Forever Dreaming
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1x01 - A Study in Pink
https://foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=7715		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  bunniefuu [ 05/12/13 06:56 ]
Post subject:  1x01 - A Study in Pink
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!
Author:  bunniefuu [ 05/12/13 06:56 ]
Post subject:  Re: 1x01 - A Study in Pink
Not long afterwards, John catches up to Sherlock in the street and they continue down the road.

JOHN: Where are we going?

SHERLOCK: Northumberland Street’s a five-minute walk from here.

JOHN: You think he’s stupid enough to go there?

SHERLOCK (smiling expectantly): No – I think he’s brilliant enough. I love the brilliant ones. They’re always so desperate to get caught.

JOHN: Why?

SHERLOCK: Appreciation! Applause! At long last the spotlight. That’s the frailty of genius, John: it needs an audience.

JOHN (looking pointedly at him): Yeah.

(Oblivious to the implication, Sherlock spins around to indicate the entire area as he continues down the road.)

SHERLOCK: This is his hunting ground, right here in the heart of the city. Now that we know his victims were abducted, that changes everything. Because all of his victims disappeared from busy streets, crowded places, but nobody saw them go.

(He holds his hands up on either side of his head as if to focus his thoughts.)

SHERLOCK: Think! Who do we trust, even though we don’t know them? Who passes unnoticed wherever they go? Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?

JOHN: Dunno. Who?

SHERLOCK (shrugging): Haven’t the faintest. Hungry?

(Lowering his hands, he leads John onwards and into a small restaurant. The waiter near the door clearly knows him and gestures to a reserved table at the front window.)

SHERLOCK: Thank you, Billy.

(Taking his coat off, he sits down on the bench seat at the side of the table and immediately turns sideways so that he can see clearly out of the window. As Billy takes the ‘Reserved’ sign off the table, John sits down on the other bench seat with his back to the window, and takes off his jacket.)

SHERLOCK (nodding to a building over the road): Twenty-two Northumberland Street. Keep your eyes on it.

JOHN: He isn’t just gonna ring the doorbell, though, is he? He’d need to be mad.

SHERLOCK: He has killed four people.

JOHN: ... Okay.

(The manager and/or owner of the restaurant comes over, clearly pleased to see Sherlock.)

ANGELO: Sherlock.

(They shake hands.)

ANGELO: Anything on the menu, whatever you want, free.

(He lays a couple of menus on the table.)

ANGELO: On the house, for you and for your date.

SHERLOCK (to John): Do you want to eat?

JOHN (to Angelo): I’m not his date.

ANGELO: This man got me off a murder charge.

SHERLOCK: This is Angelo.

(Angelo offers his hand to John, who shakes it.)

SHERLOCK: Three years ago I successfully proved to Lestrade at the time of a particularly vicious triple murder that Angelo was in a completely different part of town, house-breaking.

ANGELO (to John): He cleared my name.

SHERLOCK: I cleared it a bit. Anything happening opposite?

ANGELO: Nothing. (He looks at John again.) But for this man, I’d have gone to prison.

SHERLOCK: You did go to prison.

ANGELO (to John): I’ll get a candle for the table. It’s more romantic.

JOHN (indignantly, as Angelo walks away): I’m not his date!

(Sherlock puts his own menu down onto the table.)

SHERLOCK: You may as well eat. We might have a long wait.

(Angelo comes back with a small glass bowl containing a lit tea-light. He puts it onto the table and gives John a thumbs-up before turning and walking away again.)

JOHN (a little tetchily): Thanks(!)

Later, John has a plate of food in front of him and is eating from it. Sherlock’s attention is fixed out of the window and he is quietly drumming his fingers on the table.

JOHN: People don’t have arch-enemies.

(It takes a moment but Sherlock finally looks round.)

SHERLOCK: I’m sorry?

JOHN: In real life. There are no arch-enemies in real life. Doesn’t happen.

SHERLOCK (disinterestedly, looking out of the window again): Doesn’t it? Sounds a bit dull.

JOHN: So who did I meet?

SHERLOCK: What do real people have, then, in their ‘real lives’?

JOHN: Friends; people they know; people they like; people they don’t like ... Girlfriends, boyfriends ...

SHERLOCK: Yes, well, as I was saying – dull.

JOHN: You don’t have a girlfriend, then?

SHERLOCK (still looking out of the window): Girlfriend? No, not really my area.

JOHN: Mm.

(A moment passes before he realises the possible significance of this statement.)

JOHN: Oh, right. D’you have a boyfriend?

(Sherlock looks round at him sharply.)

JOHN: Which is fine, by the way.

SHERLOCK: I know it’s fine.

(John smiles to indicate that he wasn’t signifying anything negative by what he said.)

JOHN: So you’ve got a boyfriend then?

SHERLOCK: No.

JOHN (still smiling, though his smile is becoming a little fixed and awkward): Right. Okay. You’re unattached. Like me. (He looks down at his plate, apparently rapidly running out of things to say.) Fine. (He clears his throat.) Good.

(He continues eating. Sherlock looks at him suspiciously for a moment but then turns his attention out of the window again. However, he then appears to replay John’s statement in his head and looks a little startled. Turning his head towards John again, he starts speaking rather awkwardly but rapidly speeds up and is almost babbling by the time John interrupts him.)

SHERLOCK: John, um ... I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work, and while I’m flattered by your interest, I’m really not looking for any ...

JOHN (interrupting): No. (He turns his head briefly to clear his throat.) No, I’m not asking. No.

(He fixes his gaze onto Sherlock’s, apparently trying to convey his sincerity.)

JOHN: I’m just saying, it’s all fine.

(Sherlock looks at him for a moment, then nods.)

SHERLOCK: Good. Thank you.

(He turns his attention back to the street. John looks away with an bemused expression on his face as if asking himself, ‘What the heck was all that about?!’ Just then, Sherlock nods out of the window.)

SHERLOCK: Look across the street. Taxi.

(John twists in his seat to look out of the window where a taxi has parked at the side of the road with its back end towards the restaurant.)

SHERLOCK: Stopped. Nobody getting in, and nobody getting out.

(In the rear seat of the taxi the male passenger is looking through the side windows as if trying to see somebody particular.)

SHERLOCK (to himself): Why a taxi? Oh, that’s clever. Is it clever? Why is it clever?

JOHN: That’s him?

SHERLOCK: Don’t stare.

JOHN (looking round at him): You’re staring.

SHERLOCK: We can’t both stare.

(Getting to his feet, he grabs his coat and scarf and heads for the door. John picks up his own jacket and follows ... completely forgetting to take his walking cane with him. Outside the door, Sherlock shrugs himself into his coat while keeping his eyes fixed on the taxi. The passenger continues to look around him, then turns and looks out the back window. His gaze falls on the restaurant and he looks at it for a few moments while Sherlock stares back at him, then the man turns towards the front of the vehicle and the taxi begins to pull away from the kerb. Sherlock immediately heads towards it without bothering to check the road that he’s running into and is almost run over by a car coming from his left. The driver slams on the brakes and stops the car but Sherlock, always keen to take the quickest route, allows his forward impetus to carry him onto the top of the bonnet. He rolls over the bonnet, lands on his feet on the other side and then runs after the taxi. As the driver of the car angrily sounds his horn, John puts one hand on the bonnet and vaults over the front of the car, apologising to the driver as he goes.)

JOHN: Sorry.

(He chases after Sherlock, who runs a few yards up the road before realising that he’s not going to catch the taxi and slows to a halt. John catches up and stops beside him.)

JOHN: I’ve got the cab number.

SHERLOCK: Good for you.

