A/N:
This site doesn't allow the use of the at-symbol in stories, so I have used a) in its place for Twitter names.
.
Chapter 9 – Upgrade Her Surveillance Status
"a)TheVioletHunter," Sherlock said, pointing to his screen. "There. How can that not be you?"
Violet ran her eyes over the Twitter profile screen for TheVioletHunter (The Official Account of Violet Hunter. 'I wanna be an actor when I grow up!') her brow furrowing at the accompanying photo of a hand holding a book, as the slightly out-of-focus subject, presumably the actress herself, lay reclined on a sofa, her face obscured by her reading material.
"And you're reading that ridiculous book you take with you everywhere. Or not ridiculous," Sherlock hastened to add, quickly shooting a glance at his girlfriend.
Canning Town, Violet read of the cover she knew only too well.
"But... I don't have a Twitter account," she said slowly to Sherlock again, small creases appearing in her brow that probably came with the knowledge that her identity had somehow been stolen.
Sherlock leant back into the sofa, folding his arms in front of him and running the knuckle of his forefinger across his bottom lip. Violet pivoted his computer toward her and began scrolling through the latest tweets from a)TheVioletHunter.
Sherlock could see her mood rapidly darkening as the tweets scrolled by.
He was familiar with this Twitter account, it appearing in his 'Violet Hunter' search results earlier in the year, just after Violet had won the role of Christa on Regency Road. He had thought that Violet had decided to open up a semi-public profile because of the TV soap, tweeting sporadically about inane aspects of her life, such as:
—having coffee with friends:
lady nearby is feeding scraps to her dog. Cute! #wantmyownpuppy
—watching her flatmates appear on telly:
watching the talented a)AliceInAngleland on #SussexSons
—and recovering from a night out, apparently:
I drink too much #alco-in-training
The last tweet had concerned Sherlock just a little, because it was written the day after the attack by Grice Johnson.
All in all, the account was quite innocuous, and irrelevant in the scheme of things. However, Sherlock had kept a weather eye on it.
Violet tapped her fingers on the keyboard, seemingly unable to decide whether to scroll forward or backward.
"Who's doing this?" she said.
"Wait, wait!" Sherlock said, sitting up. "Scroll back up."
He quickly scanned the screen as Violet navigated to the most recent tweets.
"There," the detective said, pointing to the top. "The last few tweets. It's Alice."
"What?"
"See here," Sherlock said.
Violet read aloud the contents of the tweet Sherlock had pointed to.
Watch a)AliceInAngleland on #ScarboroughUnfair tonight! #qualityTV
"Yes," said Sherlock in repose. "Definitely Alice. Don't you see?" He leant forward, his eyes sparkling with the usual intensity he reserved when his synapses all fired at once. "You were with me and Grice Johnson on Thursday night. I didn't notice what time you tweeted because of all the drama. I had switched my phone to silent during our little visit."
Violet sat up straighter and narrowed her eyes at the screen.
"And here," Sherlock added.
Violet silently read the tweet Sherlock had indicated.
Piking out again. Going to bed early. #lamestpartyguestever.
"That was Saturday night," the detective explained. "That's why I decided to visit you, because I thought you had retired from the dinner party. It could only be from someone who was there that night—Alice."
"Do you follow me on Twitter?"
"I... don't have an account," Sherlock replied, smiling ruefully. "I have this RSS feed app thing. It sends me notifications whenever you... your account... tweets, which is only once or twice per week, if that. Never really anything... meaningful." When Violet continued to scrutinise her boyfriend, Sherlock added, "And you haven't tweeted anything about me."
Her expression softened and she leant into him. "Because I'm too busy snogging you to tweet about it." Violet planted a quick kiss on Sherlock's cheek before her face hardened and she suddenly stood up.
"I have to go," she said.
"What? Where?"
"Home."
Violet grabbed at her bag that lay on the coffee table in front of them, and made moves toward the door.
"Wait," Sherlock said, also rising from the sofa. Violet was doing that flicking of her fingernail thing, between her thumb and her ring finger, a curious gesture he observed just before she got into character and beat the crap out of the rapist-bartender. "You can't go off all angry like this."
"I'm not that angry," Violet replied. "But I'm going to get angrier the more I think about it, and I'll be in a right mood by the time I get to Islington and Alice in Fucking Angleland."
"Exactly. So you should... ah... think... first. A bit."
