ST BART’S LAB. Sherlock has a large drop of blood in a shallow glass dish. Putting the dish onto the desk, he reaches into a small bag of equipment, opens a bottle and siphons out some liquid with a small dropper. Bending down to the dish, he squeezes out a drop of liquid onto the blood, which starts to fizz. As Sherlock straightens up, the pink phone rings. The Caller I.D. reads “BLOCKED”. He picks up the phone and answers it. SHERLOCK: Hello? YOUNG MAN (tearfully reading from the pager): The clue’s in the name. Janus Cars. SHERLOCK: Why would you be giving me a clue? YOUNG MAN: Why does anyone do anything? Because I’m bored. We were made for each other, Sherlock. SHERLOCK (softly): Then talk to me in your own voice. YOUNG MAN (tearfully): Patience. (The line goes dead. Sherlock lowers the phone and looks thoughtfully into the distance for a while. Finally he looks down at the fizzing liquid in the dish, then picks up the dish and looks at it more closely. He begins to smile.)
THREE HOURS TO GO.
POLICE CAR POUND. Sherlock, John and Lestrade are standing around Monkford’s car. SHERLOCK: How much blood was on that seat, would you say? LESTRADE: How much? About a pint. SHERLOCK: Not ‘about.’ Exactly a pint. That was their first mistake. The blood’s definitely Ian Monkford’s but it’s been frozen. LESTRADE: Frozen? SHERLOCK: There are clear signs. I think Ian Monkford gave a pint of his blood some time ago and that’s what they spread on the seats. JOHN: Who did? SHERLOCK: Janus Cars. The clue’s in the name. JOHN: The god with two faces. SHERLOCK: Exactly. JOHN: Mmm. SHERLOCK (to Lestrade): They provide a very special service. If you’ve got any kind of a problem – money troubles, bad marriage, whatever – Janus Cars will help you disappear. Ian Monkford was up to his eyes in some kind of trouble – financial, at a guess; he’s a banker. Couldn’t see a way out. But if he were to vanish, if the car he hired was found abandoned with his blood all over the driver’s seat ... JOHN: So where is he? SHERLOCK (closing the car door): Colombia. LESTRADE: Colombia?! SHERLOCK: Mr Ewert of Janus Cars had a twenty thousand Colombian peso note in his wallet ... (Flashback to Sherlock seeing the note in the wallet.) SHERLOCK: ... Quite a bit of change, too. He told us he hadn’t been abroad recently, but when I asked him about the cars, I could see his tan line clearly. (Flashback to Sherlock pointing out the window and Ewert turning his head to look while Sherlock sees that his tan finishes at his neck.) SHERLOCK: No-one wears a shirt on a sunbed. That, plus his arm. LESTRADE: His arm? SHERLOCK: Kept scratching it. Obviously irritating him, and bleeding. (Flashback to a close-up of Ewert scratching his upper arm, and a drop of blood on his shirt sleeve.) SHERLOCK: Why? Because he’d recently had a booster jab. Hep-B, probably. Difficult to tell at that distance. Conclusion: he’d just come back from settling Ian Monkford into his new life in Colombia. Mrs Monkford cashes in the life insurance and she splits it with Janus Cars. JOHN: M-Mrs Monkford? SHERLOCK: Oh yes. She’s in on it too. (Lestrade lowers his head with a look of amazement on his face.) SHERLOCK: Now go and arrest them, Inspector. That’s what you do best. (He turns to John.) SHERLOCK: We need to let our friendly bomber know that the case is solved. (He turns and leads John away. Lestrade watches them, still reeling at all the information that he has just been given. Sherlock clenches his fists triumphantly at his sides as he goes.) SHERLOCK: I am on fire!
221B. Sitting at the living room table in their coats – presumably because the heating still can’t be turned on nor the fire lit after the ‘gas leak’ (and because the windows are still broken and boarded up) – Sherlock types a new message onto The Science of Deduction:
Congratulations to Ian Monkford on his relocation to Colombia.
He sends the message. A few seconds later another ‘blocked’ phone call comes in on the pink phone lying on the table beside the computer. Sherlock switches the phone on.) YOUNG MAN (tearfully, over speaker): He says you can come and fetch me. Help. Help me, please. (Shortly afterwards, police officers are running towards the young man from all directions. In 221B, Sherlock looks up at John and smiles. And then they dun sex. *shrugs* Well, you never know.)
