A/N: My eternal gratitude goes out to those of you who reviewed, alerted or favourited the first chapter. Sorry for the long wait; this gave me a bit more trouble than I expected.
SHSHSHSHSH
Guilty By Association: Part II – Paper Bags and Angry Voices
Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade had had a thoroughly miserable night.
After his dressing down from Ackenthwaite, he'd been banished to his office to write a report detailing every case Sherlock Holmes had ever been even peripherally involved in "pending emergency internal review". He'd been a copper too long not to know what that meant; if he was lucky, he might just get away with a demotion and never setting foot on another murder scene again.
Lestrade had never been less proud of his case closure rate; there were over a thousand files on the database to trawl through before morning. He'd been staring at his computer so long his eyes were crossing. Trying to remember which cases Sherlock had looked at, what he'd contributed and exactly why Lestrade had felt the need to call him on each and every one was making his brain want to dribble out of his ears. He was also rapidly running out of ways to creatively rephrase "because I was desperate, all right?"
A sensible man would have been considering cutting his losses and handing in his notice; but Lestrade had spent far too much time with Sherlock Holmes to be considered entirely sensible. Some deep-seated, childish sense of justice within him couldn't help but shout it's not fair! I only did what I did because Sherlock's better than the whole Met put together, and using him saved lives and caught killers and I would have done it all over again if I had the chance!
Worse than that, though, was the significant proportion of Greg's mind that just wanted Sherlock to turn up at the Yard with some indisputable evidence of his innocence, fix this mess, call them all idiots and swan off home to Baker Street with John at his heels.
It didn't matter what Donovan, Anderson, or even Ackenthwaite thought. The one and only reason Lestrade had gone with them to the Superintendent was to try and do some damage control. After all, if he hadn't, they'dve gone anyway and Greg himself would have been in even deeper trouble than he was now, not to mention on the outside of the investigation.
Lestrade had seen too many miracles performed by Sherlock Holmes to even begin to believe that all his work, every single deduction he'd ever made, could have been fake. All right; it couldn't be said that Sherlock didn't get destructive when he was bored, but his victims tended to be already dead and donated to science, not asleep in their beds in a shockingly expensive private school.
And now poor John was tangled up in the whole mess too. Greg genuinely liked and respected Sherlock's flatmate; they'd been to the pub together a few times to watch the football and grumble about a certain Consulting Detective. The doctor was almost Sherlock's polar opposite; patient, kind, instantly likeable, and not inclined to gloat or insult people even after he trounced them at darts. With the notable exception of Ackenthwaite, every copper who encountered the unlikely pair immediately warmed to the man; in fact, after meeting Sherlock, most of them considered John a candidate for sainthood.
The suggestion that John Watson would hurt anyone for no reason, let alone children, would be laughable if the others didn't seem to be taking it so seriously. The man still held doors for Sally, for God's sake; he was practically a throwback to the age of chivalry. It almost made Lestrade sympathise with how Sherlock felt when he stared around a crime scene, wondering why no one else could see something that was so blindingly obvious to him.
When even Scotland Yard's terrible vending machine coffee finally stopped having an effect on the mind numbing tedium of his task at about five am, Greg allowed his gritty, itching eyes to drift shut and rested his cheek on his desk, just for ten minutes…
He didn't move again until eight thirty, prying his cheek off the pile of dog-eared and slightly drooled on notebooks he'd been using as a pillow with a groan to clean up as best he could in the Gents. After stepping down to the canteen for a caffeine injection and the least healthy breakfast money could buy, he returned to three missed calls from the Chief Superintendent and yet another telling off when he phoned back.
Donovan at least had the grace to wait for the shouting to finish before bursting into his office like a minature whirlwind.
"Have you seen it?" She demanded breathlessly. "It's all here, the proof, everything… He was a fake, Sir, the Freak's been making idiots of all of us for years."
"Seen what?"
In response, she slapped a copy of The Sun triumphantly onto his desk.
BOFFIN IS A FAKE!
The headline screamed above a full-page picture of Sherlock in that bloody stupid hat. The tagline below read "Childhood friend Rich Brook tells all."
