CH 4

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Days Later

John Watson sat across from a woman named Sarah Sawyer, who was reading his CV. 'Good thing I brought it along, but she should have received the most recent one from the SC,' he thought. 'At least this place is close to Baker Street, so I could walk here on a good day.'

"It's just locum work," Sarah told him.

"No, that's fine," John replied.

"You know that you're a bit...well...quite a bit over qualified," she told him.

"Could always do with the money," John told her. "The SC assured me that I'd be needed for a while here and I could use the down time to let my brain and senses settle before I return for the last of my re-training sessions."

"We've got two off on holiday this week," Sarah explained. "Another one just left to have a baby," she paused and then continued, "This might just be a bit mundane for you and it's only for half-salary."

"Any salary is good at the moment." John smiled at her and said, "Mundane is good...," he qualified that statement with, "…well, sometimes. Mundane works for me."

She read more of the CV. She didn't have to since she was contracted to help with the Guide and Sentinel Centres of the city. She had already received a copy, but the interview process allowed her to gauge the man's sensory abilities and so far she wasn't that impressed. This place did have a high turnaround of qualified individuals, though and they were short-staffed at the moment. "Says here...that you're a soldier, why didn't you get placed with one of their veteran clinics?"

"I'm a Doctor first," John replied. "...and I was invalided out of the Army. I also needed a job close to my flat, since I'm living with a Guide at the moment and he's helped me out of zones from time to time. If no one here can get me out of a zone, he's to be contacted. His particulars are part of the contacts listed on my CV."

"Yes, I see," she said. "I'm a qualified Guide too, which is one of the reasons why you were sent here. Anything else, you care to tell me about yourself?"

"I learned the clarinet in school," John replied with a cheeky smile. He felt a slight pull towards her and assumed that it was the Sentinel thing, but he did find her attractive too. However it was nothing to the intensity of the pull he felt around Sherlock.

Sarah answered with a smile herself and nodded, as she said, "I look forward to working with you."

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

John returned from his quasi interview to find that Sherlock had not moved from his position of observation on the couch. The man had, in fact, asked him to do something while he was not there to do it.

"I said," Sherlock said, once more. "Could pass me a pen?"

"What," John asked, surprised. "When did you ask?"

"About an hour ago," was the reply.

"Didn't you notice that I'd gone out," John asked and then he tossed the sought for pen. "I went to that nearby surgery that the SC told me about, to get a schedule of times they needed me. Instead they interviewed me. Luckily, I already had an updated CV to show them, you're name's placed as a primary contact if they can't get me out of a fugue state."

Sherlock's brow furrowed and he asked, "Why would you do that?"

"Need to supplement my pension and you've helped me out of a zone before," John replied.

"How was it," the younger man asked.

"Great," John said. "She's great."

"Who?"

"Oh," John flustered. "The job!"

"She?"

"I meant the job," John replied. "She, is the manager of the clinic and a Guide too."

"Of course they'd send you to a place with an acceptable Guide," Sherlock stated. He rolled over and turned his back on the doctor, who knew just what his flatmate was doing.

John shook his head, but noticed that Sherlock's laptop was opened to an online article from a newspaper called, 'London News Online.' "The intruder who can walk through walls," he read out loud. "That does sound a bit like our case."

"Doesn't it," Sherlock turned over and sat up. "Happened last night, the journalist was shot dead in his apartment. His door was locked and windows were bolted from the inside, exactly the same as Van Coon!"

John watched the younger man race to his room and change quickly with military speed. He called out, "You don't think...?"

"He's killed another one," Sherlock said. "Come on we're going to the Yard."

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

There they had found the young looking Detective Inspector Dimmock sitting at his tiny cubicle, desk area. As soon as they found him, Sherlock immediately sat down, twirled the computer screen around and grabbed the man's keyboard to type up the online address to the news article that he'd found.

"Here," Sherlock said. "Brian Lukis, freelance journalist. He was murdered in his flat and the door was locked from the inside." He twirled the monitor back for the DI to look at it.

John shrugged, when he received a questioning look. "You've got to admit that it's seems quite similar. Both men killed by someone who can, apparently, walk through solid walls. We need into his flat."

