In a bedsit somewhere in London, John Watson is having a nightmare. He is reliving his Army days and his team is under fire somewhere abroad. A colleague cries out his name as the gunfire continues. Finally he jolts awake, distressed and panic-stricken. He sits up in bed wide-eyed and breathing heavily until he realises that he is safe and a long way from the war. Flopping back onto his pillow, he tries to calm his breathing as he continues to be haunted by his memories. Eventually, unable to stop himself, he begins to weep.

Some time later he has sat up on the side of the bed and switched on the bedside lamp. It’s still dark outside. John sits quietly, wrapped up in his thoughts, and looks across to the desk on the other side of the room. A metal walking cane is leaning against the desk. He looks at it unhappily, then continues to gaze into the distance. He will not be sleeping again tonight.

DAY TIME. The sun has finally risen and John, now wearing a dressing gown over his night wear, hobbles across the room leaning heavily on his cane. In his other hand he has a mug of tea and an apple, both of which he puts down onto the desk. The mug bears the arms of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Sitting down, he opens the drawer in the desk to get his laptop. As he lifts the computer out of the drawer, we see that he also has a pistol in there. Putting the laptop onto the desk and opening the lid he looks at the webpage which has automatically loaded. It reads, “The personal blog of Dr. John H. Watson”. The rest of the page is blank.

Later he is at his psychotherapist’s office and he sits in a chair opposite her.

ELLA: How’s your blog going?

JOHN: Yeah, good. (He clears his throat awkwardly.) Very good.

ELLA: You haven’t written a word, have you?

JOHN (pointing to Ella’s notepad on her lap): You just wrote “Still has trust issues”.

ELLA: And you read my writing upside down. D’you see what I mean?

(John smiles awkwardly.)

ELLA: John, you’re a soldier, and it’s gonna take you a while to adjust to civilian life; and writing a blog about everything that happens to you will honestly help you.

(John gazes back at her, his face full of despair.)

JOHN: Nothing happens to me.

Opening credits.

OCTOBER 12TH. A well-dressed middle-aged business man walks across the concourse of a busy London railway station talking into his mobile phone.

SIR JEFFREY: What d’you mean, there’s no ruddy car?

(His secretary is at his office talking into her phone as she walks across the room.)

HELEN: He went to Waterloo. I’m sorry. Get a cab.

SIR JEFFREY: I never get cabs.

(Helen looks around furtively to make sure that nobody is within earshot, then speaks quietly into the phone.)

HELEN: I love you.

SIR JEFFREY (suggestively): When?

HELEN (giggling): Get a cab!

(Smiling as he hangs up, Sir Jeffrey looks around for the cab rank.)

Some unspecified time later, sitting on the floor by the window of what appears to be an office many storeys above ground, Sir Jeffrey unscrews the lid of a small glass bottle which contains three large capsules. Tipping one out, he stares ahead of himself wide-eyed and afraid as he puts the capsule into his mouth. Later, he is writhing on the floor in agony. We can now see that the office in which his dying body is lying is empty of furniture.

POLICE PRESS CONFERENCE. Flanked by a police officer and another man who may be her solicitor or a family member, Sir Jeffrey’s wife is sitting at a table making a statement to the press.

MARGARET PATTERSON (tearfully as she reads from her statement): My husband was a happy man who lived life to the full. He loved his family and his work – and that he should have taken his own life in this way is a mystery and a shock to all who knew him.

(Standing at one side of the room, Helen tries to keep control of her feelings but eventually closes her eyes and lets the tears roll down her face.)

NOVEMBER 26TH. Two boys in their late teens are running down a street at night in the pouring rain. Gary has opened a fold-up umbrella and is trying to keep it under control in the wind, while Jimmy has his jacket pulled up over his head. He calls out in triumph as a black cab approaches with its yellow sign lit to show that it is available for hire.

JIMMY: Yes, yes, taxi, yes!

(He whistles and waves to the taxi but it drives past. He makes an exasperated sound, then starts to head back in the direction he just came, looking round at his friend.)

JIMMY: I’ll be back in two minutes, mate.

GARY: What?

JIMMY: I’m just going home; get my mum’s umbrella.

GARY: You can share mine!

JIMMY: Two minutes, all right?

(He walks away. Some time later Gary looks at his watch, apparently worried because Jimmy has been gone for too long. He turns around and heads back in pursuit of his friend.)

Some unspecified time later, Jimmy sits crying and clutching a small glass bottle which contains three large capsules. He unscrews the lid, his hands shaking, and sobs. We see that he is sitting on a window ledge inside a sports centre overlooking a sports court.

The following day, an article in The Daily Express runs the headline “Boy, 18, kills himself inside sports centre”.

JANUARY 27TH. At a public venue, a party is being held. A large poster showing a photograph of the guest of honour is labelled “Your local MP, Beth Davenport, Junior Minister for Transport”. As pounding dance music comes from inside the room, one of Beth’s aides walks out of the room and goes over to her male colleague who is standing at the bar. He looks at her in exasperation.

AIDE 1: Is she still dancing?

AIDE 2: Yeah, if you can call it that.

AIDE 1: Did you get the car keys off her?

AIDE 2 (showing him the keys): Got ’em out of her bag.

(The man smiles in satisfaction, then looks into the dance hall and frowns.)

AIDE 1: Where is she?

Beth has slipped out of the venue and is standing at the side of her car searching through her handbag for her keys. She sighs when she can’t find them and looks around helplessly.

Some unspecified time later, Beth sobs hysterically as she stands inside a portacabin on a building site. As she continues to cry, she reaches out a trembling hand towards a small glass bottle which contains three large capsules.

POLICE PRESS CONFERENCE. Detective Inspector Lestrade sits at the table looking uncomfortable as his colleague sitting beside him, Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan, addresses the gathered press reporters.

DONOVAN: The body of Beth Davenport, Junior Minister for Transport, was found late last night on a building site in Greater London. Preliminary investigations suggest that this was suicide. We can confirm that this apparent suicide closely resembles those of Sir Jeffrey Patterson and James Phillimore. In the light of this, these incidents are now being treated as linked. The investigation is ongoing but Detective Inspector Lestrade will take questions now.

REPORTER 1: Detective Inspector, how can suicides be linked?

LESTRADE: Well, they all took the same poison; um, they were all found in places they had no reason to be; none of them had shown any prior indication of ...

REPORTER 1 (interrupting): But you can’t have serial suicides.

LESTRADE: Well, apparently you can.

REPORTER 2: These three people: there’s nothing that links them?

LESTRADE: There’s no link been found yet, but we’re looking for it. There has to be one.

(Everybody’s mobile phone trills a text alert simultaneously. As they look at their phones, each message reads:

Wrong!

Donovan looks at the same message on her own phone.)

DONOVAN: If you’ve all got texts, please ignore them.

REPORTER 1: Just says, ‘Wrong’.

DONOVAN: Yeah, well, just ignore that. Okay, if there are no more questions for Detective Inspector Lestrade, I’m going to bring this session to an end.

REPORTER 2: But if they’re suicides, what are you investigating?

LESTRADE: As I say, these ... these suicides are clearly linked. Um, it’s an ... it’s an unusual situation. We’ve got our best people investigating ...

(Everybody’s mobile trills another text alert and again each message reads “Wrong!”)

REPORTER 1: Says, ‘Wrong’ again.

(Lestrade looks despairingly at Sally.)

DONOVAN (to the reporters): One more question.

REPORTER 3: Is there any chance that these are murders, and if they are, is this the work of a serial killer?

LESTRADE: I ... I know that you like writing about these, but these do appear to be suicides. We know the difference. The, um, the poison was clearly self-administered.

REPORTER 3: Yes, but if they are murders, how do people keep themselves safe?

LESTRADE: Well, don’t commit suicide.

(The reporter looks at him in shock. Donovan covers her mouth and murmurs a warning.)

DONOVAN: “Daily Mail.”

(Lestrade grimaces and looks at the reporters again.)

LESTRADE: Obviously this is a frightening time for people, but all anyone has to do is exercise reasonable precautions. We are all as safe as we want to be.

(Again the mobiles trill their text alerts, and once more each message reads “Wrong!” But Lestrade’s phone takes a moment longer to alert him to a text and when he looks at it, the message reads:

You know where

to find me.

SH

Looking exasperated, he puts the phone into his pocket and looks at the reporters as he stands up.)

LESTRADE: Thank you.

Shortly afterwards, he and Donovan are walking through the offices of New Scotland Yard.

DONOVAN: You’ve got to stop him doing that. He’s making us look like idiots.

LESTRADE: Well, if you can tell me how he does it, I’ll stop him.

RUSSELL SQUARE PARK. John is limping briskly through the park, leaning heavily on his cane. As he walks past a man sitting on the bench, the man stares after him, clearly recognising him. He calls out.

MIKE: John! John Watson!

(John turns back to Mike as he stands up and hurries towards him, smiling.)

MIKE: Stamford. Mike Stamford. We were at Bart’s together.

