Willow

December 30th
Footsteps on the stairs; Sherlock appeared, wrapped in his dressing gown and with his hair wet, and went into his bedroom. He reappeared a moment later in trousers and a fresh shirt.

“Tea,” John said, nodding to the mug on the counter.

“Thank you.”

“What's happened with the case, then?” The mirror was covered in pictures, close-ups of a body, and on the far wall was a map with clusters of pins. John shoved a pile of articles printed from the Oxford English Dictionary off his chair and onto the floor.

Sherlock sat in his armchair. “Lestrade called at four forty-three this morning. One of Mellor's neighbours saw the altercation through the open blinds and called the police. Wilkins again departed to the east. I tracked him as far as Wormwood Scrubs, where I lost the trail.”

“And...?” John prompted after a moment.

Sherlock got up and began to pace before stopping in front of the map. “The homeless network helped me piece together a partial account of Wilkins's movements over the last two weeks, along with the soil samples. I also found a pile of receipts in the rubbish bin at his flat.” His finger brushed over the map. “I retraced his path.”

“By ten I had identified seven possible targets for the next attack. Whatever this 'goose' is, there have to be six of them-- he's been consistent with the numbers. And on the odd days, he's strangled one person and referenced the song in another way, but the even days he has stabbed the number of people corresponding to the day.”

“But...” John leaned forward, frowning. “How can he plan to stab six people? Or ten, or twelve?”

“The logical answer is that he's planning for some of his victims to be incapacitated by... drugs, or sleep, or infirmity, or age.”

“Christ,” John muttered.

Sherlock nodded to the stack of papers that John had displaced. “I checked every unique meaning ascribed to 'goose' in the English language in the past thousand years. Narrowed the list. It's almost certainly this brothel.” His fingers brushed over the map.

“Almost?” John said.

Sherlock looked annoyed. “Lestrade made me give him the entire list.”

John yawned. “What's he doing bothering with the bloody Oxford English Dictionary? If he wants to kill people, why doesn't he just... kill them? Why all these double meanings, and French wine, and...”

“Every serial killer has a fascination,” Sherlock said softly. “Sometimes it's just death. Sometimes it's more interesting.” He smiled.

“Okay,” John said after a moment. “So, Lestrade's watching all these places, they'll catch him?”

“Yes.” Sherlock looked at his watch. “You may as well sleep. It'll be a few hours. Can't risk showing up too soon and scaring him off.”

“Mmm.” Sleep sounded good to John right then, even with the knowledge that they were going confront a serial killer making his brain buzz. “Yeah.”

“John.”

John opened his eyes. Sherlock was standing in the doorway. The clock said 2:52. “Be right there.”

The taxi dropped them off in north Islington. They walked two blocks west, and then Sherlock knocked on the door of a decrepit-looking basement flat. Lestrade let them in. The flat was as rundown on the inside as on the outside; clearly, the police had been able to use it as a stakeout because it was vacant. Besides the detective inspector, there were two other police officers waiting in the kitchen, sitting at the table and watching out the back windows at the building across the alley. John flattened himself by the back door and studied it through the small, high window. One back door opening off of the alley; one large window covered in drapes, one small window with a lamp in it.

“There's another pair watching the front,” Lestrade said, coming up behind him. “But Sherlock seemed to think he'd go in this way.”

“Yes.” Sherlock looked up from whatever he was doing with... a piece of rope. “This is an unusually large brothel. The average in London is three women; this has six female prostitutes and one male prostitute. They occupy the first two floors. That size of an operation will have cameras in the front entrance and possibly a retired security guard as a bouncer. He's much better off sneaking in the back.”

John turned away from the window and sat in the battered chair in the hallway, where he could still see out. Sherlock was standing across the hall, staring fixedly out the window. He shook back his sleeve to glance at his watch.

“Here.”

John looked up to find Lestrade offering him a packet of sandwiches and a flask, which by the smell of it had coffee. “I thought he'd be dragging you out of bed to come here, so I brought extra.”

“Oh-- thank you. Thanks very much.” John realized his last meal had been half a sandwich in the hospital's canteen at noon the day before. “Sherlock, you...?”

“You know I don't eat when I'm working.” He didn't take his eyes off the window.

“There's coffee.”

Sherlock held out his hand.

“I brought that for you,” Lestrade protested as John stood and put the flask in his flatmate's hand.

“There's enough for both of us,” John said. Sherlock took about three swallows and handed the flask back, all without taking his gaze off of the window.

John settled back in the chair and started on the sandwiches. Against the small of his back was pressure in the shape of a holster, and he licked his lips and glanced at Sherlock. He couldn't use the pistol without getting into a hell of a lot of trouble with the police. But he was the only one armed-- the ARV had not put in an appearance. So if he had to shoot to stop the serial killer, would he?

Bringing the gun in the first place, he supposed, had been the answer to that.

“Sherlock mentioned two other locations?” he said.

“Donovan's got a squad at one of them, and Dimmock's watching the other,” Lestrade said, shifting against the wall.

“Er-- you want to sit?”

“Thanks, no.”

Time passed in silence. Nothing moved in the alley outside, though he heard rats scurrying and squeaking in the walls.

“God, I'll be glad when this case is closed,” Lestrade said softly. John studied him. Even in the dim moonlight coming in from the alley, he looked bad: dark circles under his eyes and about three days' worth of stubble on his chin. John suspected he looked a bit scruffy himself. “The media's practically pissing themselves with the hysteria. The usual about how the Yard is incompetent and all that.”

“No more than the usual incompetence,” Sherlock murmured.

John shifted in his seat. It had been unusually dry for the past few days, but the damp of the basement flat was getting to his leg-- or maybe it was all in his head, produced by too little sleep over the past few days.

