by Amelia Price
“Slow down, Amelia. Why don't you read me the letters?”
“I don't have the first one. I left it at home.”
“All right, tell me what you can remember and then read me this second one. Let's see if we can figure out a little more about this guy and if he's really a threat to you. It's not the first time you've had strange letters. We've dealt with them all in the past.” His voice remained calm and steady, and by the time Shane had finished speaking Amelia also felt calmer. She sat back down again and closed her eyes to picture the first letter.
“That doesn't sound too bad,” Shane said.
“No, it doesn't by itself.”
“All right, so read me this second one.”
She did as he asked and then waited for him to comment. Reading it again made her feel even worse, and it took all her composure to wait for Shane to speak.
“Okay, that does sound a little worse than normal. Why don't you take a photo of what you have there and email it to me along with all the other information you know. Things like when you got the letters. I'll look over everything and see if we can get you some extra security.”
“All right. What should I do in the meantime?”
“Get some sleep and try not to worry. You're safe in your room. I'll get the driver to come get you from your room in the morning, if you want.”
“Yes, please.” She shuddered again despite his reassurances. The room didn't feel safe.
“I'll speak to the hotel desk and let them know to keep an eye out. Do you want to let the police know too?”
“I...” She stopped speaking, unsure of the answer. She hadn't thought about going that far. It might make her feel safer, but it might just be more hassle than it was worth.
“Or you could get a friend to join you. We wouldn't mind paying for someone to be with you, so you're not alone, until you feel safe again.”
“No, I don't think that will be necessary. I know someone I can phone who can help.”
“That Sebastian Holmes guy?” Shane asked.
“Yes,” she replied, lying and following it with a goodbye. A few months back she would have phoned Sebastian, but not now she knew his elder brother. Who else would you phone when you had a stalker who wanted to be your controlling boyfriend but your mentor who was pretending to be your controlling boyfriend?
Chapter 3
Mycroft sat in his study, reading the report that some homeless teenager had delivered to his door a few minutes ago. It had cost him a twenty-pound note but it was useful enough he didn't mind. It was also early, and that let Mycroft know that his brother felt some sort of guilt or remorse for refusing to help the previous day. Although it was also possible that Sherlock had no cases and was bored.
Either way, it meant that Mycroft could progress with his problem. The dirt found around the sofa came from a mix of three different areas of London, the majority coming from a patch of the river that stretched from Rainham to Purfleet, and most notably from the Rainham nature reserve and marshland. Whatever the terrorists were up to, they visited the nature reserve a lot, and Mycroft suspected they might have been hiding something there. The rest of the mud came from places he already knew the people had visited, like the Silvertown barrier.
It didn't take him long to message the relevant officials and get a team down to the right area to have a look for signs of trespassing or other suspicious activity. His team were still keeping an eye on the other locations the terrorists had been seen in, so he knew they hadn't been to any of those recently.
He rubbed his forehead with his fingers, aware that a dull ache of some kind was settling in for the night. The meetings that morning had provided far too much stress. Government officials wanted answers, and they had no one else to grill but him. Sometimes he wished he wasn't such an important part of the system that ran the United Kingdom. It always fell to him to keep the country safe and prosperous. A task that wasn't made any easier by the many bungling prime ministers who'd ruled and the two large wars he'd had to live through.
While he was lamenting the lack of strong leadership within the country, the shrill sound of a mobile phone ringing pierced the otherwise silent evening in his house. He frowned and reached for the spare handset in his drawer. At some point he'd expected Amelia to get in contact with him, but he'd expected it several hours earlier and in message form. He'd need to reprimand her for phoning.
“Miss Jones,” he said as he picked up, not doing anything to hide his annoyance at her.
“Myron! I think I need your help.”
He heard the faint edge of panic in her voice and sneered. Maybe she wasn't as good at controlling her emotions as she'd displayed last time they'd been together. Not wishing to indulge her outburst, he decided to change the subject immediately. Hopefully she'd understand he had absolutely no intention of helping her with anything.
“Do you not have something to report about the second stage of our lessons?”
There was another pause and Mycroft waited.
“Are these letters from you, then?” she asked, sounding calm but confused. It was his turn to not understand. The lines on his head furrowed.
“What letters?”
“I had one posted through my door in the early hours of this morning and another brought to the hotel I'm at less than half an hour ago. I didn't think they were from you, but I...”
“They're not.”
“They say they're from a fan, but I think I've got a stalker, Myron, and I'm not sure I'm safe here. I was hoping...”
“And you didn't observe anything strange today?” he asked, not interested in her fears concerning her fans. She chose her career, and any hazard it caused her was of her own making.
“I did notice this one guy.”
“What did he look like?” Mycroft sat back, pleased she'd at least noticed him. Maybe all faith in her intelligence wasn't lost.
“He had dark hair, a little taller than me. Glasses, with quite wide rims.”
