Gene Expression in Amber - Part 2
Feb. 23rd, 2012 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalima1955Title: GENE EXPRESSION IN AMBER (Part 2 of 4)
Author: Kalima.
Rating: R
Content Notes: If you’re pregnant you may find the subject matter distressing. Just saying.
Summary: A woman wants Sherlock Holmes to find her missing employers and then goes missing herself. Sherlock may be able to solve the puzzle, but he might never be able to make it right.
Authors notes: I'm attempting to do a story after the fashion of The Copper Beeches in which Sherlock Holmes helps the hapless young lady in dire danger, except with a modern twist in keeping with the modern updated BBC series. Please forgive the American spelling and punctuation. Thanks you.
“I wish you wouldn’t keep saying it like that,” Amber sighed. She’d taken off her coat and hat. Her hair was partly flattened to her head and partly crackling with static electricity. She was flushed and looked even more physically uncomfortable than before. “It’s not like I’m popping ‘em out once a year and selling ‘em to the highest bidder. I have never done this before and I am never doing it again. Besides, they contacted me, all right?”
“Really? You specifically?”
“Yes. Their lawyer – um, the Harman-Lebowitz’s lawyer -- Megan Forsmark, she e-mailed me about it.”
“What? So, out of the blue a lawyer calls you and asks if you’d consider bearing the children of strangers?” He spoke without looking at her while his thumbs worked some kind of hocus pocus on his Blackberry. “You must’ve applied to an agency, or at least expressed an interest.”
“It was posted on a kiosk in the quad at school. There’s stuff like that posted all the time, you know, ways to earn extra cash volunteering for research studies or whatever --- fertility clinics and sperm banks are always looking for donors at the big universities. Donating ova can pay for grad school.”
“Is that what you needed the money for?”
“Her motivation isn’t relevant, John.”
“Why isn’t it? She’s having babies for money. Seems relevant to me.”
“You’re confusing moral objection with relevancy.” Sherlock said. He flicked a glance at John. “Leave it alone.”
“I don’t have a moral objection to it.”
“And yet, you’re clearly angry. Not ten minutes ago you were falling all over yourself to help her. You thought she was as cute as the proverbial button.”
“I never said anything like that.”
“You were thinking it. You had the face.”
“The face?”
“A particular expression you get whenever you’ve gone all…tenderhearted. Your natural affinity for taking care of people and protecting them, it’s in your face. It’s a thing.”
John opened his mouth to assert…something. He didn’t get a chance.
“My mother’s cancer came back.” Amber blurted out suddenly. “That’s why I did it.”
What showed on John’s face then was a hot flush of shame. Sherlock shot him a look, tried to warn you but, oh no, you wouldn’t listen. “Christ.” John whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh! I didn’t mean— I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad or anything. Mr. Holmes is right. You’re a good person. I just didn’t want you thinking I was callous or greedy.”
“Mmm, not exactly what I said—“
“It’s what you meant.” Sherlock started to protest but she spoke over him, aiming her words at John instead. Appealing to the ‘good person' was good strategy. “My mother’s cancer had been in remission since I was seventeen, but then when it came back she didn’t have any health insurance, ‘cause nobody will insure you once you’ve had cancer. So, about a week after she started treatments at the hospital, we got this notice in the mail that the management corporation for the hospital had put a lien on our house.”
John looked at her in shock. Even Sherlock seemed stunned. “I wasn’t aware that they could do that. What’s the name of the management company?”
“Special Care.”
“The name alone is bloody criminal,” John muttered.
Sherlock ran a search on his Blackberry. “Ooh. A Fortune 500 company. Fancy.”
“Is it significant?”
“Don’t know.” John could see him set the information aside. Somewhere in Sherlock’s brain was a wobbly table stacked high with bits of information he’d set aside for sorting at a later date. “You still haven’t explained how the prospective parents found you.”
“That’s the weird part. I didn’t even finish filling out the application. I went to the website and started one but as soon as it got to the section about family health history I stopped. What was the point?”
