Sherlock
There's a logic to all this. I promise there is. Let's think it through and see if we can't come up with something. Alright, here it comes, the logic behind why I'm going to see Lestrade when I only have so much time out here in the world before Mycroft realizes the witness would have had to be a giant for me to still be watching the autopsy. Well, we're looking for logic, so I probably shouldn't frame it so negatively to begin with.
Right.
Well. Lestrade is still, in name at least, the officer in charge of the serial murder case. And he's the one the killer's gotten in touch with. He needs to be on top form in order to deal with that. The implication from Donovan certainly seemed to imply he's not coping. And when she told me he'd gone home, well… Let's just say that's when I decided to do this first.
I know it sounds sensible. Home. Family. His wife and son. Still, every time I think the word 'son', I think of them behind that building this morning. These are warm images, loving. This would be entirely appropriate.
But Lestrade has gone home. You have to understand. When the killer first made contact his wife left the city to stay with her sister, taking their younger daughter with her. David refused to leave, but after this morning he'll be down at the station. Lestrade has gone home and there is nobody else there. He has gone to the place that should be the scene of the warm, appropriate reactions you would automatically envision and none of those things can take place. He's there on his own.
He's there on his own. If I've lost track of my own argument, it's only because I don't even need it anymore. He's there on his own, after everything that's happened. What else do you need to know? I'll stop questioning it now. But while we're on the topic, last year when I was no more to him than a suspect he was the only officer who didn't call me junkie scum, or some related phrase. And when I was in no decent shape to act on my own suspicions, he believed in me and… And a lot of things, while we're on the topic. There's a logic in it, I can see it now myself. But if you'll have to figure it out for yourself. I don't care if you understand or not.
It's with that assurance that I knock on his door. I give him longer than usual to answer, allowing for any extra precautions he's taking. But listening to what goes on inside, his approach isn't careful. It's just slow. Heavy, lumbering steps. A stumble. Too much of his weight on the door as he undoes the bolts. I know before I see him that he's drunk. When I see him I get a sense of just how bad it is. He opens the door and smiles. Says, or tries to say, "That's what I like about you, Sherlock. You make yourself so easy to keep an eye on."
"What?"
"What'll you have?"
"Nothing," I tell him. "I mean, I don't."
"What, because of the other stuff? You can't have anything?" Momentarily, he looks distraught, as though all joy and meaning had gone out of life, shakes his head, "How do you live?"
I follow him in. The house is notable only for its ordinariness. Standard suburban three-bed. Wife's raincoat still hanging on the stair-post. But if you'd brought me here knowing nothing, without any context, I'd say she'd left him. The standard clues of bachelorhood are everywhere – empty takeout cartons, empty lager tins, empty cupboards. Empty everything. "Don't you think you were a bit early getting started?"
Empty laughter. "It was happy hour somewhere." The kitchen is narrow. He didn't decorate it. Maybe did the painting, but the white, gloss-finish units were the selection of someone who wouldn't mind cleaning them. From the look of things, Lestrade has touched little else besides the fridge. He can get to that, expertly, with absolute focus, dodging something that looks like a withered piece of water chestnut. "What'd you say you'd have again?"
"Nothing."
"I know, but really. I mean, c'mon. You're a guest and I want you t-… Come to that, what are you doing here?"
"I don't think you should have another one either. Coffee, maybe, but not another one of those."
"Christ," he mutters. Takes another beer out of the fridge anyway and sits down at the table. "Thought the wife was away."
"You're probably going to end up back at work tonight, so-"
"No," he cuts me off. Drags the word out long and irritating. "No, no-no-no. Not tonight. I was told to go home. They're interviewing him. My son, my own boy and- how much do you know?"
"The bulk of it, I thi-"
"Interviewing him, and I'm not to see him until they're finished. He's my son. He didn't even see anything; he was asleep the whole time. But me, I was told to go home. So I came home. Like a good little boy and I'm staying here until told otherwise, if that's what they really bloody want and-"
I sit down, and it puts him off his stride. When I put out my hand his struggling eyes follow it like a foreign object, something brought down by visiting aliens. "I'll stop you there," I tell him, "because you're rambling. There has been a break in the case. Or there will be soon."
