The Sound of a Heartbeat

Rain traced the windowpanes in thin, steady lines, the kind that made the world look softer and far away. The flat smelled faintly of coffee and yesterday’s curry, a familiar mix that somehow felt like home. John had the Sunday paper folded into quarters in his hands, elbows braced on his knees, the small lamp beside him making a tidy pool of light on the page. He read an article, then reread a line that annoyed him, then huffed under his breath and kept going.

Across the room, Sherlock occupied the sofa as if it were an experiment in progress. Long, lean lines, bare feet tucked against the arm, dressing gown tangled around his waist, one hand resting on his stomach and the other draped over the side. His hair was a dark shock against the cushion. He wasn’t asleep. He never was, not really. His eyes were unfocused and too bright, staring at the ceiling as if it were a map only he could read.

The clink of John’s spoon against his mug sounded too loud in the quiet, so he set it down more carefully. He glanced up, out of habit more than need, checking the angle of Sherlock’s hands, the rhythm of his breathing. Calm. Idle. Dangerous. It would only be a matter of time before the peace went brittle and he started pacing.

“Anything interesting?” Sherlock asked without moving. His voice sounded like it had come from another room entirely.

“Not unless you count a city councilman whose dog has more followers than he does.” John flipped a page with one finger. “The crossword’s impossible.”

“That’s because it’s written by a retired cryptographer who drinks too much sherry. He has patterns. Third down won’t be what it seems.”

John’s mouth curved. “And yet you won’t do it.”

“It would take me three minutes and then I’d be bored again.” His fingers twitched, a ripple of energy that didn’t go anywhere.

John let the silence return. It was the good kind, the kind that didn’t have sharp edges. The radiator clicked softly. A bus sighed past. The rain kept at it. John’s eyes drifted over an op-ed about healthcare funding and didn’t stick. He set the paper aside long enough to reach for his mug. The tea had gone lukewarm, but he drank it anyway.

“Tea,” Sherlock said suddenly, and John couldn’t help the dry laugh.

“You could get up and make some. Revolutionary idea.”

Sherlock rolled his head to one side, just enough to look at him. His eyes skimmed John’s face and then slid away again, like it was too effortful to keep them there. “If I get up, the thought will go.”

“What thought?”

“My brain,” Sherlock said with mild irritation, “is arranging things.”

“Such as?”

“The last time Mrs. Turner watered her plants. The pattern of mud on the landing. It rained on Thursday too. The umbrella stand had three umbrellas when you came home that evening, which means—” He stopped himself, lips pressing together, clipped short like he’d scolded a dog. “It’s nothing. It’s domestic.”

“God forbid.” John grinned at him, swallowed it back when Sherlock didn’t rise to the bait.

The paper rustled. John skimmed a piece about the arts section, a new symphony opening. He caught himself glancing toward the violin case propped beside the bookshelf. The idea of Sherlock playing in this weather fit too well. The music pulled the air into order when everything else tried to scatter.

“Play something,” he said without looking up, casual, like asking someone to pass the salt.

Sherlock’s eyelashes flickered. “Why?”

“You’ll sleep otherwise and wake up unbearable.”

“Debatable. I am perfectly bearable.”

“You’re not, though.” John’s voice was warm, teasing layered over truth. “Play. I’ll keep pretending this editorial is worth getting annoyed about.”

Sherlock considered, the way he did when he was pretending not to care. Then he sat up, an elegant unfurling that made his dressing gown slip sideways across his collarbone. John didn’t react. He noticed—because he always noticed—but he didn’t react.

The violin case clicked open. Sherlock’s hands were careful, reverent without making a show of it. He checked the strings, rolled his shoulders, and drew the bow across in a low, testing stroke. The note filled the room at once, smooth, clean, a line drawn straight through the soft afternoon.

John leaned back, watching over the top of the paper. Sherlock’s face changed when he played. The sharp edges softened, the restless flicker settled. He’d seen soldiers find that same truce on quiet nights, hands steadying on a familiar task. Sherlock swayed, bare feet placed lightly on the carpet as if the sound anchored him there.

He played something unfamiliar at first, then slid into a melody that John knew only because Sherlock returned to it when the flat fell quiet: simple, almost old-fashioned, the kind of thing that didn’t mind being played on a rainy Sunday with no audience but one.

John’s throat tightened unexpectedly. He cleared it, looked down at the column inches again, let the music thread around the words until the print blurred. He didn’t need to think about why this felt easy. It just did. Sherlock’s bow lifted, held, lowered. The room took the sound and kept it, the way it kept everything else—ghosted cases on the walls, a skull on the mantel, a coat left carelessly on a chair, a pair of trainers drying under the table.

