Things We Lost In The Flames
Chapter 36: 'Sat apart and watched….'
The action for this chapter is formulated direct from the final shooting script for the TV episode - and is used in full because as both script and action is very dense, and omissions would be both unfair and reductive. There always has to be some element of 'read what you see' in dealing with extending a TV episode in this way, but I make no apology for this: riveting viewing should be honoured and treated as such when extending into words and thought process!
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From the air, Appledore was even more impressive than on the ground. A minimalist concrete and glass thing of beauty, a design of circles within circles. of sweeping lines, lakes and pools, sitting in a natural bowl of countryside. The dream home of a multi millionaire.
The helicopter swept down onto the helipad, and Erik Carlsson walked across to greet them and escort them into the presence of Charles Augustus Magnussen.
"Happy Christmas, Mr Holmes," he said, and his smile could have turned blood to ice. John Watson took a quick look at Sherlock Holmes and spotted the physical withdrawal, the intellectual barriers raised. "Welcome to Appledore. Once again." Sherlock did not reply, did not even look at the man. Carlsson took no notice.
"And good afternoon to you, too, Dr Watson. I do so hope you will be warm and comfortable during your visit to us."
Another little dig about bonfires: Sherlock Holmes released his anger and frustration with a deep and noisy exhale. The man with the silver ponytail smiled again. Bowed to them in mock subservience, gestured to them to follow him across the grass towards the house, the dark haired man behind.
Escorts or guides? Greeters or guards? John Watson turned as if leisurely to watch Magnussen's two men, and his friend watched his professional, army captain's assessment snap into place. Watched John Watson's body language change from casual visitor to crisp military precision.
The consulting detective nodded to himself, allowed a small secret grin and the recognition that a fear lurking somewhere between his head and his heart for so long stilled and became quiet.
They walked through the house - all futuristic curves, shining glass walls and surfaces, blond wood, bespoke burr walnut doors throughout - to reach the mezzanine above the fully enclosed winter garden.
Charles Augustus Magnusson - smart suit, blue shirt, sharp and crisp as if for the office, despite it being Christmas Day afternoon - Queen's message, The Sound Of Music and all - was sitting relaxed on a long and low white leather sofa on the mezzanine above the covered winter garden, enjoying the long views onto the Cotswold hills outside, onto the core of his house from the inside.
He smiled gently as they came into his presence, but neither spoke nor stood to greet them, did not put down his chunky tumbler of what looked like either neat whisky or bourbon. He simply gave them a cursory glance, but did not even speak, and seemed far more interested in watching grainy action film being shown on a screen in front of him.
"I would offer you a drink, but it is very rare and expensive."
The inferred insult in the calm off hand words were wasted on his guests, who were made of sterner stuff.
Sherlock Holmes sat, uninvited, on the sofa next to Magnussen; two could play at that game.
He settled the laptop deliberately into the space between them, and arranged his coat comfortably around him. John Watson stood facing them, at parade rest, frowned at the sideways look and slight smile Sherlock shot towards Magnussen and felt a flare of something raise a warning in his brain.
So Sherlock admired the man despite himself. Something else too. Repulsed, attracted, entertained, challenged? Yes. All those things, it seemed; and more, and all at once.
Magnussen kept his eyes on the screen. Proving himself uninterested in their presence. In the silence the visitors followed his eyes and saw on screen what Magnussen saw, and was so entertained by…a bonfire. A bonfire burning in a town square, burning in the dark.
Cries of 'John! John!' came from the speakers - voices he recognised as those of his best friend and his wife. The sound of his name being called drew John Watson into stepping forward to see better, stand closer to the screen.
Seeing what he had never seen before. A new perspective of an event burned into his memory by shock and fear and fire. Because he had been the semi conscious man inside that bonfire. Aware of his immobility, aware of the flames flickering around him. But unable to move, and unaware of what else was going on around him. Unaware of how he had been brought out of the flames. And how close he had come to dying.
But suddenly there was Sherlock Holmes. Running forward and straight into the bonfire without hesitation, Mary in that eyecatching red coat, just behind him. Sherlock Holmes plunging into the flames. Shouting John Watson's name. Tearing aside beams and branches and burning wood, demolishing the fire that surrounded John Watson. Unheeding of danger and the risk to himself of being burned, or hit by falling blazing timbers, diving into the flames -shouting, shouting his name…..reaching down and reaching in, and hauling his friend out of the very heart of the fire.
Desperation and determination in every line of him, fear and the defeat of it. John Watson could not take his eyes from what he was seeing. And would never forget.
