Part 5: The Journey
Fast forward through the following two days, starting with an elderly couple sitting on the sofa in the living room at 221B Baker Street, he in a traditional shalwar kameez, she with her head covered with a scarf. The man is frowning at a photograph of a very pretty black-haired teenage girl which he holds in his hand, while his wife is dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. John looks on sympathetically. Sherlock is at his computer, a section of a street-map visible on the screen.
After that, a living room in a stylish converted loft, furnished in a top of the range but very clinical modern fashion. An apparently well-to-do couple are sitting in armchairs - she an elegant Asian lady, he a Western man in an expensive suit – and watching apprehensively as Sherlock paces up and down, explaining something to them. When Sherlock finishes, the lady starts crying hysterically, while her husband looks suddenly rather small and hangdog.
Next, we jump to Sherlock and John in a cab. It's getting dark outside. Sherlock is typing on his phone, John is suppressing a yawn.
Then we're in a kebab shop, Sherlock and John sitting at a table opposite the teenage girl we saw earlier in the photograph, and next to her, a young oriental man, holding hands with her and looking defiant while they listen to John talking to them earnestly. Sherlock is looking out of the window, drumming his fingers on the table top.
The next morning, 221B Baker Street again, the elderly Pakistani couple and their daughter plus her boyfriend and another, older man who looks like the boy's father are all sitting round the coffee table, the girl and the boy still holding hands, the two fathers in an animated discussion, the mother of the girl beaming happily at what is obviously bound to become her son-in-law. Sherlock and John are looking on, odd men out in their own living room, John amused, Sherlock apparently inches away from exploding.
Later, on a bench in a park, Sherlock and John are having fish and chips for lunch.
In the afternoon, in a meeting-room in a glass-and-steel office building somewhere in the City, we see three men in suits, one of them sitting in a chair at a long conference table, his face buried in his hands, the other two towering over him, looking very angry. John and Sherlock hover by the window, John looking uncomfortable, Sherlock bored. A moment later, they're leaving the building, stepping out of the automatic glass doors onto the pavement of a busy main road. John exhales noisily, puffing up his cheeks.
JOHN: That should keep us in the black for weeks to come. I didn't know being respectable could be so exhausting.
SHERLOCK: You're out of practice.
JOHN: Ha ha. By the way, how did the dentist go?
SHERLOCK (avoiding John's eyes): Had to skip that one. Ran out of time.
JOHN (drily): Coward.
Sherlock shrugs, but he looks a little guilty all the same.
JOHN: So, what's next?
SHERLOCK: Now you can put up your feet and take a break. We'll meet again at Barts, at half past five.
JOHN: At Barts? Why?
A bus comes roaring past them, the noise of the engine momentarily drowning out every other sound. John grimaces. Sherlock's lips form four short words. John does a double take. Then the bus is past.
JOHN: Did I just see what I thought I saw?
SHERLOCK (with a conspiratorial smile): Yes, you did.
John smiles back.
A platform in Barbican tube station, later on the same day. A train comes rattling in and stops. The doors slide open. Among the descending passengers is John, apparently in a hurry. We follow him as he overtakes several other people and ascends the escalator on the right side, two high steps at a time. At the upper level of the station, at the other side of the ticket barrier, Sherlock stands waiting for him. John passes through and joins his friend.
JOHN: Sorry I'm late. Had to go back for something.
Sherlock merely nods. They walk along a white-tiled corridor towards the exit of the tube station. Suddenly, Sherlock stops in his tracks. John stops, too.
JOHN (uneasily): Anything wrong?
SHERLOCK: No. Listen.
Close to the tiled wall, a young street musician has taken up his station. He has a portable CD player at his feet, which plays the orchestral part of a classical piece while he is doing the solo part live on his flute. Sherlock and John listen for a moment. John starts smiling as he realises what he's hearing.
JOHN: Good omen?
SHERLOCK(with a shrug): I don't believe in omens.
All the same, he stands there for the whole rest of the piece, his hands buried deeply in the pockets of his coat, before he moves on.
Some minutes later, they're in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, entering a brightly-lit long corridor through a pair of double glass doors and walking along it. John glances over his shoulder to make sure that they're alone before he speaks.
JOHN (in a low voice): So, what now?
SHERLOCK (with a smile): Now the Merry Men of Baker Street will find out just how far they can go when the Sheriff of Nottingham's got his back turned.
He mimics drawing a bow and loosing an arrow with whistling sound. John stops short and grimaces.