MORNING. The boys are sitting at a table in a café (not Speedy’s). John is tucking into a cooked breakfast and has a mug of tea in front of him while Sherlock is drumming his fingers impatiently on the table waiting for the pink phone – which is lying on the table – to ring. SHERLOCK: Feeling better? JOHN: Mmm. You realise we’ve hardly stopped for breath since this thing started? (He eats another forkful of food, then looks thoughtful.) JOHN: Has it occurred to you ...? SHERLOCK: Probably. JOHN: No – has it occurred to you that the bomber’s playing a game with you? The envelope; breaking into the other flat; the dead kid’s shoes – it’s all meant for you. SHERLOCK (smiling slightly): Yes, I know. JOHN: Is it him, then? Moriarty? SHERLOCK: Perhaps. (The pink phone beeps a message alert. Sherlock switches it on and it sounds two short Greenwich pips followed by the longer tone, and a photograph of a smiling middle-aged woman appears on the screen.) SHERLOCK: That could be anybody. JOHN: Well, it could be, yeah. Lucky for you, I’ve been more than a little unemployed. SHERLOCK: How d’you mean? JOHN: Lucky for you, Mrs Hudson and I watch far too much telly. (He stands up and walks over to the counter. Smiling at the woman behind the counter, he picks up a remote control and switches on the small television hung on the wall. He switches channels a couple of times until he finds what he wants. The woman from the photograph is on the screen, partway through her make-over show. She is gesturing to someone just offscreen.) CONNIE: Thank you, Tyra! Doesn’t she look lovely, everybody, now? (The pink phone rings.) CONNIE: Anyway, speaking of silk purses and sows’ ears ... (Sherlock picks up the phone and answers it.) SHERLOCK: Hello? (An old woman speaks tremulously in a Yorkshire accent.) OLD WOMAN: This one ... is a bit ... defective. Sorry. (We see a close-up of the woman, who is wearing an earpiece.) OLD WOMAN: She’s blind. This is ... a funny one. (John walks back over to the table. At the old woman’s location, the camera pulls out to show that she too is strapped to a bomb. Wearing a warm dressing gown and sitting up in bed she is holding a phone to the ear which doesn’t have the earpiece in and she is staring blankly ahead of herself as she narrates the words being spoken through the earpiece.) OLD WOMAN: I’ll give you ... twelve hours. (Sherlock looks at John as he sits down again.) SHERLOCK (into phone): Why are you doing this? OLD WOMAN: I like ... to watch you ... dance. ( As she finishes speaking, she gasps and sobs in terror. Even though she cannot see it, there is still a laser point from a sniper’s rifle running over her body. Sherlock lowers the phone and shakes his head at John, then drops the phone onto the table as he turns to look at the TV.) CONNIE (on the TV): ... and I see you’re back to your bad habits. (As the footage continues, a voiceover replaces her voice and a news headline at the bottom of the screen reads: Make-over Queen Connie Prince dead at 48.) NEWS READER: ... continuing into the sudden death of the popular TV personality, Connie Prince. Miss Prince, famous for her make-over programmes, was found dead two days ago by her brother in the house they shared in Hampstead ...
