The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [93]
“He was standing in the way of a police investigation,” Lestrade said stubbornly.
I wished my eyes when they glared went grey and cold like Holmes’ instead of light blue, bloodshot, and concealed by spectacles. “Your going after him was not only unlikely, it was uncharacteristic. Add to that my growing suspicion that Brothers has been receiving help from high places, and …” I waved a hand. “That’s why I picked your lock at three in the morning rather than walking into your office.”
Lestrade’s face changed. “Are you accusing me of being a corrupt officer?”
“I would not be sitting here if I thought that. But it is clear that Brothers had help, and from someone other than Gunderson. Some person helped him set up a new identity in this country, back in November. Someone helped him cover up his deeds. I began to suspect it even though I’ve been on the run for the past two weeks. What I am asking is, did that person reach out to you as well, and influence you to intercept Mycroft’s wires and invade his home?”
He stood abruptly and went to rummage through a drawer, coming out with a mashed-looking packet of cigarettes. He got one lit, and stood looking out the dark window. The stove clicked as it cooled; somewhere in the house, a clock chimed four.
“It’s possible,” he said finally. He came back to the table, his face closed. “I don’t take bribes.
“But you want to know if someone got at me, if I gave in to pressure against my better thoughts. The answer is yes.
“Look,” he continued, “I follow orders. The nature of my job gives me a great deal of independence, but when orders are given, I follow them. And something very near to being a command came down to put some pressure on Mycroft Holmes.”
“Down from where?”
“Doesn’t matter. It didn’t originate with the man who gave it, which means it was high enough that it might have come from outside the Yard entirely. And frankly, I didn’t ask too closely about it. Society only works if the police are given a free hand to investigate where they will. No one should be above the rule of law. Even him. You and Mr Holmes have walked the edge any number of times, but always managed to keep close enough inside the bounds that I could tell the difference between personal affront and official wrongdoing.”
“Is that why you issued warrants for Holmes and me as well?”
“Not directly, but it helped move me in that direction. Truth to tell,” he said, “it wasn’t the first time I’d wanted to put handcuffs on your husband.”
“I know the feeling,” I said. He blinked, and laughed.
“This time, it was Mycroft Holmes walking the edge, and over. It didn’t take much to convince me that it was time to snap him back into line. Your brother-in-law is not God, you know.”
“A week ago, I might have disagreed,” I said sadly—and indeed, his use of the present tense testified that Lestrade himself was not altogether willing to quit his belief in Mycroft’s omniscience.
“However, I’ve come to wonder if I may have been wrong,” he said.
“About his divinity?”
“About treating him as the object of an investigation.” He clawed his fingers through his thinning hair. “Mycroft Holmes asked me to meet him privately, that same day he came into my office. He left at one o’clock. Twenty minutes later, I was handed a note that he’d left for me, telling me to meet him at the Natural History Museum, the statue of Charles Darwin, just before closing. He told me to keep it entirely to myself, and to come alone.”
“But you didn’t go?”
“In fact I did, although I’d put it off to the last possible instant. He wasn’t there. The next I heard of him, he was dead.”
Chapter 46
The thud of that word, dead. Inconceivable, inescapable, dead: Mycroft.
I shook away the memory of his prodigious appetite and more prodigious memory, and—
Tell no one.
Come alone.
Where does faith part from loyalty?
I looked at Lestrade, thinking, Russell, you need some sleep, before you forget how to think. “Did you, in the