The Journey: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller) (4 page)

Frowning, he stuck the cigarette between his teeth. He surely missed his pipe. The flickering gaze behind a cloud of tobacco smoke, his lips pressed together, face hardened, while everything else about him seemed to relax and tense in waves, told of his busy mind.
 

A long moment later, he pressed the remains of his smoke into the grass. ‘What you need is a miscarriage,’ he finally said.

‘I would have needed one much earlier. But right away would be convenient, too.’

‘Quite obviously, that’s not what I mean.’

‘But that’s what
I
mean,’ I answered.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the bark.

A miscarriage… I thought of Moran possibly tracking us. What thrill that man must be having. If I had a miscarriage and he learned about it, he wouldn’t be thrown off our scent. That James had told his men to not harm me until his child had turned three wouldn’t keep Moran from hunting Holmes.

‘We need to see his solicitors,’ he said. ‘As James Moriarty’s widow and soon-to-be mother of his child, you have the right to a dower. And we should be able to move all of Moriarty’s assets to a trust fund for his heir-at-law, and with that, cut off all financial aid and reward to the assassins. That would certainly dampen their motivation.’
 

‘Are you sure you don’t want to let Watson know you are alive and well?’ I asked.

His expression flickered. Obviously, he had no wish to discuss this issue yet again. ‘Yes.’

I frowned at him, but did not dig any further. It was his decision, and I was certain it wasn’t an easy one.

‘What about Mycroft?’

‘I sent him a telegram on my way from Meiringen to London. And I plan to contact him again soon. We’ll need his help.’ A dissecting glance later, he said, ‘You don’t believe it can be done. A feigned miscarriage.’

‘No.’ I inspected my hands as though they could speak for me. ‘It would require hiding my stomach from Moran and simultaneously convincing James’s solicitors that I will raise the child. A wire from James’s solicitors to his family and another one to Moran would destroy the charade in minutes.’

‘There is a risk, indeed. But I believe I can use it to our advantage.’

‘How so?’

‘Too many strands of possibilities at the moment,’ he said, picking at fragments of greenery stuck to his shoes. ‘The most essential is to make Moran believe your child died before it was born. He will inform the others of that
sad
fact, and once he learns that you received your dower and moved all of Moriarty’s money to a trust fund, Moran must try to convince the solicitors of the child’s death. Moran knows that without Moriarty’s money, he is nothing. We must arrange it so that no one believes him. We must destroy his reputation. But most importantly, we must track his messages in order to identify his accomplices.’

I nodded, focussing on the main goal. ‘It should be fairly easy to obtain a stillborn from any hospital in London. Mycroft could bring one.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be delighted,’ grunted Holmes sardonically.

‘Do you occasionally care whether people think you heartless?’ I asked.

‘It is a waste of time to wonder what others might be thinking. One only has to look at people. One opinion here, another one there, and rarely are they based on facts. The heart is a thing that beats and pumps blood to the brain. Quite obviously, I have both.’

‘I know you have both,’ I said softly.
 

‘Ah, the romantic! I must disappoint you. I avoid emotions wherever possible. They represent an unacceptable distraction. I am an intellect. The rest are bodily functions.’ He leant back to prepare another smoke.
 

‘Bollocks!’

Cigarette smoke shot through his nostrils. Grey eyes flashed in amusement.

‘I can prove it,’ I said.

‘A challenge? Very well.’ He sat erect, anticipation in every breath.

I rose and approached him, then kneeled in the grass next to him with my face close to his. ‘Cocaine.’
 

His pupils flared wide open, as though he could already taste the drug rushing through his veins. ‘I have seen a great number of needle puncture scars on your forearms, Holmes. Your ability to use your left hand almost as well as your right impresses me. Injecting cocaine solution left-handed is quite a feat.’ I took his right wrist, unbuttoned the sleeve and pushed it up. He stiffened. Slowly, I ran my index finger across his pale skin, counting the needle punctures. He extracted his arm from my grip.
 

‘From what I could observe,’ I said, ‘I conclude that your emotional landscape is rather complex. So complex, in fact, that your mind must control it. You are a very controlled man, but I wonder what you were before you gained that control? Perhaps that was when you took cocaine so often that you scarred your forearms? These are old punctures. You seem to not need it any longer. Or should I say you do need it, but you control that need?’

His face was a mask. Only his eyes betrayed the turmoil within.
 

‘You can make others believe that you don’t experience emotions. It fits your mask so neatly. But I don’t believe you. Cocaine is but one example. You took it because you craved it. Craving is a very strong emotion, is it not? Once the chemical hits your bloodstream, you feel intense pleasure, most likely you experience sexual arousal, too. You feel the rush of accomplishment, of being better and of higher intellect than anyone. You have the constant need to be the best, and this emotion controls you.’

Heat rose up his throat, colouring his ears. ‘Interesting observation,’ he rasped. ‘But you ignore the fact that it is only my mind that needs stimulation. In absence of a case, I must invigorate my mental faculties with cocaine. Otherwise—’

‘The other emotion,’ I cut him off, ‘that seems to control you is your fear of me.’ Still his pupils were wide open; nothing else moved. I retreated to my side of the fire and sat down.

‘Not to forget curiosity and passion — the two driving forces of every brilliant scientist.’

His jaws were working.
 

‘I will not talk about emotions anymore; it distresses you too much,’ I said.

‘On the contrary. I couldn’t care less.’ He rose, stomped on the cigarette butt, and walked away.

