~(Y/N) P.O.V~
It was a little after eight when we all gathered to watch the news in the living room of 221B. We didn't have time to border up the windows yet, so it was chilly, and we could also hear the busy street below. Sherlock and John sat in their usual chairs, and I used the clients. Sherlock kept the pink phone on the left side of his armchair in case the bomber called again. On the TV, the news read "12 dead in gas explosion" and continued on with updates.
John looks to Sherlock in disbelief and shakes his head. "Twelve blocks of flats." He sighed and stopped chewing his fingernails. "He certainly gets about."
Sherlock sighed heavily and replied, "Well, obviously I lost that round, although technically I did solve the case." He angrily puts the TV on mute and puts his arm back on the rest, looking away thoughtfully. "He killed the old lady because she started to describe him." He lifts his finger on the other hand. "Just once he put himself in the firing line."
John looks at Sherlock. "What d'you mean?" He asked, with the tilt of his head.
"Well, usually he... must stay above it all. He organizes these things but no one ever has direct contact."
"Like the Connie Prince murder, he-he arranged that? So people come to him wanting their crimes fixed up, like booking a holiday?"
Sherlock replies softly, his face full of admiration. "Novel."
John looks at him in disbelief, then turns and looks at the TV screen again, which has moved on to a new story. "Huh." He jerks a finger towards the screen and we look up to see Raoul de Santos ushered out of Kenny’s house by police officers. The press are snapping pictures and Raoul is shoved into the back of a police car. John looks to Sherlock, who is looking down at the pink phone sulkily.
"Taking his time this time." Sherlock sighs.
I clear my throat and ask, "Anything on the Carl Powers case?"
"Nothing. All the living classmates check out spotless. No connection." Sherlock responds."
"Well, maybe the killer was older than Carl?" John suggests.
"The thought had occurred." He breathes in loudly, bringing his hands up towards his face.
"So why’s he doing this, then – playing this game with you? The both of you, actually. D’you think he wants to be caught?" John looks at me and I shrug.
Sherlock presses his fingertips together in front of his mouth and smiles slightly. "I think he wants to be distracted."
John laughs humorlessly and gets out of his chair, heading towards the kitchen. "I hope you’ll be very happy together."
"Sorry, what?" Sherlock asks as he steps back into reality.
John turns back, furiously shouting, "There are lives at stake, Sherlock." He leans his hands on the back of his chair and lowers his voice when he noticed me cringing. "Actual, human lives. Just – just so I know, do you care about that at all?"
Sherlock looks up at John irritably. "Will caring about them help save them?"
"Nope."
"Then I’ll continue not to make that mistake." He says bitterly.
"And you find that easy, do you?" John whispered, throwing an apologetic look in my direction and focuses back on Sherlock.
"Yes, very. Is that news to you?" Sherlock scrunched his face at John.
"No." John smiles bitterly at Sherlock. "No." He was smiling, but it was almost spiteful.
"I've disappointed you." Sherlock raises his head as realization hits.
"That's good." John points at Sherlock, smiling angrily. "That's a good deduction, yeah." He bites his lip as an attempt to stop himself from saying anything more.
"Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them." They stare at each other for a second but then the pink phone sounds a message alert, cutting the threatening silence. "Excellent!" Sherlock picks up the phone and activates it. The phone sounds one short pip and the long tone, and Sherlock looks at presumably another photograph on the screen. "View of the Thames...?" He reaches into his jacket for his own phone. "You two check the papers; I’ll look online..." He looks up and sees that John is standing with his hands braced on the back of his chair and his head lowered, quite obviously bargaining with himself not to punch Sherlock in the face. "Oh, you’re angry with me, so you won’t help." John raises his head and shrugs. "Not much cop, this caring lark." He loudly clicks the ‘k’ on the last word. John inhales loudly and starts to make his way over to the table in which is covered with lots of papers and sits down.
"Oh, for God's sake, give me that." I snatch the pink phone from its place. I look at the phone for a minute, in which Sherlock glares at me, then continues typing into his phone. "South bank shoreline of the River Thames. If you'd just look at the surroundings, it would be obvious." I hand the phone back to Sherlock and he calls Lestrade.
"It’s me. Have you found anything on the South Bank of the Thames River?" Sherlock asks. He continued the call, and I stood up and sat down with John.
"Hey, you doing alright?" I ask John, moving to look him in the eyes. He awkwardly shuffles. "John, I want you to know that you can talk to me whenever you feel like it." I whisper. He nods briefly.
Sherlock ended the call and stood up, grabbing his things. "You were right, (Y/n). There's a body. How did you know?"
"That doesn't matter." I grab my jacket and tie up my hair. "What matters is, we found it, and the game is.... on? As you say? Let's get going." Sherlock throws a look at me. His eyes linger, whether or not to push any questions on how I knew. "Well?" John stands and puts on his jacket. "C'mon, we haven't got all day." I headed down the stairs of 221B with Sherlock and John following behind.
***
We get out of the cab and I pay for our ride. We all headed towards the Thames River in silence. John catches up to me and whispers, "You know he's onto you?"