How could he have ever - ever - have doubted Sherlock Holmes' feelings for him? How could he have ever gone to him the next day and told him off for apologising about it all? How could he have not realised the degree of danger and courage taken to save him?
Had he been so full of his own life, his own woes, that he had just dismissed it as the sort of mad thing the man always did?
But not like this. What was that definition of courage as strength coming from caring? And that courage is not being any braver than the next man, just for five minutes longer? Yes. Of course. That was Sherlock.
Sherlock throwing himself hard, backwards, onto the grass to gain the momentum to drag John Watson out of the bonfire fast as Mary Watson hovered around them, He had John Watson in his arms and suddenly safe. Then John Watson was lying dazed on the grass, like a fish landed from an alien element onto land. Safe from the fire now. Covered in muck and soot, cuts and grazes on his face and hands, still disorientated from the drugs he had been given on the pavement outside 221B, Baker Street when dragged to the ground by two strangers and overpowered. But out of all that and safe now.
Sherlock Holmes rising, turning fast on his hands and knees, kneeling up, reaching round and down, patting his cheek to bring him round, curling his gloved hand protectively around his face. Saying his name with urgency then with something quieter and near tenderness as John Watson blinked his way to consciousness, smiling with relief at feeling the cool air on his face and seeing two pairs of concerned then relieved eyes looking into his.
The memory of it, the new perspective on his rescue the film presented, took his breath away. Sherlock Holmes had always given the impression he had done nothing, merely pulled him a few yards across the grass by the shoulders. Not that he had plunged into a fire and risked his own life to save the life.
"Oh, I see. It was you." Sherlock Holmes' voice was light, vaguely amused, utterly unmoved. He was deliberately not looking at John Watson, he was looking at Magnussen, a small smile on his lips masking his thoughts.
"Yes, of course." Magnussen took another pull of the whisky. "Very hard to find a pressure point on you Mr Holmes, The drugs thing I never believed for a moment And anyway, you wouldn't care if it was exposed. But look how you care about John Watson." His tone of voice became caressing, intimate, and John Watson's skin crawled.
And in that second he understood, precisely and utterly, the reasons for Sherlock Holmes' fear and caution when dealing with Charles Augustus Magnussen. And was struck dumb by this, by too much information and awareness gained in too short a time.
" Your damsel in distress." Four words so dismissive, so insultingly intimate, so denigrating, John Watson could not even think of any suitable words in response.
Fascinated as he had been by watching his rescue over and over on a loop, John Watson finally looked away from the screen and turned to Magnussen, unable to come up with any words except:
"You put me in a bloody fire - for leverage?"
His voice came low and deliberate, his stance suddenly pugnacious. He was the smallest and least elegant man in the room in his red plaid shirt and corduroy jacket and overcoat, but the anger and the threat in him was unmistakable.
Despite the fact that the tall, cool and elegant men sitting so close together on the white leather sofa wore identical supercilious smiles. Watson knew he should feel demeaned and outnumbered. But all he wanted to do at that moment was to smack someone; both if them, perhaps, sitting there cloaked in their vanity and matching arrogance. Dueling with words and smiles and body postures, as if this was a game, not reality.
They seemed uncannily, eerily, alike at that moment; and the man in the middle felt a sudden stab of premonition. Fear of the unknown. Of the veiled menace that lay at the core of Magnussen. But also a despairing recognition as to how utterly unknowable Sherlock Holmes could be.
And, remembering Agnaro - 'I do whatever is needed to win. You know that' - came the fear of what Sherlock Holmes felt now. What he could and would do. To win the day.
"I would never have let you burn, Dr Watson," The words should have been reassuring, but the tone of voice was too mocking to be totally believed, and was not. "I had people standing by. I am not a murderer. Unlike your wife."
He rose, crossed the mezzanine, stopped the video loop, folded back the projection screen. Turned back to Watson, head high, hands in pockets, supercilious smile still in place.
"Let me explain how leverage works, Dr Watson. For those who understand these things; Mycroft Holmes is the most powerful man in the country. Well - apart from me." Words spoken as if to a child. A pause; the smile deepened.
"Mycroft's pressure point is his junkie detective brother Sherlock. Sherlock's pressure point is John Watson, his best friend. John Watson's pressure point is his wife. I own John Watson's wife, I own Mycroft."
The smile became smug. Self satisfied. He strolled back towards Sherlock Holmes. Sat back down slowly and gracefully. Put one hand out for the laptop.
"He's what I receive for Christmas."
