Fic: The Descent of Man [Sherlock]
Yeah, I know. I have other things I should be writing, but I... Yes, I committed Sherlock fic. Hopefully when this is finished it will be out of my system. The original Holmes story this is based on is one of my favourites, even if it seems to be poorly regarded by a lot of fans. It's like the Holmes equivalent of Creature from the Pit, then. ;D
Title: The Descent of Man
Part: 1 of 3?
Characters: Sherlock, John, DI Lestrade, DS Donovan (so far)
Rating/Warnings: Gen. Some mild swearing. Discussion of gruesome offscreen violence. Scientific testing on animals.
Word count: 3,600 approx. (so far)
Summary: This one was weird even by Sherlock's standards. And if you've been reading this blog, you'll know that's weird. X-Files weird.
Disclaimer: Sherlock was created for the BBC by Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss, based on stories and characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own any of this and am making no profit from it.
The Personal Blog of
Dr. John H. Watson
1st March
The Descent of Man, Part 1
This one was weird even by Sherlock’s standards. And if you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know that that’s weird. X-Files weird. I honestly don’t know why I’m posting this. Nobody’s going to believe it anyway. And no, in case my psychiatrist happens to read this, I am not delusional.
I’ve changed the names of the “civilians” involved, if it makes any difference. The case made the news anyway, but not the really out-there details. And what’s DI Lestrade going to do to me for naming him? Sue me? Arrest me? Both, the way my luck’s going.
Also, I reckon that if I do publicise this, with my name all over it, some of the other interested parties might not decide to “disappear” me.
Yes, living with Sherlock has made me that paranoid.
No, Dr Thompson, not clinically paranoid! Nor delusional, I think I’ll repeat, in case it wasn’t clear the first time.
So it started as these things usually do, with Sherlock texting me. Amazingly, I was actually out of the flat at the time (there’s nothing more annoying than him texting me from the next room to tell me to come and pass him the newspaper. Not that he does that. Often, anyway):
“John. Come at once if convenient - - if inconvenient come all the same. S.H.”
Yes, this is how he usually talks to me. To everyone. To say he lacks people skills is like saying Hitler got a bit cross sometimes. The thing is, he gets involved in so much dangerous stuff you don’t like to ignore him, just in case it’s something serious this time.
As it happened, he wanted me to fetch him a nicotine patch.
From his jacket pocket.
The jacket he was wearing.
After I’d finished swearing at him, he told me I’d just come from the pub, where I’d been with my sister. And that I’d messed up the job interview I’d gone to that day. I’m used to him coming out with things like that by now, but still I had to ask. He looked at me as if I was dense:
“But it’s obvious, John. I don’t like to say “elementery”, but well... You’ve been at a pub because you’ve been playing pool. You get chalk on your fingers and then wipe it on your trousers, a distinctive blue-white mark. You were with your sister because although you have been in a pub you haven’t been drinking alcohol. You usually come in reeling about like a, well, like a drunk when you’ve had more than half a shandy. You abstain when you’re with her in the mistaken belief that you’re setting a good example.”
“I could have been in a snooker hall,” I protested.
“No,” he replied, absolutely certain he was right. He was, of course. “You couldn’t have walked here from the nearest snooker hall in the time elapsed since I texted you. You didn’t run because you’re not out of breath. And have you seen the characters that frequent those places? Not your sort of people. Plus you’re even worse at snooker than you are at pool. I know you were on foot because from the state of your hair you were in the rain outside for maybe half an hour. You could have taken a cab to get here sooner, but you haven’t got any money, or didn’t want to spend what little money you have. So, that interview you went to this afternoon didn’t go too well. Did it, John?”
“There’ll be other jobs.”
“No doubt.”
He slapped on the patch and reclined in his armchair, enjoying the nicotine in his veins. At least it’s only nicotine. That’s not his real addiction, though, the reason he needs me as his flatmate. Not because he likes company (he doesn’t), not because he couldn’t afford the rent (he can). No, because he needs someone to be clever at all the time, just to prove that he is. That’s his addiction. Why do you think he has that website?
