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FIC: Contamination, Chapter 4: The voyeur of utter destruction
See master post for headers & notes
Back at Baker Street, Sherlock put the CD into his computer and set it to infinite repeat, perching the computer precariously on the arm of the chair . John double-checked the contents of his bag, listened to the recording three times through -- it made him want to hunch his shoulders, somehow -- and went to study Sherlock's map of poisoned dogs. Sherlock thought they were a clue, so they must be, but they didn't fit into anything. He drummed his fingers on his thigh, thinking. Across the room, Sherlock was muttering and rolling his sleeve down over his arm, gone almost fey with concentration and nicotine. John went to the kitchen, heated up some soup, and made coffee. No sense in them both going insane. Halfway through his bowl of soup, he had a thought. "Sherlock, did the dogs have UV ink on them?"
Sherlock made a thumping sound; probably kicking the sofa. "They're dogs. No one thought to look."
John steepled his hands over his bowl. "Right. Of course."
More thumps, and then a sharp hiss of indrawn breath. "Oh. Oh, John."
Something John preferred not to examine too closely coiled in his gut when Sherlock said his name in that tone.
"The dogs had other things on their fur. Where's my computer?" Sherlock flung himself across the room and snatched his laptop from the armchair.
John raised his eyebrows. "You said mud on a dog's fur doesn't mean anything."
"Hah, right, on their own. And all of them had been several of the same places; no good matched against each other. But Grace is not a dog."
"So match traces on them against traces on her--"
"Precisely. Hand me the autopsy report."
John stood up, walked over to the table next to Sherlock, picked up the folder, and placed it in his outstretched hand. Sherlock hummed an acknowledgement deep in his throat. He flipped through the pages, then frowned at his laptop. He clicked the mouse a few times and smiled. "John. Look at this."
John bent over his shoulder; Sherlock had some kind of audio analysing software running on the recording from the murder scene. "There's a lot of low frequency stuff," he said. "I didn't think you could record that low without some specialized equipment."
"You can do it with parts off the shelf," Sherlock said, "but you have to know what you're doing. It's deliberately recorded." He tented his fingers in front of his face. "He wanted us to find it."
"So it's part of the art."
"Yes."
"What does it mean?" John asked.
Sherlock looked up, his eyes bright and wide. "This, combined with traces from the dogs and Grace? It means I know where he works."
* * *
Lestrade had never killed anyone; he didn't know many coppers who had. That was a good thing, he thought, in general, but right now he'd love to throttle Leon Blank. If he were a throttling sort of man, he'd've done it by now.
He tried again. "Look. You're small potatoes. We're not really interested. We just want to know who Grace was with last night."
"Grace was my girlfriend," Blank said. He'd been sticking with that line the whole damn time; he was cleverer than most criminals and clearly not about to believe for a second that Lestrade wasn't interested in him.
"Grace was a teenage girl who thought she was your girlfriend, and who you and your friend Ramona pimped out."
"Mrs Stone's my landlady."
Lestrade dug his fingers into his temples. "One more time. Where did you send Grace the night she was killed?"
"Grace was my girlfriend," Blank said again. "If I knew who killed her, I'd tell you. I loved her."
"Like hell," Lestrade said. There was a knock on the door; it was Donovan, with the photographs; he'd given Holmes the only prints when he'd given him the file, so they'd had to print more. "You talk to him for a minute," Lestrade said. "I need some air."
She nodded crisply, and he stepped past her, out into the hallway. As the door closed behind him, he inhaled: it smelled of police-station hallway. Sweat, stale mud, something like locker room mould. He cracked his neck and rubbed a tense muscle in his shoulder, waiting.
Behind him, muffled by the door, he heard a retching noise, and then Donovan's voice. He re-entered the room, where the floor was now spattered with sick, and Blank was dry-heaving, his head between his knees. "Fuck," Blank said. "Holy fuck." He looked under his arm at Lestrade. "Those are fucking Photoshop, yeah?"
"I wish," Lestrade said.
"Fuck." Blank shuddered. Then he swallowed, and said, "I don't know. I just get the girls and keep them in line. Ramona knows who everyone is. It's not my job."
"Where is she?" Lestrade asked. "We've been to your flat and Mrs Stone's; both empty."
Blank shook his head. "If Ramona's not at home, I don't know."
"Where did you send Grace?"
Blank hesitated, then held out his hand, and Donovan gave him a pen and paper; he scribbled an address. "I fucking swear," he said, watching Donovan's chest as she tucked the pen away, "when you said Grace was killed, I thought you meant, just killed. The ordinary way."
"Murder's never ordinary, Mr Blank," Lestrade said. Holmes might dismiss crimes as ordinary, pedestrian, boring, but Lestrade refused to see them that way. He picked up the piece of paper; on it was the address of the art museum. Useless.
He walked out of the room without another word.
* * *
The black cab let them out at Holborn tube station. John climbed out and waited while Sherlock paid their fare. "Right," he said, when Sherlock turned to him. "He works for London Underground?"
"There's a connection here at Holborn to an abandoned line down to the Aldwych. This is where he works."
"What could possibly have been on Grace and the dogs that told you that?"
"It wasn't them; our killer told me."
John paused, clicking away at that in his mind. "They'd all been in a tube station."
"Obviously."
"And the killer told you it was this one?"
"Yes."
"I can't see how."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Our killer likes art. Specifically, complex line-based art, lots of joined things, lots of ends dangling into nowhere. The Underground, it's appealing; it's a form of art unto itself, and it's got more hiding places than nearly anywhere else, if you know how to get to them. We know he likes an audience, that he likes not to get caught: the abandoned line here is accessible. It's only been closed up, oh, about fifteen years. People still use it; film crews and the like. There aren't many abandoned tube lines where that's true."
