Sherlock, Season 4, episode 1 transcript: The Six Thatchers, part 1
Sherlock, Season 4, episode 1 transcript: The Six Thatchers, part 1
With all my thanks to Team Ari - Verity Burns, Mirith Griffin, Kizzia, lauramcewan, simpleanddestructivechemistry, and swissmarg - for their invaluable help in checking and correcting this transcript.
My thanks also to Chey and Nate and settercrazy without whose help this transcript wouldn’t have gone on the air so soon.
Episode written by Mark Gatiss.
Transcript by Ariane DeVere aka Callie Sullivan. (Last updated 4 June 2019)
Please note: Although complete, this is and will continue to be very much a work in progress. Amendments and additions will be made whenever I get suggestions from readers or Team Ari, spot new clever stuff in the background or realise the subtlety of the way that a particular line of dialogue was delivered, or learn something new from commentaries, interviews etc.
In the meantime, if you think that I’ve made any errors or have left anything out, let me know either in the Comments section below or by PM. (N.B. if you’re not registered with Livejournal, your Comment will automatically be screened until I unlock it.) If you need to contact me through other means, I’m callie-ariane on Tumblr where my Ask box and the Comments are open.
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Sherlock Season 4 Episode 1 transcript: The Six Thatchers, part 1
Dedicated to dulsanaya, with thanks.
Jump to Part 2 / Jump to Part 3 / Jump to Part 4
FLASHBACKS to previous scenes to remind everyone what’s happened so far. Then a notice appears onscreen:
THE CABINET OFFICE
70 Whitehall, London SW1A 2AS
This is to certify that all materials pertaining to:
CASE: BT198255D./SH
Have been classified as:
D NOTICE - 100 YEARS
By order of
[signature] E Smallwood TOP SECRET
MYCROFT (offscreen): What you’re about to see is classified beyond top secret.
(A video screen is showing four perspectives of the scene on the patio at Appledore shortly before Sherlock shot Charles Magnussen. In a room which may be in the same building where Lady Smallwood’s parliamentary commission was held in “His Last Vow,” Mycroft is standing with his back to a table behind which sit Lady Elizabeth Smallwood herself and Sir Edwin, last seen with her towards the end of the same episode. Near them sits a woman in her early seventies with a notebook and pen on her lap. Sherlock is sitting on a chair near his brother, facing the table. The video screen is behind the other three people. Now Mycroft turns to face them.)
MYCROFT: Is that quite clear? (He looks towards the elderly lady.) Don’t minute any of this.
(The woman, who was just about to put on her glasses, lowers them again and folds her hands in her lap.)
MYCROFT: Once beyond these walls, you must never speak of it. A D-notice has been slapped on the entire incident. Only those within this room - code names Antarctica, Langdale, Porlock and Love - will ever know the whole truth.
(Sherlock has his head down and a rapid quiet clicking can be heard.)
MYCROFT: As far as everyone else is concerned, going to the Prime Minister and way beyond, Charles Augustus ... Are you tweeting?!
(He glares down at Sherlock, who looks up guiltily and covers his phone even as the sound of a tweet being sent can be heard.)
SHERLOCK: No.
MYCROFT: Well, that’s what it looks like.
SHERLOCK: Of course I’m not tweeting. Why would I be tweeting?
MYCROFT: Give me that.
(He quickly walks across to his brother and reaches for the phone.)
SHERLOCK: What? No. Get off. What are you doing?
(He tries to hang on to the phone with both hands while Mycroft struggles to get hold of it.)
SHERLOCK: Get off. What ...?
MYCROFT (sternly): Give it here.
(He finally pulls the phone from Sherlock’s hands and looks at the screen.)
MYCROFT: “Back on terra firma.”
SHERLOCK: Don’t read them out.
MYCROFT: “Free as a bird.”
SHERLOCK: God, you’re such a spoilsport.
MYCROFT (angrily): Will you take this matter seriously, Sherlock?
SHERLOCK: I am taking it seriously. What makes you think I’m not taking it seriously?
MYCROFT (looking at the phone): “Hashtag OhWhatABeautifulMorning.”
SHERLOCK (indignantly): Look, not so long ago I was on a mission that meant certain death - my death - and now I’m back, in a nice warm office with my big brother and ... Are those ginger nuts?
(He looks excitedly at a plate on the table and springs to his feet to walk over there.)
MYCROFT (sighing): Oh, God.
SHERLOCK: Love ginger nuts.
(He grabs a handful of the biscuits from the plate.)
LADY SMALLWOOD: Our doctor said you were clean.
SHERLOCK: I am, utterly. (He turns and looks at Mycroft as he walks back towards his chair.) No need for stimulants now, remember? I have work to do.
(He crunches into one of the biscuits.)
SIR EDWIN: You’re high as a kite!
SHERLOCK (turning to him): Natural high, I assure you. Totally natural. I’m just ... (he sings dramatically while holding his hands out) ... ♪ glad to be aliiiiiive! ♪
(He chuckles and lowers his hands, still chomping on his mouthful of biscuit.)
SHERLOCK: What shall we do next? (He points at the elderly woman.) What’s your name?
VIVIAN (nervously): Vi-Vivian.
SHERLOCK: What would you do, Vivian?
VIVIAN: Pardon?
SHERLOCK: Well, it’s a lovely day. Go for a stroll?
(Lady Smallwood frowns at him and shakes her head in disbelief. Sir Edwin puts his hand over his face.)
SHERLOCK: Make a paper aeroplane? Have an ice lolly? (He takes another bite of a biscuit.)
VIVIAN: Ice lolly, I suppose.
SHERLOCK (gesturing dramatically): Ice lolly it is! What’s your favourite?
VIVIAN (looking a little nervously towards her superiors): Well, really, I shouldn’t ...
SHERLOCK (encouragingly): Go on.
VIVIAN: Do they still do Mivvis?
[Transcriber’s note: They do, Vivian. See here.]
LADY SMALLWOOD (firmly): Mr Holmes.
MYCROFT and SHERLOCK (simultaneously): Yes?
(Mycroft looks across to Sherlock, then lowers his head in exasperation.)
LADY SMALLWOOD: We do need to get on.
MYCROFT (raising his head): Yes, of course.
(He uses the remote control he is holding to restart the video footage. There are two screens facing the table which those behind it can watch, and the sound of the helicopter hovering in front of the Appledore patio can be heard. Sherlock swipes his phone from Mycroft and gestures dramatically with it at his brother before he sits down on the chair again while tucking the phone into the inside pocket of his jacket.)
SHERLOCK (offscreen, on the video screen): Do your research.
(The footage shows a distant shot of Sherlock walking towards Magnussen.)
SHERLOCK (on the screen): I’m not a hero. I’m a high functioning sociopath.
(The footage moves to the headcam of an operative nearer to the patio. As someone runs across the camera, very briefly blocking out the view, Sherlock can be seen with his hand still lowered, and a gunshot rings out. Magnussen falls backwards and Sherlock can be seen dropping John’s pistol and instantly raising his hands. Behind him, John stares at Magnussen and, for a moment, starts to move towards him.
The footage jumps back a second or two.)
SHERLOCK (offscreen, on the video screen): ... sociopath.
(Footage from the telescopic sight of a rifle shows two red dots on Magnussen’s face as he stands upright on the patio. A gunshot rings out and Magnussen falls out of view.)
SHERLOCK (offscreen, on the video screen): ... sociopath.
(The footage again shows Magnussen being shot without Sherlock raising his own gun. In the parliamentary room, the footage continues to repeat.)
SHERLOCK: I see. Who is supposed to have shot him, then?
SIR EDWIN: Some over-eager squaddie with an itchy trigger finger, that’s who.
SHERLOCK: That’s not what happened at all. (He takes another bite of biscuit.)
MYCROFT: It is now.
LADY SMALLWOOD: Remarkable. How did you do it?
SIR EDWIN: We have some very talented people working here. If James Moriarty can hack every TV screen in the land, rest assured we have the tech to, er ... doctor a bit of security footage.
(He points towards the screen. As he continues talking, Sherlock tosses a piece of biscuit towards his open mouth. It misses and falls down the side of his lap. He scrabbles to recover it.)
SIR EDWIN: That is now the official version; the version anyone we want to will see.
LADY SMALLWOOD: No need to go to the trouble of getting some sort of official pardon. You’re off the hook, Mr Holmes. You’re home and dry.
(Mycroft folds his arms and looks sternly down at his brother.)
SHERLOCK: Okay, cheers.
(Putting the last bit of biscuit in his mouth and holding it between his lips, he jumps up and starts to button his jacket, then reaches for his greatcoat.)
LADY SMALLWOOD: Obviously there’s unfinished business. Moriarty.
SHERLOCK (muffled through the biscuit): I told you. Moriarty’s dead.
(He takes the biscuit from his lips as he finishes the sentence.)
LADY SMALLWOOD: You say he filmed that video message before he died.
SHERLOCK (pausing for a moment with one arm in his coat, and still chewing): Yes.
LADY SMALLWOOD: You also say you know what he’s going to do next. What does that mean?
SIR EDWIN: Perhaps that’s all there is to it. (He points towards Sherlock.) Perhaps he was just trying to frighten you.
SHERLOCK: No, no. He would never be that disappointing. (He gazes into the distance.) He’s planned something; something long-term; something that would take effect if he never made it off that rooftop alive. Posthumous revenge. No - better than that. Posthumous game.
LADY SMALLWOOD: We brought you back to deal with this. What are you going to do?
SHERLOCK: Wait.
LADY SMALLWOOD: “Wait”?!
SHERLOCK: Of course wait. I’m the target. Targets wait. Look - whatever’s coming, whatever he’s lined up, I’ll know when it begins.
(He walks towards the door, putting his other arm into his coat.)
SHERLOCK: I always know when the game is on. D’you know why?
LADY SMALLWOOD (a little exasperated): Why?
SHERLOCK (turning back to face her): Because I love it.
OPENING CREDITS.
Blue-lit water can be seen and heard rippling throughout the following scene.
SHERLOCK (voiceover): There was once a merchant in the famous market at Baghdad. One day he saw a stranger looking at him in surprise ...
(Sherlock can now be seen walking through a glass tunnel under the water. A shark swims towards the camera.)
SHERLOCK (voiceover): ... and he knew that the stranger was Death. Pale and trembling, the merchant fled the marketplace and made his way many, many miles to the city of Samarra, for there he was sure Death could not find him.
(While he continues speaking, the footage continues to show sharks in - presumably - the London Aquarium and Sherlock watching them.)
SHERLOCK (voiceover): But when at last he came to Samarra, the merchant saw, waiting for him, the grim figure of Death. “Very well,” said the merchant. “I give in. I am yours.”
(Sherlock slowly strokes his hand down the glass wall of one of the tanks.)