"Psychic Sherlock," he grins, waggling his fingers. Don't laugh; he means it in hate. "And how do you know that?"
"Because I bloody broke it."
"Oh, now that, I would believe… What was it this time? Catch a man trying to flog a load of stuffing on a street corner?"
No. They found the insides of the mattresses in bin liners behind the guard hut this morning. As yet, fingerprinting has turned up nothing from the bags. Why do I know more about this than he does? More to the point, why am I letting it make me so bloody angry? Very little gets to me. Certainly not on this scale. I'm used to casual cruelty, to crippling boredom, to the sting of being ignored, I can deal with all that, but why is this, this man sitting slumped here, why is this aggravating me so? A little pulse, just a warm, red coal of rage, and it swells and grows. All of a sudden I know I have to get away from here.
"Fine," I tell him. "I don't have the time for this. In fact, even on my most bored day I wouldn't have time for this. You're going to pick yourself up or not and it'll be nothing to do with my intervention. I suppose I had to come here to understand that. So this is where we'll leave it. We'll leave it with the policeman wallowing in his hollow kitchen and the-"
"And the hopeless fucking addict off to save the world, is that it?" he grumbles, bright with sarcasm and dark with it too. "You've got some nerve."
I'm leaving. No more or less than this. To hell with the logic, and all the excuses too. I'm leaving.
"Oi. No, not finished here yet," he calls."
"Oh, yeah. We are."
"No. No, there's something here for you. It's on the fireplace, in the next room. Sniff it out, detective. Take it back to your brother and tell him I've got more on my mind at the minute, alright?"
If nothing else, it's interesting. Whether I'm in the mood for it or not, it's interesting. The fireplace is on my way out anyway. It's interesting. It gets more interesting when the only thing on the fireplace that isn't a clock or a candlestick is an envelope. And in the envelope are a number of large denomination banknotes
Jim
Moran's big idea is he'll go down the street and let a couple of rounds off, try and distract the Vauxhalls In The Merc that way. Dani's big idea is she tarts herself up, goes down and plies her old French Tourist routine at the driver's side window while I edge myself out the front door. Neither of these plans sounds exactly water-tight to me, so I'm still thinking.
Moran's plan fails because the people watching me are probably from MI5. Random gunshots on a London street will not interest them. They are here for me, they are watching me, and they will not move from watching me. Dani's plan fails because MI5 still know her face after last year. It's not a huge leap to assume somebody in the car was involved, or has seen a picture. It's not a risk I'm willing to take, even if French was her best subject at school.
If you're looking for a 'cunning linguist' joke, you're looking at the wrong man. Moran'll help you out when he's more than a voice on speaker.
In short, what I'm getting at, a distraction is a sound idea. We just don't have one. Can't go fishing with the wrong sort of bait, after all; we need to dangle something in front of those boys that they'll actually want.
"Moran," I call to the phone. "Do you know how many of them there are?"
"Two," he says. "Tinted windows, like, but nobody ever sits in the back. They travel in pairs. Unless they've got mates around the corner where I can't see-" Under his voice, Dani points at the ceiling, Roof? I give her the nod and she goes to check the area from above. "-Then it's just basic surveillance."
It's smart surveillance. When the cops have just been round, I'll be honest, I wouldn't have expected them to have brought these barnacles along. Probably would have walked right alongside them, and probably would have gotten followed. It's very smart surveillance; I'll have to stop taking the piss out of them. Well, stop doing it so much. Won't take the piss out of the spooks on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Just confirming, I ask Moran, "And you're in the offices across the street, I take it?"
"Yes."
"Get to the front of that building. Make it very obvious you're in that building and not this one. Don't worry about me, nobody but you is aiming at me. But listen close; whatever you do to steady yourself, do it, because I need you steady. Next bullet you fire has to be fecking surgical." There is just too much of a moment's silence. "Of course they are, every single one of them, but this one needs to be extra-special, alright?" Honest to God, there's taking pride in your work and then there's having the attitude over an overgrown nine-year-old. "Oh, and not to offend you further, but you seem like the one to ask; of all the things you nutbars have stashed in my flat, are there condoms amongst it anywhere?"
