Greg walked over to the table that John had appropriated in the corner of the snug and sat down, placing his pint carefully on the beer mat in front of hm.
'So what's this all about? It sounded urgent. Sherlock's okay isn't he?'
'He's getting there. He's still a bit dopey, but he's off the naloxone infusion. They're hoping to release him tomorrow, but he has to be seen by the mental health team first. Hospital policy, even though he swears blind that it was an accidental overdose.'
'Christ, that's going to go well. He'll eat them for breakfast.'
'I've told him to behave himself. The last thing he needs is to end up being sectioned because he's being a difficult arse.'
'What about the Drug and Alcohol Team - isn't he seeing somebody about the fact that he's shooting up again?'
John pulled a face. 'They tried. He refused. You know what he's like, Greg.'
'Still won't admit that he's got a problem?'
'Of course not. He's a "user", not an addict. It's all completely within his control. He doesn't need help, and more to the point, he appears to have absolutely no intention of stopping using.'
Greg shook his head. 'Stupid fucker. Would it help if I talked to him?'
'Maybe. It's worth a try. I'd wait until he got home though. I thought I might see what Molly could do too.'
'Molly? You think that he'll listen to her? I'm fond of Molly, don't get me wrong, but why her?'
'He trusted her with his life during that whole Moriarty thing, don't forget. Trusted her more, as it turns out than he trusted me.'
'That's not the point, John and you know it.'
'Yeah, yeah, but either way, she's good at getting through to people. Even Sherlock. For whatever reason, he does seem to listen to her. And she's furious with him for starting using again. So maybe, just maybe, she'll be able to get through to him. He's certainly not listening to me.'
'Anything is worth a shot I suppose. Although from past experience, he won't stop until he's forced into a corner. He never has before.'
'And that brings me onto what I wanted to talk to you about. You've known Sherlock for a long time haven't you?'
'Since he was a guttersnipe of a sixteen-year-old runaway, yeah. Off his head on heroin or whatever drugs he could get his hands on most of the time, but when he wasn't high, he could still out-deduce the best of us, even back then.'
John looked confused. 'Hang on, when I first met you, you told me you'd only known him for five years.'
'Oh, that. Yes, I did, didn't I?' Greg said. 'That's what I always say. If somebody asked me tomorrow how long I'd known him for, I'd say, 'Five years.' That's what we agreed. Although I should probably up it to ten now to make it more believable. He doesn't like people knowing about his past. Keeps it simple this way.'
'Until now,' John said, frowning. 'He wants me to know about his past. He told me to ask you to tell me about the first case that you worked with him.'
'The first case? Blimey John, that was over twenty years ago. Why do you want to know about that?'
'He told me to ask you. He was shouting in his sleep after the overdose. About somebody called Christoph. Said it was the first case that he worked with you. He started to talk to me and then he got distressed. More upset than I've ever seen him. Told me to ask you about it because you'd be able to explain it better than he could. Told me to tell you not to pull any punches.'
Lestrade blew out his cheeks and looked uncomfortable.
'Greg? What is it?'
'It's not a particularly pleasant story, John. Are you sure he said that I should tell you everything?'
'That's what he said, yes. His exact words.'
Lestrade let out his breath in a puff. 'Well if that's what he said, then I suppose I ought to start at the beginning. Christoph Savatier. That was his name. Blonde kid - French. Had sneaked his way over here on the ferry thinking that the streets of London were paved with gold. Instead, he found they were paved with heroin and crack cocaine.'
'He was a junkie?'
'Big time. And he obtained his money for drugs the traditional way - by working on the streets.'
'How did Sherlock know him?'
Lestrade hesitated. 'He didn't tell you this?'
'He told me that he was a friend, that he'd come to see you to report him missing, and ended up helping on the case. He wouldn't say anything more.'
'My guess is that he was more than a friend, John. They shared a room in the squat they were staying in. There was only one mattress in it and two sets of clothes if you get my meaning.'
'Sherlock was in a relationship with him?'
'Of sorts, yes.'
John covered his confusion by taking a long, slow swig of his beer, all kinds of images suddenly swimming into his head, his entire concept of Sherlock's younger life suddenly shifting. Sherlock in a relationship. Sherlock living in a squat with another man. In one bed. He hadn't seen that coming.
They sat in silence for several minutes, John's mind turning the information over and over, trying to work out what it meant. Finally, he realised that the silence was becoming uncomfortable, and Greg being the good policeman that he was, obviously wasn't going to speak again until John had expressed an opinion.
