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When John returned home from Afghanistan to find that Murder One had closed, it was somehow the worst betrayal of them all.
His body was in mutiny against him, the Army had no use for him anymore, his sister was full of tense, unwanted pity, and then, of all things, he couldn’t even find a copy of Smiley’s People because his favorite mystery bookshop had closed down.
John’s always loved mysteries and spy thrillers, ever since he was a boy. At first, it was Raffles and Auguste Dupin. Then it was Christie and Sayers and those prim country house murders. Later, he discovered some old copies of Black Mask at the back of his grandad’s closet one dreary Christmas holiday and soon he’d graduated to the gritty, gin-soaked American classics, Hammett and Spillane and Thompson. He was particularly fond of Chandler, who grew up in London but wrote about Los Angeles with the finesse of a native son. And then there were the spies, too, Bond, of course, and LeCarré’s stable of grim-lipped, unglamorous MI6-ers. Whodunit or howcatchem, Golden Age locked room mystery or bleak Cold War intrigue, John loved them all. He felt at home with the hardboiled repartee and stark cityscapes. The relentless pursuit of the truth was a balm to him, somehow. Even after he joined the Army, when anyone would have thought all that murder and mayhem would hit too close to home, he still found mysteries a comfort. Maybe it was because, even in the darkest of those stories, he could always count on the engine of justice to keep working. The hero might not always succeed, but he could be counted on to strive for the truth, no matter what the cost. Or perhaps it was that he missed the England of Dalgliesh and Morse and those books were a tangible link to home. Or, even simpler, maybe he was just the sort of man who lived for a good thrill.
So when he finally came home, torn to hell and in search of some still point, it came as a bit of a blow to find his favorite refuge from the world had shuttered its doors. He’d been coming to Murder One’s storefront at Charing Cross Road since his student days, and now all he could find were the latest bestsellers at Waterstone’s. It was almost as if he’d lost a friend.
It wasn’t that he’d planned to open a used bookshop, exactly. Certainly it was nothing he’d ever entertained doing before. He’d always assumed he’d go back into medicine, but that wasn’t an option now that his hand sometimes shook so hard that he’d broken all his drinking glasses and had to buy plastic ones. But every time he passed the paltry crime offerings in a W H Smith, he found himself thinking, I could do better.
He had a little money saved, after all, from what his parents left him, and Harry offered to use her work connections to help him find a place for cheap, and before long, he was signing the paperwork on a cozy little storefront with a first-storey flat above on a quiet corner in Bloomsbury.
The shop itself wasn’t much to look at when he took it over, as the former owner, an irascible Irishman whom John met only once, had left it in pretty poor shape – dead bees on the windowsills and jam (of all things) crusted on the fittings in the bath – and the first few months were spent making the place habitable. It’d been exhilarating, in a way – after years spent fighting an unwinnable war, he’d relished the opportunity to take on a problem he could solve with a hammer and a few coats of fresh paint.
A lot of that first year was trial-and-error, but, against all odds, Cold Case Books has done well. More than that, it’s thriving. He’s hardly making money hand over fist – what bookshop does? – but he’s surviving.
It hasn’t hurt that John’s had a couple of favorable write-ups in the papers, including a feature in the Sunday Times about London bookshops in the digital era. (He was only one of several booksellers interviewed, but, still, there was a picture, and the shop came across well, even if John looked a bit like someone’s dad.) The press coverage gave sales a welcome boost, and, after one thing and another, it even led to the Guardian inviting him to contribute an occasional column on crime fiction. John expected to become a writer about as much as he expected to become a bookseller, and though he can’t claim any serious journalistic aspirations, he’s found he really likes writing.
So things have turned out – better than he ever could have hoped, really. There were times, when he was first invalided home, when he worried about making it through the night. Now, much to his surprise, he has a place in the world: a job, a home, a hobby that keeps him entertained. It’s true that these days, all the action in his life takes place on the page, but he’ll take what he can get.
*
“Be with you in a minute!” he calls out, pouring boiling water from the electric kettle into his waiting mug.
When he steps out into the shop proper, a tall man in a long coat and a crushed trilby is leaning over the counter, reading John’s special orders ledger upside-down.
