The Calling Read online

  ‘You know him?’ asked Ed.

  ‘Everyone in Edinburgh knows him,’ said Sherlock. ‘He’s a pest. You’ve never heard of Greyfriar’s Bobby?’

  Ed shook his head. ‘No, never.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ said Sherlock wistfully.

  ‘What’s up with his nose?’

  ‘Tourists are rather fond of touching it for luck. Gives it a polished appearance.’

  ‘He seems to like you.’

  ‘Yes. I think he’s drawn to me because we have something in common.’

  ‘Oh, what’s that?’

  ‘Well, by all accounts he’s pretty fictional too. I mean, he’s sold to the tourists as part of Edinburgh’s history, but when you examine the records, the evidence for his existence is somewhat sketchy. Calm down, Bobby! Down!’

  Bobby seemed to get the message and stopped jumping up, but he trotted happily along behind the two of them as they walked. Sherlock continued to talk.

  ‘He was supposed to have belonged to a night watchman at Greyfriar’s Kirkyard. When the man died, so the story goes, Bobby here was alleged to have lain on the man’s grave for fourteen years.’ Sherlock raised his eyebrows. ‘Bearing in mind that every dog year is worth seven of a human’s life, and the fact that he must have been around for a few years before his owner died, that would make him well over a hundred years old when he finally trotted off to doggie heaven. Quite an unlikely age for a Skye Terrier, I think you’ll agree. The only possible explanation is that there must have been more than one dog. He was replaced several times in order to keep the story going.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ asked Ed.

  ‘Because, dear boy, he’s one of Edinburgh’s top tourist attractions and has been for many years.’ Sherlock rubbed a thumb and forefinger together. ‘Money is a powerful motivator in these cases,’ he said. ‘I believe the story has some basis in fact, but it’s been somewhat exaggerated over the years.’ He looked up as an illuminated sign came into view. ‘Ah, this is the place I was looking for.’

  Ed gazed up at it. ‘Starbucks?’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll find something edible in here,’ said Sherlock. He stepped up to the plate glass doors, reached into his pocket and took out a small bunch of metal picks. He inserted one of them into the lock and fiddled around for a few moments, twisting it this way and that. There was a sharp click and he was able to push the doors open. Immediately an alarm went off, a shrill clanging sound, but Sherlock stepped up to a metal box on the wall and started tapping the keys on the side of it, his hand moving through a sequence of numbers at lightning fast speed, his metal index finger a blur. ‘There are only so many possible combinations,’ he explained calmly, ‘but I’m going to run through the most likely ones first.’

  ‘Will somebody come?’ asked Ed nervously.

  ‘Oh no, nobody’s interested tonight. But we want to hear ourselves think, don’t we?’ After a few moments, the alarm stopped suddenly and Sherlock looked vaguely disappointed. ‘The month and the year,’ he said disparagingly. ‘You’d have thought they’d have tried to make it a tad more difficult than that.’

  He turned back to smile at Ed and gestured towards the glass counter, which Ed could see was liberally heaped with sandwiches, cakes and biscuits.

  ‘Help yourself,’ suggested Sherlock.

  ‘I need to pop somewhere first,’ Ed told him, nodding meaningfully towards the sign that read ‘Toilets.’ ‘You know, pay a visit and all that.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course,’ said Sherlock. ‘Another little problem we statues don’t have. You run along.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Ed headed gratefully for the conveniences and Sherlock called after him.

  ‘Why don’t I pick out a selection of food for you? And then, while you dine, the two of us shall have a little talk.’

  Nine

  Looking For Clues

  Ed returned from the toilets to find Sherlock sitting at a table with a whole assortment of food piled on top of it. There was everything from sandwiches and crisps to cake and flapjack, all sealed in cellophane packages.

  ‘I’ll never eat all this,’ protested Ed, settling into the seat opposite.

  ‘Take whatever you fancy,’ said Sherlock. ‘I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I picked out a variety.’

  ‘I haven’t got the money to pay for it,’ Ed warned him.

