Got My Eye on You
Chapter Seventy Three
The Good Man- Part Four
On Tuesday night, Lestrade decided to visit Sherlock. After staying late at work, he stopped into Baker Street. It was a cold night, and he was relieved to see that the chill had chased away the paparazzi. He let himself in, standing for a moment in the hallway, smiling at the key in his hand. He'd never thrown it away. Sentimental, I know, Sherlock. While he was standing there, Mrs Hudson came out.
"Oh, Detective Inspector, how wonderful to see you again. I was just a bit worried that you might be one of those horrid journalists or photographers who figured a way to break in. They've just been so annoying today."
He smiled at the elderly woman. "Must be a bit of a trial to have him back again. Has he disconnected the bell again?"
She laughed. "Oh, he is incorrigible! He actually cut the wire this afternoon. I'll have to get it fixed. When he doesn't answer his, they all ring mine, and it's been driving me crazy. He offered to cut mine, but I told him not to- they'd just bang the door-knocker then, and it's even worse."
"A steady stream of clients then? He must be in his element."
"Well, thank goodness, it's been quiet for the past two hours. I tried to bring him a cup of tea and some toast this evening, but he told me in no uncertain words to go away. Said he'd been dealing with too many idiots, muttered something about being over his monthly limit for stupidity and needing time to detox."
Greg headed up the stairs, and then down the hall to the living room. It was odd to be doing so again after a break of two years. The place didn't look like it had changed at all. As he pushed open the door, he saw in a moment the same state of disorder and general mess that had always characterised Sherlock's flat.
All that was seen and forgotten in an instant, however. Greg's attention focused instead on the sight of Sherlock sitting at the table between the two windows, with his back to the door. He was wearing a maroon silk dressing gown, his right hand placing a hypodermic needle back down on the table. The left sleeve of the dressing gown was pushed up, and Greg was horrified to see the younger man pull off his bare arm a piece of rubber tubing with a resounding snap of released pressure.
He's using again. Lestrade was just rooted to the spot in horror.
"Sherlock, what…what are you doing?"
"I should have thought that was obvious, Detective Inspector, even for one with as limited deduction skills as your own."
Greg shrugged the caustic comment aside. "I'm a police officer, for God's sake. I can't turn a blind eye to this!"
The seated man did not turn around. "You've entered my premises without my permission, without a warrant, without probable cause. No prosecution would ever stick. Besides, you're wrong."
Greg watched him flex his left arm, assisting the drug-laden blood flow. "Is this a bad habit you fell back into along the way, when you were tackling Moriarty?"
Sherlock just sighed. "As ever, Lestrade you see but do not observe."
"Then enlighten me." He did not hide his disappointment.
Sherlock's response was to turn and toss the small bottle of clear liquid in Greg's general direction.
Startled, the DI managed to catch it. And looked at the label. "So, not your usual drug of choice? You've swapped your usual cocaine for an opiate."
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Read it, carefully."
This time, Greg did that. "What am I supposed to be seeing here?"
"It's prescribed."
"So, you found a bent doctor?"
The younger man just sighed again. "No, not unless you think Mycroft's personal physician is likely to be susceptible to bribery. What is morphine usually prescribed for?"
"Pain. OH! Are you…injured?"
Sherlock looked at him, his face impenetrable. He shrugged off the dressing gown, but didn't undo the sash belt, so that it fell off his chest to puddle around his waist. Greg saw the purple bruises up Sherlock's abdomen and chest, and then watched the man slowly turn around to show his back. It was a mass of bruises and barely healed welts of scar tissue, still red and angry.
"Jesus, Sherlock." Greg was horrified. He closed his eyes for a second. He took a deep breath. "No wonder you flinched when I gave you that bear hug."
Sherlock snorted. "That didn't hurt as much as when John tried to throttle me and I ended up on the floor of the restaurant, with his full weight on top of me. Now that did hurt. He's put on weight over the past two years."
"How…no, I can see that someone has beaten the hell out of you. The question is why and who?"
