Fic for arwen_kenobi: The Curious Case of Blackwood Castle
Title: The Curious Case of Blackwood Castle or Interlude to a Great Game
Recipient: arwen_kenobi
Author: selinabln
Fandoms: Sherlock BBC
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, Lestrade, Moriaty (implied)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst, and well, there is a murder victim (OMC)
Summary: The ride on a ghost train has some unforseen consequences.
Note:
To my beta potionsmiss23: Hugs and kudos for her magic. All remaining errors are mine, and mine alone.
To the fabulous mods: Eternal thanks for being the most patient and generous people.
To arwen_kenobi: I begged and pleaded with him ardently, but Sherlock simply refused to climb onto a Ferris Wheel ;) I hope you enjoy what the muse made of your prompt.
This is for you.
The day had been quiet, almost tranquil at 221b Baker Street, when, suddenly, the street door was slammed shut, the loud bang causing John’s fingers to pause on the keyboard.
Instantly, he looked up from his laptop, his gaze searching for Sherlock.
The reaction was instinctive. Whenever something disrupted the peace of their home, his friend was never far from the centre of events, and John had given up resisting the need to ensure he was fine.
However, right now, Sherlock was standing in front of the sofa in their living room, eyes fixed on the assemblage of notes, photos and other clues covering the wall above. It was a strange mosaic they had worked tirelessly to create over the last year, but still no image, no structure of Moriaty’s organization had become visible, the man himself seemingly vanished from the face of the earth.
Only the whisper, they remained. Leading nowhere but into shadows.
And with every passing day, the frustrated frown on his friend's face became deeper, the shadows beneath his eyes more visible. It was as if the continuing failure was eating Sherlock from the inside like a slow, burning fire, and the thought made John’s heart clench in his chest.
This was where he belonged.
Not the flat. Not Baker Street. But with the man standing right across the room.
He hadn’t realized it, not truly. Not until he had seen Sherlock at the pool. Brilliant, dangerous and-for once-not indifferent. For once, something had mattered more to his friend than the game, the chase, than being right. For once, Sherlock had cared.
About him. John Watson.
And Moriaty had known. It had been all part of the game, forcing Sherlock to reveal his weakness-his heart; that John had bared his own on the way as well had merely been the icing on the cake for the madman.
Still quite inexplicably, they had both survived the explosion that night, thanks to Lestrade and his team.
But when he had awoken in the hospital to a bruised and battered but determined looking Sherlock sitting at his bedside, explaining to him that Moriaty had escaped, John had understood what his friend was telling him as well, asking of him with everything but words. Every unspoken confession the man had forced from them, had to remain buried beneath the dirt and dust of that collapsed building in Brighton, lost to them until Moriaty was caught and the game was over.
Because it was the logical choice.
Because until that day, all Sherlock would allow to matter was the work. And John had silently promised to respect that choice.
They never talked about the pool again. And John stayed what he had been: flatmate, colleague, blogger and friend, and after a while, when he had found a way to fight the longing and the heart-ache, the world seemed to adjust itself around them.
As if nothing had changed.
As if Moriaty hadn’t changed them.
It was all one great lie, a monstrous act of self-deception.
But then, deep inside, he was still a soldier, bound by loyalty and duty, fighting merely on a different battlefield. He would keep his promise, even if it broke his heart every day.
Tearing his eyes away from his friend, John pursed his lips. His gaze was already drifting back to the text on the screen when he remembered the initial reason for the interruption of his writing.
Somebody had slammed the street door. Forcefully. He frowned. It was odd. Sherlock was here. But why would Mrs Hudson-
“SHERLOCK!”
And here it comes. John winced slightly when the high-pitched voice of their landlady echoed through the hallway.
Since they had moved into Baker Street, Mrs. Hudson had put up gracefully with everything, from bullet holes over late night violin sessions to police drug busts and Secret Service agents observing her house. But whatever Sherlock had done to upset her this time, from the sound of it, John suspected it would take more than a rueful smile to placate her.
A lot more.
Sighing, he risked a glance at his friend. Sherlock had finally turned away from the wall and stepped into the middle of the living room, hands folded in front of his chest, head tilted slightly to the left as if he were weighing a deduction.
Not that there was much to deduce about an angry landlady. John rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to voice exactly that notion when Sherlock held up a finger, instructing him to be silent.
For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the echo of their landlady’s fast approaching steps in the hallway.
Christ, she had to be running up the staircase, he realized with an odd sense of foreboding.
“Sherlo-ock!” Mrs. Hudson called once more, her voice more urgent now, cracking over his friend’s name.
John’s eyes flew up, meeting Sherlock’s in shared realization. Their landlady wasn’t angry. She was disturbed about something.
John leapt from his chair, following Sherlock instantly as he started for the door.
When his friend tore it open, Mrs Hudson had already reached the landing in front of their flat and was leaning with her right hand braced against the wall as she tried to catch her breath.
Sherlock stepped forward, placing a steadying hand beneath her elbow. “Mrs. Hudson?”
“Oh, Sherlock, I’m so glad you’re in.” She gave him a wobbly smile, patting his upper arm before she glanced towards John. “And you, Doctor.”
“Hello, Mrs. Hudson.” He tried for a reassuring grin when Sherlock gestured for her to step inside. She looked pale and more than a little shaken.
“Can I get you something?” John asked. “A cup of tea, maybe?”
“Thanks, love. But no.” Mrs. Hudson shook her head while Sherlock manoeuvred her towards the sofa. He waited for her to sit down before he took the place next to her, studying her out of the corner of his eye.
Meanwhile, John seated himself on the armrest of the chair opposite to them.
“Well?” Sherlock asked gently, once they had all found their place. He bent forward, resting his elbows on his thighs.
For another moment, Mrs. Hudson fidgeted with the left cuff of her purple dress before she looked up and met his gaze. “There has been a murder.”
“A murder?” John asked, the question leaving his mouth in a rush. “Where?”
“At the funfair in Roe Green Park,” Sherlock answered without missing a beat, his gaze focussed on their landlady.
Mrs. Hudson’s eyes widened with a mixture of shock and surprise. “Sherlock, how do you-”
“The flyer in the side pocket of your handbag.” Sherlock pointed with his index finger toward the colourful sheet of paper standing out from the bag on the floor. “This morning, you told me you would be out with Mrs. Turner for the day, probably until late in the evening, but now, it is only five o’clock in the afternoon,” he continued, furrowing a brow. “Hence, something must have caused you to change your plans; something important-urgent, because you didn’t take the Jubilee line as you usually would, but a cab. Obviously, as you are still clutching the receipt in your left hand. So, whatever happened must have happened at the funfair in Roe Green Park,” Sherlock concluded, folding his hands in front of him. "Yet, hearing about a random murder while you were at the funfair wouldn’t have upset you. But you are upset. Very. So, something else must have happened. Something more personal. But the victim cannot be someone you know, otherwise you’d already have mentioned the name. So, what would… oh-oh of course,” he exclaimed in a low voice. “Mrs. Hudson you saw it, didn’t you? You saw it happen.” He looked at their landlady, apparently waiting for her to confirm his deduction when his eyes began to narrow. “Mrs. Hudson, if you are the witness of a murder why aren't you at Scotland Yard right now?"
Heaving her shoulders, their landlady breathed out a small puff of air. “Ooh, the officers didn’t believe me. Thought I was making things up, when they didn’t find a body. Even Marie did.”
“Marie?” John asked.
“Mrs. Turner, dear.” Mrs. Hudson gave him a brief smile before she continued. “Sherlock, I have seen it. The long knife-” She trailed off, wringing her hands. “It was horrible. Just like in one of those Hitchcock movies”
“Where did you see it, Mrs. Hudson?” Sherlock demanded. “Where did it happen?”
“Well, I know it might sound odd” -their landlady’s gaze drifted nervously from Sherlock to John- “but on the ghost train. You know, Marie and I, we thought it would be fun. According to the papers, it is the largest in Europe, and -"
“You saw a murder on the ghost train?” John asked, his brows arching in disbelief.
“Don’t give me that look, young man. I know what I’ve seen.” Mrs. Hudson turned to Sherlock. "Sherlock, the man-there was such an expression on his face. He wasn’t one of those wax figures, you have to believe that.”
“I do believe you, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock replied seriously, folding his hands in front of him. “And I promise we’ll find out what this is about, but first, I need you to close your eyes while I ask you a few questions. Try to answer them as precisely as you can. Everything might be important.”
Mrs. Hudson nodded, and when she had followed his instructions, Sherlock asked, “At what time did you enter the ghost train?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe around half past two.”
“Almost three hours ago,” Sherlock muttered. “Can you tell me anything about the person who stabbed the man? Did you see the person, maybe only for a moment?”
“No.” Mrs. Hudson shook her head. “No, I-there was only the hand with the knife. Actually, there wasn’t much light, and most of him was hidden behind the wall.”
“Most of him?” Sherlock repeated, digging deeper.
“Sherlo-ock.” Mrs. Hudson shifted unhappily on the sofa. “Is this thing really necessary?” She gestured with a hand towards her closed eyes. “I feel rather silly talking to you like this.”
“My apologies, Mrs. Hudson. But I need you to maximize your visual memory. Think again, what makes you believe it was a man?”
A small frown grew between her brows while she obviously pondered the question. “Something about the hand,” she said eventually. “It looked too massive to be that of a woman.”
“Good. Very good, Mrs. Hudson. Now, the other man. The victim. What do you remember about him?”
“I-oh, it happened so fast. Our carriage-it had just moved around the corner, into the part where they have those niches in the wall with all sorts of installations: villains, vampires. You know, the ones you watch while you drive by.” She gave a little laugh. “It’s quite funny actually to-“
“The man, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock reminded, his voice more insistent this time.
“Oh well, we were only a few meters when he appeared in the background of the one with the werewolves. Now, that I think about it, he more stumbled backwards. Ordinary guy. Short, dark hair. Regularl build. Your age, maybe. But that’s hard to tell with you boys these days.” She smiled briefly before she continued. “It looked as if he was arguing with somebody. I remember I was about to say something about it to Marie. She was searching for something in her handbag at that moment, you know. But then, I didn’t because the man, he raised his hands as if to protect himself.” Mrs. Hudson paused, opening her eyes. “That’s-that’s when it happened, Sherlock. But he was gone again before I could tell Marie.”
“But, Mrs. Hudson,” John interjected, “if you were able to see what happened maybe someone else in one of the carriages behind you did, too.”
“I don’t think so, dear. Ours was the last carriage in the group, and they move with some distance between them.”
“Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock picked up his questioning again. “You said the police searched the ghost train? How long was that after you saw the murder?”
“Maybe thirty or forty minutes later. It took some convincing until an officer went inside with the owner, a Mr. Hayes. Terrible man, that one. No manners, at all. When they came back without finding the victim, he had the audacity to suggest I might have mistaken the Jack the Ripper installation for something real. Can you believe that, Sherlock? As if-“ Mrs. Hudson had to swallow “-as if I were some old biddy.” She shook her head, sniffling quietly while she pulled a hanky from the handbag and brushed her nose.
