Improbable, Impossible, Implausible
My Fender Strat sits all alone
Collecting dust in the corner
I haven't called any of my friends
I've been MIA since last December
My Blackberry's filled up with E-mail
My phone calls goes straight through to voicemail
Simple Plan Featuring Rivers Cuomo – Can't Keep My Hands Off You
They had run quite far, climbing from various rooftops and jumping gaps until they had reached an abandoned industrial estate. At its heart sat an empty building, an old factory or a warehouse maybe, though if he was brutally honest John didn't particularly care what form of a building it was. An old skip lay abandoned by the gaping hole of what was once considered to be a window, though all the panes of glass had been smashed by considerate youths many years previously. After glancing about the abandoned car park, she hopped up onto the rim of the skip before scrambling through into the warehouse, the two men following immediately, breathing heavily after their run.
Once inside, she flopped to the floor gratefully, stretching out flat on her back and tried in vain to regulate her heavy breathing. John stood up, a face like thunder.
"Would either of you mind explaining what the bloody hell is going on here?" he exclaimed, frustrated. Sherlock got to his feet and began to wander aimlessly along the perimeter of the building, examining bits and pieces he found on the way.
"Anyone?" John continued, still slightly out of breath, before slumping to the floor in defeat.
"Needles and empty wraps on the floor," Sherlock called out from somewhere in the shadows. "Couple of old sofas here too. Looks like a-"
"It's an old crack den." She said, the tone of her voice implying that it was not a particularly hard deduction to make. Sherlock's head popped up from behind a steel pillar.
"What makes you think its not in use anymore?" He asked, sounding neither impressed nor shocked at her speculation.
"Did you not see the thickness of the dust on the windowsill? No one has been in here for a long time. At least three months, I'd say."
"Close, but not quite right." Sherlock muttered, before directing a comment at John, "Well, this certainly isn't dull!" After a seconds pause, he continued, "Then again, it's not the most exciting either… but, beggars can't be choosers!" He sighed, sounding almost bored already.
Outside, there came a screech of tyres as a car pulled up. She jumped to her feet quickly, cursing again. "Shit! I didn't think he'd find us here so quickly!" She ran to the window, peering out to get a glimpse of the car, cursing the familiar black jaguar.
John followed her "Just who is he? And more to the point, have you put us in danger?" he demanded.
Sherlock hurried over, "John, help me with this." He said, gesturing towards a moth eaten old sofa.
John looked at him confused, "Why? Sherlock, we're about to be killed, why do you want to be messing about with a couch?"
"John! Quickly! I'd love to stop and chat, but, unlike you, I don't have the time to be killed!" Sherlock snapped in reply. John sighed, in resignation and helped his friend lift the piece of heavy furniture and block up the window with it.
"I don't have my gun." John stated, looking anxious "What if he starts shooting at us again?"
Sherlock sighed, frustrated with his flatmate, "Yes, I know John. It is obvious, you know, we're not all blissfully unaware like you."
John looked about ready to make a snide reply directed at Sherlock before she interrupted, clapping her hands and speaking to them cheerily "Now then children, behave…" she warned them in a patronizing tone, which seemed to subdue them for a moment as she rifled through the cushions of the sofa. "Aha!" she cried "You beauty!" kissing the barrel of the revolver, "Right where I left you…" she remarked smugly, before turning to face the aghast ex-soldier and the mildly surprised detective.
"Interesting…" Sherlock remarked, "I didn't expect you to have a Smith and Wesson,"
"Oh, but you knew I had a gun?" she replied calmly, before smoothing down the front of her leather bomber jacket, "I suppose you could see the imprint it left in my pocket? Though, I should say, it's not actually mine, I found it here a couple of days ago…" Sherlock nodded once, uninterested
"He'll be here in a moment," She said, gesturing towards the door.
"Yeah, who exactly is he?" John asked, shooting a look at Sherlock, one that clearly said – go on, ask her!
Cocking the hammer of her revolver, she aimed it at the door, waiting for it to open. Speaking through gritted teeth, she spoke quickly. "I like to call him The Toad-" as John opened his mouth to ask a question, she cut him off "-you'll see why in a moment. Basically, I have something that he has been sent to obtain, which means I've been running about the country trying to get away from him."
"What sort of something?" John asked sceptically, shooting a glance towards to Sherlock, wondering if he had deduced the answer.
"A top secret sort of something." In front of them, a door banged loudly and echoing footsteps approached.
"There's a flight of stairs up there," she pointed, "Leads to the overseer's office – go out the fire exit. I'll try giving you a few moments head start but-" She turned to face them, looking at them urgently as a wordless shout echoed from near the locked door. A scraping sound emerged from the keyhole as The Toad began picking the lock. "Don't stop running. He's lethal." She reminded them.
As they turned away, she spoke again "And Mr Holmes. If something happens, your brother will need to know..."
Sherlock nodded and was gone in a second, coat tails flapping as he ran up the stairs two at a time. She retreated, slowly reaching the foot of the stairs, blindly pushing John behind her as the door burst open. As the short squat man with flabby, pallid skin advanced over the threshold, shots rang out rapidly. She returned fire until the barrel was empty and followed the two men out of the warehouse at a sprint. The Toad did not follow them immediately, though she could say whether she had managed to hit him or not.
"Even if he's dead," she muttered through laboured breathing "There'll be more." She looked up at the two men, who were both bent double trying to catch their breath, like her. Grinning slightly with the exhilaration "I don't suppose you can recommend a good B&B? Somewhere safe'll do-"
Already the two men were stalking away, hailing a nearby cab.
"The address is 221B Baker Street."
