In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Five: A Wanted Man.

[ghislainem70]

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Five: A Wanted Man.
Author: ghislainem70
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 4,000
Disclaimer: I own nothing.  All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.
Summary:  Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.　
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.


In the Footsteps of the Master. Chapter Five: A Wanted Man.

Sergeant Sally Donovan was squinting over the fine print in the hair and fibers report from Victim Number Four. She really needed to get some glasses. There was a preliminary match for a single hair found wound very tightly around the fingertip of this victim, found at the down-and-out hotel where she may, or may not, have died.  And she was pretty sure she needed glasses because she couldn't believe what her eyes were telling her.

She remembered well the first time she met Doctor John Watson: "You know why he's here? He's not paid or anything. He likes it. He gets off on it. The weirder the crime, the more he gets off. And you know what? One day, just showing up won't be enough. One day, we'll be standing around a body, and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there."

John just asked quietly, obviously rejecting the notion, challenging her: "Why would he do that?"
And she gave the answer that she felt was truest: "‘Cause he's a psychopath. Psychopaths get bored."

Psychopath, sociopath - she could leave that to the court forensic psychiatrists. Because she had something that was much easier to pin down.

This single hair belonged, unequivocally, to Sherlock Holmes.

So now it looked as if she was proven right, in the end. And it gave her no joy at all.

She went to find Lestrade.

* * *

Lestrade remembered well the case that he had just been involved in, in Yorkshire; someone, an accomplice of the real murderer, had quite clumsily tried to plant evidence on the victim’s body to frame John for murder. He closed his eyes, thinking furiously.

Could this be Moriarty, he thought; Sherlock had been his captive for a time, a year ago - easily he could have some of Sherlock’s hair, could have kept it for just this purpose. The entire murder spree might be some twisted plan of Moriarty’s to pin Sherlock for what were looking to be some of the worst serial killings since Jack the Ripper.

Or some other adversary, possibly, who had somehow gotten one of his hairs - it might be quite easy, to grab one off his coat, possibly. Of course you needed the root, the bulb, which this hair did have. Or someone with access to 221b might get a hair from his hairbrush.

Because this hair had to be planted.

First of all, because if Sherlock Holmes were a murderer, he would never be so careless as to leave an entire hair in the victim’s hand.

And second, because the first thing he thought when Donovan brought him this news was that if Sherlock Holmes went on a murder spree,
it wouldn’t look like this.

He recalled the two murders for which he had investigated Sherlock, both exceedingly kinky crimes in private sex clubs. The killer had been caught but committed suicide before trial, leaving some lingering doubts whether he had really been guilty. Sherlock, in fact, helped crack the case after Lestrade satisfied himself that he was not involved. Those murders were nothing like this. And although he remained convinced that Sherlock did not have anything to do with those murders, he recalled that the entire atmosphere of them had seemed to him very - Sherlock.

But these murders, no. He had to honestly admit to himself that he couldn’t see it. They seemed clearly some flavor of hetero, notwithstanding that these crimes, too, were very, very twisted: he knew that the killer was a very angry and ill man, lashing out with extreme prejudice against weak and helpless women; women that had to look a particular way, women that he fetishized, dressed, made up. Women that he played with for a while before stabbing them, then choking the life out of them. A man who hated women’s voices enough to cut their tongues out while they still lived

And it was universally accepted by profilers that serial killers who used knives, but did not sexually abuse their victims, were acting out some sort of fury of impotence, the knife substituting for their own inadequate part.

No, whatever went on in Sherlock’s sociopathic - albeit high-functioning - brain, he was certain that these sorts of fantasies were not his.

And so his mind raced, skidding around the vital question - what did this hair mean, what did his instincts tell him?

Maybe Sherlock had an alibi. He had to. He didn’t want to think of what he would have to do if Sherlock didn’t have one. Right now, what mattered the most was that if this hair had been planted, that meant that this killer was a very grave threat to Sherlock.