“Can I help?” John asks drily.
The man looks up at him, blinking owlishly from behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Would you happen to have an 1893 Martin Hewitt?”
John frowns. “We don’t really specialize in first—Hang on, no one would.” When the man just looks at him blankly, he says, “Morrison didn’t publish the first Martin Hewitt collection until 1894.”
The corner of the man’s mouth goes up just a hair. “So that’s a no, then?”
John has to work very hard indeed not to smile back. After all, it’s not every day a man this good-looking walks into his shop, much less one with an encyclopedic knowledge of detective fiction. He has to remind himself that, while this man may know his fictional sleuths, he’s still been snooping in John’s ledger. “Anything I can help you with that maybe isn’t my private customer records?” He closes the ledger and the man has to withdraw his hand quickly to avoid getting it snapped between the pages.
“Shouldn’t have left them out if you didn’t want anyone reading them,” the man counters.
“I suppose I was counting on common courtesy, but obviously that was my mistake.”
“Obviously.” That infernal ghost of a smile is still playing on his lips. From anyone else, John would take this to be flirting, but in this instance, he’s not so sure.
“So if you’re not here for first editions, what are you here for?”
Behind those glasses, the man’s colorless eyes seem to be appraising John. “Just looking around,” he says, in a lazy tone very much at odds with his attentive gaze. “Seeing what I can see.”
John lets out a little disbelieving hum, but the man turns abruptly – his coat actually flaps out behind him – and begins to browse, trailing along the wall of spy thrillers to the true crime section by the front window. He picks up a copy of The Stranger Beside Me and apparently becomes deeply immersed in a single page somewhere in the middle.
Well, let him, John thinks. If Mr. Tall, Dark, and Shifty wants to browse without buying, that’s just fine. John has no objection to freeloaders in the shop, as long as they’re not causing any trouble and they stay where John can see them.
It’s not a bad view, as it happens. The long coat does a good job of hiding the man’s body, but John can make out enough to appreciate: a long, lean frame accentuated by unexpectedly plush curves (that arse, good God). John could easily spend the rest of the afternoon observing the lunar white of the nape of his neck, the minute shift of his shoulders as he turns his head.
And so that’s exactly what he does.
Half an hour passes, and then another. John settles back in his chair and stretches his leg out for a long wait (he finally managed to get over his limp, but his brain still tricks him into thinking it aches sometimes on wet days like today). He keeps a book open in his lap for the sake of appearances, but surely the other man can feel John watching him. A couple of customers come in, browse, depart without buying anything, and this mysterious man is still on the same page of Ann Rule. In fact, the most he’s moved is to take off his hat.
“All right,” he says at last, when the shop’s emptied out again, “really. What are you doing here? Nobody could possibly be that interested in Ted Bundy.”
“Couldn’t they?” the tall man asks, without turning around.
John can’t help the smile that pulls at his lips. “You’re not even looking at that book,” he says, chiding. “You’ve been staring out my front window for the past hour, and that’s fine, really, I don’t mind, but I would rather like to know why.”
At this, the tall man looks over his shoulder with an approving grin. “What do you know about a man named John Markham?” He lowers his glasses and slips them into his shirt pocket, and all of a sudden any sense of softness or uncertainty is gone from his face, replaced by a sharp, hawkish avidity. In fact, now that he’s getting a better look at him, John can’t help feeling he recognizes this man from somewhere. Not someone he knows personally (he’d remember that), but someone from telly, or—
No. It can’t be. This can’t be Sherlock Holmes. John would’ve recognized him instantly. The man’s been in the news enough, after all. But in those glasses, with that hat covering most of his unruly dark hair . . .
John kicks his feet down from the box he’s been resting them on. “Markham’s older, maybe sixty-five, seventy, salt and pepper hair, about yea high.” John holds up his hand. “He’s a regular customer – special orders a lot of old pulp magazines from America.”
“I know. You have an order behind the counter now ready for him to pick up.”
“Yes, how did you—?”
Maybe-Sherlock-Holmes flicks his hand carelessly, as if this is a simple feat. “I knew the order had arrived from a message on his voicemail. I knew he hadn’t picked it up yet from your—”
“—ledger,” John finishes. “So that’s what you were looking for.”