“I’m not sure why it would matter to the parents whether or not there was a history of cancer if they were simply using someone else’s uterus to gestate their own fetus,” Sherlock said. Amber swallowed and looked down at her fingers splayed across her belly. He blinked, once, twice, glanced at John. “Women with cancer have given birth to healthy babies.”
“Yes, but we’re talking about an awful lot of money. You’d want to minimize the risk to your investment, I imagine,” John said.
“True enough. To what agency did you almost apply?”
“The Surrogacy Source Group.”
“Was Megan Forsmark associated with this group?”
“Um, um…well,” she began, her eyes a little unfocused. “Uh, I’m not sure. I just assumed. Megan contacted me about three weeks after I visited the website. She said she had a couple from England who were very interested in me being the surrogate for their child and would I consider interviewing.”
“Why didn’t they just find someone here?” John asked.
“I imagine we English find it all rather distasteful, don’t you?” Sherlock flashed John a quick grin and was met with a glower. “It’s much easier to get a surrogate in America. There’s an entire blog devoted to Irish couples who got their children through surrogates in the US. See?” He held up the Blackberry and wiggled it a bit. Because that was how people sitting on the other side of the room could best read it presumably.
Sherlock turned the device back around so that he could once again gaze upon the screen and stroke it with unseemly fondness. “You met the prospective parents?”
“Yes. They said they were really anxious to start a family.”
Something in her tone prompted him to ask, “Did you have reason to suspect that wasn’t true?”
Amber looked from one man to the other, her cheeks burning a little hotter. Perspiration glistened on her forehead and she swiped at it. “I don’t want to offend anyone. Honestly, I haven’t been around that many gay people so I don’t presume to know how they ought to act when they’re…together. I may be a Christian, but I’m also a scientist– not a Christian Scientist though -- that’s a whole other deal. Suffice it to say they have a different take on the matter. But my take is, well, it’s super hard to stay prejudiced about love once you know it’s all electro-chemical reactions in the brain. If two people come together because of excitatory neurons then that’s God smiling down on ‘em I figure. They ought to be able to stand before their Lord and Savior and pledge themselves to each other in holy matrimony.”
John had never seen Sherlock’s mouth stay open for so long with nothing coming out of it. He seemed to have short-circuited somehow, unable to work out how anyone could hold two such disparate views inside the same head without imploding
“Um. Okay then,” he said, after a bit. “I’m assuming from your…disclaimer that they didn’t behave in a manner you thought in keeping with either being gay or being married.”
“No sir. Not enough to raise babies together. They just didn’t seem comfortable with each other at all, I mean not the way…” She looked at Sherlock then John, “y’all. Do.”
“Oh dear God,” John moaned.
Why? Why did this keep happening? Was it really so strange that two men of a certain age were sharing a flat in Central London? London was hellishly expensive. He could see why people might think Sherlock was gay, and he might very well be, John had no clear idea at this point. Sherlock didn’t seem to care about sex at all either way. But him? Harry always told him his god-awful taste in clothing made it obvious. That’s one of the reasons he’d liked the military. He never had to pick out his clothes.
“My friend John here would very much like to tell you that we are not, in fact, a romantic couple,” Sherlock was saying, “and that he is most definitely not gay.”
“Oh my God,” Amber cried, hands flying up to cover her face, “I’m so embarrassed—“
“It’s okay,” John said, sighing heavily, “don’t worry about it.”
“You’ll notice how he still didn’t assert it himself—other than through aggressive sighing. And why not, you may ask, if it’s so important to him? I’ll tell you—“
“Oh could you?” John said. “That’d be great.”
“He doesn’t assert it for fear of appearing homophobic to a virtual stranger.”
Damn. That was a little spot on, actually. It was Harriet’s fault. She’d blustered and badgered and brow-beaten him from the time she was thirteen on. The merest sniff of anti-gay sentiment from him or his mates would send her off, even when it wasn’t actually present.
“The problem with trying not to offend,” Sherlock said, ostensibly to Amber, “is that we often cripple ourselves through second-guessing. You made an assumption based on our level of comfort with each other that we are romantically involved, which means that the couple you observed had no discernable connection at all other than the one they told you existed. Am I rightt?” She nodded. “I know you were under some duress because of your mother’s condition, but you weren’t yet pregnant, so no doubt your good scientific brain was engaged on some level. Something about them didn’t add up.”
