S3E2 - The Indigo Stain - Part Ten: A Ghost Story
Title: The Indigo Stain
Subtitle: A Ghost Story
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 3,100
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, language
The Grant Estate is full of ghosts. You walk the halls and think, nah, there's no such thing. But... the next instant, your skin pricks, your body tenses. There's that cool, dark sensation that slides past your periphery, and it's like someone's just walked over your grave. You think to yourself, nah, there's no such thing as ghosts, but this time you're not so sure. This time you know you're lying to yourself. And it's only going to get worse. Whenever you're there, it can happen at any time, because like I said, the estate is full of ghosts.
There are lots of stories, but I was there for weeks. In that little cell. In that room. I was forced to stay in there with no way out, and it drilled down into my bones. You understand? Those stories, they're in my bones, and now they're out in my blood. There's one spirit there, it just sneaks right into your mind, and it sinks its roots into you and drinks up everything you got. That's the one. It sat on my chest at night and squeezed the breath out of me. And when I had nothing left, it reminded me every single second. I could hear whimpering and crying and muffled whispers sometimes. Sometimes, it would whisper to me. Never could hear a proper word, just the sounds, the hushed sounds of consonants begging to be heard.
If ever I were mad, it was in that cell, in that room, with that whispering gust stealing the breath from my lungs.
The one that got Edward, though, that one was worse than the thing that had me. Fury frozen and forever aching like tears. It never melts, never burns up, never ends. It's like being stuck in a second of terror for a thousand years. You can't escape it. I couldn't, and Edward couldn't, either. I saw it in him, the specter grinning with his face. Edward's grief opened him up like a festering wound, and that ghost filled him up in all his hollow places. He turned his prize dogs, trained as service animals, into malicious and starving fiends. He told his wife that she killed their child, and that he remade his own son without her. He does nothing without venom and bile to drive him.
Don't you understand? Edward Miles isn't a man anymore. He's a ghost. He just doesn't know it yet.
Sherlock listened to the tape over and over again. It was pretty clear that, even if only for a short time, someone else had been held captive. The whimpering was likely someone else, probably Indigo Kendall Berwyn. If John and Lestrade convinced the police to investigate, maybe they'd find her in that house, still trapped.
But that would mean that the Engineer knew she was tied up in a room somewhere. That didn't make sense. It just didn't. Why not just free her? Or, how could the Engineer have known no one would find the real Berwyn before her work was complete in London?
He considered the evidence. The swabs were clear. They helped Berwyn connect the dots. The sample of medication was from Alexandra, pointing out her lupus. Before being imprisoned by Edward Miles, Doctor Mueller would've kept doctor patient confidentiality, so she must've poked around a bit to find out more. All of that made sense to Sherlock. The chloroform was an oddity, since Edward used a taser to abduct them, but that could be an evolution. As he needed to abduct more people, he switched modes. It's strange, but not impossible.
The blood. Two of the bags had blood evidence on them. Sherlock hadn't heard back from the labs before they were abducted, so all he knew were the blood types. They were the true outliers. He found a nearby phone and called his voicemail. He had a new message.
"Hello? It's Molly Hooper from Saint Bart's. I ran those tests. Full results are posted in your inbox, but I've got a short response. DNA is on file first is from Nelly Madden. She's currently at Yealm Medical Centre in Plymouth. The other blood sample is a match for Indigo Kendall Berwyn." She lowered her voice. "I couldn't find anything about her without attracting attention. Sorry."
Sherlock hung up. There was no need for more information. The message was pretty damn clear.
Lestrade made it to Salcombe about eight hours after John's abduction. He managed to convince Tolbert to give him a few days off on short notice under the pretext of "health problems." So he was a little frustrated, albeit relieved, when John called his mobile when he was in transit. He wasn't sure how he'd explain himself properly to Tolbert, but the Chief Inspector already knew Lestrade was away because of Doctor Watson, so he'd have to think of something.
"Yes, hello," Lestrade introduced, "I'm Detective Inspector Lestrade."
"Detective Inspector Ferrell," the officer replied. "You're here about this Grant mess, aren't you?"
