Chapter Text
It was nearly midnight, and he was tipsy. Maybe a little more than tipsy. The lift dinged happily when it reached the twenty-ninth floor, and he used the wall to guide himself down the hall. When he reached his door, he placed his thumb on the reader and let himself in. His bed was calling to him, and he was hoping to take the pleasures of the evening—the dancing women and throbbing music and a few drags on a fag—into his dreams and sleep late into the morning, reveling in his own drunken revelry. Rivalry? Rivivalry? Riviviv . . . He chuckled to himself and hit the light.
He froze.
There, in his own sitting room, in his £3200 high-backed black leather armchair, wearing a dark suit, one leg crossed over, stiff as a statue, placid as a summer’s breeze, was Sherlock Holmes. Holding a gun. And he was pointing it directly as Sebastian Wilkes.
‘Close the door,’ Holmes said.
Wilkes gaped. But, as if of its own accord, his toe nudged the door closed.
‘How’joo . . .’ He swallowed, his throat suddenly burning and itchy. Slowing down, he tried again. ‘How’d you get in?’
‘Please,’ Holmes said with an air of condescension, as if the answer were the most obvious thing in the world.
‘I mean’—he laughed nervously—‘a little forewarning, mate? I wasn’t ssspecting . . .’ He was having trouble forming words through the slush of alcohol. For that matter, he was having trouble forming coherent thoughts. ‘You, er . . .’ He licked his parched lips. ‘You thinkin’ of taking that case ’gain?’ It had been a little over a week, and the police were nowhere near figuring out who had vandalised the bank’s property, let alone how the perpetrator had got in.
‘No.’
‘Oh.’
The gun didn’t waver. Wait, was that his gun? No, it couldn’t have been. He locked his in a safe in the bedroom.
‘I’m here on account of John.’
He felt a little more blood drain from his face. He didn’t mean . . . ? No, that little nit wouldn’t have dared. ‘Oh, your, um, your ward, is it?’ God, his head hurt. This was not the conversation he needed to be having, not tonight. He could barely think clear for two seconds together. ‘Feeling any better? Dunno, Sherlock, seemed a bit dodgy, that one. Not quite right in the head. Know what I mean? I’d, er, watch him. Might be trouble.’
‘Is that why you tried to murder him?’
Sebastian’s eyes snapped to the gun, and then back at Holmes’ face. Suddenly, he was feeling a hell of a lot soberer.
‘I didn’t.’
Sweat trickled down his back.
‘You’re a liar.’
‘Look,’ said Sebastian, trying to be stern, ‘don’t believe a word he says. He was trouble, right from the start. More trouble than he looks! He— he provoked me. He was basically asking for it!’
Holmes shot up from the chair and charged him. He startled backward and his already pounding skull struck the door, but next he knew, Holmes had him by the throat, and the pistol found a home square in the middle of his forehead.
‘Any reason I shouldn’t blow your goddam head off?’
‘Sherlock!’ he squeaked. ‘I can e’sssplain!’
‘I’m sure it’s one hell of an explanation, the things you did to him.’
Holmes seized the back of his collar and as good as dragged him across the room and down the hall, through his bedroom—he gawped when he saw the door to his safe hanging open—then into his own master bathroom. There, Holmes dropped him on the tiles inside his expansive walk-in shower. Then, at the violent twist of the knob, cold water erupted from the shower head and poured down upon him. He screamed as the shock of it fired every nerve.
‘Sober up,’ said Holmes. He gasped and let out high-pitched whimpers, twisting under the water. After a few seconds, Holmes killed the shower. Then, like he was king of the castle, he sat himself upon the closed lid of the toilet. Sebastian gulped for air and blinked rapidly, clearing his eyes, and he noticed two things: one, there was a carrier bag at Holmes’ feet; and two, a pair of cuffs was dangling from a metal support bar in the wall inside the shower.
‘Tell me about your debts, Seb.’
‘Please, Sherlock, this is insane. Insane.’
‘Tell me about the going rate for one night with a male ward.’
Sebastian sighed, his dripping head falling back into the tiled corner of the shower. ‘That little fucker.’
Holmes was instantly on his feet, looming overhead; Sebastian cowered.
‘Watch who you’re calling a fucker, you dumb fuck.’
‘Holmes!’ He was shaking, from cold, from fear. His hands stretched before him as a protective measure from being struck. ‘You can’t hurt me! You’ll never get away with it! I have friends, powerful friends! And the police—!’
‘You think I can’t fool the police. Me?’ He seized Wilkes’ wrist and, with the speed of a sleight-of-hand-trick magician, locked it in the handcuffs attached to the bar.
‘Oh God, what are you going to do to me? What are you going to—!’
But Holmes wasn’t answering his questions. Instead, he reached into the carrier bag and pulled out an identifying collar.
‘No no, please. Please! Holmes!’
But that was the last he could speak. Holmes fitted the collar around his neck, pressed his fingerprint to the activation button, and stepped back. Wilkes’ words turned into nothing but air. Every time he went to speak, an electric pulse relaxed the vocal cords, rendering them useless.
‘Can’t have you screaming for help once I’ve gone.’
This was not happening. He’d drunk more than he thought and was trapped in some sort of garish nightmare. This was not happening.
‘You and I are going to deal with this. But not tonight. I want you good and sober when I come back. And don’t think anyone will wonder where you are. Your PA thinks you’re in Hong Kong on business and won’t be back for another a week. You’ve told her not to bother you while you’re away.’
A week! Wilkes mouthed in alarm.
‘Meanwhile’—Holmes leant forward and lifted Wilkes’ phone from the inner pocket of his jacket—‘you’re going to stay right here, with nothing but your thoughts to condemn you. And this.’
Still holding Wilkes at gunpoint, Holmes pinched the bottom of the carrier bag to overturn it. Out spilt apples, a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, six tins of beans, and a carton of eggs.
‘I hard-boiled them myself,’ said Holmes, like it was a joke between friends. ‘All that should see you through for seven days, till I come back. I suggest you ration it well.’
All Wilkes could do was jangle his silver bracelets in protest. His eyes searched wildly for a means of escape. Not happening, not happening. He had no phone, no voice, nothing to call for help. Seven days, right here? Drinking shower water, eating cold beans straight from a tin? He couldn’t be serious! And what about the toilet? He couldn’t even reach the toilet!
Seeing his panicked gaze, Holmes followed it. ‘Oh, you probably want some toilet paper, eh?’ He pulled a roll off the wall and held it out to Wilkes. In disbelief, and with wet hands, Wilkes reached for it.
‘But it’ll cost you an apple.’
He snatched up one of the apples, winked at Wilkes, and took a large bite. Then, without further ado, promise, or threat, he took his leave.
***
When Sally Donovan opened her front door to find Sherlock Holmes standing with hands folded behind him and an imperiously raised chin, she jutted out her jaw and put a hand on her hip; the other gripped the door, ready to throw it back in its frame. Sherlock ignored the cold greeting.
‘I saw the wall calendar,’ he said quickly.
