You Buy Bones Page 18

  After a certain amount of disaster, one more severance of the past becomes nothing more than flat and two-dimensional. Faced with his inability to prevent the dissolution of his relationship with his brother, Watson merely swallowed that along with all his other imagined failures. Whilst he would have never admitted to it, being the second son with low prospects had set him up to accept this sort of thing years ago. Hamish had been the bright star, promising and intelligent. Hamish had been the only sensible choice of heirs.

  And now, Hamish was... what Hamish had chosen to be.

  And he was... not what he would have chosen.

  He could not help but feel that rising above his brother (however accidentally) was somehow a refutation of their parents’ hopes.

  It was the lot of his life.

  Back at the Yard, the two policemen were still a little shaky at the magnitude of their looming project.

  “He had it all figured out!”

  “Roger... how many times have you said that?” Lestrade asked in his exasperation.

  “I’m still not completely believing it. After all of that... that...” His large hands winged through the air like so many baffled birds. “That... plotting and scheming we did... he’d already figured out what to do!”

  “Man thinks quick; perhaps because he cuts to the quick.” Lestrade stared into his empty cup. “Nice trick. I wonder if he’s always like that.”

  “God Alone Knows.” Bradstreet was slightly horrified at the notion. Such thinking was for paranoid malcontents, criminals, and strategists - not decent law-abiding folk.

  “So we get his statement filed - you’d be the best man to let the Chief know about it. He’s less likely to fuss at you.” Lestrade gnawed on what little was left of his thumbnail as he thought aloud. “And I’ll pick up the rest of the papers... we can meet up with our fellows in Edinburgh... and stand back and let Watson go into the lion’s den.”

  “That’s no ordinary lion.” Bradstreet pointed out.

  “Quite all right. I’m sure that’s no ordinary Watson.”

  Edinburgh.

  Watson had once thought (not so long ago) that he would never return to the Athens of the North. The bad memories remained bad, and the good memories were painful as his now-constantly throbbing leg and the duller weakness of his shoulder.

  His last visit had been largely under the hours of night; “Auld Reekie” (Old Smokey) was its most well-deserved name then, for the stench and infernal glow of the coal fires created huge glowering bellies in the sky above the city.

  But, in the light of day he surprised himself. He’d forgotten the impression of the city’s vast collection of medieval structures. Auld Greekie was another name, a pun on its intellectual capacity and thriving subculture.

  Robert Burns called it Edina for its Latin name; Ben Johnson called it “Britain’s Other Eye” (tho’ he was less poetic in his treatment of the oats eaten there), and Sir Walter Scott, descendant of the Wizard Scott, won all the prizes for linguistic tomfoolery when he called it Yon Empress of the North.

  He could not have lost himself in these streets. He was too well known by his face, his actions and his surname. Even the subterranean catacombs of Old Town wouldn’t have let him lie quietly buried from prying eyes. He’d no choice but to choose another large cesspool, and only London fit that description.

  And it was working; he thought bitterly. It had been working. But yet... here he was back in this, with a trained accent that fooled no one. A Northerner knew another Northerner by his face and his name and his mother. How he spoke as judgement was a queerly English conceit.

  John Watson lifted his head to the murky sky above, feeling the weather on the skin of his face. Since the 1500’s they’d been building multi-storied structures, lands, as tall as fourteen stories in the days before the refinement of iron. He could not lose himself in aerial worlds either.

  He crossed the broad street cautiously, his step uneven and awkward on the cobbles; a paper-hawker was chaunting his public to buy and thus support the Scotland National Rugby Team. Watson hesitated, but found himself unable to resist. The game was his only honest addiction, and it had been part of the city since ‘71. He passed on a coin without checking its value and took the newspaper that warmed his palm.

