Fic: City of Delusion 3/?, Dresden Files/Sherlock [PG]
Title: City of Delusion
Author: A Lanart
Fandoms: Dresden Files (tv verse) and Sherlock (BBC)
Characters/pairing: Harry Dresden, Connie Murphy, Bob, Greg Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Rating/Spoilers: PG. References to the Dresden Files ep The Boone Identity, no other spoilers.
Warnings: Sherlock and magic in the same fic has to be a bit cracky, right?
Word Count: This part 3005
Summary: Greg Lestrade has an unexpected encounter in Chicago - he isn't the only one, either - and discovers there are worse things to deal with than know-it-all consulting detectives.
Disclaimer: The BBC, Mr S Moffat and Mr M Gatiss own this version of Sherlock Holmes though ACD invented him. Jim Butcher owns Harry Dresden and his universe (although Lionsgate/sci-fi own the tv series).
No copyright infringement intended, no profit made.
Title from the song by Muse
Chapter 1 on LJ
Chapter 2 on LJ
(also available on AO3)
A/N: OK, I lied. This isn't going to be finished in 3 parts. I think 5 is most likely now but I'm not putting a definitive chapter number on it just yet (RL is a bitch and writing time is being hard to come by). This isn't going to be a 50k plus word epic though, so don't worry!
~*~
~Three~
*
Harry thought it was a good thing that Murphy was used to odd requests from him. If not for that he wasn't sure he'd stand a chance of having the crime scene emptied of all but his choice of personnel, though he was hopeful that the presence of Greg Lestrade - who was at least a policeman, if not one of her own - might mollify her somewhat. He spotted her fairly easily, talking to one of the forensics people, and approached her, nudging her arm to get her attention.
"Hey, Murph, any chance of letting me back in there before the forensics guys are let loose?"
"What for?" She asked.
"I think I might be able to come up with a likeness of whoever left the fingerprints. There's only one problem…"
"Don't tell me, none of us can be in there with you in case we disturb your concentration."
"Something like that. I don't mind if Lestrade stays, though."
"Greg Lestrade? Why him? No, don't answer that, I don't want to know. Hmph. Well, at least he's police and can stop you if you look like you're going to disturb anything." She paused and frowned for a moment - Harry recognised it as one of her thinking faces - before she sighed and nodded. "I'll see what I can do, but I expect I won't be able to get you much more than five minutes, if that."
"Hopefully we won't need long."
To Harry's relief, Murphy was - as usual - true to her word and it didn't take much time before he was able to lead his odd group, with Bob's skull safely ensconced in the backpack again, past Murphy's frown and the wary glances of the rest of her team, back into the room with the body. He knew there was no way he'd be allowed to shut the door of this room, so he was just going to have to block the view somehow. Before he could suggest anything he realised that Lestrade had chosen to stand in the ideal position to obstruct any curious gazes, his folded arms and squarely planted feet making it obvious to anyone who looked in from the other room that he at least would not be moved. Harry had to bite back a grin, as if they could see the smile on Lestrade's face, instead of his imposing back, his effectiveness as a barrier would have been reduced. Harry acknowledged him with a nod.
"Thank you," he said. It was always good to let anyone who was helping you know that their help was appreciated, even if the likelihood of them helping out again was practically zero.
"It's no problem - I've had plenty of practice of having to keep my own team away from a crime scene when he's working." A jerk of Lestrade's head indicated Sherlock who was examining the fingerprints on the ceiling from various positions in the room.
Harry ignored Sherlock for the moment as he checked out the ceiling for himself. In order to remain in contact with the fingerprints, Bob would need to hover mid air, which might make capturing any likeness on paper more difficult. It seemed that Watson must have had the same thought as he had settled himself on the floor near one of the walls in such a way that he could lean back to keep the ceiling in view yet continue to support the sketch pad on his knees comfortably. They were almost as ready as they'd ever be. Almost. Harry had one loose end he wanted to tie before he allowed Bob to attempt to gain a likeness of whoever had left those bloody fingerprints.
"Sherlock, I need you to stay back but I want you to watch carefully. You're the nearest thing we're going to have of a reliable method of recording of the process - you'll observe but most importantly you'll remember and I think we're gonna need that. You okay with that?"
"Naturally. Making full use of one's resources is the only appropriate course of action."