When the last note faded, Sherlock didn’t immediately put the violin down. He was watching John in that intent way that made John feel pinned without being trapped.

“Well?” Sherlock asked.

“It was very nice,” John said, deadpan. “You might have a future.”

Sherlock’s mouth twitched, which, for him, was practically laughter. He set the violin aside with care. “Crossword. Third down?”

John reached for the section. “Fine. Humour me. Clue is ‘a quiet return,’ seven letters.”

“Repose.” The answer came as easily as breathing. “But the setter wants ‘retreat.’ He’s used repose twice this month.”

“Of course he has.” John penciled it in, scrubbing out the letters when they didn’t fit. “Retreat it is.”

Sherlock had moved back to the sofa, but he didn’t recline. He watched John fill in squares, the keen attention that he usually reserved for crime scenes settling on the domestic instead. John could feel it on his skin, that bright, focused scrutiny, and it made him grin into the paper like an idiot.

“Toast?” John asked after a beat. “I could do toast.”

“Toast is boring.”

“And yet you eat half of mine every time.”

“Because yours is better.”

“It’s the same bread.”

“I strongly doubt that.”

John set the paper down and pushed himself up. “I’ll make extra. You can tell me why Mrs. Turner watered her plants on Thursday.”

Sherlock’s eyes lit. “Because she didn’t. Her nephew did.” At John’s raised brow, he sighed in mock exasperation. “The mud on the landing was from boots too large for her, the damp on the stair rail at a height she wouldn’t touch, the slight scent of cigarette smoke that clung to the banister—she hates smoke—”

“—and you know all this because you sniffed the banister on the way up,” John said, heading into the kitchen.

“Don’t be absurd,” Sherlock called after him. “I wasn’t on my knees.”

“Not this time,” John muttered, smiling at the kettle as it began to hum.

He reached for plates, for the butter dish with the ridiculous cow on it that had appeared one day from Mrs. Hudson. Behind him, the sofa creaked. There was the small sound Sherlock made when he stretched, a soft, satisfied exhale. John spread butter, listened to the rain, thought about how the day might stretch ahead: tea, toast, a violin, the crossword, maybe a film later, Sherlock pretending not to watch it while watching every beat.

He carried the toast back in and set the plate on the table between their chairs. Sherlock immediately took the corner of a slice, fingers brushing John’s knuckles. The contact was brief, ordinary, and it sent a small, surprising spark through John’s hand. He didn’t pull away. Sherlock didn’t either. The slice changed hands, and they both pretended it hadn’t lingered.

“Boring?” John asked, dropping back into his seat.

Sherlock bit into the toast, chewed, swallowed. “Acceptable,” he said primly, and reached for another piece from John’s side with an unthinking familiarity that warmed the room more than the radiator ever could.

Outside, the rain went on. Inside, the quiet settled around them like a blanket, well-worn and shared.

Sherlock lasted precisely six minutes before the restless energy took his limbs and stood him up. He abandoned his plate and crossed to the window, tugging the curtain aside with two fingers. The street below was a dull watercolor—wet umbrellas, puddles, a van double-parked with its hazards blinking. He leaned his shoulder against the sash and stared as if the pavement might confess.

“Oh, here we go,” John said, biting into toast. “What is it today? The postman’s secret ballet career? Mrs. Turner’s nephew smokes cheap cigarettes?”

“Please,” Sherlock said, tone absent, already elsewhere. “He’s switched to a vape. Menthol. His mother’s asthma. He’s trying.”

John blinked. “Lovely. And entirely not terrifying that you know that.”

“Window box. The mint is crushed on the left edge. He leans when he leans out to hide it from her.” Sherlock’s fingers tapped the sill, paced in place. “Mrs. Donovan. New hat.”

John craned his neck, obligingly. “How can you possibly—”

“Feathers stuck in the drain on Friday. Now absent. The ribbon is visible at the corner of the stairwell camera blind spot when she leaves. Dark blue. She wouldn’t waste it. She’s on her way to church to impress someone specific. Shoes polished better than usual. Heel taps synchronized. Practiced.”

“You’ve been watching the stairwell camera feed again.”

“Once,” Sherlock said, defensive only by omission. “And only to confirm a hypothesis.”

“Mmm.” John swallowed and set the toast down. “Do I want to know the hypothesis?”

“That our neighbors are more interesting than you give them credit for.” Sherlock’s gaze slid down the street. “Number thirty-one. The young couple with the bicycle.”

