Young Sherlock Holmes: Fire Storm Part 17

Sherlock was carried down a corridor and into a room. He heard barking and growling. On the far side of the room was a fenced-off area. Men were looking into it with avid interest, some of them exchanging money. Through gaps in the fence Sherlock could see two dogs a big ones a fighting. They leaped at each other, tearing at ears with their teeth and scratching at eyes and skin with their claws. In the flickering torchlight he could see blood spattered across the floor. Some of it was fresh, but some of it was dried. Dogs a and maybe other things a had been fighting there for a while.

He was carried out of that room and into another one. There was no fenced-off area here a instead, men and women were gathered around a rough circle that had been chalked on the flagstones. In the centre of the circle, two men warily stalked each other. They were stripped to the waist, and their chests gleamed as if they had been oiled. One of them had fingernail marks ripped down his torso. The second man suddenly stepped forward. He crouched, grabbing the first around the waist, lifted him in the air and threw him to the ground. The crowd went wild, yelling and cheering.

Moments later Sherlock was being carried out of that room as well. The next had a walkway round the edge and a rectangular pit in the middle, like a swimming pool. Except that there was no water, and a waist-high fence made of wide wooden panels ran all the way round the edge of the pit. Sherlock could smell a rank, feral odour.

Something made a snarling sound. Sherlock realized that there was an animal corralled in there. It had obviously heard the men carrying Sherlock, because it threw itself against the fence. The wooden panels shook. What was in there?

The men scurried for the far door, obviously terrified of whatever the beast was.

Sherlock was taken into a large room and dumped on the ground.

He lay there for a while, staring upward. His arms and legs felt three inches longer than they had been. He could feel bruises all over his body. All in all, he thought, he wasn't really in a position to do any damage to anyone.

The ceiling was white plaster separated into squares by wooden beams. It looked old, and it looked impressive, but there were ma.s.sive strands of cobwebs in each corner, hanging like grey rags.

Sherlock closed his eyes and listened. He could hear the crackling of a fire a logs splitting in the heat a and a background murmur that sounded like a whole group of people waiting for something a whispers, giggles, the shuffling of feet. The sound of an audience waiting for a show to start. He could smell sweat, and food, and underneath it all the rank odour of the animal in the pit in the previous room.

Eventually Sherlock pushed himself to a sitting position and looked around.

He was in a stone hall. Flaming torches hung from the walls, illuminating everything with a flickering red-tinged light. Tapestries hung between the torches, looking like old moth-eaten bits of carpet. Interspersed between the tapestries and the torches were the stuffed heads of animals, mounted on s.h.i.+eld-like plaques. Most of them were stags with spread antlers, but there were also some wolves with their jaws open, exposing their teeth, and something that Sherlock could have sworn was a bear. He supposed he should be glad there weren't any men's heads on the wall.

Ahead of him was a dais, and on the dais was a chair. It looked like it had been hewn by hand from a ma.s.sive tree trunk. Sitting on the chair, lounging on it, as if he was a king in the centre of his court, was a man who was as big as Amyus Crowe, but where Amyus Crowe was usually a symphony in white a white hair, white clothes, white hat a this man was a concerto in black. His mane of hair, wild eyebrows and unkempt beard were the colour of night. The checked jacket and the kilt he wore were mostly black as well, with occasional lines of red or white. Like Crowe he must have been in his late fifties or early sixties, but like Crowe he looked as if he could beat several younger men at a time in a fight.

Several men stood behind him. They looked like boxers, or wrestlers a heavily muscled, with flattened noses and thickened, misshapen ears. They too were wearing jackets and kilts of the same black-checked cloth. Clan tartan a wasn't that what Matty had said it was called? Did that indicate they were all part of the same clan?

The man in the chair gazed down at Sherlock with a raised eyebrow.

