Author's Note: As ever, the dialogue excerpts are from Ariane DeVere's excellent transcript on tumblr. If you've ever wondered about how Greg coped with Sherlock during the Great Game, well, the answer is ...he didn't take it very well!
Chapter Fifty Five- Bomber– a five +1 (Part Five)
"It's me. Have you found anything on the South Bank between Waterloo Bridge and Southwark Bridge?"
Greg had been dreading this call. Expecting it, but dreading it, nonetheless. The DI had barely managed to get five hours of sleep, what with liaising with the Rotherham police, fire service and the gas company. A decision had been taken by the CTC in the Met to advise all three to describe it as a tragic accident caused by a faulty gas line. The case was related to an on-going investigation, and an early disclosure could complicate their work. For once, Lestrade was glad that they were back, interested in the case again.
His CTC contact, Commander Troughton, made it plain. "Someone just playing with semtex doesn't do it for us, but deaths cause by a bomb need to be investigated. So, we're back on the case. So tell all, Lestrade." That had taken some time. And the more he said about it, filling in the details of the hostages, and the deductions that led to solving the puzzles, the more incredulous the CTC officer became.
"Just who the hell is this Sherlock Holmes? We're going to need to question him- anyone attracting this level of animosity- a personal bombing campaign?! Well, he has got to be a person of interest to our branch."
Lestrade warned him. "Before you even think of doing something like that, check first with SO6; his brother would be mightily offended. Questioning a Holmes is not a good idea, not if you anticipate having a long career."
There was silence on the other end. "That Holmes?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. Bloody hell, Lestrade, I wouldn't want to be you at the moment."
"Thanks for that little vote of confidence, Troughton. I really needed that." After that, it was as if the guy couldn't get off the phone fast enough.
Greg lay awake for the half of the night that was left by the time he got home. He tried to sleep. Cuddled up to Louise and started to drift, only to wake himself up with the thought of Sherlock being caught up in something that was simply too big for him to get his head around. And if it's too big for him to figure out, then how the hell am I going to stop him from getting hurt?
Actually, there was something that kept rattling around in his mind like a marble in a tin can, so he got up and went into the kitchen to fix himself a camomile tea. No caffeine- he'd had so much over the past five days that his hands seemed to have a permanent tremor. As he fished out the teabag and dropped it into the sink, it came to him.
Yeah- just where the hell is Mycroft in all this?! Usually when Sherlock got into trouble, his brother was all over him. But, apart from an appearance at the flat – well, he assumed it was Mycroft whose car was there when he returned Sherlock to Baker Street the morning after the bombing- the elder Holmes had been conspicuous by his absence. He wondered if he should call. Not at three am, you dolt. He didn't want to be responsible for giving the guy a heart attack, or scaring him witless that something had happened to Sherlock. Not yet, anyway.
That was the other thing that was bugging Greg, really worrying him. Sherlock had made enemies over the years; he was too good at his job not to do so. But, if someone wanted him dead, they'd had their chance. The first bomb could have been a 'proper' sized semtex package- that and the gas would have levelled 221. So, outright murder didn't seem to be on the agenda. Whoever the mystery bomber was, he was playing with Sherlock, pulling strings and watching the man jump to solve the puzzles. It was personal, it was malicious and the person doing it didn't give a damn if innocent people were killed in the process. That was a very dangerous enemy- one who didn't want to just kill Sherlock, no- these puzzles meant that something else was involved. And he didn't like where it was taking Sherlock. Is he being set up for some horrible crime? He just couldn't shake the ...oddness, the peculiar way Sherlock was just enjoying this. It scared him.
He rubbed his eyes, and wished he didn't feel like shit. The brain was just too tired and too wired at one and the same time.
Eight hours later, when Sherlock did his usual greeting, "It's me", Greg was ready to hear the worst. "OK, what's happened? Has he been on the phone to you? What kind of hostage is it now?"
