Laurie King - The Language of Bees

I had him leave me at the end of the drive, not wanting to wake Mrs Hudson with the sound of wheels on gravel in the wee hours of the morning. I walked along the verge in the bright moonlight, listening to the engine noise fade and the ceaseless downland breeze rise to take its place.

The house was locked, as I expected. I used my key and stepped inside-then my head came up in surprise: The odour of tobacco was considerably fresher than five days old. A small creak of descending weight on the stairs confirmed it: Holmes was home.

He stood on the landing, his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown; the touch of his eyes, running with amusement across my person, was an almost physical thing.

“A pity,” he remarked in a mild voice. “I was rather fond of that suit.”

I gazed ruefully down at the sagging trousers with their well-scuffed hems. “I'll buy you another one. Holmes, where have you been?”

“I might ask the same of you.”

“Is Damian with you?”

“I have not seen him since Friday. You've come from London?”

“The last train.”

“I thought I recognised the sound of the motor. Harry Weller's cab, was it?”

“Yes, although his brother was driving tonight. Holmes, did you-”

He put up one hand, and came the rest of the way down the stairs. “I suggest you go up and draw a bath. I shall bring you tea and a slice of Mrs Hudson's unparalleled squab pie. We can talk afterwards.”

I was abruptly aware of how simultaneously ravenous, parched, and filthy I was. “Holmes, you're a genius.”

“So I have been told.”

The water was hot and plentiful; the tea was the same; the pie, although it gave me a brief frisson of unease at its evocation of mouse-gnawed scraps on a newspaper, was of sufficient excellence to make the comparison fade away. Replete and cleansed if not exactly easy, I wrapped myself in a robe and went into the bedroom. There I found Holmes gazing out of the bedroom window, pipe in hand.

I walked over to lean against his shoulders.

“I see you fastened your mother's mezuzah on the door,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Good.” He allowed his weight to push back, to the balance point where we held each other upright.

“You heard of the body at the Giant?” I asked after a while.

“I did.”

“Have you seen it?”

“They took it to Lewes. When I rang there, it proved too late to reach the coroner's offices. Why do you ask?”

Why indeed?

If any question was heavy with unvoiced consequences, it was that one. On the surface, it was obvious why I should wonder if this particular dead Oriental woman might not be the missing Yolanda Adler. Below that, the responses waited to pour forth like the plagues from Pandora's box: Why should a dead Yolanda Adler be found virtually at our doorstep, if it weren't her husband who left her there? Why had Holmes not given me a full answer, but side-stepped the key detail of what time on Friday Damian had left him? And why had I not immediately asked him what time? Why was Holmes not treating the husband as suspect, unless that possibility was one he could not bear to consider?

I found that I had detached myself from his comforting shoulders; to cover my involuntary retreat, I went to the dressing-table and took up my brush, passing it through my damp hair, unwilling to voice my thoughts. What were my thoughts, anyway, other than the stark awareness that, if Holmes were able to give his son an alibi, it would have been the first words out of his mouth?

“The newspaper described the woman as ‘Oriental,’” I began.

“Which is precisely why I intend to see her, at the earliest possible moment.”

“When will that be?”

“I was told the coroner would make himself available at ten o'clock. It's Huxtable; I've met him once, was not hugely impressed.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Could we also look at where they found her? It's been a while since I last visited the Giant.”

“Do you wish to take the motor-car?”

“It would be easiest.”

“The quickest, certainly.” Holmes had resigned himself to my driving, over the years, but he had never developed an affection for it.

“Good. Now tell me, what were you doing in London this past week?”

“Crawling through the sewers.”

“Literally?”

“Figuratively,” he answered, which was something of a relief. “Tuesday we searched the hospitals, morgues, and clinics, and started on her known friends. Wednesday we made the rounds of all the churches that Damian could recall her mentioning-an exhausting number, as it proved. Thursday… Thursday we visited bawdy houses.”

“Bawdy-houses of prostitution, you mean?”

“Starting at the top and working our way down.”

“Why should she have gone there?”

“Russell,” he chided.

“Oh, yes, I realised from the start that she'd probably been a… professional herself, but I shouldn't have thought anyone would wish to return to that life once they got out.”

“Not the life itself, but certain elements. Money-”

“But Damian was making money.”

“-drugs.”

“Yes,” I said reluctantly. “But she had the child with her.”

“That being precisely why I did not investigate those houses that specialise in children until Damian was no longer with me, on Friday.”

“Oh, Holmes. You can't imagine…” I found myself unable to complete the sentence.

“At this point, I know so little about Yolanda Adler, I may as well be working blind.”

“Holmes, no mother would-”

“Damian thought it possible that his wife had left the child with a friend while she went away, and although a woman would be mad to hand a small child over to a stranger while there was a loving father at home, I pretended to agree with him that it was a possible scenario. I don't think I need to tell you that mothers have been known to… act irresponsibly.”

Of course they did. If Yolanda had grown tired of the child, or been led astray by a seducer, or tempted by money, or… My stomach went suddenly queasy around Mrs Hudson's cooking, and the air from the open window felt cold.

I pulled down the bed-clothes and climbed underneath them, propping the pillows behind my back. “Why did Damian leave you? Did he say?”

“He simply left, before dawn, after being wakened from a nightmare. He had left once before; this time, he did not return. He was last seen at ten o'clock Friday morning, walking up Regent Street with a man.” He described the man, clearly searching his memory as he did so for any similarity to someone he knew, but equally clearly failing to make any connexion. “I believe he received a message to buy a copy of The Times, where he saw an agony notice with the instructions for the meeting.”

“Addled,” I exclaimed.

“You saw it?”

“I did, but I thought it a coincidence.” Before he could scold me for dismissing a clue, I asked him about the man, and he told me about interviewing the Café Royal porter.

So: Holmes could not prove his son's whereabouts. My thoughts went back to the body lying in the nearby morgue. “Holmes, I find it difficult to reconcile a person who would… do as you suggest, with the Yolanda Adler I have heard described these past days. She may be colourful, and certainly has some decidedly odd religious beliefs, but even the neighbours who wondered if she was entirely reliable didn't actively claim that she was-is-a neglectful mother. I'd have said she was reformed from her ways.”

“So Damian claimed. And the first two days, he seemed as much irritated as concerned. But for whatever reason, by Thursday night his mood darkened. He spoke of drugs and suggested that, since the end of June, something has been disturbing her.”