JOHN: Yes, sorry, yes, Mike. (He takes Mike’s offered hand and shakes it.) Hello, hi.

MIKE (grinning and gesturing to himself): Yeah, I know. I got fat!

JOHN (trying to sound convincing): No.

MIKE: I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at. What happened?

JOHN (awkwardly): I got shot.

(They both look embarrassed.)

A little later they have bought take-away coffees and are sitting side by side on a bench in the park. Mike looks at John worriedly. Oblivious, John takes a sip from his coffee then looks across to his old friend.

JOHN: Are you still at Bart’s, then?

MIKE: Teaching now. Bright young things, like we used to be. God, I hate them!

(They both laugh.)

MIKE: What about you? Just staying in town ’til you get yourself sorted?

JOHN: I can’t afford London on an Army pension.

MIKE: Ah, and you couldn’t bear to be anywhere else. That’s not the John Watson I know.

JOHN (uncomfortably): Yeah, I’m not the John Watson ...

(He stops. Mike awkwardly looks away and drinks his coffee. John switches his own cup to his right hand and looks down at his left hand, clenching it into a fist as he tries to control the tremor that has started. Mike looks round at him again.)

MIKE: Couldn’t Harry help?

JOHN (sarcastically): Yeah, like that’s gonna happen!

MIKE (shrugging): I dunno – get a flatshare or something?

JOHN: Come on – who’d want me for a flatmate?

(Mike chuckles thoughtfully.)

JOHN: What?

MIKE: Well, you’re the second person to say that to me today.

JOHN: Who was the first?

ST BARTHOLOMEW’S HOSPITAL MORGUE. Sherlock Holmes unzips the body bag lying on the table and peers at the corpse inside. He sniffs.

SHERLOCK: How fresh?

(Morgue assistant Molly Hooper walks over.)

MOLLY: Just in. Sixty-seven, natural causes. He used to work here. I knew him. He was nice.

(Zipping the bag up again, Sherlock straightens up, turns to her and smiles falsely.)

SHERLOCK: Fine. We’ll start with the riding crop.

Shortly afterwards the body has been removed from the bag and is lying on its back on the table. In the observation room next door, Molly watches and flinches while Sherlock flogs the body repeatedly and violently with a riding crop, but her face is also full of admiration. She walks back into the room and as he finishes and straightens up, breathless, she goes over to him.

MOLLY (jokingly): So, bad day, was it?

SHERLOCK (ignoring her banter as he gets out a notebook and starts writing in it): I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes. A man’s alibi depends on it. Text me.

MOLLY: Listen, I was wondering: maybe later, when you’re finished ...

(Sherlock glances across to her as he is writing, then does a double-take and frowns at her.)

SHERLOCK: Are you wearing lipstick? You weren’t wearing lipstick before.

MOLLY (nervously): I, er, I refreshed it a bit.

(She smiles at him flirtatiously. He gives her a long oblivious look, then goes back to writing in his notebook.)

SHERLOCK: Sorry, you were saying?

MOLLY (gazing at him intently): I was wondering if you’d like to have coffee.

(Sherlock puts his notebook away.)

SHERLOCK: Black, two sugars, please. I’ll be upstairs.

(He walks away.)

MOLLY: ... Okay.

BART’S LAB. Sherlock is standing at the far end of the lab using a pipette to squeeze a few drops of liquid onto a Petri dish. Mike knocks on the door and brings John in with him. Sherlock glances across at them briefly before looking at his work again. John limps into the room, looking around at all the equipment.

JOHN: Well, bit different from my day.

MIKE (chuckling): You’ve no idea!

SHERLOCK (sitting down): Mike, can I borrow your phone? There’s no signal on mine.

MIKE: And what’s wrong with the landline?

SHERLOCK: I prefer to text.

MIKE: Sorry. It’s in my coat.

(John fishes in his back pocket and takes out his own phone.)

JOHN: Er, here. Use mine.

SHERLOCK: Oh. Thank you.

(Glancing briefly at Mike, he stands up and walks towards John. Mike introduces him.)

MIKE: It’s an old friend of mine, John Watson.

(Sherlock reaches John and takes his phone from him. Turning partially away from him, he flips open the keypad and starts to type on it.)

SHERLOCK: Afghanistan or Iraq?

(John frowns. Nearby, Mike smiles knowingly. John looks at Sherlock as he continues to type.)

JOHN: Sorry?

SHERLOCK: Which was it – Afghanistan or Iraq?

(He briefly raises his eyes to John’s before looking back to the phone. John hesitates, then looks across to Mike, confused. Mike just smiles smugly.)

JOHN: Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you know ...?

(Sherlock looks up as Molly comes into the room holding a mug of coffee.)

SHERLOCK: Ah, Molly, coffee. Thank you.

(He shuts down John’s phone and hands it back as Molly brings the mug over to him. He looks closely at her as he takes the mug. Her mouth is paler again.)

SHERLOCK: What happened to the lipstick?

MOLLY (smiling awkwardly at him): It wasn’t working for me.

SHERLOCK: Really? I thought it was a big improvement. Your mouth’s too small now.

(He turns and walks back to his station, taking a sip from the mug and grimacing at the taste.)

MOLLY: ... Okay.

(She turns and heads back towards the door.)

SHERLOCK: How do you feel about the violin?

(John looks round at Molly but she’s on her way out the door. He glances at Mike who is still smiling smugly, and finally realises that Sherlock is talking to him.)

JOHN: I’m sorry, what?

SHERLOCK (typing on a laptop keyboard as he talks): I play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. (He looks round at John.) Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.

(He throws a hideously false smile at John, who looks at him blankly for a moment then looks across to Mike.)

JOHN: Oh, you ... you told him about me?

MIKE: Not a word.

JOHN (turning to Sherlock again): Then who said anything about flatmates?

SHERLOCK (picking up his greatcoat and putting it on): I did. Told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is just after lunch with an old friend, clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn’t that difficult a leap.

JOHN: How did you know about Afghanistan?

(Sherlock ignores the question, wraps his scarf around his neck, then picks up his mobile and checks it.)

SHERLOCK: Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it.

(He walks towards John.)

SHERLOCK: We’ll meet there tomorrow evening; seven o’clock. Sorry – gotta dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.

(Putting his phone into the inside pocket of his coat, he walks past John and heads for the door.)

JOHN (turning to look at him): Is that it?

(Sherlock turns back from the door and strolls closer to John again.)

SHERLOCK: Is that what?

JOHN: We’ve only just met and we’re gonna go and look at a flat?

SHERLOCK: Problem?

(John smiles in disbelief, looking across to Mike for help, but his friend just continues to smile as he looks at Sherlock. John turns back to the younger man.)

JOHN: We don’t know a thing about each other; I don’t know where we’re meeting; I don’t even know your name.

(Sherlock looks closely at him for a moment before speaking.)

SHERLOCK: I know you’re an Army doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you’ve got a brother who’s worried about you but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him – possibly because he’s an alcoholic; more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic – quite correctly, I’m afraid.

(John looks down at his leg and cane and shuffles his feet awkwardly.)

SHERLOCK (smugly): That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?

(He turns and walks to the door again, opening it and going through, but then leans back into the room again.)

SHERLOCK: The name’s Sherlock Holmes and the address is two two one B Baker Street.

(He click-winks at John, then looks round at Mike.)

SHERLOCK: Afternoon.

(Mike raises a finger in farewell as Sherlock disappears from the room. As the door slams shut behind him, John turns and looks at Mike in disbelief. Mike smiles and nods to him.)

MIKE: Yeah. He’s always like that.

LATER. John has returned to his bedsit. Sitting down on the bed, he takes out his mobile phone and flicks through the menu to find Messages Sent. The last message reads:

If brother has green ladder

arrest brother.

SH

(Puzzled, John looks at the message for a long moment, then looks across to the table where his laptop is lying. He pushes himself to his feet and walks over to the table. Shortly afterwards, he has called up a search website called Quest and types “Sherlock Holmes” into the search box.)

In an unknown location, a woman wearing a pink overcoat and pink high-heeled shoes slowly reaches down with a trembling hand towards a clear glass bottle which is standing on the bare floorboards and which contains three large capsules. Her fingers close around the bottle and she slowly lifts it off the floor, her hand still shaking.

BAKER STREET. John limps along the road and reaches the door marked 221B just as a black cab pulls up at the kerb. John knocks on the door as Sherlock gets out of the cab.

SHERLOCK: Hello.

(He reaches in through the window of the cab and hands some money to the cab driver.)

SHERLOCK: Thank you.

(John turns towards him as he walks over.)

JOHN: Ah, Mr. Holmes.

SHERLOCK: Sherlock, please.

(They shake hands.)

JOHN: Well, this is a prime spot. Must be expensive.

SHERLOCK: Oh, Mrs Hudson, the landlady, she’s giving me a special deal. Owes me a favour. A few years back, her husband got himself sentenced to death in Florida. I was able to help out.