"Think of what?"
Violet's challenging gaze left the detective slightly flustered. However, he wasn't totally incapable of coming up with a better plan than planting a right hook on a flatmate.
"Hack the account," he said. "And claim ownership."
"What? How? You can't just say, 'Hack the account,' and then do it. That requires some kind of... geeky... nerdy... skillset."
A tiny smile tugged at one corner of Sherlock's mouth. With his voice pitched low, he said, "Have you just met me?"
-o-
They managed to gain access to Violet's bogus Twitter account using a password Violet had guessed. After concluding that Alice wouldn't use a word or phrase that was associated with herself, Sherlock prompted Violet to think of a password that Alice would've generated that had to do with Violet—and in a derogatory sense, Sherlock had added, much to Violet's surprise. Sherlock held the comments that Violet's BFF, Mandi, had made about Alice firmly in his mind.
Violet had scowled and immediately offered, "Black Daisy."
She explained to Sherlock the meaning behind the moniker, of the late Daisy Firmington, the deceased American actress, who some people had said that Violet held a passing resemblance to, especially when Violet herself had been blonde. The 'black' prefix had come about as a result of her dyed hair, and had been created by the delightful Alice.
With 'blackdaisy' a success, Sherlock set about changing the password to both the Twitter account and its associated email account. And of course Alice had used the same password for both.
"We should delete everything," Violet suggested. "Or remove the entire account."
"Yes," Sherlock said. "Or delete the tweets and keep the account, as a signal to Alice that she can be hacked at any time and you've taken possession of something that was rightfully yours."
Violet looked on as Sherlock's nimble fingers and swift mind reset the Twitter account back to basics, all the way to the default egg in place of her own profile picture. Obviously Alice had stealthily photographed Violet one lazy weekend afternoon, as Violet stretched on the sofa reading her favourite novel. It could've been taken at any time during the last two months.
Violet decided that she would ask the studio to tweet on her behalf that the account a)TheVioletHunter did not belong to her, that it would now remain inactive, and to apologise to her followers (in excess of 80K of them) that she does not have, and will not have, a Twitter account. Violet resisted the temptation to tweet something scathing about Alice.
"Okay, I'm going now," Violet said, grabbing her bag once more.
"Wait!" Sherlock exclaimed, also rising from the sofa. "You can't go yet. Pummelling Alice can wait. I was in the middle of telling you something when we were sidetracked by your phoney account."
Violet exhaled slowly, and dropped her bag back down to the coffee table. Sherlock knew she wasn't interested in discussing the soap's storyline with him, and she hadn't been impressed when he had practically leapt upon her once she'd entered his flat after returning from work.
Well he had been waiting all day for her return. Violet had left for the studio straight after her interview on Brekky TV that morning, and had sent Sherlock a text practically yelling at him:
Did you see me!
Was it even a question?
Sherlock had replied with a simple Yes. And had quickly added, And I need to discuss something with you.
Of course Violet had probably gone into paranoid-mode and she had immediately replied:
When I answered the question about having a boyfriend, I didn't actually deny it. Love you! x
Sherlock had rolled his eyes at his phone and assured Violet that he knew that and he didn't want to discuss anything to do with her interview.
Sherlock had discovered, by trawling through social media for the better part of the morning, that nobody else in the entire Regency Road fandom had correctly identified the father of Christa Barlow's baby. Nobody.
So before he put everyone out of their collective misery (because surely everyone hates not knowing things), Sherlock decided to double-check his facts with Violet first. He told her that perhaps Mrs Hudson could tweet the information on his behalf—he didn't necessarily need to take credit for such things—and yes, Mrs Hudson is on Twitter, he'd informed Violet. Look, she even follows you.
—giving rise to the issue that Violet didn't actually have an account on Twitter.
"Okay," Violet said. "But before you say anything, let me state that I don't know who the father of Christa's baby is."
"How can you not know? You're Christa Barlow."
"Yes, but we don't know what's going to be in the script until it's handed to us. At the moment, I'm only working on the scenes leading up to Christa's departure. So even I don't know under what circumstances she leaves."
Sherlock's shoulders drooped. How could he confirm his deduction?
"But I need to know if I'm correct. Surely you must have some idea?"
Violet raised her hands in protest. "No, I don't." As a sly smile spread across her face, she said, "And don't tell me anything!"