Sherlock frowned, laying a hand gently Mrs. Hudson’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Hudson,” he said after a moment. “We’ll find that corpse.”
He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before he leapt from the sofa.
“Coming, John?” he called, heading for the door.
Only seconds later, after a short detour to fetch his service gun from the drawer in the living room table, John followed him downstairs.
**
Once their cab to Kingsbury headed along Baker Street, John leaned back into the seat, careful to leave enough space between him and Sherlock. They would need at least half an hour to arrive at Roe Green Park, depending on the traffic, and avoiding unnecessary physical contact was a main principle of not losing the emotion battle.
On his left, Sherlock was already tapping wildly on his phone, lost in some kind of research.
“So, you do believe what Mrs. Hudson saw was a murder?” John asked after a while.
“Possibly. Requires more data to tell. So far, there have been no reports on missing or dead persons that match Mrs. Hudson’s description,” Sherlock said, slipping the phone into the pocket of his jacket before he met John’s gaze. “What do you make of our supposed victim, a man walking behind the scenes of a ghost train?”
Licking his lips, John hesitated for a moment. He always felt torn when Sherlock included him in his chain of deduction. While there was that odd swell of pride that his friend obviously valued his opinion-otherwise he would never afford the time to ask-it ended far too often with John’s theories being torn to pieces in the aftermath.
“Could be one of the staff, a worker,” he said eventually. “Or maybe a guest from the funfair who sneaked inside the ghost train for some reason.”
“Excellent suggestions.” Sherlock tipped his index finger against his lips. “Unfortunately, they don’t bring us closer to our victim,”
John shrugged. “Well, it isn’t that we know much else about him, besides that, according to Mr. Hudson, he looks like Mr. Ordinary.”
“Correct. However, we know he wasn’t alone. He was having an argument with somebody; an argument that got out of hand and probably led to a murder. That’s why he stumbled into the installation. He was pushed-pushed by a man, a strong man with massive hands.” Sherlock paused, and John watched his brows knit in concentration. “But why? What has he done or said to anger his murder?”
“And why were they having that argument in the back of a ghost train in the first place?” John added. “Not the likeliest spot for a discussion.”
“But it’s probably the most unobserved at a crowded funfair. Think, John.”
“They did not want to be seen together.”
“Or someone already knew he was going to kill,” Sherlock said darkly, turning to the side window. Outside, the streets of London were flying by.
The leaden silence that followed his conclusion lasted for a long while.
**
It was almost six o’clock when they finally reached Roe Green Park. The outlines of the funfair with its large Ferris Wheel looming into the early evening sky, were already visible from afar when their cab entered Kingsbury Road.
Had someone asked him, John would have guessed that the line of fairground stalls stretching along the roadside of the park was at least half a mile long. The pavement close by was flurrying with all sorts of people: families, groups of teenagers, as well as many older people, either on their way towards the funfair or already returning from it.
They had just passed the corner of Kingsbury Road and Valley Drive when Sherlock told the cabbie to stop, and the car pulled into the small parking lot of a car seller. From there, it was only a short walk across the street to the park.
Surges of people were passing through the main entrance of the funfair. A small girl with a candyfloss in her hand nearly bumped into John. He carefully sterred her around and back towards her mother. When he looked up again, Sherlock was already a few steps ahead in the crowd, waiting for him at the gate. In the sky above him hung a large banner in yellow and red.
It wrote:
“Albert Hayes’ Funfair.
Voted the Best Touring Fair in Britain.
Starts Friday 29th April. Ends May 2nd. Opening Hours: 1pm - 11pm.”
“Did you see the name on the banner?” John asked, once he had closed up on Sherlock.
“Didn’t Mrs. Hudson say a Mr. Hayes accompanied the officer inside the ghost train?”
“Remarkable, John.” Sherlock’s mouth twitched with amusement. “The Hayes family has been part of the Travelling Amusement Industry, here in Britain, for six generations. The whole fair business in Britain is run by not more than five or four families in the country, so called showmen dynasties, as they refer to themselves. As we can tell from the banner, Albert Hayes is the lessee of this fairground, but all of the families have to collaborate to make up a fair by bringing their own rides and stalls to the fairground,” his friend lectured while John paid the one pound charity entrance for them both at the ticket office.
“Then, he isn’t necessarily the owner of Mrs. Hudson’s ghost train?” John asked, handing Sherlock his ticket.
“Not necessarily,” Sherlock replied, continuing his demonstration as they made their way through the crowd and along the first funfair stalls. “But according to the research I did on the way, the ghost train truly belongs to Hayes Leisure Entertainment. Albert Hayes is the long-term head of the family business and the current chairman of the Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain. Quite influential, as you can imagine. But it seems he’s going to be the last Hayes to run the firm. His only daughter is unmarried; a young historian without any interest in the amusement industry.”
“So, the business is going to be sold or someone outside the direct family has to take over.”
“Precisely. Two years ago, Hayes surprised the industry by naming his protégé and long-time employee, Randel Collins, executive director. And while Hayes is still owner and face of the Hayes Leisure Entertainment, Collins is now handling most of the daily business. Much to the dislike of the other showmen families. They see him as some sort of intruder, who was not born into the trade. And of course, they have all been hoping for their chance at absorbing the Hayes business once it would have been for sale.”
“Or once one of their own would have married the old Hayes’ only daughter.”
“Exactly.”
“And how do you know all that?” John asked, clasping his hands behind his back while he walked beside Sherlock. “I never realised you had a special interest in the Travelling Amusement Industry.”
“World Fair’s,” Sherlock replied with a casual wave of his hand as if the answer were self-evident. “Leading newspaper for the funfair industry.”
“Of course.” John gave him wry smile.
It was few moments later that they walked past a large group of teenagers standing around one of the funfair stalls. They were loudly cheering for a guy who was trying to throw small, wooden rings around stone blocks.
“Look at them, John,” Sherlock said, disdain tinting his voice. “The human species, wasting its time on mindless games.”
“Some people would say they are having fun, Sherlock,” John replied, unable to suppress a grin.
Sherlock gave a haughty snort, his stride quickening. “At least I have no intention of being idle.”
Chuckling, John shook his head. He was already about to follow Sherlock in his little dash when, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a thin, old man with chin-long white hair sitting beneath a park tree between two funfair stalls. Several people had gathered around the small table standing in front of him, their gazes fixed on its surface.
When he took a step closer, John saw the three nutshells that were subtly moved by wrinkled fingers.
Like following an invisible pull, he approached the thimblerigger. He abstractly realized he was clenching and unclenching his left hand when he stepped up to the table, his eyes focused on the swift dance of the nutshells. It was a game he had played far too regularly during his time at the PRT in Helmand, yet he hadn’t felt the urge to gamble since he moved into Baker Street. Living with a maddening, brilliant sociopath was excitement enough for two lifetimes. And of course, in the end, you could always bet on what you might find in the fridge in the morning.
But now, John’s fingers had closed on several pound notes in the pocket of his jeans. His hand was already hovering in the air to place the money on the table, in front of the left nutshell when he felt a presence behind him.
“Wouldn’t spend money on those,” said a dark voice close to his ear.
John shivered involuntarily as Sherlock’s warm breath ghosted over the skin on his neck. Swallowing, he turned his head and met his friend’s pale blue gaze in query.
A fond half-smile spread on Sherlock’s face. “They are empty. All of them”
“How-oh, never mind,” John muttered, glancing down, eyes drifting over the worn grass on the ground.
He was about to turn away from the table, the temptation, from Sherlock when his friend placed a hand on his shoulder and gestured with a subtle motion of his head for him to regard the thimblerigger again. “Look at the way he bends the two last fingers of his left hand,” he whispered, leaning close. “The pea is still there. It was never gone. He never placed it back under the nutshell.”
John managed a curt nod, the heart in his chest beating so fast it felt hard to breath.
“Come,” Sherlock said, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze before he moved his hand away again. “Let’s go and find Mrs. Hudson’s ghost train.”
**
It didn’t take long until they eventually located it. The ghost train stood next to the Ferris Wheel at the far end of the funfair, its bright green lights illuminating the grotesque paintings of several villains, ghosts and monsters that graced the front side of the approximately thirty feet high building. At the top, the words “Blackwood Castle.” glowed conspicuously in the dusk while, beneath, a banner announced, “Europe’s Largest Ghost Train!”
“Well, that looks… tacky,” John said, his eyes absorbing the sight before him.
On his left, Sherlock adjusted his cufflinks. “Surely, you know, I’d never ask it if it weren’t essential for the case, but-” he paused and turned to meet John’s gaze, a smirk on his face“-wanna go for a ride?”
“Hell, yes.” John laughed, following him when Sherlock headed for the ticket office.
Inside the small box, behind a glass window, sat a fairly voluminous woman in her fifties, the long red hair tamed by a braid.
“Two tickets,” Sherlock declared, handing the woman a five-pound note.
When she placed the change and two plastic chips on the counter, he asked, “If I’d like to speak with Mr. Collins on a business matter, would you know where I can find him?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed for a moment while she regarded Sherlock, who was giving her a most charming smile. “Office caravan,” she grunted eventually. “On the lawn behind the Ferris Wheel. But ya probably won’t find him there. Left a few hours ago. If it’s a business matter, you better speak to Mr. Hayes anyway. Try his caravan or the backside of the ghost train. Seen him there earlier. Some problem with the lights since the thunderstorm yesterday that nobody seems to be able to fix.”
“Thank you.” Sherlock nodded and grasped John by the elbow, leading him towards the entrance of the ghost train.
“So, the old Hayes still takes care of problems at his funfair himself,” John said while he climbed behind Sherlock into the last one of seven small, bright red carriages. “Maybe Mrs. Hudson’s murder victim was such problem as well, huh?”
“Lovely idea, but dangerous to speculate at this point,” Sherlock replied, pulling the safety bar down and locking it. “However, we should definitely pay Mr. Hayes a visit.”
John nodded. But he hadn’t listened to a word Sherlock had said. Because suddenly his friend was too close; far, far too close, his tight pressing against John’s in the narrow carriage, an all-consuming, pleasant warmth seeping through his jeans where their bodies touched.
“John?” The question came promptly. Of course, it did. Sherlock’s mind would never refrain from making deductions, even at the most inconvenient times.
John drew a deep breath. “I’m fine,” he lied, looking straight ahead. “Just got distracted.”
“Sure.” He heard the doubt, he could feel his friend’s inquiring eyes on him, but he was spared from another lie when their carriage moved forward with a jerk and entered the ghost train only a moment later.
**
The whole ride didn’t take long. Four minutes and 26 seconds, as Sherlock informed him afterwards. And most of it consisted of a rollercoaster ride in almost darkness, during which light projections of zombies, ghosts and witches descended down on the passengers. Only the last part of the ghost train led past the niches with installations of famous villains and monsters Mrs. Hudson had described earlier.