Lestrade's mobile buzzed. He answered it and listened for a few seconds. Sherlock was already reaching for the door when Lestrade said, “The tailor's.”

John followed Sherlock as they ran through the streets, skidding around corners and dodging through traffic, which was light this time of the morning. They slowed as they came to a brightly-lit basement flat with police officers going in and out and a knot of people on the pavement. “Which way?” Sherlock demanded of Donovan, panting a little. “Which way did he go?”

She pointed, but John didn't see which direction she'd indicated, because the images in front of him coalesced and he saw one of the police-- just a kid, really-- down on the pavement with a knife in his gut. Sherlock took off running and was gone. “Move,” John said, and forced his way through the people. “I'm a doctor, let me through!” He dropped to his knees beside the boy, who was pale and sweating. “You're going to be all right,” he said. “What's your name?”

“Dean,” the young man gasped.

Someone was reaching for the knife hilt. “Need to get that out--”

“Go do your job and let me do mine,” he snapped. “Right. Dean, you're going to be all right.” He opened his coat, took off his jumper, ripped it in pieces with his pocket knife, and pressed it around the wound.

Donovan knelt on the other side of the body. “Ambulance is on the way. What do you need?” She shrugged out of her blazer and cut it into strips.

“Whatever you can give me in the way of bandages. Something to keep him warm.” He glanced at the flat. “Any casualties in there?”

“None. Winston!” she called. “Talk to the family, get a blanket and some cloth.”

Dean was gasping, torso shaking. Donovan put a hand on his forehead. “He's cold,” she said, brows furrowing.

“Yeah, it's the shock.”

“Right.” She stood. “Dean, hang in there. Help's coming soon. You're going to be fine.”

Donovan left. Someone appeared with a blanket and, under John's direction, spread it over the young man's legs. “Get another one for his head and shoulders,” John said, and kept steady pressure on the bandages. He tried not to think of his friend out there alone, chasing the maniac who had done this.

Finally he heard sirens. Dean was barely conscious when the paramedics got to him; John backed away and let them load him into the ambulance. He looked down. His hands were covered with warm, sticky blood.

“Here, you can wash up in here.” Someone took gentle hold of his elbow and guided him down the stairs and into the flat, the largest part of which was occupied by racks of clothing. John looked at the occupants, all huddled against the far wall, looking very much on edge. Six of them: a man in his late sixties or early seventies; a younger man, probably his son, and his wife; a girl of about ten, a younger boy, and an infant in the woman's arms. Age or infirmity. Christ. He stumbled into the W. C. and scrubbed his hands under the hot water.

By the time he got back outside, Sherlock was back. “I lost him,” he said quickly. “I don't know how.” He turned, hands in his pockets. “Why here? There's a missing factor.”

“What do tailors have to do with geese?” John asked, drying his hands on his trousers.

“An archaic term for a tailor's iron. Also for a prostitute. They own an antique one.”

“Think he'll be back?” Lestrade asked, joining them.

“Not for the geese.”

“Who is he going to go after next, then?”

Sherlock was frowning, staring in the direction Wilkins had run. “Post a guard on Lisa Regan.”

“You think he'll go after her again?”

“He's been thwarted tonight, he'll want to strike back at us. Tomorrow is a strangling, meaning one person. Both turtledoves and swans are frequently used as metaphors in the context of music, both mate for life, and swans are also associated with final performances before death.” Sherlock rattled these statements off quickly.

Lestrade was writing quickly in a little notebook. “Where else? What about that list you had?”

“I'll send it to you.” Sherlock seemed distracted. He strode off towards the main road.

The only time John had ever seen Sherlock brood like this over a case was during the business with Moriarty, after the old woman had been blown up. He stared out the window silently for the duration of the ride back to the flat, eyes slightly narrowed, lips compressed. “All right, what is it?” John said when they'd got inside.

“I'm missing something,” Sherlock said, and took the stairs up three at a time. He hung his coat on the back of the door and stared at the map. “Why did he go to the tailor's and not to the brothel? He visited the tailor's once but the brothel twice, and more recently.”

“Maybe... he was scared away from the brothel?”

Sherlock picked up the scattered stacks of papers and sat in the armchair, rifling through them. “There were easier ways to arrange for three French hens-- and the semantics there was questionable. So he's not going for easy. So what is the missing factor...” He stared at the floor, frowning, and then looked up. “Oh, go to bed, I can't think with you yawning.”

“Are you sure--”

“I've got all the evidence I need. The answer is here, somewhere.” His arm gesture encompassed the living room.

“Wake me if anything happens,” John said, and limped up to bed.

He woke five hours later, still tired but unable to rest any longer. A shower felt like heaven; after putting on clean clothes, he went downstairs, determined to have a proper meal before Sherlock dragged him out to wherever was next.

Sherlock, however, was not in the flat.

John put the kettle on and opened the fridge to find something to eat. He glanced over the decomposing stoat-- bagged, and on the bottom shelf per agreement-- before finding a carton of eggs that looked safe. They were on his shelf, the top shelf, and they smelled fine when he cracked them into the pan. There was nothing to fry up-- except for the stoat-- but a rummage through the cupboards turned up three ends of bread suitable for toasting.

He did all the washing up that had piled up during the last three days-- not much, they hadn't been in the flat-- and checked his mobile for messages from Sherlock. None, but there was a voicemail from his very apologetic boss, asking if he could possibly work the next day. John saved it without returning an answer.

He should ring Harry back, try to smooth things over from Christmas Day, and set up dinner for next week; he should do the laundry; he should clean his gun. Instead, he fell asleep again, this time on the sofa.

