Andrew Lane - Black Ice

Had he imagined it? Had his brain conjured up a figure out of thin air? Or was there a simpler explanation – a local woman who had decided to take a short cut around the hotel to wherever she was going?

Sherlock moved into the alley, and bent down to check the ground. There were footprints, leading away. The toes were pointed and the heels small, judging by the impressions left in the mud. And there were no traces of patches or holes in the soles, indicating that they were either new or well cared for, or both.

He checked over the ground again, and walked a few yards further down the alley, but there was nothing else to see.

Thoughtfully, he mounted Philadelphia and set off for Amyus Crowe’s cottage to give him his ticket.

There was activity inside the cottage when he arrived, and Virginia’s horse was in the paddock, cropping the grass. He felt his mood lighten as he dismounted and approached the open door.

Virginia wasn’t in the main room, but Amyus Crowe was sitting in an armchair, looking through a book. He glanced up as Sherlock came in, gazing at the boy over the top of his half-glasses. ‘Did you get the tickets?’

‘I did.’ Sherlock paused. ‘I met Rufus Stone,’ he added. ‘He was in Farnham.’

‘Obviously.’ Crowe pursed his lips. ‘Strange that he should turn up here, just where you happen to be living.’

‘I’d told him where I live. I’d said he might want to come to Farnham to teach the violin.’

‘Very charitable of you,’ Crowe conceded, his faded blue eyes studying Sherlock. ‘Ah can see what you get out of that, but ah fail to see the advantage to Mister Stone.’

‘He has to live somewhere,’ Sherlock pointed out, uneasy at Crowe’s obvious lack of pleasure at the news that Rufus Stone was in the area. ‘And he’s better off living where there are people who want to play the violin.’

‘As you do.’

‘As I do.’

Crowe put his book on his lap and removed his spectacles. ‘Music is a distraction, Sherlock,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘It ain’t a fit pastime for a man who is tryin’ to fill his brain with things of use. Just think how much space in your brain would be taken up by learnin’ all the notes for some fancy piece of music. That space could better be used for memorizin’ the marks left by animals, or the shapes of people’s ears, or the traces left on their hands and their clothes by whatever it is that they do to get through the day. Not music, son. Music ain’t no use to anyone.’

‘I don’t agree,’ Sherlock said, feeling strangely disappointed by Amyus Crowe’s dismissal of something he was finding himself more and more interested in. He remembered his thoughts while riding into town, about the difference between animals and humans – or the lack of difference. ‘Yes, I could memorize all those things – I could learn all about edible fungi, and telling about the state of a man’s marriage by the stains on his hat, but why? What’s the point? That just turns me into some kind of super-predator, able to track its prey through nearly invisible signs. Surely it has to mean something? Surely there has to be more to life than just being a better kind of animal?’

‘And music is the thing that separates us from animals?’ Crowe asked, eyes guarded.

‘One of them.’

Crowe shrugged. ‘Can’t say ah’ve ever had much time for it. For me, bein’ human means lookin’ after my kin, lookin’ after myself an’ tryin’ to ensure that the people around me look after each other. If that makes me just another animal, then that’s what ah am.’

‘But what’s it all for?’ Sherlock found himself asking. ‘If there’s nothing that makes us feel…’ he struggled for the right word, ‘uplifted, then what’s the point in doing anything at all.’

‘Survival,’ Crowe said simply. ‘We live to survive.’

‘And that’s it?’ Sherlock asked, disappointed. ‘We keep going so that we can keep going? We live to survive and survive to live?’

‘That’s about it,’ Crowe confirmed. ‘As philosophies go it ain’t pretty, but it has the advantage of bein’ succinct and largely undeniable. Now, you stayin’ here for food or you goin’ back to your kin?’

Sherlock suppressed the arguments he had been marshalling, disappointed that Crowe had changed the subject so abruptly but also glad that the two of them weren’t going to have a confrontation. He liked Amyus Crowe, and he didn’t want them to fall out over something as simple as music lessons. ‘Is Virginia around?’

‘She’s out back, gettin’ water for Sandia. Go lookin’ for her, if you want.’

As Sherlock turned towards the door, Crowe’s voice rumbled: ‘Might interest you to know that Rufus Stone is also the name of a village near Southampton. Maybe it’s a coincidence… or maybe he was short of a name at some point, and settled on one that was floatin’ around his mind cos he’d seen it on a road sign somewhere. Just a thought.’

A thought that Sherlock found unsettling. He also thought it was rather petty of Amyus Crowe to have raised it.

He found Virginia outside. She had bought a bucket of water around, and Sandia was drinking from it enthusiastically.

‘What has your father got against Rufus Stone?’ he asked.

‘And hello to you as well.’ She glanced sideways at him. ‘You really telling me you don’t know?’

‘I really don’t,’ he admitted.

She shook her head. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: for a clever lad you can be really stupid sometimes.’

‘But it doesn’t make any sense!’ he protested. ‘I thought your father would be glad that I was making new friends and finding new interests.’

Virginia turned full on to him and stood, hands on hips. ‘Let me ask you a question. If your father were still in this country, instead of being in India, what would he make of my father? Would they get on?’

Sherlock frowned, thinking. ‘I doubt it,’ he said finally. ‘They come from different social strata, for one, and…’

He trailed off, unsure how to put the thought into words.

‘And what?’ she prompted.

‘And in a way, your father is doing what my father would be doing if he were here.’ Sherlock felt awkward just voicing the words. ‘Teaching me stuff. Taking me out for walks. Giving me advice.’

‘Right. He’s acting like a father to you.’

He smiled at her uncertainly. ‘You don’t mind?’

She smiled too. ‘It’s nice having you around.’ She looked away, then back again. ‘An’ you’re right – your pa would be jealous that you were spending time with someone who was treatin’ you like their son. Especially if that person was teachin’ you things that he couldn’t teach you.’

A bright light of understanding seemed to explode like a star in Sherlock’s head. ‘And your father is jealous of Rufus Stone because he thinks Rufus is acting like a father to me?’ The thought was so big, so momentous, that it seemed to fill his entire mind. ‘But that’s stupid!’

‘Why?’

‘Because Rufus is nothing like a father. He’s more like a much older brother, or a young uncle, or something. And besides, me learning the violin from Rufus doesn’t mean I don’t value your father’s lessons any the less. The two things are completely separate. It’s just… illogical!’

She gazed at him, and shook her head. ‘Emotions ain’t logical, Sherlock. They don’t follow rules.’

‘Then I don’t like emotions,’ he said rebelliously. ‘They don’t do anything but cause confusion and hurt.’

The words hung between them for a long moment, vibrating like a struck bell.

‘Some emotions are worth having,’ she said softly, turning away. She bent down and picked the bucket up. ‘At least I think so, even if you don’t.’