"What the hell…" His eye snagged on the small insert picture in a corner. "Isn't that Moriarty?"
"No, Sir, it isn't. His real name is Richard Brook, an out of work actor Sherlock Holmes hired to pretend to be a criminal genius called Moriarty, so he could show us all how 'clever' he is."
"You can't be serious…" Lestrade managed incredulously.
"Oh, I'm deadly serious. It's all in here, Sir; how the Freak couldn't take not being smarter than his brother, how he started dealing drugs when he was in university, how he used the proceeds to make himself look like a genius. He hired actors, blackmailed people into confessions, contracted hit men to create the crimes just so he could amaze the world when he 'solved' them."
"No… this is… it doesn't make any sense…"
"I'm sorry, Sir, but it's all here, in black and white."
"In between the page 3 girls' tits and an in depth-analysis of Wayne Rooney's latest yellow card! D'you honestly believe a word you read in this rag? It'll all be chip papers or cheap bogroll by Monday!"
"So the Freak doesn't have an older brother who's cleverer than him?" Sally challenged. "He didn't burn down his garden shed four times before he left primary school? His parents didn't get divorced when he was eight and pack him off to live with his French granny for a year?"
"Anyone could've found that stuff out, Donovan, if they looked hard enough. D'you honestly think it's more believable that Sherlock Holmes had a childhood friend than that some tabloid hyena did her research?"
That one gave her pause, as Lestrade had known it would. "Maybe he wasn't as bad when he was a kid," she hazarded. "And there must be more than one John Watson in the world."
"Well, he's definitely not spilling Sherlock's life history over the front pages."
"Be a bit difficult at the moment, what with him being on the run for kidnapping, Sir."
"John is innocent, Donovan; they both are…" Lestrade insisted, just as Sally's mobile rang.
"Donovan," she answered impatiently. "What? We're already on a case, why are you calling me? Gregson's next on the rota…"
Lestrade, using the temporary interruption to actually read the newspaper, didn't look up until several seconds later, when he heard Sally inhale sharply. She was staring glassily at the wall, shock written all over her face.
"Is it definite?" She managed to ask, unsteadily. "Is it really…" Her eyes closed; she swallowed hard. "Oh, God… Yes, yes, I… I'll tell him."
She turned slowly to face her boss, chocolate eyes wider than Lestrade had ever seen.
"Donovan?" He asked cautiously. "What's happened?
"It's… this morning, about half an hour ago…" she stumbled. "It was definitely a… a suicide, there were witnesses…"
Lestrade could feel the dread rising from his gut as she struggled to get the words out. "A suicide? Whose?"
"I'm sorry, Greg," She said, genuinely. "Sherlock… he jumped, off the roof of St Bart's Hospital."
"Sherlock?" Lestrade exclaimed in shock. "No; they must be wrong. Sherlock wouldn't… He just wouldn't." Blindly, Lestrade grabbed for his coat. "I'm going down there; I need to question these so-called witnesses for myself. They can't be right, it must just be a lookalike, or something…"
"It wasn't," Sally stated flatly.
"How would you know, from a thirty second phone call?" The DI demanded angrily. "You never saw him when he was high; if Sherlock was ever going to crack and top himself, he would've done it then."
"One of them was John Watson. He saw the whole thing from the street."
Lestrade stumbled, suddenly unsteady on his feet. "Jesus Christ," he whispered.
"D'you… still want to go down there?" She asked hesitantly, as if seeking an excuse. "You don't have to…"
Greg simply looked at her, shoulders slumped and eyes bleak. "Don't be stupid, Donovan. Of course I have to."
Lestrade stepped out of the car in something of a daze, barely noticing Sally at his elbow. The whole street had been closed off to keep the crowds away; a white crime scene tent had been erected to keep not only the rain off the evidence, but the gathering profusion of telescopic camera lenses too.
Inside the tent he found a cluster of police officers standing around a conspicuous rusty stain on the wet paving slabs. The diffusion of the blood into the surrounding rainwater created a morbidly beautiful pattern around its edges, like a hundred desperate fingers reaching out for help.
