CHAPTER FOUR

Sherlock knew that he had to use the tools to hand to destroy the letters, the photographs and the other documents. There were too many boxes for him and Matty to remove from the tannery, and they’d be spotted quickly if they even tried. No, he had to destroy them on the premises.

But how? He supposed he could set a fire. That would destroy Harkness’s treasure trove of blackmail material, sure enough, but it would also destroy the building, and probably spread to the ones on either side. There was a good chance that people might die, and Sherlock didn’t want that weighing on his conscience. For a moment he felt paralysed, brain whirling as it sorted through the various things that he’d seen in the short time he and Matty had been inside the tannery. Then it struck him: the vats! He could dump the boxes into the vats! If the alkaline chemicals didn’t bleach the ink off the pages or dissolve them into their constituent parts, then they would become sodden and disintegrate of their own accord. There was something poetic about using one part of Josh Harkness’s little empire to destroy another.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s go.’

‘Thank God,’ Matty responded. ‘I’m on the verge of passing out, thanks to the smell.’

‘No,’ Sherlock clarified, ‘I meant that it’s time to destroy all this stuff.’

Matty just stared at him.

‘We can’t let Harkness get away with it,’ Sherlock said insistently. ‘He’s slowly destroying people’s lives.’

‘And he’ll destroy our lives a lot quicker than that if we do anything to cross him.’ Matty shook his head in despair. ‘The man’s an animal! He’s more dangerous than a rabid badger backed into a corner!’

Sherlock shook his head stubbornly. ‘I don’t care. I can’t leave here and then walk around town knowing that every third or fourth person I see is paying him to keep their secrets quiet. People have a right to privacy.’

‘Even if the secrets they’re keeping might get them put into jail if they were known about?’ Matty asked shrewdly.

‘Even so,’ Sherlock said. ‘If a crime has been committed, then there’s a process for that. It gets reported. The police investigate. Evidence gets collected. If there’s enough evidence then people get arrested. Josh Harkness isn’t punishing criminals because he thinks of himself as some unofficial part of the police force – he’s preying on people’s guilty consciences to make money.’

Matty grimaced. ‘It’s still evidence,’ he said. ‘And I think you’ve got a rosy view of the police. Like I told you earlier – the police around here are either taking money themselves or they’re doing their own little petty thefts on the side. Give a criminal a uniform and he’s still a criminal.’

Sherlock thought back to the time, some months before, when his brother Mycroft had been accused of murder. The police hadn’t seemed too interested in collecting evidence then, he had to admit, but even so, the principle was sound.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I admit the system isn’t ideal. I don’t even know what an ideal system would look like. Maybe the police need to be paid more. Maybe people need to be checked out and tested before they’re allowed to join the police. Maybe they need more training. Maybe they need consultants to help them out when they’re investigating difficult crimes. I don’t know. I just know that people like Josh Harkness aren’t the answer. He’s doing nothing to stop crimes – in fact, from his point of view, the more crimes the better.’

‘I ain’t going to convince you to give this up, am I?’

‘No.’

‘And you’re going to do it whether I help or not.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I suppose I’d better help out, if only to keep you alive. My life would be a lot more boring if you weren’t around.’

‘Thank you,’ Sherlock said.

‘I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing,’ Matty responded. ‘I’m just saying, is all.’ He sighed. ‘All right – what’s the plan?’

‘We take all of these boxes and dump their contents in the vats outside.’

Matty shrugged. ‘Somehow I knew it would mean getting closer to those vats. You know those workers aren’t going to let us come back once, let alone twice?’

‘Then we’ll have to distract them.’

‘With what?’

‘I’m still working on that.’ He thought for a moment. ‘It’s got to be something that will attract them all to one side of the building.’

‘Fire?’ Matty suggested.

‘Too dangerous.’

‘What if I let myself be seen, and they chase after me?’

‘That leaves me having to shift twenty-six boxes by myself.’

‘Oh.’ Matty’s expression brightened. ‘What if we wait until it’s dark, then we come back, break in and destroy them for good in peace: undisturbed, like?’

