The Blind Banker: Part One
That morning while Scarlett Holmes was getting dressed all she could see was the corner of her room that had nothing in it, just a low solid wooden cabinet, beige in colour to match the other furnishings in her bedroom.
She narrowed her eyes at the offending piece of furniture, "By the time I get back you won't look so boring." She declared pointing a slim finger at the inanimate object.
The cabinet itself was a new addition to her room, bought new last month thanks to a bank account that both Sherlock and Mycroft liked to contribute to. She hardly ever used it, knowing that Mycroft had access to her bank statements, but every now and then she would relent making sure to buy something practical.
Today she knew as she poked her head around the living room door to say goodbye to Sherlock and John, was going to be a day she relented, she just didn't know how.
"Morning, Mrs Hudson." She greeted the kindly landlady as she opened her shop for that morning's trade.
"Morning dear, sleep well?" She smiled whilst getting Scarlett's favourite breakfast muffin - banana and white chocolate - and a bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice.
"Yes thanks, and yourself?" The kindly lady nodded happily handing over Scarlett's items while she went to pay with her card.
"Oh no dear, don't worry about it," Mrs Hudson reassured, "I'll just add it on to Sherlock's rent." They laughed slightly before Scarlett asked her if it was okay for the older woman to sign for a package that she would have sent home later that day.
"Only if Sherlock and John aren't in of course, I don't even know what it is yet, I just need something to go in the corner of my room."
"Of course dear it won't be a problem; you have a good day now."
"Thanks, you too!" She called over her shoulder as she placed her breakfast in her fabric patterned satchel.
It was cold outside despite the sun as buildings towered over her head. London had been her home for years, ever since she could remember, and she liked to think that she knew the city like the back of her hand.
She entered the underground nearest Baker Street knowing that if she wanted to buy something Piccadilly Circus would be the best place to do so even if she didn't know what she wanted.
-Break Line -Break Line -Break Line-
Over an hour and a half later Scarlett found herself stood at a counter in a brightly lit pet store with all sorts of animals squeaking, crying and barking in the back ground.
"Are you sure I can't tempt you with a bigger one? If you don't know what you want to put in it yet then you might need the next size up." The shop worker prompted.
"Uh, no thank-you, I think I know what I want in it. I just don't know where to buy one." She got her phone out and showed the young man behind the counter a picture of what she was looking for, she had had a brainwave on the tube ride over and she now knew exactly what she wanted, it was just a matter of finding one.
"Aw, no sorry love, those are one of the only animals we don't stock." He sounded regretful that he wasn't able to give her what she wanted.
"Never mind," she said with a smile, "I'll just buy the tank and everything else." She said gesturing to everything she had placed inside it.
"Cool, do you have an address you want this sent to?" He asked.
"Ah, yeah please, Two-Two-One-B Baker Street. My land lady's going to be there to collect it."
"Alright," He finished happily as she paid for her things, "everything should be with you by the end of the day, see you soon."
She said goodbye to the young man and left the store. She wasn't even down by the end of the busy street, walking passed a heaving cafe when her text alert shrilled, making some passers-by stare in her direction.
'Shad Sanderson Bank.
Tower 42, Old Broad Street.
Need you ASAP.
S.H'
She instantly hailed a cab, giving her destination and telling the cabbie that if he got her there within fifteen minutes instead of the typical thirty she'd pay him double.
Thirteen minutes later she was paying the cabbie and getting out of the car onto the steps that led up to her destination. She watched as men and women all dressed in tightly fitted suits walked up and down the steps completely ignoring the railings placed in for their safety. She shook her head as a man carrying a briefcase diagonally cut across her to get into the building.
She finally got to the top of the steps and entered the building via a revolving door, the ground floor was just a mass of comfy looking chairs, an expensive looking water feature and miniature tables. The floor was completed with a long help desk stretching the span of the opposite wall to the entrance with no less than ten women placed at strategic intervals along said desk.
"Hi," she said walking up to the closest receptionist, "I'm wondering if a Sherlock Holmes has been through this way?"
"If he has then he would have gone straight to the upstairs reception, that's where his appointment is being held." The blonde said after consulting her computer screen to double check.
"Yes, just go on up the escalator and he should be in the waiting area."