“They broke up last month.”

“Temporarily.” Sherlock’s eyes brightened. “She’s moved back in.”

John sat up. “Since when? We would have heard.”

“You would have heard,” Sherlock corrected. “She came back in the night, avoided the landlady, didn’t bring luggage. He is wearing an unfamiliar hoodie today. Soft pilling. Her size, washed with lavender detergent. His usual uses cedar.”

John tried to protest and found the words tipping into a laugh. “You are unbearable.”

“And yet you keep feeding me,” Sherlock said, distracted, and John tried not to look too pleased.

A man with a grey coat shambled past, hunched against the rain. Sherlock hummed. “Pensioner. Warmer today than yesterday. Boots polished. He’s going to see someone. Doctor, not family. The note in his pocket—folded professionally, crisp edges—pharmacy slip. He doesn’t like to be a bother. He will be stubborn about the dosage.”

“Or he’s just cold.”

“John.” Sherlock glanced back at him, a quick, bright look that made John’s chest tighten for no good reason. “You can see it.”

“I see a man with wet shoes.”

“Fine.” Sherlock’s mouth curved, just a little. “Number twenty-seven, top floor. Curtains drawn since Thursday. The bin has gone out, so she’s home. Two wine bottles, not one. Stoppers saved. She’s pacing. Bare feet. The blinds are bending slightly lower at the left. She’s changed jobs. There’s a new lanyard on the hook inside the door. You can see the shadow when she opens it to check the weather. She’s cut her hair.”

John stood, drawn, and moved to stand near him, close enough that Sherlock’s heat brushed his arm. He peered, as if that would help. “You can see through brick now?”

“Reflection in the window opposite when the wind catches the curtain. Don’t be obtuse.”

“My mistake,” John said dryly. “Of course.”

Sherlock pointed with his chin. “Second floor, across the way. Bachelor with the cat. Look at the cat.”

John squinted at the fat ginger blob perched in the window, tail flicking. “What about it?”

“Groomed. Fur cut short across the hind legs. A rash. New carpet cleaner. He tried one brand, it caused a reaction, he switched. And—” Sherlock stopped, a soft, satisfied sound escaping him. “He’s baking. Lemon tarts. Looking to impress. There’s sugar dust on his sleeve, careless in a way that means nerves.”

John took in the rhythm of Sherlock’s words, the way his voice steadied as he fell into it. “You think he’s got a date?”

“Yes. The hand hovering on the door handle before he retreats. He’s rehearsed a speech three times. He will end with ‘I’ve been meaning to say…’ and then abandon it entirely when she laughs.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“Because he’s smiled at the post for three days. The letters are all from the same hand. The curve of the R. There’s ink smudged on his thumb. He’s kept one in his pocket.”

John looked at him, at the sharp, hungry line of his profile, and felt something easy. “Do you ever get tired of being right?”

“Rarely.” Sherlock’s hand opened on the sill and closed again, restless. “Look, watch—ah.”

A tall, athletic woman jogged into view, slowing at the doorway to number fourteen. She checked her phone, shook rain off her hair, and then vanished inside. The bachelor’s door opened two seconds later, too quickly for coincidence.

“There,” Sherlock murmured. “Resolution.”

“Congratulations on your successful voyeurism.”

Sherlock’s eyes cut to him again, a flick of amusement. “Observation.”

“Voyeuristic observation,” John amended, stepping back to retrieve his mug. He handed one to Sherlock without thinking, their fingers brushing again. The jolt was smaller this time only because John was ready for it. He kept his face neutral.

Sherlock took the mug, but didn’t drink. “You ground me,” he said, sudden and low, not the words he meant to say—or perhaps exactly the ones.

John’s heart stumbled and then righted. He forced a shrug, light. “Someone has to keep you from climbing out onto the fire escape to measure curtain shadows.”

Sherlock’s mouth went soft at the edges. He looked back out. “Grounding is useful for maintaining a stable trajectory.”

“Right,” John said, smiling into his own tea. “Science.”

“Science.” Sherlock set the mug down untouched, the restlessness returning like a tide. “Mrs. Hudson is late.”

“For what?” John asked.

“By two minutes and thirty seconds,” Sherlock said, as if that explained anything.

A second later, the familiar creak of the downstairs door carried up. John rolled his eyes, unavoidably fond. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re late with the tea you promised,” Sherlock countered.

“I already made it.”

“Yes, but I want another. With honey.”

John shook his head, but he was already moving. “You deduce, I’ll boil water. Division of labor.”

“Partnership,” Sherlock said, offhanded, like breathing.