"I guess it is." Harry carefully lifted Bob's skull from the backpack and let the bag fall to the ground at his feet. "You ready, Bob?" The skull's eyes flashed orange, once, in answer. "Then let's get this show on the road."
*
John's eyes followed the flickering spark and smoke trail that left Bob's skull and wound its way across and around the fingerprints on the ceiling but nothing else happened for what seemed far too long considering the clock was ticking. Eventually the smoke coalesced into a vaguely human shaped outline and gradually became more substantial until a recognisable likeness was achieved. John glanced at the form Bob was holding, then over the top of the sketch pad to where the body lay.
"That's…" he didn't get any further before Bob interrupted, his deep voice sounding incongruous coming out of a pretty - and pretty dead - woman's mouth, who just happened to be hovering mid air.
"The victim's likeness. Yes. The blood on the ceiling is hers. This is only the first step - blood resonates far more strongly than anything else - and unless I can filter out her influence we'll never see who made the fingerprints. Once I recognise what is her and what isn't, then I should be able to get somewhere. Now let me concentrate."
No stranger to taking orders, despite how they might be phrased, John obligingly remained silent but watchful. He dismissed the others from his mind completely in an effort not to be distracted as he focused on Bob-yet-not-Bob. The ghost had one delicate hand pressed against the ceiling, the corresponding fingers to the prints then the hand sank into the ceiling - there was no other way to describe it - and glowed where it lay spread in and around the lurid fingerprints. There was an almost orgasmic sounding groan from Bob and then the likeness of the dead woman rippled, distorted, as if John were viewing the scene through a rain covered window, and slowly resolved into that of someone else entirely. His hand was moving the pencil across the paper in quick, sure strokes before John had even thought about it and that was just fine - he almost felt there was a direct connection between his eyes and his fingers. The specifics didn't register consciously - hair and eye colour, skin tone and physique - but John knew he would remember them and even if he didn't, Sherlock would. There was nothing to be heard in the room apart from the rasp of pencil over paper and the sound of breathing for some minutes, then Dresden broke the silence.
"Bob, can you feel anything else?"
"The man isn't a supernatural, though there is a slight echo of other but that could be due to an artefact he had on his person, something he'd swallowed or a spell cast over him before all this happened," Bob replied.
"Or something else entirely," said Sherlock, who appeared to be standing on a chair for some reason. John presumed it was in order to get a closer look at something and continued sketching until he was distracted by Sherlock waving Dresden over to join him. There wasn't a lot of room on the chair for two people but they somehow managed it without falling off. John was glad he was already on the floor.
"Bob, we need to see the back of the neck more clearly," said Dresden. John raised his head, pencil posed above the paper, curious to see just how Bob would manage that.
There was a grunt from Bob as he twisted midair while keeping in contact with the fingerprints. "I hope there is a good reason for this indignity," he grumbled.
"Oh there's a perfectly good reason, I can assure you," said Sherlock.
"One which should keep Murphy happy," added Dresden. "I just need…" There was a soft thud as Sherlock jumped off the chair followed by a faint scrabble and the sound of another pencil over paper - Dresden's coat obviously had deceptively large pockets.
"I hope you have everything you need, I can't hold this for much longer." Bob's voice held an edge of tension and John added the last few pencil strokes quickly before scrambling upright to make his way over to where Dresden, still standing on the chair, and Sherlock were peering up at not-Bob's neck. He'd only just caught sight of the unusual designs in blue on the back of the man's neck before the likeness dissolved and Bob drifted back down to the floor wearing his own face and body. John thought he looked tired, though he had no idea if such a thing was really possible for a ghost.
Bob sighed. "Don't ask me to do that again any time soon. I might be dead, but such activities are draining." Obviously it was possible for a ghost to suffer from exhaustion and John wasn't entirely sure he was thankful for the opportunity that enabled him to gain him that information or not, he could have lived without knowing quite happily. "Oh and if you really need me, I'll be in my skull. Though the world had best be ending before you disturb me, or you'll be sorry..." Bob began to fade, then seemed to think better about it and became more substantial again. "Unless there is an invasion of ghostly, beautiful and scantily clad dancing girls, in which case, please feel free to disturb me." With a disgusted sounding snort, Bob's form disintegrated into sparks and smoke which then made their way back into his skull.
