From the personal blog of Doctor John H Watson.
14 December
As ordered by the good Doctor, here we are. Although technically speaking, I'm medically retired, so I don't have to follow orders anymore. Still, it's very frustrating when your patients don't follow instructions and at least try your prescriptions. And she's been very patient with her patient.
That's a bit of medical humor.
15 December
I woke up and got some porridge for breakfast. Is it called porridge? Oatmeal? Whichever. Did some therapy. Leg hurts. Went for a walk anyways. There were pigeons.
I suppose, if you came here to read about all the excitement that a doctor and combat veteran can provide, you're quite disappointed. Sorry.
17 December
Holidays are coming up. I have nothing but holidays at the moment. I suppose I'm looking for a job, then. Well. Supposed to be. Don't feel quite up for it yet.
All I know is how to save people and how to kill them. And there's not much call for a surgeon with shaking hands, or a gunman in the midst of London.
24 December
Ah. Must remember to post here regularly or the good Doctor will be disappointed in me. Doctor, are you in fact reading this? I don't recall giving you the web address but it's under my name, so I suppose you could google it. Would it show up on a google? Do I show up?
25 December
Raise a glass to the boys, friends. To the dear dead boys who can't raise a glass for themselves anymore. Isn't that the tradition? Feel the burn of the whiskey going down when they'll never feel anything again? While I was drinking at the pub I imagined ghosts standing under my skin, feeling the fire on my nerves as it goes down. So I left and went back to the room.
No drunken revelry these holidays, boys. Sorry, I'm just not in the mood.
Watching Robbie the Reindeer on BBC2 for Christmas. Huzzah and cheers. Happy Christmas, all my dear readers. All none of you.
1 January
It's a bit belated, but I did get presents for the holiday. A present. In the mail. Unwrapped.
H gave me a cell phone. Used. Engraved with her ex's name.
I suppose a present is a good thing. Shows she was thinking of me.
H doesn't read this. It's ok.
20 January
I have been reminded to write here again. So.
29 January: A day when Something Interesting happened.
Well. The blog posts haven't had a title up until now, have they? It seemed appropriate, though. Today was most definitely not a day when you could say "Oh, nothing's happened." I've met a madman. That's something, right? Or perhaps he's a genius? The two aren't mutually exclusive, after all.
Was walking through the park near the tube station after my appointment when I met up with Stamford. (He's not the madman, in case you're wondering.) Hail fellow well met! We had coffee, and I said I was looking for a place. Thought it would be difficult to find someone to room with me; not exactly a bucket of sunshine lately. He said he knew a bloke.
Actually, he said I used the exact same phrase as this other fellow looking for a place to live, about not being easy to find a flatmate. Very mysterious about it too - wouldn't say what the fellow does or anything. Even started looking hesitant about introducing us. But London's not cheap, you know. Anyways, he brought me 'round Bart's to meet this other fellow. What a bit of memory that was! The place looks very much the same as it did in my residency days.
Except there's this madman, bent over a microscope.
Not certain how to describe him, really. Tall. Angular. Dark hair, very fierce eyes. Spotted my medical background, my military service and seems to agree with my good Doctor that the limp is psychosomatic - and here I hadn't said more than two words. Apparently he plays the violin and just assumes we'll end up as flatmates. I'm still not sure about that last one. I can see why Stamford was so uneasy. He could definitely be a bit off-putting, if you were bothered by that sort of thing. But - somehow he was also very impressive. Impressive in the old sense, that he made an impression.
We'll see tomorrow, then.
30 January
Googled my potential new flatmate this morning. He has a blog as well. Tried to read it - it's a bit like being back in third year medical lectures, all science and essays and formulas. But the topics are - well, scattered. Tobacco ash? Truly?
He seems to have a small but dedicated following of people who are, like himself, either geniuses or complete madmen. The comments ranged from vaguely threatening to discussions on the chemical properties of potential untraceable poisons.
I do wonder if living with someone who studies untraceable poisons would be entirely safe.
Still. He seems quite direct and straightforward. Blunt, really, to a fault. A man of science. Not a doctor, although he seems quite intelligent enough for it. Just rather scattered in his interests.
