"Hang up and call 999–"
Sherlock plucked the phone so smoothly from John's fingers that the doctor reacted only in time to close his fist around thin air. A quick step back separated them, Sherlock holding an arm out, keeping John at bay.
"Harry, this is Sherlock. I need you to listen to me very carefully. Can you do that?"
Harsh breathing – crying – on the other end of the line. Panic. More than a bit not good, and no time to work through it.
"Harry, I need you to leave Mary's flat for me. Do you understand?"
"I can't– what if she comes back–"
"You don't know if anyone else is there. You need to leave. Now. Get down to the street." Hesitation, no movement on the other end of the line. "Harry! Go!"
"Okay, okay– Please come, please, you've got to help–"
"We're on our way but you've got to listen to me. Tell me when you get outside. Tell me."
"Almost." Voice broken, still shaking. "Oh my god, what now?"
"Do you see any CCTV cameras anywhere?"
"No, no, I don't–"
"Carefully, Harry! Look carefully! Focus for me, can you do that? Look for the cameras. Slowly."
John was going for the landline; Sherlock closed the distance between them in one long stride, forgoing any warnings, and wrapped an arm around the doctor's chest. Pining John to him, holding hard despite the struggles. A hiss with the mobile pulled away from his ear to keep Harry from hearing made John stop, muscles tense, breath coming in short, angry bursts.
"Cameras. Harry, do you see any cameras?"
"No– yes, okay. I see one– two."
"Get into the line of sight of the nearest one and stay there. Someone will be watching you."
"You've got to come–"
"We're coming. We'll be there. You can talk to John, just hold on one moment. Just one moment. We're still with you."
"Are you insane?" John hissed when Sherlock released him, the phone held behind his back to mask the conversation. "We need to call the police!"
"And risk them bungling the whole affair? If Mycroft isn't already aware of this, he will be soon. He can handle this far better than the police, John."
"What– your brother? You want to go to your brother? Since when–"
"Mary is one of his."
A pause, John's eyes going wide with disbelief. He exhaled a sharp gust of laughter, as if this might be a poorly timed joke.
"I told you Mycroft was having you followed. Mary met Harry two months after my faked suicide – do you suppose that was coincidental?"
"You are insane!" John snapped, the control in his voice breaking at the struggle to keep it quiet. "Sherlock, they met through a friend! This isn't– not everything is some maniacal scheme concocted by your brother to– to control every move we make!"
"She was following me the other day when I went to the surgery."
"Yes! Because she was bringing me lunch!"
"And keeping an eye on you. Who better to do so than Harry's girlfriend? Someone you wouldn't suspect, but a woman not at risk of being broken up with by you. A stable presence in your life." John opened his mouth to reply; Sherlock pushed the mobile back into his hand. "Talk to your sister. I've got to telephone my brother."
—
"What do you mean?"
Sensations crystallized around him. The hum of the engine. The purring undercurrent of other traffic. A horn sounded behind them and to the right. Vibration from the car spreading through his body from his feet. John's gaze turning toward him, blue eyes bright, questioning.
Information. Four lights left – third would be red by the time they reached it. Barring changes in average traffic speed.
Mary Morstan. Taken from her flat.
Missing.
Not Mycroft's.
"Are you on your way there?"
His brother's voice shook Sherlock back to the present.
"Yes."
Wrong.
He'd been wrong.
Losing his touch, losing his edge.
Losing John's family.
"I'll call the police–" Words forced through reluctant lips – a stupid thing to say but what else was there to say?
"No." The word jolted him – again. Unbalanced. Not at home. His city masked by one he didn't understand– no. That was confusion. Panic. Unnecessary. Cordoned off, packaged up, binned.
"This needs to be handled properly," his brother continued. "Lestrade will be assigned to the case. I'll meet you as soon as I'm able. Get Ms. Watson to safety. You'll have whatever resources you need, Sherlock, but do nothing until we've secured the flat. If this is Moran, he knows you're alive, and he may not want you to stay that way."
—
No signs of forced entry – the deadbolt turned easily between Sherlock's nitrile-clad fingers. No scratches around the keyhole. No unusual looseness or stiffness to the knob.
"Lestrade, can you please see if Harry had a set of keys?"
"Why?" Lestrade asked. "Door's open."
Sherlock closed his eyes briefly against the argumentative tone – he'd even said please, for god's sake. Not an unreasonable request.
"I need to test a theory."
"I'll go," John volunteered.
"No, it's fine." Lestrade was already vanishing back down the common stairs, John's gaze following him – obviously torn between helping here and comforting his sister. Mycroft was not the most reassuring of companions, but Lestrade's partner, Sergeant Hassard, had volunteered to stay with her.
Sherlock stepped inside, John a silent shadow behind him. The layout of the flat was absorbed immediately into a mental map, judging sizes and distances, the distribution of rooms. Small, neat, homey. Mary had lived here some time – six years according to John.
Comfortable furniture, well-used, cared for enough to keep it functional and presentable. Curtains still drawn – she'd been home after dark then. That was reasonable. Less likely to be observed than in broad daylight.