"I'm here about Doctor John Watson," Lestrade said.
"Then you mean yes," Ferrell said.
"What do you mean mess?" Lestrade asked.
"Well, your man claims he was abducted from his room," Ferrell said, "and taken to the Grant Estate, where he somehow managed to rescue an imprisoned doctor and a kidnapped infant."
"Sounds like him," Lestrade mumbled. "But I can verify the abduction. I was on the phone with him when it happened."
"Sit down," Ferrell said. "We've got a lot to talk about, it seems."
Sherlock traveled to Plymouth as soon as he heard Molly's message. He purchased a new coat and hat and cleaned up before going to the hospital. He needed to take precautions, after all.
It had been six hours since he left John at the motel. He didn't feel guilty, exactly, but he didn't relish the idea. He found his mind wandering from his task, wondering what was going on with John. But he needed to focus if he wanted to find out what happened to Indigo Kendall Berwyn.
Sherlock entered Yealm Medical Centre and went to the primary reception desk.
"I'm here to see Indigo Kendall Berwyn," he said.
"Uh, hold on," the man behind the desk said. "Sorry, no one here by that name."
"What about Nelly Madden?" Sherlock asked.
"Uh, right, she's in the coma ward."
"Thank you," Sherlock replied curtly.
It made sense. Stealing a person's identity was difficult if they were properly identified in some hospital. She could have a false name or be a Jane Doe. As he followed the signs to the coma ward, every step he took gave him the certainty that he would find Indigo Kendall Berwyn in one of the beds.
There were a sum total of three people on the ward: Nelly Madden, Joseph Coppers, and Steward van Buren. The blood samples Sherlock had found were of different types, so he could safely assume that Nelly Madden was not lying in for Indigo Kendall Berwyn.
"Did you have any Jane Does?" Sherlock asked a passing nurse. "Or was there anyone else in this ward recently? Say the last two weeks?"
"No and no," the nurse said harshly. "What are you doing here? If you don't know anyone here, then - "
"I'm visiting Nelly Madden," he said shortly. "I just thought there'd be someone else."
"You've got five minutes," the nurse said as he walked off. "Then I'm getting security."
Sherlock went over to Nelly Madden's bed. Why would someone leave this woman's blood as a hint? Unless there was something here. Another breadcrumb for him to follow. What was out of place? What was wrong?
All three patients looked the same. Monitors, tubes, identical beds. Everything.
The index card. It was behind a posted sign in a cab. Sherlock's eyes looked around for any kind of placard. At the front of the room, there was a sign. "All visitors must either sign the visitor's book or report their presence to the on-staff nurse." Technically, Sherlock had spoken to that one nurse. That counted. He ran his fingers along the edge of the sign, and sure enough, a small card was stuck on the inside.
The front of the card had the stencil image of a mobile phone, labeled L & F. The back of the card had stenciled text.
025 @ PL4 8AL
-- ∃
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Precautions were one thing, but this little maze was...
Oh, who was he kidding? It was thrilling!
Plymouth Central Library was only about twenty minutes from the hospital, so Sherlock walked. He wanted to get a new mobile to contact John, but he needed to wait for everything to clear up. No doubt Mycroft would expect a response soon, his fingers in every pot... maybe he would know.
The library was opened, but other than that, the entire building was unenlightening. He checked the card again. The numbers referred to library science in the Dewey Decimal system, or more appropriately library operations, but the library was too big to go sleuthing in for another clue. Sherlock flipped the card over, which was captioned L & F.
He smiled. Elegant, simple. This one was good.
He walked up to the desk and asked, "I'm looking for a mobile phone," he said. "Do you have a lost and found?"
"Yeah, you want me to get you the box of phones?" the kid behind the desk asked.
"Yes."
The kid brought out a small box with about half a dozen electronic devices. Three were phones. Sherlock examined them all, and only one was a burner phone.
"Right, I'm done, this is mine," Sherlock said, waving to the kid and walking off.
As soon as he was outside, he turned the phone on and pulled up the contacts. There was only one, named 'CALL ME.' Clear enough.
