The Sherlockian

CHAPTER 20 The Chase

January 9, 2010, cont.

“The police are on their way,” said Jennifer Peters as she clapped her cell phone shut. Harold and Sarah were looking through the piles of books and papers in the writing office, while Jennifer remained close to the doorway. In the five minutes since Harold had run downstairs and been unable to find any trace of the goateed man, Jennifer had managed to step only a few feet into the apartment. She remained motionless, arms crossed above her belly, as if giving herself a deep hug.

“Look, this is awkward,” said Harold, “but I’d rather not speak to the police, if that’s okay. I’ve been at the scenes of two crimes in the last seventy-two hours, and I’d kind of like to avoid another grilling about that. If you don’t mind.”

Jennifer hugged herself tighter, and spoke curtly. “Fine. Go. I won’t tell them you were here.”

Harold gave Alex Cale’s bookshelves a quick once-over and then motioned to Sarah that they should leave. She closed the drawer of Alex’s desk that she’d been rifling through and followed Harold to the door. She gave Jennifer a warm look and placed a hand on the older woman’s shoulder as she passed by.

“Thank you,” said Harold as they exited into the hallway.

“I’d rather not see either of you ever again, please,” said Jennifer.

Harold nodded, and without another word he and Sarah left the building.

After a reflective half minute on the street outside, Harold finally spoke.

“Well,” he said, “the bad news: Whoever that guy was, with the goatee, he took everything of any use out of that apartment. No diary, okay, but not even a spare photocopy of the diary. Or any excerpts that Alex had typed up. Or notes on what was in it. Did you notice the laptop power cable beside the desk? Ten to one there used to be a laptop attached to it, and he took that, too. There were plenty of books on Conan Doyle, sure, but not a single piece of information about the diary itself, or how Alex had found it.”

“Is there any good news?” asked Sarah as they walked toward Argyll Road.

“Yeah. We’ve actually laid eyes on someone who’s mixed up in this, whatever the hell ‘this’ is. And we know the guy’s not a Sherlockian. Or at least not an Irregular; I’d have recognized him if he was.”

“I suppose that’s something like good news. But I think I can do you one better.” Sarah reached into her coat pocket and removed a thumbsize piece of purple plastic. She handed it to Harold. “A flash drive. It was in one of the drawers on Alex’s desk.”

“You stole it?”

Sarah just shrugged.

Harold was impressed. He could never tell whether she was two steps behind him or two steps ahead.

“Not sure if anything useful is on it, but we can check it out back at the hotel,” said Sarah, turning her head to look behind them once, and then again a few seconds later. “I have some bad news, too.”

“What?”

“I think we’re being followed.”

Harold felt his body grow suddenly tense. “Seriously?” he asked.

“I’m going to kneel down on one knee, as if I’m adjusting my shoe. When I do that, come in front of me and turn to face me, and talk to me as if you’re just naturally continuing our conversation. Then look casually behind us and see if you notice a big guy in a leather jacket. Ready? Go.”

Sarah dropped her right knee to the pavement, and, leaning over her left, she reached into her left shoe as if she were trying to remove a stone from it. She had on thin black flats, out of which she pulled her heel, running her fingers along the inside lining of the well-worn shoe.

Harold turned to face her, doing his best to seem casual. He placed his hands in his pockets as he spoke.

“Okay, this is me talking to you,” he said, “I’m still talking, blahblah-blah, here I am talking.” He gazed past her down the street. Among the throng of pedestrians-a hand-holding couple, a jogger in a tracksuit, an Indian family of four-Harold quickly made eye contact with a large man in a leather jacket and loose blue jeans. He was heavyset, with a circular head and puffy cheeks. The coat looked flimsy, and the man held his hands in his pockets to keep them from the cold.

Shit, thought Harold, realizing he’d just exchanged a glance with the man. Harold flicked his head abruptly to the right, finding a distant street sign at which to stare.

“We just looked right at each other,” he said. “I think he saw me notice him.”

“What’s he doing now?” asked Sarah as she continued to fiddle with her shoe.

Harold kept his face aimed at the street sign-”KENSINGTON PALACE,” it read, accompanied by a tiny picture of a walking man, and an arrow pointing behind Harold’s back-while he tried to turn only his eyes to the left, in order to spy on the man. The motion made his eyes hurt. The heavyset man had averted his gaze as well, and he seemed to be occupying himself by staring into the front windows of a tanning shop.

