Friday, 5 Feb 2010
It seemed like this job was one shock after another, and not at all in the way John might've expected. For one thing, he'd never expected a job as a sex worker (because really, that's what it came down to) to come with medical insurance to supplement his veteran's benefits. Nor did he expect to have an office — as in, an actual office, complete with desk, chair, laptop, multi-line phone, sofa, and bookshelf. The shelves were empty, as he had no idea what to put there.
About the only thing that didn't surprise him was the small safe tucked behind a painting beside his desk. If he was going to be taking off his street clothes, he appreciated the consideration of having somewhere to put his valuables, even if his only 'valuables' were his generally empty wallet and his SIG. He carried it because working nights meant he was getting back to the bedsit at a positively unholy hour, except for that one day he'd stayed to chat with Irene and Kate, and they'd ended up drinking Kate's excellent cappuccinos and eating chocolate chip biscuits until well after dawn.
And now, the next shock. Apparently, Kate processed payroll on Thursdays, and his pay was... Well, he wouldn't be staying at the bedsit for too much longer unless it was by choice.
Maybe Kate had made a mistake?
As soon as he thought it, there was a single knock, followed by the soft sound of his door opening. He wasn't at all surprised; Kate had shown a disturbing, almost psychic ability to know when she was needed.
But it wasn't Kate. It was Irene, frowning with worry, an expression that didn't sit well on her, compared to her usual unshakable confidence.
"What's wrong?" John asked at once, standing and pushing his chair back from the desk.
"Kate hasn't returned yet. She's not answering her phone."
John looked at Irene across his desk, letting the usual, obvious excuses come to mind, dismissing each one as wrong. Kate would never turn off her phone — her 'electronic leash' she called it, with a dismissive laugh and a blush that told John she'd probably been ordered to have it close at hand all the time. And she was never late. She could put a computer to shame with her precision and organization, and John had seen her show up twenty minutes early for an appointment rather than risk being five minutes late.
"Right," he said, focusing not on the nighttime dangers of London but on facts. "Where was she?"
"Valentine's studio, picking up a new whip I'd ordered. Then she was stopping at a new Italian restaurant, Angelo's, to get us a late dinner."
"Have you called them?"
"Obviously I have," she snapped, and then tossed her head restlessly and let out a harsh sigh. "I apologize. I'm —"
"Worried?" he interrupted gently.
"Kate's an adult, fully capable of taking care of herself."
"What did they say?"
"She arrived at Valentine's and left as scheduled. Nothing suspicious or unusual. The line was busy at Angelo's."
"Try them again?" he suggested in his best reassuring-doctor-voice.
Irene frowned, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth for a moment, before she nodded and walked out. Her worry was infectious, and though John told himself it was probably nothing, he thought about those serial suicides. Kate was happy — more than that, she was content. She was the last person in the world who'd even think of taking her own life, but that was exactly what they'd said about all the victims.
One more look at his apparent paycheck was enough to make the decision for him. He could afford to miss a couple of clients, if it came down to it, so he made his somewhat clumsy way through the contacts database and pulled up the night's appointments, just in case he needed to call them to cancel.
Friday, 5 Feb 2010
Fear changed behavior.
Sherlock could taste it on the air and read it in the patterns of movement on the streets beyond his window. When he went out to meet with his contacts, they were tense and wary, apologizing with furtive head-shakes and harsh whispers: Sorry, sir, nothing new, not a word.
Four serial suicides. No pattern. The victims were utterly random, absolutely nothing in common, and that had to be the commonality, because nothing else was. "There's always something," he said to the empty air, looking at the skull on his mantle.
He'd thought he had a lead when he'd realized the dead woman had been writing Rachel, the password to her mobile phone account, but the GPS had led to the lost-and-found box at a pub. The phone had been scrubbed clean of fingerprints, and the pub had no internal CCTV to show who'd dropped it there, leaving Sherlock hoping that the killer would make a mistake with his next victim.
Sergeant Donovan hadn't passed up the chance to point out that only a freak would want someone else to die just to give him something to do. Sherlock had drawn breath to answer, but it seemed that close proximity to Sherlock was finally paying off for DI Lestrade, who'd anticipated Sherlock's next words — or at least his tone — and sent them both out of the building, by separate exits, to get rest. As he was leaving, Sherlock had pointed out that 'rest' would be easy for Sally, since Anderson's wife was home for the weekend. That had earned him an escort out the building.
Sherlock stuck a fourth patch on his arm, flexing and clenching his hand into a fist, battling the frustration of his own physical limitations. Why couldn't his brain simply produce the appropriate chemicals on command? It was absolutely absurd that he needed external stimulation to spark open those pathways that let him make the deductive leaps that most people were too limited — too stupid — to comprehend except when he explained it to them in words of one syllable or less. It was like he was hunting his enemy in the dark —
"Hunting," he said, sitting bolt upright, looking over at the skull. He remembered something he'd said while walking briskly down the street, conscious of the stares of people who thought him insane for speaking to the only person intelligent enough to understand his conversation. (Himself, of course.)
