NOTE: I know, I know, it's been a good while since I updated - I've been busy, as has my beta, Morwen, who is amazing for putting up with me and doing such a great job helping me with this. I also need to thank (although he won't see this) my friend Lucas for being invaluable to me in helping with the research I had to do for this chapter (which was a lot). The lovely Sushifer has pointed out to me that it ought to to be "laundrette" and not "laundromat" so I will be going through and fixing that and various other things.
Part of what's been keeping me busy is another bit of Sherlock fanfic I'm working on as sort of a study tool for my grad math classes (and to get me to write every day) - daily drabbles relating to my courses. For right now I'm only posting them on AO3, so if you want to find them there, you can search my name there, Bitenomnom, or search "Mathematical Proof." I also post links to them on my Tumblr, where my URL is Toasterfish (or you can just search the tag "Mathematical Proof Series").
I have a few more notes at the end of the chapter about the research.
... ... ...
John thanked the stars for his level head when he spotted the water sitting in what he had come to think of as its usual position under the gazebo with the time machine. He probably would have panicked otherwise, since the only explanation he could think of was—well—Mycroft or—Sherlock or—somebody else having found the machine. Sherlock hadn't been here long enough—he couldn't have found it after getting home just minutes ago unless he already knew exactly where to look, and John supposed that if Sherlock had seen the machine earlier in the day, he would have mentioned it to John sometime in their conversation.
What were the chances of Mycroft finding it, though? He obviously hadn't happened across it before—well—in the future—well—when John had talked to Mycroft, he hadn't seen it at any point, and John doubted he'd done anything that would have changed that. Unless, of course, Mycroft was lying, which required a healthy amount of consideration. Still, he'd be young now—a teenager, John supposed—he wasn't trying to run the world yet (probably). From what Sherlock had said, he likely barely ever strayed outside, let alone to the far, heavily planted reaches of the Holmes' considerable back garden.
He'd left the note on his machine about the water. So somebody had seen it, and apparently decided, for whatever reason, that it was worth their while to retrieve some water. And not only that—bottled water. That hadn't been at the top of list of things that were on John's mind in his youth, but it definitely hadn't been until his uni days that he knew people who drank bottled water. But he was in a posh neighborhood, and this, of course, this was the Holmes residence. He could have traveled to before this time and left the water for himself, but then where would he land? And would he really have bought himself bottled water with his precious and very limited usable money? No, probably not.
Which really only left one possibility, didn't it? Well, one or two, but…why would Mummy Holmes have brought out expensive bottled water and left it by a strange contraption in her garden, rather than just—well—having the thing hauled away?
Mycroft had postulated that she knew, but didn't wish to be involved.
Then again, Mycroft also thought that John had never spoken to young Sherlock. Well: Sherlock could be telling Mycroft about it right now, and everything would change, but John sincerely doubted that would happen. Even this young, Sherlock seemed unwilling to tell Mycroft more than he had to, perhaps for fear that Mycroft would later hold it against him.
So, John thought, cracking one of the bottles open, Mummy Holmes (probably) left these here, having noticed the strange machine here and seen the note. She probably wasn't stupid—Sherlock seemed to respect her far too much—so she probably had a good guess as to what the machine was for, whether she believed it worked or not. It didn't answer why she'd actually helped out, but maybe she was just curious and wanted to encourage John to come back.
Well, the least he could do was thank her, and hope that she continued to keep from interfering. Perhaps she had the wisdom to keep Mycroft away. John wasn't exactly keen to meet up with her and have a chat, but he could leave a note. He could keep it vague and hope she was clever enough to get the idea.
Thanks. Nice gazebo.
He set out to put the note somewhere she'd find it—beneath the machine, right in the middle of the floor, and he could grab one of the nearby decorative stones and set it on top. As John walked over to the grouping of stones, he noticed a paper that wasn't his own pinned underneath one of them, set slightly apart from the others, halfway between the other stones and the machine. This place will remain safe for you so long as you don't do something stupid. Hurt either of my sons and you may find yourself rather stranded, and chased down by some very curious police officers. And if you are what you appear to be: thank you. –V. Holmes
It had to be Mummy, then, John thought. But "what he appeared to be" could be any number of things. Apparently he left a positive impression, whatever it was. How much had she deduced? Was that something she did? But how had she seen him? John glanced around the gazebo: ah. Security camera. He'd have been too dazed to notice it before, and in the later years it would've been more discreet, no doubt. She must have them mounted around her house—perhaps that had been an influence on Mycroft. He gave a wry smile toward the camera and then removed Mummy Holmes' letter from beneath the rock. He took his own out to modify it. I swear to do no such thing. Whatever else you believe about me, believe that. Thank you. –JW
He placed the stone atop it and returned his attention to other matters, withdrawing his laptop from its case and plugging his phone in. It seemed a silly and inefficient way to go about things, but then, Andrew likely hadn't planned on parking his time machine outside under a gazebo. Being able to plug in a mobile to charge the thing was probably intended to be a backup. And anyway, he likely hadn't gone on a days-long adventure through his wife's youth.
Days-long. It suddenly occurred to John that he probably reeked, or would soon. He couldn't do much about the clothing while he was here—he'd have to wait until he went to a time he had more usable money to buy a change of clothes. And figure out a way to take a shower…
Of course, he can't have been too offensive, or else young Sherlock surely would have said something to that effect.
Sherlock.
There would have been no way for John to have been prepared for meeting Sherlock like that, he decided. He twisted his fingers in to rub them against his palm, taking his mind through their time together.
He hadn't talked with Sherlock for—well—for over eight months. Little Sherlock couldn't have known that what he was doing had been a balm John needed so badly. Now, reflecting back on it, on Sherlock almost immediately clinging on to him, letting loose thoughts and opinions and deductions and observations, on taking his hand, on the disappointment in his eyes when they parted ways, John had to choke a knot of emotion back down his throat. The calm and nonchalance he'd maintained while he followed Sherlock snapped, and John covered his face with his hands, steadying his breathing.
This was the sort of thing that you were supposed to merely contemplate, John thought, to muse upon and daydream about and pass time with thoughts on—not the sort of thing that was supposed to actually happen. Meeting one's best friend as a child—being—fitting together every bit as well even under such unusual circumstances, it was more like a fairy tale than John had half-jokingly imagined earlier. He'd tell Sherlock about it, later—how profound the feeling, how their friendship seemed to swivel about nothing but them, time be damned.