Dimmock glanced around the office quickly and didn't like the glances he'd been receiving ever since the word had spread about him being told to work with Sherlock Holmes. He hadn't budged in his position of a suicide ruling for Van Coon because he didn't want to own up to the mistake he'd made. However Sherlock wasn't going to let him get away with any wrong pronouncement, as to the cause of Van Coon's death.

"Inspector," Sherlock called to him. "Do you seriously believe that Eddie Van Coon was just another suicide?" The man was silent on the matter. "You checked with ballistics, I suppose." The man nodded because he had checked. "And...the shot that killed him wasn't from his own gun, was it?"

"No it wasn't," Dimmock confirmed.

"No!" Sherlock stated. "So perhaps this investigation might move a bit quicker, if you took my word as gospel. Now let's go before something else happens."

Dimmock looked at John because he couldn't believe the arrogance of the Consulting Detective and Guide.

"Yeah," John answered the unasked question. "He's always like that and I don't think you can go wrong following his advice in this matter or any others in the future, especially if you're in a bind and need him to consult. Your findings will back up his statements, but maybe one day, if you're lucky, very lucky, they won't and then you'll have one upped him. For now you really should follow Lestrade's example and agree to follow up on what Sherlock suggests is a viable course of action for your investigations."

'Damn good impression of that 'protect the Guide' instinct I've heard about, but never chanced to witness,' Sherlock thought, as he glanced at his flatmate's defensive expression. 'Never thought John would show that kind of defense about me though, at least not this early in our acquaintance, although I did add him to one set of my finances, so maybe I'm exhibiting some of those 'protect the protector' instincts too...I'll have to think on that later.'

However, the Consulting Detective only huffed at the pair of them and said, "I've just handed you a murder enquiry. We might have a serial murder or something. Five minutes in the flat! That's all I'll need to see if they're connected or not."

Eventually they entered the flat of the dead journalist, Brian Lukis. Those that were Sentinels, who had their bonded Guides with them, were able to control their senses. John wasn't so lucky. He stuck close to Sherlock and gripped his arm, which had the effect of limiting the man's movement, though it helped him. His flatmate had been slightly irked to have his flamboyant movements curtailed, but he permitted the touch and the limitation.

'I'm going to have to talk to him about this and soon,' John thought to himself as he caught the scent of spoiled food in the dead man's fridge. 'How long was he gone for the food to have spoiled?'

Sherlock scanned the room and noted that there were quite a number of books, some of which were location specific, like south-east Asia. Tucked close among them was the ever present travel guide, 'A to Z of London'.

They all noted the open suitcase, which John stepped closer to it and took a deep breath. "It's been empty longer," he said. "Has that same ceramic pottery scent inside along with the unwashed clothing."

"Interesting," Sherlock muttered. "You all right," he asked. The Doctor nodded and released his hold on the taller man's arm and then went where his flatmate pointed to the journalist's notes look at, while Sherlock scoped the rest of the flat and immediately noticed several points of interest. "Fourth floor," he told them. "That's why they think they're safe. Put the chain on the door, bolt it shut and they think they're impregnable."

John looked over the man's desk. It contained lots of pages and bits of paper with handwritten notes, but nothing of great value. He couldn't look through the man's other things, since forensics had to catalogue the items first. There were small piles of assorted books, many of which were to do with the politics of south-east Asia. It was clear that the journalist was researching for an article, but what specifically, was not clear by the jumble of references and half finished sentences on various different subjects.

Meanwhile Sherlock fiddled with the windows and the door. He looked everywhere and eventually he looked up and noticed that this particular flat had a skylight. "They never consider for a moment," he continued his conversation, as though he hadn't paused to look around. "That there's another way in here."

"I don't understand," Dimmock said.

Sherlock climbed onto the table and lifted a chair onto it. He stepped onto the chair and lifted the broom he'd taken with him to poke at the skylight panel. (...i...)

"What are you doing," Dimmock asked.

"We're dealing with a killer who can climb," Sherlock told them all. "They cling to the wall like an insect. "That's how he got in." He continued to poke at the skylight and opened it with the just a minor push of the broom handle.

