If Sally Donovan had ever been more tempted to break out the police brutality, she couldn't remember the occasion. She'd always expected that it would be Sherlock that would make her snap, had already compiled a document on her PC about what legal measures she would have to take if she got reprimanded for hitting him, but no.
As annoying as he was, he had nothing on Louis Kirkwood. This one was the scum of the fucking earth.
Four days ago, a group of men attempted to rob a branch of Lloyds TSB in central London. The robbery had been a botch from the start, but they'd got away after they grabbed a fifteen year old girl, Saskia Olsen, to use as a hostage and human shield. Out of the four criminals involved, only one had been stupid enough to take his gloves off at any point in the proceedings, and the resulting fingerprints had led to Kirkwood, who had been arrested and brought in. Kirkwood's usual partner, Sam Griffith, had been searched for, but he wasn't at his house (which had been abandoned for some days) and hadn't shown up to his job in over a week.
Griffith wasn't usually interested in kidnapping, but after the Olsen family, against the advice of the police, had given a press conference offering their meagre life savings as a ransom, the kidnappers managed to send a message demanding more money while giving no evidence that Saskia was still alive.
They couldn't find the criminals. They couldn't find the girl. Even the Freak had failed them.
And Kirkwood sat in Interview Room Six, handcuffed to the table, laughing at them.
She had been in here with him for five hours just this morning, watching Lestrade interrogate him and Sherlock struggle to glean anything from his clothes and fingernails and odds and ends of things that he said, and she was so damned sick of the stuffy room and the miserable excuse for humanity stuck in that chair that she was about ready to scream. Sherlock was in a rare mood; a few hours before, he'd finally realised that Watson had been without sleep for about 42 hours and had told him to go home for some rest, but as always, he was on edge without his friend to stabilise him, and Kirkwood had been on the recieving end of some truly epic bitch-fits.
Kirkwood had laughed hysterically all through it.
"Are you goons going to process me for the bank job or not?" Kirkwood asked, around two in the afternoon. "Because, you know, that's all you've got me on, and if you hold me here much longer there's going to be questions about why you waited so long to get things moving after arresting me. You know, all those Guantanamo Bay type questions? Because, you know, you fuckers are getting nothing more out of me." He smiled serenely and kicked his feet up to rest them on the table.
One more 'you know' and Donovan was going to snap.
Sherlock paced the tiny room, his face tense and pale. Lestrade was putting on a tough face, but Donovan knew that this was tearing him up, that he was thinking of his own daughter, only a year or two younger than the kidnapped girl. And as for Donovan herself, she was fairly sure she'd cut her nails into her palms, she was clenching her fists so hard.
She opened her mouth to speak, unsure of what would come out of it but aware that it'd probably incur a lot of bother, when raised voices in the corridor outside the interrogation room drew the attention of all its inhabitants.
"Hey, you can't go- oh, it's you, doctor."
A moment later the door was opened by the uniform officer standing guard outside and John Watson stepped into the room.
He looked completely different to the shabby and worn state he'd been in when she'd last seen him. The shadows under his eyes were still deep, but his face had somehow brightened, as if he'd managed to squeeze a full night's sleep into three and a quarter hours. His step was brisk, his posture straight and his expression pleasantly bland, all trace of his earlier anger and distress gone. He had a large case in his hand, the sort with sections that folded out, like a make-up artist's case or a craft kit, but there were red crosses on the ends of the case and the lid. He placed it on the table and gave Lestrade a polite nod.
"John, what-"
"I had a little idea," Watson said pleasantly, addressing the room at large. "I thought it may make us all get along better."
Kirkwood frowned at John's face. "'Ere, weren't you around, you know, before?"
Watson gave him a vague smile in answer, and opened his case. From what Donovan could see, it was a very well stocked first aid kit, probably the same sort of stuff he would have used in the field. Kirkwood's chair was pushed back from the table, his right hand cuffed to the thin steel rail that ran along the side of the table top for that very purpose, arm stretched out. Watson carefully grasped his bare forearm, squeezing lightly, and Donovan wondered if he was feeling for the pulse or something.
Sherlock stared silently at John's face from the corner of the room. Lestrade frowned but didn't intervene. Donovan took her boss' example.
"Make a fist please," Watson told Kirkwood. The other man stared at him, baffled.
"Don't worry, I'm a doctor," Watson added, and turned to take something out of the case. To Donovan's surprise, Kirkwood, possibly rendered obedient by confusion, made a fist with his right hand, and Watson grasped his arm again, higher up this time.
She didn't see what he held in his other hand until he put it to use; an old fashioned syringe, glass and stainless steel, containing a small volume of clear liquid. He injected the lot into the vein in Kirkwood's inner elbow, then took a sturdy paper bag out of the case and dropped the used syringe into it.
