Laurie King: The God of the Hive

The man would have seen us, had he got down and walked back, but to him the jerk of the cart must have felt like a result of the horse’s shy, not the cause of it. After a moment, I heard him repeat the noise between his teeth, and the music of milk cans retreated down the road.

I rose to get my bearings, and found that we were a scarce half-mile from where Captain Javitz had set us down.

“Can you walk for a bit, Estelle? We’re nearly there.”

In answer, she slipped her hand into mine and we set off up the road. It took two tries to find the correct lane, but to my relief, the ’plane was there, in a long field surrounded by walls and a hedgerow. Lights shone from the adjoining house, and I led my charge in that direction.

I stopped outside the gate to tell the child, “My friend Captain Javitz, who drives the aeroplane, may be here. There’s also a nice lady and her son. But, we don’t want to talk to them too much. We’ll only be here for a few minutes.”

“And then we’ll go in the aeroplane? Into the air?”

“That’s right,” I said, adding under my breath, “God help us.”

I knocked on the door.

It opened, to a man pointing a gun at my heart.

At noon, the air began to stink of herring. Soon they came to Wick, dropping anchor inside the crowded harbour. Damian was pale, but the dressings remained brown.

Holmes picked a woollen Guernsey, much-mended and reeking of fish, from the pile atop Damian, pulling it on in place of his overcoat. He added a cap in similar condition, then took the glass from the oil lamp and ran a finger over the inside, washing his hands and face with a thin layer of lamp-black.

When he glanced down at Damian, the lad’s eyes were watching him, and the bearded face twitched in a weak smile. “You look the part.”

“Aye,” Holmes said. “I’m rowing into the town to find a medical person who can pull that bullet out of you. Best if we do it here, rather than toss you in and out of a dinghy.” His voice had taken on the flavour of the north, not a full Scots but on the edge.

“Still think you should’ve done it yourself.”

“I might yet have to. Gordon will stay here with you.”

“I’d kill for a swallow of tea.”

“I’ll let him know. Lie still, now.” He turned to go.

“Er, Father?”

“Yes, son?” They had known each other less than three weeks: Both men still tasted the unfamiliar words on their tongues.

“Do you think-”

“Your daughter is safe. Without question. Russell will guard the child like a mother wildcat.”

“And my…” He was unable to say the word.

“Your wife? Yolanda died, yes. I saw her body. No question.”

“You are certain it was Hayden? Back at the Stones?”

“Yes.” This was not the first time he’d answered the question.

Damian swallowed, as if to force down the information. “If I’m here, then… Her funeral?”

“Mycroft will take care of it.” Which Holmes hoped was true-surely his brother’s inexplicable tangle with Scotland Yard would be a temporary state of affairs?

“Would you,” Damian said, his left arm working under the cloth mound. “-my pocket?”

Holmes pulled away the covers and felt Damian’s pockets, coming out with a leather note-case.

“There’s a picture,” Damian explained.

Not a photograph, but an ink drawing he had done of his wife and small daughter, intricate as the shadings of a lithograph. There were headless nails in the rough wall near Damian’s head; Holmes impaled the small page on one that lay in Damian’s line of sight. A woman with Oriental features and a cap of black hair sat with a not-so-Oriental child with equally black hair: Damian had captured a look of wicked mischief on both faces.

Holmes stood.

“I’m sorry,” Damian said. “About… everything.”

The apology covered a far wider span than the preceeding three weeks, but Holmes kept his response light. “Hardly your doing. It’s a nuisance, having the police after us, but it’s not the first time. Once we patch you up, I’ll deal with it.”

“Hope so.”

“Rest easy,” Holmes said, and went up the ladder.

Twelve minutes later, a final hard pull on the oars ran the dinghy up on a sandy patch at the edge of the harbour. Holmes tied the painter to a time-softened tree trunk above the reach of the tide, then tugged at his cap and set off for the town, walking with the gait of the sailors around him. When he saw a police constable strolling in his direction, he raised his pipe and a cloud of concealing smoke, giving the PC a brief nod as he passed.

At the first chemist’s shop, a bell tinkled when Holmes stepped inside, but the customers took little notice: Stray fishermen were a commonplace. On reaching the counter, Holmes asked for sticking plasters, a box of throat lozenges, and a tube of ointment for Persistent Rashes and Skin Conditions. Picking the coins from his palm, he then said, “M’lad on the boat picked up a baddish slice, mebbe should have a coupla’ stitches. There a doctor in the town?”

“There was, he took ill. Got a locum, though. His cousin.”

“He’ll do,” Holmes grunted, and asked for directions. The chemist grinned as he gave them, but it wasn’t until the door to the surgery opened that Holmes realised why. The doctor’s locum tenans was a she: a short woman in her late twenties with hair the red of new copper and the colouration that went with it: pale and freckled, with eyes halfway between green and blue set into features that might have been pretty had they not been pinched with the anticipation of his response.

“Yes,” she said tiredly, “I’m a girl, but yes, I’m a qualified doctor, and no, my cousin won’t return for two weeks or more, so unless you want to take your problem to Golspie or Inverness, I’m your man.” Her accent was Scots, but not local. St Andrews, he decided, or Kirkcaldy-although she’d spent time in London and much of her youth in… Nottingham?

The analysis ran through his mind in the time it took him to draw breath. “Can you stitch a cut?”

She cocked her head at him, considering his matter-of-fact tone. “I said I was a doctor, didn’t I? Of course I can stitch a cut. And deliver a bairn or set a leg or remove an appendix, for that matter.”

“Well, I dinna require obstetrical care or major surgery, but I’ve a lad needing attention, if you’d like to bring your bag.”

Her surprise made him wonder how many times she’d watched would-be patients turn away. “Amazing,” she said. “And he hasn’t been bleeding quietly for a week before you decided I’d have to do?”

“Just since midnight.”

She shook her head, donned her hat, picked up her bag, and followed him out onto the street.

“Where is the cut?” she asked, half-trotting to compensate for his longer stride.

“Over the ribs.”

“How did he come by it?”

“Oh, I think you’ll see when you get there.”

“And where is ‘there’?”

“Fishing boat. Moving him starts up the bleeding, I thought it best to have you look at it where he lies.”

“If there’s much motion, we’ll have to bring him to shore.”

“We’ll face that if we have to. Come, the dinghy’s along there.”

“Can’t you bring the boat up to the docks?”

“Not worth hauling anchor, it’s nobbut two minutes out.”

He led the doctor down an alleyway, around the back of a herring shed, and through mountains of precisely stacked whisky barrels, which was hardly a direct route but he’d spotted the PC down the lane, and didn’t want to risk a second encounter. By the time they hit the small beach, the doctor was scurrying to keep up, and Holmes had become aware of a helmeted presence behind them.