I'm rather looking forward to meeting him again, just to see if my recollection is correct. It seems a bit unreal, and I think perhaps I've exaggerated his personality quirks in my mind.
02 February: A Study In Pink.
So much has happened that although I haven't slept in about two days now, I couldn't lie down if I wanted to. So this blog shall finally have a purpose. I've never understood why a blog; but this - this is something to share, something the rest of the world might be interested in. This is something I need to write down to get straight - to get out of my head and onto paper. Never got that before, about getting something out of your head. If you write it down it's not like it's gone from your memory; instead, you've just cloned it. Made a copy, and not diminished it at all. But sometimes you're not looking to diminish something but to relocate it; to transform it from a thing hat happened to a story.
So: This is a story about my past few days. It's drama and excitement. This is murder most foul - but not just any murder; serial murder done in disguise. This is the story of the London Suicide Serial Killer. And I was smack in the thick of it, thanks to Sherlock.
But that's the end; let's start at the beginning.
The beginning is my new flat-mate. Sherlock Holmes is an abrasive person. Standing next to him is very much like standing next to a sandstorm, except instead of sand flaying your skin, it's words flaying your - mind? emotions? Self, I suppose. Every gesture, word, fleeting thing you do is observed with pitiless calculation and dropped into a vat of acid in his mind, to render the useful from the useless. The majority of your person is stripped away, and then he gives you back bits and pieces of yourself, disassembled and exposed.
If this sounds remarkably florid, I apologize. It's very difficult to keep one's prose away from the purple when dealing with such dramatic events and people.
On the 31st I went round to the flat. Made a bit of a faux pas - it was a lovely place but all full of clutter, and I said something about clearing it out at the same time Sherlock said something about finishing moving in. It's a rather esoteric collection, his stuff. There was a skull on the mantle. Sounds shocking, but it was a very clean skull, no flesh at all. And when I commented on the mess, Sherlock did start to clean it up, so it's probably just moving-in clutter; I'm sure it'll be straightened out in no time.
The landlady is a sweet woman, a widow. Mrs. Hudson, lovely nature and willing to give us a bargain on the rent - it's a very good street, even has a couple trees. Sherlock says the bargain is because he helped her about a thing with her husband which I'm certain he was joking about. Something on the fact that the fellow was a convicted murderer in Florida and all and Sherlock made sure he got the chair. He has an odd sense of humor. (I think he has a sense of humor. It can be difficult to tell, really.)
So here we are, looking about the flat, landlady mentioning something about some mystery in the papers when who should turn up but Scotland Yard - and not to arrest anyone, oh no. To ask the madman I'm considering as a flatmate for assistance with the same mystery we were talking about. The Yard, of all places! And this doesn't look like a new thing, either. Sherlock and the policeman knew each other.
I'd been avoiding the news a bit and wasn't quite up on the cases, but apparently there had been three suicides which were all odd in exactly the same ways; Sherlock took one look at the police car pulled up in front of our place and said "Four, and this one's different." And wouldn't you know it, he was right - it was a fourth and the detective said there's been a note this time. Sherlock was quite cold about the whole thing until the detective - Lestrade - went away, and then he got very happy about the whole thing. Yes - I know, it's bad to be happy about murder. Could be misintrepreted. But if you've got someone working on solving a murder, shouldn't they at least be enthusiastic about their work?
I didn't quite know then how very much some of the police dislike my colleague here. The first hint that he wasn't universally beloved was the fact that apparently one of the forensics gents won't work with Sherlock. But he was really fascinated; seemed willing to make allowances. So off he goes, and less than a minute later he's back asking if I want to go to. To a murder scene.
I've seen quite enough death, really, you'd think I'd have had the sense to say no.
In the car I said something he took a bit of offense to - something about amateurs - so I received a full high-speed lecture about his reasoning process, how he worked out all the things he'd worked out about me. Told me all about my family just from looking at my phone. Sorry, H, he knows all about the drinking - apparently your hands shake when you plug in the cable. It was spectacular - he spoke so quickly and the logic was solid all the way through. Although I'm not entirely certain I could completely follow it in every detail, to be honest. Still, it was brilliant, and I told him so. He said my reaction was unusual; most folks just tell him to piss off. I can see their point, honestly. It could come across as a bit aggressive, the way he rattles off personal details. It was a bit comforting to be able to point out he didn't have everything right; he got H's gender completely wrong. But aside from that - point taken right there. He's not just playing at this, he's the real thing. Certifiable genius.
