John
The day it all changed and my thin veneer of happiness cracked only to boost me onto a cloud of complete euphoria was after Sherlock had gone through one of his dry phases and been so bored that he gave up looking for his emergency cocaine supply and lay on the sofa with eight nicotine patches on each arm firing blanks into the flowery wallpaper. When the call from Lestrade came Sherlock took the case without thinking about its levels of interest.
"John!" Sherlock shouted, even though I was sitting in the armchair practically next to him.
"Yes?" I replied through gritted teeth.
"Lestrade has just phoned, the mutilated body of a young woman has been found in an abandoned flat not far from here. It won't surprise you to know that the Met are clueless, no leads, come on then."
I threw a few clothes at Sherlock, grabbed my own coat and tore all the nicotine patches from Sherlock's sinewy arms.
We took a taxi to a three-story, Victorian house, now evidently split into flats and Sherlock was at the shabby front door before I'd paid our driver. I hurried after him as we were ushered by a relieved and slightly sick looking Lestrade through the narrow hallway, up the badly carpeted stairs and through an open door.
"Clear out, guys," Lestrade called to the cluster of CSI workers in the room, "Give the dream team a couple of minutes."
"I only need one minute." Sherlock insisted, before enthusiastically leaping through the crude doorway into the dark interior of the room which was at the same time being vacated by several disgruntled CSI workers.
There was a thick layer of dust on the bare floorboards, there appeared to be no furniture in the room and the purpose of our visit was lit by weak sunlight from the only window in the room. The body of the girl made me feel physically sick. I thought the police had done well to determine the gender and age range of the victim. Her body was lying face up, horribly mutilated in a pool of blood which spread for about a metre outwards on three sides and pooled in a congealed dark puddle on the fourth, shocking against the white wall. She appeared to have been attacked with a bat or pole of some kind, her limbs were all pretty much untouched but apart from that her body looked like a raw bloody slab of mince from a third-rate butcher's. There were flashes of silver through the red and purple mass of flesh that was once a face which indicated that she had facial piercings. I couldn't tell whether she was wearing clothes or not. Of course, Sherlock was kneeling unconcernedly over the body with his magnifying lens, muttering to himself, apparently immune to the sickly sweet stench of rotting human flesh.
Sherlock stepped back from the body after what seemed like no time at all and reeled off a long and incoherent stream of observations in a loud voice so Lestrade could hear from the other side of the flimsy door.
"John, can I have a professional opinion on the nature of the injuries and how long ago they were sustained?" Sherlock asked.
I swallowed a few times and nodded, "Yes. Yes, of course." I took a deep breath and bent down.
The knuckles were scabbed, probably defence wounds; I pointed this out to Sherlock.
"I know!" He said impatiently, "Any blind person can see that!"
"Okay." I replied, attempting to sound patient; sometimes dealing with Sherlock Holmes is like dealing with an extremely obnoxious six year old.
"Ribs are broken," I remarked.
"Obviously." Came the retort.
Now I was closer I could see that the victim was wearing clothes, a checked shirt at least, although I couldn't determine the original colour of the shirt because it was so saturated with blood.
"Fractured skull probably the cause of death."
"Yes, Yes."
I gave up telling Sherlock my observations after that as everything I had to say had evidently already crossed his mind. Sometimes I think he hangs around with me just to make himself look even cleverer than he actually is.
I found some splinters of wood in the torso, indicating my bat theory and evidence of severe internal bleeding. Most of the blood appeared to have come from the skull fracture, which had literally smashed a sizable fragment of skull from above the right eye socket into the brain. It was perverse and morbidly fascinating.
Once I'd finished inspecting the body I began to search it for any clues as to who it was. Sherlock probably already knew her address but he'd gone outside and was talking to Lestrade. I manoeuvred myself to the other side of the body where I found a nokia 6085 phone in the remains of a jeans pocket. I flipped it open and opened up the sent messages section. The last seven texts sent from this phone had all been to 'John Mob.' I opened the one most recently sent and my world came crashing down.
Sherlock
I had been speaking to Lestrade for eleven minutes when he raised a hand to silence me.
"What's that noise?" He asked.
"I don't know; what noise?" I replied.
"Shut up and you'll hear it."
That told me. We listened and heard a long, drawn out cry with all the agonies of the world inside it.
"That's John!" I said, "Keep your people out and stay out yourself, we won't be taking this case."
I swung through the door into the room where I found John crouched with his forehead and face in the dark blood on the floor at the feet on the body. He was holding something clutched to his chest, and making the noise we'd heard in the corridor, taking a shuddering breath in and making the noise again. I fell to my knees in front of him and held his shoulders.
"John?" I said, finding myself to my surprise struggling to keep my voice level and the tears from springing to my eyes, "John, are you alright?"
He just continued to make the noises, rock slightly, and show no sign of having noticed my presence. I pushed back and upwards on John's shoulders until he had his back against the wall. I held him there because I knew that if I let go he's fall face first into the blood again. The dark blood of the victim was running down John's face and mingling with the tears which were streaming readily down his face. He was desperately boring his eyes into my own, sobbing silently now.
"Hey, John, please, what is it? You're frightening me." Which as I said I realised was true.
He opened his mouth a couple of times, managing only to take in great lungful's of air. His whole body was shuddering and trembling beneath my hands; I pitied him but something I'd learnt about John was that he didn't want to be pitied by anyone, least of all me, so I was damned if I was going to show it.
