Sherlock..........Who?

The Sign Of Three Part One

EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO. A newspaper article is headed, "BANK GANG LEAVE COPS CLUELESS". The accompanying photograph shows two men outside a court holding their hands up in front of their faces so they cannot be recognised in the pictures. At the entrance to the court itself Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade and Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan walk briskly out through the door.

LESTRADE: They just walked out of there!

DONOVAN: Yeah, I know. I was sort of sitting next to you.

LESTRADE: The whole Waters family! They just walked right out of there!

DONOVAN: Again, I was in the room.

LESTRADE (angrily): How do they always manage that?

DONOVAN: They're good.

LESTRADE: They're greedy, and they'll do it again, and next time we're gonna catch 'em in the act.

DONOVAN: How?

TWELVE MONTHS AGO. A newspaper article is headed, "WHO STOLE OUR TWO MILL?" and shows police officers standing in a cordoned-off area outside a building, with a police car parked behind the cordon. In real life, Greg gets into the driver's seat of his car parked just outside the cordon and angrily slams the door closed. Sally is sitting in the passenger seat.

DONOVAN: No good?

LESTRADE: They always know we're coming. (Furiously) How do they always know?

DONOVAN: They're good. They work at it.

LESTRADE: They're never gonna stop

DONOVAN: Well, neither are we.

SIX MONTHS AGO. A new headline reads, "POLICE ARE NO CLOSER TO WATERS GANG CONVICTION" and the photograph again shows the court. Greg storms out of the building with Sally behind him. He lets out an angry incoherent noise as he walks away.

THREE MONTHS AGO. This time the headline reads, "Waters gang walk free – again!" and there is another photo of two men near the court, covering their faces against the photographers. On the steps outside the court, two uniformed police officers stand and watch while Greg repeatedly kicks the living daylights out of the back tyre of his car, grunting with fury. Sally stands beside the driver's door and helplessly watches him. Finally she has had enough.

DONOVAN (loudly): Greg!

(Greg gestures dramatically at her.)

LESTRADE (loudly): In the act! The only way we're gonna do this! In. The. Act!

(He kicks the tyre once more and then storms forward and angrily tugs the driver's door open, inadvertently shoving Sally out of the way.)

YESTERDAY. A man wearing a gruesome clown's mask and holding a sawn-off shotgun looks around a bank vault and then turns to where a second man, wearing a different but equally horrid-looking mask, straightens up from typing on a laptop. A third masked man is inside a nearby open strong room and is slowly carrying three heavy gold ingots toward the door. The laptop screen shows, "ALARMS OFFLINE". The second man goes into the strong room where hundreds of gold ingots are stacked up on a couple of pallets. He lifts three ingots on top of each other, then hauls them up in his hands and makes his way out. On a different laptop the screen shows the same information as the one in the vault but this one now displays a second message reading, "*** HACKING DETECTED***". In a car outside the bank, Sally sits in the passenger seat with the laptop on her lap. The rooftop lights of nearby police cars are flashing and police officers are walking around. Greg sits beside her.

LESTRADE: You still blocking it?

DONOVAN: Yeah. Very efficiently hacked. They must be bloody pleased with themselves.