Fic: The Science of Musicality (Sherlock BBC) (2/2)
Back to Part One
* * *
John went to the Barbican a few days later to deliver the contract papers; he probably could have posted them but he thought he might like a few minutes away from Sherlock, who was practicing false harmonics for no known reason.
Other than odd habits, such as practicing false harmonics and other screechy high notes, their musical partnership was working fairly well. The two-single-bed situation made John feel as if he were living in student housing, although at Guildhall he’d had his own room, but he’d yet to catch Sherlock actually using the room for anything but storage, so it wasn’t half bad. Sherlock was sharp-tongued, yes, but unlike many egotists John had known over the years, he could actually back up everything he said with either performance or references, so it was more refreshing than anything.
He dropped the papers off at the actual office, not with Lestrade, and was turning the corner to find the bus stop when a black car pulled up in front of him. “You’ll want to get in,” said a young woman with a Blackberry that she never bothered to take her eyes off of.
“No thanks,” John said, having more than an inkling of self-preservation. He walked a few steps farther, and the car paced him. He ignored it.
His mobile buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out. There was a text from an unknown number that said, Get in the car. You won’t be harmed and it will take at most half an hour out of your day.
He shook his head again.
Another text came a moment later: You don’t seem to realize that you do not have a choice.
He looked up, and the car was there again, the window rolled down. “We’ll drop you off at home and you can keep your phone,” the young woman said, still distracted by her mobile, but her gaze flicked to John for just a moment.
He sighed, and reached down for the door handle.
“So what’s your name, then?” he asked the young woman, after a couple minutes of silence.
“Um . . . Anthea.”
“Is that your real name?”
“No,” she said with a smile.
“I’m John Watson.”
“I know,” she said, and perhaps that was obvious, but he’d felt compelled to introduce himself anyway.
“Any point in asking where I’m going?”
“No.”
Well, also obvious.
Some twenty minutes later, Anthea led him into an alley, and through a back door into the basement of a music shop--Chappell of Bond Street, if John wasn’t mistaken, although no one was there. At that time of the day there should have, at the very least, been a few shop assistants, but there wasn’t.
Well, there was one man, tallish, slightly balding, carrying an umbrella. “John Watson. How is your shoulder?”
“My shoulder?” John said. “Well, it’s all right, I suppose. No pain today. Why do you ask? And why couldn’t you just have called me? I do have a phone, you know. Anthea, or whatever her name is, let me keep it.” He held up his mobile.
“Yes, well. So you’re working with Sherlock Holmes now.”
“Yes, I am,” John said. “It’s been . . .” He counted in his head. “Four days now.”
“And you’re living with him.”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“An . . . interested party.”
“Look,” John said, “we’re preparing for a recital in three months’ time. I should be practicing, or studying scores, or making dinner, or any of a thousand things that aren’t standing in the basement of a music shop. Why do you have me here, and what do you want?”
“I’m on your side, you know. I have a vested interest in Sherlock finding a collaborator he can work with.”
“What, are you one of his previous accompanists?” John asked.
“You could say that,” the man said. “Yes, you could very rightly say that.”
“Well, don’t worry. He won’t be calling you to fill in for me any time soon.” John shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Oh, I’m well aware of that,” the man said. “Here.” He handed John a business card, blank except for a phone number. “In case either of you needs anything, musical or not.”
John took the card and shoved it in his pocket. “Thanks,” he said, and hoped the sarcasm was audible. “Now can I have that ride home?”
* * *
John got back home precisely when the mysterious stranger said he would, and stuffed the business card into his wallet, intending to forget about it as soon as possible.
"Oh, good, you’re home,” Sherlock said, when he returned. “The Shostakovitch--what did you do with the end of the first movement the last time you played it?”
“Um,” John said. “This?” He sat down at the piano and played it. “Well, sort of. Maybe more like this.” He tried again, humming bits of the violin part when necessary.
“Yes. Well, that’s wrong, of course.”
“I’m not playing it correctly,” John said, “but no, what we did wasn’t entirely wrong, I’d say.”
“Prove it.”
“Well, then, either give me a half hour to recreate my analysis or a couple days to go retrieve my old copy from my parents.”
“Please tell me it wasn’t Schenker,” Sherlock said, nose wrinkling.
“Schenker-esque, with a dash of set theory and some old-fashioned metaharmony,” John said.
“Interesting,” Sherlock said. “No, I think I’ll wait for your complete analysis rather than deal with a poorly-remembered version.”
“Well, the basis is--you see that line there?” He traced a few chords. “It’s an echo of this--” He flipped a few pages back. “--and a foreshadowing of this.” He flipped forward to the third movement.
“No, it’s not,” Sherlock said. “It’s clearly--”
“You know what,” John said, “this can wait.”
“I suppose.”
* * *
A couple days later, Sherlock admitted that John’s analysis was ‘more correct than not,’ and John tried to get him to repeat it for a recording, but Sherlock refused.
It was all right. He’d heard it.
* * *
“Blast, bother, damnation, and hellfire,” Sherlock said.
John looked up from the keyboard. “Berlioz?” he asked. He didn’t stop playing--it was just scales--but he quieted down.
“No, Moriarty.”
“What about Moriarty?”
“Are you on the mailing list for Wigmore Hall?”
“Probably,” John said, “but I’ve been practicing all morning and therefore not checking my email.”
“Your semiquavers aren’t remotely even,” Sherlock said.
“I’m also talking to you. What is it about the Wignore Hall mailing list?”
“They’ve announced that on Tuesday, May eleventh, at two P.M., they will be hosting the first installment of James Moriarty’s Ecdysis of a Taxi Cab, a multi-media and live-performance event. John, how does that make any sense at all? Multi-media usually includes live performance, and it’s not as if a taxicab has anything to shed. Yes, yes, I know the word is largely used metaphorically, but still.”
“So an hour before our performance.”
