Sherlock Fic: The Long Game 4/? (Sherlock/John, 12+)
Oh, man. Chapter Four already?! I need to get scribbling! (But there's no time! Where has all the time gone to?!)
Title ~ The Long Game
Rating ~ 12+
Pairings ~ John/Sherlock
Summary ~ When Moriarty's plan to take out Sherlock and John in the swimming pool fails, John finds himself drawn into an even more complicated - and potentially deadly - game. (Continuation of The Great Game, with Chapter One starting exactly where the episode left off.)
Warnings ~ None.
Notes ~ Notes. I am indebted to ice_elf for all the encouragement she gave me when I was writing this, and for being the best beta anyone could ask for.
This fic has nothing to do with the Doctor Who episode of the same name; it's pure coincidence.
Disclaimer ~ Sherlock is the property of the BBC.
Masterlist
Chapter Four
“Hello, John. Having fun yet?”
Moriarty’s voice was instantly recognisable. John said nothing.
“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Moriarty said brightly. “I must say, I am impressed - I thought it would take a law-abiding ex-soldier and doctor much longer to actually go inside. Sherlock must be a terrible influence on you, John.”
He was, but John wasn’t about to admit it. He stood in the doorway of Freud’s Study, staring straight ahead and concentrating. Anything Moriarty said might be a clue. Even his taunting might hold some information.
“Don’t worry. I’ve made sure no one will interrupt your visit,” Moriarty continued. “I suppose you’re wondering why I called you.”
“Yes,” John said. He could tell that the other man was deliberately drawing this conversation out, making him wait for the vital information.
“I wanted to give you your next instructions myself!” he said as if it was obvious and John was a dim child who didn’t understand. “Now, you’re in Freud’s study, I can see that.”
John tensed; Moriarty could see him. His eyes automatically sought out the room’s CCTV camera. The man on the other end of the phone chuckled.
“Oh, very clever, John! Why don’t you give me a wave?”
“My hands are a bit full,” John said without taking his eyes off the camera lens. It was true, between the phone and his walking stick, but John was glad of the excuse.
“Of course,” Moriarty replied, the amusement in his voice mellowing a little. “And we don’t really have time for games, do we? In that case, why don’t you go over to his desk. One of my operatives should have left a little something there for you. Go on, John, don’t be shy!”
John went over to the desk and stood behind the chair. Three photographs had been laid out on top of the objects on the desk, each one with a slip of paper clipped to the top.
“What’s this?” John asked, staring down.
“Work out which one is a fake, and you’ll have your next location,” Moriarty promised. “Goodbye, John. Good luck!”
The line went dead. John pocketed the phone and stared down at the images, wondering how on earth he was supposed to work out which photos were genuine and which one was fake. He picked up one at random.
The picture featured Freud and another, dark-suited man standing on an expanse of lawn fringed with small trees and large bushes. John checked the piece of paper, on which there was a description and date for the photo. The man beside Freud was listed only as ‘Secretary of the Royal Society’. Apparently, Freud had been signing the Royal Society charter book. The date was June 1942, and there was even a London address.
The second photograph showed Freud and another man seated on a bench outside a traditional-looking cottage. The description said that this photo was of Freud was Jung and had been taken in 1912. It too offered an address: that of Jung’s home on the outskirts of Zurich. John frowned. Moriarty couldn’t intend for him to leave the country? He looked down at the third image: Freud walking arm-in-arm with a woman, a man close to his other side. He read the accompanying text, which told him the psychoanalyst was with Marie Bonaparte and William Bullitt - at Gare de l’Est, Paris, on the sixth of June 1942.
His heart began to pound. He actually could make it to Paris within the next few hours, if he caught the Eurostar. Then again, a plane from Heathrow could probably get him into Switzerland in about the same amount of time.
Did Moriarty actually want him leave London?
He took a deep breath and looked back down at the photographs. Whether Moriarty was sending him to a location in London or elsewhere, the answer lay in these photos - and there was no point in panicking about travel arrangements until he had worked out which place he had to get to.
He stared down at the photos for a few seconds, then glanced out of the window. Moriarty hadn’t forbidden him from using the Freud Museum itself to help him work out which of the photographs was fake. None of the rules stated that he couldn’t use physical books. He picked the photos up in his free hand and headed out of the study in the direction of the gift shop. There was sure to be a book on Freud’s life there somewhere - the whole museum was dedicated to the man, they had to have at least one biography. Sure enough, John found a biography waiting for him just next to the shop’s entrance. He grabbed the book and went around behind the till so that he could sit down and spread the photos out on the desk.
A visit to Jung’s home might be difficult to pin down in a large biography, even with a date; and he had no idea why Freud had been at Gare de l’Est and so finding if the trip was genuine could also be hard. Joining the Royal Society, though, would be a big enough event to merit a mention. He glanced down the contents list to find where he might find the 1940s, then flipped to the start of one of the later chapters and started to skim each page for any reference to the Royal Society - hoping that he wouldn’t find one, or that if he did, it would be on a different date.
