-Millie-
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There are so many people. I count seven individual men, all of them identical in their impeccable suits – save for slight variations in skin tone and hair colour – and identical in movement. They walk with alarming militarism, in unison, coming to a halt in front of us.
At the centre of it all is James Moriarty: holding a cocktail in one hand, wearing a priceless pair of aviator sunglasses and, in a garish nod to warmer climates, a tropical lei around his neck.
He scans the room, lazy in his appreciation, taking in the blood and the bodies and the discarded gun. His gaze reduces them to children's toys; the bodies dolls, the blood artificial, the gun plastic. What was once a massacre is now distinctly unimpressive in the wake of this new threat. He smiles to himself, as if amused by our petty destruction, and then turns to the man next to me.
"Sorry I'm late. Just got back. You know, I think you'd have liked the Philippines – great drinks, lovely scenery, fantastic assassin scheme. I should have sent a postcard."
He reaches up and takes off his sunglasses, folding them neatly, tucking them into his trouser pocket. As he does so, I study the changes: he looks less like the heroin-frenzied mastermind in the Baker Street living room and more like the man from my memory; slick in a new suit, pricelessly tailored, deep burgundy, black shirt, black silk tie, silver serpent tie-pin. It stirs something strange in my mind, flickers, of a time I've marked as forgotten. Cigarette smoke. Umbrellas. Tea mugs. Long coats.
Moriarty lowers his glass. He points to the dead woman. "She was one of mine. So was he. And him. That's how I found you two. All that chasing, all those hitmen and code-breakers – in the end, it was easy. Isn't it funny? Little old me, winning over your friends, one by one, paycheque by paycheque. Isn't it familiar? Déjà vu."
I feel movement beside me – he's standing behind my chair, his hand on the back, his body warm. I look up at him. If he is anxious, he doesn't betray it; he regards Moriarty with apparent indifference. There is no signature ease, no charm, no warmth.
"I have no interest in your business," he says, evenly.
"Oh, but you should." Moriarty stops smiling. It drops suddenly, unexpectedly, and with it falls the charisma of his mask: his tone darkens, his voice lowers, his eyes take on a look that is restless and hungry and black with sinister excitement. "My business is your business now, Mr Yakovich. I'll show you."
Moriarty lifts his drink as if to salute his audience. It is a cue: five men move forward and, without stopping to slow their momentum, separate into two groups; one pair, one three. The pair take my arms, and I am hoisted from my seat, dragged to the left, held in front of James Moriarty like a choice meat in a butcher shop. It takes three men to restrain him. From what I hear, it is a vicious scuffle, but they have his arms, pull them back, keep him pinned between them like some savage animal prepped for euthanasia. The third man holds a silver gun to the back of his head, perhaps for additional security, but more likely for the theatrical tension it imparts.
"Miss Millie. How long it's been. Death really hasn't done you any favours." He lifts his gaze over my shoulder, addressing the sound behind me. "He's feisty, isn't he? Look at him go. I'm surprised he hasn't broken you yet – there's only so much action a porcelain girl can take. Tell me, how's motherhood treating you?"
His question echoes, rebounds, deflected off the inside wall of my skull. The words to my answer feel like glass in my mouth. I do not speak.
Moriarty continues without pausing to acknowledge my struggle. "I've got something for you. I know, I know, I shouldn't have, but I saw it and just couldn't resist." He holds out his free hand; one of the men at his side steps forwards and hands him a sheet of paper. "I can see you're a little tied up at the moment, so I'll read it for you. Are you ready?"
He clears his throat, takes another sip from his drink, and then begins reading in a mock-English accent; clipping his vowels, stressing his consonants.
"Wren Kowalski. Trisha Stewards. Beatrice Montague-Reed. Katelyn, Georgia, Jo, Sarah Gregory, Sarah Fenton, Chloe, Dana, Elizabeth, Myah, Ellie, Isobel, Lara, Vicky, Poppy. Wait for it – this is my favourite bit. Rosie, fifteen. Carly, sixteen, Harriet, sixteen, another Sarah, fourteen, Katie, seventeen, Jayne, thirteen. Oh Ivan, you bad, bad boy – Millicent and Madeline Collins. Seven years old." Moriarty pauses to look up and nod at me. "Bit old for you, isn't she? What happened to the prepubescent? Grow out of them?"
The names fall around me like stones. I look at the rubble, and I feel very strange. The headlines flash; the news reports sound faintly in the distance. I remember the bodies in the morgue.
Moriarty folds the piece of paper in half and continues, "I had to cut that short, I'm afraid. There are more – ten more, actually – but these are the ones I have contact numbers for. Numbers for what? Good question." His smile takes on a predatory edge. "Family. Friends. Dearly Beloveds, grieving for their daughters and wives and pretty little girls. That sort of drivel. I've got them on me, you know. I could get them out. I could call them. We could have a chat, all of us, right here. Would you like that Ivan?"
I don't gauge the reaction behind me. I don't turn my head. I keep watching James Moriarty, fascinated by his cheerful savagery, his ersatz humour.
"I didn't think so."
He drains the contents of his glass and lets it fall, with the paper and all the dead women, so that it shatters on the quartz.
"This is the plot twist. We already have our damsel in distress, our villain, and his victims. I'm going to play the hero, just to change things up a bit," says Moriarty, turning to me. He gestures to the door. "Here's your present, Miss Millie. You've won the show, the million-dollar prize. Your ticket to paradise. All you have to do is say the magic word. Say it, and you'll be delivered back to Baker Street in one piece. You have my word. I can have Ivan here shot, or hanged, or drawn-and-quartered. It's up to you, really. I'm not fussy."
