The Emotional Children

II

Pakistan was a year ago.

She was still alone, hungry, and dangerous.

But at present, she was crying. News had done something to crack her cold, violent mind, and now she was covering her mouth trying not to sob.

He was dead.

He had killed himself.

She didn't cry for people. She never cried for people. Everyone came and went in her life. She never let herself get attached, and people never meant anything to her. Pleasure was abundant. Emotional attachments were foreign. Kate had been dead a year, and when Irene found her hanging by a rope from the closet door, no tear graced her cheek. She sighed, surely, but her eyes never once watered. Even that one author, whose reputation she had destroyed with her fun and games, was ruined forever, but she didn't mind. Why should she?

She was in Berlin, not London, but news traveled fast, especially when it concerned the internationally reputed consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. It had happened only yesterday. He had been alive, then. But now he was dead. He had jumped from the rooftop of the St. Bartholomew's Hospital building.

Why?

But the woman was by no means stupid. She knew it was something to do with that obsessive maniac, James Moriarty. He had paid her well for her work, yet she never fully trusted him. He was dead, too, it seemed. Blew his own brains out on the rooftop of the same hospital Sherlock had fallen from. She wondered what had happened in their last moments.

She was hungry. Dressing in a blue evening gown, she prepared herself for a meal at the Hotel Quarré.

Ah, dinner.

It made her think of the many times she had flirted with him.

Just when she had thought "perhaps he might pop in," it turned out he was dead.

She was staying in the Hotel Adlon Kempinski and could see The Brandenburg Gate from her suite window. Although her life's work had been ruined, she was not stupid enough to not have anything saved. She had money, so she could easily afford the luxury Berlin hotel. The Hotel Quarré, then, was equally luxurious. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and the tables were sumptuously set with linen placings.

She was given a seat and gloomily, she waited to be served.

She sat for about five minutes and began to wonder. The empty minutes of nothing made her mind begin to fog with thoughts of the detective. If she had been back in her room she most certainly would have been weeping. Sentiment. Indeed, what a chemical defect this was, ceaselessly pouring over her like a river flows over a boulder.

Her phone buzzed on the glass table.

She picked it up, unlocked it, and gasped as she read what it said and who it was from:

I'm not dead, let's have dinner. SH

Of all the dirty tricks she had expected him to play, this one was the furthest from her mind. She replied, and they texted in banter. Her fingers bled fire as she formed each response with intense agility:

Yes, let's. Where are you? she asked.

Where do you think? was the reply.

Can you see me? she prodded.

Do you think I'm that stupid? was his enigmatic response.

I was only asking, she pouted.

You're sitting under the crystal chandelier. Blue dress, black heels, wretched face, came his remark, sending her into a frenzy.

Oh shut up and join me. I'd much rather hear it than read it, she ordered.