After what felt like a lifetime, his eye caught on the words he was looking for: a reference to Freud joining the Royal Society. He checked the date in the book with the date written on the card. They matched.
John’s heart sank. If the London location was genuine, he was somehow going to have to organise a train or plane ticket.
He shoved the photograph aside and grabbed the picture of Freud and Jung. A Eurostar return ticket would be cheaper and easier to obtain than a flight to Switzerland. He could hopefully cross this image off as genuine next, leaving him to travel to Paris - in theory. It was dated 1912, so John flicked back in the book until he stared seeing dates from before the First World War. There was a whole chapter about Freud and Jung’s relationship. He smiled grimly and started to skim-read, a little more slowly this time. As he came to dates in 1911 and 1912, he started to frown; he had known that the two men had had a difference of opinion, but not that it had started then. He slowed again, reading sentence-by-sentence now, paying attention for any reference to a visit to Zurich. Then he found a paragraph describing ‘the Kreuzlingen gesture’, as Jung called it: and incident when Freud visited a colleague in a nearby town without making the trip to visit Jung in Zurich while in the area. Their next meeting, the book said, was in Munich - much later in the year than the photograph indicated, if the summer flowers were any indication.
John slammed the book shut and scrubbed his hands across his face. There was no way he could get to Switzerland, today, for under a hundred pounds - let along get back to London before his time ran out. He wasn’t even sure how much time he had. Moriarty had never specified.
He decided to check the last of the photographs, just in case. He went back to the same page he had found the Royal Society reference on and started there, his eyes searching for the key words: Gare de l’Est. He found nothing right up until Freud’s life entered the ’50s.
Had he heard Moriarty wrong? Or was it a trick? Was he supposed to find the genuine photograph among the fakes? Moriarty could have set up an elaborate trick. If so, all he had to do was go to the address in London.
He forced himself not to get his hopes up, and turned to the middle of the book, where there were several image pages, the paper sturdier and shinier than the rest. If any of the photos were here, he could definitely count them off as genuine. He flicked through from the back to the front - and stopped as his eye caught on a newspaper photo. It wasn’t identical to any of the images Moriarty had given him, but it showed Freud with Marie Bonaparte and William Bullitt, the same as the Gare de l’Est image on the desk before him. Above the picture, in clear, capitalised newspaper print, it read, ‘Freud arrives in Paris on his way to London.’ The text below the image dated it to the sixth of June, 1942, and placed Freud and his fellow travellers at Gare de l’Est, Paris. Although the photograph wasn’t the same, it was evidence that Freud had been there on that day, with those same people. It was evidence that the photograph was probably genuine.
The image of Freud and Jung in front of the Swiss cottage was the only fake, and so the odd one out. Moriarty’s instructions hadn’t been a trick. He had to get to Switzerland.
John closed the book and placed it on the desk, picking up the fake photo instead. He lifted it up and stared hard at the serious faces, the intricately carved details on the gable end, the almost Tudor look of the white-and-wood exterior walls. Nothing looked out of place, not even the figures who could not have been seated together there, at that time, on that day.
He scrubbed a hand across his face. He was going to have to trek across to Heathrow and see if he could get a ticket on the next flight to Zurich. He doubted he would have enough cash, and Moriarty hadn’t seen fit to give him a card - or a passport, he thought, frowning. How could he be expected to leave the country without a passport? Surely he wouldn’t make such a mistake. John looked down at the image again. A cottage on the outskirts of Zurich. Was that feasible? Did Zurich have cottages on its outskirts? Had Jung lived there at all? Now that he knew it was a fake, he was starting to wonder just how fake. Was the address even genuine? He pulled out Lestrade’s phone and opened up the browser. Google might at least provide him with a few answers.
Nothing happened after the first tap, and John realised that the icon had greyed out. Moriarty had locked him out of the internet. He spat a curse as he put the phone away. He should have been expecting it, really. It was far too useful a tool for Moriarty to let him keep it. But if he had disabled the internet that too meant something: that John ought to be able to work this out without the help of a search engine.
He turned back to the photograph itself, bending over it and squinting. Maybe the address itself was a red herring, and there was more to the clue than he had thought.
The fake photograph was black and white and its details were fuzzed and grainy. The intricate carving on the decorative gable drew John’s eyes away from the figures. Now that he was paying more attention, it seemed almost as if the focus was on the house more than the figures. That was unusual. He peered closer at the carvings. There were lots of swirls and circular designs and - John blinked. There, in the centre of the gable, surrounded by curls of wood but larger than the rest, was a ring bisected by a raised, rectangular block that stretched only just wider than the ring’s outer circumference. He thought he could see what looked like letters written across the rectangle. If he used his imagination, they might just spell out the word ‘underground’ in capitals.