Sherlock needed protection. And that meant, John needed protection.

Anything dangerous to Sherlock always ended up being dangerous to John.

* * *

He shouted for Donovan to bring the car around, and started out the door, calling John on his mobile as he ran down the hall. He radioed for the nearest officer to get to 221b immediately and to guard it until he could get there.

John answered with a stiffness in his voice that meant he was still holding their argument against him. Lestrade swore inside at his own stupidity, and knew he would have to deal with this later. Somehow.

"John, it’s Lestrade. Where’s Sherlock? It’s very important."

"I was going to wait a bit and call to ask you the very same thing. He forgot his mobile, it’s here in the flat. He hasn’t come home since sometime yesterday. Do you mean he’s not working with you? Or Donovan?"

"Did he tell you anything about where he was going?"

"Yes, he did mention going back to all of the places where the bodies had been found. He said he wanted to see if anything had been overlooked," John said. "But that wasn’t yesterday. I don’t think it was."

"John, stay inside and don’t open the door for anyone. I have an officer posted outside. Donovan and I are coming to you. I’ll explain when I get there."

"You’ll bloody explain now, Lestrade."

Lestrade was trying to speed through traffic but it was rush hour. He cursed his bad luck. "John, I shouldn’t tell you this, but I have to. I think Sherlock is in some kind of danger. And you are too."

"Just tell me now, I have to know."

"We found some hair evidence on the last victim. John, it’s Sherlock’s hair."

There was a long silence. "Tell me you don’t believe it, Lestrade."

"As it happens, I don’t. That’s why I said you were in danger. Our killer did this, and I don’t think Sherlock is our killer. I will probably be in the minority when my Super finds out, though. Just try and reconstruct for me, where has Sherlock been for the past four days? Can you do that? We’ll be there soon. You do have your gun?"

"Yes."

"Don’t open the door. But if anybody strange tries to get into the flat, you know what to do."

* * *

Finally they made it to 221b and Lestrade flew up the stair, Donovan close behind. The officer posted outside the door reported all quiet.

John was pale and serious.

"There’s no mistake? It’s really his hair?"

Lestrade and Donovan both nodded grimly. "There’s no mistake. Where has he been, John?"

John handed over a piece of paper where he had colored in red pen on a printout of a calendar the times he had been with Sherlock over the past week, and in blue pen the times that he thought Sherlock had been with Lestrade, working the case.

He had left white the blocks where he didn’t really have any knowledge one way or the other where Sherlock had been.

Lestrade and Donovan exchanged a look full of despair. During the timeframe that the fourth victim had been murdered, and the estimated timeframe that she had been held captive, the paper was white.

No alibi for Sherlock.

Lestrade sank into a chair and put his face in his hands.

Donovan said, "Sir, shouldn’t we pull the CCTV? That will help narrow things."

Lestrade nodded. Donovan muttered into her mobile. "I’ll just go get the laptop, sir," she said. They had a police-issue laptop in the trunk of their car. She left them alone, and stayed away longer than she really needed to; she could sense Lestrade wanted to speak privately to John.

"He’s out there, somewhere, working on the case. He’s just lost track of time," John said reasonably. "He’ll be back. He probably thinks - I’m at Barts working, he isn’t used to my schedule - he probably has no idea I’m here waiting for him."

Lestrade nodded. "You’re probably right."

There was a tense silence. John spoke first. "Thank you, Lestrade. Thanks for not accusing him. You don’t know - you don’t know how much it means. To me."

"John, about the other day - I was wrong to try and tear Sherlock down like that. I was out of line. Again. I can see how you feel about him. I just wish - you felt that way about me. I’ll try to live with that, John. You have my word." He looked away, didn’t want to see John’s face, that expressive face. Whatever he would read there now, it would never be what he wanted.

"Can’t we just keep this to ourselves? If you and Donovan are the only ones who know . . ."