"Ah, hello," a woman said on the other end. She picked up after one ring.
"Am I speaking with Indigo Kendall Berwyn?" Sherlock asked.
"No," she replied. "But you knew that."
"Where is she?" Sherlock asked.
"She's dead. Buried somewhere on the grounds of the Grant Estate, I imagine. I couldn't find her body."
"Then how do you know she's dead?" Sherlock asked.
"Because she had a daily appointment she'd never miss so long as she lived. And she missed it."
"Who are you?" Sherlock asked. "What do you want?"
"It doesn't really matter, does it?"
"Of course it matters," Sherlock said. "You're a part of Moriarty's web, that makes you a problem."
"Actually, I'm not," she replied. "I just needed to get close to him, that's all."
"Then you pretended to be a dead woman. Why?"
"Indigo Kendall Berwyn deserved to be found, but no one was looking for her. So I changed that."
"You want me to believe you let yourself be attacked?"
"I wasn't attacked," she replied. "But I needed people to think Miss Berwyn was abducted so someone would go looking."
"You couldn't have staged that," Sherlock said. "It was too complex; there were too many variables."
"You mean you couldn't have stage it," she replied. "Too many variables for you."
"Why would you do any of this?" Sherlock asked. "You planted those forensic bags, which means you knew this whole time that she was murdered, and about the kidnapped infant - "
"I needed her identity," she interrupted. "So I delayed reporting a few crimes."
"Why?" Sherlock asked again. "Just to be at Scotland Yard for a week?"
"I thought you were dead, Sherlock Holmes."
Sherlock swallowed hard, but he didn't reply.
"You see, I miscalculated when handling Moriarty. I felt guilty over it, so I decided to set what I could right. And then, after all that time and risk to myself, you turn up alive. I figured you were due a little inconvenience in return. That's this little excursion to Devon."
Sherlock ignored her later comments. "What does that mean, you miscalculated?"
"That whole kamikaze thing," she said. "Partially my fault."
"How?"
"Bad timing, mostly."
"So you are one of Moriarty's little bugs," Sherlock said.
"Just the opposite."
"Did you give me this phone just to be cryptic?"
"I assumed your brother would told you more," she replied.
"Why would you bother with Moriarty?" Sherlock asked.
"I'm looking for someone responsible for a particular crime. He seemed to be a good candidate."
"What crime?"
"All I needed to know was that it wasn't him," she replied.
"What wasn't him?"
"A very complex crime. A conspiracy, you could even say," she said. "Moriarty was notorious for being a consulting criminal. So I tracked him down to see if he was the one who coordinated it."
"He was the consulting criminal," Sherlock corrected. "He's the only one."
She laughed. "Sorry, but that's just it. He thought so, too."
"You told him otherwise?"
"I screwed up the Fulmer frame job by planting that gun back on the real killer. You think he missed that? He didn't. He confronted me about it, and I told him everything."
"And yet you're alive," Sherlock said. "You should be better at lying by now."
"Not only did I tell Moriarty that there were other consultant criminals out there, I showed him the work of someone who was better at it than he was."
"He was the only one," Sherlock replied. "If there were others, we'd know."
"Would you?" she asked. "Think about what Moriarty did. He transformed himself from a criminal mastermind, a spider in the web, into a helpless actor hired by Sherlock Holmes. After decades making a name for himself, suddenly he throws it all away? Why?"
"He was insane," Sherlock replied.
"That's your answer? Here I thought you were clever."
"He wanted to defeat me," Sherlock said. "To ruin my name."
"He could've done that without ruining his own name, Mr. Holmes," she replied. "You're smarter than this. You must suffer from the delusion of hope."
"I don't."
"Then use your head. There are dozens of other consultant criminals - if that's what you want to call them - out there. Coordinating schemes all over the world. Most of them do it for power and money. They hide their identities. The only reason you knew Moriarty's name was that he wanted a name. That's why he did what he did. He wanted to be remembered as the most dangerous criminal mastermind throughout history."
