Laurie King - The Language of Bees

“Bubbles!” came a woman's cry from within. I ripped the bucket from my foot and kicked soil over its tell-tale imprint, then snatched up bucket and bag and sprinted for the back of the house, Bubbles roaring hysterically along behind me.

At the out-houses, I kicked open the shed door, grabbed the madly shrieking handful of fur, and tossed it in, drawing the door shut behind it. With luck they would think that Bubbles had been chasing a rat and been trapped inside.

Then I disappeared into the night, moving at a fast limp.

Some investigator: routed by a lap-dog named Bubbles.

My ankle felt as if I'd stepped into a bear trap, but a thorough feel around my nearly-dry trouser leg reassured me that I might die of tetanus, but not from blood loss.

From deep in the rhododendrons, I watched people begin to stream out of the door and around the house. The stout woman in the flowered dress pressed to the fore, attracted by the sounds of distress from the back; eventually a light went on over the yard; the barking stopped. They were back there for some time, no doubt debating the puzzle, before returning to the house.

I was not surprised when a short time later, three people came out of the front door, including the woman, her dog Bubbles, and the man who looked like her brother. They climbed into a car and drove away, veering onto the grassy verge and over-correcting again. Others followed, two and three at a time.

I stayed where I was. Sure enough, when everyone else had gone, two men, The Master and his muscle, came out with a torch to examine the ground under the window. My brief kick was not enough to cover the signs completely by daylight, although I hoped the torch might not pick them out, and indeed, there seemed no consensus of opinion that there had been a spy outside.

They went in the house. I sat down beside my bag, to see what developed.

Nothing happened for some time, except that the upstairs room drew its curtains against the night. I wanted badly to creep back up to the house, but something about the big man's attitude suggested that he was not misled by a scatter of kicked soil, and that he would be expecting a second approach.

So until the lights went out and stayed out for a long time, I would stay where I was.

The village church bells ceased ringing at ten o'clock. Half an hour later, with no warning, light spilt out of the front door and three men came down the steps, carrying luggage.

Except that one of them, a tall, slim man with a full beard who had not been with the others earlier, turned, as if to cast a last look at a beloved home. He faced the house and its light for five long seconds, plenty of time for me to identify him, and to see that what he held to his chest was not a suit-case, but a sleeping child. Plenty of time to change everything.

Before I could react, the man in the black suit spoke, and Damian climbed into the car; The Master got behind the wheel.

I was on my feet, the shout in my throat strangling as I noticed the stance of the man in the grey suit: The reason his suit-coat had been cut loosely was because it concealed a hand-gun.

I waited until he, too, got inside the motor, and then I sprinted along the grass towards the drive to intercept them. The engine turned over and caught, and the driver put it into gear, spewing gravel behind him with the speed of his start. I ran, but reached the drive too late to catch anything but the last two digits of his number plate.

With no motor-car, not even so much as a bicycle, there was little point in charging after them. Instead, I turned back to the house, used my pick-locks, and slipped inside. Then, I listened.

How is one convinced that a house is empty? From the lack of sound, or vibration? Smell, perhaps, that most subtle of the senses? How is one convinced of a man's innocence-against all fact and rationality-from a man's arms around his child, and five seconds of his face turned to the lamp-light?

The language of bees is not the only great mystery of communication.

Certainly this house felt empty: I caught no vibration of motion, and the only noise was my own heart. I found the telephone, and rang Mycroft: If any man in England could instigate a hunt for a car, it would be he.

I gave him the numbers, description, the information that the man in the front passenger seat had a pistol, and a quick synopsis of what I had discovered that day; then I went to search the house.

A quick survey downstairs confirmed the emptiness of the rooms, all of which except the drawing room were filled with dull, dusty furniture that looked as if no-one had used it for years. The kitchen had a new-looking ice-box and food on its shelves, with the sorts of biscuits and juices that men might stock when catering for a small child.

Upstairs, I went directly to the corner room with the open windows, and stood looking in at where Damian Adler had been hidden for the past five days: two iron bedsteads, wardrobe with a time-speckled mirror, a chest of drawers missing several handles, and an armchair draped with a throw-rug. The carpet on the floor was so worn, one could no longer discern its original pattern, or even colour. Out of place amidst the ancient furniture was a work-table fashioned from a door on trestles, now littered with personal items and art supplies. I recognised Damian's cravat, tossed over the back of an old dining-room chair, and there could be no doubt whose tumble of new brushes and nearly full paint-tubes those were, or who had done those drawings-although some were by the hand of a child, in bright wax crayon. The same child who had been taken from that smaller, still-rumpled bed, whose new-looking teddy bear lay abandoned among the bed-clothes, whose bright red Chinese slipper lay beside my foot-fallen off as she was carried through the door by her fleeing father.

I bent to pick up the slipper, then froze.

Air had brushed my skin, the briefest of touches. The air currents in the house had altered, just for an instant; had I not been standing in the doorway with an open window across from me, I should not have noticed it.

I strained to hear movement from below. Nothing: four minutes, five-and then a faint creak from the direction of the old, dry staircase, instantly stifled.

I eased the knife from my boot scabbard and straightened slowly; he and I both waited for the other to betray ourselves.

I cast a glance at the window: How many creaks in the fifteen feet of floorboard between me and it? How long would it take the big man to sprint up the stairs-or, back down the hallway and out of the front door-and take aim at my fleeing back?

The knife hilt grew warm in my hand, then damp. I moved it briefly to my right hand to wipe my palm, then took it back, my fingers kneading it nervously.

It is such an easy thing, to become prey. Especially for a woman, for whom biology and nurture conspire to encourage a sense of victim-hood. When terror sweeps through the veins, we become rabbits, cowering in a corner with our eyes closed, hoping for invisibility. And a large man with a gun is a truly terrifying thing. I regretted coming, berated myself for not bringing someone with me; stood helpless, waiting for my death to come up the stairs. Bad judgment yet again, to face a gun with nothing but a sweaty-handled throwing knife.

I felt a ghostly slap on the back of my head, and Holmes' voice exhorting me, Use your brain, Russell, it's the only weapon that counts.

With a lurch, my mind dragged itself out of the spin into panic, my eyes casting about wildly for alternatives to a bullet.

Knife, yes, but this was an entire house full of deadly objects, from that neck-tie across the back of the chair to the electric lamp to the sharp pencil by my foot, and all manner of heavy objects with which to pound, pummel, and gouge a nice large target like my stalker. Heavens, if I could get him down, I could smother him with the teddy bear.