Sherlock bounded off through the kitchen to the back door of the flat, which led out onto a small porch. Mary was left standing with her mouth open, staring between the open doorway to Anna's bedroom and her husband. She lifted one eyebrow and John shrugged his shoulders helplessly, then gave his wife a kiss on the cheek before running after Sherlock.
Mary sighed and looked upwards, then walked towards the open door down the hall, where she could hear Annabelle talking to herself.
"I distinctly remember hiring a babysitter so I could have the afternoon off," she grumbled under her breath, then stepped carefully into Annabelle's room.
Today.
"Annabelle, are you there?" Mary said softly, peering into her hostess's bedroom. The room was dim, lit only by the late morning light streaming in through the window. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that Annabelle was sitting on the side of her bed and looking out the window. Sherlock and John were visible at the far end of the garden, riffling through the paper bin and arguing, though their voices were indistinct. Sherlock was alternating between throwing bits of newspaper over his shoulder and gesturing at John, whose expression betrayed growing exasperation.
Annabelle's arms were folded and her eyes were wet. She didn't respond to Mary's query.
"May I come in?" Mary spoke again, still standing in the doorway.
Annabelle glanced up and frowned, then nervously shifted a few inches down the bed - away from Mary. Their gazes locked for a few moments, then Annabelle sighed heavily. "Why not? Maybe you can help me. I'm - I'm looking for my phone." She started casting her eyes about the room and lifted a book on her nightstand, looking underneath.
Mary's eyes shifted to the corner table nearest the bedroom door. In a large ceramic blue bowl, she saw a mobile phone half buried by an inordinate number of beaded necklaces and other knick-knacks. She took a few careful steps into the room, stepping in front of the side-table.
"Who do you need to call?" she asked lightly.
Annabelle rubbed her forehead and frowned. "My brother. There's something important I have to tell him."
"Maybe if you told me, I could help." Mary said, moving to Annabelle's side and sitting down next to her on the bed.
Annabelle started, clearly unnerved by the other woman's proximity. "I - you'll have to forgive me," she said, ducking her head in acute embarrassment. "-I can't quite - I'm sure that you mean well, but the issue at hand is quite personal and - you'll have to forgive me but-" she stopped stuttering and took a deep breath, then continued. "The truth is I can't recall who you are, or how you've come to be in my house. Just give me a minute, though, it'll come back to me." She sighed and turned her head back to the window.
"Well, I'm Mary, and we have just met, so really, it's no bother." Mary said gently, placing a hand on the woman's arm. "John and I just stopped by for tea, we're friends of Sherlock's-"
"Oh, yes, of course- Mary, I'm sorry." Annabelle interrupted, shaking her head and laughing nervously. "Something must have distracted me. It's happening more and more, to tell the truth." Her demeanor suddenly shifted, and she covered her face with both hands.
"I'm losing myself, I'm losing everything-" she gasped.
Mary looked towards the bedroom door, but saw no help in that direction. She hesitated only a moment more, before putting both her arms around the crying woman. "There, there- I'm so sorry, Annabelle. But you're not alone, yeah? You have your friends, your brother, Sherlock, and now John and me. We're all here, looking out for you."
As quick as Annabelle's outburst had begun, it slowed and then stopped. She sat up straight and wiped her eyes, then looked up thankfully and squeezed Mary's hand.
"Yes, I know, thank you...Mary." She let out a short puff of air. "Goodness, I thought I'd cried all these tears long ago. That I was finally at peace with - everything."
Mary nodded her head and squeezed Annabelle's hand back. "What's changed then?" she said simply.
"You mean besides the fact that my doctor has been trying to kill me? And then there's Sherlock of course. Absolutely infuriating man...I really must be mad."
Mary's expression went from horrified to amused, then back to horrified again in the blink of an eye. "Your doctor what?"
"Dr. Miranda Garrettson, world renowned cancer researcher and the shining beacon of medical advancement in Great Britain, is a murderer." Annabelle said woodenly, her eyes dry and unfocused. "She's killed me, and all the rest of the patients in my study, and god knows how many before us. You know what they say about doctors, Mary? 'When a doctor does go wrong, she is the first of criminals. She has the nerve and she has the knowledge.'"
She looked up at Mary and laughed bitterly. "You see, Dr. Garrettson has the best cover in the world, the perfect alibi -she kills people who are already dying, so nobody notices. But I'm not dead yet. And I'm going to bring her down, make her stop, make her pay for what she's done."
"What's she done, exactly, Annabelle?" Mary said quietly. "Why would a doctor kill her patients?"
"I don't know why she's doing it," Annabelle said, her voice faltering, "but she is. There's all these little things I've been noticing that don't add up - for example, I was signed up for a vaccine study, right? And every other week I'm scheduled for PET scans to check on the progress of the tumor. But the first time they wheeled me into the lab, I looked up at the equipment and right away I knew, that's no CT scanner - that's a linear accelerator. I've seen plenty of CT scanners over the past 18 months, so trust me, I know. I argued with Garretson, I said - I'm not supposed to be having any more radiotherapy- but she said, no, it's a new type of scanner, and if I'm rescinding my permission, do I want out of the study? I gave in eventually. Harry came in and told me I was being ridiculous; I did sign up for an experimental clinical trial after all."