SHERLOCK (voiceover): “But tell me: why did you look surprised when you saw me this morning in Baghdad?” “Because,” said Death, “I had an appointment with you tonight - in Samarra.”
(A shark swims up the screen, transitioning the scene to ...
221B BAKER STREET. In the living room, Sherlock stabs his multi-tool knife down into a large pile of letters on the mantelpiece.
SHERLOCK: If this gets any better, I’m gonna get two knives.
(He turns to where John is sitting at the dining table typing a new blog entry entitled “221Back!” It reads:
And we’re back! Sorry I haven’t updated the blog for such a long time but things
really have been very busy. You’ll have seen on the news about how Sherlock
recovered the Mona Lisa. He described it as “an utterly dreary case” and was
much more interested in the case of a missing horseshoe and how it was
connected to a bright blue deckchair on Brighton beach.
I’ll try to write everything up when I get chance but it’s not been missing portraits
and horseshoes that have taken up my time.
I’m going to be a Dad.
I mean, I thought I’d spent the last few years being a Dad to Sherlock, but it
really doesn’t compare. The baby runs all of our lives. (Maybe not THAT different
to Sherlock then!) If I’m not changing nappies, I’m buying nappies. I’ve fought in
Afghanistan and my best friend once faked his own death but none of that
[text obscured by John’s fingers]. It’s a terrifying and amazing and the biggest adventure I’ve been
The entry ends there.)
[Thanks to Glenien for the transcript of the blog entry.
(Though quite why John is changing nappies when the baby hasn’t been born yet is open to some question ...)]
JOHN: It pays to advertise.
(Sherlock sits down in his chair, looking at his phone. Mary, standing near the window and rubbing her very pregnant tummy with one hand while pressing her lower back with the other, looks at him.)
MARY: So, what about Moriarty, then?
SHERLOCK: Ooh, I have a plan.
(Grimacing, Mary rubs her bump again.)
SHERLOCK: I’m going to monitor the underworld - every quiver of the web will tell me when the spider makes his move.
(As he was speaking, he has also tweeted “#221Bringit!”)
JOHN: Basically your ‘plan’ is just to sit there solving crimes like you always do.
SHERLOCK (smiling across to him): Awesome, isn’t it?!
(He jumps up, steps across to the mantelpiece and rips the top letter off the pile.)
A montage of client scenes begins.
FEMALE CLIENT: He drowned, Mr Holmes.
(While the client sits on a dining chair, John’s later blog entry drifts across the screen reading:
Dusty Death
I won’t name the client out of respect
but she came to us because of her late
husband. His body was recovered from
the sea near Falmouth...
Sherlock is pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, looking at his phone. John sits in his chair with Mary perched on the arm.)
FEMALE CLIENT: That’s what we thought but when they opened up his lungs ...
MARY: Yes?
FEMALE CLIENT: Sand.
SHERLOCK (looking at her for a moment): Superficial.
(His phone whistles a tweet alert and he goes back to looking at it.)
On another occasion Sherlock sits in his chair holding a pair of Mars binoculars to his eyes while he peers at a small plastic bag containing a dark pink item held in pieces of ice.
[More details about the Mars binoculars here.]
John’s blog entry drifts across the screen:
Mr Hatherley came straight round to Baker
Street in a terrible state. He was white as a
sheet and bleeding from an awful wound in
his hand. Exactly how he came by this wound
was at first confusing...
Still holding the binoculars in place over his eyes, Sherlock calls out.
SHERLOCK: Come back! It’s the wrong thumb!
(He lowers the binoculars and looks up but there’s nobody in the room, and now the downstairs front door slams shut.)
On another occasion photographs are scattered over the dining room table and the Mars binoculars lie on top of some of them. John’s blog entry reads:
The Duplicate Man
How could Dennis Parkinson be in two places at
the same time? And murdered in one of them?
JOHN (standing at the table looking at the evidence): Sherlock ...
SHERLOCK (rapidly typing on his phone): It’s never twins.
On another occasion Sherlock sits in his chair with his laptop open on his knees. He’s busy on his phone at the same time. Mary is sitting in John’s chair holding a mug and rubbing her tummy while John stands at the fireplace.
SHERLOCK (quick fire): Hopkins, arrest Wilson. Dimmock, look in the lymph nodes.
HOPKINS (offscreen, from the laptop speaker): Wilson?!
DIMMOCK (offscreen, from the laptop speaker): Lymph nodes?!
MARY: Sherlock ...
(Sherlock is simultaneously Skypeing with Detective Inspectors Dimmock and Hopkins, who are separately looking into their mobile phone’s camera as they talk with him. The windows showing them are side by side on Sherlock’s laptop screen. Dimmock is walking along a road while Hopkins is indoors, possibly in her office.)
SHERLOCK (quick fire, looking at Dimmock): Yes. You may have nothing but a limbless torso but there’ll still be traces of ink left in the lymph nodes under the armpits. If your mystery corpse had tattoos, the signs’ll be there.
(John’s later blog entry appears under Dimmock’s Skype window and reads:
The Circus Torso
A limbless body found
decomposing inside a trunk in left
luggage office in Waterloo station
couldn’t be identified...
A second blog entry under Hopkins’ Skype window reads:
The Canary Trainer
Andrew Wilson was an unusual
man with an unusual hobby.
He seemed to have no connection
with the man whose life was so
abruptly ended one freezing night
in November...
DIMMOCK: Bloody hell! Is that a guess?
SHERLOCK: I never guess.
(He closes Dimmock’s screen.)
MARY: Sherlock ...
HOPKINS: So he’s the killer? The canary trainer?
SHERLOCK: ’Course he’s the killer.
HOPKINS: Didn’t see that coming.
SHERLOCK: Hm, naturally.
(He closes her screen.)
JOHN: Sherlock, you can’t go on spinning plates like this.
(Sherlock’s eyes widen and lift from his phone as his mouth falls open.)
SHERLOCK: That’s it! The place was spinning.
On another occasion Sherlock walks across the room checking his phone while he talks to a man sitting on a dining room chair.
SHERLOCK: The heart medication you are taking is known to cause bouts of amnesia.
(John’s blog entry reads:
The Cardiac Arrest
Joel Fentiman was found strangled in the
bedsit he shared with his brother. They had
always got on well and there was no sign that
this situation had changed...
Mr FENTIMAN: Yes, um ... I think so. Why?
SHERLOCK (sitting down in his chair, still looking at his phone): Because the fingerprints on your brother’s neck are your own.
Later, another blog entry drifts across the screen:
... we could never have known there
was a potential assassin lurking close by.
An assassin who turned out to be...
John giggles as he leads Sherlock up the stairs at Baker Street towards the living room.
JOHN: A jellyfish?!
SHERLOCK: I know.
JOHN: You can’t arrest a jellyfish!
SHERLOCK (looking at his phone as he climbs the stairs): Well, you could try.
JOHN: We did try.
(His phone sounds an alert. Sighing, he takes it from his pocket as he reaches the landing. He looks at the screen.)
JOHN: Oh God.
SHERLOCK (looking up from his own phone): Mary?
JOHN: Fifty-nine missed calls.
SHERLOCK: We’re in a lot of trouble.
(He turns and rapidly heads back down the stairs.)
Not long afterwards, Mary is in the back seat of a car groaning and clutching her abdomen. Her dress is pulled high up her legs.
MARY: Ow! Oh my God. Oh my God!
(She presses both her hands against the roof. In the driver’s seat, John looks worriedly into the rear-view mirror.)
JOHN: Relax. It’s got two syllables ...
MARY: I’m a nurse, darling. I think I know what to do.
JOHN: Come on then, come on.
MARY: Re...
(John purses his lips, mimicking breathing.)
JOHN: ...lax. (He blows out the breath.)
MARY (writhing on the seat): No, just drive! Please, God, just drive! God, drive!
(She screams. Sherlock, sitting beside her and frantically typing on his phone, glances across to her momentarily.)
JOHN (sternly): Sherlock. Mary!
SHERLOCK: That’s it, Mary. Re... (He purses his lips and sucks in a breath.)
MARY (savagely, now kneeling on the seat): Don’t you start.
SHERLOCK (reluctantly): ...lax.
(Moments later his face is squashed hard against the side window as she slams her hand against the side of his head.)
MARY: John? (She braces her other hand against Sherlock’s head.) John, I think you have to pull over.
(She shifts back into a sitting position.)
JOHN: Mary, Mary ...
MARY: Pull Over!
(Sherlock looks down towards Mary’s legs and his mouth falls open and his eyes widen in horror.)
SHERLOCK: Oh my God.
(Mary screams and then sobs. John glances over his shoulder and starts to pull the car to the kerb as Mary continues to scream.)
At John and Mary’s home, a flashbulb pops. Mary and John are sitting on the sofa, Mary cradling their new daughter. Helium balloons are floating on strings behind the sofa and there are gift bags and flowers on the coffee table in front of the family, and a large white teddy bear beside the sofa. A glass of champagne is also on the table. John has his arm around his wife while Mary is holding her daughter’s hand and the new parents are smiling as they pose for the photograph. Standing at the other side of the table, Molly Hooper is drinking from a glass of champagne and Mrs Hudson is taking another photograph with her camera.
MRS HUDSON: Has that come out?
(She looks at the screen on her camera and makes an exasperated noise.)
MRS HUDSON: They never come out when I take them!
MOLLY (putting down her glass): Let’s have a look.
(She takes the camera.)
MRS HUDSON: Aww. She’s so beautiful.
(Molly fiddles with the camera and then hands it back.)
MOLLY: Have another go.
(Sherlock is standing a short distance away, engrossed with his phone.)
MRS HUDSON (looking at the new parents): What about a name?
JOHN: Catherine.
MARY: Uh, yeah, we’ve gone off that.
JOHN: Have we?
MARY: Yeah.
JOHN: Oh.
SHERLOCK (not looking up from his phone): Well, you know what I think.
JOHN and MARY (simultaneously): It’s not a girl’s name.
(Sherlock smiles, his eyes still fixed on his phone.)
JOHN: Molly, Mrs H. We would love you to be godparents.
MOLLY (laughing in surprised delight): Oh!
JOHN: If you ...
MOLLY: Really?
MRS HUDSON: So lovely!
(As the two women continue to make appreciative noises, John stands up while Molly goes to the sofa to sit down next to Mary. John walks over towards Sherlock, who is texting:
Fresh paint to
disguise another smell.
He sends the message.)
JOHN: And, uh ...
(He holds his arms wide and stares upwards, perhaps asking himself, ‘Why am I doing this?!’)
JOHN: ... you, too, Sherlock?
SHERLOCK (still typing on his phone): You too what?
JOHN: Godfather? We’d like you to be godfather.
(Sherlock is now texting:
Odd socks?
Arrest the brother in law.
He sends that text and starts another one while talking.)