"Okay, thanks." The woman smiled brightly as Scarlett walked over to the escalator, she got on quickly, not walking up it as most people did, she stuck to the side so men and women could pass if they wished while she observed her surroundings, she was surprised as she noted that all of the doors she spotted had key card locks on them.
When she reached the second floor reception - which was practically the same as the floor below, just smaller - unable to see Sherlock she asked the woman behind the desk where he might be.
The receptionist, who also turned out to be their clients personal assistant led her down to the end of a corridor, before knocking and leaving her to enter.
"Ah, Sherlock, John, there you are." She smiled.
As she entered the room Sherlock stood placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her to the desk as the man she knew was the client stood to shake her hand.
"Sebastian, I'd like you to meet my niece, Scarlett."
They shook hands over Sebastian's desk. "Sebastian Wilkes, nice to meet you Miss... Holmes?"
"Likewise, Mr Wilkes." She nodded as her eyes swept quickly over the man; she noticed that he had been travelling a lot, twice within the last month at least.
"Christ Sherlock, first friends, now family, what the hell happened to you? You get hit on the head or something?" The man laughed.
"Yes, quite." Sherlock replied shortly as they all sat down. She smiled at John who nodded at her happily as she tried to ignore the tension in Sherlock's shoulders.
"I'm glad you could make it in at any rate buddy." Sebastian addressed Sherlock. "We've had a break in."
He led the three of them out of the room and across a large trading floor to a locked office which Sebastian opened with a key card, "This office belonged to the late Sir William Shad, the banks former Chairman, we left it as it is as a sort of uh, memorial if you will."
"What could anyone want to steal from a dead man's office?" John asked, clearly intrigued.
"They didn't want to steal anything, just leave a message." Scarlett said her eyes fixed on the wall opposite the desk.
She walked towards the wall as Sherlock touched part of the message; it looked like someone had been meaning to create an eight but left the top open with a horizontal straight line above the opening. Another horizontal line was sprayed across the portrait of the deceased banker's eyes, although it wasn't quiet straight and the texture of the canvas had ensured that the yellow spray paint had run. The drips had dried in various vertical lines down the painted body of Sir William.
Once they had seen enough the trio were led back into Sebastian's office, while they were in there he showed the three of them time stamped pictures of the office they had just vacated from the night prior.
"This is the annoying thing," says Sebastian as he freezes the tape on a clearly undamaged office wall, "there's a ten second interval between when each picture is taken." He flicks between the pictures of the undamaged office and then to the next one, just ten seconds later, tag graffiti now on the wall.
"Someone broke into that office, graffiti-tagged the wall and got out again in ten seconds? Wow." She knew she shouldn't be but Scarlett was impressed.
"How many ways are there to get into that office?" Sherlock asked as he leant forward to get a better look at the footage.
"That's where things get interesting." Sebastian said darkly.
The banker led them back to the second floor reception area, where they looked at a computer screen that contained the layout of the floor they had just left. Every door on the plan was highlighted a different colour depending on its security clearance level.
"Every time a door gets opened in this bank, a log of it is made right here. That includes every walk-in cupboard and toilet. And look."
He tapped on the screen highlighting Sir William's office door log, there was an entry from just now when they had gone in, but apart from that the door had remained locked for the past couple of days.
"That door hasn't been opened in ages." John commented.
Sebastian nodded at him, "There's a hole in our security. As long as you keep quiet and find it we'll pay you – five figures."
Scarlett felt her eyes widen, five figures? This must mean a lot to the bank.
Sebastian reached into his inside breast pocket, "Here, an advance, there's more for you if you find the security flaw and tell me what it is."
"I don't need an incentive, Sebastian." Sherlock stated curtly as he walked away.
"Um, you'll have to forgive my uncle, he's irrational sometimes. I'll keep it safe for him." She said, her hand outstretched for the slip of paper as she rolled her eyes.
Sebastian nodded and handed over the cheque, "Thanks, we'll keep in touch, you coming, John?"
John followed her out of the bank as they tried to locate Sherlock. Once she spotted him a couple of metres up a head she started to speak to the doctor, "Here," she said handing John the cheque, "take this."
"Why are you giving me this, Scarlett?" He asked her bewildered as they walked side by side.
"Oh come on," she said looking at him, "you're an unemployed ex-army doctor currently living off a pension, which in my opinion should be a lot higher than it is. So have it."
"I-I don't know what to say..." He trailed off.