"What's that to me?" Sherlock asked.
"Nothing," she replied mildly. "But I gave him definitive proof that he wasn't unique in anything other than desperation. Then he ran off - quite literally he ran away from me - and disappeared for months. He returned and went after you. I maintain that my conclusion was sound."
"He planned for it for a long time, I doubt you did more than speed up the process," Sherlock replied. "And you... you were part of the Fulmer murder, at the very least. So how are you not Moriarty's little ant?"
"Says the brother of Mycroft Holmes," she replied. "You must know how much he knows. He could've gotten rid of Moriarty years ago, but he didn't. He just watched him."
"You'll find me unsympathetic to my brother's choices," Sherlock replied.
"And you'll find me unsympathetic to your self-righteous attitude," she replied. "I didn't report the murder of Indigo Kendall Berwyn, you're right. But because of me, her body will be found. The only reason Mycroft cares about my existence is that I'm inconvenient."
"Yes you are."
"Inconvenient because I don't just watch. I've packaged up more than one of his pet projects with evidence enough to keep them away forever. He would've kept watching them. Watching them kill. Watching them get away with it."
"I am not my brother," Sherlock pointed out. "Don't be tedious."
"Don't worry, kitten," she said. "I'm not interested in you. I just wanted to clear the air before I popped back to it."
"I'll find you," Sherlock said.
"Only if I want you to."
The line disconnected.
John returned to London after two days in Salcombe sorting everything out. He owed Lestrade the freaking moon for pulling him out of the fire.
"Mrs. Hudson," he said as soon as he entered 221 B Baker Street.
"Oh, John, good to see you!" she replied. "You have a nice trip?"
"Very," John lied. "How are you?"
"On my way out, actually. Good night, dear."
John walked up the stairs to his flat and was unsurprised to find someone waiting for him.
"Sherlock," he said.
"How was it?"
"Ridiculously overcomplicated," John replied. "And tiring. Please tell me you don't have another case."
"No," Sherlock replied. "Edward Mills?"
"Arrested along with Mueller. I have to go back for the trial. But the baby is back with his mothers. And they're investigating the staff who performed Georgia Grant's C-section. And then there's Caroline Kingsley's involvement as well as Alexandra Miles. Did I mention ridiculously overcomplicated?"
"What about Indigo Kendall Berwyn?" Sherlock asked.
"They're looking for her, interrogating Mills about it," John said. "Why? Didn't you find her?"
"She's dead," Sherlock replied. "She's been dead for weeks. She never left Salcombe."
"Yet she was here in London for a week," John pointed out. "Clearing the name of Sherlock Holmes. Now that's a ghost story."
"Don't be ridiculous, John. It's identity theft."
"Ghost story is better," John said. "Less of a mess."
"I suppose," Sherlock said.
"What are you doing here?" John asked. "Isn't this risky?"
"I came to warn you," Sherlock replied. "About the Engineer."
"The woman who cleared your name?" John asked. "Why?"
"I found out why she's called the Engineer." Sherlock handed John the card he found at the hospital.
"What's this?"
"A breadcrumb from her. Look at the signature."
"A backwards E?" John asked. "What about it?"
"It's actually the existential quantification symbol," Sherlock said. "But that's not why she chose it."
"All right, then why did she choose it?"
"It's a reversed E," Sherlock said. "Reverse engineering. That's what she does."
"Like with computers?"
Sherlock shook his head. "I walked the crime scene at her flat, John. It was precise. Everything was right."
"So she's good," John dismissed. But he saw how pensive Sherlock looked, how moody.
"This wasn't a minor struggle," Sherlock continued. "It was a vicious attack, blood and fury. And everything was right, John. Nothing was staged."
"So she was attacked."
Sherlock shook his head. "No, she wasn't. Don't you understand? Reverse engineer."
"You're saying she engineered the crime? Made it look like an abduction?"
"No, John. Me. My thinking. She used the Science of Deduction."
"You're saying she reverse engineered you?" John asked.
Sherlock nodded solemnly. "And I don't think she's done yet."
