-Emily-
~~~~~~
I'm not entirely sure how I found myself sat here, in this ostentatious restaurant, in my wine-spattered shirt and damp jeans, opposite Irene Adler. The room buzzes with restrained energy. I'm still somewhat intoxicated, which doesn't help the clarification process: I dimly remember being hauled to my feet and sat on the sofa, given a tea towel to daub the blood from my hands, left to calm down like a disgraced child. Sure enough, the spike of anger began to dissipate, and, after my little time-out, I began to come to my senses.
The first thing my stilled mind prompted was an investigation of the damage done. I'd stood up – and fallen back down again, felled by a wine-induced swell in my skull – then stood again, and made my unsteady way around the coffee table and into the kitchen. Just half an hour before, I'd been the eye of this proverbial storm – and yet, in that moment, I was an observer, and I took it all in with the growing dread of an unsuspecting witness. Chaos is a dramatic understatement. Devastation comes closer in describing the destruction laid out in front of me: in my flare-up, I'd succeeded not only in snapping the kitchen tap in two, but also flooding the room. Someone – Irene presumably – had tied another tea towel around the wrenched metal to staunch the water; a gingham tourniquet, and yet the pipes continued to expel their clear blood with suicidal determination.
Such was the extent of the kitchen dousing, the overflow had moved from tile to carpet. I could feel it under my feet as I walked. My weapon of choice, the kitchen chair, floated on the water surface in little chips and bars and metal brackets. I remember reaching down and retrieving a dismembered chair leg, holding it like a dripping baton and taking in the warped gas rings, the broken freezer door, the cracked microwave screen and patchwork of chipped tiles.
I saw it all, and I felt sick.
Irene chose that moment to make her reappearance, shimmering in a satin dress I'd never seen and adorned with coordinating emeralds; one at each earlobe, two wide green bracelets and a single, glittering gem resting at the hollow of her collarbone. Each step was accompanied with the crystal clink of heel tips on broken glass.
"Are you bringing that with you?" she asked, setting her clutch on the counter. I looked down at my wooden accessory. "I'm not sure they'll let you. It's rather select. I don't think kitchen furniture makes the dress code."
"Bring it where?"
"Out." Irene inspected her teeth for lipstick in her compact mirror. "I wasn't joking, darling. I've got a reservation for seven."
"I can't go."
"Of course you can."
I gestured at the devastation. "I've got to leave."
"And abandon me? I need a dining partner."
I'd opened my mouth to tell her that I couldn't possibly come with her, not when I'd just lashed out in such spectacular fashion, not after I'd shown her those awful vulnerabilities that I'd previously restrained in some padded cell of my consciousness. I prepared to decline her invitation and pack my limited belongings for imminent departure, but all that came out of my poor, alcohol-muted mouth was a hoarse sound that could be interpreted as protest. I was manoeuvred from kitchen battlefield to stairs to taxi backseat.
Irene leans forward. I can smell her perfume; if it were a colour, it'd be coral, lightly floral, musk, vanilla, feminine allure. She emits it like heat. I breathe it in, unsure whether it is the temperature of this restaurant, the remaining wine in my blood or the woman in front of me that is making it so very difficult to focus. Her ankle brushes mine beneath the table as she talks, and she crosses her wrists, lacing her fingers together.
"See that man over there," she says. "The politician. Grey beard."
I nod my head once.
"He likes to be hung upside down by his toes. Squealed like a pig at slaughter."
The waiter brings the champagne. I reach for it instinctively; a jerked, puppet-string reaction, but Irene lightly slaps my hand away. I feel myself rile at the refusal. She holds up a finger, and pours herself a glass.
"Later. I haven't finished."
She begins narrating the wonderfully salacious secrets of our neighbours between sips of champagne: the woman sitting two tables to our left has a penchant for dog collars, the man to my right enjoys crawling on all fours with a tail between his legs, the elderly woman with the upturned nose and gold-pin broach has, according to Irene, a predilection for black leather blindfolds and shackles.
"I once had the gentleman in the purple suit tied up like a trussed ham. He had an apple in his mouth, too. Wanted to be choked until he went a very specific shade of cornflower blue. To this day, I couldn't tell you why – but then again, it isn't my job to ask. It's my job to do."
