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Anomalies	By : Harpling Category: S through Z > Sherlock (BBC) > Sherlock (BBC) Views: 3513 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Sherlock, the BBC, or any of the characters mentioned herein, nor am I making any money from writing this.

Chapter List
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That horrendous song John had been listening to in the shower had been lurking at the edge of his thoughts for days, refusing to shut up and be deleted like any other bit of useless data. Even now, as he and John walked through Waterloo, on their way to talk to the owner of a shop that had been robbed three times by thugs carrying high-powered assault rifles, Sherlock could hear the absurd lyrics flitting through his mind. He stopped so suddenly that he felt John nearly run into him. Through the gaps in the buildings around them, the Eye of London was just barely visible. Was it too much to hope for? Was there really someone clever enough to be sending instructions on the radio with no one else catching on? Oh, clever. “With your light in my eye as the sun leaves the sky… Darkness ten times longer… North, South, East, West, two by two by two… John, what was the name of that terrible song you were listening to three days ago?”
“I don’t know. I listen to lots of songs you think are terrible. Which one would this be, then?”
“It was on the radio while you were in the shower last Tuesday. Two singers, male, well past puberty but pretending not to be, badly played guitars, off-rhythm backup singers. What was the name?”
“Hang on. You listen to me in the shower?”
“Irrelevant. Who sang that song?”
“Damned if I know. Sounds like one of those boy bands running around everywhere. Do you always listen to me in the shower?”
“You’re useless. I need to find information about that song.”
“Well, don’t ask me. I just had it on for noise; I’m not some swooning fangirl.”
“Fangirl? Yes, of course. A group of young males singing together would appeal most to adolescent girls and young gay men. I need to find one of them!”
“Sherlock, stop! You can’t just grab some kid on the street and demand information; you’d be arrested as a predator. Look, there’s a record shop. You can ask the clerk all about them. Why the sudden fascination with boy bands, anyway?” This last question was asked to Sherlock’s back as he followed the detective’s sudden burst of speed across the street and down the corner.
As they walked into the store, they were greeted by a blast of determinedly hip sound from the in-store radio. The clerk (expensive phone and low-wage job: still living with her well-off parents; piercings in nose and tongue but not eyebrows or lip: easily removable or hidden, attempt at hiding typical rebellion from her meal ticket; garish green polish applied neatly to nails on right hand but messily on the left: left-handed) barely looked up from texting when Sherlock approached the counter. He jammed his hands in his trouser pockets, slumped his shoulders, and assumed an expression of general resignation and ennui. John liked to tease him about looking so young – time to take advantage of it.
“Hullo. I wonder if you could help me.” He took a moment to let his eyes drift down to the girl’s bosom before jumping back to her face. Her smirk told him she’d seen the brief flicker. Good. “My mum’s sent me for a birthday gift for my niece. She’s turning 14, and she has terrible taste in music. There’s this one song she keeps singing, something about the sun in your eyes and walking two by two… Do you know it?”
She curled her lip a little in disdain. “God, yeah. Can’t hardly get away from that shite, can you? That’s ‘Equinox’ by Musgrave Five. Bunch of tossers singing the same stupid crap as all the other boy bands they’ve got out there. We’ve got their album on the second rack over there, just for the love of god don’t ask me to play it for you.”
There was indeed a large display of plastic cases featuring a group of deliberately casual young men smiling vacuously at the camera. ‘Equinox’ was the third track on the album, but Sherlock couldn’t see any more than the name because the entire thing was encased in a heavy plastic anti-shoplifting lock box. “There’s just one more thing, if you don’t mind. Her mum, my sister, she’s a bit stodgy about what her daughter listens to. God forbid the kid actually hear a swear, right? Is there any way I could take a look at the lyrics here before I buy it?” He gave the clerk his most charming smile, ducking his head a bit and shrugging his shoulders slightly. She responded to the act, standing up a bit straighter and thrusting out her chest just a bit. Too easy.