SHERLOCK: God is a ludicrous fiction dreamt up by inadequates who abnegate all responsibility to an invisible magic friend.
(His latest message reads:
If dog can’t swim,
neighbour is the killer.
John looks away briefly, then steps closer.)
JOHN: Yeah, but there’ll be cake. Will you do it?
(Sherlock glances at him briefly.)
SHERLOCK: I’ll get back to you.
(John nods resignedly and heads for the stairs.)
Some weeks later, an elderly vicar stands at the font in a church. Mary and John stand near him, Mary cradling the baby, and Greg, Mrs Hudson, Sherlock and Molly are at the other side of the font. An older couple stand behind them. Could this be the famous Stella and Ted, ready to give ‘love and many big squishy cuddles’ to the new baby?! Sherlock is still busy on his phone.
VICAR: Father, we ask you to send your blessings on this water ... (he leans forward and draws the sign of the cross in the water) ... and sanctify it for our use this day, in Christ’s name.
(Shaking the water off his hand, he turns to the parents.)
VICAR: Now, what name have you given your daughter?
(Mary and John smile at each other, then Mary turns to the vicar.)
MARY: Rosamund Mary.
SHERLOCK: Rosamund? (Frowning, he looks up briefly.)
MOLLY (quietly): Means ‘rose of the world.’ Rosie for short.
(Rosamund wails briefly. Sherlock throws a disapproving look in Molly’s direction and then goes back to his phone.)
MOLLY: Didn’t you get John’s text?
SHERLOCK: No. I delete his texts. I delete any text that begins, ‘Hi.’
(Molly raises her eyes skywards.)
MOLLY: No idea why people think you’re incapable of human emotion.
(Mrs Hudson clears her throat pointedly.)
MOLLY (quietly): Sorry. (She nods her head down to Sherlock’s hands and still speaks quietly.) Phone.
(Sherlock lowers the phone and puts his hands behind his back. The vicar is now holding Rosamund, who is grizzling.)
VICAR: And now, godparents ...
(Behind his back, Sherlock is continuing to type.)
VICAR ... are you ready to help the parents of this child in their duties as Christian parents?
MOLLY and MRS HUDSON (simultaneously): We are.
(Molly looks across to Sherlock and elbows him. Behind his back, a male SIRI voice speaks from his phone.)
SIRI: Sorry, I didn’t catch that.
(Stella and Ted make disapproving noises. John closes his eyes and Mary narrows her eyes at Sherlock.)
SIRI (beeping): Please repeat the question.
A FEW MONTHS LATER. 221B BAKER STREET. LIVING ROOM. Standing in front of the fireplace wearing his camel coloured dressing gown, Sherlock sighs in exasperation.
SHERLOCK: As ever, Watson, you see but do not observe.
(He turns towards John’s chair.)
SHERLOCK: To you, the world remains an impenetrable mystery whereas, to me, it is an open book. Hard logic versus romantic whimsy. That is your choice. You fail to connect actions to their consequences. Now, for the last time ... (he bends down and picks up a jingling baby’s rattle) ... if you want to keep the rattle ...
(We now see that young Rosie is sitting in a plastic baby’s chair perched on the seat.)
SHERLOCK: ... do not throw the rattle, hm?
(He presents the rattle to her. She gurgles, takes it, and promptly throws it in Sherlock’s face. Across the room, Mary is lying on the sofa fast asleep with one foot up on John’s lap as he sits at the other end with his hand on her leg, also asleep. Rosie rears her head back and then sneezes.)
[Transcriber’s note: some of my beta team queried why I said this scene takes place ‘a few months later.’ To fend off further enquiries, I simply say that the fact that Rosie is now old enough to sit up and throw things suggested to me that she’s more than a few weeks old.]
BUS. John sits on a sideways-facing seat with his eyes closed. He wakes when his phone chirps an alert, and gets it out of his pocket to look at the message:
Baker Street? Tomorrow five PM?
Lestrade says he has a belter.
He smiles briefly, then looks thoughtful before he looks at the next message:
Mary says it’s fine.
He chuckles and puts the phone away. A couple of people walk along the gangway heading for the rear of the bus and John notices a pretty woman with long red hair sitting a few feet to his right on a forward-facing seat. She meets his gaze and smiles at him. John briefly returns her smile and looks away but then glances back and sees that she’s still smiling at him. A little self-consciously he runs his right hand over his hair and she lowers her eyes and looks at a piece of paper in her hand, still with a smile on her face. Someone rings the bell to alert the bus to halt at the next stop and John stands and picks up his briefcase, casting one more glance at the smiling woman. The bus pulls up at the bus stop and several passengers, including John, get off. He walks along the side of the bus and then turns to look in the side window, seeing his face clearly reflected in the glass. He has a large plastic daisy-like flower tucked behind his left ear.
He flashes back to earlier that day where he was leaning over Rosie unfastening her nappy as she lay on a changing mat on top of a bureau in her bedroom.
JOHN (softly): All right. Good girl. Good girl. Good girl.
(He waves the plastic flower in front of her while she gurgles contentedly.)
JOHN: I’d better finish this, hadn’t I?
(He tucks the flower’s stem behind his left ear.
In the present, John takes the flower from his ear, smiling ruefully to himself as the bus pulls away.)
BAKER STREET LIVING ROOM. John walks in to see Sherlock sitting in his chair, wearing his camel dressing gown and with his hands steepled just under his mouth. Greg is standing just inside the door.
LESTRADE: Hey.
JOHN: Afternoon. He says you’ve got a good one, Greg.
LESTRADE: Oh yeah.
FLASHBACK. A LARGE PRIVATE HOUSE. NIGHT TIME.
LESTRADE (voiceover): It was David Welsborough’s fiftieth birthday.
(Over the sight of silver helium balloons and the sound of singing, cheering and applause, the image shifts to a white plaster bust of Margaret Thatcher before it shifts again to the birthday boy in the doorway of a downstairs room, kissing his wife. A party is going on in the room nearby.)
DAVID: God, fifty! Where did it go?! I know for a fact I was only twenty-one this time last week!
EMMA: Yeah, well that’s impossible, ’cause that’s before you met me and ...
DAVID: Well, no ...
THE WELSBOROUGHS (simultaneously): ... there never was such a time!
(They kiss again.)
EMMA: She’s looking at me disapprovingly again.
(She looks across to a nearby table. David follows her gaze to the white plaster bust of Thatcher.)
DAVID: No, she’s just jealous.
EMMA: Yeah, well, I think we both are.
(The camera shows that there’s also a figurine of Thatcher on the table, this one smaller and painted. A phone in David’s trouser pocket buzzes.)
DAVID: Ooh.
EMMA: No, no, David. Come on, you promised.
DAVID (taking his phone from his pocket): Oh, no ...
(He looks at his phone. Nearby is another small table on which are several framed photos of their son at various ages.)
DAVID: Oh, it’s a Skype call.
EMMA: Oh, then, that’s ... must be Charlie. At least he’s phoning, I suppose.
(David takes the call and a live image of their son, probably in his early twenties, appears on the screen. There’s a snow-covered mountain range behind him.)
DAVID: Oh, look! Hello!
CHARLIE: Hey, Dad!
(Emma smiles and waves into the phone’s camera.)
CHARLIE: Happy birthday! Sorry to miss your party but, uh ... (he tilts his head towards the background) ... travel broadens the mind, right?
(He turns the phone a little to give a better view of the mountains, then the image starts to fritz and a spinning ‘loading’ icon appears as the image freezes.)
DAVID (shaking the phone): No, picture’s frozen.
(The image shuts down altogether.)
CHARLIE (slightly garbled): Yeah, signal’s rubbish, but I can still hear you.
(David puts the phone to his ear.)
DAVID: Why-why is it rubbish? Where are you?
EMMA: How is he? Is he eating? Ask him if he’s eating.
DAVID: No, shh.
MAN’s VOICE (offscreen): David! Emma!
(A couple come over to greet them.)
DAVID (into phone): No, no, hang on a sec. I’ll-I’ll find somewhere quieter.
(He walks away as the couple kiss Emma’s cheek.)
DAVID: So, Charlie, where are you? ... Are you there?
CHARLIE (over phone): Sorry, I’m here. I’m just a bit ... (He trails off.)
DAVID: You all right?
CHARLIE (over phone): It’s nothing. Probably just the altitude.
DAVID: Altitude?
CHARLIE (over phone): I’m in Tibet! Didn’t you see the mountains?
DAVID: Look, never mind mountains. Your mother wants to know if you’re eating properly. (He laughs.)
CHARLIE (over phone): Listen, Dad, could you do me a favour?
DAVID: What?
CHARLIE (over phone): Could you just check something on my car?
DAVID (walking out of the open front door): Your car?!
CHARLIE (over phone): It’s to settle a bet. The guys here don’t believe I’ve got a Power Ranger stuck to the bonnet. Could you take a photo and send it?
(David walks to a nearby car on the drive and takes a photograph of the blue Power Ranger attached to the grille.)
DAVID: Er, yes, I can do that.
(He straightens up, presses Send on the phone and raises it to his ear again.)
DAVID: All done. You got it? ... Charlie?
(There’s no reply. He lowers the phone, sighing.)
Back at Baker Street, Sherlock is still sitting with his eyes closed and his hands steepled under his mouth.
LESTRADE: A week later ...
JOHN (now sat in his chair): Yeah?
LESTRADE: ... something really weird happens.
(Sherlock smiles.)
LESTRADE: Drunk driver - he’s totally smashed, the cops are chasing him ...
(We see the car speeding along the road with a police car following, its lights flashing and siren wailing.)
LESTRADE: ... and he turns into the drive of the Welsborough house to try and get away. Unfortunately ...
(The drunk driver heads at speed for Charlie’s car and smashes straight into the back of it. Charlie’s car is pushed a few yards forward until both cars stop. The police car pulls up a little way away. Steam hisses from the engine of the drunk’s car, and petrol starts spilling from the rear of Charlie’s car. Moments later the front car explodes in a massive fireball [much further away from the house than it was before, which is somewhat puzzling, especially because it’s not plot-relevant. Your transcriber tuts sadly at the crew which made that fubar].
At Baker Street, Sherlock’s eyes are closed as he envisions the scene.)
LESTRADE (voiceover): The drunk guy survived; they managed to pull him out, but when they put the fire out and examined the parked car ...
(There’s a burned skeleton in the driver’s seat. It seems to be covered with the remnants of some kind of material.
John leans forward in his chair.)
JOHN: Whose body?
LESTRADE (now sitting on one of the dining room chairs facing the boys’ chairs): Charlie Welsborough, the son.
JOHN: What?
LESTRADE: The son who was in Tibet. DNA all checks out. The night of the party, the car’s empty, then a week later the dead boy’s found at the wheel.
(With his eyes still closed, Sherlock chuckles delightedly.)
