Chapter 44: Calling the Police in Belgravia - Part Two


By the time they drew up outside Baker Street, John was definitely worried. The doctor got out, as Lestrade tried to talk Sherlock into getting out on his side of the car. As soon as he managed to get to the edge of the seat with his feet out the door, Sherlock's head went down and he vomited. Greg just kept his hand on the brunet's back until he was done, and handed him a handkerchief to clean his mouth. John squatted down to take a good look at his friend's eyes- still constricted into tiny pinpricks. His question, "Can you manage to stand up, Sherlock?" was answered by a simple nod, then a mumbled "..try…"

Between the two of them, Greg and John managed to get him to the front door. Praying that Mrs Hudson was home, John hit the doorbell rather than risk fumbling for his keys.

The landlady was horrified at the sight. "Oh, Good Lord. What's happened? Is he alright?" The two men got him into the hall. John tried to reassure her. "He's been drugged by a suspect, Mrs Hudson. He should be OK once he's slept it off."

"What happened to his face?"

Without thinking, John answered. "Oh, I did that." Greg gave him a sharp look of disbelief. "Not that way, Lestrade- he asked me to do it- part of his disguise to get into the house."

John was looking up stairs and wondering how they were going to manhandle Sherlock up the seventeen steps. Greg just pushed Sherlock up against the wall, leaned up against him and then bent at the waist and knees, allowing Sherlock to drop over his shoulder as if he'd done it many times before. With a grunt, he stood up, holding Sherlock's legs against his chest, and letting the lanky man's head drop across his back. He staggered over to the first step.

"Are you sure about this? Shouldn't we do this together?" John worried about the pair of them collapsing half way up.

"Don't worry," the DI panted. Slowly, step by step, he went up. The doctor slipped past them to get the door to the flat open. Lestrade was puffing heavily by the time he reached the top, but kept going into the bedroom. John helped him unload the now comatose brunet onto the bed, and started on removing his shoes while Greg recovered his breath. "Jeez," he wheezed, "he's put on weight. You must be getting him to eat more these days."

Sherlock was pretty much out of it, but allowed John to move him into the recovery position on his side and pull the duvet up around his shoulders. The doctor found the bin in the corner of the room and placed it close to the side of the bed, just in case Sherlock felt the need to throw up again. Lestrade was standing in the doorway, watching Sherlock with a concerned look on his face. John checked Sherlock's pulse, and counted his respirations. Slow, but acceptable. He was going to need to sleep it off. Lestrade shut the curtains and turned off the overhead light to ease the sensory stimulation.

John left the door open a bit as the two men went back into the living room. "I need a cup of tea. Want one?" When the DI nodded, John went into the kitchen, as the silver haired man went into the living room and sat down rather heavily in Sherlock's chair. John was reminded of the first time he'd seen Lestrade sitting there, on the night he moved into Baker Street, when the DI had staged his pretend drugs bust. A lot had happened since then.

When John delivered a steaming cup to Greg, he sat down in his chair and just looked at the DI, as if seeing him for the first time. "You…hoisted him up over your shoulder like you've done it before. In fact, lots of times before. Want to tell me the whys and wherefores?"

Greg looked up from his tea. Brown eyes met blue, and John could see there was indecision in them. He needed to address that. "You're wondering what right I have to know. If it's any of my business. Yeah, I can understand that."

The older man shook his head. "No, that's not what I'm thinking. Really, John, I'm really wondering why we haven't had this conversation before." Then he looked bemused. "I suppose it's because we only really cross paths when we are standing over a dead body watching him dance about, solving things that no one else in their right mind could even imagine, let alone deduce."

John slowly nodded. "I know I've had the occasional pint with you and the Yarders, but that's not private enough for this sort of conversation. And I've not asked, either; in part, because our mutual friend refuses to talk to me about his past- 'boring, tedious, John; what matters is the present.' It's his motto. But, I remember the first night I met you, I asked why you worked with him. You really surprised mewhen you said Sherlock is a great man, and that you thought one day, if we're very, very lucky, he might even be a good one. I hadn't a clue what you meant then. I do now. So, tell me more. All of it- or, at least, as much as you think I should know."

So, Greg told him about the night he first met a skinny sixteen year old, who was a possible accessory to a murder. Then he told him the tale of the Pountney Club and then the time Sherlock solved Greg's investigation into the death of a trafficker in drugs and illegal immigrants.

"Mycroft wasn't much impressed by Sherlock's interest in police work. Did his damnedest to keep him away from me and the Yard. Tried to scare me witless a few times; almost succeeded, too. But like a bad penny, Sherlock kept turning up. The cocaine thing; yeah, that was worrying- especially when I found him on a rooftop in the middle of a lethal overdose. The drugs are the reason I learned how to pick him up and get him squared away before he hurt himself."

"As a result, Sherlock trusted me. He told me the reason for the drugs, and I've watched over him during detox. I told him that the only way he could ever work with me or the Yard was if he is clean. He's fallen off the wagon a few times, and I force him into a time-out until he can prove he's ready. Over the years, Mycroft and I made our peace, mostly because Sherlock didn't give him a choice.

