221B BAKER STREET.
Two gunshots ring out.
Vaness was sitting in the sofa, she was reading a book about Greek mythology. She was sitting on the side closer to the door, so Sherlock, who was shooting the wall, wouldn't miss and hit her.
Sherlock was lying slumped in his armchair, his head on the low back of the chair. His eyes close, then a few moments later he opens them and gazes up towards the ceiling.
Downstairs, the front door can be heard opening. Sherlock turns his head to look towards the sofa, looked at Vaness, then at her book. He sighs.
Above the sofa, a smiley face has been spray-painted on the wallpaper using a can of the yellow paint. The can is standing on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
As the downstairs door closes Sherlock sighs again, turns his head to the front again and then raises his left hand which is holding a pistol. He points the pistol towards the smiley face and - without even looking in that direction - fires two shots at it.
"You could look and make sure it's not aimed at me, you know." Vaness told him.
Sherlock turns his head to look at the face and fires a third shot which either misses the smile or was deliberately aimed to form a 'nose' for the face. As he fires a fourth time, John comes running up the stairs with his fingers in his ears. He stops on the landing, lowers his hands and yells at his flatmate.
"What the hell are you doing?" He shouted.
"Bored." Sherlock said sulking.
"What?" John said more quietly, squinting at him in disbelief.
"Bored!" Sherlock said loudly.
He springs up out of the chair. John immediately recoils and covers his ears with his hands.
"No ..." John protests.
Sherlock switches the pistol to his right hand and turns towards the smiley face, firing at it again. He then swings his arm around his back, twists slightly to his right and fires at the wall from behind his back.
Vaness was actually quite nervous but she was sure Sherlock could aim, how well? That she didn't know.
"Bored! Bored!" Sherlock said angrily.
"For Christ's sake! You could hit Vaness!"
"I won't miss." Sherlock said.
"Glad to know that you care more about not missing the shot than not shooting me." Vaness said jokingly, she was still reading her book.
As Sherlock brings his arm back around, John hurries into the room and Sherlock continues to glare at the smiley face but allows John to snatch the pistol from his hand. John quickly slides the clip out of the gun while Sherlock walks towards the sofa.
"Don't know what's got into the criminal classes. Good job I'm not one of them." Sherlock said still sulking.
John locks the pistol into a small safe on the dining table and then straightens up.
"So you take it out on the wall." John said.
"Ah, the wall had it coming." Sherlock said running his fingers along the painted smile.
He turns sideways and dramatically flops down onto the sofa on his back, his head landing on Vaness' legs and his feet digging into the arm of the sofa at the end nearest the windows.
Vaness grunted at his sudden weight, "You could've warned me."
"What about that Russian case?" John asked taking off his coat.
Sherlock pushes with his feet to shove himself further along the sofa and into a slightly more upright position, and then starts kneading the arm of the sofa with his toes.
"Belarus. Open and shut domestic murder. Not worth my time." Sherlock replied.
"Ah, shame!" John said sarcastically.
He walks into the kitchen and throws up his arms in despair at the mess on the table which greets him. He heads towards the fridge.
"Anything in? I'm starving." He opens the fridge door. "Oh, f..."
He immediately slams it shut again, unable to believe what he just saw inside. He slumps against the door for a moment, his head lowered, then he straightens up and opens the door again. On the shelf inside is a man's head, cut off at the neck, the face looking towards the door. He stares at it for a couple of seconds, then quietly closes the door again.
"It's a head." He turns and calls out. "A severed head!"
"Just tea for me, thanks." Sherlock replied.
"No, there's a head in the fridge." John said, walking back into the living room.
"Yes." Sherlock replied calmly.
"A bloody head!" John exclaimed.
Vaness groaned. She should've stayed at her room.
"I'm reading guys." She said quietly.
"Well, where else was I supposed to put it?" He looks round at John, "You don't mind, do you?"
John holds out his hands despairingly and looks back towards the fridge.
"I got it from Bart's morgue."
John buries his head in one hand.
"I'm measuring the coagulation of saliva after death." Sherlock said as if that's totally acceptable reason to put a severed head in the fridge.
He waves his hand vaguely in the direction of a nearby laptop.
"I see you've written up the taxi driver case." Sherlock said.
"Uh, yes." He answered, throwing one last glance at the fridge
He walks over to Sherlock's armchair and sits down.
""A Study in Pink." Nice!" Sherlock said sarcastically.