"Just a photo- a view of a river. The Thames, South Bank- somewhere between Southwark Bridge and Waterloo. I suggest you take a look. When you find something, text." Then the call ended.
Lestrade sighed, but came out into the team room. Sally Donovan gave him a filthy look as he headed for her desk. "So, I see Mr Infallible cost twelve lives last night. Time to bring him in, sir?"
"Shut it, Donovan. We have work to do; get a team, bring some Forensics along- we're doing some beach combing."
oOo
It was freezing cold on the exposed shore below the Thames southern embankment. A biting wind was coming in straight up the river from somewhere east of the Urals. When Sherlock and John showed up, the police had been on the scene for nearly an hour, and Greg's hands were like two blocks of ice. He was standing next to a body, which had been lifted onto a plastic sheet.
"D'you reckon this is connected, then? The bomber?"
Sherlock had eyes only for the body, but he answered the DI. "Must be. Odd, though…." He held up the pink phone with the photo. "…he hasn't been in touch."
"But we must assume that some poor bugger's primed to explode, yeah?"
This got a terse "Yes" from the brunet, who stepped back and took a long look.
"Any ideas?" Greg knew better than to badger Sherlock with lots of questions when he was in full observation mode, but he couldn't help but think of another hostage. One thing is for sure, this time I won't let him solve this one without me.
Sherlock answered Greg's question. "Seven…so far."
Greg couldn't keep his irritation at bay- "Seven?!"
Then Sherlock was in motion. He swooped down over the body, squatting to get close to the man's face with his magnifier. He then worked down the body, pulling up a trouser leg, then taking off one of the socks and examining the soles of his feet. When he stood up and closed the magnifier, he looked up to find John and then nodded his head towards the body, in a mute order to examine it. John waited for permission from Lestrade, who just waved him forward.
The doctor's assessment came rapidly thereafter. "He's been dead about twenty four hours- maybe a little longer." He looked up at Lestrade. "Did he drown?"
The Di shook his head. "Apparently not, not enough Thames in his lungs. Asphyxiated."
Sherlock was standing off a bit, as if not even listening to John. He was busy looking at something on his phone, making frequent finger swipes, as if trying to find data.
John agreed with the initial Forensic assessment of cause of death. Then both he and Lestrade shot a glance at Sherlock, who had just muttered, "fingertips."
John looked confused but continued, "In his late thirties, I'd say. Not in the best condition."
Sherlock concurred. "He's been in the river a long while. The water's destroyed most of the data."
He then gave a private, almost sly smile. "But, I'll tell you one thing: that lost Vermeer paintings a fake."
Lestrade tried, he really did. But the comment was such a non sequitur that he just felt his exasperated "what?!" slip out.
Sherlock didn't even bat an eyelid. "We need to identify the corpse, find out about his friends and associates…."
The DI felt the accumulated weight of too many sleepless nights catch up with him and just stutter his brain into neutral. "Wait-wait-wait-wait. What painting? What are you- what are you on about?"
Sherlock looked at him in surprise. "It's all over the place. Haven't you seen the posters? Dutch Old Master, supposed to have been destroyed centuries ago. Now it's turned up; worth thirty million pounds."
Greg felt like smacking the guy. "OK, so what has that got to do with the stiff?"
"Everything." Sherlock thought something was amusing, which just wound up Greg even more. Purposefully obtuse, the brunet continued, "Have you heard of the Golem?"
Once again, Lestrade was reduced to parroting the word back at Sherlock. "Golem?"
John came to Greg's rescue. "It's a horror story, isn't it? What are you saying?" At least Greg didn't feel like he was the only one who was having difficulty following Sherlock's strange train of thought.
"Jewish folk story, a gigantic man made of clay. It's also the name of an assassin- real name Oskar Dzundza- one of the deadliest assassins in the world. That is his trademark style. " He pointed down at the body, as if that explained everything.
Greg couldn't believe his ears. "So this is a hit?" He was now thoroughly confused, annoyed and close to losing it with Sherlock.
