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“Oh come off it.” she says, exhaling a huge lungful of smoke. At least it’s not in my direction. “I’m off the fucking drink, you’ve got to give me something.”
“Aye, I do.” Give a bit of a laugh, it’s only partway forced. “I just hope you’re not trading cirrhosis for cancer of the lungs.”
She waves me away with the same hand holding the lit cigarette. “I’ve already got Clara mothering me, I don’t need you too.” She sounds irritated, but a smile crosses her face. Her smile’s so much like my own I find myself mirroring it without realizing it.
“How’s...things? With Clara, I mean.” I already know most of the answer, I can see it in Harry - in her clothes: her outfit more carefully selected, her easy laugh, and most of all in the clarity in eyes. I see it especially in that she arranged this meeting, even chose the place - a cafe that clearly wouldn’t have alcohol on the menu.
She bobs her head, smile turning a bit shy. She hides it behind her cup, taking another sip of coffee. “Good, you know she moved back in?” Proud of herself, she preens a little. “We’re going to counseling.” A darker look, briefly, somewhat abashed, replaced quickly with that shine of pride. Another long drag off her cig. All nervous hands, that’s our Harry.
“I know it sounds like bullshit, but it’s been pretty good.” she blurts, never meeting my eye. I nod, knowing we’re on shaky ground. The day’s been too nice, our conversation too good to spoil with a wrong-footed word.
“Yeah, I have a therapist, well, had one. Started seeing her when I got back from overseas.” I don’t say got shot, or got invalided because those are things we don’t talk about.
“No shit!” she exclaims, surprised. “With a family like ours, I’m surprised we haven’t been in it all our lives.”
I raise my own cup, give a mock toast. “Cheers to that.”
She leans forward, elbows on the table. “How about you, John? How are you, really? You know Clara follows your blog religiously. Haven’t been updating much lately.” That’s the Watsons for you, keeping up with each other third-hand via blog.
Shift in my chair, thinking before I speak. “Ah, you know me. Same thing I’m always up to.” That laugh sounds awkward, even in my own ears.
She rolls her eyes, knows me too well. “So what else is up? Still seeing that girl from work?”
“That? Oh, no, been ages...see, I’ve started. Um. Seeing Sherlock.” Damn! Can’t look her in the eye, not after she’s been taking the piss all this time over him. She sits back, gives a sudden surprised snort through her nose. It takes a lot to surprise Harry, so I think the advantage is mine? There’s a ball of nervous energy burning a hole in my gut.
She mashes out her cigarette. “John Fucking Watson, are you kidding me?” I glance up, she’s covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh. my. god, you’re not. You’re blushing.” She laughs, then gives an excited squeal, trills back down to laughter.
I nod, feeling exposed. “I know, what would Gran say?” She laughs, then winces. Her voice is flat as she says, “Well, I know what Dad would have said.” Looks down, away, then does her best impression, sounding rougher than usual with all the smoking, “couple a queers, you are.”
Perfunctory laughter at her impression - spot on, as always.
Oh Harry, always bearing the worst of it from both of our parents. I kept my head down, she shaved hers. When she came out at seventeen, it got her kicked out.
“I mean, I’m not gay.” I said, nearly automatically. What? How did that even happen? Another snort from her, to cover the hurt look that just played across her face.
“Well, are you shagging another bloke? That’s pretty gay.” Her eyebrows are nearly at her hairline and she’s practically overcome with sarcasm.
*
I let myself back into the flat, thinking Sherlock’s still out. Collapse on the sofa. The low, slightly warm voice laughs out “That bad, eh?”
Bit not good, I think, but cannot say. I manage a look in his direction, at his smile, tipping quickly into a smirk. He’s standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He looks relaxed, but there’s something behind it, all potential energy and promise. Then he straightens, arms crossed, eyes narrowing, searching - no, deducing. “You told her about us.”
His voice is neutral, he’s simply stating a fact. He tilts his head, studying me.
“Alright, John?” The cadence is familiar. He’s mimicking me, maybe not even consciously. He doesn’t have much vocabulary for concern, so he’s borrowed mine.
“Yeah, fine...fine.” I scrub my fingers through my hair, rub my scalp nearly raw. Nervous habit. Don’t remember doing that in a while.
Sherlock steps over my outstretched legs, sits beside me. Blinking, waiting. He’s trying to be supportive, trying not to just deduce but to connect somehow with what I’m feeling.