(He brings his hands up to either side of his head and concentrates, calling up a mental map of the local area and overlaying it with images of the streets along the route which he calculates that the taxi must take.)

SHERLOCK (quick fire): Right turn, one way, roadworks, traffic lights, bus lane, pedestrian crossing, left turn only, traffic lights.

(Having worked out the route, he lifts his head and sees a man unlocking the door to a nearby building. Instantly his mind flashes up a signpost saying, “ALTERNATIVE ROUTE” [we won’t mention the fact that the man is on the right-hand side of the street but the sign is pointing to the left ...]. Sherlock races towards the man and grabs him, shoving him out of the way before charging into the building.)

MAN: Oy!

(John hurries after Sherlock, raising an apologetic hand to the man as he goes.)

JOHN: Sorry.

(The two of them race up the stairs and out onto a metal spiral fire escape staircase leading to the roof. Sherlock, the lanky git, takes the steps two or even three at a time and John struggles to keep up with him as he scurries up behind him.)

SHERLOCK: Come on, John.

(Reaching the top of the stairs, Sherlock runs to the edge and looks over before seeing a shorter metal spiral staircase leading down the side of the building to another door one floor lower. He gallops down the stairs and climbs onto the railing before leaping across the gap to the next building. John scrambles onto the railing and follows. Sherlock runs across to the other side of the roof and again leaps across to the next building. John races after him, but then skids to a halt as he realises that the gap may be too big for him to jump across. As if in sympathy, pedestrian traffic lights on the ground change from the green “It is safe to cross” sign to the red “Stop and wait” sign. John hesitates, looking down at the drop beneath him.)

SHERLOCK: Come on, John. We’re losing him!

(John backs up a few paces and braces himself. As the traffic lights change to “Safe to cross” again, he takes a run-up and leaps the gap. Dropping down onto a walkway along the side of the building, the boys run onwards. As the taxi continues its journey on the ground, the boys gallop down another metal staircase, then run to a ledge and drop down into an alleyway before running onwards again. Sherlock leads John down the alleyway as, in his head, a map shows their location in comparison to where the taxi must be. Their paths are beginning to get closer and they are heading towards a point where Sherlock and John will exit the alleyway onto D’Arblay Street, which the taxi is just turning into. Sherlock turns the corner and races down the last part of the alley, only to see the taxi drive past the end, heading to the left.)

SHERLOCK (angrily): Ah, no!

(Without breaking stride, he races out of the end of the alley and turns right.)

SHERLOCK: This way.

(Instinctively John turns left in pursuit of the taxi.)

SHERLOCK: No, this way!

JOHN: Sorry.

(He turns and heads back in the opposite direction, following Sherlock. In Sherlock’s mind-map, he picks a new point where he and John can intercept the cab. The boys run down the street, taking a shorter route than the taxi which is being diverted by various road signs taking it the long way around. They head down more alleyways and side streets towards the interception point in Wardour Street and finally, at the precise point which his mental map predicted, Sherlock races out of a side street and hurls himself into the path of the approaching cab, which screeches to a halt as he crashes hard into the bonnet. Scrabbling in his left coat pocket, Sherlock pulls out an I.D. badge and flashes it at the driver as he runs to the right hand side of the cab.)

SHERLOCK: Police! Open her up!

(Panting heavily, he tugs open the rear door and stares in at the passenger, who looks back at him anxiously. Instantly Sherlock straightens up in exasperation just as John joins him.)

SHERLOCK: No.

(He leans down again to look at the passenger a second time.)

SHERLOCK: Teeth, tan: what – Californian?

(He looks at something on the floor in front of the passenger.)

SHERLOCK: L.A., Santa Monica. Just arrived.

(He straightens up again, grimacing.)

JOHN: How can you possibly know that?

SHERLOCK: The luggage.

(He looks down at the suitcase on the floor of the cab and its luggage label showing that the man has flown from LAX [Los Angeles International Airport] to LHR [London Heathrow Airport].)

SHERLOCK (to the passenger): It’s probably your first trip to London, right, going by your final destination and the route the cabbie was taking you?

PASSENGER: Sorry – are you guys the police?

SHERLOCK: Yeah. (He flashes the I.D. badge briefly at the man.) Everything all right?

PASSENGER (smiling): Yeah.

(Sherlock pauses for a moment as if wondering how to finish this conversation, then smiles falsely at the man.)

SHERLOCK: Welcome to London.

(He immediately walks away, leaving John staring blankly for a moment before he steps closer to the taxi door and looks in at the passenger.)

JOHN: Er, any problems, just let us know.

(As the man nods, John smiles politely and slams the cab door shut. The man looks round to the taxi driver in bewilderment. John walks to where Sherlock has stopped a few yards behind the vehicle.)

JOHN: Basically just a cab that happened to slow down.

SHERLOCK: Basically.

JOHN: Not the murderer.

SHERLOCK (exasperated): Not the murderer, no.

JOHN: Wrong country, good alibi.

SHERLOCK: As they go.

(John notices as Sherlock switches the I.D. card from one hand to another.)

JOHN: Hey, where-where did you get this? Here.

(He reaches for the card and Sherlock releases it.)

JOHN: Right. (He looks at the name on the card.) Detective Inspector Lestrade?

SHERLOCK: Yeah. I pickpocket him when he’s annoying. You can keep that one, I’ve got plenty at the flat.

(John nods, then looks down at the card again before lifting his head and giggling silently.)

SHERLOCK: What?

JOHN: Nothing, just: “Welcome to London”.

(Sherlock chuckles, then looks down the road to where a police officer has apparently gone to investigate why the cab has stopped in the middle of the road. The passenger has got out and is pointing down the road towards the boys.)

SHERLOCK (to John): Got your breath back?

JOHN: Ready when you are.

(They turn and run off down the road.)

221B. The boys have arrived back and walk along the hallway, breathing heavily. John hangs his jacket on a hook on the wall while Sherlock drapes his coat over the bottom of the bannisters.

JOHN: Okay, that was ridiculous.

(They lean side by side against the wall, still trying to catch their breath.)

JOHN: That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.

SHERLOCK: And you invaded Afghanistan.

(John giggles adorably and after a moment Sherlock also begins to laugh.)

JOHN: That wasn’t just me.

(Sherlock chuckles.)

JOHN: Why aren’t we back at the restaurant?

SHERLOCK (becoming more serious and waving his hand dismissively): Oh, they can keep an eye out. It was a long shot anyway.

JOHN: So what were we doing there?

(Sherlock clears his throat.)

SHERLOCK: Oh, just passing the time.

(He looks at John.)

SHERLOCK: And proving a point.

JOHN: What point?

SHERLOCK: You.

(He turns and calls loudly towards the door to Mrs Hudson’s flat.)

SHERLOCK: Mrs Hudson! Doctor Watson will take the room upstairs.

JOHN: Says who?

SHERLOCK (looking towards the front door): Says the man at the door.

(John turns his head towards the door just as someone knocks on it three times. He turns back to look at Sherlock in surprise. Sherlock smiles. John stares at him for a moment, then walks along the hall to answer the door. Sherlock leans his head against the wall and blows out a breath. John opens the door and finds Angelo standing outside.)

ANGELO: Sherlock texted me.

(Smiling, he holds up John’s walking cane.)

ANGELO: He said you forgot this.

(John stares at the cane in surprise, then takes it.)

JOHN: Ah.

(He turns and looks down the hall to Sherlock, who grins at him.)

JOHN (turning back to Angelo): Er, thank you. Thank you.

(As he comes back in and closes the door, Mrs Hudson comes out of her flat and hurries over to the boys. She sounds upset and tearful as she speaks.)

MRS HUDSON: Sherlock, what have you done?