She blinked stupidly. ‘Excuse me?’
Good lord, was everyone a simpleton? He did weary of having to draw the lines of reasoning for even the most obvious statements.
‘At the Yard. I saw you had the day off.’
‘What the hell are you talking about? You haven’t been to the Yard in weeks. Lestrade’s made a point of being pissy about it.’
‘Yes, but you see, Sally,’ he said, condescendingly, ‘calendars often display the full month, not the week. I was there at the start of the month. May I come in?’
‘I’m taking a personal day, Holmes.’
‘And I’m here on a personal matter.’
Her confusion and curiosity warred with her impulse to slam the door. Sherlock waited her out. Things would go far more smoothly if she actually invited him in.
‘What matter?’ she finally asked, though dully, like she didn’t really care.
‘John.’
She blinked. ‘Your ward?’
Yes, her interest was most certainly piqued. Interesting. Her expression had softened, and strangely, Sherlock felt himself softening, for the simple fact that she had remembered the name attached to his ward was John, and not Jim.
‘Yes, my ward.’
‘What about him?’
Sherlock reached inside his pocket and pulled out a business card with Sgt Donovan’s name on and handed it back to her. ‘I understand this isn’t the first time you’ve given him your card.’
He had meant only to open the door to the purpose of his visit: to find out more about the night Donovan had found John at the bus station in Islington. So he was surprised when Donovan drew herself up and became defensive.
‘If you’re expecting an apology—’ she began.
‘What for?’
She scoffed. ‘You’re having me on.’
It occurred to him that now he was being the simpleton. Donovan thought he was upset with her for suggesting to John that he might need to call her if Sherlock mistreated him. Aha. So she had assumed Sherlock capable of abusing his own ward. Forty-eight hours ago, this would have riled him. Today, however, knowing now what he did about John’s last host, he felt only—and strangely—gratitude.
‘You did what you thought best. I ask again: May I come in?’
A little dumbfounded now, she stepped back. Sherlock entered her flat and saw she had company. On the sofa, putting a final gloss coat on recently painted nails, was a beautiful woman with dark brown eyes, long, raven locks, and light brown skin. She raised an eyebrow when Sherlock came into the room.
‘Sherlock, Janine, Janine, Sherlock Holmes.’
The woman called Janine made an aborted laugh. ‘The consulting detective, is it?’
Sherlock furrowed his brow. ‘Yes, in fact.’
‘Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you.’ She rose to her feet, blowing on her fingernails. ‘Forgive me if I don’t shake hands. Wet nails, you know.’
‘He’s not staying long,’ Donovan said, ‘but if we could have the room . . .’
‘Fine, it’s fine,’ said Janine, strolling by him and giving him the once-over, as if searching for his rumoured third appendage. ‘I was going to pop off to the shops anyway. Pleasure to meet you at last, Mr Holmes.’
He grunted but paid her little mind. The moment she was out of the room and the front door closed behind her, he returned to the matter that had brought him there: ‘You confuse me, Sally,’ he said conversationally.
‘An achievement, I reckon,’ she answered drily.
They stood in the middle of the sitting room facing one another. Neither moved to sit.
‘The night you met John, what exactly did you see? A lone ward out past curfew, clearly, but what else? As a Ward Patrol officer, your duty dictates that you should have scanned his tattoo, cited him for violation, and escorted him straight home, if not to a holding cell. Instead, you took him to a diner, watched him eat, declined to cite him at all, and even made excuses for him to his host. Why? What did you see that compelled you to show such compassion on him?’
‘I—’
‘Was it the sallow skin and bony cheeks? Was he, perhaps, sporting bruises or scratches? Or was it simply that he seemed so alone, and afraid?’
Donovan folded her arms, but it was not a posture of defiance, as he was used to seeing in her. Rather, she seemed to be holding herself together, and her eyes looked pained.
‘You did suspect, then,’ Sherlock continued, ‘that his host was a bastard. John didn’t have to say a word for you to know that. So why did you return him? Why not take him to a ward sanctuary? There’s the rub, Sally. You didn’t report him. A kindness, yes, but a small one. What kindness was there, really, in returning him to an abusive host? As I say, you confuse me.’
Donovan closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. When she opened them again, she stepped back toward the sofa and slowly sat. Sherlock found a chair and, without an invitation, sat with her.
‘How bad?’ she asked. ‘His last host. How bad was he?’
‘Bad.’ But Sherlock would not elaborate except to say, ‘Tried to kill him, in the end. Bullet to the shoulder. It’s a wonder he survived.’
‘My God,’ Donovan murmured, covering her mouth.
‘He wasn’t even fully recovered when they placed him in a pound and set the countdown for his expiration,’ Sherlock said bitterly. ‘That’s where I found him.’
‘I knew it,’ she sighed. ‘I knew something was off with his host. Walking away from that door after it slammed in my face, knowing he was in for it—’
‘Why didn’t you do something?’ He gesticulated frantically toward the door, as if they were right outside of Wilkes’ flat and had just handed John over to him. ‘If you knew it was bad, if you had even just suspected, why didn’t you do something to stop it?’
‘Like what?’ Donovan’s head snapped up and her eyes flashed angrily. ‘For a ward like John? It would have been Storage, not sanctuary.’
‘What do you mean, a ward like John?’
‘Don’t be obtuse, Holmes. There are sanctuaries for child wards, sanctuaries for female wards, even sanctuaries for elderly wards. There are no sanctuaries for the adult males. It’s a brief stint at a pound as a token gesture of good faith, then it’s off to Storage, end of story.’ She held her cheeks and looked heavenward, it seemed, but Sherlock could see it was only to keep her tears from falling. When she had regained her composure, she said, ‘It’s why I wanted off Ward Patrol. I fought for years to get reassigned. I couldn’t take it anymore. Wards like your John, I saw too many of them. It was such a relief to be put on Lestrade’s team, you have no idea.’
‘You prefer dead bodies to living ones?’
She glared. ‘I prefer the dead to the dying, yeah, that’s about it. Jesus.’ She ran her hands over her head, flattening her frizzy hair. ‘We send them to Storage, and not one of them comes back. Not that I’ve ever heard. I’m responsible for that. Me. For dozens, maybe hundreds of them. I can’t even stand to look at myself in the mirror anymore.’
‘Sally.’ Sherlock sat forward, circumspectly casting his eyes to the windows and doorway. They were alone, but he lowered his voice all the same. ‘What is Storage, exactly?’
Although part and parcel of the common parlance, it was a word he used without much thought of the true nature of the thing. He supposed that Storage was something dull, stifling, like a bad care home, from which one never left. But he didn’t know. She looked at him like he was a dunce.
‘Permanent Shelter for Unplaced Wards, obviously,’ he hastened to say. ‘But the title says little of what it really is.’