After they had returned to Baker Street, John had settled down with a cup of tea and that morning's newspaper, which he had still not gotten around to reading. Sherlock was stood sullenly in the alcove of the window, absentmindedly plucking at the strings of his violin and creating irritating grating notes which jarred John's jaw as they reached a particularly high crescendo.
Finally, he slammed his paper down "Christ Sherlock! Can you stop that?"
"It helps me think."
"Even so, can you please just play something?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes, but obliged, picking up his bow, and repositioning his violin and playing a soft melody.
Ten minutes passed, before John spoke again "So, why is she coming here again?"
Sherlock sighed and put his violin down carefully. "She was interesting," he shrugged, "It's likely we'll get a case out of her-"
"You mean because she ran across half of London to get away from an assassin who wanted to steal something from her?"
"No." Sherlock picked up John's laptop, ignoring the raised eyebrows of his friend. After five minutes silence, John nudged his flatmates leg with his stretched out foot to get his attention. The expression on Sherlock's face clearly said – never do that again. But it had worked; Sherlock shoved the laptop aside and placed his steepled fingers against his nose.
"Because I want to know why such a young woman has left her family recently, travelled to London and is in possession of a top secret file – especially when this woman is clearly not an employee of the government – the callused and unmanicured fingers show that she is accustomed to working with her hands."
John nodded and added "And the gun."
Sherlock's eyes shot open for a moment. "Of course. She's a well off middle class woman, where would she ever have held a gun before? She's not an ex soldier..."
He trailed off again, and sat in silence, thinking again. John sighed and picked up his newspaper again, not expecting him to stir again that evening.
At half past 9, the doorbell downstairs rang shrilly. John could hear Mrs Hudson bustling down the narrow hallway as fast as her hip would allow her, calling out
"I won't be a minute dear!"
Sherlock barely reacted when John got up and made his way downstairs to greet her himself. She was still hovering anxiously in the doorway, with a couple of suitcases and a holdall. Her hood was pulled firmly up over her head to protect her from the elements, and John suspected it would also deter anyone who was following her.
"Uh, Mr Holmes said that this was a B&B?" She said, her eyes darting about confusedly, "I'm sorry, I've come to the wrong address – I'll be off then…" Uttering another apology, she began turning around picking up her bags ready to leave.
"Oh, but this must be the right place! Sherlock lives here!" Mrs Hudson said warmly, noticing John at the same time "Oh! John, this young lady, seems to be in a bit of a pickle – Sherlock's doing I'll imagine?"
"Yeah, something like that." John muttered, stepping forward to help her lift her bags "Come on, I'll show you upstairs and Sherlock can explain." She smiled gently, suddenly shy now that they were out of danger, and followed him upstairs.
"I'm Tegan by the way, Tegan Watkins," She said, offering her hand to Sherlock. He ignored it and continued scrutinising her. Normally in a case like this, she would have become increasingly nervous, but her earlier confidence was creeping back, so she stared him down. "Though most people just call me Tee." She said, thanking John quietly as he brought her a cup of tea.
"So he's like this a lot then?" She asked, nodding her head towards Sherlock who had thrown himself sideways so he was lying down on the sofa.
"Oh, I'd say most of the day if he's got a case," John shrugged nonchalantly, before sitting down on a second armchair.
"What about if he doesn't have a case?"
"Well," John said, trying to find the right words to describe him before she wandered over to the far end of the room and traced the bullet holes in the wall with her finger.
"He does stuff like that, doesn't he?" She said with a slight laugh.
John nodded ruefully, "It doesn't put you off does it?"
She shrugged "Nah, not really, and I mean anyway, even if it did it's not like me to complain, especially when I'm this desperate."
Sherlock looked back and forth between them, "Why are you desperate?"
"MR Holmes, I've heard about you, supposedly you're the world's only consulting detective – you tell me!"
He rolled his eyes and picked up his violin again, plucking at random notes to show his irritation, he reeled off all the facts he had deduced about her.
"You've recently left your perfectly dull family, so you have nowhere to stay. You're not from London; otherwise you would have friends you'd be staying with right now. You are in possession of a top secret file – you must have it on you at all times so that they don't steal it from your current hotel room and a folder of documents is too big to carry with you, so it must be small – a memory stick is likely. You don't work for the government, or you would be working on the file in the safety of an office, so you must be a freelance worker who has been employed to work on it. You don't have a manicure like most boringly mundane middle class women do, and you have calluses on your fingertips. More interesting is the lack of any jewellery on your hands or wrists, which suggests that you work with your hands. My first guess would be that you work as an electrician because of the lack of jewellery, health and safety would prevent that of course, but then that's a ridiculous theory, when we come back to fact that you are a middle class young woman, not to mention the fact that you have a top secret government file on your person, so a computer programmer maybe."
There was a moment's silence as she looked to John for confirmation, "Yeah," he replied in answer to her questioning glance "He does that all the time too."
Then she laughed. She laughed until she was clutching at her stomach and gasping for air and she laughed until tears ran down her cheeks.
The two men before her looked at each other, disbelieving looks cast upon their faces. After a while, John's mouth twitched upwards as he tried to contain a smile, though a sharp look from Sherlock soon quenched any idea of it turning into a full bodied laugh much like the one being uttered from the blonde haired woman in front of them.
"I knew you were good," she giggled, "But not that good!"
"So I was right?"
"Almost," she smiled, "I don't wear jewellery purely because I don't like it, and the calluses are because I play a musical instrument."
"Ahh…"
"I'm Tee… the best computer programmer in the country."
"You can have Sherlock's bed. He barely uses it anyway." John said, pointing the way.
"Thanks."