Three: Night of the Hunter (Thirty Seconds to Mars)

One night of the hunter

One day I will get revenge

One night to remember

One day it'll all just end.

Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade took a sip of the blissfully hot coffee and relished the kick of caffeine in his system. He smacked his lips in delight and set the cup back down on his desk, cracking his fingers and preparing for the pile of paperwork on his desk. He had dived into the tall stack of files and was sorting them when Sally Donovan appeared at his door. She seemed… agitated.

"Greg," Donovan said. Lestrade raised his eyebrows. Sally never called him Greg, at least not during work hours anyway. He was just about to comment when she held up and piece of paper with spidery handwriting on it.

"We got a fax…" she said. "He's back."

Lestrade rose from his chair and walked over to her. He snatched the paper from her hands and looked at it. It was a fax and the only words that were printed on it were these:

Come and play, Lestrade. –Duke

Lestrade's brain stopped for a moment as he stared at the paper. There was no way…

"Where, Sally?" he asked, his voice gruff.

"Flat in central London," she answered.

"Go," he said. "Now."

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Thirty minutes later he was standing in the middle of a neat little flat staring down at the broken body on the floor. His mind was still reeling. There was no way that this was happening again…

He looked up as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson entered the flat and walked in his direction. He needed them on this one. There was no way that he was letting the bastard escape him again.

"What have you got?" Sherlock asked. When Lestrade had called, Sherlock had heard something…different in the man's voice. It was something that Sherlock had never heard before. It wasn't…uncertainty per se, and it wasn't fear either. It was a rather curious combination of both, all tinged with a barely disguised fury.

"Oliver Whittle. 39, single. He was a waiter at a local restaurant by day and an accomplished jazz pianist by night. He played gigs at the club across the street."

Sherlock looked at Lestrade as he rattled off the facts. The inspector's face was stiff and still, as if merely restraining his facial muscles would solve the crime. There was a hardness about his eyes that Sherlock had only seen once before, when they were dealing with Moriarty's bombs.

"You've seen this before, haven't you?" Sherlock queried. John shot a look at Sherlock and then at Lestrade.

Lestrade nodded. "Years and years ago, before you worked on the force. It was one of my first cases as a Detective Inspector. In the span of eight weeks, eleven jazz musicians were all brutally murdered in their homes. The killer—he was nicknamed Duke, you know, after Duke Ellington—took to taunting us. He'd send us faxes, post…all mocking our inability to catch him. That was over 11 years ago…and today we got this." Lestrade handed over the fax. Sherlock received it and the detective and the blogger read it.

"Jesus, Greg," John muttered. "Did you ever get close to him?"

The DI shook his head slowly. "Not really. After the eleventh victim he just…disappeared off the face of the planet. We hadn't heard anything from him until now."

Sherlock stared at Lestrade. "With any luck, this will be the last time you hear from him."

"Sherlock?" John asked. "I've just remembered something…"

"What is it, John?"

"Tomorrow night…there's going to be a gala affair at one of the hotels downtown. There's a world renowned jazz band that's going to be performing." John pulled out his phone and looked up the information. "Yeah, see? Wynton Marsalis, the American trumpeter and bandleader."

"You think Duke has come out of hiding for Wynton Marsalis?" Lestrade asked.

Sherlock shrugged. "I don't know, but I think it would be hard for him to resist the pull of a musician this famous."

"Surely there will be security there…he can't honestly expect to pull off a murder with so many people around." John said.

"The art of a great disguise, John," Sherlock stated, "is knowing how to hide in plain sight."

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Greg Lestrade burst through the emergency exit and followed the tuxedoed man into the stairwell. He lowered his gun as he hustled up the stairs, hearing Sherlock and John come through the door below him and dash up the stairs after him.

"You're getting slow, old man!" Duke's taunting voice rang out in the hollow space. It lit a fire deep in Lestrade's brain and gave him an extra shot of adrenaline. His legs pumped and he took the steps three at a time.

Two minutes later, the man called Duke burst out onto the rooftop and was followed an instant later by Lestrade, Sherlock, and John. Duke dashed over to the ledge.

"Stop!" John yelled from his position behind Lestrade. Duke slowly turned around from where he stood, about two yards from the roof's edge. He had a manic grin plastered on his face and his bald head shone in the moonlight.

"I see you brought your new friends, Lestrade!" he cackled. "It's always nice having new friends to play with, isn't it?"

"The games are over, Duke!" Lestrade yelled, aiming his gun between the man's eyes. "You're mine now and you are going to rot in a prison cell for the rest of your life."

Duke crowed again, inspecting his fingernails as he did so. "I don't think so, Greg. Prison's never been my thing…" He took a step backwards towards the edge. "I think I'll just be on my way."

"Stop where you are," Lestrade warned. He heard John shuffle closer to him and he knew the man's Browning was trained on Duke too.

"You don't get it do you, Lestrade?" Duke asked. "I'm a hunter, mate! Hunters never do well in cages. And you will never get your revenge." He took another step. "Goodnight, Detective Inspector!"

Lestrade lowered his gun and squeezed off two rounds. The bullets thunked into both of Duke's knees. The man howled in pain and surprise and fell the ground, his hands scrabbling at his bloody knees. John handed his gun off to Sherlock and the three men circled Duke. John's hands were covered with the man's blood as he examined the knees. Sherlock and Lestrade kept the weapons trained on the whimpering man.

Twenty minutes later, Duke was being hauled away on a stretcher and Sherlock was giving Donovan the details of what had happened. Lestrade watched the man gesticulate excitedly and John threw in a word every now and again. He was pleased to see that Donovan wasn't giving them any grief about it.

Lestrade looked over the blinking lights of the city. Everything seemed so peaceful from here. John had told him once that when you walked with Sherlock Holmes, you saw the battlefield. Lestrade was well aware of the battlefield…he lived there. But as he gazed out on the twinkling city of London, Lestrade also felt a deep pull of satisfaction in his brain as he affirmed that today he had taken one of the villains off the battlefield.

He'd won the battle. The war…well that was still being decided.