He would need more time to think about it, maybe, and he had plenty of time. For now, however, John was exhausted, and had an important case to try to solve tomorrow morning. After rotating the mobile through several more cycles of charging and then charging the machine, John set his alarm, leaned up against the time machine, and drifted off.
When John woke to the alarm on his mobile the next morning at 7:30am, he opened another of the bottles of water and evaluated his options. He had his notes on the victims' addresses—perhaps that was the place to start. The second most recent one—the one from last week—would be the most likely to still contain any fresh evidence, but also the most likely to be monitored by the police. With the new evidence from this latest murder—murder, not suicide, not accidental overdose, but most likely actually murder—would they go back to that scene to have a look?
He could risk checking, though—at worst he'd simply walk past the place like any other pedestrian. He'd have to take a taxi to get there in reasonable time.
To John's relief, no police cars were parked outside the flat. Of course, that didn't mean there was nobody inside, or even that there weren't any officials inside, but he'd just have to be careful. They could have come by yesterday, while John was in the library doing his research—or maybe they already had all the evidence they could glean from this place and merely had to reevaluate it given the most recent developments.
No new nametags in the buzzer—he wouldn't be able to use Sherlock's "new neighbor" trick. The victim was, though, on the bottom floor… John paced around to the other side of the building. Windows—he could break into one of those. He'd seen Sherlock do it about a thousand times, and even had to resort to doing it himself on a couple of occasions (because Sherlock was a berk and, almost as if he'd planned it that way, ran off and did something stupid and forced John to choose between doing something very illegal or leaving Sherlock to his own devices—the decision was never quite as difficult as John wished it would be).
Getting in wasn't the difficult part, but making sure he didn't leave any prints or evidence of his own presence might be. Granted, he'd probably be fine so long as he managed to find the murderer before somebody else found one of his hairs in a crime scene, but John wasn't quite so full of himself as to assume that he even would be able to solve the case.
No one was around—it was just a dreary, empty, miniscule flat that was probably the best someone as young as the victim would've been able to afford. (Barring, John thought bemusedly of the Holmeses, rich parents.) It looked like the police had taken several things from the flat (unusual empty spot on the counter, slightly rearranged furniture based on the indents in the carpet, trash can had been searched judging by that an empty packet of frozen food was buried well beneath the tear-off top, rather than the other way around). The only way John would find anything useful here would be if the detectives had missed something, or if there was something he could conclude based on anything they didn't take.
If he could figure out where she'd been earlier that day, maybe he could find evidence of what had happened to her there—if his idea about the victims being drugged long before they actually died was true. He hadn't found anything in the way of evidence about yesterday's murder at Tesco, of course, or the laundrette…but maybe he would have better luck with this one. At least perhaps he could find out where the killer had been giving these people the drug. If it was something like a pill, it'd be tough to trace…if he could find a needle or something in the rubbish bin, it'd be much easier. But then, he'd be lucky if the killer was so sloppy.
Of course, he couldn't be so lucky as to find a receipt or a grocery bag again, or a bag of freshly cleaned laundry. Whoever this young woman was, she kept a clean house. Even the papers on her desk were in a perfectly neat stack, though the handwriting on them was dismal—oh, they were kids' assignments.
Oh: kids' assignments. Right: she was a teacher. The article about her untimely and baffling death had mentioned the primary school she'd worked at. John consulted the notes he'd taken while reading the article: she was a teacher at one LevittPrimary School. Doubtless she spent a great deal of time there; it would be wise to investigate. A school was a large place to check, but John could look in some of the obvious places: cafeteria, teacher's lounge, the classroom she taught in…maybe someone there had seen her talk to somebody, maybe even somebody who fit the descriptions of the laundrette patrons he'd written down. But he didn't want to arouse suspicion wandering around looking for which classroom she'd taught in—perhaps some of her paperwork here would include that information.
Poor kids, though, John thought. How awful would that be, to have your teacher up and die on you? And at the time they'd thought she'd accidentally killed herself, too.
John managed to extract a school directory from its already-open envelope on Summers' desk without touching the envelope itself, but once it came to flipping through the pages, John decided that was good enough. Judging from the state of the place, John thought, and the fact that it was no longer marked off as a crime scene, it was so unlikely that the police would be back at all that it hardly even bore considering as a risk—even avoiding getting his prints on the envelope itself was overcautiousness. John thumbed through the booklet looking for Miss Jillie Summers' room number. John did his best to replace the directory in the envelope without using his fingers, and shoved the last bit in with his index finger. If his investigations brought him to more crime scenes—actual, marked-with-tape crime scenes—he'd have to make a trip to the chemist's and buy some latex gloves. Of course, the chances that any of the earlier sites were marked off if this one wasn't was low—but if, heaven forbid, there was another murder and therefore a fresh crime scene to sneak into before John or the coppers could figure this one out, he'd need a more reliable way to keep from leaving prints all over the place.
The school, thankfully, looked to be within reasonable walking distance of Jillie Summers' flat. John wondered if she'd taken a taxi home that day, though—was she feeling dizzy? Hallucinating? Stumbling about like the young woman who died yesterday had apparently been doing before she died?
John left the building as carefully as he'd entered it, and strode purposefully toward the school.
"You're doing well, John," said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, and John flushed a little as he realized that all that really amounted to was him complimenting himself. Of course if Sherlock had actually said so, in such a genuine tone as John had imagined, he might be a few shades darker yet. John certainly couldn't blame Sherlock for wanting to have someone to follow him around and congratulate him on a deduction well done or a crime well solved or a detail well observed. And, of course, Sherlock had been lacking just such an audience—probably for his whole life. John could piece together, at least, that he had no such admirers in his youth, and from what Sebastian Wilkes had said at the bank, none of his colleagues in university were terribly impressed, or at least not nearly as impressed as they were peeved.
John slipped into the school building with little difficulty; straggler students were still trickling in this early, some with their parents. He thought about how fantastic it would have been to bring little Sherlock along with him to solve the rest of this case—but, of course, if he taught Sherlock his own methods (and probably poorly, John thought), space-time would collapse, or something. At the very least, Sherlock would definitely remember John.