I shake my head. "You're ridiculous."
"Perhaps. But people like ridiculous. They like what they're told they can't have. I show them they can have it and more."
"Was he a client?"
Irene looks around. "Who?"
"Jim."
There's a small pause. Her confidence falters – the lipstick smile drops, her breathing hitches – but all is quickly restored, and she laughs, resting her head against one hand.
"Not exactly."
She doesn't continue. Irritated, I press my fingertips into the tablecloth and say, "You knew him like I knew him. Tell me."
Irene sets down her champagne flute.
"I was put in contact with him after a very pretty little scandal some six years ago. I needed security. I'd been told a certain government official had caught wind of my involvement with the monarchy – and that his baby brother was to come after me with his silly hats and staggering intellect. Naturally, I made some external enquiries. For insurance's sake."
"What did he want from you?"
"Information. Some of it was business – flight details, I seem to recall. Something about a pre-planned terrorist attack." She sips her drink. "But most of it was personal. He wanted a blow-by-blow account of his Iceman and his Virgin, he wanted photos, he wanted interactions and conversations and a record of his 'live-ins'." She tilts her head. "That was what he called John. And Martha. Molly was 'Plaything'. Gregory was 'Nancy Drew'. I gave it all to him."
"Willingly?"
"Well, as willingly as one can exchange illicit information with a man with ties to every white-collar criminal organisation in the world." She dabs the corner of her mouth with her napkin. "Of course, a few polite threats were delivered. Customary. I believe he once told me he'd make me into shoes."
I smile in spite of myself. Irene sits back and continues, "I stayed in his web, even after my humiliation in Karachi. I remember his interest when Millie first walked onto the Baker Street scene. Oh, he thought that was delicious. A new toy. Called her Little–"
"Little Miss Millie."
"That's right. And then there was you, I remember that too. He was starting to lose interest in Sherlock, I think – he thought he'd become domesticated. Lost his edge. But you got involved and everything caught flame. You were his next favourite. Only, he never truly managed to stop kindling that fire. You started quite the inferno, Miss Schott."
I choose to say nothing. Irene turns her head and gestures to the waiter – a delicate twist of her wrist – signalling for the bill. It arrives on a slate board.
"What does he do now?"
Irene folds the paper receipt and slips it into her clutch bag. "I shouldn't tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because you shouldn't be asking."
I cross my arms and wait, unimpressed. Irene sighs and shakes her head, before lowering her voice and beginning, "It's all rumour. His network took a hit in light of the Yakovich ordeal, he started losing followers, investments, that sort of thing – and then they said he went totally off the rails, and that all he was good for was a heroin sale and a contact number. Not anymore. You've heard about the Philippines drug scandal. Yes?"
"The murders?"
"They say he's paid his way into Duterte's inner circle. He has that man on a dog lead. He controls Manila's drug distribution from his phone screen – and by extension, he controls who lives, and who dies under the regime. They say he's made billions in the last month alone. They say a man breached his contract, and so James sat him on a pile of cocaine and had him roasted alive for his entertainment while he drank coconut cocktails on the side-line. He's feared again. He's back on his throne. It's only a matter of time."
"Until what?"
Irene doesn't reply. I don't move for a long time, and, when I do, it's slowly, stiltedly, as if I've aged in the wake of this new information. Something shifts in my mind. I feel an idea take shape so terrible in its formation, I react physically, pushing back in my chair and startling the waiter behind me. I bury the thought immediately, but it remains lodged in the soft tissue of my cerebral cavity like a chip, or stone, or kernel of sinful possibility.
Irene snaps her purse shut and stands, without warning.
"Come on."
"Where now?"
"My playroom."
"I thought I had an incurable addiction to all things carnal and must be chaste until the day I die. What's changed?"
Irene raises an eyebrow. "I never said you had to be abstinent. I gave you the truth, darling. I'm not telling you to change. I like you just the way you are, troubled, angry and sexually frustrated. Especially the last one."
"You flatter me, Ms Adler."
"Now that's the formality I like to see. Take that into the bedroom, and I'll be a happy woman."
I snort as I stand. "Try me."
"Oh," she says, pausing to press a finger to my chin. "I'm planning on it."
