The Quiet Man

Bad News

Have I become a regular here already? I suppose I have. I’m escaping the flat too often lately, looking for some peace and quiet, some place lacking in judgement where I can safely imagine that every crime reported in the papers is somehow related to Sherlock and me. Is that so much to ask?

I think her name is Ashley. Or something like that. She brings me my coffee without me even asking for it now. Milk, no sugar. She knows. She smiles at me. If it weren’t for Mary I’d do more than smile back.

She’s only being nice; she’s a waitress. That’s what she’s paid to do. Be nice. Flirt with me, make me feel like I’m special so I’ll leave her a better tip. It’s not her being mercenary, it’s just how things are. Still: she’s pretty. Too young for me, though. They all are, it seems. I’ve reached that age.

“Here you are,” she says. “Just how you like it.” She smiles. She has slightly crooked teeth, which is endearing. “Anything good in the papers today?”

I smile at her like a regular would: friendly, unthreatening. She doesn’t think I’m a nutter, not yet. I haven’t told her that I look in the classifieds for invitations to participate in top secret arrests. And I’m not going to tell her, because I like it here and I’d like to be able to come back.

“Nothing good at all,” I tell her. “It’s all bad news these days.” That’s what people say, isn’t it? Tut tut, more bad news in The Daily Mail? The world’s gone off the rails somehow, it’s those kids, it’s all those immigrants, it’s the Americans going to war again and dragging us with them. It’s always something, it’s never our fault, and it’s never good. Tut tut, yes, the news is terrible, isn’t it.

She can’t tell that I’m reading the papers with the kind of excitement reserved for Christmas mornings and the birthday parties of nine year olds. It’s not seemly, is it. She’d never imagine that.

She nods at me with put-upon world-weariness, as if she knows all about the horror of world events. But she doesn’t watch the news and she’s too young to really care: they must teach them that world-weary expression to deal with people like me.

Our morning dance complete, she moves on to the next bloke. Another regular; thick black glasses, a beard pulled straight from the mid-seventies, and a glowing white apple on the back of his laptop screen. He only drinks coffee with a fancy name and three types of cream. He’s harmless. He flirts with her, but that’s appropriate. They’re both young.

Nothing in any of these papers about an arrest in Tower 42. Nothing about Amber. Nothing at all.

It’s a wild goose chase, that’s what this is. I can’t even remember her surname, how can I find out what she’s been arrested for if I don’t remember her name? It wasn’t her real name anyway. Even the people in her office didn’t know her real name. She came from nowhere and now she’s just vanished. It’s as if it didn’t happen at all. As if she didn’t exist in the first place.

Fucking hell.

Nothing for me in the classifieds, either. Radio silence. I shouldn’t have said a word to Mycroft, dammit. I shot myself in the foot there, I think. Whoever was feeding me information has been stopped, and I stopped it. What was I thinking? Of course it wasn’t Mycroft. It had to be from someone willing to take outrageous risks. Someone more like you, Sherlock.

There isn’t anyone like you, though.

My phone. A text? No. No, it’s ringing. Someone’s calling me. Mary? No: she doesn’t call me anymore.

It’s not you, is it?

Jesus. Of course it isn’t. Why do I keep imagining that lately? No: it’s not you, that’s impossible.