CHAPTER 49: STARRY NIGHT
Hickman Gallery
When they visit the exhibition, Giulia can hardly contain her enthusiasm. She gapes at the elegance of the gallery, stares at the stylish outfits of the guests, and twirls from one work on display to the other, grinning from ear to ear. A feeling of nostalgic familiarity overwhelms her in front of such events and crowds. As the daughter of a foreign diplomat, she was born in a world of high dignitaries and wonderful galas, and now she has one more chance of being a part of it. One more night to forget that she doesn't belong to that enchanted kingdom anymore. One more night to pretend that that part of her life isn't lost for good.
Sherlock smiles faintly at her euphoria as his eyes follow her briefly before he gets lost in thought, deep inside the labyrinth of his mind.
At some point, Giulia walks up to him and whispers softly in his ear, "Sherlock, you've been standing perfectly still in front of the only empty wall in the whole gallery for ten minutes. I understand you are in your mind palace, but could you please shift your rapt, pensive look to some artwork and feign interest? These people might talk."
He jumps back to reality with a grimace of despair and grumbles at her mundane concerns. "These people aren't trying to solve a homicide."
She doesn't give up. "If you keep chasing the same thought in your head, you will never get to the right answer. The human brain is more likely to find a solution when it is busy doing something else. Trust me: take a break and get distracted."
"Distracted?" He scoffs. "You forget that my brain is always on high alert, even when I wouldn't want it to. Nothing happens in here without me noticing."
Giulia ironically cocks a brow at him and thinks, I am standing in front of you, all dressed up, not a care in the world other than having a lovely evening together, and you've barely glanced at me since we got here. Not really that observant, if you ask me.
He notices the sarcastic expression painted on her face and frowns.
"You want me to prove it? Fine. I have counted 137 people so far: 71 men, 66 women, and that's only for the guests. 21 servers are managing the reception in the hall, and I estimate there must be no less than 3 chefs and 7 sous-chefs in the kitchen, as part of the catering service."
"Alright, you've just proven you can count with very big numbers," she mocks him. "Should we move to the next room of the exhibition?"
Sherlock raises a brow at her, disappointed. "You don't seem impressed."
She smiles softly at him. "You always impress me, Sherlock, but yours is a solo exercise. No one can compete or play together with you on observational skills."
He stares at her for a couple of seconds before grasping the veiled sadness in her words.
"Would you like to try it?" He proposes with a sly grin.
She looks surprised. "You want to humiliate me?"
"No. I want to work out deductions with you. I'll guide you through the logical steps," he suggests kindly, casting off his condescending tone for the first time in his life.
"Let's pick the couple of people who introduced themselves to us half an hour ago. They are currently standing to your left," he kicks off without even stealing a look in said direction. "What can you tell me about them?" He encourages her.
Giulia glances discreetly at those two people. "First, they aren't extremely meticulous people since they showed up late to this elegant gala. I'm sure about that because they arrived at the gallery at the same time as us, and we entered together."
Sherlock arches a brow: he didn't expect her to have noticed that. But he shakes his head and says, "Be careful that you don't shoot yourself in the foot with your assumptions. You ventured a hasty conjecture balancing arrival times and individual personalities and then associated us with them. And yet, you are quite the precise and organised person, while I could be obsequious to the etiquette—I simply choose not to. So, you see, you created a comparison that doesn't stand and contradicted yourself with your very first impression." He gives her a jokingly reprimanding look.
"Not at all," she objects, irritated by his patronising attitude. Wasn't it supposed to be an entertaining pastime to let her improve her deductive skills?
She continues, "We showed up late due to our impromptu decision to come—thank you again for inviting me, by the way. This event is astonishing." She beams at him, wandering off for a moment. "We decided to attend on a whim and came straight away, while the couple in question must have planned it well in advance, and yet they were late. Right after walking through the doors of the museum with us, they stopped to have a chat with what I can only assume were the curator and his wife—they were standing at the entrance, welcoming the most prominent guests, and engaging in extensive explanations of the exhibition, hence my deduction. The tone of the conversation with our mystery couple differed from the rest, though. I overheard personal comments on family members and weekend getaways. They were friendly and familiar, showing that the couple would have never missed such an event and probably had it on their calendars for a long time," she concludes with a prideful smile.
He nods, impressed. "Very well. Off to a good start. However, your elaborate reasoning only justifies what they are not: not punctual people. Can you give me some more details on their lives?" He challenges her.
Giulia takes a more attentive look at the two people standing just a few feet away from them.
