The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [57]
Whatever had driven Lestrade to issue the warrants and make the arrest, it had not been bribery: Of that Holmes was sure. But any man with family was vulnerable—as he was learning—and it would not take much to nudge Lestrade’s self-righteousness into outright action.
A criminal gang who could not only intercept telegrams or telephone calls (perhaps both) but also move a man like Lestrade to their whims was a dangerous thing indeed.
He could only pray he was a step ahead of them.
First he would make Damian safe. Then he would set his face to London, where all desires are known, from whom no secrets are hid.
He took out his pocket-watch: twenty-three minutes to waste before leaving for the station. He got up to twitch the curtains shut, then turned on the light and picked up the paper.
He read with care every mention of criminal activity, but he could discern no pattern, and found none of the expected indications of a powerful gang pushing for dominance.
Again he took out his pocket-watch to check the time: four minutes. He put it away, turned the next page, and felt his heart stop:
Mycroft Holmes, OBE
Chapter 30
Inspector Lestrade turned the page, hiding the obituaries. He felt sick, as if the king himself had died. Worse, died on Lestrade’s watch.
It was not his fault—of course it was not. He’d been more than fair to both Holmes brothers all his career, but just because he’d respected the two men did not mean that he should change the law of the land for their convenience.
When Mycroft Holmes had vanished last week, he’d given the man until Monday, because any man had the right to a week-end away. But when Lestrade had telephoned to Whitehall again early Monday morning and been told Holmes was still missing, he’d put out a bulletin about the disappearance.
Now the man was dead, and Lestrade did not know why. Or even how. Nor would he—or apparently any other member of the Metropolitan Police—be permitted to find out: When the body was discovered, His Majesty had ordered it seized before it could undergo the usual examinations. Word was, the petty meddling of one of the Yard’s detectives was the reason.
Thursday had been the most hellish day in his career. It had begun with a ridiculous incident involving a missing person in Mayfair, some middle-aged Mama’s boy who hadn’t come home, and Mama knew the sorts of high-ranking officials who could demand that a chief inspector of New Scotland Yard turn out to do a constable’s job. Then the minute he’d walked into his office—ten minutes late because he’d had to stop in Mayfair—Lestrade had been called upstairs. There, he’d been unofficially reprimanded for searching Mycroft’s flat the week before and taking the man—albeit briefly—into custody. His protests that it had not been an arrest, and that he had been more or less ordered to carry through with it, had fallen on deaf ears. Mycroft Holmes had held a high position in the shadowy world of Intelligence, far above the reach of a lowly Scotland Yard inspector, and Lestrade was lucky the victim’s employers might be willing to forgo an official enquiry into the matter.
The underlying message being: Your job would be at risk if Whitehall didn’t want to avoid drawing further attention to the matter.
Then to top it off, he’d crept back to his desk like a caned schoolboy, and the first telephone call he’d had was from the biddy in Mayfair, blithely saying that her boy had come home and not to worry.
A note of farce to end the morning, leaving him to sit and stare impotently at the obituary.
He did not know where Mycroft Holmes had been for six days, or what he wanted to tell Lestrade that he could not have said in