BART’S MORGUE. Connie Prince’s body has been laid out on a table in the morgue, with a sheet covering her and leaving only her arms and upper chest bare. Lestrade leads the boys into the room, reading from a file as he goes. LESTRADE: Connie Prince, fifty-four. She had one of those make-over shows on the telly. Did you see it? SHERLOCK: No. LESTRADE: Very popular. She was going places. SHERLOCK: Not any more. So: dead two days. According to one of her staff, Raoul de Santos, she cut her hand on a rusty nail in the garden. Nasty wound. (He and John look at the deep cut in the webbing between her right thumb and index finger.) SHERLOCK: Tetanus bacteria enters the bloodstream – good night Vienna. JOHN: I suppose. SHERLOCK: Something’s wrong with this picture. LESTRADE: Eh? SHERLOCK: Can’t be as simple as it seems, otherwise the bomber wouldn’t be directing us towards it. Something’s wrong. (He narrows his eyes as he looks down at the body, then bends closer to look along Connie’s right arm as he takes his magnifier from his pocket. There are several scratches on her upper arm which look like claw marks. He moves up to her face and notices some tiny pinpricks on her forehead just above her nose. He looks at them through the magnifier.) SHERLOCK: John? JOHN: Mmm. SHERLOCK: The cut on her hand: it’s deep; would have bled a lot, right? JOHN: Yeah. SHERLOCK: But the wound’s clean – very clean, and fresh. (He looks up, his eyes flickering while he thinks it through, then straightens up and clicks the magnifier closed.) SHERLOCK: How long would the bacteria have been incubating inside her? JOHN: Eight, ten days. (Sherlock quirks a one-sided grin and turns to John, waiting for him to put it all together. It doesn’t take him long.) JOHN: The cut was made later. LESTRADE: After she was dead? SHERLOCK: Must have been. The only question is, how did the tetanus enter the dead woman’s system? (John looks along the body thoughtfully.) SHERLOCK: You want to help, right? JOHN: Of course. SHERLOCK: Connie Prince’s background – family history, everything. Give me data. JOHN: Right. (He turns and leaves the room. Sherlock looks down at Connie’s body one more time, then turns and heads towards the door.) LESTRADE: There’s something else that we haven’t thought of. SHERLOCK (casually): Is there? LESTRADE: Yes. Why is he doing this, the bomber? (Sherlock stops, keeping his back to the inspector and looking a little anxious.) LESTRADE: If this woman’s death was suspicious, why point it out? SHERLOCK (nonchalantly, over his shoulder): Good Samaritan. (He tries to move away but Lestrade persists.) LESTRADE: ... who press-gangs suicide bombers? SHERLOCK: Bad Samaritan. LESTRADE: I’m – I’m serious, Sherlock. Listen: I’m cutting you slack here; I’m trusting you – but out there somewhere, some poor bastard’s covered in Semtex and is just waiting for you to solve the puzzle. So just tell me: what are we dealing with? (Sherlock looks away thoughtfully, then smiles with delight.) SHERLOCK: Something new.
EIGHT HOURS TO GO. The old woman sits quietly in her bed while the sniper – who must really love his job, considering that the woman can’t see what he’s doing – continues to keep his rifle’s laser trained on her.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER. 221B. The wall behind the sofa is covered with paperwork: maps, photographs of Connie Prince – both when she was alive and pictures taken in the morgue – photos of Carl Powers, press cuttings and various sheets of paper with notes scribbled on them. Pieces of string are pinned between some of the exhibits, linking them together. Sherlock is pacing back and forth in front of the sofa while Lestrade stands nearby. SHERLOCK (under his breath): Connection, connection, connection. There must be a connection. (He stops and gestures towards various spots on the display on the wall as he speaks.) SHERLOCK: Carl Powers, killed twenty years ago. The bomber knew him; admitted that he knew him. The bomber’s iPhone was in stationery from the Czech Republic. First hostage from Cornwall; the second from London; the third from Yorkshire, judging by her accent. What’s he doing – working his way round the world? Showing off? (The pink phone rings. He takes it from his pocket and sees that the Caller I.D. again reads “NUMBER BLOCKED”. He answers, and the old woman begins to narrate what’s being said into her earpiece.) OLD WOMAN: You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Joining the ... dots. (She sobs.) OLD WOMAN: Three hours: boom ... boom. (She cries in terror, then the phone goes dead. Sherlock looks at Lestrade for a moment, then switches the phone off, puts it back in his pocket and raises his hands to his mouth in the prayer position, concentrating on the wall in front of him.)