Maybe something along the lines of, 'Well, that's my bills sorted then.' An even better one - 'Blimey, I don't have to worry about finding a job for a while.' She would have accepted both responses and any others he could think of.
"You don't have to say anything, John," she looked down at the ground, gearing herself up to say want she wanted but also preparing to run once she had. "You just being around for the pair of us… That's enough of a thank you." With that said she sprinted to catch up with Sherlock, leaving a slightly choked up John behind her.
Sherlock, it turned out was heading back to Sir Williams office to take pictures of the tag graffiti, she watched him do so as she looked silently around at the chilled, crisp office, something was bugging her and it was only when she looked at the blinds she finally noticed it.
"Sherlock, look…" Not waiting for a reply she walked towards the blinds covering part of the window-wall to fix the twist in one of them, only to notice a small door concealed by the vertical pieces of fabric covered plastic. She pushed the handle downward and it swung outward revealing a balcony they hadn't spotted earlier.
She stepped out and was met by the beautiful view of London, the gleaming buildings on all sides, the roar of traffic pulsing below her. Life was thriving, moving, racing below her and she soaked it up eagerly. Scarlett gripped onto the railing and peered over the edge to be met with a sheer drop that could have easily have been a hundred and fifty feet, probably more. She whistled loudly as she focused on the pavement below, wondering for the briefest of moments - as she often did when she was high up - if she should let go of the railing. A second later though she came to her senses and took a few paces backward across the balcony and entered back through the doorway.
-Break Line - POV Change - Break Line-
He heard her call out for him from behind as he continued to take pictures of the vandalised wall, but he didn't turn to see what she wanted straight away. When he did he noticed that she had left the office, but not to go back onto the trading floor. It was then he spotted the blinds, pulled hastily together and pushed to one side, revealing a balcony door. He put his phone away having gotten the pictures he required and walked towards the door to find her stood out there, leaning over the railing slightly as she drank in the view of London.
He heard her whistle as she stood there for a couple of seconds more before he watched her retreat backwards across the balcony into the office.
"Think I may have found the hole in the security, Sherlock. Although to reach it you need to climb over a hundred and fifty feet, if not more."
"I won't rule it out as a possibility." He promised her and she nodded amused.
A little while later they were trying to figure out from where on the trading floor that message could have been seen clearly. If anyone walked in right now he knew they would think them both completely mad. Well the traders already present on the floor did anyway as they kept throwing them furtive looks, but he didn't care. He never did.
As he ducked behind a screen he knew she would have straightened up from crouching by a computer desk. Then he heard it, so quickly he knew she was just talking to herself, clearly finding the situation amusing, "Marco..."
He felt an uncharacteristic grin spread across his face, one that only she could cause, as he ran in a crouch across the room past a pillar to view the office from a different position.
"...Polo." There followed her stunned silence as phones shrilled and workers talked and typed while she registered what he had said and then he heard her begin to giggle to herself.
This desk was the one he knew it. It was in a separate office, yes, but with the door open Sir William's old domain could be seen perfectly, no obstructions at all. Not to mention whoever worked here was head of trading with Hong-Kong. Meaning they'd have to be up at midnight, which judging by the time stamp on the security images - eleven forty-five in the evening - would mean the head of office would have been in and could have seen it easily.
He made a quick note of the name on the desk.
"Sherlock, what are we even doing, I mean, I know what we're doing," he looked up in time to see her gesture around as she entered the room, exercise clearly forgotten, "but why are we acting like ninjas'?"
He felt an eyebrow rise as she walked towards him and the desk, "It passes the time." He commented nonchalantly.
"It's just Mycroft told me you wanted to be a pirate, not a ninja." He heard her stifle a laugh as he removed his smart phone from the right pocket of his heavy coat.
"Did he now?" He asked as he straightened up and typed the man's name into google. 'Edward Van Coon' couldn't have been a common name.
He also made a mental note to get his revenge against Mycroft as well.
She sighed, clearly growing bored, "What have you found?"
"The man the message was intended for." He didn't say anything else preferring her to figure it out for herself. She looked out of the open door to the office opposite and then back into the office she stood in, he looked up from his phone quickly and watched her note the position depicted in the title on the door and the man's name on the desk they stood by.
"Oh, that's clever." She grinned at him as he saw everything click in her mind's eye.
"Isn't it just?" He replied, "What's more," he continued, "I have discovered where Mr Van Coon lives."