“Did you also know he lives just around the corner?”
“I knew he lived in the neighborhood somewhere, but I—hang on, you listened to his voicemail? Did you break into his flat?”
The dark-haired man scoffs, and, oh, there’s no doubt about it. This is definitely Sherlock Holmes. “When was the last time you saw Mr. Markham?”
“Not since he placed his order, and that was—” John checks the ledger. “Three weeks ago.”
“And you called to tell him it was ready this morning, is that right?”
John nods, then realizes Holmes is still looking out the window and can’t see the gesture. “Just a few hours ago.”
“And is Mr. Markham typically prompt in picking up his orders?”
“Er, he is, actually. Usually the same day.”
“He won’t be this time. A particularly inept Scotland Yard inspector came by asking questions last night and frightened him off before I had the chance to talk to him properly.”
“Is—is this The Big Sleep? Are you using my bookshop for a stakeout?” Some part of him knows he ought to be irate, but he can’t deny the thought is rather thrilling.
“It’s a bit wet to be waiting outside,” he replies. And, as if to prove his point, thunder rolls loud through the sky and the rain redoubles.
John gets up from his chair, going over to join the detective at the front window. “Which one is Markham’s building?”
Abandoning the book he’s been pretending to read, the other man gestures to a block of flats catty-corner to John’s shop.
“You know, you’d have a much better view from my bedroom,” John says, and the minute the words are out of his mouth, he realizes how they must sound. The dark-haired man raises his eyebrows. “Er—” John can feel himself blushing. “I have the flat upstairs. The bedroom windows face that building directly.”
Holmes narrows his eyes, that thin, inscrutable smile playing at his lips. “I suppose we’d better have a look, then, hadn’t we?”
With those pale, intense eyes fixed on him, what can John do but agree? Never mind that he’s a total stranger and popularly reported to be something of a madman. How could John turn him down, when this is the most interesting thing that’s happened to him in months?
John flips the sign on the front door and locks it before leading the dark-haired man through to the back room and up the stairs.
John’s flat is small, and rather poorly kept – tidy enough, though shabby – but he can’t quite bring himself to feel embarrassed, not when this man is following so close behind him that John can feel the heat radiating from his body.
To distract himself, John takes the opportunity to corroborate his suspicions about the man’s identity. “So why are you looking for Markham? I mean, it doesn’t seem like you’re with the police, so who are you? A PI?”
“Consulting detective,” the dark-haired man replies.
Leading the way to his bedroom, John tries to play it cool. “Is there a difference?”
“I don’t waste my time on cheating spouses, for one thing,” Holmes sneers. “When the police are out of their depth – which is always – they consult me.”
“And what’s so special about Markham that the police couldn’t handle him without the help of an amateur detective?”
The look the other man gives him is downright frigid. “You know him well enough,” he says archly. “D’you mean to say you couldn’t tell?”
“Tell? Tell what?”
“John Markham,” the detective says, obviously relishing the suspense, “was a Russian spy.”
“What!” John laughs. “What is this, the Cold War?”
“It’s not unheard of, even today. Eleven sleeper agents were discovered in American only—”
“Yeah, but come on. Markham, really? You’re having me on.”
“So you didn’t notice? I only saw him for ten minutes in a police interrogation room but it was perfectly obvious to me. What’s more, so are you, although it’s hardly a challenge to deduce you, given all the evidence”—He glances incisively around the room.—“I have available to me.”
John can feel his cheeks heating at the thought of being deduced by the great (the infamous) Sherlock Holmes, but he squares his shoulders. “Go on, then. What can you tell about me from my room?”
The look the detective gives him is one of pure derision, but he accepts the challenge. “All right: Ex-military – Army if I had to guess – invalided home four—no, five years ago. Opened a bookshop despite having no retail experience whatever and you’ve been doing reasonably well, despite the fact that your distributor is criminally overcharging you. Left-handed, frugal but not destitute, a compulsive reader – though I suppose you have to be to own a bookshop – and you fancy yourself a bit of a writer, too, it seems. Hm. One sibling (sister), both parents deceased. Sexually adventurous— mostly straight but more than incidentally homosexual, and—” He narrows his eyes. “—currently single. How’s that for first impressions?”