There's more sound behind me. Moriarty cups a hand to his ear, pretending to listen hard, and then opens his mouth in a pantomime of surprise and says, "What's that? Why am I doing this?" The facade shatters. He is lethal again. "I want to show you what it feels like, Ivan. Doesn't it hurt? It should. I hope to hurt you a great deal more."
There's noise in my head. I can't hear, or see, or think for it – there is only noise, loud and tumultuous, taking up what little headspace I have left, shouting grim proclamations to its audience of one. The doors at the end of this room terrify me. They open to a world I do not know, full of people I can't understand and sounds I've forgotten and colours I can't name and open space, reams and reams of it, so large and so hollow it might swallow me whole. It is more than terror. It is repulsion. Through those doors is a body of people sitting somewhere high up with their hammers and their gavels. They'll bring them down on me. I won't have my chemicals. I won't have my numbness – I won't even be allowed my mind, because they'll label me mad and pump my head full of thoughts I should think and ways I must act as victim, as addict, as woman, as friend. He is familiarity. He is safety. He doesn't force me to crush my brittle body into a designated template.
"Go on," says Moriarty. "Say the word."
I look at him, I look at the doors with all their empty promises, and I shake my head.
There's a long pause as I am subjected to scrutiny. The sounds of violence still. I don't breathe, choosing to stopper the air inside my lungs and hold onto it for support – and then, just when I think this silence is a permanent one, Moriarty begins to laugh.
"Oh," he says, delighted, "look at that. The lamb's fallen head over heels for the Big Bad Wolf. And there I was thinking I wouldn't get to do it. Thank you, both of you. Thank you."
He mimes wiping a tear from his face, and turns back to me.
"I'm awfully sorry, darling," he says, speaking through his smile. "This might hurt a bit."
Moriarty clicks his fingers. The men either side of me move together, as if choreographed. They tear the dress at the seams. It falls around me in a pool of deep blue satin. I stand mute and dumb in shock; the air is cold, and I am stilled, set in stone. I see one of the two men at Moriarty's side leave to assist the others in what I assume is becoming an increasingly dangerous situation behind me.
The remaining man waits for a nod of approval before moving forwards. He has something in his hands, something I hadn't noticed before. He carries it to my side. There's a rustle, a zip, and then white fabric is slipped over my head.
Moriarty is walking around me, in a wide, slow circle. I watch as, one by one, he starts plucking the coloured flowers from his garland.
"He loves her," he says, letting the first petal drop.
My arms are manoeuvred for me. I try to pull them back – resisting passivity for the first time – but I lack the muscle mass to inhibit progress. They are pulled through bodice sleeves. I can feel the corset lace along the length of my spine.
"He loves her not."
A white sash is tied around my middle, harshly, so that the air is forced out of my chest.
"He loves her."
Silk settles at my ankles as the skirts are released, dropped down like a funeral shroud.
"He loves her not."
My vision is obscured by thin netting; a veil, loose and brushing my elbows. Pins are pushed into what is left of my hair, and I feel the weight of an unseen headpiece settle at the crown of my head.
"He loves her."
I dimly register pain. Then warmth. Then pain again. I look down; there is blood on my arm, at the crook, cut where the elbow forms a crease in the skin. The morphine dulls the sharpness of the blade slice, but I am acutely aware of the liquid, moving down the ruts and ridges of my wrists, pooling at my palms. I let them bleed me. The white is blossoming red; I am a carnation, a wedding centrepiece gone horribly wrong. The cuts aren't deep enough to cause lasting harm; I watch them, fascinated, as they wield their silver claws and draw ribbons across my shoulders, my collarbone, and eventually my throat: a shallow, even ring, just enough to break the skin. Blood moves down through my bridal costume like a chromatography sheet, giving me new vibrancy.
Moriarty stops in front of me. "He loves her not."
The last petal sways as it falls, like a coral boat caught in the swell of the air, before settling at my feet.
"Oh dear, Miss Millie. What's a girl to do?"
I realise that the remaining lei is all white – he's plucked away the pinks and yellows, the tropical hibiscus, the orange and the reds. They are familiar, these white flowers. A garland of leftover irises.
"You'll have to forgive me. I've always had a weakness for the dramatic."
Slowly, savouringly, Moriarty lifts the flowers over his head.
"There you go, Mr Yakovich. Your perfect bride." He winks. "You can thank me later."
I look over my shoulder; the movement stretches the fine open line around my throat, wringing the tissue, contributing to my macabre neckpiece. He's not struggling anymore – he's not moving, save for the predatory flick of his eyes, over my neck and torso and skirts. He laps up my visuality. I smile with sad realisation, because I recognise the man in front of me. He isn't the pianist, or the letter-writer. This is the man who opened the manor doors the day I came searching for Emily Schott. He is the headline act, the subject of fevered discussion, the reason prostitutes began operating in pairs. He is Ivan Yakovich. I am Jim Moriarty's psychological experiment.
"Come on, boys. Let the man enjoy his honeymoon."
The four men drop his arms. He doesn't move to lash out. He doesn't give Moriarty a second glance. The gun is removed from the back of his head and he simply stands there, arms loose at his sides, scouring my skin with his colourless eyes.
"Leave the knives. We won't be needing them."
There's a clatter of silver. I hear their footsteps as they walk, away from me, towards the doors.
"I'll tell you the rest of the story," says Moriarty, addressing his silent entourage. "The Big Bad Wolf ate the poor little lamb for dinner. Tragic, isn't it? I never promised you a happy ending. When he came to, he realised that his lamb was gone, and it was all his fault." His voice grows fainter. "All his fault."
The door hinges groan, and the footsteps fade, one by one, until the room is filled with a new, raw soundlessness.
James Moriarty's singsong motif can be heard behind the closed doors; a final, mocking tribute to my personal tragicomedy.
"The End."
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