Sherlock narrowed his eyes, assessing Violet carefully. Stalking closer, he said, "But you've been living and breathing the part all this time. All those nuances—the sly looks… You made them. How can you not be aware what's going on, when I've just witnessed scene after scene showing damning evidence of a past sexual relationship between the pair of you."
Violet chuckled out an incredulous, "What?"
Sherlock folded his hands behind his back and began a slow circuit around his girlfriend.
"We all know that Christa used to live in the same town as Shaun and his family."
"Yes." Violet's eyes glistened with interest. She was obviously enjoying Sherlock's theatrics.
"And that he was as surprised as her mother when Christa followed them to Regency Road."
"So?"
"Shaun, and his family."
Sherlock stopped his circuitous route and turned to continue in the other direction. Violet looked on in amusement.
"Of course he was always there, exchanging looks, being the voice of reason, when all along—"
"Sherlock, who are you talking about, if not Shaun?"
"Not Shaun," Sherlock repeated, looking directly into Violet's eyes with a piercing, accusatory gaze. "Shaun's father."
Violet gaped, her eyes widening at the notion. She began laughing, covering her mouth with her hand, her shoulders shaking in time. When she took her hand away, she shook her head slowly as if in disbelief. "No… really?"
"Yes. Really. You can see it too, can't you?"
Sherlock waited patiently, observing with a practised eye the look of someone slowly piecing together snippets of evidence until the jigsaw puzzle was complete. For tiny little minds, it was a long wait.
Violet was staring at the floor, but Sherlock knew that in her mind's eye she was replaying every scene she had acted in where Shaun's father was also present. She would be reviewing the dialogue, but more importantly, the direction, the blocking—where to look, when to meet each other's eyes, give knowing glances, and stand in close proximity. What she may not be familiar with, was how those scenes were edited if she hadn't watched the show herself.
"Oh God, Sherlock, you're right! You're so right!"
Violet drifted closer to Sherlock. A smile of satisfaction lurked below the surface of the detective's outwardly calm demeanour.
"You clever man," she murmured, before rising on her toes and pressing a kiss to his lips. She steadied herself with the flat of her palm brought to rest lightly against his chest. "But I have to go," she whispered upon drawing back. "I'll deal with your cleverness later."
Violet had already retrieved her bag once more before Sherlock stirred out of his self-satisfactory bubble of smugness. Wasn't he going to reap the benefits of his cleverness just yet?
"Wait. Where…?"
"I've got to go confront Alice, remember?"
Violet's bright expression was even more cause for alarm than her leaving angry earlier, Sherlock thought. She almost seemed… psychotic.
"And don't tell anyone about your theory. It's so good, it needs to be revealed when the episode airs. Promise me?"
Sherlock reluctantly nodded. "As long as you know that I worked it out first," he replied sullenly.
Violet's broad grin told him of her admiration. She narrowed the gap between them once more. Her goodbye kiss eliminated any doubt in Sherlock's mind that she would definitely deal with his cleverness later.
She took off down the stairs, chuckling to herself. Whether it was in reflection for Sherlock's Regency Road bombshell, or her impending confrontation with her identity-thieving flatmate, Sherlock shuddered to think.
He spun around, examining his living space, and raking a hand through his curls to reset his mind.
A satisfactory day's work. Or was it? Sherlock realised he hadn't devoted any time to progressing on the Ronald Adair case since mid-week last. He knew he couldn't make any more progress on it until he could see the facts from another angle. Perhaps he needed to take a trip to Manchester, where John Douglas had been murdered in exactly the same way.
Manchester though. While that would put the Consulting Detective in the same city as Sebastian Moran, it was also where Jake Venucci resided. Violet wouldn't be happy about that.
-o-
Sherlock reached inside his jacket pocket for his packet of cigarettes. Waiting had him doing this. Waiting, watching, lurking. Surveillance. And his fingers had reflexively reached for and lit a cigarette. The smoke burned through his lungs, and the realisation that he shouldn't be doing this hit him at the same time as his exhaled smoke hit the olfactory system of the woman who paced in the shadows a little way away from him.
"Sherlock!"
"Whoops. My apologies. Old habits."
Sherlock took one last drag, then dropped the barely-smoked cigarette to the ground. He crushed it out with his shoe and sighed deeply at the missed opportunity for a nicotine fix.
Violet shifted impatiently in front of him.