'So,' he said in a Scottish brogue so thick that Sherlock could have cut it with a cake knife, 'this is the other bairn the Yankees are looking for.' He raised a hand and gestured to one of the men behind him. 'Bring the youngster's friends here. Let's have a little family reunion before the inevitable and tragic separation.'

The man nodded and walked off through an arched doorway. While they waited, Sherlock took the opportunity to look around. Gathered on either side of the dais was a mixed group of people who were staring either at Sherlock or at the man in the chair. There were men, women and some children, but they all had the look of people who survived by their wits a hard, watchful eyes, and skin that had seen a lot of sun and rain. They weren't dressed in tartan. Instead their clothes were a mixture of the patched and the threadbare. Where Sherlock saw a jacket and a pair of trousers that actually matched he guessed it was either by accident or because they'd been stolen together. Among the rabble that cl.u.s.tered around the dais, Sherlock noticed several of the white-faced, skeletal figures. The rest of the crowd didn't seem to mind their presence a unlike the people in the tavern. They were fully integrated, not avoided, chatting with their companions. They weren't acting in the distant, corpse-like manner Sherlock had noticed before. He didn't know why they were dressed the way they were, but there had to be a reason for it.

A ripple of interest ran through the crowd, and they turned towards the archway. Seconds later, Crowe, Virginia, Rufus Stone and Matty were pushed through. They glanced around, orienting themselves. Seeing Sherlock in the centre of the room, Crowe headed over towards him.

'Son,' Crowe nodded as Sherlock climbed to his feet.

'Ah worked out when ah saw they'd taken Ginnie that they'd gotten you as well.'

'I'm sorry I couldn't protect her,' Sherlock apologized.

Crowe shook his ma.s.sive head. 'Ain't nothin' you could've done,' he said. 'These folk are organized. They took us at the top of the cliff an' brought us here.'

Sherlock frowned. 'I'm guessing they're not Bryce Scobell's men,' he said. 'They look more like locals, like Scotsmen.'

Crowe nodded. 'Ah suspect they're a local criminal gang based around Edinburgh. We seem to have fallen into their hands, though ah ain't quite sure why or what they want.'

The man who had been sent out to get them stepped towards Crowe. 'Nae talkin',' he growled, and reached out as if to cuff Crowe around the ear. Crowe calmly caught his hand and bent it backwards until the man screamed and dropped to his knees.

'Ah don't much like bein' manhandled,' he said quietly, 'an' there's been a whole load of that already. Grateful if you could stop.'

The man on the ground struggled to get to his feet, and two thugs from behind the bearded man on the chair started forward towards Crowe, but their leader raised a hand.

'Leave him be, for the moment. He's got spirit. I admire that in a man.' He nodded at Crowe. 'Stand down, Mr Crowe. I could throw all my lads at you at once, I suppose, and that would certainly be fun to watch. As you can see, we do like to watch a good fight here a watch and place bets. Problem is that you'd return a few of them damaged and I need them for other things.'

Crowe faced up to the big black-bearded man. 'You have the advantage of me, sir. You know my name, but ah don't believe we are acquainted.'

The man stood up. He was even taller than Sherlock had thought, and his chest was as wide as a beer barrel.

'My name is Gahan Macfarlane of the Clan Macfarlane, and I have a wee business proposition to put to you.'

Something about the name 'Macfarlane' struck a chord in Sherlock's mind. He'd heard that name recently. But where?

Crowe smiled, but there was little humour in his expression. 'You don't strike me as a businessman,' he replied. 'More like a bully an' a criminal.'

Macfarlane smiled back. 'Strong words from a man who's outnumbered. There are many kinds of business, my friend, and many kinds of businessman. They don't all wear frock coats and top hats.'

'So which particular kind of business are you in?'

'Oh, I have a bonny portfolio of interests.' Macfarlane stared around at his court, and they duly laughed. 'Let's just say I work in insurance and have done with it.'

