Sherlock - The Game Is On!

The Reichenbach Fall- Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Kitty was sat in an armchair while we stood in the middle of the room. Using my hairpin, I picked mine and the boys locks to the handcuffs. "Congratulations. The truth about Sherlock Holmes." Sherlock began, pacing back and forth. "The scoop that everybody wanted and you got it. Bravo!"

"I gave you your opportunity. I wanted to be on your side, remember? You turned me down, so..."

"And then, behold, someone turns up and spills all the beans. How utterly convenient. Who is Brook?" She shakes her head. "Oh, come on, Kitty. No one trusts the voice at the end of a telephone."

"There are all those furtive little meetings in cafés; Those sessions in the hotel room where he gabbled into your dictaphone. How do you know that you can trust him? A man turns up with the Holy Grail in his pockets. What were his credentials?" I spoke out. Kitty looks towards the flat door, slowly rising to her feet. Looking concerned. We turn to follow her gaze.

Jim Moriarty, unshaven and with his hair messy and wearing casual clothes including a cardigan, walks in with a shopping bag. "Darling, they didn't have any ground coffee so I just got normal..." Raising his eyes he stares on in terror at the sight of Sherlock. Moriarty drops the shopping bag and backs away until he bumps into the wall behind him, holding up his hands protectively in front of him. "You said that they wouldn't find me here. You said that I'd be safe here."

"You are safe, Richard. I'm a witness. He wouldn't harm you in front of witnesses."

"So that's your source? Moriarty is Richard Brook?!" John exclaimed. Teeth bared, John glared deeply whilst I began to breathe in pure fury. "Of course he's Richard Brook. There is no Moriarty. There never has been."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look him up. Rich Brook, an actor Sherlock Holmes hired to be Moriarty." Sherlock stares at Jim, who is still holding up his hands and looking at everyone nervously. Jim's voice is shaking as he turns to John. "Doctor Watson, I know you're a good man." He begins backing up to the corner of the room. Acting afraid. "Don't... Don't hurt me." John screams, confused and angered. "No, you are Moriarty! He's Moriarty! We've met, remember? You were gonna blow me up!" Moriarty puts his hands briefly over his face, then holds them up in front of himself again, sounding as if he is almost crying in fear. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He paid me. I needed the work. I'm an actor. I was out of work. I'm sorry, okay?"

John turns to Sherlock. "Sherlock, you'd better... Explain... Because I am not getting this."

"Oh I'll be doing the explaining, in print." She hands John over a folder. "It's all here, conclusive proof." "You invented James Moriarty, your nemesis."

"Invented him?"

"NO HE DID NOT!" I screamed. "Invented all the crimes, actually and to cap it all, you made up a master villain."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous!"

"THATS IT!" I stomp towards Kitty just in time for Sherlock to hold me back. "Ask him, Michelle. He's right here! Just ask him. Tell him, Richard."

"Look, for God's sake, this man was on trial!"

"Yes..." She points to Sherlock. "And you paid him; Paid him to take the rap. Promised you'd rig the jury. Not exactly a West End role, but I'll bet the money was good." I start to wrestle within Sherlock's hold. "I am sorry. I am. I am sorry." Moriarty cries. "So this is the story that you're gonna publish. The big conclusion of it all: Moriarty's an actor?!"

"He knows I am. I have proof. I have proof. Show him, Kitty! Show him something!"

"Yeah, show me something." John agrees. Walking across the room. John turns to watch her as she reaches into a bag for more information. Jim puts his hands over his face but now he pulls his hands away from his eyes a little and looks towards Sherlock and I. James Moriarty reveals his true self and he smiles triumphantly at his enemy. Sherlock half-smiles back at him but there's no humour in his eyes. I try to wrestle, again shaking from side to side. Kitty takes out a folder, walks over to John and gives it to him.