Sherlock Holmes looked up. With feigned casualness he pushed the laptop he had taken from underneath his unconscious brother's arm back at the cottage across the sofa and Magnussen picked it up.
"It's an exchange, not a gift." His voice was calm, gently peeved, pedantic. Correcting. John Watson watched this exchange in baffled and appalled silence. Had Sherlock just passed government secrets to Magnussen? Betrayed Mycroft? Betrayed his country? Just to save Mary?
Outside the cottage and waiting for the helicopter Sherlock had said as much: 'One false move and we will have betrayed the security of the United Kingdom, and we will be in prison for high treason.'
Now, only now, did John Watson fully understand what those words had meant. What Sherlock Holmes had done. And he could only watch the plotters at work now, out of this part of the game completely, transfixed but hopeless.
"Excuse me," Magnussen hugged the laptop to his chest, fingered it with delicate strokes. Smirked with the achievement of victory. "But I already seem to have it?"
Sherlock was standing now, hands deep in his coat pockets. Erect, unyielding, watchful.
"It's password protected." His tone was almost patronising. Slow and calculated. "In return for the password you will give me all materials in your possession pertaining to the woman I know as Mary Watson."
Magussen nodded, thoughtful. Then was smiling again. Which made Sherlock concentrate. Narrow his eyes and wait for the blow that he knew was coming.
What had Lady Smallwood said? 'No-one stands up to him. No-one dare.' Well I stood up to him. I dared. It seared my soul, but I did it. I have brought down some of his closest associates. Foiled several of his blackmail plots.
Have I achieved more than anyone else? Yes, I have. And I am still alive. If I fail….if I die now…..I will still have achieved. Made a difference. And if I die now, John will know. Mycroft will know. How and where and why I died.
Kitty and Dale and Ellie, Ari and Piet and Fredrik. Nick and Jack and Elizabeth. Maggie and her network. Mary Watson. All worth saving. And Sherlock Holmes. All victims of Charles Augustus Magnussen.
All reprieved and released by what I have done. Not enough, though. Far from enough. But the best and only things I could have done. Salvaged the best that could be saved from the worst of situations, the most implacable of enemies.
Not much of an epitaph, but the best in the circumstances: 'He did his best.' Even if that best was never going to be good enough…..
Quelled the destructive thoughts. Turned his attention back to Magnussen.
"Oh, she's bad, that one," he was mock serious, a smirk on his lips. "So many dead people. You should see what I've seen."
He was looking at John Watson now, talking about Mary. Sherlock said nothing; he knew, having seen the AGRA file John Watson had not, that perhaps, just this once, Magnussen was speaking the truth.
"I don't need to see it." John Watson declared firmly, voice low with anger and hurt.
"You might enjoy it, though." Magnussen's voice was calm and coaxing, eyes twinkling "I enjoy it."
"Then show us," Sherlock Holmes demanded.
"Show you Appledore? The secret vaults of Appledore? Is that what you want?"
Something was amusing Magnussen. A secret knowledge. Sherlock Holmes realised a clever trick was in progress, some sleight of hand he neither knew about nor understood. Magnussen was holding back from a reveal only he would enjoy and be amused by.
And Sherlock knew then. And with utter clarity, who was going to suffer. It was not going to be Charles Augustus Magnussen.
"I want everything you have on Mary," he insisted once more. Poker face played poker face against the highest odds and for the most important prize. Play the game, not the hand.
Magnussen leant back, contemplating Sherlock for a long moment of silence and suspense. Then he laughed. Sherlock resisted an impulse to deliver a roundhouse right. Or left. Or both. Which one was immaterial in the cause of wiping the satisfied smirk off the Danish businessman's supercilious face.
"You know," he said, dismissive, almost light hearted now, "I honestly expected something good."
Sherlock Holmes bridled visibly.
"I think you'll find the contents of that laptop….." he began.
"Include a GPS locator," Magnussen completed the sentence in a way Sherlock had not expected. And yet…and yet….he himself had been fitted with a GPS locator by Magussen. Magnussen knew too much about GPS locators. And would expect other people to be wise to them also. Naturally.
."By now your brother will have noticed the theft. And the security services will be converging on this house. Having arrived, they will discover top secret information in my hands, and will have every justification to search my vaults." Magnussen's voice describing this projection was brisk, precise, unarguable. "They will discover further information of this kind, and I will be imprisoned. You will be exonerated and restored to your smelly little apartment to solve crimes with Mr and Mrs Psychopath."
His calm recital suddenly gained some edge, and he looked Sherlock Holmes straight in the eyes. Cold blooded amusement crept in.