“I can hear the wheels turning. You don’t have to say anything, it’s alright.” He slips his warm hand over mine. Ridiculously beautiful, huge hands, like from my old anatomy texts or the statue of David. An excess of beauty. There is a fineness in him that he only pretends to understand. Something that brings to mind the classics, or the word statuesque. Especially at times like these, when he’s looking pensive, as though the whole world might suddenly shift and he’s considering all the possibilities that might come after this.
He leans against me, rests his head on my shoulder. Silent support. Asking for nothing. A few moments later, I feel clear enough to tell him - how she’s doing, how she’s sober - for now, I think but do not say. It is a mark of how careful he is becoming with me that he does not say it either. This is a gift he is giving me.
“Once she stopped laughing, she seemed happy for us. Said she knows how difficult things can be when one of the people involved is impossible.” I nudge him a little with my elbow.
His voice perfectly flat, his intonation never changing he says “Oh, I don’t know, you’re not so bad.” Only the lifted eyebrow lets on it’s a joke.
I roll my eyes mightily, and sigh. But this gentle back and forth, this thoughtful care, it’s so new, so nice. So wonderfully unexpected.
*
I hear this voice somewhere in my dreams, at first an urgent whisper. I search for him (I always do) until the tone of that trembling call leads me up, out of sleep. I surface with sudden clarity, searching still.
“Please.” His voice is harsh. “I don’t, this isn’t.” Pained, with the keen edge of a whine behind it. “Please!”
Sherlock begging? Never. It unwinds something deep in me, around the base of my spine. A burst of fear blows through me, around me, wreaths me like smoke.
Give his shoulder a shake. Light sleeper as ever, his pale eyes flicker open. He jerks his head back, a sudden turn of his lips. His face flashes: lost, anger, disgust. He recoils again, though I haven’t moved.
“Hey.” I croak stupidly, my voice still half asleep. His expression softens as he takes me in.
“John,” he whispers. Not a question, but an answer. Folds me in his arms, feeling feverish from deep sleep. Says my name again. “Would you save me, even from my own dreams?” An edge there, sarcasm and humor.
And though he already knows the answer, I squeeze him back and reply. “Would that I could.”
I want to bury my face in his neck, the scent of my lover carrying me back to sleep, but it is clear he’s wide awake. Despite the clock on the bedside table reading only a little after three, he gets up. I make a noise of protest, and he indulges me. Leans back into bed. A quick kiss to my shoulder, a brush of his lips against mine. A sort of consolation prize. And with that, he pads off silently into the dark flat. I’m alone in Sherlock’s (our?) bed. I should get used to this, I think grumpily, drifting back to sleep.
The chirrup of Sherlock’s phone repeats itself, insistent, until I rouse myself. Thirteen messages from Greg Lestrade. Heart thumping, I stumble out into the sitting room.
“Will Graham is an idiot!” he’s already nearly shouting in my direction. He sees the phone in my hand, held forth like an offering to a fickle god. “What?” I splutter, “just yesterday you were saying he was a genius, the sole redeeming figure in the entire FBI.”
He’s already taken the phone, clicking through messages at lightning speed. Realises I’m still speaking. “What are you talking about? Why aren’t you dressed, John?” His eyebrow lifts. Impatient, already so far from his last spoken thought he can’t be bothered to remember it.
“Why aren’t you?!” I exclaim and he spares a glance to his own attire - a tatty t-shirt (one of mine, I realize), dressing gown, and mismatched pajama bottoms.
In moments, we’re scrambling, Sherlock bellowing into the phone at Greg, threatening something drastic (annihilation of the entire Scotland Yard?) if the body is moved. I choose a slightly nicer jumper when I see Sherlock button himself into his sharpest suit jacket.
In the taxi, he finally tells me a little of what he knows, practically vibrating with excitement. It’s a boy - a murder, dressed to look like a suicide - the body found in the schoolyard. That’s all he’ll say, telling me he wants my judgement “unimpeded” by the many theories he’s already developed.
Sooner than expected, we’re lead through the school into the enclosed courtyard. The whole place reeks of underfunded, institutionalized misery. Not unlike my own secondary school back home. I shiver as we pass from sickly fluorescents and back into London’s dishwater grey morning light.
