In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Eight: A Spot of Housecleaning.
Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Eight: A Spot of Housecleaning.
Author: ghislainem70
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 3,400
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.
Have you heard the news?
Bad things come in twos -
But I never knew
'bout the little things.
Let the headlines wait
Armies hesitate -
I can deal with fate:
but not the little things.
Armageddon may
Arrive any day -
Someone has to pay
for the little things.
Lyrics to The Little Things, All rights reserved Danny Elfman
Sherlock was awake in the dark. He was kept cuffed hand and foot at all times and shackled to the wall, with some five feet of range of motion to use the sink and toilet. He thought he had learned to distinguish some sounds from above that might be footsteps in what must be a structure above. Pete lived there, that much he was sure of. Because he never was gone for long. The time was very short now. But by observing his comings and goings, and deducing that the man was not nocturnally inclined as Sherlock himself was, that the longest time periods were the nighttime, when, presumably, Pete slept.
This was when Sherlock had time to think.
And although he was very expert at burying thoughts, feelings and experiences that had what he considered negative value, fully worthy of being deleted, he was powerless to direct his thoughts any where other than upon John.
And Lestrade.
He had been staring through the dim light at the stains on the ceiling for a long time. He was surprised by a stealthy turning of the doorhandle and silent footsteps on the stair. He quickly closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. He could feel a rush of air shifting around him and the sound of breathing.
Pete was here and was leaning over him, studying him.
He thought he felt something brush the side of his face. Through his eyelashes he could see that Pete’s outstretched hand was hovering near. His heart started hammering but Pete made no move to harm him, and withdrew the hand and there was a small rustling. Sherlock decided that Pete would expect him to have heard these sounds, and opened his eyes, looking up at Pete looking down at him. There was an expression there that Sherlock felt he understood.
"You know what I am," Sherlock said quietly.
There was a long moment where they looked at each other and something unspoken hung in the air.
After a few moments Pete sat on the edge of the bed. "You know my secrets. I need to know that you trust me. So just tell me. Have you? Have you ever?"
After a moment more, Sherlock finally nodded. "Twice."
"I knew it. How did it make you . . .feel?"
They talked long into the night.
* * *
John returned to 221b only to retrieve his gun.
He called Mycroft on the way. "You know the investigation on Man was a farce - I can’t leave it. There has to be more. Lestrade’s coming, we’re flying up today. What have you learned, anything?" Mycroft had been pursuing all avenues, no matter how indirect and tenuous, leading to Jim Moriarty and his amiable wife, Mrs. Moriarty.
Mycroft was alone in his conviction that the only remaining explanation for Sherlock’s long disappearance was his abduction by the Moriartys. However, as the Moriartys had never done so before without making spectacularly dramatic demands, he privately felt that any hope that this branch of the investigation would yield results was remote, to say the least. He confessed to John that he had learned exactly nothing.
"But Mrs. Moriarty sends her compliments," Mycroft deadpanned. John could never tell when Mycroft was taking the piss, and he was in no mood. "I am just in Euston Road, can you wait a bit," Mycroft asked. John agreed absently. He wanted some bullets and couldn’t remember where the spare box was. A few minutes later he was lost in memory, staring at an untidy pile of old letters addressed to Sherlock, imploring his help. This pile, he recalled as though it were yesterday, had been deemed boring.
He was surprised to feel a gentle hand take his. Lady Holmes was here with Mycroft and her London housekeeper, Rigby, a woman as short and slight as McLeod, in charge of Lady Holmes’ Yorkshire estate, was tall and sturdy. "How are you, Doctor Watson," she said gently, offering her cool cheek to be kissed. He could not speak, a lump in his throat. She squeezed his hand.
"I asked Rigby to come along and take some of Sherlock’s things. I hope you don’t mind. Mycroft told me you were going to the Isle of Man. Anyway. I felt that if . . .well, what if he should come to my flat and need anything?" John felt that there was a rebuke there, but Lady Holmes seemed lost in her own thoughts, too. Rigby emerged from Sherlock’s room with a few items of his clothing and John had to look away.
Rigby was inspecting the fireplace. "Did they ever finish that treatment, sir?" she asked John. He didn’t understand but was looking at the time. He needed to get to the airport. "When you were last away, you recall - all that construction. They treated the walls for mold, something nasty. I must say they did a good job of it," she rubbed her finger along the mantlepiece.