KENNY PRINCE’S HOUSE. In a beautifully and elegantly decorated house, a hairless cat meows as it wanders about on a sofa. Kenny Prince, a man in his late fifties who is wearing a very fancy purple shirt which’ll never rival Sherlock’s, comes into the room. Behind him the much younger and far more dishy ‘houseboy’ Raoul stops at the doorway and gestures to John to go in. KENNY: We’re devastated. Of course we are. (As John walks into the living room, Kenny reaches the other side of the room and turns back, propping his arm on the mantelpiece. Looking a little uncomfortable, John sits down on the sofa beside the cat.) RAOUL: Can I get you anything, sir? JOHN: Er, no. No, thanks. (Raoul looks across the room to Kenny, who smiles at him. Raoul returns the smile, then turns and leaves the room.) KENNY: Raoul is my rock. I don’t think I could have managed. (He looks down sadly.) KENNY: We didn’t always see eye to eye, but my sister was very dear to me. (The cat has climbed onto John’s lap and meows loudly in protest when he picks it up and puts it down beside him.) JOHN: And – and to the public, Mr Prince. KENNY: Oh, she was adored. I’ve seen her take girls who looked like the back end of Routemasters and turn them into princesses. (John looks down in frustration as the cat climbs into his lap again.) KENNY: Still, it’s a relief in a way to know that she’s beyond this veil of tears. (John is nervously holding the cat as it purrs contentedly on his lap.) JOHN (awkwardly): Absolutely.
221B. Mrs Hudson has joined Sherlock and Lestrade and is standing between them as they face the paper-covered wall. Sherlock is talking into his own phone. SHERLOCK: Great. ... Thank you. Thanks again. (He turns and walks towards the fireplace, still talking into the phone. Mrs Hudson looks sadly at a photo of Connie on the wall.) MRS HUDSON: It was a real shame. I liked her. She taught you how to do your colours. (Lestrade – who had turned and was watching Sherlock [well, who wouldn’t?] on the other side of the room – now turns back to Mrs H.) LESTRADE: Colours? MRS HUDSON: You know ... (she gestures down at her clothes) ... what goes best with what. I should never wear cerise, apparently. Drains me. (Sherlock has just finished his conversation and walks back to join the others.) LESTRADE: Who was that? SHERLOCK (staring at the wall): Home Office. [Good grief – he wasn’t after a posh party invite, was he?] LESTRADE (surprised): Home Office? SHERLOCK: Well, Home Secretary, actually. Owes me a favour. MRS HUDSON (looking at a photo on the wall of Connie holding an award which presumably she won for her show): She was a pretty girl but she messed about with herself too much. They all do these days. (She looks round at Lestrade.) MRS HUDSON: People can hardly move their faces. It’s silly, isn’t it?! (She giggles as Lestrade smiles politely. She turns to Sherlock.) MRS HUDSON: Did you ever see her show? SHERLOCK: Not until now. (He turns and picks up his computer notebook and opens it. A video starts to play, showing footage of an episode of Connie’s make-over show. She is talking to her brother in the TV studio.) CONNIE: You look pasty, love! KENNY: Ah. (He looks at the audience.) Rained every day but one! MRS HUDSON: That’s the brother. No love lost there, if you can believe the papers. SHERLOCK: So I gather. I’ve just been having a very fruitful chat with people who loved this show. Fan sites – indispensible for gossip. CONNIE (gesturing to the clothes which her brother is wearing): There’s really only one thing we can do with that ensemble, don’t you think, girls? (She stands up and chaps her hands rhythmically as she begins to chant.) CONNIE: Off! Off! Off! Off! (The audience takes up the chant and the clapping. By the third, “Off!” Connie is rhythmically beating her hands quite hard onto Kenny’s back as he drops his jacket to the floor and starts to unbutton his shirt. He grimaces in pain but then turns a false smile towards the audience.)
KENNY PRINCE’S HOUSE. Kenny is still standing by the fireplace, looking thoughtfully at a framed photograph of Connie holding her TV award. John is sitting on the sofa looking down at his notebook as he talks. JOHN: It’s more common than people think. The tetanus is in the soil, people cut themselves on rose bushes, garden forks, that sort of thing. If left un... (He looks up in surprise as Kenny – who has walked across the room unnoticed – now plonks heavily down onto the sofa beside him and stares at him intensely.) JOHN: ...treated ... KENNY: I don’t know what I’m going to do now. JOHN (a little nervously): Right. KENNY: I mean, she’s left me this place, which is lovely ... (John looks around the living room with his eyes narrowed, apparently not agreeing with how ‘lovely’ the place might be.) KENNY: ... but it’s not the same without her. JOHN (fidgeting as he tries to move further away from Kenny, but unable to do so): Th-that’s why my paper wanted to get the, um, the full story straight from the horse’s mouth. You sure it’s not too soon? KENNY: No. JOHN: Right. KENNY (still staring intensely at him): You fire away. (The cat meows and trots across the carpet. Watching it, John reaches up to rub the side of his nose. As he pulls his hand away again he suddenly realises something and quickly raises his hand to his nose once more, pretending to rub it while he quietly sniffs at his fingers and looks towards the cat again. He smiles round nervously at Kenny.)
