Abdul-Jabbar Kareem - The Empty Birdcage

C O N T E N T S

Also by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse,
and available from Titan Books

Mycroft Holmes

Mycroft and Sherlock

TITAN BOOKS

Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage

Hardback edition ISBN: 9781785659300

E-book edition ISBN: 9781785659317

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: September 2019

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any
responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse assert the moral
right to be identified as the authors of this work.

Copyright 2019 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

It has been both an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to create an addition to the canon of an author like Arthur Conan Doyle. The positive response to my efforts has been a highlight in my life. I would like to thank my friends at Titan Books and my manager Deborah Morales for their constant assistance and encouragement. Most of all my co-author Anna Waterhouse has been superb. Thank you, one and all!

KAJ

For my mother Carmen who nurtured me.
For Nadine and Isabel, who mentored me.
For Donna, Sestina and Luisa, who walked the ancient paths with me.

AW

P R O L O G U E

Three Crosses in Gower, Swansea, Wales
Tuesday, 1 April 1873, 9 a.m.

HE COULD FEEL HIS HEART BEAT HARD AND STRONG against his chest. In terms of its physiological functioning, it was alive and well. But when it came to human emotions, that font of endless sonnets to love was irreparably damaged, he was sure of it. How else could he have so little regard for such an exquisite day? Or snuff out a life with nary a qualm?

He had pursued her for several days running, keeping well back so she would not notice him, observing until he was assured of her patterns: where she walked and, more importantly, where she lingered. He had plotted her death for so long, down to the smallest particular, that it felt as if he were merely following a well-trod path.

At long last, this was his moment. If anything went awry, he would be forced to end it, and it would be his corpse, not hers, that some passerby stumbled upon. But if he succeeded, there would be more. Many more.

She lived alone in a rundown shack in Three Crosses, an inland village that housed the workers of the local collieries. At eight each morning, when the fog was still wrapping itself about the limestone ridges and hillocks like ghostly ribbons, and other women of her age and station were cobbling together breakfast for their families, she would latch her front door behind her and leave, without looking back.

And why not? She was still early in her years: twenty-four or -five, he assumed. She no longer had a husband or a child to tend, having buried her only son a scant eleven months before she had buried her man. Just another miner delivered to his doorstep in a coarse brown sack that bore a perfunctory stamp: REMAINS, PROPERTY OF SOUTH WALES COAL.

Passing the cemetery where man and boy lay side by side, she would mouth a little prayer and remain a moment with head bowed and hands folded. Then she would all but fly to Three Crosses Bay, arriving in time to see the fog lift off the water like the twirling of petticoats.

He had heard the townspeople say of her: Mae hin wallgof!

She is daft!

Sick with grief, more like, he thought.

Regardless, her problems and sorrows were none of his affair. If anything, her agony encouraged him. A quick, all but painless death was the gift he could bestow upon her.

Though tall and slender like her father, she walked with the heavy gait of her mothers peasant forebears. Still, it was gratifying to observe her from above, to watch as she removed her shoes, kneading her square naked feet in the moist seagrass like a cat. From there, she would amble closer to the rocky shoreline, always on the hunt for her precious objects, as heher unseen, unknown nemesishunted her.

After loading up her treasures in the pockets of her sooty black skirt, she would drop to her knees upon the soft wet beach, her back to the cliff, her face towards the water. She would remove her black mourning bonnet, lay it beside her, and place a rock upon one of the ribbons, so that it would not fly away. That done, she would pull out her treasures one by one, blowing off the silt and dirt.

He was always careful not to make any noise as he watched, careful to shift slightly so that the light would not cast his shadow beside her but would remain behind her, where it belonged. The suns rays bent and warped his image until his elongated head appeared to be nestling against the nape of her neck.

It was lovely, that neck: not coarse and reddish like the rest of her skin but soft, and white as alabaster against her dark blouse. Her thick hair, twisted into a knot at the top of her head, was the color of burnt umber. As she studied one of her finds, a tendril worked itself loose, swinging to and fro, to and fro

He glanced to the sky. The sun was already high upon the horizon. Soon, even this desolate spit of sand and rock would draw a sojourner or two. He dared not tarry.

He looked down at her again. She had pulled the rocks and sticks from her pocket. Soon she would begin to construct the most peculiar little bridges: arched pathways that commenced in one spot and ended in another, all of them leading nowhere, and close enough to the water that at night the creeping waves would wash them away, as if they had never been.

He had nothing against the girl. She would die, of course. As would others. In that, he fancied that he mimicked death itself: it was not personal. Sooner or later, it was everybodys turn.

London, England
Tuesday, 1 April 1873, 9 a.m.

MYCROFT HOLMES WAS WAGING A VALIANT BATTLE against the narcotic that was coursing through his veins. Though it came as friend, not foe, he despised it. It made his keen mental faculties seem suddenly unreliable; placing him if not at the mercy of his emotions, then at least in thrall to them.