Sherlock shook his head. ‘This place is so important that Harkness will have it guarded at night. We were only able to sneak in now because it’s daylight, and there’s a lot of activity in the tannery. At night, in the quiet, any guard will hear us or spot us straight away, so that rules out hiding here until the sun goes down. No, it’s got to be now.’ He thought for a moment, ‘I suppose,’ he said slowly, ‘we could pull up some floorboards. This room is built up above ground level. Maybe we could hide the boxes beneath the floorboards. Harkness wouldn’t know what had happened to them.’ He frowned, thinking through the obvious problems. ‘No, we couldn’t lever the floorboards up without leaving splinters and marks. Harkness would guess straight away what we’d done.’

‘Well, I’m stumped,’ Matty said. ‘Let’s just call it a day, shall we?’

‘Let’s not. There has to be a solution.’ He let his mind go blank, hoping that the various pieces of the puzzle that were whirling around his head would settle down into some meaningful pattern. Gradually they did. ‘Right – here’s what we’ll do. You’re going to sneak around the vats to the far side and make a hole in one of them.’

‘With what?’

‘Have you got a knife?’

Matty reached into a pocket and took one out. The blade was folded into the handle. ‘I got this.’

‘Use it to carve out a hole in the wooden slats that make up the side of the furthest vat, or put it between two of the slats and prise them apart. Do it without being seen.’

‘All right. Assuming I’m not seen, what happens then?’

‘The stuff inside the vat starts leaking out. When they spot it, they’ll call everyone over to help seal the hole and mop up the stuff on the floor.’

‘So they’re all distracted for a while. That’s when we take the boxes out and throw them in the nearest vat?’

‘That’s right. Except that we need to find a faster way of doing it. You remember when we came in, we saw a wooden chute leaning up against the wall?’

‘Yeah,’ Matty said dubiously.

‘That’s probably what they use to get the cow hides into the vats. I can’t imagine they hoist them up on their shoulders and throw them in one by one – that would be hard, and very messy. I think they just slide them down the chute. While they’re distracted, I’ll get the chute and run it down from here to the nearest vat. We can slide the boxes down.’

‘It’s a plan,’ Matty said. ‘Not sure it’s a good one, but I can’t think of anything better.’

‘Right – let’s go.’

Sherlock moved to the door and opened it a crack. The eye-watering, nose-grating sewer smell of the tannery intensified. Gazing out, he noticed that the room was still deserted, although he could hear voices. Whatever Josh Harkness was doing with his workers, it was taking time.

He turned his head to see Matty. ‘All right – go!’ he hissed.

Matty squeezed past him and through the door. Moving quietly, he made his way along the raised wooden flooring to a set of steps that led down into the central area of the room, past another of the wooden chutes. He slipped across the room, moving from vat to vat, using each as cover, until he vanished from Sherlock’s view.

The next few minutes were nerve-racking. Sherlock waited, hardly able to breathe, not knowing whether Matty was actually making a hole in the furthest vat. Maybe he was desperately trying to carve his way through wood that was too hard for his blade? Maybe he had been caught by Harkness or one of his men?

A movement off to one side attracted his attention. One of the men with the long hooked poles was coming around the side of a vat. He stopped and started to roll a cigarette one-handed. Sherlock’s gaze flicked across to where he’d seen Matty vanish, but the boy wasn’t visible. The worker didn’t look as if an intruder had just been discovered, so Sherlock had to assume that he was still safe.

Just as he was about to look away, he saw a head peeping out from behind one of the vats. It was Matty. From his position, Matty couldn’t see the man with the hooked pole, but if he moved forward a few feet he would be in the man’s line of sight. Sherlock desperately willed Matty to look his way, but his friend seemed to be nerving himself up to run back to the steps.

Sherlock was preparing himself to make some noise that would attract Matty’s attention when the boy looked up at him. Sherlock gestured to him to stay where he was. Matty shook his head. Sherlock nodded towards the place where the worker was standing and made a walking movement with his fingers. Matty nodded in understanding.

Sherlock stared over at the worker again. He had lit his cigarette and was strolling forward, hooked pole held over his shoulder like a rifle. Another few steps and, if he looked to his left, he would see Matty.

