Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(16)

“Let you disappear me?”

“Let me employ you. I have plans, and you’re clearly clever enough to be part of them.”

Inching sideways, she takes out her own phone to ring 999. The sensation of air and nothingness expands behind her. “What plans? Taking over Croft Security?”

“That’s stage one. Stage two is using that platform to expand my influence over every business in London that has a connection to Croft. And you can join me. You have something. Brains. Pluck. Disregard for the law.”

He creeps closer. She’s so near the edge that he seems leery of charging at her. He might want to shove her off, but he doesn’t want to go over himself. She hits speed dial on her phone.

Nothing happens.

Fallon smirks. “You’re smart, but only street smart. You don’t know about devices such as this.” He holds up a black case the size of a cigarette pack. “Mobile phone jammer.”

Her knees soften. Fallon’s shoulders bunch, like a wrestler preparing to lunge.

“But I don’t need to phone the police.” The wind threads her hair across her face. “They’re coming.”

“Bollocks.”

She nods at the security camera above the doorway. “CCTV.”

“Is inactive.”

“Was. Before I came here I texted Croft. I told him activate it remotely. He’s watching this, live.”

From the stairwell, voices sound. Footsteps pound on the concrete.

Fallon reddens like a boil. “Stupid girl.” In his eyes, she sees him prepare to attack. “They won’t get it open in time.”

She throws herself flat on the roof and grabs a pipe. “Help.”

Fallon charges and grabs her. Though she fights him, he rips her loose and tries to dig Holly’s phone from her pocket.

The lock rattles. She yells, “Four-three-two”—kicking, punching—“one-hash.”

The lock beeps and the door flies open. Cops swarm through, followed by Croft.

Fallon hauls Shaz to her feet and shouts, “I captured the killer.”

Croft says, “We have everything on video, Richard. It’s over. Let her go.”

Shaz braces herself. Fallon grips her arms. Then, abruptly, she’s free. She spins to see his coat flapping as he leaps from the lip of the roof. The cops shout and dash for him, but he plunges silently from view.

The sound comes a moment later from the street.



It’s hours before the cops let her leave. She sits in MCB’s marble lobby, staring at the screen set up in the street by the Scenes of Crime team. She nurses a cup of tea that has cooled to lukewarm.

Croft walks over. He’s pale, his assurance splintered. “I should ask how you knew.”

“Fallon made a mistake. He sent the car to run Harry down.”

“Harry. Not you?”

“The car was waiting outside the school when I got there. Harry had to be the target,” she says. “Although I’d probably have been next on his list. After Holly died, Harry and I both came here to MCB. We both came to your offices. Talked to you. But on the way out, only Harry spoke to Fallon, and got a pat on the shoulder, and got handed a twenty direct from Fallon’s hands. Which had glitter on them. Glitter Fallon got from grabbing Holly and pitching her off the roof. Glitter that was not on the windowsill in Holly’s office. Fallon transferred it to Harry. I wiped it off Harry’s face. That was the proof.”

“Glitter.”

“Once glitter touches something you can never get it off. Every cleaner knows it.” She sighs. “It had to be Fallon. When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is going to be the truth.”

Croft looks unsettled, but eyes her with fresh respect. “Why did you steal the keycard from my desk? Why didn’t you simply tell me your suspicions?”

“I had to prove it. Holly told Croft Security about the breach. And look what happened to her.”

He nods reluctantly. “Why go to such lengths? Surely not for fifty pounds.”

“For Harry,” she says. “And because I want in.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Me, working full time for Croft Security. Seems I have an eye for things that are out of place. Such as your name,” she says. “I spent the afternoon at the library. The Companies House register lists the owner of Croft Security as Freddy Phelps, ‘Trading As Michael Croft.’ Mike Croft—as in Mycroft Holmes, the detective’s brilliant brother. You deliberately gave your business the Baker Street aura. Sweet.” She raises her cup. “Pleased to meet you.”

“My word.”

She smiles. “Street Team. We can ‘go everywhere, see everything, overhear everyone.’ Sherlock Holmes for Dummies, page one hundred twenty.”

He leans back. “All right.”

“After I get my degree at university, of course.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll join your staff as a paid intern whilst I do my studies. Unless the firm prefers to directly fund my university fees.”

“We’ll work it out.” He looks stunned, yet ready to smile. He turns to go.

“One other thing.”

He turns back. “What’s that?”

“Harry. His family is probably safe, though Fallon had confederates.”