SHERLOCK: Mrs Hudson?

MRS HUDSON: Upstairs.

(Sherlock turns and hurries up the stairs, John following him. Sherlock opens the living room door and goes inside, where he finds D.I. Lestrade sitting casually in the armchair facing the door. Other police officers are going through Sherlock’s possessions. Sherlock storms over to Lestrade.)

SHERLOCK: What are you doing?

LESTRADE: Well, I knew you’d find the case. I’m not stupid.

SHERLOCK: You can’t just break into my flat.

LESTRADE: And you can’t withhold evidence. And I didn’t break into your flat.

SHERLOCK: Well, what do you call this then?

LESTRADE (looking round at his officers before looking back to Sherlock innocently): It’s a drugs bust.

JOHN: Seriously?! This guy, a junkie?! Have you met him?!

(Sherlock turns and walks closer to John, biting his lip nervously.)

SHERLOCK: John ...

JOHN (to Lestrade): I’m pretty sure you could search this flat all day, you wouldn’t find anything you could call recreational.

SHERLOCK: John, you probably want to shut up now.

JOHN: Yeah, but come on ...

(He looks into Sherlock’s eyes. Sherlock holds his gaze for a long moment and John falls deeply and instantly in love realises how serious he’s looking.)

JOHN: No.

SHERLOCK: What?

JOHN: You?

SHERLOCK (angrily): Shut up!

(He turns back to Lestrade.)

SHERLOCK: I’m not your sniffer dog.

LESTRADE: No, Anderson’s my sniffer dog.

(He nods towards the kitchen.)

SHERLOCK: What, An...

(The closed doors to the kitchen slide open and reveal several more officers in there searching through the room. Anderson turns towards the living room and raises his hand in sarcastic greeting.)

SHERLOCK (angrily): Anderson, what are you doing here on a drugs bust?

ANDERSON (venomously): Oh, I volunteered.

(Sherlock turns away, biting his lip angrily.)

LESTRADE: They all did. They’re not strictly speaking on the drugs squad, but they’re very keen.

(Donovan comes into view from the kitchen, holding a small glass jar with some white round objects in it.)

DONOVAN: Are these human eyes?

SHERLOCK: Put those back!

DONOVAN: They were in the microwave!

SHERLOCK: It’s an experiment.

LESTRADE: Keep looking, guys.

(He stands up and turns to Sherlock.)

LESTRADE: Or you could help us properly and I’ll stand them down.

SHERLOCK (pacing angrily): This is childish.

LESTRADE: Well, I’m dealing with a child. Sherlock, this is our case. I’m letting you in, but you do not go off on your own. Clear?

SHERLOCK (stopping and glaring at him): Oh, what, so-so-so you set up a pretend drugs bust to bully me?

LESTRADE: It stops being pretend if they find anything.

SHERLOCK (loudly): I am clean!

LESTRADE: Is your flat? All of it?

SHERLOCK: I don’t even smoke.

(He unbuttons the cuff of his left shirt and pulls it up to show the nicotine patch on his lower arm.)

LESTRADE: Neither do I.

(He pulls up the right sleeve of his own shirt to show a similar patch on his arm. Sherlock rolls his eyes and turns away and they both pull their sleeves back down again.)

LESTRADE: So let’s work together. We’ve found Rachel.

SHERLOCK (turning back to him): Who is she?

LESTRADE: Jennifer Wilson’s only daughter.

SHERLOCK (frowning): Her daughter? Why would she write her daughter’s name? Why?

ANDERSON: Never mind that. We found the case.

(He points to the pink suitcase in the living room.)

ANDERSON: According to someone, the murderer has the case, and we found it in the hands of our favourite psychopath.

SHERLOCK (looking at him disparagingly): I’m not a psychopath, Anderson. I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.

(He turns back to Lestrade.)

SHERLOCK: You need to bring Rachel in. You need to question her. I need to question her.

LESTRADE: She’s dead.

SHERLOCK: Excellent!

(John looks startled at this.)

SHERLOCK (to Lestrade): How, when and why? Is there a connection? There has to be.

LESTRADE: Well, I doubt it, since she’s been dead for fourteen years. Technically she was never alive. Rachel was Jennifer Wilson’s stillborn daughter, fourteen years ago.

(John grimaces sadly and turns away. Sherlock, on the other hand, just looks confused.)

SHERLOCK: No, that’s ... that’s not right. How ... Why would she do that? Why?

ANDERSON: Why would she think of her daughter in her last moments?(!) Yup – sociopath; I’m seeing it now.

SHERLOCK (turning to him with an exasperated look on his face): She didn’t think about her daughter. She scratched her name on the floor with her fingernails. She was dying. It took effort. It would have hurt.

(He begins to pace back and forth across the room again.)

JOHN: You said that the victims all took the poison themselves, that he makes them take it. Well, maybe he ... I don’t know, talks to them? Maybe he used the death of her daughter somehow.

SHERLOCK (stopping and turning to him): Yeah, but that was ages ago. Why would she still be upset?

(John stares at him. Sherlock hesitates as he realises that everyone in the flat has stopped what they’re doing and has fallen silent. He glances around the room and then looks awkwardly at John.)

SHERLOCK: Not good?

JOHN (also glancing around at the others before turning back to Sherlock): Bit not good, yeah.

(Sherlock shakes it off and steps closer to John, looking at him intently.)

SHERLOCK: Yeah, but if you were dying ... if you’d been murdered: in your very last few seconds what would you say?

JOHN: “Please, God, let me live.”

SHERLOCK (exasperated): Oh, use your imagination!

JOHN: I don’t have to.

(Sherlock seems to recognise the look of pain in John’s face. He pauses momentarily and blinks a couple of times, shifting his feet apologetically before continuing.)

SHERLOCK: Yeah, but if you were clever, really clever ... Jennifer Wilson running all those lovers: she was clever.

(He starts to pace again.)

SHERLOCK: She’s trying to tell us something.

(Mrs Hudson comes to the door of the living room.)

MRS HUDSON: Isn’t the doorbell working? Your taxi’s here, Sherlock.

SHERLOCK: I didn’t order a taxi. Go away.

(He continues pacing as Mrs Hudson looks around the room.)

MRS HUDSON: Oh, dear. They’re making such a mess. What are they looking for?

JOHN: It’s a drugs bust, Mrs Hudson.

MRS HUDSON (anxiously): But they’re just for my hip. They’re herbal soothers.

(With his back to the door, Sherlock stops and shouts out.)

SHERLOCK: Shut up, everybody, shut up! Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t breathe. I’m trying to think. Anderson, face the other way. You’re putting me off.

ANDERSON: What? My face is?!

LESTRADE: Everybody quiet and still. Anderson, turn your back.

ANDERSON: Oh, for God’s sake!

LESTRADE: Your back, now, please!

SHERLOCK (to himself): Come on, think. Quick!

MRS HUDSON: What about your taxi?

SHERLOCK (turning to her and shouting furiously): MRS HUDSON!

(She turns and hurries away down the stairs. Sherlock stops and looks around as he finally realises something.)

SHERLOCK: Oh.

(He smiles in delight.)

SHERLOCK: Ah! She was clever, clever, yes!

(He walks across the room and then turns back to the others.)

SHERLOCK: She’s cleverer than you lot and she’s dead. Do you see, do you get it? She didn’t lose her phone, she never lost it. She planted it on him.

(He starts pacing again.)

SHERLOCK: When she got out of the car, she knew that she was going to her death. She left the phone in order to lead us to her killer.

LESTRADE: But how?

SHERLOCK (stopping and staring at him): Wha...? What do you mean, how?

(Lestrade shrugs.)

SHERLOCK: Rachel!

