***Recap***
(John looks across the lab, trying to see what his friend is looking at.)
JOHN: What?
SHERLOCK (softly): Carl Powers.
***Now***
John: Sorry, who?
Sherlock (still staring into the distance): Carl Powers, John.
John: What is it?
Sherlock: It's where I began.
(Later, the trio are in the back of a taxi.)
Sherlock: Nineteen eighty-nine, a young kid - champion swimmer - came up from Brighton for a school sports tournament; drowned in the pool. Tragic accident.
(He shows John and Nikki the front page of a newspaper on his phone.)
Sherlock: You wouldn't remember it. Why should you? Well maybe Nikki, but ...
Nikki: Sorry, was in Germany at the time causing trouble. (with a thoughtful look) Or was it Russia?
John: But you remember.
Sherlock: Yes.
John: Something fishy about it?
Sherlock: Nobody thought so - nobody except me. I was only a kid myself. I read about it in the papers.
John: Started young, didn't you?
(Nikki smiled proudly at her mate.)
Sherlock: The boy, Carl Powers, had some kind of fit in the water, but by the time they got him out it was too late. But there was something wrong; something I couldn't get out of my head.
John: What?
Sherlock: His shoes.
John: What about them?
Sherlock: They weren't there. I made a fuss; I tried to get the police interested, but nobody seemed to think it was important. He'd left all the rest of his clothes in his locker, but there was no sign of his shoes ...
(He leans down and picks up a bag containing the trainers.)
Sherlock: ... until now.
(SIX HOURS TO GO. As Sherlock sits in the back of the taxi holding the pink phone and lost in thought, the woman who rang him earlier sits in her car crying in despair.)
(221B. Sherlock has shut himself in the kitchen and is sitting at the table with the trainers nearby - still in the bag - while he looks through photographs and printouts of newspaper reports of Carl Powers' death from 1989. Nikki leaning quietly against the counter with a wine glass full of blood watches her mate work. In the living room, on the other side of the closed doors, John is pacing back and forth. He stops and slides open one of the doors.)
John: Can I help?
(Sherlock doesn't react to him at all and Nikki just shakes her head 'no'.)
John: I want to help. There's only five hours left.
(His phone sounds a text alert. He gets the phone from his trouser pocket and looks at the message. It reads:
Any developments?
Mycroft Holmes)
John: It's your brother. He's texting me now.
(He frowns.)
John: How does he know my number? And why me and not Nikki?
Nikki: Mycroft knows that I won't listen.
Sherlock (thoughtfully): Must be a root canal.
(Putting his phone away, John comes into the kitchen.)
John: Look, he did say 'national importance.'
(Sherlock snorts, not looking up from his research, and Nikki outright laughs causing Sherlock to smile at the sound of his mate's laugh.)
Sherlock: How quaint.
John: What is?
Nikki (sarcastically): You are. Queen and country.
John (sternly): You can't just ignore it.
Sherlock: I'm not ignoring it. Putting my best man onto it right now.
John: Right. Good.
(He folds his arms and nods in satisfaction, then looks at Sherlock in puzzlement.)
JOHN: Who's that?
(Sometime later John, wearing a jacket and tie, and Nikki, wearing grey dress pants, a white blouse, and a matching grey jacket, are sitting in chairs opposite a desk in a large, rather intimidating office. Nikki not too happy being there, but Sherlock had asked her nicely. John looks anxiously at his watch as if he has been waiting there for some time, while Nikki picks at her red nail polish. The door opens and Mycroft walks in, reading a report.)
Mycroft: John. How nice. I was hoping you wouldn't be long. Oh and Nichole, what a surprise.
(John and Nikki politely stand up as Mycroft walks towards the desk, still looking at the report.)
Mycroft: How can I help you?
(He walks straight past John and Nikki putting down the report on the desk, imperiously waving a hand in John's direction to signify that he can sit down again.)
John: Thank you. (he sits while Nikki continues to stand, moving behind John.) Um, well, I was wanting to ... um, your brother sent me, us, to collect more facts about the stolen plans, the missile plans.
(Mycroft looks over his shoulder and smiles at him.)
Mycroft: Did he?
John: Yes.
(He smiles back a little nervously as Mycroft turns towards him and leans back against the desk, eyes quickly looking at Nikki who is watching him intensely.)
John: He's investigating now.
(Mycroft put his hand to the right side of his mouth as if he is in pain.)
John: He's, er, investigating away.
(Lowering his hand again, Mycroft smiles as if he doesn't believe a word of it.)
John: Um, I just wondered what else you can tell us about the dead man.