~~~~~~
-Millie-
~~~~~~
It's getting lighter, now. The sky used to bruise violently at five o'clock, darken to a surly purple by half past, and rot to black by six. Now it retains its lilac flush well into the swell of the evening, and it is the same sky I sit and watch here, sitting cross-legged on the carpet.
I turn my gaze from the window and to the sea of paper in front of me, all these little cardboard rectangles. I really ought to put them back. The process is slow, trembling, but I succeed in gathering up the letters and folding them at their existing creases, binding them with the white ribbon, returning them to their designated box. Outside, wind stirs the tree boughs. Inside, I hear nothing but my own unsteady heartbeat.
I discovered the letters by pure accident. I was alone – he'd reverted to the white-smiling businessman overnight, told me that he had an event this evening with some foreign clients and that I, unquestionably, was to come with him – and I have been left to my own devices for three hours while he made the necessary preparations. The free time lounged out before me in such a close mimicry of liberty I began to feel anxious; I loathe the silence, the empty rooms. There is panic without the reassurance of his familiarity. I've come to fear his absences as I once feared his presence, and it was this fear that drove me to hunt for some appropriate numbing agent.
He's become very skilled in concealing my morphine from me: he confessed to disposing of the silver cocaine, the golden heroin – he burnt it with the bodies in a joint purging of our personal sins – and, although he has yet to admit it, I sense he is attempting to limit my morphine hits. I am given the syringe twice a day. It isn't enough, but the cravings have adjusted to match the new intake. In my anxiety, however, I decided that it was an absolute necessity: I pulled drawers from their slots, tore books from the shelves and scoured them for divots or gaps or secretive nooks. Unsuccessful, I dropped to my knees, lifted the valance, and began scrabbling beneath the vast bed.
My searching fingers closed around something hard and metal. I pulled out a beautiful piece of antique craftsmanship: a silver box, ovular, carved, a lid heavy with what appeared to be ivory, fashioned into thick, cream roses. I hoped for needles. Instead, I was greeted with a handful of assorted items – strange items, arbitrary items, items that didn't, in that moment, strike me as particularly interesting. There were letters bound by a strip of ribbon. An uninspiring pendant necklace; silver, rusted at the hinge, plain and without inscription. A blank photo sleeve. I prepared to close the box and continue my search, when something halted me mid-dismissal: my name, on the underside of one of the letters, written in delicate italics.
And so, diverted from my hunt, I'd pulled the ribbon and freed the paper, letting the moving words settle and still. They were all handwritten. The majority were in Russian – spiked and unfamiliar with mirrored letters, geometric shapes – and I placed them to one side. I found three written in English, but they were, for the most part, incoherent: poorly spelt, words scratched out with increasing levels of frustration, annotated in Cyrillic. They were addressed to me. I traced the indentations with my forefinger, made with the nib of his pen; I softened at the childish misspellings, the corrections and his unnatural grammar sequences. From what I could understand, they were apologies.
I picked up the locket, next. The little chain slid through my fingers like water. With my coordination blunted by months of systematic substance abuse, it took me some twenty minutes to prise open the clasp and hold the contents up to the light. It was a photograph of a girl. A school photograph, I think, and greyed with age. She looked tired, and thin, but she smiled through a pair of striking eyes and sat upright in her chair, her hair dark and braided. I found similarities in my own face, when I thought back to myself at her age, those cocaine-blurred glimpses at reflective surfaces: we shared the same skin, the same waifish cheek hollows, the same thinness, the same air of inquisitive scrutiny. I closed the locket. The blank photo sleeve was empty, as predicted, but written across the back – once in Cyrillic, and then beneath in English – was Svetlana. It was dated three months ago.
I slide the box beneath the valance and sit up. As I do so I hear the click of footsteps on marble, and I feel the tension leak from my spine like treacle. The anxiety lessens with sound. He steps into the room, strange in a navy suit, and, rising with a sense of newfound purpose, I stand, I look at him, and I smile. My face is stiff; the gesture aches. I realise I don't remember the last time I actively chose to perform such an action. He regards me with what I interpret as surprise – but the concern shifts to buoyancy, and he gives me a very white, somewhat wolfish smile in return. He holds out one arm.
"It will be night soon, myshka." He takes my hand, and, winking as he turns, tells me, "We shall just have to be unfashionably late, yes?"
~~~~~~