Sorry for the delay in posting. I needed a few days to get my head around what just happened.
It began, as everything did, with a big bang. There was apparently a gas leak in the house across the street. Of course, my time living with Sherlock means I know how meaningless the word 'apparently' can be. The police investigated and discovered that the house had been wired with explosives. The only other thing they found inside the house was a box. And inside the box was an envelope. And inside the envelope was, of all things, a bright pink phone. Regular readers of my blog might remember the case I called 'A Study in Pink'. Needless to say, it was a bit of a surprise.
As is my sudden use of phrases like 'regular readers of my blog'. It seems I'm starting to enjoy writing up my life. It helps, though, when I discover that half of Scotland Yard is reading it. More on that later!
So, we switched on the phone and there was a message.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Five beeps, or 'pips'. Sherlock knew immediately that it was a warning. There were these secret societies who used to send five orange pips to people as a threat. There was also a picture of an empty flat which Sherlock recognised. It was downstairs. 221C Baker Street! We rushed over there and discovered a pair of trainers.
And then the pink phone rang. It was a woman. She was crying. It turns out that whoever was organising all this had arranged for this woman to be kidnapped and wrapped in explosives. If she didn't say exactly what she was told to say… Sherlock, naturally, was immediately caught up in the adventure. Didn't even seem to register that some innocent person somewhere was going through hell. But, in all honesty, I was hooked too. The crying woman told us we had twelve hours to solve the first problem.
We went to St. Barts so that Sherlock could examine the trainers. I, as usual, didn't have a clue what the question was - never mind the answer. We met up with forensic pathologist Molly Hooper who introduced us to her new boyfriend, Jim. Apparently, he worked in IT. There's that word 'apparently' again.
Anyway, Jim left and Sherlock revealed to Molly that the bloke was clearly gay. As usual, he didn't care that this might, you know, not exactly be what she wanted to hear! I can at least appreciate that in his own odd way he thought he was being kind.
So, back to the trainers. Sherlock naturally got me to embarrass myself by examining them myself and getting everything wrong. He told me that they were twenty years old and that the pollen on them revealed they were from Sussex. Obviously. Then he remembered a name - Carl Powers, a boy who had died when Sherlock was a kid. Everyone had assumed it was a tragic swimming accident but Sherlock was always confused by the boy's missing trainers. Now they'd turned up twenty years later and addressed to him. Sherlock discovered traces of Clostridium Botulinim on Carl's trainers and concluded that he'd been murdered - the poison having been introduced to Carl's eczema medicine. Sherlock needed to let the killer know he'd worked it out so he typed a message on his own blog @poshboysherlockholmes.
The crying woman then phoned again and was allowed to tell us where she was. The police found her and she was ok. Sherlock pissed me off a bit though. He described the whole set-up as 'elegant'. I asked him what he meant and he said that he 'can't be the only person to get bored'. Clearly, the killer was targeting him directly and he loved it.
Another message. Another photo. This time it was of an abandoned sports car. The phone rang. It was a man, as terrified as the woman had been earlier. He told us we had eight hours. DI Lestrade from Scotland Yard located the car and Sherlock examined it. It had been hired from a company called Janus Cars by a man who had disappeared. This one was pretty straightforward for Sherlock. Just one chat with the missing man's wife and a visit to Janus Cars and he had it all wrapped up. It was a simple insurance scam. Again, he posted the answer on his blog. The man wrapped in explosives was found and released. Turns out he'd been in the middle of a busy intersection in central London. God, if Sherlock had got it wrong… The other thing is, like I say, he was enjoying it. Him and this mysterious killer were playing a game. Me, Mrs. H, the people with the bombs, everyone else, it was like we were just pawns. I thought back to a name we'd heard a couple of times by now - 'Moriarty'. Could this be him? When I mentioned this to Sherlock his eyes lit up.
Another message. A third photo. This time it was someone I recognised but Sherlock didn't have a clue who she was. It's nice to occasionally be the clever one. The picture was of the recently deceased Connie Prince. Apparently, she'd died as a result of a tetanus infection but clearly our killer was suggesting otherwise. Again, we received a phone call. This time it was an old woman - and she was blind. I mean, who would do that? How could anyone do that? I went along to visit Connie's brother, Kenny. Sherlock went onto some internet forums and, with his usual tact and diplomacy, got answers that way. Between us, we worked out that while Connie's death had been made to look like the result of a tetanus infection, it had actually been caused by poison - their houseboy, Rahul, had overdosed her on Botox! It would have almost been funny were it not for what happened next. Sherlock posted a message to his blog and, like before, the old woman called us. But this one made a mistake. She started to tell us about the man who'd tied her up and… He blew her up.
She lived in a block of flats. In Glasgow. Twelve people died.
I still can't quite get my head around it. This game between Sherlock and his… nemesis? Is that the right word? Twelve totally random innocent people had died because of it. I got so angry with Sherlock that morning. We had a bit of a row. He said he didn't care. He admitted it. As he pointed out, caring wouldn't save lives. I asked him if he found it easy not to care and he said yes. It was that simple.