She continued to stare at him, not in challenge, but as though contemplating whether to even answer. ‘We’re not to talk of it,’ she said, though softly, like a reminder to herself, a warning. Then, a little louder, ‘Not that I know anything. Not really. I’ve never been. But I signed a goddamn-nondisclosure agreement when I took the job, so there’s really nothing I can—’
‘I’ll not get you sacked,’ he promised. ‘I won’t get you into trouble at all. No one even has to know I came today. Your friend—Janine, was it? Make something up. Say you threw me out. But Sally. Please. I . . . I have to know more.’
‘What for? Thinking of storming the castle?’
‘Is it a castle then?’ he said with a smile, trying his damnedest to be friendly.
She sniffed and shook her head. ‘Hell if I know. I don’t know if it’s one place or many, or a place at all. Permanent Shelter for Unplaced Wards is a kind way of putting it.’ She glanced at the windows and the parted curtain. ‘It’s an acronym.’
‘What is?’
‘Storage. Thought it was a nickname, didn’t you? Everyone does. Permanent Shelter for Unplaced Wards is the PR term, but on official documents kept from the public, it goes by a different name. Governments, they love acronyms, don’t they? Handy tools to manage not only their wordy, unwieldy terms, but to hide them. But one way or the other, a euphemism is a euphemism. Using words to disguise and obscure the truth. They’re good at it, eh?’
‘Go on, then, what does it stand for?’
‘State Terminus for Orphans and Refugees for Asylum Guardianship until Expiration.’ He stared at her, and she laughed without humour. ‘Told you it was a mouthful of nonsense.’
‘Terminus,’ he repeated.
‘End of the line. Appropriate, don’t you think?’
Sherlock frowned. ‘What happens to them there?’
‘That,’ she sighed, resting back into the sofa, ‘was far above my pay grade. But let’s be honest. Nothing good.’
Whatever it was, one thing was for certain: John had been heading there. And all those male wards that had been on the floor with him, ones Sherlock had barely glanced at, chances were, they had ended up there in the end.
‘Some days,’ he said, ‘I wonder what came over me that day, when I saw John in the pound. I barely even thought about it. Me! And I think about everything. If I had known everything he’d been through, and how much he would struggle because of it . . .’
Donovan narrowed her eyes. ‘You regret taking him on?’
‘No.’ It was a truth that needed no interrogation: He didn’t regret John. ‘But it chills me.’
‘What does?’
He cringed against the confession. ‘If I had known just how damaged he was, or how much of myself I would need to give to help him . . . I would have been too afraid to take him on. I would have left him there.’ And if he had done, Sherlock, none the wiser, wouldn’t even know, or care, and just the thought of it made his chest ache, like there was an unfathomable hole carved out of him. ‘He’d be dead because of me.’
‘Because of the system, Holmes.’ Then, under her breath, she murmured, ‘We need more people to fight it.’
Her vitriolic tone surprised him, and before he could even consider what he was asking, and whom, he blurted out, ‘Are you a Highwayman?’
She blanched. ‘What?’
‘Or do you know any? Or where I can find them?’
‘Holmes! I’m a police officer!’
‘And a ward sympathiser! Never mind, forget I asked.’
‘I’d lose my job if I ever even uttered those syllables together. You do realise that, don’t you?’
‘And I told you, I’m not here to get you sacked. I’m here because you’re an ally!’ There was a beat. ‘Aren’t you?’
She glanced at the windows in the back of the flat; the curtains were open. Abruptly, she was on her feet, pulling Sherlock to his, and turning him to the door. ‘It’s my personal day, Holmes, and you’ve outworn your welcome.’
‘Sally—’
She yanked the door open and ushered him through it. But before she slammed it in his face, her heard his hiss, ‘Damn right, I am.’
The door closed with a bang.
***
John scrambled for the switch on the lamp, nearly knocking it over in the process. But as the bulb burst into light, he caught it at the base and kept it standing.
Shooting upright, he clutched the blanket to his chest while his eyes wildly traced the edges of illumination. My bed, my room, my flat, he thought. This is home, this is home. His chest ached from such sharp and rapid breaths, and his shirt stuck to hot skin. Despite his overheated body, he was shaking all over. He balled his fists, flung off the covers, and sat on the edge of the mattress, facing Dover. A terrified whimper escaped his mouth, and he covered it quickly with a hand. It wouldn’t do to make noise. Not at such an hour.
The bad dreams weren’t going away. They never did, entirely, but there were times in his life when they were worse than others. And since seeing Mr Wilkes at the bank, they had been very bad.
In the aftermath of the shooting, he had blocked much of it from his mind. It wasn’t that he didn’t remember what happened—he just found it easier not to think about that day at all, how awful it had been, how frightening, how painful. The worst day in his life? Possibly. There were contenders. Like the day the woman who let him call her ‘Mum’ had been murdered, or the day those men had come for him, held him down, and cut him up. Or even that day at the crossroads when he realised, the first time, that he wasn’t wanted in this world. But being shot by a host who hated him as much as Mr Wilkes had hated him had been, certainly, the greatest physical pain he had ever known.
It amazed him, sometimes, thinking of it, that he was still breathing at all. He should have died that day. Mr Wilkes clearly believed he would. He remembered lying on the floor of the ward room, his whole chest feeling like it was on fire. He could barely breathe with the pain. Blood saturated his whole front, so much of it that he could scarcely believe it was his own. This was dying, and he should have known it would be an anguishing ordeal.
Mr Wilkes stood over him, looking down, but that madness that had seized him and made him pull that trigger had vanished. Instead, his mouth gaped at what he’d done. He looked down at the gun in his hand, back at his dying ward, and he came to a decision. First, he scrubbed the gun with the front of his own shirt, like he was polishing it, and then forced the weapon into Tiny’s own hand, curling his senseless fingers around the grip while muttering, ‘He did this to himself, he wanted this. He tried to kill himself. Shot himself, shot himself.’
Then, with startling decisiveness, Mr Wilkes fled the room and slammed the door closed behind him, leaving Tiny to die.
He didn’t. With what little sense remained through the blinding, bewildering pain, he obeyed whatever instinct was in him that fought to live, even after he had so long wished to die. So he dropped the gun from already loose fingers, dragged himself across the floor, creating a smear of blood behind him, and grabbed his sorry excuse for a blanket, which he bunched into a ball. Then he rolled over, pressing his body weight on top of it to stave off the steady bleeding, not realizing he was bleeding from his back as well, where the bullet had left his body. Beyond that, he didn’t know what to do. There was no more help for him, and he knew he would most surely die. So why did he linger? Time dragged on, and he grew weaker, colder. The corners of his vision were darkening. The last thing he recalled was a distant crash, a voice calling out, ‘Hello? Is there anyone at home?’, and the wavy thought that he had entered a different place where there was no more pain, no more hate, and the presence of someone who had once loved him, welcoming him home. Yes, he thought, but could not speak, I’m here.
It was funny, though. He didn’t dream of being shot. He dreamt more often of waiting to be shot. His dreams were filled with dark rooms and cold spaces, and sometimes there were others in the room, hurting or tormenting him, but he was always waiting for a door to burst open and a man with a gun to come shoot him dead.