Vaness gave up reading. She put the book down. She place her right hand on her stomach and her left on the arm of the sofa.
"Well, you know, pink lady, pink case, pink phone - there was a lot of pink. Did you like it?" John asked.
Vaness didn't notice, but Sherlock calmed down a bit when her left hand drifted to his hair.
Even as John has been speaking, Sherlock has picked up a magazine from the coffee table and he now flips it open and addresses his answer to the pages.
"Erm, no."
"Why not? I thought you'd be flattered." John asked in confusion.
"Flattered?" Sherlock asked, lowering the magazine and glaring at him.
"Sherlock sees through everything and everyone in seconds. What's incredible, though, is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things." He raises his index fingers and narrates a section of the blog
"Now hang on a minute. I didn't mean that in a..." John was saying but he was interrupted.
"Oh, you meant "spectacularly ignorant" in a nice way! Look, it doesn't matter to me who's Prime Minister..."
"I know," John said quietly.
"...or who's sleeping with who..."
"Whether the Earth goes round the Sun..." John said softly.
"Not that again. It's not important." Sherlock said.
"Not impor..." He shifts his position in the chair to face Sherlock.
Vaness facepalmed. She's jetlagged. Her reading has been interrupted. Now they are arguing.
"It's primary school stuff. How can you not know that?" John asked.
"OKAY!" Vaness shouted, the boys faced her, "okay," she said more calmly.
"Quit arguing like an old married couple! We're all having bad days. John I don't know what happened to you or if you're just annoyed at Sherlock, but I'm jetlagged, Sherlock is bored, this is not a good time." She said.
She sighs, she looks pleading to John, "How about you go and stay over Sarah's?"
John sighs too, and nodded. "Fine, I'll go."
Sherlock stayed quiet.
John looks away and purses his lips. The front door downstairs opens and closes. John stands up and walks towards the living room door.
He heads for the stairs, which Mrs Hudson is just coming up.
"'Scuse me, Mrs ..."
"Oh, sorry, love!" Mrs Hudson said.
"Sorry." John said.
Sherlock was calming down as Vaness played with his hair. He didn't want to get up.
Mrs Hudson chuckles at John as he passes her but then turns and looks at him in concern as he hurries down the stairs. She comes to the living room door and knocks.
"Ooh-ooh!" Mrs Hudson called.
Sherlock and Vaness faced Mrs. Hudson.
Mrs Hudson carries a couple of shopping bags into the kitchen.
"Have you two had a little domestic?" Mrs. Hudson asked.
"They had." Vaness slowly got up, making Sherlock stand as well.
"They were fighting like an old married couple, if I had filmed it, it could be mistaken for a scene from a movie." She said.
"You should film them next time dearie." Mrs Hudson said.
Sherlock takes the shortest route to his destination, walking over the coffee table and going to the left-hand window just as the downstairs door opens and closes.
"Ooh, it's a bit nippy out there. He should have wrapped himself up a bit more." Mrs. Hudson commented.
Sherlock watches John as he crosses the street and heads in the general direction of away.
"Look at that, Mrs Hudson."
He scans the street.
"Quiet, calm, peaceful."
He grimaces and drags in a long breath.
"Isn't it hateful?"
Mrs Hudson and Vaness has unloaded some items from her shopping bags and now Mrs Hudson brandishes a receipt at Sherlock before putting it down on the kitchen table.
"Oh, I'm sure something'll turn up, Sherlock. A nice murder - that'll cheer you up." She chuckles slightly as she carries her bags towards the living room door.
"Can't come too soon." Sherlock said wistfully.
"Hey. What've you done to my bloody wall?!" She said stopping when she spots the damaged wall
Sherlock quirks a smile and turns around to admire his handiwork.
"I'm putting this on your rent, young man!" Mrs. Hudson said angrily.
She storms off down the stairs. Sherlock, walked over in the middle of the room standing just in front of the dining table, grins over-dramatically at the bullet-riddled smiley face, then sighs and turns his head to the front just as a massive explosion goes off in the street behind him.
The windows blow in and the blast hurls him forward and to the floor. He groans, Vaness who was farther from the window was fine and immediately checked Sherlock. He was fine as well. Vaness helped him get up.
The next morning, Vaness woke up early. She got dressed, a very nice dress, and head up to John and Sherlock's flat. Ofcourse she dressed nice because she knew Mycroft and Sherlock, are.
When she got there, the brothers were staring at each other.