  Sherlock waved a bronze hand as though it was of no consequence. ‘This lot was almost certainly destined for the bins,’ he said. ‘They’ll be restocking first thing tomorrow morning.’ He leaned closer. ‘Besides, from what I’ve heard, this company is only one of many who play fast and loose with their tax returns. I’m sure a few free sandwiches aren’t going to sink them.’

  Ed frowned. He searched through the selection of sandwiches and picked out a cheese and chutney one. He was pretty sure that was something he liked. He didn’t know how he knew this and yet, when he bit into it, he enjoyed the flavour. He popped the ring pull on a can of lemonade. On the floor beside him, Bobby looked up hopefully, his stumpy tail wagging. ‘He looks like he wants something,’ Ed observed.

  ‘Force of habit,’ Sherlock assured him. ‘He couldn’t swallow food if he tried.’ He leaned back in his chair, which creaked alarmingly beneath his heavy frame. It clearly wasn’t designed to take the weight of a bronze statue. ‘Right,’ said Sherlock. ‘Let’s begin, shall we? Tell me, what can you remember?’

  Ed chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of sandwich.

  ‘Not very much,’ he said. ‘I mean, I know stuff… like, for instance, I knew who you were, pretty much as soon as I saw you. Because of the weird hat.’

  ‘It’s called a deerstalker. Never mentioned in any of the stories, of course. In The Adventure of Silver Blaze, Sir Arthur did describe me as wearing an ear-flapped travelling cap, but the deerstalker of course, was popularised in the Basil Rathbone films of the nineteen forties.’

  ‘Er… right.’ Ed hesitated for a moment, his thoughts interrupted. ‘And then, when I was talking to Sir William Scott…’

  ‘Sir Walter Scott.’

  ‘Yes, him! I realised that I knew the name of another author and the books she wrote. So, stuff like that… things I must have known from before.’

  Sherlock nodded. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, there was this other weird thing that happened. Sir Walter was telling me the names of some of his books…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘… and he said there was one called The Peveril of the Peak. And that meant something to me.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve read it?’

  Ed shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It sounded a bit… you know, old fashioned? Not really my sort of thing. At least, I don’t think it is. But then I saw something, kind of like in my head.’

  ‘A vision?’

  ‘I suppose. It was this old building and it was like all covered in green tiles? And it had those same words written over the door.’

  ‘The Peveril of the Peak?’

  ‘Yes. And then I saw this man, going in through the door.’

  ‘Good.’ Sherlock seemed pleased by this. ‘What next?’

  ‘That’s all really. The door swung shut.’

  ‘Did you recognise him?’

  ‘No. He was turned away from me. I didn’t see his face. He just looked… like an ordinary guy, you know?’

  ‘How was he dressed?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, was he smart or scruffy? Did he wear modern clothing or…?’

  Ed thought for a moment, trying to picture the scene. ‘He was wearing… a black leather jacket, I think… and blue jeans.’

  ‘Shoes?’

  ‘Trainers, maybe.’ Ed closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Yeah. White trainers.’

  ‘What about his hair?’

/>   ‘Umm… longish, I think. You know, over his collar.’

  ‘Well, that’s something,’ said Sherlock. ‘You see, often people believe they haven’t noticed anything but when you prompt them, it’s surprising how much detail they actually took in.’ He leaned closer. ‘You know, the world is full of obvious things that, by chance, nobody ever observes.’

  ‘Umm… right.’ Ed was about to ask a question but he felt something nudging against his leg and looking down, he saw that Bobby was pawing at him, still with that pleading expression on his face.

  ‘Oh, my giddy aunt,’ muttered Sherlock. ‘Give him a biscuit. He’ll soon realise he can’t do anything with it.’

  Ed searched through the pile of food until he located a packet of shortbreads. He ripped open the cellophane and handed Bobby a biscuit, which he managed to take into his mouth. He then spent some time trying to swallow it without success, twisting his head this way and that and making a series of pitiful whimpering sounds, before dropping the pieces on to the floor and poking at them miserably with one paw.

  ‘Ignore him,’ suggested Sherlock. ‘He’s just looking for attention. So, tell me, what else can you remember?’