"So you guessed?"
"The killer drew on her skin. It's not random -- there's symbols and paths. Connections. Once I had a place to start, I could see it. There's a map of this part of the line drawn inside the Minotaur's penis."
John shook his head. "Amazing."
Despite the early hour, the tube platform held quite a few people. John and Sherlock waited as a train racketed in; the wind of its passing blew Sherlock's hair wildly around his head. When it took everyone else away and vanished down the tunnel, he turned without speaking and began to walk purposefully towards what looked like a storage area near the end of the platform. John tightened the strap of his messenger bag so that it snuggled up against his back, and followed.
A nervous, tired-looking man was waiting for them outside the storage door. "You really need to get in?" he said, eying Sherlock disapprovingly.
"Really."
"It's my neck if you get caught in there," the man said. Sherlock produced one of his innumerable copies of Lestrade's warrant card from his pocket.
"If we don't come back out in six hours, ring this man. Tell him I assured you I'd keep your name out of it. He will understand."
"It's not the police I'm worried about," said the man, but he appeared mollified, and handed Sherlock a keyring. John nodded at him and followed Sherlock through, and the door slammed shut behind them. He plucked the keyring from Sherlock's hand and sorted through it until he found the key to that door, and locked it. The last thing they needed was some kids coming in the open door and running into the killer. Two adults, expecting danger, was something else entirely. "Makes it harder for us to get out, John," Sherlock said, low in his ear.
"Makes it harder for him to run away," John replied. We're more dangerous than he is, that meant, and Sherlock snorted softly. "So where are we, then?"
"Holborn."
"Yes, thank you, I knew that."
Sherlock gestured at the crumbling tile on the walls. "The closed-off line goes to what was Aldwych station. Lots of storerooms back here, office space, old tunnels and platforms all carved up. Some bits shut off, some not."
"And our man's back here, is he?"
Sherlock unlocked another door and smiled back over his shoulder. "Lots of places to hide."
Everything seemed muffled; there was only the heaviness of air and the ugly sub-aural thrum of trains. Even the keys did not jangle on the ring. Their footsteps ought to have echoed in the empty halls, but John had learned the trick of walking softly in hospitals; he did not know where Sherlock had learned it. Perhaps it was something Sherlock simply did, his shoes clacking with authority or soft as a whisper at his command.
Sherlock turned on every light switch as they passed. John reached around into his bag, and took out the torches. He handed one to Sherlock, and Sherlock nodded his thanks. "Look for marks on doors," he said, softly, and turned on his torch.
It was John who found the door, catching the quick flash of something under the beam of the torch. "Sherlock."
Sherlock darted back to turn off the lights, and they looked at the door together: it was decorated with the image of a naked woman crouched inside a cow, mating with a bull. "Pasiphaë," John whispered.
"Obsession with degradation and female sexuality," replied Sherlock. "The ancient Greeks provide fertile imagery for the diseased mind."
The door was unlocked; they closed it behind them and Sherlock flipped the lightswitch. John had time to see that they were in a large room, with electronic equipment in piles around, and a stained sheet curtaining off the corner -- and a tall man, taller than Sherlock, looking up from one of the banks of equipment, his eyes wide and startled. Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, and the man reached behind him and threw another lightswitch.
The room went dark, and then a faint purple light shone from overhead. Maps and mazes leapt out of the walls, their glowing trails confusing the eye. Sherlock dropped to a crouch, and John followed, pressing his shoulder to Sherlock's. Grace's music began to play, and then faded out, to be replaced by the sound of a dog whimpering, then yelping, then crying softly. The dog's crying faded into Grace's voice, begging, saying she'd be good, she'd do anything -- and then a cacophony of dog cries. John gritted his teeth; he could feel Sherlock tense beside him. "There," Sherlock whispered in his ear, suddenly. "Movement. He has UV tattoos."
John raised his head and saw the killer, half-hidden behind some boxes, a massive chestpiece of a bull glowing under the blacklight.
"Then we can track him," John whispered back. "Go left. I'll get the lights."
Sherlock squeezed his upper arm, and vanished into the gloom. John crept off towards where he thought the man had been when they'd come in, gun warm and solid in his right hand. He and Sherlock were in dark clothing, no white on either of them; they were harder to see than the killer, with his elaborate tattoos, and there were two of them: harder to keep track of. He could see the shape of the electronics bank off to the side, and slid silently towards it, keeping his breath steady and quiet. Somewhere behind him was Sherlock. He ducked behind the hanging sheet, and spotted the killer edging along the wall.
"I do love a chase," Sherlock said, the human words weaving through the space between the dogs' crying. "So satisfying. Almost a form of art in itself."
John reached the bank of electronics, keeping one eye on the killer, who had stopped at the sound of Sherlock's voice. He groped for the lightswitch, and found it; hesitated. He couldn't risk blinding Sherlock, not here, not with this man so close; he had to warn him. He raised his gun, thumbed off the safety, and aimed at the center of the killer's chest tattoo, his mind racing. "Sherlock!" he called, into the eerily glowing dark. "Supernova!"
He narrowed his eyes, hoped Sherlock had understood, and flicked the switch.
The killer yelped and threw up his arms, blinded; John steadied his gun hand and breathed, deep down through his ribs, rooting himself to the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sherlock, not ten feet from the killer. Sherlock's head was tilted at an arrogant angle, his hands were in his pockets, and he was smiling.
The killer lowered his arms, blinking, and saw them.