"Thanks Bob," Dresden said gently. The eye sockets of skull flashed briefly and there was a vague sounding 'harumph' from the vicinity of his elbow, where he had Bob's skull cradled against him once more. Dresden hopped down off the chair and carefully placed the skull in the backpack, giving it an affectionate pat as he secured the last clip and John had to conceal another smile, this time behind the convenient sketchpad.
"Shall I take him again?" He asked, accepting the backpack with the smile still on his face when Dresden passed it over. He presumed that Dresden would do most of the talking - which was fine by him - as there was no way he'd want to try explaining to lieutenant Murphy just how they'd obtained their information of what the person responsible for leaving the fingerprints looked like.
Murphy appeared at the door as if the thought had summoned her, though she didn't attempt to peer around Greg, which surprised John but then again, he knew just how intimidating Greg's back could look when he put his mind to it, so maybe it shouldn't have.
"Time's up, Dresden. I hope you've finished and if you haven't, hard luck. We need you out of there now," she announced.
"We're done, Murphy. Even better, we've got something to show for it." Dresden held out his hand for the pad John was still clutching in one hand. He silently handed it over, keeping a firm hold of Bob in his backpack while he was at it, just in case. John made a concerted effort at trying to remain inconspicuous, something that usually wasn't too difficult when Sherlock was in the room anyway and should be even less so with the addition of Dresden, and breathed a sigh of relief when Dresden and Murphy left the room, followed closely by Sherlock and Greg. He trailed after them all, holding onto Bob's backpack tightly. Greg could deal with Sherlock, he'd managed it for years before John had moved into Baker Street after all, plus he didn't think they had realised just how important Bob was to Dresden overall, not just as a resource. John had, and was willing to take some responsibility for Bob's protection and well being - it was what he was good at - while Sherlock, Greg and the others dealt with unravelling the puzzle of the dead girl, her innocent brother and the man with the tattoo on his neck.
*
Once outside the room, Murphy stared at the sketch in her hand. Greg couldn't tell from the way she frowned whether she was disappointed it wasn't more detailed - though he thought John had done a pretty good job considering, even if it wasn't up to the standard of a police artist - or whether it was because she'd had to rely on Dresden to supply it.
"Do I want to know how you managed to get this?" She asked Dresden.
"Probably not," he replied with a shrug. She sighed, as if the answer was all too familiar. Greg could sympathise with that.
"It is a pretty accurate likeness though," he offered. "If you get your artists to, um, 'tidy it up a bit' at least you'll be able to use it to canvass the area."
"We might wait to see if the fingerprints are on file first, as a photo would be better." More than likely she just wanted to follow procedure, Greg thought - she had after all called Dresden her last resort.
"Fair enough, though I have a feeling that they won't be," he said. He didn't feel that he was putting that much of a downer on following the correct procedure as he was pretty damn sure she felt the same way.
"Yeah, so do I," she agreed, confirming his suspicion.
"While you do that, we can obtain more information about the tattoo, beyond it obviously being some sort of hieroglyph," said Sherlock.
"A hieroglyph. As in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs?" Murphy asked. Greg thought she looked uncomfortable, as if she'd heard something with particularly unpleasant associations.
"Yes," Sherlock confirmed. He hadn't seemed to notice Murphy's discomfort, nothing new there. Even Sherlock couldn't miss her reaction, though
"Goddam it!" She turned on Dresden, her face like thunder and Greg was very glad it wasn't him on the receiving end of her furious glare. "Dresden, don't you dare make the same mess as you did last time there was anything Egyptian involved."
"That wasn't entirely…" Dresden never got the chance to finish what he was saying as Murphy cut him off with a choppy gesture.
"I don't care what it wasn't. What it WAS, was a complete headache for the rest of us. Some of us more than others, if you'd forgotten. Stay away from any Egyptian shit, Dresden, or get off this case."
The silence stretched, uneasy and cloying, for what seemed like an eternity, though Greg knew it was only seconds, if that.
"Lieutenant Murphy?" Sherlock's voice broke the hushed impasse like a pebble being dropped into a pool. It would be him, but Greg was thankful for it.
"What?!" Murphy snapped.
Sherlock continued with utter equanimity as if he hadn't just been yelled at - he was probably used to it.
"I believe I may be of some assistance in this matter. I have contacts at the British Museum and utilising their skills would make a great deal of sense, don't you think? Ensuring the accuracy of information should always be paramount, and this would remove the need for dependence on less trustworthy sources."