John paused in the doorway, the word landing and settling somewhere new. He glanced back, watched Sherlock track the street, the brilliant mind restless inside skin and bone, and felt the familiar warmth in his chest expand. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “That.”

Mrs. Hudson bustled in without knocking, as she always did, balancing a tray with alarming confidence. The teapot rattled against the cups as she nudged the door shut with her hip.

“There you are, my boys,” she said, cheerfully scolding. “Honestly, Sherlock, you’ll wear a track in that floor with all your pacing. Sit. Drink. Pretend you’re human.”

Sherlock didn’t sit. He turned from the window enough to aim a look at the tray. “Honey?”

“Yes, diva,” she said, unoffended. “And a bit of lemon. You sounded sniffly last night.”

“That was the violin,” John said, meeting her at the table to take the tray before she could drop it. “Or the beaker of something that smelled like melted plastic.”

“Experiment,” Sherlock said absently, eyes flicking back to the street.

“Mm,” Mrs. Hudson said, patting John’s shoulder in passing. “Well, no explosions this morning, please. My nerves aren’t what they were.”

John poured out, the room filling with the warm smell of tea and honey. He handed a cup to Sherlock, who accepted it and immediately set it on the windowsill without tasting it. Mrs. Hudson clicked her tongue and swatted lightly at his sleeve.

“You’ll drink it while it’s hot,” she warned. “I won’t have it wasted.”

Sherlock made a noncommittal sound. Mrs. Hudson, undeterred, settled into John’s chair for a second, catching her breath. “I’ve just come from Mrs. Turner’s. She thinks her nephew is back with that gym instructor—oh, you don’t care about that. Well, I do. He’s a sweet boy. Terrible taste.”

John hid a smile in his cup. “Morning, Mrs. Hudson.”

“Yes, dear.” Her eyes landed on the wall, the pins and strings that had survived from the last case, and then back to Sherlock. “You look like a dog that needs a long run.”

Sherlock’s lip curled. “Charming.”

“Or a case,” she added, with the kind of pointed innocence that made John wary on instinct. “Oh, and speaking of, you’ll laugh. I was downstairs sorting the post—such a mess in this weather, everything goes limp—and I ran into Mr. Wilcox from across the way. He’s very involved with the arts, you know.”

“A donor who wears cheap cufflinks,” Sherlock said, precise and bored.

Mrs. Hudson blinked. “Well, yes, I suppose. He was full of chatter about the London Philharmonic—fancy thing tonight, apparently—and he said there’s been one terrible mishap after another. Unfortunate accidents, he called them. Musicians tripping on cables, a fall down some stairs, some poor girl with a… oh, I can’t remember, something with the lights? And then last night, the cello girl—Amelia Something—what a shame. Very young.” She shook her head, solemn. “He’s such a gossip. He loves to make things sound dramatic.”

John felt Sherlock still beside him. The restless vibration changed quality, sharpening. “Amelia Reed?” Sherlock’s voice had flattened, interest sharpening the edges.

Mrs. Hudson brightened. “Yes! That’s it. Pretty name. He said the orchestra’s just cursed, but I told him not to be so silly. Accidents happen. All those wires and those big instruments. Dangerous, if you ask me.”

“People don’t die by accident in clusters,” Sherlock said softly, to himself, the words landing like chess pieces. He took up the cup and took one large swallow without looking at it, then set it down again and finally faced them. His eyes were awake in the way that meant the day had just changed.

John lowered his own cup. “Accidents?”

“Oh, don’t look like that,” Mrs. Hudson said, flapping a hand, as if she could wave away the spark she’d lit. “I’m sure the police are all over it if there’s anything to it. Mr. Wilcox loves to make a fuss. He says the conductor’s beside himself, but he’s always beside himself about something.”

“How many?” Sherlock asked, quick now. “Over what period? Names.”

Mrs. Hudson’s face went apologetic. “I didn’t listen that closely, dear. Two, three—oh, and then there was that boy with the drums. Terrible business, electricity and something with a plug. But you know how rumors are. It’s probably all being handled. You don’t need to—”

“When did you speak to him?” Sherlock cut in.

“Just now. On the stairs.”

“Did he say where the girl—Amelia—died?”

Mrs. Hudson frowned, thinking. “At home? No, that was… oh, I’ve muddled it. He said she was found at home, yes. And there was something about sheet music—no, that can’t be it. I’m sure I’m getting it wrong. Don’t you get yourself worked up over nothing.”