"Mycroft has been looking for this opportunity for a very long time. He will be a very proud big brother."
At last! As I always suspected! Brother dear, why did you - could you - never, ever, confide in me? Told me how strongly Magnusen was on your radar? I would have helped you, protected you. I did try. If you had listened to me, if you had confided, much of this agony could have been avoided. Trust issues. Over inflated ego. Delusions of invulnerability. Recipe for disaster. Not me alone, then.
"The fact you know it's going to happen won't stop it?" There was puzzlement in his voice.
For he knew there was something Magnussen thought he should know, should be able to understand, should have worked out. But as yet he lacked sufficient data. And perhaps that was for the best? At this moment, this turning point, the cold feeling of danger sidled up towards him, ready to ambush and panic and frighten.
"Then why am I smiling?" Magnussen asked his own question, the question Sherlock Holmes would and should have been asking if he hadn't been verging on going into melt down, his great computer brain failing him for once just when he needed it most, with defeat beckoning from the other end of a Mind Palace corridor. And silence
Defeat. Yes. NO! Possibly. Need to take that into consideration. Seek an escape route. Plan B. Or is it C now?
"Ask me. Why am I smiling?" Magnussen was insistent now. Determined to force an answer. Already knowing what his reply to that would be. Anticipating victory.
Sherlock looked away from those pale shark's eyes, turned deep inside his own head. Distressed, withdrawn, stubbornly silent. John shot him a look, read in that impassive face what only he could read. And hated what he saw there.
Took over the conversation because he could and must.
"Why are you smiling?" he asked, words forced between thinned lips
"Because," Magnussen began, unable to stop the smile starting, spreading over his face, transforming his features into something more frightful than joyful. "Sherlock Holmes has made one enormous mistake which will destroy the lives of everyone he loves, and everything he hold dear."
Magussen stood, straightened his jacket with a controlled sort of elegance, and drew himself up to his full height. Taller than John Watson. Taller, older, wiser, than Sherlock Holmes. And he knew it.
"Let me show you Appledore's vaults." The voice was a silky invitation, full of promise. A laugh threatened to break out, but was controlled.
He strode across the mezzanine. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson exchanged a worried glance, but did not speak. Followed where they were led. Having no choice or awareness of what Magnussen was about to show them, what he may choose to reveal.
Keep to the plan. Demand Mary Watson's paperwork, her secrets, her photographs. Her past and her guilt and her present. All to give her a future. To remove her from your power.
Give her to me, Charles - you promised.
Hang on. There were the words of his brother, Pedder: Pedder saying how Charles would destroy people by letting them believe he could be decent and honourable, like them, like the rest of the world, when he was not. 'Like a cat with a mouse, when you have been in his clutches he never lets go. And you never survive him. Not whole, anyway.'
"The entrance to my vaults," Charles said, approaching wide double doors of burr walnut, confident, not looking back to check he was being followed. "This is where I keep you all."
He paused, waited for them to catch up, Waited for the pleasure of watching them waiting for him, for his revelations. His happy news.
He bent forward, grasped the door handles, threw the doors open with a flourish but then kept them in his hands rather than allow them to fall fully open.
With Holmes and Watson either side of him, peering in. Not knowing what he knew. There was a small secret smile of power they could not see standing behind him as they were. They looked inside and saw a plain and empty white box of a room, an anonymous storage space.
Empty but for a single Bauhaus leather chair, a smaller yet close relation in design and colour to Sherlock's very own armchair back at Baker Street.
There were no desks or files or photographs. There was a totality of nothing. Magnussen entered the tiny room, approached the chair, turned round to face them and sat down. He beamed back at them then. Totally and completely in control, leaving Holmes and Watson puzzled, off guard and wrong footed.
John Watson risked a sideways glance at Sherlock Holmes, who was standing immobile, blank and silent. Head down, hands slack by his sides, shrunken and empty somehow. Watson squared his shoulders and took over again.
Well, he thought. It was his turn to take a role in protecting and saving his wife. Take over from Sherlock while he got his breath back. Gathered his courage, Or something It had better be something…..
"OK," he asked briskly. "Where are the vaults then?"
"Vaults?" Magnussen asked, pretending puzzlement, pretending to reflect their puzzlement and return it to them. He was, John Watson realised, enjoying himself. Tantalising them, teasing. Playing. A cat with mice. "What vaults?" He paused for dramatic effect, and John Watson wondered briefly how long it would take him to throttle the life out of this superior arrogant bastard?