(He looks at everyone triumphantly. They all look back at him blankly.)

SHERLOCK: Don’t you see? Rachel!

(Still everyone looks blank. Sherlock laughs in disbelief.)

SHERLOCK: Oh, look at you lot. You’re all so vacant. Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing. (More sternly) Rachel is not a name.

JOHN (equally sternly): Then what is it?

SHERLOCK: John, on the luggage, there’s a label. E-mail address.

(John looks at the label on the suitcase and reads out the address.)

JOHN: Er, jennie dot pink at mephone dot org dot uk.

(Sherlock has sat down at the dining table and is looking at his computer notebook.)

SHERLOCK: Oh, I’ve been too slow. She didn’t have a laptop, which means she did her business on her phone, so it’s a smartphone, it’s e-mail enabled.

(He has pulled up Mephone’s website and types the email address into the ‘User name’ box.)

SHERLOCK: So there was a website for her account. The username is her e-mail address ...

(He begins to type into the ‘Password’ box.)

SHERLOCK: ... and all together now, the password is?

JOHN (walking over to stand behind him): Rachel.

ANDERSON: So we can read her e-mails. So what?

SHERLOCK: Anderson, don’t talk out loud. You lower the I.Q. of the whole street. We can do much more than just read her e-mails. It’s a smartphone, it’s got GPS, which means if you lose it you can locate it online. She’s leading us directly to the man who killed her.

LESTRADE: Unless he got rid of it.

JOHN: We know he didn’t.

(Sherlock looks at the screen impatiently.)

SHERLOCK: Come on, come on. Quickly!

(Mrs Hudson trots up the stairs and comes to the door again.)

MRS HUDSON: Sherlock, dear. This taxi driver ...

(Sherlock gets to his feet and walks over towards her.)

SHERLOCK: Mrs Hudson, isn’t it time for your evening soother?

(John sits down on the chair which Sherlock vacated and watches a clock spinning round on the website as it claims that the phone will be located in under three minutes. Sherlock turns to Lestrade.)

SHERLOCK: We need to get vehicles, get a helicopter.

(Mrs Hudson looks around anxiously as a man walks slowly up the stairs behind her.)

SHERLOCK (to Lestrade): We’re gonna have to move fast. This phone battery won’t last for ever.

LESTRADE: We’ll just have a map reference, not a name.

SHERLOCK: It’s a start!

(On the computer, a map has appeared and is now zooming in on the location of the phone.)

JOHN: Sherlock ...

SHERLOCK (to Lestrade): It narrows it down from just anyone in London. It’s the first proper lead that we’ve had.

JOHN: Sherlock ...

SHERLOCK (hurrying across the room to look over John’s shoulder): What is it? Quickly, where?

(The map is now indicating the precise location of the phone.)

JOHN: It’s here. It’s in two two one Baker Street.

SHERLOCK (straightening up): How can it be here? How?

LESTRADE: Well, maybe it was in the case when you brought it back and it fell out somewhere.

SHERLOCK: What, and I didn’t notice it? Me? I didn’t notice?

JOHN (to Lestrade): Anyway, we texted him and he called back.

(Lestrade turns to call out to his colleagues.)

LESTRADE: Guys, we’re also looking for a mobile somewhere here, belonged to the victim ...

(Sherlock tunes him out as he begins to remember questions he asked to John earlier.)

SHERLOCK (voiceover): ‘Who do we trust, even if we don’t know them?’

(Behind Mrs Hudson, the man has reached the top of the stairs. He is wearing a badge in a leather holder on a cord around his neck. The badge is for a licenced London cab driver.)

SHERLOCK (voiceover): ‘Who passes unnoticed wherever they go?’

(In a cutaway, a black taxi drives down a rainy street with its sign lit indicating that it’s for hire.)

(In flashback, at the railway station Sir Jeffrey Patterson walks to the cab rank and raises his hand to a taxi.)

SHERLOCK (voiceover): ‘Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?’

(Sherlock stands lost in thought in the flat.)

(In flashback, James Phillimore walks across the road, huddled against the pouring rain as a vacant taxi drives along the road behind him.)

(In flashback, Beth Davenport looks around despairingly as she realises that she doesn’t have her car keys. Nearby, a vacant cab pulls up.)

(In the flat, Sherlock turns, his mind racing as he puts all the clues together.)

(In flashback, Jennifer Wilson arrives at a London terminus and gets into the back of a taxi.)

(Sherlock turns his head, still putting it all together. On the landing, the taxi driver takes a pink smartphone from his pocket and presses the screen to send a text. A moment later, Sherlock’s own phone trills a text alert. Taking his phone from his jacket pocket he looks at the message which simply reads: COME WITH ME. As he turns his head towards the door, the taxi driver turns around and calmly heads off down the stairs.)

JOHN: Sherlock, you okay?

SHERLOCK (vaguely, watching the man go): What? Yeah, yeah, I-I’m fine.

JOHN: So, how can the phone be here?

SHERLOCK (still watching the taxi driver): Dunno.

JOHN (getting up to get his own phone out of his jeans pocket): I’ll try it again.

SHERLOCK: Good idea.

(He heads towards the door.)

JOHN: Where are you going?

SHERLOCK: Fresh air. Just popping outside for a moment. Won’t be long.

(John frowns as Sherlock leaves the room, and calls after him.)

JOHN: You sure you’re all right?

SHERLOCK (hurrying down the stairs): I’m fine.

Downstairs, Sherlock opens the front door and stands on the doorstep for a moment as he shrugs himself into his coat. A taxi is parked at the kerb and the driver, Jeff Hope, is leaning casually against the side of the cab.

JEFF: Taxi for Sherlock ’olmes.

(Sherlock steps forward, closing the door behind him.)

SHERLOCK: I didn’t order a taxi.

JEFF: Doesn’t mean you don’t need one.

SHERLOCK: You’re the cabbie. The one who stopped outside Northumberland Street.

(In flashback, the American man sits in the back of the cab outside the restaurant and turns his head to the front. In the driver’s seat, Jeff looks over his shoulder and through the rear window of the cab before turning around again and starting to drive away.)

SHERLOCK: It was you, not your passenger.

JEFF: See? No-one ever thinks about the cabbie. It’s like you’re invisible. Just the back of an ’ead. Proper advantage for a serial killer.

(Sherlock takes a few more steps forward and looks up towards the windows of his flat.)

SHERLOCK: Is this a confession?

JEFF: Oh, yeah. An’ I’ll tell you what else: if you call the coppers now, I won’t run. I’ll sit quiet and they can take me down, I promise.

SHERLOCK: Why?

JEFF: ’Cause you’re not gonna do that.

SHERLOCK: Am I not?

JEFF: I didn’t kill those four people, Mr. ’olmes. I spoke to ’em ... and they killed themselves. An’ if you get the coppers now, I promise you one thing.

(He leans forward.)

JEFF: I will never tell you what I said.

(Sherlock stares at him. After a moment, Jeff straightens up and starts to walk around the front of the cab.)

SHERLOCK: No-one else will die, though, and I believe they call that a result.

(Jeff stops and turns back towards him.)

JEFF: An’ you won’t ever understand how those people died. What kind of result do you care about?

(He turns again and continues around to the driver’s door. Getting in, he sits down and closes the door, settling into his seat and ignoring Sherlock. Biting his lip, Sherlock walks closer to the cab, looking up again at the flat windows, then he bends and looks into the open side window of the cab.)

SHERLOCK: If I wanted to understand, what would I do?

JEFF (turning to look at him): Let me take you for a ride.

SHERLOCK: So you can kill me too?

JEFF: I don’t wanna kill you, Mr. ’olmes. I’m gonna talk to yer ... and then you’re gonna kill yourself.