JOHN: Sorry, you stopped her husband being executed?

SHERLOCK: Oh no. I ensured it.

(He smiles at John as the front door is opened by Mrs Hudson, who opens her arms to the younger man.)

MRS HUDSON: Sherlock, hello.

(Sherlock turns and walks into her arms, hugging her briefly, then steps back and presents John to her.)

SHERLOCK: Mrs Hudson, Doctor John Watson.

MRS HUDSON: Hello.

JOHN: How do?

MRS HUDSON (gesturing John inside): Come in.

JOHN: Thank you.

SHERLOCK: Shall we?

MRS HUDSON: Yeah.

(The men go inside and Mrs Hudson closes the door. Sherlock trots up the stairs to the first floor, then pauses and waits for John to hobble upstairs. As John reaches the top of the stairs, Sherlock opens the door ahead of him and walks in, revealing the living room of the flat. John follows him in and looks around the room and at all the possessions and boxes scattered around it.)

JOHN: Well, this could be very nice. Very nice indeed.

SHERLOCK: Yes. Yes, I think so. My thoughts precisely.

(He looks around the flat happily.)

SHERLOCK: So I went straight ahead and moved in.

JOHN (simultaneously): Soon as we get all this rubbish cleaned out ... Oh.

(He pauses, embarrassed, as he realises what Sherlock was saying.)

JOHN: So this is all ...

SHERLOCK: Well, obviously I can, um, straighten things up a bit.

(He walks across the room and makes a half-hearted attempt to tidy up a little, throwing a couple of folders into a box and then taking some apparently unopened envelopes across to the fireplace where he puts them onto the mantelpiece and then stabs a multi tool knife into them. John has noticed something else on the mantelpiece and lifts his cane to point at it.)

JOHN: That’s a skull.

SHERLOCK: Friend of mine. When I say ‘friend’ ...

(Mrs Hudson has followed them into the room. She picks up a cup and saucer as Sherlock takes off his greatcoat and scarf.)

MRS HUDSON: What do you think, then, Doctor Watson? There’s another bedroom upstairs if you’ll be needing two bedrooms.

JOHN: Of course we’ll be needing two.

MRS HUDSON: Oh, don’t worry; there’s all sorts round here. (Confidentially, dropping her voice to a whisper by the end of the sentence) Mrs Turner next door’s got married ones.

(John looks across to Sherlock, expecting him to confirm that he and John are not involved in that way but Sherlock appears oblivious to what’s being insinuated. Mrs Hudson walks across to the kitchen, then turns back and frowns at Sherlock.)

MRS HUDSON: Oh, Sherlock. The mess you’ve made.

(As she goes into the kitchen and starts tidying up, John walks over to one of the two armchairs, plumps up a cushion on the chair and then drops heavily down into it. He looks across to Sherlock who is still tidying up a little.)

JOHN: I looked you up on the internet last night.

SHERLOCK (turning around to him): Anything interesting?

JOHN: Found your website, The Science of Deduction.

SHERLOCK (smiling proudly): What did you think?

(John throws him a “you have got to be kidding me” type of look. Sherlock looks hurt.)

JOHN: You said you could identify a software designer by his tie and an airline pilot by his left thumb.

SHERLOCK: Yes; and I can read your military career in your face and your leg, and your brother’s drinking habits in your mobile phone.

JOHN: How?

(Sherlock smiles and turns away. Mrs Hudson comes out of the kitchen reading the newspaper.)

MRS HUDSON: What about these suicides then, Sherlock? I thought that’d be right up your street. Three exactly the same.

(Sherlock walks over to the window of the living room as a car pulls up outside.)

SHERLOCK: Four.

(He looks down at the car as someone gets out of it. The vehicle is a police car with its lights flashing on the roof.)

SHERLOCK: There’s been a fourth. And there’s something different this time.

MRS HUDSON: A fourth?

(Sherlock turns as D.I. Lestrade [who apparently must have picked the lock on the front door ... like you do ...] trots up the stairs and comes into the living room.)

SHERLOCK: Where?

LESTRADE: Brixton, Lauriston Gardens.

SHERLOCK: What’s new about this one? You wouldn’t have come to get me if there wasn’t something different.

LESTRADE: You know how they never leave notes?

SHERLOCK: Yeah.

LESTRADE: This one did. Will you come?

SHERLOCK: Who’s on forensics?

LESTRADE: It’s Anderson.

SHERLOCK (grimacing): Anderson won’t work with me.

LESTRADE: Well, he won’t be your assistant.

SHERLOCK: I need an assistant.

LESTRADE: Will you come?

SHERLOCK: Not in a police car. I’ll be right behind.

LESTRADE: Thank you.

(Looking round at John and Mrs Hudson for a moment, he turns and hurries off down the stairs. Sherlock waits until he has reached the front door, then leaps into the air and clenches his fists triumphantly before twirling around the room happily.)

SHERLOCK: Brilliant! Yes! Ah, four serial suicides, and now a note! Oh, it’s Christmas!

(Picking up his scarf and coat he starts to put them on as he heads for the kitchen.)

SHERLOCK: Mrs Hudson, I’ll be late. Might need some food.

MRS HUDSON: I’m your landlady, dear, not your housekeeper.

SHERLOCK: Something cold will do. John, have a cup of tea, make yourself at home. Don’t wait up!

(Grabbing a small leather pouch from the kitchen table, he opens the kitchen door and disappears from view. Mrs Hudson turns back to John.)

MRS HUDSON: Look at him, dashing about! My husband was just the same.

(John grimaces at her repeated implication that he and Sherlock are an item.)

MRS HUDSON: But you’re more the sitting-down type, I can tell.

(John looks uncomfortable.)

MRS HUDSON (turning towards the door): I’ll make you that cuppa. You rest your leg.

JOHN (loudly): Damn my leg!

(His response was instinctive and he is immediately apologetic as Mrs Hudson turns back to him in shock.)

JOHN: Sorry, I’m so sorry. It’s just sometimes this bloody thing ...

(He bashes his leg with his cane.)

MRS HUDSON: I understand, dear; I’ve got a hip.

(She turns towards the door again.)

JOHN: Cup of tea’d be lovely, thank you.

MRS HUDSON: Just this once, dear. I’m not your housekeeper.

JOHN: Couple of biscuits too, if you’ve got ’em.

MRS HUDSON: Not your housekeeper!

(John has picked up the newspaper which Mrs Hudson put down and now he looks at the article reporting Beth Davenport’s apparent suicide. Next to a large photograph of Beth is a smaller one showing the man who just visited the flat and identifying him as D.I. Lestrade. Before he can read on, Sherlock’s voice interrupts him and John looks up and sees him standing at the living room door.)

SHERLOCK: You’re a doctor. In fact you’re an Army doctor.

JOHN: Yes.

(He gets to his feet and turns towards Sherlock as he comes back into the room again.)

SHERLOCK: Any good?

JOHN: Very good.

SHERLOCK: Seen a lot of injuries, then; violent deaths.

JOHN: Mmm, yes.

SHERLOCK: Bit of trouble too, I bet.

JOHN (quietly): Of course, yes. Enough for a lifetime. Far too much.

SHERLOCK: Wanna see some more?

JOHN (fervently): Oh God, yes.

(Sherlock spins on his heel and leads John out of the room and down the stairs. John calls out as he follows him down.)

JOHN: Sorry, Mrs Hudson, I’ll skip the tea. Off out.

MRS HUDSON (standing near the bottom of the stairs): Both of you?

(Sherlock has almost reached the front door but now turns and walks back towards her.)

SHERLOCK: Impossible suicides? Four of them? There’s no point sitting at home when there’s finally something fun going on!

(He takes her by the shoulders and kisses her noisily on the cheek.)

MRS HUDSON: Look at you, all happy. It’s not decent.

(She can’t help but smile, though, as he turns away and heads for the front door again.)

SHERLOCK: Who cares about decent? The game, Mrs Hudson, is on!

(He walks out onto the street and hails an approaching black cab.)

SHERLOCK: Taxi!

(The taxi pulls up alongside and he and John get in, then the car drives off again and heads for Brixton. The boys sit in silence for a long time while Sherlock sits with his eyes fixed on his smartphone and John keeps stealing nervous glances at him. Finally Sherlock lowers his phone.)

SHERLOCK: Okay, you’ve got questions.

JOHN: Yeah, where are we going?

SHERLOCK: Crime scene. Next?

JOHN: Who are you? What do you do?

SHERLOCK: What do you think?

JOHN (slowly, hesitantly): I’d say private detective ...

SHERLOCK: But?

JOHN: ... but the police don’t go to private detectives.

SHERLOCK: I’m a consulting detective. Only one in the world. I invented the job.

JOHN: What does that mean?

SHERLOCK: It means when the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me.

JOHN: The police don’t consult amateurs.

(Sherlock throws him a look.)

SHERLOCK: When I met you for the first time yesterday, I said, “Afghanistan or Iraq?” You looked surprised.

