A Study At Bullimore

21

When John was younger, Harry would often come and get him in the middle of lessons, unannounced. It was occasionally to collect his lunch or money or to take him to an appointment. After a pay day, she would come and get him from the last lesson of the day, an hour early, and together they would go to the supermarket to buy food before their father could get his hands on the cash. John enjoyed those trips, the fruitless arguments over whether they should get branded bread or store bread. John knew it would be the cheaper option, the logo didn't matter, but he jokingly caused conflict anyway. It was entertainment for the rather depressing trip, which became even more depressing when they saw how much money they had left for that month's gas card.

Once, in the middle of a math's exam, there was a knock on the door and, when the student was beckoned in, John saw it was Harry. She was in Sixth Form and thus did not have to wear uniform and looked serious and business like in her black dress. Her face was straight set, and she spoke to John's teacher in a low tone. He could tell from the look on her face something was wrong – she had barely looked him in the eye and a lump formed hard and pressing in his throat. There was a murmur from the class as John was excused from the lesson, shouldering his satchel bag as quickly as he could.
"What's happened?" John asked as they walked through the corridors to the school's sign out office. Harry was walking fast, her eyes down. She said nothing, nodding to the lady at the office door and pushing the door out of the building. From behind the gates, John could see a black car, what he assumed was a taxi.

The journey had been silent other than Harry relaying directions to the driver, who did not look behind him. John daren't ask what was wrong and settled in the silence, studying Harry's face in effort to ignore the lump in his throat and the pulsating dread in the back of his head. Her face was pale and almost unreadable, her lips pressing and unpressing together as she chewed her gums. She did it when she was nervous, John had learnt, and it wasn't a reassuring sight to see.
It was his mother, of course, so there was little surprise waiting for John when Harry explained who they were at the hospital for. Before they entered her wing of the hospital, Harry briefed him on what to expect in a tight voice.
"Her face is bad, Johnny." Harry had also taken to calling him Johnny, but it was reserved for particularly bad moments. "Swollen. Just to warn you." And John didn't have to ask who did it or what happened for he knew. The intricacies didn't matter to him, whether it was a punch or a bottle, it was the same result in the end. And when he saw his mother's face, it was one he was eerily aware he was familiar to.

This is how John currently felt, sitting in the back a car he was guided to midway through a rather important biology lecture. A man in a black tie and blazer had knocked on the door of the class, his face similar to Harry's in its unreadable nature, and he was dismissed from the class. It was only after Sherlock brushed his hand in an effort to be comfort him, that John stood from his seat, picked up his bag and followed the man. He looked back at Sherlock, who raised his eyebrows as if to say the fucking cheek, and then jogged to catch up to the stranger, who was striding away. Perhaps Sherlock knew what was happening?

The entire journey had been in silent, and John watched the tree-line of the countryside change shape, from tall and great trees, to fences and cottages. He always had loved long car journey's but todays felt too much like a kidnapping to be enjoyable. The driver hadn't said anything to John, although John didn't ask where he was being taken, he simply accepted his fate. Sherlock had brushed his hand, so surely he knew something was going on, and John tried to use this little information to reassure himself that he wouldn't be found murdered in 2 weeks in a random field. After what may have been an hour, the car slowed, its wheels grinding on the loose stones below. They had turned into a large drive, a cottage like mansion ahead, surrounded by trees and bushes. The door was opened, and John was invited out and, for a moment, he was blinded by the sunlight. He noticed the wisteria climbing the mismatched bricks as he was guided inside and wondered how many secret fancy houses existed in the British countryside.