Sherlock x John: Sweet Tyler

Chapter 20: I Need You to Concentrate

“Somebody..?” asked John.
Sherlock nodded, his voice still rough, “Soo Lin Yao. We have to find her.”
He looked down and bent to pick something off the floor.
“But how, exactly?”
Sherlock picked up a folded envelope. On the back of it was written:

SOO LIN
Please ring me
tell me you’re
OK
Andy

He unfolded the envelope and looked at the front of it; Tyler leaned on Sherlock for support as she felt slightly light headed and peered over his arm at the envelope. Printed in the bottom right hand corner was:

NATIONAL
ANTIQUITIES
MUSEUM

“Maybe we could start with this” croaked Sherlock. Tyler nodded silently.
He and Tyler walked out, closing the door behind them and headed off down the road. John followed the two of them.
“You’ve gone all croaky. Are you getting a cold?” John asked Sherlock.
“I’m fine” coughed Sherlock. John glanced at Tyler who opened her mouth to form words – made a pained expression- then just gave a curt nod back. As they walked, John couldn’t help but notice a slight red mark around the young girl’s neck.


NATIONAL ANTIQUITIES MUSEUM.

Sherlock was pacing around a display area while he interviewed Andy.
“When was the last time that you saw her?” he asked.
“Three days ago, um, here at the museum” said Andy. He looked so nervous.
Sherlock focused briefly on a glass case showing some of the clay teapots. Most of them were dull but one was shiny.
“This morning they told me she’d resigned just like that” said Andy, his face laced lightly with disappointment. Sherlock looked at another case containing some jade figurines, and then at a piece of artwork. “Just left her work unfinished” said Andy.
Sherlock turned to him. “What was the last thing that she did on her final afternoon?” he asked.

Andy had brought the boys to the basement archive, and turned on the lights as he led them in.
“She does this demonstration for the tourists – a-a tea ceremony” stuttered Andy, “So she would have packed up her things and just put them in here.”
He led them to the open stack and started turning a handle at the end to widen the gap. John went to stand behind him and looked into the stack but then Sherlock had noticed something more interesting in the shadows further along the room. He walked closer to it. On a stand was a life-sized sculpture of a nude woman ... and yellow paint had been spray painted across the front of it. An almost horizontal straight line went across the eyes, and over the body had been sprayed the open upside down eight with the almost horizontal line above it. Andy and John turned and saw what he had found.

Outside the museum, night had fallen as Sherlock, John and Tyler came out. Tyler shivered slightly as the night air hit her really thin jacket and her face.
“We have to get to Soo Lin Yao” said Sherlock.
“If she’s still alive” shrugged John. Tyler teeth clenched a little at the night breeze.
“Sherlock!” yelled a familiar voice.
The boys and Tyler turned as Raz ran over to join them.
“Oh, look who it is” said John bitterly.
Raz turned to Sherlock. “Found something you’ll like” he said.
He trotted off and Sherlock and Tyler immediately followed. John headed off after them a little more slowly.

Shortly afterwards the four of them were walking across Hungerford Bridge, heading towards the south side of the river.
“Tuesday morning, all you’ve gotta do is turn up and say the bag was yours” said John.
“Forget about your court date” said Sherlock. They continued onwards, unaware that the Chinese woman with the dark sunglasses from before was watching them.


SOUTH BANK SKATE PARK.

Raz led the other three across the under-croft. A boy had just done some kind of clever jump on his pushbike.
“Dude, that was rad!” said a nearby girl in a snapback. Tyler nodded in appreciation. One of the guys on a skateboard noticed Tyler and waved a hand at her. “Yo, you’re the girl who was skatin’ the other day!” he said. Tyler gave him a wink.
“If you want to hide a tree, then a forest is the best place to do it, wouldn’t you say? People would just walk straight past, not knowing, unable to decipher the message” muttered Sherlock. Raz pointed to a particular area on the heavily-graffitied walls.
“There. I spotted it earlier” said Raz. Amongst all the other paint were slashes of the yellow paint forming Chinese symbols. Some of them were already partially painted over by other artists’ tags and pictures.
“They have been in here” said Sherlock to Raz, “And that’s the exact same paint?”
“Yeah.”
“John, if we’re going to decipher this code, we’re gonna need to look for more evidence” said Sherlock.


The three of them split up and began searching. Sherlock and Tyler walked along the end of a railway line and found an abandoned spray can on the tracks. Squatting down to pick it up, Sherlock put the end of his flashlight into his mouth and ran a thumb over the yellow paint on the nozzle, then sniffed the nozzle. He threw it to Tyler who caught it and took a sniff. “Exactly the same” she said, even though it was obvious to the both of them.

Meanwhile, John walked through an underpass, looking closely at the graffiti and posters on the walls as he went.

Sherlock was now walking past a wall which had many posters glued to it, Tyler was trekking closely behind him. One of the posters attracted Sherlock’s attention and he tore off the bottom corner of it and took it with him as he continued onwards.

John was now out on the railway lines. His flashlight picked out splashes of yellow paint on the sleepers and on the rails, then he raised his light to a brick wall, possibly the wall of a maintenance shed, which was about fifteen feet wide. He stepped back, his mouth opened in surprise as he began to realise that the entire wall was covered with large yellow Chinese symbols.

Later he had finally tracked down Sherlock and Tyler who were currently looking at the side of a parked rail freight container.
John trotted towards them. “Answer your phone! I’ve been calling both of you! I’ve found it” he said. He turned around again and the three of them ran off into the night side by side, Sherlock’s coat billowing behind him which gave the impression of a bat.

Back at the wall, John led Sherlock towards it, but his mouth dropped open in surprise again, this time for a different reason. The entire wall was now blank.
“It’s been painted over!” John exclaimed. Sherlock shone his flashlight around the area as John continued to stare at the wall in disbelief. Tyler examined it distastefully.
“I don’t understand. It-it was here...” said John and he stumbled backwards, “...ten minutes ago. I saw it. A whole load of graffiti!”
“Somebody doesn’t want me to see it” said Sherlock.

He turned and grabbed the sides of John’s head in both hands. Tyler walked around the other side of the wall to see if there was anything else they were missing.
“Hey, Sherlock, what are you doing...?” asked John nervously.
“Shh, John, concentrate. I need you to concentrate. Close your eyes” hushed Sherlock.
“No, what? Why? Why?” stammered John.
Sherlock lowered his hands to hold John by the upper arms.
“What are you doing?!” asked John quickly, he could feel Sherlock’s warm breath on his cheeks which made him shiver slightly.
Sherlock started to spin them slowly around on the spot, staring intensely into John’s eyes. John struggled to keep contact.
“I need you to maximise your visual memory. Try to picture what you saw. Can you picture it?” he asked softly.
“Yeah” confirmed John.
“Can you remember it?”
“Yes, definitely.”
“Can you remember the pattern?”
“Yes!”
“How much can you remember it?”
“Well, don’t worry...”
Sherlock continued to spin them around, “Because the average human memory on visual matters is only sixty-two percent accurate.”
“Yeah, well, don’t worry – I remember all of it” said John.
Sherlock raised an eyebrow and said disbelievingly, “Really?”
“Yeah, well at least I would...” said John as he pulled himself free; a light pink dusting his cheeks, “... if I can get to my pockets!”
He rummaged in his jacket pocket. “I took a photograph.”
He took out his phone and pulled up a flash photo he had taken of the wall which showed all the symbols clearly. He gave the phone to Sherlock, who took it and looked embarrassed as John sighed and turned away. Tyler walked back from around the back of the wall. She noticed Sherlock’s crimson cheeks. “Have I missed something?”