LESTRADE: Yeah, I thought it’d tickle you.
JOHN: Have you got a lab report?
(Greg had already been reaching for his briefcase at his side and now puts it on his lap and takes out some folders.)
LESTRADE: Yeah, Charlie Welsborough’s the son of a Cabinet minister ...
(John lets out a silent, “Oh,” and nods understandingly.)
LESTRADE: ... so I’m under a lot of pressure to get results.
(Sherlock’s eyes snap open.)
SHERLOCK: Who cares about that? Tell me about the seats.
JOHN: The seats?
SHERLOCK: Yes. The car seats.
(John takes the sheet of paper which Greg is offering him. Sherlock sits up and holds out his hand and Greg gives him a folder. Sherlock opens it and looks at the contents.)
SHERLOCK: Made of vinyl ... two different types of vinyl present.
(He looks up thoughtfully.)
SHERLOCK: Was it his own car?
LESTRADE: Yeah. Not flash - he was a student.
SHERLOCK (sitting back again): Well, that’s suggestive.
LESTRADE: Why?
SHERLOCK: Vinyl’s cheaper than leather.
LESTRADE (looking confused): Er, yeah, right.
JOHN: There’s something else.
SHERLOCK: Yes?
JOHN (looking at the document Greg gave him): According to this, Charlie Welsborough had already been dead for a week.
(There’s a brief flashback of the car exploding and the skeleton with the melted material on it.
Sherlock stares at John with a delighted smile forming on his face.)
SHERLOCK (softly): What?
JOHN: The body in the car - dead for a week.
SHERLOCK: Oh, this is a good one. (He looks at Greg.) Is it my birthday? You want help?
LESTRADE (drawing in a breath): Yes, please.
SHERLOCK: One condition.
LESTRADE: Okay.
SHERLOCK: Take all the credit.
(John raises his head.)
SHERLOCK: It gets boring if I just solve them all.
LESTRADE: Yeah, you say that, but then John blogs about it and you get all the credit anyway.
(John laughs, then gives the medical report back to Greg while looking at Sherlock.)
JOHN: Yeah, he’s got a point.
LESTRADE: Which makes me look like some kind of prima donna who insists on getting credit for something he didn’t do.
JOHN: Oh, I think you’ve hit a sore spot, Sherlock.
(Sherlock looks startled, and shakes his head at John as if he doesn’t understand.)
LESTRADE: ... like I’m some kind of credit junkie.
JOHN: Definitely a sore spot.
LESTRADE (waving towards Sherlock): So you take all the glory, thanks ...
SHERLOCK (still looking bewildered): Okay.
LESTRADE: ... thanks all the same. (He looks frustrated.) Look, just solve the bloody thing, will you? It’s driving me nuts.
SHERLOCK: Anything you say, Giles.
(John and Greg both give him a look. He smiles at Greg.)
SHERLOCK: Just kidding.
(As Greg starts packing away his paperwork, Sherlock turns and mouths to John.)
SHERLOCK (silently): What is it?
JOHN (mouthing the word): Greg.
SHERLOCK (silently): What?
JOHN (saying the word more pointedly with as little sound as he can manage): Greg.
SHERLOCK (silently): Oh.
(Greg looks up from his briefcase as Sherlock lowers his head a little, looking towards the floor. Greg looks suspiciously across to John.)
JOHN: It’s obvious, though, isn’t it, what happened?
SHERLOCK: John, you amaze me. You know what happened?
JOHN: Not a clue. It’s just you normally say that at this point.
SHERLOCK (smiling): Mm. Well, then ...
(He stands up and heads for the door, taking off his dressing gown as he goes. The buttons on his white shirt scream in anguish as the shirt stretches across his chest. The fandom once again urges them to give up the fight.)
SHERLOCK: ... let’s help you solve your little problem, Greg.
(John and Greg have also stood up and Greg now looks in startled surprise at John.)
LESTRADE: You hear that?
JOHN: I know!
(They both smile, and Greg grins towards Sherlock’s back as he disappears onto the landing.)
LESTRADE (leading John out of the living room): So how’s it going then, fatherhood?
JOHN: Oh, good, great! Yeah, amazing.
LESTRADE: Getting any sleep?
JOHN: Christ, no.
(Sherlock is on the landing putting on his jacket. Greg stops at the top of the stairs and turns back.)
LESTRADE: You’re at the beck and call of a screaming, demanding baby, woken up at all hours to obey his every whim. (He looks pointedly at Sherlock.) Must feel very different.
(John lowers his head to try and hide his smile and follows Greg down the stairs.)
SHERLOCK: I’m sorry, what?
(He follows the other two.)
JOHN: Yes, well, you know how it is. All you do is clean up their mess, pat them on the head.
SHERLOCK: Are you two having a little joke?
[Your transcriber falls off her chair in delight at the return of the mighty ‘k-click’ on the final word. Many people have given different and various reasons why they didn’t like Season 3. Me, I think it’s because Sherlock didn’t over-emphasise the ‘k’ at the end of a word for the entire season.]
JOHN: Never a word of thanks. Can’t even tell people’s faces apart.
SHERLOCK: This is a joke, isn’t it?
LESTRADE: Then it’s all, ‘Ooh, aren’t you clever? You’re so, so clever!’
(Sherlock stops on the bottom step while John follows Greg to the front door and takes his jacket from the coat hooks.)
SHERLOCK: Is it about me?
LESTRADE (as an aside to John): I think he needs winding.
[Transcriber’s note: in this context, ‘winding’ means that he needs burping, like a fretful baby who has wind or colic.]
JOHN: You know, I think that really might be it.
SHERLOCK: No, don’t get it.
[Transcriber’s note, as suggested by SwissMarg: When Sherlock says this line, he’s reflected in the hall mirror and so obviously his image is reversed, which has caused much online confusion as to why his parting briefly appeared to be on the wrong side of his head.]
WELSBOROUGH HOUSE. The boys are walking along the drive towards the house.
LESTRADE: Charlie’s family are pretty cut up about it, as you’d expect, so go easy on them, yeah?
SHERLOCK: You know me.
(John’s phone has started ringing notice of a Skype call and he answers it.)
MARY (over phone): Hey, hello!
LESTRADE (unhappily, in response to Sherlock’s last comment): Yeah.
JOHN (into phone): Got ’em, don’t worry. Pampers; the cream you can’t get from Boots.
MARY (holding Rosie at home): Yeah, never mind about that. Where are you now? At the dead boy’s house?
JOHN: Yeah.
MARY: And what does he think? Any theories?
JOHN: Uh, well, I texted you the details.
(We see that Mary’s phone is propped against a mug on the table so that she can look into the camera.)
MARY: Yeah, two different types of vinyl.
(Sherlock looks round and snatches John’s phone from him.)
JOHN: Hey!
SHERLOCK (looking into the camera of the phone): How do you know about that?
MARY: Oh, you’d be amazed at what a receptionist picks up. (She leans closer to the phone and whispers loudly and dramatically.) They know everything!
SHERLOCK: Solved it, then?
MARY (smiling): I’m working on it.
SHERLOCK: Oh, Mary, motherhood’s slowing you down.
MARY: Pig!
SHERLOCK: Keep trying.
(He hands the phone back to John as they approach the front door.)
MARY: So, what about it, then?
(Sherlock glances upwards as they step into the porch.)
MARY: What, an empty car that suddenly has a week-old corpse in it? And what are you gonna call this one?
JOHN: Ooh, the ... uh, The Ghost Driver.
SHERLOCK (stopping in the hall): Don’t give it a title.
JOHN: People like the titles.
SHERLOCK: I hate the titles.
JOHN: Give the people what they want.
SHERLOCK: No, never do that. People are stupid.
MARY: Uh, some people.
(Sherlock leans over to look into the camera.)
SHERLOCK: All people are stupid. ... Most people.
(He straightens up again. As Greg speaks, John smiles and then winks into the camera and then shuts the phone off.)
LESTRADE: Bizarre enough, though, isn’t it, to be him? (He looks at Sherlock.) I mean, it’s right up your strasse.
(Sherlock throws him a look and then heads towards a nearby closed door. A man opens it and leads the boys into the same room which the Welsboroughs were in when they took Charlie’s phone call. Charlie’s parents are sitting on a sofa and they stand as Sherlock walks towards them.)
SHERLOCK: Mr and Mrs Welsborough. (He takes Emma’s hand to shake it.) I really am most terribly sorry to hear about your daughter.
JOHN (instantly): Son.
SHERLOCK (instantly): Son.
LESTRADE: Mr and Mrs Welsborough, this is Mr Sherlock Holmes.
DAVID: Thank you very much for coming. We’ve heard a great deal about you. If anyone can throw any light into this darkness, surely it will be you.
SHERLOCK: Well, I believe that I ...
(He glances to his right and trails off when something catches his attention.)
SHERLOCK (slowly): ... can.
(David is talking but his voice almost fades out while Sherlock concentrates on what he has spotted across the room.)
DAVID: But Charlie was our whole world, Mr Holmes. I ...
(His voice disappears entirely. Sherlock is now totally focussed on a small round table in front of the window. The window is shuttered and the light in the room is blue and wavy, as if deep water is rippling all around. At the back of the table is a framed large white card on a stand; the card is an invitation to David to attend a reception at 10 Downing Street, sent by Margaret Thatcher when she was Prime Minister. In front of it to the left is a framed official photograph of Thatcher and to the right is a framed photo of her and David. In front of the solo Thatcher photo is a small commemorative plate with a painting of her, and in front of the other picture is the small painted figurine that we saw earlier. Sherlock focuses in on the space between the plate and the figurine and sees that the leather cover of the table is scuffed. He homes in briefly on the official photo and then on the plate, then the perspective changes and it’s as if he is alone in the sitting room but now the shutters on the windows are open - as they were when he entered the room - and daylight is streaming in.
Standing beside him, John speaks distantly.)
JOHN: Sherlock?
(The Welsboroughs look towards the window, then turn back to Sherlock.)
DAVID: Mr Holmes?
(Sherlock gasps in a small breath and turns to them.)
SHERLOCK: Sorry. You were saying?
DAVID: Well, Charlie was our whole world, Mr Holmes. I ... I don’t think we’ll ever get over this.
(Nodding, Sherlock turns his head toward the table again.)
SHERLOCK: No, shouldn’t think so.
(The Welsboroughs look at him, startled at his indifferent tone. He continues to stare at the table, frowning, then pulls in another breath and looks at the couple.)
SHERLOCK: So sorry. Will you excuse me a moment? I just ...
(He turns and walks closer to the table. David looks at John and Greg.)
JOHN: I’ll just, um ...
(Clearing his throat, he follows Sherlock, who stops in front of the table and looks down at it. The Welsboroughs sit down and John walks to Sherlock’s side.)
JOHN: Now what’s wrong?