JOHN: Yes, how did you know?

SHERLOCK: I didn’t know, I saw. Your haircut, the way you hold yourself says military. But your conversation as you entered the room ...

(Flashback to the lab at Bart’s)

JOHN (looking around the lab): Bit different from my day.

SHERLOCK: ... said trained at Bart’s, so Army doctor – obvious. Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists. You’ve been abroad, but not sunbathing. Your limp’s really bad when you walk but you don’t ask for a chair when you stand, like you’ve forgotten about it, so it’s at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic. Wounded in action, then. Wounded in action, suntan – Afghanistan or Iraq.

(He loudly clicks the ‘k’ sound at the end of the final word. Your humble transcriber, for whom this is her favourite vocal idiosyncrasy from Sherlock, giggles quietly.)

JOHN: You said I had a therapist.

SHERLOCK: You’ve got a psychosomatic limp – of course you’ve got a therapist. Then there’s your brother.

JOHN: Hmm?

SHERLOCK (holding his hand out): Your phone. It’s expensive, e-mail enabled, MP3 player, but you’re looking for a flatshare – you wouldn’t waste money on this. It’s a gift, then.

(By now John has given him the phone and he turns it over and looks at it again as he talks.)

SHERLOCK: Scratches. Not one, many over time. It’s been in the same pocket as keys and coins. The man sitting next to me wouldn’t treat his one luxury item like this, so it’s had a previous owner. Next bit’s easy. You know it already.

JOHN: The engraving.

(We see that engraved on the back of the phone are the words

Harry Watson

From Clara

xxx

SHERLOCK: Harry Watson: clearly a family member who’s given you his old phone. Not your father, this is a young man’s gadget. Could be a cousin, but you’re a war hero who can’t find a place to live. Unlikely you’ve got an extended family, certainly not one you’re close to, so brother it is. Now, Clara. Who’s Clara? Three kisses says it’s a romantic attachment. The expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. She must have given it to him recently – this model’s only six months old. Marriage in trouble then – six months on he’s just given it away. If she’d left him, he would have kept it. People do – sentiment. But no, he wanted rid of it. He left her. He gave the phone to you: that says he wants you to stay in touch. You’re looking for cheap accommodation, but you’re not going to your brother for help: that says you’ve got problems with him. Maybe you liked his wife; maybe you don’t like his drinking.

JOHN: How can you possibly know about the drinking?

SHERLOCK (smiling): Shot in the dark. Good one, though. Power connection: tiny little scuff marks around the edge of it. Every night he goes to plug it in to charge but his hands are shaking. You never see those marks on a sober man’s phone; never see a drunk’s without them.

(He hands the phone back.)

SHERLOCK: There you go, you see – you were right.

JOHN: I was right? Right about what?

SHERLOCK: The police don’t consult amateurs.

(He looks out of the side window, biting his lip nervously as he awaits John’s reaction.)

JOHN: That ... was amazing.

(Sherlock looks round, apparently so surprised that he can’t even reply for the next four seconds.)

SHERLOCK: Do you think so?

JOHN: Of course it was. It was extraordinary; it was quite extraordinary.

SHERLOCK: That’s not what people normally say.

JOHN: What do people normally say?

SHERLOCK: ‘Piss off’!

(He smiles briefly at John, who grins and turns away to look out of the window as the journey continues.)

BRIXTON. The cab has arrived at Lauriston Gardens and Sherlock and John get out and walk towards the police tape strung across the road.

SHERLOCK: Did I get anything wrong?

JOHN: Harry and me don’t get on, never have. Clara and Harry split up three months ago and they’re getting a divorce; and Harry is a drinker.

SHERLOCK (looking impressed with himself): Spot on, then. I didn’t expect to be right about everything.

JOHN: And Harry’s short for Harriet.

(Sherlock stops dead in his tracks.)

SHERLOCK: Harry’s your sister.

JOHN (continuing onwards): Look, what exactly am I supposed to be doing here?

SHERLOCK (furiously, through gritted teeth): Sister!

JOHN: No, seriously, what am I doing here?

SHERLOCK (exasperated, starting to walk again): There’s always something.

(They approach the police tape where they are met by Sergeant Donovan.)

DONOVAN: Hello, freak.

SHERLOCK: I’m here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade.

DONOVAN: Why?

SHERLOCK: I was invited.

DONOVAN: Why?

SHERLOCK (sarcastically): I think he wants me to take a look.

DONOVAN: Well, you know what I think, don’t you?

SHERLOCK (lifting the tape and ducking underneath it): Always, Sally. (He breathes in through his nose.) I even know you didn’t make it home last night.

DONOVAN: I don’t ... (She looks at John.) Er, who’s this?

SHERLOCK: Colleague of mine, Doctor Watson.

(He turns to John.)

SHERLOCK: Doctor Watson, Sergeant Sally Donovan. (His voice drips with sarcasm.) Old friend.

DONOVAN: A colleague? How do you get a colleague?!

(She turns to John.)

DONOVAN: What, did he follow you home?

JOHN: Would it be better if I just waited and ...

SHERLOCK (lifting the tape for him): No.

(As John walks under the tape, Donovan lifts a radio to her mouth.)

DONOVAN (into radio): Freak’s here. Bringing him in.

(She leads the boys towards the house. Sherlock looks all around the area and at the ground as they approach. As they reach the pavement, a man dressed in a coverall comes out of the house.)

SHERLOCK: Ah, Anderson. Here we are again.

(Anderson looks at him with distaste.)

ANDERSON: It’s a crime scene. I don’t want it contaminated. Are we clear on that?

SHERLOCK (taking in another deep breath through his nose): Quite clear. And is your wife away for long?

ANDERSON: Oh, don’t pretend you worked that out. Somebody told you that.

SHERLOCK: Your deodorant told me that.

ANDERSON: My deodorant?

SHERLOCK (with a quirky expression on his face): It’s for men.

ANDERSON: Well, of course it’s for men! I’m wearing it!

SHERLOCK: So’s Sergeant Donovan.

(Anderson looks round in shock at Donovan. Sherlock sniffs pointedly.)

SHERLOCK: Ooh, and I think it just vaporised. May I go in?

ANDERSON (turning back and pointing at him angrily): Now look: whatever you’re trying to imply ...

SHERLOCK: I’m not implying anything.

(He heads past Donovan towards the front door.)

SHERLOCK: I’m sure Sally came round for a nice little chat, and just happened to stay over.

(He turns back.)

SHERLOCK: And I assume she scrubbed your floors, going by the state of her knees.

(Anderson and Donovan stare at him in horror. He smiles smugly, then turns and goes into the house. John walks past Donovan, briefly but pointedly looking down to her knees, then follows Sherlock inside. Sherlock leads him into a room on the ground floor where Lestrade is putting on a coverall. Sherlock points to a pile of similar items.)

SHERLOCK (to John): You need to wear one of these.

LESTRADE: Who’s this?

SHERLOCK (taking his gloves off): He’s with me.

LESTRADE: But who is he?

SHERLOCK: I said he’s with me.

(John has taken his jacket off and picks up a coverall. He looks at Sherlock who has picked up a pair of latex gloves.)

JOHN (referring to the coverall): Aren’t you gonna put one on?

(Sherlock just looks at him sternly. John shakes his head as if to say, ‘Silly me. What was I thinking?!’)

SHERLOCK (to Lestrade): So where are we?

LESTRADE (picking up another pair of latex gloves): Upstairs.

Lestrade leads the boys up a circular staircase. He and John are wearing coveralls together with white cotton coverings over their shoes, and latex gloves. Sherlock is putting latex gloves on as they go up the stairs.

LESTRADE: I can give you two minutes.

SHERLOCK (casually): May need longer.

LESTRADE: Her name’s Jennifer Wilson according to her credit cards. We’re running them now for contact details. Hasn’t been here long. Some kids found her.

(He leads them into a room two storeys above the ground floor. The room is empty of furniture except for a rocking horse in the far corner. Emergency portable lighting has been set up, presumably by the police. Scaffolding poles hold up part of the ceiling near where a couple of large holes have been knocked through one of the walls. A woman’s body is lying face down on the bare floorboards in the middle of the room. She is wearing a bright pink overcoat and high-heeled pink shoes. Her hands are flat on the floor either side of her head. Sherlock walks a few steps into the room and then stops, holding one hand out in front of himself as he focuses on the corpse. Behind him, John looks at the woman’s body and his face fills with pain and sadness. The three of them stand there silently for several long seconds, then Sherlock looks across to Lestrade.)

SHERLOCK: Shut up.

LESTRADE (startled): I didn’t say anything.

SHERLOCK: You were thinking. It’s annoying.