Another photo. This time of the Thames. Sherlock called Scotland Yard and they told him about a body that had been pulled out of the river. We went along and within minutes, Sherlock had worked out he was a security guard and that he was probably linked to a lost painting that had recently been rediscovered and put on display at the Hickman Gallery. Oh, and he revealed that the painting was a fake. I could explain how he did it but I think it's one of those 'you had to be there' moments. He also worked out what had killed the security guard. I say 'what' although technically it was 'who'. But, having seen the man, 'what' is probably a better definition. He was an assassin known as the Golem. He killed people by squeezing the air out of their body with his bare hands! Why he would have done this to some poor security guard was still a mystery so I went to the guy's flat and discovered a voicemail message from a Professor Cairns. She had called him in response to him having discovered that something somewhere was wrong. The only other clue was that he was into astronomy. Sherlock worked out that the Golem had killed the security guard because he'd worked out that the painting was a fake. We concluded that Professor Cairns worked at a planetarium and rushed over there. But we were too late. The Golem was there and he killed her. Then, he attacked Sherlock. I don't think I've actually seen him scared before. Me, I was bricking it! I'd seen horror in Afghanistan, but it was like this man was barely human. He really was a mountainous monster! I managed to rescue Sherlock (by whacking the Golem with my gun - I never said I was subtle) but the creature got away.
We returned to the gallery and Sherlock confronted the curator. She denied everything - insisting that the painting was real - and there didn't seem to be much we could do. Then the phone rang once more.
It was a child. A little kid.
The boy started to count down from ten. Sherlock was shouting into the phone that the painting was a fake but the killer clearly wanted proof. Sherlock stared at the painting as the child continued to count down to his own death. And then Sherlock, at the last minute, worked it out. It was how the security guard had guessed it was a fake and why he'd phoned a professor at a planetarium. There was a supernova in the painting that didn't appear in our skies until 1858. Therefore, the painting couldn't have been painted by an artist living in the 1640s. The kid stopped counting.
The curator finally admitted that she'd arranged for the painting to be created. She'd been put in touch with various people and they'd all seemed to be working for one man. You've guessed it. Moriarty.
Back at the flat we waited for another call. Nothing seemed to be happening though so I decided to visit my girlfriend, Sarah. Sorry, now ex-girlfriend. I had just left the flat when a taxi pulled up alongside me. The taxi driver asked if I wanted a lift but I told him I was getting the Tube. He then said that he hadn't been asking me, he'd been telling me. I looked at him and I saw the gun pointing at me and so I got into the taxi. They knocked me out and the next thing I knew is waking up to the smell of chlorine. I was in a sports centre, near a swimming pool. And I was wearing a bomb. I could feel it under the coat they'd put me in. Then a voice sounded in my ear and I realised I was wearing some kind of earpiece. It said that I knew the drill and I was to repeat word-for-word what he said otherwise I'd never be writing my blog again.
I was made to walk out into the swimming pool area where, I discovered, Sherlock was waiting. The voice in my ear, which I vaguely recognised, told me to say some stuff - which, I realised, gave the impression that I was behind it all. That I, John Watson, was Moriarty. I could see the look in Sherlock's eyes - a flash of, not anger, but hurt. Genuine hurt. For a second, he looked like a little, lost child. I should have been horrified that he'd even doubt me for a second but, to be honest, it was so refreshingly human of him. He actually did value our friendship. He did, despite himself, really care. Then he saw the explosives on me and he realised what was happening.
And at that moment, out stepped Moriarty. It was Jim. Molly Hooper's boyfriend from the IT department at Barts! Even that little meeting had been part of the game. The two men talked, both clearly pleased to, at last, be face to face. Again, I felt like a pawn in their game. Especially when a laser sight appeared on my chest. One wrong move and some stranger in the dark would shoot the explosives. I watched as they talked. Jim Moriarty was the total opposite to Sherlock but they were also so very alike. He was a consulting criminal. People came to him and he arranged whatever crime they wanted. And while they talked, I stood there wearing enough explosives to kill all of us. I was the only one who even seemed to be aware of this. I then grabbed Moriarty. I knew that his assistant wouldn't kill him. But the laser sight simply moved to Sherlock's head and I was forced to let go. For a second, I wondered if Sherlock would have done the same for me. But all I knew for certain was, at that moment, I was going to die.
Except I didn't because Moriarty changed his mind. He said that he'd kill Sherlock one day but that, for now, he was letting us go. It really was just a game to him. An utterly bizzare game. He left and Sherlock ripped the explosives off of me. We were getting our breath back when suddenly so many more laser sights appeared. Moriarty returned and said he had changed his mind. Again! We were going to die after all. Sherlock pointed his gun - actually my gun that he nicked - at the discarded explosives. If we were going to die, at least so was Moriarty. I held my breath for what seemed like months. I had no idea what either of them would do. Moriarty clearly had no discernible human feelings and Sherlock had claimed not to care. Could this be it?
And suddenly Moriarty's phone rang. He took the call and called off his gunman. He was letting us live. And, as I finally breathed out, he left. For good. For now.
And that's how Sherlock Holmes and I lived to see another day. I need a nap.