“Is that all you wanted?” I asked. He didn’t even look at me:
“John, what do you think about dogs?”
“Dogs?”
“Yes, dogs.” He seemed astonished by my stupidity. Why do I live with this bloke? Not for the friendly conversation. Oh yeah, that’s right, for the danger. “What do you think about dogs as an aid to crime-solving?”
“You’re going to get a dog?” I asked, surprised. “To help you solve crimes?”
“No, I am not going to get a dog,” he replied, witheringly. “What would you say if an otherwise placid dog suddenly attacked somebody that it knew well?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “They just turn sometimes, don’t they?”
“That’s true,” he agreed. He suddenly looked up: “And there’s our visitor.”
“What visitor?” I asked, unimpressed by his mysterious act. He just gave a funny sort of smile:
“Come on, even you heard that taxi outside, didn’t you?” He looked at his watch: “Right on time too. Answer the door, John.”
“Answer your own door,” I told him as the buzzer sounded. Of course, I then went and answered the door. I only have myself to blame.
Sherlock, you may have gathered, doesn’t have many friends. Or any friends, really. Apart from me, his “friend and colleague” as he’s taken to introducing me, which he probably only does to take the piss. When anyone comes round here, it’s either DI Lestrade asking for help, DI Lestrade coming to raid us, Sherlock’s brother (I can’t say too much about him), or someone out to kill one or both of us.
You’d be surprised how often that happens.
Tonight, though, it was a tall, shy-looking man, about thirty. Glasses, long hair in a ponytail, rain-soaked anorak over shirt and tie, security badge dangling around his neck like he’d come straight from work.
“Trevor Bennett,” he said once I’d let him in, offering me his hand. “Thanks for seeing me, Mr Holmes.”
“Sorry,” I replied, “I’m his flatmate, John Watson. Sherlock’s through there. You can’t miss him; he’s the bloke with all the nicotine patches.”
“Er, yeah, right.” Trevor had that slightly scared look most “normal” people get around Sherlock. I was just hoping he hadn’t noticed the embalmed human hand on the sideboard.
“Trevor!” said Sherlock. He can fake friendliness when he wants to: “Glad you could come! This is John; you can talk in front of him. Now, about your dog…”
“It’s not my dog,” Trevor answered, perching on the sofa. I sort of hovered. “It’s my…a friend’s dog,” he continued, as if confessing to something. “Sort of.” He was more than shy, I decided. He was nervous. Scared. “His name’s Roy.”
“Your friend?” asked Sherlock.
“No, the dog.”
“Roy the dog.” Sherlock nodded: “Of course. The friend’s female. In fact, she’s more than a friend. You’re romantically involved with her, aren’t you?”
“What?” Trevor instantly turned pink. I was cringing too.
“Come on, Trevor,” Sherlock smiled, rather unpleasantly. “You nearly called her your girlfriend just now, before you corrected yourself. I see from that rash on your lower jaw that you’ve very recently shaved off a beard. And you have a ponytail - in 2010? Also, I can smell your deodorant from here. The Lynx Effect! You thought you needed to tidy up, but didn’t want to cut your hair, suggesting a newish relationship. Cutting your hair’s a big commitment, after all. However, it is a relationship, not an unrequited crush, because you would never buy that tie for yourself. That’s a tasteful tie. A woman’s touch.”
“Now, that’s just sexist,” I cut in automatically. “Not to mention homophobic. It could be a boyfriend.” Trevor’s eyes bulged and I cringed even more.
“A boyfriend who wears lipstick of the same hideous shade as that smear he thinks he wiped off his cheek? Come off it, John! And look at his predictably insecure reaction to you saying that!”
“Sherlock!” I hissed, embarrassed, as Trevor got up to leave. Sherlock looked at me blankly, genuinely puzzled as to what he’d done wrong. He’s a high-functioning sociopath, if you’re reading, Dr Thompson. He sighed in annoyance:
“I’m sorry, Trevor,” he managed, and even sounded halfway sincere. He’s a good liar. “Sometimes I just get carried away with myself. Tell me about your gir…your friend’s dog.”
