Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(62)

“There she is!” Sarah said urgently.

He froze. “Where?”

“Behind you, over your shoulder. Left . . . no, right,” she answered.

“Are you sure it’s her? Absolutely sure?”

“Yes.”

“Can you walk over and make certain it is your mother, and that she is all right, not hurt or sick?” It was a lot to ask.

“Yes.” She had hesitated only a moment, almost too short a time to be certain it was a hesitation at all.

“I’ll keep Raffa.” He wrote another short note: ‘A straight swap. Meet in the middle.’ “Are you sure?” he asked Sarah again.

She stood up, took the note out of his hand, and without looking at him again, set out across the floor. He swivelled around and watched her, his heart thumping so hard he was sure he actually shook.

She reached the table and looked long and hard at her mother. One glance at the woman, and Marcus knew beyond doubt that she had to be Maria Waterman, and she was terrified for her child. This had to work!

Sarah put the note on the table and one of the two men picked it up and read it. He turned to the other and said something. The other man nodded. He spoke to Sarah, but he was looking beyond her, straight at Marcus and the attaché case. Then in one moment he rose to his feet and moved towards Sarah. He had only just touched her shoulder when she shot forward and bumped into a waitress carrying two bowls of soup. They clattered to the floor. Another waitress jumped to help, and Sarah slipped between them to run back to Marcus, throwing herself against him. Instinctively he held her for a moment, far more tightly than he had intended to.

Then he let her go. He opened the attaché case and took Raffa out. He held the giraffe tightly in one hand, and his mobile phone in the other. He flicked it open, and deleted one file. He returned the telephone to his pocket and held up his hand, one finger pointed. He shook his head.

“One gone,” he mouthed, and the man’s face told him that he had understood.

Suddenly, Sarah snatched Raffa out of his hand and started off across the restaurant towards her mother and the two men. When she got there, she said something to her mother, who rose very slowly to her feet.

Sarah hugged Raffa tightly, and said something to him, then she passed him over to the man. She and her mother walked across the floor and stopped next to Marcus.

It was done. Maria was safe.

The two men rose to their feet and started to walk away, pulling the stuffing out of Raffa as they went. In a moment, they had the flash drive—but they still carried the giraffe, dangling by one leg.

Sarah shook free of her mother’s hand and began to go after them.

“No!” Maria called out, her voice sharp with fear. “They’ll . . .”

Near the door, the two men stopped: a large party, a dozen or more guests, was coming in—and behind them, a pair of uniformed police.

The men instantly stopped. One of them spotted a doorway, and pushed his partner towards it. Marcus knew, however, that it was not a side entrance, but led towards the roof garden—and, an external stairway down again.

Sarah was on their heels.

“Stay here!” Marcus said to Maria grimly. “Stay where people can see you. If you come you’ll be a hostage again. That’s an order! Do you understand?”

“Get her back,” she pleaded.

“Stay here and I will!” Another wild promise he could only try to keep.

He dodged across the floor through the milling guests, sending one man crashing into a chair, but Marcus did not pause. He had to get Sarah before one of the men grabbed her.

Through the door, he saw the men near the top of the empty flight of stairs. The child was close on their heels.

“Sarah!” Marcus shouted as loudly as he could. “Stop!”

“They’ve got Raffa!” she called back to him. “It’s not right!”

It wasn’t right. Why couldn’t the bastards drop the toy? They were getting away with it, escaping. He charged up the flight, taking the steps two at a time. One of the men made a grab at Sarah, but she jerked sideways, and Marcus was only five steps away. The man changed his mind and raced after his partner.

Sarah went straight after him, quicker than Marcus would have believed. He increased his speed, but she was always two steps beyond his reach.

They went clattering up the next flight, and then the last one. The first man flung the door open onto the roof, the second man right behind him.

Sarah went straight after Raffa.

Marcus reached the door just as the second man lunged for Sarah, catching her wrist.

Marcus hit him with all his weight. He had never hit anyone so hard in his life. He felt bone crack under his fist, and the shock up his arm. The man collapsed to the ground. Was he foxing? Just in case he was, Marcus picked him up and hit him again.

Sarah had fallen, and was sitting up slowly. In the glare of the city lights she looked small and crushed.

Where was the other man? He was standing near the gate to the emergency stairway, Raffa in his hand, swinging him as if about to let him fly into space.

Sarah climbed to her feet, her eyes on Raffa.

“No!” Sarah shouted desperately. “Wayne! Don’t!” She took a shaky step towards him.

This was Wayne? Marcus lost his temper completely. The betrayal was total and unforgivable. He charged at Wayne, who had turned to wrestle with the gate’s latch, and hit Wayne with all the impetus of a man with Sherlock Holmes’s considerable height. Wayne smashed into the iron gate, dropping the giraffe as he staggered backwards, the breath knocked out of him. But before Marcus could seize him, the man’s heels caught on a tile and he stumbled towards the edge of the roof.