Work Text:
"Mr Canterbury?"
Dirk knocked at the door of the hotel room again. "Mr Canterbury? It's Dirk Gently. The detective. We spoke on the phone a few hours ago. You hired me." Richard thought that he heard a very slight element of astonishment in the last few words. He was certainly astonished every time they found a client.
The door opened a crack, then wider. "Who's he?" The voice was wildly agitated.
"My assistant, MacDuff."
"Partner," Richard corrected firmly. "Can we come in?"
They were admitted only with great reluctance and after showing ID. Eric Canterbury repeated what he had said on the phone; he was sure there was someone following him. He couldn't go to the police... his work, they should understand. He just wanted them to find out who was following him and if he was in any danger. He was sure he was in danger.
Richard could believe that he was sure of it; the sweat was streaming down the plump elderly man's face. Dirk's attempt to get more information was just making Eric more and more distraught.
"The missing variable here is food." Dirk said at last, firmly. "It is impossible to operate holistically on an empty stomach. Have you eaten, Mr Canterbury?"
Canterbury indicated that he couldn't possibly.
"In that case, if you will hand over your wallet, my colleague and I will nip out for a quick lunch and resume, fed."
"My wallet?" Canterbury blinked in surprise.
"I will explain the firm's expenses policy in full detail later but for the moment whatever cash you have on you will suffice."
Richard watched in amazement tinged with familiarity as Dirk extracted a small bundle of notes from his new client. He might have protested the daylight robbery but the one way train fares from London genuinely had exhausted their resources and this was the only way that he was going to get dinner.
The agitated man handed over a keycard for the room. "I'm not going to answer the door to anyone. Let yourselves in when you get back. And please hurry! There may not be much time!"
It seemed that Mr Canterbury was wrong. There was time for three courses in the Indian restaurant, and a couple of beers to finish with, which by a coincidence or possibly evidence of the holistic nature of everything used up Mr Canterbury's cash almost exactly. But when Dirk and Richard returned in good spirits to the hotel room and let themselves in, they found their new client stretched out motionless on the floor and entirely dead.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"So that's it." John stood up and stretched. Crouching over the corpse had been uncomfortable. "Dead end."
"Not necessarily." Sherlock was still down on the hotel room's carpet, searching the dead man's clothing.
"You think it was murder?"
"Not directly. You were quite correct; his heart gave way. He was clearly extremely agitated when he arrived yesterday. But someone else was in here with him when he was alive, and someone went through his pockets after he died. Something is missing."
"The reason why he came here?"
"Something else." He spread out the contents of the man's wallet with gloved hands. "Look."
John looked. Driving licence, passport, credit cards, a small photograph of a woman, half a dozen coffee shop loyalty cards, a passcard for the anonymous civil service building where the man had worked. Receipts for coffee. House keys. Heart medication. OysterCard. A creased piece of A4 paper with a corporate copyright notice across the top and nothing else. "Cash?"
"Good. The coffee was paid for in cash, so where is the rest? But something more informative than cash."
John shook his head. "Can't see it. Sorry."
Sherlock managed to look both irritated and smug. "How did he get here?"
John shook his head. "Train? Flight?" They'd caught the train themselves that afternoon, as soon as Mycroft had told them about the civil servant turning up dead. Nearly as soon; there had been time for the brothers to bicker first.
“What was he working on?” Sherlock had demanded. Mycroft had glanced over at John, then had shaken his head. “Classified and not necessarily relevant.”
“Then your case doesn’t interest me.” Sherlock had stood up, swirling his coat around his shoulders. “Investigate his death yourself.”
“I am fully occupied dealing with a potentially serious constitutional crisis,” Mycroft snapped. “Dead people are your department.”
“Only the interesting ones. Civil servants seldom present any original features on dying and I am busy.”
“Sit down!” Mycroft had hissed. “This is to go nowhere else. Nowhere. Canterbury was an investigating agent in MI5. He was looking into what appears to be a major failure of our vetting system. In the last six months several people have changed their political allegiances – turned traitor, if you prefer- without warning and soon after receiving full positive vetting which should have made such conversions impossible.”
“Connections between them?”
“Canterbury’s last report a week ago said that he’d found none but that he was following a possible lead. No details were given. Two days ago he phoned the head of MI5 to say that he was onto something and thought he was being followed. He was reported to be very distressed and barely coherent. The call was traced but he couldn’t be found. The next report of him was from the chambermaid at the hotel who found the body, roughly an hour ago.”
Sherlock had agreed to at least look at the crime scene and John had managed eventually to persuade him that Kingston upon Hull was too far for a black cab, so they’d arrived by train half an hour ago. It seemed logical that Canterbury would have come the same way.
"Neither train nor plane." Sherlock tapped a receipt. "He had a coffee at St Pancras yesterday just after 8am."
"St Pancras?" John frowned. "That's the Eurostar?"
"In this case, no." Sherlock had pulled up a timetable on his phone. "The Megabus. Leaves 8.15 from St Pancras, gets into Hull at 12.25. Our friend then grabbed a second coffee, extra shots, at 12.43 and checked into the hotel room at 12:58."
"What's a Megabus?"
"Budget coach travel. Very budget."
John wrinkled his nose. "Sounds uncomfortable."
"We are about to find out first hand." Sherlock flicked a finger at the near blank paper. "This is the second page of the printout; they took the first with the travel authorisation numbers on. If they had been trying to hide his movements they would have taken this page and the receipts as well. They just wanted the return ticket. Why?"
He was checking the emails on Canterbury's phone. "Here's the confirmation. Booked yesterday morning. Out on the 8.15 yesterday, back on the 18:35 tonight. Cost five pounds. Not taken for its face value then."
Sherlock stood up. "That leaves us very little time to go after the thieves. You and I need to go back to London on the 18:35 Megabus and take a look at our fellow travellers on the way."
* * * * * * * * *
Coach travel was for tourists and students. Dirk announced that he hadn't travelled by coach even when he was a student, and he didn't want to start now. "Are you sure we don't have a single credit card still operational?" he complained. "This is humiliating!"
"Be quiet!" MacDuff hissed. "At least you've got a ticket!" He glanced around at the handful of waiting passengers who were politely keeping their distance from each other, out of earshot. "Even if a stolen one!"
"My client," ("Our client," Richard muttered) "would not have begrudged me the use of a ticket that he was hardly in a position to use. It's just a pity that he was such a skinflint when it came to travel arrangements. Do stop looking guilty, MacDuff. You'll get people's attention."
"I've just robbed a corpse and I'm about to board a coach without a valid ticket. Of course I look guilty! Why don't you give me the ticket and then you can sneak on using your special holistic ninja skills?"