“Roy.” Trevor reluctantly sat down again and got on with his story. “It is very impressive what you do, Mr Holmes,” he said, grudgingly. “Just like the stuff on your website.”
“I try,” said Holmes, his modesty even falser than his friendliness. “Now, what about Roy?”
“It’s not just Roy,” said Trevor, “but he’s part of it. The problem. I can’t go to the police, but…well, I saw your site and thought you might be able to help.” He shot a nervous glance at me: “Have you heard of Camford Pharmaceuticals?”
“Yes,” Sherlock answered. “They’re currently at the centre of an ongoing animal rights protest. There have been death threats and vandalism in response to their use of primates in their laboratory outside London.” He looked at me: “That’s monkeys, John.”
“I know what primates are,” I grumbled.
“Apes, actually,” Trevor said. “We currently have three sub-adult chimpanzees housed in the laboratory.” He fidgeted: “I work there, you see. I’m a research assistant to Dr Paul Presbury. You’ve heard of him?”
“Vaguely,” Sherlock replied. “Probably in one of those boring journals John gets in the post.” As if he doesn’t get plenty of those too. I sometimes think he knows more about medicine than I do, and I’m a doctor.
“He’s a leading neurologist and biochemist,” I told Sherlock, glad to know something he didn’t for a change. I turned to Trevor: “Isn’t he working on a cure for Alzheimer’s?”
“That’s right. Using artificial hormones to help regenerate brain tissue. Cutting edge. We use extracts from the chimps’ cranial and spinal fluid. Non-fatal procedures; those protestors are massively overreacting; if Paul succeeds, he could save millions of lives.”
“That’s protestors for you,” said Sherlock. “They protest.”
“How did you get permission to use chimps?” I asked. “That’s not common, is it?”
“We have…” Trevor hesitated again, the way he had about his girlfriend. “We have a partner organisation. I can’t really say anything.”
“Meaning it’s the Ministry of Defence,” Sherlock observed. “Or somebody saying they’re the Ministry of Defence. I don’t think you should tell us about that. What about the dog?”
“It’s not really the dog,” said Trevor, anxiously. I could see him sweating. “It’s Paul - Dr Presbury. I’m worried about him.”
“Is he ill?” I asked, wondering why he’d come to Sherlock for help with that.
“No,” he said. “He’s healthier than he’s ever been. He’s sixty-one, but he looks forty-five. No, it’s…the way he’s been acting.”
“Go on,” said Sherlock. I could see that he was intrigued. Not that he could care less about Trevor or Dr Presbury, but likes a good puzzle.
“About four weeks ago he went to a neurological conference in Berlin. I don’t know what happened there, but when he came back… He’s been strange. I mean, Paul’s a nice guy. He’s a celebrity, in his field anyway, but it’s never gone to his head. It’s all about the science for him. But…these past few weeks, he’s been different.”
“Different in what way?”
“Irritable. Aggressive. You know, he normally never has a cross word for anybody, but all of a sudden you can’t say anything to him without getting your head bitten off.”
“So, he’s in a bad mood?” Sherlock asked, patronisingly.
“Yeah, except Paul never has bad moods.”
“Could it be trouble at home?” I asked.
“He doesn’t do “at home”,” Trevor replied. “He’s been divorced twenty years, his parents are dead, no kids, no close relatives. All he has is his work.”
“A man after my own heart,” Sherlock commented. He meant it.
“A couple of days after he returned from Berlin,” said Trevor, “we got a parcel. Fed Ex, addressed to Paul. German postmark. Well, we get samples and things from all over the world, so I opened it - I open all the mail. I was right; samples of some sort. Paul suddenly appeared and started yelling at me, saying I had no right to look at his private mail. Right up in my face, he was. He’s never spoken to me like that. I nearly quit on the spot, but I need the job, especially with the economy the way it is.”
“Tell me about it,” I nodded, thinking of my own employment woes.
“So where does Roy come into it?” Sherlock wanted to know.