They both left the trading area a short while later, re-joining John by the escalators, who had been watching them on the trading floor from afar not wanting to get involved with their weird method of deduction.
As they descended John brought up something that he doubted Scarlett would understand due to the lack of context, "Two trips around the world this month. You didn't ask his secretary; you said that just to irritate him. How did you know?"
"His watch, did you see it? The time was right but the date was two days behind. Meaning he's travelled across a date line twice but hasn't bothered to alter the date." He replied casually.
"How did you get the 'within a month part' right?" John asked as they stepped off of the moving stairs.
"Scarlett?" Sherlock offered.
"The watch was a New Breitling, the models new; it only came out in February."
"Okay, when did you get a chance to…? Oh... You shook his hand when you came in, you would have seen it." John answered his own question before he had even finished it. "So," he started again as they walked towards the rotating doors of the building, "what are we doing now?"
"That graffiti was a message for someone at the bank working on the trading floors." Sherlock informed John as she kept her eyes out for a taxi as she walked down the stone stairs to the ordinary pavement, men and women still rushing about around her.
"We find the intended recipient and..." She heard him continue, he left the sentence hanging in the air for either of them to complete while she still focused on hailing a cab.
"...they'll lead us to the person who sent it." John completed for him as she finally caught a taxi on the busy street.
"Sherlock! John! I've got one, come on!" She shouted up to them in order to grab their attention and they quickened their pace to make it down the steps to the vehicle.
They all got into the cab, Sherlock giving the destination to the driver, "Three-hundred people work on that floor though. It could have been for anyone." John reasoned to the pair of them.
"But it wasn't, whoever it was for needed to have had a clear view of Sir William's office, and a great majority had their view blocked by pillars or screens. Why do you think Sherlock and I were running around on that floor like we were crazy?" Scarlett asked, looking out of the window and drinking in the view of London as it whizzed by.
"Because you both are crazy people." John answered matter-of-factly.
"Thanks." She retorted sarcastically, although not maliciously.
"The time the message was left - eleven thirty-four last night - that tells us a lot." Sherlock interrupted them before they could continue. "Traders, now they work at all hours, so they come into work at different times. Hong Kong traders come in at midnight to work. The message was meant for one of the Hong Kong traders then.
Once the taxi had stopped they removed themselves and were met by a mass block of flats, there were a few stone steps leading up to the main entrance of the building that continued into the lobby of the apartment block. They stop just before the stairs looking at the buzzer on the wall to their left where they were greeted by a list of surnames. Van Coon was one of them. They walked towards it; Sherlock buzzed it once they reached it.
There was no reply. He tried again. And again. Still there was no reply.
"Huh. So now what, do we just wait?" John questioned.
"Oh… I spy a new label." Scarlett stepped in front of her mentor, nudging him slightly as she did so, so he was out of the view of the camera's lens that sat above the buzzers. She made sure to plaster a big grin on her face before pressing the buzzer to the flat above 'Van Coon'.
The intercom crackled slightly before the tenant's voice – Ms Wintle, according to the label – sounded out to them. "Hello?"
"Hello, Ms Wintle!" She gave a little awkward wave to the camera, casting her eyes downward in an attempt to make herself look sheepish.
"I don't think we've met. My names Scarlett Van Coon. Um, I live in the flat below you. Thing is I went to pick up my uncle and a family friend and I've only just gone and locked us out of the flat… without my keys." She made a play of grimacing in embarrassment and shaking her head with a sigh.
"I don't suppose you could buzz me in could you?"
"Oh darling! Of course I can, two seconds, alright?"
"Thank you!" She sighed in relief.
There was a buzzing noise as Ms Wintle allowed them in and she gave Sherlock and John a sly smile as she walked into the building. Sherlock nodded, inwardly impressed at his niece's cunning mind.
Fifteen minutes later and the trio were in Van Coon's flat Scarlett placing all of her weight on her left foot, alleviating pressure from her right ankle, "I can't believe you jumped." John scalded her, "I'll bandage it up when we get back."
"Well how else were we going to get into the flat without busting open the front door?" She retorted.
"You know the police would have just broken open the front door anyway, there was no need to jump from that lady's balcony just because this apartment's balcony door was open."
She scowled at the doctor, "John, you sound like Mycroft, shhh."