In the centre of the courtyard is a much-abused statue, an homage to some sort of military figure. He’s astride a ghastly looking horse, the sword in the conquering hero’s hand is broken off about halfway down. The horse is reared back on hind legs, and at the crook of the foreleg hangs a rope in bright yellow nylon. The end is frayed, as if sawed bit by bit.
Sherlock walks directly toward the group near the statue, brushing off the uniform stationed at the crime scene tape to stop the uninvited. I stammer an apology in his direction, nearly a reflex at this point.
Greg’s in a noisy confrontation with Sally Donovan, and it sounds like her point is valid - they need get the body out of the crime scene, he’s a minor and it’s going to get tough to keep this private. Lestrade doesn’t even look our way until she stops, to glare in our direction. They both start speaking at once, Lestrade looking harried as usual, Donovan’s tone sharp as ever.
Sherlock puts up a hand. Stop. Like unruly children, they do. “Show me.” is all he says. When Donovan begins to move, he speaks again, his voice cold, all authority. “Not you.” She practically stomps away.
When they part, I see the bundle on the damp earth. Skinny, adolescent legs sticking out from under a rough jacket, the trail of bright rope resumes outside the jacket and I realize someone’s sullied the crime scene, taken him down. I’m perversely glad, though it’ll drive Sherlock into paroxysms of frustration.
A crime scene tech takes the liberty of removing the jacket, earning him a nod from me and something between a growl and a grunt of irritation from Sherlock. He’s obviously new, but he knows enough to back away as Sherlock nears.
We lean down, our world suddenly contracting. Me. Sherlock. The voiceless corpse.
I see why they’re not letting anyone through, the boy is naked. Sherlock gives a slight surprised huff through the nose.
Oh. It’s all wrong.
“The first responders knew something was off right away,” calls Greg, standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets, watching Sherlock work. A sniff. Bleach. I give a tired sigh because bleach is used by criminals who think they’re clever and watch far too many crime shows.
“John?” Sherlock’s calls gently. “What do you see?”
“Died elsewhere.” I say, kneeling close. Sherlock leans, hands on his knees, until his head is inches from mine. I direct him to look with a wave of the hand, in the direction of the livor mortis blooming along his back, still visible beneath his light brown skin.
“He’s about thirteen, small for his age.” A grunt of approval from Sherlock. I go on.
“There’s almost no damage to the neck and jaw,” I point to the hangman’s noose around his slender neck. “He was dead long before they hung him.” And we’re at his face. I’ve been avoiding looking at it. As if that could somehow make it a case instead of a person. A small, broken boy. Cold. On the ground. I swallow hard, saliva filling my mouth.
A face caught between childhood and the young man he’d become. Fine, dark brows. Nearly delicate features. A beautiful boy. Indian, I’d guess. Maybe mixed race. Clear my throat, bring my voice down even lower so it does not carry.
“Obvious signs of sexual trauma, including...” I look carefully, “perimortem bite marks around the genitals. He’s been dead since yesterday afternoon.”
“He’s been missing since school yesterday, never came home. This place was locked up around six, and no one came back to check since his mum thought he was at a friend’s until late.” Lestrade interrupts, in the same low voice.
Sherlock says nothing, peering closely at the boy’s face and hands. “What’s this?” he says, pointing to the boy’s fingers. Lestrade is already handing me a pair of nitrile gloves, and I reach for the boy’s hand. The pads of his fingers have a funny sort of rash, almost like “Carpet burn?” I suggest, looking to Sherlock.
He gives a noise of agreement, and I turn the hand towards me, “He’d’ve ripped out his nails if he had any,” they’re bitten down, far past the quick, into little stubs. “Fighting something he couldn’t get any purchase on.” A shake of the head from Sherlock.
“No. Look.” I look closer at the boy’s fingertips. “They’re striated.” I realize. “He was trying to get away from something, clawing away at something he couldn’t get purchase on.” He kept reaching in the same direction.
Horror, already roiling thick and viscous beneath my skin, pulls my attention in strange directions. It’s of no help at all, of course. I look closer at the embedded fibers in those torn fingertips. Feels like I’m grasping at nothing. Dark, sort of springy looking. “Industrial carpeting.” Sherlock says, his deep voice projecting, carrying nearly effortlessly across the courtyard. Greg makes a move, begins chattering with his techs.