‘You know what nightmares really are, Twitch?’ asked Mrs Hastings, sitting beside him on the mattress where he lay curled and crying. She patted his shoulder a bit gruffly. ‘Penance for the bad things little boys have done, to warn them off from doing them again. Good boys have good dreams, understand? There now. You start being good, and the nightmares will go away. I won’t have to come in here at midnight to calm you down anymore. Won’t that be a blessing to us both?’
John let out a shaky sigh. He pulled his eyes away from Dover and dropped his head into his hands. Be a good ward, he thought, and the dreams will go away.
A light knocking sounded at the door, and his head snapped up. Half a second later, he heard Mr Holmes’ voice on the other side. ‘John?’
He sniffed and rubbed his hands under his eyes, trying to dry them. Before he could trust his voice to answer, the door creaked open and Mr Holmes poked his head in. His curls were all askew and he had pillow creases denting the side of his face.
‘Mind if I come in?’
John tensed. All he wore was a sweat-soaked t-shirt and pyjamas, quite improper for being in the presence of one’s host, no matter the host’s own state of undress. Yes, Mr Holmes had seen him in worse condition, completely bare, but that couldn’t have been helped. He had needed to see the condition of the ward he was purchasing (and it was still a wonder to John why, after seeing all he saw, he had taken him on anyway) and know if there were any defects to worry about. Since then, though, John had taken care to always be fully dressed and presentable, and never show bare feet. Bare feet in another person’s home, he had learnt long ago, was the height of rudeness.
His toes curled, embarrassed. But Mr Holmes was waiting for permission, and though he had no business either to grant or deny, he knew Mr Holmes was waiting for an answer. So he nodded shyly, and his host stepped into the room.
Mr Holmes bore a bowl in one hand, his arm draped with a flannel, and a litre bottle of water in the other, a mug dangling off his forefinger. He gave John a close-lipped smile and set these things on the desk, then went to the wardrobe and pulled out a fresh shirt for him to change into. John was nonplussed. It had been only two nights since his horrible confession, and Mr Holmes had been nothing but kind. John hardly knew what to do with that.
Mr Holmes turned his back to give John some privacy, and while John undressed and redressed, he poured some of the water from the bottle into the bowl, then dipped the flannel. By the time he turned back around, John was in dry clothes but still sat uncertainly on the edge of the mattress, wondering why Mr Holmes had come to his room at this time of night, and what would happen next.
‘Thought you might be thirsty,’ said Mr Holmes, pouring water into the mug.
He was thirsty. How did Mr Holmes know? How did he even know John was awake? Then realised he must have been noisy after all.
‘Sorry to have disturbed you, Mr Holmes,’ he said.
‘Tosh,’ said Mr Holmes, casting him another smile. He took the balled dirty shirt from John’s hands and passed him the mug, then tossed the shirt into the clothes hamper. John was mortified that his host was handling his dirty laundry. But Mr Holmes didn’t mention it, didn’t even wipe his fingers on his dressing gown.
He’s not like other hosts, John reminded himself.
John sipped from the mug. The cool water relieved the dryness of his mouth, and he drank more greedily. Mr Holmes wrung out the flannel and indicated he should press it to his overwarm face to cool off. It was just the thing he needed.
‘Want to know what my mother always said about bad dreams?’ said Mr Holmes, pulling out the desk chair and settling in. It seemed he would stay a while, and that he wasn’t the least bit bothered by John’s night-time dress. John felt himself relaxing, and his curiosity piqued. Was it the same thing Mrs Hastings had said?
‘A dream is the stuff of shadows, she said. It has the form of something real and recognisable, but upon waking, we see it has no substance. It’s immaterial.’ There was a beat as Mr Holmes smiled sadly, looking unconvinced himself. ‘Not very helpful, is it? But then, she was a poet and philosopher, and a student of Shakespeare. So take it for what it’s worth.’
The stuff of shadows, John pondered. He supposed it made sense. Then again . . . something real had to block out the light to make the shadow. Right? Something material? But this was a stupid thing to think, and so he kept his doubts to himself.
‘I do miss her, sometimes,’ said Mr Holmes softly, as though to himself. He was looking at the interlaced fingers in his lap, his smile less bright.
‘Has she passed, sir?’
‘Almost ten years ago, now.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You would have liked her, John.’ His eyes lifted, and the brightness of his smile returned. ‘She would have liked you. She would have fussed over you more than even Mrs Hudson, if you can believe it.’
‘What happened to her?’ The moment he spoke, he gasped, stunned he had even dared to ask such a question. But before he could hasten to apologise, Mr Holmes was already answering.
‘Millennium Bridge.’
John gasped again, but for an entirely different reason now.
‘Awful, wasn’t it? Mum and Dad were in the city for New Years, and of course they wanted to go out, see the fireworks. They wanted Mycroft and me to go with them, but I was going through an especially surly phase, and Mycroft used work as an excuse, as he always does, and so, well, they went out on their own, and chose the bridge as their vantage point. They sent me a photo of the two of them, three minutes before midnight. Four minutes before the bridge blew up.’ Mr Holmes cleared his throat. ‘That was my first case with the Yard, you know. Tracking down the radicals who had sent the suicide bombers. Only time Mycroft and I ever worked together on something. Even now, all these years later . . . I tell myself: you should have gone out with them that night. Why didn’t you go! I knew of better vantage points. I would have taken them to the rooftops, away from the crowds. Of course, they would target crowds, and on a holiday, well, I should have been able to predict . . . Never mind. They’ve all been executed now, haven’t they? And Mum and Dad were just two of not quite two thousand who perished that night.’
John remembered hearing about the collapse. He had been living in Battersea at the time, some five miles from where the explosions had happened. Though he had been lying down and trying to sleep in what the other labourers called ‘the nest’, he thought he could hear the fireworks going off over the Thames. But that might have been his imagination. It wasn’t easy to hear much of anything above the noise of the machinery. But next morning, it was all anyone could talk about. Some blamed German terrorists, others homegrown radicals, others the Irish. All John could remember thinking, though, was that it wouldn’t be such a shame—would it?—if Mr Wellerstein had happened to be on that bridge. No one knew where he was. Was it possible he’d blown up with the rest of them? But then Mr Wellerstein returned. He’d only been to Wales for the New Year, he said, visiting family, and John, then called Boone, felt guilty he had ever allowed himself to think such nasty things. He’d been such a bad ward.
‘What were they like?’ John asked.
‘Who, my parents?’ Sherlock stretched his legs out and flexed his toes. He wasn’t wearing socks, either. ‘Ah, well. Good people. Ordinary, maybe. But good. A hard man, my old dad, but not unkind, and he had Mum to balance him out. But she was hard in her own right. No-nonsense, stern, but . . . well, she’d have to be, raising an imp like me. The stuff I got up to, she said I turned her hair grey by thirty.’
He winked at John to show he was joking, and it was all affection.
‘There was this one day—I was very young, mind you—I got into the pantry and stole half a dozen raw eggs because I wanted to hatch chicks. And I didn’t know what it would take, so I put one in my sock drawer, and one under a lamp in the study, and . . . one under Mum’s pillow.’