Edward Van Coon was clearly a wealthy man with money to spare, his chairs in the living room were leather and white and the tables in the room corresponded with black frames and clear glass panes. With very little clutter it was easy to tell that Van Coon was a much organised, efficient, if slightly dead man.
"If you go through that door over there," Scarlett gestured to a door to the left of where they were standing, "you'll find his bedroom and his body." She divulged to Sherlock and John, having already checked the flat before letting them in.
It didn't take long for the police to arrive accompanied by a photographer who took it upon himself to document everything. Sherlock couldn't help the smirk that crossed his face as the camera man blinded Scarlett for the third time as she stood in the way of evidence.
He watched as she pushed away from the insufferable man and his camera, passing a forensics officer in doing so who was dusting the bedrooms mirror for prints. He could hear other forensics officers in the flat beyond the bedroom door preforming similar tasks.
She finally made her way over to him as he studied the scene before them. He had has taken his coat off and was in the process of putting on a pair of latex gloves, John standing next to him.
"D'you think he'd lost a lot of money? I mean, suicide is pretty common among City boys." John asked as he thought out loud.
"We don't know that it was suicide." He said evenly.
"Come on. The door was locked from the inside; Scarlett had to jump down to the balcony.
He squatted down next to a suitcase on the floor near the bed, opened the lid and looked at the contents within.
Scarlett must have been looking over his shoulder because she said, "He'd been away for three days, judging by the laundry."
He saw something she had missed, a deep indentation in the clothing inside the case he stood up only to crouch back down again this time with Scarlett in tow.
"Look at the case." He told her. She did so and it didn't take her long to spot what he had.
"Indent; something was tightly packed inside."
He stood up, making his way to the foot of the bed, "Those symbols at the bank – the graffiti. Why were they put there?"
"What, some sort of code?" John guessed.
"Obviously yeah." Scarlett said.
He looked closely at Van Coon's legs and shoes before he moved up and carefully opened the man's jacket to look at his inside pockets. "Why were they painted? If you want to communicate, why not use e-mail?" He asked after a moment.
"Well, maybe he wasn't answering." John hazarded a guess.
"Oh good. You follow."
"No." John replied truthfully.
Sherlock threw him a look before moving on to examine Van Coon's hands. "What kind of a message would everyone try to avoid?" Scarlett prompted.
John frowned in confusion as he glanced back over his shoulder, "What about this morning – those letters you were looking at?"
"Bills." John told them with a shrug.
Sherlock gently prised Van Coon's mouth open and pulled out a small black origami flower from inside. Scarlett retorted in disgust as air hissed out from the dead man's lungs. "Yes." Sherlock concluded, "He was being threatened."
Sherlock could hear a man giving orders outside the room, "Bag this up, will you..."
John looked closely at the paper flower in the evidence bag he held up, "Not by the gas board. That's for sure." He said astonished.
Outside the room the man continued to give orders "…and see if you can get prints off this glass." He walked in then, a plain clothed police officer who looked so young he looked like he should still be doing his homework. Not hanging around a crime scene. At least Scarlett didn't have a curfew.
"Ah, Sergeant." He decided to play nice, offering his hand. "We haven't met." The young man didn't take it, instead taking a hand to his hip.
"Yeah," He said rudely, "I know who you are; and I'd prefer it if you didn't tamper with any of the evidence."
Sherlock lowered his hand, giving the evidence bag to the officer before giving him his best annoyed look. "I've phoned Lestrade. Is he on his way?"
"He's busy. I'm in charge. And it's not Sergeant; it's Detective Inspector. Dimmock."
Sherlock looked at him unable to hide his surprise. This boy was far too young to even be in the police, let alone have advanced to D.I. rank. He looked at both John then Scarlett in turn to see that they too shared in his surprise. Dimmock looked around at them all staring, his eyes finally resting on Scarlett.
"You, girl." He said pointing at her as he walked out of the room into the living area. They followed, "Get out of my crime scene." He handed over the black flower in its bag to a member of forensics, "We're obviously looking at a suicide."
Sherlock was about to protest when Scarlett called Dimmock an invalid. He watched as the child D.I. turned to her and said, "It fits the facts."
She shook her head standing her ground, "Moron." She insulted him again, "It's one possible explanation of some of the facts." Dimmock looked like he was about to argue but she ignored him and continued. "You've got a solution that you like, but you're choosing to ignore anything you see that doesn't comply with it."
