Over My Dead Body

by Dave Warner

  So likely white-collar type, Georgette was thinking. Rebecca wasn’t dumb, she’d know if the guy was talking himself up a profession or two.

  ‘Middle-class, then, quiet,’ she said.

  ‘That’s what they are thinking. I better go. They’ve got me doorknocking bars where they might have had a drink.’

  ‘Right up your alley,’ she’d joked.

  And then here she was back with her sick hamsters. Why didn’t Holmes just come out and say what he thought? Why leave a clue like everything had to be a puzzle?

  Time not space.

  She’d been thinking that if it were bacteria spread through the air-conditioning, the other hamsters would all be sick by now. And in much worse shape. This was slow and seemed to affect cognition first. And then she looked up at the space where the four cages had been that she had since removed. Cages one through four. In a sequence.

  Time.

  Zoe was number one because she was the first hamster she had revived. Vernon number two. And now she understood in a blink what Holmes had meant and even why he had not come right out and said something. The hamsters were falling sick in the order that they had been revived. It wasn’t so much an exterior illness that had made them sick but something about her process, a problem that hid itself for a period of time and then presented in weaker cognition and general sluggishness. Perhaps she had not defeated death, only stalled it.

  And if her hamsters were dying, the same fate would befall Holmes. Sooner rather than later.

  20

  HOLMES

  The thing most missing of his old world was the smell. The sweet stench of horse manure rising in the heat of the day, the constant drifting smoke from small fires, backyard braziers, potteries and foundries, all varieties and flavors of smoke: eel-tinged smoke marching from the river, mercury-laden heavy vapors that had rolled beneath lopsided gates of weathered wood, gossamer wafts that had squeezed their way up through ill-fitted tin-rooves of tanneries, the almost-living laneway bricks impregnated with centuries of odor of blood and flesh from halved steers, strung game birds, headless pigs, barrows of barnacled mussels and oysters and a legion of dead fish. And at night the great rolling fog that lifted like a devil’s sulphurous tail from the oily sheets of the Thames and conjoined with piped ash dancing up from a half-million sooty chimneys to drift hither and thither an ugly lullaby over slate rooves, beneath which pots of carrots and potatoes and peas bubbled and burped in their own familiar domestic pong of tobacco smoke. The same smells repeated room to room, street to street, day after day, unless you rode a trail of coal and steam to a place beyond the great city, a hillock or stream where flowers grew and the smell of them was so sweet, so beautiful, so … heavenly, that the poet in you really could deduce God in the shape of a petal.

  There seemed almost no smell in this new world. Yes, there was the exhaust of cars, the aroma of bright food and coffee … but not much beyond that. As if the brain’s olfactory centre had atrophied for lack of use. In the supermarket one could buy strawberries the size of a badger but they didn’t smell like a berry, just like everything else. A mushroom even.

  He did not miss the stench of open sewage, not one bit – that, he had to say, was a big positive. Yet strangely perhaps, he did miss the occasional tang of horse shit; not stepping in it, mind, that was another positive. Watson, the old Watson, would have been pleased. No man in the history of the world could ever find his shoe in horse shit like his old comrade.

  Perhaps as a consequence of the lack of foulness in the air, one did not notice women as quickly as one used to. Their smell would announce them, elevate them long before they entered a room. Perfumes now were no doubt at the same chemical strength as their forebears but they had nothing to rail against, as if a white handkerchief was tossed into the air against a white cloud rendering it invisible. Overall, modern people did not exude smell. They did not seem to sweat. Their unstained fingers did not reek of their telltale industry. Everybody, as far as smells went, had more or less morphed into the same ghost.

  Except for Georgette.

  He smelled her everywhere in the apartment, the soap she had used to wash her long neck. Her shampoo. Her skin.