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “Well, it isn’t as if the audience for our recital will be the same as the audience for his--travesty of an extravaganza, so I don’t see how it will affect us, except for the fact that clearly he thinks it will or he wouldn’t have scheduled it that day, at that time.”
“Mind games?” John said. He switched from major scales in thirds to harmonic minor.
“Mind games don’t affect me,” Sherlock said loftily.
“Then obviously you’re not affected by Moriarty’s scheduling.”
“Obviously not.”
“Then I don’t know why we’re discussing it.”
“You need to stop beating a dead horse, John.”
“Obviously.”
* * *
John came back from Tesco one morning, a mere week before the performance, to find Greg Lestrade arguing with Sherlock. Lestrade was standing about two feet inside the door and Sherlock was in his triangle of stands, the violin sitting in its case on the piano.
“You’re thousands of quid in the hole,” Lestrade was saying. “You can cancel by midnight and only be out five hundred. Oh, hello, John.”
“Hi, Greg.”
“Greg? Who’s Greg?” Sherlock asked.
“He is,” John said. “Most people have two or three names, you know.”
Sherlock stared at him for a moment and then shook his head. “Not important. Lestrade is trying to convince me that we should cancel the recital.”
John raised an eyebrow at Lestrade.
“You’ve sold all of five tickets,” he said.
“Five?” John said. “Well.” It was a bit disappointing, really; he didn’t figure he’d be much of a draw, of course, as no one ever knew the name of the rehearsal pianists, but Sherlock should have been.
“We’ll sell more tickets,” Sherlock said. “I am certain of it. The advert on ClassicFM just came out today.”
“Not enough to make up the cost of the hall,” Lestrade said. “Look, I’m a librarian, not an accountant--”
“Yes, why did they send you anyway?” Sherlock asked. He started pacing back and forth in the tiny triangle, two steps in either direction.
Lestrade rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows I’m the only one you’re willing to talk to in the entire building.”
“Yes, well, you’re the only person in the building with half a brain,” Sherlock said sotto voce. “Even if you are a librarian and not a real musician.”
“Also, I’m getting reimbursed for the cab fare,” Lestrade added, obviously ignoring the quip about his job. “Look, talk it over with John; give me a call before midnight--preferably long before midnight--and we’ll work from there, maybe get you another date in a few months.”
“Yes, well.” Sherlock fluttered a hand in his direction. “You can go.”
“Thank you, I’ll do just that,” Lestrade said, smiled at John, and left.
When the door shut behind him, John said, “Look, I don’t know about you, Sherlock, but I don’t have thousands of pounds to eat the cost of a failed recital at the Barbican.”
“Well, I do,” Sherlock said, “but I’m not going to be eating the cost of a failed recital at the Barbican because there won’t be a failed recital at the Barbican.”
“Oh? And how do you guarantee that?” John said, a bit stung at the revelation that Sherlock had money as John had been paying for all the food they ate for the last couple of months off of his Incapacity Benefits. He had savings, sure, but it was rapidly getting eaten up by the rent.
“I’ll do more advertising, today. Call up some old friends. I’m sure you can do the same.”
“I already did,” John said.
“Wait till close of business,” Sherlock said, and wouldn’t say anything more.
Six hours later, Sherlock said, “Ha!” and held out his phone to John.
There was a text from Lestrade on the screen that said, 600 tickets sold. I don’t know how you did it, but you’re running just about even now.
“How on earth--?” John said, looking from the phone to Sherlock’s face.
Sherlock smiled. “I have my ways.”
He wouldn’t divulge any details, though, and John gave up after a few minutes.
* * *
The morning of the concert, John warmed up a bit and attempted to ignore Sherlock, who was pacing and muttering to himself. He made sure that Sherlock and his tuxedo made it into the cab at eleven-thirty, so they could be at the Centre by noon.
They didn’t quite make it there.
“John,” Sherlock said, “there are men digging a hole on the road in front of the Centre. Why are there men digging a hole on the road in front of the Centre on the day of my recital?”
“Our recital,” John said, correcting him. “And I don’t know, but I bet someone does.”
“Water main break,” Lestrade said a few minutes later. “The good news is that it’s not our water main. The bad news is that traffic will be re-routed.”
“Oh,” Sherlock said.
“That’s fine,” John said, elbowing him. “Right, Sherlock?”
“Well, ‘fine,’ no, but acceptable, yes.” He’d dug out his mobile and was texting furiously. “They’ll be announcing it on BBC London, at least.”
“Well, all right, then,” Lestrade said, nonplussed.
An hour and a half later, though, while they were running through a few last-minute sections, adjusting to the different acoustics of the hall, one of the Barbican’s employees--John couldn’t remember his name but knew his face--came in and said, “You need to evacuate the building immediately.”
“Immediately?” John said, and stood up with his music.
“That’s not possible,” Sherlock said. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’re playing a recital here shortly.”
“I’m sorry, sirs, but it’s an emergency. You need to evacuate the building.”
“We’re coming,” John said, and glared at Sherlock.
“But this isn’t possible,” Sherlock said, even as he packed up his violin and bow and music. “The recital is in an hour and a half.”
“You need to get at least 500 meters away from this building.”
“But--”
“Come on,” John said. “Grab your jacket. I know where there are excellent stone-baked pastries.”
“I can’t eat; I’ve got a recital in an hour and a half,” Sherlock said, but he followed John dutifully out of the building.
On the way out, they saw Lestrade, who motioned them over to a corner. “It’s a bomb threat,” he said very quietly. “Don’t tell anyone. It’s almost undoubtedly a hoax, but we can’t take that chance, not with more than a thousand people in the Centre. I’ll call if I find anything else out.”
“That’s not--” Sherlock started to say, but John elbowed him again.
“Thank you, Greg,” John said, and dragged Sherlock to Coco di Mama, about ten minutes’ walk away.