"I know you were thinking of checking the teacher's lounge," said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder, who, for all John's musing, was no longer over his shoulder at all, but rather his six-year-old self, "but think about it: unless the murderer was a teacher, he'd stick out there. He was trying to be discreet with his delivery of the drug."
Right, John thought. Any of the other teachers would remember a stranger bursting in and doing whatever-he-did to get the drug in the victim's system; that would only work if the Summers was in the lounge alone, and the killer was sure no one else would enter. Less than likely. Still… What about the case with the cabbie? Same sort of thing—stranger poisoning his victims, leaving the poisonings to look like suicides… We didn't think of the cabbie because—well—nobody does.
"Could be the janitorial staff," little Sherlock agreed.
The sweet but anonymous housekeeping bloke who brought in more coffee and an apple for the teacher. Nobody would remember if they'd seen him before or since.
"Can you get into that room with the same trick? You could check around."
Doubt I could pretend to be a teacher—this place is small enough for them all to know each other—and I think I'd have to find some sort of uniform to pass as cleaning or cooking staff.
"The killer would've had that problem, too."
Well, yeah, but he had all the time in the world, didn't he? John glanced to his left and turned down that hall. "And he could use the same disguise anywhere in the school, really, for the same reason. Not just the lounge. Better check the places I can actually go into without a disguise first." He glanced into a pair of wide doors: the cafeteria.
"The cafeteria would be more inconspicuous than the lounge, but there's a problem with that, too," little Sherlock said.
Too frequently cleaned, John agreed. Any evidence would be gone, and doubtful any of the cooks will have seen anything—or would remember it, if they did.
"Exactly," said Sherlock-not-over-John's-shoulder, and he grabbed John's hand as they continued down the hallway in the direction in which John supposed room 143 would be. John wondered what it meant, that his brain was cooking this up without asking him about it. Was it weird? Yes—yeah, it was definitely weird.
Sherlock-holding-John's-hand was replaced by the original, back over his shoulder, no longer holding his hand. "Better?"
"I'm going mental," John muttered to himself.
"Talking to yourself," Sherlock tutted. "You're not going mental, John; you're already there."
Thanks.
John paused in front of the door. The lights were off. He jiggled the handle and found it unlocked—likely the students and their new teacher were at assembly. He didn't have long, then, or at least didn't want to assume that he would, and so flipped the light on as he hurried in. The classroom's rubbish bin probably would have been emptied at least once in the past week, so that was useless…John would just have to look about for anything that stuck out to him. He took out his mobile and started up the camera, just in case he had to take any quick photos to review later. The students, of course, had a new teacher. The desk probably hadn't been entirely cleaned and overturned since the murder, but John couldn't be sure if anything on it had belonged to Summers, except the few things that were in her handwriting—a lesson schedule, a seating arrangement.
Posted around the classroom were sheets of blank paper—odd. Oh, wait, no, it wasn't that it was blank—it was covered in a very light green paint. "You know what this is," said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. John paced back over to the lights to test his theory—sure enough, each piece was a glowing drawing of…monsters or…stars or…something. Huh, glow-in-the-dark paint, John thought, smirking a little as images of glowing rabbits named Bluebell came to mind. Of course, whether Baskerville was the center for mad scientists now that it was in 2011 or not, there wouldn't be any glowing rabbits or glowing hounds or glowing anything there now—unless they were keeping it secret, John was fairly certain glowing animals hadn't been invented yet.
He was at a loss for what to search for—the means of administering the poison? John scanned the room. Of course if there'd been anything terribly obvious somebody would have found it—a curious child, if nothing else. And he was fairly certain something would have been printed in the news if a child in Summers' class also fell ill or died around the same time and of the same cause, so—nothing a child would find noteworthy, and especially nothing a child would find and poke himself with, or eat, or whatever. Unless, of course, it wasn't something that was obviously a method of delivering poison—not a pill or a needle. It probably would have to be something subtler, or else how would the killer get the poison into the victims without being noticed?
John snapped a few photos of the classroom just in case, so he could look over them later. By the time he got to the corner by the window, he was trying to decide whether there was some way the teacher could have poked her thumb with a poisoned thumbtack. But maybe that was too much like the sanitized cat in the Raoul de Santos case: too much left to chance. If the killer was going after attractive young women, would he risk a child being drugged instead? He didn't seem to have made any glaring mistakes so far, and this had been his fifth murder, almost ten months after the first, so he probably knew what he was doing by now. If a child received the dosage of poison he'd been giving to adults, he would have died much more quickly and caught attention that the murderer had obviously avoided up until yesterday.
What, then? It had to be something given to her directly, that the children wouldn't have access to, or wouldn't have reason to—touch, or, eat, or—
Oh, Christ. Somebody really ought to change the class pet's bedding, John thought, cringing at the smell of it. What was that, a hamster? Oh, a mouse—John smiled fondly at being reminded of little Sherlock's experiment.
Ah, that was why it smelled so awful—the thing was dead. Curled up inside its hidey-hole, peacefully sleeping by all appearances, or—well—by just a glance, but with a closer look, John decided that the thing looked markedly more like Sherlock's nine-days-old mouse than a live, sleeping one. Of course, with Summers' death, the poor thing had probably been forgotten, and its cage was tucked far enough back in the corner, and near enough some sort of lilies that had also probably been beautiful at one point but were now looking much worse for the wear, that the smell wasn't obvious until one was right beside the cage.
But if it looked like a nine-days-dead mouse, then it had to have died sometime around nine days ago—which was odd, because it probably meant it died right around when Summers had. It wasn't for lack of food or water, John observed—the class pet had a full dish of little pellets, and even the core of an apple that definitely hadn't been put in recently—
John paused and flipped back through his laundrette notes.
No, no, that's ridiculous. Just because there was an apple there, and there's an apple and a dead mouse here, doesn't mean this is some sort of poisoned-apple fairytale.
"It is possible," said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. "Discreet—easy to give to someone. Particularly easy to offer to a pretty young teacher."
Or a lovely lady you chatted up while doing your laundry, John thought. But it's only one explanation of some of the facts, isn't it, Sherlock?
"True enough. You could find another animal to test the apple on."