The downstairs door banged, and the speed of the footsteps indicated who it was. John sat up and blinked. It was noon, and Sherlock had just burst in carrying a sheaf of papers. He hung his coat up, shoved everything off the coffee table, and spread them out.

John picked up the toppled mug and wiped up the spilt tea with the kitchen roll. The papers were glossy, full-page close-ups of two bodies, or body parts: one pale beige throat ringed with purple bruising, one dark brown torso with numerous stab wounds. The other two victims, from the first two days. “Find anything?”

“Why did he switch hands between murders?” Sherlock's long finger hovered above one dark red mark.

“Maybe he... hurt himself, strangling Annie Pratt?”

“He favored his right leg as he ran away from the Ealing murder. Lisa Regan said he was wearing an ankle wrap.”

“Arthritis? He is in his sixties.”

“When was the last time your shoulder ached?”

“... sorry?”

“Your shoulder.”

John thought back. “Two... no, three days ago. You think... he has some sort of old wound?”

“There's nothing in his medical records to indicate it.”

“So...” John thought. “He... hid it? Didn't get treated?”

“Possibly.” Sherlock leaned back, and his eyes narrowed. “If he'd killed Lisa Regan on the first try. Where would he be going tomorrow morning?”

“You think he knows she's alive, then?”

“Yes. Mike Delgado's obituary was in the paper this morning, and the chamber choir issued a press release on the death of their lead tenor.”

“Right.”

Sherlock picked up his laptop and began to type quickly. “I need you to go down to Scotland Yard and get a report, the death of Geraldine Wilcox.”

“His mother.”

“Yes. Bring me every transcribed conversation anyone had with the man who killed her.”

“What about his father?”

“No.”

John took the Tube. There was a delay, and it took him nearly an hour to get back with the papers. “Here.” He dropped them on the table in front of Sherlock. His flatmate didn't move. John turned away, and looked over his shoulder: he was staring at the ceiling without blinking. “You're welcome.”

“You may as well go to work tomorrow.”

“Sorry. What?”

Sherlock was staring at the ceiling. “You'll be there anyway. After tomorrow morning it'll all be tedious paperwork.”

“Right, okay. How did you know my boss wanted me to come in?”

“You were sleeping when I got back. You're saving your energy for something.”

“How is he planning to sneak into the hospital?”

“The art of disguise is knowing how to hide in plain sight.”

“Right.” John paused. “Unless you need me for something, I'll just be upstairs.” He looked back from the base of the stairs. Sherlock hadn't moved.

He felt silly sleeping in the middle of the day, but his time in the Army had taught him to rest whenever he got the chance, and running round with Sherlock had cemented the lesson: sometimes the chance didn't come for days at a time. His friend seemed to regard sleep like he regarded eating, something to engage in only when there was nothing mentally stimulating going on.

“I've got it arranged with Lestrade,” Sherlock announced when John next appeared downstairs. “You're going in at midnight and taking over as the physician on duty for Lisa Regan's wing. I'll be admitted as a patient. We'll have police backup.”

John was immediately glad he'd caught up on his sleep, since he was now obligated to spend twenty-four hours at the hospital. “Did you figure it out?”

“No.” Sherlock bit off the word. “But when I next see him, I will.”

Sherlock seemed unable to calm down for the next several hours, pacing and playing the violin; John knew the mystery was bothering him even more than he was letting on. He rang Harry, did laundry, and cleaned his gun, before supper. “That dangly bit just fell off your stoat,” he called, pulling his head out of the fridge.

“Fine.”

“How long are you going to keep it?”

“At least a week.”

“Tea?”

“Please.”

Sherlock was poring over the pictures of the bodies again. “That's a nice new camera Molly's got,” John said.

“... sorry, what?”

“I said--”

Sherlock leapt up and grabbed his coat from the back of the door. “I'll be back in two hours.”

After an hour and fifty-three minutes, Sherlock texted John to tell him that he was going straight to the hospital. It was too early for John to take over, but he decided to go in anyway, and use the extra time to familiarize himself with the floor: the wings on the first floor and above were laid out differently than the A&E, and if it came to another chase, knowing the plan would be critical.

He hesitated over his pistol before stuffing it in the back of his trousers. There was no way in hell that bloody bastard was getting to one of John's patients, even if John went to prison for it.

At a few minutes after eleven, he locked up the flat and walked to the Tube station.

A/N: I may be getting lazy here...

Everything Sherlock describes, you can really do with the Oxford English Dictionary. It's why I love it.

December 28th
Sound penetrated the earplugs; someone was knocking on his door. John woke, looked at the clock-- 4:38, damn it-- and took out the earplugs. “What?”

Sherlock pushed open the door. “Lestrade just rang. Quadruple homicide, in Ealing. Less than an hour ago.”

John sat up and stared at him.

“You don't have to come,” Sherlock added.

“I'm awake now, aren't I?” John swung his legs out of bed. “Five minutes.”

Sherlock disappeared down the stairs. John pressed his lips together, tilted his head, and got dressed. Sherlock had handled plenty of cases on his own, and if he thought this was important enough to wake John, he was probably right. Probably. And John had no desire to return to the nightmare from which the knock had jolted him. He pulled on clothes suitable for going out, limped downstairs, and found his coat.

“Here.” Sherlock thrust a mug into his hand and tugged on his own coat. John blinked at the mug, and sniffed at it to make sure it really was the tea it appeared to be. Sherlock, on the threshold of the door, looked over his shoulder. “I haven't confused tea and glacial acetic in weeks. Come on, John!”

“Comforting,” John murmured, and followed him down the stairs.

“Any progress on the Hendon case?” he asked when they were seated in the back of a taxi.

Sherlock looked out the window. “Three possible leads.”

“What are they?”