John looked around for something he could use as a magnifying glass, sure that he had seen one since he arrived at the Museum. He couldn’t be sure. It was entirely possible, at this stage, that in his desperation he was imagining things. He grabbed the photo and started to make his way around the shop, looking between the Freudian slippers, the therapy mints, and the identity necklaces reading ‘emotionally unstable’ and ‘neurotic’ for anything that would magnify the image. When his quick search turned up nothing, he headed back to the study. There, on the desk, was a white, square-lensed magnifying glass.
With a guilty glance at the security cameras pointed at him, John picked up the magnifying glass and held it above the photo. The magnified image was even more blurred by poor quality, but he could make out the shapes of most letters. He still had to stretch his imagination a little, but it was legible. The carving formed the shape of the London Underground sign.
He carefully placed the magnifying glass back down on the desk and hurried towards the front door. There was no way that Moriarty would put such an image into this fake photograph if he didn’t intend for John to see it. He folded the photograph in half and slipped it into his pocket as he walked along the hall. He knew where the nearest Tube station was from his trip to the Museum as a student. Finchley Road was a five minute walk away, and less if he used the bike. He pulled open the front door of the Freud Museum and stepped through, closing it with a snap behind him and trying to look as if he had the right to be there. There were a few people speed-walking past on the pavement; one of them glanced his way, but not with any real interest. The drivers of the cars, now crawling along as London’s rush hour gridlock began to take hold even this far from the centre, didn’t even notice him.
John strode along the garden path, fumbling in his pocket for Lestrade’s phone to check the time. He suddenly realised that he had no idea how long he had been in the museum for. It was almost quarter past eight. Moriarty had picked him up from Baker Street just before dawn, which at this time of year was around half past six.
His stomach lurched unpleasantly. Almost two hours, and he had only been to a couple of locations. There was no telling how many more Moriarty would expect him to find. He closed the garden gate and grabbed the bike, turning it around so that he faced the way he had come. He needed to get to Finchley Road and see if any part of the photograph or address corresponded to an underground station as fast as possible. He climbed up onto the bike’s seat and pushed off, nosing the bike onto the road and cycling quickly up the side of the standing traffic. For the first time since the ordeal started, he was glad that he wasn’t bundled in the back of a taxi.
***
The sun had completely risen over London by the time John arrived at Finchley Road Station, though things still looked dull and grey thanks to the cloud cover. The busy road outside the station was clogged with traffic, and the pavements with people. It was going to be difficult fighting against the flow to exit the station again. John leant his bike against the railings next to a pedestrian crossing and hurried inside. As he was buffeted and shoved by commuters, who glared at him for not moving fast enough, he wished that his leg could carry him faster.
He quickly found a map showing the entire underground system and stepped in close to the wall to inspect it. He found Finchley Road, hoping that Moriarty would send him to an underground station that was relatively close to the Museum. He found it on the grey Jubilee Line, and almost straight away his eyes were drawn to the next stop along.
John pulled out the photograph, unfolding it and staring at the description. In it, Jung’s house was described as a ‘cottage residence’ in Zurich, Switzerland. The next stop on the Jubilee Line was named Swiss Cottage.
“Warped,” John muttered to himself as he put the photograph away. An image of a Swiss cottage and the London Underground symbol, to indicate Swiss Cottage station. “Completely warped. He probably thinks it’s funny.”
He turned and started pushing through the flow of commuters, trying to reach the queue for the automatic ticket machines. There was no way he was going to cycle to Swiss Cottage when it was a two minute Tube ride away. The ticket wouldn’t put too large a dent in the fund Moriarty had given him, and even after queuing it would probably be faster. Besides, it gave him chance to catch his breath and rest his leg. It meant abandoning the bike, but he could cope with that: it was Moriarty’s money paying the rent on it, in any case. He joined the queue, fidgeting with impatience as he watched people with Oyster cards zip past and through the turnstiles.
***
The station at Swiss Cottage was just as crowded as Finchley Road had been. Thankfully, this time there were people making for the exit along with him - but even though he didn’t have to fight his way against the flow, commuters in everything from suits to hoodies shouldered past giving him dirty looks for not moving fast enough. He gritted his teeth and carried on, trying not to wonder if those same people would look at him the same way if they noticed the limp and the walking stick. He hated the pity people heaped on him when they realised he wasn’t as able as they were, but he had to admit, in the crowded tunnels and staircases, it would have come in handy.
He reached the escalators and stepped on, keeping to one side and letting the commuters go past. Once in the ticket hall, he headed for the barriers and allowed them to eat his ticket as he passed through. The room beyond was full of people hurrying about their business, both coming to and going from the station. He allowed himself to be carried towards the exit. The next clue had to be around somewhere, but there was no way he would notice it with all these people around - especially not if it was as small as the clue at the Tricycle Theatre.
Someone thrust a newspaper into his chest. “Free paper.”
“No, thanks,” John said, pushing the hand away. Someone grabbed hold of his arm, spinning him around so that he almost lost his balance. “Hey!”
The youth with the newspaper let him go and offered the paper again. “You’ll really want to take this one, Dr Watson.”
