Laurie King - The Language of Bees

We left it there, a declaration of war.

Back at Mycroft's flat, which was silent but for the snores rumbling down the hallway, we assembled a dinner of bread and cheese, drank some tea, and took ourselves to bed.

Most unusually, it was Holmes who fell asleep and I who lay, gazing at the patterns of street-lights on the ceiling. After an hour, shortly after four a.m., I slipped out into the sitting room and settled with a rug over my legs and another pot of tea at my side, reading Monday's newspapers.

Something was stirring in my mind, and I did not know what it was. It was in part the awareness of tension: Yes, I was relieved that Damian seemed to be in the clear, but that had been replaced by the growing conviction that he and the child had driven away into mortal danger.

More than that, some combination of events, or of objects witnessed, prowled in the back of my mind; some alarming shape was growing in the darkness, and the only way of encouraging it to emerge into the light of consciousness was to ignore it. I turned resolutely to the news, important and trivial, and drank my tea until it was cold and bitter. Finally, I switched off the light and sat in the gathering dawn.

Today I should have to have another conversation with the Adlers' maid, Sally. Nothing she had said gave a shape to the child's age, but surely if I asked, she would be able to tell me just how old Estelle was. Other than size, what were the determining differences between an ordinary eight-year-old and a precocious four-year-old? Teeth, perhaps? I should have to find out first. And why hadn't I thought to confirm her age with that neighbour?

(Something I had read, days ago, teased at the back of my mind. That heap of papers in Sussex, it must have been, month after month of news items that blurred into one another. A murder here, a drugs raid there, given equal weight with a photograph of a hunt breakfast and a June excursion to the seaside… I firmly withdraw my mind from the direct approach.)

Also today, we should have to find the owner of that trim terrace house a short walk from three train stations. Whether Brothers owned it or let it, there would be paperwork-which could be why he had taken such care to keep Gunderson from knowing about it.

(An excursion to the seaside. But, not the seaside…)

Should I ask Holmes to review with Mycroft the crimes of the full moons? Perhaps the two brothers together would see a pattern I had missed.

(She died on a full moon, and I'd been reading the newspapers that week and come across something…)

My days in Sussex had, actually, been a lovely holiday, four entire days of solitude and bees, brought together, now that I thought of it, in Holmes' book. A man who retired at a remarkably early age from the busy hive of humanity that was London, resigning himself to the conviction that the person he called “The Woman” was lost to him, that his life was-for all he knew-sterile. He had disappeared, freeing me to enjoy the peace and the book and the skies-first the meteors, then that remarkable eclipse of the moon. What a pity he had been in the city, where the skies were no doubt too light-

(An advert! For a Thomas Cook tour, to the eclipse-but not to the lunar eclipse; why run a tour to something visible from one's back garden? That meant-)

I threw off the rug and padded down the hallway to Mycroft's study, impatiently running my grit-filled eyes across the shelves until I spotted his 1924 almanac.

I found the page, read it, and looked up to see Holmes in the doorway, summoned by my footsteps, or by my brain's turmoil.

“What have you found?”

“It may be nothing.”

“Tell me,” he demanded.

“Thomas Cook was advertising an expedition to Scandinavia-well, that's not important.” I tried to order my thoughts. “Holmes, it may not be the September full moon that Brothers is waiting for. Full moons enter into it, but I think he's picking off celestial events. The ram at Long Meg died on the first of May, the Celtic festival of Beltane. Albert Seaforth died on the night of the Perseids. Brothers may be aiming for the solar eclipse.”

“An eclipse? In England?”

“No, it's mostly Arctic. Parts of northern Scandinavia will see it, although it looks as if Bergen, Norway, might be on the very edge. However, Holmes, I-”

“When?”

I looked back at the page, hoping I had read it wrong, but I had not. “August the thirtieth.”

Four days away.

HEAVY SILENCE PRESSED ON US. HOLMES STARED at me for the longest time before his eyes flicked down to the almanac, and he drew a ragged breath. His mouth was coming open as he turned to the door.

“Mycroft!” he shouted.

With a crash of feet on the floor, Mycroft Holmes woke to his brother's need. Within minutes, the telephone was summoning help from near and far. The voices of the Holmes brothers were soon joined by others, and I listened through the open study door as the complex machinery of Mycroft's department was seized and turned towards finding a pair of men, the younger of whom could possibly appear ill or intoxicated, with a child, age three to eight. Borders; ferries; telegrams: By seven-thirty, the sitting room sounded like a general headquarters on the eve of battle.

All the while, I sat at Mycroft's oversized desk, trying to order my thoughts. A part of my mind was occupied with drawing up a list of possible sites Brothers might choose that were within striking distance of Bergen: Viking country, whence the raiders had set off to conquer the British Isles; home of Woden, the Viking's chief god and a figure who occupied much of Brothers' image of himself.

But when I had made the list, I then pulled out a small-scale map of the United Kingdom and studied that, chin on hands. After a while, I put on some proper clothes and went down to ask the building's concierge for his copy of Bradshaw's time-table. I came back up and passed through the room, unnoticed by nine urgently occupied men, to settle again at the desk.

An hour later, I saw Mycroft, still in his dressing-gown, go into his room. Holmes was speaking on the sitting room telephone, but a minute later, silence fell for the first time since he had called his brother out of sleep. I heard the click of his cigarette lighter, and the puffing noise of pillows being arranged on the divan.

I went out and found Holmes sitting before the fireplace, staring intently at the cold stones. While the water was boiling for coffee, I went through the sitting room and gathered half a dozen empty cups, piling them up for washing. Absently, I toasted bread, and had managed to scrape half their burnt substance into the sink when Mrs Cowper arrived for the day. She looked in astonishment at the signs of turmoil and dishevelment where normally she would find a cup and one sullied ash-tray, then snatched open the oven door, releasing yet another cloud of smoke. I hastily retreated with my own ravaged toast to where Holmes sat.

He looked startled when I held a cup under his nose, and the long ash from his forgotten cigarette dropped to the carpet. “Russell, there you are. Ah, coffee, good. Did you see your letter?”

The morning post lay on the table near the door. A cream-coloured envelope bore my name, in an antique and slightly shaky hand. I carried it back to the divan and thumbed it open. It was from Professor Ledger, to whom I had given my address in London.

“Mycroft has arranged that all border crossings be watched,” Holmes was saying. “All international ferries and steamers will be searched, and all ports in northern Europe sent photographs of the two men, in case they've already crossed over. The same with aeroplanes-and harbour masters, in case he tries to hire a small boat. I fear we are closing the stable door on the horse's tail, and that they left the country immediately you saw them drive away from the walled house, but perhaps we can at least track where he has broken out.”