“Suspicious withdrawals from the ex-boyfriend's bank account last week, amounts in line with hiring a shoddy assassin. Fibers on the octopus consistent with a particular brand of wool coat. Tracing the Muscadel back to the point of sale.”

“But... shoddy assassins don't buy expensive French wine, the coat's not enough to go on with, and you can't get any farther with the Muscadel until someone's awake?”

“Precisely.”

Traffic was light at that hour; the taxi deposited them behind a police car parked in front of a seedy-looking building that reminded John of his uni accommodation. The front door was unlocked, and Lestrade was standing in the doorway of the second flat on the right, silhouetted against the bright light of the crime scene floodlights. He turned when he saw them. “We're just beginning to--” Then he looked past them. “I thought you were off today, George.”

John looked over his shoulder and saw that Cyrus had followed them in.

“Sally called me anyway,” Cyrus said, and sounded faintly aggravated. “As it happens the concert was cancelled-- the soprano and tenor are both missing. Lisa was right put out.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I passed Gina on the way here, she's got the gear.”

Sherlock had pushed past Lestrade into the flat; John left Cyrus and Lestrade talking procedural matters and followed him. He stopped when he saw the scene, and closed his eyes. Oh, God.

When he opened them again, Sherlock was bending over one of the bodies. There were four of them, all girls: two on the sofa in knickers and shirts, one slumped against the wall in a dressing gown, one on the floor in a tracksuit. They all had stab wounds to the chest or torso, and there was a large knife still in the stomach of the girl on the end of the sofa. One of them had a joint in her hand, and another joint was partially crushed on the floor.

“Is this... connected?” John said. “Someone going after students, girls?”

Sherlock was examining the girl in the tracksuit. “Completely different mode of operation. The

killer came to them. Same build, though, as the one who killed Annie Pratt. Different handedness, however...” He moved on to the girls on the sofa.

Cyrus and Minnelli came in and started to process the scene. Sherlock was still looking at the bodies. It was unusual, John realized, for Lestrade to call Sherlock in before the rest of his team even got there-- very unusual. The detective inspector was more concerned about this than he was letting on.

Lestrade came in. “Press is going to have a bloody field day with this one,” he muttered. “Sherlock, what've you got?”

Sherlock straightened. “Four students, flatmates, all habitual marijuana users. The one on the floor also used heroin on a semi-regular basis. They'd ordered takeaway-- Thai, judging by the table-- and opened the door for the delivery man, which is how the killer got inside the building. After the man left, he knocked. He stabbed the girl who opened the door, shoved her down, made a shallow cut across the torso of the girl in the red shirt, stepped around her, stabbed the girl in the dressing gown while she was still sitting down, crossed the room, pulled the girl in the blue shirt away from the window where she was trying to escape, made the deep cut you see in her abdomen, and left the blade in the abdomen of the girl in the red shirt, who had recovered enough to attempt to grapple with him. The girl in the dressing gown was trying to dial 999 on her mobile phone; he took it from her and left by the window. It took at most forty-five seconds. You'll find the mobile in the first skip outside, and questioning the next-door neighbor who heard the screams and rang emergency will tell you that he is a man of slight stature and average height and was wearing a mask. None of the girls managed to leave a mark on him, and...” he trailed off, staring at the window sill.

“Sherlock?” John prompted, following his gaze.

Sherlock took out his hand lens and squatted on his heels. “... and we're looking for an ambidextrous serial killer with an interest in cephalopods,” he finished.

“Hang on. You're saying this is connected to Annie Pratt?”

“Coat fibers.” Sherlock picked something up with tweezers and put it in an evidence bag.

“Well, maybe the killers just... had the same style of coat.” Lestrade shoved his hands in his pocket and frowned.

“And the same shoe size, height, and weight? Use your eyes for something besides glaring at me, Lestrade.” Sherlock stood, lifted the sash of the window, put his head out, and then climbed into the alley. John sighed, and went round by the door at the end of the hallway outside.

He'd expected to find Sherlock halfway to Brent already, but he was kneeling by a skip next to the window. John came up behind him and tried to deduce was what of interest about the jumbled pile of boxes. “His foot caught here,” Sherlock said, indicating a particular box. “It was the third box in the stack. This way!” He straightened up and took off, John following closely behind.

“Where are we going?” John asked. “Isn't he long gone by now?”

“Direction he was going when he tripped over the box indicates he took the first left out of the alley,” Sherlock said. “But if he'd kept going that would have brought him out right in front of that pub at closing time. Clearly he didn't know the area. He's got splashes of blood across the front of his coat and left shin, too conspicuous until he could change clothes, so--” He skidded around the corner into an even narrower alley, this one damp and mossy. “He would have turned here.”

“Hang on. Sherlock, are you trying to catch this bloke? Because I didn't bring...”

“He's long gone by now,” Sherlock said, crouching over a patch of moss.

“Then why--” But Sherlock had straightened up and was running down the alley.

It didn't take John long to figure out that Sherlock was looking for something, but that was as far as he got; he couldn't figure out the connection between trampled patches of moss, a discarded doll, and an empty package of crisps. Sherlock didn't explain, and John gave up asking. It felt like they'd run across half of London, and the sky was beginning to lighten in the east, when they turned a corner and he saw a line of police cars... they'd come back to the crime scene.

Sherlock paused outside the building, then barged through the front door to where Lestrade was talking with Donovan and Cyrus. “Killer is a man, between fifty and sixty, beginning to have arthritis in his right knee or ankle. Came on foot from the east, turned east at every opportunity when leaving. The knife is his own, he's owned it for some time, but it's an unusual design, probably purchased from a Japanese sushi restaurant going out of business. Given the corrosion pattern on the handle, he lives in Lambeth. He traveled to both Hendon and here on foot, which means these weren't random killings, he had a reason for coming here.”