Lestrade shook his head. "John, I don’t think you understand. We have this hair evidence. It’s been verified through the lab. It’s part of the chain of evidence now. It’s the single solitary clue we have. If I don’t have a solid alibi for Sherlock, a very solid alibi, the Superintendent is going to force my hand. He likely will, anyway. Cases like this have a life of their own."

John and Lestrade looked at each other. He pulled the paper out again, the one that John had put together of Sherlock’s movements.

He pointed with his finger at the key blank spot and met John’s eyes meaningfully.

John took the red pen and colored most of the white space red, except for the two shifts he had worked at Barts. He had witnesses to that.

And then Lestrade took the blue pen, and colored in the rest.

Sherlock had an alibi.

* * *
Sally came back with a discreet knock at the door. She set the laptop up and downloaded the CCTV digital video images from the surveillance camera at the end of their Baker Street block.

"Look, sir, it’s going to take hours to go over this properly, let’s just start with today and work back a bit."

A true analysis would require CCTV images from the cameras in the immediate vicinity to map the comings and goings of their target. Sherlock Holmes.

"Donovan, remember - it’s not just Sherlock we’re looking for. It’ll be the killer too, maybe. This may be our break. If he broke into the flat to get that hair, we may get him yet."

The CCTV camera was conveniently pointed quite clearly in view of the entrance to 221b and the sidewalk and street for a good distance on either side of the door, including the comings and goings from Speedy’s, which made things a bit more difficult during daylight hours when there was general milling about of people wanting their lunches or a quick coffee. Mycroft Holmes had, of course, something to do with this.
They gathered around the laptop screen and Donovan expertly navigated through the program. Going backward, she wound back through her own arrival moments ago, then she and Lestrade; the police officer; then some pedestrians and customers of Speedy’s. Then the day was done and they were scrolling backward into the previous night. John returning from his shift at Barts, almost 10:00 p.m., fuzzy in the wet mist swirling in the street.

And half an hour earlier, Sherlock clearly leaving the flat, wearing his usual coat and scarf against the cold and damp mist; absorbed in thought and in a hurry, and looking down at the sidewalk, pacing rapidly down the block where he caught a taxi.

"Where is he going?" Lestrade asked what they were all thinking.

Donovan zoomed in on the taxi’s plates, difficult to see in the mist. "Sir, we need enhancement on that. I’ll get forensic on it." Donovan kept scrolling for the past 48 hours but saw no one that looked like a stranger coming to the door of 221b. They did note the takeout delivery boy and Lestrade instructed Donovan to follow up.

"We have to take his phone, John. It may help us locate him, tell us what he was looking at before he left. His laptop, too."

John felt strangely reluctant to part with these things. He felt very strongly that there was something very wrong. If that phone were to ring, he wanted to be the one to answer it. Lestrade watched his face and could read his thoughts there. "John, you have to trust me. I can’t let you keep these things. We’ll take good care, we’ll monitor the phone and your phone here, too."

John wasn’t sure Sherlock even knew the number to 221b. Suddenly the truth of what was really happening slammed him right between the eyes.

"This killer . . . he put that hair, Sherlock’s hair - there, on the body, that’s what you’re saying."

Lestrade and Donovan nodded. "But I have to tell you again, John, it won’t be what my Super is saying. We have to find Sherlock now, before this gets out of control."

"This killer . . . why did he do this to Sherlock? Is it Moriarty? God, if Sherlock doesn’t come back, does that mean - Moriarty’s taken him again?"

"John, calm down. I think Sherlock had a lead on the case and went to investigate. He’ll be back," he said with as much confidence as he could muster. John just looked at him, and wasn’t buying it. If there was anything that they both knew about Sherlock, it was that he never went anywhere at all without his mobile.

Now John was not listening to Lestrade anymore. He was checking his gun to make sure it was fully loaded.

It was.

"Let’s go," John said.

Lestrade and Donovan began to protest but at the look on his face, they both shut up. Lestrade knew if he didn’t let John in, John would just go it alone.