“How do you know my name?” John snapped. The young man’s face was mostly obscured by a dirty, grey hoodie, but John could see enough of it to recognise a grin.
“Talking’s against the rules,” he said, and shoved the paper into John’s chest so hard that it knocked him off balance completely. He clattered to the floor, almost taking a couple of commuters with him. He landed hard, jarring his injured leg, and couldn’t hold in a yell that momentarily silenced the ticket hall.
In a second, he was surrounded by a crowd, several people asking if he was all right and whether they should call an ambulance, some offering him a hand to his feet. The youth was long gone.
“No ambulance, no, I’m fine, I don’t need an ambulance,” he muttered, snatching hold of the newspaper as a couple of men in business suits grasped him under the arms and lifted him back onto his feet. He didn’t dare risk an encounter with the emergency services. A girl in a red coat handed him his walking stick. He was drawing too much attention, he thought as he thanked her.
“I saw what happened,” a woman said in a disapproving tone. “Young people today, they get away with murder.”
“Yeah,” John agreed, shrugging her off. With a final reassurance that he was fine and another thank you to those who had helped him, he started towards the exit again. With every step, his knee buckled as pain shot out from the half-healed gunshot wound, but he kept going. He didn’t dare stop, in case one of the well-meaning commuters came after him, looking to make sure he was all right. He had already spoken to far too many people. What if Moriarty counted it as a violation of the rules? His heart pounded as he took the stairs one at a time. What if Moriarty took it out on Sherlock?
He couldn’t allow himself to think like that. It was because of Moriarty’s henchman that he had become the centre of attention. He was sure Moriarty wouldn’t see it that way, but nonetheless, he had to try to believe it. He had to carry on with this twisted ‘treasure hunt’, not knowing, unless Moriarty called to tell him, whether or not he had broken the rules - and it would be so much easier to continue if he didn’t imagine that Sherlock had already been picked off by a sniper’s bullet through the temple.
He paused on a landing half-way up a flight of stairs, out of breath partly because of the pain stabbing through his leg and partly because of the fear clenching tight around his heart. He forced himself to take shallow breaths, staving off panic, and instead focused on the lesser of the two evils assaulting him: the pain. He reached down to the site of the wound, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. At some point, he really ought to take stock of any further damage Moriarty - and the exertion - had done, but there wasn’t the time. He was horribly aware that he was working to a madman’s schedule, with no idea what his itinerary was supposed to be or how long he could afford to spend at each location. As he limped out into daylight again, his stomach growled. He wondered if Moriarty had even factored in time for him to eat.
The underground station exit had led him to what seemed to be a residential area, with blocks of flats rising on one side of the road and large houses on the other. He turned to look the other way and saw a flight of steps leading up to what sounded like a main road. He decided to head that way. He was more likely to be noticed hanging around with a newspaper if he did so outside people’s homes. Leg complaining, he started up the steps. At the top, he turned left because that seemed to be the direction most people were going in. He had been right about the road: it was broad and clogged with morning traffic, as all the road into the city centre would be by now. However, there were shops lining the pavement: a boarded up establishment and a clothes shop with the black metal shutters drawn down. The next was a Subway, lights on and door sign reading open. His stomach growled again, and John decided to take a calculated risk. He needed somewhere to sit and peruse the paper without attracting attention, which would take time; he might as well eat while he worked on the next clue. Plus, if he solved it quickly, a sandwich was easy to carry. He ducked inside.
He bought a six inch breakfast sub and a coffee and took a corner seat. While he ate, he started to page through the newspaper. It was a copy of the day’s Guardian, not a free paper at all. He glanced at each headline in turn, not quite dismissing any of them as he tried to weight up which was the most likely to be a clue. Or which was a fake. Moriarty couldn’t have known what was going to be in the paper until it was printed - could he? Did he enough influence to have a clue embedded in a genuine copy of the Guardian? Perhaps he ought to find a newsagent’s and buy himself a copy, so that he could check each page.
He noticed as he made his way through the paper that there was no news of murdered men in swimming pools. If what Moriarty had said earlier was true, there were two bodies now: one killed in an explosion, the second presumably drowned, both with their hearts cut out. He shuddered involuntarily as he turned another page. It was a good job the police were keeping the newspapers in the dark about the deaths; it was just the sort of sensationalist story the tabloids would love. On the other hand, reporters weren’t stupid. They sought out grisly murders just like these. Perhaps the conspicuous absence of the deaths in the news was a clue in itself. After all, John knew Moriarty was responsible for them.
He shook his head to clear it. There was no way to prove that without buying more papers, and he didn’t have the time unless he could find nothing else. He went back to turning through the pages and tried to block the images of dead men who bore a striking resemblance to Sherlock floating in chlorinated water from his imagination.
By the time he turned onto the puzzles page, he was feeling despondent and seriously wondering where the nearest newsagents could be found. Then he spotted a splash of blue where there should only be black and white. Someone had scrawled over the cryptic crossword in the bottom corner.
.
