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The day his divorce came through, the first face Alex Murray thought of belonged to the officer who had looked after him through the desert years. John Watson. Good-natured, easy to push, single far too long. Not a bad prospect, on paper. …Liking him, though — that part was real. That much, at least. His wife, he had never managed to tell he was gay, right to the end.
So this reunion was reconnaissance. That was the word Murray had settled on, privately. He still had some of a scout's discipline left in him.
He chose the kind of pub John used to take him to. Worn carpet. A telly running football repeats with the sound off. A quiz machine. Two old regulars, and an elderly dog that belonged to nobody, asleep by the fire. A proper cheap pub, smelling of spilt bitter and old wood and dog. Any pub for drinking with John had to be exactly this.
John arrived five minutes late. Unchanged — no. Improved. And wearing, round his neck, something that did not belong in this pub.
Murray had been John's medic. A man who had earned his living by smell and observation.
The moment John raised his left hand and came over, the nose reported first. Expensive musk. The kind that opens from underneath at skin temperature. Which is to say: the real thing, and stupidly dear.
The scarf itself could be read, too. Cashmere, far too good. Not a thing John's salary bought, and not his taste. And the wrapping was too careful. Not the wrapping of a man who does it himself without a mirror. Someone had wrapped it. This morning. On his way out.
"Captain. That's a handsome scarf."
"Oh — my flatmate's. Said it was cold out."
"Flatmate as in… partner?"
"What? As in flatshare. He's a strange one, but a good man."
So. A flag was flying. But the man himself hadn't registered the flag.
Which meant the ground, as yet, was nobody's. Reason enough to carry on with the reconnaissance.
Passing him his second pint, under cover of politeness, Murray let his fingers rest on John's for an instant. Response: none. Aversion: none. Clear. He leant into the old stories, closed to shoulder-touching distance. John was happily explaining how vile the tea bags in the ration packs had been. Wariness of proximity: none. Clear. On the tail of a joke, he took the hand John had left lying on the table, held it, and looked at him. One step short of contact that would look odd from the outside. John, beaming, paid it no mind whatsoever. All clear.
Not unwilling. More than that: not aware of a single thing. The obliviousness hadn't changed since the desert. A man who never could tell whether the ranks below him adored him or wanted him.
With the third pint, half a step further. He moved in to put an arm round John's shoulders, face close, the excuse already prepared — straightening the man's collar for him.
The hand stopped, mid-air.
It was the distance at which the musk thickened.
Well made, Murray thought. No entry beyond this point. The boundary was posted — in scent.
Then the door opened.
Anyone walking into this pub in a Belstaff coat is one of two things: lost, or here on purpose. The man didn't so much as glance round the room. The two old regulars looked up from the telly together. An elegant, impossible silhouette came straight across the worn carpet, dead on course.
The face was familiar. A newspaper face. The detective. So John's strange-one-but-a-good-man was — that.
"Sherlock? What is it — a case?"
"Finished. …No. Ongoing."
A lie, Murray thought. The man drew out a chair nobody had offered him and sat, wedging himself in between Murray and John. The cheap chair creaked under the excellent coat.
"So. You'd be the flatmate."
"So. You'd be the medic."
"Four years with the Captain, life and death. When he was shot in Afghanistan, I'm the one who carried him out."
"Ninety seconds, I'm told, from impact to stretcher. A good time." The man went on. "Though the record for the four years since is mine."
He's done his research, Murray thought. Ninety seconds. A number Murray himself had never known.
"Still — the next four years are anyone's guess."
"Statistically, they are settled."
Between them, John alone looked from one to the other, beaming, wearing the face of a man enjoying the rhythm of a good conversation.
In the flow of talk, Murray put a hand on John's shoulder one more time. A final sounding. Before the hand had lifted, the man's long fingers reached across and adjusted the scarf at John's neck.
"It's loose."
It was not loose. The touched ground had been written over.
In time, John stood and went to the bar for the fourth round. In a cheap pub you order at the counter; there are moments when this is a mercy.
At the table for two, Murray opened.
"…You're rather like a dog, you know."
The man's eyebrow rose, a fraction.
"Military dogs in season do the same — go about putting their scent on everything. Come spring, the handlers had a job of it. Which is to say—"
Murray tipped his chin towards the scarf at John's neck, over at the bar.
"That is marking."
"Not on everything," the man said at once. "The target is singular."
"…So you admit it."
"A dog will do."
The answer came without a beat. The man showed not even the pretence of shame.
"If it is effective, the method is immaterial."
The mind the papers call a national treasure said so, with perfect composure, on a creaking chair in a cheap pub.
"It was effective," Murray granted. "My nose had told me before I sat down. …He hasn't noticed a thing, mind."
"I know."
"When are you going to tell him?"
For the first time that evening, the man did not answer at once.
In place of an answer, John came back, three pints managed neatly between his hands.
"What, having fun without me?"
"Talking about dogs."
Murray said it; the man did not deny it. By the fire, the old dog rolled over.
For the hour that followed, Murray drank like a gentleman. A scout's discipline. Engagement was never part of the brief. The ground was already held.
At parting, he raised the bottom of his glass a little.
"You're well looked after, Captain."
"? Well — he does cook now and then."
Faced with that answer, from a man who understood nothing, Murray and the detective sighed — for the first time — at the same moment, the same sigh.
Outside, in the winter night wind, he thought he could still catch the last of that musk.
A block's walk, and it was gone. What had rubbed off on him amounted to that much. But what was on John's neck would still be there tomorrow.
Perhaps till death do them part.
fin.