Sherlock Holmes and The Star of the East (3 of 8)

Dec 27, 2011 17:52

Author:
capt_facepalm
Rating: PG-13
Fandom:  BBC Sherlock
Characters:  Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Sarah Sawyer, others
Summary: Christmas time brings a new case for the world's only consulting detective.
Warnings:  (cave canem)
Word Count:  10 000+ (This chapter 1790)
Author's Notes: For Challenge 002 at
violinandwatch



Previous Chapters
December 23rd
December 24th
.oOOo.
December 25th (part one)

John woke much later, colder than ever. Wind rocked the van and the temperature had dropped to several degrees below freezing. He could not tell if it was day or night. Cramps seized his stomach but he was tied up in such a way that he could not find any position that provided relief. A whimper escaped, and then another one. Gus shifted, alert and attentive to this new sound. A particularly sharp pain rippled through John’s gut and he moaned into his gag. Gus stood, raised her pointy head and let out an ungodly howl. John encouraged her. If this continued, maybe someone would hear their eerie chorus.

.oOOo.

Sherlock found Christmas carols boring; he had ever since he was a boy. Unfortunately, being Christmas morning, the telly was full of them. He waited until the broadcast of the Royal Christmas Message had concluded before he texted John again. Surely the doctor was not still mad for abandoning the dog with him. All signs indicated that Sarah liked dogs. John was just being petulant by withholding the evidence Sherlock needed. Idiot.

John still did not answer. Sherlock paced. How could anyone ignore forty-three messages, even if they were really angry. John could be stubborn, but he was rarely rude. There was nothing else for it. He would have to call Sarah. She picked up on the second ring, her voice a mix of agitation and expectation.

‘Sarah, let me speak to John... No, he’s not with me... I assumed he was with you... When did you last see him?  Stay where you are. I’m coming to get you.’

Ten minutes later Sherlock’s cab pulled up in front of Sarah’s building. She was waiting in the lobby and ran out to meet it. Another three minutes later, and she was unlocking the doors to the surgery. Sherlock wanted to retrace John’s movements from the time he left. They started in his consulting room.

‘John had expected to return that afternoon,’ Sherlock deduced aloud. His hat and briefcase had been left behind. Sarah nodded and stared at the items left on the desk. John always cleared everything away in case some other doctor needed the room. Liquid correction fluid, Insta-Glu! (TM), and transparent nail polish sat to one side. Sarah picked up the last item and biting her lip, handed it to Sherlock. It was the angel from the tree; her wing repaired, her white paint retouched and shellacked with nail polish, and left to dry.

Sherlock resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. He removed John’s laptop form the briefcase and powered it up.

‘He gave you his password?’

Sherlock did not deign to reply and just kept typing in likely combinations. It never took him very long to deduce John’s password. The man had a very pedestrian imagination. Except for the urgency, this time was no different. Sherlock gave a snort of triumph as the latest code was cracked.

John’s agenda contained nothing of use so Sherlock logged in to his mobile service provider. John’s smartphone could be tracked, even when powered down. Sarah took the little angel and returned her to her perch atop the little tree in reception. From any distance over a metre, no flaws could be seen. It was just like John to try to mend broken things. Back in the consulting room, fingers drummed with impatience as the website was slow to update. Finally, the location! John was at the church, just a few blocks away. It was an odd choice for John to make, but Christmas made people do strange things.

‘He’s in the church. He’s probably safe.’

.oOOo.

John was in fact many, many kilometres away, and far from safe.  His concepts of time and distance blurred with his discomfort. The panel van had been stationary for a long time. How long, John could not say. His abductors had long stopped letting Gus out for walks and may have abandoned them both to die. The cold robbed John of his strength but not his determination. He rubbed his face against the seam in the metal floor of the van, trying to dislodge the tape from his mouth and eyes. Gus helped by licking John’s ears, which really was no help at all.

.oOOo.

Being early afternoon, the church was closed and locked when Sarah and Sherlock arrived. They circled the whole structure and found it annoyingly secure. The morning service had long since concluded and the congregation had left to enjoy their Christmas dinners.

‘He’s not in there, Sherlock. Something bad has happened.’

‘There is not enough data to form that conclusion...’ Sherlock muttered and reopened John’s laptop. With their closer proximity, the precision of the tracking app increased to ten metres (plus or minus twenty-five metres). Now the tracker indicated that the mobile phone was in the churchyard, not the church. Sarah was right: John being separated from his phone was not a good sign.

‘His phone is here somewhere. We have to find it. Look everywhere,’ Sherlock growled in growing frustration.

‘Do you think...?’

‘No. Don’t be stupid. John wouldn’t just lose his phone by accident. So, why don’t you channel your anger and try to find it, rather than standing there, seething at me?’

