Chapter Text
Prologue
The autumn breeze blew gently across the Sussex Downs. It rustled the grass on the rolling hills and ticked the ears of rabbits and sheep grazing on the green slopes. It tumbled over a stile and along the narrow footpath that ran beside the white cliffs, where it joined the screech of the seagulls wheeling over the shoreline. It threaded through the bars of the old wooden gate and up the garden path, past the beehives once buzzing with activity that now lay quiet and abandoned, and slipped under the door of the little cottage.
The breeze crept across the stone floor and curled up on the bearskin hearthrug before the dying embers of the fire. Rising with warmth, it reached out across the room, brushing dust from countless small objects; here, a wooden pipe-rack, there, the remains of a set of chemical glassware, and on the mantle the photograph of a woman in a tarnished silver frame. It plucked at the strings of a Stradivarius left open on a chair, kept in perfect tune by fingers now too arthritic to hold a bow.
The door to the bedroom was ajar and the breeze nudged it open a little more. The air was colder here, the room lit by a single candle which guttered and jumped as the breeze passed by. It worried the edges of the eiderdown and caressed the worn, wrinkled face of the old man in the bed, toying with the strands of silver hair pushed back from a high forehead.
On the table by the bed lay a vial of clear liquid and a silver syringe. On the dresser, beside the black-edged card, the watch with the gold sovereign hanging from its chain wound down its spring.
In the bed, Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes for the last time.
Chapter 1: The Life and Times of Beth Lestrade
One hundred and seventy-three years later, Beth Lestrade’s alarm clock went off, filling the confines of her bedroom with the opening bars of O Fortuna and ejecting a small plastic propeller-shaped object into the air, where it spiralled down into a heap of dirty clothes. Lestrade hauled herself out of bed, cursing all the way, and ransacked the room, eventually locating the plastic propeller and returning it to its slot atop the alarm clock, whereupon the auditory onslaught immediately ceased. Lestrade liked her alarm clock. It was a ridiculous bit of 21st-century tat she'd picked up for a handful of credits at an antiques fair years ago. It wasn't sleek or stylish and she'd had to get a techie friend of hers to rewire it so that it would work with modern wireless electricity, but she hadn't accidentally overslept a single time since she'd bought it, which was all she wanted from an alarm clock.
It was just as well it was effective; Lestrade was not a morning person. She dragged herself to the bathroom, groaned at her reflection in the mirror, splashed water on her face and tugged on her regulation Yardie bodysuit. Over this she flung a light dressing gown, an old-fashioned affectation she'd picked up as a child. The stereophone in the kitchen turned itself on as she measured out the correct amount of whichever vitamin-rich cereal-based processed breakfast product had been on sale at the supermarket last week. Despite her best efforts, it played neo-Vivaldi at her. Then again, that was what she got for refusing to get rid of a fifty-year-old device.
Lestrade had a fondness for old things. It was probably her father's fault; he had remembered the time before they closed the paper libraries, before electroplastic screens had become ubiquitous. The house had always been full of books, and it was a small house so there hadn’t been much room for anything else. She'd learned to read from books made of thick card, instead of the screens most parents gave their kids when they were old enough not to try to eat them, and over the course of her childhood she must have read every book in that house at least twice. The best ones were the ones other people had read, where you could see where they'd marked an important passage or turned a corner down to keep their place. Her favourite books, though, were the ones her father had kept locked in an airtight box in his study. They weren't much to look at; they were all sorts of different shapes and sizes, some were bound in leather and some in cloth, and one of them was all crinkled and stained, like it had been dropped in a puddle. They were also old, some of them over two hundred years.
They were full of tales of mystery, of crimes and detectives, of love and hate and friendship. But the best thing about them, the reason they were her favourite books, was because every word in them was true. That, her father had explained one evening, was because they had been written as journals. Everything in the books, he said, had happened, and it had happened to a man, who had written it all down so that we could find out about it. This idea had fascinated her as a child, that so many exciting adventures and thrilling stories could actually happen to someone. She'd read those books again and again, as a child and as a young woman, until, on the day she moved into her first flat, her father had handed her a locked airtight box with all the solemnity of a priest passing over a holy relic.
