AN: Chapter 9, in which Sherlock is a child and finally, Lestrade redeems himself.
Let me take a moment to thank all of you who have been so avidly reading, your enthusiasm is very encouraging indeed!
Sherlock's heart-wrenchingly pitiful state had a profound effect on his appearance, but not in the way you might expect. Where a near-death experience with narcotics and a sleepless night of repressed trauma would tack a few years onto most people, it had the queer consequence of making him look more than a decade younger. Even as familiar as he was with having Sherlock next to him in a taxi, John couldn't shake the feeling that he had spent all morning babysitting an exceptionally tall and snarky twelve-year-old rather than assisting a consulting detective. Sherlock caught him staring.
"Stop that."
"What?"
Sherlock glared.
He licked his lips. "Sorry, you just look so…you look like a little kid."
He scoffed. "Hardly analogous to the actuality of my condition, but Mycroft says the same thing when I'm ill. Irony is, this particular incident has probably taken a few years off my life."
"Don't talk like that." John knew it was true, but he would rather not have acknowledged it.
"Just being realistic," he droned. "Ah, we've arrived." John turned away, bobbing his head to look out the window. The area was nice, looked like a wealthy neighbourhood, if by no other indication than the primness of the topiaries and the freshness and variety of the paint on the doors. He spotted Lestrade's car, sticking with the cruiser this time, a few houses up.
Sherlock nearly lost his footing when he ducked out of the taxi, but a nonchalantly braced hand on the doorframe and he recovered. John paid the cabbie blindly, not daring to take his eyes off his flatmate for fear of him collapsing. He seemed steady, steady enough, but John was wondering for the thousandth time if this was a good idea, if he was truly an awful doctor for agreeing to this. He trailed slightly behind, as usual, but this time he was watching carefully, making sure that the slight slant to the right didn't become a stumble.
Lestrade fell into step smoothly beside Sherlock, but John noticed the sidelong looks at his pallid skin, his bruised and bloodshot eyes, and the now-marked uncertainty of his gait. The frightening thing was that he had actually improved since this morning. "What've you come down with again?" He wondered aloud, and John stiffened slightly, distrustful.
"Strain of the flu," Sherlock hesitated, decided on an amendment, "and an inner ear problem. Doesn't matter."
Lestrade didn't buy it. He had been too distracted by the fresh leads earlier, but now that he saw Sherlock in action, saw his dizziness and his weakness, he knew. John could see the realisation growing firmer behind his eyes and found himself bracing for a confrontation, praying that it would only mean a dismissal and not another drugs bust. A real one this time.
"Yeah, well, don't breathe on me;" the DI growled finally, "I don't want to catch it." The warning was sharp in his tone. John sighed quietly in relief.
"No risk of that, I assure you," Sherlock muttered, and turned to knock on the door. Lestrade stepped in front of him and tapped briskly, apparently deciding that Sherlock wasn't decent enough to make the first impression. They waited in uncomfortable silence.
The door creaked open and in the crack beneath the chain lock peered a pair of large, trembling eyes.
"Erm, Mrs. Franklin?" He flashed his badge, "Detective Inspector Lestrade, New Scotland Yard. I phoned you earlier. This is our, ah, consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, and this is Dr. John Watson, may we have a word please?"
It seemed that the tiny woman's whole body was quivering, like a Chihuahua. John wondered if this level of anxiety was brought on by the death of her daughter a few weeks ago or if it was her normal state of being. "Are they police officers?" She wondered, regarding John's slightly pilled jumper and Sherlock's gaunt and younger-than-life features.
"Ah, not…not exactly," Lestrade began.
"Ma'am, we're professionals," Sherlock reassured her, with an air of smooth confidence that left no doubt of the fact.
The door clicked shut and Lestrade was about to give the "professional" a stern talking-to before he realised that she was just releasing the chain lock. Sherlock smirked, pleased with his own charm.
"Tea?" she mumbled as the three men shuffled past her into the house.
Sherlock, reflexively, said "please," but was trod on solidly by Lestrade's "no, thank you." John Just cleared his throat nervously. The convergence of opinions seemed to overwhelm the nervous woman, because she stopped dead and her eyes darted between them in apparent panic.
John had to come to the rescue. "No tea for now, thanks, Mrs. Franklin, let's just talk, shall we?"
"Oh, yes, certainly," her lips stretched spasmodically, but it was more of a tic than a smile. She led them into the sitting room, looking constantly as though the three men were all braced to pounce upon and devour her like a wounded gazelle. Poor woman really should get some therapy or something.
Sherlock threw himself into the nearest armchair with a bit too much eagerness. Lestrade winced. They couldn't have her thinking they were rude, or more critically, unprofessional, but he was beginning to understand what John had been concerned about for hours. Sherlock was dead on his feet, and barely on them, in a realistic sense. He was taking this case at the expense of his own well-being and Lestrade couldn't bring himself to be angry at him for that. He decided to remain standing to compensate, and John perched hesitantly on the edge of the sofa, only to have Mrs. Franklin sidle up primly beside him.
"I know you've been through a lot of questioning already, Mrs. Franklin, but bear with us if you will," Lestrade offered, by way of an apology. "We really need only one piece of information to move forward."
"What Instrument did your daughter play?" Sherlock interjected impatiently.
"Chloe?" The woman whispered, lips trembling.
"Yes, the de –" John flinched, but mercifully, Sherlock caught himself. "Yes, Chloe Franklin. What instrument did she play?"
"She didn't play an instrument."
Dead. Silence.