John lets out a breathless laugh. “Spot on.”
Holmes goes still, considering John carefully. “You don’t mind.”
“Why should I mind?” John says. “That was bloody brilliant, and, besides, I asked.”
He tips his head, warily conceding the point. “It’s just—”
“Just what?”
“Never mind. This window?” He gestures to the window beside John’s bed.
Before John can draw breath to tell him it is, he’s already striding over and settling in for the long haul, folding himself up against the shallow ledge of the windowsill and tucking one knee up to his chest, the other hanging down to the floor. His eyes are fixed on Markham’s building across the street.
John feels somehow bereft – he’s gotten the notorious Sherlock Holmes all the way up to his bedroom, where Holmes has openly deduced John’s sexual proclivities with remarkably accuracy, and now it seems they’re not going to do anything about it. Of course he’d wind up on a stakeout with a bloody gorgeous detective who’s actually interested in staking someone out. Typical.
Then again, it’s not as if John can really complain. Even if all they do is stare out his window for the rest of the afternoon, this is still the most interesting thing John’s done all year. So he sits down on the bed and says, “All right, I can guess how you figured all that out about me, but how’d you know Markham was a spy?”
Without turning away from the window, the detective says, “The most obvious sign was the faint strain in his voice that comes from repressing an accent. He’s a very good mimic, but you can almost always tell when someone’s putting a voice on – if you’re really listening, that is. There’s a certain flatness, a slight hesitation. And then there was his diction, of course, more English than English, the sort of intensely colloquial speech you’d only use if you’d been coached to do so by someone without any real understanding of how the average Englishman actually speaks – ‘wotcher’ and ‘right-o,’ that sort of thing. Then there was his watch – very flash, much nicer than the rest of Markham’s clothes but over thirty years old. Just the sort of thing that would’ve made a nice incentive for a spy interested in chucking Soviet austerity for the world of Western luxury in the early 1980s.”
“You’re serious.”
“Deadly—and so is whoever tried to kill Markham.”
“To kill him,” John repeats.
“Oh, yes, and Markham’s not the first. Two other former Soviet agents, both of whom defected right around the time Markham did, have turned up dead in the past week. Markham’s next on the list, but odds are he’s not the last. If I can find Markham, I can find out what’s motivating this killer.”
John peers out the window past the detective’s shoulder. “So who is it you’re hoping will turn up, Markham or his would-be killer?”
There’s that smile again, thin but approving, as if John is a promising pupil. “Either one will do, although I’d wager the assassin will be more fun.”
“Fun,” John echoes, more for the sake of propriety than because he disagrees.
The detective raises his eyebrows at John over his shoulder. “Problem?”
John can’t help grinning. “No, but . . .”
“Well?”
“How will you know him? Not Markham,” John says quickly, eager not to be judged too much of an idiot. “I mean, the killer. There must be dozens of people going in and out of that building every hour. How can you possibly know which one is a trained killer on the hunt for former Soviet spies?”
“I’ll know,” he says drily.
“But it could be anyone.” John leans forward. “There,” he says, pointing out the window at a man who’s just exited the building. “How do you know it’s not him?”
Holmes ticks his tongue reprovingly. “Obvious.”
“All right, then, why not?”
“You said it yourself: our man’s trained. This is no random act of passion, not even a revenge killing – too tidy for that. This is carefully choreographed assassination. That man,” he says, flicking his fingers dismissively at the man John pointed out, “is too slovenly to be a professional killer – he can’t even tie his shoes properly, let alone mastermind the murders of two ex-KGB agents.”
John can’t help laughing. “Fine, then, what about her?” John gestures to a woman hurrying around the corner with a heavy bag of shopping on one arm.
Holmes snorts, and begins to outline, in precise detail, why this woman, too, is not a suspect.
It becomes a game to pass the time. John plays dumb and Holmes schools him, correcting his faulty assumptions, rewarding him with surprised glances when he draws a correct conclusion.
As the afternoon wanes and the rain lets up, John gravitates closer and closer, first to the edge of the bed, then to stand behind Holmes at the window, and finally to perch on the other side of the windowsill beside him, so close they’re almost sharing breath.
