I am not lonely [Mystrade]

CHAPTER 186 : Unexpected

Anthea Taylor was a rather content woman. She had a nice daughter to  take care of, enough friends and family to keep her weekends  entertaining and a job that she absolutely loved despite the  high-demanding tasks she had to do on a regular basis. But if something  was not quite pat of her life, it was most probably the element of  surprise. She had established herself into a sort of routine that she  really appreciated and that made her as efficient as she could be. Although,  on that chilly morning of late November she had to admit that she was  found quite baffled reading the usual MI6 morning report.

Despite  them being addressed directly to Mycroft, the young woman was always  the first one to read them, so she could underline the most important  features and help her boss focus only on the most important matters. Her  rather long experience of these reports had allowed her to find out  their general patterns and their most frequents subjects but it was the  first time she had read about such a bizarre story.

Still  surprised and rather unsure of what she had understood from the report,  she knocked on the politician's door and waited to be greeted in before  speaking :

"Do you remember about Elijah Colchrin ?"

"Liberal  MP for Lewes, 46, married with two children. A moderate, bright and  discreet man educated at the London School of Economics. Dead on vacation at the beginning of the summer. Isn't it ?" the elder Holmes summed up without even looking up from the email he was redacting.

"Quite exact." the PA nodded, appreciative. "Only he is not dead."

"What do you mean 'not dead' ?" the official looked over his screen, not expecting that at all.

"I mean alive." the woman repeated.

"No  but I understand meaning of 'not dead' you know. The question is more :  how the hell isn't he dead ?" Mycroft retorted with his usual sass.

"Apparently  an MI6 agent stationed in Durban have seen him randomly shopping at a  local market with a young white woman." the assistant explain as she  handled him with the complete report.

"That would mean that his  disappearance was just a plan for whatever reasons." the politician  wondered as if he needed the information to sink in.

"Apparently." Anthea confirmed.

Mycroft  had no idea what to think about this situation. Through his years, he  had seen quite a handful of weird things happening and had to solve more  than his share of unusual nonsense, but it was the first time ha had to  deal with someone faking his own death than being caught alive months  after. It wasn't, by far, the grimmest or oddest situations he had to  face, but it was still the kind of things he didn't really want to face  on a daily basis.

The death of Colchrin had never been reported  as suspect in any way. The man was in holidays in Florida, he had  decided to go swimming and had never resurfaces. Has he drowned, has he  had a heart attack or has he been eaten by a shark, no one had been able  to say as his body had never been recovered but everyone from the general public to his family and the specialist called on to assess his case had concluded to an accident. Even the elder Holmes who had had his nose in the case at the time had seen nothing out of the ordinary in the conclusions that had been made.

But  the sudden reappearance of the man in South Africa was now clearly  showing that he had fooled them all and, not liking even a bit being  played like this, the elder Holmes was more than determined to  understand the reasons behind the disappearance. The first thing to do  was off course to contact the MI6 guy who had seen Colchrin in order to  get sure that he hadn't mistaken him with anyone else and try to  identify the woman seen by his side.