"I have to go now," John said. Mycroft handled over a slim folder. "I did my own little checking . . .had everything looked into rather thoroughly, I thought, John - but I won’t tell you not to go. I myself have not been. If you should learn anything at all - call me at once. Scotland Yard has no jurisdiction, I’m sure you appreciate, on the Isle of Man. It isn’t even part of the United Kingdom. It has its’ own parliament, it is a law unto itself. I have taken the trouble to prepare you a report," he indicated the folder.
Lady Holmes embraced him tightly, whispering in his ear as he left:
"Find my son."
* * *
When they landed by private charter on the tiny Isle of Man, or Mann, 33 miles long and 13 miles wide in the middle of the Irish Sea, it was nearly dark. John would not delay, he wanted to go directly to the police headquarters in Douglas, the capital.
"You can’t just march into police headquarters and start a row," Lestrade said.
John just stared at him with those eyes that now seemed permanently darker. "Watch me," he said through clenched teeth.
So it was that half an hour later, Lestrade was pulling John off of a smug desk sergeant who "wasn’t sure when Detective Chief Inspector Ramsay would be returning, he could make an appointment for next week," while John was yelling that he wasn’t going anywhere until someone gave him some answers about the "running man suicide." Lestrade was whispering into John’s ear to please not get them arrested while he held him back by the back of his jacket.
Lestrade could tell at a glance that this was not a police force accustomed to handing a great deal of serious crime. The atmosphere was more like a bank or stockbroker’s offices, with young, eager, and highly organized staffers distributed in gleaming cubicles. At the moment there wasn’t any case so pressing as to prevent any one of them from standing and gaping at John and Lestrade.
"Where is he?" Lestrade asked the desk sergeant gruffly. He had already given the chap an eyeful of his Scotland Yard badge and his Black Team credential. He made certain that the sergeant also got an eyeful of the Glock in his shoulder holster. The sergeant patiently explained that DCI Ramsay home on sick leave until the end of the week. John pounded the desk. "His address, then, please," he demanded. "Unless any of you useless lot want to tell me anything about this case?"
There was an eloquent silence. Nobody volunteered.
The sergeant took another look at Lestrade’s Black Team credential. "Let me just phone ahead, Detective Inspector. This is most irregular."
After a moment, though, he passed a sheet of paper bearing the seal of the Isle of Man Constabulary - a red circle in a blue six-pointed star with the emblem of Man, the "three legs of man," or triskelion, together with the Manx motto, Quoquncue Jeceris Stabit - "whithersoever you throw it, it will stand." It had Ramsay’s address neatly written out.
"Just warn him we’re coming, then," John said grimly on the way out. The sergeant nodded vigorously and John banged out the glass doors. On the way, a female officer surreptitiously thrust a folded card at him, which he palmed and kept walking. Lestrade wanted to make a joke about this, but one look at John’s face made him bite his tongue. He was starting to wish he hadn’t let John come here. It was a wild-goose chase. No way the local coppers were going to admit they had been less than diligent.
But he intended to be there when John became exhausted from his tilting at windmills.
* * *
On what Sherlock assumed was the following night, he was again alone with the television. He had been looking at the menu screen for the DVR for a long time. There was one film he hadn’t seen. It was the video feed from Lestrade’s flat.
Video of John and Lestrade.
Over and over his finger had rubbed the button on the remote that would select this final film but had never yet pressed it. Finally, he hit another button, which highlighted the choice "delete?"
He pressed the button.
At that moment Pete came storming down into the room. He pushed Sherlock away from the television roughly and grabbed the remote from him.
"Explain yourself," he said to Sherlock. Sherlock shook his head.
"Doesn’t matter. Don’t you see?"
Pete was agitated, though. He was very particular about his films. "You’ll regret it, Sherlock. I’m downloading it again. You’ll thank me," he said urgently, kneeling to unplug the DVR box.
At which moment Sherlock hurled himself on Pete’s back, knocking him hard to the floor. Sherlock grabbed the DVR in his bound hands and swung it down with all his might against Pete’s head. Pete was dazed and blood was running down his face. Sherlock dealt him another crashing blow with the corner of the DVR.
