Sherlock Holmes
2
{Man, Chapter One got fistfuls of positive feedback. Yay!} {Bold chapter names, so far, mean Major Character Introductions. In theory. xD}
{I totally forgot the victim cameos from the beginning. As I don't really see a need to transcribe them… *shrug* But we'll do Lestrade's conference, eh?}
"The body of Beth Davenport, Junior Minister for Transport, was found late last night in a building site in greater London. Preliminary investigations suggest that this was suicide. We can confirm that this apparent suicide closely resembles those of Sir Jeffrey Patterson, and James Philimore. In the light of this, these incidents are now being treated as linked. The investigation is ongoing, but Detective Inspector Lestrade will take questions now."
One of the reporters held out his hand. "Detective Inspector, how can suicides be linked?"
Lestrade shifted slightly, his wings- plumage closely resembling a Great Grey Owl's, rather fittingly- comfortably clasped against the back of the chair.*
{*If anyone misunderstands this, it can create quite the conundrum: for clarity, if you walk up to a chair and touch the part of the backrest that you aren't touching, the outer side, that is the side the wings rest against if you're sitting. It's a simple motion of extending them slightly as you sit and enclosing the backrest inside of them. Over time, it becomes as natural a motion as slipping sideways on to a chair. Yeah, I spend a lot of time thinking about the physics of this.}"Well, they all took the same poison," he began. "They were all found in places they have no reason to be. None of them have shown any prior indication of-"
"You can't have serial suicides," the reporter interrupted.
"Well, apparently you can."
"These three people, there's nothing that links them?" another reporter asked.
"There's no link to be found yet, but we're looking for it- there has to be one," Lestrade said.
At that moment, every phone in the room synonymously went on alert.
"If you've all got texts, please ignore them," Donovan announced.
"It just says 'Wrong'," the first reporter told her.
"Yeah, well just ignore that. If there are no more questions for Detective Inspector Lestrade I'm going to bring this session to an end."
"If they're suicides, what are you investigating?" the second reporter asked.
"As I say, these- these suicides are clearly linked. It's- it's an unusual situation, we've got our best people investigating-"
And again, the phones sounded.
"Says wrong, again," the first reporter said.
"One more question," Donovan called, studiously ignoring that comment.
"Is there any chance that these are murders, and if they are, is this the work of a serial killer?" Yet another reporter joined the fray.
Lestrade smirked. "I know that you like writing about these, but these do appear to be suicides; we know the difference. The poison was clearly self-administered-"
"Yes, but if they are murders," the third reporter interrupted, "how do people keep themselves safe?"
"Well, don't commit suicide," Lestrade offered.
The reporter looked put-out.
"They don't need any more," Donovan muttered under her breath. {It took me four damn playthroughs to catch that sentence. APPRECIATE IT.}
{At this point, I've spent an entire hour crafting this chapter. 2:30 AM to 3:30 AM. That's dedication.}
"Obviously, this is a frightening time for people, but all anyone has to do is exercise reasonable precautions. We are all as safe as we want to be."
Yet again, the text alert noise sounded.
This time, it reached Lestrade.
He pulled his mobile out from under his coat.
You know where to find me. -SH
He sighed, pocketing it.
"Thank you," Lestrade murmured, standing.
*
"You've got to stop him doing that. He's making us look like idiots."
"If you can tell me how he does it, I'll stop it!"
**
Click-click, click-click, click-click, click-click, click-click-
The sound of the cane only served to grind against his consciousness, irritating him further.
"John?" a voice called. "John Watson?"
John turned.
"Stamford," the other said, pressing a hand to his chest. "Mike Stamford. We were at Bart's together." {Another one of those tricky little pieces of speech. Damn.}
"Yes, sorry- Mike, yes, hello, hi."
"Yes, I know. I've gotten fat."
"No," John disagreed automatically, for tact's sake.
"I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at," Mike wondered. "What happened?"
John looked down at his cane, then half-shrugged. "I got shot."
*
{What is it with these little words that they go "dskjgkj" on and I just go "WTF come again?" with? Uncool.}
Later, sitting on a bench, sharing coffee in companionable silence, John was the first to break the silence.
"So you're still at Bart's, then?"
Mike nodded. "Teaching now. Bright, young things like we used to be. God, I hate them."
They half-laughed.
"What about you, just staying in town until you get yourself sorted?"
"I can't afford London on an army pension," John muttered.
"And you couldn't bear to be anywhere else," Mike finished. "That's not the John Watson I know."
"Yeah, well, I'm not the John Watson," John said abruptly. He fisted his left hand several times, his left wing shuddering involuntarily.
"Couldn't Harry help?" Mike asked after a pause.
"Like that's going to happen," John scoffed.