Sherlock's face jumped instantaneously from age twelve to age eight, his strained and bloodshot eyes darting anxiously, all his notions suddenly shattered. Lestrade looked over at him desperately, hoping for a redirect, getting nothing. He hadn't even bothered to prepare any questions to fall back on in the event of a negative response; they had all been so fixated on this musical element.
Mrs. Franklin's already-frail constitution seemed scarcely able to handle the sudden tension in the room. She looked first at Sherlock, whose gaze was miles away as he sifted through the masses of information that he had already analyzed and eliminated multiple times. Lestrade was fumbling mentally as well, but concerned though he was about the case, he was more focused at the moment on salvaging the situation and saving face.
Luckily for both of them, John had a contingency plan. "Erm, Mrs. Franklin? I think my colleagues and I will take that tea, if you don't mind." She looked confused, but then realized that he was giving her an out. Thrilled to escape the situation, she gave him another fluttery smile, nodded ardently and fled.
Sherlock's pale hand was clamped tightly to the arm of the sofa. "There has to be something else," he insisted, his voice as flat as his stare.
"Yeah, well, come up with it quick, because I think this woman's head may explode if we don't lay off her." Lestrade grumbled, pen tapping anxiously against the pad on his thigh. "I thought you were sure."
"I am sure," Sherlock hissed. "There's nothing else it could be, not based solely on the bodies and the files, at least. There's no commonality between them except approximate age, location, and string instruments. I swear, Lestrade, if you're keeping something from me…"
"Why would I? I want to solve this as badly as you do!"
"I strongly doubt that."
"Shh!" John tilted his head toward the kitchen to remind them that there was no more than a door and a hallway between the feuding detectives and the woman that they were pronouncedly trying not to alarm. "What if…" John added, "what if the killer made a mistake? What if they were after another girl? One with the same name, or one who looked like Chloe, and they got her by mistake?"
"No," Sherlock growled, "the killer knew these girls somehow, had some obvious connection to the three of them, otherwise there would be no need for such an elaborate blind. No, it's something else, but we're close, we're so close…" he looked around the room in frustration, grasping at straws, clearing his head, starting over, when suddenly his eyes glinted with recognition. "John!" he all but gasped, nodding at something to the doctor's right, immediately within Sherlock's line of vision.
John turned to follow his intent stare. It was just a bookshelf. "What, Sherlock?" He demanded urgently, knowing that their host could return at any moment.
"Sheet music," Lestrade chimed in, pointing to the bottom right corner where a number of thin, flat packets protruded slightly from the rest of the volumes. He tensed, but hesitated. He was unused to moving faster than Sherlock, but the consulting detective made no indication that he was planning on investigating the books himself. John swallowed a pang of anxiety as he remembered the crippling headache that Sherlock was undoubtedly still suffering. He should have brought something, even an over-the-counter painkiller would have helped.
Lestrade had taken the matter into his own hands. He crossed the room and removed a few of the pamphlets. "They're vocal parts, not instrumentals" he announced, his voice tinged with a combination of surprise and relief.
He looked up suddenly to see Mrs. Franklin re-entering the room, only to stop in stunned silence when she saw what he was doing.
"I…I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Franklin, I didn't mean to disturb –"
"You only asked me if she played instruments," she gasped, all but wheezing with anxiety, "I didn't know it was important, she was only in the choir at church, I – "
"No, no, Mrs. Franklin, it's really quite alright," Lestrade fumbled nervously to soothe her, praying that she was not about to drop the tray of teacups she was carrying. "Please, sit down; we just need to determine if this is in any way significant to the case."
Sherlock pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Nothing about today was going to go smoothly, if the cacophony of razor blades jostling about inside his skull was any indication, and this insufferable woman's shrill voice was hardly improving matters.
After a few more reassurances that she had done nothing wrong, Lestrade and John succeeded in convincing Mrs. Franklin to sit down and tell them all a bit about Chloe's symphonic inclinations. It took her a few long breaths to calm herself, but once she began, she became steadily more relaxed.
"Chloe never was very social, we tried sports and clubs and things, but she would play all sorts of tricks to get out of going. We knew that she liked to sing in her bedroom, though, so my husband and I decided to get her involved with the children's choir at church. I wouldn't say we're particularly devout, but she loved it so much that we stuck with it for the last two years or so. The director said she was exceptional, and that we should encourage her, so about six months back we started sending her to a voice coach..." She petered out and glanced around the room, eager for some sort of indication that she was saying the right thing.
"Does your church have an orchestra as well?" Sherlock jumped in immediately, "particularly one with especially talented young musicians?"
"No…" she stammered, "just an organist, an older gentleman, a deacon, I think. And one of the other kids' mothers played flute sometimes."
"Was she involved in any other music programs?" He tried, and though it was subtle, John could tell he was growing increasingly tense.
"No, like I said, she wasn't very social."
"We're going to need a list, Mrs. Franklin." Sherlock decided finally.
"Pardon? A list of what?"
"People. People your daughter was in contact with in relation to her musical inclinations, people who knew that she was especially talented. The choir director, the organist, the flutist, the voice coach, both children and adults, anyone associated with her through music." He changed tack suddenly. "John, what day is it?"
He decided not to question Sherlock's thought process. "Erm, Thursday."
"The date!"
"October twenty-first."
In spite of his less than ideal state of health, he was on his feet instantaneously, wobbling only slightly. "Lestrade, I'm entrusting you with the collaboration of aforementioned list. Please include any available contact information for each person, as well as a description of their relevance. Deliver it to Baker Street by this evening. John, come on, I'll need you."
Lestrade shouldn't have been surprised after more than five years of similar treatment, but he couldn't stop himself from demanding, "Where are you going?"
Sherlock turned to him, lips tight, eyes steely. "I need to bake a cake."