'So what happened?' John asked, side-stepping the issue.
Greg looked oddly relieved at the change in direction and made a substantial dent in his own pint before launching into the story. Emotions weren't really his area. Facts were something that as a policeman he found much easier to deal with.
'First time that I met Sherlock Holmes, I was on a late shift at Paddington nick,' he said. 'Front desk phoned and said there was some street kid asking to speak to the Detective in charge. They said he was refusing to talk to anybody else. So I went down to see what was going on.
'And there was this ridiculously skinny, gangly teenager, arguing holes in the poor PC manning the reception desk. His clothes were hanging off him, he looked as if he hadn't eaten or slept in about a week and his hair obviously hadn't seen a brush for a lot longer than that. I took him into the interview room, and he told me that his friend had been murdered. Just like that. I asked him how he knew and he told me that nobody had seen this friend of his for three days, and he'd found blood stains and signs of somebody being restrained on a chair in an old warehouse in Clapham. But no body and no trace of one. I asked him how he knew that it was his friend's blood and he produced three blonde hairs from a plastic bag in his pocket, apologised that he hadn't had a proper evidence bag, said that he'd found them in the warehouse, and told me that they were Christoph's.
'And were they?'
'Unfortunately, yes. The DNA matched that on his toothbrush that we picked up from the squat. I tried to dismiss what Sherlock was saying at first - told him that there a million and one reasons that the blood stains could be on the floor but that I'd get a patrol to go down there and have a look. He started shouting at me about preserving the scene and contaminating evidence, sounded just like my old DI. Turned out he'd been reading forensics books and police cases - not crime novels, proper cases from the papers and textbooks and even law court libraries since he was nine. His knowledge was pretty impressive, if a little patchy.
'I offered to let him go down there with the patrol, to show them what he'd found. Told him that I'd tell them to be careful, and if there was anything significant, then I'd go down there myself with a forensics team.
'He seemed a bit happier with that plan. Then I asked him when he'd last eaten and he said that he couldn't remember, I got him a sandwich, which he demolished in about five seconds. He was on his third before he started talking again.
'I asked him why he was so sure that his friend had been murdered - people on the streets disappear all the time, and he said that Christoph would never have left him. Not without saying goodbye. I asked him if Christoph was more than a friend and he said that it was complicated, but that they looked out for each other. Turned out Christoph had gone off with a punter the night he disappeared, and had never returned.'
Greg hesitated, flashing a look at John as if unsure whether to continue, 'What is it?' John asked.
'You sure Sherlock said he was happy for you to tell me everything?'
'That's what he said. Why? What don't you want to tell me.'
'John - the punter Christoph went off with. He had originally propositioned Sherlock.'
'And Sherlock had said that he wasn't for sale, presumably. So what? Must happened all the time on the streets.'
'No John, you don't understand. Sherlock was for sale in those days - that is, he wasn't averse to turning tricks for money, although he had his limits. It's just that he didn't trust the punter. Said he got a bad vibe from him. He'd turned to walk away and Christoph had offered to get into the car instead.'
'So -'
'So he felt responsible for Christoph's death,' Lestrade said seriously. 'Probably still does. He thought it should have been him.'
'Fuck. Poor Sherlock. No wonder he still has nightmares about him.'
'You don't seem particularly shocked, John.'
'What? That Sherlock turned tricks to buy drugs, or that he had a boyfriend?'
'Both.'
'Well, to be honest, I always assumed that his tastes ran more to men than to women, when he allowed them to run to anything. He was always so adamant that it wasn't his area, though. He just wouldn't discuss it, and believe me I've tried to get him to tell me about his past. I assumed that he was – I don't know, asexual, I suppose. Some people are. But I always wondered if something hadn't happened to make him shut himself off like he did. Was that it do you think?'
'I never knew him before, but it would make sense. They argued about Christoph getting in the car apparently. Sherlock didn't want him to go, but Christoph had said that they needed the money. That was the last time Sherlock ever saw him alive.'
'Did you ever find him?'
'Three days later, wrapped in plastic and weighted down in the bottom of a canal. He was almost unrecognisable. Sherlock insisted on identifying him. I wasn't keen - he was too young, I was sure of it. Although he swore blind that he was eighteen, he didn't look more than fifteen. I wanted to wait until Christoph's parents came over from France, but Sherlock was adamant, and we needed an ID quickly. It was a nasty business.'
'How did he react?'
