Naked
part fiveThey drove the vicar and his companion, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, back to their abandoned car, the rains from the night before having made the roads unusable save for on foot or specialty vehicle high on the headland. There wasn't much call to hurry outside Sherlock's interest. The police had already made what they could of the scene which at the moment was lacking in answers but still great with superstition. Despite the nagging dread that warned this was the last thing he and Sherlock needed, John found it hard to ignore anyone's need in the light of Sherlock's acceptance. Mortimer, as much as any other man, deserved more than doubts and speculations into the death and damage inflicted on his family in their small hamlet of horrors.
The family had a history of dispute was all either man cared to say for reasons why Mortimer currently took up residency in the vicarage and not at home. John was certainly the last person to make any assumptions regarding two men living alone together. Whatever the dispute was, however, things had been mended well enough that it was not unheard of for Mortimer, his brothers Owen and George, and their sister Brenda to enjoy an evening at their estate of Tredannick Wartha. By Mortimer's account there had been drinks and rounds of Hearts long into the night. The only moment he could place as out-of-sorts was when his brother George mentioned seeing something outside the window which could not be identified as man or beast. It left no impression upon either of them as they soon forgot and continued in their games. When the storm had calmed, the vicar's lodger made his goodbyes and walked back to the vicarage without a care.
Up until then, the story had been rather dull and lacking in any substantial detail that would point to a cause to the effect they'd been whetted with. Sadly, that was as much detail as the bereaved man had to offer. It had been close to four that morning when Mr. Porter, the milkman, had come with his delivery up the walkway to the house. Upon his short walk he happened to hear a repetitive banging against the glass window and turned to see one of Mr. Tregennis' brothers beating his head there upon as he drooled and mumbled dumbly. It was through the window that the milkman could see the sister slumped and blue of tint, her face distorted in a look of pure horror. The brothers both were alive but similarly stricken, their wits lost with terror locked upon their countenance.
The police had been able to account for nothing. Superstition had always had its place among sailors and fishermen alike and the murmurs had been quick to start up with no voice of reason to quell them. Rather like Henry Knight, even Mortimer Tregennis seemed to credit the devil or other unearthly power as the culprit of the deed. And as with the case of the mysterious hound, John was quite assured that there was a rational--though perhaps surprising--cause behind the man's tragedy.
Sherlock, for his part, was quiet on the drive there as they drove behind the vicar's car on the winding paths along the moors. Thinking. Pondering. Lost inside his head in ways John would rather he did not retreat. He cleared his throat, looking out the window towards the distant steeple. "Probably not going to have the police on our side here unless you think Lestrade's influence can carry this far. Most of the details I guess we have, though. If they were alive when Mortimer left at midnight and Brenda was dead by the time Mr. Porter came with the milk, that's, what... four hours? From their descriptions of the body, she'd already started to enter rigor mortis and seeing as that doesn't kick in until four hours after death, we're looking at a murder that took place not long after Mortimer left that night."
Sherlock nodded, eyes keen on the road. "Which begs the answer of several questions: who did George see through the window that night and why had the killer waited until Mortimer was gone to strike the other three but make no attempt on the lone Tregennis?"
"Maybe whatever they used to terrify them wouldn't have worked outdoors with Mortimer?" John attempted. He shrugged, leaning back in his seat. "In all honesty, I would love to see a toxicology report. A good scare can cause a heart attack in the susceptible but you can't die from being frightened by itself, let alone driven mad to the extent their speaking of. Several drugs can cause muscle spasms that might cause facial distortion in death throws, though: speed, cocaine, your regular line-up of uppers. A bad trip could leave the men lost in hallucinations."
"I'm well acquainted with the dangers of drug abuse, thank you. When I need your advice on the subject, I'll ask for it."
John scowled, bracing his elbow against the door as he leant against it. "I'm sorry, I thought you were bringing me along for my medical knowledge seeing as I'm the only doctor in this vehicle. I'm not trying to restart the damn fight, Sherlock."
"I'm bringing you along because I can hardly leave you behind," Sherlock said, his face expressionlessly numb. "Besides, the fight would just be waiting with resurgence if I let you sit there and ruminate on it. If I can keep you otherwise occupied, perhaps you'll forget you're mad at me and we can enjoy the rest of our week with me being fantastic and you being slightly less tolerable than you used to be."
"Only slightly less? How magnanimous of you." John felt the veins in his neck bulging from the strain in his jaw as he sat back in his seat, facing out the front window with no desire to engage further with the infuriating man at the helm. "By all means, let's hurry to the crime scene so you can show off. Death seems to be the only thing you truly understand anyway."
It was cold and it was harsh but John felt vindicated in the silence that followed it. Neither of them could really say much in contradiction but an unspoken, unhappy truth it still was. Sherlock Holmes saw through everything and possessed a massive intellect but he was, at the heart of it all, still a man alone by his own inability to adhere to social niceties. Sherlock surrounded himself in ghosts and walked like a demon among the living. John had once been the exception of those who let Sherlock get to them and rile away on his well-known faults. He wasn't happy with himself. Apparently some skills weren't inherent. Or maybe, sadly, he was simply getting too old to put up with being put down.