"Who hunts in Central London? Who hunts at Heathrow — Oh," he breathed as it fell into place.
He snatched up his phone as he jumped off the sofa, rushing for his bedroom, dressing gown billowing out behind him. "Lestrade!" he barked as soon as the phone was answered, not caring who was actually on the other end. "Get a GPS trace on every taxi that left Heathrow between thirty and ninety minutes after victim number five came through customs."
"Every taxi? What?" Lestrade asked. In the background, a woman's voice snapped out something about leaving work to work hours, and Sherlock recognized Lestrade's wife from the time he'd stayed with them years ago. He knew he wasn't helping the fragile state of Lestrade's marriage with this after-hours call, but he couldn't be bothered with that now.
"Do it! I'll meet you at the Yard," he said, hanging up. He threw the phone onto his bed, followed by the dressing gown, and stripped off his T-shirt as he went for the closet.
Friday, 5 Feb 2010
Irene was more than unusually pale when she came back into John's office. "They haven't seen her. I convinced the manager to let me speak to every employee. Kate isn't forgettable."
The viral worry that was buzzing at the back of John's mind flared into real concern. "Damn," he breathed, quickly sending the night's appointment list to the little printer in the corner of his office, half-hidden behind his bookcase. Before retrieving it, he asked "Is Kate's phone personal or through the business?"
"Business."
"Then you have the account information." When Irene nodded, John turned his laptop to face her and said, "Log into her mobile phone account."
Irene's eyes widened with surprise. "Her GPS... God, I'm not thinking," she scolded herself, quickly typing at a speed that put John's hunt-and-peck to shame.
Trying to hide his concern, John wheeled his desk chair over to the printer and snatched at the paper. On his first day, he'd sat with Kate for a few hours, listening to how she handled clients, and felt reasonably certain that he could do a professional job of last-minute rescheduling.
By the time he was done with the first call, Irene had turned the laptop back to him with a worried frown. "This makes no sense," she said, watching his face.
He leaned in to check the map display showing the location of Kate's mobile and frowned. "What's there?"
"Nothing! It's nowhere near Angelo's or Valentine's," Irene admitted, baffled.
When Irene shook her head, John turned the laptop back to her. "Can you find out?" he asked. When she nodded, he picked up the phone to make his second cancellation call.
She was still typing after he hung up. He rose and limped over to the painting that concealed his safe. As always, he'd locked his SIG away as soon as he'd arrived. The last thing he needed was a client getting his hands on an illegal weapon with a crudely-filed serial number and John's fingerprints all over it.
He unlocked the safe and fitted the SIG into his palm, feeling his pulse go calm and cool and steady, so like and yet so unlike the first moment of taking up a whip. He'd expected one feeling tonight, but he'd accept the other, if that was where things led. Unlike the whip, he just hoped he wouldn't have to use the SIG.
Didn't he?
"Got it," Irene said, interrupting his thoughts, and he turned gratefully back to the desk before he could think about actually using the weapon.
"Well?" he prompted.
"It doesn't make sense," she said. "Her phone is at the Roland Kerr Further Education College."
"What the bloody hell is there?"
"Nothing!"
"Right," he said as he latched the holster's clip over his belt and holstered the SIG, feeling the last few months fade away at the cool press against his abdomen. He tugged his button-down shirt out over the weapon, speaking softly to Irene: "If I tell you to stay here, you won't, will you?"
"Certainly not." She picked up her purse and opened it without dropping her eyes from John's face. She tipped the purse so John could see a curved gleam of stainless steel — the barrel of a compact revolver in a quick-draw holster velcroed to the inside of the purse. Somehow, he wasn't surprised.
"Unless Coach makes concealed carry purses, that's custom made."
"Valentine's a genius," she said, standing. "Shall we?"
John hesitated; he had no idea what was going on, but he was fully aware that it was human nature to overdramatize tense situations. It was most likely that Kate was late, caught in some traffic snarl, even meeting with some illicit lover, and having Irene along — having an armed Irene along — could escalate an already-tense situation out of control. But then he considered the revolver, compact and utilitarian, not at all flashy, and the fact that it was safely carried, rather than being tossed at the bottom of the purse. He had no doubt that she knew how to handle it, even if she'd never been in an actual conflict before.
"Let's get a taxi," he told her.
Friday, 5 Feb 2010
Five minutes later, Sherlock was buttoning his jacket, wrapping his scarf, and pulling on his overcoat. "Going out, Mrs. Hudson!" he yelled when he hit the bottom of the stairs, smiling coldly as he thought about hailing a taxi. He'd never be lucky enough to actually get the killer's taxi by chance, but it was a pleasant thought all the same, and that kept him diverted for the ride to New Scotland Yard, considering how the encounter might go.
A civilized conversation, he finally decided. Serial killers were rarely rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth animals. No, often they were surprisingly well-spoken and very calm, except when triggered. Sherlock could relate to them far easier than to most people, because most of them were as devoid of emotion as he himself was. They had their passions, yes — passions that drove them to kill — but those passions were more akin to animal instincts or needs than anything of a higher emotional order.