John held the gun steady; the killer's eyes flicked from the gun to Sherlock, and back to the gun. John nearly smiled, both because the man thought that John, armed, was more dangerous than Sherlock, and because he was wrong. Sherlock tossed his hair out of his eyes and ducked his chin, so that it fell back down; his smile broadened into something nasty. "So you're our artist," he said, and John wondered if the man heard all the razors in that voice.
"Yes," the man said, jerking his eyes away from John's gun as if he couldn't help himself.
"Tell me," Sherlock said, "what is the significance of decay in your work?"
The man gaped like a fish, then said "You noticed that?"
Sherlock stepped closer. "I've been following your career for a while. Ever since the dogs. Did you move from dogs to women to express the animal nature of female sexuality? Your symbolism is exquisite, you know."
The man trembled. "You saw the dogs?"
"Oh, I'm something of a connoisseur." Sherlock flashed a toothier smile, briefly. "Ask John; he's my tame killer. Nowhere near your level, of course, but he has his uses." He shrugged, softened his voice into seduction. "You know, I'm almost tempted to have him let you go, to see what you do next."
The man swayed, slightly, lulled by Sherlock's voice. Sherlock took another step.
"You know what will happen, John, if we let him go?"
"He'll kill again," John said, without looking at Sherlock's face.
"It thrills you," Sherlock said. "You have an audience, now. Will you go back to dogs? Or will you kill another girl?" He took one final step and stopped, inches from the killer. "Will you joint her, here, and here?" Sherlock's hands traced the killer's shoulders.
"Don't touch me," the man said, his voice shaking, blinking rapidly in the dim light.
Sherlock held his eyes. "Perhaps this new work will require her heart." He pressed one hand against the killer's ribs. "Perhaps she'll be your masterpiece, the one you can finally consummate." His hands dropped away. "Or perhaps not, and you'll have to try again."
"Don't," the man said, flinching. "Don't talk about my art like that." John could see sweat dampening his hair and his hands shaking.
"John," said Sherlock, widening his eyes slightly, "lower your gun."
John dropped his aim to the man's shins, and the man turned away from Sherlock to watch the movement. The instant he twisted his body, Sherlock struck, quick as a mongoose; the killer yelped as Sherlock slammed him into the floor.
John holstered his gun and took a roll of tape from the field surgical kit in his messenger bag. "One of these days," he said, tearing off lengths so that Sherlock could bind the man's hands, "one of these days, you're going to go off the rails and I won't even notice until you go cavorting off with a serial-killing clown."
Sherlock laughed and wrapped tape around the man's mouth. "Why would I, when I have you?"
"I'm not a serial killer," John said, grinning back. "We've talked about this." He looked at his mobile. "No signal," he said, and hauled the killer to his feet. The man cried out and his right leg buckled under him. John pushed up his trouser legs; the killer's ankle was swelling rapidly. "Looks like you sprained his ankle when you took him down," John said, and Sherlock huffed; it might almost have been a laugh. John pulled the trouser legs back down and bound the man's feet, then helped Sherlock lift him onto his shoulders; the man thrashed and John caught his eye. "I will knock you unconscious," he said, and the man stilled. John fished Sherlock's phone out of Sherlock's trousers -- also without signal -- and placed it in one of his own pockets, so that he could monitor it more easily. They set off for more populated parts of the Underground, John bringing up the rear so that he could monitor the killer's movements.
"You're wondering if I actually know anything about art," Sherlock said, to the killer. "Tell him, John."
"I'm not a performing monkey," John answered; he tugged at the seam of his jacket. His shoulder ached a bit from hoisting the killer around.
"Monkeys are the ones with tails, aren't they?" Sherlock asked. He looked over his shoulder at the killer. "He's quite brilliant in his own way, you see. I'm trying to teach him my methods, but he doesn't always understand. But you do, of course."
The killer made a noise that reminded John of a porpoise. He sighed. "Of course you know about art; you know loads about art because art forgery is a crime and you might have to detect it. You know about art, and cigarette ashes, and mud, and you've forgotten more about organic chemistry than I ever knew."
"Really, John, it's too much. I've forgotten nothing of organic chemistry."
John laughed, and for a while they walked in silence. Sherlock's breath was coming a little harder, and once or twice he stumbled under the killer's weight. John checked the phones every few minutes, hoping for a signal; he'd help carry the killer if he had to, but he could see that Sherlock was trying to spare him that.
He'd just taken the phones out to check when his phone vibrated in his hand; he nearly dropped it. "I've got a signal," he said, looking at it, "and six texts from Lestrade. Where are you, has Holmes flipped his wig, where are you, this isn't funny, for God's sake text me back so I know you're alive, Holmes better be alive too."
Sherlock snorted, and John said "So I'll just let him know where we are, then."
"No," said Sherlock, "let me". John helped him deposit the killer in a heap on the floor, and handed over his phone. Sherlock bent over the screen for a few minutes, thumbs tapping rapidly. "They'll be twenty minutes, at least," he said, as the phone beeped again.
"Don't text Lestrade while he's driving," John said, and dug one of the bottles of water out of the bag, took a sip, and passed it over. Sherlock took a long drink, the muscles of his neck dewy and grimy with sweat and dust, one hand still on John's phone. "I wouldn't," he said. "Sally, on the other hand --"
"Lay off Donovan, will you?" John said. "She's all right."
"She thinks I'm a psychopath."
"Well, now," John said, sliding the bottle out of Sherlock's fingers and taking another sip, "she's not wrong, is she?"
Sherlock gave him a narrow-eyed, amused look, and creased his face into one of his rare, genuine smiles.