Rather not, thanks, John thought, and scolded himself for thinking through this right now. The children and their teacher would be back from assembly any minute. John snapped a quick photo of the mouse's enclosure and carefully extracted the brown and shriveled core. If a dead mouse had gone unnoticed for a week, the apple core definitely wouldn't be missed, and it was so unlikely that the police would come here, of all places, and notice the mouse, of all things, and miss out on solving the crime because John had taken the core. It probably wasn't even the slightest bit important—but possible enough to be worth checking into. Ugh—this was about the last thing he wanted to be carrying about right now. If he was going to have it on himself for much longer, or was going back to get the apple from the laundrette, he'd definitely be getting some plastic bags. Latex gloves and plastic bags. Maybe he should start writing a list.
He dodged past desks and one very precariously placed toothpick sculpture to hurry back out the door, shutting off the lights and smiling at the glowing artwork. Unless there was one Sherlock Holmes in this class—and there wasn't, of course—no one would wonder why the art was still glowing so luminously even after the lights had supposedly been off for over half an hour.
Once John had maneuvered himself a safe distance from the school to take a seat on a park bench, he examined the apple core more closely. A poisoned apple…well, a maybe-poisoned apple. Of course, he had no lab equipment to test it—but then, if this really was connected to the murders, the police had already done that work for him. If it was poisoned, and connected with this case, it would be doped with belladonna. John had never personally encountered someone dosed with the stuff beyond regular low doses used for medication, but he wasn't trained to deal with drug overdose for nothing—he knew the effects for doses beyond normal prescription. Of course, difficult to determine the dosage administered in an apple—that depended on a number of other factors. Still, at worst, with a light dose, he knew his heart rate would rise, his skin flush. His pupils would dilate. In small doses—before the more extreme levels that the victims seemed to have received, which were accompanied by hallucinations and brain damage and all other manner of unpleasant things—the main effect would be as an aphrodisiac.
I can't believe I'm talking myself into this, John thought. Sherlock had licked mercury-covered wrappers to confirm his theory about the poisoned children; this was at least less dangerous than that. Still, better safe than sorry; John would find himself a telephone box so he could call an ambulance if something went wrong. The phone box would provide the additional benefit of that John wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of meandering about the streets looking a bit too much in need of a good shag. If the apple really was doped with belladonna, he probably would be feeling a bit too much in need of a good shag, by the time he'd tested it. At least I know what symptoms to look for, he thought.
"It's the quickest way to test your theory," assured Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. "And if the apple isn't poisoned, no harm done—you'll only have licked a rather disgusting old apple."
That a mouse ate from, John thought, cringing. But he was nothing if not tolerant of occasional unsanitary practices. This was probably less risky than eating anything from the kitchen at 221B, or, for that matter, stitching people up in the middle of battle in the desert.
Decided on the matter, John stood and looked about for the nearest telephone box. No—it was too busy here. He didn't know how long he'd have to wait—what if someone came and tried to kick him out? He could stay someplace near a phone box, and hope he could make it in time, but that seemed like a bad idea, what with the possibility, however slight, that he'd wind up sitting around in public under the influence of an aphrodisiac. Hallucinogen, if I get too much of it, he thought. He would start seeing faces in crowds, hearing voices—and he knew exactly whose it would be. It would be torture.
On his way from Summers' house to the school, though, along the main road…hadn't he walked past a whole row of phone boxes? He could use one of those; it was unlikely all of the three or four others besides the one he'd be in would be occupied at the same time. It wasn't so terribly busy right now, anyway—mid-morning on a weekday. John changed his course.
Once he reached the row of boxes, he stepped into one of the center boxes and closed the door behind him. Right, he thought, don't mind me, just thirty years in the past locked in a phone box licking a poisoned apple. If I'm lucky it'll lead me to the answer, which also unfortunately means that if I'm lucky I'll have to sit around uncomfortably horny in a phone box just in case I start hallucinating and have to get to hospital.
"Yes, wouldn't want to hallucinate," Sherlock-over-his-shoulder said.
Oh, you are not coming in here with me, John thought.
"I need to make observations, John. I'll help you decide if you need to go to the A&E."
Right. Well. It's probably just an apple. John lifted it to his mouth and sniffed it. It smelled like an ordinary apple—well—an ordinary week-old apple. Of course, this was all for naught if the poison on it had somehow broken down by now, but if he really wanted he could test the one in the laundrette, too, if it was still there. In fact, he probably would. He stretched out his tongue to the least disgusting-looking area of the apple and traced from the middle to the top. See, nothing, he thought after a minute.
"Please," Sherlock-over-his-shoulder sounded as if he were rolling his eyes. "You didn't eat an entire plant. You know how long it will take before symptoms will likely start showing up."
John didn't especially fancy the idea of sitting alone in a phone box for the next hour just to see what happened, but he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. And before you say it, talking to you in my head doesn't count as 'not alone,' Sherlock, John thought. He rotated the apple core in his hands, taking a good look at it for some minutes as he tried to pass the time; the poison would take effect soon, but not immediately, if indeed it was in the apple. And if the apple was poisoned, the murderer would have had to get the poison in somehow.
"Injection would be easy," suggested Sherlock-over-his-shoulder.
"Right," John muttered to himself, because—well, why the hell not? He was in a phone box. "But most of the apple is eaten. It would be pointless to look for marks from a needle; they'd probably have been eaten away."
"Would they?"
John blinked. "No…no, they wouldn't. If the murderer was trying to pass this off to somebody as something like a gift, and it had a puncture mark smack in the middle of the surface, the recipient wouldn't want it. They'd probably think it was infested with worms, depending on how big a needle he used was. No, the injection would probably have to be somewhere less conspicuous…" he first examined the bottom of the apple, and then the top, rotating the stem around to search for any puncture marks.
"Anything?"
"Nothing. I mean, it's all wrinkled, but a hole would be noticeable—only to anyone looking for it, of course."
"So what then?"
"Well, maybe it could have been punctured in the middle somewhere with something subtle enough not to be noticed. I don't know how thick the needle would have to be to puncture into the apple, but maybe it's possible with a rather small one. You know, the sort of thing that would look like little imperfections apples always have. Or: he could actually use imperfections to hide them."
"But something about it is still bothering you, isn't it?"
"Yeah." John turned the core over in his hand.
"Well?"
"I just don't know whether the murderer would do that. Inject the apple, I mean. How would the poison get spread throughout the entire apple? What stops it from just all gathering into a pocket? Or all settling onto one side? Is there a way to make sure it gets spread throughout the whole apple?"
"The murderer does seem to be rather meticulous. Or was, up until yesterday, anyway."