“Yeah, you’re right. They might have been gay. Like I said, I don’t have a lot of experience with that, but they were not intimate in a way that people would be if they were committing themselves to raising babies together. I remember at one point Mr. Harman said how much they were hoping for twins, one for each of them, and Mr. Lebowitz went to take his hand and Mr. Harman jerked his hand back, just for a second, you know. He looked startled like he hadn’t expected physical contact to be involved. Then it was all fine, and they were holding hands like nothing happened. I mean, even allowing for the awkwardness of the situation or nerves or whatever, it didn’t click right.”
“Did they give you a reason that they were so interested in you in particular?”
Her lips pressed together in a pained grimace, and she shifted in the chair with a soft groan, her hands anxiously roaming the landscape of her belly.
"Amber?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” she said, “they’re moving around a lot right now— uh, I guess, I guess I looked a lot like Mr. Harman’s sister who’d died in a car accident. It kind of freaked me out actually. I almost left, but then Megan started talking about compensation and it was – it was just so much money.”
“How much?”
She swallowed. “Fifty thousand dollars.”
Sherlock gave a low whistle. “That’s twice the going rate for first time surrogacy.”
“I know. And they offered five thousand extra for twins.”
“How were you to be paid?”
“At the start of the second trimester, um, September I think, when it looked certain that the twins were around for the long haul, I got fifteen thousand. I’m supposed to get the rest after they’re born. Honestly, at this point I just want to give the babies over to the dads and go home. If you find them could you tell them I don’t care about the money, I mean, if this is all because of the money they don’t have to give me anything else but a ticket home. ”
“Did they know about your mother’s cancer?”
“I told them.” She looked away, looked around the room, looked at her hands, at anything but Sherlock’s unwavering gaze. “I had to.”
He stared at her, palms pressed together, fingertips tapping against his lips. He was about to ask a question and he already knew the answer. Amber looked drawn, pale now except for the feverish splotches of red high on her cheeks. Her expression was tired and resigned and painfully, painfully sad. John stood up as if he might need to do something though he had no idea what. When he spoke, Sherlock’s words were carefully measured. “Amber? Did you provide the eggs for fertilization? Is that why they offered you so much more?”
She drew in a breath through her nose and out through her mouth. She blinked. A tear slipped down her cheek.
Sherlock was out of his chair and out the door.
***
He hadn’t gone very far. John knew he wouldn’t. He had no coat after all. Or shoes. He found him leaning against the wall next to Speedy’s broad, street-front window smoking a cigarette.
“Where’d you get that?” John asked waving his hand through the grey haze hanging in the air.
“Some kid on a bike.”
“What’s going on then?”
“She’s an idiot.”
“Isn’t that everyone as far as you’re concerned?”
“She’s also screwed. Apparently without the benefit of any actual screwing. She’s the biological mother! If these…people don’t show up and take their infants off her hands, she’s stuck with them. She can’t even put them up for adoption without consent of the father -- or fathers as the case may be because there’s a legally binding contract involved. She should have hired herself a solicitor. She should have had her own lawyer back in the states. That’s what she needs.”
“She came to you.”
“This isn’t my area! Babies and crying women—gah!”
“What about finding the couple then? That’s what she came to you for in first place.”
“Three possibilities. One: They’ve simply changed their minds. What she witnessed could have been a couple whose relationship was in trouble. Maybe one of them thought having children would save the marriage–“ At John’s look he said, “Yes, I rejected that as well.”
“Or?”
“They’re dead, is second on the list, though no persons going by that hyphenated name have died in the last month or so. Not in England anyway.” John was long past being surprised at how quickly Sherlock could access information. “Amber’s airline tickets and hotel expenses were paid for by someone. She’s been in London for a month, give or take a day. The Harman-Lebowitz’s are missing, but whether by accident or design I couldn’t tell you.” Sherlock took a long, slow drag off the cigarette and exhaled a steady stream of gray smoke. “And number three: exactly what she suspected and ignored from the beginning. They misrepresented themselves to her. They were fakes. She’s being used.”