We got to the crime scene and I got my second hint that my new flatmate is not quite as admired by all the police as being consulted by them would lead you to believe. The officer out front called him a freak, and questioned my presence; he used his powers rather viciously to expose her personal affair with a married colleague, by the smell of her deodorant matching his and the - well. Other signs. I begin to see why it could be difficult, being around him. You could never truly keep a secret, could you. Still - they definitely needed him. I had to put on a clean suit to enter the room, he got in wearing ordinary street clothes and no-one said a thing to him about it. There's a power in being needed.
The crime scene was an abandoned flat. Could be a nice place, all stairs though; not easy, with the cane. And of course the body was on the top floor. We got upstairs and there, on the floor, the corpse. A middle-aged woman all in pink. Hot pink, violent pink - pink shoes, pink skirt, pink jacket. Pink on the grey floor, a splash of color in a dark and empty room. All alone there, lying on her face, not moving a bit. Broken pink fingernails and "Rache" scratched on the floor, splinters and blood.
And then there's Sherlock examining her, leaning over her in his dark coat like a bird of prey, going over every inch of her corpse - no privacy from his mind even in death. He told us she was from Cardiff, married but had multiple lovers who were clueless about that fact, was only staying the night in London, and he wanted her overnight case. The detective and I simply couldn't follow; Lestrade even accused him of making it up. The way he explained it though, everything was so obvious you're left feeling like a fool for not noticing.
She was from Cardiff because of the weather, and the fact that her overnight case was small; the case was small because of the splashes on her leg. There were splashes on her leg because of the rain. It hadn't been raining in London, so it was raining wherever she'd been. Her jacket was wet, her collar was wet, her umbrella was dry; wet and windy. Where was it wet and windy within an overnight of London? Cardiff. All correct, and no other explanation I could see, or the inspector either. Except.
Except there was no overnight case. This utterly delighted him, and he left. Left me standing there at the crime scene. Lovely. So I went back down, stripped off the clean suit, and started looking for a cab with warnings against hanging about Sherlock ringing in my ears.
And this is where it gets weird, and those of you not familiar with me can be forgiven for thinking that "has a therapist" means "loopy as a sailor's knot". But I'm being honest, here, and if you'll follow this all the way through to the end you'll get a reasonable, not-terribly-insane explanation for this bit. Because that warning wasn't the only thing ringing.
The phones along my route to the main street were ringing too. All the way out, they rang as I walked up and stopped as soon as I walked past. It was late and dark, and eventually I stopped and answered one of them. And the voice on the other end tells me to look up, and there's a camera, and the camera moves; and it tells me to look over another spot, and there's another camera, and that one moves too; and then it does this a third time and this could all be just a prank by the metro folks behind the cameras, except the voice calls me by name. Doctor Watson.
The voice tells me it could make a threat, but it won't, which is a bit of a cracker. Of course it's already made an implicit threat. But it tells me to get in the car, and a very nice car pulls up and a gent gets out and opens the door for me, all proper.
Surely you didn't get off a crowded street and get into the car then, Doctor? Oh yes I did! When an anonymous voice on the phone tells you to get in a car and moves cameras about, it's likely you're in deep enough that a little deeper won't matter much and you're not likely to find anything out by standing around on the street. Besides, all the threat was implicit. No-one pulled a gun. And there was a truly lovely young woman in the car. Althea, or some name like that. Spent the whole drive texting.
We pull up into a warehouse, where a tall, soft-faced, soft-voiced gentleman is standing leaning on an umbrella in best John Steed style. Offered me a seat, but I wasn't in a sitting mood. He proceeds to quiz me about - of all things - my relationship with Sherlock. Tells me he's Sherlock's arch enemy. Uses those exact words, mind you. Says that he's concerned about him in this terribly suggestive voice. So I'm in this warehouse in the middle of nowhere with the arch enemy of my new flatmate offering me money to spy on him, and my cell phone is buzzing, and it's that same bloody flatmate telling me to get over to the flat, convenient or not. So I tell the tall gent I'm not interested and start to head out. And he breaks out the phrase my therapist used in our last session. Says I have trust issues.