(He turns to face the front again. Sherlock straightens up, his eyes lost in thought as he considers the situation. Jeff calmly sits gazing out of the front window, then smiles in satisfaction as the rear door opens. The cab dips as Sherlock gets in and then the door slams shut. Jeff starts the engine.)

(Upstairs, John has his phone held to his ear as he looks out of the window. The cab can be heard as it pulls away.)

JOHN: He just got in a cab.

(He turns to Lestrade.)

JOHN: It’s Sherlock. He just drove off in a cab.

(Donovan, standing beside Lestrade, tuts in irritation.)

DONOVAN: I told you, he does that.

(She turns to Lestrade.)

DONOVAN: He bloody left again.

(She walks back into the kitchen, talking loudly.)

DONOVAN: We’re wasting our time!

JOHN (to Lestrade): I’m calling the phone. It’s ringing out.

(In the cab, a phone is ringing. Sherlock watches Jeff as the pink phone – which Jeff has put in the well beside his seat – continues to ring. Back in the flat, Lestrade watches John as he continues to hold his phone to his ear.)

LESTRADE: If it’s ringing, it’s not here.

(John lowers his phone and reaches for the computer notebook.)

JOHN: I’ll try the search again.

(Donovan comes back to confront Lestrade.)

DONOVAN: Does it matter? Does any of it? You know, he’s just a lunatic, and he’ll always let you down, and you’re wasting your time. All our time.

(Lestrade stares at her for a long moment as she holds his gaze, then he sighs.)

LESTRADE (loudly): Okay, everybody. Done ’ere.

(In the cab, Sherlock is watching the London scenery pass by.)

SHERLOCK: How did you find me?

JEFF: Oh, I recognised yer, soon as I saw you chasing my cab. Sherlock ’olmes! I was warned about you. I’ve been on your website, too. Brilliant stuff! Loved it!

SHERLOCK: Who warned you about me?

JEFF: Just someone out there who’s noticed you.

SHERLOCK: Who?

(He leans forward, looking closely at the side of Jeff’s neck, then noticing a photograph of a young boy and girl attached to the dashboard of the cab.)

SHERLOCK: Who would notice me?

JEFF (meeting his eyes briefly in the rear view mirror): You’re too modest, Mr. ’olmes.

SHERLOCK: I’m really not.

JEFF: You’ve got yourself a fan.

SHERLOCK (nonchalantly, sitting back in his seat): Tell me more.

JEFF: That’s all you’re gonna know ...

(He pauses dramatically for a moment.)

JEFF (quietly): ... in this lifetime.

(Back at the flat, as the other police officers leave, Lestrade picks up his coat and turns to John.)

LESTRADE: Why did he do that? Why did he have to leave?

JOHN (shrugging): You know him better than I do.

LESTRADE: I’ve known him for five years and no, I don’t.

JOHN: So why do you put up with him?

LESTRADE: Because I’m desperate, that’s why.

(He walks to the door, then turns back.)

LESTRADE: And because Sherlock Holmes is a great man. And I think one day, if we’re very, very lucky, he might even be a good one.

(He turns and leaves. Some distance away, the cab drives on and finally stops at the front of two identical buildings side by side. Jeff turns off the engine and gets out, coming to the passenger door and opening it. He looks in at Sherlock.)

SHERLOCK: Where are we?

JEFF: You know every street in London. You know exactly where we are.

SHERLOCK: Roland-Kerr Further Education College. Why here?

JEFF: It’s open; cleaners are in. One thing about being a cabbie: you always know a nice quiet spot for a murder. I’m surprised more of us don’t branch out.

SHERLOCK: And you just walk your victims in? How?

(Jeff raises a pistol and points it at Sherlock. Sherlock rolls his eyes and turns his head away.)

SHERLOCK: Oh, dull.

JEFF: Don’t worry. It gets better.

SHERLOCK: You can’t make people take their own lives at gunpoint.

JEFF: I don’t. It’s much better than that.

(He lowers the gun.)

JEFF: Don’t need this with you, ’cause you’ll follow me.

(He confidently walks away. Sherlock sits for a moment, then grimaces in exasperation at himself as he does just what Jeff predicted and gets out of the cab to follow the man.)

Back at 221B, John is alone in the flat. He appears to have decided to go home and walks towards the living room door, then looks down and clenches his right hand as if realising that he doesn’t have his walking cane. He looks round and sees the cane lying on top of a box of papers next to the dining table and goes over to collect it. With its back to him, Sherlock’s notebook is still on Mephone’s website and the clock is spinning on the screen as the site searches for Jennifer Wilson’s phone. As John picks up the cane and heads for the door again, the computer beeps triumphantly and a map appears on the screen and starts to zoom in on the location of the phone. John turns back as the computer beeps repeatedly. Going back to the table and propping his cane against it, he picks up the notebook and looks at the screen, then he turns and takes the notebook with him as he hurries out of the door and down the stairs, once again forgetting to take his cane.

At Roland-Kerr College, Jeff opens the door of a room and stands aside so that Sherlock can go in. Sherlock looks at him closely but steps inside the room, then Jeff releases the door and lets it swing closed as he walks over to some switches on the wall and turns on the lights. The men are in a large classroom which has long fixed wooden benches and plastic chairs. Sherlock walks deeper into the room, looking around.

JEFF: Well, what do you think?

(Sherlock raises his hands and shrugs as if to ask, ‘What do I think about what?’)

JEFF: It’s up to you. You’re the one who’s gonna die ’ere.

(Sherlock turns back to him.)

SHERLOCK: No, I’m not.

JEFF: That’s what they all say.

(He gestures to one of the benches.)

JEFF: Shall we talk?

(Without waiting for a reply, he pulls out one of the chairs and sits down. Sherlock takes a chair from the bench in front, flips it around and sits down opposite. He sighs dramatically.)

SHERLOCK: Bit risky, wasn’t it? Took me away under the eye of about half a dozen policemen. They’re not that stupid. And Mrs Hudson will remember you.

JEFF: You call that a risk? Nah.

(He reaches into the left pocket of his cardigan.)

JEFF: This is a risk.

(He takes out a small glass bottle with a screw top on it and puts it onto the table in front of him. There is a single large capsule inside. Sherlock looks at it but doesn’t react in any way.)

JEFF: Ooh, I like this bit. ’Cause you don’t get it yet, do yer? But you’re about to. I just have to do this.

(Reaching into his right pocket, he takes out an identical bottle containing an identical capsule and puts it onto the table beside the first bottle.)

JEFF: You weren’t expecting that, were yer?

(He leans forward.)

JEFF: Ooh, you’re going to love this.

SHERLOCK: Love what?

JEFF (sitting back again): Sherlock ’olmes. Look at you! ’Ere in the flesh. That website of yours: your fan told me about it.

SHERLOCK: My fan?

JEFF: You are brilliant. You are. A proper genius. “The Science of Deduction.” Now that is proper thinking. Between you and me sitting ’ere, why can’t people think?

(He looks down angrily.)

JEFF: Don’t it make you mad? Why can’t people just think?

(He looks up again into Sherlock’s eyes. Sherlock looks back at him for a long moment, narrowing his eyes, then makes a realisation.)

SHERLOCK (his voice dripping with sarcasm): Oh, I see. So you’re a proper genius too.

JEFF: Don’t look it, do I? Funny little man drivin’ a cab. But you’ll know better in a minute. Chances are it’ll be the last thing you ever know.

(Sherlock holds his gaze for a second or two, then looks down to the table.)

SHERLOCK: Okay, two bottles. Explain.

JEFF: There’s a good bottle and a bad bottle. You take the pill from the good bottle, you live; take the pill from the bad bottle, you die.