“Go on,” he encouraged, pleased she'd picked up on that much.
“He had a strange coat – although it was far too big for him – and he was a bit nerdy. He also said he was a carer for his mother who has multiple sclerosis, and he was very conversationally awkward.”
Mycroft frowned again and hesitated to interrupt her. She was no longer describing the right person. He'd specifically instructed his man to wear a suit and carry an umbrella just like Mycroft's. It would have made him easier to spot, but the first challenge of this stage couldn't be too difficult if she was going to learn.
“He also said he had a brother and liked my character, Dalton, which is in the letters. He came across as the stereotypical type to...”
Mycroft gave an exasperated sigh loud enough that Amelia must have heard it. Mercifully, she went silent.
“I have absolutely no interest in your fans, although he isn't a threat to you. He couldn't possibly be the person who delivered your letters and also followed you to the hotel.”
“Then why did you ask? Oh... I'm so sorry, Myron. I was so preoccupied with these letters and the strangeness of them. I've missed something I was meant to notice, haven't I?”
“Yes, you have.” It pleased him that she was apologetic, but nevertheless she had failed a task and he'd said it was grounds to end their arrangement. But now it came to it, he found his mouth firmly shut and he didn't tell her it was over. Instead, he listened as she sighed.
“I know begging for a second chance isn't going to work. Is there anything I can say that would make you consider starting this challenge again?”
Mycroft sat back and thought about her question. He hadn't expected her to fail so soon, not given how highly his younger brother thought of her. Something in the letter she received must have made her lose focus, and given how she'd behaved when they were abducted, it must be more than the usual female would be emotionally compromised by.
“Has the stalker threatened you?” he asked, curiosity overriding his displeasur
e.
“No, not directly. The second letter mentioned his dislike of the greeting I received from a couple of my friends at the signing today. He suggested I was too familiar with them.”
“So he was there.”
“Definitely.”
“But you didn't notice him? Or anyone else?” Mycroft hesitated over giving her a second chance. She had calmed down while talking to him, and it was at least somewhat impressive that her response to a threatening letter was to try and spot the sender herself. Before he could continue and tell her this, she took the silence as indication that he had nothing else to say.
“I only noticed the person I mentioned, Guy Thomas. But if you don't think he's the type, then I guess I was wrong about that too.”
“You sound tired.”
“I am. I woke up to the first letter and it has been a long day.”
“Then you'd best get some sleep. You'll need it. I fully expect a message from you tomorrow evening telling me what you've observed. Perhaps you can figure out who this man is at the same time as achieving your next challenge, and I can be entertained by both attempts.”
“Thank you, Myron.” A lighter note lifted her voice, but she still sounded weary.
“Go on, get some sleep. That's an order.”
“As you command,” she said in the same manner she'd used before. He could imagine the merry light in her eyes as she said it, and he found himself smiling as he hung up.
Once the phone was tucked back in the drawer it lived in Mycroft realised he'd possibly just made the most irrational decision so far in his long life. Never before had he given anyone but Sherlock a second chance.
He frowned and got up to summon his housekeeper for some more tea. It didn't feel right to have let Amelia get away with failing, but he'd done it now. He could only hope Amelia kept her head and didn't make him regret it. Once more, he wondered if it had been a good idea to agree to teach a woman, but something had made him curious about her, and he'd followed her into that bookshop one afternoon in September. All the strange decisions he'd made had followed that one, like waves on an ocean. Maybe he needed to turn the tide.
Mycroft felt better after drinking his tea, and settled into his leather chair by the fire to read a book. He had one of his favourite classics open, and was reading the first edition in its original language, Russian.
Before he could read more than a few pages, his laptop chimed to let him know he had an email. With a sigh, he went back to it to see if it was anything important, and was pleased to find it was and he hadn't been disturbed for no good reason.
One of his men had spotted footprints in the marshes. The trail had led a small team to a cache of blueprints, food and a few Russian weapons. At least one of the men he was after had been hiding there recently.
Mycroft tapped out a quick reply telling them to keep their distance and observe. It wouldn't help if they scared the man off. It would be better to let him come and go and give Mycroft a trail he could follow himself. It was time to take over from the amateurs and solve this problem.
Chapter 4
Amelia felt a lot better as she put her knife and fork down and sat back from her breakfast plate. It was now empty apart from a small smear of tomato juice left over from the baked beans. There was nothing quite like an English breakfast to start off a busy day.
With the assurance from Myron that Guy wasn't her stalker she felt a little better, and it was more than she expected for him to be allowing a second attempt at one of the tests he had for her. It encouraged her, even if she did feel nervous about the day. At some point she would need to spot the right thing and be able to give Myron the details. He'd given her no indication of what she should spot and when, but given that he also wanted her to look out for her own stalker and tell him about that, it would be wise of her to observe every little detail she could. Amelia found herself feeling very grateful that she'd slept well and was more awake and aware than she'd been in days. She'd need it.
