Got My Eye On You

Chapter Sixty Eight

The Great man (Fifth Part)


By the time Hanson drove the car up to the entrance of St Barts, Lestrade was almost twitching with a sense of urgency. Ever since he told the Chief that he would bring Sherlock in, he'd been worrying about just how long Sherlock would take to set up his confrontation with Moriarty. When and where would he seek a showdown? It was just over ninety minutes since Greg had come down the stairs from the lab, leaving the consulting detective throwing the squash ball against the cupboards. And where the hell was John Watson?

Greg had never known Watson to be anything but loyal. Surely, he wouldn't have abandoned Sherlock at this stage? As the car had forced its way through London's morning rush hour traffic, he wondered about that. Sherlock clearly wanted John 'safe', whatever that meant. So, Greg assumed that he would have figured some way, some scheme to keep the doctor busy but out of the way, while he organised his meeting with the Irishman.

His instinct told him that Sherlock would engineer such a meeting on familiar territory. It would be important to that he could trust his surroundings, know every corridor, every staircase, exit and entrance. Given that Baker Street was off limits because it was being watched by the police, Greg thought Sherlock would try to find a way to lure Moriarty to Barts, if he could manage it. That was the reason why Greg believed it when he told the Chief that he would be able to arrest him.

As soon as the car turned into the road outside Barts, Lestrade threw off his seatbelt. "Once you've parked, you'll find us in the lab on the third floor. Come on, Dimmock." As the car rolled to a halt, Lestrade was already out and the other DI scrambled to follow. Grey clouds were spitting, so the pair hurried before the full shower caught them.

Greg strode into the main entrance of the hospital and noticed a small crowd of people standing about on the left of the foyer. He turned to the right, and put a hand on the double doors to the stairs, starting to push it open. Stairs will be quicker than waiting for a lift.

"Just leave me alone. I need to stay here. I need to be with him."

Greg's brain heard it, taking a moment to process it as he started through the doors, and then realised it was John Watson's voice he was hearing. He stopped so suddenly that Dimmock walked straight into the back of him. It was John's voice, but there was something so very wrong with it that the sound stopped Greg dead in his tracks. Dimmock began to apologise, but Lestrade had already turned around and was back through the doors.

"Let me through; I'm a police officer." The order was snapped with all the command authority of a twenty-five year career in the Met. The crowd of medical workers parted, to reveal John sitting in a plastic chair. He was looking down at the floor, struggling to avoid the ministrations of a nurse, who was examining an angry red scraped section of John's forehead. "I'm sorry, but you have to go to UCLH's A and E; this head injury must be looked at. You've probably got a concussion."

In a moment, Lestrade dropped to one knee in front of John and took him by the shoulders. The doctor did not lift his eyes, "Where is he, John? Where's Sherlock?"

A pair of dazed, red-rimmed eyes looked up at Greg, and then seemed to focus on him with some recognition. John's expression was shocked wide and vulnerable as he struggled to find words. "Why? I don't understand why. Why would he do that?"

"Do what, John? What's Sherlock done?"

Watson's face just crumpled.

"TELL ME!" Lestrade made no attempt to hide his fear.

The doctor just looked away, with a forlorn whisper, "why jump?" The last word was uttered with such despair that it stunned Lestrade, who released John's shoulders and stood up. "Can anyone tell me what's going on?"

The nurse who had been trying to examine John's forehead spoke up. "There was …an incident. A man fell from the roof- onto the pavement just outside. He was brought in here and pronounced dead. Then Doctor Watson came in a minute or so later- like this, in shock and he needs to have that injury seen to. We don't have an Emergency Department here, so I've called an ambulance, but he's confused and uncooperative."

The words sank in, one at a time, as if Greg's brain couldn't quite catch up with his ears. Then he heard a voice which he realised was his own ask the question, "Who died?"

The nurse looked at him, startled. "I thought that was why you were here. We called the police ten minutes ago to report the death. Enough people at the hospital recognised him, even as…damaged as he was by the fall. It was Sherlock Holmes."