I'll be posting the next chapter on Monday. Your challenge for the weekend: solve the crossword! Work out where John has to go next!
Chapter Five
.
Title ~ The Long Game
Rating ~ 12+
Pairings ~ John/Sherlock
Summary ~ When Moriarty's plan to take out Sherlock and John in the swimming pool fails, John finds himself drawn into an even more complicated - and potentially deadly - game. (Continuation of The Great Game, with Chapter One starting exactly where the episode left off.)
Warnings ~ None.
Notes ~ Notes. I am indebted to ice_elf for all the encouragement she gave me when I was writing this, and for being the best beta anyone could ask for.
This fic has nothing to do with the Doctor Who episode of the same name; it's pure coincidence.
Disclaimer ~ Sherlock is the property of the BBC.
Masterlist
Chapter Four
“Hello, John. Having fun yet?”
Moriarty’s voice was instantly recognisable. John said nothing.
“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Moriarty said brightly. “I must say, I am impressed - I thought it would take a law-abiding ex-soldier and doctor much longer to actually go inside. Sherlock must be a terrible influence on you, John.”
He was, but John wasn’t about to admit it. He stood in the doorway of Freud’s Study, staring straight ahead and concentrating. Anything Moriarty said might be a clue. Even his taunting might hold some information.
“Don’t worry. I’ve made sure no one will interrupt your visit,” Moriarty continued. “I suppose you’re wondering why I called you.”
“Yes,” John said. He could tell that the other man was deliberately drawing this conversation out, making him wait for the vital information.
“I wanted to give you your next instructions myself!” he said as if it was obvious and John was a dim child who didn’t understand. “Now, you’re in Freud’s study, I can see that.”
John tensed; Moriarty could see him. His eyes automatically sought out the room’s CCTV camera. The man on the other end of the phone chuckled.
“Oh, very clever, John! Why don’t you give me a wave?”
“My hands are a bit full,” John said without taking his eyes off the camera lens. It was true, between the phone and his walking stick, but John was glad of the excuse.
“Of course,” Moriarty replied, the amusement in his voice mellowing a little. “And we don’t really have time for games, do we? In that case, why don’t you go over to his desk. One of my operatives should have left a little something there for you. Go on, John, don’t be shy!”
John went over to the desk and stood behind the chair. Three photographs had been laid out on top of the objects on the desk, each one with a slip of paper clipped to the top.
“What’s this?” John asked, staring down.
“Work out which one is a fake, and you’ll have your next location,” Moriarty promised. “Goodbye, John. Good luck!”
The line went dead. John pocketed the phone and stared down at the images, wondering how on earth he was supposed to work out which photos were genuine and which one was fake. He picked up one at random.
The picture featured Freud and another, dark-suited man standing on an expanse of lawn fringed with small trees and large bushes. John checked the piece of paper, on which there was a description and date for the photo. The man beside Freud was listed only as ‘Secretary of the Royal Society’. Apparently, Freud had been signing the Royal Society charter book. The date was June 1942, and there was even a London address.
The second photograph showed Freud and another man seated on a bench outside a traditional-looking cottage. The description said that this photo was of Freud was Jung and had been taken in 1912. It too offered an address: that of Jung’s home on the outskirts of Zurich. John frowned. Moriarty couldn’t intend for him to leave the country? He looked down at the third image: Freud walking arm-in-arm with a woman, a man close to his other side. He read the accompanying text, which told him the psychoanalyst was with Marie Bonaparte and William Bullitt - at Gare de l’Est, Paris, on the sixth of June 1942.
His heart began to pound. He actually could make it to Paris within the next few hours, if he caught the Eurostar. Then again, a plane from Heathrow could probably get him into Switzerland in about the same amount of time.
Did Moriarty actually want him leave London?
He took a deep breath and looked back down at the photographs. Whether Moriarty was sending him to a location in London or elsewhere, the answer lay in these photos - and there was no point in panicking about travel arrangements until he had worked out which place he had to get to.
He stared down at the photos for a few seconds, then glanced out of the window. Moriarty hadn’t forbidden him from using the Freud Museum itself to help him work out which of the photographs was fake. None of the rules stated that he couldn’t use physical books. He picked the photos up in his free hand and headed out of the study in the direction of the gift shop. There was sure to be a book on Freud’s life there somewhere - the whole museum was dedicated to the man, they had to have at least one biography. Sure enough, John found a biography waiting for him just next to the shop’s entrance. He grabbed the book and went around behind the till so that he could sit down and spread the photos out on the desk.
A visit to Jung’s home might be difficult to pin down in a large biography, even with a date; and he had no idea why Freud had been at Gare de l’Est and so finding if the trip was genuine could also be hard. Joining the Royal Society, though, would be a big enough event to merit a mention. He glanced down the contents list to find where he might find the 1940s, then flipped to the start of one of the later chapters and started to skim each page for any reference to the Royal Society - hoping that he wouldn’t find one, or that if he did, it would be on a different date.