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S3E3 - The Uncanny Valley
The Indigo Stain - Series 3, Episode 2 - Primary Post
Subtitle: A Ghost Story
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 3,100
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, language
The Grant Estate is full of ghosts. You walk the halls and think, nah, there's no such thing. But... the next instant, your skin pricks, your body tenses. There's that cool, dark sensation that slides past your periphery, and it's like someone's just walked over your grave. You think to yourself, nah, there's no such thing as ghosts, but this time you're not so sure. This time you know you're lying to yourself. And it's only going to get worse. Whenever you're there, it can happen at any time, because like I said, the estate is full of ghosts.
There are lots of stories, but I was there for weeks. In that little cell. In that room. I was forced to stay in there with no way out, and it drilled down into my bones. You understand? Those stories, they're in my bones, and now they're out in my blood. There's one spirit there, it just sneaks right into your mind, and it sinks its roots into you and drinks up everything you got. That's the one. It sat on my chest at night and squeezed the breath out of me. And when I had nothing left, it reminded me every single second. I could hear whimpering and crying and muffled whispers sometimes. Sometimes, it would whisper to me. Never could hear a proper word, just the sounds, the hushed sounds of consonants begging to be heard.
If ever I were mad, it was in that cell, in that room, with that whispering gust stealing the breath from my lungs.
The one that got Edward, though, that one was worse than the thing that had me. Fury frozen and forever aching like tears. It never melts, never burns up, never ends. It's like being stuck in a second of terror for a thousand years. You can't escape it. I couldn't, and Edward couldn't, either. I saw it in him, the specter grinning with his face. Edward's grief opened him up like a festering wound, and that ghost filled him up in all his hollow places. He turned his prize dogs, trained as service animals, into malicious and starving fiends. He told his wife that she killed their child, and that he remade his own son without her. He does nothing without venom and bile to drive him.
Don't you understand? Edward Miles isn't a man anymore. He's a ghost. He just doesn't know it yet.
Sherlock listened to the tape over and over again. It was pretty clear that, even if only for a short time, someone else had been held captive. The whimpering was likely someone else, probably Indigo Kendall Berwyn. If John and Lestrade convinced the police to investigate, maybe they'd find her in that house, still trapped.
But that would mean that the Engineer knew she was tied up in a room somewhere. That didn't make sense. It just didn't. Why not just free her? Or, how could the Engineer have known no one would find the real Berwyn before her work was complete in London?
He considered the evidence. The swabs were clear. They helped Berwyn connect the dots. The sample of medication was from Alexandra, pointing out her lupus. Before being imprisoned by Edward Miles, Doctor Mueller would've kept doctor patient confidentiality, so she must've poked around a bit to find out more. All of that made sense to Sherlock. The chloroform was an oddity, since Edward used a taser to abduct them, but that could be an evolution. As he needed to abduct more people, he switched modes. It's strange, but not impossible.
The blood. Two of the bags had blood evidence on them. Sherlock hadn't heard back from the labs before they were abducted, so all he knew were the blood types. They were the true outliers. He found a nearby phone and called his voicemail. He had a new message.
"Hello? It's Molly Hooper from Saint Bart's. I ran those tests. Full results are posted in your inbox, but I've got a short response. DNA is on file first is from Nelly Madden. She's currently at Yealm Medical Centre in Plymouth. The other blood sample is a match for Indigo Kendall Berwyn." She lowered her voice. "I couldn't find anything about her without attracting attention. Sorry."
Sherlock hung up. There was no need for more information. The message was pretty damn clear.
Lestrade made it to Salcombe about eight hours after John's abduction. He managed to convince Tolbert to give him a few days off on short notice under the pretext of "health problems." So he was a little frustrated, albeit relieved, when John called his mobile when he was in transit. He wasn't sure how he'd explain himself properly to Tolbert, but the Chief Inspector already knew Lestrade was away because of Doctor Watson, so he'd have to think of something.
"Yes, hello," Lestrade introduced, "I'm Detective Inspector Lestrade."
"Detective Inspector Ferrell," the officer replied. "You're here about this Grant mess, aren't you?"
