A Scandal in Britain, Part 12/13

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21 December

John, ever decisive, was the first to take useless action. “I’m calling the police,” he said, taking out his phone.

The barrel of the gun wavered up and down as Ormstein chuckled. “Go ahead and call them, Dr. Watson. Then, when they arrive ten minutes too late, they can watch the video of your brains splattering on the wall.”

“What the - ” He stopped dialling and stared at the laptop. “You’re making a video of this?”

“What kind of a revenge would it be otherwise?” He curled his lips back into a smile. “Now. Our time together is sadly limited. I only have a few minutes to kill you all, and I want to make the most of it. I want to hurt you. I’ve already hurt her.” He nodded down at Addie. I stared at her in horror. She blinked back tears. “So now I want to hurt you, Holmes. You posh, pretentious bastard.”

His finger tightened around the trigger. I blinked, waiting for the bullet, marvelling at the irony that my career was coming to an end at the hands of not a hardened criminal but a deranged politician. He noticed me tense and his grin grew wider.

“Oh, no. I’m not going to shoot you,” he said. “Yet. No, I know just the thing that would hurt even more.” He lowered the gun. I took a breath for the first time since he had raised it. Still grinning, he turned toward the laptop and spoke into it. “I know all the ghastly secrets of the Holmes family. I was Mycroft’s confidant. In fact, some might call me his friend. I listened day in and day out for years as he fretted on and on about his brother. About how worried the drugs made him. God, the drugs. And the lengths he would go to get them! I only wish I had more time to tell the story to you, as everyone at Scotland Yard would find it all very interesting. There was a hospital visit. Several hospital visits. He fought with his father over it, and over everything else. His father was an unfaithful bastard, and that freak was the one who discovered it. When his father told him good-night, he smelled a different perfume on him than what his mother wore. At the age of six.”

John stared at me. I swallowed.

Ormstein giggled. “Oh! And this one - this one will amuse you all. When he was seventeen he paid the housemaid to have sex with him, because he, quote, ‘wanted to know what all the fuss was about.’ He couldn’t even find a friend to try it with - he had to pay off a maid!”

His laughter echoed through the room. I stared at Addie. “You were lying,” I said, with a dawning horror. “It was him. You learned all those things from him!”

Ormstein grinned even wider. “Oh, she used those things over the last couple of days, did she? Tried to intimidate you into keeping your nose out of her affairs? Tried to convince you she was part of something bigger - Moriarty, perhaps?” He laughed. “And you, the greatest detective in Britain - in Europe, if you’re to believe your brother - didn’t think of that! Oh, that’s priceless. Priceless, indeed. It never even occurred to you that I would talk to her about my boss’s damned dysfunctional family. Well, that’s nice. You think you’re so special, so above human emotion, but you were blindsided by her, just like every other man is blindsided. Well, thankfully that all comes to an end right…now.”

He turned the gun and placed it right above Addie’s temple. She was shaking uncontrollably. She looked at me desperately, clearly expecting me to do something, but I was frozen.

It was John who finally spoke. “Mr. Ormstein, this is insanity. Let’s stop and talk this through reasonably, and maybe then - ”

“Reasonably?” His voice became shrill. “Reasonably? Maybe I’d be more amenable to reasonableness, if your friend hadn’t treated my entire career as something to amuse him over a long weekend.” The smile abruptly dropped off of his face. The sudden change in exp​ression was even more unsettling than the grin. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Neither of you do. My whole family has been in politics. I was groomed to be in politics from the age of six. I married a woman I didn’t love just to have a spouse who would help me win elections. A momentary indiscretion with a woman who’s slept with half of London - that shouldn’t be enough to weigh out all those decades and decades of hard thankless slog. But it will. It will. What’s going to happen now? No one will take me seriously. My wife will take the children. My career is over.”

I finally found the words to speak. “You do realise that killing three people on camera isn’t going to have an exactly restorative effect on it.”

“You think I have any desire to live after tonight? You are charmingly naïve.” The smile returned to his face. “Well. Time is drawing short, gentlemen.” He knelt down besides Addie and stroked her hair. “I’m so sorry to have to do this to you, sweetheart. I love you.”

She was staring straight at me when he shot her straight in the temple. Her body, so tense before, immediately fell totally limp and heavy. With yet another smile he turned the gun toward me and tightened the finger against the trigger. I stared at it, paralysed. It was John who dashed forward and began to struggle with him. It took a bullet shot into the wall to finally rouse me from my immobility.

Ormstein was an unexpectedly strong man, and even between the two of us, it was a close fight. Two more bullets were shot into the room. With a faint touch of amusement I saw that John was using his weight to press Ormstein face-down into the bed and twisting his arm, just as I had shown him in the morgue. Once we had him under control, I held him down and John aimed a bullet through his arm. His shriek echoed through the house.

With Ormstein finally taken care of, I hurried to Addie’s side. Her soft brown hair was sticky with warm blood.

“Addie,” I said. I confess that my voice was shaking, a little. “Miss Adler. Irene.”

I pulled off my gloves and palpated her neck, looking for a pulse. There was none.

“John,” I said. “John, she’s dead.”