"These are yours now," he'd said. "I hope one day you'll read them to your own children."
So far, she hadn't had any children to read them with, but she still read them nonetheless. The box sat on her bookshelf in the dead centre of her collection of print books, most of which had been presents from her parents for various occasions. They were always a talking point with visitors, some of whom had never seen a paper book outside a museum. This morning, she chose one volume out of the box that she hadn't touched in a while, and sat down to eat her breakfast.
Mr Sherlock Holmes, it began, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.
How appropriate, she thought. She rather suspected that, had she lived in the 19th century, she and Mr Sherlock Holmes would have got on rather well.
Lestrade’s office in New Scotland Yard looked out at the towers and skyscrapers of central London. Throughout the morning she watched the traffic along the roads and through the air, as she slogged through a pile of paperwork—a marvellously antiquated word, she thought, as all the Yard’s data records had been computerised decades ago. Unfortunately, despite the unstoppable march of progress, no-one had yet invented a piece of software for writing reports which would satisfy the powers that be.
In the middle of the afternoon, there was a tap at her office door.
“Come in.”
"Files on the Johnson case, ma'am," said the young constable who opened the door, handing her a screen.
"Thanks, Stanley." Lestrade flicked through the crime scene report. "Any news on the Chief?"
"In with the Super now, ma'am." Stanley grimaced apprehensively, his eyes flicking up to the ceiling. "You can hear the Super shouting through the door. Doesn't sound good."
"I don't know what he expects us to do," Lestrade grumbled, flicking files from the portable screen to the wall monitor. "We've got all the beats and half of CID on the streets. It’s too damn random. We've got nothing to go on!"
There was an almighty crash from the floor above. Stanley winced.
"That'd be the bust of Napoleon on his desk." he said. "Chief must have told him we need more people."
"I mean, you can't tell people to just beware of crime," Lestrade carried on. "And we're not even sure all these incidents are connected."
Above their heads, something made of glass shattered. Stanley sighed mournfully. "I liked that vase."
"Pardon me, Inspector," said a metallic voice. It came from the standard-issue law enforcement compudroid which had until then been sat quietly in the corner of the room. "An robbery has been reported at Smyth and Sons jewellers' on Waterloo Road. CID presence has been requested."
Lestrade considered the offer for a moment. "I'll attend," she said. "Thanks, Watson. Sorry, Stanley, but I'll have to look at the Johnson case later. This could be connected to our crime epidemic." She pulled her badge and ioniser pistol out of her desk. "Come along, Watson," she added to the droid, which followed with the single-minded obedience that only a droid can manage.
The biggest advantage of being a cop, Lestrade thought with a certain smugness as she turned on the siren of the hover-car, was never being stuck in traffic. Of course, you had to deal with all the angry superiors and the irregular hours and a certain number of dead bodies, but there was a satisfaction to seeing the clouds of vehicles part in front of you that made up for most of that. Pleasure in the little things, that's what her dad had always said.
Smyth and Sons on Waterloo Road was an extremely expensive jewellers' which claimed to have been established in 1854, although Lestrade suspected that that was a gimmick—a suspicion which was deepened by the proprietor, who was wearing a tailcoat, cravat and a ridiculously oversized top hat and wringing his hands as he spoke to the officer already there.
"-and when I opened the shop this morning it was gone," he was saying as Lestrade entered.
"Good afternoon, Mr Smyth, Sergeant Wilkins" said Lestrade cheerfully. "I'm-"
"Inspector Lestrade!" proclaimed Smyth. "Yes, yes, I saw you on the news the other night, excellent job with that cat burglar."
"Cat burglar?" Lestrade was confused. "You mean Eliza Princeton? That was months ago."
