Spiral Mind , livre ebook

Andrews UK - Janina Arndt

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114 pages

English

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It wasn't that John couldn't tell the story. It wasn't that we didn't know the truth. It was that nobody would believe us. But we cannot keep Sherlock alive with silence.The reader smiles when Moriarty appears on the page. So does Moriarty. And Sherlock Holmes follows him. We smile because we recognise them.Scarlett Vendalle is recognised by nobody, except for John Watson. With no recollection of her own identity and a suspected criminal past, Scarlett is the perfect case for Sherlock. As they follow her tracks, red threads appear in their lives that make it more than clear - Scarlett meeting John and Sherlock was no coincidence. Someone has drawn her shadow on the wall before she appeared. Was it Anne Boleyn who haunts Scarlett with visions of her past? Was it Moriarty who attracts Sherlock like a magnet? Or was it another shadow from the past?With Moriarty's men on the one hand and the secret service on the other, the stage is set for a game with deadly rules, as Sherlock, John and Scarlett slowly become aware that something larger is guiding their steps...Is there another story being written?

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	21 janvier 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781787056466
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Spiral Mind
Janina Arndt

Published in 2020 by
MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor
Royal Drive, London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.com
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2020 Janina Arndt
The right of Janina Arndt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

To
my Mam, Astrid, for imbuing me with the urge to write and the confidence to trust my characters,
To
my Dad, Jürgen, for showing me the Rathbone films,
And to
Tom, for correcting Sherlock on television.

It has always been my duty to tell the story. Now it is my burden, because I failed my duty. But uncovering who really told the story is all that I can do. There are too many stories now that need to be rectified. Too many lines barring the truth. Who we really were. What we really were. How we were written…
~J.H.W.
Don’t think for one second, that I’m not one of them. I joined their silhouettes long ago. I chose this, and I cannot say that I wanted anything else. But that is irrelevant. My name was in the books. Long before I thought I was born. I am not a new character. I was there from the beginning.
~L.S.V.

