The photograph shows two people, a man and a woman, lying back to back on an off-white area rug on top of pale laminate flooring, the woman facing an unmade queen-sized bed. The burgundy-and-gold duvet is visible in the photograph, almost touching the rug. They are bound together by silk scarves. They are positioned so that the tops of their heads are in the same place, although the man is seven centimetres taller than the woman. The scarves, which are all blue, bind them at the head, the chest, the waist, and the woman's ankles, which is mid-calf for the man.
The file indicates that they were moved after death, placed liked this once they had each been shot in the head. The bullet wounds have been fairly expertly cleaned so that there is little blood on the scarves binding their heads and chests. Rebecca Garrott, thirty-seven, was a local sculptor. Her husband, Christopher Garrot, owned a small but successful local bakery. Neither of them have any previous criminal records, nor have they any apparent enemies. Both were active members of the local artistic community and active volunteers for the area's animal rescue shelter. They were reported missing when the bakery failed to open Wednesday morning. The patrol officers who went to their house to check on them found them in their bedroom in the position shown in the photograph. The medical examiner estimates they died sometime between three and five pm on Tuesday afternoon.
The file also indicates no disturbance in the area, and none of the doors or windows have been forced, although the front door was unlocked, but shut when officers arrived. The male victim's brother indicated that they did not leave their doors unlocked, even when they were home. No suspicious or unidentified fingerprints were found at the scene. One neighbour reported hearing something that sounded like a shot, but initially mistook it as an older car backfiring. The female victim was shot in the bedroom, the male victim in the corridor just outside the bedroom.
Several suspects were identified and questioned by the police, including the female victim's younger brother, Darren Watson, who was arrested, but charges were never laid. As of October second, the case has officially gone cold.
(November)
"Checking up on me again?" Sherlock snapped when Mrs. Hudson pushed open the door to his flat.
"Now, Sherlock, you'll not get snippy with me," she admonished him, as though he was five and she was his mother. "You know John is just concerned for you. Cup of tea, dear?"
"John calls me once an hour," Sherlock said, holding up his phone as proof, ensuring he sounded irritated. And he was. But not at John. At the fact that it was the only time of day for the last two days when he wasn't bored out of his still-smarting skull, when there was a moment, just a brief moment, when he had something to do that he could do.
Concentrating on anything was still hard. He felt his thoughts skitter away when he tried to focus them, like tiny little mice fleeing from a prowling cat. Then he'd realize he had actually thought that sort of sentence, which would make the whole thing so much worse.
The low grade headache persisted even now, centered on the stitched wound on the crown of his skull, which ached all of the time, even though John assured him it was clean and not at all infected. John had cleaned it and stitched it himself, which Sherlock had certainly known, but couldn't remember. It frustrated him that he still couldn't remember anything from that day beyond the old case files he'd been going over for Lestrade.
It was more aggravating that people kept checking on him, as though he might spontaneously develop a second concussion if left to his own devices. The previous day, Monday, John had gone back into work at Sherlock's insistence, although Sherlock now regretted that he'd told John to do this. He missed John an irrationally large amount, and found it almost offensive that the doctor wasn't at home.
Tricia had come by Monday afternoon with Josephine to visit him, and Sherlock had accomplished nothing whatsoever except a nap with his niece, as if he were also fourteen months old and in need of regularly scheduled sleeping times. Mycroft had come Monday evening, but thankfully hadn't stayed for the supper to which John had invited him. Sam had come Sunday afternoon, with a bruise and graze on his left cheek and healing scrapes on his knuckles, and had filled Sherlock and John in as much as he could as to what had happened in the pub.
A bloody row over bloody football.
It was so stupid.
"Tea, Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson asked again and he realized he hadn't replied. He sighed from his position on the couch, wrapped in John's old bathrobe, which was clean now – he'd made John wash it a third time after being told he'd thrown up on it – then nodded.
"Yes, fine," he said, staring at his phone, willing the hour to run out, so he could talk to John again. But John had just rung ten minutes previous. He considered calling for a cab and going down to John's clinic just to sit in John's office all day, so at least he'd have some company when the doctor had brief moments between patients.