"My feet are hurting. How much longer?"
"Violet, we've only been here half an hour."
Sherlock could feel impatience vibrating through Violet's whole body as she leaned back heavily against him.
Her voice floated through the darkness once more. "I can hear somebody coming."
"Nobody's coming," Sherlock drawled disinterestedly. "And don't think for one second that I can't see through your lie as a ploy for us to start snogging again."
"Snogging's more interesting than staring at an apartment building."
"I'm trying to teach you surveillance," Sherlock admonished her. "How to be a good detective."
"I'd rather be a naughty detective," she said, chuckling.
Sherlock sighed heavily, and longed for his cigarette back. He'd never had this much trouble with John Watson. Thank God.
"Summarise what we know so far," he said, rubbing Violet's arms encouragingly as she stood in front of him.
Violet looked up at the darkened building.
"Well, we followed Chenoa from the studio to a Simply Food, where she bought a bottle of wine and an assortment of nibbles."
"Good. And what can we deduce from the items she purchased?"
"Wine and cheese," Violet replied, sighing in satisfaction as Sherlock's arms stole around her. "Sounds like a lovely evening in."
"But what was missing from her purchases?"
Sherlock could feel Violet tensing. Obviously it was too difficult a question. He decided to prompt her.
"She was at the studio up until dinner time. Did she eat there?"
"No."
"So, what was missing from her purchases at the shops?"
Sherlock could almost hear Violet's mind ticking over. It was excruciating to witness.
"Dinner?" she asked eventually, holding on to Sherlock's arms to keep them in place around her.
"And that means...?"
"She's having wine and cheese for dinner. Good for her."
Sherlock chuckled into Violet's ear, drawing her in closer. On second thoughts, this was a more comfortable way to conduct surveillance. He pressed himself up against Violet's back.
"Stop projecting your culinary fantasies onto your co-star," he said. "Now what would she usually have for dinner?"
"I don't know. Maybe she already has the ingredients to make something in her flat."
"Using what you know of her, does she seem the type to cook something from scratch? Or would she buy those pre-made salads like you do?"
Violet was thoughtful for a moment, before she remarked, "Have you got an erection?"
Sherlock exhaled deeply, then he released his hold on Violet as she wriggled around to face him.
"Vi—ugh—let!" he cried out in alarm as his girlfriend ran a hand over his crotch.
"Oh, you don't," she said, her voice full of disappointment as she withdrew her hand.
"No, I don't," he said, his chest heaving at the sudden invasion. "Unlike you, I can compartmentalise. Now focus." However, Sherlock knew he wasn't so compartmentalised at the moment, otherwise he wouldn't have reacted as he did.
Violet turned her back on Sherlock once more, and the detective loosely embraced her this time, lest she get the wrong idea. Or the right idea, just at the wrong time, and in the wrong place.
"She doesn't cook," Violet replied. "I know that. So she's taking wine and cheese to somebody else's place who will probably cook dinner for her. So why hasn't she left yet?"
"You're assuming she needs to leave the flat in order to meet someone with whom she can share her wine and cheese."
"But you're thinking something else, because you're so much more cleverer than me."
"I merely observe."
Silence enveloped the couple once more, and Sherlock opted to keep quiet to let Violet think on her own for a while. This was a rather pleasant way to spend an evening—working on a case, of sorts, having Violet witness and comment on his brilliance, and getting to cuddle her at the same time.
"Okay, what did you observe that I didn't? I obviously suck at this."
"When Chenoa returned to her flat, how was she walking?"
Sherlock could feel Violet emitting vapours from her nostrils. Clearly she didn't have the patience for this kind of work. And his prompting probably wasn't helping either.
"On two legs with one fucking foot in front of the other."
"Violet," Sherlock said, exuding an air of patience he didn't know he possessed. "Was she in a hurry? Somebody who had dinner plans would hasten home, wouldn't they, to get changed or whatever, in order to dash out again. Your friend was walking with the luxury and air of someone who was glad to reach her final destination. And there was one other thing she did."
"She...she turned out the porch light."
"Yes. She had no intention of going out again. And she wasn't expecting a visitor after arriving home. Her dinner companion was already here waiting for her."
It took a moment for Violet to realise the meaning of that deduction.
"So we've been waiting here for nothing? Stuart Jire's already inside?"
"We don't know if it's Jire."