"Like?" Dimmock asked mockingly, speaking to his niece as a normal person would a young child.
"The wound was on the right side of his head."
"So?"
"Van Coon was left-handed." She said simply miming a gun with the fingers of her left hand trying to get the tips to meet her right temple to no avail. "Requires quite a bit of contortion which I don't think would be possible."
"Left-handed?" He sneered at her.
Sherlock smirked at the look of utter frustration on her face. He could tell she wanted to hit him, "Oh, I'm amazed you didn't notice." She said sarcastically, "All you had to do was your job. You know, look around this flat?"
"I'm sorry?" The D.I asked, not sounding the least bit apologetic. Scarlett essentially face-palmed, shaking her head in despair before she let out a frustrated breath. Sherlock took over while she attempted to calm herself down.
He pointed over to the coffee table, "Coffee table on the left-hand side; coffee mug handle pointing to the left. Power sockets: habitually used the ones on the left..."
He then continued to walk over to the phone cradle resting on a side table, "Pen and paper on the left-hand side of the phone because he picked it up with his right and took down messages with his left. D'you want me to go on?"
"No," John said amused, "I think you've covered it."
"Oh, he might as well; he's almost at the bottom of the list." Scarlett said with a smirk her, head shooting up out of her hand. When Sherlock made a sweeping motion with his arm with an equally coy smirk she picked up where he left off, "There's a knife on the breadboard with butter on the right side of the blade because he used it with his left."
She turned to Dimmock with an impatient look on her face, "It's highly unlikely that a left-handed man would shoot himself in the right side of his head."
"Conclusion: someone broke in here and murdered him. Only explanation of all the facts." Sherlock finished.
"But the gun: why...?" Dimmock asked confused.
Sherlock interrupted him, "He was waiting for the killer. He'd been threatened." He turned away starting to put on his scarf, coat and gloves.
"What?" Dimmock asked astonished.
"Today at the bank where he works." John answered, "There was a sort of a-a warning."
"He fired a shot when his attacker came in." Scarlett said to Dimmock.
"And the bullet?" He asked bewildered.
"Went through the open window." She said nonchalantly with a casual shrug.
"Oh, come on!" The D.I. exclaimed, "What are the chances of that?!"
"Wait until you get the ballistics report." Sherlock called to him, "The bullet in his brain wasn't fired from his gun. I guarantee it."
"But if his door was locked from the inside, how did the killer get in?" Dimmock thought out loud whilst looking around bewildered.
Sherlock smirked condescendingly, slamming his hand into his glove, "Good! You're finally asking the right questions."
-Break line- Break line- Break line-
When Sherlock returned from his meeting with Sebastian - which she had opted out of - he did not look pleased. The front door to the flat was slammed with a vengeance as he stalked in; throwing his scarf across the room and tearing off his jacket. Scarlett folded over her netbook after bookmarking the website she was currently looking at, settling herself in for a rant.
Seeing that she was ready Sherlock opened his mouth speaking quickly as he paced up and down. "Sebastian is a moron. Dimmock is an invalid. Why can't people just be intelligent? I mean is that SO much to ask?! For them to just engage the use of that muscle in those heads of theirs? For them to even have a logical thought?" He started to flail wildly, his arms swinging.
He finally stopped, pausing for a moment breaking into a fit of heavy breathing, "Dare I ask what they did?" She looked up casually to see Sherlock shaking his head in frustration.
"Dimmock filed Van Coon's death as a suicide and told Sebastian's chairmen who told Sebastian. Who told me when I said that it was clearly a murder, not to get side tracked from the job I'd been paid to do!"
His eyes looked pain filled from the amount of stupidity he had had to endure over the last couple of hours in their time apart. "Dimmock the dimwit. I know more than that moron could only ever hope to know." She sighed, "He filed it as a suicide to spite me after I showed off. Then again," She smirked as she thought about it, "he'll have to reclassify the case once the results from that ballistic report get back. There's no way in hell that bullet came from Van Coon's gun."
"I'll call Lestrade," Sherlock said irritated, "clearly someone needs to go back to school and be re-educated." He seemed to be calming down some and in the silence she noticed the absence of John, though decided not to comment.
Sherlock's breathing had levelled out some and he clearly wanted to be distracted, "Speaking of education, how are your irrelevant studies progressing?"
