Chapter 50 - Crap Telly
"No, he's not the father," yelled Sherlock. "Wait for the DNA report!"
"Watching crap telly again?" asked John, entering Sherlock's living room and noticing the Consulting Detective sitting in his armchair, his legs propped up on a side table, wearing his second best dressing gown over his shirt and trousers.
"They keep assuming Shaun's the father when clearly he's not," Sherlock replied, scowling. "Even Christa's getting pissed off with them all."
"Christa's always pissed off," John added, laughing lightly. "It's the permanent scowl of the pregnant teenager."
Sherlock was silent as he continued watching the soapie, nervously tapping his index finger on the side of the chair, until the ad break. John had made himself comfortable in his old armchair and took to reading his newspaper, knowing it was best not to interrupt Sherlock during his Regency Road fix. As Sherlock rose from his chair, John looked up at the man in interest.
"I see you've bought all the gossip magazines again," John commented, nodding to the living room table.
"Oh. Yes," Sherlock replied nonchalantly. "Mrs Hudson likes them."
Sherlock walked over to his desk and picked up two of the magazines.
"This one says that Christa gives birth to twins, while this one says Soap Star Shock Stillbirth. I don't know which one to believe as both articles seem to lack the necessary evidence."
John chuckled then leant forward conspiratorially. "Actually neither is true," he said in a low voice. "Christa gives birth to a healthy baby boy, and names him after her dead brother. A touching scene apparently."
The doctor returned his gaze to his newspaper but he well and truly had captured the detective's attention now.
"What are you talking about?" Sherlock asked, incredulous. "It hasn't been on yet!"
John slowly looked up at his friend and searched for a hint of mirth on the man's features. When Sherlock's eyes continued to bore into the doctor, John put down his newspaper.
"Sherlock, this isn't live," he volunteered. "These scenes were recorded five weeks ago. They're currently recording the hospital scenes now." John quickly glanced over to the living room door, then dropped his voice again. "Violet just told me the other day that she annoyed the director because she was laughing so much during the birth scene."
Sherlock's eyes widened in interest, and he straightened up as his mind calculated the ways and wonders of television soap operas.
When his eyes took on a faraway look, John steeled himself for the onslaught.
"Oh!" Sherlock exclaimed after a few seconds, his mind finally seized with enlightenment. "So, there are people walking around the streets at the moment—actors, crew, caterers, cleaners—who know what's going to happen five weeks from now! Oh! This is good..."
He began pacing across his living room rug with his hands folded behind his back.
John sat up straighter in his armchair, and hoped to derail Sherlock's train of thought before disaster struck. "Sherlock."
"So, the scripts have already been written, sets organised, actors muttering their lines on train journeys," Sherlock murmured. "Those long, mundane train journeys between home and studio..."
"Sherlock!"
"The script left open in the coffee shop; the actor, poorly paid and in need of a..."
"Sherlock!"
Sherlock snapped out of his monologue, and looked down at the doctor, narrowing his eyes in irritation.
"What?"
"You can't devote your days of having no cases to trying to find out the next five weeks of the Regency Road storyline. I'm not even supposed to know. Violet swore me to secrecy. You can't repeat what I've just told you. These things are bigger than state secrets. Don't even mention it to Mrs Hudson!"
Sherlock scowled and returned to his chair as the ad break finished.
He watched Violet on-screen, playing the character of seventeen year old Christa, eight months pregnant with the father currently unknown. Definitely NOT Shaun. Her character was always sullen, and telling people to 'Sod off!'.
Sherlock hated her hair—her long black hair, with matching dark eyeliner. She didn't even look like Violet. Christa never smiled.
He continued watching Christa arguing with her mother, until the show focused on another group of characters, prompting Sherlock to tut, call out "Boring," and wander back over to the table. He started flipping through one of the magazines.
John put his paper down and watched Sherlock with mild amusement.
"You know, you don't have to watch TV soaps and buy crap magazines in order to see Violet."
"I don't," Sherlock replied simply, his attention still drawn to the magazine pages.
"She does ask about you, you know."
"Does she."
John sighed and regarded his friend's indifferent posture.
"I did tell her that the file came from Mycroft," John ventured.
The air was still as if John's information needed a few extra seconds to settle into Sherlock's mind.
"Oh good," the Consulting Detective intoned, without looking up.
"Don't know why I bothered," muttered John.
When John's phone buzzed, he retrieved it from his jacket, which lay on the arm of his chair, and read the screen.
"Mary's finished at her friend's. I'm off."
The doctor rose from his chair, placing the newspaper down on his vacated seat.
"Dinner Saturday?" he asked Sherlock as he drew on his jacket.
Sherlock's gaze remained fixed on the article in front of him.
"No, John."
"Right," John replied, sighing deeply at the response he had expected to receive from his bachelor friend. He finished zipping up his jacket and bid Sherlock farewell.
As John's footsteps died away, Sherlock slowly lifted the magazine he was reading up to the height of his eye line. He narrowed his eyes as he peered at a photo of Violet coming out of a nightclub with a couple of other young actors he recognised from the soap.
"Not drunk," he muttered.
He dropped the magazine, his mind occupied with several other thoughts. He grabbed his laptop from the living room table and took it with him over to his armchair. As he opened the lid, Mrs Hudson appeared at the top of the stairs carrying a tea tray.
"Sorry, love," she said, entering the room and placing the tray down on a side table beside Sherlock's chair as the detective tapped away on his keyboard. "Mrs Turner phoned. I told her not to ring between seven and seven thirty on week nights but she still insists."
"She's not drunk," Sherlock murmured to himself, staring at his screen.
"What, dear?" his landlady asked, as she stood next to the detective pouring his tea.
"She's not drunk," Sherlock repeated. "Why do they keep including her photo in these articles about young soap stars and their nightclub sprees?"
"I expect it's to sell more magazines," the older woman replied, handing Sherlock his cup of tea.
Mrs Hudson sighed with great affection when the soap returned and Violet's character walked across the screen. The landlady sank into John's armchair, and turned so she could see the screen.
"I do worry about this baby," she remarked. "There's far too much stress in Christa's life, and she's far too young to handle it all."
"There's nothing at all to concern yourself with," Sherlock added, taking a sip of tea. He placed the cup down onto the side table and continued. "I can tell from the shape of her baby bump that it's going to be a boy. And the way Christa keeps picking up the photo of her dead brother, you just know she's going to name her baby after him. A simple deduction really."
The pair continued to watch the soap until it cut to another storyline containing a different set of actors. Sherlock dropped his gaze to the tea tray and the accompanying plate of shortbread.
"Mrs Hudson," he gasped in disappointment. "You've run out of chocolate hobnobs!"
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