"He just got in a cab," John reported from the window as Lestrade's team began filing down the stairs. "I'm calling the phone and it's ringing out."
"If it's ringing, it's not here," Greg responded unnecessarily. "Why did he do that? Leave?"
"You know him better than I do."
"I've known him for five years and no, I don't." The DI turned back from the doorway, curiosity in his eyes. "You two have only just met. Why do you put up with him?"
John felt the weight of his gun in his waistband. He remembered a morning just eight days previous when he had felt its weight in his palm, sitting alone at dawn in his sparse single room flat. He swallowed hard and shrugged, then returned his gaze to the street below, watching as the police inspector climbed into an unmarked car and drove off.
He had not given voice to the answer that came unbidden: Because I'm desperate, that's why.
The laptop broke through his reverie with a shrill beep. Quickly scanning the GPS tracker, a fire lighting in his brain, John Watson collected the device and ran full tilt out into the night.
The cabbie had been rambling on about being a 'proper genius.' For a genius, he certainly was dull. Get to the point, Sherlock urged silently. The image of John's fathomless eyes, black and indigo, shining in the dimly lit entry hall at Baker Street, flashed through the detective's mind and was gone as quickly as it came. That was interesting, more interesting than this is turning out to – Not now, I'm on a case!
"Ok, two bottles. Explain." Sherlock prompted, needing to move toward a conclusion and away from whatever was happening in his own oddly disobedient mind.
As the cabbie spoke, something about the scenario prickled at the edge of Sherlock's memory. A movie? A book? He had encountered this good bottle/bad bottle game before. Oh well, if it was important, I wouldn't have forgotten. That would be… inconceivable.
"It's not a game, it's chance."
"I've played four times. I'm alive. It's not chance. It's chess." His adversary spit the last word onto the table, challenging the detective to prove him wrong.
John shouted clipped directions through the partition of the taxi, dialing his mobile as they barreled through the ink-black London streets.
"Detective Inspector Lestrade – I need to speak to him. It's important. It's an emergency."
He understood. He'd understood the moment the laptop returned a new location for the Pink Lady's phone. The murderer was a taxi driver. The taxi driver had come to 221B to collect Sherlock. Sherlock was an addict. The addiction would get him killed.
John again became aware of the metal pressed against his spine. He had contemplated death often enough. Perhaps he had become an addict in his own right. Sherlock was a junkie, for adrenaline and cocaine and being the most brilliant person in the room. Yet John saw in his eyes, in the lines of his smile, in his nicotine patches, what he saw in himself on all those cold nights and grey mornings: a man who was not ready to let go.
As the taxi screeched to a halt, John jumped out, throwing cash through the open window and searching the nearly empty building with the deliberate speed of a man whose own life was hanging in the balance. Maybe it is.