Sherlock's eyes glittered in the early morning light. "Definitely. The Golem squeezes the life out of his victims with his bare hands."
"But what does this have to do with the painting? I don't see…"
Now it was Sherlock's turn to sound exasperated. "You see- you just don't observe."
Before Greg could explode, John stepped in. "All right, all right, girls, calm down. Sherlock? Do you want to take us through it?" Not for the first time, Greg heaved a sigh of relief. John Watson's willingness to tame the younger man's anti-social traits had led to fewer such confrontations recently. Maybe this lapse into old habits is a sign of how rattled Sherlock really is by all this. That thought took the heat out of Lestrade's irritation.
Sherlock gathered a breath and set off. "What do we know about this corpse? The killer's not left us with much- just the shirt and the trousers. They're pretty formal- maybe he was going out for the night? But the trousers are heavy-duty, polyester, nasty, same as the shirt- cheap. They're both too big for him, so some kind of standard issue uniform- dressed for work then. What kind of work? There's a hook on his belt for a walkie-talkie.
"Tube Driver?" Lestrade was clutching at straws, but he was trying to follow along. Sherlock just shot him a look that said "idiot" without having to vocalise it. Then John piped up, "Security guard?"
Sherlock nodded, "More likely. That's be borne out by his backside."
Now Greg couldn't resist. "Backside?!"
"Flabby. You'd think that he'd led a sedentary life, yet the soles of his feet and the nascent varicose veins in his legs show otherwise. So, a lot of walking and a lot of sitting around. Security Guard's looking good. And the watch helps, too. The alarm shows he did regular night shifts."
"Why regular? Maybe he just set his alarm like that the night before he died." Lestrade tried to slow down the deductive flow, but it was like stopping the Thames' tide coming in.
"No-no-no, the buttons are stiff, hardly touched. He set his alarm like that a long time ago. His routine never varied. But there's something else. The killer must have been interrupted, otherwise he would have stripped the corpse completely. There was some kind of badge or insignia on the shirt front that he tore off. Suggesting the dead man worked somewhere recognisable, some kind of institution." He fished something out of his pocket. "Found this in his pocket, sodden by the river but still recognisably…"
John did the honours, "tickets?"
Sherlock corrected him- "ticket stubs." Then he was off again. "He worked in a museum or gallery. Did a quick check- the Hickman Gallery has reported one of its attendants missing. Alex Woodbridge. Tonight they unveil the re-discovered masterpiece. Now why would anyone want to pay the Golem to suffocate a perfectly ordinary gallery attendant? Inference- the dead man knew something about it, something that would stop the owner getting paid thirty million pounds. The picture's a fake."
John looked as shell-shocked as Greg felt. He just said in an admiring tone, "Fantastic."
Sherlcok shrugged, his face still set in a frown. "Meretricious." John's crossword definitions came in handy; he sensed that Sherlock was mocking him a bit by admitting that it was a vulgar display of talent, not particularly useful.
"And a Happy New Year!" Lestrade looked startled by the whole discussion, as he had no idea what the hell the two men were saying to one another. John looked back at the body. "Poor sod," as if to remind both the official detective and the consulting one to stop thinking of the body lying on the mud as just a means to an end.
That spurred Lestrade into action. "I'd better get my feelers out for this Golem character."
Sherlock's reply came almost instantaneously, "pointless, you'll never find him. But I know a man who can."
"Who?" The DI hoped this would be a cue to get Mycroft involved and playing a useful role. But his hopes were dashed when Sherlock's answer came back, "me." The brunet grinned and walked away. John sighed, and his eyes showed just how weary he was becoming of this, but he followed in the man's wake. Greg watched them disappear. Great, not content with pissing off a bomber, he now decides to go after an assassin. If he wasn't so cold, he'd be livid with anger.
oOo
For the next nine hours, Greg's text messages became increasingly frantic. His initial "stay in touch" approach didn't even rate a reply. Nor did his messages to John get answered, apart from one about mid-afternoon.