Lestrade, Donovan and Cyrus were all staring at Sherlock. Lestrade recovered first. “Why is he going after female students? None of them showed signs of rape or sexual assault... If they're not random killings, then what links these five women?”

“I don't know. Why don't you find out?”

John followed him to the street. “Where now?”

“Our killer has expensive tastes: Muscadel from France, and now a Loden wool coat. Relatively new, by the looks of the fibers.” He took a small bag from the inside pocket of his coat and scrutinized it carefully as the taxi pulled up to the curb. “I'd say this season or last.” His phone rang. “Sherlock Holmes.” By the rapid-fire French that followed, John concluded that it was about the Muscadel.

“A lead?” he asked when Sherlock hung up.

“Possibly. Stop!” He ducked out of the cab, handed something to the person wrapped in ragged garments and huddled in the doorway of the abandoned building to their right, and came back to the cab.

They went back to Baker Street. Sherlock scrutinized the wool samples under the microscope, muttering about lanolin composition. John fixed breakfast and took a catnap on the sofa until a ringing mobile woke him. “Sherlock,” he said groggily, before waking up enough to realize that it was his mobile. “Hello?”

“John, I'm glad I caught you.” It was his boss. “Listen... any chance you could work a double tomorrow?”

John hesitated, glanced into the kitchen, and licked his lips. “Er...”

“Thompson's been involved in a hit-and-run across the city, and McGerry's caught the flu from a patient and had to be admitted for dehydration. Raner said she can cover for Thompson, but I need you to cover for McGerry until we can get someone from another hospital.” Pause. “I'll have someone cover for you later in the week, you can have some more time off.”

John suppressed a sigh. “Yes, all right.”

“Thanks, John.”

“I can't run round with you tomorrow, I've got to work,” John said, coming into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

“Dull.”

“Tea?”

“Yes.”

John filled it from the tap. “You think he's going to strike again?”

“Why shouldn't he? The only question is, when.”

“What can I--”

“The door.”

John blinked. Yes, that was a knock. He ran downstairs and opened the door. A tall woman bundled up to her eyes with a ragged coat and scarf handed him a piece of paper and turned away. “Er, thanks?” he called after her.

It was a list of streets. “What's this?” he asked, handing it to Sherlock.

“The route the killer took, as far as Battersea Park. Pass me my phone, it's in my coat.”

John returned with the phone. “That was fast.”

“A lot easier than finding the Golem.” He looked up from the microscope and sent a text.

John leaned over the sink and frowned. The images were running together in his head: the kid who had died on his last shift, and the blood spattered around the bodies of the four girls. He needed sleep...

“Ah!” The kettle whistled as Sherlock sprang up from the stool.

“Do you want me to come with you?” John called into the living room.

“No, stay here in case anyone else comes by. I shouldn't be long.”

John took another nap on the sofa, waking when Sherlock returned an hour later. “Mmm,” he said, trying to stretch out his shoulder after falling asleep in an uncomfortable position. “You found something.”

“The names of everyone who purchased the killer's coat-- firsthand-- in the London area in the last two years, yes.” He waved a sheaf of papers.

John sat up. “What?”

“It's a unique coat. And a long list.” Sherlock's phone beeped. He grabbed it. “Excellent! Oh, clever girl.”

“What?”

“The girl who was trying to dial 999, she snapped a photo of the killer before he got the phone away from her.”

John stood up and came into the kitchen to look over Sherlock's shoulder. The image was blurry and dark, and the man's mouth was covered by a mask, but his face was still halfway visible. He looked... bland. Nothing particularly remarkable about him at all. Mousy brown hair, straight nose, regular features. 

Sherlock picked up his laptop from the table. “Sending it and the list to passport control,” Sherlock murmured. “They should be able to cross-reference and tell us who the killer is. Then it's only a matter of finding him.” His phone beeped again; he glanced at it, and his eyebrows furrowed. He muttered something that sounded like “Mycroft.”

“What about him?”

“I gave him the route and the time and asked for the CCTV images. I even told him it was a serial killer. He 'regrets that he will be unable to help me.'”

John frowned. “That doesn't seem like him.”

“You don't know Mycroft. It doesn't matter now, we have the picture.”

John glanced at the time: half eleven. Sherlock got up and began to pace. “The connection. What's the connection between the five?”

“All students?”

“Yes. Obviously.”

“Annie... Annie Pratt was reading chemistry, you said. And the other four, were doing pot. Drugs?”

Sherlock ran both hands through his hair. “Meth is usually the product of choice to be synthesized.”

“Maybe... someone they all knew? Or someone two of them knew, and the killer had to kill all of them to cover his tracks.”

“There are easier ways to eliminate someone besides stabbing them and their three closest friends.”

“Could have been a warning... or it was urgent.”

“No drug paraphernalia anywhere in that sitting room. Unlikely they were into anything stronger.” He opened his laptop and began to pull up information about the four dead girls. John didn't ask how he knew their names.

For the next hour, Sherlock alternated between pacing and using his computer. Then he slapped on two nicotine patches and stretched out on the sofa. “Shut up, I need to think.”

John continued to be silent. Sherlock's eyes closed, and his breathing slowed and deepened; John could have sworn he was asleep, except that he knew Sherlock's brain would never let him sleep in the middle of a case like this. He reached for his laptop, just within arm's length on the coffee table--

“I said, I need to think.”

John tilted his head, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling. For a long time.

Someone knocked on the door. “Oh, what now?” Sherlock demanded. “John--”

“I'm going.”

“Don't let anyone in.”