"Wha- what the hell was that!?" Kirkwood cried. Watson gave him another tight smile.
"Just something to keep you alert." Watson replied. His voice and his face were calm and reassuring, with a faint touch of cheeriness. Donovan felt herself tense; somehow it was sinister as hell.
"I'll be back in just a moment," Watson announced to the room at large, and he gave Sherlock a nod as he left. Sherlock stared as the door closed behind his friend, his face rigid to prevent his emotions showing. Lestrade looked...spooked.
"Who the fuck is he?" Kirkwood asked querulously, scratching at his inner elbow.
"He's a doctor," Lestrade replied. He too was staring at the door. Donovan was sure that he knew both the freak and his friend far better than she did, but all the same he seemed completely thrown by Watson's actions.
For the first time in the long hours they'd been here, Kirkwood pulled against the handcuffs on his wrist, testing them. They chimed dully at the bar, the chain jumping. They held solid.
"This...you know, this is police brutality," Kirkwood said, trying to keep his voice calm.
Lestrade shook his head. "He's a civilian. Not police."
Kirkwood clenched his jaw and gave the chain another violent yank.
All heads turned to the door as the doctor's brisk footsteps sounded in the corridor, and a moment later the door was thrown open with a great crash against the inner wall. All of them jumped and Donovan's heart thudded in her chest...but Watson stepped through, perfectly calm, nodding at the guard as he passed him.
"Sorry about that," he said lightly, and pushed the door shut with a gentle sweep of one hand. He wore latex gloves now, and his rolled up sleeves revealed a slight sheen of moisture on his forearms. He'd washed his hands as if for surgery, she realised.
Kirkwood seemed to have noticed this as well, and he reared back as much as he could in his seat, as Watson approached him.
"Oh, don't worry about a thing," Watson told the prisoner as he pulled out the upper compartments of the case, which folded out on little brackets. "That stuff'll start work any moment now, and then you'll feel quite well with the world. And if you don't, well..." He took a scalpel from the case, a new looking one wrapped in some sort of sealed plastic packet and set it on the table.
"I'm sure we can make you quite comfortable while we wait."
Kirkwood yelped and began pulling at the cuffs, to no avail.
Apart from Kirkwood's struggles with the cuff, the room was deathly quiet. Sherlock was staring raptly at Watson's hands as he rummaged in the case. Lestrade seemed frozen to the spot, staring at Kirkwood. And Donovan herself, she couldn't have moved if the room had caught fire.
Watson just kept taking things out of the box. Some sort of metal spatula.
"I've dealt with cases like this before, you know."
Something that looked like the blade of a hacksaw.
"The military gives you a very broad experience, not like hospital work."
A thing like a tiny pizza cutter, which looked like it had a sharp edge.
"Of course, so many of these techniques, you don't get to use often."
He took out a little roll of leather and unfolded it, and Donovan gasped. Dental tools.
A chill went through her.
Suddenly, she became aware of a faint hissing sound and an acrid scent, and craned her head to see a little yellow pool gathering underneath Kirkwood's chair.
"Fuck! Fuck!" Kirkwood yelled.
Watson shook his head at him. "No need for that, now," he said, and adjusted one of his gloves with a snap.
"I'll tell you! I'll tell you!" Kirkwood yelped, his wide eyes fixed on the implements on the table. Watson raised his eyebrows and looked to Lestrade.
"Go on then," he replied, and picked up the scalpel, opening the sterile packaging with a little pop.
Donovan reached over to the recorder to make sure it had plenty of memory left, then moved the microphone just a bit closer to Kirkwood.
He talked. God did he talk, it was almost a challenge to shut him up.
Griffith and the two other conspirators were holed up in the cellar of an abandoned house only two streets away from Griffith's own residence. A couple of officers were guarding Griffith's place and so were radioed and sent over to find this cellar. After half an hour or more of tense waiting, Lestrade left the room and came back with news that the three fugitives had been rounded up succesfully, and that Saskia Olsen was safe and well.
On hearing this news, Watson sagged where he stood and peeled off his gloves, wearily tidying them and the rest of his tools back into the case. The tiredness was back in his face, but the worry was gone. Lestrade called a couple of officers in and had them see Kirkwood back to his cell, and Donovan saw them look askance at the spreading wet stain on the man's trousers. He was still shaking and gave Watson a wide berth as he left the room.
Watson unrolled his sleeves and picked up his case, then turned to make for the door, when Sherlock stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
"It was water. In the syringe. Water or saline." His voice was tense.
Watson frowned slightly at him. "Saline. Of course it was. Did you really think it could be anything else?"
He didn't appear to take Sherlock's look of relief as a compliment, and marched past him out of the room.
It was, possibly, the first and only time that Donovan and the Freak had had the same reaction to something.
::
Bit of a scary Watson here, but he got the job done. Hope it didn't upset anyone.