SHERLOCK: Not sure. I just ... ‘By the pricking of my thumbs.’
[An explanation of the full quote is here.]
JOHN (scoffing sarcastically): Seriously? You?!
SHERLOCK: Intuitions are not to be ignored, John. They represent data processed too fast for the conscious mind to comprehend.
(He turns to the Welsboroughs while pointing to the table.)
SHERLOCK: What is this?
DAVID: Oh, it’s a sort of shrine, I suppose, really.
(He stands up and walks over to the boys.)
DAVID: Bit of a fan of Mrs T. Big hero of mine when I was getting started.
SHERLOCK (smiling politely at him while he takes his magnifier from his pocket and clicks it open): Right, yes.
(He bends down to look more closely at the table, then frowns and straightens up again.)
SHERLOCK: Who?
DAVID: What?
SHERLOCK: Who-who is this? (He gestures to the table.)
DAVID: Are you serious?
JOHN (sternly): Sherlock.
DAVID: It’s ... it’s Margaret Thatcher, the first female prime minister of this country.
SHERLOCK: Right.
(He has bent down to look at the table again but now straightens up.)
SHERLOCK: Prime minister?
DAVID (starting to sound a little tetchy): Mm. Leader of the government.
SHERLOCK: Right.
(He squats down again, then lifts his head.)
SHERLOCK (hopefully): Female?
JOHN: For God’s sake. You know perfectly well who she is.
(David walks away and John steps closer.)
JOHN: Why are you playing for time?
SHERLOCK: It’s the gap. (He focuses on the space between the items on the table.) Look at the gap. It’s wrong. Everything else is perfectly ordered, managed ...
(David sits down next to Emma and looks across to Greg, who shrugs.)
SHERLOCK: This whole thing’s verging on OCD.
(He turns to look at the Welsboroughs, pointing back to the table.)
SHERLOCK: My respects. This figurine is routinely repositioned after the cleaner’s been in. (He points to the official picture.) This picture’s straightened every day, yet this ugly gap remains. (He points to the vacant spot in the middle of the table.) Something’s missing from here, but only recently. (He squats down again to focus on the scratched leather.)
DAVID: Yes, a ...
SHERLOCK: ... plaster bust.
DAVID (a split second afterwards): ... plaster bust.
EMMA (exasperated): Oh, for God’s sake. It got broken. What the hell has this got to do with Charlie?
SHERLOCK (straightening up and speaking loudly as he clicks his magnifier closed): Rug!
EMMA: What?
SHERLOCK: Well, how could it get broken? The only place for it to fall is the floor, and there is a big thick rug.
EMMA: Does it matter?
JOHN: Mrs Welsborough, my apologies. It is worth letting him do this.
EMMA: Is your friend quite mad?
JOHN: No, he’s an arsehole, but it’s an easy mistake.
DAVID: Look, no, we had a break-in. Some little bastard smashed it to bits. We found the remains out there in the porch.
SHERLOCK: The porch where we came in?
DAVID: How anybody could hate her so much, they’d go to the trouble of smashing her likeness ...
[Bloody hell, David, where have you been hiding all these decades?]
SHERLOCK: I’m no expert but, er, possibly her face?
(John closes his eyes briefly.)
SHERLOCK: Why didn’t he smash all the others? Perfect opportunity, and look at that one. (He points to the official photo.) She’s smiling in that one.
EMMA: Oh, Inspector, this is clearly a waste of time. I mean, if there’s nothing more ..
SHERLOCK: I know what happened to your son.
(The parents stare at him hopefully.)
EMMA: You do?
SHERLOCK: It’s quite simple. Superficial, to be blunt. But first, tell me: the night of the break-in. This room was in darkness?
DAVID: Well, yes.
SHERLOCK: And the porch where it was smashed: I noticed the motion sensor was damaged, so I assume it’s permanently lit.
(Brief flashback to Sherlock looking upwards as he and others approached the front door, and seeing the cracked motion sensor and the porch light on in broad daylight.)
LESTRADE: How’d you notice that?
SHERLOCK: I lack the arrogance to ignore details. I’m not the police.
JOHN: So you’re saying he smashed it where he could see it.
SHERLOCK: Exactly.
JOHN: Why?
SHERLOCK: Dunno. Wouldn’t be fun if I knew.
EMMA (tearfully): Mr Holmes, please.
(Sherlock straightens up and turns towards them. He takes a breath.)
SHERLOCK (quick fire): It was your fiftieth birthday, Mr Welsborough; of course you were disappointed that your son hadn’t made it back from his gap year. After all, he was in Tibet.
DAVID: Yes.
SHERLOCK: No.
DAVID: No?
(Flashback to the car parked outside the house. People can be heard singing ‘Happy Birthday To You’ inside the house.)
SHERLOCK: The first part of your conversation was, in fact, pre-recorded video. Easily arranged.
(In flashback, Charlie is sitting in the driving seat of the car holding his phone. As the ‘buffering’ circle spins, he lifts the phone to his ear. Inside the house, David looks at his ringing phone.)
DAVID (in flashback): It’s a Skype call.
SHERLOCK: The trick was meant to be a surprise.
DAVID: Trick?
SHERLOCK: Obviously.
(In flashback, Charlie speaks into his phone.)
CHARLIE: Could you take a photo and send it? (He grins.)
SHERLOCK: There were two types of vinyl in the burnt-out remains of the car: one the actual passenger seat; the other a good copy. Well, good enough.
(In flashback, Charlie takes a loose seat cover from the passenger seat and puts it over his face and body. David walks towards the car, getting the camera ready to take the photo. In the near darkness, Charlie can see what’s happening through dark gauzy material inserted into the face area of the cover.)
SHERLOCK: Effectively a costume.
(Having got the cover in place, Charlie tucks his hands inside and is now obscured from view from the outside.
In the present, David and Emma stare in disbelief.)
DAVID: You’re joking.
SHERLOCK: No, I’m not. What he wanted was for you to get close enough to the car so he could spring the surprise.
(In flashback, David takes the photo of the Power Ranger attached to the car’s grille. As he lifts his phone to his ear, Charlie rips off the seat cover, grinning at him. David stares at him in delight.)
DAVID (excitedly): Oh my God!
CHARLIE: Surprise!
(The not-real flashback goes into reverse.)
SHERLOCK: That’s when it happened.
(Hidden inside the seat cover, Charlie frowns as if in pain.)
SHERLOCK: I can’t be certain, of course, but I think Charlie must have suffered some sort of a seizure. You said he’d felt unwell?
(In flashback, David speaks into his phone.)
DAVID: You all right?
CHARLIE (over phone): It’s nothing. Probably just the altitude.
(Inside the seat cover, Charlie’s eyes go blank.)
SHERLOCK: He died there and then. No-one had any cause to go near his car, so there he remained in the driver’s seat hidden until ...
(Flashback to the drunk driver’s car smashing into Charlie’s car, which then explodes.)
SHERLOCK: When the two cars were examined, the fake seat had melted in the fire, revealing Charlie, who’d been sitting there quite dead for a week.
(Emma breaks down in tears.)
EMMA: Oh, God!
(Staring at Sherlock in shock, David reaches across to comfort her.)
LESTRADE: Poor kid.
SHERLOCK: Really, I’m so sorry. Mr Welsborough, Mrs Welsborough.
(He walks rapidly out of the room and is soon examining the concrete on the porch with his magnifier.)
SHERLOCK: This is where it was smashed.
(John and Greg are just joining him.)
LESTRADE: That was amazing.
SHERLOCK: What?
LESTRADE: The car, the kid.
SHERLOCK: Ancient history. Why are you still talking about it?
JOHN: What’s so important about a broken bust of Margaret Thatcher?
SHERLOCK (straightening up): Can’t stand it. Never can. There’s a loose thread in the world.
JOHN: Yeah, doesn’t mean you have to pull on it.
SHERLOCK: What kind of a life would that be? Besides, I have the strangest feeling.
(He has a brief flash of James Moriarty looking into the camera over his right shoulder.)
JIM: Miss me?
(Sherlock shakes the thought away and stands up, pointing to the black cab parked nearby as he walks towards it.)
SHERLOCK: That’s mine. You two take a ... bus.
JOHN (laughing in disbelief): Why?
SHERLOCK: I need to concentrate, and I don’t want to hit you.
(He gets in and tells the cabbie his destination.)
SHERLOCK: The Mall, please.
THE DIOGENES CLUB. MYCROFT’S UNDERGROUND OFFICE. Sherlock has taken off his coat and is pacing in front of the desk while Mycroft sits behind it.
MYCROFT: I met her once.
SHERLOCK: Thatcher?
MYCROFT: Rather arrogant, I thought.
SHERLOCK: You thought that?!
(Mycroft chuckles.)
MYCROFT: I know!
(His smile drops and he holds up Sherlock’s phone.)
MYCROFT: Why am I looking at this?
SHERLOCK (stopping his pacing): That’s her. John and Mary’s baby.
MYCROFT: Oh, I see. (He looks at the picture.) Yes. (He smiles in a fake way.) Looks very ... (he pauses as he struggles for an appropriate term) ... fully functioning.
(Sherlock frowns at him.)
SHERLOCK: Is that really the best you can do?
MYCROFT: Sorry. I’ve never been very good with them.
SHERLOCK: Babies?
MYCROFT (smiling smugly): Humans.
(Sherlock steps forward and takes the phone from his brother and puts it in the inside pocket of his jacket.)
SHERLOCK: Moriarty. Did he have any connection with Thatcher? Any interest in her?
MYCROFT: Why on earth would he?
SHERLOCK (tetchily): I don’t know. You tell me.
(Mycroft sniffs, then leans forward and opens a folder on his desk.)
MYCROFT: In the last year of his life, James Moriarty was involved with four political assassinations, over seventy assorted robberies and terrorist attacks, including a chemical weapons factory in North Korea, and had latterly shown some interest in tracking down the Black Pearl of the Borgias - which is still missing, by the way, in case you feel like applying yourself to something practical.
SHERLOCK: It’s a pearl. Get another one.
(Mycroft rolls his eyes.)
SHERLOCK (thoughtfully, looking off to one side): There’s something important about this.
(For a few moments, the reflection and sound of dark blue rippling water seems to surround him.)
SHERLOCK: I’m sure. Maybe it’s Moriarty. Maybe it’s not. But something’s coming.
(The water disappears. Mycroft frowns and leans forward, folding his hands on the desk.)
MYCROFT: Are you having a premonition, brother mine?
(Sherlock blinks and looks towards Mycroft.)
SHERLOCK: The world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other. What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics.
(Mycroft smiles briefly.)
MYCROFT: Appointment in Samarra.
SHERLOCK: I’m sorry?
MYCROFT: The merchant who can’t outrun Death. You always hated that story as a child. Less keen on predestination back then.
(Sherlock narrows his eyes.)