Dirk narrowed his eyes at Richard. "Be a man, MacDuff! I shall be exercising my considerable powers of misdirection on your behalf. All you need to do is walk up the steps when prompted."
"Yeah, right." Richard sighed. If only the stupid coach company took cash. He had just about enough for the nine pounds they'd charge to get back to London, but it was book online or nothing and the last card that he and Dirk had between them had stopped working two days previously. Eric Canterbury had promised a quick and substantial payment if they found out who had been following him but his unexpected demise had rather put paid to that.
The coach didn't turn up on time. It started to rain, turning the discarded tabloid newspaper on the bench into a sodden mess, the headline “Mystery Royal Gave Us £5m Claims UKIP” slowly disintegrating. The streetlights flickered on, the sky darkened. After another half an hour a large blue and yellow bus lumbered around and came to a halt somewhere near the bus stop. The half dozen people waiting sprang into action, almost physically shouldering each other in the eagerness to be the first to put their luggage in the nearly empty coach.
Dirk and Richard didn't have any luggage. As the driver turned his back on the doors so that he could stow the various bags in the hold Dirk shoved Richard up the steps, then planted himself on the bottom step, waving his piece of paper in what seemed a paroxysm of enthusiasm. ""Here's my ticket!"
The driver turned and saw him. His voice held the almost worn out irritation of someone who had said the same thing endless times. "Could you wait until the luggage is in, please?"
"Yes. Yes of course. Sorry. Wait. Yes." Dirk hopped off the bus again, stood patient, head hanging low in apparent contrition. Inside, Richard shuffled quickly down the aisle, carefully avoiding eyecontact with anyone who looked like they might want to be helpful and sat down in a sea of empty seats most of the way to the back, his head ducked low down. There were serious disadvantages in being six foot four when one wanted to be inconspicuous.
* * * * * * * * *
The tall man in the black coat and his shorter companion had caught Sherlock's attention from where he and John lurked some way off the bus stop long before the little performance at the steps. Tall man was apprehensive; short man was almost indecently relaxed. No luggage, not even a briefcase, which suggested that London was home; they'd arrive in the city without personal effects and too late to do anything about them. Where had they stayed in Hull or was it a day trip? Why were they travelling together when they were so clearly at odds? Business? Family? Hobby? Old friends? Sherlock would get a closer look, after they boarded.
The pantomime was so obvious that even John recognised it. "Did they just get that man on without a ticket?"
"Yes." Sherlock was surprised that the driver didn't spot it straight away. People were so unobservant. It raised a whole new raft of questions though. Why smuggle someone on a coach this cheap? The tall man clearly hated the idea, and yet he'd gone along with it.
Two men, one ticket between them. The dead man's ticket? Why not just buy two more? Sherlock watched the driver cross numbers off his list as the passengers boarded. Obvious. They were trying to lay a trail suggesting that Canterbury had come back to London on this coach as planned. Someone had to use his ticket and they didn't want a credit card record for the purchase of an additional one.
John shook his head at this. "But the body's in Hull."
Sherlock shrugged. "Maybe it will disappear. Maybe they only need this proof for a short time. No need to speculate yet." The last passengers were boarding. He strode across the concrete to the driver. "Two more, please."
"Was wondering where you two were. Got lost?" The driver looked down at his list and Sherlock could see him crossing off the last two numbers. "That's everyone."
Sherlock paused briefly at the top of the steps to monitor all his potential suspects. The odd couple were near the back, the tall man slouched down in his seat looking acutely uncomfortable, the shorter one scribbling something on the back of a familiar-looking A4 sheet of paper. Sherlock strode down the aisle and swung into a seat three rows behind them.
* * * * * * * * *
Canterbury. Canterbury, York. Canterbury Tales. Interesting. The last passengers were boarding. Megabus. A ridiculous way to travel. There was rain down the back of his neck. Scunthorpe. Dirk was sure that nowhere could have a name like Scunthorpe and not be cosmically significant.
He glanced up to see the final two passengers board. Ah. The holistic method comes good again. He wrote down a few more words, drew some circles and lines with great satisfaction. Eric Canterbury's case was progressing nicely. All he needed now was someone to pay him.
"What are you doing?" MacDuff sounded more than usually grumpy.
Dirk decided to overlook it. "I'm solving this case."
"What case? The man was ill, probably hallucinating. No-one was following him."
"You say that, and yet... did you see the men who just sat behind us?"
"Tall guy, nice coat. And the other one. What about them?"
The bus jerked into motion. Dirk smiled.
"This rather horrible bus is carrying not just one but two of the most prominent detectives in Britain. Possibly the world. Call that coincidence, if you will. I call it extremely significant."
MacDuff glanced over his shoulder, slumped back, fast. "That's Sherlock Holmes!"
"And the next stop is Scunthorpe. This is big, MacDuff. Very big."
Richard snorted. "Sherlock Holmes has solved some of the highest profile crimes in the last year. You find lost cats, or fail to. You're hardly comparable."
Dirk let that go. Admittedly Sherlock Holmes had yet to embrace the fully holistic method; still his results were rather impressive. "Why this coach, MacDuff? That's the burning question."
"Maybe he's tracking down a stolen coach ticket." MacDuff suggested glumly.
Dirk considered it. "You think he might be working for the beneficiaries? I wonder how much he charges per hour. The ticket was only worth £5."
"£9 now. It goes up as the coach time gets nearer."
"Does it indeed? Why didn't you mention that before?" That was a new piece of evidence. He wrote it on his piece of paper, turned the page upside down, drew a wiggly line between that and Sherlock, turned it back again. "Quick! How many passengers on this bus?"
MacDuff stuck his head up briefly. "Fourteen, including us."
Dirk wrote it down, underlined it. "Fourteen, fourteen. Fourteen!" Of course! He needed to take a look at the clipboard of passenger numbers lying on the dashboard. He crawled out of his seat, lurched miserably to the front. "Can we stop please? I think I'm going to be sick!"
The driver shook his head, attention on the dual carriageway. "Can't I'm afraid. Safety regulations. We'll be in Scunthorpe in twenty minutes. If you can't make it that far you'll have to use the toilet."
Dirk gave a masterful performance of a pitiful groan and staggered back along the aisle to his seat. As he slid back into it he dropped his palmed camera into his lap and pulled out his phone and a lead. The photo wasn't perfect but on zoom he could just about make out the numbers on the list. He passed it to his assistant and told him to get calculating.