Seeing where this story was going, John pinched his lips together as a smile began to break across his face.
‘I can still hear her voice,’ Mr Holmes continued, getting animated. ‘Eleven at night, me tucked away in bed, the whole house is quiet. Then suddenly: Sherlock, you scallywag!’ He chuckled. ‘She had egg yolk dripping from her hair when she came stomping into my room to have a shout at me.’
‘Did you get into much trouble, sir?’ John asked, wondering if little free children were punished for misbehaviour the way little ward children were.
‘Oh heavens, yes.’
‘Often?’
‘The real question, John, is when did I not?’ He laughed. ‘Mother suffered no fools. I could outsmart the lot of them, but never her. She had a sixth sense for when I was up to no good.’
‘I . . .’ John had a sudden impulse to reciprocate; it was a strange sensation. ‘I was once warded to a woman who kept chickens,’ he said. ‘It was my job to gather their eggs.’
‘Indeed?’ Mr Holmes seemed genuinely interested, and he was encouraged to continue.
‘I was pretty young, too. The chickens lived in a wire coop, and I thought it wasn’t right, to trap them like that. So, one day, I set them all free. I didn’t know chickens were such bad flyers.’
Mr Holmes threw back his head and laughed, and John, feeling a warmth quite separate from the dream begin to swell within him, felt the laughter as a contagion, and he laughed, too, though without sound. It felt good. Whatever fear had gripped him just five minutes ago he could now barely recall.
Mr Holmes stayed for a bit, telling him stories from his childhood, mischievous antics he’d got himself mixed up in or at the head of. At his host’s insistence, he settled back into the bed to listen, and before long, his eyelids grew heavy again. He wouldn’t realise it until next morning, when he awoke, but he fell asleep to that voice and its deep, soothing tones reciting tales from a happy childhood, which John had always hoped was real, if not for him, then for someone.
***
It occurred to Sherlock, after seeing the longing in John’s eyes as he listened to Sherlock talk about his family, that he had done exactly the wrong thing in alienating the one person who was as close to a mother as John had in his life.
So next evening, for John’s sake, he swallowed his pride like it was a whole lemon, and knocked on the door of 221A.
She answered in her dressing gown, house slippers, and the specs she wore at night to help her read. Clearly, she was readying for bed and hadn’t expected visitors, least of all her upstairs tenant who had been so cold to her for so many days. All right, weeks. So the first words out of her mouth shouldn’t have been a surprise.
‘Is there trouble with the hot water again?’ she asked. ‘I swear, that boiler is just giving me fits!’
‘Not the hot water, no,’ said Sherlock. He felt stung that she thought it was his only reason for visiting, and surly that it was entirely his own fault. ‘I came by to invite you to dinner tomorrow night.’
To her credit, she controlled the shock and replied simply, ‘Oh. Thank you.’
He sighed. ‘And to say . . .’ Why was the word sorry so difficult to utter? ‘John misses you.’
‘I see.’ She smoothed down the front of her dressing gown, if only for something to do. ‘Well. I’ve missed him, too.’
‘Fine. I’ve missed you. I was wrong to get upset. I was wrong to ask anything of you, especially something as big as taking on the care of another human being. So. I’m . . . sorry.’
‘Oh Sherlock,’ she said sadly. ‘Please understand. I would gladly take care of John, if I could. But . . .’
‘It’s fine, Mrs Hudson. He’s my responsibility, and one I am happy to have. Besides, I could use the extra incentive not to render myself incapacitated.’ He smiled to show he was joking. But he was quite serious.
‘What I mean is—’ Her eyes glanced past him to the foyer, checking whether it was empty. ‘Is he upstairs?’
‘Crime Watch just started. It’s now part of our nightly routine. He likes guessing whodunnit. You want to . . . ?’
He was thinking to invite her up, but she took his wrist to draw him nearer, and when she spoke next, it was in a low tone. ‘I have something to tell you. Something I should have told you. It’s just . . . not easy to talk about.’
Something twisted inside him, like a once-straight rod suddenly struck and forced to coil. The gravity in her voice, her misting eyes, the fear that made her bottom lip tremble. All at once, he thought he knew what she was about to say, and he felt a part of himself shrivelling in objection.
‘You’re dying,’ he said, stunned.
Her eyes went wide. Then, to his astonishment, she laughed, as though relieved. ‘Gracious me, no! Well, at least not yet. A few years left in these old bones, I reckon.’
Relief washed over him, but left him perplexed. ‘Then . . . ?’
‘Come in, love. Please. I don’t want John to overhear.’
He followed her inside and closed the door, wondering vaguely whether John was missing him.
They sat at her table, where Mrs Hudson proceeded to open and close her mouth several times, as though unable to speak despite her best efforts.
‘Are you quite all right?’ He wasn’t altogether convinced she wasn’t dying.
‘I’m fine, dear,’ she said, halfway to exasperated. ‘It’s just . . . That is . . . Sherlock, I want you to understand . . .’
‘Whatever it is, just say it,’ he said abruptly.
She began: ‘I love John, I really do. And, oh, Sherlock, you’re so good to him. He’s transformed. I’m sure you see it. And not only John, but you, as well. Lord knows I had my doubts, in the beginning, but you’ve truly made him your family, just as he deserves. I mean, that’s the way it should be, isn’t it? Frankly, I’ve never seen you happier.’
Sherlock hadn’t been expecting the evaluation. He was strangely pleased she approved of how he hadn’t absolutely cocked things up, but he knew this was all preamble, because she hadn’t yet arrived at her point. Tamping down his impatience at the hedging, he waited her out.
‘It’s something I’m . . . so happy to be part of, even if just from the touchline.’
‘I don’t think of you as standing at the touchline,’ Sherlock argued. ‘I couldn’t have done any of this on my own. You said you wanted to help.’
‘Yes, and I do, Sherlock, I really do. In every way.’
‘Then why—?’
‘Please just listen.’ Her fingers interlocked nervously. ‘Hosting is the duty of all Britons, yes? One of the most important duties. But not all adults are hosts. There are exemptions. And others of us are prohibited.’
She had arrived, but as far as Sherlock was concerned, she hadn’t said anything yet at all.
‘Prohibited,’ he repeated dumbly.
She shook her head, casting her eyes down at her interlaced fingers. The posture of shame was familiar, in that he had seen it in John more times than he could count. But in Mrs Hudson?
‘You are prohibited.’
‘Yes.’
‘Since when! You’ve hosted before.’
She shook her head.
‘Yes, you have, you told me—’
‘I never did, Sherlock. Not really. I just . . . let you assume.’
Was that true? He could have sworn she’d hosted before, probably a female, but searching his memory, no, he could unearth no specifics about any ward that had ever lived at Baker Street before, or any particulars from Mrs Hudson’s past at all. Given her age, he just assumed she had hosted until reaching the age of exemption and . . . stopped.
‘Never?’
‘Never.’
‘Because . . .’ He leapt to another conclusion: ‘You’re an ex-convict?’
She sighed. ‘No.’