“He’s looking away,” said Harold. “Definitely seems fishy.”

Sarah placed her heel back in her shoe and stood up. She led Harold down Kensington Road with a quickened step.

“What should we do?” Harold finally asked.

Sarah raised her hand and stepped from the curb onto the street. “Get out of here,” she said.

A cab came quickly, and the two shuffled inside. It was only after they had shut the taxi’s door behind them and the driver had turned his head around to inquire about their destination that they both realized they weren’t sure what to say.

“Umm… not the hotel?” asked Harold.

“He might know where we’re staying already, but just in case, let’s not tell him.” Sarah raised her voice as she spoke to the driver. “Do you mind just heading straight for a minute while we figure out where we’re going?”

By way of response, the driver-a South Asian man with dark hair and a prodigious mustache-shrugged. He switched the car into Drive.

Harold and Sarah both swiveled in their seats and looked out the taxi’s rear window. The man in the leather coat was on his cell phone.

As they watched him recede into the distance, however, they saw a quickly moving black car come to a sudden stop in front of him. The man lowered his cell phone. He pulled open the car’s door and swung his wide frame inside the car in one continuous motion; it appeared surprisingly graceful for a man of his size. The car sped forward, growing larger in the taxi’s rear window. It was headed straight toward them.

Harold turned back to the driver. “Do you mind going a bit faster?” he said.

“Faster?” replied the driver. “Faster to where?”

“Wherever,” said Sarah. “Up that way. And faster.”

The driver shrugged again, and gave a knowing shake of his head. Americans!

Behind them the black car weaved between lanes, aggressively making up the distance between it and the taxi. The side windows of the black car were darkened, so Harold couldn’t make out who else might be inside. His view into the car’s front window was obstructed by one intermediate car, and then another, until finally he managed to get a second’s clear view of the black car’s driver: a balding young man in a gray sweater, who sported an awful goatee.

Harold inhaled sharply.

“Holy shit,” was all he managed to say.

Sarah saw the Goateed Man at the same time as Harold did. She turned instantly toward the driver.

“Hi,” she began, “would you please make a right turn up at that light? Yes, right here.”

“Missus,” the driver replied, “what is going on?”

“Please turn right here, now!” barked Sarah.

The driver switched lanes and took the turn.

“I do not want to be part of any trouble,” he said as they headed south past Imperial College.

“Neither do we. So let’s try to avoid trouble as much as we can, all right, by making a sharp left up ahead.”

“I will drop you off at this corner here.”

“No!” interjected Harold. “We’re being followed.”

“Come on, now,” said the driver. “Time to get out.”

“Sir, I’m being completely serious. Look at the black car behind us. They’ve been following us since we got into your cab.”

The driver looked up into his rearview mirror. There were more than a few black cars.

“Why would someone follow you? What, you are a famous actor or something?”

“Actually,” said Harold as he thought the matter over, “that’s a good question. I’m not sure why they’re following us As far as I can tell, they’re the ones who have something we want.”

“So maybe I pull over here and you can go to figure out who is chasing who.”

“That’s not a bad plan,” said Harold.

Sarah looked at him strangely. “What?” she asked hesitantly, as if she were afraid of the answer.

“I have an idea,” said Harold. He reached into his wallet and removed a tight clump of bills. Without checking to see how much money he was handing over, he folded the clump and handed it to the driver. The cabbie looked pleased as he thumbed through the money.

“I need you to do one more favor for us,” Harold continued. “Speed up. A lot. Then pull a quick left up ahead, at”-he squinted to make out the street sign-”Fulham. Then stop abruptly, as soon as you can.”

The driver glanced down at his new wad of bills, then shrugged. Whatever you say, spoke his gesture.

As the cab accelerated, Harold could feel his back press into the cushioned seat. He looked down to find his hands, of their own accord, gripping the seat below.

The cabbie swung the wheel to the left, diving into a gap between the oncoming cars, and Harold’s body was thrown to the right, against Sarah. He could feel her limbs tensing as the cab pulled the turn. When the car straightened itself, he tried to scoot himself politely away from her but ended up pushing with a hand against her upper thigh. She seemed not to notice.

