The Hundred Year Wait (12 page)

***

As Mycroft
finished speaking to the police commissioner he glanced over at
Amelia. Still wrapped in the blanket, she'd fallen asleep and now
rested with her face turned towards him. Although this wasn't the
first time he'd seen her asleep it struck him how peaceful she was.
If it wasn't for the bandages there would have been no indication
of her ordeal at all.

While staring at
her face he phoned his brother, but the call went straight to his
answer phone service. He hung up without leaving a message.
Sherlock only turned his phone off in the rare circumstances of
being out on a case where being disturbed would endanger the
success of his solution and that meant he had located the North
Koreans and was already hunting them down. By the time Mycroft got
back it would likely be over. Even the police commissioner was
confident about catching the Russians on the boat.

During the
journey, Mycroft ran through the events once more in his head but
noticed nothing he hadn't the first time around. He knew it was
pointless to try again. The memory became less accurate with each
pass through.

Greater London
flashed by in a blur while he thought, until the streets in Central
London came into focus. About ten minutes away from Baker Street
Mycroft received a text from his brother.

North Koreans all taken
care of. You'll find them waiting for you at office tomorrow
morning. I'll be awake if you want to come discuss it. S

Just as he'd
expected, his brother had managed to follow the men and find them.
London was safe again, at least for a few more weeks and, if he was
lucky, maybe even months. A small amount of guilt plagued him at
how caught up in the cross-fire Amelia had been, but Sherlock was
the most to blame on that front. He'd summoned her back to London
to join in again and she'd not known what she was getting herself
into. It occurred to him that she might wish to stop their game
herself, now she had some more experience of their lives.

When the car
pulled up on Baker Street and Amelia still slept peacefully he
decided to leave her there, under the watchful eye of Daniels,
while he talked to his brother. He whispered these intentions to
his chauffeur and strode inside, omitting to knock as he always
did.

Sherlock reposed
in his usual armchair with his violin perched nearby. Mycroft could
only hope his younger brother didn't play until Mycroft had
left.

“Ah, brother of
mine, welcome back. I see you are no worse for wear.”

“Of course not. I
was stabbed, but the wound disappeared long ago.” Mycroft sat down
opposite. Sherlock opened his mouth to speak but he anticipated the
question. “No one saw.”

“Good... Where's
Amelia?”

“Amelia's in my
car, sleeping. How did you catch the Koreans?”

“It was easy
really. If you'd had the opportunity you'd have managed it as well.
The lock they removed in the door was done with a very specific
cutting device, which had a manufacturing kink. Between that and
the footprints I'd found at the lock, it wasn't hard to trace them
to a particular road and a quick look at utility bills provided the
house number.”

“You checked the
address before informing the police?”

“Naturally. One
can't be too careful with these sorts of criminals.”

“It sounds like
we're done then. Thank you, brother of mine.” Mycroft got up
again.

“You're not going
to forbid me from seeing Amelia again?” Sherlock stood as well.

“No. Why would
I?”

“Because she got
hurt. You usually object to us getting civilians hurt, remember. Or
is it all right when it's you leading someone into danger?”

“I didn't lead her
into danger, Sherlock, don't be ridiculous.” Mycroft felt his
temperature rise at his brother's line of enquiry. “And it was you,
who invited her to join us on Saturday.”

“Yes, but it's you
who is taking her home with you.” Sherlock grinned in the usual
smug way when he'd worked out something Mycroft didn't want him
to.

“She has nowhere
else to go. I'm not leaving her in this filthy flat with you and at
this time of night she won't be able to get a room at her usual
hotel, even if she could walk well enough to be left by herself.
It's the only solution, so I will bear it.” He frowned at his
brother but Sherlock laughed and sat back down.

“You could send
her home to Bath. You have a driver who would take her there and
see she got inside. Or you could take her to a hospital. Admit it,
you like her. You've had to wait a hundred years to find someone,
but you like her.”

“Only in the way a
child likes a toy and plays with it until something bigger and
better comes along or he grows bored with it. She's less dull than
most.”

“If you say so,
Mycroft. Do ensure our secret remains that way, won't you?”
Sherlock picked up his pipe and the nearby pouch of tobacco, while
Mycroft frowned. His younger brother was enjoying quoting his own
warnings back at him. With a roll of his eyes, Mycroft decided
they'd talked enough.

“Good evening,
brother of mine,” he said and went back to the car, taking Amelia's
small suitcase with him. He got back to the car to find she still
slept.

As Daniels drove
them both back to Mycroft's home he thought about the next code he
would set her. After all her emotional restraint and cooperation he
decided she deserved one last code to unravel, even if he did
decide to heed his own words of advice afterwards and cut her off
to keep her from being harmed.

Amelia mumbled in
her sleep as he carried her into his house and up the stairs to the
guest bedroom. Less than a minute later his housekeeper was at his
side, fussing over the injured, yet sleeping, woman. The guest room
had never been used before, in that regard Sherlock was right, and
even his housekeeper knew this was an unexpected change.