"Lestrade," greeted Ackenthwaite curtly. "Good, now you're here we can get an official ID on the body."
"Me? What about… I thought John was here?"
"He's in A&E, being treated for 'shock,' apparently," the Superintendent informed him sceptically.
"Well of course he's in shock; he just watched his best mate chuck himself off a roof!" Lestrade protested.
"Or, the jammy bastard's trying it on so he can make a run for it. I've got a couple of uniforms outside the door in case he tries to leg it again; they'll take Watson back to the Yard as soon as the quacks are finished with him. Doesn't hurt to take precautions. You got anything, Anderson?"
"Position of the blood stain, spatter and witness reports are all consistent with suicide, sir," the forensics officer answered grimly, as he knelt beside the carmine blemish still gradually expanding over the uneven paving. "I'm going up to the roof to look at Brook's body as soon as I'm finished here."
"Brook?" Queried Donovan. "He's dead too?"
"Bullet to the head on the rooftop," Ackenthwaite informed her. "Looks like a murder-suicide so far; maybe Holmes didn't like what he read in the papers."
"I always said…" She began, but Lestrade interrupted before she could get out her inevitable 'I told you so'.
"Don't, Donovan," he said harshly. "Not here."
In the ringing silence that followed, Anderson leant forward, a pair of steel tweezers in hand, to prod delicately at the centre of the pool. The instrument closed on something and he lifted it up to the light.
The assembled policemen could only stare at the single dark hair, perhaps four inches long, coated thickly with blood but still showing an unmistakable tendency to curl rebelliously.
"Oh, God," Lestrade breathed, his face ashen, a trembling hand rising to cover his mouth. "Sherlock, you selfish bastard… What've you done?"
SHSHSHSHSH
In the end, the Superintendent's precautions were unnecessary. John went quietly with the two burly PCs who escorted him back to New Scotland Yard; he spoke only to confirm his name and address to the custody sergeant. It was mid afternoon before he was sitting in a cramped industrial beige interview room, waiving his right to a lawyer.
Lestrade's hands hadn't stopped shaking yet; he'd been relegated to observing the interview via CCTV. Instead, it was Sally and Ackenthwaite who sat on the opposite side of the table to the man barely recognisable as Sherlock Holmes's best friend.
John Watson appeared to have aged ten years overnight. His face was grey, and every line etched around his glazed eyes seemed twice as deep as yesterday. His posture was worryingly perfect in the hard plastic chair, spine ramrod straight, military training far more evident than ever before.
"Are you sure you don't want to reconsider having legal representation?" Sally asked, one last time; John didn't even bother to glare at her.
"Right then," Ackenthwaite began. "We're not going to bother discussing the assault charge; all three of us were in the room when you nutted me and I swear to God I'll see you go down for that at least, whatever else you may be charged with. Where were you at approximately 3a.m. the day before yesterday?"
John said nothing; in fact, he didn't even seem to have heard the question. His eyes were fixed on the blank wall behind their heads as if it were a window on the universe.
"You think it's clever, giving us the silent treatment?" The Superintendent continued. "Forensics are going over your flat with a nit comb as we speak; if there's so much as a hint of evidence that you knew what Holmes was up to, regardless of if you were involved, you're going down as an accessory to kidnapping, and more than likely murder too."
The only reaction from their prisoner was a slow blink.
"Look, stop mucking about and be sensible, John, yeah?" Donovan tried. "We know you're no criminal mastermind; make it easy on yourself and tell us what we need to know."
Ackenthwaite slammed his palm down angrily on the tabletop. John's empty blue-hazel eyes flickered automatically down to watch it without interest. "If you think for one second that you're helping yourself with this little display, Mr Watson, you have clearly never been locked in a room with an irate copper before. Where were you? Tell me! Now!"
"Doctor," John corrected, his voice weak and raspy.
"A doctor? At three in the morning?"
"I'm a doctor all the time. Doctor Watson, not Mister."
"All right, then, Doctor," he replied scathingly. "Answer the bloody question. Where were you at 3a.m. yesterday morning?"
"Two hundred and twenty one bee, Baker Street," was the simple answer.
"And what were you doing there?"