Mycroft: Uh, twenty-seven; a clerk at Vauxhall Cross - er, MI6. He was involved in the Bruce-Partington Programme in a minor capacity. Security checks A-OK; no known terrorist affiliations or sympathies ...
(Cut-away flashback to Andrew West sitting on a living room sofa with a young blonde woman. She snuggles into his shoulder, unaware that he is looking very worried.)
Mycroft: Last seen by his fiancée at ten thirty yesterday evening.
(In the flashback, Westie is now standing at the window looking out into the night.)
Westie: Lucy, love, I've gotta go out. I've gotta see someone.
(He hurries out of the room. Lucy calls after him.)
Lucy: Westie!
(Brief flashback of Westie's dead body lying beside the railway track.)
John: Right. He was found at Battersea, yes? So he got on the train.
Mycroft: No.
John: What?
(Nikki just rolls her eyes at John's reply.)
Mycroft: He had an Oyster card ...
(Grimacing, he raises his hand to his mouth again. John frowns as he begins to realise that Sherlock may have been right about Mycroft having had a root canal filling to one of his teeth.)
Mycroft: ... but it hadn't been used.
John: Must have bought a ticket.
Mycroft (lowering his hand): There was no ticket on the body.
John: Then ...
Mycroft: Then how did he end up with a bashed-in brain on the tracks at Battersea? That is the question - the one I was rather hoping Sherlock would provide an answer to. How's he getting on?
John: He-he's fine, yes. Oh, and-and it is going ... very well. It's, um, you know - he's completely focussed on it.
(He grins at Mycroft unconvincingly. John stands to leave but before the pair could leave Mycroft calls after Nikki.)
Mycroft: Nichole, may I speak to you? John can wait in the hall for you, it'll only be a moment.
(Nikki looks at John and gives him a nod to say she will only be a moment. John nodded back before taking his leave, leaving the older Holmes with the hybrid.)
Nikki: What can I help you with, Mycroft?
Mycroft: Tell me something, Nichole is Sherlock investigating this case, or is he up to something else?
Nikki: You should know your brother by now, Mycroft. Sherlock may not show it, but he is indeed working on the case. You have nothing to worry about.
(Nikki turned on her heels then and left, leaving Mycroft to stare after his brother's mate in wonder. He had still yet to know what she is.)
(THREE HOURS TO GO. Darkness has fallen and the woman still sits in the car and sobs.)
(221B. Sherlock has moved to the side table in the kitchen and is looking into his microscope. Mrs. Hudson comes in through the kitchen door with a tray containing a couple of mugs. As she puts them on the kitchen table, Sherlock looks up.)
Sherlock: Poison.
Mrs. Hudson: What you going on about?
(Sherlock slams his hands down on the side table.)
Sherlock: Clostridium botulinum!
(Mrs. Hudson cringes and flees the kitchen. Sherlock looks round at John and Nikki as he comes in from the living room.)
Sherlock: It's one of the deadliest poisons on the planet!
(John looks at him blankly.)
Sherlock: Carl Powers!
John: Oh, wait, are you saying he was murdered?
(Sherlock stands up and walks over to where he has hung up the laces from the trainers.)
Nikki: Remember the shoelaces?
John: Mmm.
Sherlock: The boy suffered from eczema. It'd be the easiest thing in the world to introduce the poison into his medication. Two hours later he comes up to London, the poison takes effect, paralyses the muscles and he drowns.
John: What - how-how come the autopsy didn't pick that up?
Sherlock: It's virtually undetectable. Nobody would have been looking for it.
(He has walked around the table to where his computer notebook is lying. The page is open at the Forum of his own website, The Science of Deduction, and he now begins to type into the message box:
FOUND. Pair of trainers belonging to Carl Powers (1978-1989).)
Sherlock (straightening up to point to the laces): But there were still tiny traces of it left inside the trainers from where he put the cream on his feet.
(He bends down and continues to type:
Botulinum toxin still present. Apply 221b Baker St.
He sends the message and straightens up.)
Sherlock: That's why they had to go.
John: So how do we let the bomber know ...
Nikki: Get his attention ...
John: Mm-hm.
Sherlock (looking at his watch): ... stop the clock.
John: The killer kept the shoes all these years.
Sherlock: Yes. (He looks at John.) Meaning ...
John: He's our bomber.
(The pink phone rings on the side table. Sherlock hurries over to it and switches on the speaker. In the car park, the woman sobs in anguish as she reads out the latest message from the pager.)
Woman: Well done, you two. Come and get me.
Sherlock (loudly and clearly): Where are you? Tell us where you are.
(Sometime later the woman stares anxiously out of the car window as members of a bomb disposal team, dressed in protective padded clothing, make their way toward the car.)