2.45pm Just hang in there; we're on it, putting pieces together. JW
2.47pm Is there a hostage involved? GL
2.49pm Not to my knowledge-nor his, if that's any help JW
Then at a quarter past five, a call came into the Yard, reporting the death of Professor Cairns, a University of London academic, killed at the London Planetarium. Shots had been fired, according to one of the tourist attraction staff. Greg sent Sally Donovan to investigate, in part, to get her out of the office. Her glowering face was getting on his nerves.
Twenty minutes later, she called in. "Guv, you aren't going to believe this. The Professor was killed by being asphyxiated. The ME was the same who did your body on the Thames foreshore. He says it's the same MO."
Greg just groaned.
"And, you'll never guess." Her sarcasm was dripping. "Two men answering the description of a tall, dark-haired bloke in a long coat, and a short blond guy in a black jacket, were on site when shots were fired. They vanished, chasing a really tall guy that the attendant didn't see very well."
The DI closed his eyes, and said nothing.
"Guv, really. You don't have a choice. Shall I put an alert out to bring them in?"
"Wait, Donovan. Just wait." He hoped to God that Sherlock knew what he was doing.
By seven o'clock, Lestrade was beginning to lose hope. He contacted the head of the Hickman Gallery and told her that he was going to put a plain-clothes officer into the gala reception starting at 7.30. VIPS and some of London's best known art critics had been invited to the private opening; he was worried that there might be some trouble, given the murder of one of the gallery attendants.
She was reluctant at first, but agreed in the end. "I want everything to go well tonight, so please, no heavy-handed presence. So long as your man is discrete, it's OK." Her heavily accented East European voice betrayed little. But, he couldn't blame her if she was anxious. Discovering a new Vermeer was a once in a century find; she was bound to have opening night nerves.
Lestrade kept in touch with the officer- but his man said that apart from some bitchiness from the art critics whose envy could not be contained, the 90 minute reception had passed without a hitch. The DI sent the 20th text of the day to Sherlock.
9.07pm Reception over, no issues. Any news? GL
There was no reply. At that stage, exhaustion took over and he just went to bed.
oOo
8.09am Meet us at the gallery. SH
When Lestrade arrived and was escorted in, the Hickstead Gallery owner, Miss Wenceslas, was pacing, her high heeled shoes tapping a rhythm of anger on the stone floor. Sherlock was examining the painting; John was watching Sherlock.
As soon as she saw Lestrade, she exploded. "You're the policeman I spoke to yesterday, yes?"
"Detective Inspector Lestrade, mam." He tried to give her a reassuring smile.
"This …man has broken into this gallery twice- once yesterday and now this morning. I told him I would have you arrest him, but he says he's working for you." Her thick Eastern European accent did not hide her distain.
Sherlock was ignoring her, John and Lestrade in equal measure. His eyes kept moving from his phone to the small canvas hung in splendid isolation on the white wall. Greg sighed.
"It's a fake. It has to be." To Greg's ears, used to Sherlock, that sounded immensely frustrated.
Miss Wenceslas was outraged. "That painting has been subjected to every test known to science."
The tall brunet did not turn around, just snarled, "It's a very good fake, then." The he spun wound and fixed her with one of his intense glares.
"You know about this, don't you? This is you, isn't it?"
She looked back at Lestrade, her exasperation clear. "Inspector, my time is being wasted. Would you mind showing you and your friends out?"
A phone rang. Sherlock snatched the pink mobile out of his pocket, almost in triumph. He switched it onto speaker, and blurted out "The painting is a fake."
There was no reply, just the sound of a breathy pant. Sherlock continued, "It's a fake. That's why Woodbridge and Cairns were killed." There was no response from the phone.
Sherlock's impatience could not be contained any longer. "Oh, come on. Proving it's just the detail. The painting is a fake. I've solved it. I've figured it out. It's a fake! That's the answer. That's why they were killed."
The only sound from the phone was the sound of someone breathing.
The brunet took a breath in, and closed his eyes for a moment as if to calm himself. "Okay, I'll prove it. Give me time. Will you give me time?"