‘A firebrand?’
‘No . . .’
‘German?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure you’re not dying?’
‘Sherlock, please.’
‘Then out with it, Mrs Hudson!’
She covered her face with her hands, which Sherlocked observed were older and more spotted than he remembered. He wanted to hold them, calm her down, and reassure her that whatever it was, whatever she had done or been, it didn’t matter. When she removed them, her face was red, her eyes already misted. ‘I was thirty-five, as old as you are now . . .’
‘Yes,’ he urged.
‘When I was emancipated.’
It was like she had poured ice water down his back. A chill raced through him. ‘You . . .’ he whispered.
‘Yes.’
‘. . . were a . . .’
‘Yes.
‘. . . ward?’
She nodded.
‘You! A ward!’
‘I never wanted you to know,’ she said miserably. ‘You or anyone. It’s such a horrible thing to be!’
Then, to his horror, she broke down and cried.
His chair screeched as he started to his feet. He’d had some practice at it now, this comforting lark, and was no longer shy about embracing those he loved. He did so now. But unlike John, she was entirely receptive and reciprocal, putting her arms around his neck and squeezing him back. ‘Oh Sherlock!’ she sobbed. ‘For you to see me like this!’
He had no words, just held her in stunned silence until she had recovered herself enough for him to go make tea while she dried her eyes and calmed herself. But even when he returned with the tea, he was reeling on the inside, bursting with a thousand question, and trying to fit together the puzzle of her past with what he knew, supposed, and what had just been revealed. But it didn’t fit.
He sat and passed her the tea, though it was still too hot to drink. He laid a hand on her arm. ‘Better?’
She nodded glumly.
Squeezing his hand gently around her arm, he said, ‘I want you to know something, too. You’ve nothing, nothing at all, to be ashamed of.’
‘It can’t be helped. Until you’ve lived it, you can’t know the shame of it. The way most others look at you, treat you. You can’t really know.’
‘Nothing changes. I adore you, you know that.’ He spoke matter-of-factly and so was surprised to see her appear so taken aback. Surely, it had always been obvious? (Disregarding his most recent behaviour.)
‘I have questions,’ he continued, ‘but if you’d rather not talk . . .’
‘It’s difficult for me,’ she said. ‘But I want you to understand. Not for my sake. For John’s.’
He squeezed her arm again. She set her hand atop his. ‘Then help me understand. Why did you never say? All this time, I just assumed . . . But why shouldn’t I? You have a family! A sister, a niece and nephew. I didn’t think wards had families.’
‘We’re not blood,’ said Mrs Hudson sadly. ‘The woman I call my sister, she was my host’s daughter. We’ve always been close, Mona and I. She invites me to Christmas with her family every year. The children, they believe . . . they think I’m just a dear family friend. They don’t know what I once was.’
‘Then,’ he said, ‘your host family was good to you?’
‘They were. Very good to me.’ She looked at him very seriously. ‘But it was still the life of a ward.’
‘So you never hosted yourself. When you told me you had found your last ward a good home, and that she was happier for it . . . you were lying.’
She sighed. ‘I was talking about myself. I couldn’t tell you, Sherlock, that I’d never hosted before. You would ask why, and, well. I couldn’t face your knowing that your landlady was once a ward of the state.’
She spoke the word with such derision that he winced at the word. ‘Mrs Hudson,’ he began in censure.
‘Don’t mind me. Now you know.’
‘Yes, but if you think I would have been bothered, that my opinion of would have been in any way lessened—’
‘Before John?’ She patted his arm again, but could not look him in the face. ‘I don’t know about that. You’ve always been uncomfortable with the very subject. Until lately. You don’t see how greatly that man has changed you.’
Sherlock supposed there was some truth in this—but he rejected the notion that he would have thought poorly of Mrs Hudson, had he known she had once been warded. For thirty-five years? A non-actor in her own life, having no rights to property, lacking any power of decision-making on her own behalf, unable to wander outside the boundaries of her own district of registration. How had she escaped it?
‘I’ve never heard of anyone being emancipated before.’
‘It was never common.’
‘Then how—?’
‘The Department for Ward Social Care has their provisions whereby wards can gain citizenship status, as dictated by the CFCA. But they discourage it at every turn. In my day, it was difficult enough. Then Lord Magnussen took over, and since then . . .’
‘But how did you manage it? What did you have to do? Why would they make it so difficult? It’s completely counter-intuitive! Emancipating them means one less ward to support, one more citizen to pay taxes to finance the programme—’
‘What do you know,’ she interrupted, ‘of the history of the CFCA?’
‘I know the broad brushstrokes. What they teach us in school, I guess. I made little study of it beyond that.’
‘Then you know little of anything.’
The Compulsory Foster Care Act had come about as a result of the Surge of 1956. Even primary school children knew that. But, as was commonly taught, the Surge wouldn’t have been necessary if Old Britain hadn’t lost the Great War.
Following the 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in former Sarajevo, the once-stable world powers had been thrown into war. Britain joined the Allies in the fight against the Central Powers, a war that lasted eleven years. Many military historians believed that if America, with all its military power, had not remained neutral and entered the fray as an ally, the War could have been over far sooner, and not ended in such devastation. Others blamed the sovereign states closer to home that refused to take sides, like the so-called Neutral Ally, Norway, the Traitor Nation.
But such was speculative history, and had no bearing on what had, in fact, transpired. Russia surrendered first, in 1919, and both France and Italy were summarily defeated and absorbed into the German Empire in 1921. Meanwhile, the United States had its own troubles: it was at war with Mexico to recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, which had been annexed by Mexico, not realising that Germany was financing Mexico’s war efforts. For four more devastating years, Britain fought alone to keep itself free, but they were a sinking ship, and gaining water fast. Children were sent away for their own safety to foreign lands across vast seas, never to return; defectors and cowards declared their loyalty to the Empire even before the official surrender; and then, in 1925, then-Prime Minister David Lloyd George issued what history would call the most ignominious surrender in British history, and Old Britain officially died. Its monarchy scattered and fled, some to Canada, some to India and Australia. Those who remained were summarily assassinated, right down to the last duke and earl.
For the next thirty-one years, the British Isles were just another outpost of the German Empire, and Britons lived under the German flag, learnt German in school, sang German songs, and honoured their new Emperor, Wilhlem II, until his death in 1941, followed by his son, Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, until his death in 1951, and last of all, his grandson, Louis Ferdinand, who reigned only five years. That’s when Britons’ underground coalitions, calling themselves Highwaymen, took action. This time, they were supported by new allies in the United States, led by a general named Eisenhower, who initiated the Surge that would drive German invaders out of all its conquered territories, establish new countries and new borders, and restore to Britons their homeland.
