Scarborough Fair

Summary: Kuroba Kaito finds himself in a sticky situation when he's kidnapped by a man who's also guilty for the abduction of three others. How can even the Kaitou Kid escape drug-induced paralysis, a psychotic doctor, a blackmailed housekeeper, and a mansion filled with traps and dungeons?

Pairings: Very minor hints.

A/N: I own nothing except Dr. Hailey, Anita Hailey (though I don't own their names), Kojima Daisuke, Diana (though I don't own their designs) and 'A'. Okita Soshi and Nagashima Shigeo are actual DC people. Think Yaiba and Yoban Saado. Title comes from Simon and Garkunkel song. Also loosely based around Mothy's song, 'Little Garden Girl' feat. Hatsune Miku. May be called alternate name of 'Clockwork Lullaby 2'.

Prequel: "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"

Side Story: "Clockwork Relations"

Officer Takagi did a double take when he saw him approach. "Conan-kun?" he asked, almost in disbelief. "Did someone die here?"

Shinichi might have laughed. Or said something snarky. 'Conan' just sighed and shook his head. "No, we were passing by."

"But I didn't see-" he began, and then he noticed the rental car. "Oh, is Detective Mouri here?"

"No," and, because he didn't want to waste time, Shinichi asked the first question. "Are you here to investigate the kidnappings?"

"Yes. Thank you for bringing us the profile, by the way. Every man available is out looking for a suspect. Do you think this is the house with the kidnapper?"

It didn't really matter what he thought, because it was what Lady A had told him, but he wasn't going to give away his sources. A good detective, while having knowledge and intuition, also kept his contacts a secret. "Yes."

The officer was far too used to him to even argue. He just nodded and phoned Detective Sato before beginning to go up to the house.

Shinichi followed behind, palming one of his bugs. When the person inside the house opened the door, he planned on tossing it in.

He wasn't sure if this doctor was in the Organization, but the BO certainly had wanted him, and he had gone missing for three months. Since Haibara's knowledge on his connection to the organization was outdated, Shinichi deduced that They had gotten their hands on him.

And since he was alive . . . he could assume that he was working for the organization. They didn't leave behind survivors – Haibara and himself being a few exceptions, of course. If the doctor had a guardian angel before, he didn't now.

The only thing bugging him was the kidnappings. It was extremely unlike the Black Organization to let this go on. These kidnappings were, by now, all over the country, and they were attracting a lot of attention. They had also been easy to track, considering a phantom thief's groupies had managed to track them before the police.

Shinichi shook it off as the officer rang the doorbell. After a moment, a buzzer rang and the sound of someone's voice crackled to life. "Y-yes?"

A woman. Not only hesitant, but nervous. Shinichi was a bit taken back by it. The doctor was male, and all of his victims were male. Unless he had been taking women as well. . .

Or if he had an accomplice. . . .

"Hello, I'm with the Police!" Officer Takagi showed his notebook to the camera. "This is the house of Dr. Hailey, yes? Would you mind answering some questions?"

The intercom crackled slightly. "Um. . . I'm only the housekeeper. The doctor. . . the doctor is busy."

"It's alright; I just want to talk," Officer Takagi gave his friendly grin.

There was some more hesitation. "Um. . . okay."

A few moments later, a woman in an apron opened the door and blinked. "Hello?"

While Officer Takagi asked her some questions in a friendly but authorized manner, Shinichi looked at her. Part Caucasian, part Asian, she spoke Japanese well enough, and was very pretty, though she looked stressed. Nervous. He could even see some white strands mixed in with her dark hair, though she was probably in her mid-thirties at the very latest. From her answer to Officer Takagi's question, her name was Diana Smith, and she was the housekeeper for Dr. Hailey, who was not to be bothered under any circumstances.

"What's going on here?" a crabby, sleepy voice snapped. The housekeeper flinched, and immediately looked down at her feet.

The door opened a bit further, revealing another person of mixed descent, this time a man in his fifties standing and glaring at them. "The police? Diana-san, you should have called me first."

"S-sorry," she mumbled, looking only at the ground. Her hands were trembling, and her nails had been chewed thoroughly.