JOHN: Sherlock, can you please stop making it sound like it's all just a game?
Sherlock shrugs.
JOHN: And besides, you don't believe he'll actually turn his back even for one second now, do you? Remember, he said he was taking no chances with you.
SHERLOCK (with a snort): Nonsense. If he'd really meant that, we'd long have had Lestrade on our doorstep with a warrant for preventive custody. The fact that we've been able to come and go and do as we please for the past forty-eight hours is clear proof that Mycroft is actually taking enormous chances.
They start walking again.
JOHN: But why would he?
SHERLOCK: He needs me to lead him to Victor.
JOHN: And you said that you weren't going to do him that favour.
SHERLOCK: Doesn't mean we can't go.
JOHN: And how exactly are we going to manage that?
SHERLOCK: We'll fly under the radar. Move like ghosts, leave no traces.
JOHN: Interesting. How's that going to work with Mycroft's people following you around wherever you go?
SHERLOCK: What people?
JOHN: Are you telling me there aren't any?
SHERLOCK: Oh, there'd be no point. I'd spot them straight away. Besides, why go to the trouble of keeping so many of them busy round the clock when he can get the same data so much more easily?
JOHN: How?
Now Sherlock stops, takes his phone out of his pocket and holds it up.
SHERLOCK: These amazing little machines will tell anyone who thinks he has a right to access the data to within a few yards where exactly you are, at any time. No matter how you may try to disable anything labelled GPS in your settings, it's always there. Did you know that at MI5, they've actually almost halved their human resources for surveillance purposes since practically everyone started carrying around their own electronic tags, a couple of years ago? It's become incredibly easy for them to keep track of a person's movements, and as with every new technology, it will take a while yet before they fully realise the disadvantages. Besides, I checked. We spent most of yesterday and today running tests of that sort. There was a point in that packed schedule, you know. Wherever we go within London, as long as the phones are on, nobody's looking our way. So -
JOHN: - now we get rid of our phones?
SHERLOCK: Exactly.
He starts walking again. John follows.
JOHN: But if we just leave them here, they'll start wondering very quickly why two healthy people would want to spend the night at a hospital.
SHERLOCK: Correct. That's why I want you to find Mike Stamford. You will give him your phone and ask him to proceed, when he comes off work tonight, straight to one of your favourite after-work haunts. On foot. Do make that absolutely clear, please, because he's not going to like that bit. But we can't have a record of his oyster card being used while yours wasn't. He is to stay there until shortly before closing time, which is when he will, from your phone and under your name, send me a text message – nicely adorned with a couple of typos that you'd never make in a sober state – to the effect that you'll be crashing at Mike's and won't be home before next morning. To which I will reply, ten minutes later, that it's all fine, because neither will I.
JOHN (amused): And where will your phone have gone by then?
SHERLOCK: Home with Molly Hooper.
JOHN: Now that's going to raise a few eyebrows.
SHERLOCK (with a shrug): Maybe. But it won't be considered a matter of national security, which is all we should be concerned with right now.
JOHN (sarcastically): Yeah, what else?
SHERLOCK: What?
JOHN: You haven't spared a moment to imagine how she's going to feel, have you, typing that for you when it's not actually true at all?
Sherlock stops short and frowns at his friend.
SHERLOCK: Yes, I have. Of course. (He walks on. Over his shoulder) Honestly, John!
John looks after him, slightly embarrassed and also more impressed than he would care to admit. He shakes his head and follows Sherlock down the rest of the corridor and through another double glass door. Behind it, they part company, John turning left to ascend a staircase, Sherlock turning right and disappearing round a corner.
Some time later, John is walking down yet another corridor inside Barts, one with a row of windows to one side. Outside, night has fallen. At the end of the corridor, there is a lift which John approaches. He pushes the button, and the metal doors slide open. He is about to enter, then thinks better of it and turns aside to a fire door next to the lift. It leads to a bare service staircase. John begins to descend it. A moment later, he comes out at level "-3" and opens another fire door, revealing the dim interior of an underground car-park. John steps out carefully and looks left and right.
SHERLOCK (off-screen): Well done.
John turns, looking for the source of the voice, and Sherlock appears from behind a nearby concrete pillar. John goes to join him.
SHERLOCK: Ghosts don't turn up on CCTV, do they?
JOHN: Not on ones in lifts, at any rate. What about car-parks?
SHERLOCK: There's a blind angle all along this wall, if we stay close to it. Ready?