“But for what? Why would anyone do that?”
Sherlock pushed away from the wall and stubbed the cigarette onto the bricks. “Not enough data.” He glanced at the open door that led up to their flat. “She brought her cases from the hotel. Whoever was paying has stopped paying. She has no place to go. You do realize that?”
“Ah. Shit. I haven’t got any money until the fifteenth.”
“You see. It’s that, that very thing. I say she hasn’t got any place to go and your first thought is to give her money. Your own money!”
“Which I don’t have until the fifteenth. You’ve got money, haven’t you?”
“Women’s shelter?”
“She’s not a victim of domestic violence, unless your brow-beating her counts.”
“There’s probably a church charity or something. She a bit churchy.”
“Seriously?”
“She’s not staying here!”
“I didn’t suggest it.”
“You had the face.”
“Will you shut up about the face, please?”
“We could drop her off at hospital and then run like hell.”
John clapped him on the back. “Ah. Spoken like a true man. Your mother would be so proud. Come on, Sherlock, buck up, balls out. You can do it. Anyway, you’ve got to because your feet are turning blue.”
***
Amber wasn’t in the sitting room. John went looking for her and came back saying, “She found the toilet.” Then, “What the hell are you doing?”
Sherlock had Amber’s backpack upended and the contents spread out on the floor.
-- two passports UK, US (dual citizenship!), two bottles of Dasani, prenatal vitamins(30 out of 60 left), wallet (driving license, state of Alabama issued to Amber Melissa Call, Wells Fargo Bank debit card, Orchard Bank MasterCard, University of Alabama at Birmingham student ID, ten pound note, no coins), pantyliners (six, no box), address book (later), antacids, gum, complimentary hand lotions, shampoos and conditioners from the Bedford Hotel in Russell Square, sunglasses, make-up bag (not wearing makeup), travel toothbrush and toothpaste, iPod nano (playlist), Nokia mobile (contact list), Boots bag with receipt (disposable enemas, two purchased, one in bag), tea packets, (hand made, herbal mixture)—oh. Oh, of course.
He turned one of the tea bags over and over, brought it to his nose and inhaled, wondering if she’d made them up herself or had someone do it. She could have got the filter papers anywhere, Culpepper’s or someplace like that, but he suspected the herbs inside were a different matter. He unfolded the top of the bag and poured the herbs into his palm.
John was leaning over him now. “Is that what she’s got in her travel mug?”
Sherlock shrugged. He couldn’t know without testing it but it was very likely. He pushed at a bit purplish green with a fingernail. “This is mentha pulegium - pennyroyal. Not sure about this bit here. Mmm, some celery seeds, juniper berries. This root – this is troublesome.” He put it in his mouth, chewed and spat it back into his hand. “Bitter, heavy on the alkaloids. Could be jalap or blue cohosh. Blue cohosh would be hard for her to purchase here though. It’s regulated. She may have got it in the States. I’d need a lab to determine the chemical compounds, but I’m confident she’s fully aware of the chemical compounds.” He looked up into John’s troubled face. “If one hasn’t access to synthetic oxytocin...“
John straightened abruptly, looking over his shoulder in the direction of the loo.
“She purchased two disposal enemas. There’s only one in her pack. I’m not saying she’s doing that in there. More likely she tried it this morning and it didn’t work.”
There came a crash and a cry and the heavy thud of a body falling just as he’d expected. John took off at a run. Sherlock righted the backpack, opened all the pockets and removed whatever he found.
More chewing gum, half a chocolate bar, individual packets of cream crackers crushed to dust—
He could hear John ramming his shoulder against the door.
---copy of last month’s Elle. White leather-bound bible, inscribed. Small notebook with symbols and subscripts - oh, here’s where she tried to work it out, the best chemical compounds for the job - mechanical pencils, old receipts, validated boarding pass, folded printed programme—
“In Memoriam - Shoshanna Elizabeth Call, b. February 22, 1966, d. September 30, 2009 – a celebration of life, love, and music, 2PM, November 7, 2009…”
Well. That explained something. He plucked the Pink Ribbon tack pin from the floor and fastened it onto the front pocket of her backpack again. Then he went to the table, picked up his Blackberry and rang for an ambulance.