"All right. Come on then, John. I can’t let you stay here, anyway: I still think our killer may have been here, or may come here. You need to go somewhere safe." He almost bit his tongue as soon as the words came out of his mouth, he didn’t want John thinking he was going to take advantage of this. Donovan scowled at him. She knew him very well.

"I have somewhere safe to go. But right now, I’m going with you. I’m going to ‘assist the police with their inquiries,’" John said darkly, checking the safety.

* * *

A long time passed.

Sherlock awoke in a dim place. The air seemed stuffy and damp. He was lying on a bed, he realized. There was some flickering light and maybe some dim noise. A television, turned down low.

Not at home, certainly not; he could tell from the light, the odor, the silence, the temperature, that he was somewhere else.

Somewhere below ground.

He felt ill. He did a mental survey of his body and amended that to very ill.

Someone had been giving him some very strong drugs; hallucinogens, from the feel of his body and the overall disorientation of his fragmented mind. All he could remember was someone speaking to him patiently, trying to get him to watch something. A black and white movie of some kind.

In the movie, a woman in a white satin nightdress was staggering around, clutching a long sharp knife in her hand. She had wavy blonde hair to her chin; a pale face, dark lips that if they were in color, would have to be red. And another woman, shorter blonde hair, a different film, maybe, also in black and white. In this film too, there was the long sharp knife. This woman also wore white, but differently . . .then . . .she was taking a shower. And then, the long, sharp knife was plunging.

The voice was patiently trying to explain everything to Sherlock. But it just didn’t make any sense. The images didn’t make any sense to him, he couldn’t really focus anyway. He couldn’t stay awake long enough for anything to make any sense.

Sherlock had a high fever; he was dizzy and dehydrated.

He focused on the place that caused the most pain. Somewhere in his stomach was a burning, hurting him terribly. More than he was able to just ignore, and he could ignore a lot.

He put his hand down to feel, surprised that they were not restrained. He felt an incision with sutures there, feeling very hot and leaking blood and pus. It was infected.

He had no idea what this incision was for, but it was making him very ill. He brought his fingers up and smelled the infectious fluid there. Had he been stabbed? He didn’t remember.

If he didn't get help, soon, he was going to be very, very ill.

Maybe even die.

But if whoever had brought him here wanted him dead, he figured he would be dead already. But he was alive.

Considering the strange incision in his side, this was not necessarily a good thing.

He didn't scream or make any noises to call attention to himself. It was perfectly obvious that wherever he was being held, no one would hear him if he screamed.

Instead, he tried to orient his thoughts, and experimented with standing up, but a wave of nausea and fever took him over and he fell off the low bed onto the floor in a swoon.

When the light in the room became bright again, Sherlock was unconscious and thus did not see the tall man bending over him, frantically pressing the angry red weeping incision, literally biting his knuckles with dismay. The man was almost sobbing with frustration and fear.

If Sherlock died on him now, it was all for nothing.

* * *

After weeks of spinning their wheels, John’s fear and anger were explosive, and he was driven through the streets of London day and night to restlessly search for any clue at all to Sherlock’s disappearance. He kept in constant contact with Lestrade, sometimes going with Lestrade and Donovan on their explorations.

The surgery work at Barts was put aside for now. Lestrade let him do as much as he dared, and kept him constantly informed; but scrupulously did not push for anything more personal with John than their joint mission to find Sherlock Holmes, while constantly keepting his eye on John for any sign of . . .he couldn't really say.  He even gave John a copy of the murder book, a disc loaded with images of what he and Donovan judged to be the most important evidence. When not in the streets interviewing witnesses and chasing down the ghosts of leads, John buried himself in the murders.  He paid no attention to Lestrade whatsoever unless the topic was the search for Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock’s laptop had been wiped clean, as had his mobile. There were technicians working on reconstructing it, but they were in awe of the sophistication of the cleaning technique of the killer.