SHERLOCK: I’m not sure I like it now.
(He picks up his coat from the chair in front of the desk and starts to put it on.)
MYCROFT: You wrote your own version, as I remember. Appointment in Sumatra. The merchant goes to a different city and is perfectly fine.
SHERLOCK: Goodnight, Mycroft. (He turns towards the door.)
MYCROFT (looking thoughtful at the memory): Then he becomes a pirate, for some reason.
SHERLOCK: Keep me informed.
MYCROFT: Of what?
SHERLOCK (walking out the door): Absolutely no idea.
Somewhere unknown, white plaster smashes. The camera pans across the dark room where this has happened and reveals another plaster bust of Thatcher, broken into pieces.
Elsewhere, a man lies with his eyes closed, his eyelids trembling slightly as he dreams or remembers something. His eyes snap open, tears running from them, and a voice sounds inside his head, speaking with a foreign accent.
VOICE: Ammo!
(The voice sounds again, louder this time.)
VOICE: Ammo!
(The man writhes on his bed in a small room while remembered screams echo in his head. The lights of a passing car swing across the window above the bed and the man cringes, his breathing ragged.)
Elsewhere, another white plaster bust of Thatcher smashes to the ground.
On to Part 2
With all my thanks to Team Ari - Verity Burns, Mirith Griffin, Kizzia, lauramcewan, simpleanddestructivechemistry, and swissmarg - for their invaluable help in checking and correcting this transcript.
My thanks also to Chey and Nate and settercrazy without whose help this transcript wouldn’t have gone on the air so soon.
Episode written by Mark Gatiss.
Transcript by Ariane DeVere aka Callie Sullivan. (Last updated 4 June 2019)
Please note: Although complete, this is and will continue to be very much a work in progress. Amendments and additions will be made whenever I get suggestions from readers or Team Ari, spot new clever stuff in the background or realise the subtlety of the way that a particular line of dialogue was delivered, or learn something new from commentaries, interviews etc.
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Sherlock Season 4 Episode 1 transcript: The Six Thatchers, part 1
Dedicated to dulsanaya, with thanks.
Jump to Part 2 / Jump to Part 3 / Jump to Part 4
FLASHBACKS to previous scenes to remind everyone what’s happened so far. Then a notice appears onscreen:
THE CABINET OFFICE
70 Whitehall, London SW1A 2AS
This is to certify that all materials pertaining to:
CASE: BT198255D./SH
Have been classified as:
D NOTICE - 100 YEARS
By order of
[signature] E Smallwood TOP SECRET
MYCROFT (offscreen): What you’re about to see is classified beyond top secret.
(A video screen is showing four perspectives of the scene on the patio at Appledore shortly before Sherlock shot Charles Magnussen. In a room which may be in the same building where Lady Smallwood’s parliamentary commission was held in “His Last Vow,” Mycroft is standing with his back to a table behind which sit Lady Elizabeth Smallwood herself and Sir Edwin, last seen with her towards the end of the same episode. Near them sits a woman in her early seventies with a notebook and pen on her lap. Sherlock is sitting on a chair near his brother, facing the table. The video screen is behind the other three people. Now Mycroft turns to face them.)
MYCROFT: Is that quite clear? (He looks towards the elderly lady.) Don’t minute any of this.
(The woman, who was just about to put on her glasses, lowers them again and folds her hands in her lap.)
MYCROFT: Once beyond these walls, you must never speak of it. A D-notice has been slapped on the entire incident. Only those within this room - code names Antarctica, Langdale, Porlock and Love - will ever know the whole truth.
(Sherlock has his head down and a rapid quiet clicking can be heard.)
MYCROFT: As far as everyone else is concerned, going to the Prime Minister and way beyond, Charles Augustus ... Are you tweeting?!
(He glares down at Sherlock, who looks up guiltily and covers his phone even as the sound of a tweet being sent can be heard.)
SHERLOCK: No.
MYCROFT: Well, that’s what it looks like.
SHERLOCK: Of course I’m not tweeting. Why would I be tweeting?
MYCROFT: Give me that.
(He quickly walks across to his brother and reaches for the phone.)
SHERLOCK: What? No. Get off. What are you doing?
(He tries to hang on to the phone with both hands while Mycroft struggles to get hold of it.)
SHERLOCK: Get off. What ...?
MYCROFT (sternly): Give it here.
(He finally pulls the phone from Sherlock’s hands and looks at the screen.)
MYCROFT: “Back on terra firma.”
SHERLOCK: Don’t read them out.
MYCROFT: “Free as a bird.”
SHERLOCK: God, you’re such a spoilsport.
MYCROFT (angrily): Will you take this matter seriously, Sherlock?
SHERLOCK: I am taking it seriously. What makes you think I’m not taking it seriously?
MYCROFT (looking at the phone): “Hashtag OhWhatABeautifulMorning.”
SHERLOCK (indignantly): Look, not so long ago I was on a mission that meant certain death - my death - and now I’m back, in a nice warm office with my big brother and ... Are those ginger nuts?
(He looks excitedly at a plate on the table and springs to his feet to walk over there.)
MYCROFT (sighing): Oh, God.
SHERLOCK: Love ginger nuts.
(He grabs a handful of the biscuits from the plate.)
LADY SMALLWOOD: Our doctor said you were clean.
SHERLOCK: I am, utterly. (He turns and looks at Mycroft as he walks back towards his chair.) No need for stimulants now, remember? I have work to do.
(He crunches into one of the biscuits.)
SIR EDWIN: You’re high as a kite!
SHERLOCK (turning to him): Natural high, I assure you. Totally natural. I’m just ... (he sings dramatically while holding his hands out) ... ♪ glad to be aliiiiiive! ♪
(He chuckles and lowers his hands, still chomping on his mouthful of biscuit.)
SHERLOCK: What shall we do next? (He points at the elderly woman.) What’s your name?
VIVIAN (nervously): Vi-Vivian.
SHERLOCK: What would you do, Vivian?
VIVIAN: Pardon?
SHERLOCK: Well, it’s a lovely day. Go for a stroll?
(Lady Smallwood frowns at him and shakes her head in disbelief. Sir Edwin puts his hand over his face.)
SHERLOCK: Make a paper aeroplane? Have an ice lolly? (He takes another bite of a biscuit.)
VIVIAN: Ice lolly, I suppose.
SHERLOCK (gesturing dramatically): Ice lolly it is! What’s your favourite?
VIVIAN (looking a little nervously towards her superiors): Well, really, I shouldn’t ...
SHERLOCK (encouragingly): Go on.
VIVIAN: Do they still do Mivvis?
[Transcriber’s note: They do, Vivian. See here.]
LADY SMALLWOOD (firmly): Mr Holmes.
MYCROFT and SHERLOCK (simultaneously): Yes?
(Mycroft looks across to Sherlock, then lowers his head in exasperation.)
LADY SMALLWOOD: We do need to get on.
MYCROFT (raising his head): Yes, of course.
(He uses the remote control he is holding to restart the video footage. There are two screens facing the table which those behind it can watch, and the sound of the helicopter hovering in front of the Appledore patio can be heard. Sherlock swipes his phone from Mycroft and gestures dramatically with it at his brother before he sits down on the chair again while tucking the phone into the inside pocket of his jacket.)
SHERLOCK (offscreen, on the video screen): Do your research.
(The footage shows a distant shot of Sherlock walking towards Magnussen.)
SHERLOCK (on the screen): I’m not a hero. I’m a high functioning sociopath.
(The footage moves to the headcam of an operative nearer to the patio. As someone runs across the camera, very briefly blocking out the view, Sherlock can be seen with his hand still lowered, and a gunshot rings out. Magnussen falls backwards and Sherlock can be seen dropping John’s pistol and instantly raising his hands. Behind him, John stares at Magnussen and, for a moment, starts to move towards him.
The footage jumps back a second or two.)
SHERLOCK (offscreen, on the video screen): ... sociopath.
(Footage from the telescopic sight of a rifle shows two red dots on Magnussen’s face as he stands upright on the patio. A gunshot rings out and Magnussen falls out of view.)
SHERLOCK (offscreen, on the video screen): ... sociopath.
(The footage again shows Magnussen being shot without Sherlock raising his own gun. In the parliamentary room, the footage continues to repeat.)
SHERLOCK: I see. Who is supposed to have shot him, then?
SIR EDWIN: Some over-eager squaddie with an itchy trigger finger, that’s who.
SHERLOCK: That’s not what happened at all. (He takes another bite of biscuit.)
MYCROFT: It is now.
LADY SMALLWOOD: Remarkable. How did you do it?
SIR EDWIN: We have some very talented people working here. If James Moriarty can hack every TV screen in the land, rest assured we have the tech to, er ... doctor a bit of security footage.
(He points towards the screen. As he continues talking, Sherlock tosses a piece of biscuit towards his open mouth. It misses and falls down the side of his lap. He scrabbles to recover it.)
SIR EDWIN: That is now the official version; the version anyone we want to will see.
LADY SMALLWOOD: No need to go to the trouble of getting some sort of official pardon. You’re off the hook, Mr Holmes. You’re home and dry.
(Mycroft folds his arms and looks sternly down at his brother.)
SHERLOCK: Okay, cheers.
(Putting the last bit of biscuit in his mouth and holding it between his lips, he jumps up and starts to button his jacket, then reaches for his greatcoat.)
LADY SMALLWOOD: Obviously there’s unfinished business. Moriarty.
SHERLOCK (muffled through the biscuit): I told you. Moriarty’s dead.
(He takes the biscuit from his lips as he finishes the sentence.)
LADY SMALLWOOD: You say he filmed that video message before he died.
SHERLOCK (pausing for a moment with one arm in his coat, and still chewing): Yes.
LADY SMALLWOOD: You also say you know what he’s going to do next. What does that mean?
SIR EDWIN: Perhaps that’s all there is to it. (He points towards Sherlock.) Perhaps he was just trying to frighten you.
SHERLOCK: No, no. He would never be that disappointing. (He gazes into the distance.) He’s planned something; something long-term; something that would take effect if he never made it off that rooftop alive. Posthumous revenge. No - better than that. Posthumous game.
LADY SMALLWOOD: We brought you back to deal with this. What are you going to do?
SHERLOCK: Wait.
LADY SMALLWOOD: “Wait”?!
SHERLOCK: Of course wait. I’m the target. Targets wait. Look - whatever’s coming, whatever he’s lined up, I’ll know when it begins.
(He walks towards the door, putting his other arm into his coat.)
SHERLOCK: I always know when the game is on. D’you know why?
LADY SMALLWOOD (a little exasperated): Why?
SHERLOCK (turning back to face her): Because I love it.
OPENING CREDITS.
Blue-lit water can be seen and heard rippling throughout the following scene.
SHERLOCK (voiceover): There was once a merchant in the famous market at Baghdad. One day he saw a stranger looking at him in surprise ...