  There had been a time when he’d counted every tiny coin that came his way. The war had taken that from him too. He knew of course that his depleting funds were due to his inability to hold on to money... but Maiwand had taught him the worthlessness of cash. Cash meant nothing when the throat clenched up for water. The month’s pay in his pocket couldn’t purchase a lost limb, or ease the pain of the man screaming next to him for morphine (God, the screams were with him yet). Money, then, was only the means to the end - one should criticize those ends, but not the means.

  It gave him a new perspective to the definition of money being the root of all evil. Money was the coin of need and desperation. Even when his spendthrift ways curbed his livelihood, he couldn’t justify himself to think much of the losses. As long as he could work, he could bring enough in to live on.

  Although he was relying more on his pen than he’d ever imagined...

  The paper was advertising the next-season’s ice hockey recruitment. Watson scanned the slightly-bizarre language of the article and decided ‘haranguing’ was not too strong of a description, but hockey-players were like that. He snorted at a critical assessment of the last bout of cricket. Yes, of course; everyone knew it took Scotland 80-some years to even join the tournaments, but when they did... every schoolboy knew Scotland trounced Surrey by 172 runs! Watson bitterly regretted the end of the Scottish Cricket Union’s clear demise; by next year it would be gone. He didn’t know what would happen after that...

  He stuffed the folded paper under his arm and this time, crossed the street without reversal or interruption. His satchel swung awkwardly from his good hand. A wind from the dry, cool east was coming up. He welcomed. His appetite stirred, ready to replenish after an entire day of switch-overs and delays on the rail - The Flying Scotsman had been unusually inefficient.

  Watson picked a promising Old-City tavern that advertised “clean rooms and water” as well as its ability to treat the illustrious clientele of the Royal Observatory. A solid table was chosen against the battle-scored oak wall that let him face the world. He set the paper aside and dickered for a plate of savoury oatmeal sausage and a tankard of roasted barley beer (ignoring the vile Shandy-gaff[1] being swilled not far away). The innkeeper set both down with considerable pride, stared Watson’s too-thin body up and down with a scathing look, and sniffed, offended that his guest had let himself go. “S mairg a ni tarcuis air biadh,” He leveled the challenge. “He who has contempt for food is a fool.”

  Watson dipped his head. “I agree,” he held up his fork with a genuine smile, mouth already watering from the rich odours of lovage, sage, coins of leek and razor-thin slivers of carrot and parsnip into the ground meat and a goose egg to hold it all together. Peppery winter savoury coated the top of the dish with dried thyme and the barest dash of lemon zest. The mound of buttermilk and mashed potatoes was only a gild upon the lily after that masterpiece.

  The innkeeper nursed his scowl, turning skeptical and solicitous under this thick beard. “Cockaleekie tomorrow,” he answered. “T’won’t last long. Barley bread too.”

  Watson enjoyed having control over his eating. Back at Baker Street, meals were often taken hastily and in the process of running, engineered by a man who felt his pipe-tobacco a more necessary source of sustenance.

  Not that Watson would ever call Holmes a fool. Not in anything. But Watson had never seen him approach a meal with anything less than a perfunctory obligation. He took his pleasures in other areas... all of them were either cerebral or a manifestation of the cerebral... such as his running down clews in a mud-drenched field...

>   His strength aggravated by the trains, full of a good meal with dark ale, Watson took to his room. It was a simple, basic fifteen-square foot affair with the luxury in the small things: the quality of the bed, and the silence of the thick walls. The window was small and solid, masking a good-natured polemic on the street between elderly draughts-players. Candle-sticks provided illumination (it was clear more modern illumination would enter this establishment in full protest). The maid brought warm water and supplied the location of the nearest Turkish bath. Watson thanked her, and passed on a tip for her troubles.

  Alone, he satisfied himself that the satchel was safely underneath the bed... his face dulled with dread for the future, but the true agony did not know what would actually happen tomorrow when he paid his calls.

  He missed Holmes, but he was also glad he was not here. This was like standing in a battlefield all over again; invisible cannons yawed before the doctor, full of terrible promise and he didn’t know which would fire first.