Author: Kalima.
Rating: R
Content Notes: If you’re pregnant you may find the subject matter distressing. Just saying.
Summary: A woman wants Sherlock Holmes to find her missing employers and then goes missing herself. Sherlock may be able to solve the puzzle, but he might never be able to make it right.
Authors notes: I'm attempting to do a story after the fashion of The Copper Beeches in which Sherlock Holmes helps the hapless young lady in dire danger, except with a modern twist in keeping with the modern updated BBC series. Please forgive the American spelling and punctuation. Thanks you.
“I wish you wouldn’t keep saying it like that,” Amber sighed. She’d taken off her coat and hat. Her hair was partly flattened to her head and partly crackling with static electricity. She was flushed and looked even more physically uncomfortable than before. “It’s not like I’m popping ‘em out once a year and selling ‘em to the highest bidder. I have never done this before and I am never doing it again. Besides, they contacted me, all right?”
“Really? You specifically?”
“Yes. Their lawyer – um, the Harman-Lebowitz’s lawyer -- Megan Forsmark, she e-mailed me about it.”
“What? So, out of the blue a lawyer calls you and asks if you’d consider bearing the children of strangers?” He spoke without looking at her while his thumbs worked some kind of hocus pocus on his Blackberry. “You must’ve applied to an agency, or at least expressed an interest.”
“It was posted on a kiosk in the quad at school. There’s stuff like that posted all the time, you know, ways to earn extra cash volunteering for research studies or whatever --- fertility clinics and sperm banks are always looking for donors at the big universities. Donating ova can pay for grad school.”
“Is that what you needed the money for?”
“Her motivation isn’t relevant, John.”
“Why isn’t it? She’s having babies for money. Seems relevant to me.”
“You’re confusing moral objection with relevancy.” Sherlock said. He flicked a glance at John. “Leave it alone.”
“I don’t have a moral objection to it.”
“And yet, you’re clearly angry. Not ten minutes ago you were falling all over yourself to help her. You thought she was as cute as the proverbial button.”
“I never said anything like that.”
“You were thinking it. You had the face.”
“The face?”
“A particular expression you get whenever you’ve gone all…tenderhearted. Your natural affinity for taking care of people and protecting them, it’s in your face. It’s a thing.”
John opened his mouth to assert…something. He didn’t get a chance.
“My mother’s cancer came back.” Amber blurted out suddenly. “That’s why I did it.”
What showed on John’s face then was a hot flush of shame. Sherlock shot him a look, tried to warn you but, oh no, you wouldn’t listen. “Christ.” John whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh! I didn’t mean— I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad or anything. Mr. Holmes is right. You’re a good person. I just didn’t want you thinking I was callous or greedy.”
“Mmm, not exactly what I said—“
“It’s what you meant.” Sherlock started to protest but she spoke over him, aiming her words at John instead. Appealing to the ‘good person' was good strategy. “My mother’s cancer had been in remission since I was seventeen, but then when it came back she didn’t have any health insurance, ‘cause nobody will insure you once you’ve had cancer. So, about a week after she started treatments at the hospital, we got this notice in the mail that the management corporation for the hospital had put a lien on our house.”
John looked at her in shock. Even Sherlock seemed stunned. “I wasn’t aware that they could do that. What’s the name of the management company?”
“Special Care.”
“The name alone is bloody criminal,” John muttered.
Sherlock ran a search on his Blackberry. “Ooh. A Fortune 500 company. Fancy.”
“Is it significant?”
“Don’t know.” John could see him set the information aside. Somewhere in Sherlock’s brain was a wobbly table stacked high with bits of information he’d set aside for sorting at a later date. “You still haven’t explained how the prospective parents found you.”
“That’s the weird part. I didn’t even finish filling out the application. I went to the website and started one but as soon as it got to the section about family health history I stopped. What was the point?”
“I’m not sure why it would matter to the parents whether or not there was a history of cancer if they were simply using someone else’s uterus to gestate their own fetus,” Sherlock said. Amber swallowed and looked down at her fingers splayed across her belly. He blinked, once, twice, glanced at John. “Women with cancer have given birth to healthy babies.”
