ST BARTHOLOMEW’S HOSPITAL
I completely understand Sherlock, going through this game with the bomber, but for me? Why'd she mention me? Why was my name on the letter?
Sherlock is sitting at a bench looking into a microscope while, beside him, a computer screen shows that a scanner running tests. It's only been saying "NO MATCH". John is wandering up and down on the other side of the bench worriedly.
"Who do you think it was?" I ask Sherlock, drumming my fingers away on the table, sitting next to him.
A phone makes text alert noise.
"Hmm?" He responds absently, not reacting to the alert.
"The woman on the phone – the crying woman." John answers loudly for me.
"Oh, she doesn’t matter. She’s just a hostage. No lead there."
John replied, exasperated. "For God’s sake, we weren't thinking about leads."
"You’re not going to be much use to her."
He glances across to the scanner as it continues with “NO MATCH” results, then looks back into the microscope.
"Are-are they trying to trace it, trace the call?" John asks.
"The bomber’s too smart for that." He replies, his attention still brought to the microscope. The same phone as before trills another text alert.
"Pass me my phone." He says, not looking away.
"You...." I sigh and reach into his jacket pocket, trying not to disturb his work. I pull out the phone and look at it. "Text from your brother."
"Delete it."
"Delete it?" John asks, now moving to our side of the table.
"Missile plans are out of the country now. Nothing we can do about it."
John looks at the message over my shoulder.
RE: BRUCE-PARTINGTON PLANS
Any progress on Andrew
West’s death?
- Mycroft
"Well, Mycroft thinks there is. He’s texted you eight times. Must be important."
Sherlock raises his head in exasperation. "Then why didn’t he cancel his dental appointment?"
I laugh at his commentary. "His what?"
"Mycroft never texts if he can talk. Look, Andrew West stole the missile plans, tried to sell them, got his head smashed in for his pains. End of story. The only mystery is this: why is my brother so determined to bore me when somebody else is being so delightfully interesting?" He looks back into the microscope again.
"Try and remember there’s a woman here who might die." John said, sighing tiredly.
"What for?" He says, looking up at John. "This hospital’s full of people dying, Doctor. Why don’t you go and cry by their bedside and see what good it does them?"
John looks away in disbelief. Unmoved, Sherlock looks back into the microscope but just then the computer beeps a result.
"Ah!" Sherlock says delightedly as the screen flashes, "SEARCH COMPLETE" At the same moment Molly Hooper comes in the door.
"Any luck?" She asks, walking in.
"Oh, yes!" He says, triumphantly.
As Molly comes over to look at the screen, a man in his thirties, wearing slacks and a T-shirt, comes in the door and then stops, realizing it wasn't just Molly here in the lab.
"Oh, sorry. I didn’t..."
"Jim! Hi!" Molly says, not expecting him to come. Jim makes as if to leave the room but Molly stops him. "Come in! Come in!"
Sherlock looks over at her briefly, running his eyes down her body and apparently making an instant deduction, then looks back into the microscope. Molly makes introductions as Jim closes the door and walks over to her.
"Jim, this is Sherlock Holmes."
"Ah!" Jim says excitedly. John turns towards them, and Molly looks at him blankly. She smiles apologetically. "And, uh... sorry. I'm still not familiar with your names."
"John Watson. Hi. That's (Y/n)." He points over to me.
"Hi." His eyes are locked on Sherlock’s back as he gazes at him admiringly. "So you’re Sherlock Holmes. Molly’s told me all about you. You on one of your cases?" He walks closer to Sherlock, forcing John to step out of his way, stepping to the left of me in between our chairs. He gives me a cute smile and turns back to Sherlock. I look him up and down as he's too preoccupied with him.
"Jim works in I.T. upstairs. That’s how we met. Office romance." She and Jim giggle cutely. Sherlock glances briefly at Jim before returning to look into the microscope.
"Gay." Sherlock whispers. He's not wrong.
Molly’s smile fades. "Sorry, what?"
Sherlock raises his head as he realizes what he said. "Nothing." He smiles round falsely at Jim. "Um, hey."
Jim was smiling admiringly at him. "Hey." Lowering his hand, he knocks a metal dish off the edge of the table and scrambles to pick it up. "Sorry! Sorry!"
John turns away, face-palming, while Sherlock looks irritated. Jim puts the dish back on the table and then scratches his arm as he wanders back towards Molly. I stifle a laugh, covering my mouth.
"Well, I’d better be off. I’ll see you at The Fox, ’bout six-ish?"
"Yeah!" Molly replies, a little unsure from Sherlock's outburst earlier. He stops beside her, putting a hand on her back, and looks back towards Sherlock.
"Bye." He says, still laughing nervously.
"Bye." Molly whispers with a small smile on her face.