  He did miss Holmes, but they were alike in the oddest of ways.

  Neither liked to ask for help; it was better to offer it before putting the other in the quandary.

  And in this...

  Just as Holmes did not include his friend on cases for his own good... so Watson ought to return that courtesy.

  Watson slid the satchel deep under his bed with his foot, and was asleep almost as soon as the clean sheets were drawn over his chest.

  Sleep he needed. The hard work was about to come...

  Bradstreet and Lestrade had taken a later train. It gave them time to arrange the possible hasty search of Dr. Jonas Q. Parker’s English residence at a moment’s notice. This of course meant Bradstreet had to wax his most persuasive and invoke a large amount of trust with the superiors - Lestrade knew better than to try such tricks. The Chief was a fine man and a hard worker, but his loathing for Lestrade was rooted deep in a quarrel going back at least three generations and six wars. If he approved anything, it would be in the hopes that his hated little officer would be on his way to disgrace and dismissal.

  (Gregson was always happy to remind his rival that this guaranteed him the ‘honour and satisfaction’ of being the first on the Chief’s Special List - a blessedly short and depressing tally of cases no one was expected to solve in a thousand years).

  Thus, despite Bradstreet’s success in getting the pre-arranged warrant and the approved search, they were crippled at the restricted time. It was hoped in the strongest possible language that they would find their answers at Dr. Parker’s northern residence within 48 hours of arrival in Edinburgh.

  They’d sent their pre-planned ciphered wire to MacDonald and took up the lodgings he’d arranged for them. It was a quietly reserved inn directly across the street from Parker’s address (‘pure coincidence, but handy,’ he’d said). At the moment, they were more grateful that it gave them the time to wash off the layers of English soot that had collected on their persons during the trip.

  Inspector Alec Macdonald was that most unusual creature: a completely fair-haired, fair-skinned child of the Hebrides. His mind for detail was enviable, as well as his ability to draw those details together to come up with a scenario. Everyone knew he was doing the work of two men on a regular basis but he never once lost his good-hearted cheer and willingness to help.

  Which was just as well, Gregson had remarked once with great jealousy, for the man had the ability (either from sheer physical presence or from personality), to siphon all but the most minimal amounts of oxygen out of a room once he entered it. Combine that with an enviable Aberdonian education, and you had a fearsome package inside a frame that was more bone than flesh, and more brain than muscle.

  Edinburgh was one of his many hats; he had family in the city and that gave him an easy excuse for being here in the off-hours, sipping tea on the bench and chatting away the idleness. He was planning a transfer to London in a few months or by the end of next year, depending on the health of his father; Scotland wanted him to go as a good example they could be proud of, not to mention a reminder that Scotland was an asset to British justice.

  MacDonald listened intelligently around the obstacles of scrubbing and quick bites of food and asked pointed questions about policy and research; he was fascinated at the intricate details of the case and confessed he was curious to see if the rumours about Parker were true.

  “Seems like you’d have a better chance spying at the back.” The tall man offered at last. “Especially if there’s dark doings. Should I try to see if there’s a better address?”

  “We’re already here.” Bradstreet didn’t have to remind the others that extra expenditure meant extra censure from the Office. Nothing stifled initiative as quickly as the ice-cold prospect of having a case thrown completely out the window by someone sniffing ‘abuse of privilege.’

  “Watson’s signalling us by cigarette. He can’t really signal us as a gentleman from the Back Door.” Lestrade grabbed up the last bit of toast from his tray, checked to make sure it wasn’t contaminated by Bradstreet’s sprinkle of sugar, and chewed away.

  “Huh, you’re right. This is going to be a snorter, isn’t it?”

  “One of these days, you’re going to wear out that word.” Bradstreet grumbled.

  “I’ll just have to buy another ‘un.” MacDonald didn’t turn a hair.