Sherlock’s mouth had a familiar set to it now, the shape of something about to happen. He turned to the wall and the strings as if they might have rearranged themselves to fit this new pattern. “String players use rosin. If there was a slip… no. Too banal. Electricity with percussion—more likely. An overloaded circuit is the simplest staging. But a cluster suggests intent.”

John put his cup down, resigned and already feeling his pulse pick up. “Alternatively,” he said gently, “a cluster suggests a lot of people in one place with many opportunities for mishaps.”

Sherlock didn’t look at him. “If they were truly independent, yes. But gossip that travels to our landlady’s ears by mid-morning suggests public drama. Public drama suggests notice. The kind that either invites a copycat or signals a pattern.”

Mrs. Hudson stood again, smoothing her skirt. “Honestly, you two. I just came up to tell you to drink your tea and perhaps get some fresh air. Don’t go inventing murders because a man with bad cufflinks likes to hear himself talk.”

Sherlock’s eyes flicked to her shoes, up to her cardigan, back to her face. Something like fondness softened his mouth for half a second. “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

“You’re welcome, dear.” She paused at the door, eyes darting to John. “Keep an eye on him. If he starts pinning the tea bags to the wall, call me.”

“I will,” John said, smiling. “We’ve got a system.”

“Good.” She patted the doorframe and disappeared, humming to herself as she clattered downstairs.

The moment the door shut, the room’s pressure changed. Sherlock crossed to the table in three long strides, set his cup down with a clink that rang, and reached for his phone. “Amelia Reed,” he said, thumbs moving, then, “Royal London Philharmonic. Incidents—oh, please be as stupid as you look.”

John stood, the quiet, easy Sunday folding itself up and tucking away for later. He stepped closer, reading over Sherlock’s shoulder. Headlines surfaced with the kind of vague details that made his stomach go cold. Member hospitalized after rehearsal mishap. Rising star cellist found dead at home. Orchestra shaken by string of accidents.

John looked up at Sherlock. His expression had gone very still, bright under the calm. The manic edge hadn’t appeared yet, but it was coming. “You think this is a case.”

“I think London has obligingly delivered a puzzle to our door.” Sherlock’s gaze flicked up to John’s, a flash of heat there that wasn’t just professional. “And I am bored.”

“You were bored,” John corrected, but his voice didn’t have much conviction. He felt the old, alarming thrill he could never quite deny, the way danger turned the room into a place where he breathed differently. “Lestrade will call if it’s anything.”

Sherlock’s phone buzzed in his hand.

They both looked at it. Sherlock’s mouth curved, sharp and pleased. He didn’t open it, not yet. He just slid the phone into John’s view, letting him see the caller ID lighting the screen: Lestrade.

John huffed a laugh he hadn’t meant to. He felt the quiet morning slip fully out of reach. “Drink your tea first,” he said, for form’s sake.

Sherlock picked up the cup and swallowed the last of it in one go, grimacing at the sweetness. “Acceptable,” he said, and answered the call.

“Where are you?” Sherlock said, sharp. “You’re outside. Come up.”

A beat, Lestrade’s mutter through static, and Sherlock hung up without goodbye. He was already moving, a controlled surge of energy, sweeping stray papers from the table to make space. John set his cup aside and checked automatically for his notebook, his phone, a pen. His body remembered the rhythm even when his brain pretended to resist it.

Footsteps on the stairs—familiar, tired. Lestrade knocked once and let himself in. He looked wrung out, shirt collar wilted, tie crooked, stubble shading his jaw. The lines around his eyes cut deeper than they had last week.

“Morning,” he said, and it sounded like he hadn’t slept. He stopped just inside the door as if the warmth of the flat was a shock. “Sorry to barge in on a Sunday.”

“You’re not,” Sherlock said. “You’re here because you’ve just come from a scene you can’t make sense of, you’ve crossed half of London without going home to change, and you didn’t bring donuts because you had to pawn your goodwill for a warrant you won’t get. Tea?”

Lestrade shot him a look that landed somewhere between a glare and a plea. “Yes. Please.” He turned to John as if the request might be safer with him. “If you’ve got another cup going.”

“I do.” John took the kettle off the heat before it sang and poured. He watched Lestrade’s hands curl around the mug like he needed the heat more than the caffeine. The man’s shoulders were tight under the suit jacket, the set of his mouth compressed around something sour. This was bad, then.

“Amelia Reed,” Sherlock prompted, not quite a question. “Cellist. Early twenties. Found at home.”

Lestrade’s eyes flicked up. “Don’t do that right now. Just—don’t.” He set the cup on the table so hard it sloshed. “Yes. Amelia Reed. Promising. Everyone says that about dead young people, but this one—she was. Swear to God, I’ve heard her on the radio without knowing it.”

