Fic: The Straw Man Fallacy (Sherlock/The Wicker Man), Chapter 2 of 7
Title: The Straw Man Fallacy
Fandoms: Sherlock/The Wicker Man (1973)
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Other Characters: Lord Summerisle, Miss Rose, Willow MacGregor, Alder MacGregor, Mr. Lennox, The Librarian, other Summerisle villagers and OCs
Rating: NC-17/explicit (eventually)
Summary:
“Mr Holmes, I'm not in the habit of approaching . . . consultants. But you are correct. I have great faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And until recently, I also had faith in the rule of law. Only the second one has wavered. Three years ago my fiancé, Sgt. Neil Howie of the West Highlands Constabulary, went to investigate an anonymous report of a missing child in a remote place called Summerisle. He never communicated with me while he was there, and he never returned.”
Summerisle is not a welcoming place to visitors, but it shows its best face at May Day. For ulterior motives.
AO3
John was alone in the room when he awoke, and that was a relief. His head was swimming and the images that came up from the dregs of his dreams were so trippy he almost wondered if Sherlock had drugged him again. Sherlock had been so weirdly insistent on dinner, after all.
But no. He wouldn't have had to, considering where he was. Summerisle itself was enough to cause vivid dreams at least on the level of eating moldy cheese before bed.
There were wild and windy dreams; a spinning sensation, unearthly music- like the pub tunes but eerie and distorted - and a sort of fiendish insidious sense of physical pleasure that started when he first saw the locals 'seeding the fields' last night, so brazen, and dreamed himself among them. But who? That Willow MacGregor seemed up for it and she was a fine one, with her pert rump and pouting lips and knowing eyes. But no. No. In John's dream, he'd moved like that all tangled up with a longer, leaner body; the hands clutching him much larger and the moaning voice in his ear much deeper.
John just wanted to enjoy the sweet lassitude of that dream memory for a moment, until a chill of cold terror flooded his veins and completely ruined the moment. Odds were good that, in this little room, he'd had an observably sexual dream in Sherlock's presence.
Fucking hell. That's just great, he thought.
By day, the village sounded almost normal. There were birdsongs and chattering voices. As John roused himself reluctantly from the bed, he heard water running in the bathroom down the hall, and then the door opening and closing as someone left. Just the one, then. The Green Man was minimalist in that way. Probably still had a meter on the hot water. (If there was a shower, he probably ought to take it cold anyway.)
He was standing there sulking under the non-existent pressure and the spitting bursts of frigidity when there was a loud pounding on the door. Thankfully, he'd locked it. That didn't stop the invader.
“Jesus Christ!” John yelled, pulling the worn curtain around himself.
“No, just me,” Sherlock said. “Hurry up. I've managed to get the schoolmistress to agree to speak to us.”
“Why her?”
“Because she teaches children, and children talk. And she's more than she seems.”
It was a lovely day for a stroll, John had to give it that. Summerisle was showing its fairest face, a sweet warming tone in the air and a faint scent of flowers, yet cool enough that Sherlock's great coat of stylish armour wasn't completely uncalled-for. Sherlock and John still had the uncomfortable effect of stopping conversations dead without saying a word - but not all the glances and stares were unappreciative.
Still, John couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the cluster of boys dancing around a maypole with the ribbons around their waists, singing a song that was more than a little too suggestive for their age, and the schoolroom full of girls singing merrily along.
“And who can tell me the true meaning of the maypole?” the teacher was asking as Sherlock and John watched from the window.
A little redhead down front waved her hand eagerly. “It's always you, isn't it Fern?” the teacher said, not unkindly. “So keen.”
“It's a phallic symbol!” the girl said quickly.
“Very good, Fern. Of course you're right,” the teacher said. “Now who can tell me what that means? Someone else, please. Clover?”
“It represents the penis!” said Clover, who was a little more reticent.
“Yes, and more than that. It's the generative principle. Fertility. Very important in religions such as ours, and it's what we celebrate in our May Day rites. Now, if you'll pardon me, we have guests today.” She beckoned to Sherlock and John through the window. Of course she knew they'd been there all along.
“Let me introduce them,” the teacher said to the class. “Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Hamish Watson.”
John cringed. “Call me John, please,” he said plaintively.
“Thank you for meeting with us on such short notice, Miss Rose,” Sherlock said, talking right over John but showing Miss Rose an uncharacteristic flash of chivalry.
“Now, class, they've come all the way from the mainland. Farther than that. All the way from London. Have you ever met a Londoner before?”
The little heads shook almost uniformly.
“Dr. Watson is a doctor of course, and Mr. Holmes is a detective. Who knows what a detective does?”
Fern raised her hand. “It's someone that pokes his nose in other people's business,” she blurted without waiting to be called on.
“Absolutely right, Fern,” Sherlock said, beaming. “As far as it goes anyway.”
“Are you here to ask nosy questions?”
“I sure am. But there's a lot more to it than that,” Sherlock said. “If you're very good, I'll tell you all about it. Am I the first outsider asking nosy questions you remember?”
“Yes,” Fern said firmly, and all the other girls seemed to agree.
Miss Rose shook her head indulgently. “Excuse me, class, I'd like to have a few words with our guests. Please take out your books and turn to Chapter 3 in 'Fertility Rituals.'”
The little school room's entrance hall was festooned with flowers and students' artworks. Some were standard trees and landscapes and animals - stags and hares and goats -- but John had to stop and blink at a rendering of a naked woman with a shining yellow sun between her legs and a man wearing antlers and a giant erection. “Do you like those?” Miss Rose said. “That's our Myrtle Morrison. She's only thirteen but she's very talented.”
“Um, yes, they're very nice,” John managed to choke out.
“So your current class of students never met Sgt. Neil Howie, did they?” Sherlock asked suddenly. “But surely you did.”
“I'm very certain no such person exists,” Miss Rose said.
“By which you mean, he doesn't exist anymore,” Sherlock clarified. “He's dead.”
“We prefer not to use that word,” she said coldly. “Not in the earshot of the children. We believe that when this human life has ended, the person's life force rejoins nature. The sky, the forest, the crops, the sea, the animals. Rotting bodies are a stumbling block to the childish imagination.”
“They weren't to mine when I was young,” Sherlock chuckled. “Where would I find the rotting body of Neil Howie?”
“Sherlock!” John muttered, waiting for the sympathy flinch.
“Nowhere, Mr. Holmes. It is nowhere to be found. Unless it's everywhere.”
Sherlock nodded, as if this answer were satisfactory to him in some way. John looked at him and back to Miss Rose, befuddled as usual, but he at least remembered to say thank you before tagging after Sherlock, who'd already covered a lot of ground on his stalk towards the crumbling stone wall of the old churchyard.
And it was a churchyard; there was a stone church with an actual cross on top. It was an abandoned ruin of course. Closest to the walls, some tombstones had crosses too - the very oldest ones. John was studying names and dates, and the crosses seemed to stop entirely after the late 19th century. The names became less and less Biblical and the epitaphs grew more and more . . . inventive.
“Here lies Beech Buchanan,” he read out incredulously. “Protected by the Ejaculation of Serpents.”
“It's hard to imagine how,” Sherlock said. “Venomous serpents don't have venomous ejaculate, that would be counterproductive to the propagation of the species.”
“You actually put rational thought into that.”
“It's what I do, John. Oh look, this is fascinating. The trees planted on the more recent graves - oh, this is a human umbilical cord. I thought those were traditionally buried at birth. Perhaps not.”
“That’s . . . touching, I guess,” John said.
“Are those on all the graves - oh, they'd biodegrade quickly, you can't tell - whoa, pardon me!” He'd walked around a lichen-covered stone plinth to see a young woman sitting on a stone table (an altar, was it?) bare-chested, nursing a baby. She said nothing and obviously couldn't care less.
“Good day to you,” Sherlock said. What was in the air here, that was making Sherlock so terribly civil all the time? It was starting to creep John out.
Leaving the graveyard they returned to the row of little shops.
They stopped in at the post office and introduced themselves to the postmistress - May Morrison, Rowan and Myrtle's mother. John observed that they carried newspapers and sweets and typical tourist postcards - but all of the postcards were of other scenic Scottish Isles locations. None of them specifically Summerisle, none claiming to be such. Sherlock was about to say something when the door burst open with a little jingle, and Myrtle came in, eyes downcast, and looked at no one.
“Please pardon her,” May Morrison said. “The next days are hard on her - she so wanted to be May Queen like her sister was. But they chose Heather MacEanraig instead, and she's been inconsolable.” She dropped her voice and stage-whispered, “They don't get on so well, those two.”
“So all the girls want to be May Queen,” Sherlock said. “There's nothing scary about it.”
“Oh, not really. I suppose if you're shy - all that attention. But not my girls.”
“I'm told that not too long ago there was an outsider who feared Rowan was in grave danger,” Sherlock said, leaning in close. “But you never worried. You knew better.”
“I'm not sure I recall any outsiders at all showing any interest in my girls. Except you, Mr. Holmes. And I think you'd best back off.” She said this with the sunniest of smiles. She was a sweet-faced matronly woman, and John thought she was probably just a few more insinuations away from making Sherlock a nice cuppa tea and then throwing it in his face.
“My apologies,” Sherlock said falsely.
“Would you like to stay for tea?” she said with a brittle friendliness.
“Ah - no,” John said quickly. “I'm sorry, we'd love to accept, but we still have to do a lot of . . . sightseeing. Yeah!”
Sherlock was already out the door and headed for the next stop, an unwelcoming looking building with a plain sign on the door: REGISTRAR - BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES
“You don’t think he’s got a proper death certificate here, do you?” John said to Sherlock quietly as he caught up.
“No, but sometimes you can learn as much from what isn’t there as what is,” Sherlock said.
They’d caught the archivist mid-snack, and she didn’t look happy - but that did nothing to detract from her golden-haired, pert-nosed beauty. They sure grow them pretty here, John thought, and the smile that spread across his face was instinctual. “Hi there, Miss, do you mind if we look at some--”
Her eyes were cold and almost indolent, in the manner of put-out civil servants everywhere. John found it oddly reassuring. “Do you have Lord Summerisle’s permission?”
“Do we need it?” Sherlock demanded. “Considering that I can tell that your perfume was almost certainly bought for you by a lover who’s been embezzling . . . is it embezzling? No! Smuggling! A false bottom in one of those boats that takes Summerisle cider to the tourist pubs in the Hebrides and even as far out as Anglesey. A Welshman, if I’m not mistaken.”
She goggled at him in offended horror, and realized she’d failed at hiding the letter beneath her desk blotter that addressed her as “Cariad.”
“A Welshwoman,” she snarled.
“Ah! There’s always something,” Sherlock groaned. “Do you want to know how I deduced the rest of it?”
“Not really,” she snapped, handing them a stack of black ledger books. “Now piss off.”
“Thank you!” Sherlock said, his cheery veneer returning as he flipped through them. Recent deaths - as he expected, nothing like what he was looking for.
John looked over his shoulder. All elderly people, natural causes - that in itself was suspicious, weren’t there ever any diseases or accidents? He was a little bit surprised to see Sherlock turning rapidly through a different book entirely - birth records, and this one was older. Seventies and eighties. Something made Sherlock’s eyebrow twitch, but he said nothing of it.
“Will we be seeing you at the May Day, then?” the librarian asked, an unpleasant little gleam in her eye.
“Almost certainly,” Sherlock said and departed in a swirl of coat.
“Good day,” John said awkwardly, and lingered long enough to see her picking up a heavy, old-fashioned phone from the desk.
Next down the row was the chemist's shop, and Sherlock pushed past John with his eyes alight. Once inside, he drew in sharp breath at the rows and rows of jars and bottles of dubious provenance and a bizarre mixture of the scientific and the superstitious - precise chemical formulas next to jars of preserved animals and animal parts; a tub of fetal pigs, a two-faced cat suspended in formaldehyde. Eye of newt and toe of frog, wing of bat . . . you could buy all that here. As well as enough chemical raw materials to blow up half the island, if you were so inclined. John paused by a display of ornate goblets and a variety of sharp knives and daggers.
Oh God. He was never going to get Sherlock out of here.
“No, Sherlock,” he hissed under his breath, “We are not going back to London with a giant jar of dried foreskins.”
Sherlock gave a tiny pout. “What about a small jar?” He held the look in all earnestness until John collapsed in helpless giggles.
“Well, maybe, but only if you charge it to Mycroft.” Sherlock had to look away to conceal his choking laughter.
“Can I help you lads?” the shopkeeper cut in. He'd been at the pub last night, John recognized his horn-rimmed glasses and thick accent. “We don't see a lot of outsiders here. Especially Englishmen.”
“Yes, reaching rather far afield, isn't it, Mr. Lennox?” Sherlock said, stepping forward. “This web that's cast sometimes.”
“I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.”
“What happened to the last outsider who came here asking too many questions, I wonder.”
“I'm certain I don't remember one,” Lennox said, flinching only a little when Sherlock stepped into his personal space and sniffed him.
“You're a photographer,” Sherlock said. “You work in a traditional, old-fashioned way. Film, not digital. I can smell the developing chemicals on you, underneath your general miasma of asafoetida and dragon's-blood resin and damiana and other substances common to the practice of witchcraft. But you're passably well-educated in basic scientific chemistry as well; you practice herbal medicine and spell-casting by choice, not out of ignorance, and you combine the two when it suits you. Indeed, you don't see them as opposed at all. Fascinating.”
Mr. Lennox backed away, affronted. Then he smiled. “In another age, in another place, you yourself might have been burned at the stake, Mr. Holmes.”
“I suppose I would have to take it as a compliment, even as I screamed in agony,” Sherlock said, “I don't reject the modern world. It has its advantages.”
“Neither do I, sir. Now, how can I help you? Just got these in,” he held up a selection of the most obscene mushrooms John had ever seen. “They do wonders for the . . . male nature.”
“No need for that,” Sherlock smiled, and John twitched. “It would help me a great deal if you could show me any photographs you happen to have from your May Day festivities three years ago, when Rowan Morrison was May Queen and you had a policeman from the mainland here trying to find her, under the impression that she was missing or dead.”
“I don't recall any such person, no. Rowan, of course, she was lovely, but I can't remember any policemen. But I don't keep those photographs. Except for the display at the inn, they're all in the personal collection of Lord Summerisle now.”
“Really. You never keep any copies for yourself.”
“Oh no, sir. And even if I did, I'd need Lord Summerisle's permission to show you.”
Sherlock nodded. “Exactly what I knew you'd say. I'll return, of course. Your shop is delightful.” His tone was snide and bitter, but John could tell he was actually sincere.
To Sherlock's disappointment a few shops were closed for the holiday. That gave them a little time to talk.
“They're really not giving us a thing,” John muttered. “Can't take a crap without Lord Summerisle's permission around here. So where are we going now?”
“We're going to get Lord Summerisle's permission, of course,” Sherlock said, turning and leading John up the cobblestoned street in the general direction of the gardens that led to the great manor house by the sea.
“So . . . everyone in this village is a member of this cult?” John asked. “They're raising all their kids that way?”
“You're catching on. They've done so for generations. Almost all of the people you see were born and raised here. This is their world. They have little interest in events on the mainland, and certainly no love of outsiders.”
“Oh.” John looked around him again with new eyes. “Well - they seem happy and healthy enough. Live and let live, I guess.”
“Indeed. Now consider Sgt. Howie. My sources tell me he was a devoutly religious man, of a strict, evangelical breed of Puritan Christianity. Authoritarian and sexually prudish by nature. I think you can see the inevitable culture clash that would have occurred.”
John let out a low whistle. “So - you think he pissed off the wrong people? Things got heated? They do, about religion. He got too nosy, he messed up some ceremony or other . . . there was a fight, he got killed, they got rid of the body and never told anyone? The whole town kind of sticks together, don't they?”
“They do,” Sherlock agreed. “I've investigated and researched so much organised crime, and this is the most airtight omertà I've ever seen. Well done!” His eyes were shining.
John shook his head with a tight little smile. “Okay, back down, fanboy.”
“No, no. That in itself is important. It's too airtight, and too uniform. This isn't a case of a coverup of a crime committed in the dark by a few people, with a few witnesses. Whatever happened to Sgt. Howie, there is virtually no one on this whole island who doesn't know exactly what happened. People who have a vague knowledge of a crime but don't know the details - well, you can always find someone who's willing to spin a fictional tale. There is none of that here. None. My working hypothesis is that the entire population of Summerisle knows exactly what happened to Neil Howie, because they witnessed it.”
John took a deep breath. “You think it was a ritual killing.”
“I'm almost sure of it. Lord Summerisle himself will give me the final key.”
TBC...
Chapter 1
Fandoms: Sherlock/The Wicker Man (1973)
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Other Characters: Lord Summerisle, Miss Rose, Willow MacGregor, Alder MacGregor, Mr. Lennox, The Librarian, other Summerisle villagers and OCs
Rating: NC-17/explicit (eventually)
Summary:
“Mr Holmes, I'm not in the habit of approaching . . . consultants. But you are correct. I have great faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And until recently, I also had faith in the rule of law. Only the second one has wavered. Three years ago my fiancé, Sgt. Neil Howie of the West Highlands Constabulary, went to investigate an anonymous report of a missing child in a remote place called Summerisle. He never communicated with me while he was there, and he never returned.”
Summerisle is not a welcoming place to visitors, but it shows its best face at May Day. For ulterior motives.
AO3
John was alone in the room when he awoke, and that was a relief. His head was swimming and the images that came up from the dregs of his dreams were so trippy he almost wondered if Sherlock had drugged him again. Sherlock had been so weirdly insistent on dinner, after all.
But no. He wouldn't have had to, considering where he was. Summerisle itself was enough to cause vivid dreams at least on the level of eating moldy cheese before bed.
There were wild and windy dreams; a spinning sensation, unearthly music- like the pub tunes but eerie and distorted - and a sort of fiendish insidious sense of physical pleasure that started when he first saw the locals 'seeding the fields' last night, so brazen, and dreamed himself among them. But who? That Willow MacGregor seemed up for it and she was a fine one, with her pert rump and pouting lips and knowing eyes. But no. No. In John's dream, he'd moved like that all tangled up with a longer, leaner body; the hands clutching him much larger and the moaning voice in his ear much deeper.
John just wanted to enjoy the sweet lassitude of that dream memory for a moment, until a chill of cold terror flooded his veins and completely ruined the moment. Odds were good that, in this little room, he'd had an observably sexual dream in Sherlock's presence.
Fucking hell. That's just great, he thought.
By day, the village sounded almost normal. There were birdsongs and chattering voices. As John roused himself reluctantly from the bed, he heard water running in the bathroom down the hall, and then the door opening and closing as someone left. Just the one, then. The Green Man was minimalist in that way. Probably still had a meter on the hot water. (If there was a shower, he probably ought to take it cold anyway.)
He was standing there sulking under the non-existent pressure and the spitting bursts of frigidity when there was a loud pounding on the door. Thankfully, he'd locked it. That didn't stop the invader.
“Jesus Christ!” John yelled, pulling the worn curtain around himself.
“No, just me,” Sherlock said. “Hurry up. I've managed to get the schoolmistress to agree to speak to us.”
“Why her?”
“Because she teaches children, and children talk. And she's more than she seems.”
It was a lovely day for a stroll, John had to give it that. Summerisle was showing its fairest face, a sweet warming tone in the air and a faint scent of flowers, yet cool enough that Sherlock's great coat of stylish armour wasn't completely uncalled-for. Sherlock and John still had the uncomfortable effect of stopping conversations dead without saying a word - but not all the glances and stares were unappreciative.
Still, John couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the cluster of boys dancing around a maypole with the ribbons around their waists, singing a song that was more than a little too suggestive for their age, and the schoolroom full of girls singing merrily along.
“And who can tell me the true meaning of the maypole?” the teacher was asking as Sherlock and John watched from the window.
A little redhead down front waved her hand eagerly. “It's always you, isn't it Fern?” the teacher said, not unkindly. “So keen.”
“It's a phallic symbol!” the girl said quickly.
“Very good, Fern. Of course you're right,” the teacher said. “Now who can tell me what that means? Someone else, please. Clover?”
“It represents the penis!” said Clover, who was a little more reticent.
“Yes, and more than that. It's the generative principle. Fertility. Very important in religions such as ours, and it's what we celebrate in our May Day rites. Now, if you'll pardon me, we have guests today.” She beckoned to Sherlock and John through the window. Of course she knew they'd been there all along.
“Let me introduce them,” the teacher said to the class. “Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Hamish Watson.”
John cringed. “Call me John, please,” he said plaintively.
“Thank you for meeting with us on such short notice, Miss Rose,” Sherlock said, talking right over John but showing Miss Rose an uncharacteristic flash of chivalry.
“Now, class, they've come all the way from the mainland. Farther than that. All the way from London. Have you ever met a Londoner before?”
The little heads shook almost uniformly.
“Dr. Watson is a doctor of course, and Mr. Holmes is a detective. Who knows what a detective does?”
Fern raised her hand. “It's someone that pokes his nose in other people's business,” she blurted without waiting to be called on.
“Absolutely right, Fern,” Sherlock said, beaming. “As far as it goes anyway.”
“Are you here to ask nosy questions?”
“I sure am. But there's a lot more to it than that,” Sherlock said. “If you're very good, I'll tell you all about it. Am I the first outsider asking nosy questions you remember?”
“Yes,” Fern said firmly, and all the other girls seemed to agree.
Miss Rose shook her head indulgently. “Excuse me, class, I'd like to have a few words with our guests. Please take out your books and turn to Chapter 3 in 'Fertility Rituals.'”
The little school room's entrance hall was festooned with flowers and students' artworks. Some were standard trees and landscapes and animals - stags and hares and goats -- but John had to stop and blink at a rendering of a naked woman with a shining yellow sun between her legs and a man wearing antlers and a giant erection. “Do you like those?” Miss Rose said. “That's our Myrtle Morrison. She's only thirteen but she's very talented.”
“Um, yes, they're very nice,” John managed to choke out.
“So your current class of students never met Sgt. Neil Howie, did they?” Sherlock asked suddenly. “But surely you did.”
“I'm very certain no such person exists,” Miss Rose said.
“By which you mean, he doesn't exist anymore,” Sherlock clarified. “He's dead.”
“We prefer not to use that word,” she said coldly. “Not in the earshot of the children. We believe that when this human life has ended, the person's life force rejoins nature. The sky, the forest, the crops, the sea, the animals. Rotting bodies are a stumbling block to the childish imagination.”
“They weren't to mine when I was young,” Sherlock chuckled. “Where would I find the rotting body of Neil Howie?”
“Sherlock!” John muttered, waiting for the sympathy flinch.
“Nowhere, Mr. Holmes. It is nowhere to be found. Unless it's everywhere.”
Sherlock nodded, as if this answer were satisfactory to him in some way. John looked at him and back to Miss Rose, befuddled as usual, but he at least remembered to say thank you before tagging after Sherlock, who'd already covered a lot of ground on his stalk towards the crumbling stone wall of the old churchyard.
And it was a churchyard; there was a stone church with an actual cross on top. It was an abandoned ruin of course. Closest to the walls, some tombstones had crosses too - the very oldest ones. John was studying names and dates, and the crosses seemed to stop entirely after the late 19th century. The names became less and less Biblical and the epitaphs grew more and more . . . inventive.
“Here lies Beech Buchanan,” he read out incredulously. “Protected by the Ejaculation of Serpents.”
“It's hard to imagine how,” Sherlock said. “Venomous serpents don't have venomous ejaculate, that would be counterproductive to the propagation of the species.”
“You actually put rational thought into that.”
“It's what I do, John. Oh look, this is fascinating. The trees planted on the more recent graves - oh, this is a human umbilical cord. I thought those were traditionally buried at birth. Perhaps not.”
“That’s . . . touching, I guess,” John said.
“Are those on all the graves - oh, they'd biodegrade quickly, you can't tell - whoa, pardon me!” He'd walked around a lichen-covered stone plinth to see a young woman sitting on a stone table (an altar, was it?) bare-chested, nursing a baby. She said nothing and obviously couldn't care less.
“Good day to you,” Sherlock said. What was in the air here, that was making Sherlock so terribly civil all the time? It was starting to creep John out.
Leaving the graveyard they returned to the row of little shops.
They stopped in at the post office and introduced themselves to the postmistress - May Morrison, Rowan and Myrtle's mother. John observed that they carried newspapers and sweets and typical tourist postcards - but all of the postcards were of other scenic Scottish Isles locations. None of them specifically Summerisle, none claiming to be such. Sherlock was about to say something when the door burst open with a little jingle, and Myrtle came in, eyes downcast, and looked at no one.
“Please pardon her,” May Morrison said. “The next days are hard on her - she so wanted to be May Queen like her sister was. But they chose Heather MacEanraig instead, and she's been inconsolable.” She dropped her voice and stage-whispered, “They don't get on so well, those two.”
“So all the girls want to be May Queen,” Sherlock said. “There's nothing scary about it.”
“Oh, not really. I suppose if you're shy - all that attention. But not my girls.”
“I'm told that not too long ago there was an outsider who feared Rowan was in grave danger,” Sherlock said, leaning in close. “But you never worried. You knew better.”
“I'm not sure I recall any outsiders at all showing any interest in my girls. Except you, Mr. Holmes. And I think you'd best back off.” She said this with the sunniest of smiles. She was a sweet-faced matronly woman, and John thought she was probably just a few more insinuations away from making Sherlock a nice cuppa tea and then throwing it in his face.
“My apologies,” Sherlock said falsely.
“Would you like to stay for tea?” she said with a brittle friendliness.
“Ah - no,” John said quickly. “I'm sorry, we'd love to accept, but we still have to do a lot of . . . sightseeing. Yeah!”
Sherlock was already out the door and headed for the next stop, an unwelcoming looking building with a plain sign on the door: REGISTRAR - BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES
“You don’t think he’s got a proper death certificate here, do you?” John said to Sherlock quietly as he caught up.
“No, but sometimes you can learn as much from what isn’t there as what is,” Sherlock said.
They’d caught the archivist mid-snack, and she didn’t look happy - but that did nothing to detract from her golden-haired, pert-nosed beauty. They sure grow them pretty here, John thought, and the smile that spread across his face was instinctual. “Hi there, Miss, do you mind if we look at some--”
Her eyes were cold and almost indolent, in the manner of put-out civil servants everywhere. John found it oddly reassuring. “Do you have Lord Summerisle’s permission?”
“Do we need it?” Sherlock demanded. “Considering that I can tell that your perfume was almost certainly bought for you by a lover who’s been embezzling . . . is it embezzling? No! Smuggling! A false bottom in one of those boats that takes Summerisle cider to the tourist pubs in the Hebrides and even as far out as Anglesey. A Welshman, if I’m not mistaken.”
She goggled at him in offended horror, and realized she’d failed at hiding the letter beneath her desk blotter that addressed her as “Cariad.”
“A Welshwoman,” she snarled.
“Ah! There’s always something,” Sherlock groaned. “Do you want to know how I deduced the rest of it?”
“Not really,” she snapped, handing them a stack of black ledger books. “Now piss off.”
“Thank you!” Sherlock said, his cheery veneer returning as he flipped through them. Recent deaths - as he expected, nothing like what he was looking for.
John looked over his shoulder. All elderly people, natural causes - that in itself was suspicious, weren’t there ever any diseases or accidents? He was a little bit surprised to see Sherlock turning rapidly through a different book entirely - birth records, and this one was older. Seventies and eighties. Something made Sherlock’s eyebrow twitch, but he said nothing of it.
“Will we be seeing you at the May Day, then?” the librarian asked, an unpleasant little gleam in her eye.
“Almost certainly,” Sherlock said and departed in a swirl of coat.
“Good day,” John said awkwardly, and lingered long enough to see her picking up a heavy, old-fashioned phone from the desk.
Next down the row was the chemist's shop, and Sherlock pushed past John with his eyes alight. Once inside, he drew in sharp breath at the rows and rows of jars and bottles of dubious provenance and a bizarre mixture of the scientific and the superstitious - precise chemical formulas next to jars of preserved animals and animal parts; a tub of fetal pigs, a two-faced cat suspended in formaldehyde. Eye of newt and toe of frog, wing of bat . . . you could buy all that here. As well as enough chemical raw materials to blow up half the island, if you were so inclined. John paused by a display of ornate goblets and a variety of sharp knives and daggers.
Oh God. He was never going to get Sherlock out of here.
“No, Sherlock,” he hissed under his breath, “We are not going back to London with a giant jar of dried foreskins.”
Sherlock gave a tiny pout. “What about a small jar?” He held the look in all earnestness until John collapsed in helpless giggles.
“Well, maybe, but only if you charge it to Mycroft.” Sherlock had to look away to conceal his choking laughter.
“Can I help you lads?” the shopkeeper cut in. He'd been at the pub last night, John recognized his horn-rimmed glasses and thick accent. “We don't see a lot of outsiders here. Especially Englishmen.”
“Yes, reaching rather far afield, isn't it, Mr. Lennox?” Sherlock said, stepping forward. “This web that's cast sometimes.”
“I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.”
“What happened to the last outsider who came here asking too many questions, I wonder.”
“I'm certain I don't remember one,” Lennox said, flinching only a little when Sherlock stepped into his personal space and sniffed him.
“You're a photographer,” Sherlock said. “You work in a traditional, old-fashioned way. Film, not digital. I can smell the developing chemicals on you, underneath your general miasma of asafoetida and dragon's-blood resin and damiana and other substances common to the practice of witchcraft. But you're passably well-educated in basic scientific chemistry as well; you practice herbal medicine and spell-casting by choice, not out of ignorance, and you combine the two when it suits you. Indeed, you don't see them as opposed at all. Fascinating.”
Mr. Lennox backed away, affronted. Then he smiled. “In another age, in another place, you yourself might have been burned at the stake, Mr. Holmes.”
“I suppose I would have to take it as a compliment, even as I screamed in agony,” Sherlock said, “I don't reject the modern world. It has its advantages.”
“Neither do I, sir. Now, how can I help you? Just got these in,” he held up a selection of the most obscene mushrooms John had ever seen. “They do wonders for the . . . male nature.”
“No need for that,” Sherlock smiled, and John twitched. “It would help me a great deal if you could show me any photographs you happen to have from your May Day festivities three years ago, when Rowan Morrison was May Queen and you had a policeman from the mainland here trying to find her, under the impression that she was missing or dead.”
“I don't recall any such person, no. Rowan, of course, she was lovely, but I can't remember any policemen. But I don't keep those photographs. Except for the display at the inn, they're all in the personal collection of Lord Summerisle now.”
“Really. You never keep any copies for yourself.”
“Oh no, sir. And even if I did, I'd need Lord Summerisle's permission to show you.”
Sherlock nodded. “Exactly what I knew you'd say. I'll return, of course. Your shop is delightful.” His tone was snide and bitter, but John could tell he was actually sincere.
To Sherlock's disappointment a few shops were closed for the holiday. That gave them a little time to talk.
“They're really not giving us a thing,” John muttered. “Can't take a crap without Lord Summerisle's permission around here. So where are we going now?”
“We're going to get Lord Summerisle's permission, of course,” Sherlock said, turning and leading John up the cobblestoned street in the general direction of the gardens that led to the great manor house by the sea.
“So . . . everyone in this village is a member of this cult?” John asked. “They're raising all their kids that way?”
“You're catching on. They've done so for generations. Almost all of the people you see were born and raised here. This is their world. They have little interest in events on the mainland, and certainly no love of outsiders.”
“Oh.” John looked around him again with new eyes. “Well - they seem happy and healthy enough. Live and let live, I guess.”
“Indeed. Now consider Sgt. Howie. My sources tell me he was a devoutly religious man, of a strict, evangelical breed of Puritan Christianity. Authoritarian and sexually prudish by nature. I think you can see the inevitable culture clash that would have occurred.”
John let out a low whistle. “So - you think he pissed off the wrong people? Things got heated? They do, about religion. He got too nosy, he messed up some ceremony or other . . . there was a fight, he got killed, they got rid of the body and never told anyone? The whole town kind of sticks together, don't they?”
“They do,” Sherlock agreed. “I've investigated and researched so much organised crime, and this is the most airtight omertà I've ever seen. Well done!” His eyes were shining.
John shook his head with a tight little smile. “Okay, back down, fanboy.”
“No, no. That in itself is important. It's too airtight, and too uniform. This isn't a case of a coverup of a crime committed in the dark by a few people, with a few witnesses. Whatever happened to Sgt. Howie, there is virtually no one on this whole island who doesn't know exactly what happened. People who have a vague knowledge of a crime but don't know the details - well, you can always find someone who's willing to spin a fictional tale. There is none of that here. None. My working hypothesis is that the entire population of Summerisle knows exactly what happened to Neil Howie, because they witnessed it.”
John took a deep breath. “You think it was a ritual killing.”
“I'm almost sure of it. Lord Summerisle himself will give me the final key.”
TBC...
Chapter 1