"I don't have your capabilities. I can't infer someone's job by their gait, or their backstory by the scratches on their hands, so I'll stick to my emotional intelligence. Judging by the expression on their faces, she is enjoying the evening and seems relaxed and satisfied, while he looks melancholic and heedless."
"I'd rather say he is depressed, maybe suicidal. As for his wife, her satisfaction derives from sexual intercourse. She is a cheater and loves another man," he states confidently. "Anyway, congratulations. Your deductions were on point for both of them. Superficial analysis, might I add, but undeniably correct."
She gapes at him. "How do you know all that?"
Sherlock explains, without bothering to whisper his indelicate deductions, "First things first, the relationship with her husband is no longer intimate, and I suppose this might be the reason she is cheating on him. How do I know she cheats?" He anticipates her obvious question. "When she talked with us earlier, I could smell two different scents on her: one was her perfume, the other was a man's cologne. Curious fact: her husband only leaves a trail of aftershave and nothing else. Conclusion: She was with her lover just before getting here. As you so accurately remember, they arrived at the gallery at the same time as us, but not together; they got there in two different cars. I can't say for sure, but I bet the husband came straight from work."
"While the wife came from her lover's house?" Giulia asks him tentatively, keeping her voice down and glancing furtively at the nearby couple.
He shoots her a conceited look. "Not exactly. She was with her lover, but not in a house. In fact, she has an affair with her personal driver. If you look at the back of her neck, you should notice a faint fingerprint in a car oil stain, right where the driver must have touched her in a moment of passion before accompanying her to the museum."
She follows his gaze and squints her eyes at the woman's nape.
He elbows her and mutters under his breath, "Don't stare when I do the same."
She stifles a laugh and looks at him as they both giggle. Giulia grips on his sleeve like an enthusiastic toddler.
"This is fun. But I need more conclusive proof: how can you say her lover is her driver and what makes you think she is in love with him?"
He smiles at her childlike amusement. "Let's be honest: such a woman would never wear a crinkled dress to an elegant night, and she definitely didn't leave her house in those conditions. What might have caused all those wrinkles during the car ride to the museum, I'll leave it to the imagination." He cocks a brow suggestively. "About my theory of love and not just passion, I have a clue to back it up. She recently got a tattoo, and I assume it is related to her new love. When she introduced herself to us and shook my hand, I noticed the hint of a greasy substance on her fingers. I sniffed it and positively identified it as petroleum jelly, often used in the treatment of a new tattoo. For confirmation, if you observe carefully, right below the frankly too plunging neckline of her dress, you might see the shadow of bandage, presumably covering the recent tattoo."
Giulia follows his instructions and arches a brow as her mind reproaches: What were your eyes doing down her cleavage, Mister?
She lifts her gaze to him and sighs. Imagining that a man as observant as Sherlock wouldn't notice an overly flamboyant bimbo would be wishful thinking. She wonders for how long his eyes have rested on that woman. How long on her, instead?
She shakes her head. Let's not kill the mood. Two can play this game.
"Let me guess," she intervenes with a cheeky look on her face. "This is also how you deduced that the relationship with the husband was no longer intimate, isn't it?"
Sherlock's eyes sparkle in admiration. Hats off to Giulia for her rapid connection. He nods, impressed.
"Precisely. Her dress is extremely revealing, yet we can't see the tattoo, meaning it is in a very intimate area not exposed by her neckline."
"And if she got a tattoo related to her lover in such a place, we can only imagine she doesn't think her husband will see her fully naked and find out," Giulia completes his sentence, and steals a furtive glance at him, unable to stop smiling. This is the greatest time the two of them have ever had together.
"You said he is depressed, possibly suicidal," she recalls after a while, eager to prolong the game. "How can you tell?" That deduction is not so obvious to her.
He turns his back to the couple and comments, forgetting to keep his voice down, "He has spent half of the time grumbling at the work-related emails on his phone on a Saturday night while he is attending a spectacular evening at a museum. Is there anything sadder than that? Countless chances to take a break and enjoy himself, but nothing seems to interest him. He has only his boring, tiring job to keep him company. Not to mention he has no sexual desire toward his objectively attractive and lascivious wife. That's a sign of depression. Finally, if you gaze at the base of his left shirt cuff, you should be able to spot two red blots. He was scratching his forearm earlier and must have inadvertently reopened some wounds and cuts just over the veins."
The man overhears their conversation and turns around with a scandalised expression. He looks daggers at Sherlock and hisses, "Get lost, freak."
Giulia's face clouds over in an instant, and she shoots a furious look at him. "I beg your pardon?"
Sherlock whispers in her ear, "Giulia, what are you doing? Let it go. It's nothing."