(Sherlock can now be seen walking through a glass tunnel under the water. A shark swims towards the camera.)
SHERLOCK (voiceover): ... and he knew that the stranger was Death. Pale and trembling, the merchant fled the marketplace and made his way many, many miles to the city of Samarra, for there he was sure Death could not find him.
(While he continues speaking, the footage continues to show sharks in - presumably - the London Aquarium and Sherlock watching them.)
SHERLOCK (voiceover): But when at last he came to Samarra, the merchant saw, waiting for him, the grim figure of Death. “Very well,” said the merchant. “I give in. I am yours.”
(Sherlock slowly strokes his hand down the glass wall of one of the tanks.)
SHERLOCK (voiceover): “But tell me: why did you look surprised when you saw me this morning in Baghdad?” “Because,” said Death, “I had an appointment with you tonight - in Samarra.”
(A shark swims up the screen, transitioning the scene to ...
221B BAKER STREET. In the living room, Sherlock stabs his multi-tool knife down into a large pile of letters on the mantelpiece.
SHERLOCK: If this gets any better, I’m gonna get two knives.
(He turns to where John is sitting at the dining table typing a new blog entry entitled “221Back!” It reads:
And we’re back! Sorry I haven’t updated the blog for such a long time but things
really have been very busy. You’ll have seen on the news about how Sherlock
recovered the Mona Lisa. He described it as “an utterly dreary case” and was
much more interested in the case of a missing horseshoe and how it was
connected to a bright blue deckchair on Brighton beach.
I’ll try to write everything up when I get chance but it’s not been missing portraits
and horseshoes that have taken up my time.
I’m going to be a Dad.
I mean, I thought I’d spent the last few years being a Dad to Sherlock, but it
really doesn’t compare. The baby runs all of our lives. (Maybe not THAT different
to Sherlock then!) If I’m not changing nappies, I’m buying nappies. I’ve fought in
Afghanistan and my best friend once faked his own death but none of that
[text obscured by John’s fingers]. It’s a terrifying and amazing and the biggest adventure I’ve been
The entry ends there.)
[Thanks to Glenien for the transcript of the blog entry.
(Though quite why John is changing nappies when the baby hasn’t been born yet is open to some question ...)]
JOHN: It pays to advertise.
(Sherlock sits down in his chair, looking at his phone. Mary, standing near the window and rubbing her very pregnant tummy with one hand while pressing her lower back with the other, looks at him.)
MARY: So, what about Moriarty, then?
SHERLOCK: Ooh, I have a plan.
(Grimacing, Mary rubs her bump again.)
SHERLOCK: I’m going to monitor the underworld - every quiver of the web will tell me when the spider makes his move.
(As he was speaking, he has also tweeted “#221Bringit!”)
JOHN: Basically your ‘plan’ is just to sit there solving crimes like you always do.
SHERLOCK (smiling across to him): Awesome, isn’t it?!
(He jumps up, steps across to the mantelpiece and rips the top letter off the pile.)
A montage of client scenes begins.
FEMALE CLIENT: He drowned, Mr Holmes.
(While the client sits on a dining chair, John’s later blog entry drifts across the screen reading:
Dusty Death
I won’t name the client out of respect
but she came to us because of her late
husband. His body was recovered from
the sea near Falmouth...
Sherlock is pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, looking at his phone. John sits in his chair with Mary perched on the arm.)
FEMALE CLIENT: That’s what we thought but when they opened up his lungs ...
MARY: Yes?
FEMALE CLIENT: Sand.
SHERLOCK (looking at her for a moment): Superficial.
(His phone whistles a tweet alert and he goes back to looking at it.)
On another occasion Sherlock sits in his chair holding a pair of Mars binoculars to his eyes while he peers at a small plastic bag containing a dark pink item held in pieces of ice.
[More details about the Mars binoculars here.]
John’s blog entry drifts across the screen:
Mr Hatherley came straight round to Baker
Street in a terrible state. He was white as a
sheet and bleeding from an awful wound in
his hand. Exactly how he came by this wound
was at first confusing...
Still holding the binoculars in place over his eyes, Sherlock calls out.
SHERLOCK: Come back! It’s the wrong thumb!
(He lowers the binoculars and looks up but there’s nobody in the room, and now the downstairs front door slams shut.)
On another occasion photographs are scattered over the dining room table and the Mars binoculars lie on top of some of them. John’s blog entry reads:
The Duplicate Man
How could Dennis Parkinson be in two places at
the same time? And murdered in one of them?
JOHN (standing at the table looking at the evidence): Sherlock ...
SHERLOCK (rapidly typing on his phone): It’s never twins.
On another occasion Sherlock sits in his chair with his laptop open on his knees. He’s busy on his phone at the same time. Mary is sitting in John’s chair holding a mug and rubbing her tummy while John stands at the fireplace.
SHERLOCK (quick fire): Hopkins, arrest Wilson. Dimmock, look in the lymph nodes.
HOPKINS (offscreen, from the laptop speaker): Wilson?!
DIMMOCK (offscreen, from the laptop speaker): Lymph nodes?!
MARY: Sherlock ...
(Sherlock is simultaneously Skypeing with Detective Inspectors Dimmock and Hopkins, who are separately looking into their mobile phone’s camera as they talk with him. The windows showing them are side by side on Sherlock’s laptop screen. Dimmock is walking along a road while Hopkins is indoors, possibly in her office.)
SHERLOCK (quick fire, looking at Dimmock): Yes. You may have nothing but a limbless torso but there’ll still be traces of ink left in the lymph nodes under the armpits. If your mystery corpse had tattoos, the signs’ll be there.
(John’s later blog entry appears under Dimmock’s Skype window and reads:
The Circus Torso
A limbless body found
decomposing inside a trunk in left
luggage office in Waterloo station
couldn’t be identified...
A second blog entry under Hopkins’ Skype window reads:
The Canary Trainer
Andrew Wilson was an unusual
man with an unusual hobby.
He seemed to have no connection
with the man whose life was so
abruptly ended one freezing night
in November...
DIMMOCK: Bloody hell! Is that a guess?
SHERLOCK: I never guess.
(He closes Dimmock’s screen.)
MARY: Sherlock ...
HOPKINS: So he’s the killer? The canary trainer?
SHERLOCK: ’Course he’s the killer.
HOPKINS: Didn’t see that coming.
SHERLOCK: Hm, naturally.
(He closes her screen.)
JOHN: Sherlock, you can’t go on spinning plates like this.
(Sherlock’s eyes widen and lift from his phone as his mouth falls open.)
SHERLOCK: That’s it! The place was spinning.
On another occasion Sherlock walks across the room checking his phone while he talks to a man sitting on a dining room chair.
SHERLOCK: The heart medication you are taking is known to cause bouts of amnesia.
(John’s blog entry reads:
The Cardiac Arrest
Joel Fentiman was found strangled in the
bedsit he shared with his brother. They had
always got on well and there was no sign that
this situation had changed...
Mr FENTIMAN: Yes, um ... I think so. Why?
SHERLOCK (sitting down in his chair, still looking at his phone): Because the fingerprints on your brother’s neck are your own.
Later, another blog entry drifts across the screen:
... we could never have known there
was a potential assassin lurking close by.
An assassin who turned out to be...
John giggles as he leads Sherlock up the stairs at Baker Street towards the living room.
JOHN: A jellyfish?!
SHERLOCK: I know.
JOHN: You can’t arrest a jellyfish!
SHERLOCK (looking at his phone as he climbs the stairs): Well, you could try.
JOHN: We did try.
(His phone sounds an alert. Sighing, he takes it from his pocket as he reaches the landing. He looks at the screen.)
JOHN: Oh God.
SHERLOCK (looking up from his own phone): Mary?
JOHN: Fifty-nine missed calls.
SHERLOCK: We’re in a lot of trouble.
(He turns and rapidly heads back down the stairs.)
Not long afterwards, Mary is in the back seat of a car groaning and clutching her abdomen. Her dress is pulled high up her legs.
MARY: Ow! Oh my God. Oh my God!
(She presses both her hands against the roof. In the driver’s seat, John looks worriedly into the rear-view mirror.)
JOHN: Relax. It’s got two syllables ...
MARY: I’m a nurse, darling. I think I know what to do.
JOHN: Come on then, come on.
MARY: Re...
(John purses his lips, mimicking breathing.)
JOHN: ...lax. (He blows out the breath.)
MARY (writhing on the seat): No, just drive! Please, God, just drive! God, drive!
(She screams. Sherlock, sitting beside her and frantically typing on his phone, glances across to her momentarily.)
JOHN (sternly): Sherlock. Mary!
SHERLOCK: That’s it, Mary. Re... (He purses his lips and sucks in a breath.)
MARY (savagely, now kneeling on the seat): Don’t you start.
SHERLOCK (reluctantly): ...lax.
(Moments later his face is squashed hard against the side window as she slams her hand against the side of his head.)
MARY: John? (She braces her other hand against Sherlock’s head.) John, I think you have to pull over.
(She shifts back into a sitting position.)
JOHN: Mary, Mary ...
MARY: Pull Over!
(Sherlock looks down towards Mary’s legs and his mouth falls open and his eyes widen in horror.)
SHERLOCK: Oh my God.
(Mary screams and then sobs. John glances over his shoulder and starts to pull the car to the kerb as Mary continues to scream.)
At John and Mary’s home, a flashbulb pops. Mary and John are sitting on the sofa, Mary cradling their new daughter. Helium balloons are floating on strings behind the sofa and there are gift bags and flowers on the coffee table in front of the family, and a large white teddy bear beside the sofa. A glass of champagne is also on the table. John has his arm around his wife while Mary is holding her daughter’s hand and the new parents are smiling as they pose for the photograph. Standing at the other side of the table, Molly Hooper is drinking from a glass of champagne and Mrs Hudson is taking another photograph with her camera.
MRS HUDSON: Has that come out?
(She looks at the screen on her camera and makes an exasperated noise.)
MRS HUDSON: They never come out when I take them!
MOLLY (putting down her glass): Let’s have a look.
(She takes the camera.)
MRS HUDSON: Aww. She’s so beautiful.
(Molly fiddles with the camera and then hands it back.)
MOLLY: Have another go.
(Sherlock is standing a short distance away, engrossed with his phone.)
MRS HUDSON (looking at the new parents): What about a name?
JOHN: Catherine.
MARY: Uh, yeah, we’ve gone off that.
JOHN: Have we?
MARY: Yeah.
JOHN: Oh.
SHERLOCK (not looking up from his phone): Well, you know what I think.
JOHN and MARY (simultaneously): It’s not a girl’s name.
(Sherlock smiles, his eyes still fixed on his phone.)
JOHN: Molly, Mrs H. We would love you to be godparents.
MOLLY (laughing in surprised delight): Oh!