Sherlock didn’t know what to do. If he attracted the man’s attention away from Matty, then he would expose himself, but he couldn’t let Matty be discovered.

Someone shouted from the other side of the vats. It sounded as if it might have been the worker who had argued with Josh Harkness. ‘We got a leak!’ he shouted. ‘You know the drill! Marky – get some sheets to mop up the stuff. Nicholson – you and me need to caulk that hole with some hemp quick and then nail a patch across it!’

The man with the pole ran to help. Sherlock beckoned Matty, who raced across to the steps. Sherlock ran to join him.

‘You start hauling the boxes out,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the chute.’

Matty disappeared back into the storeroom and Sherlock quickly moved to where the wooden chute was leaning up against the railings. It was heavier than it looked, and it took all his strength to manhandle it back to the storeroom and then from the railing to the edge of the nearest vat.

By the time Sherlock was ready Matty had stacked four boxes. While he went back for more, Sherlock took the boxes one at a time and pushed them down the chute. The angle wasn’t steep enough to allow the boxes to slide by themselves, but Sherlock found that he could use the second box to push the first, and then the third box to push the other two. In less than a minute he had all four boxes on the chute, and he was straining against the last one, trying to get all four to move.

The first box was teetering over the vat now. Sherlock took a step back and then ran forward, hitting the last box in the same way he’d tackled players on the rugby field at Deepdene School. The box jerked forward, transmitting its force down the line to the first one, which tumbled into the vat.

Too soon for congratulations. As Matty kept delivering the boxes, Sherlock kept stacking them on to the chute and ramming them forward. Box after box tumbled into the vat. Sherlock could see them floating in the poisonous, noxious mixture before it filled them up and they sank. Hopefully into oblivion.

On the other side of the vats he could hear raised voices and the sound of hammering.

The work fell into a repetitive routine. Pick up box. Put box on chute. Push box as hard as possible. Pick up another box. His muscles ached with the strain.

Eventually he became aware that Matty was standing beside him, helping push the boxes. ‘Last ones,’ Matty said. He looked exhausted. Dust coated his hair and his face.

‘What the . . . ?’ a voice shouted.

Sherlock looked down into the centre of the room. Josh Harkness was staring up at the two boys. His face was a mask of outraged disbelief.

‘Quick,’ Sherlock said. ‘Let’s get the last boxes in there!’

‘I saved the lightest for last,’ Matty said. ‘You can probably throw them.’

He was right. Sherlock picked up the box marked Y and, balancing himself like a shot-putter, launched it towards the vat.

‘Oi!’ Harkness yelled. ‘Stop that!’

The box hit the edge, and for a moment Sherlock thought it was going to topple backwards, but fortunately its momentum carried it forward and over.

‘Get them!’ Harkness yelled. Two of the workers Sherlock had seen earlier ran from the far side of the room. They hesitated slightly when they saw the boys, but the vicious anger in Harkness’s face propelled them forward. They swung their hooked poles forward like lances.

Sherlock grabbed Matty’s shoulder and pulled him along the raised platform, towards the room where they had entered. Behind them he heard the clattering of feet on the wooden stairs.

Matty got to the door first. He turned to say something to Sherlock. Before he could, Sherlock pushed him backwards and ducked. A pole sliced the air above his head, and a sharp-edged hook embedded itself in the door frame.

‘Get out!’ Sherlock yelled. ‘Quickly!’

Matty scooted backwards into the room on hands and feet. Sherlock swung around to confront the man who had attacked him. He was tugging at the pole, trying to free it from the door frame. His friend was about ten feet behind him, approaching with violence in his eyes. Harkness had grabbed a ladder from somewhere and was climbing up the side of the vat into which the boxes had been dumped, obviously hoping that he could rescue something from the mess that Sherlock had made of his raw blackmail material.

Sherlock offered up a rapid prayer that he would fall in, before quickly following Matty inside the storeroom. He slammed the door shut, knowing that it would only buy them a few seconds.

