Part 3: "I gotta get me a game plan, gotta shake you to the ground"
The song was still playing as they got out of the car in the forecourt of what Lestrade explained was the Tadfield Manor Conference and Management Training Center. Heaven knew John wasn't one for drama, but he had to admit it made for pretty good entrance music. Sherlock certainly swanned out of the vehicle as though dramatic music was his god-given right, and even Lestrade managed to clamber out as if he were gracing the opening credits of the better class of detective series.
The constable who'd been left to wait for them stared. Lestrade showed her his ID, made the appropriate introductions, and momentarily spoiled the effect by running back to the car to turn off the radio. When he got back, she led the three of them to her sergeant, who greeted them with the smile of a man who knew that somebody else would have to do the running around now.
"You don't seem to mind New Scotland Yard barging in," said Lestrade as he had his hand shaken with unwarranted enthusiasm.
"Lord, no," said the man. "We need all the help we can get. We never have to deal with this sort of thing. There hasn't been this much excitement around here since they closed the airbase. Mostly we just do traffic and point Hugh Boone in the right direction when he can't find his way home from the pub." Then he squinted hard at Sherlock, as if trying to place him. "Here, weren't you that private detective who was all over the news a few years back?"
"Save me," muttered Sherlock, rolling his eyes.
He looked like he was about to say more, and nastily, but John, not waiting for the hammer to fall, cut him off with a warning look. By some miracle, he managed to hold his tongue as the sergeant walked them through the facts of the case: the body of Leslie Saltire had been found last night in the rhododendrons lining the drive – they'd cordoned off the area, see? – with his face all bashed in beneath his cycling helmet. He was one of a large group of Shad Sanderson management trainees staying at Tadfield Manor for the weekend, and had been recognized because he was still wearing his badge from the team-building exercises. His DayGlo orange cycling shorts had also helped: apparently he'd been putting in some practice for what the organizers had thought of as a bout of healthy competition to round the weekend off.
"They're all signed up for the annual bicycle race," explained the sergeant. "It's not a very big thing, to hear the cyclists talk, but the trail's pretty this time of year, and it gives us something to look forward to. It's usually very nice – and by that I mean 'scrupulously exact' – and straightforward, we have committees and everything, and I thought we really had it under our thumb this year." He sighed. "That's how it goes, you think you're on top of the world, and suddenly they spring bloody Armageddon on you. In a manner of speaking, of course."