Sherlock's here texting me again about it maybe being dangerous, and the gent's trying to get into my head, and really I've had enough and I'm leaving when he asks to see my hand. The left one, the one with the tremor that's preventing me from being a doctor again. Takes my hand - his are as soft as his face and his voice - and says there's no tremor now, is there? And I'm under plenty of pressure. And he's right, I'm as steady as a rock.
He's right.
He welcomes me back to the wars. And he's right about that too.
The lovely Athena drove me to my old flat, where I grabbed some things - don't have much to grab - and then to the flat with Sherlock. She texted the whole way again. And there's Sherlock, lying on the sofa, nicotine patches on his arms and staring at the ceiling, and what was he so fierce about getting me there for?
So he could use my cell phone to place a text. He doesn't even do the texting himself, he gets me to type it up. He does notice I'm a bit funny staring out the window, and I tell him I met a friend of his, and he gets a cross look on his face like he doesn't understand the words; and I correct it to enemy and he looks quite a bit more relaxed. Asks which one, if you believe it, which tells me a good deal about what my life from here on out is going to be like.
So I've told him about my little run-in with the concerned man, and sent this text for the mad genius and after, when I ask about it, he tells me he's found the pink case by hunting through some skips near the crime scene (which said case he breaks out and leaves on the chair) and he's got the cell number of the victim, and I've just sent a text to that cell - which she's left with the killer. I've just texted the killer and set up an appointment to meet him. And then my phone rings, and it's a blocked call, and I really don't know anyone who'd be calling except H and her number shows up straight away every time.
So, without even enough time to think, we're off and heading out to get over to the place Sherlock had me text to set up this meeting.
Turns out that we've got a vantage point on our murder's meeting place in a restaurant where the owner owes Sherlock a favor for putting him in jail for burglary and keeping him out of jail for murder. Big bloke, big beard, very enthusiastic. Very nice food, but the bloke seems to think we're on a date, which is terrifically awkward. I hash it out with S that he's not gay, and I'm not gay, and we're all just fine, and then he's staring at this taxi and a fellow inside who looks at the apartment for a bit too long and I have to leave the lovely food there and go running off after him while the taxi takes off. Left my cane behind too, and didn't even notice.
We don't catch it in time. Apparently Sherlock has an incredibly detailed Ordinance Survey map of London in his head which includes the internal blueprints of buildings, because I'm absolutely certain no other human being on the planet could have seen the direction the cab took off and plotted the route we took to chase after it. There were stairs, and roofs, and more stairs, and corners, and some hallways, and there's the cab and we missed it and there's more alleys and back yards and there's the cab again and we've got it!
And when I think of this later on I get a bit sick. Because we fail, right there, we're looking in the back of the cab and the gent there's some tanned American from LA and we let him go because he's the wrong one. Has an alibi. And he drives off and we catch our breath and head back to the flat and let him go.
Back at the flat comes the revelation: Sherlock tells me I'm taking the flat. I tell him that's a bit presumptuous, and he says answer the door, and there's the gent from the restaurant - beard and all - and there's my cane, and he's right. I'm taking the flat. The flat which, as Mrs. Hudson tells us near to tears, is currently being searched by police.
Turns out to be for a drugs bust, of all things. I'd really never have expected it, and my third faux pas of the evening: I'm going the police a solid "you must be joking" lecture when Sherlock stops me, and it's clear there's a good bit of history here I'm missing, but he's clean now. He says. And I've seen junkies, you see them all the time in hospital. Addicts. They're emaciated and weak and they burn out and they are stupid, thick, craving only one thing and that's more junk, and there's no way anyone who just led me on a chase after a killer and who thinks faster than any other human being I've ever met could possibly be an addict, not an active one.
But it's something to consider for the future, isn't it? Something to ponder. Of course, I'm still taking the flat.
The police are just using the drugs bust to get back at Sherlock for not turning in the pink case, anyways. But they tell us about the note the woman left, the Rache. It was a name, it was Rachel; Sherlock had said so at the crime scene and now they know it was her dead daughter's name, stillborn over a decade ago. And Mrs. Hudson says there's a taxi, but Sherlock didn't order it. And he's going on about how brilliant the woman in pink was, about her phone, and he figures it out right there. Everyone gets quiet and he works it out: Rachel isn't just her daughter, it's what she used as a computer password. And we can track her phone.