Sherlock looked at her, "Vaness," he greeted.
"Morning to the two of you," she said, she walked towards the kitchen saying, "nice of you to use the stolen missile plans as an excuse to check on your brother Mycroft."
Mycroft turned to face her, was about to say something when they heard the front door opened. John was calling for Sherlock and Vaness worriedly.
"Vaness! Sherlock!" They heard.
John entered the room, looking at the boarded windows. Vaness approach him, "Mycroft was worried about Sherlock too." She said.
Mycroft sighs, but didn't correct her, because she was correct.
"John." Sherlock greeted.
"I saw it on the telly. Are you okay?" He asked him, he then turned to Vaness who was already sitting at the coffee table. "Are you both okay?:
"Hmm? What?" Sherlock asked, he looks around at the mess of broken glass and scattered paperwork as if he has forgotten it - which he probably has. "Oh, yeah. Fine. Gas leak, apparently."
He turns his attention back to his brother, who stares at him pointedly while Sherlock plucks his violin strings again.
"I can't." Sherlock told Mycroft.
"Can't?" Mycroft asked.
"The stuff I've got on is just too big. I can't spare the time." Sherlock lied.
John looks across to him in disbelief. And Vaness wanted to facepalm. 'Why the need to lie when Mycroft knows anyway' she thought.
"Never mind your usual trivia. This is of national importance." Mycroft told him.
"How's the diet?" Sherlock changed the subject, sulkily flicking his fingers across the strings.
"Fine. Perhaps you can get through to him, John." Mycroft said, refusing to rise to the implied insult.
"What?" John who has walked nearer to the windows to investigate the damage, asked.
"I'm afraid my brother can be very intransigent." Mycroft said.
"If you're so keen, why don't you investigate it?" Sherlock asked him.
"No-no-no-no-no. I can't possibly be away from the office for any length of time - not with the Korean elections so..." He trails off as John turns towards him in surprise, Vaness just raised an eyebrow and Sherlock raises his head from looking at his violin.
"Well, you don't need to know about that, do you?" He smiles humourlessly in a clear message to forget what he just said.
"Besides, a case like this - it requires ..." he grimaces in distaste "... legwork."
Sherlock mis-plucks one of his strings, an irritated look on his face. He turns to John, who is absently rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.
"How's Sarah, John? How was the lilo?" Sherlock asked.
"I don't know what a lilo is but it was the sofa." Vaness said. Her eyebrows knit together, she really didn't know what a lilo was.
"Oh yes, of course." Sherlock said after looking at John again.
"How ...?" John asked, but he was looking at Vaness.
"Season 1, episode 3." She told him.
John sits down on the coffee table nect ro Vaness. Mycroft smiles across at them
"Sherlock's business seems to be booming since you three became ... pals."
Sherlock throws him a dark look.
"It started with John, I have nothing to do with it." Vaness told him, she turned and smiled at John.
"What's he like to live with? Hellish, I imagine." Mycroft asked.
"I'm never bored." John answered.
"In this house, Sherlock is the only one who gets bored." Vaness said.
"Ofcourse he does." Mycroft said with a smile.
Again Sherlock glares at him. Mycroft stands up as Sherlock picks up his bow and whips one end through the air in front of him.
Picking up a folder from the table beside him, Mycroft steps forward and offers the folder to his brother but Sherlock just looks back at him stubbornly. Grimacing and poking his tongue into the corner of his mouth, Mycroft turns and offers the folder to John instead.
"Andrew West, known as Westie to his friends." Mycroft tells them.
Looking startled, John takes the folder.
"A civil servant, found dead on the tracks at Battersea Station this morning with his head smashed in." He continued.
"Jumped in front of a train?" John asked.
"Seems the logical assumption." Mycroft replied.
"But?" John asked, quirking a brief smile.
"But?" Mycroft repeated.
"Well, you wouldn't be here if it was just an accident." John said.
Sherlock, who is now applying rosin to his bow with a small cloth, smirks noisily.
"The M.O.D. is working on a new missile defence system - the Bruce-Partington Programme, it's called." He looks at Sherlock while John starts flicking through the folder, Vaness looking over his shoulder.
"The plans for it were on a memory stick." Mycroft continued.
John sniggers quietly. "That wasn't very clever."
Sherlock smiles in agreement.
"It's not the only copy." Mycroft said to John.
"Oh."
"But it is secret. And missing." Mycroft said.
"Top secret?" John asked.
