God save the Queen
Jan. 9th, 2009 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indiana_jBecause even genius detectives have mothers and fathers.
The Inspector picked his way lightly across the rain slicked cobbled road; there had been a steady rain all of yesterday and it had only just tapered off into that clingy, mist fog that seemed to cover everything. It was early yet but Henry and his wife had been awake for several hours before the summons to the crime scene.
He cast a quick glance over his shoulder and smiled as he touched the tip of his fingers to his hat. The curtains fluttered from inside the coach and he could just see her growing smile as she settled back against the cushions, hands curled protectively over her growing stomach.
When he turned back, two looming forms broke through the wall of fog. Henry hesitated until he recognized them both and smiled at the two beat officers, shaking hands in turn.
"Inspector, good of you to join us!" Jacob, the slightly taller and slightly older twin, boomed. Henry winced, feeling sympathy for anyone still laying abed that morning.
"Terrible crime, sir, terrible," James chimed in.
Jacob glanced around, looking both troubled and relieved. "I take it your lady wife -"
"Will grow bored of sitting in the carriage and seek to join her husband?" Emily said quietly from behind Henry's right side. "Why yes, Officer, however did you know?"
With a long-suffering sigh, Henry extended his arm to his wife and she happily slipped her gloved hand around the crook of his elbow. "Are you sure you're up for this?" he asked softly, bending his head down towards hers.
She simply kept moving forward, making it seem as if Henry were the one leading when in reality it wasn't so. "I am newly with child, my lord husband," she said cheerfully, "and not yet confined to bed like my mother was when she was with me."
"You'll be the death of me, my lady wife," he sighed, stroking her knuckles with his free hand.
It had been, of all things, an arranged marriage that had brought the two of them together. Their mothers had been the best of friends while growing up and their fathers had been amendable to formalizing an alliance. It hadn't been an easy first few months of marriage - his schedule had been at the mercy of the Queen's law and she had been terrified of marriage life.
They really hadn't bothered to get to know one another until he'd come home from a frustrating case - he'd been spouting details mostly to himself when she'd interrupted him with a question. Other men might have been angry but the question was an intelligent and well-thought out one. Henry had hesitated but bade her to continue with her line of reasoning.
It hadn't been the thing to crack the case but it had opened up a line of thinking he hadn't been aware of.
It had also opened his eyes to the fact that his wife had a brilliantly shrewd mind; hidden behind a pleasant face and hesitant to bring it out, she nonetheless had shined that evening in their private study.
He'd quite simply fallen head over heels with her that night.
It was quite unorthodox that Emily appeared at the occasional crime scene or that he discussed his cases with her - but it worked for him. And he had enough clout in his work and politically that it was considered an oddity but not a crippling one.
Besides, his wife was a bit of a social butterfly and the wifes of the husbands he worked with would be quite put out if Henry and Emily were shunned.
When the two rounded the corner, Henry immediately wished that Emily had remained firmly in the waiting coach.
The smell of blood was so thick that it clogged the senses - he could taste it in the back of his throat and swallowed heavily in response. His wife stiffened beside him, her free hand covering her mouth as the smell washed over her as well.
And then he was no longer paying attention to Emily as he was drawn, completely and utterly, to the sprawled corpse at the end of the alley way. Even as he stared at the familiar face of the man he was cataloging everything he saw.
Body. Propped up against the furthest wall of the alley; indecent pose, though clothed. Clothes, torn and stained. Struggle? Or perhaps dragged through the muck of the streets, unconscious or dead already?
Blood. It coated surfaces as if a painter had grown mad and tossed around great things of red paint. It no longer dripped and glistened, meaning he had been murdered some time in the middle of the night - long enough to allow the blood to congeal.
Wounds. Well...
The fact that the poor bastard's head had been removed and settled carefully on the top of a box near by clearly gave at least one way he could potentially been murdered.
Henry stared into the widened, dead eyes of one of the Queen's several times removed cousin. A bit of a dandy but harmless, he had been a favorite at some of the parties as of late. Charming, Emily had said one night, but the kind of charming one gets from a pastry.
Obviously, his charms had failed him completely the night previous.
"Henry," Emily whispered, gripping his arm with surprising strength. He turned to see her pointing - her face was a mask of calm but her hands were trembling just so - and he followed her arm to one of the walls...
He jerked back even as he felt the color vanish from his face. Someone had taken the time to write words in the dead mans blood on the stone of the building.
'God Save the Queen' shimmered in the growing light and Henry wondered how the two officers had missed that.
Emily whimpered in the back of her throat and his attention was finally snatched away from the scene. Instantly, he gripped her by the elbow and placed his other hand on the small of her back. She was looking quite green around the edges, despite the fact that she'd seen quite a number of corpses in their years of marriage and unofficial partnership.
It was the babe, he knew, growing strong in her. She'd been having trouble keeping much of anything down lately that wasn't bland in smell and if he were being affected strongly by the stench...