"As for you!" he snarled at the poor officer, who also flinched at the sudden aggressiveness. "Stop picking on my housekeeper! She's a fine woman who does what she's told!"

"Apologies, sir, but I'm supposed to ask a few questions-"

"I refuse. Leave."

"Sir, but please, just let me explain-"

"I don't want explanations, I want you out!" he roared. Bags under his eyes, nervous trembles in his hands, tangled hair, stained and crumpled lab coat. . . . He was working hard and late.

Officer Takagi was trying to calm the doctor down, and Diana-san was cowering while also tugging at the doctor childishly. No one was looking at him. Well, he wasn't going to get another chance like this. Shinichi casually tossed in a few bugs, managing to get one into the doctor's lab coat. Another one ended up into the housekeeper's apron, but the rest rolled around into the house. And just in time, because the man had lost his temper at Officer Takagi's stuttering.

"If you want to ask me things, bring a bloody warrant with you!" with that, the doctor slammed the door shut.

Officer Takagi sighed, and jotted a few things down on his notebook. "That makes it the. . . fifth time I've been chased away without progress for the day," he pocketed his notebook. "We were supposed to narrow the list down before we could get the warrants, but at this rate, we'll never find them in time."

Shinichi gave a cheerful, child-like speech on the benefits of being positive all the while itching to find a way to get the police focused onto this house, and this house specifically.

Kaito blinked. Alright, he could blink.

He tried to move his fingers. He tried to have a panic attack when his fingers wouldn't respond to his brain ordering them to move. He settled for blinking as fast as he could.

Across the room, Okita blinked back. Next to him, on his right, Nagashima rolled his eyes around. On his left, Kojima somehow managed to give him a dirty look even without being able to move his facial muscles.

Damn. So this was what they meant by being a human mannequin. Frozen up and dressed up before being propped up in a stiff-backed chair.

It wasn't like this was too far off from his usual (Kid) wear. A suit, a button-up shirt, dress slacks, loafers. . . but they were black. He liked his fancy old-fashioned clothes to be white. With gadgets stuffed everywhere.

He also liked being able to move in them.

How had this happened? Shortly after they had moved onto sit-ups, the vents had opened up. Kaito had noticed it, and pointed it out to everyone else, who groaned when they saw the opened vents as well. Well, Nagashima and Okita had groaned. Kojima had begun to swear as violently as he could. It still hadn't been as good as the Nakamouri special, in his opinion.

Then, the vents had begun to release some kind of fog-like gas. Smoke, like the kind he used in his heists. Kaito had backed up into a corner, much like the other three were doing, and held his breath for as long as he could, but eventually, he couldn't hold it and was forced to breath in the drugged air, falling into forced sleep.

When he had woken up, he had found himself dressed up, hooked onto an IV dripping something into his arm, and sitting in a room clearly meant for some kind of little girl's dream come true. Antique chairs, bone china cups, flowers, cakes, tea. . . .

Maybe Hakuba might have liked it, but he didn't. He'd take another powerful kick from that one female detective (whom he had mistaken to be a boy) to the face rather than be here, dressed up by someone else and be imprisoned in his own body.

Who had dressed him up, anyways? It could have been either Diana-san, or the mad doc in the house. Neither was a very good option.

His back itched. He couldn't scratch it.

Damn it all.

The lab had been bustling when she had closed up her work of the day. The rats were reacting as expected from the poison she had administered, and that meant the APTX 4869 project could be closed up soon enough. It hadn't, from the looks on the supervisor's face, been the exact product they had wanted, but it was remarkable enough. A poison that killed without any trace.

Shiho knew they would have her work on it again soon enough. She didn't know the exact purpose, but from the vague statements of seniors and other executives, as well as the rumours, she had gathered the general idea for this drug.

Not that she really cared. If it weren't for the fact that her parents had first developed the drug, they wouldn't have even had her on this. It was stressful work, and while having her own lab, all the funding she required, and all the aids she needed, it took its tolls. She needed a break, before she broke.

Grabbing her purse – designer, of course – she headed off to the small café downstairs. This entire building belonged to the organization, and anybody sent by the government for whatever reason would also be a member of the syndicate. One of the few places where the agents were open, relaxed, and unstressed.