The cafe was relatively quiet, which meant more than half full, but there were still a couple of free tables and no one seemed inclined to pay either of them the least bit of attention. They ordered coffee and pastries, and after they sat down, Sherlock said, “Call the union.”
“The Musicians’ Union? What would they do?”
“I don’t know. You’re a member in good standing, aren’t you?”
John glared at him. “Of course I am. Aren’t you?”
Sherlock sighed. “The union and I seem to have differences on the definition of ‘qualified local.’”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Apparently I’m not allowed to import violists from Ireland when there are violists here. Anyway. Not important. There’s got to be someone we can call. Or, well, there is, but I don’t want to call him.”
“Who?”
“No one you know. D’you know anyone still at Guildhall?” Sherlock said.
“What good would that do?”
“Well, it’s across the street, isn’t it?”
“I suppose, but--” John closed his mouth. “I have a phone number.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know,” John said. “He came for me in a car, and--”
Sherlock closed his eyes and hit his head against the wall behind him gently. “With an assistant addicted to her mobile phone--a man, maybe a little shorter than I am, not much hair, carries a stupid umbrella?”
“Yes, that’s him. Who is he?”
“My arch-nemesis.”
“I thought Moriarty was your arch-nemesis.”
“Well, perhaps,” Sherlock said. “Mycroft is an enemy of longer standing, though.”
“But can this Mr. Mycroft help us?”
Sherlock laughed, and it was more of a bark than anything else. “No, John, Mycroft is his first name. Mycroft Holmes. My older brother.”
John blinked. “Oh.” Well, that explained rather a lot. “What does he do?”
“I have no idea. Government something. It’s not important.”
“Well, if he can help us, then call him,” John said. Remembering a rather cryptic comment of Mycroft’s, he said, “I suppose he plays piano?”
“He used to. I don’t think he’s kept it up.”
“Ah,” John said.
“It’s Moriarty,” Sherlock said suddenly.
“What’s Moriarty?”
“The emergency evacuation. The hole in the road. The sluggish sales.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he came to gloat,” Sherlock said, indicating the door with his chin.
“Sherlock,” said Moriarty. “John. Hi.” He gave a smile that John could only describe, even in his head, as ‘smarmy,’ even though that word was usually reserved for used-car salesmen and particularly annoying politicians. “So sorry about your recital.”
“So sorry about your lack of talent,” Sherlock shot back. “Oh, wait--no, I don’t think I am.” He shifted, slouching a little more toward the back of his chair, and shoved his hands in the pockets of his trench coat.
“What on earth are you doing here?” John asked, as neutrally as he could. “Don’t you have a--an event going on a few miles away shortly?”
“Oh, well, I don’t even have to be there for a while yet,” Moriarty said. “The first half hour is all recordings, and I’ve got someone handling those.” He smirked again and grabbed a chair from a nearby table, flipping it backwards and straddling it in one smooth motion. “I thought I’d like to come see how you’re doing.”
“We’re fantastic, thanks,” Sherlock said. “So good that we decided to come have a pastry.” Not that he’d eaten a bite yet, but he gestured to his rustic apple cake anyway.
“Ah, is that why you’re here?” Moriarty said. “I thought it was perhaps because of the bomb threat.”
“The bomb threat?” Sherlock said; John tried his hardest to keep his face straight, as Sherlock was obviously a much better actor. “What bomb threat?”
“Please,” Moriarty said. “Let’s not pretend you’re here for a quick snack.”
“I’m here for a quick snack,” John said, but Sherlock and Moriarty both ignored him. He ate the corner of his chocolate croissant decisively.
“It’s been announced,” Moriarty said. “Your concert can’t go on. It’s a failure. You, Sherlock Holmes, are a failure.”
“Am I?” Sherlock said. “I must be quite volatile, such that I can manage to become a personal failure by one concert canceled due to a situation beyond my control.”
“Ah, but is it beyond your control?” Moriarty said, and he had that nasty grin again.
“Well, unless I personally know the person who phoned in the bomb threat and can get that person to confess to the police that it was a hoax, I very much doubt it’s under my control,” Sherlock said.
“Oh, Sherlock. Think in the grand universal sense,” Moriarty said, chiding. “Think about how you’ve had chances, chances to share your genius with your fellow musicians, and yet you choose not to.”
“I’m sharing my genius with John,” Sherlock said. “Well, I mean, I’m paying him, obviously.”
Obviously, John thought, and shook his head. Unless they’d sold a lot more tickets at the last minute, they’d be doing only slightly better than breaking even for this concert, but he wasn’t worried.
“And yet you refuse to play works composed by your peers.”
“That’s not true,” Sherlock said. “I refuse to play works by you. You’re a hack.”
Moriarty’s nose flared as he took in a fast breath. “And that,” he said, “is why your concert must be ruined. Because you’ve ruined how many of mine?” He slammed his hand on the table. “I wrote that piece for you, Sherlock, because you’re literally the only person on the planet who could understand it. Who could play it. It was to be my magnum opus, and yet I had to let Moran play it.” He wrinkled his nose.
Sherlock looked at John. “I don’t know if you heard, but that particular piece was a painful failure.”
“I did hear, thanks,” John said, although he hadn’t and he wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea to provoke the man who’d just slammed his hand on the table.
“Karma!” Moriarty shouted, and the cafe went silent. “Karma,” he repeated, a little more quietly. “You ruin my masterwork, you deserve to have your career ruined.”
John still wasn’t sure how one failed recital would ruin Sherlock’s career; he’d checked the sales figures for Sherlock’s CDs and they were still rather robust, or at least robust enough to keep Sherlock in strings and take-away food. Moriarty clearly wasn’t . . . well. Or perhaps he’d deliberately made a break from reality; John wasn’t sure.
“And perhaps you helped karma along a bit?” Sherlock said.
“So what if I did?” Moriarty said. “Not that I would need to, but it’s nothing more than you deserve.” He stood and started walking toward the door, smirking again as he pulled out his mobile.