"Onto me about what? The fact that I knew where the photo was, doesn't mean he can assume I did it. Besides, I was with you two the whole time. No possible explanation, so he's wrong if he suspected me." This wasn't a game anymore. People have died. And people will continue to die, but we'll figure it out and fight back.
We make our way down the pier and down the stairs, onto the wet rocks where the tide has receded. There was a body that Lestrade was standing next to, of a large man wearing black trousers, a white shirt, black socks and no shoes. As we walked up, Sherlock put on latex gloves.
"D’you reckon this is connected, then? The bomber?"
"Must be. Odd, though... he hasn’t been in touch." Sherlock says, holding up the pink phone for a moment then shoving it back into his pocket.
"But we must assume that some poor bugger’s primed to explode, yeah?" Lestrade asks, stepping aside.
"Yes." Sherlock steps back and takes a long look at the man’s body, which is lying on its back on a plastic sheet.
"Any ideas?" I ask, watching Sherlock.
"Seven... so far."
"Seven?!" Lestrade demands. Sherlock examines the body, checking every possible part and scrambles about.
Sherlock looks across to John and jerks his head down towards the body in order to examine it. John looks at Lestrade for permission. Lestrade holds his hand out in an allowing gesture. John squats down beside the body and reaches out to take hold of the man’s wrist while Sherlock walks away and gets out his phone.
"Dead about... 24 hours. Maybe a bit longer... Did he drown?" John looks up as I crouch next to the body too.
"...no. not exactly. He looks to be about in his late thirties. He's got bruises. He's been in the water long so some evidence has been destroyed. I think he's been strangled." I deduce.
"But I’ll tell you one thing: that lost Vermeer painting’s a fake." Sherlock says, finally joining the conversation. "We need to identify the corpse. Find out about his friends and associates--"
"Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait. What painting? What are you – what are you on about?" Lestrade interrupts.
"It’s all over the place. Haven’t you seen the posters? Dutch Old Master, supposed to have been destroyed centuries ago; now it’s turned up. Worth thirty million pounds."
"Okay. So what has that got to do with the stiff?" Lestrade asks.
Sherlock grins briefly. "Everything. Have you ever heard of the Golem? It’s a horror story. Jewish folk. A gigantic man made of clay. It’s also the name of an assassin. Real name Oskar Dzundza, one of the deadliest assassins in the world." He points down to the body. "That is his trademark style."
"So this is a hit?"
"Definitely. The Golem squeezes the life out of his victims with his bare hands."
"But what has this gotta do with that painting? I don’t see-"
Sherlock interrupts Lestrade, exasperated. "You do see, you just don’t observe!"
"All right ladies, calm down. Sherl? D’you mind taking us through it?" I uttered.
He looks at me before taking a moment to respond, Sherlock eventually steps back and points to the body. "What do we know about this corpse? The killer’s not left us with much, just the shirt and the trousers. They’re pretty formal, maybe he was going out for the night, but the trousers are heavy-duty, polyester, nasty, same as the shirt, cheap. They’re both too big for him, so some kind of standard-issue uniform. Dressed for work, then. What kind of work? There’s a hook on his belt for a walkie-talkie."
"A tube driver?" Lestrade inquires. Sherlock throws him a look which reads "idiot".
"A security guard?" I ask.
"More likely. That’ll be borne out by his backside. Flabby. You’d think that he’d led a sedentary life, yet the soles of his feet and the nascent varicose veins in his legs show otherwise. So, a lot of walking and a lot of sitting around. Security guard’s looking good. And the watch helps, too. The alarm shows he did regular night shifts. The buttons are stiff, hardly touched. He set his alarm like that a long time ago so his routine never varied. But there’s something else. The killer must have been interrupted, otherwise, he would have stripped the corpse completely. There was some kind of badge or insignia on the shirt front that he tore off, suggesting the dead man worked somewhere recognizable, some kind of institution." Sherlock takes something out of his pocket. It's a wad of paper. "Found this inside his trouser pockets. Sodden by the river but still recognizably-"
John peers at the ball of paper, taking a guess. "Tickets?"
"Ticket stubs. He worked in a museum or gallery. Did a quick check, the Hickman Gallery has reported one of its attendants as missing." He points down to the body. "Alex Woodbridge. Tonight they unveil the re-discovered masterpiece. Now, why would anyone want to pay the Golem to suffocate a perfectly ordinary gallery attendant? Inference: the dead man knew something about it, something that would stop the owner getting paid thirty million pounds. The picture’s a fake."
"Fantastic." John complimented.
Apparently, Sherlock was still mad because of their argument earlier, and he replied with a shrug, and "Meretricious."
"And a Happy New Year!" Lestrade says. John throws him a look. Lestrade grins sheepishly.
"Poor sod." I whisper, looking down at the body.
"I’d better get my feelers out for this Golem character." Lestrade says.
"Pointless. You’ll never find him. But I know a man who can." Sherlock replies, smiling slightly.
"Who?"
Sherlock was grinning now. "Me." He turns and walks away. John sighs, and we both follow Sherlock to the streets.
.
.
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