In the semi-darkness, Violet turned around to face Sherlock. She asked, "So how can we find out?"
"We can stay here all night, or..."
"Or what?"
"Or you could ring her like I suggested before we left Baker Street this evening."
Violet brooded for a moment, fiddling with Sherlock's shirt buttons as she thought through their options.
"How about rock, scissors, paper?"
"Sorry, what?"
Violet had raised her head to the detective-genius, her eyes bright with excitement.
"If I win, we'll go home, if you win, we'll stay, and if it's a draw, then I'll ring her."
Sherlock's brow knitted together in direct relation to the level of idiocy being displayed in front of him.
"You know my thoughts on the lack of logic surrounding that game, Violet. Firstly, you've limited our choices to us staying here or you ringing Chenoa. And the two are not even mutually exclusive. And secondly, you're leaving it up to chance to make a decision that should be based on logic and reason."
"Wait a minute... why wouldn't I win?"
"Because I would choose scissors, in the unlikely event that I would even play this stupid, pointless game. And as I've stated before, scissors beat everything, so unless you also choose scissors, either I'll win or it will be a draw."
"Sherlock—"
"Scissors cut paper, and scissors are enhanced by rock. We've been through this. Paper loses every time—"
"Paper wraps rock—"
"If you live in an idiot's universe."
The sound of footsteps and laughter from along the street prompted the beginnings of Violet's scowl to turn into a triumphant smile. Sherlock ducked his head. A moment's reprieve from a stupid conversation. He captured Violet's mouth with his. It was an old cover but still a good one: couple snogging to mask their identity as a surveillance team, should they encounter any passersby.
The chatty group continued on along the street without the amorous couple being spotted. Sherlock took this opportunity to gain the upper hand with Violet and reset the playing field. She was always doing small things to disarm him and upset his neat little view of the world.
Sherlock brought a hand up to the nape of Violet's neck, catching his fingers in her hair while his tongue continued to tantalise and arouse her. He crushed his body against hers, before lightly stealing a hand around to brush against the side of her breast. When he felt her hum of satisfaction against his mouth, he quickly withdrew, allowing the cold air to snap between them.
Sherlock carefully cupped Violet's face between his hands.
"Ring her. Ring her now, so we can decide what to do next."
Violet blinked slowly, dazed, confused and definitely not sated.
"What?"
"Ring Chenoa. Find out if she's having an affair with Jire. It's not that difficult."
Violet huffed a sigh as Sherlock took a step back from her, allowing her some room to find her phone. He needed to adjust himself anyway. Took it a bit too far. For both of them.
"Hi, Chenoa? It's Violet."
Sherlock gave Violet a reassuring smile of support. Violet held her phone out and pressed the Speaker button.
"Hey, beautiful. What's up?"
Sherlock noted the sleepy cadence to Chenoa's voice.
"I didn't get to talk to you this afternoon," Violet began, "before I left, so..."
"Yeah." Chenoa's laugh floated out through the phone's speaker. "Did you see me practising on crutches? Such a laugh."
"Missed it, sorry. Ah, Chenoa..." Violet frowned as Sherlock gestured with a hand wave, impatiently signaling to his girlfriend to get a hurry along. "I was just wondering if you were seeing anyone..."
"Seeing anyone," Chenoa repeated, with a giggle.
Sherlock could tell that the young woman was repeating the words for the benefit of a third party. He raised his eyebrows at Violet, again willing her to get to the point.
"It's just that there's a rumour going around the studio..."
"A ru-mour?"
She was doing it again, Sherlock noticed, slowly repeating each word so that it sensuously rolled of her tongue. He hardened his expression, and stared down at Violet.
Violet sighed heavily, then rolled her eyes at Sherlock. Clearly she heard it too.
"Look, Chenoa. People are saying that you're fucking Stuart Jire."
Sherlock's eyebrows shot up.
There was silence at the other end, and then Chenoa began to laugh. Finally she said, "You can put all those delicious rumours to bed, beautiful. Well...I know Iwill." Before she ended the call, there was another chuckle, a deep-throated one, from somewhere in her vicinity.
The phone went dead, and Sherlock's own distaste was reflected on Violet's face.
"Ew," she said, dropping her phone into her pocket.
"Clearly they've just finished having sex."
"Oh God, Sherlock. Don't say that!"
"So much for wine and cheese."
-oOo-