His hands started to shake, the bang of the gun still ringing through his ears. He had felt remarkably calm half a second ago, aiming with delicate precision he didn’t know he had. He wasn’t a regular marksman: he always passed the semi-annually examination, but the odds that a detective inspector would ever hold a gun in action were slim.
The gun he was holding right now was in fact Sherlock’s, who stood in the middle of the living room of 221B. John laid face down on the floor, knocked unconscious, while Sherlock still stood with his hands raised, now suddenly face to face with Greg now his captor had collapsed in front of him. At first, he looked baffled at what he was seeing, looking down from the dead man, back to Greg, who was wearing a ballistics vest, and was holding up John’s gun.
They had been informed about the hostage situation about half an hour ago, and a team of armed police, a negotiator, and Greg himself had rushed to Baker Street.
‘You idiot!’ Sherlock hissed at him. ‘I told you lot to stay outside!’
Greg swallowed, gun still raised, arms shaking. He had ran around the block of houses, climbed the fire escape stairs, and entered 221B through Sherlock’s bedroom door, found the gun, quietly entering the kitchen, and shooting the perpetrator. The man had just moved his thumb over to the safety pin of his gun when Greg had shot him in the back of the head, killing him instantly.
Sherlock had recovered from the shock, and was impatiently marching over to Greg, taking the gun from his shaking hands and disarming it.
‘You could have hit me! Do you know what a 9mm bullet can do fired from such short distance and right through the head? No, of course you don’t – that’s why you have me, after all.’
Sherlock continued to rattle on as he unloaded the gun before walking over to John to check on him, leaving Greg to stand in the kitchen, his eyes finally falling down to the man on the floor.
27 years in the service, and he had never fired a gun in action before.
Let alone kill another man.
‘Call your friends in. Tell them the cost is clear. The body is staining the rug,’ Sherlock continued, patting John on the cheek to get him to wake up again.
Greg nodded, taking the stairs down, his leg suddenly feeling like jelly underneath him. He wobbled down the stairs, opened the front door, and held his hands up to let his colleagues know the coast was clear. Armed police rushed past him, along with paramedics, and Greg grabbed a hold of the fence to his right, feeling queasy and ready to throw up.
‘Sir?’ Sally came rushing towards him, placing her hand on his arm. ‘What happened? Did anyone get hurt?’
Greg closed his eyes and shook his head.
‘N-No – none of us – the bloke is – the bloke is dead.’
By now, another paramedic had joined them. She had noticed something was wrong with him, and she ushered him towards the ambulance and started to ask some questions. It took him a bit to explain what had happened and that he had shot the hostage tacker. Sally looked at him with concern, but let the paramedic do her checks.
What Greg didn’t know, was that Sherlock had already informed Mycroft of what had happened.