Sherlock tilted his head. “Cause of death.”

“That’s the thing.” Lestrade scrubbed a hand over his face. “There isn’t a good one. No sign of a struggle. No forced entry. She was in her living room, halfway between the sofa and the music stand, like she’d stood up and— I don’t know. Collapsed.”

“Poison?” John asked, already cataloguing possibilities. “Overdose?”

“No paraphernalia. No needle marks. No pill bottles with suspicious counts missing. Toxicology will take days.” Lestrade’s mouth twisted. “Path said there’s a faint smell—ozone. And the neighbours said the lights flickered around nine. But there’s no burn marks, no scorch. Nothing you’d expect if she’d been electrocuted. Except her fingertips—first and second fingers on the left hand, the callused ones—looked… raw. Not burned. Friction, maybe.”

Sherlock moved as if someone had pulled a string in his spine. “Friction from what?”

“Don’t know. The cello was out. Bow on the floor.” Lestrade swallowed. “There was a page missing from a book on the stand. Sheet music. One of those old-looking ones. Whole place tidy otherwise.”

John pictured a young woman standing up with a piece of music in her hand, reaching for something, life bending around that small, ordinary motion and then stopping. His chest tightened.

“Other incidents,” Sherlock said quietly. “List them.”

Lestrade’s gaze slid towards the wall of pins and strings as if it were a comfort he’d learned to tolerate. “Right. Two months. A second violin—slipped backstage, broke her wrist. Could be nothing. A trombonist fell down the stairs in the service corridor—bruised ribs, concussion. Said he tripped. Two weeks ago, a percussionist—Aaron Lake—dead. Recording studio. Electrical fault, they think. He was alone. No CCTV inside.”

“Where?” Sherlock demanded. “Which studio. Which corridor. The precise angle of the fall.”

Lestrade’s chin lifted in reflexive defiance, then dropped. He gave up the details, because that was why he was here. “Studio at the hall, not far from the archives. Corridor behind the stage—narrow, bad lighting. Look, we’ve been treating them as separate because that’s what they look like. Accidents. But they don’t feel like it anymore. It’s too many. And now Amelia.” He blew out a breath that roughened in his throat. “Press is already sniffing. Orchestra’ll want it quiet for the gala tonight. Manager’s breathing down my neck.”

Sherlock’s mouth curled. “Manager—temper, misappropriates funds, drinks in his office alone, tells his wife he’s at late rehearsals. Easy. But if he’s this obvious, he isn’t the killer. Too tidy.” His eyes went bright, a focus that cut through the morning. “You’re missing a link. A method that is both visible and invisible. The smell of ozone without burns implies short exposure. Conductive surface. Sweat. A circuit completed in the wrong place.”

John stepped closer and set the tea within Sherlock’s reach, a quiet, automatic offering that made Sherlock’s hand close around the cup without looking. John rested his hip against the table. “If Amelia stood up and touched something—lamp, switch, faulty equipment—maybe the current took the path of least resistance through the fingertips she used the most. But why only those? And how would that kill her without leaving marks?”

“Stop guessing,” Lestrade said, but without heat. He aimed it more at himself. “I’m here because I can’t sell a taskforce to my boss with maybes and a gut feeling. I need something I can put in a report. You know, tangible. String me a thread.”

Sherlock’s gaze snapped to him. “You’re getting your report. You just brought it to me.”

“Sherlock,” John warned, because Lestrade was not the enemy and this was his bone-deep worry speaking, not bureaucracy.

Sherlock recalibrated, a subtle shift that John caught because he was watching for it. He softened the edges by a degree. “Fine. Start with the commonalities. Same orchestra. Similar environments. Limited access. Someone who knows their routines. If you said the neighbours noted flickering lights, then the system is involved. But Amelia at home complicates things. The theatre is controllable. Homes are variables.”

Lestrade nodded, some of the stiffness easing, not because he liked the answer but because it was an answer. “We’ve got a list of people with keys, schedules, everyone who could get near the equipment. I can send it.”

“Do.” Sherlock’s fingers tapped a soundless pattern on the table; John could almost hear the music of it. “And I want the addresses of all victims, access logs for the hall, and a map of the electrical systems. Particularly around the recording studio.”

“I can get you the first two,” Lestrade said. “The third will take favours.”

“You owe me a dozen,” Sherlock said lightly.

Lestrade snorted, then caught John’s eye with a flicker of bleak humour. “He’s going to be unbearable, isn’t he?”