“Yes, but we’re talking about an awful lot of money. You’d want to minimize the risk to your investment, I imagine,” John said.
“True enough. To what agency did you almost apply?”
“The Surrogacy Source Group.”
“Was Megan Forsmark associated with this group?”
“Um, um…well,” she began, her eyes a little unfocused. “Uh, I’m not sure. I just assumed. Megan contacted me about three weeks after I visited the website. She said she had a couple from England who were very interested in me being the surrogate for their child and would I consider interviewing.”
“Why didn’t they just find someone here?” John asked.
“I imagine we English find it all rather distasteful, don’t you?” Sherlock flashed John a quick grin and was met with a glower. “It’s much easier to get a surrogate in America. There’s an entire blog devoted to Irish couples who got their children through surrogates in the US. See?” He held up the Blackberry and wiggled it a bit. Because that was how people sitting on the other side of the room could best read it presumably.
Sherlock turned the device back around so that he could once again gaze upon the screen and stroke it with unseemly fondness. “You met the prospective parents?”
“Yes. They said they were really anxious to start a family.”
Something in her tone prompted him to ask, “Did you have reason to suspect that wasn’t true?”
Amber looked from one man to the other, her cheeks burning a little hotter. Perspiration glistened on her forehead and she swiped at it. “I don’t want to offend anyone. Honestly, I haven’t been around that many gay people so I don’t presume to know how they ought to act when they’re…together. I may be a Christian, but I’m also a scientist– not a Christian Scientist though -- that’s a whole other deal. Suffice it to say they have a different take on the matter. But my take is, well, it’s super hard to stay prejudiced about love once you know it’s all electro-chemical reactions in the brain. If two people come together because of excitatory neurons then that’s God smiling down on ‘em I figure. They ought to be able to stand before their Lord and Savior and pledge themselves to each other in holy matrimony.”
John had never seen Sherlock’s mouth stay open for so long with nothing coming out of it. He seemed to have short-circuited somehow, unable to work out how anyone could hold two such disparate views inside the same head without imploding
“Um. Okay then,” he said, after a bit. “I’m assuming from your…disclaimer that they didn’t behave in a manner you thought in keeping with either being gay or being married.”
“No sir. Not enough to raise babies together. They just didn’t seem comfortable with each other at all, I mean not the way…” She looked at Sherlock then John, “y’all. Do.”
“Oh dear God,” John moaned.
Why? Why did this keep happening? Was it really so strange that two men of a certain age were sharing a flat in Central London? London was hellishly expensive. He could see why people might think Sherlock was gay, and he might very well be, John had no clear idea at this point. Sherlock didn’t seem to care about sex at all either way. But him? Harry always told him his god-awful taste in clothing made it obvious. That’s one of the reasons he’d liked the military. He never had to pick out his clothes.
“My friend John here would very much like to tell you that we are not, in fact, a romantic couple,” Sherlock was saying, “and that he is most definitely not gay.”
“Oh my God,” Amber cried, hands flying up to cover her face, “I’m so embarrassed—“
“It’s okay,” John said, sighing heavily, “don’t worry about it.”
“You’ll notice how he still didn’t assert it himself—other than through aggressive sighing. And why not, you may ask, if it’s so important to him? I’ll tell you—“
“Oh could you?” John said. “That’d be great.”
“He doesn’t assert it for fear of appearing homophobic to a virtual stranger.”
Damn. That was a little spot on, actually. It was Harriet’s fault. She’d blustered and badgered and brow-beaten him from the time she was thirteen on. The merest sniff of anti-gay sentiment from him or his mates would send her off, even when it wasn’t actually present.
“The problem with trying not to offend,” Sherlock said, ostensibly to Amber, “is that we often cripple ourselves through second-guessing. You made an assumption based on our level of comfort with each other that we are romantically involved, which means that the couple you observed had no discernable connection at all other than the one they told you existed. Am I rightt?” She nodded. “I know you were under some duress because of your mother’s condition, but you weren’t yet pregnant, so no doubt your good scientific brain was engaged on some level. Something about them didn’t add up.”
