, they couldn’t - even if they both wanted that.
John was sitting on the edge of the tiny bed, where his life had just changed, where a dream he had once thought denied him forever had come true against all odds. It still felt like a dream, as long as he didn’t look too hard around the edges at the many unanswered questions. On both sides, he fully recognised. He looked out the window through the little clear space where Sherlock had rubbed his fingertips and gave Sherlock’s hand a final squeeze. It was still night, or very early morning, and the street below was dark.
Sherlock was fully awake, and he scrutinized John’s watchful face, the set of his shoulders. Clues to what was clearly a different John Watson than the one he had left behind in London. How different, remained for him to deduce. John started getting dressed with swift, jerky movements and Sherlock knew that John had no intention of lingering here.
What had happened between them this night still had Sherlock’s emotions reeling, his body singing. He found it impossible to comprehend how John could possibly want to do anything other than stay here, in this strange anonymous room, indefinitely. Now that they had found each other, they would make plans. Plans very different from those he had envisioned. He felt like shouting his elation to the rooftops. He was like a man saved by an unlooked-for reprieve from the gallows.
“Sherlock - we can’t stay here. We have to find O’Neill,” John said. “You said you knew where he was going.” Now John turned to look at Sherlock, his face impassive. “You said he was being . . . watched.”
Sherlock nodded, eyes wide. Even John’s voice was different. Hard. The rising emotion of moments before came tumbling back down just as quickly. He wondered if John had been like this in Afghanistan. And then he wondered if this supposition was just an excuse not to admit the obvious - that whatever John was now, it was all down to him. He reviewed dark images of the last days in London: Moriarty. The newspapers. Poisoned children. A little girl’s scream. Lestrade, giving him the caution. A desperate plan. The rooftop. The fall. John mumbling weakly, “Oh, God, no. . .”
How to begin. His mouth opened and closed and he tried to hold John’s gaze, tried to show him his true feelings, true intention.
“Sherlock. I realise that your brilliant plans are much too - complicated - for an ordinary idiot like me. But I’ll try to keep up. Use small words if you feel it will help,” John said with polite sarcasm.
Sherlock considered this. “You think I didn’t tell you because I think you’re -“
“ - an idiot. Exactly. But it’s never spoiled my aim. Not yet.”
“But I’ve told you, John. Why won’t you believe me?” He had theorised that once John had a chance to think, he would understand. Not forgive; no, not that. But it didn’t seem that John was there. Yet.
“Let’s just say I’m willing to be persuaded,” John said. “Start talking.”
“O’Neill’s going to Dromintee,” he said rapidly. “It’s over the border, in Northern Ireland. Two stops up the Belfast line, outside of Newry. He’ll turn around and take the train straight back to Dublin on Sunday, we think. We believe he’s visiting his mother.”
John pulled the little chair out and sat carefully on it. Sherlock’s newly-awakened heart sank further. John didn’t want to sit with him, on the bed. John rubbed his chin thoughtfully. This distracted Sherlock. He had an impulse to touch that roughness. . . and then, too, he wanted to remind John that he needed to shave because his faint stubble didn’t match his dyed hair, but thought the better of it.
“‘We think. We believe.’ I see. And who, exactly, is minding him in your absence?”
Sherlock took a chance, held out his hand, but John wouldn’t take it. Yet, he thought to himself. “John - just promise me - promise you’ll hear me out,” he said. John gave a tight little nod.
“Irene Adler.”
* * *
Sherlock watched John take it in. His dark eyes darted around the room, unwilling, apparently, to look directly at Sherlock any more. His soft nervous laugh was incongruous with his expression.
Sherlock was an actual sociopath, although he could feel himself learning, growing. Since John. He had always chosen to believe this a superior advantage, one of many he held over the ordinary people. Sherlock had seen the faces of many persons who had just been told that a loved one had been killed. So much caring. He had observed this, but never really understood it, before. John’s face looked like that now, and he found himself rummaging his mind palace for something, anything, that would help cushion the blow. His mind palace was remarkably bare of any data pertaining to such circumstances, however, and so he stared, watching John’s face drain of blood before his eyes.