After what felt like a lifetime, his eye caught on the words he was looking for: a reference to Freud joining the Royal Society. He checked the date in the book with the date written on the card. They matched.
John’s heart sank. If the London location was genuine, he was somehow going to have to organise a train or plane ticket.
He shoved the photograph aside and grabbed the picture of Freud and Jung. A Eurostar return ticket would be cheaper and easier to obtain than a flight to Switzerland. He could hopefully cross this image off as genuine next, leaving him to travel to Paris - in theory. It was dated 1912, so John flicked back in the book until he stared seeing dates from before the First World War. There was a whole chapter about Freud and Jung’s relationship. He smiled grimly and started to skim-read, a little more slowly this time. As he came to dates in 1911 and 1912, he started to frown; he had known that the two men had had a difference of opinion, but not that it had started then. He slowed again, reading sentence-by-sentence now, paying attention for any reference to a visit to Zurich. Then he found a paragraph describing ‘the Kreuzlingen gesture’, as Jung called it: and incident when Freud visited a colleague in a nearby town without making the trip to visit Jung in Zurich while in the area. Their next meeting, the book said, was in Munich - much later in the year than the photograph indicated, if the summer flowers were any indication.
John slammed the book shut and scrubbed his hands across his face. There was no way he could get to Switzerland, today, for under a hundred pounds - let along get back to London before his time ran out. He wasn’t even sure how much time he had. Moriarty had never specified.
He decided to check the last of the photographs, just in case. He went back to the same page he had found the Royal Society reference on and started there, his eyes searching for the key words: Gare de l’Est. He found nothing right up until Freud’s life entered the ’50s.
Had he heard Moriarty wrong? Or was it a trick? Was he supposed to find the genuine photograph among the fakes? Moriarty could have set up an elaborate trick. If so, all he had to do was go to the address in London.
He forced himself not to get his hopes up, and turned to the middle of the book, where there were several image pages, the paper sturdier and shinier than the rest. If any of the photos were here, he could definitely count them off as genuine. He flicked through from the back to the front - and stopped as his eye caught on a newspaper photo. It wasn’t identical to any of the images Moriarty had given him, but it showed Freud with Marie Bonaparte and William Bullitt, the same as the Gare de l’Est image on the desk before him. Above the picture, in clear, capitalised newspaper print, it read, ‘Freud arrives in Paris on his way to London.’ The text below the image dated it to the sixth of June, 1942, and placed Freud and his fellow travellers at Gare de l’Est, Paris. Although the photograph wasn’t the same, it was evidence that Freud had been there on that day, with those same people. It was evidence that the photograph was probably genuine.
The image of Freud and Jung in front of the Swiss cottage was the only fake, and so the odd one out. Moriarty’s instructions hadn’t been a trick. He had to get to Switzerland.
John closed the book and placed it on the desk, picking up the fake photo instead. He lifted it up and stared hard at the serious faces, the intricately carved details on the gable end, the almost Tudor look of the white-and-wood exterior walls. Nothing looked out of place, not even the figures who could not have been seated together there, at that time, on that day.
He scrubbed a hand across his face. He was going to have to trek across to Heathrow and see if he could get a ticket on the next flight to Zurich. He doubted he would have enough cash, and Moriarty hadn’t seen fit to give him a card - or a passport, he thought, frowning. How could he be expected to leave the country without a passport? Surely he wouldn’t make such a mistake. John looked down at the image again. A cottage on the outskirts of Zurich. Was that feasible? Did Zurich have cottages on its outskirts? Had Jung lived there at all? Now that he knew it was a fake, he was starting to wonder just how fake. Was the address even genuine? He pulled out Lestrade’s phone and opened up the browser. Google might at least provide him with a few answers.
Nothing happened after the first tap, and John realised that the icon had greyed out. Moriarty had locked him out of the internet. He spat a curse as he put the phone away. He should have been expecting it, really. It was far too useful a tool for Moriarty to let him keep it. But if he had disabled the internet that too meant something: that John ought to be able to work this out without the help of a search engine.
He turned back to the photograph itself, bending over it and squinting. Maybe the address itself was a red herring, and there was more to the clue than he had thought.
The fake photograph was black and white and its details were fuzzed and grainy. The intricate carving on the decorative gable drew John’s eyes away from the figures. Now that he was paying more attention, it seemed almost as if the focus was on the house more than the figures. That was unusual. He peered closer at the carvings. There were lots of swirls and circular designs and - John blinked. There, in the centre of the gable, surrounded by curls of wood but larger than the rest, was a ring bisected by a raised, rectangular block that stretched only just wider than the ring’s outer circumference. He thought he could see what looked like letters written across the rectangle. If he used his imagination, they might just spell out the word ‘underground’ in capitals.
John looked around for something he could use as a magnifying glass, sure that he had seen one since he arrived at the Museum. He couldn’t be sure. It was entirely possible, at this stage, that in his desperation he was imagining things. He grabbed the photo and started to make his way around the shop, looking between the Freudian slippers, the therapy mints, and the identity necklaces reading ‘emotionally unstable’ and ‘neurotic’ for anything that would magnify the image. When his quick search turned up nothing, he headed back to the study. There, on the desk, was a white, square-lensed magnifying glass.