The man clears his throat, slightly embarrassed. "My apologies, Miss. I meant no disrespect to you."
Sherlock comes between Giulia and the stranger, forcing her to look at him as he encourages tenderly, "Come on, there's no need to make a scene. Let's go visit another room."
She shakes her head adamantly. "No, this is serious to me."
"I wasn't comfortable with what your partner was saying about me and my spouse," the man replies in an imperturbable tone.
"Are you having a hard time coming to terms with an inconvenient truth?" She teases him insolently.
"Alright, that's enough," Sherlock intervenes and wraps his arm around her waist, dragging her out of the room with a gentle yet firm hold.
"I want to dance. Now," he says, pushing her into the adjacent salon where an orchestra is livening up the evening.
They stop in the middle of the room, and she shoots him a disoriented look. Nobody is dancing. That isn't even a proper dance floor. They are standing in the centre of the gallery's main hall, a classical concert playing in the background. Sherlock dismisses her nervousness, gently places his hands on her hips and starts swaying to the sound of the music. She lets him lead her, too stunned to protest.
After a while, she steps on his toe, and he muffles a groan.
"You're quite bad at dancing." He clearly doesn't care about being the perfect gentleman.
"You're surprisingly good instead." She shoots him an impressed look. She wasn't expecting such a skill from the consultive detective. He never ceases to amaze her.
"I know," he retorts pridefully.
"Sorry to ruin your performance, then. It's just that I hate dancing," she complains, with a grimace.
His lips bend in a soft smile as he slows down the pace. His left arm glides on her back and draws her closer until his right cheek brushes against the top of her head. Had she worn high heels, the height difference wouldn't be so noticeable.
"What a pity. To me, dancing is the perfect action. It's the only movement that allows two people to be close enough to touch without having to look into each other's eyes. It's kind of impersonal, isn't it?" He murmurs into a lock of her hair.
She closes her eyes and breathes out against his neck, "My head is currently on your shoulder. I think it's very personal, indeed."
They keep moving slowly across the room, locked in a graceful embrace, and he whispers, "Look at it this way: I could be anybody right now, and you wouldn't know because you're not staring at my face."
She lifts her head to look straight into his eyes. "I wonder if I've ever really seen your true face, or if you've only shown me one partial side of you."
He frowns, while Giulia's thoughts fly back to Mrs Storing's theory about the sons of the moon.
"What do you mean?"
Giuliaaverts her gaze, resting her head on the crook of his neck.
"Call it 'dark side' or 'sociopathic tendencies'—whatever suits you best. I don't care how you define yourself in front of the whole world. I think you are frightened by how similar we are sometimes. We see things differently from anyone else, and it is unsettling for you to find out there is someone out there who might know who you truly are. Are you afraid that if I get too close, I might see things I wouldn't like and run away? I am not scared of your dark side, Sherlock."
He knows she means every word. He sighs and makes her pirouette across the floor, then his hands steady her again before she can lose her balance.
"Why were you so enraged when that man called me a freak?" He asks, curious. He genuinely doesn't understand her heated reaction.
"Because it was disrespectful."
"Agreed, but my question is different. Why would you care?" He insists.
Her eyes look around the room while she stalls, clumsily searching for an answer.
"I, erm, I suppose I just do," she stammers. "Why don't you? Do you seriously not worry about what people think of you?"
He shakes his head. "No. I'm quite untouched by others' opinions. Those people don't count."
Giulia tilts her head to the side, interested in that subtle hint. "And whose opinion matters to you, then?"
"Yours," he replies resolutely, and his deep voice drops to a whisper. "What do you think of me?" He comes to a sudden halt in the middle of the room and lifts her chin with a hand to make her meet his eyes.
She feels like a deer in headlights. She takes a breath before replying with a shy smile, "Not a freak, to begin with."
She mentally facepalms. She shields herself behind irony whenever things get real. Telling the whole truth has always been a sore point between them, whether it was about her past or the nature of their feelings. Still, they are too far gone now to keep their childish skirmish going.
She becomes serious again and says in a firm voice, "I think you are brilliant, possibly the smartest man I've ever met."
He wrinkles his nose at her compliment, disappointed.
"That's a general appreciation that anybody who's vaguely kind could say about me. I was expecting something slightly more personal," he falters on the last word.
Giulia nods silently. Maybe it's time things got personal. She stares into his magnetic eyes.
"I think you are scared to find out that underneath all those layers of cold logic, there is a heart hidden somewhere inside of you." She gently places a hand on his chest, brushing her fingers against his shirt between the lapels of his jacket.