“Irene Adler,” John said slowly, as though his tongue wouldn’t work properly. “But she - when I told you she was in witness protection program . . .?”
“John, Irene knew things - Moriarty told her things. Things about me, about Mycroft. And about other things. He knows her and she knows him. You can understand this, surely? It made her uniquely - useful. To my plan.”
“Your plan. Of course. Plan to stop Moriarty, yes? If she knows so much, why haven’t you done it yet? After all this time. And Karachi - you were there, weren’t you? You went to Karachi to save Irene Adler. And never told me.”
Sherlock stopped short, thinking hard. There was no possible way John could know about Karachi. Unless --“Mycroft. That day. Her file. Mycroft told you the truth; the truth as far as he knew it. And so, you did lie to me. I thought you were. You and Mycroft, together. Why would Mycroft do that, I wonder?” And he did wonder. Why Mycroft would possibly confide in John about something like that.
He filed this away for future consideration.
“Are you really that blind, Sherlock?” John hissed, voice low, because the walls in this hostel were paper thin and he knew better than to start shouting in this place. “Irene Adler played you. She lied to you. She sold you out to Moriarty. Now you’re telling me you’re with her? She’s alone with O’Neill? Selling you out again. Are you completely out of your mind?”
“John, you aren’t wrong about her - not entirely - but Irene has her own code of - honour, if you like. I know that won’t mean anything to you. But she believes she must repay me for saving her life. They were going to kill her, you know. Chop her head clean off, in point of fact. If she wanted to hurt me or betray me, she’s had as many chances as I’ve had to do the same to her.”
“You’ve never heard of the long con, then, I take it?”
“John - I don’t blame you. But do you know what her very last words were? In Karachi? They were on the point of executing her.”
“Well, what?” John said warily.
“It was to say goodbye. To me. That means something.” He thought about Jennifer Wilson. Scratching out her daughter’s name. He had never stopped to consider then, what it would actually be like: the last seconds of life. What one might say. What would be important. The word “Rachel” had turned out to be more than just a dying woman’s last words - a vital clue left by a clever woman to trap her murderer.
But on that day, the very day he met John, when the emotional resonances of that gesture had escaped him, John had tried to teach him something important. He had told him - a near stranger - with simple unguarded honesty about a moment in time when he had thought he might die. What his own thoughts were. And though he had never mentioned it again, Sherlock had puzzled over this, sometimes: what he himself might do or think or say in his last moments, if he knew death was coming for him. Now, of course, he knew for certain.
And so, he found he could not ignore the import of Irene’s own final message. Once it would have been just another opportunity to manipulate a pawn in the game, a confirmation of weakness. Now it induced in him a rather foreign feeling that only a very few people inspired. John, principally and above all others. Mrs. Hudson. To an extent, even Lestrade; Molly Hooper. On rare occasion, even his brother, his mother. Protectiveness; responsibility.
“Well, if you don’t doubt Miss Adler’s motivations, that settles it. Because it’s not like she’s ever fooled you before.” John glared at Sherlock and Sherlock looked back, hiding his chagrin. Remembering that body with the bashed in face, on the tray at Barts. A code; airline seats filled with corpses. “Right. Let’s talk about O’Neill. Just look at him. His face. His voice. ‘Balance of probabilities,’ you would say - I’ve been working on the assumption he’s Moriarty’s brother. Older brother, looks like. Not much of a stretch. Even an idiot like me can see it.”
Sherlock bit his lip to stop himself literally roaring at John in frustration. “John,” he began, but John looked down, scrunching his eyes shut and pressing his fingertips to the bridge of his nose as he did when he was very upset, when he was trying to shut out something ugly that Sherlock had done.
“John, there’s nothing - absolutely nothing like that, between Irene and me, if you’re still stupid enough to think such a thing now.”