She smirked at him, she loved the fact that he classed A-levels as irrelevant, "Fine thanks. I've been in touch with Mycroft. I think I'm ready to sit the exams now instead of next summer. I just want to finish them and move on. Finish all this home schooled nonsense. It gets in the way. I think I could do them all in one day."
She crossed one leg over the other deciding that now would not be a good time to mention that she had been looking into university. He looked at her and nodded, "What was it you're studying again?" He still paced up and down clearly hyper, arms crossed behind his back as he thought about it.
"Chemistry, Physics and Biology. And I already have half an A-level in Psychology."
"What's the point?" He asked her, "You already know all that stuff from working on cases."
"Mycroft's orders, Sherlock. I signed a contract, remember?" He grumbled incoherently and she laughed, "Actually," she started again, "he's been helpful," Sherlock looked at her sharply, the idea obviously seeming ludicrous to him.
"He said I can do the exams as early as in a week's time and have the results by the start of next month. He said he knows people on the education bored. Big surprise."
"He's the government. Of course he knows people on the education bored." He finally sat down in his chair, "Will you sit them that early?"
"Yes, I think so. I'm thinking the seventh of November, there's usually a lull in cases at the beginning of a month. Then I'll have the results and certificates by the end of the month, start of September at the latest and that'll be that."
He nodded at her reasoning, "You've been planning this for a while." He stated.
"I won't pretend that the thought hadn't crossed my mind, no. Like I said, I'm eager to be done."
He merely nodded, "Well, if you're done with trivial things I need your assistance on constructing my new wall." He said.
"But of course." She smirked.
Sherlock set to work printing out the photographs of the graffiti he had taken earlier at the bank. He passed them to her so she could stick them to the mirror above the fire place. Now they each sat on a dining chair in front of the mirror staring at each of the photos.
That's how John found them when he finally entered the silent flat about two hours later. "I asked if you could get me a pen." Sherlock said to him as he made his way behind them. Her face pulled up into a teasing smile that the doctor couldn't see. He hadn't asked for a pen at all.
John, finally realising that Sherlock was talking to him and not her asked, "What? When?"
"'Bout an hour ago."
The doctor sighed, "You didn't notice that I didn't come back with you then?"
John picked up a pen and threw it with slightly more force than was needed she concluded as it hit her shoulder and bounced off, landing onto the carpet and rolling under the coffee table. "What did I ever do to you John Watson? For that matter what did that pen?" She asked turning in his direction.
He looked sheepish but she just shrugged, grinning, "You got the job then? That or you met a girl. No wait," She said, her eyes widened and her grin broadened, "Both!"
John didn't bother to ask her how she knew; he'd probably given up asking a long time ago. She knew he needed a job; she had been in the living room when his CV had printed out. She'd drawn a smiley face on the back of it – not that she thought he'd seen it through lack of comment - with the words:
'With my highest recommendations! – Sc Holmes.'
"Yeah, I went to see about a job at that surgery." He said as he walked towards the mirror to see what they had been up to.
She noticed that he deliberately chose to ignore the second part of her comment. Which made it even more obvious that it was true, which was only emphasised by his dilated pupils.
"How was it?" Sherlock asked him.
"It's great. She's great." John replied absently. She shook her head fondly at the man, of course she was right.
"Who?" Sherlock asked, clearly none the wiser.
"The job." John said confused as he turned to look at them, clearly unaware of what he had just let slip.
"'She'?" Sherlock repeated.
John, now realising what he had done back tracked. Poorly. "…It?" He grimaced.
Scarlett laughed silently at Sherlock's look of suspicion before he jerked his head to his right, "Here, have a look."
"Hmm?" John voiced.
She and Sherlock watched as he walked forward looking at the tab she had open on her notebook. The article shown reading, 'Ghostly killer leaves a mystery for police'. Next to the heading was a picture of a bold man with the article underneath. They waited for John to partially read it the important details, like the fact that all exits were sealed from the inside like Van Coon's apartment.
"The intruder who can walk through walls." John said finally after reading the article.
"Happened last night." Sherlock was saying, "Journalist shot dead in his flat; doors locked, windows bolted from the inside – exactly the same as Van Coon."
"God. You think...?" John said as he straightened up and she nodded at him as Sherlock said:
"He's killed another one."
Hi!
So here's part 1 of 4 of 'The Blind Banker'. As always I don't own 'Sherlock' just Scarlett Holmes.
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