* * * * * * * * *
Tall man had recognised him, undoubtedly, was even more worried, yet the short man was making no attempt to pretend to be an ordinary passenger. He had just unconcernedly taken a photo of the driver's list full in Sherlock's line of sight. He must be certain that his cover was blown; why didn't he care?
"Maybe they intend to do away with us before we get back to London," John suggested cheerfully. He seemed to be enjoying the coach trip, curled up against the window with one of those mindless thrillers he insisted on reading. This was at least a distraction, even if a potentially lethal one. Coaches were uncomfortable and they made such unnecessary diversions. Scunthorpe, indeed. Sherlock took another boiled sweet and went back to watching the back of the heads of the peculiar duo, ready to act at the first sign of danger. It was possible to hijack a coach, and John's hypothesis could not be completely dismissed.
At Scunthorpe no passengers got on or off but the coach changed drivers. Tall man sat up as soon as the original driver was out of sight, with a sigh of relief audible to Sherlock, three rows back. He had apparently been seriously worried about being caught without a ticket. The other man hadn't shown a trace of nerves all trip.
One professional conman and thief, one amateur. The substitution for Canterbury would have been far more straightforward without the second man along. He must have an essential role in whatever was going to happen next. Some sort of specialist- explosives? Computers? Bioweapons? The man was calculating something, scribbling intermittently. That didn't bode well at all. Sherlock urgently needed a better look at him.
* * * * * * * * *
Richard was getting a headache from trying to decipher the indistinct photo. This was one of Dirk's random sidetracks; absolutely pointless. Still, the driver had gone and the new one had no way of knowing that he hadn't got a ticket. Unless he counted the passengers. Would he do that? He might. Oh God, the nightmare wasn't yet over. How many hours to go? Better keep his head down. Richard swiftly bent over the piece of paper again.
Another ten minutes and he was done. He shoved the paper under Dirk's nose. "Eighty four pounds fifty, including booking fees. Going to tell me what it's all about?"
"Evidence, MacDuff. The plot thickens." Dirk turned his head to the man standing in the aisle. "Sherlock...may I call you Sherlock?"
"As you like. And what should I call you?" The man's voice was deep and quizzical.
"Oh, Dirk, please; don’t stand on ceremony. We are after all professional colleagues. How much did you pay for your ticket?”
Sherlock slid into the seat opposite. “I didn’t pay anything for it. My associate did. What is the significance?"
Dirk tipped his head back, crossed his legs with some difficulty in the confined area. "Everything is potentially significant, Sherl...may I call you Sherl?" He closed his eyes without waiting for an answer, apparently contemplating profundities too deep to be shared.
Richard caught Sherlock's eye without meaning to. The country’s most famous detective raised an eyebrow at him. "And you are?"
He shrank away. "Nobody, really. I'm just his assistant.” The space where his ticket would have been tucked away, had he had one, was burning a guilty hole through his wallet, or possibly the Indian meal and the beers followed by too much hunching over was disagreeing with him
Dirk waved a hand without opening his eyes. “Sherlock Holmes, Richard…”
“York,” MacDuff said hastily. It was the first name he could think of. Giving his own would clearly be a one way ticket to prison.
“York,” Sherlock repeated with a faint edge of amusement. “Mr York. Dirk. I’ll leave you to sleep undisturbed.”
* * * * * * * * *
“Richard York? Somebody’s parents liked Shakespeare, or possibly rainbows.”
Sherlock shook his head. “York’s not his real name, obviously. He made it up on the spot. An interesting choice, given the name of the deceased.”
“Canterbury? As in York and Canterbury? That wouldn’t be very clever.”
“He’s too frightened to be clever. I don’t think our friend Richard is the brains of the outfit. I don’t yet know what he is, however.”
They had moved to the back of the coach and were now talking in whispers. Outside the M1 trundled by backwards at almost legal speed for a coach, darkness shrouding the far edge of the hard shoulder a bare few feet from the window. “What about the other one?”
“He claims to be called Dirk.”
“Dirk. Nice name. Assassin, do you think?” John had been staring out of the window at the hypnotic central reservation for too long; everything in the bus had a faint air of unreality, including the idea of a professional killer with a sobriquet that unsubtle squeezed into a seat six rows in front.
“I don’t yet know. How much did you pay for the tickets?”
John pulled out his phone, brought up the text. “Nine pounds each plus 50p booking charge.”
“Eighteen fifty, or nineteen pounds?”
“Eighteen fifty. Why?”
“My ticket- the emphasis was on mine. Why should my ticket be different from anyone else’s?” He grabbed John’s phone, started tapping at the keyboard.
“Ah!” A note of triumph. “Variable pricing.” At John’s look of incomprehension. “Encourage purchasers with cheap headline fares for advance purchases but make the bulk of their profits from high last-minute prices.”
“Like the airlines,” John said.
“Exactly. Now why would our possible assassin and stealer of state secrets be interested in that?”
“Especially since he didn’t even pay for his.” John hadn’t been entirely sold on the whole slow motion coach chase thing back in Hull, particularly since he was positive that the man in the hotel room had died of a thoroughly uninteresting heart attack, but an unflappable and mysterious hired killer called Dirk sharing their bus was slightly more intriguing. A pity that the man looked quite so much like a dishevelled estate agent, but that had to be camouflage.
“What was on the tall guy’s bit of paper?”
“A list of scrawled numbers and what looked like a total figure at the bottom. None of the numbers were decipherable. Not enough answers, John, and too many questions.” He shook himself. “I’m getting distracted. Never mind the bit of paper for now. Why is only one of them terrified? What would make you frightened enough to give yourself away to even the most unobservant detective while you’re sitting on a coach?”
“Guilty conscience?” John suggested. “Maybe he caused Canterbury’s death?”
“A heart attack.”
“Maybe he’d been blackmailing him. Mycroft did say that Canterbury had been reported as very nervous in the days before he died.
Sherlock shook his head dismissively. “Blackmail’s a profession for those not overburdened with conscience. They don’t go to pieces over their victim’s demise from natural causes.”
“Maybe we missed something on the corpse, then, and he was killed some other way.”
“I didn’t miss anything.” Sherlock was staring intently at the back of the man’s head just visible over the back of the seat. John reckoned he must still be slouching down.
“Ok, try this. They took something from the room with the body and he’s worried that we, or someone else, will find it. We know they were there, and he does seem to be still trying to hide.”
Sherlock at least bothered to turn to look at him this time. “Slightly more plausible. But why isn’t Dirk worried?”
“Maybe he doesn’t know about it? Maybe he wasn’t even there? He could be just a hired guard with a clean conscience.”
There was a snort. “You go and talk to them.”
“About what?”