JOHN(curtly): Yes.
SHERLOCK: Meaning no?
JOHN (looking slightly unhappy): I know it doesn't come under the heading of national security either, but I am concerned about what may happen to Mike and Molly when Mycroft's people actually find out about that stunt with the phones. As they will, as soon as they realise that we're not likely to remain sitting in Mike's and Molly's houses while they go back to work tomorrow.
SHERLOCK: Oh, we might. Remember, you'll be massively hung over.
JOHN: And you?
SHERLOCK: Just very exhausted, or something?
John gives him a disapproving look.
SHERLOCK (serious again): Did Mike ask you why you wanted him to do it?
JOHN: Yes. I said it was for a case, of course.
SHERLOCK (lightly): Well, that's true, isn't it? (Seeing John still unconvinced) Cheer up, John. Tomorrow all this will be resolved. Now, did you have dinner in the canteen, as I suggested? We'll probably miss breakfast.
JOHN (distractedly): Yeah, I'm fine.
SHERLOCK: Good. Then it's time we took our places for the first stage of our journey.
Night-time. A road in an industrial area somewhere in Greater London, dimly lit by orange street-lamps. A medium sized white van, with a blue logo depicting waves on it, comes driving slowly along it, then stops outside the closed gates to a large compound. The driver, a young man with dreadlocks and baggy jeans, gets out, walks around to the back doors, looks to the left and right to make sure there are no unwanted witnesses about, then opens the doors, but not very wide. John climbs out of the back of the van, then Sherlock. They exchange nods with the driver, but no words. The driver returns to the front of the vehicle, gets in and drives off. Sherlock takes John by the sleeve of his jacket and steers him in the direction of the closed gates. He takes a jump and pulls himself up, then reaches down to give John a hand up as well. They both drop down neatly on the other side and disappear into the darkness beyond.
A moment later, Sherlock and John are crossing a wide empty space towards a long, low, windowless brick building, its walls covered almost entirely in ugly graffiti. When they reach the building, they turn left and walk along the wall.
JOHN (in a low voice): Where are we?
SHERLOCK: Willesden.
JOHN: But this isn't our final destination? That man Rob said it was halfway across the country.
SHERLOCK: It is.
JOHN: Then how do we get there?
SHERLOCK: By second class mail.
They round the corner of the building, and before them, the side of a freight train's carriage looms up out of the darkness. It is a closed wagon with a sliding door, and even in the dark, it can be seen to be painted bright red, with the yellow Royal Mail logo clearly visible on the door. As Sherlock and John approach it, we can see that it is only the first in a long row of carriages ranged along the loading platform that runs along the entire back side of the building.
The interior of the mail wagon, in complete darkness. There is a rattle of a metal latch being pushed upwards, and the door slides open slowly, just far enough for a glimpse of the night sky outside, and then the shadowy figures of first Sherlock and then John climb through the opening into the wagon. Sherlock slides the door shut again, then takes a torchlight out of the pocket of his coat and shines it around. The forward half of the wagon is filled with brown and white mail sacks, tossed one above the other on the plain wooden floor. The other half is empty.
SHERLOCK: Make yourself comfortable. We'll be in here until about six in the morning. Might as well try and get some sleep, at least as long as we're not moving yet. It's going to be rather noisy later on. Those bags may not be as soft as the ones in the laundry van, but they smell better.
JOHN: You sound like this is your favourite way of travelling.
SHERLOCK (pulling a face): Oh, it really isn't. But low tech is the order of the day for ghosts, I'm afraid.
JOHN (slightly alarmed): But you've done this before? I mean, you actually know positively that it's going to work?
SHERLOCK: Sure. To start with, there'll be two short stops on the way to load more mail, the last just after midnight, but then it'll be a smooth ride until we stop at the last but one signal before the next mail terminal.
JOHN: What happens then?
SHERLOCK: Then we jump off.
JOHN: What if anyone comes in here while we stop?
SHERLOCK: Oh, nobody will. The first carriage always goes all the way to Scotland, and it won't be opened again until it gets there. Don't look at me like that, John. I have done it a couple of times. Way back before your time, whenever funds were really low.(With a smile) As a matter of fact, I'm feeling rather nostalgic right now.
John looks sceptically around the carriage, clearly having trouble imagining how it could possibly inspire such feelings.