"Right. So would he risk somebody not eating the whole apple and never getting to the part of it with the most poison? He goes through all that trouble—to find his victims at a place and a time that by the time they die they're somewhere else, so that he won't get caught—he clearly picks the victims he does for some reason, because of the demographic overlap—but he takes a chance on whether they'll actually die?"
"Well reasoned, John. What do you deduce?"
"It's probably not poisoned," John concluded, and took a step toward the door. "And it'll be pointless for me to stay in here—" he reached for the handle.
"Stop," said Sherlock-over-his-shoulder. "Just wait." John froze, unwilling to turn back to a voice that definitely wasn't there but also definitely sounded exactly as if it were. In fact—no, no, no one else was in here with him. "It could be something worse than belladonna, and the police didn't identify it correctly," he continued, "you could stumble out into the street and get hit by a cab. You could start attracting attention, and the police will find you, and take one look at your ID, and then what?"
"Fine," John sighed, "okay." He leaned back against the wall and felt himself space off—for how long, he couldn't tell, and when he realized that he'd been staring at the "six" button on the phone for god knew how long, John tried to remember what he'd been thinking about—ah. "But I hope this is the only time you'll play the part of my better judgment, Sherlock, because it's sort of weirding me out." He waited to hear Sherlock's response. If it was as eerily vivid-sounding as it had been minutes ago, if he—well, because, Sherlock wouldn't be there right now; he was six years old, he couldn't be there, he was dead, or, no, not that—but if it sounded like he was there, then it was almost certainly the effects of the atropine in the belladonna.
"Shall I suggest something dangerous to balance it out?" Sherlock was suddenly closer to him, voice ringing through John's ear, and before John could think he reached out into the empty space before him, half-expecting to feel Sherlock there. He took in a deep breath and tried to shake the feeling of Sherlock hovering inches over John's face, invading his personal space—Sherlock's specialty, thought John. His mind scrambled to fill in the blank, and John shook away the image it began painting in of Sherlock standing there, carefully inspecting him.
"What are you doing?" John asked, taking another deep breath. It's the drug, John, he told himself. It's the belladonna. He's not here.
"Inspecting you for symptoms. What else would I be doing?"
He's not here, he's not speaking almost directly into your ear, he's not just standing there half a centimeter from your face, looking for—for—right, yes, of course, symptoms. "Oh. Right. Of course," John flushed against his will. Of course his own mind would turn against him, and of course his body would follow suit right afterward. Or maybe it was just being stuck in a small space for a long time that was making him react like this. He hadn't been such a fan of that in Afghanistan, either. This space, of course, was made even smaller by an imagined Sherlock hovering about. He consumed space every bit as well now as he did when he was actually present, actually visible. John could feel the phone box fill with Sherlock, with his resonating voice bouncing off the close walls and straight into John's ears, making him glance around for Sherlock every time he spoke.
"You're blushing," said Sherlock, and John felt him leaning closer—somehow closer than he already had been. It made him nervous, which he was sure was the reason for his shortening breath. "Labored breathing. See?"
"Are you sure that's the poison?" John breathed. God, and why did he ask it? Either it was the poison or it was—
"Of course I am. Why else would you think your pupils would be—"
John shook his head and tried to banish his imagined friend. That was definitely not something he wanted to be thinking about right at this instant—whatever exactly 'that' was. Sherlock had been right, though—it had to be the poison. The vivid voices, right there—his mind, constantly trying to make Sherlock as present as possible, because what else was ever on John's mind theses days, anyway? He couldn't count himself backwards into calmness; his heart rate was something like what it ought to be if he'd just chased a taxi around for two miles and he was probably just as flushed. He squirmed against the rather sudden restrictiveness of his trousers. "Great," he mumbled as he was reminded rather involuntarily of something he'd been rather too distracted to think about doing for rather a long time. "Not in a bloody phone box," he told himself, "barely a mile away from a bloody primary school." Even against the almost-wintery chill his skin felt hot.
"Interesting," said a familiar voice, which John was at least mentally present enough to evaluate as being definitely all in his head, although it was more real than ever—the minute little scrapes of the word against his throat, the perfect intonation, so textured and dimensional in comparison to what John realized were his flatter imaginings of Sherlock's voice over his shoulder when he was not under the influence of atropine.
"Oh, god. I'm hallucinating." Not that that was news—but this time, he was absolutely sure of it. He considered phoning for an ambulance—usually hallucinations were associated with larger doses. Still—still—he felt—he could manage it. This was probably the worst of it. He'd just…it would be fine.
"Maybe a bit," he admitted. He leaned forward, as if that would explain it all, and John blinked a few times. Had he just felt Sherlock's breath on his face? Hallucination, he reminded himself, and fought not to reach out into the air again or to envision Sherlock there and—and then what? "But you've been imagining me following you around all this time to make yourself feel better, and because it helps you think, and now that you're impaired by the drug you haven't exactly the mental capacity to push me out, especially after sustaining this particular exercise in imagination for so long."
"Yeah, thanks, I was aware," John muttered.
"And, John, face the facts: you are experiencing the effects of a drug with hallucinogenic properties. To you, it sounds like I'm actually here, speaking to you. In fact, you're so used to that anyway, that your mind is attempting to explain my enhanced presence in other ways." John took in a shaky breath and tried not to see Sherlock there in front of him, tilting his head forward and giving John that smug little you-know-I'm-right eyebrow-raise.
"Also aware of that, yeah." He buried his face into his hands, which was mostly because he was exasperated and obviously not all that much about the roughness of Sherlock's voice, or the fact that John could hear the little breaths between his speech, intimate little inhalations and exhalations that are usually quiet enough for people to keep to themselves except that Sherlock is so close to John—so close, by the sound of his words and his breathing—that John can hear every detail of his sounds, every record scratch in his voice, the vibration of strings inside a hollow cavity and then some. He could hear, with the breaths, Sherlock's chest moving, could see it, inhaling, exhaling, shirt pulled taut across his sternum and then relaxing slightly. John buried his head further.
"You look rather miserable, John."
"Yeah, well," he sighed. "Belladonna: great for orgies, less great for biding time alone in a tiny box."
"Mm," said Sherlock.
"Guess you wouldn't care either way, would you? If it had been you testing the stuff?"
