Sherlock Transcript

A Study in Pink (Part II)

JOHN: Sherlock?
LESTRADE (leaning over the railings): What is it, what?
SHERLOCK (smiling cheerfully to himself): Serial killers are always hard. You have to wait for them to make a mistake.
LESTRADE: We can't just wait!
SHERLOCK: Oh, we're done waiting!
(He starts to hurry down the stairs again.)
SHERLOCK: Look at her, really look! Houston, we have a mistake. Get on to Cardiff: find out who Jennifer Wilson's family and friends were. Find Rachel!
(He reaches the bottom of the stairs and disappears from view.)
LESTRADE (calling after him): Of course, yeah – but what mistake?!
(Sherlock comes back into view and runs up a couple of stairs so that he can be seen before he stops and yells up to Lestrade.)
SHERLOCK: PINK!
(He hurries off again. Lestrade, baffled, turns and goes back into the room while Anderson and his team, who had been waiting on the next landing down, hurry up the stairs and follow him into the room.)
ANDERSON: Let's get on with it.
(Forgotten by everyone else, John hesitates on the landing for a moment and then slowly starts making his way down the stairs. A couple more police officers hurry up and one of them bumps against him, throwing him off-balance and making him lurch heavily against the bannisters. The man hurries on without a word, although his colleague does at least look apologetically at John as he passes. John regains his balance and continues down the stairs.
Shortly afterwards he has removed his coverall and put his jacket back on, and now walks out onto the street. Looking all around, he can see no sign of Sherlock. He walks towards the police tape, still looking around. Donovan, standing at the tape, sees him.)
DONOVAN: He's gone.
JOHN: Who, Sherlock Holmes?
DONOVAN: Yeah, he just took off. He does that.
JOHN: Is he coming back?
DONOVAN: Didn't look like it.
JOHN: Right.
(He looks around the area again thoughtfully, unsure what to do.)
JOHN: Right ... Yes.
(He turns to Donovan again.)
JOHN: Sorry, where am I?
DONOVAN: Brixton.
JOHN: Right. Er, d'you know where I could get a cab? It's just, er ... well ... (he looks down awkwardly at his walking stick) ... my leg.
DONOVAN: Er ... (she steps over to the tape and lifts it for him) ... try the main road.
JOHN (ducking under the tape): Thanks.
DONOVAN: But you're not his friend.
(John turns back towards her.)
DONOVAN: He doesn't have friends. So who are you?
JOHN: I'm ... I'm nobody. I just met him.
DONOVAN: Okay, bit of advice then: stay away from that guy.
JOHN: Why?
DONOVAN: You know why he's here? He's not paid or anything. He likes it. He gets off on it. The weirder the crime, the more he gets off. And you know what? One day just showing up won't be enough. One day we'll be standing round a body and Sherlock Holmes'll be the one that put it there.
JOHN: Why would he do that?
DONOVAN: Because he's a psychopath. And psychopaths get bored.
LESTRADE (calling from the entrance to the house): Donovan!
DONOVAN (turning and calling to him): Coming.
(She turns back towards John as she walks towards the house.)
DONOVAN: Stay away from Sherlock Holmes.
(John watches her go for a moment, then turns and begins to limp off down the road. To his right, the phone in a public telephone box begins to ring. He stops and looks at it for a few seconds but then looks down at his watch, shakes his head and continues down the road. The phone stops ringing.)

Not long afterwards, John is walking down what may well be Brixton High Road. He tries to hail a passing taxi.
JOHN: Taxi! Taxi ...
(The taxi passes him by. In Chicken Cottage, the fast food restaurant outside which John is standing, the payphone on the wall begins to ring. John turns and looks as one of the serving staff walks over to it but as he reaches for the phone, it stops. John walks on down the road and shortly afterwards approaches another public telephone box. The phone inside starts to ring. Mystified by this, he pulls open the door, goes inside and lifts the phone.)
JOHN: Hello?
(A man's voice speaks down the phone.)
MAN's VOICE: There is a security camera on the building to your left. Do you see it?
JOHN (frowning): Who's this? Who's speaking?
MAN's VOICE: Do you see the camera, Doctor Watson?
(John looks through the window of the phone box at the CCTV camera high up on the wall of a nearby building.)
JOHN: Yeah, I see it.
MAN's VOICE: Watch.
(The camera, which was pointing directly at the phone box, now swivels away.)
MAN's VOICE: There is another camera on the building opposite you. Do you see it?
(John looks across to the second camera, which is also pointed towards the phone box.)
JOHN: Mm-hm.
(The camera immediately swivels away.)
MAN's VOICE: And finally, at the top of the building on your right.
(John stares up into the third camera which is watching him but which now turns away.)
JOHN (into phone): How are you doing this?
MAN's VOICE: Get into the car, Doctor Watson.
(A black car pulls up at the kerbside near the phone. The male driver gets out and opens the rear door.)
MAN's VOICE: I would make some sort of threat, but I'm sure your situation is quite clear to you.
(The phone goes dead. John puts it down and looks thoughtful for a long moment, then apparently decides that there's not much else he can do and turns to leave the phone box.)