"There are no vaults in this building," he declared with an amused finality. "They are all in here."
He pointed to his own head. Regarded them with a patronising mixture of victory and pity.
"The Appledore Vaults are my Mind Palace," he stated as if that was the most logical - and the most obvious - thing in the world
Sherlock Holmes was beginning to understand. Made a small involuntary movement in pain of reaction.
Magnussen's words, True. Oh, so very true. What did he say just now? Exactly?
'Sherlock Holmes has made one enormous mistake which will destroy the lives of everyone he loves and everything he holds dear.'
Quite so. Oh, God. What. Have. I. Done?
"You know about Mind Palaces, don't you Sherlock? How to store information so you never forget it? By picturing it. I just sit here. I close my eyes…...and down I go to my vaults."
Magnussen demonstrated. Had the confidence to zone them both out. He concentrated, put his fingertips to his head, then grasped the arms of the chair, rocked in the chair a little.
"I can go anywhere in my vault, my memories…..where shall I go today? Oh I know. I shall look in the files of Mrs Watson."
His voice was playful, the smirk on his face showing a man totally in control, both of the situation and those around him.
With slow deliberation he mimed opening a drawer, taking material out, sorting through pages and folders.
"This is one of my favourites. It is so exciting. All those wet jobs for the CIA. Oh, she's gone a bit freelance now. Bad girl."
The dumb show was of sorting files, reading paperwork, holding and disgarding photographs and papers. Indicating that the Mary Watson file was full and laden with
revealing material.
"Oh, she's so wicked," he declared with something like delight and huge amusement.. "I can really see why you like her." He looked up, his demonstration having served it's purpose. "You see?" He added.
And they did see.
"There aren't any documents?" John Watson asked the obvious, the dangerous, question. "You don't actually have anything here at all?"
Magnussen looked at him with disdainful eyes.
"Oh, sometimes I send out for something, if I really need it. But mostly I just remember it all," he added with a little laugh of false modesty.
"I don't understand," John Watson doggedly persisted..
"You should have that on a t shirt," Magussen advised.
"You just remember it all?"
"Every last detail," he agreed with pride showing. "Its all about knowledge Everything is," he explained with slow patience. "Knowing is owning."
"But if you just know it, you don't have proof," John Watson persisted.
"Proof? What would I need proof for? I am in news, you moron."
Sharp now, out of patience and tolerance of the little man with the murderous wife. Intolerance, mockery. He stood and faced them, brisk now, very much the decisive newspaperman.
"Speaking of news, you'll both be heavily featured tomorrow. Trying to sell state secrets to me."
Covert filming then. CCTV. Audio recording. Safeguards and entrapment. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson avoided each other's eyes. They both already knew what defeat and despair looked like. They did not need to see it in each other's faces yet again.
"Let's go outside," Magnussen was brisk. "They'll be here shortly. I can't wait to see you arrested."
He went out of the house grinning. Far from magnanimous in victory. Not looking back, certain yet again that they would follow. Knowing they had no option but to follow his lead.
In the half light of evening John Watson looked across to Sherlock Holmes. A man who did not see that movement. A man who looked lost, winded, defeated. As if dying, if not already dead, Brain and body switched off, zoned out, disconnected from life and it's immediate horrors. Hands hanging empty and powerless.
"Sherlock?" John Watson leant in, tried to dip low enough to enter the consulting detective's line of sight despite the head and eyes now so low. "Have we got a plan?," he asked briskly, hoping to kick the brains of the outfit into action. "Sherlock?"
No look, no response, no reply. Just a stricken, human face John Watson could not bear to see. Knowing his wife had caused this, has put them all through the mill and brought Sherlock Holmes to the point of destruction as well as death.
Impatient with everything, not least himself, John Watson turned and marched away from his best friend to follow Magnussen.
Sherlock Holmes barely registered John Watson's words, his presence or his absence. Stood frozen to the spot. Shell shocked and in utter despair. He had got everything so wrong. So very wrong. And after so long. What had happened?
Magnussen had said his secrets lay in the vaults of Appledore. He had said so in interviews, proudly, in printed words in newspaper and magazine interviews. Lady Smallwood had said the same.
Janine Hawkins - his personal assistant, the one person in the world close to Magnusson - had said so. She had confided in Sherlock Holmes as she had fallen in love with him, swayed by his attention and the charisma he created. She had believed vaults at Appledore held all Magnussen's secrets; because he repeatedly told her so, and that he would also return for a visit to Appledore laden with material. Or was she - and everyone else - meant to be fooled into believing that?