“Yeah, alright. Give it here. Wouldn’t want the kiddlywinks corrupted, would we? But don’t tell the boss.” With a wink, she removed the packaging and opened the case for him.
It took him a minute to find the song he was looking for, but there it was. It was brazen. It was brilliant. It was utterly, absurdly simple. Quickly, he memorized the relevant bit of the song, then tossed the booklet back on the counter. “John, what time is it? What time does the sun set today?” Without waiting for a reply, Sherlock turned in a swirl of coattails, leaving the shopgirl stuttering about the abrupt transformation and the sale she thought she’s just lost.
John caught up with him outside as he was flagging down a taxi. “What was that about? Why the sudden interest in pop music? The sun’ll be down in about half an hour, if you still want to know.”
“Close enough. How tall is the Eye of London?”
John shrugged blankly, but the driver of the cab that had just pulled to the curb replied, “135 metres tall, mate. Want me to take you there?”
“No. Take us to…” Sherlock paused, trying to do the sum in his head. I’m 2 metres tall, and my shadow right now is approximately 2.3 metres long, so the shadow of the Eye right now would be about 175.5 metres, stretching East and North. ‘Depths of the shadow’ and ‘darkness ten times longer’ would make it 1755 metres in the same direction, which would lead us to… “Southwark. The junction of Southwark and Marshalsea,” he told the man as they climbed in. Before John had managed to close the door, Sherlock picked up right where he’d left off. “Whoever wrote that song was sending a message to someone. The chorus is a set of directions, hidden in plain sight. Who would think to look for hidden messages in such a terrible song? It’s perfect! We’ve got to find a heart, pinned to a wall. Somewhere, there’s got to be a heart…”
As Sherlock mentally wound his way through the map of London, John started laughing in the cab next to him. “Oh my god. That’s amazing, Sherlock. You don’t know anything about the solar system, but you memorize pop lyrics after hearing them once?” Sherlock’s glare only made him laugh harder. “They must have been pretty important if you didn’t delete them from your hard drive!”
“I attempted to. The inane drivel proved surprisingly resilient to my efforts to wipe it out.”
This set John off again. “This is fantastic! Who knew, right? The Great Sherlock Holmes, a closet fanboy! All that brainpower, brought down by a catchy tune. Or was it the words that really spoke to your soul? Oh, I need to call Lestrade. I think he needs to hear about this!”
“My inability to delete that particular bit of information was obviously caused by my subconscious recognizing the anomaly of the chorus not fitting the pattern created by the rest of the verses. That’s all.”
“You know all the verses too? This just gets better and better! Hey, give me back my mobile.”
“I need to send a text, let Lestrade know what we’ve found.” Sherlock didn’t add that he was also afraid John would carry through on his threat to call Lestrade and laugh about him. Not that their opinion mattered, of course. The extra noise would just make it harder to think. That was all.
“Here! Stop here!” The cabbie obediently pulled off to the side at Sherlock’s sudden command. The side of the building directly ahead of them had been used as a canvas upon which an enterprising lover had proclaimed his affection for “B” on an enormous scale. The spray-painted heart was nearly two storeys tall. An equally enormous arrow ran through the center, the shaft pointing vaguely north. Swim across a river… “We need to cross the Southwark Bridge.” He ran through the next bit of the song, High to low, one two, or three… “High Thames Street to Low Thames Street, and then stay on the A1203.”
West to south must be a turn-off somewhere, probably wherever birds were flying free. Where did birds fly free? The Docklands Museum was in that direction, but he doubted there were any displays of birds there. They’d hardly be flying free if they were in a museum. Perhaps there was another bit of graffiti or a billboard they would pass.
John had an expression of complete confusion on his face. “Sherlock, where the hell are we going?”
“Think, John. Use your brain,” he replied. “If someone wanted to give instructions to a lot of people coming from different directions, they’d have to have a starting point that everyone knows. The Eye of London. Obviously, the shadow of the Eye will have moved somewhat since the Spring Equinox, which must have been when the meeting was scheduled. I adjusted for that, and the rest of the instructions since then have lined up. Now, look for birds. Birds flying free.”