“He’s excited,” John said, which was not the same thing.

Lestrade lifted his cup and swallowed half the tea as if it were whiskey. “Look, before you start dismantling the concert hall, there’s something else.” He hesitated, then went for it. “Amelia’s roommate says she’d been anxious for days. Jumping at noises. Said someone had been following her after rehearsals. She didn’t report it. Didn’t want to be ‘dramatic.’” The word tasted bitter in his mouth.

Sherlock went very still. “Description?”

“Tall. Coat. Hat. It’s London. Useless.” Lestrade shook his head. “But she wrote something in her notebook yesterday. Her last entry. ‘Wrong note, wrong hand.’ That’s it. What the hell does that mean?”

Sherlock’s gaze slid sideways, not to John, but through him, thinking. “It means she noticed the method and didn’t have the language to name it. Wrong hand implies ambidexterity or substitution—someone doing a familiar task with the unfamiliar hand. Stagehand? Electrician? Or—” He cut the thought off, eyes flashing. “You’ve got the notebook?”

“At the lab,” Lestrade said. “You can see it.”

“Now,” Sherlock said, already reaching for his coat.

Lestrade rubbed at his eyes. “Sherlock, I—”

John stepped in, direct. “He’ll be useful. You know that. And you look like you could do with a win.”

Lestrade’s mouth twisted, gratitude disguised as impatience. “Fine. But you stay behind the tape and you don’t touch anything until I say.” He pointed a finger at Sherlock. “And you don’t talk to the press.”

“The press talk to me,” Sherlock said, sliding past him to the door, energy contained but vibrating. He paused at the threshold and looked back, eyes meeting John’s with a flash of something that had nothing to do with the case. “Come on.”

John grabbed his jacket and the medical kit he never admitted he still checked before every outing. Lestrade drained the last of the tea like courage and set the empty cup down with a clink. The air in 221B thrummed, the quiet Sunday traded for purpose, for danger that felt like the city itself breathing. They moved together for the stairs, the three of them a familiar formation heading into the storm.

Sherlock took the stairs two at a time, coat flaring, the contained hum in him sharpening into a clean, electric line of purpose. By the time they hit the door to Baker Street proper he’d already got his phone out, thumbs flying, firing off demands to half of London. Lestrade jogged after, muttering about authorization and procedure, but even he knew the current had shifted. This was what happened when a puzzle snagged its teeth in Sherlock. The air changed.

On the pavement, Sherlock turned so abruptly John nearly walked into him. For a heartbeat, they were close enough that John could feel the warmth rising from Sherlock’s skin beneath the wool, could see his pupils wide with focus. Sherlock’s hand landed at John’s elbow, quick and firm, an anchor that also propelled. “We have work,” he said, too quiet for Lestrade to hear over the traffic. His thumb pressed once, a small, reckless punctuation that made John’s breath catch. “Stay with me.”

Always, John thought, and didn’t say it. He nodded instead, short and sure.

Lestrade’s car waited, illegally parked and unrepentant. Sherlock dived into the back seat, dragging John with him. They slammed the doors in near unison. Lestrade slid behind the wheel with a sigh that belonged to a man older than he was. “Right. Lab. Try not to bite anyone on the way, yeah?”

“No promises,” Sherlock said, leaning forward between the seats. “On the drive, I need you to ring the hall’s facilities manager. Access logs. Who was in the building the night the percussionist died, and for how long. Also the electrician—if they outsource, I want the company and the rota. And the archive librarian. Two, if they have them.”

“I don’t work for you,” Lestrade said, starting the engine. He didn’t reach for his phone. A beat. He handed it back to Sherlock with a curt, resigned flick of his wrist. “But knock yourself out.”

Sherlock’s mouth tilted, satisfaction without gloating. He dialed, his voice shifting effortlessly into a persuasive tone that some people mistook for charm. John watched him, the line of his throat as he spoke, the restless intelligence inhabiting every tendon and slight movement. It hit like it always did: the recognition of a mind at full extension, terrifying and beautiful. The desire for a quiet day softened under it, not erased but folded, stored for later.

He let himself be pulled along by the speed of it, leaned into it. That was the trick with Sherlock—resist, and you got dragged; consent, and you were part of the flight.

Traffic thinned. London blurred past in grey and quick slices of colour. Sherlock ended one call and made another, then another, each conclusion slotting neatly into whatever intricate shape he was building in his head. Between calls, he tipped his head toward John, as if checking he was still there, still a fixed point. John’s answering look was steady. Here.