As Shane had promised, the driver knocked on her hotel door to accompany her to the car, and when she arrived at the book shop for her signing she noticed there was a burly man watching over the queue of people there to see her. With both Myron and her publishers taking the threat seriously and lending her what support they could, she felt her tense muscles relax. She gave the people around her a genuine smile as she greeted them.
Her new bodyguard accompanied her into the building which had a similar size and layout to the Bath shop, with the slight exception of a café that sat just behind her signing table. This early in the morning it wasn't very busy, with just two women sat chatting over drinks. She could tell from the size of their handbags and the child-related objects flowing out of the top of one that they must have dropped their young children off at some kind of nursery for a few hours to themselves. Nothing unusual there, and not related to her stalker or stage two of her training, but a good start in practising her observational skills for the day.
It didn't take her long to get into the usual routine that accompanied these events, and keeping an eye out for strange people around her only slowed the ritual by a few seconds as she took the opportunity to scan the scene in front of her every time she posed for a photo with fans or said goodbye to another satisfied reader. When she was physically signing the books, she paused on her way to lean on the table to glance over towards the café. She also gave the area a more in depth sweep every time she took a drink from the bottled water she was supplied with.
It wasn't long before midday when she noticed a well-dressed man sitting in the café at a small table. He'd moved the chair to one side from the neat rows so he was angled towards her. She couldn't be sure, as his glasses had an odd tint to them, but he appeared to be gazing in her direction a lot, despite having a paper in his hands.
When she stopped for lunch and noticed him looking at her for a third time, she smiled and tilted her head ever so slightly sideways. He immediately reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something out, which he deftly folded into the paper as he closed it.
While she was still looking he got up, placing his hand on top of the newspaper. Before he walked away, he gave her a slight nod and tapped the top of the paper with his fingers. A burst of emotion washed over her. This was either her stalker or Myron's lesson, and at this point she didn't know which.
She did know she needed to get to that paper.
“Be right back,” she mumbled and walked away from her table, right over to the café. Her eyes fixed on the paper the entire way, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she got to it before anyone could try and claim it in the now heaving sitting area.
After staring at it for a moment, she lifted the paper so it held the message or small item inside and carried it back to where her bodyguard was waiting.
“I wanted to check the paper at lunch,” she said, thinking on her feet. “One of my friends said they might be in it.”
“Do you want me to come to the staff room with you, Miss?” he asked, not even showing an interest in what she'd just done. She smiled but shook her head.
“I'm sure I'll be fine in there. Why don't you have lunch as well, Toby?” He nodded and headed towards the shop exit, not giving her or the strange behaviour a second glance.
With her food arrangements sorted and waiting for her in the staff room, Amelia picked up her handbag. While she walked across the shop floor she rifled through the pages of the newspaper until her fingers brushed across something that had a different feel to it. Glancing down, she saw it was a small envelope. An A in Myron's handwriting adorned the outside, almost as big as the entire package.
While still out of sight among the book shelves, she pulled the letter out and slipped it into her handbag. A thrill of delight rippled through her. If nothing else, she'd managed to get Myron's challenge right this time.
She hurried through to the staff room and then beyond, to their toilet. Once she was locked in a cubicle, she pulled out the envelope and opened it u
p. Inside was a small piece of paper.
What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment and never in one thousand years?
Amelia frowned. Riddles weren't her strong point and she'd not expected this one. She also knew she couldn't spend any time right at that moment working it out. Instead, she scanned the words, trying to commit them to memory, and tucked the paper back into an inside pocket of her handbag. Maybe the answer would come to her while she ate.
It didn't.
By the time she'd used up her hour and made sure she'd talked to the workers who wanted her attention it was time to go back out and sign. She spent another hour at this shop, finishing up with the queue of people, despite it making her ten minutes late on the schedule.
Toby waved her forward with his hand as she said goodbye to the manager. He then protectively curled his arm around her back and walked with her to the waiting car.
Once she was sat inside, she reached for her handbag. She had about an hour before she'd arrive at a shopping centre staying open late. There, she was doing another signing along with a couple of other authors. An hour ought to be enough to figure out the riddle.
While she thought over the answer and read the piece of paper over and over again, she nibbled on her lower lip. It didn't make any sense. And then it hit her. The letter M. Of course it was. In her first ever coded letter, M had been the starting letter as well. It made sense for it to be her answer at the start of the next stage.
With a grin on her face, she typed out a message to Myron.
M, darling, it's M.
Knowing she could relax for a bit, she took the opportunity to think about her next novel. She needed to start work on one soon and knew the publisher was expecting it to be in her Dalton series. Normally, revisiting her characters made her feel excited, but with the recent events she felt a small amount of nerves about writing.
