"When angels can no longer fly, they fall to their deaths..."
Four months after their first confrontation in the swimming hall, bored Sherlock Holmes is recontacted by none other than Jim Moriarty and forced into offering his consultations on a rath...
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Monday 23/08/2010, 02:55 p.m.
The contrast between old and new was so typical of London. The masses sailing on the streets, the glamour of the architecture varying from red brick to monochrome stone, the buildings that stood with a sense of resolute togetherness. Vehicles of all sizes, shapes and colours were whizzing past, the purring of their engines harmonised like a gospel choir. A city that never slept. Just like Sherlock Holmes' mind when gave himself up completely to his work. His wonderful brain, that machinery of in-depth, multifaceted thinking, was rumbling louder than the surrounding traffic, his thoughts galloping up to the woollen grey clouds.
As the cab belted along the packed streets and took turns to the right or left, hugging the asphalt with its soft black wheels, the detective kept staring out of the window with those blues and greens of his eyes and everything that stretched in between. He didn't see anything, but at the same time, he saw everything. Thankfully, this taxi driver was a quiet man, a solitary city-soul with no family or friends. Not once was Sherlock subjected to incessant questioning or unceasing monologue during the drive. Ordinary people seldom talked about anything interesting: weather, celebrity gossip, politics, family arguments, job offers and promotions - or worse still, emotions. So. Unutterably. Boring.
"Could you turn off the music?" Sherlock asked after a few minutes when the blare started to grate on his nerves, and wordlessly, the driver fiddled with the radio to cut off the flow of the latest popular tunes.
Twenty-six blissfully silent minutes later, the cab dropped him off at 9 Nightingale Pl. Having paid the crisp, grumpy driver, Sherlock swung his long legs off of the vehicle and hopped upright, slamming the car door shut behind him. He thrived on solving cases and running around the city looking for clues so much that the cost of his journeys was at worst in the three-figure range. Like today.
Sherlock took a few steps forward until he stood on the expanse of a narrow car park at the front of the building, curious eyes tilted upward. Ellesmere House. Gigantic metal pipes embedded in the ground were supporting the tawny, wooden overhang that protruded from the white-stone front structure. Framed windows wrapped around the whole three-storey exterior that had its solemnly modern face staring back at him. Bigger, Sherlock deduced. On his way here, he'd done rough calculations from easily accessible visual data but he always got the measurements wrong by at least ten inches. Mycroft always got them right. Damn it. Well, it was worth a shot.
The composed glance Sherlock slid over the building was also his way of destroying it down to its atoms, working out the best way in. The successful result of his deductions was dependent on the extent to which he maintained focus. Not long ago, he had come to comprehend just how dependent, accompanied by the velvet-slick rumble of Moriarty's voice in the background. Sherlock knew he had a tendency to hear voices in his head - it had always been Mycroft's patronising intone telling him what to do and what not, then John entered the picture and started asking him stupid questions whenever the real he was out there and now Moriarty had unfortunately joined the chorus, too. But he had no time to think about him. He had work to do.