The killer thrashed and made noises behind the tape, and Sherlock bent to meet his eyes, his smile transmuting to something wolfish and wicked. "Hungry, John?"
"Ravenous," John answered. "You?"
"Dying for a curry." The killer thrashed again, and Sherlock dug the toe of his boot into his side. "If Lestrade doesn't arrive soon, I'll resort to cannibalism."
John raised his eyebrows and made a face, as if considering the merits of the suggestion, and Sherlock started to laugh.
When John joined in, the killer curled himself into a ball and whimpered; Sherlock laughed harder, leaning on John's shoulder, the floor vibrating under them as somewhere in the distance, trains came and went.
* * *
Lestrade found Holmes and Dr Watson playing rock-paper-scissors on the floor of a disused Underground tunnel, a bound and gagged man tied off to the side, trying desperately to wiggle away from them. He felt as if this was some kind of horrible metaphor for his life.
Dr Watson handed him a blacklight torch. "You'll want this. He's got blacklights set up, but they're on a big board, not the wall; might take a while to find." He gave detailed directions to the bound man's hideout, while Holmes gave his statement to Detective Constable Althelney Jones. Sergeant Donovan ungagged the man, who immediately tried to bite her; she did not re-gag him, but she didn't touch the tape wrapped around his legs and wrists. "We're going to have fun with this one, sir," she said.
"Right," Lestrade answered. "Dr Watson, please give a statement before you leave. Constable, you're in charge here; get Dr Watson's statement before you let either of these men leave. Send Anderson's team through when they arrive. You--" he leveled a finger at Donovan "--you're with me."
"Yessir."
Lestrade strode off down the tunnel, the torch in his hand. He found the place easily enough with Dr Watson's directions.
Soundboard; laptop; stack of DVDs. Pile of recording equipment. Sheet-draped area, spattered with blood. "What the hell is that?" said Donovan, in his ear. "It looks like an operating theatre."
"Turn out the light," said Lestrade, with a growing sense of horror in his stomach. Donovan found the switch on the wall, and the buzzing lights clunked off. Lestrade turned the blacklight torch on the sheets.
"Holy God," Donovan said. She sounded very far away.
"It's his studio," Lestrade said, hearing the amazement in his own voice. Holmes had been terribly, frighteningly correct about this killer. Artistic, he'd said; Lestrade's interest in art was restricted to Art Deco advertising posters, but he could tell this was done by the same hand that'd drawn all over Grace Blue's body: labyrinths and bull's heads intertwined into a vast, twisted erotic display, visible only under blacklight.
Donovan turned the lights back on, and once again, there were just sheets, spattered with blood. Lestrade clenched his free hand into a fist. "Make sure we get everything," he said. "Everything. I don't want this bastard to ever see daylight again."
* * *
Sherlock tapped away at his phone. "We're not going home, John."
"We're not?"
"We're going to see Irene Adler," he said.
Outside the terrace of houses, John spotted the police stakeout. "Oh, that's not obvious at all," he muttered to Sherlock, who smirked at him.
"A year ago, you wouldn't've noticed it, John."
They walked up to the door and knocked; after a moment, it was answered by a teenaged boy wearing skinny black jeans and an oversized jumper. "You Sherlock Holmes?" he asked.
"I am," said Sherlock, eyebrows rising. "And you are?"
The boy smiled. "Irene said you'd be coming by; she left a letter for you." John and Sherlock followed him into the living room; it was empty. They followed him into the kitchen; it contained a table and an electric kettle and a single mug, and it smelled of bleach. The boy picked up one of the two letters on the table and handed it over. It was unsealed, and had "Sherlock Holmes" written on it in Adler's looping hand.
"Is Irene likely to home soon?" John asked. "It's just, we were hoping to talk to her."
"No," said the boy. "She asked me to stay a few days, to give you the letter. She's left."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth, and John grabbed his arm and spun him around. "Ah," he said, over his shoulder. "We'll just be going, then. Have a lovely day." He shoved Sherlock in front of him through the empty flat.
They were close enough to home to walk. Sherlock shoved the letter in his pocket and took out his phone. "Are you texting Lestrade about Adler being gone?" John asked, and Sherlock smirked.
"No. I'm texting Sally."
"She's going to punch you one day, and I'm not going to be the man to stop her," John said. Sherlock really was an idiot about some things.
When they got to 221B, Sherlock bounded up the stairs ahead of John and stripped out of his coat. He laid Adler's letter on the table and sat down in front of it. John went to wash; he could smell himself and it wasn't a particularly great smell.
When he came back down in pyjamas and slippers, Sherlock said, "Read it, will you? Let me know what you make of it; I hardly know what to think."
The letter was written in black biro, on copier paper.
John read it, then read it again. "Is she threatening to blackmail you for crossdressing?"
"I think she's insulting my skill at crossdressing."
John raised his eyebrows. "You crossdress?" At Sherlock's scathing look, he rolled his eyes. "Right. Of course. You might need to, for a case, so of course you've learned how."
Sherlock went into the living room and picked up his violin. "If she is hoping to blackmail me, she'll be disappointed."
"No skeletons in your closet?" John asked, watching Sherlock's fingers on the neck of the violin.
"Plenty of skeletons, John." Sherlock raised his bow. "No closet."