"When you put it like that, yes, it does make sense." Murphy took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose as she let it out with a sigh. It was an action that resonated with familiarity, Greg used it to try and instil some calm into himself when Sherlock was really getting to him; sometimes it even worked. It seemed to have done the trick for Murphy as the glance she gave Sherlock was much less wild
"Okay then, Sherlock. You can get your people working on the meaning of that tattoo, just make sure that you ignore any helpful suggestions he tries to make." She indicated Dresden.
"Such as?" Sherlock queried.
"Such as invading the privacy of people who just happen to have collections of Egyptian artefacts."
Greg saw the flicker of interest in Sherlock's eyes and decided to smother it as well as he could
"I'll do my best to make sure he doesn't tear off and chase down any hare-brained ideas… including disturbing private collections," he said.
Sherlock naturally took exception to what Greg said, but he'd been expecting that.
"My ideas are never hare-brained; you're just too pedestrian to follow them."
"Sherlock…" Greg warned.
"Though I do agree that disturbing a private collection would potentially cause some difficulty, in this case."
Greg hoped his sigh of relief wasn't too obvious and he was very glad that Dresden had kept quiet.
"Good." Murphy visibly relaxed and gave Greg a smile, smoothing away the lines of tension from her face. "Think you'll be able to keep these two loose cannons under control on your own?"
"I'm not on my own. The guy over there…" Greg nodded in John's direction "is ex-military and well used to any tricks Sherlock might pull, no matter how brilliant. I think we'll cope. Plus, with two lateral thinkers on the case, you never know just what they might discover."
"That's what I'm afraid of. Anyway, I'll see what turns up at my end, I might even strike lucky. We can meet up later, any suggestions?"
"My hotel," said Sherlock. "It's smaller and quieter than the conference hotel, which I think would be of benefit, and it isn't a great distance from your precinct either." He produced a business card from the pocket of his coat with a flourish and presented it to Murphy. She frowned at him, but accepted the card. Greg couldn't quite decide whether he wanted to laugh or hug her, maybe both; he turned away.
"Get out of here, then. All of you. I'll be in touch." Murphy headed off towards her colleagues, effectively ending any further conversation. To Greg's surprise, it was Dresden who headed out first. He nudged Sherlock, who was staring in the direction of the crime scene, and followed. They could pick up John - and Bob - on the way out.
*
Author: A Lanart
Fandoms: Dresden Files (tv verse) and Sherlock (BBC)
Characters/pairing: Harry Dresden, Connie Murphy, Bob, Greg Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Rating/Spoilers: PG. References to the Dresden Files ep The Boone Identity, no other spoilers.
Warnings: Sherlock and magic in the same fic has to be a bit cracky, right?
Word Count: This part 3005
Summary: Greg Lestrade has an unexpected encounter in Chicago - he isn't the only one, either - and discovers there are worse things to deal with than know-it-all consulting detectives.
Disclaimer: The BBC, Mr S Moffat and Mr M Gatiss own this version of Sherlock Holmes though ACD invented him. Jim Butcher owns Harry Dresden and his universe (although Lionsgate/sci-fi own the tv series).
No copyright infringement intended, no profit made.
Title from the song by Muse
Chapter 1 on LJ
Chapter 2 on LJ
(also available on AO3)
A/N: OK, I lied. This isn't going to be finished in 3 parts. I think 5 is most likely now but I'm not putting a definitive chapter number on it just yet (RL is a bitch and writing time is being hard to come by). This isn't going to be a 50k plus word epic though, so don't worry!
~*~
~Three~
*
Harry thought it was a good thing that Murphy was used to odd requests from him. If not for that he wasn't sure he'd stand a chance of having the crime scene emptied of all but his choice of personnel, though he was hopeful that the presence of Greg Lestrade - who was at least a policeman, if not one of her own - might mollify her somewhat. He spotted her fairly easily, talking to one of the forensics people, and approached her, nudging her arm to get her attention.
"Hey, Murph, any chance of letting me back in there before the forensics guys are let loose?"
"What for?" She asked.
"I think I might be able to come up with a likeness of whoever left the fingerprints. There's only one problem…"
"Don't tell me, none of us can be in there with you in case we disturb your concentration."
"Something like that. I don't mind if Lestrade stays, though."
"Greg Lestrade? Why him? No, don't answer that, I don't want to know. Hmph. Well, at least he's police and can stop you if you look like you're going to disturb anything." She paused and frowned for a moment - Harry recognised it as one of her thinking faces - before she sighed and nodded. "I'll see what I can do, but I expect I won't be able to get you much more than five minutes, if that."