221B. Mrs Hudson has left the room but Sherlock and Lestrade are still standing in front of the wall display. Sherlock’s phone rings and he fishes it out of his jacket pocket, looks quickly at the Caller I.D. and then holds the phone to his ear. SHERLOCK: John. JOHN (over phone): Hi. Look, get over here quickly. I think I’m onto something. You’ll need to pick up some stuff first. You got a pen? SHERLOCK: I’ll remember.
Some time later, Kenny is primping in front of the mirror near the fireplace. Nearby, the entrance door shuts and, on the sofa, John puts down his teacup and starts to get up. JOHN: That’ll be him. KENNY: What? (Raoul shows Sherlock into the room. Sherlock has a large bag over his shoulder and is carrying a long narrow case which is presumably designed to hold a photographic tripod. He walks over to Kenny.) SHERLOCK: Ah, Mr Prince, isn’t it? KENNY: Yes. SHERLOCK: Very good to meet you. KENNY: Yes; thank you. (They shake hands, Sherlock looking closely at Kenny’s hand as he does so.) SHERLOCK: So sorry to hear about ... KENNY: Yes, yes, very kind. JOHN: Shall we, er ... (Sherlock walks over to the sofa, puts the case down and starts rummaging in his bag. Kenny turns back to the mirror and fiddles with his hair again.) JOHN (quietly): You were right. The bacteria got into her another way. SHERLOCK (smirking): Oh yes? JOHN: Yes. KENNY (turning towards them): Right. We all set? JOHN: Um, yes. (He looks at Sherlock, who has taken a camera and flashgun out of his bag, and jerks his head towards Kenny.) JOHN: Can you ...? (As Kenny leans one arm on the mantelpiece and poses, Sherlock walks over to him and starts taking photographs of him.) KENNY: Not too close. I’m raw from crying. (The cat meows at Sherlock’s feet. He looks down.) SHERLOCK: Oh, who’s this? KENNY: Sekhmet. Named after the Egyptian goddess. SHERLOCK: How nice(!) Was she Connie’s? KENNY: Yes. (John reaches down towards the cat but Kenny beats him to it, picking the cat up.) KENNY: Little present from yours truly. (Frustrated, John straightens up, then looks at his flatmate.) JOHN: Sherlock? Uh, light reading? SHERLOCK: Oh, um ... (He lifts a second flashgun which he is holding in his other hand and holds it towards Kenny, firing it straight into his face.) SHERLOCK: Two point eight. (Kenny squinches his eyes shut against the light.) KENNY: Bloody hell. What do you think you’re playing at?! (John immediately reaches out and rubs his fingers over one of the cat’s front paws. Sherlock keeps firing the flashgun to keep Kenny’s eyes closed.) SHERLOCK: Sorry. (John lifts his fingers away and sniffs them while Sherlock continues to fire the flashgun.) KENNY: You’re like Laurel and bloody Hardy, you two. What’s going on? JOHN: Actually, I think we’ve got what we came for. Excuse us. KENNY: What? JOHN: Sherlock. SHERLOCK: What? JOHN (grabbing the case from the sofa and heading for the door): We’ve got deadlines. (Sherlock follows after him.) KENNY: But you’ve not taken anything! (Ignoring him, the boys hurry out of the living room and let themselves out of the house. John chuckles delightedly as they walk down the drive and head towards the main road.) JOHN: Yes! Ooh, yes! SHERLOCK (smiling): You think it was the cat. It wasn’t the cat. JOHN: What? No, yes. Yeah, it is. It must be. It’s how they got the tetanus into her system. Its paws stink of disinfectant. SHERLOCK (still smiling): Lovely idea. JOHN: No, he coated it onto the paws of her cat. It’s a new pet – bound to be a bit jumpy around her. A scratch is almost inevitable. She wouldn’t have ... SHERLOCK (interrupting): I thought of it the minute I saw the scratches on her arm, but it’s too random and too clever for the brother. (John chuckles again.) JOHN: He murdered his sister for her money. SHERLOCK: Did he? JOHN (looking at him): Didn’t he? SHERLOCK: No. It was revenge. JOHN: Revenge? Who wanted revenge? SHERLOCK: Raoul, the houseboy. Kenny Prince was the butt of his sister’s jokes, week in, week out, a virtual bullying campaign. Finally he had enough; fell out with her badly. It’s all on the website. She threatened to disinherit Kenny. Raoul had grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle, so ... JOHN (stopping and turning to him): No, wait, wait. Wait a second. (Sherlock stops as well.) JOHN: What about the disinfectant, then, on the cat’s claws? SHERLOCK: Raoul keeps a very clean house. You came through the kitchen door, saw the state of that floor, scrubbed to within an inch of its life. You smell of disinfectant now. No, the cat doesn’t come into it. (John pulls his jacket up to sniff at it as Sherlock looks towards the main road.) SHERLOCK: Raoul’s internet records do, though. Hope we can get a cab from here. (He walks off. John sighs in exasperation and a touch of disappointment that he hadn’t solved the case for once. He glares towards his friend’s back and then follows him.)