"John, Come on!" He shook his head and hurled what he was holding across the room.
"Alright, you stay here" I let go of him so he promptly fell face first into the blood.
I crossed the room quickly, grabbed the thrown object, which I realised was a phone and came back to John where I once again supported him against the wall.
"What's this, John?" I asked.
He made a noise that I would liken to someone having their entrails eaten whilst fully conscious and without anaesthetic and shook his head again.
"Okay, John, I'm going to have a look at the phone now." I did, and I realised the last text sent, which was open on the screen said 'Hey John, coming 2 visit u. surprise lol! 221b baker st, rite? Ly, Harry J'
So the phone was his sister's and she had been in the area to see him. The phone did indeed have the signature scratches around the charge socket, indicating alcoholism. Then I realised that the phone was too heavy to only contain a battery and SIM card so I removed the back at the same time as rubbing John's shoulders and saw the explosive device. The phone was packed with enough explosives to blow the roof off this house and the countdown had already started. We had ten seconds.
I dropped the phone/bomb on the floor and seized John's arm, "Come on John, we've got to go! Lestrade, get your people out of here! There's a bomb!" I shouted.
"What?" John said, bewildered, "No, I'm not leaving Harry here."
"I've no time for arguments." I said; starting my hindered way across the room dragging John behind me. Six seconds to go.
John had pretty much completely lost it and was trying to pull away from me, screaming incoherently. I'm not a strong man but I have sufficient boxing knowledge that allowed me to floor John, a poor unprepared, distraught man, in one punch and then swing him upwards until I was wearing him round my shoulders as one might a repulsive hunk of fur. I ran full pelt out of the room and down the stairs but I knew we wouldn't escape the building before the bomb detonated so I turned a sharp left at the bottom of the stairs and flung John into the under stairs cupboard, hurling myself in after him and shutting the door after us. I barely had time to note that the vacuum cleaner in there had been used only twice in the last month and a half before the bomb detonated.
I was flung forwards by the force of the blast and found myself face down pinned to the floor by the smoking remains of the door of the cupboard under the stairs. I seemed to be free from any serious injury and I knew that I could summon up enough strength to lift the door off my spine. I allowed myself a moment to listen to the crackle of flames and occasional soft thump of falling debris and reflect on my own intense foresight to observe which side of the stairs the cupboard was situated when we had entered the building. Lestrade had told me on the phone that this house was up for demolition anyway so whoever had planted the bomb had saved the blasters the trouble.
After basking in my own brilliance for four seconds I realised that I couldn't hear John and allowed myself to consider the possibility that he may have been injured. I opened my mouth to call his name but instead inhaled some chalk dust and had to spend a further six seconds coughing, after which I tensed all my muscles and arched my back so that the door slipped to the ground. As I got to my feet I took in the destruction all around and marvelled at its beauty. The staircase was still mostly intact but it stood proud in a field of rubble and lumps of concrete from which jagged rods of metal protruded. The top third of the stairs, however, lay amongst the devastation. There seemed to be no house left apart from the stairs and around 32cm of floorboard clinging resolutely although completely pathetically to the side on the adjoining house, which seemed to be virtually unaffected. At first I couldn't see John, only Lestrade and few of the CSI workers wading through the scree towards me, waving their arms and shouting some useless drivel which I didn't allow my brain to process but then I noticed a movement from the back of the stairs and stumbled over.
John was hunched into a ball against the underside of the staircase, jammed as firmly and as closely into their shelter as he could possibly be, staring straight ahead and cradling his gun to his chest.
I awkwardly manipulated by long coat until I could sit down in front of him, "John," I began, but he had already seized upon my voice as a drowning man might seize upon a piece of driftwood.
"Bill?" He said, "Bill, I think I've been hit,"
I searched my brain for someone called Bill and recalled that he was the person who had carried John for three miles to a medical station after he had been shot in Afghanistan. I supposed the bomb couple with the shock and fear of discovering the unrecognizable body of probably his dead sister had triggered those memories.
"No," I said, "It's Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, and as far as I can see you look fine but I could be more certain about that if I could get a better look at you, how about you come out from there and sit with me."
John made no effort to move but ventured, "Sherlock?" tentatively.
"Yes, that's right," I said, I reached for his shoulder but he waved his gun in my face told me to piss off.
"Okay, do you think you might be injured?"
"Of course I'm bloody injured! I've been shot for Christ's sake!" John began to crawl out of the niche when he'd stuck himself but his entire body was shaking and when he reached me he fell into my lap sobbing, "Oh shit, Christ, I can't do this anymore," he wept as I held him, unable to see any sign of injury on him "I want to go home, I just want to go home, please, take me home."
"Alright, it's going to be alright John, let's go home."
I helped John to his feet and made my way back through the rubble with my arm round his waist whilst he leant on me, stumbling along and still crying.
We met Lestrade on our way back, "What's wrong with him?" He asked me.
I thought that it was fair to assume anyone would be slightly shaken up having just been involved in a sizable explosion but I answered Lestrade anyway, because he is, after all, more than a little slow.
"He has only recently returned from active service in Afghanistan, he has discovered his sister's phone on that body up there and he has nearly been blown up. I don't care if you don't have a clue, we won't be taking this case. Good luck finding the body in this mess."