"Very. We think West must have taken the memory stick. We can't possibly risk it falling into the wrong hands." Mycroft told them.
"I don't suppose Vaness could just tell us, right?" John asked hopefully.
Vaness looked at him apologetically, "All I can say is, we will find it."
Mycroft turns back to his brother. "Looks like you will find it, bo need for me to order you."
Breathing in sharply through his nose, Sherlock raises the violin to his shoulder, ready to play. He looks calmly at his brother.
"I'd like to see you try." Sherlock said.
Sherlock stares back at him, unimpressed. Mycroft turns and walks over to John, offering him his hand to shake, and hugged Vaness a goodbye. Vaness whispered to him, "Sherlock will be safe." Mycroft smiled at him.
"Goodbye, John, Vaness."
As Mycroft heads back towards the chair to pick up his coat, Sherlock begins to repeatedly play a short irritating sequence of notes. John frowns across to him but Sherlock continues to play until Mycroft has left the room and is on the stairs.
Grimacing in the direction of his brother's back, Sherlock finishes his playing and lowers the violin, still looking annoyed. John sits back down on the coffee table and waits until Mycroft has reached the ground floor and is out of earshot before he speaks.
"Why'd you lie?" John asked Sherlock.
Sherlock looks across to him as the front door bangs shut.
"You've got nothing on - not a single case. That's why the wall took a pounding. Why did you tell your brother you were busy?" John asked again.
"Why shouldn't I?" He said shrugging.
"And that, John, is the Holmes Sibling Rivalry." Vaness saud dramatically.
Sherlock turns and opens his mouth but before he can deny everything his phone starts to ring. He irritably whips his bow down again, puts it on the seat beside him and fishes his phone out of his jacket pocket.
"Sherlock Holmes." She said into the phone.
He listens for a moment, then his expression intensifies.
"Of course. How could I refuse?"
Standing up and switching off the phone as he puts his violin onto the seat, he heads for the door.
"Lestrade. I've been summoned. Coming?" He told them.
"If you want me to." John said.
"Of course." Sherlock said.
Picking up his Coat, he turns back to him.
"I'd be lost without my blogger."
"Great," Vaness stood up, "here I am dressed nicely and you only want John." She said jokingly.
John chuckles as he stood up. Sherlock rolled his eyes, grabbed her hand, and dragged her.
"I like being dragged." She told John who burst out laughing.
After a taxi ride, they arrive at New Scotland Yard and are following Detective Inspector Lestrade across the general office towards his office.
"You like the funny cases, don't you? The surprising ones." Lestrade said.
"Obviously." Sherlock replied.
"You'll love this. That explosion ..." Lestrade said,
"Gas leak, yes?" Sherlock interrupted, briefly exchanging glares with Detective Sergeant Donovan as he walks past her desk.
"No." Lestrade told him.
"No?" Sherlock asked.
"No. Made to look like one." Lestrade explained.
"What?" John asked.
By now they're in Lestrade's office and Sherlock stops and stares down at a white envelope lying on a desk. Vaness stood beside John.
"Hardly anything left of the place except a strong box - a very strong box - and inside it was this." Lestrade points to what Sherlock's looking at.
"You haven't opened it?"Sherlock asked.
"It's addressed to you, isn't it?" Lestrade replied.
Sherlock reaches towards the envelope.
"We've X-rayed it. It's not booby-trapped." Lestrade tells him.
"How reassuring," Sherlock said.
He picks up the envelope and takes it across the room to another table which has an anglepoise lamp on it. Holding the envelope close to the bulb he examines both sides carefully. On the front in elegant handwriting are the words "Sherlock Holmes" - by hand.
"Nice stationery. Bohemian." Sherlock said to himself.
"What?" Lestrade asked.
"From the Czech Republic. No fingerprints?" He said.
"No." Lestrade replied.
"She used a fountain pen. A Parker Duofold - iridium nib." Sherlock said looking closely at the writing.
"She?" John asked.
"Obviously." Sherlock said.
"Obviously!" John said struggling not to sigh.
Sherlock picks up a letter opener from the desk and carefully slits the envelope open. He looks inside and his mouth opens a little in surprise as he reaches in and takes out a pink iPhone.
"But that's - that's the phone, the pink phone." John said surprised.
Vaness noticed Donovan on about to enter and she hurriedly closed the door. She smiled darkly at her.
"What, from the Study in Pink?" Lestrade asked, distracted by what Vaness.