  Never before had he spent this much time in such close quarters with a woman. Always he had made sure he was strapped in a harness as if, stretching and peering in towards the ocean of womanly mystery – so dark, so alluring, so intoxicatingly inviting – he might be too bewitched to notice the angle of his incline had reached a hazardous level and, falling, plunge beneath the surface to join the legion of dead-sailors who had succumbed to sirens’ calls. There had been times, of course, when he had dropped so low his lips had tasted the brine of the sea but the harness had held. Until now.

  It was not simply that she was of the highest intelligence, it was the very nature of that intelligence: the order, the scientific discipline that he found so compelling. Beautiful? Absolutely. The other night when she had emerged, her hair wet, her form so … pristine, as if God’s finger had that moment created her from the elements, how compelled he had been to stare at her. And then armed with the certain knowledge that beneath her bathrobe, her bare bosom and her beating heart were so tantalizingly close like an ear to a whisper, as if he were the husband and she his wife; well, he was embarrassed and full of guilt at the thoughts he had, which were … primal. And here was the truth that made Georgette so unique, so dangerous to his ordered way of life: her physical attributes were inconsequential farthings to the real gold – her loyalty, no less than that of her progenitor, her compassion even for her hamsters, her humor. For him to lose his bearings it would likely have been enough for her simply to be an attractive young woman with whom of necessity he had come to share an intimate domestic arrangement. But Georgette was much, much, more, there was nobody he had ever encountered, even his dear friend John, who had her qualities.

  He had no prior experience of love. Certain women had impressed him, made him want to possess them but never had he felt the urge to stay with them, with the yearning expressed in the lyric of one of those popular songs, ‘forever and ever’. To lie on a grassy bank, cheek to cheek, hands entwined with a paramour while birds twittered overhead, to row her up a glistening river, the sun scorching his back while she faced him under a parasol and even the fish below the surface seemed driven to leap up and out to catch a glimpse of his princess. These desires had never been found in the wardrobe of Sherlock Holmes. And yet here they were as bright as a red muffler that his hand reached for no matter the weather. It was ludicrous, adolescent, but there. All of these things, and more, he desired to share with Georgette.

  That night when he held her, showing her how to defend herself, well, he had never experienced that. He should have said something to Georgette right then, declared himself as a candidate for her affections. He squirmed. Even the way he thought of that sounded archaic and manifestly stupid. How was he ever going to express himself in a way that would not simply confirm the enormity of the gap between them? He was an accident, a blip in the continuum of time. And yet, he was real. His blood spilled like any man born a hundred years after him. His heart beat as theirs, his brain, while perhaps not as sharp as it once had been, was superior to most.

  It was his courage that had been lacking because if she did not share his feelings – and let us be honest, why would she? – then what option did she have but to send him on his way?

  This would happen inevitably when love bloomed between her and some other man so, what had he to lose except the one thing about which he had never cared a jot: his dignity. But he had said nothing. All in all now a good thing, because there was nothing he could guarantee her except early widowhood.

  Georgette was a beacon that could light a world, not just a square of it, not just a corner, and when he was with her, he did not feel like a freak, an anthropological accident, he did not sense the darkness all around him as he had always done from his brow to his bones.

  He felt alive.


  Here was the irony. He was almost certainly dying. Yes, yes, of course, we are all dying and at any moment we could be run over by a night cart – well, perhaps in this day and age, a large car. That wasn’t his particular curse, rather the process that had breathed life into him, that had brought this angel to him, had at the same time signed his death warrant. Wild and ridiculous thoughts that had roamed his mind: a future with Georgette, marriage … children, imagine the love and tenderness she would possess for their offspring? Ridiculous schoolboy, headlong-rush sentiments that had promptly hit a stone wall.

  The truth was, however, he could not chide himself, for he would do it all again and gladly accept what fate had in store. It was a small price to pay for that which had already been ladled out. To crave more was human but still he thanked the Almighty, the stars, science and his old friend John, for what he had been given. Even if it were to end now, this instant.