Yet he had obtained the architect's drawings of the house. Cellars - vaults, underground rooms, whatever you wanted to call them - were actually marked on the blueprints as existing. The very lie of the land on which Appledore had been built lent itself to the existence of vaults.
No-one had ever seen these fabled vaults, but that was because Magnussen invited no visitors to his home. Witnesses could not see something at a place where they could not attend.
What if there were no vaults? Where would that place all Mary Watson's secrets? And everyone else's? Apart from in Magnussen's head?
But what if there really were vaults? What if Magnussen was lying?
How could he even find the truth - or the vaults - in this situation? With loyal Magnussen staff in place, and Mycroft's troops on the way, how would he gain time to search and discover, seek and find? Could he be right, even now?
However could he have been so wrong? Why had he believed what everyone else thought? What everyone else had told him? How and why had he been so flawed in his thinking, in his adventuring? In his risk taking?
And what was he to do now?
Think! Don't stand here like a jelly! Pull yourself together! Sort this out! You brought this to pass - now sort it! Because that's what you do! Well…..should do!
On uncoordinated legs, mind racing, thoughts scattered, he turned and stumbled after John Watson. One blow is just a blow, he tried to tell himself firmly. Ride the blow. Losing a battle is not losing the war.
He who would valiant be, 'gainst all disaster…
One here will constant be, come wind, come weather….
Who so beset him round with dismal stories….do but themselves confound, his strength the more is….
No foe shall stay his might, though he with giants fight…..
Hobgoblin nor foul fiend can daunt his spirit….
I'll fear not what men say… I'll labour night and day….
Shook his head, puts his shoulders back.
Damn that schooldays hymn that always cuts back in when times are hard! So much for John Bunyan and Percy Deamer, so much for the Slough of Despond and the Hill of Difficulty. More like being stranded in the Valley of Humiliation now.
He approached the huge curved glass door that lead onto the terrace, where he could see John Watson and Magnussen in conversation.
A blood red evening sky was falling, making shapes and shadows stark and surreal. It suited the mood.
Magnussen was looking out over the terrace, across the fields and woods, looking up into the sky. John Watson reluctantly joined him.
With the door still open, waiting for him to go through it, Sherlock could just hear their words.
"They are taking their time, aren't they?" Magnussen asked as if making a polite query about profiteroles at a summer evening's garden party, " Do you think they'll send a helicopter?"
"I still don't understand," John Watson interjected stubbornly.
"And there's the back of the T shirt." Magnussen was bored with John Watson now. Even his body language said 'a very inferior fellow.'
"You just know things." Watson was nothing if not doggedly determined. "How does that work?"
Magnussen turned to him then with an expression between a snarl and a smile. Lesser men would have stepped back, daunted. John Watson simply spread his weight, dug into his position.
The taller and older man almost hissed with annoyance. Decided it was time this irritating little person was put in his place. Turned fully to face John Watson and gave him all his attention.
"I love your little soldier face," he said with a smile. And in the same quiet conversational tones added: " I'd like to punch it. Bring it over here a minute."
John Watson, unsure whether to take this seriously - or what might happen if he didn't - glanced over at Sherlock, now emerging slowly from the house. They shared a look, which told John Watson nothing at all, and Sherlock Holmes nodded briefly. Do it, said that nod. Whatever needs to be done. Just do it.
"Come on," wheedled Magnussen, stepping closer. "For Mary. Bring me your face." Half a step closer, and reluctantly, John Watson shifted uneasily towards the taller dominating man.
"Lean forward a bit," ordered Magnussen, a happy grin seeming both incongruous and cruel, now. "Stick your face out."
John Watson gritted his teeth, looked uncomfortable, damped down an uncomfortable half smile of embarrassment, but complied. Gave a little tilt of his head as if to say: 'and now - what?' The answer was as unexpected as it seemed childish.
"Can I flick it?" asked Magnussen. "Can I flick your face?"
Hold on, John. Take it in your stride. Do not react. Stand fast. Not your normal military style anger - do not hit first, think second. Just hold it together. For Mary.
The request seemed juvenile, ridiculous. Irritating and impossibly demeaning.
John frowned, not understanding. No-one had ever wanted to do that to him before, even in playground games aged nine. Was this as childish a request as it seemed? Or was it calculated to be a humiliating exhibition of psychological domination? Yes, Magnussen truly was as creepy as Sherlock had always said.
Then Magnussen started to flick his fingers against Johns face, Staring, smiling. Humiliating. Standing too close, looking too deeply into John Watson's eyes. Inflicting little kicks of pain. Invading and dominating his personal space. And in some strange way attacking his masculinity, his strength of mind, and his very soul.
