Sorry I'm publishing later than anticipated – I couldn't get the end of the chapter right. I'm still not convinced it works. Warning for this chapter – bad language
Thanks to everyone who has read / reviewed, I really appreciate your feedback – keep it coming….please?
Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock, John et al – that privilege belongs to ACD, Moffat and Gatiss
The austere-looking man in dark grey three piece suit stood thumbing through the file in his hands, occasionally humming as if a particular item of information was of great importance.
The man sitting in the hard utilitarian chair at the plain wooden table alternately inspected his rather bleak surroundings and the man with the file who looked entirely out of place.
After fifteen minutes of excruciating silence broken only by the turning of pages the seated man fidgeted uncomfortably, folding and unfolding his arms, crossing right leg over left and then left leg over right a moment or two later. Each time he moved the suited man appeared to stop reading, his eyes would stop scanning the page, and as the fidgeting stilled the man would read again. It was unnerving.
With a loud slapping sound the file suddenly hit the table. A benign smile spread across the face of the man in the suit, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Mr Moody. Or would you rather I call you Arthur?" He sat down now and fixed his icy blue eyes on the quaking man sitting opposite him. "Although last month it was Terry Wantage, and before that Benny McAlpin, Vince Powell and Charlie Larch. A man of many names, but very few talents!" His voice had dropped to a low snarl with those last words, and the man he was speaking to almost wet himself with fear.
"I…I...Moody, Arthur Moody is me real name."
"Yes, I know." That smile again. If his brother had been present it would have put him in mind of a certain crocodile – nemesis of a much loved pirate captain. This man had spent years perfecting this particular method of intimidation and would use it now to good effect. "Now Arthur, I have a proposal for you. I am going to ask you some questions, and you…well, you are going to answer them Arthur, as fully and as honestly as you can….if, that is, you know what is good for you."
Moody whimpered and nodded.
Satisfied, Mycroft Holmes sat back in his chair, all elegance and terrifying threat. "So tell me Arthur, who sent you to search 221B Baker Street?"
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
It was almost midnight, and Lestrade had long since excused himself, leaving Sherlock and John ploughing through the remaining files in the box. Stifling a groan John eased himself off the couch and leaning heavily on his stick limped towards the kitchen.
"Getting painkillers – want anything?"
Sherlock barely responded with a shake of his head, he was concentrating on the notes in his hands, his eyes staring unblinking at the reams of typed pages. As his mind turned over the information contained in the bulging manila files the quiet of the flat was harshly disrupted by the shrill ringing of his iPhone. Reaching out he picked it up, noting the caller id as he answered it.
"Mycroft, I assume you've found something interesting?"
"We found two men, the one John saw and we assume the one that attacked him. Unfortunately my men let one of them escape, he…"
"That was careless of them. Do they still work for you?"
"…he apparently jumped out of a toilet window and vaulted over the back wall of a public house in the east end of London." Mycroft's voice oozed distaste.
"And the other one?" Seeing John shuffling back into the room Sherlock put the phone on speaker so that his flatmate could hear the conversation.
"It would appear the other one was there because he was brought along on the job by our missing man, and promised a fat fee on completion. The only instruction he was given was that he had to look through your papers and files."
"What? Just randomly look through….."
"They were looking for a name."
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "For God's sake get to the point Mycroft, what name?"
"I wish brother dear that I knew. The missing man – one William Phillips, known to his friends by the unlikely name of Bill the Bruiser – is the one with all the information. Our captive crook thinks the name might begin with a 'K', but cannot remember more than that!"
"And that hardly qualifies as remembering does it" John lowered himself gingerly back onto the couch, trying not to aggravate his injured leg.
"Is that it?" Sherlock was seething "Is that all you have?"
"No, I also have a very good likeness of the man we are seeking."
"Given to you I don't doubt by that idiot you have in your interview room." Sherlock sneered "And who's to say he…."
"Do you really think me that foolish? My men got a good look at him. They described him to my profile artist and then we showed the result to our captive. His fear wasn't faked." His smugness was palpable. "He was terrified, brother. I'll send you the picture; you may want to get Lestrade to circulate it. Goodnight John, Sherlock." And the line went dead.
Seconds later the mobile buzzed with the incoming picture message, and Sherlock leaned over so that John could look too. "Familiar?" he asked.