"The who doesn't matter. The why is simple- I miscalculated how long it would take to get in and then out again of a secure facility in Serbia. The guards decided they wanted to know who I was and why I was where I wasn't supposed to be. It took me four days to convince one of my captors to go do something else so I could escape. Then it turned out I needn't have bothered, because Mycroft finally got off his back-side and did something useful for once."
"Big brother to the rescue?
"He likes to think so. I could have managed without him. Turns out he needed me to come back to London to help sort out that mess." The young man pointed over to the wall behind the sofa. Greg took it in- Sherlock's version of an evidence board, plastered with odd bits of paper, newspaper clippings and photos, some tied to one another with bits of string, others with big black X marks drawn through them.
"What is it?"
"Surely it hasn't escaped even your notice that the terrorist threat level has been raised to critical?"
"Not my division, Sherlock. SO15 is a world onto itself. But, yeah, of course, we've all been told, but like every other time they do it, nothing happens and in a couple of weeks they'll announce that the level has been dropped down to normal. Business as usual."
"Not this time. Your lot haven't a clue, but what's different this time is that they've got company. The Security Service, Six and GCHQ have come up with a credible threat- but NO data about it. Not even my brother can figure it out."
Greg glanced away from the wall to Sherlock, standing beside him now, the maroon dressing gown back in place. "That's why Mycroft hasn't locked you away in some hospital to recover from your injuries?"
"As long as I can have my pain relief of choice, I'm good to go to work on this." Sherlock surveyed the wall and snorted in derision. "They ration me to one tiny bottle a day, so I use it to help me sleep." He waved at the wall. "This isn't really interesting enough to keep me awake."
"A case so big that the entire British Intelligence system can't handle it and you think it isn't interesting enough?"
"Nope. It's just a matter of putting some feelers out. Watching what's going on. Starting a few lines of inquiry and seeing what comes out of it. I have sources they don't have, and can call on eyes they can't control. Sooner or later, I will find it."
"Hopefully, soon enough. Don't want to be too late on this one." Greg muttered. "So, the queue of private clients going in and out of Baker Street today- it's just a sham?"
"No." He sounded affronted at the idea. "If I can't have my pain relief of choice, then case work keeps my brain occupied. This..." He waved at the wall again "…doesn't require full time attention. It's a case of waiting and watching. I can squeeze some more interesting work in between. So anything above a six comes your way, I'm ready."
Sherlock turned away and then sat down rather heavily on the coffee table, putting his elbows on his knees and putting his head down into his hands.
"But not tonight. Morphine kicking in?"
"Hmm."
"I don't suppose you've had anything to eat today?"
"Nausea and vomiting are side effects of morphine. That's why I can't take it orally. They tried to fob me off on subcutaneous pop shots of it, but it's too slow. I asked for heroin or methadone- they work better for me as pain relief, but Mycroft wouldn't agree."
"Well, I'm not surprised. And you aren't either, are you?"
The dark head of curly hair shook slowly from side to side.
A thought occurred to Greg. "When you spent the night on Saturday at my flat, did you…?"
Before he could finish the sentence, Sherlock cut him off. "Of course not. You told me years ago that I'd never work with you again if I took drugs in your flat. But, it is the reason why I left an hour and half after you fell asleep."
So, you didn't think I'd see the difference between pain relief and recreational use? Oh, Sherlock! Greg didn't want to imagine him out on the streets, in the cold, injecting morphine- all to keep the reputation of a Metropolitan police officer intact. "If you'd told me why, I wouldn't have minded."
"Didn't want to. It's all…so pathetic."
"John doesn't know? You haven't told him about …the sniper, about…everything?"
"Of course not. He doesn't want to know. That date of his I interrupted? He was proposing to Miss Mary Morstan. He's getting married. He's moved on. He doesn't need me."
With that, he stood up. "You can see yourself out the same way you saw yourself in." Sherlock walked barefoot through the kitchen, down the hall into his bedroom. When the door was shut a little more firmly than usual, Greg noticed.