There was a brief gap, then Greg heard the voice of a very young boy over the phone's speaker, "Ten..."
Sherlock whirled back to the painting and his eyes start flicking over it almost frantic.
Greg said in a shocked tone, "It's a kid. Oh, God…it's a kid!"
John looked confused, and asked "What did he say?"
Sherlock answered without turning, "ten".
The boy's voice was heard over the speaker. "Nine..."
"It's a countdown. He's giving me time."
Greg's eyes widened in horror. "Jesus!"
Sherlock ignored him, "The painting is a fake, but how can I prove it? How? How?"
"Eight…"
The brunet turned and skewered the gallery owner. "This kid will die. TELL me why the painting is a fake. Tell me!"
"Seven…"
Then Sherlock held his hand up to stop the woman from saying anything. "No, shut up. Don't say anything. It only works if I figure it out." He turned back to the painting.
John could no longer stand the tension; he walked away a few paces and turned away from the sight of Sherlock frantically scanning the canvass. The brunet had to stoop to get on the same level as the painting, and he was muttering, "must be possible. Must be staring me in the face."
"Six…" The boy's voice sounded scared, as if he knew that something serious was happening. Greg could hardly stand the thought that this game of Sherlock and the bomber was going to result in the death of such a young innocent. That said, he knew that shouting at Sherlock now or remonstrating with him would only interfere with his deductions during the last few seconds that the boy had. Instead, Lestrade looked at John as if willing him to do something, to work his magic with Sherlock. But the doctor could only push; they all heard him as he turned back and said "come on!"
Sherlock was reduced to putting his rising frustration into questions. "Woodbridge knew, but how?"
"Five…"
Lestrade realised in a panic what they all heard. "It's speeding up!"
John growled an almost despairing, "Sherlock!"
The detective was bent over looking at the canvass up close. Really looking at it. Lestrade saw that the man had actually stopped breathing. No distractions; he's blocking everything out.
Then the breathy, "OH!"
"Four…"
He stood up, and turned away with from the painting with a smile on his face. "In the planetarium! You heard it, too. Oh, that is brilliant! That is gorgeous!" He walked away from the canvass and the others. As he passed John, he thrust the pink phone into the doctor's hand, and pulled his own phone out of his pocket, punching keys with almost giddy enthusiasm.
"Three…"
John's calm finally broke, and he demanded of Sherlock, "What's brilliant? What is?"
The brunet turned and walked back to the others, his face split with a grin, laughing in delight. "This is beautiful. I love this!"
Lestrade added his outrage to John's, "SHERLOCK!"
"Two…"
The man grabbed the phone from John's hand and yelled, "The Van Buren Supernova!"
There was a short pause. Greg felt like the moment dragged out impossibly, waiting for that awful word- one- that would spell the end of an innocent life. He forgot how to breath.
"Please, is somebody there?" The little boy's voice sounded plaintive.
Sherlock gave out a contented sigh, just as the others were willing to breathe again.
"Somebody help me!"
Sherlock turned and handed the phone to Lestrade. "There you go. Go find out where he is and pick him up."
He gave a long look to John, as if daring him to argue. Then he turned back to the canvass. "The Van Buren supernova, so-called,…" he held his phone up so that Miss Wenceslas could see it. "…exploding star, only appeared in the night sky in eighteen fifty-eight." He gave her a triumphant stare, and then walked away.
John looked closer at the canvass. "So how could it have been painted in the sixteen forties?" He grinned over his shoulder at the gallery owner, before returning to look at the painting again. Then his own phone chirruped- incoming text.
"Oh" John looked at it, sighed and "Oh, Sherlock…" He switched off the phone and followed his flatmate out of the room.
The Detective Inspector had two phones to his ears- the pink one into which he was saying "It's all right, son, we'll have someone there in just a couple of minutes. You're OK. Just stay where you are." As soon as he finished that statement, he spoke into the other phone, "Got that, Donovan? Right, send the bomb squad there and a team from the Arts and Antiques command to collect this fake and the gallery owner, Miss Wenceslas."