  Ed shrugged. ‘That’s about it. Oh, yeah, I knew who David Livingstone was. I felt like maybe I’d learned about him at school.’

  ‘Hmm. Seems likely enough. But you’ve no idea which school?’

  ‘No. Sorry.’ Ed took another bite of his sandwich. ‘Bit rubbish, isn’t it?’

  Sherlock didn’t say anything. He leaned forward over the table and started ruffling Ed’s hair with two huge fingers.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ed asked him.

  ‘Looking for a bump… cuts, abrasions, that sort of thing. You’re not aware of any soreness of the head, any aches or pains?’

  ‘Well, now you mention it…’

  ‘You see, there are two types of amnesia,’ continued Sherlock, still examining Ed’s scalp. ‘There’s the retrograde kind, which typically is the inability to remember incidents before a specific date, perhaps when you had an accident of some kind. Then there’s anterograde, which is defined as an inability to transfer new information from the short-term memory store to the long-term.’

  Ed took a gulp of his lemonade. ‘I’ll… take your word for it,’ he said. ‘But what sort do you…?’

  ‘Ah hah!’ said Sherlock.

  ‘Ah hah what?’

  ‘There’s definitely signs of a contusion here on the side of your head. You’ve had a bump and not so very long ago. Is that sore at all?’ Sherlock prodded Ed’s skull with a huge index finger and he gave a grunt of pain.

  ‘It is a bit,’ he said.

  Sherlock leaned back in his seat, which gave another ominous creak. ‘I would conjecture that this is more than just a coincidence. I think you’ve recently had some kind of an accident that has made you lose your memory.’

  Ed frowned. ‘Can that happen?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not unheard of. I believe you’re suffering from what doctors would call dissociative amnesia. And it might be more than just the accident that’s caused it. It could be that it happened when you were undergoing something that was profoundly upsetting, so

  terrible that your brain has chosen to make you forget all about it. Perhaps the image of the man going through the door is a clue. Perhaps your unconscious mind is trying to help you remember something that happened in the recent past.’ He frowned, tapped his bronze fingers loudly on the table top for a while. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Now turn out your pockets.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You heard me. I want to see everything you have in them. Put it all out on the table.’

  Ed frowned, remembering how he’d done all that at the train station when he was looking for a ticket, but he did as he was told, reaching into each pocket in turn and taking out whatever he found there. He set the items down, one by one. It was a sorry-looking collection. A handful of loose change; a sheet of folded paper; a small bundle of cards secured with an elastic band; another smaller scrap of paper, and a single metal key.

  ‘That’s it?’ asked Sherlock, incredulously.

  ‘I’m afraid so. It isn’t much to go on, is it?’

  Sherlock didn’t say anything. He picked up the coins first and went through them in detail. ‘So, what have we here? A Scottish one pound coin featuring the thistle and bluebell, and a Northern Irish one featuring a shamrock and flax, both dated 2014.’ He frowned, turned each of them over and then set them down, before continuing. ‘A Commonwealth Games fifty pence piece also dated 2014. A twenty pence piece featuring the English Rose and dated 2000. A ten pence piece featuring two rampant lions, dated 2014. A two pence piece featuring the classic three feathers design dated 1972. And a one pence piece featuring a portcullis, dated 2007.’

  Ed looked at him. ‘What does all that tell us?’ he asked.

  ‘Only one thing,’ said Sherlock. ‘That you’re not exactly a millionaire. Do you not have any paper money on your person?’

  Ed shook his head. ‘I couldn’t find any,’ he said.

  ‘You see, that doesn’t make any sense,’ said Sherlock. ‘Who would allow a boy of around thirteen years of age to travel from Manchester to Edinburgh, a journey of more than two hundred miles, without issuing him with some means of buying food and drink?’

  ‘We don’t really know that I’ve come from Manchester,’ Ed reminded him.

  ‘Of course we do,’ Sherlock assured him. ‘The more I hear you speak, the more convinced I am. In fact, I would now be willing to narrow the field down more and say that you’re almost certainly from South Manchester.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It’s in the way you say certain words,’ said Sherlock. ‘Only a native of that area would roll his vowels in that peculiar manner. I’d bet money on it. Tell me, boy, on the train… did you not have any baggage with you? A suitcase, a duffel?’