"Didn't really get a good look, Sherlock, more an impression of someone small and fast, but that….I dunno…yeah, familiar, but I wouldn't like to swear to it in court."
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Sometimes Greg Lestrade wondered who it was he was actually working for. It should be the Metropolitan Police – after all that's who actually put his pay into his bank account every month so it would be a reasonable assumption wouldn't it? So why, he asked himself, was he sitting up in bed at twenty to one in the morning looking at a MMS message from London's favourite sociopath with an attached command to 'print half a dozen clear copies – I'll pick them up in the morning' ? He squinted at the picture but his eyes and brain were refusing to speak to each other so he gave up, turned his phone off and went back to sleep.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Taking that first sip of his chocolate topped double strength cappuccino Greg sighed – heaven! Much better than the instant rubbish he tended to keep in his flat. He relaxed back in his leather swivel chair, eyes closed, just enjoying the aroma and the smooth taste, taking a moment before the phones started ringing and London's crooks came out of the woodwork…so it was no surprise that he almost fell out of his chair, his much prized coffee spilling into his lap, when Sherlock flung the office door open and swept into the room.
"Shit…..fuck….fucking hell Sherlock!" Lestrade was hopping from foot to foot trying to pull scalding hot material away from his legs – and other more sensitive areas – while glaring at the man who was currently standing watching all this with a kind of detached interest. "When will you learn you can't just burst into my office…."
"But I just did, Inspector. There was no-one to stop me."
Lestrade opened his mouth to reply, but saw the expression on the other man's face and decided he really didn't want to be insulted on top of everything else. Grabbing a handful of tissues from a box that lived on top of his filing cabinet he tried a little damage limitation on his trousers.
"If I were you I'd go home and change those, Greg."
Belatedly Lestrade noticed John standing in the doorway trying to control a tick in his left cheek. If the Detective Inspector hadn't known better he would have sworn that the doctor was trying to keep a straight face.
"In fact," he added, his voice now sounding slightly strangled, but the face and tick remaining firmly controlled "I would probably go an put some cold water on the scalded area – prevent blisters you know."
"Yeah, thanks John!" The balled up coffee stained tissues hit the litter bin with a dull thud, followed closely by the now empty take-away coffee cup. "And dare I ask why you two are here before 8am?"
"You did get my message last night?" Sherlock leaned against filing cabinet, hands in his coat pocket.
"No, I got your message this morning Sherlock. Don't you ever sleep?"
"Rarely." Came the bored reply.
"Well some of us need our sleep. I need my sleep."
John moved further into the room and gestured at the chair in front of the desk as if asking permission to sit. Greg suddenly looked guilty.
"Yeah, sit down mate. Sorry."
Waving the apology away John sat and leaned his stick against the desk.
"Seriously Greg you should be more careful, that could have been quite nasty. After all, how many years have you known this madman?" he flicked his eyes towards his flatmate who was at that moment rifling through the papers in Lestrades in-tray. "You should have known he'd come bursting in here before most of your team were even awake!"
"I know but….Oi! Leave those bloody papers alone Sherlock!" He reached out to snatch the papers out of Sherlocks hand but the younger man nimbly dodged out of the way, his eyes taking in the data then narrowing in thought. He stood still long enough for Lestrade to retrieve the sheets from the now lax fingers and he was just filing them back into the pile when Sherlock grasped his wrist.
"The husband has hidden the painting without the knowledge of his wife or daughters."
"What? How on earth did you work that out?"
"Obvious John, art like that is generally very well secured and extremely well insured. The wife's statement rings true, the words she uses are unrehearsed, not forced in any way. She's worried about the loss not about whether she'll be caught out in a lie, and the daughters are too young to have any real idea of the value of the painting. The husband now, he's playing games, but he's too stupid to do it well. I think you'll find the husband begrudges the fact that something so valuable was left to the women – rightly so I might add because he's a drinker – so he staged the theft firstly to claim the insurance and secondly to sell it on when the fuss dies down." He looked smugly at the Detective Inspector. "Ask him about the private locker he has at his sports club. And now that I've solved that for you, can I have the prints?"
"Prints?"
"The message last night? It might interest you to know that we think the man pictured is the one who stabbed John."