And then Holmes turns his head sharply at something John’s said and they are just—
John doesn’t know who closes the distance, but Holmes’s mouth is hot and supple against his own. The kiss is, at first, hardly more than a smearing of lips as they circle one another, breathing in the taste of one another’s breath, trying to find the perfect angle of ingress. And then Holmes tugs John’s lower lip between his teeth and John can’t help the shuddering moan that rises out of him.
Holmes’s hands are there against John’s chest, pushing him back against the window frame, and John lets himself be pushed. Holmes drags his mouth across John’s jaw and down his throat, making John’s pulse leap, and he can practically feel those clever lips turn up into a smile.
John’s palms are tracing the corded plains of Holmes’s back, searching for purchase. Holmes sucks a mark over his carotid and he grabs fistfuls on the other man’s coat, arching up under the touch.
“You’re—” John’s breath hitches as Holmes’s hands insinuate themselves into his jeans to loose his shirt. “You—Oh, god.” Hands that are not in the least bit soft shove up his vest, cupping his ribs to gauge his reckless breathing. Thumbs brush roughly over John’s nipples, causing his hips to jerk and his head to crack against the frame of the window.
John curls one leg around Holmes’s waist so that their hips meet at last and Holmes draws an open-mouthed breath against the wet flesh of John’s neck.
John grinds his erection against Holmes’s through their clothes, just for the pleasure of hearing that gasp a second time. John can feel him grow even harder against his hip and slips his hand between them to test his findings. He scrapes his nails against the front of Holmes’s expensive trousers, so that Holmes jerks at his touch.
“Is this what you call surveillance?” he chides gently, squeezing Holmes’s cock.
“Would you rather I stopped?” Holmes asks, much too reasonably for a man who’s just been sucking a hickey into John’s neck like a damn teenager.
“I just wouldn’t want the private detective—Ah!” A sharp bite to his throat interrupts him. “—to miss his quarry.”
Holmes growls in frustration and yanks John sideways, so that his arse is fully resting on the windowsill. His back connects with the cold glass of the window and John is laughing even as his nipples contract.
“Good solution,” he says, grinning against the curve of Holmes’s ear.
Standing between John’s thighs, Holmes can see right over his shoulder and out onto the street, without sacrificing access to John’s neck. They’ve lost the perfect alignment of their earlier position, but it gives John an excellent opportunity to unbuckle Holmes’ belt and undo his flies.
Holmes’s breath stutters in his throat as John takes hold of his erection and strokes him slow. He’s got a beautiful cock, fat and leaking at the head, and John pays special attention to his slit, rubbing his thumb over the pre-come gathered there. Oh, this— John is going to savor this.
John isn’t starstruck, he really isn’t. Holmes is gorgeous, it’s true, and he can’t deny there’s a certain thrill to laying hands (quite literally) on the famous detective, but what really sends John about Sherlock Holmes has nothing to do with his celebrity and everything to do with the hand Holmes has on his arse, squeezing so that his fingers dig in sweetly.
Those sharp teeth are there to scrape against John’s jaw as his hips jerk.
“Jesus,” John gasps, “just—”
Genius that he is, Holmes seems to intuit exactly what John wants, tugging his trousers open with brutal efficiency. John’s spread legs prevent him from pulling them down any further, but it gives him enough room to pull John’s prick out of his underwear and give it a lingering stroke.
“Oh, fuck.” John shudders against the windowpanes and renews his attention to Holmes’s cock. He wants Holmes as close as he can possibly get him, wants them pressed seam to seam, wants Holmes inside him. “Oh, fuck me.”
“No,” Holmes says, grazing John’s collarbone with his teeth, and John knows he’s looking out the window, watching the street.
John is aware he should feel—hurt, insulted, something, but he can’t bring himself to care. Holmes’s fingers are no longer loose around John’s erection but working him in a tight, precise rub that makes John’s guts ache. The rejection isn’t personal: Holmes can’t afford the complication, not when he might have to drop everything at a moment’s notice to chase after a suspect. Far from offending John, it sets adrenaline searing through him.
