Sherlock picked up the shoe, glancing over at me to make sure I was watching. A slight upturn of his lip indicated that he was happy to find I was, "The owner loved these, scrubbed them clean. Whitened where they got discolored. Changed the laces three, no four times. Even so, there are traces of his flaky skin where his fingers have come into contact with them, so he suffered from eczema. The shoes are well-worn more so on the inner side, which means the owner had weak arches. British made, 20 years old." John and I looked at him incredulously as I spoke, "20 years?" Sherlock responded as he gets on his phone, "They're not retro, they're original. Limited edition, two blue stripes, 1989." He shoes us the photo of the shoes. John was as confused as I was, "But there's still mud on them. They look new." Sherlock continued to look at the photo as he answered, "Someone's kept them that way." He inhales sharply, "Quite a bit of mud caked on the soles. Analysis shows it's from Sussex with London mud overlaying it." I raised and I eyebrow, "How the hell can you tell that?" Sherlock points over at the machine, "Pollen. Clear as a map reference to me. South of the river, too. So, the kid wore these trainers, came to London from Sussex, 20 years ago and left them behind." John spoke next, "So what happened to him?" Sherlock looked at both of us, "Something bad."
He started to think about what could have happened, I could read it in his expressions, "I mean, he loved those shoes, remember. He'd never leave them filthy. Wouldn't let them go unless he had to." He looks away, "So, a child with big feet gets…" I notice his face change as something dawns on him, "What? Sherlock what is it?" He whispers softly, "Oh!" John bends down on the table, "What?" Sherlock answers, still in a whisper, looking at the nothingness ahead of him, "Carl Powers." John stand back up, "Sorry, who?" He repeats his answer, "Carl Powers, John…Klayre." I reach out and touch his shoulder, "What is it?" Sherlock advances from a whisper to a louder interval, "It's where I began." He didn't talk at all as he called us a taxi and we had sat down. "1989, young kid, champion swimmer, came up from Brighton for a school sports tournament, drowned in the pool. Tragic accident. You wouldn't remember," he looks from John to me, "You wouldn't know about it. Why should you?" John interrupts, "But you do remember?" Sherlock nods, "Yes," I looked from him to out the window, "Was there something fishy about it?"
He answered while watching me as I continued to look out at the passing traffic, "Nobody thought so, nobody except me. I was only a kid, I read about it in the papers." I quipped looking back over at him, "You started young, didn't you?" He ignores it as he states that facts, "The boy, Carl Powers, had some fit in the water, but by the time they got him out, it was too late. There was something wrong somewhere. I couldn't get it out of my head." John asked, "What?" Sherlock answered, "His shoes." I interrupted, "What about them. They're just shoes." Sherlock looked at me, slightly annoyed, "They weren't there. I made a fuss. I tried to get the police interested but nobody seemed to think it important. He'd left all the rest of his clothes in the locker. But there was no sign of his shoes." He bent over and picked them up, "Until now." I sat there quiet. How could it possibly be the same boys' shoes, what kind of weirdo would keep them? His murderer, I thought to myself.
The rest of the ride was silent. I don't know if anyone else was thinking about her, about the hostage, but I was. I didn't want her to die…no one deserve to be murdered. I hoped with all my heart that Sherlock, all three of us, could save her in time. I looked at my watch, we only had six hours left. I looked over at John, he was staring out the window. Sherlock was contemplating something. Back at the flats, I still hesitated at my door and walked slowly up after John and Sherlock. I asked through the open door, "Would you mind if I stayed up her a while?" Sherlock had started to get out old papers and look through them. John shook his head, "Of course not, come sit down." I sat down on the couch next to him and took my shoes off so I could put my feet up in the couch. We all just sat in silence, no one having anything to say now. Eventually, I looked back down at my watch, only 5 hours left. My heart beat slightly faster, I spoke out loud, "Can I help?" Sherlock continued to flip through the pages as John joined me in the question, "We want to help, there's only five hours left." John's cell went off, he sighed, "It's your brother. He's texting me now. How does he know my number?" Sherlock mumbled, never lifting his eyes, "Must be a root canal."
John stood up and started talking quieter, "He did say it was national importance." Sherlock scoffed, "How quaint." I asked sliding forward on the couch bit, "What is?" He looked over at me briefly, "He is. Queen and country." John got defensive, "You can't just ignore it." Sherlock responded dryly, "I'm not ignoring it. Putting my best man onto it now." John cleared his throat, "Okay, good…who's that?" Sherlock stopped shuffling papers and looked up at him, "You." John stood up a little straighter, "Oh, right. Okay." He then changed into something a little nicer and went out to talk to Mycroft. I sat there playing with a small whole that was beginning to form on the toe of my sock. Sherlock stopped once again and looked over at me, "Klayre…" I didn't look up, "Why don't you try to get some sleep. You can go have lie down on my bed. I'll wake you if something comes up." I looked up at him, "Oh, I couldn't. Thank you though." He stood up and began to walk towards the door, "No, I insist. I'll get Mrs. Hudson to fetch you a cup a tea." Slowly I nodded and made my way into his room. It wasn't decorated that much, but then again he was a man…and it was Sherlock at that. Before I knew it, Mrs. Hudson had brought the tea and I was falling asleep.
I don't know how long I was out but banging woke me up. I walked out of the room to find Sherlock yelling about a poison called Clostridium botulinum. Apparently, it was among the deadliest on the planet. John was just arriving home as well. I yawned causing them both to look over at me before he continued, "Carl Powers." John began to put it together, "oh, wait. Are you saying he was murdered?" I followed them further into the living room as Sherlock questioned, "Remember the shoelaces?" I yawned, "Yeah, what about them?" Sherlock pointed to the shoelaces hanging from the ceiling, "The boy suffered from eczema. It would be the easiest thing in the world to introduce the poison into his medication. Two hours later, he comes to London, the poison takes effect, paralyses the muscles and he drowns." I creased my eyebrows as John raised a good point, "How come the autopsy didn't pick it up?" With a new-found excitement Sherlock answered, "It's virtually undetectable. Nobody would've been looking for it!" He began typing away onto his blog page, "There are still tiny traces of it left inside the trainers, from where he put the cream on his feet. That's why they had to go." He stood up and put his hands on his hips as I asked, "So how do we let the bomber know?" He looked over at me, "You mean get his attention? Stop the clock." I nodded. John couldn't believe that the killer had kept the shoes all these years and then he stretched it out, "Meaning…he's our bomber."