But the Surge, though successful, wasn’t without great cost. Families had been decimated. Cities lay in ruins, from Aberdeen to Plymouth. Ireland had suffered the greatest, when the fission bombs had been dropped on Belfast and Cork, the headquarters of the rumoured insurgents. The monarchy lay in ruins. Elizabeth II remained abroad and in hiding and wouldn’t return for another twenty years. Parliament had to be started from scratch by the few who remembered how to do it. And one of their first courses of action was to care for the tens of thousands—by some estimates, nearly half a million—of orphaned children. Initial recommendations for large orphanages were rejected by the House of Commons under pressure from the Americans, whose scientists proclaimed the harmful effects of institutionalised care on childhood development. Instead, a system of foster care was proposed, modelled after the one operating in the United States, ensuring that every child belong to a British family for his or her support until the age of eighteen. With the passing of the Compulsory Foster Care Act, it became the duty of every ‘family unit’ (so defined as a married couple) to foster at least one orphan child, called a ‘ward of the state’, inasmuch as there were wards needing care. A lottery system was instituted, and in its first year, approximately one in every twelve families served as hosts to ward children.
But the CFCA was a work in progress. It needed oversight, management, and a veritable army of labourers to keep it operating, and in 1965, the Department for Ward Social Care was established. The public responded, but not in a way that anyone predicted. Unwed mothers abandoned newborn babies in hospitals; unruly boys from the country were driven into London and left there, confident that the system would look after them; first-born daughters were discarded into the system in favour of maintaining first-born sons. Within two years, nearly double the number of families were serving as hosts. Soon, ‘family units’ were expanded to include voluntary ‘adult caregivers’, and four years after that, ‘adult caregivers’ was redefined as ‘every adult of means’, excluding only the poor or those with an excess of children (four or more). There just weren’t enough families to meet the needs of all wards. And the need was growing.
Due to high rates of unemployment, homelessness, and suicide among wards emancipated at eighteen, the Ministry of Wards changed the age of emancipation to twenty years in 1972 to give them an extra two years to mature and become self-sufficient; in 1975, the age was raised again to twenty-five; and in 1980, again to thirty-one. By then, the proposal had been made, argued, and accepted: that any and all Britons unable to provide for their own care should be partakers in the Ward Social Care Programme. The homeless, the unemployed, the handicapped, and the mentally ill all became warded.
‘This is a proud day for our country,’ said then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in an address to the House of Commons, ‘for today is the day we ensure that every man, woman, and child has a place to call home, and a people to call family. Never again will a child go hungry. Never again will a woman cry herself to sleep because she cannot find work to care for herself. Never again will a man wonder where he will lay his head at the end of the day. We are a nation of people concerned for the welfare of our neighbours. Brother caring for brother. Sister caring for sister. And are we not all children of New Britain?’
In the year 1989, a ‘ward’ was officially redefined as a lifetime designation to ensure ‘provision and care for the lifespan of the ward’. At that, wards were relieved of citizenship rights and responsibilities, including voting, holding a job, having a bank account, owning property, marrying, procreating, or emigrating. As recompense, wards were assured an education, health care, and protections from hardship and abuses. Time would erode those promises, until the education requirement was minimal because it was unnecessary, the health care substandard because it was expensive, and all the promised protections were poorly enforced.
Sherlock had been born in 1995, after all the deteriorations to the programme and subsequent unequal status of wards had yielded what activists described as a near master-slave-like relationship between hosts and wards, a characterisation Sherlock had always scoffed at as hyperbole. That is, until very, very recently. Had he been paying better attention, he would have taken note of the signs of disparity. They were everywhere: Wards were not permitted in places like public libraries or fine restaurants or high-end shops, or any place else with a sign barring them entrance. They had their own buses and cars on trains, when not traveling with a host. They had to identify themselves on the street via light-visible bracelets, and they were marked, branded, with a tattoo that linked to their registration file.
The justification was this: ‘No ward will ever have to worry about falling through the cracks. Your hosts will watch over you. Ward Social Care will watch over you. At all times, we’ll know where you are. You are safe.’
Which begged the question: where was Mrs Hudson’s tattoo? Sherlock glanced down at her arm and saw she wore long sleeves. Had she always worn long sleeves? He suddenly wondered if he had ever seen her bare arms.
‘I was born in ’58,’ she said, ‘just two years after the Surge. That meant I was born British, not German, which was a glorious thing. It was also the same year the CFCA was passed. I don’t know what happened to my parents. Many things made an orphan back then, but I never was an orphan. I was a ward from the day of my birth. And they placed me with a family almost right away. The Sissons family, from Leicestershire. There was a waiting list for new babies. No one wanted older children, if they could help it. Nice people, Mr and Mrs Sissons. They already had two children, both girls: Mona and Hannah, who were just older than me.
‘They treated me well, and I was always safe and welcome. And happy, for the most part. But I grew up knowing I was a ward. Mona took piano lessons, and Hannah played the cello, but there was no money for me to learn these things. They said, You can sing with us, Martha! Your voice is your instrument! But I knew it wasn’t the same. We went to different schools and wore different clothes. They received pocket money, but I wasn’t allowed, and when they brought home sweets, they were kind and shared, but it just wasn’t the same, because I wasn’t allowed to buy sweets for myself, or go on outings by myself, or be loved like those little girls were loved.
‘When I was a child, I looked forward to the day I would be emancipated. But at fourteen—I remember this very well—the age of emancipation was raised from eighteen to twenty. Oh, how I cried. My host mother consoled me and said it was for the best, but I could see she was discouraged as well. It wasn’t that she wanted rid of me, exactly. I was a mild-mannered girl, never a problem. But I was an expense, and one she and Mr Sissons had not planned to support for an extra two years. The stipend wasn’t much back then, just eight pounds a week, if I recall. Then I was seventeen, and the age went up again, this time to twenty-five. I felt like I was chasing after Alice’s white rabbit, and when I was twenty-two, and should have been emancipated four years ago, the age went up yet again, this time to thirty-one.
‘The year I turned thirty-one, just two months before my birthday, being a ward became a lifelong designation. When that happened, the registration tattoo was introduced. Every ward eight and older was required to have one. They branded it as a mark of honour, like we were prized children of the state. But for me, it was the mark of a prisoner.’
Mrs Hudson reached for the sleeve on her left arm and slowly pushed it up to her elbow. There it was, not a circular tattoo like it would later become, but an alphanumeric registration code: RM5693-91. Sherlock touched it carefully with the pad of his thumb.
‘I was devastated. I can’t even tell you how devastated I was. Inconsolable, crying day and night, and my poor host parents, they didn’t know what to do with me. They talked to everyone they could think of, searching for answers or options, and when they couldn’t find any, they tried to convince me that my life with them was a good one, and that others like me had it worse. It didn’t help.
‘I had had such dreams, Sherlock. In so many ways, I was still a girl, with a girl’s hopes for the future. I wanted to work, and fall in love, and have a family of my own, and yes, even to host, just like everyone else. And then, overnight, just like that, all those dreams were stolen. Like I had no right to them. I became . . . despondent, I suppose is the word. Looking back, I know I was depressed, but we didn’t have a word for it at the time, not for anyone, especially not for wards, like me. I thought very seriously about . . . taking my own life.’