Pete lay still on the floor.
Sherlock patted him down and found his key to the door at the top of the stairs and the key to his shackles and leg retstraints. He used the key to roughly twist and gouge his way through the plastic zipcuffs on his wrists.
"That’s Mr Holmes to you," he said to Pete’s inert form as he crawled unsteadily up the stair. His legs were weak from his long confinement, but he made it to the top and unlocked the door which was bolted from the inside.
He was in a small, brightly-lit kitchen. There was a tea kettle on here, loudly simmering. He stared around, disoriented. Then he shut and bolted the door behind him. His heart was thundering and the blood was singing in his veins.
He was free. He had escaped.
* * *
Sherlock looked for a telephone, but saw nothing. He took a step toward the dark doorway at the end of the kitchen but stopped when a tall figure, a man, suddenly appeared there.
Sherlock opened his mouth to speak and could not even form the words.
It was a policeman in uniform.
"Thank God!" Sherlock cried. "I’m Sherlock Holmes, I swear I am innocent, I’ve been held captive - help me, he’s down there," he pointed to the locked door. He realized that he was splashed with blood from his attack on Pete. God knew what he looked like.
The policeman was tall and broad-shouldered, with short-cropped blondish hair and a long, thin face. He pulled out a gun.
Sherlock held out his hands, palms up. "No, no, no, you don’t understand, please you’ve got to listen to me," he was babbling.
"Shut up," the policeman ordered, "and stand with your palms against the wall, NOW."
"Wait - " Sherlock cried, but whatever plea he would have made died on his lips when the policeman pistol-whipped him.
Sherlock went down.
* * *
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," the policeman muttered.
He took the key from Sherlock and opened the door, peering down the stairs. Pete’s legs could be seen slowly thrashing on the floor below.
The policeman grabbed Sherlock under his arms and slowly dragged him back down the stairs, his legs and feet bumping, dragging and catching on the stair on the way down. Sherlock’s head lolled and bounced. Once, the policeman had to stop because Sherlock’s pants became entangled in a protruding nail on the edge of the stair.
Pete was sitting up now, holding his hand to a large gash in his forehead. Blood welled up between his fingers. He looked up at the policeman.
The policeman dumped Sherlock hard onto the floor, and pointed his gun at Sherlock’s head.
Pete threw himself over Sherlock’s body. "Don’t, Mike, please please please."
The policeman frowned and cocked the gun. "It’s no good, Jack," he said. "I can’t cover for - this - any more. It’s different when you play your dirty tricks in London. People are still asking questions. You’ve fucked this up royally, you bloody fool. Now I reckon it’s time for me to clean up your mess. I always do."
Pete, or rather, Jack, was cringing but would not move from Sherlock. "Please, we’ll go away, I’ll take him away. Let me take him. We won’t come back. I promise," he pleaded, holding Sherlock’s head in his hands.
Mike slowly thrust his gun into his holster. "God knows I don’t want his blood on my hands. You disgust me, you know that, don’t you? Jesus. Thank God Mother’s not here to see all this." At this, Jack cowered even more and hung his head.
The policeman threw a set of car keys at Jack. "Now. Right now. I mean it. Go, before I change my mind."
Jack was pulling at Sherlock’s limp body. "Help me, Mike," he said pitifully.
Mike grabbed Sherlock under the arms again and Jack took the feet, and together they slowly and laboriously pulled him step by step back up the staircase.
When they got to the top, Mike held Sherlock while Jack secured his hands and feet.
Then he put tape over his mouth and a bag over his head.
They went into the garage. There was a shiny new police cruiser here and an anonymous-looking white Ford Focus sedan.
They threw Sherlock’s body in the trunk.
The policeman thrust some cash at Jack and walked away without another word or glance back.
Jack pulled a cap down over his cut forehead and pulled the white car out into the drive, taking care to drive slowly and carefully. It was dark outside. He turned on the headlamps. He turned the corner and looked both ways before pulling into the main road, passing a speeding taxicab.
* * *
Lestrade and John got out of the cab and asked the cabbie to wait. The home of Detective Chief Inspector Mike Ramsay was at the end of Sea Cliff Road, not far from the King Edward Bay Golf Club where he was a distinguished member. It was a street of very posh-looking restored Victorian and Edwardian houses, looking out over the sea towards the English shore.