"John, I assume you do remember from that comment I made about forty seconds ago that I am, in fact, a figment of your imagination?"
"Yeah…meaning…?"
"Meaning you don't know the answer to that question, so nor do I."
"Right." Of course, because he had spent a year and a half as Sherlock's flatmate and still didn't have a bloody clue about Sherlock's sexuality. Not that it was any of his business, of course—but after his failed attempt at figuring it out at Angelo's the night after they'd met, he'd more or less given up on it. Sherlock was married to his work, whatever exactly that meant, and John had expressed that it was all fine, and so there was never really anything else worth talking about. Or at least, never really anything else that John could justify talking about, or that Sherlock would deem worth his time. Which was okay, because it wasn't any of John's business anyway.
"What are you thinking about?" Sherlock now spoke from the other side of the box. John fidgeted, primarily because he wasn't quite sure, and didn't especially like the fact that he was asking such things of himself. "Look at you, itching to get out of that jacket. Feeling warm, are we?"
"Yes, I get it, you were right, the apple was drugged, now will you please shut up?" John snapped. "Let me suffer in silence, will you? Leave me be until I can get the hell out of this box."
"But you aren't really suffering, not as much as you say. That's self-imposed. Not really a surprise, though…self-imposed suffering seems to be your forte, doesn't it? Putting up with me as you did. And now you're trying to save me so that you can do it some more."
"Piss off," John rubbed at his eyes. It was lucky the booth blocked out a good portion of the light; he was cringing enough at what there was. Any more and his head would be pounding. "You know that's not why I'm saving you," he said, when Sherlock didn't leave.
"Drugged with an aphrodisiac, and all you're thinking about is saving my life? How very noble," Sherlock smirked.
"Don't mock me," John grumbled. "I'm really trying not to think about my pants and what's in them, all right?"
"Ah, yes," Sherlock nodded. "Because the work is more important. You do understand."
"Mostly it's that I'm in a telephone box, Sherlock, with you."
"Ah."
"And since I really can't do a damn thing about my physical state right now, it would just be best to stay distracted from any of…that."
"Ah, yes. And 'that' was why you tried to shoo me away. Correct?"
John rested his head in his hand, rubbing his temples.
"Not good?"
"Shut up, please. Let's just talk about the case."
"By all means, if you think you can manage it."
John found his mind rather fuzzy, though, as he tried to analyze the details. Voices still echoed through it, little sounds, little air currents, mostly Sherlock's. "Maybe not."
"Just sit, then. Wait it out."
If this had happened at 221B, maybe Sherlock would have returned John's favor of tucking him in, hanging about the flat in case of emergency, as John had done when Irene had drugged Sherlock. Of course, for all the likelihood that Sherlock would be intrigued by the effects of the drug on John's state of mind and physiological response, there was just as much a chance that Sherlock would shy away. John wasn't so thick as Sherlock liked to accuse him of being—he could tell that there were a few things in the world that made Sherlock Holmes rather uncomfortable. From the few times that John had come home flushed from morning activities after a night at his girlfriend's and the occasional offhand comment that slipped past John's filter after an evening drinking with Mike or Lestrade—and, notably, from a few of Mycroft's snide remarks—John had gathered that sex, and, really, most things overtly sexual, disconcerted Sherlock. He would grow quiet and unresponsive and suddenly absorbed in something—not noticeable to most, but John was apt to take note any time Sherlock didn't have a cutting response to anything John said about his girlfriends. Maybe seeing John like this would suddenly be too personal for Sherlock, John thought; maybe Sherlock thought of John in the same way John thought of Sherlock—as some sort of exception, something not precisely adhering to the rules of the rest of humanity. Perhaps Sherlock wouldn't want to have to confront the fact that John could be sexual, right there in the sitting room of 221B, all on his own, out of the context of any of the failed relationships he'd attempted since meeting Sherlock.
God knows John had a difficult time imagining Sherlock in that way—but who could blame him? –And, of course, not that he'd—put in a lot of effort on it, exactly. But occasionally John had a wank in the shower—and how was that for being a sexual being all on his own? (Surely Sherlock knew, didn't he, about John's wanks in the shower? Did Sherlock blush, when he thought about it? Or did he take notes?) And occasionally, over the course of his activity, John wondered whether Sherlock ever did the same, and the image was next to impossible to conjure. Even tougher to shake, John thought, and thankfully Sherlock-over-his-shoulder didn't seem to notice, because he had no idea what he'd do if he did. It wasn't the sort of thing he usually thought about, or anything. Just sort of a—what were they called—thought experiment.
"Experiment," Sherlock chuckled. "I see."
"Oh, shut up." John couldn't have gotten any redder, at least, or he may have. "Everybody thinks about that kind of thing." Sherlock, John's mind filled in, raised an eyebrow. "Well, maybe not you, but almost everybody."
"I will accept your medical expertise on the matter." Sherlock leaned in and spoke near John's ear. The folds and wrinkles in his shirt shifted as he moved, and John tried not to wonder whether what about them was so interesting that he couldn't force his mind not to paint them in. With the haze in his head, thinking wasn't difficult to avoid. "Speaking of which, are you experiencing any additional symptoms? Can you confirm that they match closely to belladonna?"
"Dry mouth," John said, and licked his lips. "I'm also not sweating much."
"Still warm, though? You would expect to be sweating more?"
"Yeah. Pretty common side effect for this drug. Shouldn't be a problem so long as I stay cool." Prompted by the thought, he removed his jacket. He still had several layers underneath—he had left from February, after all, the same month he was in now. He'd just put it back on later, as the drug wore off.
"Well then, doctor, is it safe to say the police have done something correctly for once?"
John chuckled. "Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, it's not the police running the tests."
"True enough. And how long will this take to wear off?"
"Probably four or five hours more, but if I hang about for another half-hour or so that'll be the worst of it over."
"So you're fairly certain you're not going to need to call anyone?"
John considered it. "Assuming it really is belladonna, no, I don't think so."
"We could go sit on a bench."
"I see you're no longer my better judgment."
"I do what I can," John heard Sherlock's lips quirk up. "But in case you're in too muddled a state for this to have occurred to you: if you leave, you're going to have to stop talking to yourself."
John nodded. "Let me sit it out for a few more minutes, and then I think I have to get out of here."