"I'm here about Doctor John Watson," Lestrade said.
"Then you mean yes," Ferrell said.
"What do you mean mess?" Lestrade asked.
"Well, your man claims he was abducted from his room," Ferrell said, "and taken to the Grant Estate, where he somehow managed to rescue an imprisoned doctor and a kidnapped infant."
"Sounds like him," Lestrade mumbled. "But I can verify the abduction. I was on the phone with him when it happened."
"Sit down," Ferrell said. "We've got a lot to talk about, it seems."
Sherlock traveled to Plymouth as soon as he heard Molly's message. He purchased a new coat and hat and cleaned up before going to the hospital. He needed to take precautions, after all.
It had been six hours since he left John at the motel. He didn't feel guilty, exactly, but he didn't relish the idea. He found his mind wandering from his task, wondering what was going on with John. But he needed to focus if he wanted to find out what happened to Indigo Kendall Berwyn.
Sherlock entered Yealm Medical Centre and went to the primary reception desk.
"I'm here to see Indigo Kendall Berwyn," he said.
"Uh, hold on," the man behind the desk said. "Sorry, no one here by that name."
"What about Nelly Madden?" Sherlock asked.
"Uh, right, she's in the coma ward."
"Thank you," Sherlock replied curtly.
It made sense. Stealing a person's identity was difficult if they were properly identified in some hospital. She could have a false name or be a Jane Doe. As he followed the signs to the coma ward, every step he took gave him the certainty that he would find Indigo Kendall Berwyn in one of the beds.
There were a sum total of three people on the ward: Nelly Madden, Joseph Coppers, and Steward van Buren. The blood samples Sherlock had found were of different types, so he could safely assume that Nelly Madden was not lying in for Indigo Kendall Berwyn.
"Did you have any Jane Does?" Sherlock asked a passing nurse. "Or was there anyone else in this ward recently? Say the last two weeks?"
"No and no," the nurse said harshly. "What are you doing here? If you don't know anyone here, then - "
"I'm visiting Nelly Madden," he said shortly. "I just thought there'd be someone else."
"You've got five minutes," the nurse said as he walked off. "Then I'm getting security."
Sherlock went over to Nelly Madden's bed. Why would someone leave this woman's blood as a hint? Unless there was something here. Another breadcrumb for him to follow. What was out of place? What was wrong?
All three patients looked the same. Monitors, tubes, identical beds. Everything.
The index card. It was behind a posted sign in a cab. Sherlock's eyes looked around for any kind of placard. At the front of the room, there was a sign. "All visitors must either sign the visitor's book or report their presence to the on-staff nurse." Technically, Sherlock had spoken to that one nurse. That counted. He ran his fingers along the edge of the sign, and sure enough, a small card was stuck on the inside.
The front of the card had the stencil image of a mobile phone, labeled L & F. The back of the card had stenciled text.
025 @ PL4 8AL
-- ∃
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Precautions were one thing, but this little maze was...
Oh, who was he kidding? It was thrilling!
Plymouth Central Library was only about twenty minutes from the hospital, so Sherlock walked. He wanted to get a new mobile to contact John, but he needed to wait for everything to clear up. No doubt Mycroft would expect a response soon, his fingers in every pot... maybe he would know.
The library was opened, but other than that, the entire building was unenlightening. He checked the card again. The numbers referred to library science in the Dewey Decimal system, or more appropriately library operations, but the library was too big to go sleuthing in for another clue. Sherlock flipped the card over, which was captioned L & F.
He smiled. Elegant, simple. This one was good.
He walked up to the desk and asked, "I'm looking for a mobile phone," he said. "Do you have a lost and found?"
"Yeah, you want me to get you the box of phones?" the kid behind the desk asked.
"Yes."
The kid brought out a small box with about half a dozen electronic devices. Three were phones. Sherlock examined them all, and only one was a burner phone.
"Right, I'm done, this is mine," Sherlock said, waving to the kid and walking off.
As soon as he was outside, he turned the phone on and pulled up the contacts. There was only one, named 'CALL ME.' Clear enough.