"Was it?" Smyth peered up at her through a fussy gold pince-nez, still wringing his hands. "Well, anyway, splendid job. First-rate. Now, about my problem."
"Mr Smyth was saying that he is missing a pearl," said Wilkins.
"Not just any pearl, Inspector!" insisted Smyth. "A black pearl! Very rare, very old. It was here when I closed up last night, but this morning it was gone."
"I see," said Lestrade. "Where was the pearl kept?"
"Over here, Inspector." Smyth indicated a glass case on the wall. Inside was a velvet cushion with an indent in the middle the size of a small marble. There was a notable absence of any pearl.
"How does the case open?"
Smyth slid aside an impeccably carved imitation-oak panel to reveal a touchpad. "Every case in this shop is opened with a different six-digit code and my DNA print," he explained. "But it wasn't opened last night. The mechanism records the date, time and duration of every opening, and the logs from last night show that the case wasn't opened at all. That was the first thing I checked."
"Interesting," said Lestrade thoughtfully. "Mr Smyth, do you keep a security droid?"
"Oh, no, no, no," said Smyth, shaking his head anxiously. "It wouldn't do to have an ugly great thing like that in my shop, ruining the aesthetic." He shot a worried look at Lestrade's droid, which was waiting patiently for orders. "Besides, my wife won't have one in the house. She doesn't trust them, you see."
"But you must have surveillance?" Lestrade looked around the little shop, trying to spot any hidden cameras.
"Oh, yes, of course," said Smyth. "But it won't help. I've already looked. Absolutely normal. Not a hair out of place. Oh, Inspector, you must help! I have a buyer coming next week to collect that pearl and I can't afford to turn her down!"
"We'll do our best, Mr Smyth. Right, let's get started. Watson, I'll need a scan of the area. Check for fingerprints, DNA residue, evidence of matter transport, anything out of the ordinary. Got it?"
"Yes, Inspector," said the droid in its clunky voice. As it was scanning the surface of the case with an ultraviolet light, Lestrade turned back to Smyth.
"Mr Smyth, I'd be grateful if you could get me a copy of your surveillance files. The computers at the Yard might be able to pick up something you've missed."
"As you like, Inspector." Smyth pottered off into the back of the shop.
"Do you think this is another one, ma’am?" asked Wilkins as Lestrade examined the door of the shop for signs of forced entry.
"Honestly, Wilkins, I don't know. But, yeah, my gut says it is, and my gut's not wrong that often."
"Here you are, Inspector." Smyth re-emerged from the back room with a data chip. I hope this is helpful somehow-"
"Inspector." The droid interrupted Smyth. "An anomaly has been discovered."
"Show me," Lestrade demanded, crossing to the case.
"There is a fine scratch in the glass," said the droid. "It is undetectable by human vision. Application of a sonic pulse will reveal it." The droid's arm-plate flipped open to reveal a screen. There was a shrill beep and a grainy image appeared on the screen. A few more pulses and the image sharpened.
"Wilkins," said Lestrade. "Does that look like the letter M to you?"
"I'd say so, Inspector."
"Right. Watson, is this a deliberate message?"
"That is probable," said the droid. "The glass is reinforced. Considerable force and heat would have been required. It is unlikely to have occurred by accident."
"Well," said Lestrade. "Looks like our culprit has a call-sign."
“We’ve got robberies all over the place.” Back in New Scotland Yard, Lestrade had a holo-map of the city hovering above the table, with each of the incidents marked with a glowing red dot. “They’re far too organised to be unrelated. I think we’re looking at some sort of syndicate, one with serious financial backing and a genius or three at the helm. Each one is meticulously planned with no trace evidence at the scene—well, at least until today.”
“Are we sure it’s not a terror organisation?” asked Detective Inspector Jones, shuffling files on her personal screen. “The Luna Republicans have been vocal recently, now that the Martian colony has applied for independent status.”
“Nah, the Loonies would have blown something up by now,” said Detective Sergeant Mason dismissively. “Only way they know to communicate.”