"He told me about the SPD and being on the Spectrum. It wasn't news, helps that my nephew Sam is autistic; I can recognise the signs. I've watched him over the years deal with death, blood and gore that would make a retiring DI puke- all without batting an eye. Take him to an amusement park, the Underground at rush hour or a New Year's Eve celebration in Trafalgar Square, and he'll melt down every time, and turn into a quivering mass. After today, I'll add date rape drugs to that list. I've learned where he can be pushed, and the no-go areas. He is, without a doubt, the most stubborn man I have ever known. And rude. I'm now so used to his calling me an idiot that if he doesn't, my first instinct is that he is ill." This thought gave rise to a wry smile.

"Until you came along, I wondered if anyone was ever going to see the positive things I see, along with the certifiably difficult problems."

That raised an echoing wry smile from the ex-Army doctor.

"And, heavens above, you're a doctor. You have no idea how relieved that makes me." Lestrade rubbed his hands thoughtfully. "You know how he hates hospitals; nearly driven me mad how he would walk away from a crime scene with an injury that I knew had to be looked at, but would he ever take my advice? Not on your life."

John smirked. "Don't overestimate my influence, Greg; it's a battle I lose more often than not."

"Maybe- but I meant what I said last week. He's better coming back from the past month in that clinic with you than I have ever seen him. I don't know what miracles occurred. Don't want to know, actually. Just for God's sake, keep it up whatever it is you're doing. Because this Moriarty thing has got me well and truly scared. Was this morning's episode anything to do with that?"

John wasn't sure what he should say. Moriarty was Mycroft territory, and he didn't want to give too much away. If he did, given the fact that the man was probably listening in right now, he could expect another rendezvous with a black car and that attractive PA.

The DI sensed his hesitation. "Look, I know I'm not to get involved. Mycroft has made that clear to me. He's insisting on vetting every Yard case that I might want to get Sherlock in on, just in case that mad bomber is involved. I know he's doing the same to your blog. You know what I thought about Sherlock's behaviour during that little pips campaign of his. So, I'm just telling you- it scares me. The games he plays with Sherlock's mind – and yours- really, really worry me."

"You and me both, Greg." John finished his tea, and sat his RAMC mug down on the mantel piece. "What I can do is tell you what happened in Belgravia today, and leave you to draw any conclusions you want to make."

So, he did. Lestrade took out a notebook from his jacket pocket and started to make notes.

oOo

"A dominatrix? Shit."

"When I walked into the drawing room, she was sitting on his lap on the sofa, stark naked, apart from stiletto heels and a pair of earrings. "

Greg's eyes grew big. "That must have gone down like a bucket of cold sick."

John thought about it. "Actually, you might be surprised. Oh, he didn't…ah…you know, respond to her in the way that most guys I know would, but he was sort of, I don't know, fascinated."

Lestrade probed. "Do you mean fascinated in the way he gets when a particularly gruesome cadaver shows up at the morgue? Or are we talking sex here?" The DI's incredulity was clear. John stored that little fact away, to think about later. Not now. Now he had to keep up the story.

"More like the cadaver. But what happened next only complicates the fascination." He described the scam that they used to get Irene to identify where the phone was, but then the arrival of the Americans threw their plans into disarray. He explained when the agent held a gun to his head and threatened to shoot him if Sherlock didn't get the safe open. "He kept saying he didn't know the code, and the woman backed him up, but the American couldn't care less. Just said if he was any good, he'd be able to figure it out."

Lestrade eyed the doctor, as if looking to see signs of shock or trauma. "He must have done so, because you're still in one piece."

John smiled. "Yeah, not only that, he deduced that the safe was protected by a gun rigged up to go off if anyone tried to open it unawares. He ducked as he opened it, and it caught point blank that guy who'd had his gun to my head. That's what I meant when I said nobody had fired the shot that killed him." He looked down into his tea cup, wondering whether it was time to offer Lestrade something stronger. "It's not the first time I 've been grateful for his ability to think while under pressure."

"After that, he fired the gun in the street to wake up the police. We thought it was pretty much a done deal. He had the phone in his hands. If I hadn't left him alone with her in the bedroom, we wouldn't be sitting here now, worrying about him. It was my fault- I was an idiot. I went downstairs to check that there were no other Americans lurking around. When I got back up there, he was on the floor and the woman was gone before the first copper got in the door."

Lestrade looked up from his notebook, sensing that John's narrative had come to a halt. "I suppose she will go to ground now. I'll check to see how the Kensington team got on in the house; but she sounds rather too professional to have slipped up and left anything incriminating. By the sounds of it- not to mention the presence of dead Americans, SO6 and Mycroft's own people on site- this story isn't going to hit a police blotter anytime soon." Greg sighed. "You're sure he'll be alright?"

John gave a half shrug. "Medically, yeah- if Mycroft's crew haven't come back to tell me it's something other than GHB, then my guess he will just sleep it off. Psychologically, I think he's going to be pissed off, madder than hell and really, really annoyed to have been bested by that woman. You know he doesn't like losing."

"Tell me about it. He won't give up, John, not the remotest chance. She's hit the one button of his guaranteed to result in a replay."

As the two men exchanged worried glances, John heard a muffled noise from the hall to Sherlock's room. "John?" Then the sound of a body hitting the floor and a louder, "JOHN!"

Greg smiled. "Go on, I'll leave him in your good hands. Just keep an eye on him for me, will you?"