Young Sherlock Holmes_ Fire Storm - Andrew Lane [65]
He reached up and pulled the sack off his head.
Steely grey light dazzled his eyes, and he blinked several times. He was in a room about the size of his aunt and uncle’s dining room, but that was where the similarity ended. This room was bare floorboards and cracked plaster walls rather than carpets and curtains. The green stain of mould bloomed across the peeling remnants of wallpaper. Holes in the walls exposed the wooden lathes beneath. Some of the floorboards were missing, and rat droppings were spread across the remainder like tiny black stones. The ceiling was largely bare of plaster, and the rafters showed through like ribs. Rain had trickled in through the holes and left puddles on the floorboards, adding to the general feeling of neglect and decay.
As Sherlock struggled to his knees the newspaper slid from his pocket and dropped to the rotting floorboards. He could see the word Cramond written in the margin. Horrified, he looked up. Three men were in front of a broken window, two of them standing and the one in the centre sitting with his hands on a walking stick that was set in front of him, but the way the light flooded around them left them looking like charcoal stick figures sketched on paper. Sherlock screwed up his eyes, trying to make out their faces, but it was no good. The light was too strong.
Matty was curled up a few feet away. A sack, similar to the one that had been covering Sherlock, was still tied around his head and shoulders. For a moment Sherlock couldn’t see any movement, and his heart lurched sickeningly as he wondered if his friend was dead, but then he saw that Matty was breathing shallowly. He was alive, but probably unconscious.
Given what Sherlock suspected was going to happen in the room over the next few minutes, unconsciousness seemed like a good option.
He looked past Matty. A chair had been placed to one side of the three men. Rufus Stone was tied to the chair. He looked at Sherlock and smiled. The smile might have been more reassuring if there weren’t swollen lumps on his forehead and cheeks and if his fingers hadn’t been covered with blood. They looked like someone had been working on them with pliers.
‘Let me explain how this will work,’ a quiet, almost gentle voice said. Sherlock thought it was the man in the middle. His accent was similar to that of Amyus Crowe – he was obviously American. ‘I have no compunction about hurting children. I have done it before, and I will do it again. I do not enjoy it, but if it is necessary then I will cause you immense pain in order to get what I want.’
‘And what is that?’ Sherlock asked. ‘I don’t have any money, you know.’
The man didn’t laugh, but Sherlock could hear a trace of humour in his voice as he answered: ‘I have no use for your money, boy. I have more money than I know what to do with. No, I want information about your friend Amyus Crowe and his daughter, and that is something you do have.’
‘I don’t know anything,’ Sherlock said, trying to inject as much conviction into his voice as he could. He squinted, trying to make out some features on the man’s face or his clothes against the bright light behind him. All he could tell was that the cane the man was resting his hands on had a strangely large head on it.
‘Then you will die in agony. It is that simple. You are about to experience a great deal of pain, but the more true answers you give me, the longer you will live and the less pain you will be in. Now, I have a series of questions to ask you. They are very simple questions. You will answer them just as simply, with no attempt at lying or obscuring the truth.’
Sherlock’s gaze fell on the newspaper. He had to stop the man seeing it. ‘What happens if I don’t know the answers?’ he asked, brain racing as he tried to work out what to do. He jerked his eyes away from it. Just looking down might draw attention to it.
‘A good question,’ the man conceded, ‘and one that has exercised my mind on many occasions in the past. I have, as you can probably guess, conducted many, many interrogations like this. Fortunately