“Less of your cheek, Mason,” Chief Inspector Grayson warned. “Lestrade, you said you had something from the latest case?”
Lestrade flicked the sonic image from her wrist-mounted computer to the main screen. “Watson found this carved into the glass. It’s too precise on too hard a surface to be an accident.”
"Is that an M?" asked Jones. Lestrade nodded.
"So, we've got a well-funded criminal genius who signs his work," Mason said. "He autographed any of the others?"
"Nothing was reported from any of the other scenes," said Lestrade. "But I'd recommend we re-examine them for similar marks."
Grayson nodded. "Agreed. If we can tie some of these cases together that's at least a start. I'll get some of our people on it now." He tapped out a command on his computer.
"There's no connection between the locations, is there?" asked Jones.
"We haven't found one yet," replied Lestrade. "I've had Watson cross-reference owners, proprietors, previous uses of the space, everything I could think of. There's nothing tying all these places together."
"Why've you got to call it Watson?" Mason sneered at the droid which was sat absolutely motionless behind Lestrade. "It's bad enough you drag it everywhere like a replacement sergeant, without giving it a name as well. It's a robot, not a puppy."
"That's enough, Mason," Grayson said severely. "Lestrade can call her tin can whatever the hell she wants as long as she gets results. Now get cracking, all of you. We need to shut this down before it turns into any more of a PR disaster than it already is."
"Don't you pay attention to Mason," Lestrade told the droid once the others had trickled out of her office. "He's just a dick. I think he's still annoyed that I wouldn't take him as my second and he ended up with McAngus."
"I'm sorry, Inspector," said the droid. "I don't understand. Please explain."
"Oh, never mind," Lestrade smiled. Watson often had trouble with the way she phrased things. Sometimes she forgot that it wasn't human.
Her wrist communicator beeped and she answered. "Lestrade here."
"It's me, Inspector," said the communicator.
"Ah, Stanley. Always a pleasure, never a chore. What have you got for me?"
"I'm at the antiques place on Beaumont Street," said Stanley. "I'm not technically on duty, I just popped in for a look and got chatting with the owner, she knew my mum back when I was a kid, you see, and she was asking after my brother and me and-"
"Get to the point, Stanley."
"Sorry, Inspector. Anyway, she says she's missing something. She didn't report it because it wasn't really that valuable, just an old carving of a horse, but I thought you might want to hear it. I've got a picture if it'll help."
"Okay, send it through." There was a beep as the file arrived, and Lestrade pulled it up on the main screen. It was a small model horse, carved in wood. It was mostly black, but it had delicately painted white socks and a wide white stripe down its forehead. "Aw, it looks like Silver Blaze," Lestrade said, amused. Then she stopped. "Oh my god."
"Inspector?" came Stanley's voice over the communicator. "Have you got something?"
"I don't know, it could be nothing... Watson!" The droid jerked into life and looked at her. "The robberies. What was taken from each place?"
"Richmond jewellers', one coronet with inset beryl,” the droid intoned. “Timpson and Green's Antiques, one early 20th century model of a submarine; home of Mrs V Hunter, three copper beech trees; home of Miss W Darcy, one pet swamp adder; Mayfair Antiques, one discoloured model soldier, approximately 19th century; Smyth and Sons, one black pearl-"
"Yes, thanks, that'll do. Stanley!"
"Still here, Inspector."
"Look at the things they've taken! They're cases!"
"I'm sorry?" said Stanley. "I don't follow, Inspector."
"Listen: we've got the Beryl Coronet, the Copper Beeches, the Blanched Soldier. The submarine is the Bruce-Partington plans, the swamp adder is the Speckled Band, and the black pearl is from the Six Napoleons!"
"Sorry, ma'am, not ringing any bells."
"Oh my god, does no-one crack a history book once in a while? They're all cases solved by Sherlock Holmes!"