Only John, Lestrade, Donovan and of course, Mycroft believed that it had been the killer. But the official line of Scotland Yard was that Sherlock Holmes was a person of interest and a wanted man. Anyone sighting him should immediately inform the nearest police station.

He was to be considered armed and very dangerous.

Lestrade had forcefully argued against this, had pressed the alibi for all it was worth, just barely preventing a warrant for murder charges being issued against Sherlock. It was the best he could do. His refusal to follow the party line laid out by his Super put his own status in grave jeopardy, and only his record combined with his personal friendship with the Super prevented him from being taken off the investigation altogether. As it was, he was no longer allowed to head it up, and a sometime rival of Lestrade’s, Detective Inspector Allyn was brought to the fore. He was a very political animal, interested in reports and meetings and press conferences; and didn’t have the time or the inclination to keep tabs on Lestrade and Donovan. As far as he was concerned, the less they were seen about the Yard, the more exposure for him and his own hand-picked team. Out of sight, out of mind, was Allyn’s policy.

* * *

One of the first things Lestrade and Donovan did after the video was cleared up was to interview the taxi driver who had picked Sherlock up the last night he was seen, leaving 221b.

The cabbie had dropped Sherlock at London Victoria station, and sure enough CCTV cameras reflected dthat, but one key camera was unluckily malfunctioning, and he had become lost in the crowd. There was no evidence that he took a train, though. The taxi driver readily identified Sherlock from a photograph, although he recalled it had been dark and misty that night.

The CCTV cameras had been of no further help. They rolled the film all the way back to when John and Sherlock returned to 221b from Yorkshire and saw nothing unusual. Lestrade, Donovan and John all canvassed the locations identified with this killer; the places where the bodies had been dumped as well as the most noted streets for prostitution, hoping someone had seen something.

But no one had.

* * *

John was staying with Lady Holmes in her London townhouse. The need to be strong for her, as well as for Sherlock, was the sole motivating force of John’s being, now and kept him from going quite out of his mind.  Lady Holmes had aged a decade from this tragedy, and clung to John and Mycroft, who by common consent tried to never leave her alone for long. While her youngest son had put her through many shocks in her life, this was by far the worst, seeing Sherlock’s name and photographs on the news, in the newspapers. A wanted man.

She no longer left the townhouse, and John gently turned off the television whenever he caught her staring the endless gossip of the talking heads, picking over the bones of this sensational unsolved mystery. He took her on walks in the private walled garden that her townhouse gave onto, protecting her with a threatening scowl from any neighbor who displayed the slightest sign of disturbing her privacy. The press hounded the townhouse, day and night, hoping to catch the elegant Lady Holmes, get her statement.

"Won’t you go back up to Riddleston Hall," John said, gently stroking the back of her hand. Her pale face in profile, drawn with sorrow, was very like Sherlock’s. "I don’t like to see you stalked by the press, those disgusting - vultures," he said heatedly. "They aren’t giving up. Why not go back up to Yorkshire?"

Lady Holmes shook her head. "I am waiting right here. For my son. The last place he was seen was in London. I don’t want to give anyone the idea that I’m running away from anything. If I go up to the Hall, they’ll all say, ‘Oh, Lady Holmes has gone into seclusion, now her son’s a serial killer.’ I can’t do that to Sherlock. No, I won’t go back until the same time I always do. December the tenth. Not a day sooner."

John looked out the window. He always did, hoping to see Sherlock’s beloved form coming down the street. So far, he saw him everywhere, every day, every hour. But he was always wrong.

"And I have you, Doctor Watson," she said gently. "So you see, I’m quite all right here."

John kissed her hand. "I’ll stay as long as you want me," he said.

"You’re all I’ve left of my son," she said.

John didn’t want to let that go, wanted to say, it’s not true, he’s alive, we’ll find him.

But she looked at him steadily with those eyes that were so like Sherlock’s, brilliant, clever, and he said nothing.

To be continued . . .

Listen to Pray for Rain HERE

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