When John left, he was still a bit flushed, and he still squinted against the bright noontime sky, but at least he could begin to think straight. I really do not want to test the apple that was in the laundrette. He groaned as the sun peeked out from behind a cloud. Maybe I'll feed it to a bird or something.
"Doesn't that qualify as 'not good'?"
His voice was still every bit as real as it had been, and so John struggled not to glance to the empty air at his side as it spoke. Honestly couldn't care less right now, Sherlock.
There was, though, something that he very much needed to consider: if the apple was poisonous, but had not been injected with the drug, how had it been doped? He would have guessed an application of whatever it was to the skin of the apple, but he'd licked at the fleshy part, far in from the edge. There aren't any types of apples that are normally poisonous—besides the cyanide in the seeds, he thought. Like Sherlock said, belladonna is related to potatoes and the nightshade plants, not apples, of all things. So if the drug didn't come from the outside, and isn't normally something on the inside, somehow someone made an apple—at least six apples, actually—that just grow with the poison already in them. But how?
It sounded like some sort of experiment gone bad, like the kind of thing Sherlock would dabble in and John would find in the fridge and accidentally eat. No, it was a tad bit too malicious for that. Maybe something to sit on exhibit beside the hallucination-inducing gas and glow-in-the-dark rabbits at Baskerville. Sounds like the kind of awful thing they'd work on. Doctor Stapleton had brought her work home—Bluebell—and if it happened once, could it have happened before? How far back had Baskerville been doing the sort of questionable research they'd been working on? Bluebell, of course, had glowed because he had been genetically manipulated to do so, but—
Oh.
Genetic manipulation.
Now there was a possibility. Apples, somehow modified to be lethally poisonous, rather than to glow. But then… Someone took weaponized apples home with them for a trial run? Why create weaponized apples in the first place? Seemed a bit ridiculous. What're they going to do with them, have a pleasant lunch with the enemy? 'Oh, yes, wouldn't you fellows like to take a break from shooting at us and have a bit of a nibble? Here, take these red apples, we all prefer Granny Smith anyhow. Anybody bring sandwiches? A blanket to sit on?'
"No," Sherlock said. "Think." John tilted his head slightly, waiting for the cryptic clue Sherlock inevitably delivered after such a command. "Nuclear fission." He looked at John expectantly. John tried to shake the image.
What about it? John thought. These aren't nuclear apples, Sherlock. Don't be ridiculous. I think we covered checking for anything glow-in-the-dark earlier today and the apple definitely didn't glow. Wouldn't help the murderer with the whole blending-in thing, in any case. Sherlock continued to stare at him as John took a seat on the park bench and shielded his eyes from the sun. Apparently that was the only clue he was getting—which made even less sense than John would expect from Sherlock, since obviously this had come from somewhere in his own mind. Somehow, whatever Sherlock was trying to hint at him was already there. Nuclear: he thought of glowing, like glowing rabbits, like Baskerville. But that couldn't be all of it, because Sherlock said nuclear fission: not nuclear weapons or nuclear warfare. A hint of a smile played across Sherlock's face. There was also nuclear power, of course.
"You've almost got it," Sherlock muttered.
What, I'm about to do like you and solve the whole case in three seconds?
"Hardly. But a piece. An explanation. Go on: there are nuclear weapons and there is also nuclear power. This has nothing to do with glowing, John, although that's why the idea came to your mind."
Nuclear weapons and nuclear power. They're not really all that distinct—they come from the same general idea—so why would—
"Tie it to Baskerville. You were thinking about that too. It's been creeping around your mind for the past couple of hours. Connections, John. Your brain has already made them. You need only bring them to the fore. It's the difference between seeing and observing, John, and you, unfortunately, are still an amateur."
John rolled his eyes. Thanks for the confidence boost, Sherlock. All right: Baskerville. Baskerville does weapons, mostly. I don't know about nuclear weapons. Stapleton said the rabbit glowed because of jellyfish genes, not something silly like uranium. Nothing like that. But it's not as if they only do weapons…glowing rabbits aren't weapons. And they said something about curing the common cold, didn't they?
"They did." Sherlock sat down beside him. "John, stop dancing around it." He tapped his head. "The water's not cold; jump in. Use your brain. I can't do it for you. I'm doing everything I can, here. Try again: nuclear fission."
Nuclear fission: you can use it to make weapons, or generate power.
"Baskerville."
Baskerville would probably do weapons, but they don't only do weapons, so maybe some of each.
"You thought that if they had genetically engineered poisonous apples, someone had brought them home to use them. Connect it, John."
Poisonous apples would be a weapon. But that's ridiculous, so: maybe there was something else—something not intended to be used that way. Like nuclear fission, meant to be used for power, or maybe just the result of scientific curiosity, before someone realized they could kill people with it.
"So it would be fruitless," Sherlock started, and John snickered to himself, earning a confused look from a woman walking past his bench, "to try to find specifically someone who made lethal apples. Start general. Start benign."
General—general like what? What's the general form of lethal apples? Benign—non-lethal apples? He crossed his arms. What would you do instead of somehow changing an apple to make it poisonous?
General.
Just changing an apple. Like changing a rabbit. Maybe they'd intended something else—maybe they were studying whether they could make them more nutritious, or something, or, better, more resistant to poor conditions, and some person or lab—maybe even the same one—had used the same sort of procedure to make the apple poisonous instead. But—this was the it would've been a plausible theory back in 2012, but here? Now? There weren't glowing rabbits in the eighties. Nobody did anything like that, Baskerville or elsewhere.
"Nothing like that? Are you quite sure? Were you keeping up on your biology journals in the eighties, John, in between your football games and primary school maths homework?"
You're talking about genetically modified plants, Sherlock. I don't think that was a big deal until the nineties.
"You're just guessing. Don't argue, John, I am you. I know you are. If you're so sure, prove me wrong."
John considered that it would probably be about a thousand times easier to travel back to the fantastic days of the internet to do a quick search—but that would mean more taxi rides to and fro across London, and his money was running low enough as it was; not to mention, he didn't need to try to tempt Mycroft into hijacking his—well—Andrew's, John supposed, but he was using it right now—machine. On top of all that, and most importantly, he was already not running at a hundred percent, and wouldn't be for hours more—tempting fate by adding time travel and all its effects into the mix sounded risky, distinctly unappealing, and possibly—especially for a trip over twenty years—deadly. He'd try a library first. Get that smug look off your face, Sherlock.