Sherlock rubbed her arm. He could practically feel the old ache of her former life emanating from her. He could almost see the young woman she had once been, trapped in the life of a ward. But it was such a distant life to the one she lived now as a free, independent woman of such strength and tenacity and humour.
‘Then, in 1992, when I was thirty-four years old, under pressure from certain activist groups that no longer exist, Parliament passed the Emancipation Provision. At last, I had my way out. But it wasn’t easy. They don’t mean for it to be easy, do they? In fact, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. All those tests! All that paperwork! And finding sponsors, and sitting interviews, and being assessed by every sort of doctor there is. There was a time I thought I should just give it up, and live out the rest of my days as a ward of the state, forever fostered. Most did, you know. Those who began the process, they never finished. But my host family—God bless them—they never let me quit. They knew I wanted it more than anything in the world. So they saw me through to the end.
‘I was granted emancipation status on July 16, 1993. I moved out of the Sissons’ home, and on my own. For the first time in my life, I was responsible for me, and it wasn’t exhilarating. It was terrifying. I was so vulnerable, Sherlock, you don’t understand. I had a job but an unskilled one cleaning houses, and I couldn’t manage money. I had a flatshare but I was afraid of the landlord, and afraid my flatmates would find out I’d spent my whole life as a ward. I was drowning. It wasn’t at all like I thought it would be. So, the first person to show me any kindness, who said he would take care of me . . . I married him. Only after the wedding, when he found out who I really was, did I find out what kind of man he really was.’
Sherlock frowned. He knew something of this history. It was Mr Hudson, after all, who had been the reason he had met Mrs Hudson, when she hired him to uncover evidence that would ensure his conviction for a double murder in Florida. Though, he was only now realising how little of it he really understood.
‘He hurt you,’ said Sherlock softly.
She nodded sombrely and blinked rapidly, but the tears fell anyway. ‘I had only traded one oppressor for another. When he found out who I was, what I’d been, he hated me. He was embarrassed, didn’t want his family to know. We fled to Florida. He got involved in . . . things I didn’t understand. He turned mean. There was liquor, drugs, women. And even though he was bringing in money—more money than I could even wrap my mind around—he wasn’t satisfied. He wanted me to work, too, and I did. I was happy to. I found a job as a server down at a cantina, working for tips, but it wasn’t enough, he said. So, he found me a job as a dancer.’ Her eyes lifted briefly, before falling away, ashamed. ‘Exotic,’ she mouthed.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Sherlock, who wanted to say something useful but could think of nothing at all.
‘I was so unhappy. I had thought that being a free person would be so wonderful! I’d finally discover who I really was and all I could be! But with Frank, it was worse than being a ward. At least my hosts never beat me, or terrified me. And I felt trapped, all over again and thought I had made the worst mistake of my life. Maybe I should have stayed a ward. But what was I to do? I didn’t dare leave him; I wouldn’t have known how, even if I’d been able to muster the courage. So things went on like that, for years and years. I was friendless and helpless, and growing more and more desperate.’ She sighed out a great breath. ‘When he shot those two prostitutes in the head and was arrested . . . I should have been upset. For those two girls, at least. But the reality was, I’d never been more relieved.’
‘And then he tried to implicate you in his crimes, as an accomplice’ said Sherlock. This was where he came in. He had been in Florida by mere chance. An international smuggling case had taken him to North Texas, where ‘professionals’ said the trail had gone cold. He proved otherwise. His return flight had a layover in Miami before continuing to London, but an impending storm delayed the flight, before cancelling it outright. So he had gone out into the city, looking for a distraction. He wasn’t expecting to be hired on for another case, but his reputation, it seemed, had preceded him.
She reached for his arm and gave it a squeeze. ‘I mark the day I met you as the day that changed my life forever. It was the day I truly started living.’
He placed his hand over hers and squeezed back.
‘I imagine,’ she added, ‘that one day, John will say the same of the day you brought him home to Baker Street.’
‘It’s not enough, though, is it?’
‘What isn’t?’
‘Living on Baker Street. I mean to do right by him, but . . . you understand better than anyone. You just said your hosts were good hosts. But it wasn’t the life you wanted. You weren’t free, and neither is John.’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know the answer, love. It’s been years since I heard of any ward being emancipated. It just isn’t done anymore.’
‘There has to be a way.’
Mrs Hudson shook her head pityingly. ‘Forgive me, I think the world of John, but . . . you know him better than anyone. Do you think he could make it out there, all on his own?’
‘It’s not like I would wash my hands of him! He could say on with me, just, you know. Free.’
‘That’s not how it works. Not how it used to, at least. To prove myself worthy of citizenship, I had to be able to support myself. I was required to find and hold a job, move out of my hosts’ residence and find my own, never fall into arears, live entirely independently. The only thing that I was not expected to do was host. In fact, I wasn’t allowed at all. And if I couldn’t manage all of that? I went straight back into the programme, this time without any hope of being emancipated again. It’s a one-shot deal. I saw it happen to a lot of us. In fact, it was one of the reasons I was so keen to marry. I don’t think I could have made it on my own, not in those first few years. There now.’ She must have seen the look of discouragement on Sherlock’s face. ‘Mine is just one story. John’s is another. Whatever he’s been through, he’s happy now. I can tell. And you’re a big part of that.’
‘You are, too.’
‘The two of us, we’ll make it right by him. Go on, then. He’s probably wondering where you are. I’ve seen how he looks for you in a room.’
Sherlock pulled back in surprise.
‘You make him feel safe. So tomorrow—shall I bring something for dinner?’
They rose together, Sherlock helping Mrs Hudson to her feet. ‘A pudding, if you’d like. But really, there’s no need. John likes to cook. He’s taken to watching cooking shows and replicating recipes in the kitchen.’
She laughed lightly, fondly. ‘Clever of him. He does a fine job of compensating, doesn’t he?’
Sherlock’s mind was a bit of a blur, one portion considering all he had learnt of Mrs Hudson’s past life, and another ruminating on his fondness of John’s emerging personality, so he had nearly stopped listening as they walked to Mrs Hudson’s front door. He was nodding absently to her comment when it settled in his brain and made him think. ‘Compensating?’
‘You know what I mean. Adapting the tools in his toolbox, as it were, the ways he gets around his disadvantage and makes do.’
Now he turned to face her fully, puzzled by her remarks. ‘Disadvantage?’
‘Oh, I’m not being critical! I think it’s wonderful! He watches, he listens, learns, no need to open a cookbook.’
‘Why shouldn’t he open a cookbook? Should I get him a cookbook? What are you driving at?’
She stared at him unblinking, and for a moment he wondered whether he’d suddenly and mysteriously spoken German for the look of confusion and wariness on her face. Then she said, ‘Come now, Sherlock, be kind.’
‘Kind?’ She may has well have been speaking in riddles. ‘Am I being unkind?’
‘He’s lived with you since the start of December!’
‘What are you on about?’
‘Sherlock, love, you are teasing me. I mean, surely you’ve noticed!’ When he continued to look perplexed, she sighed and shook her head, exasperated. ‘John—he can’t read!’