Young Sherlock Holmes_ Death Cloud - Andrew Lane [9]
‘You make a good point,’ Sherlock conceded. ‘How long have you been in Farnham?’
‘A couple of weeks. It’s a good place,’ Matty conceded. ‘People are reasonably friendly, and they don’t bother you too much. It’s a solid, respectable town.’ He hesitated slightly. ‘Except . . .’
‘Except what?’
‘Nothing.’ He shook his head, pulling himself together. ‘Look, I’ve been watching you for a while. You ain’t got any friends around here, and you’re not stupid. You can figure stuff out. Well, I seen something in town, and I can’t explain it.’ He blushed slightly, and looked away. ‘I was hoping you could help.’
Sherlock shrugged, intrigued. ‘I can give it a go. What is it?’
‘Best I show you.’ Matty brushed his hands on his trousers. ‘You want to go around the town first? I can tell you where the best places are to eat and drink and just watch people going by. Also where the best alleys are to run away down and the dead ends you want to avoid.’
‘Will you show me your boat as well?’
Matty glanced at Sherlock. ‘Maybe. If I decide I can trust you.’
Together, the two of them headed down the slope towards the road that led into town. The sky above them was blue, and Sherlock could smell smoke from a fire and hear someone in the distance chopping wood with the regularity of a pocket watch ticking away. At one point, as they briefly crossed into a copse of trees, Matty pointed to a bird hovering high above them. ‘Goshawk,’ he said succinctly. ‘Tracking something.’
It was a good few miles into town, and it took them nearly an hour to make it. Sherlock could feel the muscles in his legs and lower back stretching as he walked. He would feel stiff and achy tomorrow, but for now the exercise was clearing away the dark depression that had settled over him since he had arrived at Holmes Manor.
As they got closer to the town, and as houses began to appear with more and more regularity along the sides of the road, Sherlock began to detect a musty, unpleasant smell drifting across the countryside.
‘What is that smell?’ he asked.
Matty sniffed. ‘What smell?’
‘That smell. Surely you can’t miss it? It smells like a carpet that’s got wet and not been allowed to dry out properly.’
‘That’ll be the breweries. There’s a good few of them scattered around along the river. Barratt’s Brewery is the largest. He’s expanding cos of the troops that are newly billeted at Aldershot. That’s the smell of wet barley. Beer’s what turned my dad bad. He joined the Navy to get away from it, but there it was the rum that got to him.’
They were on the outskirts of the town proper now, and there were more houses and cottages than there were gaps. Many of the houses were constructed from red bricks, with either roofs of thatched reeds tied down and bulging like loaves of bread or dark red tiles. Behind the houses, a gradual slope led up to a grey stone castle which perched above the town. The slope led up further, past the castle, to a distant ridge. Sherlock couldn’t help wondering what use a castle was in that position if any attacker could get above it and rain arrows, stones and fire down on it for as long as they liked.
‘They have a market here every day,’ Matty volunteered. ‘In the town square. They sell sheep and cows and pies and everything. Good place to check when they’re clearing up at the end of the day. They’re always in a hurry to get out before the sun goes down, and all kinds of stuff falls off the stalls, or gets thrown away cos it’s a bit rotten or wormy. You can eat pretty well just on the stuff they leave behind.’
‘Lovely,’ Sherlock said drily. At least meals at Holmes Manor were something to look forward to, although the atmosphere over lunch and dinner was not.
The town proper surrounded them now, and the street was filled with so many people