Matty was already over by the window. He turned, saw Sherlock and made a step with his hands: palms up and fingers interlaced. ‘You get up,’ he said. ‘Pull me after you.’

The door behind Sherlock shuddered as something slammed into it.

Sherlock took three steps across the room, bent, grabbed Matty’s legs and hoisted him up to the window. ‘Get out!’ he said. ‘I’ll follow.’

Matty looked as if he wanted to argue, but he was already half out into the street. Sensibly he struggled forward rather than backwards.

The door burst open. One man was framed in the doorway, with the other man visible behind him.

‘You little whelp!’ the first man snarled. He stepped forward, pole upraised.

Sherlock grabbed another pole from the bundle that had been stacked against the wall. He stood, pole held diagonally across his body, feet planted apart, knowing that it was going to come down to a fight. It sometimes seemed to him that he could use all the logic in the world and things would often still come down to a fight.

The man was average height, with a paunch, but the battered nature of his ears, and the bend in his nose, suggested to Sherlock that he had a history of boxing – probably illegally, in rings set up in fields, rather than using Queensberry Rules. He stepped forward, holding his pole diagonally as well, but the other way. He smiled.

‘I’ll be Little John,’ he said, ‘and you can be Robin Hood.’

‘This isn’t a kids’ game,’ Sherlock said.

‘Too right,’ the man said. He suddenly struck out with his pole, trying to smash Sherlock’s knee with the bottom end. Sherlock blocked with his own pole. The sudden shock as they clashed vibrated up his arm and made his teeth ache.

The man nodded, acknowledging Sherlock’s unexpected manoeuvre. He lashed out again with the bottom end of his pole, but it was a feint. He reversed direction suddenly, bringing the top down towards Sherlock’s head. Sherlock raised his pole with both hands, preventing the man’s weapon from knocking him out and probably splitting his skull, but before the poles could touch the man had reversed his strike again, bringing his pole up towards Sherlock’s groin. Sherlock twisted to one side, but the pole struck his right hip. He fell to one knee just in time to see the pole scythe sideways an inch above his head.

Desperately Sherlock climbed back to his feet, ignoring the spasms of pain that shot from his hip down towards his knee. The man was off balance, and Sherlock reached out with his pole and caught the back of the man’s shoe with the hook on the end. He pulled, and the man fell backwards, swearing. He hit the ground with a thud that sent a vibration through the wooden flooring.

The second man stepped over his fallen comrade. He was more cautious, weaving his pole from side to side in an attempt to deceive Sherlock as to the direction the first strike would come from. He feinted once, twice, then drew the pole back and lashed out at Sherlock as if he was holding a spear rather than a quarterstaff. As Sherlock jerked backwards he realized that the sharp hook on the end could be just as lethal as a spear point.

The man pulled his pole back again. Instead of attacking Sherlock he turned his head slightly and spoke to his companion. ‘Get up, you moron! Go outside – get that other kid if he’s still around, and stop this one getting out of the window if he’s not.’

The man shook his head as he climbed to his feet. His expression was a mixture of sullen and furious. ‘I want this one, Marky. I really want this one. You saw what he did.’

‘I saw you fall over on your fat rump,’ Marky snarled. ‘Now get outside. This ain’t a time for bruised muscles and bruised feelings. The boss will want to talk to this one, and knowing you like I do, you’ll slit his throat for making you look stupid, and then the boss will take it out on both of us.’

The man – presumably Nicholson, based on the names Sherlock had heard earlier – backed away and turned towards the door to the outside. He cast a last, baleful glance at Sherlock before he left.

‘You don’t want to go through the window,’ Marky said, smiling at Sherlock. ‘If Nicholson catches you, then the chances are you’ll be dead before your feet touch the ground, despite what I told him. He don’t like being embarrassed. Really don’t like it at all.’

‘So what’s my alternative?’ Sherlock asked, keeping his eyes fixed on Marky’s eyes, looking for some indication that the man was about to strike with his hook-tipped pole.

‘The alternative is that you put that pole down and come with me. The boss wants to talk with you, is all. Just a little talk.’