John blinked. He knew Moriarty was dangerous, but he also knew that he’d just confessed to the bomb threat, so--He sprang out of his seat and lunged.
A moment later he had Moriarty pinned on the ground, face down, his knee in the middle of his back, the mobile phone trapped under him. “Call 999!” John said.
“I am,” Sherlock said, dialing frantically on his own mobile. “How did you do that?”
“I have an older sister,” John said, gritting his teeth. “Can someone give me a hand?”
Ten minutes later, John and a rather beefy young man finished their chat about rugby as the police arrived; they stood up and let the police take custody of Moriarty.
“I have a recording,” Sherlock said, pulling his minidisc recorder out of his pocket, complete with tiny microphone. He hit ‘play’ and through the rather tinny speakers, they could hear Moriarty’s partial confession.
“We’re going to need that recording,” the DI said, and Sherlock popped the disc out and handed it over.
“You’ll want to note the timestamp,” Sherlock said. “It’s not so much he said, which is vague enough not to be useful, but he knew about the bomb threat before he got here, and the Barbican staff was calling it merely an ‘emergency.’ That should be important.”
“Yes, we might have figured that out,” the DI said.
“Does this mean we can have the Centre back?” Sherlock asked.
“We’ll see.”
“That’s not--”
“Thank you very much,” John said over him. “I believe now is the time to call your brother,” he said to Sherlock.
“Oh, all right,” Sherlock grumbled.
* * *
An hour and four minutes later, they stood backstage at the Barbican Theatre, just about to start their recital, only fifteen minutes late. John marveled at the fact that it was happening, and that--he leaned over to look at the house--the hall was completely full.
That was thanks to Mycroft; he’d somehow managed to arrange the financials such that everyone who bought a ticket to Moriarty’s event was given a free ticket to Sherlock and John’s recital. Both halls and all of Moriarty’s performers and staff were being adequately compensated, mostly due to a bill for thousands of pounds on Moriarty’s head. Mycroft had also commandeered a handful of buses to transport everyone for free.
John really had no idea how he’d managed it, but Mycroft had told him not to worry, and he’d done his best not to until 2:45, when he and Sherlock had gotten word that the recital was a go, albeit a few minutes late.
And here they were, mere minutes from stepping onto the stage and playing.
“Break a leg,” he whispered to Sherlock.
Sherlock glared at him. “Don’t be so banal, John,” he said. He brushed his fingers over the strings for one last backstage tuning, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the stage.
John had his typical moment of frozen fright, when he sat down at the piano, flipping out the tails of his tux. He looked at Lestrade, who’d volunteered to turn pages for him, and received a nod in return. Okay. He could do this.
Opening his music, he stared at the first few notes, trying to remember how to get from dots on a page to a recital. He inhaled through his nose and let the breath out slowly, and looked at Sherlock.
Who was looking back at him. Right. Tuning note. Not that Sherlock’s violin wasn’t in perfect tune already, but still. John played the A, and then a D minor chord; Sherlock puttered with the strings for a moment, and then looked back at John. The right side of his mouth quirked in what wasn’t anything near a smile, but that was enough.
This was just playing with Sherlock. They’d done it literally every day for the last three months. They knew these pieces down cold; John barely needed the music, which was a hell of a thing for a collaborative pianist to say. He gave Sherlock a tiny nod, and they began.
John lost himself in the music, in the performance, in the ebb and flow of the partnership. The languid, lush melodies of the Chopin passed by; Sherlock’s angular, modal Morceau cut through any remaining shreds of sentimentality, yet left a peculiar melancholy behind.
The Finzi’s restrained emotion flowed through his fingers and out, rounding out the first half, and they stood and received their applause before retreating backstage again.
Once there, they stared at each other for a moment. “It’s going--” John started to say.
“No,” Sherlock said, cutting him off with a gesture. “Don’t say it.”
“And you told me not to be banal,” John said, but he knocked on the lid of the practice piano anyway.
The ten-minute intermission was somehow simultaneously relaxing and excruciating; Sherlock paced around, lost in his own head, for nearly the entire time. John checked the news on his phone for no reason and drank a glass of water before he realized he shouldn’t. Lestrade sat in the corner and said nothing, which was probably for the best.
The second half was easier and harder; the Shostakovich was a demanding piece, and Sherlock gave no quarter. John pushed him back, all the way to the devastatingly-abrupt ending.
There was a moment of pure silence after they finished that seemed to stretch, like molasses, into an eternity, but John didn’t need to be told that they’d just nailed the piece. He’d been there, after all. When the audience burst into resounding applause, it was surprising but not, in the least, a surprise.
“Damn fine performance,” Lestrade said before he disappeared backstage with most of John’s music.
John stood, looked over and caught Sherlock’s eye, and felt himself grin, probably dopily, definitely ear to ear. They bowed multiple times; someone threw flowers onto the stage and John chuckled.
After three rounds of bowing, they played the next step in the game; Sherlock shocked everyone by handing his violin to Lestrade, who’d appeared off to one side, and sitting down at the piano with John to play Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance, Op. 46, No. 8, in G minor, for piano four hands.
It was a massively bombastic piece, and Sherlock had practiced his part extensively. It wasn’t particularly difficult, and likely most of the audience knew the piece already, but the point wasn’t to dazzle with technique or interpretation but just to play, and play they did.
The audience clapped explosively again after they’d finished, and this time they bowed out to go backstage. John’s cheeks were starting to hurt from grinning so much, and he felt like he had enough energy to go run around the park like a child who’d had too many sweets. Sherlock seemed to be vibrating with barely-restrained energy as well, and honestly, John thought, if he was in some way unsatisfied with the performance--
“That was fun,” Sherlock said as he loosened the hair on his bow.
“Of course it was,” John said, and burst into delighted laughter, because he’d been thinking exactly the same thing. “Let’s do that again, shall we?”
