John
After a long and probably mostly unnecessary ramble through beautifully kept lawns we all crowded into a stone shed about four metres squared and crowded in TVs extending from brackets on the far wall above a desk with several wheeled chairs tucked under each. Each TV showed a grainy green tinted image of some well-manicured lawn or flowerbed or other.
"If your dead girl was there." Said Bob the game keeper, "We'll find out." He pushed a pile of about ten video tapes towards us from one corner of the desk and then walked out with a curt "I'll leave you boys to it then."
"Gay." Sherlock said.
"I beg your pardon?" Lestrade countered, looking up from the videos which he was poring over with me.
"That gamekeeper. Gay."
"How…?" I began.
"The lining of his jacket."
"Right," Lestrade raised his eyebrows at me.
"Anyway. Let's get on with watching these films then," Sherlock announced loudly to the room at large, then he seized my arm and leaned in very close to me so I could feel his breath on my cheek and whispered, "Remember, John, don't get your hopes up, she may have gone to Richmond Park, alright?"
I nodded.
Sherlock clapped me on the shoulder and spun around to face the TVs. Lestrade inserted to first tape for the day of the murder into the machine.
The day crawled by. We spent hours watching video after video of grass, trees and flowers. I was restless with nervous energy and I couldn't stop my whole body trembling slightly as time went by. Sometime around midday Lestrade left and then came back with a packet of hobnobs which all three of as shared, keeping our eyes fixed on the CCTV footage. My eyes had glazed over, my mind was wandering nowhere in particular, a glance at my watch told me I'd been sitting on the same chair for six and a half hours.
"John!" Sherlock's voice shot through the air like a bullet.
I sat up, "What?" but then I saw it. On every chunky TV screen there was an image of Harry, standing nervously next to a bush sculpted into the shape of a swan, glancing at her watch as she took long sips out of a can of beer.
"She's waiting for someone." Sherlock noted.
"Her killer?" Suggested Lestrade.
I didn't care at that moment who she was waiting for or that she was drinking. I cared that she was breathing, that she was alive. The image was horrendous quality but I could make out her sharp face peeping out of a drawstring black hoodie, drawn tight around her face.
"What time is this footage from?" Sherlock asked.
"Nearly five PM" Lestrade answered.
"So she ditched the hoodie between meeting whoever and being killed."
I allowed their theorising to wash over my head without hearing it. I crossed to the nearest TV and stabbed my fingers at the screen, wanting to touch Harry, to feel her skinny frame beneath my skin. I wished my hands could reach through the glass to her, to pick her up and hold her to me, to apologise for being so rude to her because she had a drink problem and because she's left her girlfriend. I just wanted her to be alive. All that my touch felt was the cold heartless screen of the television, all it rewarded me with was the scrabble of my nails skittering over its surface and sending spikes of pain jarring up my fingers. My vision was becoming blurred with tears as I continued to fruitlessly poke at the display. Harry was still glancing at her watch, occasionally puffing out her cheeks in impatience or exasperation like she always used to and tipping her head back to catch the dregs from her beer. A hand between my shoulder blades made me jump, "What do you think, John?" Sherlock breathed into my ear, keeping his hand to my back. I could feel the curls of his hair ticking my cheek and see the sharp lines of his chin and cheekbones out of the corner of my eye.
"I'm sorry," I said, "I wasn't listening."
Sherlock
Lestrade and I had come to the conclusion, actually I tell a lie; I had come to the conclusion while Lestrade nodded and made noises of affirmation at everything I said, that the girl, Harry, was waiting to meet someone at 5 PM, someone she wasn't supposed to be seeing because of the way she was trying and failing be invisible, checking her watch and drinking like it was her profession; most probably her murderer or at least someone who was planning to take her somewhere. She was wearing shoes that were obviously her most comfortable pair so she was expecting to be wearing them for a while, indicative of travelling. Once I relayed all this to John he nodded listlessly; I wasn't sure if he'd even heard me. He was staring entranced at the CCTV image of his sister. I was a little affronted that he didn't want to listen to my brilliant ideas but I had gained a small amount of knowledge on feelings since I had begun observing John and I realised it would be more sensible thing to leave him alone and speak to Lestrade about what I'd observed.
The next frame of CCTV showed Harry throwing the beer can into the bush next to which she was standing. That would still be there and might provide valuable information if it hadn't been picked up by any of the game keeper's litter-picking minions. Then at 5.03PM another person entered the picture. They were wearing an identical hoodie to Harry's. At first all I could see was their back but as they grasped Harry's hand and shook it I noticed several uniform scars along the wrist; it looked like self-harm but I kept it my head in case it was significant. After exchanging a minimal amount of words the two people turned around to face the camera and I was able to see that the second person was a man of around twenty years of age with similar facial piercings to Harry in fact their nose piercings were exactly the same- a silver ring with a snake curled around it. There was, I saw, a dark dried residue of what I thought was most probably blood down the side of neck beneath one of his ears which he kept rubbing self-consciously. I communicated all this to Lestrade and he then came to endearingly sweet but utterly incorrect inclusion that the two people were girlfriend and boyfriend.
"Wrong." I told him.
"Ok," Lestrade said, sounding annoyed, "What then, Genius?"
"He's supplying her with something, probably alcohol given her habit. I'm guessing the nose piercing and hoodie is some sort of sign so they know who to supply what to. There's got to be some sort of illegal alcohol trading business going on here. I'll get the Baker Street Irregulars onto it."
Lestrade opened his mouth to speak but what he wanted to say had already crossed my mind so I cut him off with a statement of a fact, "There's no such thing as coincidences."
I decided that was all we could gather from the CCTV and that our next stop was the bush and the beer can; if there was no beer can there, and then a walk through London to tell my homeless network their assignment and after that I would have to try to find Harry's hoodie. My most impending problem, however, was tactfully extracting John from the CCTV hut. He was staring wide eyed at the screen, still with his fingers touching it, even though the image of Harry was long gone and all he could see was a gravel path and a bush.
"John?" I called to him and he half turned to me, there were silent tears dripping slowly down his face and off his chin. It made me feel uncomfortable and I was just searching through my mind palace for what people normally said to their only friends who were crying. There was nothing; I literally had no knowledge of what to do. I tried to imagine how I'd feel if Mycroft died and decided that it would hurt. Mycroft had brought me up on his own since our mother killed herself with an accidental overdose of cocaine and he was a very useful contact to have in the government. I never do things without thinking but I did then. I held John close to me and he felt too small and fragile in my arms, as if I could break him by squeezing him too hard but I knew he was already broken on the inside; that he'd been broken ever since I'd known him.
"Sherlock-" John choked, struggling against my embrace.
"It's alright." I found myself saying, "I'm here."
"Sherlock-" John repeated, pushing against my chest.
"Sherlock," Lestrade took my shoulder and pulled me off John who sank to his knees on the floor and took four deep breaths, "He's alright." Lestrade told me.