With a great deal
of patience and a good measure of frowns, Mycroft managed to calm
his excited staff and get Amelia curled up under the covers so
she'd be warm enough until morning. He then placed her suitcase and
handbag somewhere where she'd notice it and ushered everyone back
downstairs. On the way to his study he noticed the day's paper on
the small table in the hall. Right in full view was a Sudoku
puzzle. Within seconds Mycroft knew what he wanted his next message
to be contained in and went to his laptop to design Amelia a sudoku
with the numbers one to twenty-five in it.

He printed out a
grid of twenty five squares by twenty five so he could write in the
starting numbers for her and an extra one for him to work backwards
from. An hour later he had a sudoku for her to complete and he
highlighted the boxes of numbers that would make up her message. It
consisted of just two words but he didn't think she'd find it too
difficult to work out with a little trial and error.

As soon as it was
complete he tucked it into an envelope and put it to one side. In
the morning, once Amelia was awake and ready to be taken back to
her own home, he could sneak it into her belongings so she found it
when she unpacked.

Mycroft knew it
would be kind to let her stay a little longer but everyone's
reactions to his accommodation of her had put him off that idea. It
wouldn't be good to have other people think she was more to him
than the student she'd requested to be. When it no longer amused
him to create challenges for her he wouldn't hesitate to cut her
out of his life, if he even continued past this final test. At the
moment he was seriously considering letting this be her last
challenge as a reward for her conduct in the last twenty-four
hours.

As he made his way
to his own bedroom to sleep he passed the door to her guest room
and stopped. Unable to resist the temptation, he checked she was
still sleeping soundly before carrying on to the master bedroom,
the only room in the house that had kept the entire original style
and decoration he'd put into it just over a hundred years
earlier.

While he removed
his suit he realised he'd been a key part of the government on and
off for over a hundred years and, just like today, had guided the
British government and its agents to keep the country and its
interests safe.

He glanced in the
mirror on his dresser. He didn't look a day older, and he never
would.

Frustration filled
Amelia. She'd been back in Bath for two weeks since her kidnapping
and subsequent time with Myron Holmes, and she still hadn't worked
out the next coded message.

The massive sudoku
he'd given her had been a nightmare to figure out. Not particularly
because it was difficult. The logic was the same as the normal
sized ones, just with more numbers and a lot more options to keep
track of. But the time it took to explore all those options was
very large.

She'd wanted to
solve it quickly and have an excuse to message him again but, with
the re-writes of her novel and everything that went with her
career, she'd not put the last numbers into the puzzle until
today.

Now she had a set
of ten numbers to try and make a message with and didn't really
know where to start. She didn't know what order they were meant to
be in, let alone what they corresponded to. All she knew was that
the numbers 2, 8, and 21 both occurred twice.

After several
hours of trying random numbers she grabbed the phone Myron had
given her and sent him a message.

Struggling with your
latest challenge. I've solved the puzzle but not sure what the
numbers mean, can I get a hint?

Her stomach
churned as she waited for him to reply, but nothing came through
within the first ten minutes so she went back to trying to work out
the numbers by herself. She couldn't be sure that he would even
reply. Myron could be busy or might be deliberately ignoring her
until she'd worked it out. She wouldn't know for sure unless she
solved this challenge.

Two hours later
her phone chimed to let her know she had a message. Her breath
caught in her throat as she picked it up to read the response.

No. You're my pet for
my amusement. I'm not going to do it for you.

She sighed. It
felt better to have him reply and gave her confidence that he'd not
ignore her messages, but still didn't get her any closer to
understanding. While she sat on her sofa, she remembered an old
Bible verse that a woman had said to Jesus when he'd told her
something similar. Something about dogs getting scraps from their
master's tables.

She leapt up and
hurried to her bookshelf to find the tattered old Bible someone had
given her once. She scanned through the gospels until she came to
the right verse, but instead of just giving him the quote she
decided to set him a code to follow and work out instead.

9 780340 722190, 982,
2, 30-32

Amelia grinned and
looked at the time. Somehow it was already past midnight. It would
be interesting to see how long it took him to figure out he had the
ISBN code from the back of the book, the page number, column number
and line numbers for the quote. Just in case it didn't work she
went back to her numbers to try and figure out his message to
her.

Less than five
minutes later her phone went off again. Her jaw dropped. He'd
worked it out faster than she'd have thought possible.

'Your request is
granted.' But only for code 3 – M

She bit her lip
and frowned. If the message contained a hint, she couldn't see it
so she waited another few minutes hoping a second text would
follow, but nothing came through.

After making
herself a cup of tea she looked at the text again. The hint must
already be there. As she noticed how he'd ended it she could have
hit herself. 3 became an M which meant 2 was likely to be an L.
Assuming the alphabet was in order like the first time she turned
all her numbers into letters, she had her answer.