"Beg pardon?"
"Not the time, Moran."
"Not from me. If Dani's left her handbag, you're all good."
Alright, so as plans go it's a bit ad-hoc, but give me a break. It works, in my head, and anyway it's dark out there. It's a better plan that either of the ones they offered. What I've actually done is taken both their plans and made them stronger, faster, better. I have that technology. Or I would have if the woman would clear out her bag every so often. Christ, it's a mess, all broken kohl pencils and lids full of crushed lipstick, tissues full of Rocky Horror kisses and God alone knows what else. In the end, I just turn it upside down and fish what I need out of the swamp. She can shout at me all she likes afterward. I won't be listening.
Now, to Blue Peter myself a distraction.
A lot of things are in my favour here. For instance, like I said, it's dark out there. The streetlights are on now. Underneath streetlights, everything looks either black or orange, and it's only textures that define anything. That's one thing. Another thing in my favour, I cook, so I can get the textures right.
You're confused. It's okay, all will become clear. I hope. If things don't become clear they'll become cloudy and lots of terrible things will happen. Potentially, Danielle will be dead, I'll be captured and Moran will be out here on his own without guidance.
I didn't say that out loud because he's still on speaker, but I don't know that I fancy my chances if he tried to mount a rescue on his own.
Alright, listen close. How to get rid of a pair of spooks in easy steps. All that is required is a bottle of red ink, a good dose of cornflour, and a prophylactic.
Red ink, in large enough quantities, has a colour that will easily pass for blood. It is, however, too thin, doesn't hold its colour and doesn't stain properly. It needs thickened. That's what the cornflour is for, see? It's all very simple. Now, in an ideal world, there'd be a small plastic bag, the kind used by theatrical actors, with a tiny charge attached to it to make it go bang. In a kind world, there'd at least be a water balloon. But a condom tied off small does the trick.
It's round about now Danielle comes back from her reconnaissance. "I think they're alone," she calls from the hallway. Her steps stop, probably at the mess I dumped out of her bag. Doesn't say anything. Next thing I know she's silently in the doorway; stepped out of her shoes and came creeping. Now she's eyeing me; "You mean you weren't looking for my gun, knife, something like that?"
"No." She opens her mouth, "Later. For now, shove that down your top." Passing her out of the kitchen, I put the blood bag in her hands. She follows, sensibly holding all questions. I stop off very briefly back at the phone, "Moran, are you in position?"
"Have I ever let you down or is this a spontaneous loss of faith?"
"I'll take that as a yes." One more stop. I step for just a second into my own room. Dani doesn't follow. I grab a white pocket square, bring that out to her. Just like that, it clicks for her.
"Ah. I'm glad this is your suggestion. This would have sounded strange, coming from me."
"Just go."
She only stops to put her coat on. It helps her hide her future wound. I go back to the phone. "Are you done being pissy beyond belief at the worst possible moment?" Pissy silence. "Listen, Danielle has just escaped my evil clutches and is on her way downstairs to white-flag the Spookmobile down. You need to shoot her in the back, only don't actually shoot her because it's Dani and it's all a ruse, but do shoot something."
A dead man round the corner won't move them. A tart making straight for the car isn't going to move them. A dead tart right next to the car, however, will move them.
I'm a flight of stairs behind, by the time I pick up my belongings, pick Dani's phone and purse up from the hall floor. Just hitting the lobby when she's halfway across the street. The shot makes me jump, me and the doorman both. Danielle does a good job too, times it right and just drops.
There are two spooks in the car. One of them jumps out and turns her over. Happily, all that fake blood just looks black under her jacket, under the streetlight. The other one jumps out and darts across the road, headed towards Moran. As soon as he's out of range, Dani's not so dead anymore. She reaches up and grabs her rescuer by the head, dragging him past her into the tarmac.
Don't knock Blue Peter, alright? In a dark enough environment, with a gullible enough enemy, with the right bait? Blue Peter can do the trick.