The one in which the figures of three werewolves were chasing after girl appeared right at the beginning, on the left side of their carriage. However, as much as John tried, from his place in the carriage, he could see nothing that indicated something suspicious had happened there earlier. And Sherlock’s tense silence told him his friend couldn’t either.
Once they had passed the niche with the werewolves, the carriage moved past several others: Count Dracula sinking his fangs into the neck of pale, half-naked woman, Frankenstein reviving his creature, Dr. Jekyll drinking from a phial while the shadow of Mr. Hyde was already looming in the background, and right in the niche next to them, the Hunchback carried Esmeralda towards Notre Dame.
At last, the shadowy, faceless figure of Jack the Ripper appeared, bent over a woman lying on the floor, his right arm raised threateningly while a set of surgeon instruments was already placed next to her.
“Hah!” Sherlock exclaimed once they had passed the installation.
John winced, turning towards his friend. Sherlock had steepled his fingers in front of him, elbows resting on the safety bar. “Oh, that’s good. Really good.”
“What? What is it?” John asked while the carriage moved through the exit and into the dusk of the evening.
Without another word, Sherlock unlocked the safety bar the moment the train stopped, leaping from the carriage.
“Sherlock!” John called, running after him. When he reached him, Sherlock was already pacing forth and back next to a food booth, selling popcorn and candy apples.
John crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned with his right shoulder against the sidewall of the stall. “Care to explain, now?”
“Didn’t you see, John?” Sherlock asked, his eyes sparkling. “Didn’t you see what was missing?”
“Missing?”
“There was no knife, John! In the Ripper installation!” his friend exclaimed, rubbing his palms against each other. “How can Mrs. Hudson mistake something that isn’t even there for what she has seen? I need to get inside the ghost train. All the essential data to solve this case has to be there.”
John sighed, casting a glance at the darkening sky. “Well, than let’s see what we can do about that.”
**
They found a narrow path between the Ferris Wheel and the ghost train that led to the area of the park behind the funfair where a long line of caravans stretched beneath the trees. They stood approximately fifty feet away, while on the lawn in front of the caravans, dozens of younger people were sitting in the high grass, taking a break from the turmoil on the other side of the funfair.
“The body has to be still inside,” Sherlock declared, glancing around.
“What?” John spluttered. “I mean, how? Even the police didn’t find one when they went looking for it.”
“They have missed it. Think, John. Too many possible witnesses. You can’t remove something as large as a dead body from here without drawing attention, especially not during the day. No, the corpse is still somewhere inside the ghost train,” Sherlock explained, approaching a certain spot on the back wall of the ghost train building. Like the front side, it was covered with paintings of skeletons, ghosts and other monsters.
John followed him, and after a few meters, he could see the outlines of a door. It took Sherlock not more than two quick movements to pick the lock, and they slipped into the back of the building.
John closed the door carefully behind them, and for an instant, they were surrounded by pitch-black darkness until the light of Sherlock’s small electric torch flared next to him.
The flickering, dim light illuminated the corridor in front of them while the noise and the screams of passengers echoed from the front part of the ghost train.
The corridor was long and narrow and completely painted in black; an iron ladder stood at its very end while uncounted electricity cables covered the high walls.
When he glanced around, John spotted a light switch on the wall next to the door, but there was no response when he reached out and tried to turn it on.
“Well, it seems Mr. Hayes hasn’t solved the problem with the light yet,” Sherlock muttered, moving towards the ladder.
“Where the hell are you going?” John hissed, reaching for the holster of his gun as he glanced back to the closed door.
“Where do you think, John? Upstairs,” Sherlock replied, his voice sharp with impatience.
The corridor on the next floor was as narrow as the one before; the only light falling into the room came from five or six small slits at the bottom of the right side of the wall. They ran, with some distance between them, down the corridor.
It took a few moments until John’s eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, once he had climbed from the ladder and stepped into the room.
He glanced around, his gaze searching for Sherlock. He had been only a few steps ahead of John, but now, there was no trace of him. Moving carefully forward, John pulled his gun from the waistband of his slacks.
“Sherlock!” No response.
John took another step into the corridor, his heart suddenly beating high in his throat.
“Sherlock!”
Again there was no response, but from the corner of his eye, John saw the light on the floor behind him flicker and spun around.
A second later, Sherlock stepped out from behind some kind of dark curtain, which, in the gloomy corridor, John had believed to be part of the wall.
“Christ, Sherlock.” John sucked in a breath, putting the gun down.
“The knife, John. The murderer has taken it from here,” his friend announced, gesturing towards something on the other side of the curtain.
John closed the distance between and glanced into the room from which Sherlock had just emerged. It was the niche with the installation of Jack the Ripper.
“The figure is usually holding one. Look.” Sherlock pointed towards the raised right plastic hand that seemed to be curled around thin air. “This wasn’t a planned murder. Why kill a grown man with a knife when it’s far safer to use a gun. Nobody would have heard the shot over the noise of the ghost train. No, the murderer hadn’t known he was going to kill when he first came here. But he knew where to find a weapon when he needed one. He knows this part of the ghost train. Probably works or has worked here.”
“But why not put the knife back afterwards and avoid drawing attention?”
“Don’t know.” Sherlock stepped from the niche back into the corridor, closing the curtain behind him. A moment later, the thundering sound of the approaching ghost train carriages could be heard. “Maybe the murderer panicked, wanted to get rid of the evidence. Or there hasn’t been the opportunity to put it back until now. It is obvious that Hayes didn’t know the knife was gone when he suggested Mrs. Hudson must have mistaken the Ripper installation for reality.”
“You know, Sherlock, we still don’t have even the slightest evidence that Mrs. Hudson’s murder victim even exists,” John said, inclining his head.
“Stabbings are a messy business,” Sherlock said, pulling the miniature forensic light John had gifted him last Christmas from the pocket of his trousers, pointing it at the darkness before them. “While most of the bleeding happens internally, you can never avoid at least some splashes of blood. Hardly to be seen on a black floor in the dim light of an electric torch.”
The moment Sherlock switched the lamp on, maybe a dozen bluish glowing spots in different sizes appeared at the far end of the corridor, and John felt something cold seep into his stomach at the sight.
Mrs. Hudson had been right. Someone was killed or at least attacked here.
Slowly, he turned his head to search Sherlock’s gaze. His friend’s face was grim, lips pressed into a tight line as he moved further into the corridor.
Crouching down next to an irregular, bluish spot with the diameter of a walnut, Sherlock traced the floor with his fingers. “Somebody wiped the blood away. Adequately enough for the remaining traces to be overlooked by the police without sufficient illumination. The murderer wasn’t in panic. He knew what he was doing, once he had made the decision to kill.”
Sherlock rose from the floor, regarding the dispersal of the bluish spots. He shoved the curtain on his right aside, taking a short glance into the niche with the werewolf installation. “After the victim was stabbed here,” he said eventually, ”he must have stumbled against the wall, given the high accumulation of blood splashes in the area here. From the amount of blood, I’d guess he wasn’t stabbed more than twice. Otherwise there’d be more traces in this area. But where did the murderer take the body?”
“There are no stains leading away from this part of the corridor,” John said, eyes travelling over the floor. “Maybe, he covered the corpse with something to avoid leaving a trail of blood behind him when he brought it away.”
There was no immediate response from Sherlock, but John heard him call his name an instant later. He spun around, finding his friend standing in front of the left side of the wall, opposite to the curtain with the werewolves behind it.
“A door, John,” Sherlock declared, his right hand already working on something John realized had to be the lock when he took a step closer. But the corresponding handle was nowhere to be seen.
“Has to be a store room or something,” Sherlock said, handing him the electric torch.
John pointed the beam of light at the lock, and several seconds later, a soft click echoed through corridor.
After sharing a short glance with Sherlock, he pulled his gun from his waistband and moved to point the electric torch at the door while Sherlock placed his hand on the door, pushing it slowly open and stepping inside.
John followed right behind him.
When he entered the small room, he saw him immediately. A few feet away, at the back wall of the small room, between electric cables, plastic figures and all kinds of working tools lay the dead body of a man. He looked like Mrs. Hudson had described him. Average size, normally built, short dark hair. Everything about this man looked ordinary, except for two large bloodstains covering the front of his shirt and the large knife that was still buried in his chest.
Sherlock took a step forward, kneeling down next to the body. John followed him with light of the electric torch, glancing over Sherlock’s shoulder when he pulled the victim’s wallet with a hanky from the man’s jacket.
When Sherlock opened it, John wished for a moment, he hadn’t been looking. The first thing that appeared on the inside of the wallet was the picture of two small children, probably not older than six or seven. They were smiling and waving into the camera.
John felt a rush of nausea rise high in his throat when the full meaning of the sight hit him. He looked away and squeezed his eyes shut. But the image wouldn’t go away as if burnt into his mind.
“Alan Simmons,” Sherlock announced meanwhile, sounding disturbingly unmoved. “Thirty-nine. Married. Apparently, he was an accountant.”
Still unwilling to look at the wallet and its contents again, John let his gaze travel over the floor while his friend continued his deductions.
It was only when he heard Sherlock say his name again that he forced himself to turn back. He was about to raise his gaze when he recognized the outline of something lying on the floor, only inches away from his left foot. He stooped down, placing his gun on the floor as he reached for it.
“Sherlock,” he called when he realized it was a folded piece of paper.
Immediately, Sherlock was at his side, regarding the sheet John was holding in his left hand while he raised his right so that the light of the electric torch illuminated the paper.
It was a printout, containing several number tables.
“These are annual accounts and calculations of passenger numbers for over a dozen funfair rides of Hayes Leisure Entertainment,” Sherlock said a few moments later, his eyes flitting over the paper. “According to those, the reported gains for each of them in the last two years lies up to 20% higher than the maximum amount of passengers the rides are able to transport could earn.”
“But why would someone fabricate the gains of Hayes Leisure Entertainment?” John frowned as he tried to make sense of the numbers in front of him.
“Not only the gains but the costs as well.” Sherlock pointed with his index finger at the tables at the bottom of the page. “Somebody is using Hayes’ firm to launder money in considerable proportions, and obviously, Alan Simmons discovered it.”
Eyes drifting back to the dead man on the floor, John said, “Sherlock, I think we should call the police now.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” announced a deep, taunting voice behind them. “Hands up, both of you, and then slowly turn around.”
Searching Sherlock’s gaze in a quick glance, John saw him shake his head briefly, advising him against any sort of resistance before he raised his hand and followed the man instructions.
When John turned around, he saw a middle-sized man, probably about forty years old with a receding line of brown hair standing in the doorframe of the small room. The hard, angular face and his sturdy frame told of a lifetime of physical work. He was holding an electric torch in the left hand while his right was curled around the holster of a gun that he pointed directly at Sherlock’s chest.
“And you-“ the man made a short gesture with the barrel into John’s direction “-now use your left foot and shove that gun over here, or your friend has a hole in his chest.”
Pressing his lips into a tight line, John followed the order and the man gave a dark chuckle when his British Army Browning L9A1 landed at his feet. “That’s a good boy.”