{Tacking "scoffed" after "John" makes him sound ten times older. Just saying.}
"I don't know," Mike shrugged, "you could get a flatshare, or something."
"Come on," John wondered, "who'd want me for a flatmate?"
Mike snickered quietly.
"What?"
"Well, you're the second person to say that to me today."
"Who was the first?"
**
With a quick, confident motion, he unzipped the body bag.
He sniffed. "How fresh?"
"Just in," Molly said, walking around the table. "Sixty-seven, natural causes. He used to work here. I knew him. He was nice."
He zipped the bag back up.
"Fine." He faced her. "We'll start with the riding crop."
*
After witnessing his passionate outburst, Molly hesitantly stepped forward.
"So," she began, "bad day, was it?"
He drew his pocketbook out from his jacket, jotting down a note. "I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes; a man's alibi depends on it. Text me." He rolled his shoulders, regretting the fact that the morgue room was too narrow to effectively spread his wings, as the joints felt incredibly stiff.
Molly gathered herself, pulling her own against her back a touch more firmly to ground herself. The fluorescents were hardly flattering on her soft-brown feathers, and even less so on the cream-colored speckles scattered throughout. It served to make her more self-conscious.
{Imagine: Little Owl}
"Listen, I was wondering, maybe later, when you're finished-"
He looked at her. "Are you wearing lipstick? You weren't wearing lipstick before."
In mortification, her feathers pulled closer to her wings, making her look substantially smaller. "I, ah… I refreshed it a bit."
He nodded. "Sorry, you were saying?"
"I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee."
He put away his pocketbook. "Black, two sugars, please. I'll be upstairs."
Molly let the tips of her primaries touch the floor.
"Okay."
*
He was entirely focused on the petri dish when the knock sounded on the door, completing his task before he looked up.
"Well," John murmured, "a bit different from my day."
"You have no idea." Mike smirked, and stepped aside to watch the show.
"Mike, can I borrow your phone?" The stranger spoke for the first time. "There's no signal on mine."
"What's wrong with the landline?"
"I prefer to text."
"Sorry; it's in my coat."
"Ah, here," John interrupted. "Use mine."
The stranger lifted his head. "Oh. Thank you."
"It's an old friend of mine- John Watson," Mike interjected as the stranger stood, very, very intentionally shifting the position of his wings just slightly so that they would be more in the view of the obviously-former-army-doctor. Who didn't flinch in the slightest, he noted with intense interest, when his eyes skated over them.
Dull slate grey, the stranger thought to himself, dismissively. Not quite ordinary. But not exactly exceptional.
{How wrong he was.}
The stranger flicked the phone open. "Afghanistan or Iraq?"
Mike smirked again.
"Sorry?" John asked hesitantly.
"Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?"
"Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you-"
"Ah, Molly, coffee! Thank you." He handed the phone back to John, taking the mug from her. "What happened to the lipstick?"
"It wasn't working for me."
"Really? I thought it was a big improvement. Mouth's too…small now."
"Okay," Molly said again, exiting the room.
He raised his wings just a touch, finding some relief in the motion as he walked back to the microscope.
"How do you feel about the violin?" the stranger asked.
John shared a look with Stamford, shifting his weight on his cane. "Sorry, what?"
"I play the violin when I'm thinking, and sometimes I don't talk for days on end- would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other."
"Are you- you told him about me?" John asked Mike.
"Not a word."
"Then who said anything about flatmates?"
The stranger shrugged into a jacket. "I did. Told Mike this morning I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for, and now here he is, just after lunch with an old friend clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't a difficult leap."
John looked down at the floor briefly. "How did you know about Afghanistan?"
"I've got my eye on a nice little place in central London," the stranger said, ignoring him. "We ought to be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o'clock. Sorry, got to dash: I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary."
"Is that it, then?" John said, turning.
"Is that what?" the stranger asked flatly, stepped away from the door.
"We've only just met, and we're going to go look at a flat."
"Problem?"
Another look shared with Stamford.
"We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting. I don't even know your name."
The stranger considered, pulling his wings together. And then-
"I know you're an army doctor, and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got a brother who's worried about you, but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him- perhaps because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he's recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks that your limp is psychosomatic- quite correctly, I'm afraid. It's enough to be going on with, don't you think?"
Just before the last of his pitch-black raven-like feathers disappeared out the door, the stranger peered back in.
"The name's Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street." He winked. "Afternoon!"
"Yeah," Stamford confirmed as the door closed. "He's always like that."
**
*crawls into a corner and dies*
Four. Hours. Solid. Work.
In comparison, I typed a 1,200 word chapter for The Dark Side of the Moon in forty-eight minutes, once.
Ugh. TRANSCRIBING, IT IS TIME-CONSUMING