"Ah, hello," a woman said on the other end. She picked up after one ring.
"Am I speaking with Indigo Kendall Berwyn?" Sherlock asked.
"No," she replied. "But you knew that."
"Where is she?" Sherlock asked.
"She's dead. Buried somewhere on the grounds of the Grant Estate, I imagine. I couldn't find her body."
"Then how do you know she's dead?" Sherlock asked.
"Because she had a daily appointment she'd never miss so long as she lived. And she missed it."
"Who are you?" Sherlock asked. "What do you want?"
"It doesn't really matter, does it?"
"Of course it matters," Sherlock said. "You're a part of Moriarty's web, that makes you a problem."
"Actually, I'm not," she replied. "I just needed to get close to him, that's all."
"Then you pretended to be a dead woman. Why?"
"Indigo Kendall Berwyn deserved to be found, but no one was looking for her. So I changed that."
"You want me to believe you let yourself be attacked?"
"I wasn't attacked," she replied. "But I needed people to think Miss Berwyn was abducted so someone would go looking."
"You couldn't have staged that," Sherlock said. "It was too complex; there were too many variables."
"You mean you couldn't have stage it," she replied. "Too many variables for you."
"Why would you do any of this?" Sherlock asked. "You planted those forensic bags, which means you knew this whole time that she was murdered, and about the kidnapped infant - "
"I needed her identity," she interrupted. "So I delayed reporting a few crimes."
"Why?" Sherlock asked again. "Just to be at Scotland Yard for a week?"
"I thought you were dead, Sherlock Holmes."
Sherlock swallowed hard, but he didn't reply.
"You see, I miscalculated when handling Moriarty. I felt guilty over it, so I decided to set what I could right. And then, after all that time and risk to myself, you turn up alive. I figured you were due a little inconvenience in return. That's this little excursion to Devon."
Sherlock ignored her later comments. "What does that mean, you miscalculated?"
"That whole kamikaze thing," she said. "Partially my fault."
"How?"
"Bad timing, mostly."
"So you are one of Moriarty's little bugs," Sherlock said.
"Just the opposite."
"Did you give me this phone just to be cryptic?"
"I assumed your brother would told you more," she replied.
"Why would you bother with Moriarty?" Sherlock asked.
"I'm looking for someone responsible for a particular crime. He seemed to be a good candidate."
"What crime?"
"All I needed to know was that it wasn't him," she replied.
"What wasn't him?"
"A very complex crime. A conspiracy, you could even say," she said. "Moriarty was notorious for being a consulting criminal. So I tracked him down to see if he was the one who coordinated it."
"He was the consulting criminal," Sherlock corrected. "He's the only one."
She laughed. "Sorry, but that's just it. He thought so, too."
"You told him otherwise?"
"I screwed up the Fulmer frame job by planting that gun back on the real killer. You think he missed that? He didn't. He confronted me about it, and I told him everything."
"And yet you're alive," Sherlock said. "You should be better at lying by now."
"Not only did I tell Moriarty that there were other consultant criminals out there, I showed him the work of someone who was better at it than he was."
"He was the only one," Sherlock replied. "If there were others, we'd know."
"Would you?" she asked. "Think about what Moriarty did. He transformed himself from a criminal mastermind, a spider in the web, into a helpless actor hired by Sherlock Holmes. After decades making a name for himself, suddenly he throws it all away? Why?"
"He was insane," Sherlock replied.
"That's your answer? Here I thought you were clever."
"He wanted to defeat me," Sherlock said. "To ruin my name."
"He could've done that without ruining his own name, Mr. Holmes," she replied. "You're smarter than this. You must suffer from the delusion of hope."
"I don't."
"Then use your head. There are dozens of other consultant criminals - if that's what you want to call them - out there. Coordinating schemes all over the world. Most of them do it for power and money. They hide their identities. The only reason you knew Moriarty's name was that he wanted a name. That's why he did what he did. He wanted to be remembered as the most dangerous criminal mastermind throughout history."
"What's that to me?" Sherlock asked.