  What was more difficult to accept with equanimity was the blunting of his reasoning powers. Up until yesterday he had assumed that may have been simply because he had lain idle for one hundred and thirty years. He had hoped it would come back in time but that rather scanty analysis was perhaps absolute proof of a permanent loss of mental capacity. More likely it was the same malaise as was affecting the hamsters. Where he was absolutely critical of himself was that he had wilfully pursued his profession while in proximity to Georgette, had used her and exposed her to danger. He would not have blamed Harry had he pulled out a birch and whipped him.

  What on earth had possessed him? What could he have been thinking? Well, he knew the answer to that. He was thinking he was going to catch Noah and show the modern world the greatest detective mind of all time. He was Ozymandias, king of kings, a vain, foolish man who had endangered the world’s most precious and unique creation: Georgette. Had he achieved his goal, captured Noah, he might have been able to, with a contrite heart, learn from his mistake for the future. A future that might include somebody beyond himself.

  But he had failed and now in the mirror there was his unworthiness, mocking him.

  And yet …

  He could not deny his nature. Until that last stitch was sewn, he must remain in the same old suit that had served him so well. Sherlock Holmes, professional detective. Professional. And more. His very core that demanded he answer every mystery, and this one was surely easier, far easier than many in his past. The murders had to be related to the reappearance of the book. Yet it seemed none of his suspects could themselves be the killer.

  What he needed was stimulus. Or a stimulant.

  He eyed the white powder in the little plastic bag that he had removed from the drug dealer after meeting with Valerian. It had been a necessary omission in his conversations with Georgette. There was nothing to it really. A mere thirty minutes observation told you who was selling cocaine and what firearms they were carrying. All he needed was a cane and a slight limp. After securing cash via the shell game, the cane he rented for the sum of five dollars from an elderly fellow feeding pigeons. The drug dealer, a revolver in his waistband and a derringer in his sock, was only too happy to lead him to the deserted laneway and, as Holmes predicted, propose a trade: Holmes’ money in return for not being shot. The cane broke the fellow’s wrist before he could blink. The follow-up blow to the temple stunned him and Holmes calmly removed the cocaine and the firearms. He drew the line at taking the fellow’s drug-money. His moral logic told him that as he had been threatened he was entirely within his rights to remove the guns, and the cocaine had been forfeited by the seller’s actions, but the other money was not his business. Frankly, he thought that any society that banned cocaine deserved to be exploited by criminals but he was prepared to follow the adage that ‘When in Rome …’ He had returned the cane and found his way back.

  And now for two days the cocaine had sat there, gesturing to him. At first, he had resisted out of deference to Georgette. No, he told himself, it was wrong. She did not approve, she was his host. Then he began to wonder if he could do without it, for to that point, things were going well. He appeared to have narrowed Noah to one of four possibilities.

  That seemed an awful long time ago now. He remembered from his earlier lifetime the thrill of the drug, the way it would open his mind to a thousand combinations of possibilities that he could view and discard in a shard of a second. From what he had read, Conan Doyle had made him seem like an opium smoker, all languid and reflective, but then Watson had rarely been present when he had indulged, so, devoid of first-hand accounts, Conan Doyle had likely called upon his experience of various associates from his club who enjoyed to lay with the pipe.

  He weighed the bag in his fingers. It would help, he knew it must. It was a double-edged sword, both blessing and curse, but nothing liberated clues locked inside his skull like that white sand. He picked it up and flicked it, watched remnants drop from the sides.

  He placed it back down. Not yet. Not until every pick had been tried on that lock.

  Was one of the persons of interest lying? Had they told somebody? Morris, as the police surmised, or Scheer bragging to a fellow psychologist, or Edwards seeking a sale, or had Melissa Harper told more than one person as she so desperately sought a friend?

  He lay down and methodically began to replay every scene of the case. He was looking for that splinter that caught, that tiny fact out of alignment.

  He’d only just started when his phone rang. It had to be her. She had solved his riddle about time and space. He was surprised it had taken her that long. He switched it off.