It wasn't one of the homeless network. “I need to talk to Sherlock,” Lestrade said, and stepped inside before John could even think of closing the door.

From upstairs came a noise of disgust; Lestrade and John exchanged glances, John shrugged, Lestrade shook his head.

“What is it, I was trying to think,” Sherlock said, still staring at the ceiling.

“Passport control contacted me,” Lestrade said.

Sherlock sat upright. “Why didn't they contact me?”

“You turned your phone off when you were thinking,” John said.

“Oh.” Sherlock reached for his coat. “Name?”

“There isn't one,” Lestrade said.

Sherlock stared at him. “What?”

“No one on your list has gone to France in the last six months, and neither has anyone matching the picture of the killer.”

Sherlock straightened. “It was a gift.”

“I brought you these.” Lestrade took a sheaf of papers out of his coat. “Background checks on two of the dead girls-- they'd recently applied for jobs, and they'd both had run-ins with the law. Possession. Details pending on the other two.”

Sherlock took the papers and looked through them rapidly. “None of this is relevant.” He tossed it down. “The wine. It's the key to all this, and I don't know why.”

“The wine? What about the hen?”

John and Sherlock stared at him.

Lestrade looked faintly embarrassed. “'s what we called the female octopi, where I grew up. Hens. My sister worked for extra money at a fishmonger's-- well. I'm going back to the Yard: between these two and the Christmas Day strangling at Le Poirier, the press is having a field day. Look, Sherlock, text me the minute you come up with anything, all right?”

Sherlock was still staring at him. “What strangling?”

“I told you about it,” John said. “You said the name was ridiculous.”

“You never mentioned the name of the pub.” There was a new sharpness to his voice, and he was typing rapidly on his mobile.

Lestrade glanced at John, who shook his head, as bewildered as the other man. “Sherlock? What is it?” Lestrade asked.

Silence. “We're missing two bodies,” Sherlock said finally.

“What?”

“Obvious, in retrospect. Obvious.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “The note. Annie Pratt wasn't drunk and she didn't write the note, so the language matters. Two unusual phrases: I breathe lonely air; I'll be free, I won't return home. Both,” he held up the screen, “found in songs by the same band, both written by an artist nicknamed 'Hen.' And then there's the station--”

“Christ,” John said. “Hendon. The station code. You think--?”

“Two days earlier, a woman found strangled in Le Poirier, the pear tree, on Christmas day.”

“Hang on,” Lestrade said. “Are you saying this has to do with the twelve days of Christmas?” He looked incredulous. “You can't honestly think that--”

“I do think, and it's more than you do!” Sherlock snapped. “She had an octopus in her throat, Lestrade, improbable events require improbable explanations. None of the people who knew Annie Pratt would be where she was had reason to want her dead, therefore, her identity was irrelevant. Who waits around a train station after hours with a cephalopod, a fake suicide note and a bottle of expensive French wine except someone with a point to make?”

“So the girls, the four girls--”

“Four females smoking marijuana. Four,” Sherlock grimaced. “Collie birds. Good God, what are the criminal classes coming to, he deserves to be hanged for the pun alone.”

“Sherlock--”

“Re-check the Christmas Day murder, and I guarantee you'll find a connection with a partridge,” Sherlock cut him off.

“What about the... the two turtledoves?” John asked.

“And check every morgue for any intakes in the past forty-eight hours with strangulation or stab wounds. There should be a pair of them.”

Lestrade still looked flummoxed. “Suppose it's more to go on than we've got,” he murmured.

Sherlock was reaching for his coat. “John, fetch the wine, it's in the cabinet. And tell Mrs Hudson to listen for the door while we're gone.”

“Where are you going?” Lestrade demanded.

“Familial obligations,” Sherlock said. “'Tis the season. Send me the details of the Christmas murder!”

Lestrade looked appalled, presumably at the prospect of Sherlock's family. John felt appalled, but that was because he'd actually met the man.

“You're asking Mycroft's help?” he asked when they were in the back of the taxi.

“No, I'm consulting my cousin about representations of Muscadel in baroque painting. Of course I'm asking Mycroft's help.” His mouth tightened momentarily. “There are too many pieces. They're not fitting together, and I need information only he can give me.”

They stopped, some time later, in front of the nondescript office building that John remembered from April. Sherlock ran up the front stairs; John caught up with him in front of the massive desk in time to hear him arguing with the secretary. “What do you mean, you can't let me in?” Sherlock demanded.

“Mr Holmes has gone Out.” The man smiled imperturbably. “Would you like to leave a message for your brother?”

“I just texted him--”

“Hello.” They both turned. Mycroft's PA, she of the mysterious name-- though, John thought, Sherlock probably knew it-- and Blackberry attachment, was standing behind them, texting, of course. She glanced up. “Come with me.”

There was a car waiting outside. Sherlock climbed into the front, leaving John in the back with... whatever her name was. “Hello,” he said.

After a moment, she looked up. “Hello.”

“So... how've you been?”

The smile that he was pretty sure was fake. “Fine.”

From the front seat, Sherlock said something that might have been “Oh, God.” The driver's profile changed, just a little. John repressed a sigh, and stared out the window.

They stopped. John got out and let Mycroft's PA slide out before shutting the door. Anthea, or not, unlocked the door, letting them into a small antechamber, and then entered a code on a sheltered, electronic touchpad. Something buzzed, and the second door swung open. John looked at it as they passed: two inches of metal, with wood on either side.

They followed her up the stairs to a sitting room that was everything 221b wasn't: impeccably neat and flawlessly decorated. Mycroft was seated in front of a small desk, frowning at a laptop that looked out of place in the wood and leather of the room. As soon as Sherlock and John appeared, he shut it and smiled at them. “Ah. Yes. Thank you,” he said to... his PA. “Have a seat, won't you?”