Obviously, he should have said this to John before. They had been at such cross-purposes, for so long, and never more so than when Irene entered their lives. This was not entirely his own fault. Not entirely.
“We’re not a couple,” John had said, swiftly, definitively, at Battersea Power Station - and the ever-perceptive Irene Adler had just as swiftly retorted, “yes, you are,” which observation he had picked at in his the corners of mind for quite a lot longer than he would have supposed possible. “I’m not actually gay,” John had said, even more definitively.
His pain at overhearing these confessions had completely disoriented him. Still, despite the fact that he otherwise was perfectly aware that pain was usually a sign of something important being damaged, he had come no closer to understanding his own true feelings, then. Or John’s.
“I don’t think I can hear this now. ‘The Whip Hand.’ All those texts. The violin. That music. ‘Have dinner with me, Mister Holmes.’ Karachi’s a bit far for a date, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not what you think, it never was. Look - I could happily never see her, ever again - but I’d want her to be safe. Can you understand that, John? And you’re wrong anyway, that music -“
John shook his head, eyes still closed. “‘’Never see her again, as long as she was safe.’ I thought that was your plan for me. She’s the one that’s with you, and I’m the one that was left behind. Remember? So forgive me if I’m a little confused.” He opened his eyes and scrutinised Sherlock’s tense face, and he did think he could understand, a little. Maybe. Perhaps they were comrades-at-arms, in a peculiar way. He sighed.
He hadn’t come this far to let Irene Adler get in his way.
* * *
“All right, forget it. For now. Have you got a mobile?” he said. Sherlock fished it out of his pocket and handed it over. “No, you. Call Miss Adler. Call her now. Ask her where O’Neill is right now, this very minute. And get your bloody clothes on.”
“What do you intend to do?” They had gotten so very far from what he really wanted now, what he needed to tell John. The feeling of invincibility that had enveloped him as he lay in John’s arms was nearly gone. He didn’t want to leave this room, when it would probably vanish forever. They weren’t supposed to be talking of Irene Adler at all; far from it.
They were supposed to be talking about the fact that he had deduced what they must do now.
What he had thought he must do, before; that was all wrong. What John had been doing, too; whatever it was. All wrong. He and John, together now. Their long nightmare was over. They were fortunate; they were well hidden and disguised. They would stay hidden, go deeper. They would leave London behind forever. Start over somewhere far away, where John would be safe. Always. He would never try to solve another crime as long as he lived.
But John wouldn’t listen now; it was written plainly in his stony face, in the stiffness of his posture, holding himself as though he had just absorbed a painful wound.
Adler.
It was ordinarily rather easy to misdirect John, although he felt a pang of mixed resentment and regret that he should have to do so. He and Adler. An alliance of mutual benefit, for mutual gain. Eminently practical under the circumstances. Nothing for which he need be ashamed. The little touch experiments . . . well, in time, John would understand. Possibly.
Possibly he didn’t need to know.
“John,” he said. “It’s your turn. How did you discover I was alive? How did you find me?”
John was handing him his clothes, looking at his bare skin, his golden hair. The poor garments (Oxfam) felt harsh against his skin after the glorious soft leather of John’s glove. He allowed himself precisely ten seconds to replay his precious vivid memory of this, then put it away. Once he was dressed, he looked out the window one last time as the sun started to tinge the rooftops.
“We don’t have time for me to answer your first question,” John said shortly, pulling his laptop case over his shoulder and tossing the rucksack at Sherlock. “The short answer to the second is that I found a Starbucks receipt from Custom House Quay in a closet in Kitty Reilly’s old flat. It led me to O’Neill just yesterday, and I followed him. I didn’t have any idea at all of finding you. It was blind luck.”
“So I assumed. But what were you planning to do?”
“I’m not planning to do it - I’m already doing it. And we don’t have time for that story either. Short answer is, I’m following anything that leads to Moriarty. I’m following O’Neill because he’s going to lead me to Moriarty. I hope.”