There was quiet in the cab for a bit as both focused on finding something that could have been left as a sign. Finally, John pointed to a billboard beside the 1203 to 1206 exchange. “There! Could that be it?” It was an advertisement for a pleasure cruise. Seagulls suspended on rods seemed to flap above the picture of a sightseeing boat carrying tourists through pristine blue waters
“West to south we’ll be where birds fly free/ I’ll be a dog for you… That must be it.” Sherlock rapped on the window to the cabbie. “Take the Westferry Road south to the Isle of Dogs.” He chuckled a bit to himself. These clues were very simple to follow, once he’d got the starting point figured out. Whoever wrote them must not have been expecting much from the people following them. He’d have to look up the group and the writer when he figured out what he was looking for. But just at the moment…
“Stop here,” he told the driver as they passed an enormous sign advertising The Musgrave Five’s upcoming concert. People had drawn adoring messages all around the singers’ faces, hearts and lipmarks and the like. Between ‘I love you’ and ‘Honeypie’ was a green arrow, painted so that it was not pointed directly at any of the band members. Sherlock followed the direction of the arrow down toward a darker alley. Left and left… He ran off in the direction indicated, leaving John to pay the fare. Which he did.
It had to be blocks at this point, no other measure really made sense. Two blocks and turn left, another two blocks and left again. Two blocks and right, another two blocks and right again. Two more blocks brought them almost directly in front of a dilapidated warehouse. Warped and weathered boards covered broken windows, and the paint that had once identified the building as belonging to Charleston Indigo Imports, Ltd. was now peeling and faded so badly that it was illegible. In the end, in the blue…
If it hadn’t been for the fresh footprints in the mud by the heavily padlocked front door, the whole place would have looked abandoned. However, it was clear that at least seven people (five tall males and two short males or females) had been in through that door within the last two days, when it had last rained. After a quick glance up and down the street, Sherlock pulled out his lock-picking kit and went to work on the padlock.
“What are you doing? Call the police if you think there’s something in there. You can’t just break in like that.”
“Obviously, I can. I just did. I think you mean that I shouldn’t. And don’t call the police. Do you really want Anderson tramping all over the place, muddling any clues? Just be careful what you touch in here.”
The interior of the building was very quiet and almost totally dark. The only illumination came from bits of sunlight that had snuck in around cracks between the boarded-over windows, washing the room in shadows that obscured more than they showed. After listening for three and half minutes (longer than the record for holding one’s breath) and hearing no sounds of another person, Sherlock decided they must be alone. He pulled a small torch out of his pocket and shone it around, but the light only showed more clearly what he had nearly seen in the dark. Piles of half-dismantled shipping crates covered in a layer of dust, a trolley with a missing wheel standing abandoned in a corner, and a trail of footprints leading off to one side and then stopping. (Four sets with long strides and large prints: four very tall men, standing at least two metres; one set with long, uneven strides and large prints: one tall man with a recurrent injury to right ankle; one set with short strides and very narrow prints: female, no more than 158 centimetres but very agile; one set with short strides that dragged just a bit at the toes, small prints, and a cane: female, infirm, elderly.)
Upon closer inspection, it was clear that the tracks all led to and from a small doorway set into the side of a staircase. Next to where the door would open were marks of boxes having been laid in the dust before being moved, and the elderly woman had stood off to one side. She must have been the one directing the proceedings, most likely the loading and storing of some form of contraband. Considering the pattern that had started him on this line of inquiry, Sherlock was reasonably certain that the warehouse had been used as a storage facility for illegal firearms.