'This,' Crowe said darkly, 'would, ah guess, be the kind of insurance where local shopkeepers pay you a certain amount every week to ensure they don't have . . . accidents.'

'That's correct,' Macfarlane acknowledged. 'And you would be surprised how often those shopkeepers have accidents very shortly after they decide they can't afford my particular kind of insurance any more. It's a dangerous world out there. Shops catch fire all the time, and shopkeepers get beaten up by roving gangs of roughs for no reason at all. As I see it, I'm providing a public service by protecting them from these perils.'

Crowe turned to Sherlock. 'Extortion,' he said simply. 'Innocent struggling shopkeepers paying money to stop this man from sending his thugs in to destroy their stock, beat them up and set fire to their premises. It's an ugly way to make a living.'

Macfarlane shrugged. 'It's nature, red in tooth and claw,' he said. 'Every animal has something that it's scared of, something that can kill and eat it. It's no different here in Edinburgh. The locals avoid paying their taxes to the Government whenever they get a chance. The shopkeepers sell beer and bread to the locals, but they water down the beer and adulterate their bread with sawdust to save some flour. I come along and take my own cut from the shopkeepers. It's the chain of life, my friend.' He smiled. 'They call us the Black Reavers,' he said proudly. 'And we're known and feared from here to Glasgow!'

The name was familiar to Sherlock from the Edinburgh newspaper reports. The Black Reavers were the criminal gang that was feared so much. 'So who are you scared of?' he asked boldly. 'Who takes their cut from you?'

Macfarlane moved his s.h.a.ggy bearded head to look at Sherlock. 'I'm at the top of the food chain in these parts, laddie,' he said grimly. 'There isn't anyone I'm scared of.' He glanced back at Crowe. 'And give me my due a I don't get involved in prost.i.tution, or blackmail, or kidnapping, or anything like that. Nothing that affects bairns, by the by. I leave that to the lower cla.s.ses of criminal. I have my standards.' He shrugged. 'Maybe a little pickpocketing or breaking and entering every now and then. Or some of the men who work down at the docks get a little careless with the occasional crate, it smashes on the dock and some stuff gets scooped up and taken away. I don't organize the crimes, or carry them out, but I do take a cut from the pickpockets and thieves for the privilege of being able to operate on my territory.'

'A criminal with morals,' Crowe mocked. 'How touchin'.'

'A criminal with a practical att.i.tude,' Macfarlane rejoined. 'The police get more exercised over kidnapping, blackmail and murder than they do over theft and extortion. I try not to attract their attention.'

'So there is someone higher up the food chain than you,' Sherlock pointed out.

Macfarlane scowled. 'Even the bear avoids disturbing the wasp's nest,' he snapped.

Interesting, Sherlock thought. The man was touchy on that point.

He looked around at Macfarlane's court of bullies, thugs, pickpockets and thieves. And of course the skull-faced 'corpses' scattered among them. 'But what's the point of pretending you have dead people under your command?' he continued. 'I mean, it's very well done, very convincing, but I don't understand what it's for.'

'I rule through fear, laddie,' Macfarlane replied simply. 'People pay me extortion money because they fear what will happen to them if they don't. I've found that they fear me more if they think I have powers they don't understand. Sometimes they try to stand up to my men a try to get them to back down, or try to pay them off a but how can they threaten or bribe a corpse? If they think I can control the dead they will live in mortal fear of me, and they'll keep paying.' He laughed. 'There's some that don't call us the Black Reavers any more a they call us the Black Revivers, on account of the fact that we revive the dead!'

'But they're just people dressed and made up to look like corpses,' Sherlock pointed out. 'Don't people realize?'

'People believe what they want to believe. Edinburgh is a dark place. People here want to believe that the dead can walk. What with Burke and Hare, the buried parts of the city and all the ghost stories a.s.sociated with the castle, my work was half done for me already.'

'Fascinatin' though this is,' Crowe said, 'ah don't quite see what we have to do with your fine little business setup. We're not thieves, we're not pickpockets an' we're not shopkeepers. What exactly are we doin' here?'