“Naturally,” Sherlock said, and smiled.
* * *
John went to the Barbican a few days later to deliver the contract papers; he probably could have posted them but he thought he might like a few minutes away from Sherlock, who was practicing false harmonics for no known reason.
Other than odd habits, such as practicing false harmonics and other screechy high notes, their musical partnership was working fairly well. The two-single-bed situation made John feel as if he were living in student housing, although at Guildhall he’d had his own room, but he’d yet to catch Sherlock actually using the room for anything but storage, so it wasn’t half bad. Sherlock was sharp-tongued, yes, but unlike many egotists John had known over the years, he could actually back up everything he said with either performance or references, so it was more refreshing than anything.
He dropped the papers off at the actual office, not with Lestrade, and was turning the corner to find the bus stop when a black car pulled up in front of him. “You’ll want to get in,” said a young woman with a Blackberry that she never bothered to take her eyes off of.
“No thanks,” John said, having more than an inkling of self-preservation. He walked a few steps farther, and the car paced him. He ignored it.
His mobile buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out. There was a text from an unknown number that said, Get in the car. You won’t be harmed and it will take at most half an hour out of your day.
He shook his head again.
Another text came a moment later: You don’t seem to realize that you do not have a choice.
He looked up, and the car was there again, the window rolled down. “We’ll drop you off at home and you can keep your phone,” the young woman said, still distracted by her mobile, but her gaze flicked to John for just a moment.
He sighed, and reached down for the door handle.
“So what’s your name, then?” he asked the young woman, after a couple minutes of silence.
“Um . . . Anthea.”
“Is that your real name?”
“No,” she said with a smile.
“I’m John Watson.”
“I know,” she said, and perhaps that was obvious, but he’d felt compelled to introduce himself anyway.
“Any point in asking where I’m going?”
“No.”
Well, also obvious.
Some twenty minutes later, Anthea led him into an alley, and through a back door into the basement of a music shop--Chappell of Bond Street, if John wasn’t mistaken, although no one was there. At that time of the day there should have, at the very least, been a few shop assistants, but there wasn’t.
Well, there was one man, tallish, slightly balding, carrying an umbrella. “John Watson. How is your shoulder?”
“My shoulder?” John said. “Well, it’s all right, I suppose. No pain today. Why do you ask? And why couldn’t you just have called me? I do have a phone, you know. Anthea, or whatever her name is, let me keep it.” He held up his mobile.
“Yes, well. So you’re working with Sherlock Holmes now.”
“Yes, I am,” John said. “It’s been . . .” He counted in his head. “Four days now.”
“And you’re living with him.”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“An . . . interested party.”
“Look,” John said, “we’re preparing for a recital in three months’ time. I should be practicing, or studying scores, or making dinner, or any of a thousand things that aren’t standing in the basement of a music shop. Why do you have me here, and what do you want?”
“I’m on your side, you know. I have a vested interest in Sherlock finding a collaborator he can work with.”
“What, are you one of his previous accompanists?” John asked.
“You could say that,” the man said. “Yes, you could very rightly say that.”
“Well, don’t worry. He won’t be calling you to fill in for me any time soon.” John shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Oh, I’m well aware of that,” the man said. “Here.” He handed John a business card, blank except for a phone number. “In case either of you needs anything, musical or not.”
John took the card and shoved it in his pocket. “Thanks,” he said, and hoped the sarcasm was audible. “Now can I have that ride home?”
* * *
John got back home precisely when the mysterious stranger said he would, and stuffed the business card into his wallet, intending to forget about it as soon as possible.
"Oh, good, you’re home,” Sherlock said, when he returned. “The Shostakovitch--what did you do with the end of the first movement the last time you played it?”
“Um,” John said. “This?” He sat down at the piano and played it. “Well, sort of. Maybe more like this.” He tried again, humming bits of the violin part when necessary.
“Yes. Well, that’s wrong, of course.”
“I’m not playing it correctly,” John said, “but no, what we did wasn’t entirely wrong, I’d say.”
“Prove it.”
“Well, then, either give me a half hour to recreate my analysis or a couple days to go retrieve my old copy from my parents.”
“Please tell me it wasn’t Schenker,” Sherlock said, nose wrinkling.
“Schenker-esque, with a dash of set theory and some old-fashioned metaharmony,” John said.
“Interesting,” Sherlock said. “No, I think I’ll wait for your complete analysis rather than deal with a poorly-remembered version.”
“Well, the basis is--you see that line there?” He traced a few chords. “It’s an echo of this--” He flipped a few pages back. “--and a foreshadowing of this.” He flipped forward to the third movement.
“No, it’s not,” Sherlock said. “It’s clearly--”
“You know what,” John said, “this can wait.”
“I suppose.”
* * *
A couple days later, Sherlock admitted that John’s analysis was ‘more correct than not,’ and John tried to get him to repeat it for a recording, but Sherlock refused.
It was all right. He’d heard it.
* * *
“Blast, bother, damnation, and hellfire,” Sherlock said.
John looked up from the keyboard. “Berlioz?” he asked. He didn’t stop playing--it was just scales--but he quieted down.
“No, Moriarty.”
“What about Moriarty?”
“Are you on the mailing list for Wigmore Hall?”
“Probably,” John said, “but I’ve been practicing all morning and therefore not checking my email.”
“Your semiquavers aren’t remotely even,” Sherlock said.
“I’m also talking to you. What is it about the Wignore Hall mailing list?”
“They’ve announced that on Tuesday, May eleventh, at two P.M., they will be hosting the first installment of James Moriarty’s Ecdysis of a Taxi Cab, a multi-media and live-performance event. John, how does that make any sense at all? Multi-media usually includes live performance, and it’s not as if a taxicab has anything to shed. Yes, yes, I know the word is largely used metaphorically, but still.”
“So an hour before our performance.”