* * *
Next chapter: A small plot of land
The voyeur of utter destruction
Back at Baker Street, Sherlock put the CD into his computer and set it to infinite repeat, perching the computer precariously on the arm of the chair . John double-checked the contents of his bag, listened to the recording three times through -- it made him want to hunch his shoulders, somehow -- and went to study Sherlock's map of poisoned dogs. Sherlock thought they were a clue, so they must be, but they didn't fit into anything. He drummed his fingers on his thigh, thinking. Across the room, Sherlock was muttering and rolling his sleeve down over his arm, gone almost fey with concentration and nicotine. John went to the kitchen, heated up some soup, and made coffee. No sense in them both going insane. Halfway through his bowl of soup, he had a thought. "Sherlock, did the dogs have UV ink on them?"
Sherlock made a thumping sound; probably kicking the sofa. "They're dogs. No one thought to look."
John steepled his hands over his bowl. "Right. Of course."
More thumps, and then a sharp hiss of indrawn breath. "Oh. Oh, John."
Something John preferred not to examine too closely coiled in his gut when Sherlock said his name in that tone.
"The dogs had other things on their fur. Where's my computer?" Sherlock flung himself across the room and snatched his laptop from the armchair.
John raised his eyebrows. "You said mud on a dog's fur doesn't mean anything."
"Hah, right, on their own. And all of them had been several of the same places; no good matched against each other. But Grace is not a dog."
"So match traces on them against traces on her--"
"Precisely. Hand me the autopsy report."
John stood up, walked over to the table next to Sherlock, picked up the folder, and placed it in his outstretched hand. Sherlock hummed an acknowledgement deep in his throat. He flipped through the pages, then frowned at his laptop. He clicked the mouse a few times and smiled. "John. Look at this."
John bent over his shoulder; Sherlock had some kind of audio analysing software running on the recording from the murder scene. "There's a lot of low frequency stuff," he said. "I didn't think you could record that low without some specialized equipment."
"You can do it with parts off the shelf," Sherlock said, "but you have to know what you're doing. It's deliberately recorded." He tented his fingers in front of his face. "He wanted us to find it."
"So it's part of the art."
"Yes."
"What does it mean?" John asked.
Sherlock looked up, his eyes bright and wide. "This, combined with traces from the dogs and Grace? It means I know where he works."
* * *
Lestrade had never killed anyone; he didn't know many coppers who had. That was a good thing, he thought, in general, but right now he'd love to throttle Leon Blank. If he were a throttling sort of man, he'd've done it by now.
He tried again. "Look. You're small potatoes. We're not really interested. We just want to know who Grace was with last night."
"Grace was my girlfriend," Blank said. He'd been sticking with that line the whole damn time; he was cleverer than most criminals and clearly not about to believe for a second that Lestrade wasn't interested in him.
"Grace was a teenage girl who thought she was your girlfriend, and who you and your friend Ramona pimped out."
"Mrs Stone's my landlady."
Lestrade dug his fingers into his temples. "One more time. Where did you send Grace the night she was killed?"
"Grace was my girlfriend," Blank said again. "If I knew who killed her, I'd tell you. I loved her."
"Like hell," Lestrade said. There was a knock on the door; it was Donovan, with the photographs; he'd given Holmes the only prints when he'd given him the file, so they'd had to print more. "You talk to him for a minute," Lestrade said. "I need some air."
She nodded crisply, and he stepped past her, out into the hallway. As the door closed behind him, he inhaled: it smelled of police-station hallway. Sweat, stale mud, something like locker room mould. He cracked his neck and rubbed a tense muscle in his shoulder, waiting.
Behind him, muffled by the door, he heard a retching noise, and then Donovan's voice. He re-entered the room, where the floor was now spattered with sick, and Blank was dry-heaving, his head between his knees. "Fuck," Blank said. "Holy fuck." He looked under his arm at Lestrade. "Those are fucking Photoshop, yeah?"
"I wish," Lestrade said.
"Fuck." Blank shuddered. Then he swallowed, and said, "I don't know. I just get the girls and keep them in line. Ramona knows who everyone is. It's not my job."
"Where is she?" Lestrade asked. "We've been to your flat and Mrs Stone's; both empty."
Blank shook his head. "If Ramona's not at home, I don't know."
"Where did you send Grace?"
Blank hesitated, then held out his hand, and Donovan gave him a pen and paper; he scribbled an address. "I fucking swear," he said, watching Donovan's chest as she tucked the pen away, "when you said Grace was killed, I thought you meant, just killed. The ordinary way."
"Murder's never ordinary, Mr Blank," Lestrade said. Holmes might dismiss crimes as ordinary, pedestrian, boring, but Lestrade refused to see them that way. He picked up the piece of paper; on it was the address of the art museum. Useless.
He walked out of the room without another word.
* * *
The black cab let them out at Holborn tube station. John climbed out and waited while Sherlock paid their fare. "Right," he said, when Sherlock turned to him. "He works for London Underground?"
"There's a connection here at Holborn to an abandoned line down to the Aldwych. This is where he works."
"What could possibly have been on Grace and the dogs that told you that?"
"It wasn't them; our killer told me."
John paused, clicking away at that in his mind. "They'd all been in a tube station."
"Obviously."
"And the killer told you it was this one?"
"Yes."
"I can't see how."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Our killer likes art. Specifically, complex line-based art, lots of joined things, lots of ends dangling into nowhere. The Underground, it's appealing; it's a form of art unto itself, and it's got more hiding places than nearly anywhere else, if you know how to get to them. We know he likes an audience, that he likes not to get caught: the abandoned line here is accessible. It's only been closed up, oh, about fifteen years. People still use it; film crews and the like. There aren't many abandoned tube lines where that's true."
"So you guessed?"
"The killer drew on her skin. It's not random -- there's symbols and paths. Connections. Once I had a place to start, I could see it. There's a map of this part of the line drawn inside the Minotaur's penis."