"Hopefully we won't need long."
To Harry's relief, Murphy was - as usual - true to her word and it didn't take much time before he was able to lead his odd group, with Bob's skull safely ensconced in the backpack again, past Murphy's frown and the wary glances of the rest of her team, back into the room with the body. He knew there was no way he'd be allowed to shut the door of this room, so he was just going to have to block the view somehow. Before he could suggest anything he realised that Lestrade had chosen to stand in the ideal position to obstruct any curious gazes, his folded arms and squarely planted feet making it obvious to anyone who looked in from the other room that he at least would not be moved. Harry had to bite back a grin, as if they could see the smile on Lestrade's face, instead of his imposing back, his effectiveness as a barrier would have been reduced. Harry acknowledged him with a nod.
"Thank you," he said. It was always good to let anyone who was helping you know that their help was appreciated, even if the likelihood of them helping out again was practically zero.
"It's no problem - I've had plenty of practice of having to keep my own team away from a crime scene when he's working." A jerk of Lestrade's head indicated Sherlock who was examining the fingerprints on the ceiling from various positions in the room.
Harry ignored Sherlock for the moment as he checked out the ceiling for himself. In order to remain in contact with the fingerprints, Bob would need to hover mid air, which might make capturing any likeness on paper more difficult. It seemed that Watson must have had the same thought as he had settled himself on the floor near one of the walls in such a way that he could lean back to keep the ceiling in view yet continue to support the sketch pad on his knees comfortably. They were almost as ready as they'd ever be. Almost. Harry had one loose end he wanted to tie before he allowed Bob to attempt to gain a likeness of whoever had left those bloody fingerprints.
"Sherlock, I need you to stay back but I want you to watch carefully. You're the nearest thing we're going to have of a reliable method of recording of the process - you'll observe but most importantly you'll remember and I think we're gonna need that. You okay with that?"
"Naturally. Making full use of one's resources is the only appropriate course of action."
"I guess it is." Harry carefully lifted Bob's skull from the backpack and let the bag fall to the ground at his feet. "You ready, Bob?" The skull's eyes flashed orange, once, in answer. "Then let's get this show on the road."
*
John's eyes followed the flickering spark and smoke trail that left Bob's skull and wound its way across and around the fingerprints on the ceiling but nothing else happened for what seemed far too long considering the clock was ticking. Eventually the smoke coalesced into a vaguely human shaped outline and gradually became more substantial until a recognisable likeness was achieved. John glanced at the form Bob was holding, then over the top of the sketch pad to where the body lay.
"That's…" he didn't get any further before Bob interrupted, his deep voice sounding incongruous coming out of a pretty - and pretty dead - woman's mouth, who just happened to be hovering mid air.
"The victim's likeness. Yes. The blood on the ceiling is hers. This is only the first step - blood resonates far more strongly than anything else - and unless I can filter out her influence we'll never see who made the fingerprints. Once I recognise what is her and what isn't, then I should be able to get somewhere. Now let me concentrate."
No stranger to taking orders, despite how they might be phrased, John obligingly remained silent but watchful. He dismissed the others from his mind completely in an effort not to be distracted as he focused on Bob-yet-not-Bob. The ghost had one delicate hand pressed against the ceiling, the corresponding fingers to the prints then the hand sank into the ceiling - there was no other way to describe it - and glowed where it lay spread in and around the lurid fingerprints. There was an almost orgasmic sounding groan from Bob and then the likeness of the dead woman rippled, distorted, as if John were viewing the scene through a rain covered window, and slowly resolved into that of someone else entirely. His hand was moving the pencil across the paper in quick, sure strokes before John had even thought about it and that was just fine - he almost felt there was a direct connection between his eyes and his fingers. The specifics didn't register consciously - hair and eye colour, skin tone and physique - but John knew he would remember them and even if he didn't, Sherlock would. There was nothing to be heard in the room apart from the rasp of pencil over paper and the sound of breathing for some minutes, then Dresden broke the silence.
"Bob, can you feel anything else?"
"The man isn't a supernatural, though there is a slight echo of other but that could be due to an artefact he had on his person, something he'd swallowed or a spell cast over him before all this happened," Bob replied.