"Well, obviously it's not the same phone but it's supposed to look like ..." He stops when he realises what Lestrade just said. He turns to face him.
"The Study in Pink? You read his blog?" Sherlock asked.
"Course I read his blog! We all do." Lestrade answered. "D'you really not know that the Earth goes round the Sun?" He asked.
John purses his lips in embarrassment. Vaness facepalmed and sighs. Sherlock turns his concentration back to the phone.
"It isn't the same phone. This one's brand new." Sherlock said.
He's looking at the connection sockets, none of which have scratches around them.
"Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like the same phone, which means your blog has a far wider readership." He throws an accusatory look at John, who does his best to ignore it. Sherlock switches on the phone and immediately gets a voice alert.
"Or you have a fan." Vaness said. Sherlock looked at her, and he understood.
"You have one new message."
The message plays but there is no voice - just the unmistakeable sound of the Greenwich Time Signal. However, while the "Greenwich pips" - as they're more generally called - consist of five short pips and one longer tone, this recording has only four short pips and the longer one.
"Is that it?" John asked.
"No. That's not it." Sherlock answered.
A photograph has also been uploaded to the phone. He opens it and Lestrade comes across to look over his shoulder. The picture is of Vaness' flat, renovated and all that.
"What the hell are we supposed to make of that? An estate agent's photo and the bloody Greenwich pips!" Lestrade, who has never been to Vaness' flat said.
"And ofcourse it has to be my flat" Vaness said.
"It's a warning." Sherlock said.
"A warning?" John asked. "It's Vaness' flat, a warning for what?" He asked worriedly.
"Some secret societies used to send dried melon seeds, orange pips, things like that. Five pips. They're warning us it's gonna happen again."
He looked at Vaness, "Did you ever.leave your door unlock?" He asked, as he once again drag her away.
"Never." She said.
"H-hang on. What's gonna happen again?" John asked, following behind them.
"Boom!" Sherlock said, turning back and raising his right hand dramatically.
He heads off, still dragging Vaness, with John behind them. Lestrade grabs his coat and hurries after them.
BAKER STREET.
A taxi pulls up outside 221 and Sherlock, John, Vaness and Lestrade get out. Sherlock unlocks the front door and leads the way inside, bypassing the stairs and heading along the corridor towards Vaness' door. Vaness quickly unlocks it, and lets them in. Sherlock immediately goes inside and John and Lestrade follow.
The room looks exactly as it did in the photograph on the phone, the same way Vaness left it earlier that morning with one exception: there is a pair of trainers placed neatly side by side in the middle of the floor, their toes pointed towards the door.
John stops and looks at them before stating the bleedin' obvious.
"Shoes."
Sherlock starts to walk towards them but John holds out a cautionary hand towards him.
"He's a bomber, remember." He said.
Sherlock stops for a moment, then continues slowly towards the trainers. He crouches down, then puts his hands on the floor and leans forward. Lowering his body down he moves closer to the shoes. Just as his nose is almost touching them, a phone rings.
Sherlock jumps, closes his eyes momentarily and then stands up, pulls off his glove and takes the pink iPhone from his coat pocket and looks at the caller I.D. It reads, "NUMBER BLOCKED". He pauses for a second, then switches on the speaker, holding the phone a few inches in front of his mouth.
"Hello?" Sherlock said softly.
A female voice draws in a shaky breath before speaking tearfully. "H-hello ... sexy."
John and Lestrade exchange a puzzled look as the woman sobs. Vaness just shrugged at them.
"Who's this?" Sherlock asked.
"I've ... sent you ... a little puzzle ... just to say hi." The woman said tearfully.
"Who's talking? Why are you crying?" Sherlock asked again.
"I-I'm not ... crying ... I'm typing ... and this ... stupid ... bitch ... is reading it out." She sobs again. Sherlock gazes thoughtfully into the distance.
"The curtain rises." Sherlock said quietly.
"What?" John asked.
"Nothing." Sherlock replied.
"No, what did you mean?" John asked again.
"I've been expecting this for some time." Sherlock answered half turning his head towards him.
"Twelve hours to solve ... my puzzle, Sherlock ..." the woman said sobbing. "... or I'm going ... to be ... so naughty."
The call ends. Sherlock was staring at the shoes.
"Vaness," John said, "change your lock."
"Like a lock stopped him." She said sighing.
ST BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL.