“Killing three people. That’s not something to sweep off, Collins,” Sherlock said coldly.
“Ah, you know who I am, then.” A false smile spread on the man’s face, revealing a line of crooked teeth. “But who says I’m going to kill you? Maybe you two will just have a little accident.”
“People know we are here. And why,” John bit out.
“And who would that be, sonny? That nosey, old lady? Yeah, I’ve heard about her. Albert called me after the police had left, thought she was barking mad. Believe me, she won’t have a flicker of doubt once the people I work with are done with you.”
“People? What people?” John asked, eyes narrowing.
“Just people.” The smile in front of him broadened.
“Must be hard to run an entertainment business in a national economic crisis, isn’t it, Collins?” Sherlock interjected, and for the split of a second something in the man’s face twitched. “Dropping turnovers. People with less money to spend. A few ten thousand quid extra can come in handy in times like these. That’s why they approached you, because it was an offer you couldn’t reject. Because you had to prove those wrong, who think you’re an outsider, that you couldn’t carry on the success of Hayes Leisure Entertainment.”
“Stow it!” Collins barked, cocking the gun. However, Sherlock didn’t stop.
“But Albert Hayes trusted you to do that, didn’t he, Collins? But if he had learned of your little extra business, all you’ve worked for those long years would have been lost. He would never sign the business over to you, would he? Of course not. Because he is an honest man. That’s why Alan Simmons had to die. Because he was an honest man, too. He came to you, agitated. He surprised you here while you were trying to fix the problem with light. When he told you the numbers of the last year didn’t add up you knew you had to do something.”
“You believe to know quite a lot, man. But it won’t help you and your friend, anymore.” Collins said evenly, his composure returning. “Now, take your phones out, both of you, and throw them over here. One after another.”
The man took a step back into the corridor, and John momentarily understood what he was planning to do. Collins was going to lock them into that room until the people he worked with would arrive to kill them in one way or another.
His eyes flicked around as John pretended to reach for the phone in his trouser pocket. There had to be a way out. They had survived the pool. They had tricked a criminal mastermind. They simply couldn’t die at the hand of some random criminals in the back of a ghost train.
“Put the gun down, Randel!” thundered, suddenly, a strong voice of a man from the other end of the corridor. From their place in the small room, neither John nor Sherlock could see him.
In front of them, Collins seemed to freeze. “Albert?”
“It’s over, Randel! I’ve heard it all,” said the man, whom John was sure was nobody else than Albert Hayes. “The police will be here any minute.”
“You’re lying,” called Collins, panic rising in his voice.
“No, I’m not, Randel,” Hayes declared calmly, and that calmness seemed to break something in their adversary.
Collins was still pointing his gun at Sherlock, but his massive hands were shaking when he risked a glance at Hayes over his shoulder. And then, everything happened very fast.
From the corner of his eye, John saw Sherlock dart forward, using Collins’ momentarily of distraction to pounce on the man, crashing him into the wall.
John leaped forward, grasping his gun from the floor, rushing after Sherlock. He had almost reached the fighting men and was trying to get a clear view at Collins in the dim light, when a shot echoed through the corridor.
“Sherlock!” John exclaimed, his heart skipping a beat when he saw his friend stumble backward, clutching his side.
Cocking his Browning L9A1, John advanced on Collins. The man was leaning with his back against the wall, wheezing and holding his stomach with his left hand while the gun was hanging loosely from the other.
“Move and I’ll kill you,” John said coolly. “Now, let the gun fall and shove it away with your foot. Slowly. You know how.”
When Collins had followed his instructions, John called for Sherlock, not taking his eyes from the man in front of him.
“I’m fine,” came the raspy reply from behind. “Graze wound.”
John nodded, exhaling a breath that seemed to lift a thousand boulders from his chest. “
Still pressing his palm to his side, Sherlock moved forward, taking Collins’ gun from the floor. “You won’t need that where you are going.”
His friend’s voice was dripping scorn, but John noted that he sounded strained as if in a lot of pain when he asked, “Mr. Hayes, are you alright?”
The old man must have merely nodded because John didn’t hear a reply. A moment later, Sherlock’s voice called from behind him again, “Lestrade? It’s me. There’s been a murder. The funfair in Roe Green Park. I need you here.”
There was a pause.
“The ghost train. Yes, murder.”
Another short pause.
“Caught, “ Sherlock replied curtly, snapping his phone shut.
“Lestrade will need some time to get here, but he’ll alert the police officers in the area immediately,” John heard him announce as Sherlock stepped up next to him, exchanging the phone his hand for Collins’ gun, pointing it at the man who was clenching his fists in rage.
“You said the police was already on the way, Albert,” he bit out, turning his head towards the man.
And for the first time, John risked a glance at Albert Hayes as well.
He was probably six feet high with a heavy paunch beneath his dark shirt. He had a round, wrinkled face. He was wearing a broad stache under his knobbly nose, and there was a tuft of thick white hair on his head. Something about his whole appearance reminded John of a circus director, only the grim line of his mouth wouldn’t fit with rest of the image.
“Oh, but I lied, Randel,” Hayes said coldly. “Just like you did when you promised to protect my business.”
A few minutes later, the voices of policemen entering the ghost train building could be heard.
**
“Sherlock, you really have to try to lie still,” John admonished as he set out for another attempt to clean the flesh wound at left side of his friend’s midriff. He had only been able to stop the bleeding moments ago.
It had been a Herculean task to have Sherlock agree to seek out an ambulance the moment the police had arrived and arrested Randel Collins. But in the end, John had succeeded, because Albert Hayes had only too willingly agreed to explain to the officers at the scene how he had come back to finally fix the problem with the light only to overhear his executive director threaten somebody.
Therefore, Sherlock and his presence at the crime scene would only be needed once Lestrade and his time would arrive to interview them.
“I am lying still,” Sherlock snapped, only to shift away on the stretcher a heartbeat later when the cotton swab with antiseptic agent touched the wound.
“Yeah, sure you do.” John rolled his eyes and placed his left palm on his friend’s exposed stomach to hold him in place. Firmly ignoring the slight shudder he felt running through Sherlock’s body at his touch, John turned back to tend to the injured skin tissue, careful not to open the wound again.
“And you are taking ridiculously long for this,” Sherlock bit out in an impatient, frustrated huff.
John ignored him.
“You know, you could have always let the paramedics treat you,” he said once he had finished the task and waited for the antiseptic to dry. “It’s not like they’re all idiots.”
It would have been easier, so far easier to return to Baker Street and their chase for Moriaty without those moments of physical closeness, without the memory of Sherlock’s warm skin beneath his hands.
Leaning up on his elbows, his friend threw him a supercilious look. “And what would have been the logic in choosing the care of a paramedic over that of a trained army doctor with an experience in treating graze wounds? And you’re an army doctor, John, are you not?”
“Apparently so.” Turning away to prepare the bandage, John hid a cheerless smile. Trust Sherlock to make the logical choice, of course; neither the easy nor the right one.
“Do you think Collins will talk?” he asked after a moment, unrolling the gauze and cutting a large piece off. “I mean about the backers he worked with. ”
“Hard to tell. As they probably belong to some branch of organized crime, it’ll depend on Scotland Yard. If they can offer him security, maybe.”
John nodded.
When he turned back, the bandage in his hands, Sherlock was lying flat on the stretcher again, eyes closed, his torso heaving calmly beneath the open shirt. John had long known that his friend was far too thin, ribs illustrated beneath his impossibly pale skin.
But it was the sight of that one angry red line running along the left side of Sherlock’s waist that suddenly caused an icy claw of cognition to close around John’s heart.
Had Collins’ bullet hit only a few inches further to the right, he would have lost him.
Forever.
John shuddered. Suddenly, not giving in to that whole world of restrained longing, not to hold, to touch, to kiss Sherlock felt like a feat of inhuman proportions.
What if they never caught Moriaty? What if that one great game never ended?
Swallowing hard, John closed his eyes, fighting for his composure, for his medical distance. He was a doctor. A soldier. His resolve couldn’t break. Not now.
With another deep breath, he leaned down and began to apply the gauze with some Band-Aid over the wound, his fingers grazing carefully over Sherlock’s skin.
“There. As good as new,” he declared with a false air of lightness as he removed his hands a few moments later, clasping them tightly behind his back to hide their shaking.
Averting his eyes from his friend’s knowing gaze, he pretended to study the floor while he waited for Sherlock to sit up and button his battered shirt.
“John.”
One word. His name. Spoken in a wistful soft tone. For a second, he felt defenceless. And his heart, his helpless heart stuttered and clenched, so tight it, he could barely breathe.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he shook his head. How could he have thought Sherlock wouldn’t catch his reaction, the hesitation, his fear?
But he wasn’t prepared to have this discussion.
Not now.
“John.”
His name. Again. As if that one word were the key to a far greater mystery. And then there was a hand on his cheek, touching him, caressing him, asking him to look up.
And when he did, Sherlock stood right next to him, looking at him. Really looking at him, the pale blue eyes were filled with that same longing John recognized in his mirror every morning.
His friend’s mouth curved slightly, pale blue eyes roaming over John’s face as he moved closer; and John knew, he suddenly knew with absolute certainty that the impossible was happening: Sherlock was going to kiss him.
John swallowed, his gaze drifting to that perfect, brilliant mouth in front of him. Sherlock was so close now, oh-so very close.
But the moment between them shattered into thousand tiny pieces when the loud ring of a phone sounded through the ambulance.
“Don’t move,” Sherlock ordered quietly, giving him a rueful smile before he broke away from John’s gaze and reached for the phone in his jacket.
“Mycroft,” he announced, aware that John knew he had to take the call.
John nodded nevertheless, and a moment later, he saw his friend’s whole body freeze while he listened to his brother.
There was only one person in the world to cause this reaction in Sherlock.
Moriaty.
Something had happened, after months of no sign from the man. John felt his chest grew tight with apprehension.
“I’ll be there. Give me half an hour,” Sherlock said eventually, staring absently at his phone when he had ended the call.
“Sherlock?”
For an eternity or two there was no response, but when his friend looked up and met his gaze, the familiar pale blue in his eyes shone cold and hard like crystals.
“Mycroft’s people have located him.”
“Where?” John asked, forcing the word from his suddenly tight throat.
“Meiringen, Switzerland. A plane is already waiting.”
John nodded, his jaw set in grim determination. So, this was it then, the moment Sherlock had waited for. The final round of the game.
“Lestrade will understand that we can’t stay.”
There was a moment of silence before Sherlock heaved a breath, glancing down and away. “John, while I appreciate your help, you need to know, you don’t have-“
“Sherlock.” John reached up and cupped his friend’s face, the gesture a mirror of the one from moments before. “I’m not leaving you,” he declared in a whisper, brushing his thumb gently over Sherlock’s cheek when his friend closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against John’s.
It was a stolen moment, beyond time and reason and criminal masterminds, and it ended all too soon when Sherlock drew away. He never looked back when he turned to leave the ambulance.