Sherlock shook his head. ‘Based on what I’ve done, I think I’ve got a better chance with your friend outside than with Josh Harkness. At least I’d die quickly.’

Marky shrugged. ‘I see your point, I really do. It’s a conundrum, isn’t it? Go out of the window and you die straight away, but quickly. Come with me and you stay alive for a little longer, but your death is more painful and slower.’ He dropped his voice, trying to lull Sherlock into relaxing. ‘You know, kid, if I were you, I’d –’

Without warning he lashed out with the pole, trying to get the hook past Sherlock’s shoulder so he could catch it in the flesh and muscle over Sherlock’s shoulder blade and pull him forward, but Sherlock had noticed the slight widening of his eyes that meant he was about to do something physical. It was one of the things Amyus Crowe had taught him – how to predict from small movements what people were going to do. ‘Body language’, he had called it. Sherlock swept his pole left and right across his body, intercepting Marky’s weapon as it flashed towards him and deflecting it sideways.

‘So that’s the way you want it then,’ Marky said, pulling back again. ‘A stand-off, right? Except that when the boss arrives it’ll be two against one, and you won’t stand a chance.’

‘There’s always a chance,’ Sherlock said with as much bravado as he could muster.

‘Two ways to escape,’ Marky pointed out, ‘both of them covered. Unless you can magically walk through walls or disappear through the floor, you ain’t got a hope of escaping.’

‘I do if –’ Sherlock caught himself before he said Matty’s name – ‘if my friend escaped before Nicholson got to the window. He’ll have gone straight to the police. They’ll be here in a few minutes.’

Marky shook his head scornfully. ‘The local peelers don’t dare make a move against the boss. He knows too much about them.’

‘But how’s he going to prove it?’ Sherlock asked. ‘All his blackmail material has just been destroyed.’

Marky frowned, thinking.

‘Once the police know that all the letters and documents Harkness was holding over their heads have vanished into the tanning vats, they’ll know he can’t blackmail them any more. What will they do then?’ Noticing Marky’s perturbed expression, he pressed on more urgently. ‘Firstly they’ll want to come out here and make sure it’s true, and secondly they’ll pay Harkness back for everything he’s done to them. Once he’s lost his power, he’s just like any farmer or brewer in Farnham – with the exception that they hate him. He’ll be lucky if he makes it to the cells in one piece.’

Sherlock could tell from the way Marky’s shoulders slumped that his points had hit home.

‘How’s he going to pay you?’ he asked. ‘All the material he’s been using to blackmail people has gone, one of his tanning vats is contaminated and another one is leaking. One of his businesses is finished and the other one is in trouble. If I were you, I’d be looking for other employment.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Unless he’s got something on you as well, but if that’s the case then the proof’s in the vat along with everything else. All Josh Harkness has is word of mouth, but that’s not going to get him very far. Nobody’s going to believe a story with no proof.’

‘You’re a smart kid,’ Marky acknowledged. He nodded thoughtfully. ‘You’re right – Harkness is finished. If the police don’t get him, then some of the landowners around here who he’s been blackmailing will soon take the law into their own hands. He’ll end up as compost on someone’s fields before long.’ He relaxed, letting the pole drop. ‘If anything happens – if I get caught – you’ll put in a good word for me. Tell the peelers I let you go.’ He nodded once, decisively. ‘Time for a career change,’ he said, and then he turned and vanished through the doorway.

Sherlock couldn’t believe what had happened. He’d been expecting to have to fight his way out. He’d been talking in order to distract Marky, to give himself time to catch his breath and work out a plan of attack, but he seemed to have actually talked himself out of trouble.

He gazed at the window. It was tempting, but the other man – Nicholson – was probably underneath by now, and after what had happened earlier Sherlock didn’t think that the man would be amenable to argument.

Reluctantly he headed for the door back into the tannery.

He looked around, alert for Josh Harkness’s presence, but he couldn’t see the blackmailer. The only sign that he’d been there was the pile of damp, stained paper and cardboard boxes that slumped beside the nearest vat in a puddle of brown liquid. The smell was worse than it had been earlier – probably because Harkness had been stirring the stuff in the vats around while he was trying to rescue his blackmail material. One look at the papers and Sherlock knew they were useless for anything. What little printed material was still visible through the stains was smearing into incoherence.