"It was nice to meet you." He smiles at Sherlock. Sherlock doesn’t respond, continuing to look into his microscope while Jim gazes wistfully at him. John breaks the embarrassing silence.
"You too."
Jim blinks at him, looking awkward, then turns and leaves the room. Molly waits until the door closes then turns to Sherlock.
"What d’you mean, gay? We’re together."
Sherlock looks across to her. "And domestic bliss must suit you, Molly. You’ve put on three pounds since I last saw you."
"Two and a half." She says, disappointment dripping in her voice.
"Nuh, three." He simply replies with the tilt of his head.
"Sherlock...." I warn him.
Molly looks angry now. "He’s not gay. Why d’you have to spoil...? He’s not."
Sherlock snorted. "With that level of personal grooming?"
"Because he puts a bit of product in his hair? I put product in my hair." John tried to defend her.
"You wash your hair. There’s a difference. No, no. Tinted eyelashes, clear signs of taurine cream around the frown lines. Those tired clubber’s eyes. Then there’s his underwear."
"His underwear?" She replies, still upset.
"Visible above the waistline, very visible, very particular brand." He reaches for the metal dish.
"Sherlock, don't." I saw what Jim put there, but I didn't want to ruin her happiness.
"That, plus the extremely suggestive fact that he just left his number under this dish here..." Sherlock shows her the card that Jim left under the dish. "And I’d say you’d better break it off now and save yourself the pain."
Molly stares at him for a moment, then turns and runs out of the room. I punch his arm. Sherlock turns and looks startled.
"Smooth, Sherlock. Real smooth." I snatch the card from him.
"Just saving her time. Isn’t that kinder?" He says, in his defence.
“Kinder”? No, Sherlock. That wasn’t kind."
Looking fed up with the conversation, Sherlock reaches over and moves one of the trainers on the desk closer to me.
"Go on, then."
I lift my (e/c) eyes up to his blue ones. "What?"
"You know what I do. You obviously want to help. Off you go." He sits back and folds his arms expectantly.
John makes incoherent negative noises and looks at his watch. "No. We don't have time for this, Sherlock, just get it over with."
"Go on." He presses.
"I’m not gonna stand here so you can humiliate her-"
"An outside eye, a second opinion. It’s very useful to me." Sherlock interrupts him, staring with an eager expression.
"Yeah, right." John says uneasily.
"Really. Me?" I ask.
Eventually, John nods and Sherlock smiles.
"Trainers." I pick up a shoe and look at it.
"Good." He looks away and picks up his phone, becoming disinterested because I've stated the obvious.
"I’d say they were pretty new... But they're not. The sole has been well-worn, so the owner must have had them for a while."
I look over to Sherlock, who had started to look frustrated when I said they were new, breathes out a silent sigh of relief. I smirk lightly, I had fooled him.
"They’re quite big..." I look inside and see old blue marks on the sides. "But there was traces of a name smudged in the felt-tip. Adults don’t write their names inside their shoes, so these belonged to a kid." That's when I really look. "They loved these. Scrubbed them clean, whitened them where they got discoloured. Changed the laces four times. There are traces of flaky skin where his fingers have come into contact with them, so he suffered from eczema. Shoes are, as I mentioned, well-worn, more so on the inside, which means the owner had weak arches. British-made, twenty years old."
Sherlock looks at me proudly. "Excellent. Very, very well done, (Y/n)."
"Twenty years?" John asks, uncertainly.
"They’re original." He shows an image on his phone. "Limited edition: two blue stripes, nineteen eighty-nine."
"But there’s still mud on them. They look new." John argues.
Sherlock looks thoughtfully at the trainer. "Someone’s kept them that way. Quite a bit of mud caked on the soles. The analysis shows it’s from Sussex, with London mud overlaying it."
"How do you know?" John asks.
Sherlock nods toward the computer screen. "Pollen. Clear as a map reference to me."
Two dots are flashing on a map of Britain, one around the borders of East and West Sussex and the other to the south-east of London.
"South of the river, too. So, the kid who owned these trainers came to London from Sussex twenty years ago and left them behind."
"So what happened to him?" I shift on my chair.
"Something bad." He looks up at us.
"He loved those shoes, remember. He’d never leave them filthy. Wouldn’t leave them unless he had to. So, a child with big feet gets..." He trails off, staring ahead of himself. "Oh." He says softly, realizing.
John looks across the lab, trying to see what Sherlock is looking at.
"What? Who was it, Sherlock?" I glance at the wall, where he's looking, then back at him.
"Carl Powers." He answers softly.
"Sorry, who?" John asks, leaning in to hear.
Sherlock is still staring into the distance. "Carl Powers, John."
"What is it?" He still can't hear him.
"It’s where I began."