Or as open and relaxed and unstressed as they could be with the kinds of jobs they had, anyways.

During the freedom, she noted that a lot of these people in black with the distinctive scent of the syndicate talked. Boasted, actually. Of what assassinations they pulled off, what bombs they made, any prisoners they had cracked while interrogating. . . .

Paying for her coffee with her card, Shiho sat at one of the window seats, letting her eyes rest on the scenic buildings all around this place when her ears caught a particularly loud person. What kept her attention there was the fact that she was complaining, not boasting.

"I hate this!" the woman exclaimed, throwing some papers down onto a table. "It is ridiculously hard to get close to this doctor! I tried fifteen disguises, and every single time, something ridiculously random happens and he gets away from me, just like that!" she snapped her fingers to emphasize her point.

Her companion giggled lightly. "Face it, Champagne. Good as you are, you can't crack Dr. Hailey. He's famous in the chemistry world for being eccentric. Some of his works are pretty controversial, like that one on how alchemists were on the right track with their hunt for gold, but overall-"

"Amaretto, you're boring me, hon. But damn," and here, Agent Champagne leaned back in her chair. "It's like he's protected by a guardian angel or something."

"Well," by this time, mischief had entered Amaretto's voice. "Maybe you could call in your handsome boyfriend for some help?"

"Armagnac and I are not-!" she exclaimed incredulously before remembering at long last that they were in a public place, and even if it belonged to the organization, she really should have kept her voice a bit lower. After that, they went off into a hushed, fierce debate, and Shiho heard nothing more.

Not really caring, she drank the last of her coffee, tossed the cup in the trash, and walked away.

Now, in the body of Haibara Ai, the former Miyano Shiho and Sherry wondered if she should have paid better attention to that conversation as she watched the boy called Edogawa Conan jog back to the car. She had looked up Dr. Hailey after, and had read some of his papers. She didn't agree with all of his theories, but a few had been the work of absolute brilliance. From that, she had guessed that the organization wanted him, for either his brain or his contacts. Killing him wouldn't have really been beneficial, but with him in Their ranks, They would have been quite happy.

"What took you so long?" she asked, not really caring as Kudo Shinichi in his shrunken form opened the door and got in. "I saw Officer Takagi leave five minutes ago. Don't tell me they invited you in for tea."

Kudo shook his head, wiping off sweat with the back of his hands and catching his breath. "I. . ." he panted. "Found. . . a way. . . to sneak in."

And here was the part where he said something that would involve this new-found way and some stupid, dangerous plan.

"I'm going in. Here's the plan."

Kaito's ears perked. Someone was coming down the hallway. He blinked a few times, trying to make the only movements he could. Who is that? He tried to ask in Morse code.

Either the others didn't understand Morse code, or there was someone in the house they knew as 'Ei'. The door opened to reveal 'Ei', who happened to be a life-sized figurine of a woman. A woman that looked a lot like the older version of that creepy auburn-haired girl who hung out with tantei-kun. Haibara Ai, if memory served to be as faithful as good-old Jii-chan was.

If this had something to do with that pint-sized danger magnet brat, Edogawa Conan was going to have his hair turned hot pink for the rest of his life.

The figurine that looked uncannily like the creepy girl was sitting on a wheelchair, and was rolled in by a man in a lab coat. Of mixed descent, he was of average height, and pretty unremarkable. Smart-looking, but he didn't have much for him except the odd look in his eyes.

This had to be the doctor. Kaito watched, able to roll his eyes to follow the doctor's movements as he wheeled his daughter to be between him and Okita. "Hope you like your new friend, Anita," the doctor patted the doll's cheek before giving all of them a stern glance. "And you boys treat her well, understand?"

Kojima rolled his eyes, but Kaito just met the doctor's eyes firmly till the other man looked away. This guy was dangerous. Insane. Psychotic. He belonged in a magician-proof straightjacket locked away in a padded white room, as much as he hated the magician-proof things.

The doctor waved, paused, acted like a father dropping off his only daughter on her first day to school for a few moments, and left dejectedly, closing the door on them, leaving four humans and a mannequin.

He blinked in Morse code again. What now?

Kaito didn't get an answer. He hadn't been really expecting one.