With a guilty glance at the security cameras pointed at him, John picked up the magnifying glass and held it above the photo. The magnified image was even more blurred by poor quality, but he could make out the shapes of most letters. He still had to stretch his imagination a little, but it was legible. The carving formed the shape of the London Underground sign.
He carefully placed the magnifying glass back down on the desk and hurried towards the front door. There was no way that Moriarty would put such an image into this fake photograph if he didn’t intend for John to see it. He folded the photograph in half and slipped it into his pocket as he walked along the hall. He knew where the nearest Tube station was from his trip to the Museum as a student. Finchley Road was a five minute walk away, and less if he used the bike. He pulled open the front door of the Freud Museum and stepped through, closing it with a snap behind him and trying to look as if he had the right to be there. There were a few people speed-walking past on the pavement; one of them glanced his way, but not with any real interest. The drivers of the cars, now crawling along as London’s rush hour gridlock began to take hold even this far from the centre, didn’t even notice him.
John strode along the garden path, fumbling in his pocket for Lestrade’s phone to check the time. He suddenly realised that he had no idea how long he had been in the museum for. It was almost quarter past eight. Moriarty had picked him up from Baker Street just before dawn, which at this time of year was around half past six.
His stomach lurched unpleasantly. Almost two hours, and he had only been to a couple of locations. There was no telling how many more Moriarty would expect him to find. He closed the garden gate and grabbed the bike, turning it around so that he faced the way he had come. He needed to get to Finchley Road and see if any part of the photograph or address corresponded to an underground station as fast as possible. He climbed up onto the bike’s seat and pushed off, nosing the bike onto the road and cycling quickly up the side of the standing traffic. For the first time since the ordeal started, he was glad that he wasn’t bundled in the back of a taxi.
***
The sun had completely risen over London by the time John arrived at Finchley Road Station, though things still looked dull and grey thanks to the cloud cover. The busy road outside the station was clogged with traffic, and the pavements with people. It was going to be difficult fighting against the flow to exit the station again. John leant his bike against the railings next to a pedestrian crossing and hurried inside. As he was buffeted and shoved by commuters, who glared at him for not moving fast enough, he wished that his leg could carry him faster.
He quickly found a map showing the entire underground system and stepped in close to the wall to inspect it. He found Finchley Road, hoping that Moriarty would send him to an underground station that was relatively close to the Museum. He found it on the grey Jubilee Line, and almost straight away his eyes were drawn to the next stop along.
John pulled out the photograph, unfolding it and staring at the description. In it, Jung’s house was described as a ‘cottage residence’ in Zurich, Switzerland. The next stop on the Jubilee Line was named Swiss Cottage.
“Warped,” John muttered to himself as he put the photograph away. An image of a Swiss cottage and the London Underground symbol, to indicate Swiss Cottage station. “Completely warped. He probably thinks it’s funny.”
He turned and started pushing through the flow of commuters, trying to reach the queue for the automatic ticket machines. There was no way he was going to cycle to Swiss Cottage when it was a two minute Tube ride away. The ticket wouldn’t put too large a dent in the fund Moriarty had given him, and even after queuing it would probably be faster. Besides, it gave him chance to catch his breath and rest his leg. It meant abandoning the bike, but he could cope with that: it was Moriarty’s money paying the rent on it, in any case. He joined the queue, fidgeting with impatience as he watched people with Oyster cards zip past and through the turnstiles.
***
The station at Swiss Cottage was just as crowded as Finchley Road had been. Thankfully, this time there were people making for the exit along with him - but even though he didn’t have to fight his way against the flow, commuters in everything from suits to hoodies shouldered past giving him dirty looks for not moving fast enough. He gritted his teeth and carried on, trying not to wonder if those same people would look at him the same way if they noticed the limp and the walking stick. He hated the pity people heaped on him when they realised he wasn’t as able as they were, but he had to admit, in the crowded tunnels and staircases, it would have come in handy.
He reached the escalators and stepped on, keeping to one side and letting the commuters go past. Once in the ticket hall, he headed for the barriers and allowed them to eat his ticket as he passed through. The room beyond was full of people hurrying about their business, both coming to and going from the station. He allowed himself to be carried towards the exit. The next clue had to be around somewhere, but there was no way he would notice it with all these people around - especially not if it was as small as the clue at the Tricycle Theatre.
Someone thrust a newspaper into his chest. “Free paper.”
“No, thanks,” John said, pushing the hand away. Someone grabbed hold of his arm, spinning him around so that he almost lost his balance. “Hey!”
The youth with the newspaper let him go and offered the paper again. “You’ll really want to take this one, Dr Watson.”
“How do you know my name?” John snapped. The young man’s face was mostly obscured by a dirty, grey hoodie, but John could see enough of it to recognise a grin.