Sarah gave Sherlock a blank look as she pulled out her phone and punched in John’s number.

‘I already tried that, but at least you are thinking. Look in the shrubs and the rubbish bins... anywhere out of sight. If it could be seen, someone would have picked it up.’

Sherlock closed his eyes and imagined John’s passage through the park. What would John have done? ‘I’m John Watson and I am walking a big dog. I’ve worked a long day and I’m walking a huge dog. My leg gets stiff in cold weather and I haven’t had much time for regular exercise.’

Sherlock opened his eyes and immediately headed for the solitary bench. At its foot, he found a ziplock baggie of half-frozen dog excreta, carefully labelled in John Watson’s distinctive scrawl:

2011-12-23; 1507; SH IS A WANKER

Sherlock pinched and prodded the brown material in the baggie and smiled when he located the hard lump he had expected to find.

Sarah waved to get his attention. ‘There is something middle of those shrubs. I think it’s his phone!’

Sherlock was instantly at her side, looking where she indicated. Yes! He waded in, his coat catching on the sharp twigs. Careful not to spoil any fingerprints, he retrieved the phone. It was John’s. Clara’s inscription to Harry was still on the back, but the screen had been smashed, the glass was no longer intact, and the battery had been removed. Clever! But not clever enough. This model had a back up power supply specifically for tracking, and in fumbling around with it, someone had left several very clear fingerprints.

.oOOo.

Another cab took Sherlock and Sarah to New Scotland Yard. They soon found out that the forensics labs were closed for the day and the staff remaining refused to call in the technicians for a set of fingerprints for a private consultant, no matter how abusive he was. Sherlock called Lestrade at home, who listened to all the details, but could do nothing until the next day.

‘Sherlock, isn’t there anything we can do?’ Sarah asked.

The consultant thought for a moment and phoned Lestrade back and said he needed to use his office, and stating that, no, he did not need a key.

‘Oh, and Lestrade? You should contact Lady Morcar and tell her that I have recovered The Star of the East.  Yes, the diamond. It was stolen, and I recovered it.’

Sherlock gave a heavy sigh while the DI went on.

'...and arrest her personal assistant. Evidence? No, not as such... Well, have her followed. Trace her phone. You know, police stuff!'

‘The Star of the East? Sarah asked, ‘What does the diamond have to do with this?’

When the Detective Inspector arrived, he found Sherlock and Sarah accessing his computer and viewing what looked very much like closed-caption security footage of the street beyond the churchyard. What they saw filled Sarah with dread.

A man tossed the limp body of a large dog into the back of a white panel van, then went outside the camera coverage. Seconds later he returned with a second man, and hustling a third man’s body into the van as well. The second man was dressed as Father Christmas... and the limp body had a distinctly ugly coat...

‘There’s the proof that John was abducted. This footage was taken the day before yesterday. Now are you going to tell me you can’t call the lab technicians in? We just need a fingerprints expert and access to the database.’

Lestrade made a couple of calls and found a technician ready to forgo his Christmas dinner for the opportunity to make triple overtime wages. While they waited, Sherlock analysed all the CCTV coverage he could find. Using different angles and time periods, he managed to spot the van’s arrival, obtain a partial licence number, and plot its course until it merged onto the east-bound A2.

By the time the fingerprints technician arrived, they have traced the partial licence plate to Valley Rent-Alls, a small, London based rental company whose offices were closed for the holidays. Working well into the evening, they tracked down the phone number of the owners, but there was no answer. The fingerprints, while perfectly legible, proved to not be in the system. They would have to wait until morning when the rental company was scheduled to re-open. With nothing to do in the meantime, Sherlock tried to trace the movements of the van before the abduction occurred. Another dead end.

.oOOo.

‘And before we sign off this evening, we have one further item to report:

‘The Metropolitan Police have issued a missing persons alert for Dr John H. Watson. Dr Watson is a local general practitioner and was last seen near his Kensington practice, walking a large dog of the Borzoi breed.  Dr Watson is forty years old, of medium height and build, with light brown hair and blue eyes, and may walk with a slight limp. He was last seen wearing grey trousers, brown shoes, and a green army surplus winter coat. Friends and colleagues insist that this disappearance is inconsistent with his behaviour and are very concerned. Police are treating this disappearance as ‘suspicious’ and would like to speak to anyone who was in the vicinity of St Basil’s Church on the afternoon of December 23rd.’

A fairly recent photograph of John filled the screen and a freephone number scrolled across the bottom.

‘Police officials would neither confirm nor deny that foul play is suspected.’

‘Well, our hopes and prayers are with Dr Watson’s friends and family at this time. Good night all and Happy Christmas from everyone here at BBC News.’

.oOOo.

Next Chapter: December 25th (part two)

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