"Nothing," she replied mildly. "But I gave him definitive proof that he wasn't unique in anything other than desperation. Then he ran off - quite literally he ran away from me - and disappeared for months. He returned and went after you. I maintain that my conclusion was sound."
"He planned for it for a long time, I doubt you did more than speed up the process," Sherlock replied. "And you... you were part of the Fulmer murder, at the very least. So how are you not Moriarty's little ant?"
"Says the brother of Mycroft Holmes," she replied. "You must know how much he knows. He could've gotten rid of Moriarty years ago, but he didn't. He just watched him."
"You'll find me unsympathetic to my brother's choices," Sherlock replied.
"And you'll find me unsympathetic to your self-righteous attitude," she replied. "I didn't report the murder of Indigo Kendall Berwyn, you're right. But because of me, her body will be found. The only reason Mycroft cares about my existence is that I'm inconvenient."
"Yes you are."
"Inconvenient because I don't just watch. I've packaged up more than one of his pet projects with evidence enough to keep them away forever. He would've kept watching them. Watching them kill. Watching them get away with it."
"I am not my brother," Sherlock pointed out. "Don't be tedious."
"Don't worry, kitten," she said. "I'm not interested in you. I just wanted to clear the air before I popped back to it."
"I'll find you," Sherlock said.
"Only if I want you to."
The line disconnected.
John returned to London after two days in Salcombe sorting everything out. He owed Lestrade the freaking moon for pulling him out of the fire.
"Mrs. Hudson," he said as soon as he entered 221 B Baker Street.
"Oh, John, good to see you!" she replied. "You have a nice trip?"
"Very," John lied. "How are you?"
"On my way out, actually. Good night, dear."
John walked up the stairs to his flat and was unsurprised to find someone waiting for him.
"Sherlock," he said.
"How was it?"
"Ridiculously overcomplicated," John replied. "And tiring. Please tell me you don't have another case."
"No," Sherlock replied. "Edward Mills?"
"Arrested along with Mueller. I have to go back for the trial. But the baby is back with his mothers. And they're investigating the staff who performed Georgia Grant's C-section. And then there's Caroline Kingsley's involvement as well as Alexandra Miles. Did I mention ridiculously overcomplicated?"
"What about Indigo Kendall Berwyn?" Sherlock asked.
"They're looking for her, interrogating Mills about it," John said. "Why? Didn't you find her?"
"She's dead," Sherlock replied. "She's been dead for weeks. She never left Salcombe."
"Yet she was here in London for a week," John pointed out. "Clearing the name of Sherlock Holmes. Now that's a ghost story."
"Don't be ridiculous, John. It's identity theft."
"Ghost story is better," John said. "Less of a mess."
"I suppose," Sherlock said.
"What are you doing here?" John asked. "Isn't this risky?"
"I came to warn you," Sherlock replied. "About the Engineer."
"The woman who cleared your name?" John asked. "Why?"
"I found out why she's called the Engineer." Sherlock handed John the card he found at the hospital.
"What's this?"
"A breadcrumb from her. Look at the signature."
"A backwards E?" John asked. "What about it?"
"It's actually the existential quantification symbol," Sherlock said. "But that's not why she chose it."
"All right, then why did she choose it?"
"It's a reversed E," Sherlock said. "Reverse engineering. That's what she does."
"Like with computers?"
Sherlock shook his head. "I walked the crime scene at her flat, John. It was precise. Everything was right."
"So she's good," John dismissed. But he saw how pensive Sherlock looked, how moody.
"This wasn't a minor struggle," Sherlock continued. "It was a vicious attack, blood and fury. And everything was right, John. Nothing was staged."
"So she was attacked."
Sherlock shook his head. "No, she wasn't. Don't you understand? Reverse engineer."
"You're saying she engineered the crime? Made it look like an abduction?"
"No, John. Me. My thinking. She used the Science of Deduction."
"You're saying she reverse engineered you?" John asked.
Sherlock nodded solemnly. "And I don't think she's done yet."
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The Indigo Stain - Series 3, Episode 2 - Primary Post