Sherlock has brought the trainers to a lab and is putting on a pair of latex gloves while he looks closely at them. He picks them up, examines the laces carefully and peers at the shoes from all directions, then digs out dried mud from the treads in the soles and puts it into a dish. Putting the shoes down again, he looks at them thoughtfully.
Later, he is sitting at a bench looking into a microscope while, beside him, a computer screen shows that a scanner of some sort is running tests. John is wandering up and down on the other side of the bench, while Vaness was sitting on Sherlock's left side, reading her book.
"So, who d'you suppose it was?" John asked.
A phone trills a text alert.
"Hmm?" Sherlock said, absently, not reacting to the alert.
"The woman on the phone - the crying woman." John said.
"Oh, she doesn't matter. She's just a hostage. No lead there." Sherlock said absently.
"For God's sake, I wasn't thinking about leads." John said.
Vaness lifted her head from her book. "You're still not done with your lover's quarrel?" She asked, which stopped them from arguing.
Sherlock glances across to the scanner as it continues throwing up "NO MATCH" results, then looks back into the microscope.
The same phone as before trills another text alert.
"Pass me my phone." Sherlock said.
John looks around the room.
"Where is it?" John asked.
"Jacket." Sherlock answered.
"Vaness will you pass him..." John was sayung but noticed that she was back to reading.
John straightens up slowly, his entire body going rigid in disbelief and his eyes broadcasting the message "I am going to kill them both." Turning to his right, he marches stiffly around the table, slams one hand onto Sherlock's left shoulder and roughly pulls open his jacket with the other as he starts to rummage in his inside pocket.
Vaness was grinning, she liked teasing John, and he knows it.
John just about holds onto his temper and pulls out the phone and looks at it.
"Text from your brother." John told Sherlock.
"Delete it." He said.
"Delete it?" John asked.
"Missile plans are out of the country now. Nothing we can do about it." Sherlock said.
John looks at the message again, which reads:
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." John said.
Sherlock raises his head in exasperation.
"Then why didn't he cancel his dental appointment?" Sherlock asked.
"His what?" John asked, sighing tiredly.
"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 turning the phone off.
"What for?" He looks up at John.
He was about to say something but found his mouth covered. Vaness held his mouth shut. "This quarrel will never end? Just continue with your work Sherlock please."
Sherlock looks back into the microscope but just then the computer beeps a result.
"Ah!" Sherlock said.
He looks across to the screen which is flashing "SEARCH COMPLETE." At the same moment Molly Hooper comes in the door. Vaness tried to keep her attention on her book.
"Any luck?" Molly asked.
"Oh, yes!" Sherlock said 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 apologetically. Ofcourse Vaness knew him.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't ..." he didn't look sorry at all.
"Jim! Hi!" Molly greeted her boyfriend.
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." Molly introduced.
"Ah!" Jim said.
John turns towards them, and Molly looks at him blankly.
"And, uh ... sorry." Molly said apologetically.
"John Watson. Hi."
Vaness put her book down for a moment.
"Hi." Jim said to John.
"Vaness Miche, hello." She smiled, the best she can, which is really good.
"Hello." Jim said to her.
His eyes are locked on Sherlock's back as he gazes at him admiringly. He speaks in a casual London accent.
"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.
"Jim works in I.T. upstairs. That's how we met. Office romance." Molly told them.
She and Jim giggle. Sherlock glances briefly round at Jim before returning to look into the 'scope.
"Gay."
Molly's smile fades.
"Sorry, what?" Molly asked.
Sherlock raises his head as he realises what he's just done.
"Nothing." He smiles round falsely at Jim. "Um, hey."
"Hey." Jim replied, smiling admiringly at him
Lowering his hand, he knocks a metal dish off the edge of the table and scrambles to pick it up.
"Sorry! Sorry!" He said, giggling nervously.
Vaness kept her eyes on the book, but she couldn't read. 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.
"Well, I'd better be off. I'll see you at The Fox, 'bout six-ish?" Jim said to Molly.
"Yeah!" She replied.
He stops beside her, putting a hand on her back, and looks back towards Sherlock.
"'Bye." He said.
"'Bye." Molly said softly.
"It was nice to meet you." He said, looking at Sherlock longingly.
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." She said.
"And domestic bliss must suit you, Molly. You've put on three pounds since I last saw you." Sherlock said.
"Two and a half." Molly corrected.
Sherlock was about to retort but his mouth is once again covered. Vaness sighed. "Let's try not to hurt anyone's feelings." Sherlock was glaring at her.