Ormstein moaned at the foot of the bed.

“With an injury like that, I’d imagine so.” He nodded toward Ormstein. “He’s not, though. But if he doesn’t get medical attention, he might - ”

“John, she’s dead.”

“Yes. I see that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “God, this is a mess. I’m calling Lestrade. Go look to see if she has a wardrobe or linen closet; I might be able to use the sheets for - ”

“No,” I interrupted. “Stay there.”

I took up the gun that had fallen on the sheets. I rolled Ormstein over. He screamed in agony.

“It hurts!” he panted.

“Oh, it does, does it? Ironically enough, I have the chance to make it hurt much more.” I pointed the gun at his head. He squirmed beneath my grasp.

John stared at me. “Sherlock, the camera.”

I glanced up. I had forgotten that it was even there, recording every moment of the entire grisly affair. A camera meant that there would be incontrovertible proof of a murder - the end of a sparkling career one had been groomed for from an early age.

I found that in that moment, for some reason, I didn’t care. I shot.

But there was nothing. I tried again. Nothing but a hollow click.

I leaned back, deflated.

“There were only four bullets,” I said. “You bastard. You bloody bastard!”

John ripped the gun out of my hands. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

I sat back. There was a long hesitation. The only sound was Ormstein moaning and John and I panting. “I don’t know,” I finally said. To my horror, I was telling the truth.

“That’s enough gunplay for one evening,” he muttered. “I’m calling Lestrade.”

He glanced at Addie, her pillow rapidly growing redder and redder, then shook his head and brought out his phone.

***

John, you never told me about all this! My God. That is *it* - I don’t want you spending any more time with Sherlock, ever. I can’t handle this!

Hopefully this puts to rest those rumours that you and Sherlock are gay. Because he obviously had some unresolved feelings for Addie, if he was going to shoot someone on camera to avenge her death. It’s useless to deny it now, Sherlock.

- Comment posted by Sarah Sawyer


But he would have done the same for John! It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love John! You do love John, don’t you, Sherlock???

This chapter is so upsetting. :(

- Comment posted by Harry Watson


My boss wondered if you would tell the truth. He saw the video, of course, but was curious to hear you describe the scene in your own words. He is rather impressed that you did so accurately…

My boss doesn’t swear often, but he wants you to know once again that he has no idea why Ormstein went, and I quote, “batshit crazy.” Once again he apologises from the bottom of his heart that you should get entangled with something like this.

- Comment posted by Anthea


You have a heart…?

He did work under you. To be honest, it’s not really that surprising that one of your employees was capable of snapping at any moment and going on a murder spree.

You saw the video? … How?? Lestrade told me they didn’t share it with anyone.

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


My boss says that you’d be surprised who he’s all hired to…observe you. So be careful. You never know who could be watching. Big Brother and all that.

- Comment posted by Anthea


Observe? I’m sorry, did you misplace your thesaurus? I think the word you’re looking for is SPY.

Lestrade and I are going to have to talk. I may have to blackmail him, too.

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


Um…I wouldn’t call it spying. More like reporting. And you talk as if I couldn’t blackmail you back.

- Comment posted by Gregory Lestrade


What would that even be called - blackmailing against the threat of blackmailing?

That was…a nasty night. I don’t really care to remember any of it. There’s a reason I skimmed over most of it in my blog. Ugh.

- Comment posted by John Watson


Trackback

POPWORLD MAGAZINE REPORT. EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF ADDIE’S DEATH JUST POSTED ON DETECTIVE SHERLOCK HOLMES’S BLOG. Read it here!


What the - ?

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


OMG! I’m crying! I can’t believe it!! This is awful! I miss Addie so much!!! Her songs helped me so much!!! I love you, Addie!!!!

: ( : ( : (

- Comment posted by addiefanforever92


WHAT A JERK. WHY DIDN’T YOU DO SOMETHING. YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED HER FROM BEING KILLED. I HOPE YOU’RE SATISFIED WITH YOURSELF.

- Comment posted by MISTERSPIZZ


It’s sad when the lamestream media doesn’t call this for what it is: A RACIALLY MOTIVATED MURDER. Do you think it was a coincidence she was half-Hispanic??????

- Comment posted by dreamwidth911


Racially motivated murder??? HAHA. All you liberals do is whine about race!!! She wasn’t even Hispanic, she was Jamaican!!! This murder was about jealousy, pure and simple. Get your heads out of the sand! If you even have heads!!!

- Comment posted by RayTSanchez


If we even HAVE heads??? It’s the Republicans blocking the damn healthcare reform bill for 9/11 responders!!

- Comment posted by Lothario


Reallly interesting story. I just found my soul mate. ~ Do you want to find hot singles? Bi-Racial-Singles.co.uk is your stop on the web for love. ~

- Comment posted by Maura T. Jenkins


He probado esto es mas agradable - la mejor sensacio’n…

- Comment posted by La sexualidad misteriosa


Big=P.nis is like an=expensive car!

- Coment posted by 19.LoveEnlargement


Damn! If anyone A ) who has two brain cells to rub together or B ) I know wants to contact me, email me. This is absurd.

- Comment posted by Sherlock Holmes


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