Young Sherlock Holmes_ Fire Storm - Andrew Lane [86]
‘I can’t!’ Crowe yelled. His face was white with shock.
‘You have to!’ Sherlock yelled back. He turned to Virginia, who was looking back and forth between Sherlock and her father. ‘Trust me – we have to keep going down.’
She looked at Amyus Crowe. His face was despairing. Eventually, after a time that felt like hours but must have been less than a second, he nodded.
Virginia turned and ran towards Sherlock. Crowe scrambled up the hidden path, surprisingly fast for a man of his bulk.
Virginia grabbed Sherlock’s hand and ran with him, flying down the slope, pulling away from their pursuers.
Sherlock looked back, once, over his shoulder as they ran. Amyus Crowe, along with Rufus and Matty, was out of sight, hidden by the rocks. The pursuers had seen Crowe climbing. Two of them followed, while the other kept on going.
The slope began to level out ahead of them. To his left, Sherlock caught sight of the chapel that he’d seen on the way up. They would soon be back in the town. Could they evade their pursuers there, or were Scobell’s men already waiting?
Still clutching Sherlock’s hand, Virginia pulled him towards the chapel. ‘Maybe we could hide there,’ she panted.
They scurried behind a moss-covered gravestone that was leaning at a perilous angle. There was barely room for them both. Sherlock had to move close to Virginia so they could fit without being seen. He could feel her breath on his neck: warm and fast.
Boots clattered on the rocks, then disappeared.
‘What now?’ Sherlock asked after they had heard nothing for a few minutes.
‘I think we need to meet up with my father and Rufus and Matty. Somehow.’
Sherlock nodded. ‘All right.’
He turned his head. Her eyes were only an inch away from his.
He wanted to kiss her, but instead he just said, ‘Let’s go.’
The gorse and the heather were rough underfoot. The stems kept catching on Sherlock’s shoes as they trudged across the moorland. Virginia’s shoes were a lot more practical than his and he had to struggle to keep up.
They both looked around as they walked, checking the buildings behind them and the low wall they were slowly approaching in case anyone had seen them, but they were alone. The whole landscape seemed strangely deserted. Sherlock worried that a figure would spring up from somewhere, point at them and shout, but nothing happened.
The setting sun cast their shadows across the heather, purple on purple. The air was cold, and it smelled of flowers. Despite the lateness of the year a handful of bees buzzed slowly around, moving from bloom to bloom in search of pollen.
‘What are you thinking?’
He turned his head. Virginia was looking at him questioningly. She had noticed his preoccupation.
‘I was just thinking about bees,’ he explained.
‘Bees?’ She shook her head disbelievingly. ‘We’re separated from our friends, we’re on the run from a gang of murderers and you’re thinking about bees? I don’t get it.’
He shrugged, suddenly defensive. ‘I understand bees,’ he said. ‘They aren’t complicated. They do whatever they do for obvious reasons. They’re like little clockwork machines. They make sense.’
‘And you don’t understand people?’
He kept walking, not answering for a moment. ‘Why is any of this happening?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Because Bryce Scobell decided that he didn’t like the American Indians and decided to wipe them out instead of just moving somewhere there weren’t any Indians? Because your father was sent to catch him and became obsessed with finding him no matter how many people he lost along the way? Because Scobell became obsessed in turn with taking revenge on your father and followed him to England instead of hiding peacefully somewhere else in the world? I don’t understand any of it! If people just acted logically, then none of this would be happening now!’
‘Scobell is mad, according to my father,’ Virginia said quietly. ‘He doesn’t have any morals, any scruples. He does whatever he needs to in order to get what he wants.’
‘The madness aside,’ Sherlock said quietly, thinking about