So we do - log into her account, ping her phone - only it's showing up there in the apartment, which is impossible - it was never in the case and none of us have it. Soem sort of glitch, we think. And Mrs. Hudson is going on about this taxi outside.
And he makes another leap here that we all miss. Right there, in front of us, he heads out for a breath of air and gets in that taxi and leaves me there with a flat full of police and everything strewn about and a dead woman's phone's website, and I'm stuck standing around like a complete idiot.
I almost gave up and walked out. It's a close thing, the timing, and I've wondered what would have happened if the computer didn't ping just when it did and tell me the new location on the phone, and show me the thing Sherlock figured out and we all missed. Because what we missed, what he saw and we didn't, was the taxi. The driver, right there, in the hall waiting for him, was the killer. And he walked out and went off with him because Sherlock Holmes is a genius, but he's an idiot too. Sherlock, if you read this, curiosity killed the damn cat. Don't ever do that again.
So I grab the computer and call all the cops who just left the flat and follow him. It's madness, of course, trying to navigate a cab using a laptop map in a city you're not completely familiar with. And trying to convince the police that you've worked it out - that was impossible.
Anyways, I got there to the location on the computer all frantic and it's a college. And I go running up and there's Sherlock standing over a dead body, and he tells me what happened.
He thought he could handle it; got in the taxi knowing the driver was the killer, wanted to understand what was going on. Wanted to get proof. So the driver took them to the college, to the building. From there, it just all got a bit out of hand is all.
The driver was a genius, and a killer. He was a little man with watery eyes and glasses, wearing a cabbie hat and a jumper and looking like someone's grandpa. They went inside, sat down and and he pulled out the poison he was using, and a gun. He said there were two bottles: one good, one bad, and he'd offer the folks he kidnapped a chance: take the poison and risk it and maybe live, or take the gun and die for sure. They had a rather long discussion, the upshot of which was that the driver was dying anyways, and someone was paying him to kill other folks - would pay his children money for every corpse he delivered. Sherlock said he started to walk away, but the driver delivered a challenge: didn't he want to know if he'd been right? About which bottle had the poison in it?
And Sherlock, well. Of course he wants to know. And of course he's wiling to stake his life on his ability to figure it out. But apparently, someone disagreed. Because just as Sherlock was taking the poison, someone - from across the gap between the two buildings, through a glass window - shot the taxi driver. Police are saying it was likely someone who had a grudge against the taxi driver. It was a remarkable shot, of course, and Sherlock has said he's quite happy as it most likely saved his life.
After the police finally get there and do their interviews and poke around and ask a lot of questions, as we're walking away from the whole mess, who do I see but the concerned gentleman, the arch-enemy? Yes, I promised you a resolution on this one. He and Sherlock get into a rather nasty discussion right there on the street in front of the police, and it turns out the whole thing is a family squabble. The fellow's Sherlock's brother, misusing his authority to move cameras around and spy on his brother and brother's friends. Which, were it anyone else, would sound a terrible abuse of power; but in a way I do understand. If I were a government agent, I might just keep an eye on Sherlock too. For safety's sake. Next time, though, please just send me a text. Or call. I'm sure you know my phone number. No more kidnapping off the street, if you don't mind.
Well, there you have it. Of course there's some stuff I'm leaving out, but that's the gist of it. A study in pink, a series of deaths, and an unexpectedly small predator in a black London Cab.
04 January: What?
Dear heavens. I never expected there to be so many interested parties. One little murder and Sherlock's not the only one delighted about it. Listen, this is a personal blog, a way of coming to grips with the aftereffects of military service and my own issues; it's one out of tens of thousands on the internet. The article above was an anomaly, I'm sure, although I'm grateful for all of your interest. But really, where did all of you *come* from? How on earth did you find me? And that comment on our relationship was completely, utterly uncalled for.
I can see that I'll need to do some housekeeping. Implement some of those comment filters or something, if you lot can't control yourselves.
But yes, I may post more about Sherlock, if anything interesting happens. And no, there will not be photos. Of any kind. Definitely none of the sort you described.