He was not entirely convinced of his ability to stay standing long enough to make it all the way down the stairs, out the door, and into a cab. Let alone from the cab, to John's building, up to the second floor, where the clinic was located. At least he could move around the flat now without the world going white and consciousness threatening to forcibly remove itself.
Mrs. Hudson puttered around the kitchen; Sherlock could hear her getting out mugs and the tea. He hoped John hadn't hidden the sugar again, as some means of distracting Sherlock, because the idea of pursuing that little game right didn't seem appealing, it seemed maddening. And Mrs. Hudson would never find it. Nor would she understand why John had moved it, and Sherlock was not about to explain.
"Here you are, dear," she said, coming in a few minutes later with tea and some biscuits, which Sherlock didn't want to eat, but knew that, if he did not, she would tell John. This was so tedious. Why wouldn't his head just stop hurting and cooperate? He didn't care that John assured him this was what happened with a concussion and that all of the research he'd done online supported this. He wasn't other people. This should therefore not apply to him.
"Feeling better, are we?" she asked, perching on the couch beside his legs, which he shuffled over for her, patting him gently on the shin.
"I'm bored, Mrs. Hudson," he complained, sipping his tea.
"It's a good sign, love," she assured him. "Means you're on the mend."
"Bored, bored, bored," Sherlock said. "And John's hidden my gun."
"Good thing, too," Mrs. Hudson replied, iron suddenly in her voice. "I'll have no more damage to my walls or floors or ceilings, young man. You find other things to occupy your time. How about a nice puzzle?"
"There are no puzzles!" Sherlock snapped. "All the cases are so dull! Why won't someone do something interesting?"
"I mean a jigsaw puzzle, Sherlock."
He stared at her as though she may have gone mad.
"Sudoku?" she suggested. "Crosswords? John is always saying you finish his."
"No, no, no!" Sherlock moaned. "I don't want to do those things! I want–"
This headache to go away. This moodiness to cease. This inactivity to end.
"I'm sure something will come up," Mrs. Hudson assured him. "It always does. The darkest hour is just before dawn, as they say."
"What?" Sherlock demanded. "What? Who says that? Patently untrue! By necessity it gets lighter in the hour immediately before dawn! The darkest hour has to be precisely in the middle of the night, when we're at the furthest point from facing the sun!"
Mrs. Hudson gave him one of her patient, motherly looks.
"It's just an expression, dear," she said. "No need to be excited about it."
"It's a stupid expression," Sherlock countered, then sighed. "I have seen more than my fair share of dawns, you know."
"I know," Mrs. Hudson said, leaning forward somewhat. "Despite my hearing, I can still hear you on the stairs when you come and go."
"I don't mean to wake you," Sherlock said.
She shrugged, as if this were not important.
"I'm a retired old lady, Sherlock. I have nowhere to be in the mornings that prevents me from lying in. And it's nice to know you're keeping us all from being murdered in our beds."
Sherlock's phone buzzed and he frowned, fumbling under the blankets for it, annoyed that he'd put it down when taking the tea. Mrs. Hudson pushed herself to her feet and patted his knee as Sherlock searched madly, trying not to spill his tea at the same time.
"Perhaps there's been a nice murder," she said, directly contradicting her last statement about Sherlock's apparent ability to keep people from being killed.
"I should be so lucky," Sherlock snorted and she shook her head at him, leaving. He finally unearthed the phone and checked the name on the text message, mildly disappointed that it wasn't from John, even though he still had forty-two minutes until the next check-in. Instead, it was from Sam, and he wondered if perhaps Interpol might have a sudden need for his services. He clicked open the message.
Everyone else I know would have balked at giving a stranger my number and insisting that she ring me. Nice to be treated as a normal bloke sometimes.
Sherlock set his mug on the floor to free up his left hand.
That's because everyone else you know are idiots. Except John. SH, he sent back, feeling the need to uphold John's intellectual honour. He was the only person allowed to impugn John's intelligence.
Could be, Sam agreed. Anyhow, thank you. Meeting her Friday.
Sherlock scowled at his phone.