SHERLOCK: Both bottles are of course identical.

JEFF: In every way.

SHERLOCK: And you know which is which.

JEFF: Course I know.

SHERLOCK: But I don’t.

JEFF: Wouldn’t be a game if you knew. You’re the one who chooses.

SHERLOCK: Why should I? I’ve got nothing to go on. What’s in it for me?

JEFF: I ’aven’t told you the best bit yet. Whatever bottle you choose, I take the pill from the other one – and then, together, we take our medicine.

(Sherlock starts to grin. Now he’s interested.)

JEFF: I won’t cheat. It’s your choice. I’ll take whatever pill you don’t.

(Sherlock looks down at the bottles, concentrating properly now.)

JEFF: Didn’t expect that, did you, Mr. ’olmes?

SHERLOCK: This is what you did to the rest of them: you gave them a choice.

JEFF: And now I’m givin’ you one.

(Sherlock looks up at him.)

JEFF: You take your time. Get yourself together.

(He licks his lips in anticipation.)

JEFF: I want your best game.

SHERLOCK: It’s not a game. It’s chance.

JEFF: I’ve played four times. I’m alive. It’s not chance, Mr. ’olmes, it’s chess. It’s a game of chess, with one move, and one survivor. And this ... this ... is the move.

(With his left hand he slides the left-hand bottle across the table towards Sherlock. He licks his top lip as he pulls his hand back and leaves the bottle where it is.)

JEFF: Did I just give you the good bottle or the bad bottle? You can choose either one.

John is in the back of a taxi. He has the computer notebook open on his lap and is holding his phone to his ear.

JOHN (into phone): No, Detective Inspector Lestrade. I need to speak to him. It’s important. It’s an emergency!

(The map on the laptop shows the location of Jennifer’s phone again.)

JOHN (to the cab driver): Er, left here, please. Left here.

ROLAND-KERR COLLEGE. Jeff looks down at the bottles briefly then meets Sherlock’s eyes.

JEFF: You ready yet, Mr. ’olmes? Ready to play?

SHERLOCK: Play what? It’s a fifty-fifty chance.

JEFF: You’re not playin’ the numbers, you’re playin’ me. Did I just give you the good pill or the bad pill? Is it a bluff? Or a double-bluff? Or a triple-bluff?

SHERLOCK: Still just chance.

JEFF: Four people in a row? It’s not just chance.

SHERLOCK: Luck.

JEFF: It’s genius. I know ’ow people think.

(Sherlock rolls his eyes.)

JEFF: I know ’ow people think I think. I can see it all, like a map inside my ’ead.

(Sherlock looks exasperated.)

JEFF: Everyone’s so stupid – even you.

(Sherlock’s gaze sharpens.)

JEFF: Or maybe God just loves me.

(Sherlock straightens up and leans forward, folding his hands in front of him on the table.)

SHERLOCK: Either way, you’re wasted as a cabbie.

John has arrived at Roland-Kerr College. As the taxi pulls away, John tucks the notebook into his jacket and looks at the two identical buildings in front of him. Clearly the map isn’t precise enough to indicate exactly where the phone is. After a moment, he makes his choice and heads towards the buildings.

In the classroom, Sherlock lifts his folded hands in front of his mouth and gazes at Jeff intently.

SHERLOCK: So, you risked your life four times just to kill strangers. Why?

(Jeff nods down to the bottles.)

JEFF: Time to play.

SHERLOCK (unfolding his fingers and adopting the prayer position in front of his mouth): Oh, I am playing. This is my turn. There’s shaving foam behind your left ear. Nobody’s pointed it out to you.

(Flashback to Jeff sitting in the driver’s seat of the cab, which is when Sherlock noticed this.)

SHERLOCK: Traces of where it’s happened before, so obviously you live on your own; there’s no-one to tell you.

(Jeff tries not to fidget under Sherlock’s gaze.)

SHERLOCK: But there’s a photograph of children. The children’s mother has been cut out of the picture. If she’d died, she’d still be there.

(Flashback to the photograph attached to the dashboard of the cab. There is indeed a third person at the left of the photograph but the photo has been cut along that side to remove her.)

SHERLOCK: The photograph’s old but the frame’s new. You think of your children but you don’t get to see them.

(Jeff’s gaze slides away from Sherlock and for the first time there’s a hint of pain in his eyes.)

SHERLOCK: Estranged father. She took the kids, but you still love them and it still hurts.

(He extends his index fingers.)

SHERLOCK: Ah, but there’s more.

(Jeff lifts his gaze back to Sherlock as he points his index fingers towards him.)

SHERLOCK: Your clothes: recently laundered but everything you’re wearing’s at least ... three years old? Keeping up appearances but not planning ahead. And here you are on a kamikaze murder spree. What’s that about?

(Jeff has got control of himself again and his expression says nothing as he gazes back at Sherlock. The detective’s eyes widen slightly as he makes his most important deduction.)

SHERLOCK (softly): Ahh. Three years ago – is that when they told you?

JEFF (flatly): Told me what?

(Sherlock’s deduction seems to appear beside Jeff’s head:

DYING

SHERLOCK: That you’re a dead man walking.

JEFF: So are you.

SHERLOCK: You don’t have long, though. Am I right?

(Jeff smiles.)

JEFF: Aneurism.

(He lifts his right hand and taps the side of his head.)

JEFF: Right in ’ere.

(Sherlock smiles in satisfaction.)

JEFF: Any breath could be my last.

SHERLOCK (frowning again): And because you’re dying, you’ve just murdered four people.

JEFF: I’ve outlived four people. That’s the most fun you can ’ave on an aneurism.

SHERLOCK (thoughtfully): No. No, there’s something else. You didn’t just kill four people because you’re bitter. Bitterness is a paralytic. Love is a much more vicious motivator. Somehow this is about your children.

JEFF (looking away and sighing): Ohh.

(He looks at Sherlock again.)

JEFF: You are good, ain’t you?

SHERLOCK: But how?

JEFF: When I die, they won’t get much, my kids. Not a lot of money in driving cabs.

SHERLOCK: Or serial killing.

JEFF: You’d be surprised.

SHERLOCK: Surprise me.

(Jeff leans forward.)

JEFF: I ’ave a sponsor.

SHERLOCK: You have a what?

JEFF: For every life I take, money goes to my kids. The more I kill, the better off they’ll be. You see? It’s nicer than you think.

SHERLOCK (frowning): Who’d sponsor a serial killer?

JEFF (instantly): Who’d be a fan of Sherlock ’olmes?

(They stare at each other for a moment.)

JEFF: You’re not the only one to enjoy a good murder. There’s others out there just like you, except you’re just a man ... and they’re so much more than that.

(The side of Sherlock’s nose twitches in distaste.)

SHERLOCK: What d’you mean, more than a man? An organisation? What?

JEFF: There’s a name no-one says, an’ I’m not gonna say it either. Now, enough chatter.

(He nods down to the bottles.)

JEFF: Time to choose.

(Sherlock looks down to the bottles, his eyes moving from one to the other.)

Elsewhere in the college, John is running through the corridors.

JOHN (calling out): Sherlock?

(He runs from door to door, trying them and peering in through windows.)

JOHN: Sherlock!

CLASSROOM.

SHERLOCK: What if I don’t choose either? I could just walk out of here.

(Sighing in a combination of exasperation and disappointment, Jeff lifts up the pistol and points it at Sherlock.)

JEFF: You can take your fifty-fifty chance, or I can shoot you in the head.

(Sherlock smiles calmly.)

JEFF: Funnily enough, no-one’s ever gone for that option.