“Edith…” Trevor hesitated. “Edith Morphy,” he explained. “She’s our animal keeper; she looks after the test subjects. Roy is one of the dogs we’re using to test the hormones we’ve synthesised from the chimps. I could explain the science,” he added apologetically, “but it’s a bit complex.”
“I’m sure it is,” said Sherlock, with a grimace. He doesn’t like being told he wouldn’t understand something.
“Edith is a wonderful person,” Trevor explained. Yeah, he had it bad for her. You could tell.
“Apart from her taste in lipstick,” said Sherlock.
“A bit too kind-hearted for the job she does,” he went on. “She’s sort of adopted Roy, and you can see why, he’s a friendly dog. Takes all his injections without as much as a growl. It’s going to be too bad when we have to dissect his brain.”
A brief, embarrassed pause descended over the room at that. Well, you can see why.
“Go on,” Sherlock urged, impatiently.
“Anyway,” Trevor continued, “Paul has worked on Roy a hundred times without a hitch. And then, two or three weeks ago…”
“The date,” Sherlock demanded.
“Er…” Trevor gave that some thought. “February the fourth? We were giving Roy another injection, nothing we hadn’t done before, and suddenly…well, he bit Paul. Really went for him, snarling and barking, and took a chunk out of his hand.”
“You’d think you were planning to dissect his brain or something,” Sherlock pointed out dryly.
“Look,” said Trevor, “I get enough of that every day from those protestors.” Sherlock shrugged. “Anyway, Roy had never been like that before. And he isn’t like that now, not with me when I do his blood tests and not with Edith when she feeds him. Anyway, shortly afterwards, there was a…a disturbance at the lab.”
“Date?” Sherlock demanded.
“I know that,” said Trevor. “February thirteenth. It was in the papers, you might have seen it. The whole lab was trashed and some of the animals got loose. Security and the police thought the protestors had broken in, but…”
“Who else would it be?” I wondered.
“The thing is, there’s a night watchman, guard dogs, a wire fence. I can’t see how they’d get in, let alone get out again. No slogans painted anywhere, and they left the animals wandering around to get recaptured…”
“CCTV?” asked Sherlock.
“Didn’t see anything. Like whoever it was knew where the cameras were and how to avoid them.”
“And obviously you suspect Paul Presbury,” said Sherlock, looking at Trevor over the top of his steepled fingers.
“He wouldn’t do that,” Trevor protested. “It was his work! We lost months of research thanks to that mindless destruction…”
“You wouldn’t be here otherwise,” said Sherlock. “You think your boss went mad and trashed his own lab.”
“No…”
“You do,” said Sherlock. “Even if you haven’t admitted it to yourself yet. You came here because you hope I’ll be able to work out what’s wrong with Dr Presbury and end it without getting the police involved and without destroying his career. Your loyalty is touching, Trevor.” He didn’t have to sneer like that as he said it, I thought.
“Well, Mr Holmes,” said Trevor, swallowing hard. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m going to think about it,” said Sherlock. “And I also think John and I need to meet Dr Presbury, and Roy, and your “friend” Edith, and have a look around your lab.”
“Well, it isn’t open to the public…” he protested.
“Don’t worry,” said Sherlock, with another fake smile. “We’ll think of something.” And with that, he slumped back in the chair again, eyes fixed on the ceiling. After a couple of minutes’ silence, Trevor and I realised we were dismissed.
“I’m sorry,” I told Trevor as I showed him out. “He’s a bit…”
“He’s a bit of a prick,” Trevor observed.
“He is,” I conceded, “but a genius prick. He’ll sort this out for you, and for your friends. It’ll be alright.”
“Thanks, John.” I watched him go off down the wet street. When I think of it now, I feel queasy. And guilty. I mean, there was nothing I could have done, I tell myself.
But I told him it was going to be alright!
Upstairs, Sherlock was still in the chair. He’d be there all night. He is when he’s working on a “three patch problem”.
“John!” he called as I went past the door.
“Get your own patches,” I called back. “I’m turning in.”
“No,” he said, slowly. “What date is it today?”