John sat. Sherlock paced, coat flaring around him.

“Your request about the CCTV footage--” Mycroft began.

“It's not about that.” Then Sherlock stopped and looked at his brother. “What about it?”

“Oh, I was just going to offer my, ah... further apologies.”

Sherlock's eyebrows furrowed. There was thirty seconds of silence. Then: “You're having problems at your job.”

Mycroft stopped smiling. “We have a mole.”

John knew he didn't understand half of what Mycroft did, and was quite content to leave matters that way, but he knew enough to make that statement a frightening one. If Mycroft couldn't catch the spy...

“This individual,” Mycroft continued, adjusting something on his desk, “has been interfering with the cameras. Unfortunately, the footage you requested was one of the casualties.”

“I trust you'll deal with it with your usual acumen.” Sherlock already sounded bored.

“Indeed.” Mycroft smiled again. “You're here about a case.”

“Yes.” Sherlock resumed pacing. “I... need your help.” John wondered how much effort it had taken him to make that admission.

Mycroft was magnanimous in victory, if that was what it was. “In what respect?”

“It's a serial killer.” Sherlock threw himself into a chair, looking incongruous with the orderly respectability of the furniture. “One woman was strangled on Christmas Day in Le Poirier. One woman was strangled at Hendon yesterday, and left to die with an octopus in her throat. The killer left a bottle of Muscadel beside her. Four girls were stabbed today in Ealing as they shared joints at their flat. All were killed early in the morning. The killer is a slender man, slightly arthritic, ambidextrous: he used predominantly his left hand to strangle Annie Pratt and his right hand to commit today's murders. He lives in Lambeth. The Muscadel came from France within the last six months but either that or his coat was a gift, because the photo, billing lists, and passport control's information are incongruous. So.” He put his hands together in front of his chin and stared at his brother. “Feeling public-spirited?”

“Annie Pratt was killed at Hendon?” Mycroft asked after a moment.

“Is it still one sugar, John?”

John looked up, distracted from the conversation, to find Anthea-or-not at his elbow, smiling sweetly and holding two mugs of tea. “Er, yes, how did you... never mind. Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” She took the other mug to Sherlock and set it on the table at his elbow, then disappeared back to what looked like the kitchen.

“Mmm,” Mycroft said, opening his laptop and frowning. “Yes. Sherlock, I see you're still not eating on cases.”

“It slows me down.”

“Yes, hypoglycemia is always so invigorating.”

“As if you'd know.”

Mycroft began to type. “I confess, John, I'd hoped you might be able to persuade him otherwise.”

“Then you don't know either me or your brother very well,” John said.

Sherlock smiled. Mycroft stopped typing to stare at John over the top of the laptop for a moment. Then he resumed whatever he was doing, and somewhere, a printer began to click and whirr.

“Annie Pratt was chosen at random, she... happened to be in Hendon at the right time,” Mycroft said, sounding contemplative. “So was Holly Whitehead-- not a student, by the way. But the other four, he invaded their home.” He got up, walked to the other side of the room, and opened a cabinet. “Both actions make sense if the lyrics are the most important part of his mode of operation.” He took a thin stack of paper from the printer and handed it to Sherlock. “He... must have a strange fixation with them, though the murders thus far have shown a willingness to be quite flexible in their interpretation. What must be important to him is that there is some connection between the killings and the lyrics of the song.”

Sherlock leafed through the pages, and then looked up sharply. “Names.”

“Deaths. From the last ten years,” Mycroft said. “All heterosexual couples who died violently within thirteen days of each other, from Christmas Eve to January 6^th. In each case, at least one person was either stabbed or strangled, but I think you'll find the last category, with one of each, most informative. Children are listed where available.” He nodded at Sherlock. “If you need earlier than that, do let me know.” He returned to the laptop. “I've taken the liberty of also sending the file to that detective inspector you prefer to collaborate with at Scotland Yard. I see he's in charge of the investigations.”

“Hmm,” Sherlock said.

Mycroft smiled thinly. “You're welcome, Sherlock.”

Sherlock stood, leaving his tea untouched. At the door, he stopped and leaned back into the room. “The homeless network is really invaluable,” he said.

Mycroft raised one eyebrow. “I will keep that in mind,” he replied, and John realized that that was the closest to 'thank you' that Sherlock was going to come.

Sherlock disappeared out the door. John swallowed the rest of his tea and grabbed his coat.

“Goodbye, John. Do try to be careful. For the both of you.”

“Yes,” John said, and “thank you,” because Sherlock hadn't said it.

The car was waiting at the bottom of the steps for them, sans Anthea-or-not, and Sherlock glared at it, but got in. “Baker Street,” he said. “22-”

“Yes, Mr Holmes, I know,” the driver said, and they pulled away from the curb.

Sherlock was leafing through the pages rapidly, eyes moving quickly as if he was scanning the entire thing and putting it in his hard drive. He probably was. “Here,” he said, and handed John the sheaf as he took out his phone. “There.” He pointed, and made a call. “It's me. The killer's name is Jared Wilkins.” Pause. “Yes.” He hung up. “Lestrade's meeting us at the flat. By the time we get there they'll know where he lives.”

John looked around the back of the car. “Hang on, where did the... did you leave it in the taxi?”

“It's in Mycroft's kitchen.”

“Oh.” John hadn't even seen Sherlock pick up the bag, let alone go into the kitchen, but never mind. “Jared Wilkins.”

Sherlock was typing quickly on his phone. “Civil servant,” he said. “His elderly mother stabbed on Christmas two years ago by a robber. His father was hospitalized for shock and strangled by one of the nurses on Epiphany.” He scanned the screen quickly. “They won't find him at his flat.”