A few moments later he is sitting in the back seat of the car as it pulls away and drives off. An attractive young woman is sitting beside him, her eyes fixed on her BlackBerry while she types on it. She is pretty much ignoring him.
JOHN: Hello.
WOMAN (smiling brightly at him for a moment before returning her gaze to her phone): Hi.
JOHN: What's your name, then?
WOMAN: Er ... Anthea.
JOHN: Is that your real name?
WOMAN (smiling): No.
(John nods, then twists to look out of the rear window briefly before turning back again.)
JOHN: I'm John.
NOT-ANTHEA: Yes. I know.
JOHN: Any point in asking where I'm going?
NOT-ANTHEA: None at all ...
(She turns and smiles briefly at him, then looks back at her phone again.)
NOT-ANTHEA: ... John.
JOHN: Okay.

Some time later, the car pulls into an almost-empty warehouse. A man in a suit is standing in the centre of the area, leaning nonchalantly on an umbrella while he watches the car stop and John get out.
[Transcriber's note: Now, I know that the vast majority of people who read this transcript will have already seen the episode, but for the benefit of the very few people who may be reading this having never watched the show, and because at this point in the episode we are not told who this person is, I'm going to refer to him as 'M', which is short for ... um, 'Man,' okay? {transcriber inserts winky face here...}]
In front of the man is a straight-backed armless chair facing him. He gestures to it with the point of his umbrella as John limps towards him leaning heavily on his cane.

M: Have a seat, John.
(John continues towards him, his voice calm.)
JOHN: You know, I've got a phone.
(He looks round the warehouse.)
JOHN: I mean, very clever and all that, but, er ... you could just phone me. On my phone.
(He walks straight past the chair and stops a few paces in front of the man.)
M: When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes, one learns to be discreet, hence this place.
(His voice, which has had a pleasant smile in it so far, now becomes a little more stern towards the end of the next phrase.)
M: The leg must be hurting you. Sit down.
JOHN: I don't wanna sit down.
(The man looks at him curiously.)
M: You don't seem very afraid.
JOHN: You don't seem very frightening.
(The man chuckles.)
M: Ah, yes. The bravery of the soldier. Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don't you think?
(He looks at John sternly.)
M: What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?
JOHN: I don't have one. I barely know him. I met him ...
(He looks away thoughtfully, then appears surprised as if he hadn't realised until now how little time has passed.)
JOHN: ... yesterday.
M: Mm, and since yesterday you've moved in with him and now you're solving crimes together. Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?
JOHN: Who are you?
M: An interested party.
JOHN: Interested in Sherlock? Why? I'm guessing you're not friends.
M: You've met him. How many 'friends' do you imagine he has? I am the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock Holmes is capable of having.
JOHN: And what's that?
M: An enemy.
JOHN: An enemy?
M: In his mind, certainly. If you were to ask him, he'd probably say his arch-enemy. He does love to be dramatic.
(John looks pointedly around the warehouse.)
JOHN (sarcastically): Well, thank God you're above all that.
(The man frowns at him. Just then John's phone trills a text alert. He immediately digs into his jacket pocket, takes out the phone and activates it, looking at the message while ignoring the man in front of him. The message reads:

Baker Street.
Come at once
if convenient.
SH

M: I hope I'm not distracting you.
JOHN (casually): Not distracting me at all.
(He takes his time looking up from the phone before he pockets it.)
M: Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?
JOHN: I could be wrong, but I think that's none of your business.
M (a little ominously): It could be.
JOHN: It really couldn't.
(The man takes a notebook from his inside pocket, then opens it and consults it as he speaks.)
M: If you do move into, um ... two hundred and twenty-one B Baker Street, I'd be happy to pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to ease your way.
(He closes the notebook and puts it away again.)
JOHN: Why?
M: Because you're not a wealthy man.
JOHN: In exchange for what?
M: Information. Nothing indiscreet. Nothing you'd feel ... uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he's up to.
JOHN: Why?
M: I worry about him. Constantly.
JOHN (insincerely): That's nice of you.
M: But I would prefer for various reasons that my concern go unmentioned. We have what you might call a ... difficult relationship.
(John's phone sounds another text alert. Again he immediately fishes the phone out and looks at the message which reads:

If inconvenient,
come anyway.
SH

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