"I love doing this. I could do it all day," Magnussen smirking seemed more threatening than Magnussen scowling.
"It works like this, John."
Smile. Move. Flick.
Bastard. Shark. Predator, Bully.
"I know who Mary hurt and killed,"
Smile. Move. Flick.
And I should have killed you. Die, why don't you?
"I know where to find people who hate her."
Smile. Move. Flick.
Leave her alone. Don't torment him!
"I know where they live."
Flick.
And I know where you live. And work. And breathe.
"I know their phone numbers."
Smile. Flick.
And I know yours.
"All in my mind palace. All of it."
Flick.
All in my mind palace. All of it.
"I could phone them right now and tear your whole life down."
Smile. Flick.
As I will tear yours.
Speaking in that same light, vaguely amused voice throughout. Calm, casual, deadly.
"And I will." Smile. "Unless you let me flick your face."
Be calm, John.
Magnussen drew a breath, smiled even harder than before. Eyes full of mirth, and something more malignant than mischief.
John Watson steadied himself, Refused to flinch or grimace. To give in to the almost irresistible temptation to just punch the man standing in front of him. Self control was a close run thing. If Mary had not been involved….and her safety was tantamount…he would have risked it.
"This is what I do to people." The softness of tone did not negate the threat in the words or the body language. "This is what I do to whole countries," boastful now. Still smiling. "Just because… I know."
Don't you just? But so do I. And I will do anything. Anything. To win.
A whole philosophy, a complete state of mind, revealed on a dark and cold and windy Christmas Day evening. A heart of death and destruction. Just as Sherlock Holmes had always maintained, and John Watson had been unable to see until now.
Had never been able to see further than the pantomime villain melodramatics of urinating in the Baker Street fireplace. Had thought Sherlock's description of Magnussen as a shark and a predator had been the rantings of a drama queen with an unhealthy obsession.
He should have known better. Should have known - always known - that in the long run, playing the long game - Sherlock Holmes was always the only person to trust. His best friend. Had he been so blindsided by love and grief and anger and that all consuming bitter sense of betrayal that he had so determinedly refused to accept the love and loyalty of Sherlock Holmes?
In his peripheral vision, John Watson could see his best friend - always, and ever, his best friend, he realised - still standing beside the door. Motionless. Expressionless. Lifeless. Heartless. Less of absolutely anything else he could think of.
But the image was false. Sherlock Holmes' mind was racing.
What to do? What? And how? How to beat Magnussen, when safety for Mary and so many others was just a fingertip away. How to not fail? How to save everyone? And save myself?
In that moment he was overcome by doubt. Helplessness. Fear and condemnation. Haunted by all the warnings, all the denials, all the doubts he had ignored to try and make this confrontation work, to bring this evil man down.
And really….all this…..all of this...for John Watson. For Mary. His wife. Mary. Hard to dislike, impossible to trust. Blonde hair, twinkling eyes, full of fun and love and laughter. Yet an assassin with a gun - a gun she had turned on him, as she had looked at him, spoken to him - and yet had still ruthlessly pulled the trigger.
He could not help admiring her, liking her. Almost admiring John Watson's taste and discernment in choosing her.
On Christmas Eve the parents had insisted on a game of charades after tea. Everyone finally gave up playing because, with good nature and even much rarer laughter, Sherlock and Mary won every game. Quick wits, clever thinking, good humour. Mary sat next to Sherlock on the sofa, laughed at him and hugged him, behaved as if she loved him and as if he was one of the kindest and most generous people in the world to her.
And perhaps he was - for forgiving her for shooting him, for trying so hard to bring her and John Watson back together again.
"Look at you two; you should have got married." John Watson had reflected bitterly during a traumatic evening in Baker Street; when Sherlock and Mary had proved that under duress their strength, courage and objectivity ran on parallel lines.
So what else could he do? What more, what else, could he have done differently for John and Mary? Stood back and allowed them both to be unhappy? Sulked about what he had lost? Refused to look ahead or move on? Punish them both for wanting something as simple and human as love and a future? No. He could not do that.
Less than 24 hours earlier Mary Watson had hugged him close, laughed into his face, smiled at him and told him he was wonderful. He didn't like such intimacy, but it was there for him. He did not frighten her or daunt her, she did not resent him for being a friend to her husband; or to herself.
Things could be worse; she could resent him, resent his influence on her husband. Stop their friendship dead. But she had not done that. She understood now where they all stood in a universe of three. So things could be worse. But they could also be very much better.