John shook his head. "Amazing."
Despite the early hour, the tube platform held quite a few people. John and Sherlock waited as a train racketed in; the wind of its passing blew Sherlock's hair wildly around his head. When it took everyone else away and vanished down the tunnel, he turned without speaking and began to walk purposefully towards what looked like a storage area near the end of the platform. John tightened the strap of his messenger bag so that it snuggled up against his back, and followed.
A nervous, tired-looking man was waiting for them outside the storage door. "You really need to get in?" he said, eying Sherlock disapprovingly.
"Really."
"It's my neck if you get caught in there," the man said. Sherlock produced one of his innumerable copies of Lestrade's warrant card from his pocket.
"If we don't come back out in six hours, ring this man. Tell him I assured you I'd keep your name out of it. He will understand."
"It's not the police I'm worried about," said the man, but he appeared mollified, and handed Sherlock a keyring. John nodded at him and followed Sherlock through, and the door slammed shut behind them. He plucked the keyring from Sherlock's hand and sorted through it until he found the key to that door, and locked it. The last thing they needed was some kids coming in the open door and running into the killer. Two adults, expecting danger, was something else entirely. "Makes it harder for us to get out, John," Sherlock said, low in his ear.
"Makes it harder for him to run away," John replied. We're more dangerous than he is, that meant, and Sherlock snorted softly. "So where are we, then?"
"Holborn."
"Yes, thank you, I knew that."
Sherlock gestured at the crumbling tile on the walls. "The closed-off line goes to what was Aldwych station. Lots of storerooms back here, office space, old tunnels and platforms all carved up. Some bits shut off, some not."
"And our man's back here, is he?"
Sherlock unlocked another door and smiled back over his shoulder. "Lots of places to hide."
Everything seemed muffled; there was only the heaviness of air and the ugly sub-aural thrum of trains. Even the keys did not jangle on the ring. Their footsteps ought to have echoed in the empty halls, but John had learned the trick of walking softly in hospitals; he did not know where Sherlock had learned it. Perhaps it was something Sherlock simply did, his shoes clacking with authority or soft as a whisper at his command.
Sherlock turned on every light switch as they passed. John reached around into his bag, and took out the torches. He handed one to Sherlock, and Sherlock nodded his thanks. "Look for marks on doors," he said, softly, and turned on his torch.
It was John who found the door, catching the quick flash of something under the beam of the torch. "Sherlock."
Sherlock darted back to turn off the lights, and they looked at the door together: it was decorated with the image of a naked woman crouched inside a cow, mating with a bull. "Pasiphaë," John whispered.
"Obsession with degradation and female sexuality," replied Sherlock. "The ancient Greeks provide fertile imagery for the diseased mind."
The door was unlocked; they closed it behind them and Sherlock flipped the lightswitch. John had time to see that they were in a large room, with electronic equipment in piles around, and a stained sheet curtaining off the corner -- and a tall man, taller than Sherlock, looking up from one of the banks of equipment, his eyes wide and startled. Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, and the man reached behind him and threw another lightswitch.
The room went dark, and then a faint purple light shone from overhead. Maps and mazes leapt out of the walls, their glowing trails confusing the eye. Sherlock dropped to a crouch, and John followed, pressing his shoulder to Sherlock's. Grace's music began to play, and then faded out, to be replaced by the sound of a dog whimpering, then yelping, then crying softly. The dog's crying faded into Grace's voice, begging, saying she'd be good, she'd do anything -- and then a cacophony of dog cries. John gritted his teeth; he could feel Sherlock tense beside him. "There," Sherlock whispered in his ear, suddenly. "Movement. He has UV tattoos."
John raised his head and saw the killer, half-hidden behind some boxes, a massive chestpiece of a bull glowing under the blacklight.
"Then we can track him," John whispered back. "Go left. I'll get the lights."
Sherlock squeezed his upper arm, and vanished into the gloom. John crept off towards where he thought the man had been when they'd come in, gun warm and solid in his right hand. He and Sherlock were in dark clothing, no white on either of them; they were harder to see than the killer, with his elaborate tattoos, and there were two of them: harder to keep track of. He could see the shape of the electronics bank off to the side, and slid silently towards it, keeping his breath steady and quiet. Somewhere behind him was Sherlock. He ducked behind the hanging sheet, and spotted the killer edging along the wall.
"I do love a chase," Sherlock said, the human words weaving through the space between the dogs' crying. "So satisfying. Almost a form of art in itself."
John reached the bank of electronics, keeping one eye on the killer, who had stopped at the sound of Sherlock's voice. He groped for the lightswitch, and found it; hesitated. He couldn't risk blinding Sherlock, not here, not with this man so close; he had to warn him. He raised his gun, thumbed off the safety, and aimed at the center of the killer's chest tattoo, his mind racing. "Sherlock!" he called, into the eerily glowing dark. "Supernova!"
He narrowed his eyes, hoped Sherlock had understood, and flicked the switch.
The killer yelped and threw up his arms, blinded; John steadied his gun hand and breathed, deep down through his ribs, rooting himself to the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sherlock, not ten feet from the killer. Sherlock's head was tilted at an arrogant angle, his hands were in his pockets, and he was smiling.
The killer lowered his arms, blinking, and saw them.
John held the gun steady; the killer's eyes flicked from the gun to Sherlock, and back to the gun. John nearly smiled, both because the man thought that John, armed, was more dangerous than Sherlock, and because he was wrong. Sherlock tossed his hair out of his eyes and ducked his chin, so that it fell back down; his smile broadened into something nasty. "So you're our artist," he said, and John wondered if the man heard all the razors in that voice.