The driver swerved the car to the curb and slapped the brakes with gusto. Without seat belts, Harold and Sarah were jerked forward against the divider. The car came to a stop.

“Wait here for a second,” said Harold as he exited the car. He stood outside the open door for a moment, waiting for the black car to pull the same turn and appear in front of him.

He didn’t have to wait long. After a few seconds, the car came hurtling through the intersection. But, unlike the cab, it had no plans to stop. It accelerated further as it straightened out on Fulham Street.

Harold, twitchy with adrenaline, stepped out into the street immediately in front of the oncoming car. He could see the confusion on the Goateed Man’s face, at the wheel, when he realized what had happened. For a long moment, as the car raced toward Harold, he began to reconsider his plan. If the Goateed Man wanted to kill him, he now had the perfect opportunity. All he had to do was keep his foot on the gas and Harold would be slammed against the front of his car. He could chalk the death up to a simple traffic accident, and no one would ever know the truth. Harold was playing a classic poker move against the oncoming car-he was paying for information, taking a calculated risk not for the purpose of winning but in order to learn something about his opponent. If he lived, it would be because the Goateed Man did not want to kill him. And that was important information. If he died, however… Well, Harold figured, if the Goateed Man really wanted to kill him, then he would have been killed already. Like Alex.

Harold could make out the Goateed Man’s grimace as he pressed on the brakes and yanked the car to the left, onto the curb. The metal screech of the wheels pierced through the midday traffic noise. The car turned to its side, front sticking out into the first lane of the street as it slid across the pavement. It finally stopped a few feet in front of Harold.

He looked directly into the face of the Goateed Man in the driver’s seat. The man scowled. Harold smiled. The Goateed Man wasn’t trying to kill him-in fact, he was going out of his way not to. Harold walked calmly up to the black car and knocked delicately on the passenger-side window.

There was a long, silent pause. The inhabitants of the car seemed not to know what to do. They had signed up for a car chase, not a polite tête-à-tête, and the change of activities was throwing them off their normal role.

Finally the passenger-side window slid down, revealing the man in the leather jacket inside.

“Yes?” said the man, his face glacially serene.

“You don’t have the diary, do you?” said Harold, coming to this realization only after he’d spoken it out loud.

The man said nothing while he considered the situation. This pause worried Harold; perhaps this guy was smarter than he’d hoped.

“You don’t have it either, then,” said the man as his face broke out in a broad smile.

Shit. Harold had given up as much information as he’d gotten. But maybe this trade was worth it. If neither of them had the diary…

“You didn’t kill Alex Cale,” said Harold. It was not a question.

“You sure about that?” said the man. He reached into his coat pocket and removed a gun. He pointed it straight at Harold’s face. It appeared impossibly large as Harold stared down its barrel.

Harold’s resolve wavered. How sure was he, really, that this man didn’t want to kill him? Harold couldn’t think anymore. Logic collapsed. Cool, Sherlockian reason was burned up in the heat of his terror.

“I don’t have it,” Harold pleaded. “The diary. I don’t even know where it is. Or who took it.”

Suddenly the black car seemed to shiver. It sighed, then tilted slightly downward, sloping to the pavement away from Harold.

Harold looked over the roof and saw Sarah on the other side of the black car. How did she get there? He saw her rise from a kneeling position by the back tire: She’d punctured it. And, evidently, the front one as well.

“Cab!” she yelled at Harold. “Now!”

Looking down, he could see that the man with the gun was ever so briefly distracted by the commotion. Harold took the opportunity to run as fast as he possibly could.

He yanked open the cab door and flung himself into the backseat. Sarah was half a second behind him.

“Please go now anywhere as fast as you can!” shouted Harold at the driver. There was a recognition in the man’s face that something serious had happened. He didn’t ask questions, but instead threw the cab back into Drive and kicked at the gas pedal.

Harold looked through the back window. No one had gotten out of the black car. And it didn’t give chase. The black car sat motionless, leaning to its left against the curb.

Sarah revealed a small retractable knife in her palm. She folded the blade back into its shell and slipped it into her purse. She looked into Harold’s eyes with an impossible cool.

“So,” said Sarah, “how’d your plan work out for you?”