At a red light, Sherlock reached sideways without looking and found John’s knee with his fingertips, a hovering contact that wasn’t accidental. He pressed once, light through the fabric, and let go. John felt the trace of it for several streets. He placed his hand palm-down on the seat, a habit from years of bracing through sharp turns and sudden stops, and exhaled slowly. The ache for a normal Sunday—the paper, tea cooling at his elbow, the quiet cadence of Sherlock’s bow in the background—threaded through him. But this, too, was theirs. The chase, the grim humour, the shared glance over a body bag that could have been one of them. The particular relief when it wasn’t.

At the lab’s back entrance, Lestrade flashed them in. Sherlock was already a step ahead, voice low and cutting as he secured access to the notebook and the trace reports. John fell into place at his shoulder. The pathologist on duty took one look at Sherlock’s face and waved them through with a put-upon groan.

The notebook lay in an evidence bag, sterile and small and devastating. Sherlock nodded once to Lestrade, who did the ritual—signatures, receipts, the theatre of responsibility—and cracked the seal. He laid the book open and bent low. John stood at his side, reading upside down, the neat loops of Amelia’s handwriting moving through days of practice schedules, to-do lists, small notes about pieces that sounded difficult but were coming along. Then the line: Wrong note, wrong hand.

Sherlock’s breath hitched in a way only John would have registered. “She was left-handed,” he murmured. “But this line is written with her right. Slower, more pressure on the downstrokes. She wrote it quickly, non-dominant hand. The wrong hand. And the wrong note—” His eyes flicked across the room, fixing somewhere that had nothing to do with walls. “She heard something. Something that should have been impossible.”

Lestrade leaned in, jaw tight. “I need more than poetry.”

“You’ll have it,” Sherlock said. He straightened. “Trace on the fingertips?”

The tech shuffled papers. “Microscopic fissures. Tiny metallic residue. Copper and nickel. No burns.”

“Strings,” Sherlock said. “Wires. Conductive. John?”

John thought it through, medical training sliding into place beside detective work as if they’d been built to interlock. “If the current was very brief and the path was limited, the heart could still misfire—ventricular fibrillation—without obvious burns. If she completed a circuit in the wrong place, touched a charged surface with just those fingers, and her skin was damp—sweat from playing—”

“—it would take the path she’d strengthened through repetition. The calluses.” Sherlock’s eyes were alight. “A device disguised as equipment. Something she’d trust. Wrong note, wrong hand—someone changed the tuning of her environment, and she tried to write it down fast, with the hand that wasn’t busy reaching for—” He cut himself off. “We need to see the flat.”

Lestrade nodded, already prepping the forms in his head. “I’ll drive.”

Sherlock looked at John, and the manic edge softened again. In the sterile glow of the lab, with the smell of disinfectant and the quiet tap of keys, the contact seemed impossible, but he reached anyway. His fingers caught John’s wrist, right where pulse met skin. He held for a second, measuring, or maybe just feeling. His gaze flicked up and held. “You’re enjoying this,” he said softly, accusation and invitation and a question he already knew the answer to.

John didn’t pretend otherwise. The thrill ran clean and undeniable through him, tempered by the weight of Amelia’s neat handwriting and the picture of her in a quiet room, stopping mid-step. He nodded once. “Yeah.”

Sherlock’s mouth curved. For an instant, the brightness in him turned inward, warmer. He released John’s wrist and pivoted toward the door, voice snapping back to command. “Coat. Kit. We’re late.”

John followed, the familiar swing of momentum settling into his bones. Outside, the sky had the flat light of a London day that couldn’t be bothered to commit to weather. Sherlock’s coat cut a line through it, dark and certain. John slid into the back seat and leaned forward, forearm resting on the back of the passenger chair. “Lestrade, after the flat, we need to stop by the hall. The studio. And I want to talk to Amelia’s roommate.”

“You’ll get your chance,” Lestrade said, pulling into traffic. “But play nice.”

Sherlock made a disbelieving sound. John kicked his shoe lightly. “He’ll try,” John said.

Sherlock tipped his head in concession, eyes sliding to John’s for a quick, private beat. “I’ll try,” he repeated, and for once, John believed him.

The car took a corner, pressing them briefly closer together. Sherlock’s thigh bumped John’s. He stayed there for a heartbeat longer than necessary, then pulled away with a twitch of his lips that wasn’t quite a smile. Work. The word hummed between them, more than a job, less than a vow, exactly what they had always been. John set his shoulders, the ache for a quiet Sunday replaced by a steadier certainty. They had a dead girl’s last message, a line of music gone wrong, and a city that needed them to listen. That was enough. That was everything.