Hours later, the mail train is moving through the night with an almighty rumbling and rattling noise. John and Sherlock, visible only in vague outline in the almost complete darkness, have made themselves a nest in the middle of the stacked mail sacks. John is lying on his back, with his hands behind his head, his eyes wide open. Sherlock is curled up on his side, facing away from John, by all appearances sleeping like a baby. The train slows down, passes a couple of points, swaying from side to side, and comes to a shuddering halt, the brakes screeching. Sherlock moves in his sleep and turns over, bumping into John. John, not particularly gently, frees his left arm.
JOHN (whispering): Sherlock?
SHERLOCK (without opening his eyes): Mmh?
JOHN: Don't you feel the cold?
SHERLOCK (his voice slurry with sleep): Should get a coat like mine.
JOHN(not amused): It's bloody freezing.
SHERLOCK (slightly more awake, with a yawn): Technically, no. We'll be fine.
He turns onto his side again. There are sounds of sliding carriage doors being opened and banged shut again, and muffled calls somewhere outside. John sighs. Just as he closes his eyes in the forlorn hope of getting some sleep himself, Sherlock's voice comes out of the darkness again.
SHERLOCK (no longer sounding sleepy at all): I made a mistake, John.
JOHN (opening his eyes, alarmed): What?
SHERLOCK: Years ago, when I first told you about Victor.
John sits up with a frown.
JOHN: Listen, I had my reservations, and I still have some, but I'm here now. Do you really think I would be if I didn't -
SHERLOCK (half-turning towards his friend again, impatiently): Don't be so pompous, John. I wasn't talking about you.
A pause.
JOHN (quietly): I see. Because Mycroft heard it, too, you mean.
SHERLOCK: Yes. And he was obviously listening very well indeed. I should have known that trouble would come of that, one day.
He pulls his coat closer around himself, then turns back over, his face disappearing into shadow again.
JOHN: He said he knew it all anyway.
SHERLOCK: He was wrong. He knew it as a case. Nothing more.
Another pause.
JOHN (sensibly): Sherlock, not even you could possibly have foreseen -
SHERLOCK (stubbornly): I should have known.
John sits there for a moment, looking pensively into the darkness. Then suddenly, just as he is about to lower himself back onto his rustling makeshift mattress, he turns his face towards his friend again with a frown, as if he has heard or sensed that something is wrong. There obviously is, because next, he raises his hand as if to put it on Sherlock's shoulder.
SHERLOCK (in a tight voice): Don't.
John does it anyway, and mercifully, at that exact moment, the train starts moving again, quickly returning to its previous level of noise, drowning out everything else. Just before we fade to black, like the beginning of a pleasant dream, we can hear birdsong and the rustling of wind in trees gradually replacing the rumbling of the train, and those gentle sounds stay with us as we open again on the view of -
A picture-perfect English landscape of rolling autumnal hills, on an overcast, slightly foggy morning. Low dry stone walls and hedgerows divide the land into fields and meadows. A flock of sheep graze in one of them, and, making a bee-line straight for the low fence on the further side, Sherlock and John are walking across it through the dewy grass. They both look a bit rumpled and in need of a shave, but Sherlock at least seems in high spirits again, by the pace he is setting. They arrive at the fence. There is a stile built over it – one of the sort with two benches built on top of each other in the shape of a cross – and Sherlock, reaching it first, puts a hand on the top bench and vaults over it. John, after him, very sedately climbs up and down each step the way one is supposed to. Sherlock grins. John sees it and grimaces.
JOHN: I know you said low tech, but I wasn't expecting a cross-country hike before breakfast. We've been going for hours now. And don't tell me ghosts never need to eat.
SHERLOCK (glancing at his watch): Two hours and fifty minutes. We're doing well. It's not far now.
JOHN (peevishly): And you've been saying that for two hours and fifty minutes, too, just to keep me going.
SHERLOCK: I told you, the timing matters, John. Come on.
They walk on. The ground now rises towards a ridge, beyond which we can't see.
JOHN (still slightly annoyed): If we're really almost there, don't you think it's time you told me what your plan is, and why Mycroft hasn't swooped down on us already in a helicopter? What's the time now?
SHERLOCK: Almost nine.
JOHN: Then Molly and Mike will soon be back at work, and those in charge of evaluating the data from our phones will realise that something's wrong.
SHERLOCK: Correct.
JOHN: And then they'll tell Mycroft.
SHERLOCK: No, they won't.
JOHN: Why not?
SHERLOCK: Because it's Wednesday.
JOHN (sarcastically): And because it's foggy and cold, and we're in a leap year.