He loops a leg behind Holmes’s knees and pulls him close, crowding them impossibly close, and speeds his hand around Holmes’s cock. He’s so slick against John’s palm – it must be ages since he’s had a good shag. He must have been aching for this.
“How long?” John asks. When Holmes doesn’t answer, John reaches up and grabs a handful of his dark curls, repeats the question. “How long did it take you to decide you were going to have me?”
Holmes’s breath sounds like it’s been punched out of him, and John wonders if he’s managed to surprise him. “I didn’t.” His knuckles graze John’s stomach as he twists his hold on John’s cock, pulling harder.
“I don’t believe you,” John says, tugging on his hair again until Holmes’s ragged breathing is transmuted into a desperate groan.
Holmes works him taught and almost brutal, his friction unrelenting. John’s hips shiver, and then Holmes bites down hard on John’s neck and John is just done, pulsing onto his belly, his back jerking against the window.
His hand is still flying over Holmes’s erection, so slippery he can hardly feel it. He can sense Holmes’s body going tense in anticipation of impending orgasm. “When?” he repeats, and tightens his fingers around the wet head of Holmes’s cock, rubbing tight and quick until Holmes’s lips curl back against his teeth and he whines loud through his nose, coming all over John’s fist.
Holmes’s forehead touches the window will a soft thud and for a moment he just leans there, head bent, breathing through his nose. John traces the top of his foot down the back of Holmes’s calf, trying to catch his breath. They’re both still mostly dressed, though their clothes are rumpled and damp. John’s shirt is stuck to the window with sweat.
The windowsill is digging into John’s arse, and he drags himself up, trying to find a more comfortable position, though between the wooden ledge, his jeans constricting his thighs, and the semen cooling on his skin, there’s not much to be done.
Holmes has produced a handkerchief from somewhere and wipes off his hands before offering the handkerchief to John. John is halfway through cleaning off his fingers when he realizes Holmes never even got around to taking off his coat, sending a jolt of heat straight through him.
“Cheers,” John says, leaning his head back against the window and giving himself over to that lovely, bones-deep fatigue that follows a good shag. The glass is fogged from the heat of their bodies and he wipes the condensation away to get a better view of the street.
It seems a long time ago that Holmes first walked into his shop. The hunt for John Markham had, for a little while, grown distant in John’s mind, though he suspects it was never far from Holmes’s thoughts. He can’t help wondering what would’ve happened if Holmes had spotted the assassin while they were still occupied with one another. He has no doubt Holmes would’ve thrown him over in a second, and he’s smiling despite himself, imagining Holmes swooping out of the flat in a state of wild undress, having spotted some suspicious character on the street below.
Talking of suspicious characters . . . John narrows his eyes at the woman rounding the corner toward Markham’s building. She’s walking at a brisk pace, hands in her pockets and shoulders squared, which is nothing too unusual, but it’s her expression that gives John pause. She’s staring straight ahead, alert but focused at some inward point – it’s a look he’s seen before, the look of someone marching into battle. Our man’s trained, Holmes said.
“Sherlock,” John says, and he doesn’t have time to worry about the fact that he’s just acknowledged that he knows who Holmes really is. “Look.”
Holmes’s attention is instantly focused on the street below, and in a moment the post-shag lassitude that’d held him suspended is gone, replaced by brisk urgency. “Marvelous, let’s go,” he says, clapping John on the shoulder and whirling to dash out the door.
John doesn’t think, just follows him, doing up his flies as he clatters down the stairs after him. By the time John catches up, Holmes is already throwing open the front door and pelting into the street.
They hurtle into the road, where the woman has spotted Holmes and is making a run for it, straight into the alleyway behind Markham’s building.
“It’s a dead end,” John calls to Holmes as they dash after her. They breach the alley just as she’s scrambling up the fire escape. Holmes reaches her in time to grab her ankle. She kicks out but he holds tight and yanks her down. When she falls, she takes him with her, knocking him to the ground in an ugly tangle of limbs.
She’s the first up, but John is ready for her, tackling her back down so hard he feels the impact deep in his chest. They grapple – her nails going for his eyes, his elbow smashing her ear – both too close to land any proper blows.
They both go still when they hear a gun cocking and Holmes’s low voice saying, “Freeze.”