“Start with ticket prices,” Sherlock said cheerfully. “They already know who we are so you don’t need to embarrass yourself by trying to practice subterfuge. Tell them how much my ticket cost and take it from there.”
“Why am I doing this?” John protested, already getting to his feet.
“Because it’s too soon to ask the right questions and I can rely on you to ask the wrong ones.”
“Cheers for that. How will I know that I’m not asking a right one by accident?”
“I have full confidence in you. Off you go.”
* * * * * * * * *
This time it was the other one who came down the aisle and perched rather hesitantly on the seat across from Dirk. What was his name? John something. Or was it James? No, John. The sidekick. Dirk smiled at him with the bit of his mouth that didn’t have a strawberry fruit drop in it, realised the lopsided result must appear slightly patronising, decided that slightly patronising was probably a look he had a use for in future and he must remember how it was done, and went back to rolling the sweet thoughtfully around his mouth. The bus braked and his stomach turned slightly, not for the first time. Bus travel did not agree with him at all.
“Nine pounds each,” the man offered.
Dirk nodded. “Time of booking?”
He hesitated briefly. “Um. Half four?”
Dirk consulted the bit of paper Richard had returned to him. “You two were the last to book. Nine pounds, huh? What does your detective make of that?”
John shrugged. “Nothing, as far as I know. He hasn’t said anything about it.”
“Hah! It appears that the holistic method beats the deductive hands down!” Dirk would be the first to admit that he felt most definitely smug. Not that it was a competition, obviously, but if it had been he would be a good lap and a half ahead. Maybe two laps.
“What’s the holistic method, when it’s at home?” The note of scepticism was wearily familiar. Dirk spent a little time explaining how the interconnectedness of all things meant that the answer to any question potentially lay in the examination of any random item that the detective encountered, in this case, Megabus’s ticket prices.
“So now you claim to be a detective. Called Dirk. What was this question?” John enquired. The sceptical tone hadn’t noticeably reduced.
Dirk briefly considered telling him, decided against it. Sherlock Holmes was frequently engaged on what the papers were fond of calling “police work”. While Mr Canterbury had undoubtedly died of perfectly explicable causes Dirk suspected that leaving a dead body in a hotel room without notifying the relevant authorities, not to mention taking his bus ticket, was the sort of thing that the stiflingly bureaucratic police service looked definitely askance at. “That’s confidential to my client, I’m afraid.”
“And who is your client?”
“That’s also confidential.” Dirk was fairly sure that the man or woman he finally talked into paying for all this top notch holistic detective work would probably want their identity kept secret. He was merely anticipating their desires.
John rubbed his eyes a little wearily. “But the answer lies in the coach pricing system?”
“Absolutely.” He felt a little sorry for his floundering counterparts. He could afford to be slightly magnanimous. (Two lap lead, maybe two and a half.) “There have been thirteen paying customers on this bus. The total ticket sales came to eighty four pounds fifty. Including booking fees.”
John seemed to be waiting for him to go on. Painfully slow, painfully. The bus swerved to change lanes and Dirk felt slightly nauseous again. He closed his eyes again and felt a little better. “Your detective is a consulting one. Consult him about it. I now require solitude for deep cogitation.”
John stumbled up and staggered back. Dirk was a little surprised not to have Richard fussing at him but the steady breathing next to him suggested that MacDuff’s excessive and prolonged state of agitation had finally worn him out. The man was asleep.
* * * * * * * * *
It was the roundabout that woke Sherlock up. The bus careered from side to side as it swung off the slip lane and shortly afterwards round a well lit carpark before braking sharply to a halt. He’d been asleep. Unintentional but the rumble of the coach had been rather soporific. No harm done- no-one had come near them in the last hour.
John was stirring beside him, pulling out his phone (the slow one with the annoying chip in the metalwork that had been there for months now). Nine o’clock. Too early for London. Just the next stop.
“All change,” the driver shouted down the aisle. “East Midlands Parkway. We are running 45 minutes late. The train into London is waiting on platform 2. Don’t miss it; your ticket will not be valid for any other train.”
“Train,” John said from beside him. “Why train?”
Sherlock took the phone off him, pulled up the ticket notification. “Here, down at the bottom in the very small print. Coach to East Midlands Parkway, train to St Pancras. You need a new phone. That thing was obsolete three months before you bought it.”
The coach driver was ticking off names as he handed out tickets for the gates. “Richard York” was in luck, at this end anyway; the ticket gates were open with no staff in evidence, only the woman in the newspaper kiosk selling a local evening paper. Nothing interesting there, just more celebrity politics; “UKIP Refuse to Name Royal Donor.” Sherlock followed the mismatched couple up the platform and settled at the far end of the carriage that they had chosen.
Ten minutes later he was nursing a tasteless cup of railway coffee and thinking over the conversation that John had had with the supposed private detective. “Eighty four pounds and fifty pence. Thirteen people.”
More information needed. He unfolded himself from the seat and went along the carriages to find some of his fellow travellers. Eight of them had clearly never travelled with Megabus before (a noticeably high proportion of irregular travellers for any transport mode) but the two remaining were able to assure him that eight to a dozen people were fairly standard numbers of passengers for an evening journey.
He was making his way back up the train when it stopped at Bedford. Pushing his way past the handful of new arrivals he got to their carriage and stopped. The men had gone. John, who he had left to keep an eye on them, was hunched over his ridiculously outdated phone, utterly focussed on what he was reading. Sherlock scanned the platform and spotted them easily enough. As the train doors announced their closure with the normal earsplitting rapid beep Dirk had turned and was waving a languid goodbye.
* * * * * * * * *
“He was right,”
“Sorry?” John looked up from the tangle of cables attaching devices to laptop.
“If you could spare a moment of your unreliable attention for our case?” Sherlock said sharply.
“You were the one who told me to get a new phone. I’ve nearly figured this out…”
Sherlock sighed, brought a gleaming thin metal rectangle out of his jacket pocket, apparently identical to the one attached to the computer. “It took three point seven minutes to transfer all my data and settings, a further six minutes to customise. What you’ve been doing with that all morning I can’t imagine.”
“We’re not all technical geniuses, Sherlock. Who was right?”
“Income from the Hull to London bus and train service- eighty four pounds fifty. Expenses- £40 for the driver, £40 fuel for the coach, which was spotlessly clean, in full working order and relatively new; it costs to hire and run a fleet that way, at least another £40 a day per vehicle. Add the booking service, the cost of using the train service- same company but that particular service was clearly uneconomical without the Megabus passengers. Pay the back room staff, pay passenger taxes, pay vehicle excise duty, pay advertising, and the company should have been bankrupt in six months. So why does it keep expanding?”