"I live there."
"Can anyone corroborate your whereabouts, John?" Sally tried.
The soldier's jaw visibly flexed as he swallowed hard. "Not any more," he whispered.
"How tall are you, Watson?" Ackenthwaite asked.
"Five seven."
"And your shoe size?"
"Nine."
"You have a problem with your leg, don't you? Old war wound?"
"Something like that."
"You remember those footprints we found at the school? The ones Holmes claimed he used to find those poor kids? The Forensics boys reckon they belong to a man between five foot six and five foot eight, size nine feet, and a slight limp. Now, that description doesn't fit him; but it's a pretty good one of you, isn't it?"
To Sally's astonishment, John let out a harsh bark of mirthless laughter.
"Oh, well done," he remarked caustically. "Anderson deserves a raise. He really fell for Jim's little plan hook, line and sinker, just like the rest of you. Wasn't enough to ruin one of us; no, he had to go for the double. Well, the hat trick by now, I s'pose."
"You're still claiming that Holmes was innocent?"
"Not claiming. Stating a fact."
"Do you have any kind of evidence to back that up?"
"I knew Sherlock Holmes. And I know the frailty of genius."
"The what?" Donovan asked.
"Genius needs an audience. I was his audience; and he never lost an opportunity to show off to me. I saw him make impossible leaps of logic, unbelievable deductions… and I know it was genuine because I also saw him get it wrong. Tell me, Sergeant Donovan; you knew him longer than I did, after all. Exactly how much did Sherlock like admitting to being wrong about anything?"
"He didn't. Ever, in my hearing."
"Exactly. Within two minutes of meeting me, Sherlock reeled off my university education, my military career, my family life, and the state of my finances from my tan lines and a glance at my phone. But he got one vital detail wrong, a detail he'd have found out in the first five minutes of even a basic background check."
"And what was that?"
"He said I had a worried, alcoholic brother I didn't like much who'd just walked out on his wife."
"So?"
"So, what I actually have is a worried, alcoholic lesbian sister I don't like much who'd just walked out on her civil partner. If he'd known everything there was to know about me before the first time we met, he would've known that Harry is short for Harriet. It was all real, every last deduction. I know it; I knew Sherlock."
"Yeah? Then why did he chuck himself off a roof this morning?" Ackenthwaite asked bluntly, unimpressed by John's logic.
John physically flinched, the muscles in his face twitching uncontrollably as he fought to keep himself in check.
"We know that Sherlock phoned you just before he jumped, John," Sally said, as gently as she could manage. "We found his mobile on the roof. What did he have to say?"
"He… I… I don't know why he…" The soldier crumpled, blinking rapidly, before taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders. "He said… he was sorry, and… he said goodbye." His throat worked furiously for a moment.
The Superintendent raised an eyebrow. "It took three and a half minutes to say two words?"
"There were some… personal things."
"What kind of 'personal things'?"
"He… he told me… things I won't repeat. Not ever."
"Ok, John," Donovan intervened, knowing exactly how stubborn the doctor could be. "Maybe there's something else you can help us with. Sherlock sent a text message, about ten minutes before he phoned you, to an encrypted number we can't trace or identify. It said…" She consulted her notebook for the exact wording. "Actions speak louder than words. If you want to apologise, look after him better than you did me. SH."
John buried his head in his hands. "Oh, God… Mycroft… He sent him a text…"
"Who's Mycroft?" Ackenthwaite asked.
"Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother," John answered absently… and then raised his head, brows furrowed. "D'you mean to tell me that you haven't even talked to him yet?" He asked incredulously. "Jesus; you're so busy trying to prove Sherlock to be a monster, because you hated him, not because there's any evidence to back it up… and you can't even be bothered to inform his next of kin that he's…?" John's voice trembled and broke.
"Sherlock Holmes was a human being! He had friends, and a family, and he killed himself this morning and all you lot care about is blackening his name to make yourselves look better!" He turned accusing eyes on Donovan. "And you called him a Freak? Get out, the pair of you! I am not saying one more bloody word until you've done your duty; the one that should always have come first. Out!"
SHSHSHSHSH
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