Henry propelled her out of the alley, worried when she only gave a token protest, and didn't stop even when he spotted the twins straighten up at their rapid approach. The looks on their faces filled in why they hadn't mentioned the scene - they'd probably taken one look, probably saw the head, and immediately rang for him.
"James," he snapped and watched the other one stiffen his spine in response. "Take my wife back to the carriage immediately and make sure she is comfortable." Henry glanced at her and then added, "Do not allow her to leave. Please remember that I am far more frightening than she is."
He gave her hand one last squeeze before giving her over to the surprisingly gentle arm of the watch officer. As they headed back to the carriage, Henry turned to the remaining brother.
"Go find a runner, tell him to go fetch more hands - we'll need them. And then go fetch my supervisor."
Jacob hesitated. "Sir?"
Henry's face tightened. "Someone's murdered a royal, Jacob, and there's going to be hell to pay."
***
By the time Henry climbed back into the carriage, several grueling hours had passed. He'd come back once to see if he could convince Emily to return home but she'd, naturally, refused. Now it was past mid-day and he slumped against the seat as the driver closed the door behind him.
Despite his weariness, he couldn't help but smile - with some confusion - when he noticed that Emily had managed to obtain a healthy amount of food.
"I sent James on some errands while I waited," she explained, handing him a pastry. He absently accepted it, amused by the fact that she'd managed to convince a character like James to play fetch and carry for her.
"You must be absolutely bored to tears," Harry said before popping the entire pastry into his mouth. Emily grimaced at him but didn't comment.
"Actually, I busied myself with thinking about names," she said, leaning her head on his shoulder as their driver started for home. He was to drop her off and then return - there was so much still needed to be done.
Henry contented himself for the moment with breathing in her scent, feeling the warmth of her body as it pressed against his. The chill he had brought with him had been from more than just the weather but inside their little box, alone with her, he found it being chased away.
"And what have you decided on?" he asked the top of her head.
"If it is a boy, what do you think of the name ... Mycroft, Mr. Holmes?" Emily asked, turning her face up towards his.
The name turned over in his head for a moment before smiling brightly down at her. "I think, Mrs. Holmes, that it is a splendid name."
When he bent his head to kiss her, she giggled and pretended to protest about being kissed in the middle of the day and outdoors of all places but it was no more real than that brief moment of security.
Little Mycroft Holmes would be brought into a world where there were victims and abusers; murders and blood stained hands. Where justice was sometimes bogged down or never really brought about, no matter how hard one tried. Corruption sometimes ruled the day and far too often an innocent was put in harms way.
God save the Queen, indeed.
Perhaps even God save them all.
The Inspector picked his way lightly across the rain slicked cobbled road; there had been a steady rain all of yesterday and it had only just tapered off into that clingy, mist fog that seemed to cover everything. It was early yet but Henry and his wife had been awake for several hours before the summons to the crime scene.
He cast a quick glance over his shoulder and smiled as he touched the tip of his fingers to his hat. The curtains fluttered from inside the coach and he could just see her growing smile as she settled back against the cushions, hands curled protectively over her growing stomach.
When he turned back, two looming forms broke through the wall of fog. Henry hesitated until he recognized them both and smiled at the two beat officers, shaking hands in turn.
"Inspector, good of you to join us!" Jacob, the slightly taller and slightly older twin, boomed. Henry winced, feeling sympathy for anyone still laying abed that morning.
"Terrible crime, sir, terrible," James chimed in.
Jacob glanced around, looking both troubled and relieved. "I take it your lady wife -"
"Will grow bored of sitting in the carriage and seek to join her husband?" Emily said quietly from behind Henry's right side. "Why yes, Officer, however did you know?"
With a long-suffering sigh, Henry extended his arm to his wife and she happily slipped her gloved hand around the crook of his elbow. "Are you sure you're up for this?" he asked softly, bending his head down towards hers.
She simply kept moving forward, making it seem as if Henry were the one leading when in reality it wasn't so. "I am newly with child, my lord husband," she said cheerfully, "and not yet confined to bed like my mother was when she was with me."
"You'll be the death of me, my lady wife," he sighed, stroking her knuckles with his free hand.
It had been, of all things, an arranged marriage that had brought the two of them together. Their mothers had been the best of friends while growing up and their fathers had been amendable to formalizing an alliance. It hadn't been an easy first few months of marriage - his schedule had been at the mercy of the Queen's law and she had been terrified of marriage life.
They really hadn't bothered to get to know one another until he'd come home from a frustrating case - he'd been spouting details mostly to himself when she'd interrupted him with a question. Other men might have been angry but the question was an intelligent and well-thought out one. Henry had hesitated but bade her to continue with her line of reasoning.
It hadn't been the thing to crack the case but it had opened up a line of thinking he hadn't been aware of.
It had also opened his eyes to the fact that his wife had a brilliantly shrewd mind; hidden behind a pleasant face and hesitant to bring it out, she nonetheless had shined that evening in their private study.
He'd quite simply fallen head over heels with her that night.