"So he's a maniac," said Grayson, when Lestrade presented her theory to him. "Fancies himself as the next James Moriarty."
"That's what I think, sir," Lestrade agreed. "He's familiar with the history, he's read Doctor Watson's reports. Given the skill it must have taken to pull these heists off, I'd say he's got fair claim to the title."
"Don't you start getting impressed by this maniac. Now look, I'm putting you in charge of this investigation. You know all that business with Sherlock Holmes, friend of the family and all that, we'll need someone with an idea of how this guy might act. I want you to liaise with the guys in Psych. Build up a profile. I want to know where he's likely to strike next. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
In the elevator to the Department of Criminal Psychology, Lestrade's communicator beeped at her.
"Hello again, Inspector!"
"Hello, Stanley."
"Just calling to say I went back to the antiques shop, you know, the one missing the model horse—anyway, I went back with a sonic imager and I found another M! Scratched into the glass, just like the photo the Chief sent round to everyone."
Another sign! "Good work. He's playing with us, Stanley."
"What are you going to do, Inspector?"
"First I'm going to talk to Pysch. Between us, I bet we can figure out his next target. And then we're going to nab him in the act.
"-and the bike shop is here." Lestrade pointed it out on the map, adding a green dot to the blue outline. "We think he's likely to go for a hover-bike, that's an overt reference to The Solitary Cyclist as well as a tangential one to The Priory School. Psych reckons he'd appreciate two for the price of one, and Ad Astra's the biggest retailer of hover-bikes in London."
"Then we stake out the shop," said Jones. "Full team, the works. Catch him in the act."
"We can't send a full team out just on a hunch!" Mason protested.
"Agreed." Grayson nodded. "But I'm not going to ignore it either. Lestrade, Mason, you go down there. I don't care how you do it—sit in a car out front the old-fashioned way if you have to—just make sure nothing gets taken."
"What, now? It's nearly eight!"
"That's what overtime's for, Mason! Now you get down there before I have to-"
"Pardon me, Chief Inspector," said Lestrade's droid, a split-second before Grayson's computer let out a wail. "There is an incident in progress at Ad Astra Sports," the droid continued as Grayson pulled up the report on the table screen.
"That's our man!" said Lestrade triumphantly. "Mason, with me. You too, tin can," she added, bumping the droid with her elbow as she passed. "Let’s roll."
The back door of the shop was locked, but that didn't stop Lestrade's boot. Thank God some people still made doors out of wood, she thought. She ordered the droid to wait outside and headed in, pistol charged and ready.
The back room was deserted and absolutely silent. The walls were lined with shelf after shelf of ambiguously labelled boxes, but none of them looked an inch out of place. Lestrade's footsteps disturbed the dust on the floor. There was the distinct feeling that no-one had cleaned for a while. She heard Mason move into position to her left as she headed down the aisle of shelves. Say what you liked about Mason; he was an arrogant bastard but he was a good copper when he needed to be.
The door to the shop floor was ajar; Lestrade could see the line of light from her position. She crept closer, eyes flicking to the left and right, when her foot bumped against something hard and metallic. It was the remains of a security droid, the head dented and the torso smashed in. Lestrade swore under her breath. She hissed for Mason and jerked her head to indicate he should check the shop floor. Meanwhile she knelt down to examine the broken droid. The damage to the head didn't seem extensive enough to have caused a total shut-down, and the torso damage, while severe, shouldn't have prevented it from standing. It was messy, though; more messy than the other scenes. Something had gone wrong.
"Floor's clear," Mason said in normal tones, strolling into the back room. "We've missed him."
"How can you be sure?"
"Front door's been unlocked from the inside. And the cheeky sod left us his card." Mason held up a piece of old-fashioned paper. There was a large, elegant M on it.
"Apparently the owner only bought the droid yesterday, because he was worried about the spree of crimes," Lestrade explained to the increasingly disgruntled investigative team. "Our mysterious M probably planned the job a few days before, so he wasn't expecting resistance."