“Talking’s against the rules,” he said, and shoved the paper into John’s chest so hard that it knocked him off balance completely. He clattered to the floor, almost taking a couple of commuters with him. He landed hard, jarring his injured leg, and couldn’t hold in a yell that momentarily silenced the ticket hall.
In a second, he was surrounded by a crowd, several people asking if he was all right and whether they should call an ambulance, some offering him a hand to his feet. The youth was long gone.
“No ambulance, no, I’m fine, I don’t need an ambulance,” he muttered, snatching hold of the newspaper as a couple of men in business suits grasped him under the arms and lifted him back onto his feet. He didn’t dare risk an encounter with the emergency services. A girl in a red coat handed him his walking stick. He was drawing too much attention, he thought as he thanked her.
“I saw what happened,” a woman said in a disapproving tone. “Young people today, they get away with murder.”
“Yeah,” John agreed, shrugging her off. With a final reassurance that he was fine and another thank you to those who had helped him, he started towards the exit again. With every step, his knee buckled as pain shot out from the half-healed gunshot wound, but he kept going. He didn’t dare stop, in case one of the well-meaning commuters came after him, looking to make sure he was all right. He had already spoken to far too many people. What if Moriarty counted it as a violation of the rules? His heart pounded as he took the stairs one at a time. What if Moriarty took it out on Sherlock?
He couldn’t allow himself to think like that. It was because of Moriarty’s henchman that he had become the centre of attention. He was sure Moriarty wouldn’t see it that way, but nonetheless, he had to try to believe it. He had to carry on with this twisted ‘treasure hunt’, not knowing, unless Moriarty called to tell him, whether or not he had broken the rules - and it would be so much easier to continue if he didn’t imagine that Sherlock had already been picked off by a sniper’s bullet through the temple.
He paused on a landing half-way up a flight of stairs, out of breath partly because of the pain stabbing through his leg and partly because of the fear clenching tight around his heart. He forced himself to take shallow breaths, staving off panic, and instead focused on the lesser of the two evils assaulting him: the pain. He reached down to the site of the wound, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. At some point, he really ought to take stock of any further damage Moriarty - and the exertion - had done, but there wasn’t the time. He was horribly aware that he was working to a madman’s schedule, with no idea what his itinerary was supposed to be or how long he could afford to spend at each location. As he limped out into daylight again, his stomach growled. He wondered if Moriarty had even factored in time for him to eat.
The underground station exit had led him to what seemed to be a residential area, with blocks of flats rising on one side of the road and large houses on the other. He turned to look the other way and saw a flight of steps leading up to what sounded like a main road. He decided to head that way. He was more likely to be noticed hanging around with a newspaper if he did so outside people’s homes. Leg complaining, he started up the steps. At the top, he turned left because that seemed to be the direction most people were going in. He had been right about the road: it was broad and clogged with morning traffic, as all the road into the city centre would be by now. However, there were shops lining the pavement: a boarded up establishment and a clothes shop with the black metal shutters drawn down. The next was a Subway, lights on and door sign reading open. His stomach growled again, and John decided to take a calculated risk. He needed somewhere to sit and peruse the paper without attracting attention, which would take time; he might as well eat while he worked on the next clue. Plus, if he solved it quickly, a sandwich was easy to carry. He ducked inside.
He bought a six inch breakfast sub and a coffee and took a corner seat. While he ate, he started to page through the newspaper. It was a copy of the day’s Guardian, not a free paper at all. He glanced at each headline in turn, not quite dismissing any of them as he tried to weight up which was the most likely to be a clue. Or which was a fake. Moriarty couldn’t have known what was going to be in the paper until it was printed - could he? Did he enough influence to have a clue embedded in a genuine copy of the Guardian? Perhaps he ought to find a newsagent’s and buy himself a copy, so that he could check each page.
He noticed as he made his way through the paper that there was no news of murdered men in swimming pools. If what Moriarty had said earlier was true, there were two bodies now: one killed in an explosion, the second presumably drowned, both with their hearts cut out. He shuddered involuntarily as he turned another page. It was a good job the police were keeping the newspapers in the dark about the deaths; it was just the sort of sensationalist story the tabloids would love. On the other hand, reporters weren’t stupid. They sought out grisly murders just like these. Perhaps the conspicuous absence of the deaths in the news was a clue in itself. After all, John knew Moriarty was responsible for them.
He shook his head to clear it. There was no way to prove that without buying more papers, and he didn’t have the time unless he could find nothing else. He went back to turning through the pages and tried to block the images of dead men who bore a striking resemblance to Sherlock floating in chlorinated water from his imagination.
By the time he turned onto the puzzles page, he was feeling despondent and seriously wondering where the nearest newsagents could be found. Then he spotted a splash of blue where there should only be black and white. Someone had scrawled over the cryptic crossword in the bottom corner.
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I'll be posting the next chapter on Monday. Your challenge for the weekend: solve the crossword! Work out where John has to go next!
Chapter Five
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