'Ah,' Macfarlane said. 'That's an interesting question. Word reached my ears that someone new to the area was looking for a party of people. They were looking for a big man with white hair and a funny way of speaking who was travelling with a girl with red hair who was dressed like a boy. In fact, the word that reached my ears suggested that the girl might even be disguised as a boy, but that she could be recognized by the unusual colour of her eyes.' He gestured towards Crowe and Virginia. 'And here you are a a big man with white hair and a funny way of speaking and a girl with eyes the colour of gorse in flower. Once I was told you'd been seen in the area of Cramond I decided to take a look at you myself. I wanted to see what was so valuable about you.'

'Valuable?' Crowe said. His face was grim. He seemed to know where the elliptical conversation was heading, and Sherlock had a good idea as well.

'Oh, didn't I mention? There was talk of a reward offered for the man and the girl I described. Alive, of course. Five hundred pounds was spoken. That's a significant sum in these parts. There was no reward for them dead. In fact, there was a specific threat made of retribution if they were killed by accident.' He smiled at Crowe. 'I don't know who you are or who you annoyed, but someone is very keen to get their hands on you. Not that it matters, but do you want to tell me why they want you so badly?'

Crowe locked gazes with Macfarlane. 'Everythin' is scared of somethin',' he rumbled.

Macfarlane nodded. 'Bold words,' he said. 'But you're here, and you don't seem too frightening to me. I've sent a message to the man who was offering a reward for your capture. He'll be here soon. Then we'll see what we see.'

'What about the boys?' Crowe asked, jerking his head towards Sherlock and Matty. 'You said you never hurt bairns. They got caught up in this by accident. Ah'd be obliged if you could see your way clear to lettin' 'em go. There's no reward for them, an' you have mah word as a gentleman that ah'll be less trouble to you if you let them go.'

Macfarlane considered for a moment. 'It's true that I'm not a man who countenances violence to bairns,' he said thoughtfully.

'I won't go!' Sherlock blurted out.

Crowe rounded on him. 'You will if ah say so, son,' he hissed. 'You don't know what Bryce Scobell is capable of.'

'But-'

Crowe raised his hand. 'No more discussion. Better two of us stay to confront Scobell than all four of us. Ah'd feel easier in mah heart if ah knew that you and young Matthew were safe.' He turned to Macfarlane. 'Well? Do we have a deal?'

Macfarlane stared at Crowe for a while. 'On the one hand, you're right a there's no specific reward offered for the two laddies. On the other hand, they're resourceful, and I think that, despite what you say, you might be more inclined to cooperate if I keep them here. So, no, there is no deal. I hold all the cards at the moment, and there's no reason for me to give any of them up in a hurry.'

Something was still tugging in the depths of Sherlock's mind about the name 'Macfarlane'. He tried to give it s.p.a.ce to come through, to make itself more obvious. Something he'd heard recently? No, something he'd seen.

'That murder case!' he said suddenly as the memory broke through to the surface of his thoughts. 'The one where Sir Benedict Ventham was killed.' He tried to bring the images of the newspapers into focus in his mind a the one he'd read on the train from Farnham to London, and the one he'd read in the park at the head of Prince's Street. 'The woman who was arrested a her name was Macfarlane, and the newspaper said she was connected to the Black Reavers.'

A hush seemed to settle over the room. Macfarlane's face turned thunderous. 'Mah wee sister,' he growled. 'To have that happen to her! She's not even guilty! She wouldn't hurt a fly!'

'She's related to a criminal gang leader,' Crowe growled. 'Ah presume the police just took one look at her family tree an' threw her into jail.'

Macfarlane stood and walked forward, stepping off the dais and coming right up to Crowe. The two men stood face to face, nose to nose. They were both the same height, and had the same impressive build and the same mane of hair. The only differences between them were that Gahan Macfarlane's hair was black instead of white.