(Lestrade and John exchange a surprised look as Sherlock steps slowly forward until he reaches the side of the corpse. His attention is immediately drawn to the fact that scratched into the floorboards by the woman’s left hand is the word “Rache”. His eyes flick to her fingernails where the index and middle nails are broken and ragged at the ends with the nail polish chipped, in stark comparison to her other nails which are still immaculate. The woman’s index finger rests at the bottom of the ‘e’ as if she was still trying to carve into the floor when she died. Sherlock makes an instant deduction:

left handed

He looks back to the word carved into the floorboards and an immediate suggestion springs into his mind:

RACHE

German (n.) revenge

Instantly he shakes his head in a tiny dismissive movement and the suggestion disappears. He looks at the carved word again and overlays the five letters with a clearer type. Next to the ‘e’ a rapid progression of letters appear and disappear as he tries to complete the word, then the correct letter settles into place to form the word:

Rachel

He squats down beside the body and runs his gloved hand along the back of her coat, then lifts his hand again to look at his fingers:

wet

He reaches into her coat pockets and finds a white folding umbrella in one of them. Running his fingers along the folds of the material, he then inspects his glove again:

dry

Putting the umbrella back into her pocket, he moves up to the collar of her coat and runs his fingers underneath it before once again looking at his fingers:

wet

Reaching into his pocket he takes out a small magnifier, clicks it open and closely inspects the delicate gold bracelet on her left wrist ...

clean

... then the gold earring attached to her left ear ...

clean

... and then the gold chain around her neck ...

clean

... before moving on to look at the rings on her left ring finger. The wedding ring and engagement ring flag a different message to him:

dirty

Sherlock blinks as a rapid succession of conclusions appear in front of his eyes:

married

unhappily married

unhappily married 10+ years

Carefully Sherlock works the wedding ring off the woman’s finger and holds it up to look at the inside of the ring. While the outside of the ring is still showing

dirty

the inside registers as

clean

As Sherlock lowers the ring and slides it back onto the woman’s finger, he has already reached a conclusion about the ring:

regularly removed

Lifting his hands away from the woman, he looks down at her and makes his final deduction about her:

serial adulterer

He smiles slightly in satisfaction.)

LESTRADE: Got anything?

SHERLOCK (nonchalantly): Not much.

(Standing up, he takes the gloves off and then gets his mobile phone from his pocket and begins typing on it.)

ANDERSON (from where he is leaning casually against the doorway): She’s German. ‘Rache’: it’s German for ‘revenge’. She could be trying to tell us something …

(As he has been speaking, Sherlock has walked quickly towards the door and now begins to close it in Anderson’s face.)

SHERLOCK (sarcastically): Yes, thank you for your input.

(Slamming the door shut, he turns and walks back into the room. On his phone, he has called up a menu for “UK Weather”. The menu offers five options:

Maps

Local

Warnings

Next 24 hrs

7 day forecast

He selects the Maps option.)

LESTRADE: So she’s German?

SHERLOCK (still looking at his phone): Of course she’s not. She’s from out of town, though. Intended to stay in London for one night ... (he smiles smugly as he apparently finds the information he needed) ... before returning home to Cardiff.

(He pockets his phone.)

SHERLOCK: So far, so obvious.

JOHN: Sorry – obvious?

LESTRADE: What about the message, though?

SHERLOCK (ignoring him and looking at John): Doctor Watson, what do you think?

JOHN: Of the message?

SHERLOCK: Of the body. You’re a medical man.

LESTRADE: Wait, no, we have a whole team right outside.

SHERLOCK: They won’t work with me.

LESTRADE: I’m breaking every rule letting you in here.

SHERLOCK: Yes ... because you need me.

(Lestrade stares at him for a moment, then lowers his eyes helplessly.)

LESTRADE: Yes, I do. God help me.

SHERLOCK: Doctor Watson.

JOHN: Hm?

(He looks up from the body to Sherlock and then turns his head towards Lestrade, silently seeking his permission.)

LESTRADE (a little tetchily): Oh, do as he says. Help yourself.

(He turns and opens the door, going outside.)

LESTRADE: Anderson, keep everyone out for a couple of minutes.

(Sherlock and John walk over to the body. Sherlock squats down on one side of it and John painfully lowers himself to one knee on the other side, leaning heavily on his cane to support himself.)

SHERLOCK: Well?

JOHN (softly): What am I doing here?

SHERLOCK (softly): Helping me make a point.

JOHN (softly): I’m supposed to be helping you pay the rent.

SHERLOCK (softly): Yeah, well, this is more fun.

JOHN: Fun? There’s a woman lying dead.

SHERLOCK: Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you’d go deeper.

(As Lestrade comes back into the room and stands just inside the doorway, John drags his other leg down into a kneeling position and then leans forward to look more closely at the woman’s body. He puts his head close to hers and sniffs, then straightens a little before lifting her right hand and looking at the skin. He kneels up and looks across to Sherlock.)

JOHN: Yeah ... Asphyxiation, probably. Passed out, choked on her own vomit. Can’t smell any alcohol on her. It could have been a seizure; possibly drugs.

SHERLOCK: You know what it was. You’ve read the papers.

JOHN: What, she’s one of the suicides? The fourth ...?

LESTRADE: Sherlock – two minutes, I said. I need anything you’ve got.

SHERLOCK (standing up as John struggles to get to his feet): Victim is in her late thirties. Professional person, going by her clothes; I’m guessing something in the media, going by the frankly alarming shade of pink. Travelled from Cardiff today, intending to stay in London for one night. It’s obvious from the size of her suitcase.

LESTRADE: Suitcase?

(John looks around the room but can’t see a suitcase anywhere.)

SHERLOCK: Suitcase, yes. She’s been married at least ten years, but not happily. She’s had a string of lovers but none of them knew she was married.

LESTRADE: Oh, for God’s sake, if you’re just making this up ...

SHERLOCK (pointing down to her left hand): Her wedding ring. Ten years old at least. The rest of her jewellery has been regularly cleaned, but not her wedding ring. State of her marriage right there. The inside of the ring is shinier than the outside – that means it’s regularly removed. The only polishing it gets is when she works it off her finger. It’s not for work; look at her nails. She doesn’t work with her hands, so what or rather who does she remove her rings for? Clearly not one lover; she’d never sustain the fiction of being single over that amount of time, so more likely a string of them. Simple.

JOHN (admiringly): That’s brilliant.

(Sherlock looks round at him.)

JOHN (apologetically): Sorry.

LESTRADE: Cardiff?

SHERLOCK: It’s obvious, isn’t it?

JOHN: It’s not obvious to me.

SHERLOCK (pausing as he looks at the other two): Dear God, what is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring.

(He turns back to the body.)

SHERLOCK: Her coat: it’s slightly damp. She’s been in heavy rain in the last few hours. No rain anywhere in London in that time. Under her coat collar is damp, too. She’s turned it up against the wind. She’s got an umbrella in her left-hand pocket but it’s dry and unused: not just wind, strong wind – too strong to use her umbrella. We know from her suitcase that she was intending to stay overnight, so she must have come a decent distance but she can’t have travelled more than two or three hours because her coat still hasn’t dried. So, where has there been heavy rain and strong wind within the radius of that travel time? (He gets his phone from his pocket and shows to the other two the webpage he was looking at earlier, displaying today’s weather for the southern part of Britain.) Cardiff.

JOHN: That’s fantastic!

SHERLOCK (turning to him and speaking in a low voice): D’you know you do that out loud?

JOHN: Sorry. I’ll shut up.

SHERLOCK: No, it’s ... fine.

LESTRADE: Why d’you keep saying suitcase?

SHERLOCK (spinning around in a circle to look around the room): Yes, where is it? She must have had a phone or an organiser. Find out who Rachel is.

LESTRADE: She was writing ‘Rachel’?

SHERLOCK (sarcastically): No, she was leaving an angry note in German(!) Of course she was writing Rachel; no other word it can be. Question is: why did she wait until she was dying to write it?

LESTRADE: How d’you know she had a suitcase?

SHERLOCK (pointing down to the body, where her tights have small black splotches on the lower part of her right leg): Back of the right leg: tiny splash marks on the heel and calf, not present on the left. She was dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. Don’t get that splash pattern any other way. Smallish case, going by the spread. Case that size, woman this clothes-conscious: could only be an overnight bag, so we know she was staying one night.

(He squats down by the woman’s body and examines the backs of her legs more closely.)

SHERLOCK: Now, where is it? What have you done with it?

LESTRADE: There wasn’t a case.

(Slowly Sherlock raises his head and frowns up at Lestrade.)

SHERLOCK: Say that again.

LESTRADE: There wasn’t a case. There was never any suitcase.

(Immediately Sherlock straightens up and heads for the door, calling out to all the police officers in the house as he begins to hurry down the stairs.)

SHERLOCK: Suitcase! Did anyone find a suitcase? Was there a suitcase in this house?

(Lestrade and John follow him out and stop on the landing. Lestrade calls down the stairs.)

LESTRADE: Sherlock, there was no case!

SHERLOCK (slowing down, but still making his way down the stairs): But they take the poison themselves; they chew, swallow the pills themselves. There are clear signs, even you lot couldn’t miss them.

