Part 1 (1/2)

Young Sherlock Holmes Fire Storm

Andrew Lane

Dedicated to the memory ofthis book

Rest in peace, Dad

And with grateful acknowledgements to: the lovely people froave h without ever actually saying so); the guys from the Book Zone for Boys in Ireland (who probably deserve to have a book set there as well); Helen Pal so comprehensively and sensitively; Nathan, Jessica and Nao so interested; and to Jessica Dean, who hest level of visibility

PROLOGUE

The sers and dipped the point in the bottle of ink that sat on the table in front of him Next to the ink rested the forear in a chair on the other side of the table It was huge a like a ham on a butcher's slab

'You sure you want blue anchor?' the Chinae and the plait of hair that hung down his back was the colour of ash

'I told ya,' the sailor said, 'I want an anchor! Cos I live on a shi+p, an' I work on a shi+p, right?'

'I could do a fish,' Kai Lung said quietly Anchors were easy They were also boring He see blue anchors on the muscular forearms of sailors, sometimes with the name of their sweetheart beneath, inside a nice scroll The problem was that he see the tattooed nas a barbed wire, flowers, anything thatletters 'I could do you a nice fish, oldfish with scales all the colours of a rainbow You like that idea? Fish tattoo good for sailor, yes?'

'I want an anchor,' the hed 'You got any special type of anchor in mind, or just the usual?'

The sailor frowned 'How many different types of anchor are there?'

'Usual anchor it is then'

He prepared to make the first mark with the needle The ink would flow into the s tissue The skin on the outside of the are and tan over the years, but the ink would always reh sh different colours of ink he could draw anything a a fish, a dragon, a heartor a blue anchor Another blue anchor

The door burst open, pushed hard from the other side It hit the wall, the handle on the inside leaving a dent in the exposed brickwork A man stood in the doorway He was so tall and so wide that there wasn't much space on either side of hih and dirty They looked as if he'd been travelling in the in therowled in an A at the sailor, 'out!' He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, just in case the instruction wasn't clear

'Hey! I got an appoint his fists ready for a fight He took a step forward, towards the doorway The man who had pushed the door open stepped forward The top of the sailor's head barely ca away from the sailor's eyes, the man reached out with his left hand and took hold of the metal handle on the outside of the door He squeezed For asaw that the handle was bending and twisting under the pressure Within a few seconds it looked h,' the sailor said 'There's other tattoo parlours around'

The newcomer stepped to one side and the sailor pushed past hi said He wasn't scared of the newco life that he wasn't scared of anythingme other customer to replace him'

The man stepped back, out of the way, and another s This man was s a walking stick A wave of coldness see, and it took him a moment to work out what it was

Fear It was fear

'You want tattoo?' he said, trying to keep his voice fro

'I would like a tattoo on my forehead,' the man said His accent was American as well 'It is a naht frore illu stick gleah chunk of solid gold, and he drew his breath in, amazed, but he suddenly realized what it was The head of the walking stick was carved in the shape of a human skull

'You want sweetheart's na asked 'Most people want sweetheart's nairl is not my ”sweetheart”,' the man said His voice was still calm, still precise, but there was a tone so shi+ver 'And yes, I want her name tattooed on my forehead, near to my brain, so that I can remember it Your work had better be accurate I do not toleratesaid proudly

'So I have heard That is why I airl?'

'I have written it down Do you read English?'

'I read very well'

Thea piece of paper Kai Lung took it carefully, trying not to touch the man's skin He looked at the name on the scrap It was printed in a careful hand, and he had no trouble deciphering it

'Virginia Crowe,' he read 'Is that right?'

'That is exactly right'

'What colour you want?' Kai Lung asked He was expecting the man to say 'blue', but he was surprised

'Red,' the man said 'I want it in red The colour of blood'

CHAPTER ONE

'Stop it!' Rufus Stone cried out 'You're killing s 'Don't be somelodramatic a another few seconds of that and led me just to ensure that it didn't have to experience that cat-squalling any more!'

Sherlock felt his confidence shrivel up like a dry autumn leaf 'I didn't think it was that bad,' he protested

'That's the problem,' Stone said 'You don't knohat the problem is If you don't knohat the problem is, you can't fix it'

He rubbed the back of his neck and wandered away, obviously struggling to find a way to explain to Sherlock just what he was doing wrong He earing a loose striped shi+rt with the sleeves roughly rolled up and a waistcoat that seemed to have coh corduroy and his boots were scuffed leather He swung round to look at Sherlock for a moment, and there was a kind of wild baffle hat Sherlock realized with a sickening twist of his heart was disappoint to see that expression in the face of a man he considered a friend as well as a kind of older brother

He let his gaze roam around the room they were in a anywhere so that he didn't have to look at Stone They were in the attic of an old building in Farnham Stone rented a room on the floor below, but his landlady had taken a shi+ne to him and let him rehearse and practise his violin a and teach the one music student he had so far taken on a in the expansive attic area

The space was large and dusty, with beaaps in the tiles and forular roof up just as well as the wooden ones The acoustics, according to Stone, were inally worse than a hay barn, but considerably better than his room There were boxes and trunks stacked around the loalls, and a hatchway off to one side that led down, via a ladder, to the upper landing Navigating the ladder with a violin and bow clutched in one hand was tricky, but Sherlock liked the isolation of the attic and the sense of space

One day, he thought, I will have my own place to live a somewhere I can retreat from the world and not be bothered And I won't let anyone else in