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “Well, it isn’t as if the audience for our recital will be the same as the audience for his--travesty of an extravaganza, so I don’t see how it will affect us, except for the fact that clearly he thinks it will or he wouldn’t have scheduled it that day, at that time.”
“Mind games?” John said. He switched from major scales in thirds to harmonic minor.
“Mind games don’t affect me,” Sherlock said loftily.
“Then obviously you’re not affected by Moriarty’s scheduling.”
“Obviously not.”
“Then I don’t know why we’re discussing it.”
“You need to stop beating a dead horse, John.”
“Obviously.”
* * *
John came back from Tesco one morning, a mere week before the performance, to find Greg Lestrade arguing with Sherlock. Lestrade was standing about two feet inside the door and Sherlock was in his triangle of stands, the violin sitting in its case on the piano.
“You’re thousands of quid in the hole,” Lestrade was saying. “You can cancel by midnight and only be out five hundred. Oh, hello, John.”
“Hi, Greg.”
“Greg? Who’s Greg?” Sherlock asked.
“He is,” John said. “Most people have two or three names, you know.”
Sherlock stared at him for a moment and then shook his head. “Not important. Lestrade is trying to convince me that we should cancel the recital.”
John raised an eyebrow at Lestrade.
“You’ve sold all of five tickets,” he said.
“Five?” John said. “Well.” It was a bit disappointing, really; he didn’t figure he’d be much of a draw, of course, as no one ever knew the name of the rehearsal pianists, but Sherlock should have been.
“We’ll sell more tickets,” Sherlock said. “I am certain of it. The advert on ClassicFM just came out today.”
“Not enough to make up the cost of the hall,” Lestrade said. “Look, I’m a librarian, not an accountant--”
“Yes, why did they send you anyway?” Sherlock asked. He started pacing back and forth in the tiny triangle, two steps in either direction.
Lestrade rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows I’m the only one you’re willing to talk to in the entire building.”
“Yes, well, you’re the only person in the building with half a brain,” Sherlock said sotto voce. “Even if you are a librarian and not a real musician.”
“Also, I’m getting reimbursed for the cab fare,” Lestrade added, obviously ignoring the quip about his job. “Look, talk it over with John; give me a call before midnight--preferably long before midnight--and we’ll work from there, maybe get you another date in a few months.”
“Yes, well.” Sherlock fluttered a hand in his direction. “You can go.”
“Thank you, I’ll do just that,” Lestrade said, smiled at John, and left.
When the door shut behind him, John said, “Look, I don’t know about you, Sherlock, but I don’t have thousands of pounds to eat the cost of a failed recital at the Barbican.”
“Well, I do,” Sherlock said, “but I’m not going to be eating the cost of a failed recital at the Barbican because there won’t be a failed recital at the Barbican.”
“Oh? And how do you guarantee that?” John said, a bit stung at the revelation that Sherlock had money as John had been paying for all the food they ate for the last couple of months off of his Incapacity Benefits. He had savings, sure, but it was rapidly getting eaten up by the rent.
“I’ll do more advertising, today. Call up some old friends. I’m sure you can do the same.”
“I already did,” John said.
“Wait till close of business,” Sherlock said, and wouldn’t say anything more.
Six hours later, Sherlock said, “Ha!” and held out his phone to John.
There was a text from Lestrade on the screen that said, 600 tickets sold. I don’t know how you did it, but you’re running just about even now.
“How on earth--?” John said, looking from the phone to Sherlock’s face.
Sherlock smiled. “I have my ways.”
He wouldn’t divulge any details, though, and John gave up after a few minutes.
* * *
The morning of the concert, John warmed up a bit and attempted to ignore Sherlock, who was pacing and muttering to himself. He made sure that Sherlock and his tuxedo made it into the cab at eleven-thirty, so they could be at the Centre by noon.
They didn’t quite make it there.
“John,” Sherlock said, “there are men digging a hole on the road in front of the Centre. Why are there men digging a hole on the road in front of the Centre on the day of my recital?”
“Our recital,” John said, correcting him. “And I don’t know, but I bet someone does.”
“Water main break,” Lestrade said a few minutes later. “The good news is that it’s not our water main. The bad news is that traffic will be re-routed.”
“Oh,” Sherlock said.
“That’s fine,” John said, elbowing him. “Right, Sherlock?”
“Well, ‘fine,’ no, but acceptable, yes.” He’d dug out his mobile and was texting furiously. “They’ll be announcing it on BBC London, at least.”
“Well, all right, then,” Lestrade said, nonplussed.
An hour and a half later, though, while they were running through a few last-minute sections, adjusting to the different acoustics of the hall, one of the Barbican’s employees--John couldn’t remember his name but knew his face--came in and said, “You need to evacuate the building immediately.”
“Immediately?” John said, and stood up with his music.
“That’s not possible,” Sherlock said. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’re playing a recital here shortly.”
“I’m sorry, sirs, but it’s an emergency. You need to evacuate the building.”
“We’re coming,” John said, and glared at Sherlock.
“But this isn’t possible,” Sherlock said, even as he packed up his violin and bow and music. “The recital is in an hour and a half.”
“You need to get at least 500 meters away from this building.”
“But--”
“Come on,” John said. “Grab your jacket. I know where there are excellent stone-baked pastries.”
“I can’t eat; I’ve got a recital in an hour and a half,” Sherlock said, but he followed John dutifully out of the building.
On the way out, they saw Lestrade, who motioned them over to a corner. “It’s a bomb threat,” he said very quietly. “Don’t tell anyone. It’s almost undoubtedly a hoax, but we can’t take that chance, not with more than a thousand people in the Centre. I’ll call if I find anything else out.”
“That’s not--” Sherlock started to say, but John elbowed him again.
“Thank you, Greg,” John said, and dragged Sherlock to Coco di Mama, about ten minutes’ walk away.