— four —

Sussex Downs, 1881. (4)

W
e stood on a hilltop. The moorland spread before us, wide and soft and green, interrupted only by splotches of treacherous mud. The sea was a good eight to ten miles to the south, but I already imagined smelling it.

‘I’ll go first,’ I said.

‘No. You walk behind me.’

‘I’m lighter, my baggage is on my back, which gives me a better balance, and I know how to move over swampy terrain. If you walk first, you’ll only block my view.’ I pushed past him and walked downhill towards a place most people avoided like the plague.

We walked in silence. Holmes’s feet made occasional
slop-slop
noises, telling me that he hadn’t always placed his feet where I placed mine.

I listened to birds singing spring songs to their mates who probably sat on a bunch of eggs, their eyes half-closed, their feathery butts all fluffed out. Would they feel their chicks moving about and scraping their stubbly wings on the inside of the hard shell? My child seemed to be sleeping now. How would it feel when it had grown so large that I could barely see my own feet? When its head was lodged in my pelvis, feet kicking my—
 

My foot caught on a hidden branch. I tipped forward and slipped. There was nothing I could steady myself with, nothing to hold the world in place; instead, it rushed past me without hesitation. So quick the fall; and yet, the descent, the sliding into the cold, wet bog, felt like an eternity — as though I had time to turn around and wave goodbye. My skirt billowed around my waist, then around my chest; darkening as the fabric sucked up water and mud, and growing heavier quickly.
 

My neck was already immersed in water when I bent my head to see Holmes jump towards me. He landed on the clump of grass I had just been standing on. His eyes were wild, his cheeks on fire. I heard the sharp
tsreee-tsreee
of a bird warning its kin, when, Holmes shouted, ‘Your hand, Anna!’

Where was my hand? My eyes searched for it. There, that small white thing was holding onto a clump of grass.
Why not?
whispered my mind. I looked up at Holmes, felt calmness washing over me, and let go of my only support.
 

‘Don’t you dare!’ he barked.
 

Black water swallowed my vision. Here was the solution I had longed to find. An explosion of happiness and relief spread through my chest, down to my feet, tickling my toes. I would have cried out in joy had the swamp not sealed my lips.

Pain shot through my head and down my neck as a hand grabbed my hair. His other hand snatched a fistful of my clothes and he hoisted me up on a clump of vegetation. I coughed. And I fought. One cannot easily accept life with death so near and so sweet. ‘Why?’ I cried, and he did, too.
 

Grass prickled my wet face. Holmes’s hands clawed my shoulders. Sobs pressed against my ribcage.
 

In an attempt to pull myself together and fix whatever needed fixing, I staggered to my feet. He reached out. My gaze followed his hand. Several buttons had popped off my dress where my stomach had grown too large. He picked at the loose threads, rested his knuckles there, then the whole of his palm.

‘We need to reach Littlehampton,’ he croaked. ‘The blankets and all your clothes are wet.’ He took the drenched rucksack from my back, grabbed my hand, and walked ahead.

Shock drove silence between us, muffling the ensuing three hours of brisk walking. Eventually, I had to break it. ‘I need to sit down for a few minutes.’ My clothes were steaming from my own heat and the warmth of the sun. My tongue stuck to my palate.

I sat in the cool grass, stretching my aching feet and drinking the little water we had left. Holmes dropped the luggage and himself opposite from me.

‘I spent two years in an asylum,’ he said.

I opened my mouth and closed it again. One swallow later, I asked, ‘What kind of asylum?’

‘There is only one kind.’ While he spoke, his eyes held mine. As though every twitch I made was placed under a microscope.

‘When was that?’ I asked.
 

There, his gaze flickered. ‘Later. I promise.’

‘If you are thinking of sending me to an asylum—’

His shocked expression shut my mouth.
 
‘Thank you,’ I whispered, lay down, and watched the wind herding the clouds.
 

Attempting suicide was one of the many reasons for sending women to lunatic asylums. In fact, women could be committed for anything that indicated they didn’t behave in a normal and acceptable fashion. Strangely, the two sexes were measured with different gauges. If a woman laughed out loud in a teahouse, she’d be labelled inappropriate, perhaps even a prostitute. If a man did the same, he would receive no label at all. A woman who struck back when her husband beat her might end up with a fine, or even in gaol, depending on the injuries she inflicted. A man who defended himself against another man would walk free. What bothered me most was that which everyone accepted as normal and necessary bore no logic to me at all. I failed to see logic in many things humans did, especially when they acted as a mass.

We began walking again and an hour later, we reached Littlehampton. Strangers that we were, and quite tattered ones on top of it, we drew everyone’s attention. Holmes enquired after an inn with guest rooms; people pointed and we found it within minutes: the George Inn.

The landlord was a stout man sporting a mighty moustache and cheeks the colour of maple leaves in autumn. He eyed us with suspicion when Holmes said, ‘Good day to you, sir. I am Dr Cyril Baker and this is my wife, Mrs Clara Baker. We’ve run into a spot of bad luck. We require your assistance and will pay you handsomely.’

The man opened his mouth, but Holmes kept chatting, emphasising his educated speech a little too much. ‘My wife and I were robbed, but we were lucky that the ruffians didn’t search her dress. Or worse! By Jove! I’ve just now come to think of it!’ He clapped a hand to his chest and turned to me. ‘Don’t listen to me, my dear, don’t listen. It’s but the confused babble of a husband who has seen his beloved wife in too great a distress.’ He turned back to the landlord and gave him a grim nod. ‘My dear sir, have you two rooms for us?’