Thoughts of what the serial murderer might say drifted through his mind, tangled up with consideration of how the encounter might end. Sometimes, he considered that the serial killers he hunted had something that he lacked — he and Mycroft both, actually. The act of killing and all the necessary rituals of a serial killer held no appeal to the brothers, though each of them had killed in his own time, for his own reasons. Generally, though, they found other ways to solve their problems — or at least other hands to get dirty, in Mycroft's case. Neither of them wanted anything so powerfully, other than the mental challenge of deciphering someone else's mind and motivation and desires.
Sherlock knew his way around the building better than many seasoned officers. He took the most efficient route to the briefing room where he presumed Lestrade would have assembled his team, if he'd followed Sherlock's instructions. He allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction when he saw the crowd of detectives there, a half dozen of them going over CCTV footage, the images on their laptops mirrored on the monitors mounted to the wall.
At least they were obedient, if not competent. Throwing his coat and scarf onto someone's desk by the door to the briefing room, Sherlock entered and demanded, "Have you identified the taxi?"
"The taxi, no," Lestrade said unhappily. His hair was slicked back by repeated passes of his hand — things had gone badly with his wife — and the fresh odor of cigarette smoke clung to him, briefly igniting Sherlock's own desire to light up. The four patches he still wore were doing nothing for him now, as if their chemical energy had been spent on his one moment of insight.
"Do you have any idea how many taxis go through Heathrow in an hour, freak?" Donovan challenged. "Or is that too normal, going to the airport to pick up your mum?"
"Assuming he has one," an officer Sherlock barely recognized quipped.
"Shut it!" Lestrade barked, presumably for Sherlock's benefit. A shocked silence fell, even the sounds of fingers on keyboards stilling for a moment. Into that silence, Lestrade asked, in a much more kind voice, "Care to take us through it then, Sherlock?"
Dull, Sherlock thought, but bowed to necessity. Unless he wanted to view this footage himself, he'd need the help of these cretins. So he gave them the minimum explanation — the job of taxi driver being the perfect job for a serial killer without a fixation on a particular target-type — and let them get on with it while he pickpocketed Lestrade more to have something to do.
Lestrade had jumped to Sherlock's defense, so he left the warrant card alone and instead sorted through the rest of his pockets in three brush-passes that he concealed with his pacing. Other than the card, he identified his issued handcuffs (Lestrade had forgotten the pouch that would hold them on his belt), a wallet (thick with cash — he wasn't going home tonight), a wristwatch (fiddly clasp, not yet taken to the jeweler's to be fixed), a crayon (a young nephew's feel-better present to an upset uncle), the pack of cigarettes, and a lighter.
He took the handcuffs because he had to take something official. He took the lighter for practical reasons. Then he challenged himself by taking precisely half of the eighteen remaining cigarettes, all without a single one of Scotland Yard's finest ever noticing.
Stupid.
Friday, 5 Feb 2010
"Too many possibilities," Sherlock muttered, pacing away from the too-crowded table, wishing he could sneak out for one of his stolen cigarettes. If he did that, Lestrade would know, and Sherlock would have to give back everything he'd taken, and there would be a fuss that would be distracting.
He was surrounded by distractions, mired in them, all the typing and murmuring and breathing, and he finally snapped and barked, "Shut up, all of you!"
The protests came swift and hard, all the stupid bullshit that other people thought was important, and he shot Lestrade an icy glare. Lestrade met his eyes for a full five seconds — that was one of the reasons he tolerated Lestrade; he wasn't afraid to actually look into Sherlock's mental darkness. Then the DI turned and ordered, "Five minute break, everyone. Clear out."
And then there was silence and peace in the glass-walled fishbowl of the briefing room, and Sherlock could think. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, pulling up his mental map of London, overlaying it with traffic patterns, current construction activities and road closures, Friday night habits of people crawling through their dull lives...
Slowly, like the dim glow of a lighthouse through thick fog, one idea began to coalesce, teasing him closer, luring him, whispering promises of brilliance and conclusion. Friday night habits. Residences with couples and families and parents and children getting fat in front of the telly. Nightclubs and bars where the desperate looked for the night's shag.
And that dim glow flared into brilliance, the lighthouse's beam turning to blind him with its clarity, turning into the headlamps of a taxi glowing over the white walls of a building that had no business being busy on a Friday night.
He was moving without thought, flinging open the fishbowl door hard enough to rattle the glass, snatching the coat and scarf from the desk where he'd thrown them; the officer who sat there hadn't quite dared to move them beyond pushing them off to one side.
"Sherlock? Sherlock!" It was Lestrade.
"Thinking!" Sherlock answered, knowing he'd understand, and there came no further protest as Sherlock strode quickly through the bullpen toward the stairs, tugging his overcoat into place. In one pocket of his jacket, Lestrade's stolen handcuffs rattled. From the other, he extracted a cigarette and the lighter. In violation of health and safety rules, the smoke alarms in this particular stairwell had long since been disabled by officers who didn't feel like braving the rain.
In a cloud of smoke, nicotine singing through his lungs and into his blood and into his brain, Sherlock descended and went out into the night. He needed to find a taxi.