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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.

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Lestrade called him down to the station the very next morning. After thoroughly telling him off for breaking and entering (Sherlock could clearly imagine John’s smug reaction to hearing his own warning repeated, but he was at the surgery and Sherlock had no intention of telling him about that bit), the DI handed over a sheaf of computer printouts.
“Your new friend had a mobile on him when we searched him at the warehouse. Thought you might like to take a look at his recent texts. My lot’ve been at it all night and can’t make anything of them. They’re all in English, no worries about translating. See what you can do with them, will you?”
At first glance, the messages all seemed to be so much random nonsense. At second glance, they looked much the same.
Three travelling luggage cases holding bananas are ready or not to buy a big ship.
Meet Godzilla and me for the game at once before the purple submarine can dock without erupting tonight.
“Codes are always fun. I hope it’s a tricky one. Why are they written in English? He spoke to me in Russian last night; he had Russian tattoos and shoes. Has he said anything more?”
“Not a word. The doctors say he’d got some other problems going on – blood sugar and dehydration and the like. He was pretty out of it even before John did that number on his head. Don’t know how much we’ll get out of him.”
“What was in those crates?”
“Nothing, completely empty. There was some kind of oily residue on the bottoms, but nothing else. Anderson’s working on identifying it now.”
“Are you trying to let criminals take over London? Anderson’ll botch it completely. Better give me a sample; I’ll tell you what it is.”
When he got home, Sherlock spread the oil sample and nonsense messages all over the coffee table, then stepped back to let everything percolate through his brain. He was still pacing around the flat when John got home from work several hours later and went up to change. It didn’t take John long to notice the quantities of paper spread over the table.
“What are all these? Is this to do with the warehouse?” John leaned down to get a better look at the nonsensical phrases.
“Messages sent to and from the mobile of the man you…” For some reason, Sherlock couldn’t seem to recall what he had been about to say. John was bending over and wearing the jeans that were slightly too snug, the ones that obviously were left over from before he shipped off to Afghanistan. Normally concealed bits of his anatomy were clearly defined by the worn fabric. Sherlock could feel his face flushing uncomfortably, probably because the room was distinctly warmer than usual. “I think I’d better speak to Mrs. Hudson about the radiators in here. They’re out of sorts.” As he walked purposefully out to the landing (not retreating at all), Sherlock was struck by the acuteness of his own observations. After all, John’s wardrobe had no bearing whatsoever on weapons or nonsense codes or Russian gunmen, so why had he noticed the doctor’s trousers? It must be the heat in the flat; it was making his head do odd things. Odd, though, that the temperature seemed to be back to normal now.
____________________________________
That very evening, Sherlock got a call from Lestrade. The unnamed Russian from the warehouse was finally lucid enough to be questioned by the police. Sherlock pelted out the door so quickly that he nearly left John behind again. Nearly. The doctor managed to catch up to him on the sidewalk just as he was climbing into the back of a cab.
King’s University Hospital was much quieter this late at night. It was well past regular visiting hours, but John managed to bluff his way past the front desk by telling the night porter that he was a doctor here to see a patient brought in earlier. It was marvelous, really, the way he managed to tell nothing but the truth and create completely the wrong impression. The uniforms posted outside the Russian’s secure hospital room were less easily impressed by medical credentials, but Lestrade heard their voices and sorted things.
Most people look much smaller in hospital beds. The tubes and machines and sheer quantity of hygienic bed linen usually overshadows and diminishes the actual patient. Not so with this man. He was so tall that his feet were hanging off the end of the bed, and his broad shoulders easily dwarfed the pillows behind his head. Below the IV drips and pulse monitors, his wrists were cuffed to the railings of the bed, but that didn’t seem to faze him. He treated Sherlock and John to an insolent glare as they entered the room.
“There was no trace of him in immigration or visa records. Fingerprints didn’t turn up anything. We put in a call to the Russians about him, but we won’t hear back from them for a couple of days yet. He hasn’t said a word of English, but Melas here tells me he hasn’t said much in Russian either.” Lestrade gestured to a very young, clearly nervous uniformed and armed officer standing as far in the corner away from the bed as he possibly could (uniform still stiff and creased from the packaging, no easy stance developed by hours on the beat, repeated glances toward the prisoner’s handcuffs: brand new recruit, hasn’t been on the force more than a week). “He’s been nice enough to come and translate for us during this little chat. Worked as a guide for Russian tour groups, before joining the Force.”
In the dim light and confusion of the room under the warehouse, Sherlock had missed several crucial bits of evidence, most notably the tattoos covering the patient’s arms and what was visible of his chest. Although faded, they were quite intricate and clearly done by a master. The swirl of religious icons, animals, Cyrillic lettering, and other symbols blended one into another in a mesmerizing blue and red collage. As Sherlock bent closer to get a better look at a particular image of a skull inside a square on the patient’s left hand, he heard Melas introducing the new arrivals in Russian.
“You’re wasting your breath,” he told the young officer. “He’s not going to say anything. The Vory aren’t known for being helpful to the police.”
By the looks on their faces, the news meant nothing to John and Melas. Lestrade swore, quite eloquently. “Sherlock, you better not be taking the piss. What the bloody hell is the Russian mafia doing at the docklands?”