"So he cocked up. That happens." Mason looked round the room at the assembled detectives. "How does it help?"
"It doesn't," said Lestrade. "Not directly. But it means he's human. He makes mistakes. Sooner or later he's going to make a more serious mistake than an unexpected security droid. It also means that he might not be as well-informed as we thought."
Lestrade's communicator beeped.
"Don't you have a home to go to, Stanley?"
"Sorry, Inspector, it's Robotics here."
"Oh, right. Go ahead... Dave, is it?"
"Mike, actually. Dave's the other one. Anyway, we've been working on the security droid you had brought in-"
"Way past shoving-off time!" added a distant voice—Dave, presumably.
"Yeah, and we think we've got something."
"Let's have it." Lestrade glanced over at Mason, who was scowling furiously. "We could use some good news up here."
"Well, it looks like the droid was shorted out, possibly with a micro-EMP, after it was smashed about. Most of the processor is wiped but we've managed to pull what looks like the last few seconds of visual input off the black box. No audio, though."
"Better than nothing. Send it up."
Lestrade pulled the video file up onto the screen. It flickered for a moment and then solidified into an image of the same back room they'd just investigated. The droid was moving slowly along the row of shelves, looking to the left and right. When it reached the end of the row, it turned neatly into the next. It repeated this pattern at the same steady pace for a few more rows. Then the feed suddenly swung around to show a rat-faced man backing up and shouting something. The man glanced around frantically and grabbed some sort of metal tool from a shelf, swinging wildly. His first swing jolted the droid sideways, and it raised an arm, but before it could deploy the stun gun all security droids had built-in, the man swung the tool into the droid's head. The feed fizzed and cracked and the droid went toppling to the ground. For a moment all the video showed was the side of a box, then something turned the droid's head.
A man looked out from the screen. He was dark-haired and clean-shaven, dressed in a strange old-fashioned shirt with a wing collar and a waistcoat. His eyes were brilliant and piercing, but he smiled cruelly. Then the man took something out of his pocket and said something to the droid. The video feed trembled and shook, and then stopped abruptly.
For a moment there was silence in the incident room. Then Lestrade spoke.
"Watson," she said hoarsely. "Find me a photo of Professor James Moriarty, born 1838. Preferably from his thirties, I think."
"Found," said the droid after a couple of seconds. "Taken upon publication of his treatise On the dynamics of an asteroid, 1870." An image flashed up onto the screen beside the video.
"My God," breathed Grayson.
"That's... that's not a mask, is it?" asked Jones nervously.
"That's far too good to be a mask," Lestrade said. "Chief, I know you were joking when you said this guy fancied himself the next Moriarty..."
"So, what, he's had some serious surgery?" Mason suggested. "We said it could be a mania. Guy thinks he's actually Moriarty, goes as far as to have his face hacked about so that he looks like him, then goes on a crime spree."
"Maybe he's a clone."
The room turned to look at Jones, who shrugged. "Just an idea. It's one thing to think you're a criminal genius; it's another entirely to actually be one, and this guy's got it down. Intelligence is genetic, at least to some degree, right? So if you clone a genius, you're going to get another genius. And I bet he knows he's a clone of Moriarty, so he's yanking us about with all these Holmes-related thefts."
"I think Jones is onto something," Lestrade agreed. "We said this guy needed financial backing. A syndicate with the resources to clone a long-dead mathematics professor would be more than capable of funding a crime spree. If it was just one guy there's no way he'd have the connections or the money to pull this off."
"Okay, okay," said Grayson. "This is the best we’ve got; let’s work with it for now. Say we are looking at a crime syndicate. Say they've cloned Moriarty and now they've unleashed him on London. What do we do?"
"There's only one man in history who ever outsmarted Moriarty," Lestrade said. "If they can bring back Moriarty, we need to bring back that man."
"Are you seriously suggesting-" Mason started.
"We don't have any other option!" Lestrade insisted. "We need to resurrect Sherlock Holmes!"