John didn’t know. “Loss leaders?” He pressed what he hoped was the right key and his new phone asked him to confirm erasure of all data and settings.
“Kingston upon Hull to London? Hardly the sort of route you run for the prestige. I’ve checked out their other routes - on the paltry amounts they are charging and their passenger numbers they should be making a loss on virtually every one and yet the company seems to be in glowing financial health. Don’t touch that keypad! Give it here.”
“Be careful with it,” John muttered protectively, and aloud, “How is this our case, exactly?”
“Exactly? I don’t know. But Eric Canterbury had an income of eighty thousand a year, substantial savings and five thousand pounds in his current account. He books a upmarket business traveller hotel room, or as upmarket as Hull gets, money apparently no object. He’s a first class season ticket holder on his commuter route. Yet he travels, just this once, by a service for students, tourists, the unemployed and the pathologically parsimonious.”
“He was worried about being followed, Mycroft said.”
“Hmm.” Sherlock was fiddling with the phone. “There. Done.”
“Thanks,” John reclaimed his beautiful new toy. “Shall I look something up for you? Call someone?”
“No. Just keep your voice down.” Sherlock flicked through pages on his own phone then put it to his ear.
“Good morning Mr Graham. I’m calling from Megabus Ltd about the regrettable delay on your service last night. If you have a couple of minutes we would like to talk about our compensation arrangements.”
John listened with half an ear as Sherlock conducted a brief customer survey and ended with the sketchy promise of a further call and a chat about phones. By the time nine similar calls had been made John had moreoreless worked out how his address book worked and Sherlock was bouncing on his heels in a satisfied manner.
“Go on then. What have you found out?”
“Our passengers are a pleasantly contented lot, even though they reached London an hour late. They thought their journey was comfortable, convenient and very good value for money. They had nothing but praise for the driver and the booking service. Every single one of them would recommend the service to their friends and several had already done so.”
“Fair enough,” John said. “I thought it was a great service too for nine quid. I’m surprised it’s not overwhelmed.”
“That’s the fascinating bit. If you were paying attention at all you would have noticed that I asked them how they planned to travel to London next time they need to. And not a single one of them said Megabus, not even the ones who’ve used the service before. Car, train, National Express. A couple of the students intended to hitchhike. They
recommend the service but they aren’t going to use it themselves.”
“Come on, Sherlock. There’s no mystery there. People don’t want to admit they’re going to use a cheap product, that’s all. They like to be associated with expensive stuff. Even you do it; that’s what all that chatter about phones was about, wasn’t it?”
Sherlock frowned at him. “That was called “breaking the ice”. Everyone likes talking about a new purchase.”
Sounded like an excuse to John, but it would do no good to press the point. Sherlock would never admit to doing anything as human as showing off his prize possessions.
The prize possession rang. “My brother,” Sherlock said without glancing at the screen.
“Shouldn’t you answer it?”
“No point. He’s just pestering for an update.”
The phone stopped and seconds later John’s started ringing.
“Hang on. Which button is answer?” John fumbled at the device. “There. Oh. I’ve put you on speaker, sorry. Just a moment and I’ll see if I can fix it.”
“No need, Dr Watson,” Mycroft’s voice came loud in the room. “Speaker will be perfectly adequate. How did you break your old phone?”
“I didn’t. I just wanted a better one. Is there something I can help you with?”
“You wanted a better one?” Mycroft sounded disbelieving. “Changing phones is one of your regular nightmares. And an iPhone, as well? I cannot see the point of you putting up with my brother at all if you don’t make use of his few areas of competence. You really should ask for his advice next time.”
“Actually,” John said indignantly, “Sherlock’s bought one as well. They are state of the art. Tell him, Sherlock.”
“Hmm? Oh, Mycroft. Good morning. Yes, John managed to make a competent choice for once. He managed somehow to spend nearly a hundred pounds more than I did for the same model, so the world has not turned entirely upside down. What do you want?”
“What’s wrong with your old one?”
“Obsolete. I presume you rang for some reason?”
There was a brief silence, before Mycroft started again, noticeably slowly. “Your phone was probably the most advanced piece of phone technology in London. It had functions that my best people have consistently failed to reverse engineer. You are telling me that you have discarded it for an off the shelf, badly tested gimmick?”
“Keeping up with technology has never really been your strong point, has it, brother? I presume if you have all this time to chatter then your constitutional crisis has resolved?”
There was a loud sigh. “I really do wonder how you ever have the nerve to claim to have your finger on the pulse of the City, or whatever grandiose phrase you used to those journalists last week, Sherlock. Standing on tall buildings twirling your coat is no substitute for glancing at the Evening Standard occasionally. No, my constitutional crisis is not resolved. I have taken far more time than I can afford away from it to find out whether you have made any progress at all with Canterbury.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And nothing. Any progress at all, you said. I have certainly done that. When I have any conclusions to report I will let you know.”
Mycroft sighed again. “You did look at the body. Can you at least tell me if he was murdered?”
“Not directly.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I will be sure to tell you when I find out. Go and deal with whatever trivia your latest fuss is about and leave me to work in peace.”
There was a brief noise off, then Mycroft again. “The chair of the Electoral Commission is here and my presence is needed. Try not to get too distracted with your tacky new toys. Canterbury’s work is crucial to national security.” And the phone went dead.
“Electoral Commission, indeed,” Sherlock muttered. “If he was going to name drop he could have picked someone a little more impressive.” And louder, “Get your coat. It’s time to ask the right questions of our holistically minded friends.”
* * * * * * * * *
“Quick! How do you spell ineffable?”
“I don't think I do.” Richard came in to Dirk’s office (their office) and frowned at the desk. “What on earth happened here?” The surface was a sea of torn cardboard, bubblewrap and tiny instruction leaflets of the sort that come in every conceivable language but the one commonly used in the country you bought the item in.
"Mrs Parkins' new credit card arrived. I'm just testing it out for her." Dirk hadn't looked up from the leather bound device he was typing on. "So far it seems to be working perfectly. She will be delighted, I imagine. How was Aunt Elizabeth?"
“Fine. How did you...?”
“The edge of the hideous jumper she gave you last Christmas is protruding from your bag. You real ought to persuade her to stop keeping her money hidden in her room. Nor everyone in this world is, sadly, as trustworthy as you and I.”
Richard didn’t bother to ask how Dirk had known about that. The answer would be annoying. “You are planning to pay your neighbour back for all this stuff?”
“Once our invoice has been settled, obviously.”
“Settled by who? Our client is dead, remember?”
