Find Me (BBC Sherlock Fan Fiction)

Chapter 7

English countryside flashed past the window in an indistinguishable blur, and then got progressively more defined as the train was delayed and they ended up standing at a signal for twenty minutes gazing out at the same leaf.

'What does the message on the door say?' said John, having clearly been struggling not to ask the obvious question for the best part of an hour.

'Miss me, Sherlock,' he replied in an ominous tone.

'I am so sick of everyone saying that. Haven't we conclusively demonstrated at least fifteen times that Jim Moriarty is a) dead and b) someone who should never have been allowed access to recording equipment. I knew when I saw the drawings on the door that something else was going on. This isn't just about the dancing men, is it?'

'It should be,' Sherlock watched the leaf waving outside the window. 'It should be a simple code, and a rather odd and frustrating scenario in which I have to save a man from having to confront his own wife. But somebody wrote on my front door and that means that not only do they know I've taken the case, but they also already know the code, or cracked it before I did.'

'You've had your mind on other things. Although I'm not entirely convinced it's just your mind.'

'I'm not distracted any more. And, if it means you'll stop talking about it every five minutes, I did send her a message but she's on the other side of the world and she's not coming back. She keeps sending me her holiday snaps. Now, do you mind being quiet while I try to think.'

'And are you thinking about the case or the fact that she didn't come running when you called her? What was the message you sent - did you tell her you haven't so much as looked in anyone else's direction since the day you met? Did you say you still keep her phone in that memento drawer you think I don't know about? Or was it some off hand text that gave her no idea how you feel?'

'I can't even hear you anymore.' Sherlock closed his eyes and didn't open them again until the train had arrived at its destination.

But on the way to the hotel the taxi was overtaken by two police cars and an ambulance.

'Doesn't look good,' remarked John as they began the turn up the long gravel drive that led to the sweeping portico and brick towers of Riding Thorpe Manor Hotel.

'It looks perfectly adequate, but I don't see what makes it 'boutique'.'

A paramedic was wheeling a large body on a stretcher towards a waiting ambulance, which roared off down the drive as soon as the patient was safely inside.

Sherlock watched it pass. 'I may have miscalculated,' he murmured.

John hailed the nearest uniform. 'What's going on mate?'

'The owner's been shot. Are you a guest?'

'Yes. Or I will be as soon as I check in.'

The policeman nodded. 'Then go and check in. You're a suspect.'

Shaking his head, Sherlock tried to bring some sense to the situation. 'I am Sherlock Holmes. Take me to your leader.'

'So is it two rooms you booked Doctor Watson, or one?' asked the receptionist pleasantly, a few minutes later. She was a mother of four, Sherlock noted, an ex-nurse and had been working in the hotel for at least ten years, so that fact that the owner had been shot didn't appear to affect her at all.

John smiled patiently. 'Two. He snores and it keeps me up all night.'

'Of course. Then here are your key cards, and if you wouldn't mind being back in the dining room in half an hour I believe the police want to see all the guests together.'

'Really?' Sherlock threw John a delighted glance. 'The police are going to gather all the guests in the hotel together just after a crime and reveal the killer?' He bent close over the reception desk to whisper, 'Was it Miss Plum in the library with the candlestick?'

The receptionist bent forward to match him. 'Mr Cubitt isn't dead, sir. Just be downstairs in thirty minutes.'

Having got what he needed Sherlock headed for the stairs, calling over his shoulder. 'Is it boutique because it still has a ledger of guests names rather than a computer?'

John joined him on the first floor. 'I imagine it also has a computer. Most hotels do. You were reading the register, weren't you – is Abe Slaney staying here?'

'No. A borderline alcoholic, two businessmen having an affair, an elderly woman and a young family from Berkshire.' He raised an eyebrow at John's expression. 'Handwriting John, it's all in the handwriting.'

His bedroom was white, simply decorated but with a range of layered and textured fabrics that looked expensive. There was a scented candle in the middle of the dark oak dinner table, which probably made it boutique, and he sniffed it suspiciously before leaving to search the rest of the hotel. Half an hour later he took up a position in the dining room sitting in a circle of carefully arranged chairs and surrounded by other guests, feeling the sense of smug self-satisfaction that always came over him just before he explained something complicated.

The officer in charge strode in - a thin, grey, neatly presented man at the end of his career, marking time until his thirty years were up. 'Gentlemen, ladies,' he started, in a precise, clipped accent that betrayed no trace of his county of origin. 'As you know Mr Cubitt, the owner of the hotel has been shot. But there's no need for alarm, there's a clear suspect and none of you are in any danger.'

Sherlock put up his hand. 'It wasn't any of them.'

The lead detective frowned in evident annoyance. 'Sir?'

'Oh, just look at them properly.' Sherlock sprang to his feet, gesturing to the woman on his immediate right. 'This one, major indentation on her ring finger but no ring so she's recently divorced after many years of marriage and she's lonely, she's got herself a new cat, although the cat doesn't like her either, judging by the scratches on her legs. Her eyes are yellowish and bloodshot and she's clutching that glass of water almost tight enough to disguise the tremor in her hands – she's an alcoholic, probably the cause of the divorce and she could never have held a gun steady enough to shoot Henry Cubitt.'

'Then this one – early forties, glasses, manicured nails, calluses on the heels of his palms and shiny patches on the sleeves of that jumper - he spends too much time at the computer, or at least that's what he tells his wife. But actually these two men know each other.' He pointed at a younger man on the other side of the circle. 'They signed the register at the same time, have adjoining rooms and both currently have damp hair and are wearing the same aftershave – they'll be able to give each other an alibi.'

He turned to the family on the end – 'And then we have the Barbers. She's really let herself go – greasy hair, stained blouse, mud all over her jeans and he's not much better, hasn't shaved in three days, toothpaste still on his chin and it's all being caused by this one.' He pointed to the gurgling, wide awake baby bottom-shuffling in the direction of the door. 'They're too tired to remember their own names, let alone have the energy to shoot anyone. In fact, your best suspect at the moment is probably Miss Plum in the library with the candlestick, unless you want me to tell you who killed Henry Cubitt.' He looked around for applause, but there was a roomful of quite angry people staring at him instead.

'And you are?'

'Sherlock Holmes. If the internet has made it as far as Norfolk look me up. I'm viral.'

'Or vile,' John muttered from the next chair along.

The officer turned his attention to the rest of the audience. 'Despite what Mr Holmes says, Henry Cubitt is not dead, and none of you are suspects – but you may be witnesses. Mr Cubitt's wife Elsie is missing and I am urgently seeking her in connection with shooting of her husband. Has anyone seen Mrs Cubitt?'

'Missing?' Sherlock sat forward. 'Then she's in danger.'

'Why do you think that Mr Holmes?'

'The four-foot-high message in the poolroom. Itsays 'Elsie, prepare to meet your God.'

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