Friday? Why Friday? Why not earlier? SH.
Because I'm in Lyon for work until Thursday.
What? Why Lyon? SH.
Work. Interpol. What do you think the "Inter" stands for? Must dash – meetings. Hope your head is better. Will ring again after I get back. Cheers.
Sherlock stared at his phone and sighed before slipping it into the pocket of his bathrobe and pushing himself up. The silence weighed down on him as he rescued his tea mug from the floor and padded into the kitchen, finishing it and putting the empty cup in the sink. He felt the boredom creeping back in, like a damp mist.
Everyone had somewhere to be, something to do. John, his patients. Tricia, her patients. Sam, his Interpol meetings. Mycroft, his – whatever Mycroft was doing this week. Even Mrs. Hudson had her crap daytime telly, which Sherlock didn't have the attention span for at the moment, and her bridge club.
He moved aimlessly about the flat, tried once to play his violin and gave it up as a bad job, then finally decided to shower – carefully, given the healing wound on his head – and dress and leave. If he collapsed on the sidewalk, so be it. Some handy passerby would probably call an ambulance.
Outside it was chilly, November almost halfway past, but the sky was a bright blue today, sharper in the cold air. No rain, no snow, not even wispy white clouds to interrupt the early winter sunshine. Sherlock bundled his hands into his pockets, noticing that his headache felt better in the fresh air, and wished he'd thought to try this two days previous instead of just now.
He walked slowly, keeping track of the other pedestrians around him and the traffic as much as he was able. He could tell his reactions were still slowed, which was maddening. He wasn't used to having to concentrate quite so much; it was a good deal more work than he imagined it would be. No wonder people of lesser intelligence ignored so much. It would be exhausting to keep this up, but then he reminded himself it could be learned, to a certain extent. Police officers did so all the time, with varying degrees of success.
He found himself at Angelo's and let himself in. The restaurant was fairly quiet, since it was early afternoon, but past the lunch rush. A young woman, about twenty, was sitting by herself in a booth, headphones in, dyed red hair pulled messily from her face, drawing absently in a sketchbook with her left hand, a scatter of charcoals and coloured pencils spread out around her, and a cold and almost untouched cup of tea next to her right elbow. An elderly couple, a man and a woman, was at a nearby table, speaking quietly, but with smiles and bright eyes and gentle laughter. Sherlock studied them a moment – they had clearly been together for quite some time and were comfortable with each other, but appreciated one another enough that they were not taking the other for granted. They were still together for the joy of it, not for fear of being alone.
It made him miss John and feel strangely nostalgic for things that had not even happened yet, and he found himself hoping Angelo's, or something close to, would still be here when he and John were that age and wanted to sit and talk and laugh quietly.
"Sherlock!"
His musings were interrupted when the bear of a man swept him into a rib-crushing hug and Sherlock grunted, caught with a momentary wave of dizziness. Angelo released him and clapped him on the shoulder, grinning broadly, and Sherlock forced his face into a smile but Angelo frowned.
"Concussion," Sherlock said shortly.
The ex-con raised his eyebrows.
"Long story," Sherlock sighed, waving the questions away, settling into his preferred seat by the window, looking out onto the street. He was not about to get into the particulars about how he'd been involved but not really in a bar fight. And he was still not entirely certain that John and Sam and Lestrade weren't having a good go at him.
"Coffee's on the house, then," Angelo said.
"Not necessary,"
The larger man brushed this off.
"I pay a pittance for it, and you always say it's swill anyway. Anything else?"
"That's because it is swill. No, just the coffee, thank you."
He sat, sipping his coffee, and listened to the conversation behind him without really registering the words, and to the scratch of the charcoals and colours on the young woman's paper. She hummed to herself occasionally, without noticing.
The door opening made him look up and a young man came in, late twenties or early thirties, wrapped in a navy overcoat and matching scarf, carrying a cello case. He glanced around and settled into a table near Sherlock, nodding at him. Sherlock nodded back, then evaluated the instrument case. The man was obviously a professional – the case was high quality, well cared for, although old with some scratches, but he carried it easily and was more than used to its weight and size.