"Yes," the man said, jerking his eyes away from John's gun as if he couldn't help himself.
"Tell me," Sherlock said, "what is the significance of decay in your work?"
The man gaped like a fish, then said "You noticed that?"
Sherlock stepped closer. "I've been following your career for a while. Ever since the dogs. Did you move from dogs to women to express the animal nature of female sexuality? Your symbolism is exquisite, you know."
The man trembled. "You saw the dogs?"
"Oh, I'm something of a connoisseur." Sherlock flashed a toothier smile, briefly. "Ask John; he's my tame killer. Nowhere near your level, of course, but he has his uses." He shrugged, softened his voice into seduction. "You know, I'm almost tempted to have him let you go, to see what you do next."
The man swayed, slightly, lulled by Sherlock's voice. Sherlock took another step.
"You know what will happen, John, if we let him go?"
"He'll kill again," John said, without looking at Sherlock's face.
"It thrills you," Sherlock said. "You have an audience, now. Will you go back to dogs? Or will you kill another girl?" He took one final step and stopped, inches from the killer. "Will you joint her, here, and here?" Sherlock's hands traced the killer's shoulders.
"Don't touch me," the man said, his voice shaking, blinking rapidly in the dim light.
Sherlock held his eyes. "Perhaps this new work will require her heart." He pressed one hand against the killer's ribs. "Perhaps she'll be your masterpiece, the one you can finally consummate." His hands dropped away. "Or perhaps not, and you'll have to try again."
"Don't," the man said, flinching. "Don't talk about my art like that." John could see sweat dampening his hair and his hands shaking.
"John," said Sherlock, widening his eyes slightly, "lower your gun."
John dropped his aim to the man's shins, and the man turned away from Sherlock to watch the movement. The instant he twisted his body, Sherlock struck, quick as a mongoose; the killer yelped as Sherlock slammed him into the floor.
John holstered his gun and took a roll of tape from the field surgical kit in his messenger bag. "One of these days," he said, tearing off lengths so that Sherlock could bind the man's hands, "one of these days, you're going to go off the rails and I won't even notice until you go cavorting off with a serial-killing clown."
Sherlock laughed and wrapped tape around the man's mouth. "Why would I, when I have you?"
"I'm not a serial killer," John said, grinning back. "We've talked about this." He looked at his mobile. "No signal," he said, and hauled the killer to his feet. The man cried out and his right leg buckled under him. John pushed up his trouser legs; the killer's ankle was swelling rapidly. "Looks like you sprained his ankle when you took him down," John said, and Sherlock huffed; it might almost have been a laugh. John pulled the trouser legs back down and bound the man's feet, then helped Sherlock lift him onto his shoulders; the man thrashed and John caught his eye. "I will knock you unconscious," he said, and the man stilled. John fished Sherlock's phone out of Sherlock's trousers -- also without signal -- and placed it in one of his own pockets, so that he could monitor it more easily. They set off for more populated parts of the Underground, John bringing up the rear so that he could monitor the killer's movements.
"You're wondering if I actually know anything about art," Sherlock said, to the killer. "Tell him, John."
"I'm not a performing monkey," John answered; he tugged at the seam of his jacket. His shoulder ached a bit from hoisting the killer around.
"Monkeys are the ones with tails, aren't they?" Sherlock asked. He looked over his shoulder at the killer. "He's quite brilliant in his own way, you see. I'm trying to teach him my methods, but he doesn't always understand. But you do, of course."
The killer made a noise that reminded John of a porpoise. He sighed. "Of course you know about art; you know loads about art because art forgery is a crime and you might have to detect it. You know about art, and cigarette ashes, and mud, and you've forgotten more about organic chemistry than I ever knew."
"Really, John, it's too much. I've forgotten nothing of organic chemistry."
John laughed, and for a while they walked in silence. Sherlock's breath was coming a little harder, and once or twice he stumbled under the killer's weight. John checked the phones every few minutes, hoping for a signal; he'd help carry the killer if he had to, but he could see that Sherlock was trying to spare him that.
He'd just taken the phones out to check when his phone vibrated in his hand; he nearly dropped it. "I've got a signal," he said, looking at it, "and six texts from Lestrade. Where are you, has Holmes flipped his wig, where are you, this isn't funny, for God's sake text me back so I know you're alive, Holmes better be alive too."
Sherlock snorted, and John said "So I'll just let him know where we are, then."
"No," said Sherlock, "let me". John helped him deposit the killer in a heap on the floor, and handed over his phone. Sherlock bent over the screen for a few minutes, thumbs tapping rapidly. "They'll be twenty minutes, at least," he said, as the phone beeped again.
"Don't text Lestrade while he's driving," John said, and dug one of the bottles of water out of the bag, took a sip, and passed it over. Sherlock took a long drink, the muscles of his neck dewy and grimy with sweat and dust, one hand still on John's phone. "I wouldn't," he said. "Sally, on the other hand --"
"Lay off Donovan, will you?" John said. "She's all right."
"She thinks I'm a psychopath."
"Well, now," John said, sliding the bottle out of Sherlock's fingers and taking another sip, "she's not wrong, is she?"
Sherlock gave him a narrow-eyed, amused look, and creased his face into one of his rare, genuine smiles.
The killer thrashed and made noises behind the tape, and Sherlock bent to meet his eyes, his smile transmuting to something wolfish and wicked. "Hungry, John?"
"Ravenous," John answered. "You?"