“Obviously, Moriarty has ties to the Russian criminal element as well the British and Czech underworlds. I know your powers of observation are rudimentary under the best circumstances, but surely even you noticed his tattoos.”
“Lots of people have tattoos-“
“Not this particular combination of tattoos,” Sherlock cut him off. “A man with these tattoos in Russia is either a Vory or suicidal.”
John spoke up from the foot of the bed, where he was examining the man’s medical chart. “Sorry, he’s what now?”
“The Russian mafia has very deliberate rules for their members. It started in the gulags, with the Vor v Zakone, the Thieves in Law. The code is not as strict these days, but they still refuse to cooperate with the authorities in any way, and they don’t take kindly to outsiders wearing Vory tattoos.”
“You mean, like, gang tattoos, that sort of thing?”
Completely ignoring the man attached to the designs, Sherlock lifted one hand as far as the cuffs would allow and gestured for John to come closer. “The cat on his forearm here identifies him as a Vory. These letters on the back of his hand mean that he has committed at least one murder. The skull on the finger here advertises his skill as a thief. The ink is the type commonly used in Russian prisons, specifically on the western edge of Siberia. They were applied over a period of several decades, as evidenced by the varying degree to which they have faded. Older tattoos were applied by someone with less skill than those applied later, so he moved up in the ranks but not very far.”
As he was speaking, Sherlock leaned over to open the prisoner’s shirt, revealing a torso covered in still more tattoos. “There are fourteen spires on this church, so he’s spent at least fourteen years in prison. This Madonna and Child indicates that he began his involvement with the mafia at a very young age, probably before adolescence. Since he’s now nearer to sixty and doesn’t have the upside-down spider of a retired Vory, he’s still active in the organization, trying to climb the ranks. There are only two stars here, so he still holds a relatively low position, despite his years of service. That would indicate that he either has very little skill at what he does, unlikely since he’s still alive, or he has some other, inherent flaw that would make the Vory hierarchy less inclined to trust or promote him.
“The bear on his abdomen means that he has some skill as a safecracker. Placed as it is with the head below the navel, the bear’s eyes are in the position to indicate homosexuality. The typical eye tattoo is very blatant, so whoever arranged for this particular mark was doing him a favour. This isn’t something he would’ve wanted broadcast. Since the Vory do not take kindly to homosexuals, that would be the most likely explanation for his lack of high rank despite his age and tenure. Someone with a much higher rank was looking out for him, most likely a father or uncle with a lot of influence but not enough to prevent him from being marked for what he is. Years of humiliation at the hands of his own organization would have made him quite susceptible to whatever Moriarty offered him in exchange for relocating to England.”
John was in doctor mode, testing the prisoner’s fingertips for circulation, checking the pulse, comparing what he saw to the notes in the medical chart. “Well, whatever he is, he’s got pretty severe dehydration and multiple head traumas. Someone’s been hitting him round the skull a lot recently, even before we came along.”
That was odd. Sherlock narrowed his eyes as he joined John in staring at the Russian’s chart. “Anything else?”
“Well, his upper body is quite defined, so lots of lifting and moving about with his arms. Uh, x-rays show his knees are bowed and twisted – you only get joints like that if you’ve had rickets as a kid, so he must have had a deficient diet when he was growing up. Either his family had no money or he had no family. Erm, couple of broken and badly set fingers in the past couple of years and arthritis in his hands, so he’s probably not going to be picking any pockets or knocking over any safes for a while.”
“Another possible reason Moriarty’s offer was appealing. Rickets… could be interesting.” Sherlock turned his attention back to the big Russian’s face. He didn’t like what he saw there. The man was staring avidly at John, hungrily almost. That wasn’t right. Why was he looking at John like that, like he wanted to tear him to pieces and devour all the bits? No one should look at John like that. With a chilly glare, Sherlock shifted so that he was standing between the doctor and the prisoner, who just smiled and ran his tongue obscenely over his lower lip. “Come on, John. Let’s go find his clothes. He won’t say anything.”
As Sherlock started for the door, Melas stepped out of his corner tentatively. “Um, sir, excuse me, sorry sir. It’s just that, um…”
“What? Out with it.”
“Well, sir, it’s just that he did say something, sir. Earlier, I mean. He was a bit delirious. Didn’t make much sense, sir.”
“And why didn’t you mention this in the first place?”
“Sorry, sir. It was just, well, it was only a bit of nonsense, sir. He kept babbling about bees and pollen sir.” The raw police recruit wilted further under Sherlock’s focused stare, if that was possible. He swallowed nervously and took a step back.
“What, exactly, did he say, Officer Melas?”
“He kept saying, ‘Pollen for the Queen Bee,’ sir. ‘Piltsa koroleve pchelye.’ Oh, and he mentioned honeybees, sir. ‘Pchelnovo meda.’ Sir.”
Sherlock glared at him for another moment before turning his focus back to the man in the bed. The prisoner had gone back to staring at John. His greasy arrogance struck a nerve in Sherlock, making him rather impatient and short-tempered. Herding John before him, the detective swept out of the hospital room in a hurry.
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Anomalies