The cafe was relatively quiet, which meant more than half full, but there were still a couple of free tables and no one seemed inclined to pay either of them the least bit of attention. They ordered coffee and pastries, and after they sat down, Sherlock said, “Call the union.”
“The Musicians’ Union? What would they do?”
“I don’t know. You’re a member in good standing, aren’t you?”
John glared at him. “Of course I am. Aren’t you?”
Sherlock sighed. “The union and I seem to have differences on the definition of ‘qualified local.’”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Apparently I’m not allowed to import violists from Ireland when there are violists here. Anyway. Not important. There’s got to be someone we can call. Or, well, there is, but I don’t want to call him.”
“Who?”
“No one you know. D’you know anyone still at Guildhall?” Sherlock said.
“What good would that do?”
“Well, it’s across the street, isn’t it?”
“I suppose, but--” John closed his mouth. “I have a phone number.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know,” John said. “He came for me in a car, and--”
Sherlock closed his eyes and hit his head against the wall behind him gently. “With an assistant addicted to her mobile phone--a man, maybe a little shorter than I am, not much hair, carries a stupid umbrella?”
“Yes, that’s him. Who is he?”
“My arch-nemesis.”
“I thought Moriarty was your arch-nemesis.”
“Well, perhaps,” Sherlock said. “Mycroft is an enemy of longer standing, though.”
“But can this Mr. Mycroft help us?”
Sherlock laughed, and it was more of a bark than anything else. “No, John, Mycroft is his first name. Mycroft Holmes. My older brother.”
John blinked. “Oh.” Well, that explained rather a lot. “What does he do?”
“I have no idea. Government something. It’s not important.”
“Well, if he can help us, then call him,” John said. Remembering a rather cryptic comment of Mycroft’s, he said, “I suppose he plays piano?”
“He used to. I don’t think he’s kept it up.”
“Ah,” John said.
“It’s Moriarty,” Sherlock said suddenly.
“What’s Moriarty?”
“The emergency evacuation. The hole in the road. The sluggish sales.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he came to gloat,” Sherlock said, indicating the door with his chin.
“Sherlock,” said Moriarty. “John. Hi.” He gave a smile that John could only describe, even in his head, as ‘smarmy,’ even though that word was usually reserved for used-car salesmen and particularly annoying politicians. “So sorry about your recital.”
“So sorry about your lack of talent,” Sherlock shot back. “Oh, wait--no, I don’t think I am.” He shifted, slouching a little more toward the back of his chair, and shoved his hands in the pockets of his trench coat.
“What on earth are you doing here?” John asked, as neutrally as he could. “Don’t you have a--an event going on a few miles away shortly?”
“Oh, well, I don’t even have to be there for a while yet,” Moriarty said. “The first half hour is all recordings, and I’ve got someone handling those.” He smirked again and grabbed a chair from a nearby table, flipping it backwards and straddling it in one smooth motion. “I thought I’d like to come see how you’re doing.”
“We’re fantastic, thanks,” Sherlock said. “So good that we decided to come have a pastry.” Not that he’d eaten a bite yet, but he gestured to his rustic apple cake anyway.
“Ah, is that why you’re here?” Moriarty said. “I thought it was perhaps because of the bomb threat.”
“The bomb threat?” Sherlock said; John tried his hardest to keep his face straight, as Sherlock was obviously a much better actor. “What bomb threat?”
“Please,” Moriarty said. “Let’s not pretend you’re here for a quick snack.”
“I’m here for a quick snack,” John said, but Sherlock and Moriarty both ignored him. He ate the corner of his chocolate croissant decisively.
“It’s been announced,” Moriarty said. “Your concert can’t go on. It’s a failure. You, Sherlock Holmes, are a failure.”
“Am I?” Sherlock said. “I must be quite volatile, such that I can manage to become a personal failure by one concert canceled due to a situation beyond my control.”
“Ah, but is it beyond your control?” Moriarty said, and he had that nasty grin again.
“Well, unless I personally know the person who phoned in the bomb threat and can get that person to confess to the police that it was a hoax, I very much doubt it’s under my control,” Sherlock said.
“Oh, Sherlock. Think in the grand universal sense,” Moriarty said, chiding. “Think about how you’ve had chances, chances to share your genius with your fellow musicians, and yet you choose not to.”
“I’m sharing my genius with John,” Sherlock said. “Well, I mean, I’m paying him, obviously.”
Obviously, John thought, and shook his head. Unless they’d sold a lot more tickets at the last minute, they’d be doing only slightly better than breaking even for this concert, but he wasn’t worried.
“And yet you refuse to play works composed by your peers.”
“That’s not true,” Sherlock said. “I refuse to play works by you. You’re a hack.”
Moriarty’s nose flared as he took in a fast breath. “And that,” he said, “is why your concert must be ruined. Because you’ve ruined how many of mine?” He slammed his hand on the table. “I wrote that piece for you, Sherlock, because you’re literally the only person on the planet who could understand it. Who could play it. It was to be my magnum opus, and yet I had to let Moran play it.” He wrinkled his nose.
Sherlock looked at John. “I don’t know if you heard, but that particular piece was a painful failure.”
“I did hear, thanks,” John said, although he hadn’t and he wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea to provoke the man who’d just slammed his hand on the table.
“Karma!” Moriarty shouted, and the cafe went silent. “Karma,” he repeated, a little more quietly. “You ruin my masterwork, you deserve to have your career ruined.”
John still wasn’t sure how one failed recital would ruin Sherlock’s career; he’d checked the sales figures for Sherlock’s CDs and they were still rather robust, or at least robust enough to keep Sherlock in strings and take-away food. Moriarty clearly wasn’t . . . well. Or perhaps he’d deliberately made a break from reality; John wasn’t sure.
“And perhaps you helped karma along a bit?” Sherlock said.
“So what if I did?” Moriarty said. “Not that I would need to, but it’s nothing more than you deserve.” He stood and started walking toward the door, smirking again as he pulled out his mobile.