'She isn't guilty of any crime,' he said quietly, his words dropping into the expectant quiet of the room like stones into a still pool of water. 'She always hated the line of business that I'd gone into. She's a G.o.d-fearing la.s.s, and nothing could ever change that.'

'Things can happen,' Crowe said, equally quietly. 'Perhaps this Sir Benedict Ventham attacked her, and she had to protect herself.'

'She wrote to me.' Macfarlane wasn't blinking. He was staring straight at Crowe, daring the big American to continue finding reasons why his sister might be guilty. 'She swore to me on the Bible that she didn't do anything that might have resulted in his death, and that she mourned his death like she mourned the death of our own dear father. I believe her.'

'In that case,' Sherlock said loudly, 'I have a business proposition for you.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Macfarlane stared at Crowe for a long moment, as if he hadn't heard Sherlock speak, then swivelled his head until he was looking directly at him. 'Go on, laddie. Astound me.'

'If we can clear your sister's name, show that she's innocent a you let us go. You don't give us to Bryce Scobell.'

Sherlock could hear a murmur of disbelief run around the room.

Crowe had also turned to look at Sherlock. In contrast to Macfarlane's calm, almost serene expression, he was frowning as if he was wondering what Sherlock was up to. Sherlock had to admit that he wasn't sure himself.

'Let me get this right,' Macfarlane said slowly. 'You want to . . . what? Investigate the murder? Look for things the police might have missed? And you seriously think you can collect enough evidence to convince the police that young Aggie is blameless in this crime?'

Sherlock shrugged. 'What have you got to lose? If we fail to prove her innocent, then you give us to Bryce Scobell and collect your blood money. If we succeed, and she's released, then you get your sister back. Either way, you win.'

Macfarlane smiled, as if amused at Sherlock's confidence. 'You're a little young to be a copper, lad.'

Sherlock's mind flashed back to the time, some months before, when his brother Mycroft had been accused of murder. The police hadn't been interested in investigating the crime: they had a suspect right in front of them, and enough evidence to convict. It was Sherlock who'd had to find the real killer.

'The police see what they want to see,' he said bitterly. 'They see what's easiest for them. I don't get distracted by the obvious. I can see things they can't.'

Macfarlane stared at him without speaking. His expression was a strange mixture of dismissive scorn and faint hope. There was something in Sherlock's voice that was working on him.

'I believe you can, at that,' he said eventually, 'but I'm going to need more than that before I let you loose to investigate. This might just be a way of getting you somewhere you can make a run for it.'

'Not when you've still got my friends captive,' Sherlock pointed out. He glanced around, desperately looking for something a anything! a which he could use to persuade Macfarlane that he could do what he said.

'You said some of your men work at the docks?' he asked.

Macfarlane nodded.

'What if I could tell you which of your men work on the docks and which don't. Would that convince you?'

'Just by looking at them? Not asking them any questions?' Macfarlane shook his head. 'I can't see how you'd be able to tell.'

'Line up twenty of your men,' Sherlock said. 'Don't even tell me how many of them work at the docks. I'll work it out.'

'Let's make it more difficult,' Macfarlane said. 'You can't look at their hands either, just in case you were hoping for rope burns or the like.'

Sherlock shrugged. 'If that makes you happier.'

Macfarlane moved away from Amyus Crowe as if he had forgotten that the big American was even there. He pointed at various people in the crowd. 'You, you and you a over there, against the wall. Dougie, you too. And you, Fergus . . . Hands behind your backs, all of you.'

While Macfarlane was selecting his twenty men, Rufus Stone gestured to Sherlock. 'Are you sure about this, Sherlock? Can you do it?'

'I think so,' Sherlock replied. 'I'm not sure there's an alternative. We need to find some leverage to get him to release us. If you've got a better idea . . . ?'

Rufus shrugged. 'Not off the top of my head.'