LESTRADE: Right, yeah, thanks(!) And ...?

SHERLOCK: It’s murder, all of them. I don’t know how, but they’re not suicides, they’re killings – serial killings.

(He holds his hands up in front of his face in delight.)

SHERLOCK: We’ve got ourselves a serial killer. I love those. There’s always something to look forward to.

LESTRADE: Why are you saying that?

SHERLOCK (stopping and calling up to the others): Her case! Come on, where is her case? Did she eat it?(!) Someone else was here, and they took her case. (More quietly, as if talking to himself) So the killer must have driven her here; forgot the case was in the car.

JOHN: She could have checked into a hotel, left her case there.

SHERLOCK (looking up the stairs again): No, she never got to the hotel. Look at her hair. She colour-coordinates her lipstick and her shoes. She’d never have left any hotel with her hair still looking ...

(He stops talking as he makes a realisation.)

SHERLOCK: Oh.

(His eyes widen and his face lights up.)

SHERLOCK: Oh!

(He claps his hands in delight.)

JOHN: Sherlock?

LESTRADE (leaning over the railings): What is it, what?

SHERLOCK (smiling cheerfully to himself): Serial killers are always hard. You have to wait for them to make a mistake.

LESTRADE: We can’t just wait!

SHERLOCK: Oh, we’re done waiting!

(He starts to hurry down the stairs again.)

SHERLOCK: Look at her, really look! Houston, we have a mistake. Get on to Cardiff: find out who Jennifer Wilson’s family and friends were. Find Rachel!

(He reaches the bottom of the stairs and disappears from view.)

LESTRADE (calling after him): Of course, yeah – but what mistake?!

(Sherlock comes back into view and runs up a couple of stairs so that he can be seen before he yells up to Lestrade.)

SHERLOCK: PINK!

(He hurries off again. Lestrade, baffled, turns and goes back into the room while Anderson and his team, who had been waiting on the next landing down, hurry up the stairs and follow him into the room.)

ANDERSON: Let’s get on with it.

(Forgotten by everyone else, John hesitates on the landing for a moment and then slowly starts making his way down the stairs. A couple more police officers hurry up and one of them bumps against him, throwing him off-balance and making him lurch heavily against the bannisters. The man hurries on without a word, although his colleague does at least look apologetically at John as he passes. John regains his balance and continues down the stairs.)

(Shortly afterwards he has removed his coverall and put his jacket back on, and now walks out onto the street. Looking all around, he can see no sign of Sherlock. He walks towards the police tape, still looking around. Donovan, standing at the tape, sees him.)

DONOVAN: He’s gone.

JOHN: Who, Sherlock Holmes?

DONOVAN: Yeah, he just took off. He does that.

JOHN: Is he coming back?

DONOVAN: Didn’t look like it.

JOHN: Right.

(He looks around the area again thoughtfully, unsure what to do.)

JOHN: Right ... Yes.

(He turns to Donovan again.)

JOHN: Sorry, where am I?

DONOVAN: Brixton.

JOHN: Right. Er, d’you know where I could get a cab? It’s just, er ... well ... (he looks down awkwardly at his walking stick) ... my leg.

DONOVAN: Er ... (she steps over to the tape and lifts it for him) ... try the main road.

JOHN (ducking under the tape): Thanks.

DONOVAN: But you’re not his friend.

(John turns back towards her.)

DONOVAN: He doesn’t have friends. So who are you?

JOHN: I’m ... I’m nobody. I just met him.

DONOVAN: Okay, bit of advice then: stay away from that guy.

JOHN: Why?

DONOVAN: You know why he’s here? He’s not paid or anything. He likes it. He gets off on it. The weirder the crime, the more he gets off. And you know what? One day just showing up won’t be enough. One day we’ll be standing round a body and Sherlock Holmes’ll be the one that put it there.

JOHN: Why would he do that?

DONOVAN: Because he’s a psychopath. And psychopaths get bored.

LESTRADE (calling from the entrance to the house): Donovan!

DONOVAN (turning and calling to him): Coming.

(She turns back towards John as she walks towards the house.)

DONOVAN: Stay away from Sherlock Holmes.

(John watches her go for a moment, then turns and begins to limp off down the road. To his right, the phone in a public telephone box begins to ring. He stops and looks at it for a few seconds but then looks down at his watch, shakes his head and continues down the road. The phone stops ringing.)

Not long afterwards, John is walking down what may well be Brixton High Road. He tries to hail a passing taxi.

JOHN: Taxi! Taxi ...

(The taxi passes him by. In Chicken Cottage, the fast food restaurant outside which John is standing, the payphone on the wall begins to ring. John turns and looks as one of the serving staff walks over to it but as he reaches for the phone, it stops. John walks on down the road and shortly afterwards approaches another public telephone box. The phone inside starts to ring. Mystified by this, he pulls open the door, goes inside and lifts the phone.)

JOHN: Hello?

(A man’s voice speaks down the phone.)

MAN’s VOICE: There is a security camera on the building to your left. Do you see it?

JOHN (frowning): Who’s this? Who’s speaking?

MAN’s VOICE: Do you see the camera, Doctor Watson?

(John looks through the window of the phone box at the CCTV camera high up on the wall of a nearby building.)

JOHN: Yeah, I see it.

MAN’s VOICE: Watch.

(The camera, which was pointing directly at the phone box, now swivels away.)

MAN’s VOICE: There is another camera on the building opposite you. Do you see it?

(John looks across to the second camera, which is also pointed towards the phone box.)

JOHN: Mmm-hmm.

(The camera immediately swivels away.)

MAN’s VOICE: And finally, at the top of the building on your right.

(John stares up into the third camera which is watching him but which now turns away.)

JOHN (into phone): How are you doing this?

MAN’s VOICE: Get into the car, Doctor Watson.

(A black car pulls up at the kerbside near the phone. The male driver gets out and opens the rear door.)

MAN’s VOICE: I would make some sort of threat, but I’m sure your situation is quite clear to you.

(The phone goes dead. John puts it down and looks thoughtful for a long moment, then apparently decides that there’s not much else he can do and turns to leave the phone box.)

A few moments later he is sitting in the back seat of the car as it pulls away and drives off. An attractive young woman is sitting beside him, her eyes fixed on her BlackBerry as she types on it. She is pretty much ignoring him.

JOHN: Hello.

WOMAN (smiling brightly at him for a moment before returning her gaze to her phone): Hi.

JOHN: What’s your name, then?

WOMAN: Er ... Anthea.

JOHN: Is that your real name?

WOMAN (smiling): No.

(John nods, then twists to look out of the rear window briefly before turning back again.)

JOHN: I’m John.

NOT-ANTHEA: Yes. I know.

JOHN: Any point in asking where I’m going?

NOT-ANTHEA: None at all ...

(She turns and smiles briefly at him, then looks back at her phone again.)

NOT-ANTHEA: ... John.

JOHN: Okay.

Some time later, the car pulls into an almost-empty warehouse. A man in a suit is standing in the centre of the area, leaning nonchalantly on an umbrella as he watches the car stop and John get out.

[Transcriber’s note: Now, I know that the vast majority of people who read this transcript will have already seen the episode, but for the benefit of the very few people who may be reading this having never watched the show, and because at this point in the episode we are not told who this man is, I’m going to refer to him as ‘M’, which is short for ... um, ‘Man’, okay? {transcriber inserts winky face here...}]

In front of the man is a straight-backed armless chair facing him. He gestures to it with the point of his umbrella as John limps towards him leaning heavily on his cane.

M: Have a seat, John.

(John continues towards him, his voice calm.)

JOHN: You know, I’ve got a phone.

(He looks round the warehouse.)

JOHN: I mean, very clever and all that, but er ... you could just phone me. On my phone.

(He walks straight past the chair and stops a few paces away from the man.)

M: When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes, one learns to be discreet, hence this place.

(His voice, which has had a pleasant smile in it so far, now becomes a little more stern towards the end of the next phrase.)

M: The leg must be hurting you. Sit down.

JOHN: I don’t wanna sit down.

(The man looks at him curiously.)

M: You don’t seem very afraid.

JOHN: You don’t seem very frightening.

(The man chuckles.)

M: Ah, yes. The bravery of the soldier. Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don’t you think?

(He looks at John sternly.)

M: What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?

JOHN: I don’t have one. I barely know him. I met him ...

(He looks away thoughtfully, then appears surprised as if he hadn’t realised until now how little time has passed.)

JOHN: ... yesterday.

M: Mmm, and since yesterday you’ve moved in with him and now you’re solving crimes together. Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?

JOHN: Who are you?

M: An interested party.

JOHN: Interested in Sherlock? Why? I’m guessing you’re not friends.

M: You’ve met him. How many ‘friends’ do you imagine he has? I am the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock Holmes is capable of having.

JOHN: And what’s that?

M: An enemy.

JOHN: An enemy?

M: In his mind, certainly. If you were to ask him, he’d probably say his arch-enemy. He does love to be dramatic.