He headed around the wooden walkway towards where the main door had to be, hoping that Harkness had already left.

He was wrong.

The blackmailer stepped out from behind one of the vats. His hair was sticking up wildly, and his eyes were so wide they were nearly popping out of his head. He held a knife in each hand. The light reflected off the wickedly sharp curve of the blades.

‘Flensing knives,’ he said casually, although his expression was anything but casual. ‘Used for cutting the skin off cow carcasses. Very sharp. Very sharp indeed. As you are about to find out.’

‘There’s no benefit in killing me,’ Sherlock pointed out calmly, despite the sudden rapid thudding of his heart.

‘No benefit at all,’ Harkness agreed, ‘apart from the fact that it’ll let me sleep a little better tonight. You’ve ruined me. You’ve stolen the food from my mouth and taken the roof from over my head.’

‘I’ve saved a whole lot of people from ruin and despair,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘It seems like a fair bargain to me.’

‘Nobody asked you.’ Harkness shifted position. ‘Half an hour ago I was a man contented with his lot. Now I’m destitute. I’ll have to start all over again.’

‘If the people around here let you.’ Sherlock walked casually down the few steps that led to the central part of the room. He was too exposed on the walkway. ‘When they find out your power over them has gone, some of them will come looking for you. Best thing you can do is run.’

‘You’re right,’ Harkness nodded. ‘But I’m going to take as much of your skin with me as I can cut off, and when I find a place to settle I’m going to have it tanned and made into a waistcoat so that people will be able to look at me and know what happens if you cross Josh Harkness.’

Before Sherlock could say anything in response Harkness drew his right hand back over his shoulder and jerked it suddenly forward, throwing one of the flensing knives at Sherlock’s head. The knife seemed to spin lazily in the air. Sherlock ducked, and the blade embedded itself in the wood of the nearest vat.

Harkness hefted the remaining knife, tossing it from left hand to right. ‘You can’t run forever, son. But by all means try. It’ll make things sweeter for me.’

Sherlock turned and tried to prise the knife out of the vat, but it was stuck fast. A sudden intuition made him jerk his head to one side, just as the second knife whistled past his face. This one hit the vat handle-first, bounced and clattered to the floor. Sherlock bent to pick it up, but Harkness was rushing towards him, arms outstretched, and Sherlock converted the duck to a spring and a forward roll to take him out of Harkness’s way.

The blackmailer scooped one knife off the floor and pulled the other one from the vat with extraordinary strength. He turned to face Sherlock. ‘The longer you fight,’ he snarled, ‘the better that waistcoat will look on me.’

‘Dream on,’ Sherlock said. ‘The only new clothes you’re going to get are a prison uniform.’ He reached to one side, to the ladder that Harkness had used to get up to the rim of the vat. Grabbing it by the rungs at the top end, he swung it around until the other end pointed at Harkness. The man’s eyes widened even further. He pulled his right hand back again, preparing to throw a knife, but Sherlock rushed at him, hitting him in the chest with the bottom rung, pushing him backwards. Caught by surprise, Harkness staggered backwards, arms flailing. Before he could catch his footing and push back, his right heel caught in the slushy papers and cardboard that he had pulled from the vat. His foot skidded, and he fell. His head hit the wooden floor with a solid crack. His eyes rolled up in his head.

Before Harkness could recover, Sherlock threw the ladder to one side and dropped on to the man’s chest, his knees pinning the man’s arms to the floor. He scooped the knives from Harkness’s nerveless hands and held them up, poised, with the blades pointing at Harkness’s face. Harkness was horrified. Before he could struggle free, Sherlock brought the knives flashing down, one on either side of the man’s neck. The knives embedded themselves into the wood, pinning the material of his jacket to the floor.

Sherlock climbed to his feet and stared down at the man. ‘This is where the police will find you,’ he said. ‘Remember that sometimes the rabbits fight back.’

He turned and ran towards the door.