  Normally, Simone did not get nervous but today she was. This could be it, the big break all performers pray for. Mr Keely had seen her Janet and raved. She had waited a day, so as not to look too desperate, before having her agent call him, and Keely had said sure, he would be happy to see Simone, he had one or two things in mind already. He wasn’t like some mammoth casting agent, she knew that, but Vonny said he’d found work for a couple of her clients previously and didn’t just do ads but also some TV here and there. The office was nothing special, third floor on West 40th surrounded by offices with cheap fashion accessories. And there was no receptionist, although there was a desk, so maybe he had somebody part-time. She was sitting in a plastic scoop chair and she was the only one in the waiting area. The walls were decorated with impressive photos of live film shoots and one or two billboards shrunken to fit the frame. Keely had poked his head out to say he’d be with her shortly. The magazines didn’t take her fancy, they were tattered and four years old: power boats, fishing, one or two advertising ones. But she was not going to be negative. It was a start, one or two rungs higher than the bottom. Her phone rang: Georgette. Not the best timing but it would soak up a minute or two.

  ‘What’s up?’ she said.

  ‘It’s horrible …’

  Was Georgette crying?

  ‘… he’s dying.’

  Simone’s heart clamped. ‘Dad’s dying? What’s the matter …’

  ‘Not Dad, Holmes. There’s something wrong with my process. My hamsters are getting sick, starting with the oldest, and now there’s three more and Zoe my first one is almost gone and if I can’t figure out what it is, Holmes is going to die.’

  Simone thought she’d followed. ‘They’re hamsters, not humans. Maybe he’ll be good.’

  ‘I don’t think so. It might even advance more quickly.’

  Poor Sherlock. Poor Georgette.

  ‘Does he know?’

  ‘Of course. He’s Sherlock Holmes. I tried to call him just then and he wouldn’t answer. I’m at the lab.’

  The door opened and a young woman Simone’s age came out and gave her that comradely smile that said, hope you go okay but don’t get my part. Keely was standing there expectantly.

  ‘Look, Georgi, I have something on …’

  ‘Pilates with the drummer?’

  There was a lot of snap in Georgette’s tone.

  ‘No actually. A casting. I’ll call you when I’m don
e. Promise.’

  She ended the call, feeling guilty. Keely stood waiting with the door open.

  ‘Everything okay?’ he asked.

  ‘My sister,’ she said.

  ‘Family,’ said Keely knowingly and showed her in. Simone tried to focus. This was important but then so was her sister.

  ‘Nice photos,’ she said, striving for a friendly tone and trying to banish the recent worrying news from her head.

  ‘One thing I’ve learned in this game, the photographer is your lifeline.’

  Her headshot had been done by girl who did her band posters. At the time she’d thought it was sensational, and maybe it was good for rock-and-roll but it was time for a change. She took a deep breath. She was ready for fame to come and grab her.

  There was no point wallowing, Georgette decided, she just had to get on with it, nobody else could help her. She was angry with herself for getting caught up in the case. Noah wasn’t any of her damn business, this was. Had she been devoting all her attention to it, she may well have noticed the problems earlier. Zoe was at death’s door and Vernon was where Zoe had been twenty-four hours earlier. Their decline was following a predictable pattern. She dried her tears on her sleeve, and took blood samples from all her hamsters. One saving grace was there was a gap between her first six revivals and numbers seven through ten, so maybe no symptoms would show in those others. The facility had its own lab specialising in bloodworks of the research animals. Mark, the nerdy guy who was point-man, would need a personal touch.

  She took the elevator to the fourth floor and was in luck. Mark was sitting back playing whatever the latest geek computer game was.

  ‘Need a big favor.’

  ‘No fucking way, Watson.’

  ‘Yes, way.’

  ‘You getting me a date with that hot sister of yours?’ He raised his eyebrows. When had he seen Simone? Oh that’s right, the party last Easter. Simone her plus one, instead of Vance not long after that debacle.