The car let them out. Sherlock went up the stairs, two at a time; John continued on to the second floor and his bedroom. His gun was in the drawer, in the holster that had been Sherlock's Christmas present to him, along with a pair of gloves; he fastened it at the small of his back, put his coat back on, and ran back downstairs.

“There's an ARV on its way,” Lestrade said.

“Unnecessary. You won't find him there.”

“Then why are you coming?”

“To tell you where he's gone. Have you found the partridge connection yet?”

Lestrade looked tired. “I had Donovan recheck. It wasn't ivy, it was something called partridge vine.”

Sherlock smiled, the smile that didn't reach his eyes. “And it only took you four days, well done.”

Sherlock hailed a taxi and they followed Lestrade's car to Wilkins's flat, which was in Lambeth. Lestrade made Sherlock and John stand out of the way as the armed officers forced the door and searched the flat.

“Nobody here,” the commanding officer reported. “Want to let your team in?”

“Right,” Lestrade said. Donovan rolled her eyes as Sherlock brushed past the man into the flat; the SFO looked askance at him. “Consultant,” Lestrade explained. “This sort of thing is his specialty.”

John went inside and found Sherlock in the spare, nearly meager bedroom: one bed, a table, one chair, and a chest of drawers. It was familiar enough that John wondered if this Wilkins bloke was ex-military. Sherlock opened and shut the drawers rapidly, looked out the window, and went into the attached W. C. as Lestrade's team began to come in.

Sherlock went into the kitchen and began a rapid survey of the drawers, staring intently when he found the knife drawer. “Tomorrow will be a strangling,” he said.

“Why?” Lestrade asked.

“He hasn't been here since Christmas Eve-- the plant is wilting, and there is rain in the rain gauge from Christmas Eve but not Christmas Day. Therefore he must have taken everything with him, as evidenced by the gaps in his drawers. He is missing several changes of clothes, nearly all the trousers he has, so he's anticipating ruining them. There is a space in the drawer organizer here that is completely empty, and it fits the murder weapon from this morning. Judging by the height, he had a set of six. Six knives: he strangled on the first and third days but stabbed on the fourth. Therefore, he plans to alternate stabbing and strangling.”

“So where is he?” Lestrade asked after a moment.

“Hard to tell,” Sherlock murmured. “He may have booked a different hotel room for each night. He anticipated his flat would be compromised, so, it would be under an assumed name. There is a false bottom in his bedside table drawer, and it's empty; presumably it held things like fake passports and identification cards.” He went back into the bedroom.

John went over to the one bookshelf in the sitting room. It was nearly empty, with a single row of similarly-bound novels with cheap covers, and a half row of nonfiction above that. There was an empty spot between an atlas and the London A to Z. “These were his mother's books,” Sherlock said behind him, and took one off the shelf. “He's taken the map of London.” He frowned, and pulled the atlas off the shelf. “Turn the light on.”

John flicked on the light.

“Islington,” Sherlock said.

“Sorry?”

“There's a plastic sleeve in the rubbish bin from where he bought a new map, because this one got wet and ran. It left an imprint when he put it back on the shelf, and the imprint is of Islington.”

“You think it means--”

“Methodical man leaves a map folded up wrong, of course it means something. The last murder he planned is going to be in Islington. It didn't rain hard for ten days before Christmas Eve. But which one did he plan last?” He tapped the back of the atlas. “He only killed one person yesterday.”

“So...?”

“It's as Mycroft said: he doesn't care about precision.”

“Sherlock, you said you could tell me where this man is,” Lestrade said.

“I need more data. I need to take his shoes to Bart's.”

Lestrade hesitated. “Clear them with George first,” he said finally.

Sherlock's preferred lab was empty, and he commandeered it, removing soil from the soles and examining it under the microscope. “Definitely Islington,” he said after several moments. “The north side. Also...” Pause. “Willesden. He's favoring the northwest and staying clear of south of the river, why?”

“You said you thought he was holing up there.”

“Hmm.” Sherlock scrutinized the samples silently. “Brent, and back to Islington.”

“He visited each of these places in advance, then?”

“Yes. How would he have known where to find the four girls smoking unless he had previously observed their habits?” Sherlock took out his mobile and sent a text, then switched off the microscope and stared at the far wall. “Five golden rings. What does that mean to you, John?”

“A jeweler is the first thing that comes to mind, of course. Or boxers... something with a clock, he's going to kill someone at five in the morning? They have all been in the morning.”

“Originally the lyrics referred to ring-necked pheasants. Like the four colley birds, it became corrupted.” He leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. “Too many options. He's not doing this logically.”

It was after dark by the time they went back to Baker Street. Sherlock paced, played Beethoven frantically, and applied fresh nicotine patches. John made tea, checked his email, and kept an eye on Sherlock to make sure the number of patches stayed under control. Eventually, after having been sitting down for a while, he became aware of a deep weariness, and remembered that he had to work a double the next day. It was always unprofessional to fall asleep on the job.

Sherlock went out and returned with a list of places where Jared Wilkins had been spotted in the past two weeks. He cross-referenced this with the results of the soil sample analysis. “Tomorrow will be Brent,” he said finally. “But where?” He ran his hands through his hair.

“I'm going to call it a night,” John said. “Sherlock...”

His flatmate looked up at him.

“Oh, never mind.” Saying be careful would just provoke the “you're-an-idiot” look. “Happy hunting tomorrow.”

Author's notes:

The band Sherlock is referring to is Haken, and the album is Aquarius. "Collie" is rather obscure slang for marijuana.

In ACD!canon, Sherlock sometimes takes problems to Mycroft, and I wanted to explore that here.