ONE HOUR TO GO. Still sitting in her bed, the old woman cries in despair.
EVENING/NIGHT TIME. NEW SCOTLAND YARD. Sherlock walks into the main office brandishing a folder at Lestrade. SHERLOCK: Raoul de Santos is your killer. Kenny Prince’s houseboy. Second autopsy shows it wasn’t tetanus that poisoned Connie Prince – it was botulinum toxin. (He puts the folder on the desk. As Lestrade reaches for it, Sherlock leans closer to him.) SHERLOCK: We’ve been here before. Carl Powers? Tut-tut. Our bomber’s repeated himself. (Lestrade walks towards his office, Sherlock following. John stares at them in surprise.) LESTRADE: So how’d he do it? SHERLOCK: Botox injection. (Flashback to Sherlock examining the tiny pinpricks in Connie’s forehead.) LESTRADE (turning back to him): Botox? SHERLOCK: Botox is a diluted form of botulinum. Among other things, Raoul de Santos was employed to give Connie her regular facial injections. My contact at the Home Office gave me the complete records of Raoul’s internet purchases. (He points to the folder.) He’s been bulk ordering Botox for months. (Nearby, John has continued to stare at Sherlock, and his expression is becoming more angry.) SHERLOCK (oblivious to this): Bided his time, then upped the strength to a fatal dose. LESTRADE: You sure about this? SHERLOCK: I’m sure. LESTRADE: All right – my office. (He turns and walks towards his office. Sherlock starts to follow but John stops him.) JOHN: Hey, Sherlock. How long? SHERLOCK: What? JOHN: How long have you known? SHERLOCK: Well, this one was quite simple, actually, and like I said, the bomber repeated himself. That was a mistake. (He tries to walk towards Lestrade’s office but again John stops him.) JOHN: No, but Sherl... The hostage... the old woman. She’s been there all this time. SHERLOCK (leaning closer and looking at him intensely): I knew I could save her. I also knew that the bomber had given us twelve hours. I solved the case quickly; that gave me time to get on with other things. Don’t you see? We’re one up on him! (He heads into Lestrade’s office. John purses his lips in frustration, then follows.)
Shortly afterwards, Sherlock is sitting at Lestrade’s desk where a laptop has been opened to The Science of Deduction website. John and Lestrade are standing either side of him. Sherlock types into the message box:
Raoul de Santos, the house-boy, botox.
(He sends the message and the pink phone on the desk beside the computer rings almost instantly. He picks it up and answers.) SHERLOCK: Hello? OLD WOMAN (in an anguished voice): Help me. SHERLOCK (clearly): Tell us where you are. Address. OLD WOMAN: He was so ... His voice ... SHERLOCK (urgently): No, no, no, no. Tell me nothing about him. Nothing. OLD WOMAN: He sounded so ... soft. (The laser point from the sniper’s rifle moves onto the bomb. A single shot fires and the phone instantly goes dead.) SHERLOCK (into phone): Hello? LESTRADE (seeing his expression): Sherlock? JOHN: What’s happened? (Slowly, staring ahead of himself, Sherlock lowers the phone from his ear. He bites his lip as Lestrade – realising that something bad must have happened – straightens up and sighs. John braces a hand on the back of Sherlock’s chair.)