Alone in the vehicle, John drew a shaky breathe before he followed him into the night.
In the end, he always would.
Recipient: arwen_kenobi
Author: selinabln
Fandoms: Sherlock BBC
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, Lestrade, Moriaty (implied)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst, and well, there is a murder victim (OMC)
Summary: The ride on a ghost train has some unforseen consequences.
Note:
To my beta potionsmiss23: Hugs and kudos for her magic. All remaining errors are mine, and mine alone.
To the fabulous mods: Eternal thanks for being the most patient and generous people.
To arwen_kenobi: I begged and pleaded with him ardently, but Sherlock simply refused to climb onto a Ferris Wheel ;) I hope you enjoy what the muse made of your prompt.
This is for you.
The day had been quiet, almost tranquil at 221b Baker Street, when, suddenly, the street door was slammed shut, the loud bang causing John’s fingers to pause on the keyboard.
Instantly, he looked up from his laptop, his gaze searching for Sherlock.
The reaction was instinctive. Whenever something disrupted the peace of their home, his friend was never far from the centre of events, and John had given up resisting the need to ensure he was fine.
However, right now, Sherlock was standing in front of the sofa in their living room, eyes fixed on the assemblage of notes, photos and other clues covering the wall above. It was a strange mosaic they had worked tirelessly to create over the last year, but still no image, no structure of Moriaty’s organization had become visible, the man himself seemingly vanished from the face of the earth.
Only the whisper, they remained. Leading nowhere but into shadows.
And with every passing day, the frustrated frown on his friend's face became deeper, the shadows beneath his eyes more visible. It was as if the continuing failure was eating Sherlock from the inside like a slow, burning fire, and the thought made John’s heart clench in his chest.
This was where he belonged.
Not the flat. Not Baker Street. But with the man standing right across the room.
He hadn’t realized it, not truly. Not until he had seen Sherlock at the pool. Brilliant, dangerous and-for once-not indifferent. For once, something had mattered more to his friend than the game, the chase, than being right. For once, Sherlock had cared.
About him. John Watson.
And Moriaty had known. It had been all part of the game, forcing Sherlock to reveal his weakness-his heart; that John had bared his own on the way as well had merely been the icing on the cake for the madman.
Still quite inexplicably, they had both survived the explosion that night, thanks to Lestrade and his team.
But when he had awoken in the hospital to a bruised and battered but determined looking Sherlock sitting at his bedside, explaining to him that Moriaty had escaped, John had understood what his friend was telling him as well, asking of him with everything but words. Every unspoken confession the man had forced from them, had to remain buried beneath the dirt and dust of that collapsed building in Brighton, lost to them until Moriaty was caught and the game was over.
Because it was the logical choice.
Because until that day, all Sherlock would allow to matter was the work. And John had silently promised to respect that choice.
They never talked about the pool again. And John stayed what he had been: flatmate, colleague, blogger and friend, and after a while, when he had found a way to fight the longing and the heart-ache, the world seemed to adjust itself around them.
As if nothing had changed.
As if Moriaty hadn’t changed them.
It was all one great lie, a monstrous act of self-deception.
But then, deep inside, he was still a soldier, bound by loyalty and duty, fighting merely on a different battlefield. He would keep his promise, even if it broke his heart every day.
Tearing his eyes away from his friend, John pursed his lips. His gaze was already drifting back to the text on the screen when he remembered the initial reason for the interruption of his writing.
Somebody had slammed the street door. Forcefully. He frowned. It was odd. Sherlock was here. But why would Mrs Hudson-
“SHERLOCK!”
And here it comes. John winced slightly when the high-pitched voice of their landlady echoed through the hallway.
Since they had moved into Baker Street, Mrs. Hudson had put up gracefully with everything, from bullet holes over late night violin sessions to police drug busts and Secret Service agents observing her house. But whatever Sherlock had done to upset her this time, from the sound of it, John suspected it would take more than a rueful smile to placate her.
A lot more.
Sighing, he risked a glance at his friend. Sherlock had finally turned away from the wall and stepped into the middle of the living room, hands folded in front of his chest, head tilted slightly to the left as if he were weighing a deduction.
Not that there was much to deduce about an angry landlady. John rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to voice exactly that notion when Sherlock held up a finger, instructing him to be silent.
For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the echo of their landlady’s fast approaching steps in the hallway.
Christ, she had to be running up the staircase, he realized with an odd sense of foreboding.
“Sherlo-ock!” Mrs. Hudson called once more, her voice more urgent now, cracking over his friend’s name.
John’s eyes flew up, meeting Sherlock’s in shared realization. Their landlady wasn’t angry. She was disturbed about something.
John leapt from his chair, following Sherlock instantly as he started for the door.
When his friend tore it open, Mrs Hudson had already reached the landing in front of their flat and was leaning with her right hand braced against the wall as she tried to catch her breath.
Sherlock stepped forward, placing a steadying hand beneath her elbow. “Mrs. Hudson?”
“Oh, Sherlock, I’m so glad you’re in.” She gave him a wobbly smile, patting his upper arm before she glanced towards John. “And you, Doctor.”
“Hello, Mrs. Hudson.” He tried for a reassuring grin when Sherlock gestured for her to step inside. She looked pale and more than a little shaken.
“Can I get you something?” John asked. “A cup of tea, maybe?”
“Thanks, love. But no.” Mrs. Hudson shook her head while Sherlock manoeuvred her towards the sofa. He waited for her to sit down before he took the place next to her, studying her out of the corner of his eye.
Meanwhile, John seated himself on the armrest of the chair opposite to them.
“Well?” Sherlock asked gently, once they had all found their place. He bent forward, resting his elbows on his thighs.
For another moment, Mrs. Hudson fidgeted with the left cuff of her purple dress before she looked up and met his gaze. “There has been a murder.”
“A murder?” John asked, the question leaving his mouth in a rush. “Where?”
“At the funfair in Roe Green Park,” Sherlock answered without missing a beat, his gaze focussed on their landlady.
Mrs. Hudson’s eyes widened with a mixture of shock and surprise. “Sherlock, how do you-”
“The flyer in the side pocket of your handbag.” Sherlock pointed with his index finger toward the colourful sheet of paper standing out from the bag on the floor. “This morning, you told me you would be out with Mrs. Turner for the day, probably until late in the evening, but now, it is only five o’clock in the afternoon,” he continued, furrowing a brow. “Hence, something must have caused you to change your plans; something important-urgent, because you didn’t take the Jubilee line as you usually would, but a cab. Obviously, as you are still clutching the receipt in your left hand. So, whatever happened must have happened at the funfair in Roe Green Park,” Sherlock concluded, folding his hands in front of him. "Yet, hearing about a random murder while you were at the funfair wouldn’t have upset you. But you are upset. Very. So, something else must have happened. Something more personal. But the victim cannot be someone you know, otherwise you’d already have mentioned the name. So, what would… oh-oh of course,” he exclaimed in a low voice. “Mrs. Hudson you saw it, didn’t you? You saw it happen.” He looked at their landlady, apparently waiting for her to confirm his deduction when his eyes began to narrow. “Mrs. Hudson, if you are the witness of a murder why aren't you at Scotland Yard right now?"
Heaving her shoulders, their landlady breathed out a small puff of air. “Ooh, the officers didn’t believe me. Thought I was making things up, when they didn’t find a body. Even Marie did.”
“Marie?” John asked.
“Mrs. Turner, dear.” Mrs. Hudson gave him a brief smile before she continued. “Sherlock, I have seen it. The long knife-” She trailed off, wringing her hands. “It was horrible. Just like in one of those Hitchcock movies”
“Where did you see it, Mrs. Hudson?” Sherlock demanded. “Where did it happen?”
“Well, I know it might sound odd” -their landlady’s gaze drifted nervously from Sherlock to John- “but on the ghost train. You know, Marie and I, we thought it would be fun. According to the papers, it is the largest in Europe, and -"
“You saw a murder on the ghost train?” John asked, his brows arching in disbelief.
“Don’t give me that look, young man. I know what I’ve seen.” Mrs. Hudson turned to Sherlock. "Sherlock, the man-there was such an expression on his face. He wasn’t one of those wax figures, you have to believe that.”
“I do believe you, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock replied seriously, folding his hands in front of him. “And I promise we’ll find out what this is about, but first, I need you to close your eyes while I ask you a few questions. Try to answer them as precisely as you can. Everything might be important.”
Mrs. Hudson nodded, and when she had followed his instructions, Sherlock asked, “At what time did you enter the ghost train?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe around half past two.”
“Almost three hours ago,” Sherlock muttered. “Can you tell me anything about the person who stabbed the man? Did you see the person, maybe only for a moment?”
“No.” Mrs. Hudson shook her head. “No, I-there was only the hand with the knife. Actually, there wasn’t much light, and most of him was hidden behind the wall.”
“Most of him?” Sherlock repeated, digging deeper.
“Sherlo-ock.” Mrs. Hudson shifted unhappily on the sofa. “Is this thing really necessary?” She gestured with a hand towards her closed eyes. “I feel rather silly talking to you like this.”
“My apologies, Mrs. Hudson. But I need you to maximize your visual memory. Think again, what makes you believe it was a man?”
A small frown grew between her brows while she obviously pondered the question. “Something about the hand,” she said eventually. “It looked too massive to be that of a woman.”
“Good. Very good, Mrs. Hudson. Now, the other man. The victim. What do you remember about him?”
“I-oh, it happened so fast. Our carriage-it had just moved around the corner, into the part where they have those niches in the wall with all sorts of installations: villains, vampires. You know, the ones you watch while you drive by.” She gave a little laugh. “It’s quite funny actually to-“
“The man, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock reminded, his voice more insistent this time.
“Oh well, we were only a few meters when he appeared in the background of the one with the werewolves. Now, that I think about it, he more stumbled backwards. Ordinary guy. Short, dark hair. Regularl build. Your age, maybe. But that’s hard to tell with you boys these days.” She smiled briefly before she continued. “It looked as if he was arguing with somebody. I remember I was about to say something about it to Marie. She was searching for something in her handbag at that moment, you know. But then, I didn’t because the man, he raised his hands as if to protect himself.” Mrs. Hudson paused, opening her eyes. “That’s-that’s when it happened, Sherlock. But he was gone again before I could tell Marie.”
“But, Mrs. Hudson,” John interjected, “if you were able to see what happened maybe someone else in one of the carriages behind you did, too.”
“I don’t think so, dear. Ours was the last carriage in the group, and they move with some distance between them.”
“Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock picked up his questioning again. “You said the police searched the ghost train? How long was that after you saw the murder?”
“Maybe thirty or forty minutes later. It took some convincing until an officer went inside with the owner, a Mr. Hayes. Terrible man, that one. No manners, at all. When they came back without finding the victim, he had the audacity to suggest I might have mistaken the Jack the Ripper installation for something real. Can you believe that, Sherlock? As if-“ Mrs. Hudson had to swallow “-as if I were some old biddy.” She shook her head, sniffling quietly while she pulled a hanky from the handbag and brushed her nose.
Sherlock frowned, laying a hand gently Mrs. Hudson’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Hudson,” he said after a moment. “We’ll find that corpse.”
He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before he leapt from the sofa.
“Coming, John?” he called, heading for the door.
Only seconds later, after a short detour to fetch his service gun from the drawer in the living room table, John followed him downstairs.
**
Once their cab to Kingsbury headed along Baker Street, John leaned back into the seat, careful to leave enough space between him and Sherlock. They would need at least half an hour to arrive at Roe Green Park, depending on the traffic, and avoiding unnecessary physical contact was a main principle of not losing the emotion battle.
On his left, Sherlock was already tapping wildly on his phone, lost in some kind of research.
“So, you do believe what Mrs. Hudson saw was a murder?” John asked after a while.
“Possibly. Requires more data to tell. So far, there have been no reports on missing or dead persons that match Mrs. Hudson’s description,” Sherlock said, slipping the phone into the pocket of his jacket before he met John’s gaze. “What do you make of our supposed victim, a man walking behind the scenes of a ghost train?”
Licking his lips, John hesitated for a moment. He always felt torn when Sherlock included him in his chain of deduction. While there was that odd swell of pride that his friend obviously valued his opinion-otherwise he would never afford the time to ask-it ended far too often with John’s theories being torn to pieces in the aftermath.
“Could be one of the staff, a worker,” he said eventually. “Or maybe a guest from the funfair who sneaked inside the ghost train for some reason.”
“Excellent suggestions.” Sherlock tipped his index finger against his lips. “Unfortunately, they don’t bring us closer to our victim,”
John shrugged. “Well, it isn’t that we know much else about him, besides that, according to Mr. Hudson, he looks like Mr. Ordinary.”
“Correct. However, we know he wasn’t alone. He was having an argument with somebody; an argument that got out of hand and probably led to a murder. That’s why he stumbled into the installation. He was pushed-pushed by a man, a strong man with massive hands.” Sherlock paused, and John watched his brows knit in concentration. “But why? What has he done or said to anger his murder?”
“And why were they having that argument in the back of a ghost train in the first place?” John added. “Not the likeliest spot for a discussion.”
“But it’s probably the most unobserved at a crowded funfair. Think, John.”
“They did not want to be seen together.”
“Or someone already knew he was going to kill,” Sherlock said darkly, turning to the side window. Outside, the streets of London were flying by.
The leaden silence that followed his conclusion lasted for a long while.
**
It was almost six o’clock when they finally reached Roe Green Park. The outlines of the funfair with its large Ferris Wheel looming into the early evening sky, were already visible from afar when their cab entered Kingsbury Road.
Had someone asked him, John would have guessed that the line of fairground stalls stretching along the roadside of the park was at least half a mile long. The pavement close by was flurrying with all sorts of people: families, groups of teenagers, as well as many older people, either on their way towards the funfair or already returning from it.
They had just passed the corner of Kingsbury Road and Valley Drive when Sherlock told the cabbie to stop, and the car pulled into the small parking lot of a car seller. From there, it was only a short walk across the street to the park.
Surges of people were passing through the main entrance of the funfair. A small girl with a candyfloss in her hand nearly bumped into John. He carefully sterred her around and back towards her mother. When he looked up again, Sherlock was already a few steps ahead in the crowd, waiting for him at the gate. In the sky above him hung a large banner in yellow and red.
It wrote:
“Albert Hayes’ Funfair.
Voted the Best Touring Fair in Britain.
Starts Friday 29th April. Ends May 2nd. Opening Hours: 1pm - 11pm.”
“Did you see the name on the banner?” John asked, once he had closed up on Sherlock.
“Didn’t Mrs. Hudson say a Mr. Hayes accompanied the officer inside the ghost train?”
“Remarkable, John.” Sherlock’s mouth twitched with amusement. “The Hayes family has been part of the Travelling Amusement Industry, here in Britain, for six generations. The whole fair business in Britain is run by not more than five or four families in the country, so called showmen dynasties, as they refer to themselves. As we can tell from the banner, Albert Hayes is the lessee of this fairground, but all of the families have to collaborate to make up a fair by bringing their own rides and stalls to the fairground,” his friend lectured while John paid the one pound charity entrance for them both at the ticket office.
“Then, he isn’t necessarily the owner of Mrs. Hudson’s ghost train?” John asked, handing Sherlock his ticket.
“Not necessarily,” Sherlock replied, continuing his demonstration as they made their way through the crowd and along the first funfair stalls. “But according to the research I did on the way, the ghost train truly belongs to Hayes Leisure Entertainment. Albert Hayes is the long-term head of the family business and the current chairman of the Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain. Quite influential, as you can imagine. But it seems he’s going to be the last Hayes to run the firm. His only daughter is unmarried; a young historian without any interest in the amusement industry.”
“So, the business is going to be sold or someone outside the direct family has to take over.”
“Precisely. Two years ago, Hayes surprised the industry by naming his protégé and long-time employee, Randel Collins, executive director. And while Hayes is still owner and face of the Hayes Leisure Entertainment, Collins is now handling most of the daily business. Much to the dislike of the other showmen families. They see him as some sort of intruder, who was not born into the trade. And of course, they have all been hoping for their chance at absorbing the Hayes business once it would have been for sale.”
“Or once one of their own would have married the old Hayes’ only daughter.”
“Exactly.”
“And how do you know all that?” John asked, clasping his hands behind his back while he walked beside Sherlock. “I never realised you had a special interest in the Travelling Amusement Industry.”
“World Fair’s,” Sherlock replied with a casual wave of his hand as if the answer were self-evident. “Leading newspaper for the funfair industry.”
“Of course.” John gave him wry smile.
It was few moments later that they walked past a large group of teenagers standing around one of the funfair stalls. They were loudly cheering for a guy who was trying to throw small, wooden rings around stone blocks.
“Look at them, John,” Sherlock said, disdain tinting his voice. “The human species, wasting its time on mindless games.”
“Some people would say they are having fun, Sherlock,” John replied, unable to suppress a grin.
Sherlock gave a haughty snort, his stride quickening. “At least I have no intention of being idle.”
Chuckling, John shook his head. He was already about to follow Sherlock in his little dash when, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a thin, old man with chin-long white hair sitting beneath a park tree between two funfair stalls. Several people had gathered around the small table standing in front of him, their gazes fixed on its surface.
When he took a step closer, John saw the three nutshells that were subtly moved by wrinkled fingers.
Like following an invisible pull, he approached the thimblerigger. He abstractly realized he was clenching and unclenching his left hand when he stepped up to the table, his eyes focused on the swift dance of the nutshells. It was a game he had played far too regularly during his time at the PRT in Helmand, yet he hadn’t felt the urge to gamble since he moved into Baker Street. Living with a maddening, brilliant sociopath was excitement enough for two lifetimes. And of course, in the end, you could always bet on what you might find in the fridge in the morning.
But now, John’s fingers had closed on several pound notes in the pocket of his jeans. His hand was already hovering in the air to place the money on the table, in front of the left nutshell when he felt a presence behind him.
“Wouldn’t spend money on those,” said a dark voice close to his ear.
John shivered involuntarily as Sherlock’s warm breath ghosted over the skin on his neck. Swallowing, he turned his head and met his friend’s pale blue gaze in query.
A fond half-smile spread on Sherlock’s face. “They are empty. All of them”
“How-oh, never mind,” John muttered, glancing down, eyes drifting over the worn grass on the ground.
He was about to turn away from the table, the temptation, from Sherlock when his friend placed a hand on his shoulder and gestured with a subtle motion of his head for him to regard the thimblerigger again. “Look at the way he bends the two last fingers of his left hand,” he whispered, leaning close. “The pea is still there. It was never gone. He never placed it back under the nutshell.”
John managed a curt nod, the heart in his chest beating so fast it felt hard to breath.
“Come,” Sherlock said, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze before he moved his hand away again. “Let’s go and find Mrs. Hudson’s ghost train.”
**
It didn’t take long until they eventually located it. The ghost train stood next to the Ferris Wheel at the far end of the funfair, its bright green lights illuminating the grotesque paintings of several villains, ghosts and monsters that graced the front side of the approximately thirty feet high building. At the top, the words “Blackwood Castle.” glowed conspicuously in the dusk while, beneath, a banner announced, “Europe’s Largest Ghost Train!”
“Well, that looks… tacky,” John said, his eyes absorbing the sight before him.
On his left, Sherlock adjusted his cufflinks. “Surely, you know, I’d never ask it if it weren’t essential for the case, but-” he paused and turned to meet John’s gaze, a smirk on his face“-wanna go for a ride?”
“Hell, yes.” John laughed, following him when Sherlock headed for the ticket office.
Inside the small box, behind a glass window, sat a fairly voluminous woman in her fifties, the long red hair tamed by a braid.
“Two tickets,” Sherlock declared, handing the woman a five-pound note.
When she placed the change and two plastic chips on the counter, he asked, “If I’d like to speak with Mr. Collins on a business matter, would you know where I can find him?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed for a moment while she regarded Sherlock, who was giving her a most charming smile. “Office caravan,” she grunted eventually. “On the lawn behind the Ferris Wheel. But ya probably won’t find him there. Left a few hours ago. If it’s a business matter, you better speak to Mr. Hayes anyway. Try his caravan or the backside of the ghost train. Seen him there earlier. Some problem with the lights since the thunderstorm yesterday that nobody seems to be able to fix.”
“Thank you.” Sherlock nodded and grasped John by the elbow, leading him towards the entrance of the ghost train.
“So, the old Hayes still takes care of problems at his funfair himself,” John said while he climbed behind Sherlock into the last one of seven small, bright red carriages. “Maybe Mrs. Hudson’s murder victim was such problem as well, huh?”
“Lovely idea, but dangerous to speculate at this point,” Sherlock replied, pulling the safety bar down and locking it. “However, we should definitely pay Mr. Hayes a visit.”
John nodded. But he hadn’t listened to a word Sherlock had said. Because suddenly his friend was too close; far, far too close, his tight pressing against John’s in the narrow carriage, an all-consuming, pleasant warmth seeping through his jeans where their bodies touched.
“John?” The question came promptly. Of course, it did. Sherlock’s mind would never refrain from making deductions, even at the most inconvenient times.
John drew a deep breath. “I’m fine,” he lied, looking straight ahead. “Just got distracted.”
“Sure.” He heard the doubt, he could feel his friend’s inquiring eyes on him, but he was spared from another lie when their carriage moved forward with a jerk and entered the ghost train only a moment later.
**
The whole ride didn’t take long. Four minutes and 26 seconds, as Sherlock informed him afterwards. And most of it consisted of a rollercoaster ride in almost darkness, during which light projections of zombies, ghosts and witches descended down on the passengers. Only the last part of the ghost train led past the niches with installations of famous villains and monsters Mrs. Hudson had described earlier.
The one in which the figures of three werewolves were chasing after girl appeared right at the beginning, on the left side of their carriage. However, as much as John tried, from his place in the carriage, he could see nothing that indicated something suspicious had happened there earlier. And Sherlock’s tense silence told him his friend couldn’t either.
Once they had passed the niche with the werewolves, the carriage moved past several others: Count Dracula sinking his fangs into the neck of pale, half-naked woman, Frankenstein reviving his creature, Dr. Jekyll drinking from a phial while the shadow of Mr. Hyde was already looming in the background, and right in the niche next to them, the Hunchback carried Esmeralda towards Notre Dame.
At last, the shadowy, faceless figure of Jack the Ripper appeared, bent over a woman lying on the floor, his right arm raised threateningly while a set of surgeon instruments was already placed next to her.
“Hah!” Sherlock exclaimed once they had passed the installation.
John winced, turning towards his friend. Sherlock had steepled his fingers in front of him, elbows resting on the safety bar. “Oh, that’s good. Really good.”
“What? What is it?” John asked while the carriage moved through the exit and into the dusk of the evening.
Without another word, Sherlock unlocked the safety bar the moment the train stopped, leaping from the carriage.
“Sherlock!” John called, running after him. When he reached him, Sherlock was already pacing forth and back next to a food booth, selling popcorn and candy apples.
John crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned with his right shoulder against the sidewall of the stall. “Care to explain, now?”
“Didn’t you see, John?” Sherlock asked, his eyes sparkling. “Didn’t you see what was missing?”
“Missing?”
“There was no knife, John! In the Ripper installation!” his friend exclaimed, rubbing his palms against each other. “How can Mrs. Hudson mistake something that isn’t even there for what she has seen? I need to get inside the ghost train. All the essential data to solve this case has to be there.”
John sighed, casting a glance at the darkening sky. “Well, than let’s see what we can do about that.”
**
They found a narrow path between the Ferris Wheel and the ghost train that led to the area of the park behind the funfair where a long line of caravans stretched beneath the trees. They stood approximately fifty feet away, while on the lawn in front of the caravans, dozens of younger people were sitting in the high grass, taking a break from the turmoil on the other side of the funfair.
“The body has to be still inside,” Sherlock declared, glancing around.
“What?” John spluttered. “I mean, how? Even the police didn’t find one when they went looking for it.”
“They have missed it. Think, John. Too many possible witnesses. You can’t remove something as large as a dead body from here without drawing attention, especially not during the day. No, the corpse is still somewhere inside the ghost train,” Sherlock explained, approaching a certain spot on the back wall of the ghost train building. Like the front side, it was covered with paintings of skeletons, ghosts and other monsters.
John followed him, and after a few meters, he could see the outlines of a door. It took Sherlock not more than two quick movements to pick the lock, and they slipped into the back of the building.
John closed the door carefully behind them, and for an instant, they were surrounded by pitch-black darkness until the light of Sherlock’s small electric torch flared next to him.
The flickering, dim light illuminated the corridor in front of them while the noise and the screams of passengers echoed from the front part of the ghost train.
The corridor was long and narrow and completely painted in black; an iron ladder stood at its very end while uncounted electricity cables covered the high walls.
When he glanced around, John spotted a light switch on the wall next to the door, but there was no response when he reached out and tried to turn it on.
“Well, it seems Mr. Hayes hasn’t solved the problem with the light yet,” Sherlock muttered, moving towards the ladder.
“Where the hell are you going?” John hissed, reaching for the holster of his gun as he glanced back to the closed door.
“Where do you think, John? Upstairs,” Sherlock replied, his voice sharp with impatience.
The corridor on the next floor was as narrow as the one before; the only light falling into the room came from five or six small slits at the bottom of the right side of the wall. They ran, with some distance between them, down the corridor.
It took a few moments until John’s eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, once he had climbed from the ladder and stepped into the room.
He glanced around, his gaze searching for Sherlock. He had been only a few steps ahead of John, but now, there was no trace of him. Moving carefully forward, John pulled his gun from the waistband of his slacks.
“Sherlock!” No response.
John took another step into the corridor, his heart suddenly beating high in his throat.
“Sherlock!”
Again there was no response, but from the corner of his eye, John saw the light on the floor behind him flicker and spun around.
A second later, Sherlock stepped out from behind some kind of dark curtain, which, in the gloomy corridor, John had believed to be part of the wall.
“Christ, Sherlock.” John sucked in a breath, putting the gun down.
“The knife, John. The murderer has taken it from here,” his friend announced, gesturing towards something on the other side of the curtain.
John closed the distance between and glanced into the room from which Sherlock had just emerged. It was the niche with the installation of Jack the Ripper.
“The figure is usually holding one. Look.” Sherlock pointed towards the raised right plastic hand that seemed to be curled around thin air. “This wasn’t a planned murder. Why kill a grown man with a knife when it’s far safer to use a gun. Nobody would have heard the shot over the noise of the ghost train. No, the murderer hadn’t known he was going to kill when he first came here. But he knew where to find a weapon when he needed one. He knows this part of the ghost train. Probably works or has worked here.”
“But why not put the knife back afterwards and avoid drawing attention?”
“Don’t know.” Sherlock stepped from the niche back into the corridor, closing the curtain behind him. A moment later, the thundering sound of the approaching ghost train carriages could be heard. “Maybe the murderer panicked, wanted to get rid of the evidence. Or there hasn’t been the opportunity to put it back until now. It is obvious that Hayes didn’t know the knife was gone when he suggested Mrs. Hudson must have mistaken the Ripper installation for reality.”
“You know, Sherlock, we still don’t have even the slightest evidence that Mrs. Hudson’s murder victim even exists,” John said, inclining his head.
“Stabbings are a messy business,” Sherlock said, pulling the miniature forensic light John had gifted him last Christmas from the pocket of his trousers, pointing it at the darkness before them. “While most of the bleeding happens internally, you can never avoid at least some splashes of blood. Hardly to be seen on a black floor in the dim light of an electric torch.”
The moment Sherlock switched the lamp on, maybe a dozen bluish glowing spots in different sizes appeared at the far end of the corridor, and John felt something cold seep into his stomach at the sight.
Mrs. Hudson had been right. Someone was killed or at least attacked here.
Slowly, he turned his head to search Sherlock’s gaze. His friend’s face was grim, lips pressed into a tight line as he moved further into the corridor.
Crouching down next to an irregular, bluish spot with the diameter of a walnut, Sherlock traced the floor with his fingers. “Somebody wiped the blood away. Adequately enough for the remaining traces to be overlooked by the police without sufficient illumination. The murderer wasn’t in panic. He knew what he was doing, once he had made the decision to kill.”
Sherlock rose from the floor, regarding the dispersal of the bluish spots. He shoved the curtain on his right aside, taking a short glance into the niche with the werewolf installation. “After the victim was stabbed here,” he said eventually, ”he must have stumbled against the wall, given the high accumulation of blood splashes in the area here. From the amount of blood, I’d guess he wasn’t stabbed more than twice. Otherwise there’d be more traces in this area. But where did the murderer take the body?”
“There are no stains leading away from this part of the corridor,” John said, eyes travelling over the floor. “Maybe, he covered the corpse with something to avoid leaving a trail of blood behind him when he brought it away.”
There was no immediate response from Sherlock, but John heard him call his name an instant later. He spun around, finding his friend standing in front of the left side of the wall, opposite to the curtain with the werewolves behind it.
“A door, John,” Sherlock declared, his right hand already working on something John realized had to be the lock when he took a step closer. But the corresponding handle was nowhere to be seen.
“Has to be a store room or something,” Sherlock said, handing him the electric torch.
John pointed the beam of light at the lock, and several seconds later, a soft click echoed through corridor.
After sharing a short glance with Sherlock, he pulled his gun from his waistband and moved to point the electric torch at the door while Sherlock placed his hand on the door, pushing it slowly open and stepping inside.
John followed right behind him.
When he entered the small room, he saw him immediately. A few feet away, at the back wall of the small room, between electric cables, plastic figures and all kinds of working tools lay the dead body of a man. He looked like Mrs. Hudson had described him. Average size, normally built, short dark hair. Everything about this man looked ordinary, except for two large bloodstains covering the front of his shirt and the large knife that was still buried in his chest.
Sherlock took a step forward, kneeling down next to the body. John followed him with light of the electric torch, glancing over Sherlock’s shoulder when he pulled the victim’s wallet with a hanky from the man’s jacket.
When Sherlock opened it, John wished for a moment, he hadn’t been looking. The first thing that appeared on the inside of the wallet was the picture of two small children, probably not older than six or seven. They were smiling and waving into the camera.
John felt a rush of nausea rise high in his throat when the full meaning of the sight hit him. He looked away and squeezed his eyes shut. But the image wouldn’t go away as if burnt into his mind.
“Alan Simmons,” Sherlock announced meanwhile, sounding disturbingly unmoved. “Thirty-nine. Married. Apparently, he was an accountant.”
Still unwilling to look at the wallet and its contents again, John let his gaze travel over the floor while his friend continued his deductions.
It was only when he heard Sherlock say his name again that he forced himself to turn back. He was about to raise his gaze when he recognized the outline of something lying on the floor, only inches away from his left foot. He stooped down, placing his gun on the floor as he reached for it.
“Sherlock,” he called when he realized it was a folded piece of paper.
Immediately, Sherlock was at his side, regarding the sheet John was holding in his left hand while he raised his right so that the light of the electric torch illuminated the paper.
It was a printout, containing several number tables.
“These are annual accounts and calculations of passenger numbers for over a dozen funfair rides of Hayes Leisure Entertainment,” Sherlock said a few moments later, his eyes flitting over the paper. “According to those, the reported gains for each of them in the last two years lies up to 20% higher than the maximum amount of passengers the rides are able to transport could earn.”
“But why would someone fabricate the gains of Hayes Leisure Entertainment?” John frowned as he tried to make sense of the numbers in front of him.
“Not only the gains but the costs as well.” Sherlock pointed with his index finger at the tables at the bottom of the page. “Somebody is using Hayes’ firm to launder money in considerable proportions, and obviously, Alan Simmons discovered it.”
Eyes drifting back to the dead man on the floor, John said, “Sherlock, I think we should call the police now.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” announced a deep, taunting voice behind them. “Hands up, both of you, and then slowly turn around.”
Searching Sherlock’s gaze in a quick glance, John saw him shake his head briefly, advising him against any sort of resistance before he raised his hand and followed the man instructions.
When John turned around, he saw a middle-sized man, probably about forty years old with a receding line of brown hair standing in the doorframe of the small room. The hard, angular face and his sturdy frame told of a lifetime of physical work. He was holding an electric torch in the left hand while his right was curled around the holster of a gun that he pointed directly at Sherlock’s chest.
“And you-“ the man made a short gesture with the barrel into John’s direction “-now use your left foot and shove that gun over here, or your friend has a hole in his chest.”
Pressing his lips into a tight line, John followed the order and the man gave a dark chuckle when his British Army Browning L9A1 landed at his feet. “That’s a good boy.”
“Killing three people. That’s not something to sweep off, Collins,” Sherlock said coldly.