“There are always clients,” Dirk said vaguely and in complete contradiction to Richard’s experience of the universe, which mainly involved ex-clients, non-clients and even a few anti-clients but very few actual paying ones.
“What about Sherlock Holmes?”
Dirk looked up, suddenly interested. “You think he’s a good prospect? I have my doubts but we can certainly give him the sales pitch.”
“Not as a client! What about the fact that he knows about the,” (he dropped his voice a little) “coach ticket? Not to mention the body. There could be a warrant for murder out already. Shouldn’t we flee somewhere until we can clear our names? Before he tracks us down?”
“Track you down? You have a web page,” came the drawled voice from the door. “A search on any two of “Dirk”, “holistic” and “detective” comes up with this address.” Sherlock
Holmes strode into the office, followed after a brief pause by John Watson, who was frowning at the silver device in his hand and shaking it vigorously.
“Messrs MacDuff and Gently. Your Scotland Yard files make interesting reading. Inveterate con artists, suspicion of theft, breaking and entering, conspiracy to pervert the cause of justice… the list is a long one.” Unsympathetic eyes turned on Richard. “Of course police reports frequently miss large parts of the real story. Just as I imagine your motives in taking Eric Canterbury’s coach ticket from his dead body might easily be misunderstood.”
Richard felt he had to say something. “The files are wrong. This is a genuine detective agency. We…er…detect stuff.”
Sherlock snorted, picked up a credit card receipt. “Ms N Parkins. Not one of your usual aliases, Mr Cjelli. And you, sir, have just extracted several hundred pounds from under the mattress of your frail and elderly aunt. I have a few questions for both of you.”
Dirk had gone back to typing. “In a minute. Why not have some tea first? MacDuff, make our visitors tea. Or coffee. I believe both exist somewhere in this room.”
Richard was getting the strong impression that Sherlock Holmes was not to be easily fobbed off with hot beverages, especially as he had to explain that due to the absence of the secretary there was no milk. He watched helplessly as Sherlock swept past him and seized the black leather case from Dirk’s desk.
“Now what exactly are you… Oh.” One of Sherlock’s eyebrows went up.
“What is it?” John asked.
“It’s an Amazon review for his phone.” He shook his head. “Is that really how you spell ineffable?”
“Give me my phone back!” Dirk demanded, and snatched it out of his hand. “I’m nearly done!”
Sherlock was staring at the black case now in Dirk’s hands. “Something,” he said vaguely. “Something that Mycroft said?”
He shook himself. “Nothing.” he said to John’s enquiring look. “It’s nothing. I’ll have that coffee now. Black. And then when that review is posted these two can tell us exactly what they were doing in Eric Canterbury’s hotel room on the night of his death.”
* * * * * * * * *
After an hour of questioning it was clear to Sherlock that the holistic detective and his sidekick could have had nothing to do with Canterbury’s death or his work. What was considerably less clear was what Dirk Gently now considered himself to be investigating and how.
“The Megabus pricing strategy is clearly related to my client’s death.” Dirk insisted.
“Why?” Sherlock demanded. There was undoubtedly something very odd going on with the coach company but Canterbury’s choice of it as his travel method on this single occasion had been most likely chosen to keep a low profile from his supposed pursuers. He had assumed that any solid connection between the two would lie with these men and their ticket shenanigans but it now appeared not.
“Everything is related to my client’s death.” Gently told him, unhelpfully. “It’s a function of the interconnectedness of the universe. Having found a clue this obvious, the holistic method compels me to follow it until the connection becomes clear.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
For the first time the normally buoyant man seemed hesitant. “I suppose… I suppose we could catch the bus again,” he said reluctantly. “Though… maybe not.”
MacDuff was shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Sherlock turned to him, suddenly interested. “Why not?”
“I don’t know,” Richard said uneasily. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Of course you’re right,” Dirk said with relief. “There will be a much more holistic way to do this.”
Curious. “What do you think, John?”
Watson shrugged. “I can’t see how going on a coach would help. If there is anything going on we’re better off staying away. We don’t want to tip them off.”
“That’s actually not a bad off the cuff justification,” Sherlock said. “Nonsense of course. Whereas I can think of thirteen solid reasons why going on a Megabus would be a bad idea, and only one reason why we have to do it.”
“And why’s that?” Dirk asked.
“Because none of us want to.”
Gently smiled. “Ah, so Sherlock Holmes concedes that I’m right about Megabus then?”
Sherlock gave him an intentionally withering stare, but Dirk didn’t wither. “You may have blundered onto something. You clearly don’t have any idea what it means, however.”
“Nor do you,” Dirk retorted.
Sherlock had to concede that, at least internally. “Shall we go and find out, then?”
“Why are they coming too?” John protested.
“Because it says on the door that they are detectives, and there is detecting to be done.”
* * * * * * * * *
The M4 was long and dark and uneventful. The coach was barely a quarter full; there had been a few more people on the way out but that had been day time and Sherlock had been unsurprised to find that nothing unusual happened. The other three were as reluctant to get on the coach back as they had been to catch it out to Bristol but now that they were on they had settled as instructed, eyes closed, conversation strictly forbidden.
Now it was nearly midnight and the main lights were turned out, the only noise the steady rumble of diesel engine and the shake of tyres on tarmac. The driver sat in his small pool of dashboard light, behind the heavy glass partition that seemed a little excessive to keep him apart from the sort of travellers who were far more inclined to complain than intimidate and not likely to bother to do either. The lights of the oncoming cars flashed rhythmically past the windows.
The passengers were either asleep, or nearly so, nodding over Kindles or gently swaying to iPods. As Sherlock had expected, forty minutes had put his companions as close to sleep as any of the other travellers. John’s head had dropped to Sherlock’s shoulder, had jerked away three times then had stayed there. Richard’s eyelids were fluttering in REM sleep already. Dirk had kept alert longer, but he too was swaying unevenly as the bus moved. Nothing, as far as Sherlock could tell, had been done to any of them. Long distance coaches at night simply put people to sleep.
Sherlock didn’t sleep easily, and the shot of adrenaline he’d injected in the men’s toilets before boarding was going to keep him alert for at least 16 hours. His problem now was the opposite - he felt jittery, on edge. With a heartrate at over a hundred beats a minute he badly wanted to pace and to talk. Sprawling back awkwardly motionless in his seat like his companions was agonisingly difficult.
Just the transport. Think. Think to distract himself. Everything was under control. He had kept Gently and Macduff under constant surveillance. They had not communicated with anyone all day- as expected. They were very unlikely to have been intending to transmit a warning to Megabus but the possibility had been there.