It was quite unorthodox that Emily appeared at the occasional crime scene or that he discussed his cases with her - but it worked for him. And he had enough clout in his work and politically that it was considered an oddity but not a crippling one.
Besides, his wife was a bit of a social butterfly and the wifes of the husbands he worked with would be quite put out if Henry and Emily were shunned.
When the two rounded the corner, Henry immediately wished that Emily had remained firmly in the waiting coach.
The smell of blood was so thick that it clogged the senses - he could taste it in the back of his throat and swallowed heavily in response. His wife stiffened beside him, her free hand covering her mouth as the smell washed over her as well.
And then he was no longer paying attention to Emily as he was drawn, completely and utterly, to the sprawled corpse at the end of the alley way. Even as he stared at the familiar face of the man he was cataloging everything he saw.
Body. Propped up against the furthest wall of the alley; indecent pose, though clothed. Clothes, torn and stained. Struggle? Or perhaps dragged through the muck of the streets, unconscious or dead already?
Blood. It coated surfaces as if a painter had grown mad and tossed around great things of red paint. It no longer dripped and glistened, meaning he had been murdered some time in the middle of the night - long enough to allow the blood to congeal.
Wounds. Well...
The fact that the poor bastard's head had been removed and settled carefully on the top of a box near by clearly gave at least one way he could potentially been murdered.
Henry stared into the widened, dead eyes of one of the Queen's several times removed cousin. A bit of a dandy but harmless, he had been a favorite at some of the parties as of late. Charming, Emily had said one night, but the kind of charming one gets from a pastry.
Obviously, his charms had failed him completely the night previous.
"Henry," Emily whispered, gripping his arm with surprising strength. He turned to see her pointing - her face was a mask of calm but her hands were trembling just so - and he followed her arm to one of the walls...
He jerked back even as he felt the color vanish from his face. Someone had taken the time to write words in the dead mans blood on the stone of the building.
'God Save the Queen' shimmered in the growing light and Henry wondered how the two officers had missed that.
Emily whimpered in the back of her throat and his attention was finally snatched away from the scene. Instantly, he gripped her by the elbow and placed his other hand on the small of her back. She was looking quite green around the edges, despite the fact that she'd seen quite a number of corpses in their years of marriage and unofficial partnership.
It was the babe, he knew, growing strong in her. She'd been having trouble keeping much of anything down lately that wasn't bland in smell and if he were being affected strongly by the stench...
Henry propelled her out of the alley, worried when she only gave a token protest, and didn't stop even when he spotted the twins straighten up at their rapid approach. The looks on their faces filled in why they hadn't mentioned the scene - they'd probably taken one look, probably saw the head, and immediately rang for him.
"James," he snapped and watched the other one stiffen his spine in response. "Take my wife back to the carriage immediately and make sure she is comfortable." Henry glanced at her and then added, "Do not allow her to leave. Please remember that I am far more frightening than she is."
He gave her hand one last squeeze before giving her over to the surprisingly gentle arm of the watch officer. As they headed back to the carriage, Henry turned to the remaining brother.
"Go find a runner, tell him to go fetch more hands - we'll need them. And then go fetch my supervisor."
Jacob hesitated. "Sir?"
Henry's face tightened. "Someone's murdered a royal, Jacob, and there's going to be hell to pay."
***
By the time Henry climbed back into the carriage, several grueling hours had passed. He'd come back once to see if he could convince Emily to return home but she'd, naturally, refused. Now it was past mid-day and he slumped against the seat as the driver closed the door behind him.
Despite his weariness, he couldn't help but smile - with some confusion - when he noticed that Emily had managed to obtain a healthy amount of food.
"I sent James on some errands while I waited," she explained, handing him a pastry. He absently accepted it, amused by the fact that she'd managed to convince a character like James to play fetch and carry for her.
"You must be absolutely bored to tears," Harry said before popping the entire pastry into his mouth. Emily grimaced at him but didn't comment.
"Actually, I busied myself with thinking about names," she said, leaning her head on his shoulder as their driver started for home. He was to drop her off and then return - there was so much still needed to be done.
Henry contented himself for the moment with breathing in her scent, feeling the warmth of her body as it pressed against his. The chill he had brought with him had been from more than just the weather but inside their little box, alone with her, he found it being chased away.
"And what have you decided on?" he asked the top of her head.
"If it is a boy, what do you think of the name ... Mycroft, Mr. Holmes?" Emily asked, turning her face up towards his.
The name turned over in his head for a moment before smiling brightly down at her. "I think, Mrs. Holmes, that it is a splendid name."
When he bent his head to kiss her, she giggled and pretended to protest about being kissed in the middle of the day and outdoors of all places but it was no more real than that brief moment of security.
Little Mycroft Holmes would be brought into a world where there were victims and abusers; murders and blood stained hands. Where justice was sometimes bogged down or never really brought about, no matter how hard one tried. Corruption sometimes ruled the day and far too often an innocent was put in harms way.
God save the Queen, indeed.
Perhaps even God save them all.