“Yeah, you’re right. They might have been gay. Like I said, I don’t have a lot of experience with that, but they were not intimate in a way that people would be if they were committing themselves to raising babies together. I remember at one point Mr. Harman said how much they were hoping for twins, one for each of them, and Mr. Lebowitz went to take his hand and Mr. Harman jerked his hand back, just for a second, you know. He looked startled like he hadn’t expected physical contact to be involved. Then it was all fine, and they were holding hands like nothing happened. I mean, even allowing for the awkwardness of the situation or nerves or whatever, it didn’t click right.”
“Did they give you a reason that they were so interested in you in particular?”
Her lips pressed together in a pained grimace, and she shifted in the chair with a soft groan, her hands anxiously roaming the landscape of her belly.
"Amber?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” she said, “they’re moving around a lot right now— uh, I guess, I guess I looked a lot like Mr. Harman’s sister who’d died in a car accident. It kind of freaked me out actually. I almost left, but then Megan started talking about compensation and it was – it was just so much money.”
“How much?”
She swallowed. “Fifty thousand dollars.”
Sherlock gave a low whistle. “That’s twice the going rate for first time surrogacy.”
“I know. And they offered five thousand extra for twins.”
“How were you to be paid?”
“At the start of the second trimester, um, September I think, when it looked certain that the twins were around for the long haul, I got fifteen thousand. I’m supposed to get the rest after they’re born. Honestly, at this point I just want to give the babies over to the dads and go home. If you find them could you tell them I don’t care about the money, I mean, if this is all because of the money they don’t have to give me anything else but a ticket home. ”
“Did they know about your mother’s cancer?”
“I told them.” She looked away, looked around the room, looked at her hands, at anything but Sherlock’s unwavering gaze. “I had to.”
He stared at her, palms pressed together, fingertips tapping against his lips. He was about to ask a question and he already knew the answer. Amber looked drawn, pale now except for the feverish splotches of red high on her cheeks. Her expression was tired and resigned and painfully, painfully sad. John stood up as if he might need to do something though he had no idea what. When he spoke, Sherlock’s words were carefully measured. “Amber? Did you provide the eggs for fertilization? Is that why they offered you so much more?”
She drew in a breath through her nose and out through her mouth. She blinked. A tear slipped down her cheek.
Sherlock was out of his chair and out the door.
***
He hadn’t gone very far. John knew he wouldn’t. He had no coat after all. Or shoes. He found him leaning against the wall next to Speedy’s broad, street-front window smoking a cigarette.
“Where’d you get that?” John asked waving his hand through the grey haze hanging in the air.
“Some kid on a bike.”
“What’s going on then?”
“She’s an idiot.”
“Isn’t that everyone as far as you’re concerned?”
“She’s also screwed. Apparently without the benefit of any actual screwing. She’s the biological mother! If these…people don’t show up and take their infants off her hands, she’s stuck with them. She can’t even put them up for adoption without consent of the father -- or fathers as the case may be because there’s a legally binding contract involved. She should have hired herself a solicitor. She should have had her own lawyer back in the states. That’s what she needs.”
“She came to you.”
“This isn’t my area! Babies and crying women—gah!”
“What about finding the couple then? That’s what she came to you for in first place.”
“Three possibilities. One: They’ve simply changed their minds. What she witnessed could have been a couple whose relationship was in trouble. Maybe one of them thought having children would save the marriage–“ At John’s look he said, “Yes, I rejected that as well.”
“Or?”
“They’re dead, is second on the list, though no persons going by that hyphenated name have died in the last month or so. Not in England anyway.” John was long past being surprised at how quickly Sherlock could access information. “Amber’s airline tickets and hotel expenses were paid for by someone. She’s been in London for a month, give or take a day. The Harman-Lebowitz’s are missing, but whether by accident or design I couldn’t tell you.” Sherlock took a long, slow drag off the cigarette and exhaled a steady stream of gray smoke. “And number three: exactly what she suspected and ignored from the beginning. They misrepresented themselves to her. They were fakes. She’s being used.”
“But for what? Why would anyone do that?”