Sherlock doesn't flinch under her touch, but he forgets to breathe for a couple of seconds, and his heart pounds as if it was trying to jump out of his ribcage. He fears she might perceive his racing heartbeat beneath his shirt, as the row rumble of a drum. He hates the way she analyses him; he hates the way she trails her eyes over him, x-raying his soul, slicing through his barrier. Above all, though, he hates that she is right.
"How dare you." He feigns an offended expression and takes her hand in his to resume their dance. He guides her across the marble floor and makes her swirl with a delicate but expert hand.
She doesn't let him drop the conversation that easily and insists, "You always put up that impenetrable facade, but you must feel. Something, anything. You must have a heart."
"Says the woman who buried hers," he quotes what she said at the flat just two hours before.
"I never said it was a good idea."
The rhythm of the music slows down as the orchestra approaches the end of the piece.
"Oh, but I think it was," he replies, adjusting their gentle rolling to the reduced pace of the symphony. "Renouncing to care is the safest way to live. Abstaining from feelings and keeping a cool head works perfectly, it's effective. We—you and me—should know that. Once your heart gets shattered, there's no piecing it back together," he mutters in a grave voice.
Giulia takes advantage of his rapid grasp on her waist, saving her from a maladroit landing on the floor, and steps forward, leaning her head against his chest. She has the impression he is trying to slip away, and she is desperate to keep him close.
"But it doesn't mean it should be thrown away," she protests feebly.
He exhales, and through her ear pressed against him, she hears his lungs emptying.
"I already told you once, when I got shot: breakable hearts are impractical. We should know," he emphasises as the string quartet plays the notes of the grand finale. "Not to mention that love is the most irrational feeling of all." He rests his chin on the top of her head while rocking back and forth, slower and slower.
"Why?" She speaks into his shirt.
"Because it pushes you to make foolish choices up to the point of going against the instinct of self-preservation," he replies mechanically.
"But what life are we preserving if love is not in it?" She asks, lifting her head to look at him.
Bloody good question. Sherlock doesn't meet her eyes but leads her in the final steps of their dance, disputing stubbornly, "We should know better than that. Feelings are impractical..." His voice wavers, whereas his steady hand slides to her back as he guides her to dip backwards.
She fixes her eyes on his and retorts teasingly, "You've already said it."
Sherlock clears his throat, bending over her as his other hand holds her by the waist.
"And irrational," he argues once again while a cascade of notes echoes in the high vaulted ceilings of the salon. The melody is winding down.
"Heard you the first time. Who are you trying to convince, me or you?"
The breath gets caught in his throat while he holds her gently in an elegant dip, standing in the middle of the room. They stay still, eyes locked, a perfect imitation of the statue Psyche revived by Cupid's kiss by Antonio Canova. Two entranced people holding onto each other as the world around them disappears.
He parts his lips and is on the verge of saying something when he is awakened from his daydream by thunderous applause honouring the orchestra's performance. He blinks twice and pulls Giulia upright, proceeding to adjust his suit methodically.
"Thank you for this dance," he jests.
"You're an excellent dancer, but a mediocre conversationalist. You had your fun; now it's my turn. Come with me to the section 'Signals from the universe'. The show is about to start. Maybe you'll pick up on the signs from the cosmos," she taunts him and allows her hand to glide in his, leading the detective into a darkened room.
A museum guide has just begun his presentation.
"If you believe the stars and other celestial bodies are just mute dots on the vault of heaven and our planet is the only vibrant speck within the galaxy… Think again. In fact, the universe communicates with us through a wide range of signals. The galactic radio noise is a case in point. The most fascinating cosmic noise is undoubtedly the cosmic microwave background radiation, which was accidentally discovered in 1964, earning two radio astronomers the Nobel Prize in Physics."
"And what's so captivating about it?" Giulia asks him politely.
The guide shoots her a surprised smile, glad someone is actively paying attention.
"It is believed to be a remnant of the origin of the universe: The Big Bang. Nevertheless, hearing cosmic noise isn't exactly easy. It can only be perceived at frequencies above about 15 MHz detected by highly directional receivers and antennas," he explains professionally.
Sherlock is distractedly listening to the guide's answer when suddenly he feels as if the whole room was plunged into an abyss of deafening silence instead. Inside the chaos of his mind, all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
He squeezes Giulia's arm lightly and leans in to murmur in her ear, "We have to go."
She turns toward him with a confused expression.
"Giulia, you were right about finding a distraction for my brain to let me elaborate on the case and were right again about the universe signalling the solution. I've just solved the murder. I know how the victim died and who killed him."