John blinked. He knew Moriarty was dangerous, but he also knew that he’d just confessed to the bomb threat, so--He sprang out of his seat and lunged.
A moment later he had Moriarty pinned on the ground, face down, his knee in the middle of his back, the mobile phone trapped under him. “Call 999!” John said.
“I am,” Sherlock said, dialing frantically on his own mobile. “How did you do that?”
“I have an older sister,” John said, gritting his teeth. “Can someone give me a hand?”
Ten minutes later, John and a rather beefy young man finished their chat about rugby as the police arrived; they stood up and let the police take custody of Moriarty.
“I have a recording,” Sherlock said, pulling his minidisc recorder out of his pocket, complete with tiny microphone. He hit ‘play’ and through the rather tinny speakers, they could hear Moriarty’s partial confession.
“We’re going to need that recording,” the DI said, and Sherlock popped the disc out and handed it over.
“You’ll want to note the timestamp,” Sherlock said. “It’s not so much he said, which is vague enough not to be useful, but he knew about the bomb threat before he got here, and the Barbican staff was calling it merely an ‘emergency.’ That should be important.”
“Yes, we might have figured that out,” the DI said.
“Does this mean we can have the Centre back?” Sherlock asked.
“We’ll see.”
“That’s not--”
“Thank you very much,” John said over him. “I believe now is the time to call your brother,” he said to Sherlock.
“Oh, all right,” Sherlock grumbled.
* * *
An hour and four minutes later, they stood backstage at the Barbican Theatre, just about to start their recital, only fifteen minutes late. John marveled at the fact that it was happening, and that--he leaned over to look at the house--the hall was completely full.
That was thanks to Mycroft; he’d somehow managed to arrange the financials such that everyone who bought a ticket to Moriarty’s event was given a free ticket to Sherlock and John’s recital. Both halls and all of Moriarty’s performers and staff were being adequately compensated, mostly due to a bill for thousands of pounds on Moriarty’s head. Mycroft had also commandeered a handful of buses to transport everyone for free.
John really had no idea how he’d managed it, but Mycroft had told him not to worry, and he’d done his best not to until 2:45, when he and Sherlock had gotten word that the recital was a go, albeit a few minutes late.
And here they were, mere minutes from stepping onto the stage and playing.
“Break a leg,” he whispered to Sherlock.
Sherlock glared at him. “Don’t be so banal, John,” he said. He brushed his fingers over the strings for one last backstage tuning, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the stage.
John had his typical moment of frozen fright, when he sat down at the piano, flipping out the tails of his tux. He looked at Lestrade, who’d volunteered to turn pages for him, and received a nod in return. Okay. He could do this.
Opening his music, he stared at the first few notes, trying to remember how to get from dots on a page to a recital. He inhaled through his nose and let the breath out slowly, and looked at Sherlock.
Who was looking back at him. Right. Tuning note. Not that Sherlock’s violin wasn’t in perfect tune already, but still. John played the A, and then a D minor chord; Sherlock puttered with the strings for a moment, and then looked back at John. The right side of his mouth quirked in what wasn’t anything near a smile, but that was enough.
This was just playing with Sherlock. They’d done it literally every day for the last three months. They knew these pieces down cold; John barely needed the music, which was a hell of a thing for a collaborative pianist to say. He gave Sherlock a tiny nod, and they began.
John lost himself in the music, in the performance, in the ebb and flow of the partnership. The languid, lush melodies of the Chopin passed by; Sherlock’s angular, modal Morceau cut through any remaining shreds of sentimentality, yet left a peculiar melancholy behind.
The Finzi’s restrained emotion flowed through his fingers and out, rounding out the first half, and they stood and received their applause before retreating backstage again.
Once there, they stared at each other for a moment. “It’s going--” John started to say.
“No,” Sherlock said, cutting him off with a gesture. “Don’t say it.”
“And you told me not to be banal,” John said, but he knocked on the lid of the practice piano anyway.
The ten-minute intermission was somehow simultaneously relaxing and excruciating; Sherlock paced around, lost in his own head, for nearly the entire time. John checked the news on his phone for no reason and drank a glass of water before he realized he shouldn’t. Lestrade sat in the corner and said nothing, which was probably for the best.
The second half was easier and harder; the Shostakovich was a demanding piece, and Sherlock gave no quarter. John pushed him back, all the way to the devastatingly-abrupt ending.
There was a moment of pure silence after they finished that seemed to stretch, like molasses, into an eternity, but John didn’t need to be told that they’d just nailed the piece. He’d been there, after all. When the audience burst into resounding applause, it was surprising but not, in the least, a surprise.
“Damn fine performance,” Lestrade said before he disappeared backstage with most of John’s music.
John stood, looked over and caught Sherlock’s eye, and felt himself grin, probably dopily, definitely ear to ear. They bowed multiple times; someone threw flowers onto the stage and John chuckled.
After three rounds of bowing, they played the next step in the game; Sherlock shocked everyone by handing his violin to Lestrade, who’d appeared off to one side, and sitting down at the piano with John to play Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance, Op. 46, No. 8, in G minor, for piano four hands.
It was a massively bombastic piece, and Sherlock had practiced his part extensively. It wasn’t particularly difficult, and likely most of the audience knew the piece already, but the point wasn’t to dazzle with technique or interpretation but just to play, and play they did.
The audience clapped explosively again after they’d finished, and this time they bowed out to go backstage. John’s cheeks were starting to hurt from grinning so much, and he felt like he had enough energy to go run around the park like a child who’d had too many sweets. Sherlock seemed to be vibrating with barely-restrained energy as well, and honestly, John thought, if he was in some way unsatisfied with the performance--
“That was fun,” Sherlock said as he loosened the hair on his bow.
“Of course it was,” John said, and burst into delighted laughter, because he’d been thinking exactly the same thing. “Let’s do that again, shall we?”
“Naturally,” Sherlock said, and smiled.