Chapter 5: Trees and Bees (The Cailleach of Caerdydd Continued)

John and Sherlock charged in the Defender up the A470 toward the Merthyr reservoir.  The day was becoming prettier and more glorious as the morning progressed, and at a perfect 23 degrees with a grassy breeze tinged with coniferous pollen, John, through a quick progression of sneezes, still became more cheerful.

 

This did nothing to improve Sherlock’s mood.  Sunshine made him glower.  He felt that sunshine and heat muddled his thought processes, and the smell of cut lawns and roses did nothing to improve his sense of smell for more subtle things.  Heat made him feel stupid and slow, and sunshine tended to blind his skills of observation as well.  He leaned over John, punched the glovebox, whipped out a pair of sunglasses, put them on and continued speeding toward the reservoir exit.

John didn’t care about Sherlock’s mood.  Smiling, he pressed the radio button and it blared loudly on a commercial station playing the latest club thumps from everyone’s Spain holidays. 

It cut into a loud American action promo voice, advertising some local club DJ event sponsored by Tydfil’s largest drink-till-you’re-blind bar.  John grinned behind his hand and counted to five.

“AAAAAARRRRggggh.” spat Sherlock.  John chuckled and hid his face toward the side window, giggling behind his hand.  “DO NOT force me to subscribe to this mindlessness.  YOU KNOW ME better than that.” He punched the radio button to Classic FM and the haranguing American voice was replaced by the quiet Elizabethan trills of Thomas Tallis.  Breathing in relief, he leaned back at the wheel, and glanced at the rearview.  

Another white transit van was behind them, but it did not seem to be so intent on following them as the last.  It was well behind a good 75 yards, so Sherlock only permitted a small bit of his observation to continue noticing it.

“So, a lovely walk today, then?” sighed John, leaning back in the chair and folding his fingers over his stomach.  “Will we stop to get a picnic lunch?”

“Not in holiday mode, John.  Just red bull and crisps for me.” 

John sniffed at that and smiled.  “You live on those bl-oody things.  If it weren’t for the vitamin C in potatoes I’d tell you to eat a steak and not get bl-oody rickets.  Good thing you’re getting a bit of sun.”   he teased, immediately in Doctor Mode.  Sherlock snorted.  

“Coronation chicken salad and bottle of wine for me, I think.  Shall we stop on the way?” continued John.

“Don’t muddle your brain.  We’re not exactly out of the danger zone yet.  I think we will be meeting our shadows very soon.”  Sherlock glanced at the rearview.  The van was still far behind, and began indicating for a left into a garage.  He allowed himself to temporarily dismiss any sense of immediate danger. 

“Who do you think they are?” asked John, getting a little alarmed.

“I have my suspicions.  Keep your heat close, take it out of the lockbox when we stop for the walk.  I suspect with the sort we’ll meet, being alone at the edge of a forest will be the perfect place for them to have a little talk.” Sherlock patted the chest pocket on the black lightweight duster he was wearing, more appropriate for the sunny weather than his usual greatcoat.  

John knew that Sherlock was patting the hiding spot for his latest Asian toy, an antique ninja Tanto that he had snapped up on ebay for 50 quid and instructed the importers to label as “cookware”, which if x-rayed, would have appeared as a chef’s knife and passed Customs…if they even cared to make the effort. 

The tanto had been made with the usual 2,048 layer Damascus steel as was typical for Japanese military weapons of the late 1930s.  The hilt and sheath were exquisitely tooled copper keywork designs punctuated by little silver horses, with the raised name of a long dead family member in kanji lettering on the sheath. 

Sherlock nearly crowed with delight as it had arrived in the letterbox at 221B two weeks earlier, and had immediately ripped the box apart to show John.  “Oooooohhh…Look at this!  You could shave with it!” he grinned, almost evilly.  “Look at that toolwork.” He caressed it like an already-beloved memento.

“Bollocks.  Shaving with a knife is miserable.” John had glanced at it and went back to his Mirror tabloid and cup of tea.

“Really.  HAH.  Watch.” Sherlock petulantly faffed off back to the bathroom and lathered his neck.  He came in and stood in front of the beveled mantelpiece mirror, tanto in hand.

“Yeah, really, you might want to sharpen that.” John clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes skyward.  He had been in combat training with the usual large utility knife issued soldiers, and they had been instructed to always sharpen before shaving in the field, otherwise the burn and itch would distract the constant observation for long range snipers and IEDs. “The steel is in the kitchen.  I think.  Unless you replaced it with something nasty.”

“Really, John.  A steel would dull this.  If it needs sharpening it will be at a jewelers.  Now watch.”  Sherlock raised the blade to his neck and angled it slowly upward, pulling up a layer of foam.  “Look.”

John peered over as Sherlock bared his neck at him.  Smooth as satin.  “How sharp is that thing?!”  he asked, immediately curious.  Sherlock wiped the foam off and handed it to him, hilt forward, thumb and forefinger well away from the blade edge.  He casually picked it up out of Sherlock’s hand, and gently scraped his index finger horizontally across the blade.  It was so sharp, that without barely a few ounces of pressure it had given John a nasty paper cut.  

