Sherlock - The Game Is On!

The Lying Detective- Six

Chapter Six

Third POV

"We're trying to sleep. Can you stop ringing my damn phone?" John answers, tetchy. "Sherlock has left his flat for the first time in a week, so I'm having him tracked."

"Nice. It's very touching how you can hijack the machinery of the state to look after your family. Can I go to sleep now?"

"Sherlock gone rogue is a legitimate security concern. The fact that I'm his brother changes absolutely nothing. It didn't the last time and I assure you it won't with..." He stops himself and pauses for a long moment. At the other end of the phone, John frowns. "With Sherlock." Mycroft reluctantly finishes. "Sorry, what?"

"Please phone me if he gets in contact. Thank you." After a moment, John lowers his phone and terminates the call.

In the surveillance room, Lady Smallwood turns to Mycroft: "Do you still speak to Sherrinford?"

"I get regular updates."

"And?" She presses on. Mycroft places his phone into his pocket. "Sherrinford is secure." He walks away.

Sherlock and Faith walk across the southern Golden Jubilee Bridge beside Hungerford Bridge. He holds her cane and she has her right arm linked through his left. "Are we gonna walk all night?"

"Possibly. It's a long word."

"What is?"

"Bollocks." She laughs. He smiles round at her.

"We must be careful not to burn our bridges." Smith answers into the camera.

Sherlock and Faith sit on a bench on the South Bank not far from Hungerford Bridge. Facing the river, they each hold a filled half baguette wrapped in a paper serviette. Many pigeons are pecking at the ground a few feet away. "D'you know why I'm going to take your case? Because of the one impossible thing you've said."

"What impossible thing?"

"You said your life turned on one word."

"Yes: the name of the person my father wanted to kill."

"That's the impossible thing. Just that, right there."

"What's impossible?"

"Names aren't one word. They're always at least two. Sherlock Holmes; Faith Smith; Santa Claus; Winston Churchill; Napoleon Bonaparte. Actually, just 'Napoleon' would do."

"Or Elvis?" Faith adds on. "Well, I think we can rule both of them out as targets."

"Okay, I got it wrong, then. It wasn't only one word; It can't have been."

"And you remember quite distinctly that your whole life turned on one word, so that happened, I don't doubt it, but how can that word be a name, a name you instantly recognised that tore your world apart?"

"Okay, well, how?"

"No idea. Yet." He draws in a breath. "But I don't work for free." He holds out his hand towards her, the palm upwards. She looks down at it for a moment, then looks up at him. "Do you take cash?"

"Not cash, no." He looks round at her pointedly. After a moment she reaches down to her handbag sitting on the bench beside her, unzips the top, takes out a pistol and puts it into his hand.

He stands up, stumbles forward unsteadily to the riverside railing, pulls his arm back and hurls the pistol as hard as he can towards the river. It splashes into the water and disappears from view. Sherlock turns towards Faith. "'Taking your own life.' Interesting expression. Taking it from who? Oh, once it's over, it's not you who'll miss it."

Resting one hand on the railing, he looks westwards along the river towards the London Aquarium. In a brief flashback, a pistol fires towards Michelle, then there's a brief flashback of the exterior of the Aquarium as the gunshot echoes and then smoke rises from the end of the pistol. Sherlock now has both hands on the railing as he continues to gaze along the river. "Your own death is something that happens to everybody else."

Faith looks in the direction he's looking but now turns to face him again. He lowers his head, his back to her. "Your life is not your own." His voice becomes strained. "Keep your hands off it."

He lifts his right hand and looks at how badly it's shaking. He has a very brief flash of the word 'SOMEONE' handwritten in white over a dark blue background. The writing is almost identical to that on the note that Faith wrote to herself. The last two letters of the word 'KILL' are in the top left-hand corner of his vision. At the riverside, Sherlock closes his eyes and blows out a breath.

"You're not what I expected. You're..." Groaning, Sherlock slumps on top of the railing. He stares down into the blank void beneath his feet. The tip of his right shoe is now wedged into the bottom rail of the railing and he struggles to get his left foot onto the rail as well. "What... What am I?"

"Nicer." The words in front of Sherlock's mind's eye now read, in Faith's handwriting, 'NEED TO KILL SOMEONE'. Sherlock screws up his eyes, shaking the vision away and still clinging desperately to the railings. "Than who?"

"Anyone." Sherlock closes his eyes and lets out a loud anguished scream. Sherlock slumps down onto the concrete in front of the railing, groaning. As he doubles over, a voice sounds in his head.

"I that am lost. Oh, who will find me..."

Inside Sherlock's head, the pirate child and the Irish setter trot through the shallows at a beach, then the youngster with the red wellingtons seems to be running towards them.

"Deep down be..."

Sherlock's head snaps up and he breathes heavily as he looks towards the bench. "Sorry, I..." He trails off. Faith is no longer sitting there. "Faith? Faith?" Frowning, he leans his head back against the railings for a moment, then hauls himself to his feet. Straightening his coat, he walks away.