"You play?" the younger man asked.
"Violin," Sherlock replied.
"Ah," the man said, grinning, his brown eyes lighting up. "Too bad you don't have it with you, we could have had a small, impromptu concerto."
Sherlock only raised his eyebrows as Angelo brought the man some coffee.
"How about it?" he asked, glancing at Sherlock, giving him a wink. "I could start booking you, regular."
"Steady gigs, shouldn't pass that up," the younger man said, nodding thanks for the coffee, his smile bright. He shed his coat and scarf and rubbed his hands together. "Brr."
"I don't play for an audience," Sherlock replied coolly. Not an audience that wasn't John or Josephine anyway.
"Everyone plays for an audience," the younger man said, shaking out two packets of sugar and ripping them open cleanly. "Even if you're the only one listening. Still an audience."
"Then I play for quite a select audience," Sherlock replied, sipping his coffee again. The younger man laughed, nodding.
"Well, to each his own," he said, pouring two creamers into his coffee as well, then stirring it all together. "Don't suppose you'd let me play for my coffee?" he asked Angelo, who was still hovering.
"If you're any good, you have a deal."
"Let me warm my hands up," the younger man said with a smile. He took a few minutes to do so, sipping his coffee, and Sherlock turned back to the window, watching the street and the pedestrians. The younger man took out his instrument and tuned it. Sherlock turned back when the tuning was almost complete and waited.
The girl had pulled out her earphones and was watching intently and the older couple had their eyes turned toward the cellist as well, holding hands across the table. Sherlock kept sipping his coffee, which Angelo had refilled for him, and the younger man drew his bow across the cello's strings, a clear note following in the wake of his movement.
He played something with which Sherlock was unfamiliar, but it was haunting in its slow beauty. It made him miss John all the more, wishing his husband was there, instead of at work, so they could sit next to each other like the older couple was doing now. He heard hints of rain and sorrow, timbers of love and loss. The bright blue November sky outside seemed forgotten, and the world shrunk to the inside of the small restaurant, then was carried away on mournful notes, so that everything that was important suddenly seemed distant, unobtainable.
When the younger man finished, silence flowed in as the last note died away and the audience was still for a moment, then the older woman clasped her hands above her head and gasped, but there was a smile in her tone. The younger man glanced at her and she blinked, eyes bright.
"That was lovely," she said. He bowed easily from his chair, obviously used to playing and accepting praise from seated behind his instrument.
"And my coffee?" he asked.
"On the house whenever you come back," Angelo promised.
"I could take one to go," the younger man said. "I do have a gig tonight, in the area."
"You got it," Angelo said, and disappeared. The younger man glanced at Sherlock.
"And from my fellow strings musician?"
"It was lonely," Sherlock said.
The younger man laughed, nodding.
"Well, we all get lonely sometimes," he replied. "It was the first real piece of music my mother taught me. Said it made her think of home."
He began packing away his instrument and the young woman popped up from her booth, unceremoniously dropping a sheet of sketch paper on the table, but taking care not to get it in the condensation rings left the coffee mug. Sherlock had noted her working while the man had been playing and caught a glimpse of a brief sketch, a moment of music captured in colour, the scene faded away around the young man so that he and his cello shone.
"Thanks," she said, flashing him a grin.
"And you," he replied, before she returned to her own work. Sherlock pulled a twenty pound note from his wallet and offered it over.
"Too much like busking?" he enquired.
"I've done my share of that. A starving musician never says no. Cheers."
He packed up and accepted a take away coffee from Angelo, with another guarantee for coffee on the house if he chose to come back. The young man laughed, thanked them all again for listening, and left, letting in a gust of cold November air as the door opened behind him.
The moment of fresh air seemed to reorient him and Sherlock checked his phone. He had missed a text from John and replied quickly that he was fine. He paid Angelo for the coffee – he never actually left without paying, even when Angelo insisted that he did not have to – and stepped onto the street, hailing a cab. It may still be early, but he was damned if he was going home to sit alone after that, when he could at least sit in John's office and see his husband between patients and not feel completely and utterly bored.