Lestrade had implored John to let him handle the interview. John hadn’t agreed and was scowling ferociously. This should go well, Lestrade thought pessimistically.
Their knock on the neat green-painted front door yielded no result.
"They did say he was on sick leave," Lestrade said. John was peering through a curtained window but could see nothing. Finally, though, a tall, broad shouldered man wearing casual khakis, a navy blue jumper and leather slippers opened the door. He held a tissue to his nose. His face was red and flushed and his blond hair was mussed.
"Good evening, Detective Inspector - Lestrange, was it? Sorry - Lestrade - and Doctor Watson. My sergeant telephoned. I didn’t tell him to stop you. I understand Mr. Holmes was affiliated with New Scotland Yard," he said dubiously, as though the idea were outlandish. He didn’t open the door to invite them in. "What can I do for you? I suppose you know I am on sick leave. Miserable flu, can’t shake it. Don’t want to pass anything on."
John and Lestrade returned stony faces at this. "This may take a while," John said firmly. "We’ve come all the way from London. May we come in and talk to you?"
DCI Ramsay hesitated. "Are you sure you can’t wait until Monday? See my assistant Bonnie, she’ll fix you up. I’m really quite under the weather," he said politely enough.
Lestrade was examining the man’s perspiring face, his apparently fresh clothing, and noticed something peculiar.
There was a minuscule smudge of blood on his neck.
Not from shaving.
It looked very fresh.
So small that probably only a detective used to straining for trace evidence would have noticed it.
He pulled his gun and kicked the door in, knocking Ramsay back. John immediately drew his pistol as well, glancing up at Lestrade. "What, Greg, what?"
Ramsay was bellowing for help and fumbling for his own gun but the twin barrels staring him down dissuaded him from rash action. Lestrade kicked behind him and the front door slammed shut. "I’ll have you up on charges, you prick," Ramsay shouted. "Your badge doesn’t mean shit on Mann, you’ll learn soon enough."
"Not if I don’t have you up on charges first, mate," Lestrade retorted, his gun trained steady. "John - look, he’s got blood on his neck. Check behind him," he said as he carefully relieved Ramsay of his gun. These Manx cops never saw any action, he decided. Nobody would get his gun off of him.
John looked and saw another smudge on Ramsay’s ear.
"I’ll hold him and we’ll have ourselves a little chat," Lestrade ordered. "John, search the house. Be careful, there may be another person. Look for a hiding place. Look for blood."
* * *
By the time that Sherlock awoke, he was in total darkness and was having a hard time breathing through the bag over his head. He deliberately calmed his breathing. He was nauseous from intense tossing about of wherever he was lying down, bound. From the faint smell emanating through the bag, he was able to determine that he was in the trunk of a car.
And from the tossing and swaying of the car, they could only be in one place.
They were on a ferryboat.
* * *
John focused with a soldier's discipline on the immediate task at hand. The horror of finding blood here, of all places, made him feel cold and hard. He stalked through the well-appointed rooms with his gun raised, but it was eerily quiet except for the distant occasional rumble of the sea. The kitchen was brightly lit and very clean. Too clean. He smelled bleach. There was a wet mop sitting in a bucket next to a door. The floor was wet and had obviously just been mopped.
"Not too ill for a spot of housecleaning, then?" John shouted to the next room. "Would have thought you left that to the housekeeper."
"I told you, I’ve been ill. I gave her a few days off. No point getting her sick, too. That white tile gets so bloody dirty I like to give it a swipe every day."
Lestrade looked at Ramsay with his hard detective’s eyes. "At seven o’clock in the evening?"
John had found the locked door. "Lestrade, there’s a locked door. In the kitchen."
Lestrade said, "Give us the key then," but Ramsay shook his head in the negative. "Shoot it, John. Shoot the lock," he said calmly. Ramsay made a move toward the kitchen but Lestrade blocked the larger man’s path. "Don’t try it," he warned.
John turned his face away and shot off the lock. The door swung open.
He looked down a staircase to a dim room. There was a flickering as though a television were on down there.
But there was no sound.
John went down the steps.
To be continued . . .
Listen to The Little Things HERE
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