Mary pursed her lips. "So, you think Garrettson was trying to kill you because she was giving you the wrong treatment?" She tried to still the skepticism from her voice.
"It wasn't just that. The patients in my group, we all deteriorated much more quickly than we should have. After the second vaccine treatment, one of us was dying every week. My vitals plummeted several times and I had to stay overnight for observation. And there Garrettson was- hovering around our rooms at night, putting medications in our IV's that weren't called for by the study, and scribbling notes that never made it into our files. Sometimes a certain Japanese doctor would be with her. One time I heard them arguing outside my room, and I distinctly heard her say, 'Are you forgetting the purpose of all of this, Hayashi? It's an information gathering exercise-plain and simple. Or would you rather the alternative?'"
Annabelle looked pointedly at Mary, who dropped her eyes after only a moment and shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"I admit that Garrettson sounds...unorthodox. And unpleasant, no doubt." Mary said carefully. "But you must admit, none of this is truly definitive, Annabelle. The machine could have actually been a new type of scanner. It's most likely that the vaccine just didn't work - that's why the patients in your study were dying - they were all terminal, after all, right?"
Mary petted Annabelle's shoulder as the smaller women silently shook her head.
Mary continued, "You must have been crushed when you learned that the vaccine was ineffective. It's understandable that you blame Dr. Garretson, after all, she failed you-"
"No," Annabelle said firmly. "I know what you are getting at, because I've heard it all before, from my friends, my brother, my health advocate, everyone. And there was more, so much more happening, but when I tried to talk about it the details would slip from me, and all I could recall was this dread certainty that something terrible was going on. That's why I bought a blank notebook and started writing things down before I could forget all the inconsistencies and lies."
"Is that what you wanted to talk to your brother about?" Mary tried to redirect Annabelle, who was starting to ramble, her eyes shining with rage and sorrow, her gaze inward focused.
"-my brother?" Annabelle looked confused for a moment, then nodded her head. "Yes, yes. As I was saying, I knew that I had to have a record of my experiences if anyone was to believe me. But I didn't trust anyone at the hospital. So I began writing my observations down in such a way so that no one could understand it but me. And I wrote in it religiously for nearly 2 weeks straight, filling the whole notebook. Then I gave it to George for safe-keeping. He's the only person I trust at the hospital, besides Harry."
"Did you tell him what it was?" Mary said.
"Yes. And now I need to call Harry, and tell him about it."
"So your brother doesn't know about the journal yet?"
Annabelle froze, as if caught by an errant thought, then shook her head, "No. No, I haven't told him yet...no. I wanted to wait until I had accumulated enough evidence so that he couldn't deny it any longer. And I wanted to make sure the journal was safe. I told George to make four copies; sending one to his father, one to myself, one to Harry, and one to the authorities. Now I need to call Harry and tell him that I can prove everything I said was true. After all, the evidence will be in his hands before long."
"Do you think that's why George was killed? Because of the notebook?" Mary said. "Sherlock happens to be quite clever at this sort of thing, you know - all it would take for him is one peek at your journal, and he'd probably have this whole thing sorted before lunch-"
Mary was attempting a half smile, but froze when she met Annabelle's eyes, her expression flattening at the horrified glare of the other woman.
"What- what are you talking about? I saw George - it must have been - it couldn't have been more than an hour ago!" Annabelle shrieked, stumbling up from the bed, away from Mary. "That's when I gave him the notebook- right after I was discharged! What do you mean George was killed?! What are you talking of? Wait, don't answer that question, I don't need this right now. Where's my phone? I need to tell my brother about the notebook." She turned and angrily brushed several books and the alarm clock off her nightstand. "Where's that damn phone!"
Mary drew back, unsure, and bit her lip. She looked hopefully again towards the bedroom door, as Annabelle began to get more and more agitated, mumbling to herself.
"I told him, the dendretic cells shouldn't be using sodium borocaptate as a delivery agent, it doesn't make any sense." She picked up two large pillows from her bed, looking underneath them before throwing them to the ground in frustration.
"Your brother's going to be here soon enough, why don't you just tell him when you see him?" Mary said quietly.
"Harry's coming here?" Annabelle said sharply, stopping in the act of tearing the covers off her sheets and looking up.
"Yes, he comes everyday for lunch, isn't that right?"
"Yes, of course he does, I knew that." She snapped. "But is it noon already?" Annabelle said, grimacing and rubbing her forehead.
"No, it's just now 11:30-" she said looking at her watch,"-which means your nurse should be here at any moment-"
There was a sharp rapping on the front door, and Mary sighed audibly before standing up and backing away from Annabelle, an apologetic look on her face.
"I'll just-" She pointed her thumb out the bedroom door and took a step another step backwards.
"Yes, fine. I'll be right behind you." Annabelle said, a sad smirk curling her lips.
Mary turned and rushed out of the room to the front door of the flat just in time to hear another series of loud knocks.
"I'm coming!" She called, then opened the door.