“Lead you to Moriarty, you hope.” Sherlock said dully. Even his own lightning-fast mental processes could not immediately grasp this. That John would seek Moriarty out, alone. “No, John, you can’t. It’s everything I tried to protect you from. We’ll go back to Dublin, straight to the airport. I have some money. Enough. We’ll go somewhere far away. Estonia. Tibet - “
“It’s a little late, isn’t it Sherlock, for you to tell me what I can’t do. Moriarty took everything from us. For so long, I felt like it was all just a bad dream - but it’s not a dream. This is real. And I’m going to end it. When it’s all over, you can decide - if what you really want is Irene Adler -- ” He bit his tongue, wanting to curse they day Irene Adler came into their lives.
"You are a bloody idiot, do you know that? If I wanted to run away and disappear with Irene Adler, would I be here with you at all? God, John, you’re the world’s biggest fool if you’re going to keep on like this." He was looming over John, willing him to believe.
John seemed finally to be really listening. His shoulders relaxed a little. He looked carefully at Sherlock’s careworn face, anxiety and frustration and overriding it all, an emotion that was unmistakable.
“I am a fool,” he said, almost to himself, and took a step closer, not caring at all that he had to tip his head up to look into those haunted eyes. He hooked his hand behind Sherlock's neck and pulled him down. "All right, then. Whatever happened with you and her -- it's finished now. It's you and me, now."
"It was always you, John. Always."
Sherlock allowed himself to be held close, concentrating on actually relaxing into it, not stiffening or pulling away. The last thing he wanted to do: but his body still hadn't quite absorbed the fact that everything was different. He probably hadn't been this close physically to another person, like this, since he was a child.
“Tibet? Really? Sherlock, you need to start thinking -“
Sherlock stopped him with a kiss, not tentative this time. “I don’t care about - thinking,” he murmured.
“I never thought I’d live to hear you say that.” It was as close to an express declaration of love as he was likely to ever get from Sherlock Holmes.
The warmth and peace turned into heat that sparked through Sherlock fast and hard. "Please," Sherlock whispered. "We can stay a while longer." He was tugging on John’s belt, pushing him meaningfully back toward the little bed. “We’ve so much lost time.” But John was stronger than he remembered. Much. John braced his hands on either side of Sherlock's arms and held him against the wall. But at this, he was overtaken by the forbidden memory of the last night he had ever spent at home, in 221b. Mycroft. Up against the wall. The terrible thing was that drunk and enraged as he had been, every bit of that night was vivid, and it burned. The rage of believing he could never, ever have what was in the palm of his hand right here and now. The weight of lies, and of his own sin too, was still so heavy. He tried to erase them by kissing Sherlock long and deep and hard. And if he wanted to stay here too, more than he would let Sherlock see, there was something else he wanted even more.
“Not here. When we get home, we’re going to have everything, I promise you - but not here, not now.”
Sherlock was undeterred, but John was adamant. He clasped his roaming hand and held it tight.
“I want to go home, Sherlock - I want it so much. We have to finish this."
* * *
They quietly climbed down the winding stair. At the first landing, John stopped and turned.
“You still call me John, you know,” he said. “But I’m called John Blackburn, now. What do you call yourself?”
“Sven Siegerson. Miss Adler is called Ingrid Siegerson. From Oslo. We’re traveling as brother and sister.” His face radiated innocence.
John smirked, cocked a disbelieving eyebrow; which Sherlock took, all in all, as a good sign.
* * *
Dromintee, South Armagh County, Northern Ireland. A pub.
“She should be here soon,” Sherlock said softly.
The Three Steps pub in Finnegan’s Road had just opened for the late morning custom. John had realised that his Dublin suit was out of place and had changed into some of Sherlock’s limited wardrobe of faded jumpers and tees, worn jeans that he had to fold into cuffs. John hoped they both looked like backpackers now. Sherlock had a knitted cap pulled down over his hair to make himself more anonymous.