Despite not wanting to look at him, Sherlock was still visible in his faint reflection in the windshield. His eyes glanced towards John as his fingers adjusted nervously on the steering wheel. "John."
John shook his head. "You know, maybe talking isn't such a good idea right now. Let's just give the case a good think and see if we can help these people."
Sherlock nodded, his fingers' grip audible in the creek of his gloves. "...Magnanimous?" he asked at length, glancing across once more.
"Read it in a book."
"Ah." He faced forward, the silence returning but not long remembered. "Guess some good can come from them," he said, the marks of amusement decorating his tone.
John hated the smile that seemed to willfully tug at his lips. "Stop it. I'm mad at you."
"You're excited to be on a case with me again."
"Yeah. So try to be less of a prick about it."
Sherlock shrugged, leaning in to adjust the heating vents blowing much appreciated warmth against their arms. "Let's steer clear of empty promises, shall we?" he said.
And in that slightly self-effacing comment, John found his anger slowly fade and his long envied composure return.
Tredannick Wartha was a fair bit nicer than the headland shack. Her walls were made of even stone and her roof nicely tiled rather than thatched. The path to the front door was pebbled in smooth, wave-polished stones with an attractive hedge and garden feature along the front of the building. There was something of a storybook quality about the place with its charming, somewhat unassuming beauty, and John felt the fate of the people who had called it home fit in well with that association. It was the police tape across the entrance that caught his eye all the same. While neither he nor Sherlock cared too much about disturbing it, he somewhat doubted the vicar was so in want of answers he would be an accessory to 'crime scene tampering'. John shot Sherlock a warning stare which was seen and accepted without comment. Sherlock had enough to work with it seemed to keep his own criminal activity while on vacation to a minimum.
"Not that much in the way of trees," the consulting detective stated, surveying the rather flat land of the front yard with his hands clasped firmly behind his back.
Mortimer, striding aside the weary vicar, nodded with absent interest. "No, sir, there's not. Why, is that important?"
Sherlock shrugged his face as he spun to face front again.
"No trees and no shrubbery apart from the garden area by the front of the house means there's not many places for an assailant to hide," John clarified, looking up at the house again with different eyes. "You said the police found no signs of a forced entry, yes?"
"None. The doors were locked, all the windows shut, no sign of anything at all."
The detective pointed over at an open window under which grew a large rosebush blushing with small buds. "That window's open," he said.
Mortimer nodded sagely. "That's the window to the room they were found in."
Sherlock's eyes lingered for only a moment before he took them on a tour through the grass towards the window, kneeling down by the mud beneath the eaves. John made sure the other men gave him a wide berth as Sherlock plucked at the rose bush and leant up on his toes to peek inside the open window.
The vicar, wringing his hands, kept his eyes fixated on Sherlock as he worked. "Do you have any ideas?" he asked.
"Several." Sherlock swiped his fingers over the windowsill before turning back to them, his fingers rolling the damp between them. "And I'm sure the police have just as many, as well as the evidence I lack to put forth any real conclusion."
"You mean-"
"For once, I believe the proper authorities have this under control. Hardly a matter for a specialist." He turned to John, his hand on his shoulder guiding him to walk away now though John fought with his own features to not look somewhat bewildered. The detective offered little more to Mortimer as he stood to pass him. "I wouldn't worry too much, Mr. Tregennis. I can assure you with absolute certainty that this is not a supernatural act. Should the police fail to ascertain who the culprit is on their own, I would be more than happy to step in and close this case for them but, early days, best to let them try their hand at it first."
Mortimer stood with his mouth slightly agape as Sherlock continued to hasten their retreat, turning to the vicar with a nod. "Let us know if there are any new developments. Otherwise, good day."
"Good day?"
Sherlock was already five steps down the walk with John hastening beside, gone like a breeze on just as short a whim.
John kept his head down as they walked, irritation resting in his balled fists. "You want to tell me what exactly all that was about? I thought we were here to help, not to admire the bushes."
"The police have the bodies and therefore the evidence I lack," he said, his mood sour as they made the short journey to the Land Rover. "The only question left in this case is how Mr. Tregennis succeeded in the murder of his sister but only managed to mentally impair his brothers, the answer to which you've already neatly put a finger on by my estimation."
John froze for a moment, fighting the urge to turn back and look at their former companions as he reached for the handle to his own door. "Are you sure?" he asked, looking over the hood as Sherlock pulled open the driver's side.
The detective said nothing in response, sliding into his seat with bored resignation as John was left to do little else himself.
They drove off, wheels gripping the slick mud as they took to the winding paths once more with the afternoon sun slowly falling. John watched Tredannick Wartha fade away in the mirrors, interested greatly in the shapes of two men who very slowly made their way back to their own car, arms gesturing in conversation with waved fingers in their direction. John swallowed heavily. "Shouldn't we warn the vicar?"
"No need. I don't imagine it will take long for the police to get enough evidence to bring Mortimer in on suspicion. Family disputes, last one to see them alive, the only one to make it out of that house unharmed and with a time of death at his departure? Even quiet places like this can connect those dots in a fairly reasonable amount of time." Sherlock sighed, leaning his head back on the seat as he took them back down the tired roads. "I had hoped, considering his interest in my help, that there was more to it than that. But truthfully, it was the vicar, Mr. Roundhay, who came to call and what grief stricken brother is going to turn down the offer to speak to a renowned private detective after the strange murder of his sister? He came out of obligation to his defense, not in hope."
John nodded along, his eyes drawn again to the passing rocks and memorials to time. "So the vicar will be fine because Mortimer needs him more than anyone else as character witness and partial alibi for the night."
"And needs our involvement the least," Sherlock added, looking at John for just a moment before returning to his task. "Seeing as you did not pack your gun and we're staying in the middle of nowhere, the less we involve ourselves in this matter, the better."
He could hardly fault him there. Neither could John ignore the slight disappointment he felt as they retraced their tracks back to the shack. The case had seemed so promising at first, something they could both sink their teeth into and maybe not only lose themselves within it but somehow find themselves. Each other. He'd hardly had time to find his stride again before it was over and done with. Now they were going back, for what--part deux of an argument that John loathed to have at all despite its necessity? It was a depressing thought. Torn as he had been upon their accepting the case at first, he mourned it now. So much for an entertaining reprieve.
Within a kilometer of their shack, Sherlock took one of the muddy roads down to the rocks and beach rather than up to the headland. John gave him a curious look but said nothing, watching the slightly somber sulk of Sherlock's jaw as he drove them down and onto the sand. The beach was small and hidden between two cliffs, the sands pock-marked by the rains where the waves had yet to smooth them. There was not a footprint to be seen, no tire tracks, no trash, no outward signs of life outside the cab of their own vehicle. Sherlock turned the engine off and got out, his door closing before John had even registered enough to undo his safety belt.
Outside the air was crisp with cold but the winds seemed shielded from on either side, the sun the only other guest permitted on the small beach. John was only all too familiar with the feeling of sand shifting under his feet as he walked up to the solitary figure of his friend who stood near a rock facing out at the waves. He stopped beside him, hands in his pockets, pretending to watch the white waves crash on the rocks as he breathed into a conversation of surveillance. The argument could wait at the shack, Sherlock seemed to say in his choice of locale. And it could wait there all day if it really had to. They could avoid it a little longer until then.
They stood there in the company of the waves and salted air for what felt like hours, neither breaking the hypnotic rhythm of the tide with words. Slowly Sherlock shrugged off his coat, his fingers working on the buttons of his shirt before untucking it from his jeans and letting it fall to the sand the same.
"I'm going for a swim," he said.
The doctor in John nagged about the cold, the fact that they had no towels or blankets and that the noonday sun was hardly enough to contend with the water's early spring chill. Instead he dropped his jacket on the sand as well and toed off his shoes. "Yeah, alright," he replied, and stripped down just the same.
Sherlock raced him and won, diving into the shock of cold water with a surprised cry while John took it easy, wincing at the numbing chill as he very slowly moved from sand to silt against the shove of the waters. "This is insane," he whispered mostly to himself with the chattering of his teeth. Sherlock chuckled darkly, waves breaking against his back as he tread out further with his eyes on John.
"Let's both agree to withhold all judgments and remember that it is very, very cold," John called out, finally flopping down into the deeper waters. "Jesus fucking Christ!"
"You'll acclimate."
"You'll get hypothermia."
"You'll make sure I'm okay."
John snorted, swimming out into the waters where the sunlight made them sparkle. Sherlock's curls were swept back, no longer there to soften the sharp angles of his thin face as he floated under the sun. John splashed him by accident as he approached and Sherlock splashed him back in earnest for the sea water now up his nose. John pounced, dragging them both under where the current threatened to bash them both against the rocks. It didn't matter. When they came back up for air it was in between laughs and amidst further attacks. John fought to wrap his arms around Sherlock, demanding his surrender as he drove them both back under again. They were schoolboys. They'd always been schoolboys. With the scrape of rocks against his calves and the burn of breath in his chest, John waited for that final slack in Sherlock's resistance before he let them both breach the frigid surface once again, coughing and sputtering and above all laughing as they continued on in their dangerous games. It wasn't until the winds changed and blew across them that the cold became too much. John half dragged the unhelpful Sherlock out of the water in a new game called 'Let's Not Die Like Idiots' where it seemed the taller man's main objective was to lose or at the very least make John work for his victory. John couldn't remember the last time he'd done anything he could consider playing but he remembered this feeling very well. The pain in his body, the exhaustion in his bones, the headache brewing in his skull and the great swelling of joy in his heart. This moment was an entire lifetime spent with Sherlock Holmes in its most condensed and concentrated. And it was wonderful.
With smiles that hurt worse than the bleeding scrapes along their bodies, the two men gathered their clothes and made the drive back to the sounds of chattering of teeth and giggles.