I thought about it for a moment.
“Hurry up, John!”
“February the twenty-second.”
“I thought so.” He went silent again for a bit, then: “Interesting…”
I left him to it and went to bed to toss and turn. When I did drop off, I found myself dreaming about the ‘Stan. I don’t do that as often as I used to. I don’t talk about that stuff, anyway. Sorry, Dr Thompson.
In between dreams, I punched my pillow and listened to Sherlock murdering that bloody violin in the sitting room. I wouldn’t mind if he could play it properly. Eventually he stopped, but by then the daylight was streaming through the crack in the curtains and I’d decided to stop pretending I was getting any sleep. I went through to the kitchen in my dressing gown to make coffee. Sherlock was, as predicted, still in the chair, fully dressed, empty Nicorette packets littering the horrible carpet around his feet.
“Morning,” I said, blearily.
“Quiet! I’m thinking!”
“Right.” And then the buzzer went off again. Two visitors in two days, some sort of record! I thought it might be Trevor. I was wrong of course.
“Hello,” I said, unenthusiastically.
“It’s just the police again, dear!” our landlady called up the stairs.
“Thanks, Mrs Hudson!”
“Is Sherlock in?” Detective Inspector Lestrade asked, wedging his foot in the door. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah, he’s in there,” I mumbled. Lestrade was already on his way past, leaving me blinking at DS Donovan behind him.
“You too, John,” she said, indicating that I should go into the sitting room.
“Are you here for help?” I asked, hopefully, not liking either detective’s manner. There was something up here.
“No,” she told me, delightedly. “We’re here to question the two of you.” She loves her work, Sally, especially when it involves cracking down on Sherlock. Be honest, you can see how someone could take a dislike to him.
“Trevor Bennett,” said Lestrade, when Sherlock and I were seated, the two coppers standing over us.
“Trevor who?” Sherlock asked, without a flicker.
“This isn’t one of your games, Sherlock,” the DI suggested. “We checked his computer. You were one of the last people he emailed.” It took me a moment to realise what that meant.
“Last people he emailed before what?” I asked.
“Trevor Bennett’s dead,” said Sally. “He was killed in the early hours of this morning.”
“How?” I asked, shocked. I could barely think. I’d been talking to him only a few hours ago. I told him it’d be alright. Sherlock didn’t even blink as Sally replied:
“His head was beaten in. It looked like a puddle of strawberry jam.”
Look, this post has gone on too long anyway, and that’s as good a place to end it for now as any. I’m sorry, but just thinking about Trevor Bennett is making me sick. I didn’t know this case had got under my skin so much. So, I’ll pick this up again tomorrow, job interviews and Sherlock allowing. Thanks for reading. I have to take a shower now, or steal some of Sherlock’s patches, or something. Anything.
8 comments
Yes, John, very good! Once again, you manage to reduce what should be a series of enlightening scientific lectures into…a story. As I keep telling you, I don’t have adventures, I solve puzzles. I think your online “friends” would enjoy reading more about my deductions and the reasoning behind them instead of your attempts to write blokey prose. And you managed to compare me to Hitler at one point too. Well done, John! Yes, that was sarcasm.
Sherlock Holmes 1 March 17:18
Oh, and you misspelled “elementary”. I know you medical practitioners generally have a bad track record with that kind of thing, but really.
Sherlock Holmes 1 March 17:20
So John, that’s why you ran out so quickly the other night? To see your new boyfriend! All makes sense now. Didn’t I read about this Bennett thing in the Mail?
Harry Watson 1 March 18:23
I’m not going to dignify any of the above comments with a response.
John Watson 1 March 21:27
It would be churlish of me, wouldn’t it, to point out that you just have?
Sherlock Holmes 1 March 21:34
And i kep teling you, i like a #drink. So what?! No big deal.
Harry Watson 1 March 23:56
Harry, you have a problem and need help. I’ve decided not to be tactful about this any more.
John Watson 2 March 08:18
Ah, Dr Presbury from Berlin. He seemed like a nice man. Such a shame.
Anonymous 3 March 00:12