"But," she said, "Sherlock is right Molly, Jim is gay, for Sherlock nonetheless, look under tht dish John." She said.
Molly was fuming. John lifted the dish and found Jim's card. "Oh" John said.
Molly stares at the card for a moment, then turns and runs out of the room.
Vaness let go of Sherlock's mouth.
"That was the second time." Sherlock said sternly at her.
"Yes I know." She said smiling.
"If you do that again," Sherlock said threateningly.
"Ofcourse I will." Vaness said, her smile widening.
Looking fed up with the conversation, Sherlock reaches over and moves one of the trainers on the desk closer to John.
"Go on, then." He said to John.
"Mmm?" John asked.
"You know what I do. Off you go." Sherlock told him.
He sits back and folds his arms expectantly. John makes incoherent negative noises and looks at his watch.
"No. Ask Vaness. She's better at it that me and we all know it." John said.
"Yes, but she also already knows, so..." Vaness told them.
"I'm not gonna stand here so you can humiliate me while I try and disseminate..." John says this time.
"An outside eye, a second opinion. It's very useful to me." Sherlock said interrupting him.
John turns back to him. Eventually John nods unhappily.
"Fine."
Clearing his throat, he picks up the shoe and looks at it and its partner lying on the table.
"I dunno - they're just a pair of shoes." He immediately corrects himself. "Trainers."
"Good." Sherlock looks away and picks up his phone while John continues looking at the trainers.
"Umm ... they're in good nick. I'd say they were pretty new ... except the sole has been well-worn, so the owner must have had them for a while." John continued
Sherlock, who had started to look frustrated when John said they were new, breathes out a silent sigh of relief that his friend isn't that stupid.
"Uh, they're very eighties - probably one of those retro designs."
"You're on sparkling form. What else?" Sherlock said.
"Well, they're quite big, so a man's." John hesitated.
"But ...?"
"But there's traces of a name inside in felt-tip. Adults don't write their names inside their shoes, so these belonged to a kid." John said, looking inside both of the trainers and seeing blue smudges at the sides.
Vaness was watching, John is a actually really good.
"Excellent. What else?" Sherlock said looking at him proudly.
"Uh ..." he looks again at the shoe he's holding, then puts it down, "... that's it."
"That's it?" Sherlock asked.
John nods.
"How did I do?" John asked.
"Well, John; really well." Sherlock said.
He pauses momentarily.
"I mean, you missed almost everything of importance, but, um, you know ..." Sherlock continued.
"You did great John." Vaness told him and he nodded at her in thanks.
Sherlock lifts his hand and slowly rotates his wrist to turn his palm upwards, his expression full of sarcasm. With a look of frustration, John picks up the trainer and gives it to him. Sherlock looks at it closely as he goes into deduction mode.
"The owner loved these. Scrubbed them clean, whitened them where they got discoloured. Changed the laces three ... no, four times." Sherlock deduced.
John puts his hands on the desk and lowers his head in despair.
"Even so, there are traces of his flaky skin where his fingers have come into contact with them, so he suffered from eczema. Shoes are well-worn, more so on the inside, which means the owner had weak arches. British-made, twenty years old." He finished his deduction.
Vaness let them talk, keeping her mouth shut.
"Twenty years?" John asked.
"They're not retro - they're original." He told him.
He shows John an image on his phone.
"Limited edition: two blue stripes, nineteen eighty-nine." He said.
"But there's still mud on them. They look new." John said confused.
"Someone's kept them that way. Quite a bit of mud caked on the soles. Analysis shows it's from Sussex, with London mud overlaying it." He said, looking thoughtfully at the trainer
"How do you know?" John asked.
"Pollen. Clear as a map reference to me." He said, nodding towards the computer screen.
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." Sherlock said,
"So what happened to him?" John asked.
"Something bad." He answered.
Vaness stayed quiet.
He looks up at John.
"He loved those shoes, remember. He'd never leave them filthy. Wouldn't leave them go unless he had to. So: a child with big feet gets ..."
"Drowned." Vaness finished, breaking her silence.
Sherlock was staring blankly.
"Oh." He said.
John looks across the lab, trying to see what his friend is looking at.
"What?" John asked.
"Carl Powers."Sherlock said softly.
"Sorry, who?" John asked again
"Carl Powers, John." He said, still staring into the distance
"What is it?"
"It's where I began." Sherlock said.
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