"Mountain climbers can do that kind of climbing too," John added. "They are skilled in climbing different surfaces using just their bodies. Their fingers and toes are stronger than you think. This looks more like acrobatic skill though, but still possible to do. I've done something similar in Afghanistan."

"You're not serious," Dimmock exclaimed. "You mean the killer crawled up there like some kind of wanna'be Spider-man?"

"Don't know who that is," Sherlock said. "But yes, the killer climbed through the skylight here to get to Lukis.

"I don't believe this," Dimmock muttered.

"The killer most certainly scaled to the sixth floor balcony to kill Van Coon," Sherlock said, as he climbed down from his precarious position.

Dimmock sputtered and tried to interrupt. "Hold on there..."

"Of course this was how he entered the bank without going through it," Sherlock continued. "He used a window ledge to edge his way across until he reached that little terrace balcony area that belonged to the Sir William at the bank. That particular door wasn't set to any sensor or alarm and it didn't have a keypad or card scanner next to it either."

"So much for monitoring every door," John said in an unfocussed voice. His eye had caught a small something on the floor. It was incongruous to anything else in the flat. He held out his hand for a small, evidence baggy, in order to bag the small innocuous object.

Dimmock handed him one, as the doctor's flatmate ran his thumbs through some of the books on the desk. It looked like the titles of them were interesting, but noted that the man ignored much and picked up only one book near the entrance to the flat.

"It's the one without the dust on it," John said, in answer to the question that no one asked, but was obvious in their confused gazes. "Lukis must have dropped it on his way in." He handed the man the folded bit of paper. "Here," he tells Dimmock. "I suspect that this is similar to what we found in Van Coon's mouth."

"John," Sherlock calls up to him from the entrance door. "We need to go the library."

John gave the policemen a sheepish grin, a half-hearted shrug and ran down the steps to follow his lanky flatmate on another chase to some other location of London's vast sprawl.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

"The book is date stamped with the same day that Lukis died," Sherlock explained. "So Lukis had to have been here just before his death, the question is what happened between here and the time he died."

They zipped, zigged and zagged through the bookshelves and racks, of the public library until they reached the one section that was specific to the politics of south-east Asia. They started looking at the books and wondering what specifically happened.

John sniffed and felt that there was a familiar scent in the area. It was the smell of aerosol paint. He pulled a couple of the books off the shelf and found what he had suspected he smelled. "Sherlock," he said. "Here."

More books were pulled and soon they saw the full image. It was the same as the painting in the bank. There was a single line on the right with and funny swizzle to the left of the line. The paint had the same drippy, runny lines too.

"Same pattern," John observed. He looked at the front of the books and noted that a couple had brushed against the paint. "Dry now, but wet when the books were partially pushed back into their proper position...not all the books here have the paint on them."

"So the killer goes to the bank...," Sherlock paused for a moment before he continues. "He leaves the threatening cipher for Van Coon, making him panic so much so, that...what... he flees to his flat and locks himself inside, where a few short hours later he dies."

"Seems likely...," John replied with a nod. "The killer then finds Lukis here, writes the same cipher, in a place where the man is likely to see it," he continued. "The journalist panics and races home..."

"Only to die the same night he checked out this book," Sherlock finished, as he held up the one in his hand. He looked at the image from his phone to that on the library wall. He snapped another one.

"Why did they die," John asked.

Sherlock shrugged and said, "Only the cipher can tell us."

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Elsewhere a young man, who works for the British Museum visited the flat of his co-worker, Soo Lin Yao, who he'd just learned had left her position without a word to any of their colleagues. He had failed to gain her attention by flipping the door's post flap.

He had noticed that there was a new phone book that had just been delivered, but that it had not been collected, yet. So, he pulled out a leftover envelope from large sponsor mail-out that he'd done a few days ago, from his pocket and scrawled something on it. He folded it and left it with the girl's other post, wedged in the door.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

TBC...

(...i...) Used original script for images of scenes, available at Sherlock's blog "The Science of Deduction," not quite the same as the final product seen in the series or in this obvious re-write of the second episode.