'He managed to identify him. Then he vomited into the fire bucket in the corner, came back to the body, inspected it from head to foot with some ridiculous plastic key-ring magnifying glass that looked as if he had got it out of a Christmas cracker, and insisted on being shown a copy of the post-mortem report so that he could work out the cause of death and the likely perpetrators.'
'Did you show it to him?'
'Of course not. But I was intrigued by what he'd said. He'd implied that there was more than one person responsible.'
'And was there?'
Greg grimaced. 'Nasty business. We found evidence of rape and DNA from three different men on the rectal swabs. None of it was Sherlock's. Of course, he didn't know about the forensic information at the time.'
'Christ,' John muttered. The pub suddenly felt very hot. 'I need a slash - I'll go via the bar on the way back and get us refills.'
There was a fire door open as he walked out through the snug behind the main bar towards the Gents. It opened onto a small courtyard, used as a beer garden in summer, populated only by the most hardy of smokers in the winter. John let himself out of the door and sat on one of the benches, grateful that he had the area to himself, letting the cool evening air take the heat out of the conversation that he'd just had.
So Sherlock had been - what. A prostitute? A rent boy? He really didn't want to consider the implications of that. Why did it even matter? It had been years ago, so why was he bothered by it? Addicts did whatever they needed to in order to get enough money for a fix. He knew that. And Sherlock had been - what, fifteen? Sixteen? On the streets, under the radar, not even able to claim the homeless allowance for fear of being found and returned home. Christ, how desperate must he have been to go down that route? He presumed that was when Sherlock had learnt his pickpocketing skills too.
He stood up reluctantly; Greg would be wondering where he had got to. A quick trip to the Gents and he had got back to the table, sitting down before he realised that he'd forgotten the beer.
'You okay?' Greg asked as John apologised and got up again. 'It's a bit of a shock if you didn't know, isn't it? I mean looking at him now you'd never know.'
'It's fine,' John said, knowing even as he said it that it wasn't. That he was more bothered by this than he cared to admit. 'I'll go and get those beers.'
His phone pinged with a text as he was waiting at the bar.
Sorry if I shocked you John - SH
John groaned.
Why didn't you tell me? - JW
You never asked - SH
What was that meant to mean? He hesitated before texting back.
Was Christoph your boyfriend? – JW
It depends on your definition of the term - SH
Followed almost immediately by:
We shared a bed. We had a low-level of physical relationship. - SH
'Low-level of physical relationship,' what the hell was that meant to mean? John wondered, finger hovering over his phone keyboard, trying to work out how to phrase his question as his phone pinged again, making him jump
To be specific, we never slept together – SH
Followed a few seconds later by:
At least not in the biological sense of the term - SH
How did he do that? It was as if he could read John's mind. Still – kind of him to clarify.
You're welcome – SH
The sarcastic reply pre-empted John's reaction yet again.
Why didn't you tell me yourself? - JW
I thought you'd find it easier this way - SH
John hesitated, wanting to send a flippant message back telling Sherlock that he didn't think that it was John he'd been thinking about. But then he remembered the night at Leinster Gardens. Everything that Sherlock had done to ensure that he'd heard the information from the right person at the right time. Christ, was he doing the same thing again - filling John in on his own past and not Mary's? His heart thumped and he had an odd sense of elation. Why was Sherlock doing this?
Why now? - JW
Because it was the right time - SH
Right time for what? John wondered. Why was Sherlock telling him all of this now? Because of the drugs, or for other reasons that John didn't even want to contemplate at the moment?
'This is ridiculous,' he muttered to himself, then stepping outside the door of the pub, he pressed the call button. Sherlock might hate speaking on the phone, but John was damned if he was having this conversation by text.
Predictably, it clicked to answer phone immediately. Sherlock had rejected his call.
Pick up, damn you – JH, he texted.
And almost immediately the phone in his hand rang.
'I was very young, John. And very desperate. Please try to remember that,' Sherlock said, without any pre-amble.
'I'm not judging you, Sherlock.'
'Aren't you? Perhaps you should.'
'You're not the same person, and besides from what I've heard, you have nothing to reproach yourself for. You were a child. It wasn't your fault. Now tell me what happened.'
'I can't, John. Ask Lestrade,' Sherlock said, his voice heavy with emotion.
'Why now, Sherlock? Why tell me now?'
'Because I am informed by numerous sources that you need to know,' Sherlock said, an edge of bitterness to his voice. 'Talk to Lestrade, John. Then you'll understand.'
And with a click, he was gone.