(John looks pointedly around the warehouse.)

JOHN (sarcastically): Well, thank God you’re above all that.

(The man frowns at him. Just then John’s phone trills a text alert. He immediately digs into his jacket pocket, takes out the phone and activates it, looking at the message while ignoring the man in front of him. The message reads:

Baker Street.

Come at once

if convenient.

SH

M: I hope I’m not distracting you.

JOHN (casually): Not distracting me at all.

(He takes his time looking up from the phone before he pockets it.)

M: Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?

JOHN: I could be wrong ... but I think that’s none of your business.

M (a little ominously): It could be.

JOHN: It really couldn’t.

(The man takes a notebook from his inside pocket, then opens it and consults it as he speaks.)

M: If you do move into, um ... two hundred and twenty-one B Baker Street, I’d be happy to pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to ease your way.

(He closes the notebook and puts it away again.)

JOHN: Why?

M: Because you’re not a wealthy man.

JOHN: In exchange for what?

M: Information. Nothing indiscreet. Nothing you’d feel ... uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he’s up to.

JOHN: Why?

M: I worry about him. Constantly.

JOHN (insincerely): That’s nice of you.

M: But I would prefer for various reasons that my concern go unmentioned. We have what you might call a ... difficult relationship.

(John’s phone sounds another text alert. Again he immediately fishes the phone out and looks at the message which reads:

If inconvenient,

come anyway.

SH

JOHN (in response to the man’s offer): No.

M: But I haven’t mentioned a figure.

JOHN (putting his phone away again): Don’t bother.

M (laughing briefly): You’re very loyal, very quickly.

JOHN: No, I’m not. I’m just not interested.

(The man looks at him closely for a moment, then takes out his notebook and opens it again.)

M (gesturing slightly to make it clear that he is reading a note from the book): “Trust issues,” it says here.

(For the first time since their encounter began, John looks a little unnerved.)

JOHN: What’s that?

M (still looking down at his book): Could it be that you’ve decided to trust Sherlock Holmes of all people?

JOHN: Who says I trust him?

M: You don’t seem the kind to make friends easily.

JOHN: Are we done?

(The man raises his head and looks into John’s eyes.)

M: You tell me.

(John looks at him for a long moment, then turns his back on him and starts to walk away.)

M: I imagine people have already warned you to stay away from him, but I can see from your left hand that’s not going to happen.

(John stops dead. His shoulders tense and drop and he angrily shakes his head a little. He is clearly furious as he turns back around to face the man.)

JOHN (savagely, through bared teeth): My wot?

M (calmly): Show me.

(He has nodded towards John’s left hand as he speaks, and now he plants the tip of his umbrella on the floor and leans casually on it like a man who is used to having his orders obeyed. John, however, is not going to be intimidated and deliberately shifts his feet under him as if digging in. He raises his left hand, bending it at the elbow, and stands still. His message is clear: if the man wants to look at his hand, he’ll have to come to him. Apparently unperturbed by this belligerence, the man strolls forward, hooking the handle of the umbrella over his arm as he reaches for John’s hand. John instantly pulls his hand back a little.)

JOHN (tensely): Don’t.

(The man lowers his head and raises his eyebrows at John, almost as if saying, ‘Did I mention trust issues?!’ John very reluctantly lowers his hand, holding it out flat with the palm down. The man takes it in both of his own hands and looks at it closely.)

M: Remarkable.

JOHN (snatching his hand away): What is?

M (turning and walking a few paces away): Most people blunder round this city, and all they see are streets and shops and cars. When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see the battlefield. (He turns towards John again.) You’ve seen it already, haven’t you?

JOHN: What’s wrong with my hand?

M: You have an intermittent tremor in your left hand.

(Perhaps unintentionally, John nods his head.)

M: Your therapist thinks it’s post-traumatic stress disorder. She thinks you’re haunted by memories of your military service.

(John almost flinches as the man accurately fires off these facts at him. His gaze is fixed ahead of him and a muscle in his cheek twitches repeatedly.)

JOHN (angry and distressed): Who the hell are you? How do you know that?

M: Fire her. She’s got it the wrong way round. You’re under stress right now and your hand is perfectly steady.

(John’s eyes flicker down towards his hand before returning to stare ahead of himself, his face set and struggling to hold back his anger.)

M: You’re not haunted by the war, Doctor Watson ... you miss it.

(He leans closer to him. Reluctantly John’s eyes rise up to meet his.)

M (in a whisper): Welcome back.

(He turns and starts to walk away just as John’s phone trills another text alert.)

M (casually twirling his umbrella as he goes): Time to choose a side, Doctor Watson.

(John stands fixed to the spot for a few seconds, then turns and glances towards the departing man as, behind John, the car door opens and not-Anthea gets out and walks a few paces towards him, her attention still riveted to the BlackBerry held in front of her in both hands.)

NOT-ANTHEA: I’m to take you home.

(John half-turns towards her, then stops and takes out his phone to look at the new message. It reads:

Could be dangerous.

SH

Putting the phone back into his pocket, John holds out his left hand in front of him and studies the lack of tremor coming from it. He smiles wryly.)

NOT-ANTHEA: Address?

JOHN (turning and walking towards her): Er, Baker Street. Two two one B Baker Street. But I need to stop off somewhere first.

Later, John opens the door into his bedsit and switches on the light. Walking inside and closing the door behind him, he goes across to the desk and opens the drawer, taking out his pistol. Checking the clip, he tucks the gun into the back of the waistband of his jeans and turns to leave again.

Later again, the car pulls up outside 221B Baker Street. Not-Anthea is still rivetted by whatever she’s typing on her phone [that must be one heck of a running blog that she’s writing]. John looks across to her.

JOHN: Listen, your boss – any chance you could not tell him this is where I went?

NOT-ANTHEA (nonchalantly): Sure.

JOHN: You’ve told him already, haven’t you?

(She smiles across to him briefly.)

NOT-ANTHEA: Yeah.

(John nods in resignation and turns to get out of the car but just as he has opened the door, he turns back to her.)

JOHN: Hey, um ... do you ever get any free time?

(She chuckles.)

NOT-ANTHEA (sarcastically) : Oh, yeah. Lots.

(John waits expectantly. She continues working her phone for a long moment, then turns and looks at him before allowing her gaze to drift past him to the door of 221B.)

NOT-ANTHEA: ’Bye.

JOHN: Okay.

(He gets out and closes the door, then watches the car pull away before turning and walking across the pavement to the front door of 221B. He knocks on the door.)

Upstairs in the living room of the flat, Sherlock is lying stretched out on the sofa with his head towards the window and resting on a cushion. With his jacket off and his shirt sleeves unbuttoned and pushed up his arms, he has his eyes closed and he is pressing the palm of his right hand firmly onto the underside of his left arm just below the elbow. After some seconds his eyes snap open wide and he stares fixedly up towards the ceiling, then he sighs out a noisy breath and relaxes. John comes through the door, then stops and stares as Sherlock repeatedly clenches and unclenches his left fist.

JOHN: What are you doing?

SHERLOCK (calmly): Nicotine patch. Helps me think.

(He lifts his right hand to show that he has three round nicotine patches stuck to his arm and it was these which he was pressing against his skin to release the substances more quickly.)

SHERLOCK: Impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days. Bad news for brain work.

(He loudly clicks the ‘k’ on ‘work’. Your transcriber dutifully wibbles.)

JOHN (walking further into the room): It’s good news for breathing.

SHERLOCK (dismissively): Oh, breathing. Breathing’s boring.

(John frowns as he looks more closely at Sherlock’s arm.)

JOHN: Is that three patches?

SHERLOCK (pressing his hands together in the prayer position under his chin): It’s a three-patch problem.

(He closes his eyes. John looks around the room for a moment, then looks down at Sherlock again.)

JOHN: Well?

(Sherlock doesn’t respond.)

JOHN: You asked me to come. I’m assuming it’s important.

(Sherlock still doesn’t respond instantly, but after a couple of seconds his eyes snap open. He doesn’t bother turning his head to look at John.)

SHERLOCK: Oh, yeah, of course. Can I borrow your phone?

JOHN: My phone?

SHERLOCK: Don’t wanna use mine. Always a chance that the number will be recognised. It’s on the website.

JOHN: Mrs Hudson’s got a phone.

SHERLOCK: Yeah, she’s downstairs. I tried shouting but she didn’t hear.

JOHN (beginning to get angry): I was the other side of London.

SHERLOCK (mildly): There was no hurry.

(John glares at him as he gazes serenely at the ceiling before closing his eyes again. Eventually John digs his phone out of his jacket pocket and holds it towards him.)

JOHN: Here.

(Without opening his eyes, Sherlock holds out his right hand with the palm up. John glowers at him for a moment, then steps forward and slaps the phone into his hand. Sherlock slowly lifts his arm and puts his hands together again, this time with the phone in between his palms. John turns and walks a few paces away before turning around again.)

