The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [110]
How is one convinced that a house is empty? From the lack of sound, or vibration? Smell, perhaps, that most subtle of the senses? How is one convinced of a man's innocence—against all fact and rationality—from a man's arms around his child, and five seconds of his face turned to the lamp-light?
The language of bees is not the only great mystery of communication.
Certainly this house felt empty: I caught no vibration of motion, and the only noise was my own heart. I found the telephone, and rang Mycroft: If any man in England could instigate a hunt for a car, it would be he.
I gave him the numbers, description, the information that the man in the front passenger seat had a pistol, and a quick synopsis of what I had discovered that day; then I went to search the house.
A quick survey downstairs confirmed the emptiness of the rooms, all of which except the drawing room were filled with dull, dusty furniture that looked as if no-one had used it for years. The kitchen had a new-looking ice-box and food on its shelves, with the sorts of biscuits and juices that men might stock when catering for a small child.
Upstairs, I went directly to the corner room with the open windows, and stood looking in at where Damian Adler had been hidden for the past five days: two iron bedsteads, wardrobe with a time-speckled mirror, a chest of drawers missing several handles, and an armchair draped with a throw-rug. The carpet on the floor was so worn, one could no longer discern its original pattern, or even colour. Out of place amidst the ancient furniture was a work-table fashioned from a door on trestles, now littered with personal items and art supplies. I recognised Damian's cravat, tossed over the back of an old dining-room chair, and there could be no doubt whose tumble of new brushes and nearly full paint-tubes those were, or who had done those drawings—although some were by the hand of a child, in bright wax crayon. The same child who had been taken from that smaller, still-rumpled bed, whose new-looking teddy bear lay abandoned among the bed-clothes, whose bright red Chinese slipper lay beside my foot—fallen off as she was carried through the door by her fleeing father.
I bent to pick up the slipper, then froze.
Air had brushed my skin, the briefest of touches. The air currents in the house had altered, just for an instant; had I not been standing in the doorway with an open window across from me, I should not have noticed it.
I strained to hear movement from below. Nothing: four minutes, five—and then a faint creak from the direction of the old, dry staircase, instantly stifled.
I eased the knife from my boot scabbard and straightened slowly; he and I both waited for the other to betray ourselves.
I cast a glance at the window: How many creaks in the fifteen feet of floorboard between me and it? How long would it take the big man to sprint up the stairs—or, back down the hallway and out of the front door—and take aim at my fleeing back?
The knife hilt grew warm in my hand, then damp. I moved it briefly to my right hand to wipe my palm, then took it back, my fingers kneading it nervously.
It is such an easy thing, to become prey. Especially for a woman, for whom biology and nurture conspire to encourage a sense of victim-hood. When terror sweeps through the veins, we become rabbits, cowering in a corner with our eyes closed, hoping for invisibility. And a large man with a gun is a truly terrifying thing. I regretted coming, berated myself for not bringing someone with me; stood helpless, waiting for my death to come up the stairs. Bad judgment yet again, to face a gun with nothing but a sweaty-handled throwing knife.
I felt a ghostly slap on the back of my head, and Holmes' voice exhorting me, Use your brain, Russell, it's the only weapon that counts.
With a lurch, my mind dragged itself out of the spin into panic, my eyes casting about wildly for alternatives to a bullet.
Knife, yes, but this was an entire house full of deadly objects, from that neck-tie across the back of the chair