The Quiet Man

Liar

“Go north at the corner. There’s a pathway that leads west.”

You’re taking me back home on an even more convoluted path. But I understand now; Moran needs to see me, for some reason. I’m the bait, and he’s meant to bite. I’m not sure why he would want to. Why would he be looking for me? I’m supposed to believe that you’re dead, right? That’s my role in all this, chief mourner. Steadfastly loyal in the face of all evidence against you. He can’t expect me to still be shattered by it, can he? He can’t know that much about me; you don’t. So I should just be what I am; I’m tired, my head hurts, my back is sore, and I broke up with my girlfriend yesterday. We weren’t getting on. I wasn’t honest with her. There are things about me she wouldn’t understand. I can be these things. It’s what I am.

What more can I do? What does it signify, me being seen going into and out of one particular Tesco? That I broke up with Mary, I moved out. That’s not international news. I’m going to the shops outside of her neighbourhood, in my old neighbourhood. It means that things have changed. Little things; my love life, that’s all. I’ve moved. I’ve come home. There’s nothing to see here. I don’t understand.

I wonder which of these cameras Moran controls; you must know. Not the ones on Baker Street, apparently. Is that why you wanted me to avoid it? Less chance of being seen?

What do you want him to know? That I moved back into our flat? Or only that I’m here? Is that evidence on its own? Evidence of what, that you’re alive? That doesn’t make sense. No one can see Baker Street; there’s a perimeter, right? There’s security. It’s safe for you to stand in the window. He can’t see you from there. He doesn’t know where you are. Baker Street doesn’t matter, then. I need to be seen near, but not too near, Baker Street.

Why?

I’m not even wearing a silly hat.

“John.” I very nearly look up. It’s hard not to; this voice in my head isn’t the same as the imaginary one. It does things I don’t expect. The tone of your voice changes so fast; all work and seriousness to a sort of playfulness in a second. “That coffee shop you frequented, before you met Mary. On Pentonville Road. You remember it?”

You mean the place around the corner from my old flat? The place I retreated to after you died, after I found I couldn’t stand to stay in 221b because of your pointed and unrelenting absence? Yes. Of course I remember. I used to go there a lot. I flirted with the waitresses. There were always people there, strangers. Regulars. It was better to sit there among strangers than to stay in my flat all alone. Those were painful days. What about it, Sherlock?

“I liked it. It was much better than the next one.”

All right, hold on. You said you stayed in London all this time, I know that, but did you actually get coffee from the same places I did? That’s impossible. I would have seen you. Someone would have seen you, even if I didn’t. You were supposed to be dead, Sherlock. What were you doing in coffee shops? What were you doing in my coffee shops?

“Better coffee there. The staff at the second one were stealing from the till, did you notice that?”

Jesus. No, I didn’t notice that. Were you always so close to me, Sherlock? Following me? All that time, were you always just a step or two behind me?

“I don’t know how you coped with that dodgy lift.”

You know about the dodgy lift? So you came into the block of flats I lived in, when I was mourning you the most. Right away, at the start. When I was completely alone. You were there, were you? Taking the dodgy lift, standing by my door. Were you standing there on the evenings when I was staring at the walls and talking to you in my head? Did you ever go inside? Did you see the place and see what you’d reduced me to? Did you hover over me while I slept? So close. That’s unfair.