Contact High → Sherlock Holmes (BBC) [on hold]

{ forty-eight }

Sherlock, still deep in his mind palace, turns to the woman with the dark black hair, "How did you meet him?" The woman smiles softly, "He came up to me in a pub." Sherlock turned to the one with the ginger bob. She answered as well, "Same gym as me." Business clothes woman was next, "We just got chatting on the bus." Now, the woman in the red jacket, "Online!"

"Name?" Sherlock asked.

The first woman was confused, "Already told you."

"His name," Sherlock clarified.

"Oscar," the first woman said. All of them followed suit with a different name: "Mike." "Terry." The lady with the red jacket paused a moment, "Um. Love monkey." Sherlock furrowed his brows in disgust before turning back to the first woman, "Your place?"

She shook her head, "His place." All of the women answered the same. "Address?" Sherlock asked. All the women answered differently, the addresses barely even registering in Sherlock's mind. The first woman piped up, "Nothing happened! It was just... very romantic."

"Four woman in four nights," Sherlock said, "He must have something special."

"He was very charming," the first woman offered.

The second one said, "Innocent."

"He was sweet," the business woman said.

Sherlock turned to the red jacketed lady, already hating her answer. "He had a lovely..." she was broken off by Carmen's appearance in his mind palace. She was standing next to him, arm in arm with him. "You alright?" she asked worriedly. Sherlock glanced down at her, his gaze never lingering long.

Just like that, he was snapped back into the real world. Six laptops were on the desk in front of him, each one of the women he was talking to represented by nothing more than a typing bubble. "You've let your food get cold," John sighed. Sherlock huffed, "Not now, John."

Back in his mind palace, he turned to the woman with the red jacket, "Sorry. Go on." She smirked, "He had a lovely manner." Sherlock turned away from her, staring off into the distance, "Different names, different addresses." He turned back to the first woman, "Describe him."

The first woman smiled fondly, "Short blond hair."

The second woman, the ginger, said, "Black hair. Long."

"Ginger," the business lady admitted, "I like gingers."

"Couldn't tell," the red jacket woman said, "He had a mask on!"

Sherlock curled his lip. A paper appeared in his hands and he flipped to the obituaries. "He's stealing the identities of corpses, getting their names from the papers," Sherlock said, "All single men. He uses the dead man's flat under the assumption it will be empty for a while. Free love nest."

"I feel sick," the first woman said.

"It's gruesome," the business woman said.

"That's awful," the ginger woman said.

"Clever," the red jacket lady exclaimed.

Tessa, the client from last night, appeared. "Bastard," she spit. In reality, Sherlock reacted to the new message with speed, typing out a reply and hitting send. As it posted, he heard himself say the same thing in his mind. "Hello, Tessa," Sherlock said.

"Meanwhile, back to business," Sherlock said, "No one wants to use a dead man's home. At least, not until it's been cleared, so he disguises himself. Steals the man's home, steals his identity."

"But only for one night," Carmen reminded Sherlock. She had appeared, yet again, in his mind palace. She stood there, her hair dark and her freckles stark against her pale face. "One night, and then he's gone," Carmen said softly.