John
The night air whipped our faces as we stepped into the street. The man who knew about my sister was young, lean and tall. Under the hoodie slung over his shoulders he wore a faded denim shirt and jeans with a baggy white T-Shirt and scuffed white trainers. A stupid flop of light brown hair hung over his weasel-like face and watery blue eyes; he kept jerking his head compulsively to get it out of his line of vision. We listened to the rain and the cars and the people and none of us said anything. Eventually the man said, "What did you do to your arm?"
I was so boiling with confusing emotion that it took me a minute to realise he was speaking to me, "Oh, I got shot." I told him.
He reeled, eyes wide, into a wall behind us and, unexpectedly, began to cry.
"You're her brother, aren't you?" He sobbed, "You're Harry's brother, what was it…John?"
"Yes." I said, feeling white hot pain of grief stab into my insides instead of the anger.
He knocked my bad arm as he fell forwards onto me but I didn't care. He pressed his face into my chest and wept.
"It's alright," I told him, letting my own tears flow. I realised it was fine to cry as I held this man who shared my pain to me in a one-armed hug, "Everything's going to be alright."
"This was never meant to happen," the man sniffed into me.
"What?" snapped Sherlock from somewhere above and behind me, "What was never meant to happen? And what's your name by the way? I'll need it to arrest you."
The man extracted himself from my embrace and shakily lit a half-smoked cigarette which he fished from his pocket; silent tears were still cascading down his cheeks, "My name's Jake Fisher…Harry was never meant to die"
"No, well, obviously." Said Sherlock, dismissively sceptical.
I wiped my face with the backs of my hands and stepped closer to Sherlock. In his warming shadow, I managed to pull myself together.
"What was meant to happen, then?" I asked in my most professional voice as the three of us continued our unorthodox stroll.
Jake ran his hand through his hair, "I told her to let them do whatever they wanted to her! I told her!"
"Hang on, who? Who do what to her?" My befuddled brain began to groggily make connections, "Wait, wait, you were… you're a… Harry wasn't! She wouldn't!"
"No, you're right. Harry wasn't a prostitute… I am, though, and she's… sorry, she was my friend and she- well," He glanced nervously at me, probably remembering me holding him against the wall, "She was- you must have known… well, she had a bit of a… of a… where, um, drink was concerned… sometimes…"
The anger was starting to boil within me again, "She was an alcoholic. I know. What's your point?"
He smiled nervously and rubbed his nose self-consciously; for the first time I saw a hole where a piercing should go in its flesh.
"She was in trouble… financially. We've been friends since secondary school and she wanted alcohol, she needed it. I told her, well I was joking really, but I told her the only way I knew of to get what you wanted was to have sex- through this…organisation… The Moonblood Cult. They really will give you pretty much anything if you please who they want you to, you know, investors, employees… sometimes there's police or something like that, you know, who're poking their noses in where they're not wanted… well, if that happens, the Moonblood Cult'll tell you to take pictures with the person… stuff they can use to blackmail 'em. They'll give you anything, they really will… you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours… that sort of thing…" He tailed off, staring at his feet; his lip was quivering.
"Go on." Sherlock commanded.
"If you know Harry, you know that once she's got her mind set on something there's no convincing her against it… It was all my fault."
"Sounds like it.! Sherlock assented cheerfully.
Sherlock
I realised after I said that that it was not tactful; it was true though, and I thought people generally like to be agreed with. Evidently not because Jake bit down on his knuckles and began to cry again. He had obviously inherited minimal self-control from his mother. I gave him thirty seconds exactly to collect himself before continuing, "So what did she do?"
"I put her in contact with the Moonblood Cult… she wouldn't tell me what they wanted her to do but we met… in Wimbledon Park… just before she was due to meet the Moonblood Cult people. It was weird it was in the day, I should have known something was wrong… but it was an old Moonblood haunt, that house, it's been blown up now, but it was often used… I thought everything would be okay…" Jake fell to his knees, his eyelids closed impossibly slowly over eyes that widened in desperate realisation and his body smacked, face-first, into the pavement.
Poison. That was the only solution. Jake had been slowing down in his speech, his mind had been befuddled. I'd taken that to be bereavement but obviously not. My guess was a potassium solution; and my guesses are never wrong.