Sherlock pushed away from the wall and stubbed the cigarette onto the bricks. “Not enough data.” He glanced at the open door that led up to their flat. “She brought her cases from the hotel. Whoever was paying has stopped paying. She has no place to go. You do realize that?”
“Ah. Shit. I haven’t got any money until the fifteenth.”
“You see. It’s that, that very thing. I say she hasn’t got any place to go and your first thought is to give her money. Your own money!”
“Which I don’t have until the fifteenth. You’ve got money, haven’t you?”
“Women’s shelter?”
“She’s not a victim of domestic violence, unless your brow-beating her counts.”
“There’s probably a church charity or something. She a bit churchy.”
“Seriously?”
“She’s not staying here!”
“I didn’t suggest it.”
“You had the face.”
“Will you shut up about the face, please?”
“We could drop her off at hospital and then run like hell.”
John clapped him on the back. “Ah. Spoken like a true man. Your mother would be so proud. Come on, Sherlock, buck up, balls out. You can do it. Anyway, you’ve got to because your feet are turning blue.”
***
Amber wasn’t in the sitting room. John went looking for her and came back saying, “She found the toilet.” Then, “What the hell are you doing?”
Sherlock had Amber’s backpack upended and the contents spread out on the floor.
-- two passports UK, US (dual citizenship!), two bottles of Dasani, prenatal vitamins(30 out of 60 left), wallet (driving license, state of Alabama issued to Amber Melissa Call, Wells Fargo Bank debit card, Orchard Bank MasterCard, University of Alabama at Birmingham student ID, ten pound note, no coins), pantyliners (six, no box), address book (later), antacids, gum, complimentary hand lotions, shampoos and conditioners from the Bedford Hotel in Russell Square, sunglasses, make-up bag (not wearing makeup), travel toothbrush and toothpaste, iPod nano (playlist), Nokia mobile (contact list), Boots bag with receipt (disposable enemas, two purchased, one in bag), tea packets, (hand made, herbal mixture)—oh. Oh, of course.
He turned one of the tea bags over and over, brought it to his nose and inhaled, wondering if she’d made them up herself or had someone do it. She could have got the filter papers anywhere, Culpepper’s or someplace like that, but he suspected the herbs inside were a different matter. He unfolded the top of the bag and poured the herbs into his palm.
John was leaning over him now. “Is that what she’s got in her travel mug?”
Sherlock shrugged. He couldn’t know without testing it but it was very likely. He pushed at a bit purplish green with a fingernail. “This is mentha pulegium - pennyroyal. Not sure about this bit here. Mmm, some celery seeds, juniper berries. This root – this is troublesome.” He put it in his mouth, chewed and spat it back into his hand. “Bitter, heavy on the alkaloids. Could be jalap or blue cohosh. Blue cohosh would be hard for her to purchase here though. It’s regulated. She may have got it in the States. I’d need a lab to determine the chemical compounds, but I’m confident she’s fully aware of the chemical compounds.” He looked up into John’s troubled face. “If one hasn’t access to synthetic oxytocin...“
John straightened abruptly, looking over his shoulder in the direction of the loo.
“She purchased two disposal enemas. There’s only one in her pack. I’m not saying she’s doing that in there. More likely she tried it this morning and it didn’t work.”
There came a crash and a cry and the heavy thud of a body falling just as he’d expected. John took off at a run. Sherlock righted the backpack, opened all the pockets and removed whatever he found.
More chewing gum, half a chocolate bar, individual packets of cream crackers crushed to dust—
He could hear John ramming his shoulder against the door.
---copy of last month’s Elle. White leather-bound bible, inscribed. Small notebook with symbols and subscripts - oh, here’s where she tried to work it out, the best chemical compounds for the job - mechanical pencils, old receipts, validated boarding pass, folded printed programme—
“In Memoriam - Shoshanna Elizabeth Call, b. February 22, 1966, d. September 30, 2009 – a celebration of life, love, and music, 2PM, November 7, 2009…”
Well. That explained something. He plucked the Pink Ribbon tack pin from the floor and fastened it onto the front pocket of her backpack again. Then he went to the table, picked up his Blackberry and rang for an ambulance.