They ordered pints and toasted cheese sandwiches and settled down at a small table in the darkest corner in the back. Sherlock pulled out a map and they pretended to be planning a walking tour. There was a nearby mountain, Slieve Gullion, famous for its panoramic views as far as Dublin Bay in fine weather, and megalithic cairns at its summit. An old footpath leading up the mountain started near the pub.
“What’s the occasion for O’Neill visiting his mother, then?” On the short train ride from Drogheda, John had briefly and with little emotion told Sherlock the story of his discovery of Starbuck’s receipt in Kitty Reilly’s flat, of following the clue to Dublin; obtaining the Starbucks security footage of Moriarty and O’Neill, apparent twins, following O'Neill onto the train north.
The deeper story, that of Sebastian Moran, gambling schemes, a Dublin-based computer chip company, of pulling the trigger on a rooftop in Islington, could wait.
“It’s her sixtieth birthday,” Sherlock said. “A rare family gathering, evidently. We thought that Moriarty might come. But I don’t judge Moriarty to be a terribly devoted son. ”
“How, exactly, did you find this out?”
“I broke into O’Neill’s flat in Dublin while he was at work. Message on his answerphone. Child’s play.”
“At work. Right. Connolly Station. The Station Master.”
“Interesting, isn’t it? The smuggling one could do: unfettered access to rail cars, the ability to manipulate customs . . .”
“Are you saying you think O’Neill’s in on some scheme with Moriarty? A coffee at Starbucks isn’t exactly a covert operation. . . is that why don’t they use the same names?”
“Both brothers changed their names, apparently; or perhaps, the mother did. Mother goes by the name of Gillian O’Hare. We - I - haven’t pinned it down yet. No time.”
“Fine. So Irene is doing . . . what, exactly?” John said carefully, sipping his pint.
“She spoke with O’Neill on the train. She’s changed her looks, too; if O’Neill had any reason to recognise her before, which I very much doubt, he certainly won’t now. She let it be known that she was doing an article for the Guardian on Irish pub crawls, the live music scene, that sort of thing. Gillian O’Hare’s cottage is just up the road. He invited her to tea, and said he’ll show Irene around the village a bit. Quite taken with her,” Sherlock said evenly. “Which, of course, was the intention.”
“I thought she was a Norwegian from Oslo?”
“Not always,” Sherlock said, but did not elaborate.
* * *
A little group of happy, chattering people burst through the doors of the quiet pub.
John observed a woman with fair blonde hair, cropped short, and a fresh face scrubbed free of any cosmetics. This woman stood out from the group of dark-haired villagers. She did not so much as glance in their direction. John would not have known her but for Sherlock having disclosed that this was Irene Adler. The group filed to a table in the back.
O’Neill was among the group, urging his mum to take the best seat. Gillian O’Hare did not resemble her sons - she was slight, with small sharp careworn features, sad and rather puffy blue eyes under a fringe of carefully curled and dyed brown hair. Despite her drab appearance, Mrs. O’Hare was expensively dressed. She gripped O’Neill’s sleeve as she sat down somewhat unsteadily. John judged that she had been drinking, although it was just coming on noon. Irene declined to sit, saying she just wanted to snap some photos and didn’t want to disturb their birthday luncheon, but Mrs. O’Hare invited her courteously to stay.
“It’s good to see my son Mickey with such a fine looking lass, for once,” she said brightly. O’Neill smiled at Irene, but his eyes seemed restless.
John thought O’Neill’s smile not as happy as one would expect to see on the occasion of his mother’s birthday; but then again, perhaps they didn’t really get on.
Moriarty, of course, did not appear.
* * *
Before his miraculous discovery of Sherlock on the Belfast train, John’s plan had simply been to follow O’Neill, hoping that by some slender chance he should meet up with Moriarty; if not, to look for a chance to confront O’Neill and question him, quietly and in privacy, and by use of force if necessary, about where Moriarty could be found now.
That plan still seemed to John to be the only thing to do and he was burning with impatience to get on with it. He wasn’t sure how he would have pulled it off in this small village, exactly; but he felt the pressure of time ticking by, and despite the open green countryside surrounding this little village, he felt strangely claustrophobic as he never did in London.