It takes John a moment to remember that the gun isn’t pointed at him – that he and Holmes are on the same side.
“On your feet,” Holmes instructs. “Slowly.”
John backs off just enough that they can both get up. Holmes keeps the gun trained carefully on the woman, who watches him with dark eyes.
“In my left-hand pocket,” Holmes says to John. “Zip-ties.”
John retrieves a plastic tie and secures the woman’s wrists while Holmes gets his mobile out and dials someone John presumes is with the police, transferring the gun to his other hand so he can work the buttons.
Only—it’s not just any old pistol Holmes is holding. He has in his hands John’s very own Sig, the one no one is supposed to know he has. How did Holmes know John had a gun, let alone where he kept it? Hell, when did he manage to steal it? While Holmes is snapping instructions over the phone, John has a quiet crisis, wondering if he’s is going to turn John in.
“The police are on their way,” Holmes says to the assassin. “You have”—He checks his watch. —“four-and-a-half minutes to tell me who sent you after Markham and the others.”
She spits something in Russian at him – whatever it is, it doesn’t sound complementary, but Holmes seems to understand, because he laughs.
“That’s all right,” Holmes says, unable to suppress a smug grin, “you’ve already told me everything I need to know.”
After that, the woman refuses to say another word, and they stand in the alleyway, staring at one another in stony silence.
True to Holmes’s estimate, the Met arrive in under five minutes – impressively quick, really – and as the sirens approach, Holmes swings out and pistol-whips the assassin across the temple, sending her crumpling to the ground.
John shouts out and reaches forward to wrest the Sig from Holmes’s grip. “What in hell was that for?”
Holmes arches an eyebrow. “I assumed you wouldn’t want the police to find me holding the suspect at bay with your illegal firearm. Was I wrong?”
“Give a man some warning,” John breathes.
Holmes is grinning at him, smug as can be.
John tucks the gun into the waistband of his trousers, trying hard not to return the smile. “Listen, about that—”
Before he can broach the subject, a crowd of police in stab vests appears at the mouth of the alley.
After that, the police descend over the alleyway, taking the woman into custody and securing the scene. John is required to give his statement half a dozen times – everyone is particularly curious about what a civilian was doing helping Sherlock Holmes track down a suspect – and each time, John judiciously leaves out the bit about bringing Holmes off against his bedroom window.
It’s well into night before the DI in charge, Dimmock, John thinks his name is, tells John he can go home. As he wanders back in the direction of his shop, he stops one of the PCs and asks if she knows where Holmes has gone. He feels he ought to at least thank him.
“The Freak’s gone,” interjects one of the detectives – Dickinson or Donnelly or something like that, John seems to recall, although he’s spoken to so many people this evening that they’re all beginning to run together. “Ran off about half an hour ago muttering something about safe-houses.” She shrugs. “He does that.”
“Runs off?”
She gives him a slow once-over, and John is, not for the first time tonight, achingly aware of the rumpled, sweat-damp state of his clothes, of the smell of sex on his skin and the love bites resolving on his throat. He’s grateful it’s at least dark out now, but that can only hide so much.
“He wouldn’t have anything to say to you, anyway,” she tells him. “As soon as someone’s served their purpose, he drops them. You did a good thing here today, but I guarantee you he doesn’t care about that at all. He’s probably already forgotten all about you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” John says drily, and ducks under the caution tape, putting the alleyway to his back. He rounds the corner and crosses the street to his shop.
The front door is still standing ajar, left open in his rush to follow Holmes, though thankfully it seems nothing’s been taken. John locks up and turns out the lights before drifting into the back room and fixing himself a cup of tea.
As the kettle boils, John considers what that detective – was her name Donovan? – said to him out on the street. It seems quite likely that what she told him was right. Chances are, he’s given Sherlock Holmes exactly what he wanted and will never hear from him. But when he examines himself for any sign of bitterness or regret, he finds none.
He helped a famous detective solve a murder tonight, and got a fantastic shag out of it on top of that. It’s the sort of experience he’d long ago reconciled himself to encountering only in books. It doesn’t matter if it was only for one night. For a few hours, the world came alive, and that, John thinks, is more than he has any right to expect. That will have to be enough.