Part One
Explosive Advice
Chapter One
I fell from the Tower that day. The wind in his coat swept me off the edge. I only saw him in my fall – his brown hair, his long legs and arms, his high, loosely-tied collar, and his face with these piercing grey eyes that caught your recent past as you dropped it. But I held on.
The panorama of London was still clear before my eyes, and Anne Boleyn’s cold breath was still in the wind around me as her shadow grew larger on the water below.
The carpet felt sudden rather than hard; the pile of books was scattered on the library floor, screaming for the ladder I should have used. Embarrassment came jumping up my shoulders to swing around in my ruined hair like a dozen little monkeys driving the colour into my cheeks in little cars.
Holmes offered me his hand. ‘If I didn’t frighten you, I should say you look like you’ve seen a ghost. May I introduce myself–’ He politely helped me up, quickly shoving the hairpin back into my bun.
‘Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective,’ I interrupted him. ‘I could have known it from what John told me about you, but, actually, you’ve dropped your card.’
A mixture of approval and bemusement appeared on Holmes’s face. ‘Well observed, Miss Vendalle.’
He picked up his card with a lissome move.
‘I mentioned John, didn’t I?’ I asked.
‘You did, but John didn’t mention you,’ Holmes replied, smirking. Obviously, John wanted to surprise him. I had to smile at the idea. ‘No,’ he said then, ‘John didn’t tell me you were coming, but this morning he – I don’t want to say panicked – but he was a little confused about the fact that he’d never bought matching clothes in his life.’
I looked at Holmes askance.
‘Oh, and your name,’ he continued, ‘appears last on the book I wanted to fetch. I allowed myself a small peek into the administrative system.’
Holmes effortlessly took a volume out of the shelf I had tried to reach for. The pile of books never seemed more ridiculous. I began collecting my mess off the floor.
All of a sudden, Holmes’s voice was so near that I almost dropped the books I was holding, my breath quickening in surprise. His moves were soundless and feline as he helped me pick up the rest.
‘What has John told you about me?’
‘He–’ I started, but broke off too quickly to think about how to nicely paraphrase the words psychopath, arrogant and unbelievably egocentric , ‘John said I might find you to be a…’
‘Psychopath, unbelievably egocentric and perhaps arrogant?’ Holmes completed the sentence.
‘Yes, I – I think that’s what he said, yes,’ I replied helplessly. Holmes grinned at me.
Hastily, I added, ‘But his voice sounded different when he said it, and, if I guessed rightly, it sounded like he admires you a great deal, and…’ – I searched for the right words – ‘he even made me admire you when he talked of you…’
Holmes’s smile grew broader, and for a second I could first see in his eyes that warmth he would save for John. We stood up.
‘Miss Vendalle, may I ask you another question?’
‘Er… sure.’
‘What does L. S. stand for? Sometimes even hacking into a system won’t give you full information on what you’re looking for.’
I smirked at him. ‘Lily Scarlett, but I prefer Scarlett.’
‘Interesting.’ Holmes smiled. ‘Do you have any business left in town, or may I take you home to deposit your luggage?’
‘Well, you may, but I reckon you have some business left with the watchmaker.’ I had noticed his wristwatch in a front pocket of his trousers.
He began to scan me more curiously. ‘Miss Vendalle, you do surprise me.’
Holmes offered me his arm. After I checked out the books I borrowed, we left the library.
‘How did your watch break?’ I asked when Holmes and I had got into a taxi.
‘Electromagnetic waves, a little different in wavelength from our usual light.’
‘Infrared or ultraviolet?’
‘Infrared.’
‘This is impossible.’
‘I know.’ Holmes smiled at me, but the predominance in his face slowly gave way to that same mixture of approval and bemusement, which must have puzzled him. He looked out of the window again, and I smiled to myself.
The watchmaker didn’t look very pleased when Holmes handed him the watch.
‘I bet he thought your wife had had a go on it with her heel,’ I stated, grinning at the thought as we walked out of the building.
Holmes smiled, too. ‘In fact, he wouldn’t have been too far from the truth.’
I stopped. ‘John said you didn’t have a wife.’ I bit my lip when I realised how that must sound.
‘I don’t have a wife, I just consider myself as being married to my work,’ Holmes remarked, speeding up.
I tied my eyes to the passing shop windows.
‘Oh, and I have to apologise for the mess in our flat. Work doesn’t usually tidy up a room as well as a wife could if she wanted to,’ Holmes remarked. Perhaps, he wouldn’t mind my guinea pigs adding to the mess then, I thought, relieved that one person might take my side against John’s military lifestyle.
The few possessions attributed to me were sent directly to Baker Street after John had agreed to take me in. It wasn’t much when they found me, but for some reason my guinea pigs had been there. The confusion was theirs as much as mine. I would have to ask Holmes about this soon.
How conveniently fate turns out sometimes, I thought, that John should get together with a private detective… He must have liked the way Holmes was striding about the place, as if he owned London.
We were now walking along the Thames and I could not shake off a feeling that Sherlock Holmes wanted to show the place off. London has a peculiar charm with its many mixed architectural styles – like a church window split into hundreds of fragments, each shape, each colour a gateway into a different period.
The London Eye looked like a dreamcatcher, ensnaring dark clouds, furrowed like brows over the city, while the opulent Somerset House opposed the concrete National Theatre.
It took me some time to realise just how disassembled my brain still was as I noticed only much later that I was on my own. Turning round and round, I lost sight of where I was. More and more restlessly, I tried to fix my gaze to a point somewhere, as the thought of being caught in a time bubble with Anne set me on edge. Would I even notice which was the bubble?
‘You dropped your hat,’ Holmes remarked with a quiet irony from behind me. When I didn’t make a move, he placed the hat into my hand.
‘Thank you,’ I murmured.
‘It’s what John would have done.’ He walked over to the edge of the pavement to give me some space, pretending to investigate a lamp post. Spotting some carvings at the bottom, he rummaged in his pockets and handed a few coins to a yellow bundle sitting beneath the lamp. I joined him, facing the river without question.
Holmes was looking at the water now, the shimmer of the surface glittering in his eyes. His coat was blowing about in the wind.
‘How long are you going to stay with us, Miss Vendalle?’
‘I… I don’t know exactly. John said he would take care of me for a while, because… the doctors said I should have someone to help me back into life… after all that happened.’
Holmes sharply turned around, his heels screeching on the pavement as he did, walked up to me until there were only inches between us, and started to observe me intensely from tip to toe.
I could see him capture
the small spots of mascara on my eyelids,
the tightness of my bun,
the scratch at the end of my jaw,
my left shoulder sagging slightly
– he took my left hand and turned it upwards –
the ten marks on the palm around my thumb, parallel scars each half an inch long,
the
– he pushed up my sleeve –
white scar spanning my forearm,
the varying colour of my skin,
the tattoo
– he