Dirk Gently bothered Sherlock in a way that he had not been bothered for some time. On the face of it the man was ridiculous, with his obsession with expense accounts and his bizarre theories about a holistic universe. Yet as soon as Sherlock decided to write him off as a crank the man would say something which chimed so closely with his own thinking that he would find himself reassessing the detective again.
Macduff was much easier; the man was nobody special. Not very intelligent, easily flustered, easily led. Once John had got over his initial suspicion of the other two he had decided to like him for some no doubt trivial reason.
The low lights were dimming almost imperceptibly. Through slitted eyes Sherlock watched the driver check his passengers via the overhead mirror then slide a glass screen across the space between him and the rest of the coach. Two clicks were the screen locking in place. Sherlock stirred slowly and without seeming to wake, settled to immobility again. The hidden air filter in his scarf was now over his mouth and nose.
All the overhead air conditioning units turned on quietly. Sherlock could feel the warm air lightly against his forehead. The filter prevented him from detecting any odour but would give him a sample to analyse later. A blood sample from John would be needed as well. Just a sophorific, or something with more hypnotic power? On his shoulder John sighed and settled deeper in sleep. Sherlock waited, pulse racing unevenly.
Ten minutes passed. The coach was trundling along in the inside lane now at about 50mph. Any slower and the traffic around it might register the anomaly. The driver was checking the sleeping passengers in his mirror again. There was a quiet click and a low recorded message started to play.
It sounded at first like a local radio programme, the sort that a coach driver might put on to keep himself awake. A bit of monotone chat, a bit of slow, rhythmic music. Sherlock's pulse was showing down despite the adrenaline. Something must be getting through the mask. Small molecules then. Probably. His thinking was slowing too. He pinched himself hard but it didn't much help. He was losing the battle to stay awake; as he drifted off he could hear the voice talking slowly and patiently about the thrills to be had in watching people bake cakes.
* * * * * * * * *
They had been drugged, apparently, substance as yet unknown, and hypnotised. All four of them. Sherlock Holmes did not seem to be amused.
“Still,” Dirk said when they’d got back to Baker Street, “it was a very comfortable trip. And excellent value for money. Wasn’t the driver nice?”
Sherlock was shaking his head. “Hypnosis. It was far more than just a message not to travel with them again. And we have no idea what we’ve been primed for. What’s their agenda? Civil unrest? Subversion?” His eyes widened. “Canterbury. Of course.”
It had been clear to Dirk all along that Holmes knew more about Eric Canterbury’s work than he was letting on. He strongly suspected that the man wasn’t planning to deliberately share the information, so he didn’t ask.
“My new phone…” Richard started, waving it, and Sherlock turned on him.
“Your phone is overpriced, under functioned and badly built. If you can’t stop gaping at it like a particularly foolish cargo cultist then please at least keep quiet.”
Richard drew himself up to his full height,and glared down at Sherlock. “I was about to say, before you rudely interrupted, that my phone recorded the whole thing.” He looked down at the silver rectangle. “At least I think so. I haven’t worked out how to play it back yet.”
He looked round at the others and shrugged. “I was reading the manual while we were waiting for the bus. It’s got 8 hours of voice recording so I thought I might as well turn it on.”
“Give it to me!” Sherlock all but snatched it out of his hand. “Before you delete it by mistake.”
Dirk stared at the item in Sherlock’s hand then pulled his own out. That annoying logo was reflected up at him… he spoke sharply. “Everyone put your new phones on the desk.”
He pushed the black leather case across the smooth wooden surface. Watson put his slender and slightly bent silver rectangle down next to it. Sherlock put down Richard’s phone, slid his out of his jacket pocket and lined all four up neatly. The four men in the room stared at them.
“They’re … the best phones. Aren’t they?” John said, a little defensively. “There’s been a lot of advertising. They must be selling millions of them.”
“I spoke to all our fellow budget passengers from last night. Six of them have managed somehow to find the money for a iPhone 6 today. Two of those didn’t have the faintest idea of what they did; they just knew they needed one. The most terrifying bit of course is that I didn’t even notice the coincidence when I talked to them.” Sherlock shook his head. “Whatever they use is extremely powerful and quite subtle.”
“Subliminal advertising.” Dirk whistled. “On the Megabus. That’s their additional income stream.”
“So why aren’t we still hypnotised,” John asked. “I don’t want it any more.”
“Clearly a second dose somehow cancels the first. That’s why they plant the suggestion not to travel with them again for a while.” Dirk said, before Sherlock could speak. “Isn’t that right, Sherl?”
“Obviously.” Sherlock said brusquely, snatching Richard’s phone up again to connect it to his laptop. “Get the coffee on, John. It almost certainly doesn’t work without the drug but we don’t want to risk going under again.”
There were two hours of the recording from the point at which Sherlock had passed out, He played it back to them all via his laptop, with the flat’s windows wide open, while he ran tests on the gas molecules caught in the filter. Their blood samples had gone off to Barts for analysis.
The contents were remarkably mundane, the products not that much different from standard TV advertising but mostly even less useful. No iPhones this time but a push on wristphones, a suggestion that you watch competitive baking programmes, paint your pets for charity, follow a couple of very minor celebrities on Twitter, download a new novelty pop record.
By the end Sherlock was shaking his head. “This doesn’t make sense. They can only be reaching a couple of hundred people a night. A TV ad would reach thousands. And why these things and not any others?”
To Dirk the links were obvious. He reached over and hit the pause button. “Ah but they aren’t just things. They are crazes waiting to happen. Memes. Viruses. They propagate. I don’t just buy an iPhone, I post reviews, I show it off to people, I proselytise on Twitter and Facebook. I don’t just watch the TV show, I livetweet it and so do my friends, and their friends.”
He tipped his hat back. “No-one’s ever known how these crazes start before. Only truly holistic detecting can answer questions of such magnitude.”
“Holistic?” Sherlock snorted. “Your involvement was entirely accidental, not to say mostly counterproductive.”
“And after I let you in on the clue about Megabus’s finances!” Dirk shook his head. “You are remarkably ungrateful. Thanks to me you have your answers but I’m the one still lacking an actual client here.”
“Possibly not. Get the door, will you, John?”
* * * * * * * * *
Mycroft did not appreciate being dragged out to Baker Street at 5am by his brother’s cryptic text, and was even less impressed on entering the living room to discover that Sherlock appeared to be in a substance-induced high. The other three men had also been up all night and were clearly weary from travelling (Train? Train and coach). Two to three hours of drinking coffee (the state of the mug stains) and some sort of general excitement seemed to be just about keeping them on their feet, but only his brother was hyperactive.