And so, John resented being asked to sit back quietly in this pub and watch Irene/Ingrid weave her spell over these people for several reasons: not the least of which was that he didn’t care to sit beside Sherlock, watching him surreptitiously watch Irene Adler. He felt the unreal feeling almost of shock wash over him again that Sherlock was real, he was alive, he was sitting here with him at this table in a little pub in rural Northern Ireland, which caused him to vividly recall their case in Dartmoor.
Dartmoor. Another cozy pub. The emotional whiplash he had suffered there, determinedly suppressing his own inmost feelings. And now they were here in another cozy pub, and circumstances even darker and grimmer than those in Dartmoor. But for all, that John could not help finally smiling a little at the sight of Sherlock, looking peculiar but undeniably gorgeous in his disguise, scrutinising the map of local walking paths. He felt a lightness in his chest, something that had been very tightly wound coming slowly undone.
* * *
With one part of his mind, Sherlock was casually observing Irene Adler and the birthday gathering of the mysterious O’Hare/O’Neill/Moriarty clan, which had become raucous. Songs were being sung. Others in the pub joined in the merriment.
Another part of his mind was musing on the name: Three Steps Pub.
This name meant something. He was sure of it. He searched his mind palace, but it wouldn’t cooperate. He thought he understood why. Adjustments had to be made, of course, now that John was here. He didn’t allow himself to become frustrated, though. The places in his mind palace that he had closed off, places that led to John, he would open those wide again. Expand them. Other places, he might close forever. Soon, maybe, even those places devoted to James Moriarty. He sipped his pint, looked at his map, while the greater part of his mental faculties was devoted to searching John’s grave face, learning it all over again, surprised and happy to see his sudden unexpected smile.
John leaned in and pointed to the map, as though discussing their walking route. “Sherlock. This bar,” John said, now serious again. “I know it.” He looked around. It looked like any other bar in a small village. And small it certainly was - he had seen the sign on the way from the train station - Dromintee, pop. 354.
Some local men were crowding in, taking their usual seats. But other than a few quick glances, John thought that no one was paying them any mind. A small band was setting up, starting in with music, then singing Irish songs.
It was the singing that sealed it.
“It was more than thirty years ago, but I’m sure this is the place,” John continued, speaking softly so only Sherlock could hear. “The Three Steps Inn, it was called then. . . Captain Robert Nairac. I’ll never forget him. He was with the Grenadier Guards, a boxing champion at Oxford. He’d been undercover, trying to get local intel on the IRA. Pretending to be a folk singer. He was singing here, in the Three Steps one night; the men caught on, somehow, and dragged him out and drove him into the forest. They tortured him for hours, trying to find out who he was.”
“I remember now,” Sherlock said. “I have always particularly followed ‘no body’ murder cases, you know. They never found his body. The police found blood in the forest and a few bloody hairs, though. It matched Nairac’s own hair - recovered from his hairbrush. Just last year, the man who had driven the car was accquitted. He had hidden in America for all these years. Judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence! Ludicrous. But the local IRA captain had confessed at the time, I recall; but wouldn’t give up any names. Pretty competent forensic work, really, for 1977,” he allowed, which for Sherlock was spectacularly extravagant praise.
“They were nine men against one,” John said grimly. “But he never backed down. Nairac grabbed a gun and shot one. But the gun jammed and they beat him near to death. The IRA captain said: ‘He never told us anything. He was the bravest man I ever met.’ Rumour had it that they had put his body through a meat grinder - to hide what they’d done. They gave Nairac the George Cross. ‘For heroism and personal courage second to none.’”
“A posthumous George Cross. Little good it did him,” Sherlock said. John scowled at him fiercely. He raised his glass. “To Nairac,” John murmured quietly. Sherlock nodded, a little uneasily, but raised his as well.
“John - “ he said carefully. They had been so long apart, it felt both effortlessly right and agonizingly foreign to be with John, speaking to John like this. Regret was a weakness that he did not ordinarily permit himself - that was for ordinary people - and he had often observed that it served no purpose other than to cause further emotional pain and turmoil to those who either indulged in it, or were subjected to it.
While he might have once thought that the battle with Moriarty was just a game, a uniquely challenging game designed for play by a very select few - now he knew better. It wasn’t a game at all. He couldn’t let anything else happen that he would regret for the rest of his life.
“John, I know what we have to do. But never - sacrifice yourself. Not for me. What you said before, not stopping until it’s over - I don’t want you to be a hero. Not that way.”
John drained the last of his pint. “No, I don’t recommend it, either,” he said, his voice tight. “Nothing like a graveside visit to put everything in perspective. I want my life back. Our life back. I’m sure Nairac wanted his. He fought like hell. He had his own hero, you know.”
Sherlock looked down, recalling John at his grave. Unforgivable. “What do you mean?”
“Nairac. He said he wanted to be Lawrence of Arabia.”
* * *
“You’ve a nerve to come to the Three Steps, Mick O’Neill,” a grey-haired, burly man shouted across the little pub. The band stopped and hurriedly announced a break, and shuffled off to the back. Most people pretended they hadn’t heard, but everyone had, and a few patrons threw money on the table and left.
“That’s right, Gerry,” another shouted. “Liable to be bad luck, O’Neill.”
“‘Tis my mother’s birthday, Gerry. I’ll not have you lot spoil it,” O’Neill said, standing up from his chair. He looked as mild as he had in Connolly Station, John thought, unless you really looked into those black eyes.
Just like his brother’s.
He wondered how he had missed it before. That same mad undercurrent, like something demented swam just beneath the surface. O’Neill shook his head gently, as though dealing with very foolish but harmless children.
“Your mother ought to know better, too, man. You want to have a care.”
“You’ll leave her out of this,” O’Neill said. He was gripping the back of his chair and John could see that in a minute, he would be wielding it. No one could think him mild now. “Ma, go home. I’ll be along. It’ll be all right. I’ve a bit of business to sort with these idjits.” But Mrs. O’Hare stood firm.
“Mick? What’s all this? You men leave decent folks in peace. I’ve put up with enough of your brawling in my day, Gerry Murphy,” Gillian O’Hare said with spirit, and John revised his estimation of the woman as a timid shadow to her sons.
Gerry stalked around the room. “Best be off, ma’am,” he said with mock courtesy, holding the door for the women. “We’ve a deal of business with your son here. Like he said.”
“Ingrid, I’m sorry. Take her back home, please. Now,” O’Neill said quietly. Irene took Mrs O’Hare’s arm and pulled her out the door. On the doorstep, Mrs. O’Hare turned and spat in the direction of Murphy.
There was a silence. No one seemed to have noticed John and Sherlock in their quiet corner.
“What d’you reckon, boys? Time for Mick O’Neill to get a bit of a trimming,” Murphy shouted.
“Feckin’ right,” shouted another.
“Bar the door,” shouted a third.
“Now, lads, not here, I’m warnin’ you. I’ll have the Guards on you, don’t think I won’t. Take it outside,” the publican warned. He had a mobile in one hand and a bat in the other. John saw O’Neill’s hand in his pocket, maybe going for his own mobile.
“Where is it then, O’Neill? You can’t hide forever. Your brother neither.”
“I never hide,” O’Neill said. “Everybody knows where to find me if they want me. You’re all a pack of cowards.”
“That’s it,” Murphy roared, grabbing at him, ducking when O’Neill swung the chair violently at his head and howling when it cracked and broke across his broad shoulders. But he kept on and the three swarmed on O’Neill, pinning him and dragging him out the door. He didn’t call out for help. John could hear the publican, presumably calling the Guards on his mobile: “We’ve had some trouble down the Three Steps. . . “ He went into the back and John and Sherlock were alone in the pub. There was a sound of a car roaring by.