  ‘No. I had a quick look after everyone else had got off but there was no luggage left. I don’t think anyone stole my bags or anything.’

  ‘In that case, I deduce that you came away from Manchester suddenly, without making any plans to do so. Your trip was unplanned… perhaps even accidental. It could just be…. that you were trying to escape from somebody.’

  Now Sherlock picked up the pack of cards. He removed the elastic bands and fanned them out on the table. This time, Ed saw something that he recognised.

  ‘Top Trumps!’ he said.

  ‘The Dinosaur Edition,’ added Sherlock. ‘You’re a follower of the game?’

  Ed shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘I mean, I know how it works, but… I don’t really remember playing it myself.’

  ‘Why else would you carry them with you? Not a full pack here, mind you. Just some spares, as though you might be looking to swap them.’ He pointed. ‘See, you have two Triceratops here and three Pachycephalosaurus.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Ed looked at Sherlock. ‘I’m amazed you even know about Top Trumps. It’s a pretty modern game, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, not as modern as you might suspect! The cards were originally issued in 1977, by a company named Dubreq. They were taken over by Waddingtons in 1982, who continued producing them until the early 1990s. In 1999, of course, the rights were purchased by a company called Winning Moves. They decided to relaunch them, offering a range of more diverse topics. These particular cards though, belong to their Classics series. They came out in the year 2000 and are really quite collectible.’

  Once again, Ed found himself staring at the bronze detective.

  ‘How could you know all that?’ he cried. ‘It must be way after your time.’

  Sherlock looked a little sheepish. ‘Well, of course, I still continue to study. I… I use the internet to read up on new developments. It’s a bit of a passion, actually. I spend hours at a time on it.’
/>
  ‘But… how? You only have one day a year!’

  ‘Er… no, not strictly true. I er…’ Sherlock sighed. ‘I didn’t really want to tell you about this, but the fact is, I cheat.’ He reached up a hand and removed his deerstalker hat, revealing a flat metal box fixed to the top of his head, on which some little red lights flashed rhythmically.

  ‘What is that?’ cried Ed.

  Sherlock, looking rather guilty. ‘It’s… er, well, actually, it’s a modem.’

  Ten

  New-Fangled

  ‘You see,’ continued Sherlock, ‘since my birth as a statue in 1991, I was so bored standing around for three hundred and sixty four days of the year. I wanted to learn more but I had no way of doing it. So, at my very first Calling, once I’d adjusted to the wonder of it all, I resolved to rectify the situation. I spent the entire twenty-four hours building the first version of this.’ He pointed to the device on his head. ‘Over the years I’ve developed it more and more. That’s why the other statues accuse me of being standoffish, you see. While they are at the Agon, reading their silly poems and so forth, I’m generally at the University of Edinburgh, putting the finishing touches to my latest modifications.’ He tapped the box on his head. ‘This is just a modem.’ He took his pipe from his pocket. ‘And this is my mouse. Since I am required to hold it the whole time I’m on the plinth, no human ever notices if I tap the stem occasionally.’

  ‘I didn’t think you could move on normal days!’

  Sherlock looked guilty. ‘Officially I can’t and it’s forbidden to try anyway, so please don’t mention it to the others!’ He replaced his hat. ‘But over the years, after much mental cogitation and experimentation, I have managed to obtain the permanent use of my right index finger.’

  Ed stared at him in amazement. ‘What do you do for electricity?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, well, the earlier version utilised batteries, but they always ran out after a few weeks, leaving me bored to tears. Now the system is solar-powered. I tell you what, if the people at Apple ever found out about this, they’d be after it like a shot!’ He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Absolutely the worst time for me was when I was removed from Picardy Place in order for the tramline to be built. I spent three years in a warehouse, wrapped up in canvas. Obviously the modem’s battery ran out after a few days and I was unable to recharge it. I can’t begin to tell you how bored I was that first year!’