False Flag

Chapter Nine

Eliane and her flat looked like hell.

Cardboard boxes labeled EMILE littered every flat surface in the small bedsit, save for a cozy little nook by the sofa that held a cushion, two empty bottles of wine and a laptop. No sign of a glass on the floor or in the sink; she must've been slugging it right from the bottle, Sherlock noted with amusement as they entered the small, cramped space.

"Sorry about the mess," Eliane slurred slightly as she scrubbed a hand through her bedraggled hair and began to shift boxes off the sofa. "I pulled all this stuff out of storage last night. Couldn't sleep."

"Here, let me help," John offered, despite his shoulder and hoisted a particularly heavy box labeled BOOKS into Sherlock's unsuspecting arms. "Find anything interesting?"

"Not really. I thought maybe there'd be something. You know, a strongbox full of passports and foreign currency, that sort of thing," she smiled weakly, kicking a box under the coffee table.

Sherlock had to pipe up, his curiosity piqued. "You seem to be doing much better than yesterday."

"Oh, don't worry," she sniffled, wiggling the two empty bottles and a handful of crumpled tissues at him with a weak grin. "As soon as you two are gone, business as usual. I'm not nearly done feeling sorry for myself. I've got a few days of crying, vomiting, wailing left me in, I'd say."

"I'd recommend you switch to vodka, then," Sherlock informed her, folding his long arms in front of him as he watched John lug the last box off the sofa. "It doesn't stain your teeth that hideous shade of purple, your clothing as well, It has fewer impurities, less likely to leave you with a hangover the next morning. Easier to succumb to alcohol poisoning with than Pinot Noir, though, but you don't seem eager to join your brother any time soon."

"Thanks for the tip," she grimaced as she bent down to pick up her laptop and quickly regretted it. Eliane collapsed on the sofa and wrapped her arms around a throw pillow as nausea wreaked havoc on her senses. "I'd offer you a cup of tea, but I honestly don't think I can stand upright that long. Feel free to help yourselves."

John paused to brush off his hands as he surveyed the precarious pile of boxes next to the sofa. "The rest of your brother's belongings, the stuff he took with him to Bolivia, where is it now?"

"Well, when Emile didn't show up to pay his rent yesterday morning the hotel manager threw his stuff into the street yesterday morning," she mumbled, cradling her head gently in the palm of her hands.

Sherlock continued his survey of Eliane's bedsit and ran a finger along the dust that had accumulated on the window sill over her bed. One pillow on the bed, one chair at the table, one towel in the bathroom, one toothbrush on the sink, one coaster on the coffee table. Eliane infrequently had visitors and most certainly hadn't expected her brother to visit on the night he died. She wasn't exceptionally tidy and would have left a blanket on the sofa or a guest towel hanging on the shower door. "What about a laptop, a mobile? Valuable, sensitive items he wouldn't have left behind in some seedy little hotel halfway across the world. Could he have left them somewhere? A safety deposit box? A hiding place both of you would know?"

"I, uh... maybe," Eliane shrugged. "I don't know. I can't-"

"Think," Sherlock snapped sharply. "Somewhere you've both been. Something only you would know. Somewhere he could access in the evening without drawing unwanted attention. A park, a pub, a train station, a hospital."

Eliane's eyes lit up at the last suggestion. "The gym! There's a twenty-four hour gym in Soho. Uh, Emile used to go there after shift. He used to leave stuff there all the time and ask me to go pick it up on my way back home."

"Right," Sherlock announced and unceremoniously yanked Eliane off the sofa and carefully steadied her by her shoulders until the wave of nausea he inspired passed. "You, into the shower. John, there's a coffee shop at the end of the street. Dead eye, black, two sugars. Small dark roast, skim milk, one sugar."


Eliane emerged a soul-crushingly boring twenty minutes later, freshly washed, dried and dressed, wearing an almost cartoonishly large pair of hangover-inspired sunglasses and a grimace. Unfortunately, she was just still drunk enough to refuse to drive and the three of them were forced to pile into the back of a taxi. It was a tight, suffocating fit and Sherlock was instantly irritated by how impossible it was to move or think in there. Between the three of them, there was simply too much leg going on and not enough space and the way Eliane's knees kept knocking against Sherlock's every time the taxi made a hard turn, scrambled every thought and deduction he tried desperately to latch onto. This was not on. He simply could not work under these conditions.

When the taxi pulled up to the gym, Sherlock tossed an undetermined wad of money at the driver and practically scrambled over John's lap as threw himself onto the street, desperate for a little personal space. John dutifully collected and pocketed the change in reparations for a) yesterday, b) the coffee and c) because, well, Sherlock deserved it for being an insufferable dick all morning and keeping him up half the night soliloquising.

The gym was one of those annoyingly bright, cheery places that Sherlock went out of his way to avoid. Full of fit young specimens in tight spandex, more brawn than brain. The three of them garnered some very pointed looks from the gym's passing patrons, but an overly-tanned young woman with her hair scraped into a bun - so tight, dense and hairsprayed Sherlock wondered if it could have been bulletproof and made a note to examine that possibility on his next cadaver with adequate hair length – hopped over and beamed an impossibly white toothy grin.

A quick flash of Lestrade's badge had them inside the men's locker room with a bolt cutter in hand in under two minutes flat. Hardly a record, but it was almost scary what that cheap little bit of metal gave Sherlock unfettered access to.

"Sixty-three. That's his lucky number," Eliane announced, bobbing and weaving through the lockers.

"Only goes up to fifty six," Sherlock informed her, giving the last locked a quick tap on the number plate. "Think... he was scared, but not stupid. He was smart enough to take the side streets, avoid the main roads. Emile would have picked a locker that couldn't be seen from the entrance. There. Twenty seven."

They hustled over to the only series of lockers that couldn't be seen from the door. John quickly snapped the lock on number twenty-seven and swung the door open, revealing nothing more than a mobile. No bag, no laptop, no smoking gun, but it was a start.

Sherlock snatched it up and mashed the power button, cursing softly when the screen flickered to life and instantly began beeping a low battery warning. The mobile was brand new, still had the protective plastic screen cover on and it didn't take long for Sherlock to find the only video ever recorded on that device. Wednesday, 10:16PM.

A screenshot revealed Emile Bashir, very alive and very afraid. Lockers behind him, standing in the very spot they were. After hazarding a glance at Eliane whose dark eyes were already filling with tears, Sherlock clicked play.

Elia! If you found this, you're more clever than I ever gave you credit for, Emile laughed, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. Sorry 'bout that. Big brother and all. But... oh god, I'm in over my head and I don't know how to get out. I c-can't tell you, BEEP don't want to get you involved but if you're seeing this, then I guess I'm already dead, then, aren't I?

"Oh, how original,'" Sherlock piped up and John's elbow followed in righteous retribution. "What? It's hardly original."

"Yeah, and send help, I've been poisoned by MI6 is? Twat," John cracked, yanking the mobile out of Sherlock's hand and rewinding the message.

-already dead, then, aren't I? Guess it doesn't matter what I do now, eh? But... I need you to do one last thing for me, k, love? You have to, dying BEEP wish. You can't refuse a man's dying wish. You do, I swear, I'll haunt you so hard, Emile joked despite the panic tainting in his voice. There's a man, Ingram. Michael Ingram. MI6, dunno anythin' else about him. I was supposed to m-meet him at the airport, he never showed. Elia, you have to tell 'im... they know. They know that I know an' they're after m-

BEEP.