The woman was still staring at the painting in a state of shock.
oOo
Lestrade was beginning to feel like one of those circus performers who came on after the elephants had been in the main ring; he seemed to be forever clearing up the mess left behind by Sherlock's puzzles. At least this time, there are no bodies. And he gave thanks that the man's nerve had not broken at the last minute; he'd never seen his observational powers put under such strain before. In most of their previous cases, the work was done over a dead body. Even when there were risks of another crime, or an abduction that could end badly, they rarely faced such a deadline. To be told to come up with a solution in ten seconds- well, the bomber was a fiend, there was no other word for it.
By the time the team put the gallery owner into an interrogation room, Sally had called in to say that the boy had been rescued, and was safely re-united with his parents. He'd been walking home from a shop when a taxi stopped beside him and he'd been kidnapped. The men wore masks, "like on the TV" and the boy had been terribly excited when they said it was all a game, and that he'd win a big prize, if he did what they said. He had thought it was all being filmed for some video game- and that none of it was real. Lucky him, it's just we adults who will have nightmares as a result of this latest 'game'.
Greg had insisted that Sherlock come to the Yard for the interview. He wasn't sure he knew enough about the painting to make sense of what Sherlock said, and the A&A Officer who came to take her into custody just whispered, "I hope you know what you're doing, sir- this is the most important art discovery of the century, and we're going to look pretty stupid in the press, if we get it wrong."
So, he found himself conducting the interview. Damn Mycroft Holmes for insisting that all contact with Sherlock be handled through me. Greg would have liked nothing better to be at home now, trying to get his brain to slow down. The adrenaline still kicking around in his blood was now giving him a filthy headache, and he felt wired, tense and vaguely nauseous, the last because he vaguely remembered that he hadn't had anything to eat all day.
"You know, it's interesting. Bohemian stationery, an assassin named after a Prague legend, and you, Miss Wenceslas. This whole case has a distinctly Czech feeling about it. Is that where this leads?" In contrast to how Greg was feeling, the consulting detective seemed as cool as a cucumber, totally relaxed.
When the woman didn't answer, Sherlock continued, "What are we looking at, Inspector?"
Greg decided to throw everything and the kitchen sink at her. "Well, um, criminal conspiracy, fraud, accessory after the fact at the very least. The murder of the old woman, all the people in the flats…"
That made the gallery owner look up in panic. "I didn't know anything about that! All those things, Please believe me!"
Greg could see Sherlock out of the corner of his eye at the same time as the DI watched the suspect; a tiny nod from the consulting detective suggested that the woman was telling the truth about that part, at least.
She carried on: "I just wanted my share- the thirty million." She looked at Sherlock, and then looked down, as if the sight of the man was just too painful to bear. "I found a little man in Argentina. Genius. I mean, really: brushwork immaculate, could fool anyone."
Sherlock sniffed in derision, clearly not content to be classed as 'anyone'.
She gave him a filthy look; "Well, nearly everyone….I didn't know how to go about convincing the world the picture was genuine. It was just an idea- a spark which he blew into a flame."
This made Sherlock sharply demand, "Who?"
She shook her head. "I don't know."
Greg just laughed.
"It's true! I mean, it took a long time, but eventually I was put in touch with people…his people."
This made Sherlock sit up and concentrate.
"Well, there never was any real contact. Just messages…whispers."
Sherlock leaned over, closer to her, with an intensity designed to intimidate. She looked at Lestrade with what he realised was fear, then drew a breath and nodded, turning her head slowly toward Sherlock.
"Moriarty."
The name meant nothing to Lestrade. But, as he watched Sherlock sink back into his chair, gaze into the distance and lift his hands into a prayer position in front of his mouth, Greg realised that the name did mean something to the brunet. Even worse, what chilled Lestrade's heart was the grin that he saw emerging on Sherlock's face.