"You're the one smirking, John."
And he was.
Several hours and two very red, tired eyes later, John had accumulated a list of sorts. There were a number of published papers that actually mentioned genetically altering plants—or at least, the theoretical possibility of it—that had been published just in the past few years. Maybe it wasn't such a stretch—after all, belladonna was a plant, too. John had heard of a few cases of people being poisoned because they'd grafted one plant onto a related poisonous plant. Apples could be grafted, too, so maybe that was what the murderer had done, if there was something similar to apples that had a poison like belladonna. But nightshade plants were potatoes and the like—not exactly closely related to apples by a long shot—so maybe not.
All the while John's searching had been interrupted by voices. He was sure it was just somebody asking the librarian where she could find a particular publication—but that was only after he'd looked, after he'd heard something else in Sherlock's voice, some sarcastic comment about any idiot being able to find the nonfiction. Or, he'd glance up and swear he saw Sherlock's coat swishing around a corner—once he had gotten up to look—but no, no, no, it was still the belladonna playing tricks with his mind. "Look five lines up," Sherlock would sometimes say, and John would swear he was leaning over his shoulder. Sometimes Sherlock would read passages from the papers for him. John quite nearly fell asleep to the sound of his voice, once, before realizing that Sherlock was reading off very relevant information explaining how changing plants' genes in some specific way could, in fact, be done.
What now? he thought. Plant genetics was definitely not his area. Then again, neither was crap telly Sherlock's, but he still figured out that Raoul de Santos had killed Connie Prince. Yeah, yeah, connections, I get it, John thought. Sometimes even the consulting detective consulted others.
John copied down the names of the papers' authors. With any luck, some of them lived in the country; with even more, one could tell him whether it was even possible to genetically imbue apples with the chemicals that made belladonna poisonous. He'd look them up in the library's phone books and see just how much luck he had.
The first one, thankfully, lived in Nottingham. John continued down the list. Not here, not here, she would likely still be in the United States, these authors are all in Belgium, I already looked up that Montagu fellow from the other paper, she published in America—there, Glasgow, and another author who was now in Oxford.
Great, thought, John, another trip to a phone. At least he'd spent long enough poring through scientific journals and card catalogues that the majority of the effects from the drug had worn off. It was mostly mindless work—he hadn't actually read more than the abstract of any of the articles; he just needed a good place to start, and looked for promising titles and keywords. He didn't have days or weeks to square away this was even a possibility.
Paper in hand, John left the library for the nearest phone. He had precious little change to work with—though he could always exchange one of his notes for coins, he supposed, but that would take yet more time—so if he was going to get this done in a timely fashion, one of these numbers would have to do the trick.
"Hello?" came the voice through the other end.
"Hello. Um, I hope I didn't call at a bad time, Dr. Cocking?" Some people were probably having dinner, John thought, and felt a pang in his empty stomach.
"Not at all, not at all."
"Um…I'm an…author." It was sort of true; and anyway, it seemed like a reasonable way to make sure Cocking didn't try to throw some overly complicated explanation at him, or become immediately suspicious."Working on a novel. I had a question about a paper you published a few years ago. Well, maybe. I'm not sure. I can't say I exactly understand. Er, which is why I'm doing research about it, of course."
"I can't answer it if you don't ask it…" he answered genially, and paused at the end as if waiting for something—oh, John thought, my name.
"John."
"All right, John, ask away."
"Right—uh—I was wondering about—I mean, you talked about the possibility of giving plants particular characteristics in your paper, yeah? By genetically manipulating them? My story's plot involves something like that, but I need more, er, background about how it would work to see if my idea's plausible at all. Do you know if anybody has actually done it successfully?"
"That's an awfully broad question, m'boy. 'Genetic manipulation' can mean a lot of things, and there are just as many ways of going about it. You know what, though, not too long ago there was a group that published about an actual procedure for infecting the plants and replacing genes that way. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for?"
"Yeah, actually." It sounded promising enough. "Do you know if any of its authors are in the country right now?" He couldn't afford any long-distance calls just now—it wasn't that promising.
"Yes—let me get you the information," he said, and seemed to be thumbing through something. As he read it off and John copied it down, he realized it matched to one of the other authors he'd written down.
"Ta," John said.
"Good luck with your book," answered Cocking. John smiled to himself. This would be one case that he couldn't put on his blog later.
At least his next call was already decided for him. He hung up and dialed the next number.
"Hello, is this Dr. Leemans?"
"Yeah," he answered. "Who's this?"
"Uh…name's John. I had a question relating to a paper you had published last year. You had a procedure for changing the genes in plants?"
"Sure did. This for a research project or something? I'll warn you, I can't tell you anything about what we're working on right now. Or are you trying to request a copy of the paper?"
He'd use the same cover as before. Should've just led off with it, he thought. "I'm…an author, I'm writing a book, and I was wondering if you could use the procedure in your paper on something like apple trees instead."
"Well, congrats to you for actually doing your research for your book. Terribly uncommon for fiction writers these days, if you ask me."
"Er, thanks."
"I can't give you a very detailed answer to your question, myself—I don't see why it couldn't be done, but I don't know that it's been tested—but I feel like Dr. Nolan Bachmeier could help you out better than I can. He was on the project with us and knows a hell of a lot more about apples than I do. Guy even owns an orchard on the side and all that. Your story have a lot to do with apples?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Well then, be sure to bring that up and he'll tell you everything you need to know, and then some."
"Great. Um—"
"Let me get you his address. Think his orchard's something like near Oxford." John copied it down as Leemans read it. "Want his phone as well?"
"Yes," said John, although he had no intent to use it—not before he did a little more investigating, at the very least. He copied that down along with the address. "Thank you."
"No problem at all."
John set the phone back into his cradle and grinned. It was time to get something in his stomach, and then use the rest of his taxi money on a hunch.
... ... ...
MORE NOTES:
If you are interested in any of the papers referred to here, or any other aspect of the research required for this chapter, let me know and I will hook you up with the sources. I honestly looked up so much stuff that you do not want me cluttering the chapter notes with all the links.
Scientists mentioned are not meant to reflect the personalities or lives of the actual persons with those names. If you are the Dr. Leemans who contributed to the paper referred to here and are actually a woman, I am very sorry, and I actually spent about half an hour trying to find out more about you, but you are elusive.