"Dying for a curry." The killer thrashed again, and Sherlock dug the toe of his boot into his side. "If Lestrade doesn't arrive soon, I'll resort to cannibalism."
John raised his eyebrows and made a face, as if considering the merits of the suggestion, and Sherlock started to laugh.
When John joined in, the killer curled himself into a ball and whimpered; Sherlock laughed harder, leaning on John's shoulder, the floor vibrating under them as somewhere in the distance, trains came and went.
* * *
Lestrade found Holmes and Dr Watson playing rock-paper-scissors on the floor of a disused Underground tunnel, a bound and gagged man tied off to the side, trying desperately to wiggle away from them. He felt as if this was some kind of horrible metaphor for his life.
Dr Watson handed him a blacklight torch. "You'll want this. He's got blacklights set up, but they're on a big board, not the wall; might take a while to find." He gave detailed directions to the bound man's hideout, while Holmes gave his statement to Detective Constable Althelney Jones. Sergeant Donovan ungagged the man, who immediately tried to bite her; she did not re-gag him, but she didn't touch the tape wrapped around his legs and wrists. "We're going to have fun with this one, sir," she said.
"Right," Lestrade answered. "Dr Watson, please give a statement before you leave. Constable, you're in charge here; get Dr Watson's statement before you let either of these men leave. Send Anderson's team through when they arrive. You--" he leveled a finger at Donovan "--you're with me."
"Yessir."
Lestrade strode off down the tunnel, the torch in his hand. He found the place easily enough with Dr Watson's directions.
Soundboard; laptop; stack of DVDs. Pile of recording equipment. Sheet-draped area, spattered with blood. "What the hell is that?" said Donovan, in his ear. "It looks like an operating theatre."
"Turn out the light," said Lestrade, with a growing sense of horror in his stomach. Donovan found the switch on the wall, and the buzzing lights clunked off. Lestrade turned the blacklight torch on the sheets.
"Holy God," Donovan said. She sounded very far away.
"It's his studio," Lestrade said, hearing the amazement in his own voice. Holmes had been terribly, frighteningly correct about this killer. Artistic, he'd said; Lestrade's interest in art was restricted to Art Deco advertising posters, but he could tell this was done by the same hand that'd drawn all over Grace Blue's body: labyrinths and bull's heads intertwined into a vast, twisted erotic display, visible only under blacklight.
Donovan turned the lights back on, and once again, there were just sheets, spattered with blood. Lestrade clenched his free hand into a fist. "Make sure we get everything," he said. "Everything. I don't want this bastard to ever see daylight again."
* * *
Sherlock tapped away at his phone. "We're not going home, John."
"We're not?"
"We're going to see Irene Adler," he said.
Outside the terrace of houses, John spotted the police stakeout. "Oh, that's not obvious at all," he muttered to Sherlock, who smirked at him.
"A year ago, you wouldn't've noticed it, John."
They walked up to the door and knocked; after a moment, it was answered by a teenaged boy wearing skinny black jeans and an oversized jumper. "You Sherlock Holmes?" he asked.
"I am," said Sherlock, eyebrows rising. "And you are?"
The boy smiled. "Irene said you'd be coming by; she left a letter for you." John and Sherlock followed him into the living room; it was empty. They followed him into the kitchen; it contained a table and an electric kettle and a single mug, and it smelled of bleach. The boy picked up one of the two letters on the table and handed it over. It was unsealed, and had "Sherlock Holmes" written on it in Adler's looping hand.
"Is Irene likely to home soon?" John asked. "It's just, we were hoping to talk to her."
"No," said the boy. "She asked me to stay a few days, to give you the letter. She's left."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth, and John grabbed his arm and spun him around. "Ah," he said, over his shoulder. "We'll just be going, then. Have a lovely day." He shoved Sherlock in front of him through the empty flat.
They were close enough to home to walk. Sherlock shoved the letter in his pocket and took out his phone. "Are you texting Lestrade about Adler being gone?" John asked, and Sherlock smirked.
"No. I'm texting Sally."
"She's going to punch you one day, and I'm not going to be the man to stop her," John said. Sherlock really was an idiot about some things.
When they got to 221B, Sherlock bounded up the stairs ahead of John and stripped out of his coat. He laid Adler's letter on the table and sat down in front of it. John went to wash; he could smell himself and it wasn't a particularly great smell.
When he came back down in pyjamas and slippers, Sherlock said, "Read it, will you? Let me know what you make of it; I hardly know what to think."
The letter was written in black biro, on copier paper.
Mr Holmes,
How did I betray myself? I had not thought the police would employ someone who could see me as I am; Nathan has never aroused suspicion before. I followed you to your door, you and your friend the doctor, and it was I who brought you the autopsy photos. How I wish we had been able to speak face-to-face! That is my only regret.
Leon Blank is dangerous, and I am sure so formidable a mind as yours can find Grace's killer, too, whoever he or she truly is. But believe me when I say that I am a match for you; you will not find me.
Though I may find you. Are you as lovely a woman as I am handsome a man?
Yours,
Irene Adler
John read it, then read it again. "Is she threatening to blackmail you for crossdressing?"
"I think she's insulting my skill at crossdressing."
John raised his eyebrows. "You crossdress?" At Sherlock's scathing look, he rolled his eyes. "Right. Of course. You might need to, for a case, so of course you've learned how."
Sherlock went into the living room and picked up his violin. "If she is hoping to blackmail me, she'll be disappointed."
"No skeletons in your closet?" John asked, watching Sherlock's fingers on the neck of the violin.
"Plenty of skeletons, John." Sherlock raised his bow. "No closet."
* * *
Next chapter: A small plot of land