The door itself was heavy and showed signs of having been used recently. Oil on the rusty hinges meant someone had wanted easier access to whatever was behind it. Well, that should mean that Sherlock and John would be able to open it without making much noise. Sherlock’s lock-picking skills came into play again to open the padlock over the handle. Slowly, he pushed it open and peered inside. From the air flow, he could tell the room was at least ten square metres and three or four metres high. With his torch held cautiously in front, Sherlock stepped inside and looked about. The weak beam from the torch showed racks of nearly empty shelves covering every wall of the space, stretching up to the ceiling. A few boxes gleamed dully in the light from the torch, some kind of dark metal. There was a wad of dingy, woolen cloth piled in the far corner, probably used for packing.
“Stand watch out here, John. I’m going to have a look around down here.” Vaguely, he was aware of John muttering at the order, but the habit of following commands was fairly well entrenched. Sherlock pulled out his pocket magnifier and bent closer to look at the pattern of scuff marks on the bottom shelf (eight centimeters wide, heavy weight evenly distributed, traces of tin and green paint: metal crates stored here briefly and moved only once). The shelves above showed similar marks made by lighter crates.
A sudden breeze across the back of his neck was all the warning Sherlock got before a heavy fist collided with the side of his head. The shapeless bundle of cloth from the corner was now towering over him in the form of a very large, very angry man with a very big gun and a very fast fist moving to connect with Sherlock’s head again. He managed to move out of the way slightly, but the blow still knocked him back.
“Kto tei? Kak tei prishel syuda?”
Sherlock tried to remember how to speak Russian, but the bolts of pain lancing through his brain were making everything quite difficult. He got as far as , “Uh, mnya…” before the world went very bright and a bit fuzzy for a moment. He was rudely jerked back into full consciousness.
“Sherlock! Sherlock, are you all right?” John’s hands gripped the side of Sherlock’s face as he peered into the detective’s eyes. The enormous Russian was currently on the floor, unconscious thanks to John’s judicious application of his own torch to the back of his head. The details of his assailant’s connection to the case flashed briefly though Sherlock’s mind, but all such details were temporarily drowned out by John’s hands waving in front of his face, John’s fingers feeling gently along his wrist for the pulse, John’s intense eyes focused on his own, John’s palms sliding along his torso checking for injuries, John’s face so close his breath stirred Sherlock’s hair, John’s parted lips a few bare centimeters from his own, John…
John snapped his fingers sharply. “Sherlock, come on, speak to me! How’s your head?” With a start, Sherlock’s logical mind reasserted itself, processing the data presented by the still form of his assailant. Tan lines (paler stripes on right wrist: left handed, lost his watch), coat (Polish manufacture, originally of good quality but very old, slightly too short at the wrists: made for a very wealthy smaller person, stolen at least ten years ago), weapon (very expensive handgun poorly maintained: supplied by a third party and infrequently used), shoes (tread worn more on the inside of the right heel: old ankle injury still giving him trouble), tattoos (barely visible below shirt collar, faded blue ink: applied in prison at least twenty years ago), gloves (made in Russia, newer than the rest of his garments, more worn on the palms than the fingertips: used to carry large, flat or square, heavy objects, not particularly thick – and it wasn’t very cold outside, so why was he wearing gloves at all?).
Rolling his eyes at John, Sherlock pulled out his filched phone and began furiously texting the relevant conclusions to Lestrade before replying, “Don’t be absurd. My head is perfectly fine. Signs of concussion are minimal. Lestrade and his team will be here momentarily, no doubt with a slew of meddlesome paramedics who will be more than happy to fuss and give me useless orange blankets.
“Don’t you see, John? This means I was right! There is something much more interesting going on. Why else would an aging Russian criminal be hiding out in an abandoned warehouse that was recently used to store quantities of heavy artillery? This has Moriarty all over it. Hidden directions in bad music and overly dramatic firepower. It all fits him.” As he returned to the well-known world of data and deductions, Sherlock’s body returned to its normal functions. His earlier reaction to John had merely been a delayed response to the adrenaline unleashed within his body in response to immediate physical danger. And the head trauma. The head trauma had obviously made him confused, not thinking straight. The small voice in his head whispering that he had been perfectly capable of thinking rationally about everything else was quite thoroughly ignored.
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Anomalies