JOHN: So what’s this about – the case?

SHERLOCK (softly): Her case.

JOHN: Her case?

SHERLOCK (opening his eyes): Her suitcase, yes, obviously. The murderer took her suitcase. First big mistake.

JOHN: Okay, he took her case. So?

SHERLOCK (quietly, as if to himself): It’s no use, there’s no other way. We’ll have to risk it.

(Raising his voice a little, he imperiously holds the phone out towards John, still not looking at him.)

SHERLOCK: On my desk there’s a number. I want you to send a text.

(John half-smiles in angry disbelief.)

JOHN (tightly): You brought me here ... to send a text.

SHERLOCK (oblivious to his anger): Text, yes. The number on my desk.

(He continues to hold the phone out while John glowers at him, possibly wondering if he can get away with justifiable homicide. Eventually he stomps across the room and snatches the phone from Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock refolds his hands under his chin and closes his eyes but instead of going to the table, John walks over to the window and looks out of it into the street below. Sherlock opens his eyes and tilts his head slightly towards him.)

SHERLOCK: What’s wrong?

JOHN: Just met a friend of yours.

(Sherlock frowns in confusion.)

SHERLOCK: A friend?

JOHN: An enemy.

(Sherlock immediately relaxes.)

SHERLOCK (calmly): Oh. Which one?

JOHN: Your arch-enemy, according to him. (He turns towards Sherlock.) Do people have arch-enemies?

(Sherlock looks towards him, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.)

SHERLOCK: Did he offer you money to spy on me?

JOHN: Yes.

SHERLOCK: Did you take it?

JOHN: No.

SHERLOCK: Pity. We could have split the fee. Think it through next time.

JOHN: Who is he?

SHERLOCK (softly): The most dangerous man you’ve ever met, and not my problem right now. (More loudly) On my desk, the number.

(John gives him a dark look but Sherlock has already looked away again so John walks over to the desk and picks up a piece of paper taken from a luggage label. He looks at the name on the paper.)

JOHN: Jennifer Wilson. That was ... Hang on. Wasn’t that the dead woman?

SHERLOCK: Yes. That’s not important. Just enter the number.

(Shaking his head, John gets his phone out and starts to type the number onto it.)

SHERLOCK: Are you doing it?

JOHN: Yes.

SHERLOCK: Have you done it?

JOHN: Ye... hang on!

SHERLOCK: These words exactly: “What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out.”

(John starts to type but looks briefly across to Sherlock as if concerned at what he just said. Sherlock continues his narration.)

SHERLOCK: “Twenty-two Northumberland Street. Please come.”

(John has got as far as:

What happened at

Lauriston Gdns?

I must have b

Now he looks across to Sherlock again, frowning.)

JOHN: You blacked out?

SHERLOCK: What? No. No!

(He flips his legs around and stands up, taking the shortest route towards the kitchen – which involves walking over the coffee table beside the sofa rather than around it.)

SHERLOCK: Type and send it. Quickly.

(Going into the kitchen, he picks up a small pink suitcase from a chair and brings it back into the living room. Walking over to the dining table, he lifts one of the dining chairs and flips it around, setting it down in front of one of the two armchairs near the fireplace. He puts the suitcase onto the dining chair and sits down in the armchair. John is still typing.)

SHERLOCK: Have you sent it?

JOHN: What’s the address?

SHERLOCK (impatiently): Twenty-two Northumberland Street. Hurry up!

(John finishes the message, then looks round as Sherlock unzips the case and flips open the lid, revealing the contents. There are a few items of clothing and underwear – all in varying shades of pink – a washbag, and a paperback novel by Paul Bunch entitled “Come To Bed Eyes”. [Good grief – has Jennifer met Sherlock before?!]. As John turns towards the case he staggers slightly in shock as he realises what he’s looking at.)

JOHN: That’s ... that’s the pink lady’s case. That’s Jennifer Wilson’s case.

SHERLOCK (studying the case closely): Yes, obviously.

(As John continues to stare, Sherlock looks up at him and then rolls his eyes.)

SHERLOCK (sarcastically): Oh, perhaps I should mention: I didn’t kill her.

JOHN: I never said you did.

SHERLOCK: Why not? Given the text I just had you send and the fact I that have her case, it’s a perfectly logical assumption.

JOHN: Do people usually assume you’re the murderer?

SHERLOCK (smirking): Now and then, yes.

(He puts his hands onto the arms of the armchair and lifts his feet up and under him so that he is perching on the seat with his backside braced against the back rest, then clasps his hands under his chin.)

JOHN: Okay ...

(He limps across the room and drops heavily into the armchair on the other side of the fireplace.)

JOHN: How did you get this?

SHERLOCK: By looking.

JOHN: Where?

SHERLOCK: The killer must have driven her to Lauriston Gardens. He could only keep her case by accident if it was in the car. Nobody could be seen with this case without drawing attention – particularly a man, which is statistically more likely – so obviously he’d feel compelled to get rid of it the moment he noticed he still had it. Wouldn’t have taken him more than five minutes to realise his mistake. I checked every back street wide enough for a car five minutes from Lauriston Gardens ...

(Cutaway shot of Sherlock standing on the edge of a rooftop looking down into the streets below as he searches for a glimpse of anywhere the case might have been hidden.)

SHERLOCK: ... and anywhere you could dispose of a bulky object without being observed.

(Cutaway shot of Sherlock back on the ground and rooting through a large skip in an alley before unearthing the case buried under some black plastic, then checking the luggage label attached to the handle.)

SHERLOCK: Took me less than an hour to find the right skip.

JOHN: Pink. You got all that because you realised the case would be pink?

SHERLOCK: Well, it had to be pink, obviously.

JOHN (to himself): Why didn’t I think of that?

SHERLOCK: Because you’re an idiot.

(John looks across to him, startled. Sherlock makes a placatory gesture with one hand.)

SHERLOCK: No, no, no, don’t look like that. Practically everyone is.

(He refolds his hands and then extends his index fingers to point at the case.)

SHERLOCK: Now, look. Do you see what’s missing?

JOHN: From the case? How could I?

SHERLOCK: Her phone. Where’s her mobile phone? There was no phone on the body, there’s no phone in the case. We know she had one – that’s her number there; you just texted it.

JOHN: Maybe she left it at home.

(Sherlock puts his hands onto the arms of the chair and raises himself up so that he can lower his feet to the floor, then sits down properly on the chair.)

SHERLOCK: She has a string of lovers and she’s careful about it. She never leaves her phone at home.

(He puts the slip of paper back into the luggage label on the case and looks at John expectantly.)

JOHN: Er ...

(He looks down at his mobile phone which he has put onto the arm of his chair.)

JOHN: Why did I just send that text?

SHERLOCK: Well, the question is: where is her phone now?

JOHN: She could have lost it.

SHERLOCK: Yes, or ...?

JOHN (slowly): The murderer ... You think the murderer has the phone?

SHERLOCK: Maybe she left it when she left her case. Maybe he took it from her for some reason. Either way, the balance of probability is the murderer has her phone.

JOHN: Sorry, what are we doing? Did I just text a murderer?! What good will that do?

(As if on cue, his phone begins to ring. He picks it up and looks at the screen for the Caller I.D. It reads:

(withheld)

calling

He looks across to Sherlock as the phone continues to ring.)

SHERLOCK: A few hours after his last victim, and now he receives a text that can only be from her. If somebody had just found that phone they’d ignore a text like that, but the murderer ...

(He pauses dramatically for a moment until the phone stops ringing.)

SHERLOCK: ... would panic.

(He flips the lid of the suitcase closed and stands up, walking across the room to pick up his jacket. As John continues to stare down at his phone, Sherlock puts his jacket on and walks towards the door.)

JOHN (finally looking up): Have you talked to the police?

SHERLOCK: Four people are dead. There isn’t time to talk to the police.

JOHN: So why are you talking to me?

(Sherlock reaches behind the door to take his greatcoat from the hook. As he looks across towards John he notices that something is missing from the mantelpiece.)

SHERLOCK: Mrs Hudson took my skull.

JOHN: So I’m basically filling in for your skull?

SHERLOCK (putting his coat on): Relax, you’re doing fine.

(John doesn’t move.)

SHERLOCK: Well?

JOHN: Well what?

SHERLOCK: Well, you could just sit there and watch telly.

JOHN: What, you want me to come with you?

SHERLOCK: I like company when I go out, and I think better when I talk aloud. The skull just attracts attention, so ...

(John smiles briefly.)

SHERLOCK: Problem?

JOHN: Yeah, Sergeant Donovan.

SHERLOCK (looking away in exasperation): What about her?

JOHN: She said ... You get off on this. You enjoy it.

SHERLOCK (nonchalantly): And I said “dangerous”, and here you are.

(Instantly he turns and walks out of the door. John sits there thoughtfully for a few seconds, then almost angrily leans onto his cane to push himself to his feet and head for the door.)

JOHN: Damn it!