  “Or find cases that don’t apply.” Lestrade couldn’t resist.

  “Now that’s daft talk.” MacDonald told him. It was exactly what Bradstreet had been thinking. “Where would that be? The Lost Umbrella Department?”

  “Now, that can be interesting.” Lestrade said sadistically. Talking whilst chewing helped him concentrate on a perfectly straight face. “Wasn’t it last year Bellows reported an old brolly on ‘Fourth that was being used to hide State Papers?”

  “Hidden up in the handle, wasn’t it?” Bradstreet proved his knowledge of small, deathless details as well as a willingness to add to MacDonald’s torture. “Then again, where else are you going to hide things? The stalks aren’t very big.”

  “Makes one wonder how many other brollies are being used for ulterior means.”

  “And there’s what - 4,000 unclaimed brollies in the department at any given time?”

  “Well, would you claim a lost’un if you were using it to pass on swag?”

  “We’ll never know... until someone subjects all 4,000-plus to a thorough search.”

  The Londoners turned and looked expectantly at their ersatz host.

  MacDonald scowled at them.

  “I’ll be outside,” he announced grandly. “Doing eemportant things. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He rose and with long-legged dignity, made his way to the door. “And speakin’ o’ umbrellas,” was his Parthian shot, “mebbe want to take your own. The weather does what she wants up here in the North.”

  BANG went the door.

  6: Bones Dried Up:

  “Our bones are dried up,

  our hope is lost,

  and we are cut off.”

  -EZEKIEL 37:11

  Watson awoke that morning to the tune of the little street-urchins calling for work or alms. Today he would begin.

  The morning news was not very interesting - that in itself was interesting, as it was Watson’s experience that Edinburgh could make a duck a newsworthy event.

  The memory could make him smile now, but at the time it had only caused gastric upset; a flying eiderdown mallard (and from only the Gods knew from where or to where), had aspired too high of a height whilst passing over the city. Unlike the Icarus of mythology, his wings had not melted but iced over, sending him plummeting to what would have been a death by normal standards if its loss of control hadn’t coincided with a passing waggon of construction-sand for the local ironmongery.

  Having been inordinately proud of his introduction
to Blackheath, Watson had been more than a little nauseated to find his brief moment in the sun eclipsed by an unlucky sea-fowl who later wound up as a pampered pet at the waggon-driver’s cotter.[2] His story had received exactly one paragraph of text. The mallard (replete with evilly beady eyes and a serrated beak which gave it a most unscrupulous leer in the illustrations) received three square inches of paper.

  I really was arrogant, wasn’t I? Watson asked himself with a wry shake of his head, smiling at the newsprint just as the tavern-keeper slipped a platter of black pudding to his elbow, side-dressed with a steaming mound of eggs. Expecting them to write up my achievements! A duck plummeting hundreds of feet and surviving really is a more newsworthy event; rugby players emerge on a daily basis!

  Still smiling at himself, he put a fork into his breakfast whilst a clustre of idlers mused aloud on the tribulations on a weather front that couldn’t be predicted by time or tide. The more things changed...

  “Do I know you, young sir?”

  Watson looked up into the face of a younger, much hairier version of last night’s tavern-keeper. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “Perhaps, though I haven’t lived here for a time.”

  “I mean no offence,” The man assured him. Watson lifted his left hand from the table at the wrist, conveying he understood. Family was not just a way of life and a reason for a blood-feud; family connexions were constantly lost and re-forged. “You simply remind me of a man I once knew... a teacher... he would tutor some of the boys with promise, even tho’ they never had much money.” A wistful note threaded through that smoke-roughened voice. “I was one of ‘em.” He said. A hammerhand thumb lifted up, touched his forehead. Watson noticed this aberration in fascination. “But I cannae remember ught I should... was hurt in the wreck o’the Yarrow. I don’t know his name, but... well you remind me of him somehow.”