SHERLOCK: I’ll have the gun, please.

JEFF: Are you sure?

SHERLOCK (still smiling): Definitely. The gun.

JEFF: You don’t wanna phone a friend?

(Sherlock smiles confidently.)

SHERLOCK: The gun.

(Jeff’s mouth tightens, and slowly he squeezes the trigger. A small flame bursts out of the end of the muzzle. Sherlock smiles smugly.)

SHERLOCK: I know a real gun when I see one.

(Calmly Jeff lifts the pistol/cigarette lighter and releases the trigger. The flame goes out.)

JEFF: None of the others did.

SHERLOCK: Clearly. Well, this has been very interesting. I look forward to the court case.

(He stands up and walks towards the door. Jeff puts the gun onto the desk and calmly turns in his seat.)

JEFF: Just before you go, did you figure it out ...

(Sherlock stops at the door and half-turns towards him.)

JEFF: ... which one’s the good bottle?

SHERLOCK: Of course. Child’s play.

JEFF: Well, which one, then?

(Sherlock opens the door a little but shows no sign of leaving the room.)

JEFF: Which one would you ’ave picked, just so I know whether I could have beaten you?

(Sherlock closes the door again.)

JEFF (chuckling): Come on. Play the game.

(Slowly Sherlock walks back towards him. When he gets to the table, he reaches out and sweeps up the bottle nearest to Jeff, then walks past him. Jeff looks down at the other bottle with interest but his voice gives nothing away as he speaks.)

JEFF: Oh. Interesting.

(He picks up the other bottle as Sherlock looks down at the bottle in his own hand.)

(Out in the corridors, John is still running along and searching.)

(In the classroom, Jeff has opened his bottle and tips the capsule out into his hand. He holds it up and looks at it closely as Sherlock examines his own bottle.)

JEFF: So what d’you think?

(He looks up at Sherlock.)

JEFF: Shall we?

(In the corridors, John pulls open yet another door and looks inside the room before hurrying onwards.)

JEFF: Really, what do you think?

(He has stood up and is facing Sherlock.)

JEFF: Can you beat me?

(John races up a flight of stairs and continues his search.)

JEFF: Are you clever enough to bet your life?

(John bursts through a door and stares ahead of him as he finally sees who he’s looking for. His eyes fill with horror. Inside the classroom, Sherlock lifts his gaze from the bottle he’s holding ... and the camera zooms over his shoulder and out of the window behind him, soaring across the courtyard outside and in through another window to reveal John standing in an identical classroom in the other building, too far away to be of help. John cries out in horror.)

JOHN: SHERLOCK!

(Unaware that they’re being watched, Jeff continues to hold up his pill as he looks at Sherlock.)

JEFF: I bet you get bored, don’t you? I know you do. A man like you ...

(Sherlock undoes the lid of the bottle.)

JEFF: ... so clever. But what’s the point of being clever if you can’t prove it?

(Sherlock takes out the capsule and holds it between his thumb and finger, raising it to the light to examine it more closely.)

JEFF: Still the addict.

(Slowly Sherlock lowers the pill again, holding it at eye level and gazing at it.)

JEFF: But this ... this is what you’re really addicted to, innit?

(Sherlock holds the pill in his fingers and stares at it.)

JEFF: You’d do anything ... anything at all ...

(Sherlock’s fingers begin to tremble with excitement and anticipation.)

JEFF: ... to stop being bored.

(Slowly Sherlock begins to move the pill closer to his mouth. Jeff matches the movement with his own pill.)

JEFF: You’re not bored now, are you?

(Each of their hands gets closer to their own mouth.)

JEFF: Innit good?

(A gunshot rings out and a bullet impacts Jeff’s chest close to his heart, then goes through his body and smashes into the door behind him. As he falls to the floor, Sherlock drops his pill in surprise. In the opposite building, John has his pistol still raised and aimed out of the window. He lowers the gun to his side. In the other building, Sherlock turns, slides over the desk behind him and hurries to the window, bending down to stare through the bullet hole in the glass. The window of the opposite room is open but there is nobody in sight. As Sherlock straightens up, Jeff breathes heavily and coughs. Sherlock turns back, looking around the room and sees one of the pills lying on the desk as Jeff convulses on the floor and gasps and coughs in pain. Sherlock snatches up the pill, kneels down and brandishes it at Jeff, who has a large pool of blood underneath him and is staring up at him in shock.)

SHERLOCK: Was I right?

(Jeff turns his head away in disbelief.)

SHERLOCK: I was, wasn’t I? Did I get it right?

(Jeff doesn’t reply. Sherlock angrily hurls the pill across the room and stands up.)

SHERLOCK: Okay, tell me this: your sponsor. Who was it? The one who told you about me – my ‘fan’. I want a name.

JEFF (weakly): No.

SHERLOCK: You’re dying, but there’s still time to hurt you. Give me a name.

(Jeff shakes his head. Grimacing angrily, Sherlock lifts his foot and puts it onto Jeff’s shoulder. Jeff gasps in pain.)

SHERLOCK: A name.

(Jeff cries out in pain.)

SHERLOCK: Now.

(Still Jeff can only whine in pain. His face intent and manic, Sherlock leans his weight onto his foot. Jeff whimpers.)

SHERLOCK (furiously): The NAME!

JEFF (agonised): MORIARTY!

(His eyes close and his head rolls to the side. Sherlock steps back, turning his head away and looking reflective. After a few seconds, he silently mouths the word ‘Moriarty’ to himself.)

LATER. Outside the college, Sherlock is sitting on the back steps of an ambulance. A paramedic puts an orange blanket around his shoulders as Lestrade walks over. Sherlock gestures to the blanket.

SHERLOCK: Why have I got this blanket? They keep putting this blanket on me.

LESTRADE: Yeah, it’s for shock.

SHERLOCK: I’m not in shock.

LESTRADE: Yeah, but some of the guys wanna take photographs.

(He grins. Sherlock rolls his eyes.)

SHERLOCK: So, the shooter. No sign?

LESTRADE: Cleared off before we got ’ere. But a guy like that would have had enemies, I suppose. One of them could have been following him but ... (he shrugs) ... got nothing to go on.

(Sherlock looks at him pointedly.)

SHERLOCK: Oh, I wouldn’t say that.

(Now it’s Lestrade’s turn to roll his eyes.)

LESTRADE: Okay, gimme.

SHERLOCK (standing up): The bullet they just dug out of the wall’s from a hand gun. Kill shot over that distance from that kind of a weapon – that’s a crack shot you’re looking for, but not just a marksman; a fighter. His hands couldn’t have shaken at all, so clearly he’s acclimatised to violence. He didn’t fire until I was in immediate danger, though, so strong moral principle. You’re looking for a man probably with a history of military service ...

(As he’s talking, he turns his head to look around the area and sees John standing some distance away behind the police tape.)

SHERLOCK: ... and nerves of steel ...

(He trails off. As John looks back at him innocently and then turns his head away, Sherlock begins to realise the connection. Lestrade turns to follow Sherlock’s gaze and Sherlock turns back to him before he can start to ask questions.)

SHERLOCK: Actually, do you know what? Ignore me.

LESTRADE: Sorry?

SHERLOCK: Ignore all of that. It’s just the, er, the shock talking.

(He starts to walk towards John.)

LESTRADE: Where’re you going?

SHERLOCK: I just need to talk about the-the rent.

LESTRADE: But I’ve still got questions for you.

SHERLOCK (turning back to him in irritation): Oh, what now? I’m in shock! Look, I’ve got a blanket!

(He brandishes the sides of the blanket at Lestrade as if to prove it.)

LESTRADE: Sherlock!

SHERLOCK: And I just caught you a serial killer ... more or less.