"Or something else entirely," said Sherlock, who appeared to be standing on a chair for some reason. John presumed it was in order to get a closer look at something and continued sketching until he was distracted by Sherlock waving Dresden over to join him. There wasn't a lot of room on the chair for two people but they somehow managed it without falling off. John was glad he was already on the floor.
"Bob, we need to see the back of the neck more clearly," said Dresden. John raised his head, pencil posed above the paper, curious to see just how Bob would manage that.
There was a grunt from Bob as he twisted midair while keeping in contact with the fingerprints. "I hope there is a good reason for this indignity," he grumbled.
"Oh there's a perfectly good reason, I can assure you," said Sherlock.
"One which should keep Murphy happy," added Dresden. "I just need…" There was a soft thud as Sherlock jumped off the chair followed by a faint scrabble and the sound of another pencil over paper - Dresden's coat obviously had deceptively large pockets.
"I hope you have everything you need, I can't hold this for much longer." Bob's voice held an edge of tension and John added the last few pencil strokes quickly before scrambling upright to make his way over to where Dresden, still standing on the chair, and Sherlock were peering up at not-Bob's neck. He'd only just caught sight of the unusual designs in blue on the back of the man's neck before the likeness dissolved and Bob drifted back down to the floor wearing his own face and body. John thought he looked tired, though he had no idea if such a thing was really possible for a ghost.
Bob sighed. "Don't ask me to do that again any time soon. I might be dead, but such activities are draining." Obviously it was possible for a ghost to suffer from exhaustion and John wasn't entirely sure he was thankful for the opportunity that enabled him to gain him that information or not, he could have lived without knowing quite happily. "Oh and if you really need me, I'll be in my skull. Though the world had best be ending before you disturb me, or you'll be sorry..." Bob began to fade, then seemed to think better about it and became more substantial again. "Unless there is an invasion of ghostly, beautiful and scantily clad dancing girls, in which case, please feel free to disturb me." With a disgusted sounding snort, Bob's form disintegrated into sparks and smoke which then made their way back into his skull.
"Thanks Bob," Dresden said gently. The eye sockets of skull flashed briefly and there was a vague sounding 'harumph' from the vicinity of his elbow, where he had Bob's skull cradled against him once more. Dresden hopped down off the chair and carefully placed the skull in the backpack, giving it an affectionate pat as he secured the last clip and John had to conceal another smile, this time behind the convenient sketchpad.
"Shall I take him again?" He asked, accepting the backpack with the smile still on his face when Dresden passed it over. He presumed that Dresden would do most of the talking - which was fine by him - as there was no way he'd want to try explaining to lieutenant Murphy just how they'd obtained their information of what the person responsible for leaving the fingerprints looked like.
Murphy appeared at the door as if the thought had summoned her, though she didn't attempt to peer around Greg, which surprised John but then again, he knew just how intimidating Greg's back could look when he put his mind to it, so maybe it shouldn't have.
"Time's up, Dresden. I hope you've finished and if you haven't, hard luck. We need you out of there now," she announced.
"We're done, Murphy. Even better, we've got something to show for it." Dresden held out his hand for the pad John was still clutching in one hand. He silently handed it over, keeping a firm hold of Bob in his backpack while he was at it, just in case. John made a concerted effort at trying to remain inconspicuous, something that usually wasn't too difficult when Sherlock was in the room anyway and should be even less so with the addition of Dresden, and breathed a sigh of relief when Dresden and Murphy left the room, followed closely by Sherlock and Greg. He trailed after them all, holding onto Bob's backpack tightly. Greg could deal with Sherlock, he'd managed it for years before John had moved into Baker Street after all, plus he didn't think they had realised just how important Bob was to Dresden overall, not just as a resource. John had, and was willing to take some responsibility for Bob's protection and well being - it was what he was good at - while Sherlock, Greg and the others dealt with unravelling the puzzle of the dead girl, her innocent brother and the man with the tattoo on his neck.
*
Once outside the room, Murphy stared at the sketch in her hand. Greg couldn't tell from the way she frowned whether she was disappointed it wasn't more detailed - though he thought John had done a pretty good job considering, even if it wasn't up to the standard of a police artist - or whether it was because she'd had to rely on Dresden to supply it.
"Do I want to know how you managed to get this?" She asked Dresden.
"Probably not," he replied with a shrug. She sighed, as if the answer was all too familiar. Greg could sympathise with that.