MORNING. 221B. Sherlock and John are sitting in their armchairs watching the news on the TV. Sherlock has the pink phone on the left arm of his chair. The windows are still broken and boarded up and the traffic is loud outside. On the TV, the picture shows a high-rise block of flats and the headline at the bottom of the screen reads, “12 dead in gas explosion.” The picture moves to a close-up, showing a corner of the building many floors up which has been torn open and exposed to the air. NEWS READER: The explosion, which ripped through several floors, killing twelve people ... JOHN (briefly glancing over his shoulder to Sherlock): Old block of flats. NEWS READER: ... is said to have been caused by a faulty gas main. A spokesman from the utilities company ... JOHN: He certainly gets about. SHERLOCK: Well, obviously I lost that round – although technically I did solve the case. (He picks up the remote control and mutes the volume. Lowering his hand again he looks thoughtfully into the distance.) SHERLOCK: He killed the old lady because she started to describe him. (He raises a finger on his other hand.) SHERLOCK: Just once, he put himself in the firing line. JOHN: What d’you mean? SHERLOCK: Well, usually, he must stay above it all. He organises these things but no-one ever has direct contact. JOHN: What ... like the Connie Prince murder – he-he arranged that? So people come to him wanting their crimes fixed up, like booking a holiday? SHERLOCK (softly, his face full of admiration): Novel. (John looks at him in disbelief, then turns and looks at the TV screen again, which has moved on to a new story.) JOHN: Huh. (He jerks a finger towards the screen and Sherlock looks up to see Raoul de Santos being bundled out of Kenny’s house by police officers. The press are there and are shoving each other as they struggle to get close to Raoul and take photographs while interviewers shout questions. The headline on the screen reads: “Connie Prince: man arrested.” Raoul is shoved into the back of a police car. John looks round at Sherlock, who is looking down at the pink phone.) SHERLOCK: Taking his time this time. (John looks away, clearing his throat uncomfortably. On the TV, the camera is focussing on Kenny who is standing at the window of his house, holding Sekhmet in his arms and watching the chaos outside.) JOHN: Anything on the Carl Powers case? SHERLOCK: Nothing. All the living classmates check out spotless. No connection. JOHN: Maybe the killer was older than Carl? SHERLOCK: The thought had occurred. JOHN: So why’s he doing this, then – playing this game with you? D’you think he wants to be caught? (Sherlock presses his fingertips together in front of his mouth and smiles slightly.) SHERLOCK: I think he wants to be distracted. (John laughs humourlessly, gets out of his chair and heads towards the kitchen.) JOHN: I hope you’ll be very happy together. SHERLOCK: Sorry, what? (John turns back, furious, and leans his hands on the back of his chair.) JOHN: There are lives at stake, Sherlock – actual human lives... Just – just so I know, do you care about that at all? SHERLOCK (irritably): Will caring about them help save them? JOHN: Nope. SHERLOCK: Then I’ll continue not to make that mistake. JOHN: And you find that easy, do you? SHERLOCK: Yes, very. Is that news to you? JOHN: No. (He smiles bitterly.) No. (They lock eyes for a moment.) SHERLOCK: I’ve disappointed you. JOHN (still smiling angrily as he points at him sarcastically): That’s good – that’s a good deduction, yeah. SHERLOCK: Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them. (They stare at each other for a second but then the pink phone sounds a message alert.) SHERLOCK: Excellent! (He picks up the phone and activates it. The phone sounds one short pip and the long tone, and a photograph appears showing a river bank.) SHERLOCK: View of the Thames. South Bank – somewhere between Southwark Bridge and Waterloo. (He reaches into his jacket for his own phone.) SHERLOCK: You check the papers; I’ll look online ... (He looks up and sees that John is standing with his hands braced on the back of his chair and his head lowered.) SHERLOCK: Oh, you’re angry with me, so you won’t help. (John raises his head and shrugs.) SHERLOCK: Not much cop, this caring lark. (He loudly clicks the ‘k’ on the last word. Your transcriber blissfully falls off her chair. Sherlock dismisses John from his mind and begins a search on his phone:
