I am not lonely [Mystrade] - BOOK 2

CHAPTER 212 : Inveniet

The dirt road seemed to endlessly zigzag between fields and forests and at every turn Mycroft was expecting to find someone sat on the side of the road, exsanguine. Even Sherlock was starting to show some impatience when a little farm finally appeared behind yet another thicket. A couple of chicken were running around the yard, followed by a playful dog. The elder Holmes sprinted to the door, not willing for his brother's infamous human interpersonal skills to be let wild once again and he knocked on one of the little glass. They heard noises inside and the door was opened by a middle-aged woman wrapped in a floral apron.

"What can I do for you ?" she wondered in a thick northern accent.

"I am very sorry to bother you but we are looking for someone who went missing and we have good reason to think that she may have come to your farm." the politician explained, staying quite vague not to alert his interlocutor. "She is wounded."

"Oh ! Yes 8 My husband picked up someone on the road about twenty minutes ago !" the woman nodded energetically, leading them inside. "She is still unconscious but I've started to clean her wounds."

She conduct them to the living room where an old woman was lying on an out of age sofa. If Mycroft had not known who he was looking for, he most certainly wouldn't have recognized the Queen. Her hair usually carefully permed were all over the place and her face was covered in scratches and blood. She was wearing a blue dress slightly ripped and stained in blood and her usual hat and coat were nowhere near. 

Before anyone had time to say a single word, the official was kneeling by the sovereign's side, checking on her. Thankfully enough, the wounds didn't seemed to deep and a quick check at the blood stains allowed the man to estimate her blood loss to about a pint. What bothered him more was that the old lady was unconscious since at least ten minutes and a simple eye check wasn't enough to explain it. He was to grab his phone when he noticed that his brother was already on call with the ambulance service on the landline.

The woman who had let them in kneeled beside the elder Holmes with a basin of water and a clean cloth and started to gently whip out the blood from the Queen's face. By the way she was acting, the politician understood that she still had no idea who she was taking care off and he thought that it was better for it to stay this way. 

The house was so remote that it took the nearest ambulance nearly forty-five minutes to reach it. In the mean time the Queen had got time to emerge from her unconsciousness a couple of time but even when she looked awake, it seemed like she had no idea where she was, what had happened to her or who was beside her.

Mycroft thanked the woman, leaving her in the blur about who he was and who the wounded woman was, before jumping into the ambulance. He was worried about the Queen's health but also impatient to reach a place where cellphone's signal would finally be available to inform Buckingham that he had found the sovereign and that they could stop searching for her everywhere.

Gregory's phone had been buzzing frantically since the beginning of the afternoon and he even had to silent it in order to be able to concentrate on what a tech guy was trying to teach him. Despite all his attempt to skip the conference, even trying to bribe Sherlock to throw a scene in order for him to be call on the field by Sally to help her out, the policeman had been force to assist to an endless presentation on cyber security given by two men who's faces were looking exactly like it could have looked if Greg had asked his youngest son Jake to draw a scientist. All to his contemplation of the shininess of their bald head, he hadn't listen to a word of what the two men had said in the past ten minutes and was caught unaware when his colleagues all riled up, seemingly relieved and stepped outside the room. The DCI took a look at his watch and deduced that it might have been time for a break then quickly followed the other outside, not willing to stand out of the crowd and risk the questions of the tech guys.