Better now. Right now. Except they were not.
He levered his head up a little. Magnussen was still tormenting John Watson. He could tell. Had always been able to read his friend like a book. And now John Watson was hurting. Humiliated. Fearful, in pain from such little pathways of damage, such little indignities, and he found it shaming. Stripped of all dignity. A decorated soldier and a war hero, being destroyed by something as puerile as flicks on his face.
And yet there was nothing he could do to stop it. Could not fight back. Could only endure.
I'm sorry, John. This is all my fault. I dragged you here. I shouldn't have. Should have done this on my own, like I do everything. But I did need you here with me today, protecting my back, being a second strong capable pair of hands. And I thought you would want to be a part of saving your wife. Not just leaving it to me. Because you would never forgive yourself - or me - for that. Now would you?
Charles Augustus Magnussen raised a finger to John Watson's eye. And suddenly the whole thing got worse. More petty. More dangerous. More humiliating.
"Can I do your eye now? See if you can keep it open!"
Oh! For pity's….
Another stupid, childish demand straight from the playground. John Watson looked puzzled, as if he did not believe the infantile level of threat to which Magnussen could go. Looked puzzled, understood, flinched. How important was an eye; how much taken for granted until threatened. An eye for an eye…..
Flick!
John Watson cried out, defensive, vision unexpectedly suddenly blurred in his left eye, cried out and fearful despite himself. Could not do it. Not any more.
"Come on," Magnussen encouraged, leaning closer. Smirking. Close enough for John Watson's fist to collapse his face. But there was someone more important than himself to consider. Mary. Their baby.
And also…..the person who had convulsed in pain, flinched as he had flinched when his eye was flicked How - how - had he ever, ever thought the friendship and empathy between himself and Sherlock Holmes had ever lapsed, or died? He lambasted himself for being a fool. It made the torment from Magnussen easier to endure, somehow.
"For Mary," Magnussen purred, delighting in his discomfort, John Watson could see. "Keep it open." An order silkily spoken yet not to be denied.
Flinched again. Too much. Could not do it.
"Sherlock…." Could have been a cry for help, yet the one word came out as a softly spoken question, Because then perhaps Magnussen would not notice?
The body language said the younger man standing immobile on the sidelines was lost and defeated. Stunned and closed down.
John. I am so sorry. This is all my fault.
"Let him," it was a whisper of instruction, the voice almost unrecognisable, hollow and disgraced. "Sorry. Just let him do it."
John Watson saw his last chance of rescue or respite disappear. He did not reply. No longer looked at the person who had always been there for him. Always. His strength, his salvation, his strength of purpose and soul.
Until now. John Watson swallowed. Sherlock Holmes had failed him. He took a deep breath and braced himself. Prepared to die. In whatever form dying was going to take this time.
TO BE CONTINUED….…..
Author's Notes:
Appledore is actually the £30 million Swinhay House, near Wooten-Under-Edge in Gloucestershire's South Cotswolds. It occupies 60 acres of a 230 acre estate and was designed by architect David Austin to be eco friendly. It covers 23,250 square feet over ten floors, and includes eight bedrooms, an eight car underground parking garage, squash court, bowling alley, cinema and a fully enclosed winter garden, which is featured in Sherlock.
It was designed for, and is owned by, Sir David McMurty, head of precision engineering firm Renishaw. It has never been lived in as his wife Terry considers it 'too flashy.' However it is used for film and fashion shoots and charity events.
One story about filming Sherlock there is that many of the crew ended up with cuts and plasters on their faces due to walking into the glass internal walls so often! As a private house it is not open to viewing or to the public.
Burr walnut: (burl in USA) is a growth on a walnut tree which deforms and outgrows the grain through injury, growth or fungus to make small dark markings in the wood like dots and speckles, which are caused by buds that do not fully form or mutate. Every tree affected this way is uniquely patterned.
GPS locator: GPS stands for Global Positioning System. It is an electronic device that is normally carried by a person or vehicle to determine a precise location revealed by satellite triangulation. UK law does not specifically address this technology, but offences can be construed from within existing legislation.
Wet jobs: covert assassinations by government agents. A term invented by the KGB and a direct translation of the words mokru delo. But most often applied to the CIA.
The hymn running through Sherlock's mind is To Be A Pilgrim (aka He Who Would Valiant Be) the only hymn written by the author of Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan.
Bunyan wrote this novel of Christian allegory while in prison for holding religious meetings.
Sherlock combines both versions of the hymn to suit his mood and situation.