Laurie King: The God of the Hive

“Oh, I don’t think this is entirely over.”

Holmes did not recognise the voice, which in any case was not only muffled by the mask, but had an artificial sound to it, both in timbre and in accent. If he had long enough to study the sound, he might trace its true origins. He doubted he’d be given the chance.

“Get into the motor, Mr Holmes,” the disguised voice said.

“I need to see the prisoner first.”

“You don’t recognise him without his face? Very well.”

The man dropped the knife just long enough to tug the sack off his prisoner’s head.

Blinking against the dust, Damian saw his father, standing to his left with the bridge stretching out behind him and the mass of Parliament’s houses rearing up behind: Despite everything, his fingers twitched as if to reach for a sketching pencil. However, with the bite of the blade again at his throat, he did not move further.

Now, out of the side of his other eye, he saw motion: a small man in worn trousers, a pale hat, and shirt-sleeves, marching happily across the bridge as if all alone on a woodland path. The man with the knife at Damian’s throat was watching him, too-Damian would have bet that any nearby eyes would be drawn to him. The figure’s self-absorption was so marked, it even penetrated the apprehension of the prisoner.

Then the man stopped, causing a shudder to run out in all directions. He was standing directly beneath the bridge’s central light, looking now at the two figures held together by a razor-sharp piece of worked meteor. Deliberately, he removed his hat and set it atop the handrail. His hair was a tumble of straw, his eyes green even in lamp-light, and in his left hand was a small rubber ball.

He bounced it once, caught it without looking, and spoke. “Are you the father?”

I could not believe what I was seeing: Goodman was walking openly down the length of the bridge, simply asking to be shot. I took a step out of the shadows, feeling the careful clockwork of Mycroft’s plan stutter and grind.

No, oh Goodman, no, please don’t .

What were they saying?

“You want me to shoot him?” said the voice from the motorcar.

“No,” said the man with the knife. “Let us avoid gunfire if we can.”

His question unanswered, the green eyes shifted to look farther down the roadway. The small man raised his voice to ask, “Is he the father?”

When Holmes, too, gave no reply, the figure stepped away from the railing. Three others reacted instantaneously.

“Stop!” West snapped, over Buckner’s voice asking, “You sure you don’t want me to shoot?”

“He’s a poor bloody simpleton, for heaven’s sake,” Holmes shouted.

The blond man stepped down from the wide footway, and stopped. He bounced and caught the ball a couple of times, looking intently at the prisoner. “You’re the father. Estelle’s father.”

Damian jerked, oblivious to the knife cutting into his skin. Estelle-who was this man?

“Yes,” he said. It came out half-strangled, but it came out.

The green eyes beamed at him as if the word were a gold trophy. The eyes were young and fearless and full of mischief; the eyes were older than the hills.

“I really think you should let me shoot-”

“Enough!” West barked. He recognised the small man now: the bandleader, the wife’s pet woodsman, caretaker of the estate in Cumbria. “Buckner, get out and keep these two in place while I get rid of this.”

The motorcar door opened and the driver stepped out, turning his gun on the two tall men, prisoner and soon-to-be prisoner. His boss rapidly crossed the roadway until he was standing face to face with the bothersome drunkard. “You,” he said. “Be gone.”

“Ha!” Goodman’s response was a laugh. “Yes, I am gone, and I return. But you?”

West moved before the last word had left Goodman’s mouth.

Goodman made a sound, and looked down at the blood spilling across the front of his shirt.

The moment the masked figure moved towards Goodman, I began to run, knowing I would be too late, knowing I had to try. I sprinted down the impossibly long bridge, and saw the Green Man stagger back, his shirt-front going instantly dark. He tripped on the footway, going to one knee then recovering to move, doubled over, towards the railing. He laid his chest across the metal (for an instant, the image of Estelle flashed through my mind, draped across the tree-round foot-stool before Mr Robert’s fireplace). One leg rose, painfully slow, and a heel crawled its way across the railing, to hook onto the far side. His arms embraced the wide iron, and then he rolled, and vanished into the darkness beyond.

He was gone.

Four men watched the blond man stagger back. They heard the small cry when his belly touched the iron railing, but he kept moving, onto the wide rail, moving like a wounded animal crawling to its hole.

The blond man rolled over, and disappeared.

There was no splash. West, knife in his hand, waited. He swivelled, making certain that the two men stood where they were and that his man was on guard, then walked over to the side, sticking his head over the railing to look.

And a hand came up, as if born of the bridge, or the night. A hand that had led lost souls through the woods and drunk tea with a child and loaded men onto the bed of an ambulance. A hand that raised up and wrapped around the back of Peter James West’s head.

Holmes took one step forward, thinking only of Mycroft’s need for the man, but froze when the driver shouted a warning.

Then behind came a figure he knew well, sprinting down the horribly exposed bridge. In a moment, the driver would hear, and would turn-and now he was turning, his gun moving towards her and Holmes was in motion, shoving Damian in the direction of the struggling figures and shouting, “Keep that man from going over-Mycroft needs him!” then “Russell!” he was shouting, and running for all he was worth.

The Yard marksman, with a clear line on his target, eased down the trigger a split instant before the man turned around.

Damian’s hands were tied-literally-but his father had spoken, and he would do all he could to obey. Six long leaps took him to where his abductor was fighting against the pulling hands, heels free of the pavement now, and he slammed into the man, throwing his weight across the sprawled body, pinning him against the bridge. Damian’s shoulder screamed at the blow, but he lay hard against the rigid back, locking the man to the railing, staring past his shoulder into a pair of brilliant green eyes.

The expression in them, oddly, was one of disappointment.

I closed on the struggle, which had been joined by Damian, coming out of nowhere to throw himself onto the man in the mask. A zzip flew alarmingly close past my head, followed instantly by a pair of gunshots, one close and one farther away. I ducked, tearing my attention from the railing in time to see Holmes crash into the driver and wrench the revolver from his hand.

I leapt up and ran again, reaching the knot of legs and torsos before any of them went over. The black mask had slipped, and now drifted into the dark, although all I could see of our opponent was a flash of white against his otherwise dark hair. He jerked another half inch towards the edge; Damian grunted with pain but redoubled his efforts.

“Stop!” I shouted. “Robert, stop, let me help you, I can’t-”

“Let me have him,” said the voice from below.

“No, Robert, please, take my hand, I’ll get you to-”

“Please,” his voice asked. Such a reasonable request. “Please.”

Time stretched out while I gazed down into those eyes. I could see Death there-I had worked in hospitals; I knew what Death looked like-but Robert Goodman was there as well, the Green Man, Estelle’s champion, speaking to me without words. His hands were shaking with effort, his toes were jammed precariously into the base of the railing. I could see what it was costing him to hang on.