"It is a pretty accurate likeness though," he offered. "If you get your artists to, um, 'tidy it up a bit' at least you'll be able to use it to canvass the area."
"We might wait to see if the fingerprints are on file first, as a photo would be better." More than likely she just wanted to follow procedure, Greg thought - she had after all called Dresden her last resort.
"Fair enough, though I have a feeling that they won't be," he said. He didn't feel that he was putting that much of a downer on following the correct procedure as he was pretty damn sure she felt the same way.
"Yeah, so do I," she agreed, confirming his suspicion.
"While you do that, we can obtain more information about the tattoo, beyond it obviously being some sort of hieroglyph," said Sherlock.
"A hieroglyph. As in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs?" Murphy asked. Greg thought she looked uncomfortable, as if she'd heard something with particularly unpleasant associations.
"Yes," Sherlock confirmed. He hadn't seemed to notice Murphy's discomfort, nothing new there. Even Sherlock couldn't miss her reaction, though
"Goddam it!" She turned on Dresden, her face like thunder and Greg was very glad it wasn't him on the receiving end of her furious glare. "Dresden, don't you dare make the same mess as you did last time there was anything Egyptian involved."
"That wasn't entirely…" Dresden never got the chance to finish what he was saying as Murphy cut him off with a choppy gesture.
"I don't care what it wasn't. What it WAS, was a complete headache for the rest of us. Some of us more than others, if you'd forgotten. Stay away from any Egyptian shit, Dresden, or get off this case."
The silence stretched, uneasy and cloying, for what seemed like an eternity, though Greg knew it was only seconds, if that.
"Lieutenant Murphy?" Sherlock's voice broke the hushed impasse like a pebble being dropped into a pool. It would be him, but Greg was thankful for it.
"What?!" Murphy snapped.
Sherlock continued with utter equanimity as if he hadn't just been yelled at - he was probably used to it.
"I believe I may be of some assistance in this matter. I have contacts at the British Museum and utilising their skills would make a great deal of sense, don't you think? Ensuring the accuracy of information should always be paramount, and this would remove the need for dependence on less trustworthy sources."
"When you put it like that, yes, it does make sense." Murphy took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose as she let it out with a sigh. It was an action that resonated with familiarity, Greg used it to try and instil some calm into himself when Sherlock was really getting to him; sometimes it even worked. It seemed to have done the trick for Murphy as the glance she gave Sherlock was much less wild
"Okay then, Sherlock. You can get your people working on the meaning of that tattoo, just make sure that you ignore any helpful suggestions he tries to make." She indicated Dresden.
"Such as?" Sherlock queried.
"Such as invading the privacy of people who just happen to have collections of Egyptian artefacts."
Greg saw the flicker of interest in Sherlock's eyes and decided to smother it as well as he could
"I'll do my best to make sure he doesn't tear off and chase down any hare-brained ideas… including disturbing private collections," he said.
Sherlock naturally took exception to what Greg said, but he'd been expecting that.
"My ideas are never hare-brained; you're just too pedestrian to follow them."
"Sherlock…" Greg warned.
"Though I do agree that disturbing a private collection would potentially cause some difficulty, in this case."
Greg hoped his sigh of relief wasn't too obvious and he was very glad that Dresden had kept quiet.
"Good." Murphy visibly relaxed and gave Greg a smile, smoothing away the lines of tension from her face. "Think you'll be able to keep these two loose cannons under control on your own?"
"I'm not on my own. The guy over there…" Greg nodded in John's direction "is ex-military and well used to any tricks Sherlock might pull, no matter how brilliant. I think we'll cope. Plus, with two lateral thinkers on the case, you never know just what they might discover."
"That's what I'm afraid of. Anyway, I'll see what turns up at my end, I might even strike lucky. We can meet up later, any suggestions?"
"My hotel," said Sherlock. "It's smaller and quieter than the conference hotel, which I think would be of benefit, and it isn't a great distance from your precinct either." He produced a business card from the pocket of his coat with a flourish and presented it to Murphy. She frowned at him, but accepted the card. Greg couldn't quite decide whether he wanted to laugh or hug her, maybe both; he turned away.
"Get out of here, then. All of you. I'll be in touch." Murphy headed off towards her colleagues, effectively ending any further conversation. To Greg's surprise, it was Dresden who headed out first. He nudged Sherlock, who was staring in the direction of the crime scene, and followed. They could pick up John - and Bob - on the way out.
*