221B

Chapter 5 - The Great Game

"1989, a young kid-champion swimmer, came up from Brighton for a school sports tournament." Sherlock says in the back of a taxi. "Drowned in the pool. Tragic accident." He finishes, then shows John and I the front page on a newspaper on his phone. "You wouldn't remember it. Why should you?"

"But you remember." John says.

"Yes."

"Something fishy about it?" John asks.

"Nobody thought so-nobody except me. I was only a kid myself. I read about it in the papers."

"Started young, didn't you?" I say.

"Didn't you?" He asks, looking at me. "Person as observant as you are-you must have started young."

"John's observant. But he didn't start out young."

"Yes but you make deductions quicker. Didn't you start out young as well? You must have."

"No...I didn't." I say.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Really."

"Well then..." He looks away. "The boy, Carl Powers, had some kind of fit in the water, but by the time they got him out it was too late. But there was something wrong; something I couldn't get out of my head."

"And that was?" I ask.

"His shoes."

"What about them?" John asks.

"They weren't there. I made a fuss; I tried to get the police interested, but nobody seemed to think it was important. He'd left all the rest of his clothes in his locker, but there was no sign of his shoes..." He leans down and picks up the bag which has the trainers inside. "Until now."

Sherlock has shut himself in the kitchen back at 221B, while in the living room, on the other side of the closed doors, John paces back and forth while I lean against the wall, my arms folded over my chest.

"About...five hours left, right?" I ask, looking at John.

He stops pacing and looks at me. "I think so, yeah."

He walks over, slides one of the doors open, and we both walk inside.

"Can we help?" John asks Sherlock, who's sitting down at the kitchen table, the trainers nearby, still in the bag. He looks through photographs and printouts of newspaper reports of Carl Powers' death from 1989.

Sherlock doesn't seem to hear John at all, he just continues looking through each photograph and printout.

"We want to help." John says.

"There's only five hours left." I point out.

Suddenly both John and I's phones simultaneously sound a text alert. We both pull our phones out of our pockets.

Any developments?

Mycoft Holmes

"It's your brother. He's texting me now." John says, then looks at me. "Did you get the message too?"

"Yeah." I nod.

John frowns a second later. "How does he know our numbers?"

"He's practically the British government, John." I answer.

He nods.

"Must be a root canal." Sherlock says thoughtfully.

John and I both put our phones away.

"Look, he did say, 'national importance'." John says to Sherlock.

Sherlock snorts, still not looking up from his research.

"How quaint." He says.

"What is?" I ask.

"John is. Queen and country."

"You can't just ignore it." John says sternly.

"I'm not ignoring it. Putting one of my best men onto it right now."

"Right. Good." John answers, then folds his arms and nods in satisfaction. A second later, he looks at Sherlock, puzzled.

"Who's that?" John asks.

"Sherlock, is it who I'm thinking?" I look at him.

He looks up from his research and smirks. "I think so, yes."

We both look at John.