Sherlock flashes him a brief grin.
SHERLOCK: Alright. The Joint Intelligence Committee sits every Wednesday morning between nine and eleven, and Mycroft may like it or not, he has to be there. The members, being who they are and discussing what they usually discuss, obviously can't take their phones or computers into those meetings. They leave them with the staff, and those poor devils have strict orders never to interrupt the sessions unless it is for the most urgent reasons of state security.
JOHN: And locating and apprehending Victor Trevor doesn't rank as such?
SHERLOCK: Use your brain, John. Mycroft cares enough about his reputation not to blazon abroad his brother's supposed terrorist affiliations, least of all to his fellow committee members and their subordinates. All they will have been told is that Mycroft is interested in our movements, and all they will realise around this time, as the data comes in, is that something may, just may, be wrong with the fact that we're still both asleep in our friends' homes. Whether or not any particularly bright individual among the staff actually hits on the idea that we and our phones have parted company, mere doubt is certainly not enough to warrant disrupting a discussion of weighty matters of state. Or what would it look like if they were to barge into that illustrious gathering on the grounds that they need Mycroft to reassess the probabilities of his little brother having finally found himself a girlfriend? (John grins.) So, you see, that's two hours of grace won in which Mycroft won't yet know that we've given him the slip. From around eleven onwards, when he comes out and goes online again, we'll be on a countdown. He will see through it within seconds, he'll know we've gone to meet Victor, and it won't take him long to realise where exactly to look for us.
JOHN: How will he know then, if he didn't know it before?
They are nearing the top of the ridge, walking more slowly now they're going steeply uphill.
SHERLOCK: Because there will be CCTV footage of the laundry van leaving the car-park at Barts, and that will ring a bell. The laundry van was his idea originally, you know, when we plotted how to get me out of Barts alive, a couple of years ago. And once they've worked out for him in what direction the van was heading when it left town, he'll remember the mail trains. He knows about those from the one time when I got caught, and he had to bail me out. (He smiles briefly at the memory.) And then he'll know where to go.
JOHN: But you're still not going to tell me, are you?
SHERLOCK: You know, I'm actually surprised you haven't figured it out yet. We're going to the one house in this country that Mycroft can't just place under surveillance whenever he pleases. The one place where he'd have to ask the owners for permission first, and that would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?
At that moment, the sound of a church bell can be heard from beyond the ridge, striking four quarters of the hour, and then nine o'clock. Sherlock and John come out on top of the ridge, both of them slightly out of breath. They pause for a moment and look across the adjoining fields to the village beyond. It is a very small place, with hardly a dozen houses lining the main street, and some more scattered around a small church with a squat square tower. Towards the left, at the end of the village street, the last house stands a little apart from the rest, and it also stands out among the uniform grey of the other buildings by being painted in a warm dark red. Sherlock looks sideways at John, waiting for comprehension to dawn on his friend's face. A moment later, it does, and John's jaw drops.
JOHN (appalled): Are you out of your bloody mind?
Sherlock smiles.
A moment later, Sherlock and John are descending the hill towards the village by a footpath along the edge of a field.
JOHN: Are you telling me that your brother does not routinely monitor what's going on at your parents' house? Of all places?
SHERLOCK: Oh, he'd love to, but they won't let him. Way back when it first became apparent where Mycroft's career was heading, they had a bit of a disagreement about it, but it settled the matter once and for all. Mycroft would have turned their house into a fortress and made them prisoners in their own home for the sake of their safety, but they absolutely and categorically forbade him to do anything of the sort, and he's always respected that. He probably runs checks on new acquaintances of theirs – not that there are many, at their age – or on new people moving into the neighbourhood. But every time he brings up the question of their personal safety, they remain adamant that whatever will happen will happen, and they're not going to have their private life ruined by the fact that their son is constantly making himself hated by what he does for a living.
JOHN: That's very brave, I think.
SHERLOCK: And very, very useful right now.
They continue walking in silence for a minute or two.
JOHN: You know, if Mycroft will know exactly where we are - doesn't that mean we're walking straight into a trap?
SHERLOCK: Someone is, at any rate.
JOHN: No, but really?
SHERLOCK: Don't worry, John. Remember, the whole point of us missing most of our sleep and all of our breakfast was getting here before him.
JOHN: Are you even sure that he'll come in person?
SHERLOCK (with a grin): Of course. He knows it takes a Holmes to beat a Holmes. (In a different tone, ominously) Or he should know.
He walks on, looking very content.