“OW!” said John, and handed it over to Sherlock like a dead rat, sucking his finger.  “Bloody hell, your toys.” John went back to his tea and paper, giving it a good crack outward to denote being somewhat put out.

“Told you.” said Sherlock, and to make a point, continued shaving with it quickly and efficiently, wiping it on the towel on his shoulder, humming a bit of Brahms as the terra cotta Chinese warrior on the mantelpiece gazed on silently next to an expensive Harris tweed deerstalker, gleefully and vengefully pinned to the mantel with his Leatherman. 

Only an Eton man could have rocked such a hat, and Sherlock despised both it, and Eton, as Mycroft was one of its inevitable products.

The Leatherman was now in his jacket pocket along with the usual jewelers scope, 3 evidence bags, a pair of emergency latex gloves, and small zipped kit of pincers, probe and scalpel.  In his other pocket, a cigarette case he dutifully hid at home from the fretting doctor in a Turkish slipper he kept slid under the settee, which in a bachelor’s flat was never, ever looked under until everything beneath it had noticeably evolved into a form of life.

Mrs. Hudson had no intention of moving sofas, so the slipper was safe from just about everyone, except perhaps for Mycroft, who would have deduced precisely that, and looked.

Intolerable.

Sherlock stopped at the garage before the exit and grabbed his soda and crisps.  John bought a boxed chicken tikka sandwich and tea, and as they hit the road again, regretfully nibbled at its indifferent sogginess and lack of spice that would denote tikka-flavoured anything.

They pulled the Defender off the A470 onto a side road, crossed the dam, and drove north alongside the lake by a wood run by the National Trust, with various clean and well-kept fishing spots about every 50 yards along the lake.  At the Trust lodge and gardens they kept to the right along the reservoir, and the stands of conifers surrounded by grassland soon began to give way to heavy stands of sycamore.  The smell in the air changed to a deep tang of hardwood and the dappled light gave way to a deeper and greener stillness. 

John rolled down the window and stuck his head out like a golden retriever, the air charging up his nose in great draughts of spring headiness.  Suddenly a great stand of sweet woodbine filled the air with woody jasmine and honey.  “OH, would you smell that, Sherlock!  I AM most certainly on holiday, I don’t care what you say!” he sighed. 

Sherlock snuck a look over at him.  His own affection for John's moments of joy gave him a small knot in his throat, enough to sneak a little smile, and a little mist in his eye, while John's face lit up with a disarmingly warm smile that Sherlock never ceased wanting to elicit.

Sherlock heard a great buzz on the stand, and glanced over at it to see throngs of honeybees all over the explosions of small white flowers.  He immediately slowed down and pulled over.  Grabbing a small hand net and leather working glove stashed in his duffel bag behind the seat, Sherlock immediately leapt over a small berm of poppies into the tall grass and over to the stand of woodbine where the bees were congregating.

John was surprised, but not too bothered.  He got out to stretch his legs, bringing his tea, put his other hand in his pocket to dawdle with a shilling, and casually walked toward Sherlock.  He was standing in front of the flowers and darting his head back and forth, following the wandering bees.  Sherlock gently whipped the net over one of the flowers to catch a single honeybee and trapped it in the netting, then slipped his gloved hand into the net to let the bee wander on the leather, without alarming it to stinging.

John had not brought his kit, nor his gun.  Certainly, it was completely unnecessary.  He raised his eyebrows to carefully look over at Sherlock from a slightly safer distance. 

“Hawthorn, sycamore, woodbine, field clover.  This is prime beekeeping stock.” said Sherlock, almost to himself.  “Look at the beautiful grain on the back leg.  You can literally smell what it’s been gathering.  The honey must be utterly incredible.” Then John saw Sherlock’s rare smile, the real one.  “Look at the abdomen.  Phenomenally well fed, no chemical pollution, just perfect.” He let the bee fly free, slightly flustered but not angered. 

“See, now you’re getting in the spirit of it.” said John, grinning.  Sherlock breathed in and closed his eyes, finally allowing an entire minute of gentle delight to pass across his face in the breeze.  The strains of Villanelle on classical guitar gently wafted from the windows of the Defender, which was now tinged slightly with yellow from the pine pollen. 

There really couldn’t have been a more perfectly wonderful moment of spring in South Wales.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to last.

That moment, two battered transit vans coming from opposite directions screeched to a stop and pulled in, blocking the Defender on both ends.  A brand new black and silver BMW pulled in just after.  Two frighteningly beefy men got out of the BMW, and four more out of the transit vans.

Shite.  My gun.  Thought John, remembering he had left it in the Defender.  

Sherlock turned calmly, pulling his gloves off and into his coat pockets, and faced an army of ginger and black-headed warriors, almost all with formerly broken noses, and jaws as hard and square as granite.