Greg looked at her, trying to understand what she said. Then somewhere, somehow, training kicked in. "Where is he? Where's Sherlock? I need to see him for myself." The voice he heard in his ears was calm, determined and would not accept anything other than the truth from the woman who stood in front of him.

"His body's been moved downstairs to the mortuary. It's been identified formally by the pathologist, Doctor Hooper."

Lestrade turned away from the woman and started towards the doors. Behind him, he heard DI Dimmock say "Doctor John Watson, I am arresting you on the charge of assault and resisting arrest. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence." A part of Lestrade wanted to stop and tell Dimmock to stop being a prat, but a bigger part of him needed to ignore everything except what was waiting for him downstairs in the mortuary.

When he pushed open the double doors into the room where he and Sherlock had examined so many bodies, Greg had already considered a dozen different scenarios, ranging from mistaken identity to the idea that somehow the body would turn out to be that of James Moriarty. Then Molly Hooper turned around to face him. One look at her made him realise that only one of the scenarios was actually true. She looked as devastated as John had been.

"Stop right there, Detective Inspector." She crossed her arms around a clipboard she was carrying.

"Miss Hooper, is it true? " He cast his eyes about the room, the stainless steel autopsy table was empty, but he could see it was still wet. "Where is he?"

She struggled to find the words. "It's true; he's dead. I've done the formal identification and notified his next of kin. His brother. Left a message, he was in a meeting."

"I need to see him. I need to see him myself." His voice cracked on the last word. The unmitigated awfulness of it all was beginning to seep into his voice, his bones, his soul.

"I can't do that. I will tell you what I told John Watson. I've done the formal identification. The paperwork is done- death certificate signed. You don't need to see him."

"Yes, I do. I really do."

"No. I won't let you."

That penetrated through the gauze of grief that was winding itself around Greg's mind. "Why not?"

The pathologist gave him a gentle look. She tried to say something but the words got caught. She took two quick breaths, and tried again. "Because you don't want to have that as the last image in your mind about him. Remember him as he was, before this. Falling sixty feet is not…kind on a human body, Detective Inspector. I…care…enough about him to want to protect him from being that horrible an image for you."

It was the longest speech he'd ever heard out of Miss Hooper. She was usually so tongue tied in Sherlock's presence; even that Christmas when Sherlock had been so horrible in his deductions about her that he'd apologised. It made Greg realise the pain she was trying to protect him from. All he could think of saying was "You had to see him that way."

"I see dead bodies every day- in every state of death, destruction and decomposition. Anyway, I don't count. Didn't count, not that way, to Sherlock. He didn't think of me the way I know he did you. John and you, you counted. I was just…useful to him. I know that. This is …one more useful thing I can do for him now. I couldn't stop him from doing it, but I can treat him with respect now, and keep him alive for you, at least in your memory."

Greg stood staring at her in the silence. The awfulness of the silence. He felt the long night of anxiety and stress escaping through a shuddering tremor in his left knee. He felt sick to his stomach. She held his gaze for a moment longer and then broke it to look away. "I couldn't stop John Watson from seeing it happen. According to the people upstairs, he saw Sherlock fall. I can't erase that from his mind…I so wish I could. I know Sherlock would not have wanted that. He cared for John." At this, her eyes filled up and tears slipped past her eye lids. "I can't leave here. There are…other things I need to do here. Can I ask you to do something now for me?"

"What?"

"Find out what happened on the roof."

He realised with a jolt that he'd been so focused on his disbelief about Sherlock that he'd actually lost focus completely. Her request made him realise that if he didn't do something soon, he was going to fall apart. And he couldn't do that. Not yet, anyway. Professionally speaking, he just had to hang on, get through it. Find out what had happened. Process the scene. Do his job.

He heard a voice, that baritone voice, in his head. It's The Work. Lestrade. In the end, that's all that matters.

Later…later there would be time for what ifs, for recriminations and regrets. It was the least he could do for Sherlock, now. It might be that last crime scene he'd be on for a very long time. He'd want me to do it. Greg nodded to her, and got back to work.


Author's note: OK, just an epilogue left in this story arc. Then in a while, A Good Man, or what happened after the Fall, before the Return.