"I'm on TV. I'm on kids' TV. I'm The Storyteller." He stares, slipping back into his staged personality. John looks at copies of Richard Brook's contact details apparently taken from an agency website, then a newspaper article showing a picture of Richard in glasses wearing medical scrubs and with a stethoscope around his neck. "I'm The Storyteller. It's on DVD. Just tell him. It's all coming out now. It's all over. Just tell them. Just tell them. Tell him!"

Sherlock let's go of me, slowly walking towards Moriarty. "It's all over now... NO!" He backs away from Sherlock and up a short flight of stairs towards the bedroom on the upper level of the flat. His eyes are wide and terrified. "Don't you touch me! Don't you lay a finger on me!"

"Stop it. Stop it NOW!" I scream. Jim bolts up the stairs as we chase after him. "Don't let him get away!"

"Leave him alone!" Moriarty runs into the bathroom on the other side of the bedroom. With Kitty still at the bottom of the stairs and therefore unsighted, and John halfway up the stairs with his vision blocked by Sherlock and I ahead of him, Jim turns and grins manically at Sherlock for a brief second before slamming the door shut. Sherlock runs to the door and struggles momentarily to open it, I then shove it open but he's already disappeared through the open window opposite. There's a crash outside as if Jim has landed on top of a dustbin. Sherlock looks out of the window, then turns to stop John. "No, no, no. He'll have back-up." I whine furiously.

"D'you know what, Sherlock Holmes? I look at you now and I can read you." Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, Kitty gets in his face. "And you. Repel. Me."

"Oh for crying out loud." I turn to Kitty, grabbing her by the arm I slap her with such fury. She whines like a bitch in pain before we leave. 

"Can he do that? Completely change his identity; make you the criminal?"

"He's got my whole life story. That's what you do when you sell a big lie; you wrap it up in the truth to make it more palatable."

"Your word against his."

"He's been sowing doubt into people's minds for the last twenty-four hours. There's only one thing he needs to do to complete his game, and that's to..." Sherlock pauses in thought. "Sherlock?" I question, unsurely. "Something I need to do."

"What? Can we help?" John asks, hopefully. "No, on my own." He gazes to me for a brief moment before walking away. "Michelle, if you promise me to stay calm... I know where we can go."

Mycroft walks across one of the common rooms, where an old man is fast asleep in an armchair, and goes into the smaller private room, reaching for the door handle to close it, but he stops when he realises that John and I are sitting in both armchairs with our backs to him. John is still looking through Kitty's file. "She has really done her homework, Miss Riley, things that only someone close to Sherlock could know."

"Ah."

"Have you seen your brother's address book lately?" I spit. "Three names: yours, mine and John's. Moriarty didn't get this stuff from either of us." I motion to John and I. "Michelle..."

"So how does it work, then, your relationship? D'you go out for a coffee now and then, eh, you and Jim?" John concludes. Mycroft takes the opposite chair from us. "Your own brother, and you blabbed about his entire life to this maniac." I spit. "So this is what you were trying to tell me, isn't it: 'Watch his back, because I've made a mistake.'" John stated. Slapping the newspaper down, John sits back clearing his throat. "How did you meet him?"

"People like him: we know about them; we watch them. But James Moriarty... The most dangerous criminal mind the world has ever seen, and in his pocket the ultimate weapon: a keycode. A few lines of computer code that could unlock any door."

"And you abducted him to try and find the keycode?"

"Interrogated him for weeks. But he wouldn't play along. He just sat there, staring into the darkness. The only thing that made him open up... I could get him to talk just a little, but..."

"In return you had to offer him Sherlock's life story. So one big lie. Sherlock's a fraud, but people will swallow it because the rest of it's true." John finished. "Moriarty wanted Sherlock destroyed, right? And you have given him the perfect ammunition. What a wonderful brother you are." I stated with my gaze fiercely fixed on him. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, please." I laugh out loud, coldly. Getting up I turn to leave with John hot on my trail. "Michelle I truly am sorry. Tell him, would you?" Opening the door we walk away.