(Lestrade looks at him thoughtfully for a moment.)

LESTRADE: Okay. We’ll bring you in tomorrow. Off you go.

(Sherlock walks away. Lestrade smiles as he watches him go. Taking the blanket from around his shoulders, Sherlock bundles it up as he approaches John, who is standing at the side of a police car. Sherlock tosses the blanket through the open window of the car and ducks under the police tape.)

JOHN: Um, Sergeant Donovan’s just been explaining everything, the two pills. Been a dreadful business, hasn’t it? Dreadful.

(Sherlock looks at him for a moment.)

SHERLOCK (quietly): Good shot.

JOHN (trying and utterly failing to look innocent): Yes. Yes, must have been, through that window.

SHERLOCK: Well, you’d know.

(John gazes up at him, still trying unsuccessfully not to let his expression give him away.)

SHERLOCK: Need to get the powder burns out of your fingers. I don’t suppose you’d serve time for this, but let’s avoid the court case.

(John clears his throat and looks around nervously.)

SHERLOCK: Are you all right?

JOHN: Yes, of course I’m all right.

SHERLOCK: Well, you have just killed a man.

JOHN: Yes, I ...

(He trails off. Sherlock looks at him closely.)

JOHN: That’s true, innit?

(He smiles. Sherlock continues to watch him carefully.)

JOHN: But he wasn’t a very nice man.

(Apparently reassured that John really is okay, Sherlock nods in agreement.)

SHERLOCK: No. No, he wasn’t really, was he?

JOHN: And frankly a bloody awful cabbie.

(Sherlock chuckles, then turns and starts to lead them away as he speaks.)

SHERLOCK: That’s true. He was a bad cabbie. Should have seen the route he took us to get here!

(John giggles, and Sherlock smiles.)

JOHN: Stop! Stop, we can’t giggle, it’s a crime scene! Stop it!

SHERLOCK: You’re the one who shot him. Don’t blame me.

JOHN: Keep your voice down!

(They’re walking past Sergeant Donovan.)

JOHN (to Donovan): Sorry – it’s just, um, nerves, I think.

SHERLOCK (to Donovan): Sorry.

(John clears his throat as they walk away from Donovan.)

JOHN: You were gonna take that damned pill, weren’t you?

(Sherlock turns back to him.)

SHERLOCK: Course I wasn’t. Biding my time. Knew you’d turn up.

JOHN: No you didn’t. It’s how you get your kicks, isn’t it? You risk your life to prove you’re clever.

SHERLOCK: Why would I do that?

JOHN: Because you’re an idiot.

(Sherlock smiles, apparently delighted that he has finally found someone who understands him. After a moment he forces the smile down.)

SHERLOCK: Dinner?

JOHN: Starving.

(They turn and start to walk again.)

SHERLOCK: End of Baker Street, there’s a good Chinese stays open ’til two. You can always tell a good Chinese by examining the bottom third of the door handle.

(As he has been speaking, a few yards ahead of them a car has pulled up and the man who abducted John earlier gets out. John stares.)

JOHN: Sherlock. That’s him. That’s the man I was talking to you about.

(Sherlock looks across at the man.)

SHERLOCK: I know exactly who that is.

(He walks closer to the man and stops, looking at him angrily. John glances round to gauge where the police are in case he needs to summon their help. The man speaks pleasantly to Sherlock.)

M: So, another case cracked. How very public spirited ... though that’s never really your motivation, is it?

SHERLOCK: What are you doing here?

M: As ever, I’m concerned about you.

SHERLOCK: Yes, I’ve been hearing about your ‘concern’.

M: Always so aggressive. Did it never occur to you that you and I belong on the same side?

SHERLOCK: Oddly enough, no!

M: We have more in common than you like to believe. This petty feud between us is simply childish. People will suffer ... and you know how it always upset Mummy.

(John frowns as if unsure of what he just heard.)

SHERLOCK: I upset her? Me?

(The man glowers at him.)

SHERLOCK: It wasn’t me that upset her, Mycroft.

JOHN: No, no, wait. Mummy? Who’s Mummy?

SHERLOCK: Mother – our mother. This is my brother, Mycroft.

(John stares at the man in amazement.)

SHERLOCK (to Mycroft): Putting on weight again?

M/MYCROFT: Losing it, in fact.

JOHN (to Sherlock): He’s your brother?!

SHERLOCK: Of course he’s my brother.

JOHN: So he’s not ...

SHERLOCK: Not what?

(The brothers look at John as he shrugs in embarrassment.)

JOHN: I dunno – criminal mastermind?

(He grimaces at having even suggested it. Sherlock looks at Mycroft disparagingly.)

SHERLOCK: Close enough.

MYCROFT: For goodness’ sake. I occupy a minor position in the British government.

SHERLOCK: He is the British government, when he’s not too busy being the British Secret Service or the CIA on a freelance basis.

(Mycroft sighs.)

SHERLOCK: Good evening, Mycroft. Try not to start a war before I get home. You know what it does for the traffic.

(He walks away. John starts to follow him but then turns back to Mycroft, who has turned to watch his brother.)

JOHN: So, when-when you say you’re concerned about him, you actually are concerned?

MYCROFT: Yes, of course.

JOHN: I mean, it actually is a childish feud?

MYCROFT (still watching his brother): He’s always been so resentful. You can imagine the Christmas dinners.

JOHN: Yeah ... no. God, no!

(He half-turns to follow Sherlock.)

JOHN: I-I’d better, um ...

(He turns back to not-Anthea, who has been standing nearby throughout the conversation with her eyes fixed on her BlackBerry.)

JOHN: Hello again.

(She looks up and smiles at him brightly.)

NOT-ANTHEA: Hello.

JOHN: Yes, we-we met earlier on this evening.

(She stares at him as if she has never seen him before but reacts as if she is trying to pretend that she remembers him.)

NOT-ANTHEA: Oh!

JOHN: Okay, good night.

(He includes Mycroft in his glance, then turns and follows after Sherlock.)

MYCROFT: Good night, Doctor Watson.

(John catches up to Sherlock and they walk away side by side.)

JOHN: So: dim sum.

SHERLOCK: Mmm! I can always predict the fortune cookies.

JOHN: No you can’t.

SHERLOCK: Almost can. You did get shot, though.

JOHN: Sorry?

SHERLOCK: In Afghanistan. There was an actual wound.

JOHN: Oh, yeah. Shoulder.

SHERLOCK: Shoulder! I thought so.

JOHN: No you didn’t.

SHERLOCK: The left one.

JOHN: Lucky guess.

SHERLOCK: I never guess.

JOHN (laughing): Yes you do.

(He looks across to Sherlock, who is smiling.)

JOHN: What are you so happy about?

SHERLOCK: Moriarty.

JOHN: What’s Moriarty?

SHERLOCK (cheerfully): I’ve absolutely no idea.

(Back at the car, not-Anthea turns to Mycroft who is watching the boys as they walk away.)

NOT-ANTHEA: Sir, shall we go?

MYCROFT: Interesting, that soldier fellow.

(Not-Anthea looks briefly at the departing boys, then turns her attention back to her BlackBerry.)

MYCROFT: He could be the making of my brother – or make him worse than ever. Either way, we’d better upgrade their surveillance status. Grade Three Active.

(Not-Anthea looks up from her phone.)

NOT-ANTHEA: Sorry, sir. Whose status?

MYCROFT: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.

(Hero!shot as our boys walk in slow motion towards the camera before turning and smiling at each other as they mentally plan where and how many times they’re going to roger each other senseless once they get home.)

******************

*blinks innocently* What? My transcript – my interpretation. If you don’t like it, write your own!

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