Footprints impressed into the area rug in the living room – more than there should have been, but from the Redcap forensics team. He'd gone through their photos first – nothing there but the faded impressions of a woman's bare feet.
A chair knocked over. A lamp fallen from a side table, bulb shattered into tiny crystalline pieces on the hardwood, the shade crushed and cracked. Cushions from the other chair dislodged, askew. That chair turned slightly, unaligned with the imprints it had long ago made in the rug.
Not all that much blood. To Harry it must have seemed so – but any amount would have. Mary – most likely, DNA would confirm – had been cut, but not deeply, not seriously. Struggling with her attacker, subdued quickly.
She hadn't seemed exceptionally strong to him the day he'd met her in John's office. On the short side. Taken by surprise somewhere she thought herself safe.
Safe.
There was that word again, the word John had thrown in his face only the night before. He'd stepped off the surety of brick into the weightlessness of air, had plunged to the pavement and his supposed death. Had lived in John's memory while he kept himself alive – or some hollow reflection of alive – to track down the man who had come to do this.
Moran knew.
When he'd realized the detective's suicide had been faked was uncertain, but scarcely mattered. This was a feint, a gambit – which put Mary Morstan in more danger than if she were important. Mrs. Hudson could no longer be taken. An empty shell in the cold ground. Lestrade, John. They were protected. Even Harry. Harry had value to Sherlock through John. So did Mary, although there was a difference in degree
Sherlock stopped abruptly, a hand on John's shoulder, keeping him from moving. A question was stilled by a sharp look and a shake of his head; John stayed silent, watching him intently.
"Do you hear something?" Sherlock asked in a low tone. John's first instinct was to shake his head after a moment's hesitation; Sherlock saw the doubt flicker across his face before he nodded slowly.
A finger to his lips kept John quiet again, a gesture at the door had him heading off Lestrade, whose footsteps were too loud – distracting – on the stairs. Made the cut on his cheek ache, an irritating emotional response he had no time for and didn't want.
There it was again.
A faint trilling sound, almost like a small whistle. Sherlock closed his eyes, let his feet follow the sound. Pausing when it stopped, moving when it began again. Slowly. He opened his eyes to find himself in front of a window, drew the drapes aside carefully. Nothing on the sill, nothing on the floor.
It came again, small and electronic.
Almost distant.
On the other side of the glass.
Nimble fingers eased the window open carefully, cool air wafting in to meet the suddenly stale atmosphere in the flat. The phone had been left on the outer sill.
And still ringing.
Sherlock drew the blinds and ducked in one smooth movement, awaiting a shot that didn't come. The tiny sound interrupted the oppressive silence again, an alert on the screen indicating a new message.
"What is it?" John hissed, coming back into the living room to stop just behind the overturned chair, Lestrade half a step behind him.
"Mobile," Sherlock replied curtly. Not encased in pink at least.
"That's evidence," the sergeant hissed.
"And not meant for you," Sherlock replied, easing himself back to standing. No lock code for the phone – and he couldn't deny the flash of relief at that; he'd had more than enough of that game for one lifetime. "John, is it Mary's?"
"I don't know," John said, stepping up next to him, leaning in slightly to see. "I'm not sure–"
"Try texting her," Sherlock interrupted. The doctor met his eyes, fumbled for his phone, followed the instructions. Breathing was suspended for a moment, two, three…
Nothing.
"Try calling," Sherlock ordered. Just in case. John shook his head, but needn't have; Sherlock could hear the faint ringing and the quieter tones of a woman speaking when the voicemail kicked in.
Astonishing how reluctant his fingers were to obey him and open the voicemail. Sherlock could feel the tension that flowed along the lines of John's muscles as his own, reactions feeding off one another.
"Ah. Here we are at last – you and me, Sherlock, and our problem – the final problem."
His grip loosened in shock, the phone saved from hitting the floor by John's quick reaction – impressive, Sherlock thought, distantly – a hand wrapping around his, fingers tightening to keep the phone in place.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Lestrade swore over the sound of Jim's voice, old words that weren't forgotten. Tone mocking, angry, disappointed. All underlain by the unstable edge of insanity.
John's eyes on him, grip tightening even more. He couldn't look away from the phone, not until he heard himself speaking. The recording he'd made. Left on the roof. Recovered by Mycroft. Transcribed.
He'd read those transcriptions but had barely needed to.
Living through it had been enough.
"How did he get this?" John murmured, voice low.
Of course John had known. Mycroft had told him everything. The evidence he'd need to clear his name when the job was done.
"He has her, doesn't he? Moran?"
John's gaze locked on his, so close it was almost dizzying, and Sherlock felt he could see it through the scope of a rifle, a distant, detached sight that would have left John dead and bleeding on the pavement in his place.
Stop, he told himself because there was no time for this, no time to let the past come rushing back, no time to give way to the fear in John's eyes. No time for anything but the case – the chase.
"Lestrade, give me those keys," he snapped, pausing the message and slipping the phone into his pocket. "Get my brother and his people. Every inch of this building needs to be searched, inside and out."