“We can’t let them get to O’Neill. Not before we do,” John said, “Let’s go.” He started out the door, just in time to see a silver sedan speeding off down the road.
“It depends how much trouble he’s really in,” Sherlock said. “I doubt they’ll kill him - not after taking him out in broad daylight.”
“Sherlock, I was nearly deployed here for a tour - I learned as much as I could. I ended up in Afghanistan after all. South Armagh County was always a republican stronghold, and still is. Even after the disarmament. MI5 arrested Continuity IRA members here for terrorism not two months ago.”
“I don’t particularly care if these men are IRA, RIRA, CIRA - what I do care about is that they think O’Neill’s hiding something. “Where is it?” they said.”
“Right then, let’s find out what they think our friend O’Neill is hiding. We’ll need to know where they’re going. And we need a car. We haven’t the faintest idea where they’d take O’Neill. And we can’t just go driving around, asking after local men.”
Sherlock pulled out his mobile. “Irene. They took him away in a car. Ask Mrs. O’Hare if she’s any idea where Gerry Murphy would have taken her son. Any idea at all.”
Even John could hear the woman wailing. “She’s certain? Good. Has she a car? We’re coming.” They started running up Finnegan’s Road, and came to a tidy cottage, clean and modern, right on the road. Irene was standing on the doorstep. She regarded John with those cool, ironic eyes, just as he remembered from Battersea Power Station.
“You’re still alive, I see. Again,” he couldn’t help saying.
She nodded gravely. “Thanks to Sherlock.”
Sherlock ignored them and strode forward, snatching the proffered key. “Where?”
“She says it could be any number of places - but Murphy’s brother has a sheep farm in Cullyhanna.” She handed him scrap of paper with a direction scrawled on it. Gillian O’Hare’s car was a new-looking Ford sedan. “If we don’t come back or call you within an hour,” Sherlock said, “call the Guards.”
“And tell them what, exactly?”
“As little as possible,” Sherlock said, taking the wheel.
Cullyhanna, South Armagh County, Northern Ireland. A farmhouse.
They hurtled down narrow country roads through green misty countryside dotted with cottages and farms. These little hamlets barely merited inclusion on any map, but they were able to find the turning.
They stopped and shut off the engine. Sheep were wandering the fields that led up a gentle slope. There was no house to be seen, but the rutted drive led around the slope. It was grey and misty and droplets fogged the windows.
“It’s two of us, and three of them. At least. Maybe the brother, too. I’ve got something that evens the odds,” John said. He pulled out binoculars, a huge hunting knife, his own Browning, and the gun he’d taken from Moran’s flat. He cooly checked that both guns were fully loaded and functioning, haunted by the vision of the doomed Captain Nairac, desperately pulling the trigger, only to have it jam.
Sherlock stared at John. Not John - someone with dark eyes gazed back at him: cold, deadly. A killer.
John looked away and pulled off Sherlock’s knitted cap, cutting at it with the knife. Then he pulled the improvised balaclava over Sherlock’s face and gave him the knife and Moran’s gun.
Moran’s was the better weapon and he wanted Sherlock as well armed as possible.
“I’m going to climb that little ridge, try to see the house. If it’s close, we’ll push the car up as far as we can with the engine off. We’re going to have to get out of here fast, and I don’t want to have to run very far dragging O’Neill.”
Sherlock watched John creep up the grassy slope. He nodded; the house was just around the corner. They quietly pushed the car up the drive as far as they could without coming into view of the house.
“I didn’t see any movement in there. We’re going around the back. I’ll get the door open. Stay behind me, and don’t come in after me until I signal. And don’t fire unless they have guns. If they have guns -“
“ -- I know, John. Shoot first.”
John checked his gun one last time.
Then he took out the black balaclava from the night he shot Moran and pulled it over his face.
“That’s right. Shoot first. Shoot to kill.”
To be continued . . .
Listen to Breakin' A Sweat: Here
back to Chapter Fourteen: The Macau Variation: ( Read more... )
next: Chapter Sixteen: The Brighton Variation: ( Read more... )