“Ah, you know who I am, then.” A false smile spread on the man’s face, revealing a line of crooked teeth. “But who says I’m going to kill you? Maybe you two will just have a little accident.”
“People know we are here. And why,” John bit out.
“And who would that be, sonny? That nosey, old lady? Yeah, I’ve heard about her. Albert called me after the police had left, thought she was barking mad. Believe me, she won’t have a flicker of doubt once the people I work with are done with you.”
“People? What people?” John asked, eyes narrowing.
“Just people.” The smile in front of him broadened.
“Must be hard to run an entertainment business in a national economic crisis, isn’t it, Collins?” Sherlock interjected, and for the split of a second something in the man’s face twitched. “Dropping turnovers. People with less money to spend. A few ten thousand quid extra can come in handy in times like these. That’s why they approached you, because it was an offer you couldn’t reject. Because you had to prove those wrong, who think you’re an outsider, that you couldn’t carry on the success of Hayes Leisure Entertainment.”
“Stow it!” Collins barked, cocking the gun. However, Sherlock didn’t stop.
“But Albert Hayes trusted you to do that, didn’t he, Collins? But if he had learned of your little extra business, all you’ve worked for those long years would have been lost. He would never sign the business over to you, would he? Of course not. Because he is an honest man. That’s why Alan Simmons had to die. Because he was an honest man, too. He came to you, agitated. He surprised you here while you were trying to fix the problem with light. When he told you the numbers of the last year didn’t add up you knew you had to do something.”
“You believe to know quite a lot, man. But it won’t help you and your friend, anymore.” Collins said evenly, his composure returning. “Now, take your phones out, both of you, and throw them over here. One after another.”
The man took a step back into the corridor, and John momentarily understood what he was planning to do. Collins was going to lock them into that room until the people he worked with would arrive to kill them in one way or another.
His eyes flicked around as John pretended to reach for the phone in his trouser pocket. There had to be a way out. They had survived the pool. They had tricked a criminal mastermind. They simply couldn’t die at the hand of some random criminals in the back of a ghost train.
“Put the gun down, Randel!” thundered, suddenly, a strong voice of a man from the other end of the corridor. From their place in the small room, neither John nor Sherlock could see him.
In front of them, Collins seemed to freeze. “Albert?”
“It’s over, Randel! I’ve heard it all,” said the man, whom John was sure was nobody else than Albert Hayes. “The police will be here any minute.”
“You’re lying,” called Collins, panic rising in his voice.
“No, I’m not, Randel,” Hayes declared calmly, and that calmness seemed to break something in their adversary.
Collins was still pointing his gun at Sherlock, but his massive hands were shaking when he risked a glance at Hayes over his shoulder. And then, everything happened very fast.
From the corner of his eye, John saw Sherlock dart forward, using Collins’ momentarily of distraction to pounce on the man, crashing him into the wall.
John leaped forward, grasping his gun from the floor, rushing after Sherlock. He had almost reached the fighting men and was trying to get a clear view at Collins in the dim light, when a shot echoed through the corridor.
“Sherlock!” John exclaimed, his heart skipping a beat when he saw his friend stumble backward, clutching his side.
Cocking his Browning L9A1, John advanced on Collins. The man was leaning with his back against the wall, wheezing and holding his stomach with his left hand while the gun was hanging loosely from the other.
“Move and I’ll kill you,” John said coolly. “Now, let the gun fall and shove it away with your foot. Slowly. You know how.”
When Collins had followed his instructions, John called for Sherlock, not taking his eyes from the man in front of him.
“I’m fine,” came the raspy reply from behind. “Graze wound.”
John nodded, exhaling a breath that seemed to lift a thousand boulders from his chest. “
Still pressing his palm to his side, Sherlock moved forward, taking Collins’ gun from the floor. “You won’t need that where you are going.”
His friend’s voice was dripping scorn, but John noted that he sounded strained as if in a lot of pain when he asked, “Mr. Hayes, are you alright?”
The old man must have merely nodded because John didn’t hear a reply. A moment later, Sherlock’s voice called from behind him again, “Lestrade? It’s me. There’s been a murder. The funfair in Roe Green Park. I need you here.”
There was a pause.
“The ghost train. Yes, murder.”
Another short pause.
“Caught, “ Sherlock replied curtly, snapping his phone shut.
“Lestrade will need some time to get here, but he’ll alert the police officers in the area immediately,” John heard him announce as Sherlock stepped up next to him, exchanging the phone his hand for Collins’ gun, pointing it at the man who was clenching his fists in rage.
“You said the police was already on the way, Albert,” he bit out, turning his head towards the man.
And for the first time, John risked a glance at Albert Hayes as well.
He was probably six feet high with a heavy paunch beneath his dark shirt. He had a round, wrinkled face. He was wearing a broad stache under his knobbly nose, and there was a tuft of thick white hair on his head. Something about his whole appearance reminded John of a circus director, only the grim line of his mouth wouldn’t fit with rest of the image.
“Oh, but I lied, Randel,” Hayes said coldly. “Just like you did when you promised to protect my business.”
A few minutes later, the voices of policemen entering the ghost train building could be heard.
**
“Sherlock, you really have to try to lie still,” John admonished as he set out for another attempt to clean the flesh wound at left side of his friend’s midriff. He had only been able to stop the bleeding moments ago.
It had been a Herculean task to have Sherlock agree to seek out an ambulance the moment the police had arrived and arrested Randel Collins. But in the end, John had succeeded, because Albert Hayes had only too willingly agreed to explain to the officers at the scene how he had come back to finally fix the problem with the light only to overhear his executive director threaten somebody.
Therefore, Sherlock and his presence at the crime scene would only be needed once Lestrade and his time would arrive to interview them.
“I am lying still,” Sherlock snapped, only to shift away on the stretcher a heartbeat later when the cotton swab with antiseptic agent touched the wound.
“Yeah, sure you do.” John rolled his eyes and placed his left palm on his friend’s exposed stomach to hold him in place. Firmly ignoring the slight shudder he felt running through Sherlock’s body at his touch, John turned back to tend to the injured skin tissue, careful not to open the wound again.
“And you are taking ridiculously long for this,” Sherlock bit out in an impatient, frustrated huff.
John ignored him.
“You know, you could have always let the paramedics treat you,” he said once he had finished the task and waited for the antiseptic to dry. “It’s not like they’re all idiots.”
It would have been easier, so far easier to return to Baker Street and their chase for Moriaty without those moments of physical closeness, without the memory of Sherlock’s warm skin beneath his hands.
Leaning up on his elbows, his friend threw him a supercilious look. “And what would have been the logic in choosing the care of a paramedic over that of a trained army doctor with an experience in treating graze wounds? And you’re an army doctor, John, are you not?”
“Apparently so.” Turning away to prepare the bandage, John hid a cheerless smile. Trust Sherlock to make the logical choice, of course; neither the easy nor the right one.
“Do you think Collins will talk?” he asked after a moment, unrolling the gauze and cutting a large piece off. “I mean about the backers he worked with. ”
“Hard to tell. As they probably belong to some branch of organized crime, it’ll depend on Scotland Yard. If they can offer him security, maybe.”
John nodded.
When he turned back, the bandage in his hands, Sherlock was lying flat on the stretcher again, eyes closed, his torso heaving calmly beneath the open shirt. John had long known that his friend was far too thin, ribs illustrated beneath his impossibly pale skin.
But it was the sight of that one angry red line running along the left side of Sherlock’s waist that suddenly caused an icy claw of cognition to close around John’s heart.
Had Collins’ bullet hit only a few inches further to the right, he would have lost him.
Forever.
John shuddered. Suddenly, not giving in to that whole world of restrained longing, not to hold, to touch, to kiss Sherlock felt like a feat of inhuman proportions.
What if they never caught Moriaty? What if that one great game never ended?
Swallowing hard, John closed his eyes, fighting for his composure, for his medical distance. He was a doctor. A soldier. His resolve couldn’t break. Not now.
With another deep breath, he leaned down and began to apply the gauze with some Band-Aid over the wound, his fingers grazing carefully over Sherlock’s skin.
“There. As good as new,” he declared with a false air of lightness as he removed his hands a few moments later, clasping them tightly behind his back to hide their shaking.
Averting his eyes from his friend’s knowing gaze, he pretended to study the floor while he waited for Sherlock to sit up and button his battered shirt.
“John.”
One word. His name. Spoken in a wistful soft tone. For a second, he felt defenceless. And his heart, his helpless heart stuttered and clenched, so tight it, he could barely breathe.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he shook his head. How could he have thought Sherlock wouldn’t catch his reaction, the hesitation, his fear?
But he wasn’t prepared to have this discussion.
Not now.
“John.”
His name. Again. As if that one word were the key to a far greater mystery. And then there was a hand on his cheek, touching him, caressing him, asking him to look up.
And when he did, Sherlock stood right next to him, looking at him. Really looking at him, the pale blue eyes were filled with that same longing John recognized in his mirror every morning.
His friend’s mouth curved slightly, pale blue eyes roaming over John’s face as he moved closer; and John knew, he suddenly knew with absolute certainty that the impossible was happening: Sherlock was going to kiss him.
John swallowed, his gaze drifting to that perfect, brilliant mouth in front of him. Sherlock was so close now, oh-so very close.
But the moment between them shattered into thousand tiny pieces when the loud ring of a phone sounded through the ambulance.
“Don’t move,” Sherlock ordered quietly, giving him a rueful smile before he broke away from John’s gaze and reached for the phone in his jacket.
“Mycroft,” he announced, aware that John knew he had to take the call.
John nodded nevertheless, and a moment later, he saw his friend’s whole body freeze while he listened to his brother.
There was only one person in the world to cause this reaction in Sherlock.
Moriaty.
Something had happened, after months of no sign from the man. John felt his chest grew tight with apprehension.
“I’ll be there. Give me half an hour,” Sherlock said eventually, staring absently at his phone when he had ended the call.
“Sherlock?”
For an eternity or two there was no response, but when his friend looked up and met his gaze, the familiar pale blue in his eyes shone cold and hard like crystals.
“Mycroft’s people have located him.”
“Where?” John asked, forcing the word from his suddenly tight throat.
“Meiringen, Switzerland. A plane is already waiting.”
John nodded, his jaw set in grim determination. So, this was it then, the moment Sherlock had waited for. The final round of the game.
“Lestrade will understand that we can’t stay.”
There was a moment of silence before Sherlock heaved a breath, glancing down and away. “John, while I appreciate your help, you need to know, you don’t have-“
“Sherlock.” John reached up and cupped his friend’s face, the gesture a mirror of the one from moments before. “I’m not leaving you,” he declared in a whisper, brushing his thumb gently over Sherlock’s cheek when his friend closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against John’s.
It was a stolen moment, beyond time and reason and criminal masterminds, and it ended all too soon when Sherlock drew away. He never looked back when he turned to leave the ambulance.
Alone in the vehicle, John drew a shaky breathe before he followed him into the night.
In the end, he always would.