He glared at the two strangers in the room, even more annoyed that he couldn’t instantly place them. “And who are these?”
“These gentlemen are Dirk Gently and Richard MacDuff. They are private detectives- holistic detectives in fact- and they have provided a small amount of assistance in my investigation. I believe Mr Gently is about to present you with a very reasonable invoice for their work. There is writing paper and ink in the desk top.”
Mycroft wasn’t going to ask what a holistic detective was. “I believe you had some confidential information for me.”
Sherlock waved a casual hand. “You can talk freely in front of my confederates. No-one is likely to believe a word they say anyway.”
Mycroft could always apply pressure later, he supposed, to acquire their silence. Gently had paused from getting the writing implements to study him curiously. “And does our client have a name?” Gently asked.
“This is Mycroft Holmes. He’s something in the Government.” Sherlock said. “He controls a very substantial budget. Don’t hold back.”
“Another Holmes? Family connection?” Dirk asked.
“Regrettably,” Mycroft said curtly. “Sherlock. Information? I am in a great deal of a hurry.”
“Oh yes. Your constitutional crisis. Just how long ago did Prince Harry make this unwise donation?”
Damn Sherlock! Mycroft had thought they were talking about Canterbury. The identity of the royal donor to UKIP was considerably more than just confidential. Just like his brother to blurt it out in front of these strangers.
“Eighteen days ago.”
“And he’d been on a little trip shortly before that. Incommunicado.”
Mycroft sighed. “Every possible contact from that trip has been checked and double checked. There’s nothing there.”
“You checked the wrong thing.” Sherlock said, smugly. “It’s not who he met, it’s how he travelled. Late night budget coach.”
“The coach.” How could the bus service matter? “And?”
“And Megabus Ltd has been using hypnotic drugs to systematically brainwash its passengers in any way that anyone will pay it for.”
Sherlock was pacing now, his eyes flickering between all the people in the room. “The people who travel with them are generally nobodies. Students, budget tourists, people who can’t afford a train ticket or even National Express. Who’s going to notice if they come out with some rather bizarre opinions? But the newfound devotion of hundreds of people a week is enough to push something into a craze. Inane TV shows, extreme political parties, uninspiring celebrities… come on, Mycroft. You must have a file for inexplicably popular things.”
“Of course.” A groundswell of forced support; yes, that would explain so many things. Boris Johnson. The Ice Bucket challenge. “And Canterbury…”
“Your agents had been using the Megabuses for their rendezvous- anonymous and inconspicuous. One of your opponents found out and paid Megabus to add a bit to their nightly tapes. Easy subversion. They don’t even need to make direct contact. That’s the link that Canterbury found but he died of fright before he could tell anyone. The heart medication he was on has paranoia as a frequent side effect.”
Sherlock came around the desk to grin at Mycroft. “Prince Harry was an accident, of course. No-one that prominent was intended as a target. The UKIP propaganda was strong enough to overcome a lifetime’s conditioning against getting involved in party politics, and voila! you have your constitutional crisis. Have you persuaded the Electoral Commission to back off on naming the donor yet?”
Mycroft shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. With this information I can force Farage to return the funds and backtrack on the publicity. The story will be dead by lunchtime.”
That was a matter of some relief. Megabus he would deal with; it was possible that the company might come in useful for the new government “nudge” units. He had to admit that Sherlock and his companions did appear to have produced the goods this time, and he was even willing to seriously consider paying the invoice that he was about to read…
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
To Mycroft Holmes on behalf of The Government;
74 hours holistic detecting @ £100 per hour (x2) £14,800.00
Dangerous chemical exposure surcharge (twice) (x2) £4,000.00
Expenses;
Dinners £156.40
Drinks £58.47
Train fares to Hull £229.00
Cab back to office £25.00
Consumer electronics £1,399.98
Supplementary items £256.97
Anticipated consequential expenses
34hrs viewing baking programmes @£100 per hour (x2) £6,800.00
Dog (paintable) £500.00
Paints £100.00
Total £28,325.82
* * * * * * * * *
The Holistic Detective Agency’s bank account was in an unusually if not to say uniquely healthy state, even after Mrs Parsons and Aunt Elizabeth had been repaid. Dirk’s iPhone 6 and accessories had achieved a slightly more than brand new price on Ebay. Richard had decided to keep his. He still thought it was a rather good phone and he’d already committed several hours to figuring out the manual.
Sherlock’s iPhone had disappeared, according to John, and the man was ignoring all questions about it. Richard suspected that Mycroft’s rather gleefully trenchant remarks about the subject of succumbing to consumer brainwashing had something to do with that. Sherlock had intimidated the shop into providing a refund for John’s phone, which had somehow become distinctly warped during their travels, and John was now happily using his old one with the slightly cracked screen again. None of them had given into the impulse to buy wristphones. Hypnotism, it appeared, could only go so far.
Mycroft had firmly declined to pay for the iPhones, the paintable dog or the anticipated hours to be spent watching the Great British Bake Off, but the rest of the invoice had been met with commendable speed. Dirk had been fretting ever since that his hourly rate had been set far too low.
Richard wasn’t fretting at all, for once. He was sprawled across one end of the sofa in Baker Street, beer in one hand and pizza slice in the other, watching TV.
“That’s not going to work,” Sherlock declared from the armchair. “It’s going to be soggy all through.”
“I don’t know. She seems to know what she’s doing. Better than adding coconut to everything, anyway.”
“Turn it off!” John demanded from the kitchen. “You do all know that you are only watching it because you have been brainwashed? Have you no self respect at all?”
“You might as well join us,” Sherlock said. “Last week you watched it later on catch-up when you thought I’d gone out. I’m sure as a doctor you recognise that solitary vices are the most dangerous ones.”
There was a snort from the kitchen. “You promised an antidote.”
“Working on it. You could always catch another coach.”
John shuddered. “And fill my head with what, exactly? Your brother’s idea of suitable brainwashing content? This show is bad enough.”
“The show is educative, illuminating and entertaining,” Dirk chipped in. “Unlike your arguments. Could you please save them until after the end? Pass me another slice, MacDuff.”
John sighed. “Budge up then, Richard. I still don’t understand how you can all be so unconcerned… Hang on? Did she just use cling film? That’s not allowed, surely?”
There were mixed views in the room on the acceptability of cling film, and the discussion got quite loud. It was nice, Richard thought, finishing off the pizza while the detectives bickered, to hear Dirk actually argued almost to a standstill occasionally. He caught John’s eye and grinned.
“Another beer?” John called out over the increasingly heated arguing.
“Why not?” Why not indeed?
THE END