The signs of asphyxiation are so clear I don’t even bother pointing them out. But how? There are no other ligature marks around the neck. Sherlock, practically reading my mind, places his hand over the boy’s nose and mouth, hovering a few inches above his face. Looks up at me. Do you see, John? But there are...“no defensive wounds.” he finishes my thought aloud. A thirteen year-old boy can fight surprisingly hard. “Suffocation?” He nods.
“Suffocation.” He agrees quietly, nearly whispering. He’s gone somewhere, wheels turning, eyes flickering all over the body, the scene. Theories being born and dying before me.
*
“Nothing makes sense!” he barks at his phone, sitting innocently in his lap. He closes his eyes, face turning from me. Pinches the bridge of his nose. Day two of the case and our hands are tied. We can’t interview the boy’s friends, they’re all minors. We have restricted access to the school. The media are everywhere, foiling Sherlock’s plans to get close to anyone who might be able to tell us more.
“They’ll come ‘round, once they realize they can’t do it without you.” Well, if they realize they can’t solve it without us. He gives me a sharp look. “Or when the media attention dies down a bit.” A long-suffering sigh.
Another day passes, and the media frenzy only worsens. During one of dozens of interviews with the Yard, a teacher mentions that a storage room for infrequently-used sporting equipment has dark blue industrial carpet, having been looked over for several remodels.
It’s the scene of the assault, that much is clear. The carpeting is a perfect match. And the day before his death, our victim skived off his last class of the day. He must have gone to the storage room. School administrators insist it’s always locked, but there are crisp wrappers and fizzy drink cans fresh in the rubbish.
It doesn’t take long at all to find out that plenty of students have access to the room. One older boy even has a key, meant to allow him to organize and clean the room occasionally.
Sherlock watches and rewatches the videos of the interviews the Yard has done with the boy’s fellow students. Finds clues the older boy with the key, named Toby, is lying.
A second round of interviews. This time Sherlock provides questions. In half a day, we discover not only was the “disused” storage space used quite frequently, a number of boys gathered there regularly. And it’s where our victim, Anand (called Andy), spent his last afternoon.
This second round of interviews is painful to watch, the awkward dissembling of adolescents. The boys all deny involvement with his death, but reveal he was treated rather badly, especially by the gang that gathered in the storage room. But he skipped class frequently to visit them, delayed walking home so that he could spend time there.
“He was always hanging about, drove us mad!” Toby insists, but then adds that they all “loved him, treated him like a kid brother.”
“Fuckin’ queer, moonin’ about,” says another boy, playing the hard man, on the pixelated digital footage we review that night. This proves to be a depressingly fruitful line of questioning, when he reveals Anand was rumoured to be involved sexually with several of the older boys in the little group.
There’s a third round of interviews, despite the protests of the boys’ parents. Stories shift and the boys are evasive. We are kept waiting while the parents try to block the investigation.
*
That night, Sherlock wakes up screaming. I’d say shouting, but the keen edge of fear takes his voice to its highest register. He’s disoriented, I can’t make out anything he’s trying to say. In the moments before he recognizes me, his face is contorted in utter terror.
He practically catapults himself away, tangled in bedsheets. He says nothing, waves me away from following with viciously sharp gestures and incoherent protests. I hear him run the shower, taking great ragged deep breaths that seem on the edge of devolving into sobs, punctuated with swallowed-down yelps of pain.
I wait for him; it’s what I do. I can’t sleep, so I listen for him until I’m certain the hot water must have run out. Somewhere between damp and dripping, he slides back into bed with me.
I say nothing because it’s clear he doesn’t want to talk. He wraps his arms around me, tentative. His breath is warm on the back of my neck, but his hands and chest against my back are clammy and cold.
A whisper. “Do you love me, John?” I draw his hand up from my waist to my lips, kiss his open palm.
“Yes.” “But do you really?” his voice full of denial. I shift, to face him. When I look him in the eye, he glances away, trembling. “Would I be here if I didn’t?”
His eyes are swollen and rimmed with red. He leans his head against my shoulder, tension tripping out of him with a shiver.
“They killed him.” his voice was flat. At a look from me he clarifies, “The boys. They killed Anand.” He looks away, pale eyes flashing, continues on. “His name, it means joy. I don’t think he had much, though.”
“Sad to say,” I reply, “but there’s bullying of that sort all over. Did you see something else in those videos?”
He shakes his head, narrows his eyes. “No. I just...” a sigh. “They did, that’s all. It’s not clear how yet. But they did.”
I drift back to sleep as he disappears into thought. I wake up alone.