Chapter 3

Over the next two weeks, things were relatively quiet, or at least as far as they could be. Sherlock had taken on a couple of small cases that he had solved quickly, but that had at least quenched his boredom levels a little. John had gone back to the practise the next day, and had spent a couple of nights round at Sarah's to make up for not turning up the time before. This... bothered Sherlock slightly, although he was not entirely sure why. After all, John was still interested in what he was doing, still being his usual self.

Tonight, John was at the flat. The windows of the house had been mended by a former tenant of Mrs Hudson's, so they were back in relative warmth. John was writing in his blog and Sherlock was reading the paper when Mrs Hudson came into the flat.

"Sherlock, really, keep your shoes away from the furniture!"

She scolded, if half-heartedly. She had learnt almost immediately upon meeting Sherlock that he tended to do what he wanted.

"Mrs Hudson, really, you know me better then to believe I would leave dirt on my shoes before entering your pristine establishment."

"Ohh, really. You know what will happen if you ever do, young man."

Mrs Hudson moved past John, giving him a little pat on the shoulder in greeting as she did so, and moved to adjust the curtains. She looked out of the window.

"Sherlock, that nice police officer friend of yours just pulled up outside."

Sherlock and John exchanged glances, not least because Mrs Hudson thought any police officer was a friend of Sherlock's. Sherlock got to his feet.

"Which police officer?"

"That nice one that wanted to be let into 221C, you know. He was very polite last time."

Mrs Hudson gave a slightly ditzy smile, then turned to go down and answer the door when it was knocked upon.

"What does he want?" John's voice was quiet and slightly nervous.

"Nothing to do with the pool, he'd have been by now if he did. Something new has happened. Something big."

Before John could react to that, Lestrade had come into the room.

"You might want to come down to the station Sherlock. We've been sent an... interesting piece of evidence. Your serial bomber has changed tactics."

They entered the team's office to the sound of a familiar voice raised in annoyance.

"We don't always need to call the freak whenever there is a case like this! For all we know he could be part of this crazy plot."

"You'd rather people were getting blown up and killed, would you, Sergeant Donovan?"

"No, of course not! Just... there's got to be someone other then [i]him[/i] that we can use."

"Not at the moment, no. Now, if you wouldn't mind, get back to monitoring the systems whilst we talk this through."

Sally Donovan gave Sherlock a filthy look as she passed, but didn't try arguing any further. He could also see Anderson over in a corner, an annoyed look on his face. He smirked as he and John entered Lestrade's office and closed the door behind them. Lestrade turned to face them, hands on his hips, and nodded towards an A3 size envelope on his desk.

"It arrived this afternoon via courier. Delivery driver said it was brought into their offices directly yesterday, and that the man that did it paid well for it to be delivered at a specific time. 3.20pm. When we opened it, there was a type-written note, saying to bring you in and show this to you before 7pm, and signed M."

Sherlock checked the clock. 6.50pm. He picked up the envelope, checked the address. Type-written too.

"Fingerprints?" John asked.

"Nothing, again."

Sherlock opened the envelope, and peeked inside. There was a single sheet of paper, and another, smaller envelope. He slid both out.

The sheet of paper contained what appeared to be a newspaper article. 'Man, 32, found dead', the headline said. He scanned the article, picking out the important words.

[i]Stabbed. Flat, Camden. 3am. Last seen at a wholesale warehouse.[/i]

"The date." John said quietly beside him, breaking Sherlock's concentration for a moment.

"What about it?"

"It's two days ahead."

Sherlock glanced up at the top of the page. John was quite right. A slight crease appeared between his brows at this, and then...

"Oh, very clever..." He murmured.

"What is?" Lestrade asked.

"This is fake. A very clever fake though, he's clearly hired a professional to design this. But still, a fake. The paper is good quality, which says professional sample. No fingerprints on this too, I presume?" Lestrade shook his head. "So, he will have warned the creator of this not to handle this with bare hands. This could mean the creator is aware of the intent, or, more likely, he is too wary to ask questions."

"But why fake a news article about a death two days before it happened?"

"Not two, one. If this article was true, the death would be happening at 3am tomorrow morning, and the death would be reported the next day. Which makes it just over ten hours before now. Now, I would say the reason is quite clear. Why were we being sent the picture clues before?"

"To tell us the deaths were suspicious, so we could reveal the truth. You think this is similar?" John asked.

"Yes, except in reverse. Rather then solving the truth of a murder after it has happened, Moriarty is giving us a chance to prevent them from happening at all."

"But how are we supposed to do that?"

Before Sherlock could answer, there was a beep of a phone. After a second, Sherlock pulled the pink phone out of his coat pocket.

"You're still carrying that?" John's voice was incredulous.

"I knew Moriarty would likely get in touch again, I felt it best to be prepared."

There was one new text message.

10 hours, sexy. M.