JOHN: If you ...
MOLLY: Really?
MRS HUDSON: So lovely!
(As the two women continue to make appreciative noises, John stands up while Molly goes to the sofa to sit down next to Mary. John walks over towards Sherlock, who is texting:
Fresh paint to
disguise another smell.
He sends the message.)
JOHN: And, uh ...
(He holds his arms wide and stares upwards, perhaps asking himself, ‘Why am I doing this?!’)
JOHN: ... you, too, Sherlock?
SHERLOCK (still typing on his phone): You too what?
JOHN: Godfather? We’d like you to be godfather.
(Sherlock is now texting:
Odd socks?
Arrest the brother in law.
He sends that text and starts another one while talking.)
SHERLOCK: God is a ludicrous fiction dreamt up by inadequates who abnegate all responsibility to an invisible magic friend.
(His latest message reads:
If dog can’t swim,
neighbour is the killer.
John looks away briefly, then steps closer.)
JOHN: Yeah, but there’ll be cake. Will you do it?
(Sherlock glances at him briefly.)
SHERLOCK: I’ll get back to you.
(John nods resignedly and heads for the stairs.)
Some weeks later, an elderly vicar stands at the font in a church. Mary and John stand near him, Mary cradling the baby, and Greg, Mrs Hudson, Sherlock and Molly are at the other side of the font. An older couple stand behind them. Could this be the famous Stella and Ted, ready to give ‘love and many big squishy cuddles’ to the new baby?! Sherlock is still busy on his phone.
VICAR: Father, we ask you to send your blessings on this water ... (he leans forward and draws the sign of the cross in the water) ... and sanctify it for our use this day, in Christ’s name.
(Shaking the water off his hand, he turns to the parents.)
VICAR: Now, what name have you given your daughter?
(Mary and John smile at each other, then Mary turns to the vicar.)
MARY: Rosamund Mary.
SHERLOCK: Rosamund? (Frowning, he looks up briefly.)
MOLLY (quietly): Means ‘rose of the world.’ Rosie for short.
(Rosamund wails briefly. Sherlock throws a disapproving look in Molly’s direction and then goes back to his phone.)
MOLLY: Didn’t you get John’s text?
SHERLOCK: No. I delete his texts. I delete any text that begins, ‘Hi.’
(Molly raises her eyes skywards.)
MOLLY: No idea why people think you’re incapable of human emotion.
(Mrs Hudson clears her throat pointedly.)
MOLLY (quietly): Sorry. (She nods her head down to Sherlock’s hands and still speaks quietly.) Phone.
(Sherlock lowers the phone and puts his hands behind his back. The vicar is now holding Rosamund, who is grizzling.)
VICAR: And now, godparents ...
(Behind his back, Sherlock is continuing to type.)
VICAR ... are you ready to help the parents of this child in their duties as Christian parents?
MOLLY and MRS HUDSON (simultaneously): We are.
(Molly looks across to Sherlock and elbows him. Behind his back, a male SIRI voice speaks from his phone.)
SIRI: Sorry, I didn’t catch that.
(Stella and Ted make disapproving noises. John closes his eyes and Mary narrows her eyes at Sherlock.)
SIRI (beeping): Please repeat the question.
A FEW MONTHS LATER. 221B BAKER STREET. LIVING ROOM. Standing in front of the fireplace wearing his camel coloured dressing gown, Sherlock sighs in exasperation.
SHERLOCK: As ever, Watson, you see but do not observe.
(He turns towards John’s chair.)
SHERLOCK: To you, the world remains an impenetrable mystery whereas, to me, it is an open book. Hard logic versus romantic whimsy. That is your choice. You fail to connect actions to their consequences. Now, for the last time ... (he bends down and picks up a jingling baby’s rattle) ... if you want to keep the rattle ...
(We now see that young Rosie is sitting in a plastic baby’s chair perched on the seat.)
SHERLOCK: ... do not throw the rattle, hm?
(He presents the rattle to her. She gurgles, takes it, and promptly throws it in Sherlock’s face. Across the room, Mary is lying on the sofa fast asleep with one foot up on John’s lap as he sits at the other end with his hand on her leg, also asleep. Rosie rears her head back and then sneezes.)
[Transcriber’s note: some of my beta team queried why I said this scene takes place ‘a few months later.’ To fend off further enquiries, I simply say that the fact that Rosie is now old enough to sit up and throw things suggested to me that she’s more than a few weeks old.]
BUS. John sits on a sideways-facing seat with his eyes closed. He wakes when his phone chirps an alert, and gets it out of his pocket to look at the message:
Baker Street? Tomorrow five PM?
Lestrade says he has a belter.
He smiles briefly, then looks thoughtful before he looks at the next message:
Mary says it’s fine.
He chuckles and puts the phone away. A couple of people walk along the gangway heading for the rear of the bus and John notices a pretty woman with long red hair sitting a few feet to his right on a forward-facing seat. She meets his gaze and smiles at him. John briefly returns her smile and looks away but then glances back and sees that she’s still smiling at him. A little self-consciously he runs his right hand over his hair and she lowers her eyes and looks at a piece of paper in her hand, still with a smile on her face. Someone rings the bell to alert the bus to halt at the next stop and John stands and picks up his briefcase, casting one more glance at the smiling woman. The bus pulls up at the bus stop and several passengers, including John, get off. He walks along the side of the bus and then turns to look in the side window, seeing his face clearly reflected in the glass. He has a large plastic daisy-like flower tucked behind his left ear.
He flashes back to earlier that day where he was leaning over Rosie unfastening her nappy as she lay on a changing mat on top of a bureau in her bedroom.
JOHN (softly): All right. Good girl. Good girl. Good girl.
(He waves the plastic flower in front of her while she gurgles contentedly.)
JOHN: I’d better finish this, hadn’t I?
(He tucks the flower’s stem behind his left ear.
In the present, John takes the flower from his ear, smiling ruefully to himself as the bus pulls away.)
BAKER STREET LIVING ROOM. John walks in to see Sherlock sitting in his chair, wearing his camel dressing gown and with his hands steepled just under his mouth. Greg is standing just inside the door.
LESTRADE: Hey.
JOHN: Afternoon. He says you’ve got a good one, Greg.
LESTRADE: Oh yeah.
FLASHBACK. A LARGE PRIVATE HOUSE. NIGHT TIME.
LESTRADE (voiceover): It was David Welsborough’s fiftieth birthday.
(Over the sight of silver helium balloons and the sound of singing, cheering and applause, the image shifts to a white plaster bust of Margaret Thatcher before it shifts again to the birthday boy in the doorway of a downstairs room, kissing his wife. A party is going on in the room nearby.)
DAVID: God, fifty! Where did it go?! I know for a fact I was only twenty-one this time last week!
EMMA: Yeah, well that’s impossible, ’cause that’s before you met me and ...
DAVID: Well, no ...
THE WELSBOROUGHS (simultaneously): ... there never was such a time!
(They kiss again.)
EMMA: She’s looking at me disapprovingly again.
(She looks across to a nearby table. David follows her gaze to the white plaster bust of Thatcher.)
DAVID: No, she’s just jealous.
EMMA: Yeah, well, I think we both are.
(The camera shows that there’s also a figurine of Thatcher on the table, this one smaller and painted. A phone in David’s trouser pocket buzzes.)
DAVID: Ooh.
EMMA: No, no, David. Come on, you promised.
DAVID (taking his phone from his pocket): Oh, no ...
(He looks at his phone. Nearby is another small table on which are several framed photos of their son at various ages.)
DAVID: Oh, it’s a Skype call.
EMMA: Oh, then, that’s ... must be Charlie. At least he’s phoning, I suppose.
(David takes the call and a live image of their son, probably in his early twenties, appears on the screen. There’s a snow-covered mountain range behind him.)
DAVID: Oh, look! Hello!
CHARLIE: Hey, Dad!
(Emma smiles and waves into the phone’s camera.)
CHARLIE: Happy birthday! Sorry to miss your party but, uh ... (he tilts his head towards the background) ... travel broadens the mind, right?
(He turns the phone a little to give a better view of the mountains, then the image starts to fritz and a spinning ‘loading’ icon appears as the image freezes.)
DAVID (shaking the phone): No, picture’s frozen.
(The image shuts down altogether.)
CHARLIE (slightly garbled): Yeah, signal’s rubbish, but I can still hear you.
(David puts the phone to his ear.)
DAVID: Why-why is it rubbish? Where are you?
EMMA: How is he? Is he eating? Ask him if he’s eating.
DAVID: No, shh.
MAN’s VOICE (offscreen): David! Emma!
(A couple come over to greet them.)
DAVID (into phone): No, no, hang on a sec. I’ll-I’ll find somewhere quieter.
(He walks away as the couple kiss Emma’s cheek.)
DAVID: So, Charlie, where are you? ... Are you there?
CHARLIE (over phone): Sorry, I’m here. I’m just a bit ... (He trails off.)
DAVID: You all right?
CHARLIE (over phone): It’s nothing. Probably just the altitude.
DAVID: Altitude?
CHARLIE (over phone): I’m in Tibet! Didn’t you see the mountains?
DAVID: Look, never mind mountains. Your mother wants to know if you’re eating properly. (He laughs.)
CHARLIE (over phone): Listen, Dad, could you do me a favour?
DAVID: What?
CHARLIE (over phone): Could you just check something on my car?
DAVID (walking out of the open front door): Your car?!
CHARLIE (over phone): It’s to settle a bet. The guys here don’t believe I’ve got a Power Ranger stuck to the bonnet. Could you take a photo and send it?
(David walks to a nearby car on the drive and takes a photograph of the blue Power Ranger attached to the grille.)
DAVID: Er, yes, I can do that.
(He straightens up, presses Send on the phone and raises it to his ear again.)
DAVID: All done. You got it? ... Charlie?
(There’s no reply. He lowers the phone, sighing.)
Back at Baker Street, Sherlock is still sitting with his eyes closed and his hands steepled under his mouth.
LESTRADE: A week later ...
JOHN (now sat in his chair): Yeah?
LESTRADE: ... something really weird happens.
(Sherlock smiles.)
LESTRADE: Drunk driver - he’s totally smashed, the cops are chasing him ...
(We see the car speeding along the road with a police car following, its lights flashing and siren wailing.)
LESTRADE: ... and he turns into the drive of the Welsborough house to try and get away. Unfortunately ...
(The drunk driver heads at speed for Charlie’s car and smashes straight into the back of it. Charlie’s car is pushed a few yards forward until both cars stop. The police car pulls up a little way away. Steam hisses from the engine of the drunk’s car, and petrol starts spilling from the rear of Charlie’s car. Moments later the front car explodes in a massive fireball [much further away from the house than it was before, which is somewhat puzzling, especially because it’s not plot-relevant. Your transcriber tuts sadly at the crew which made that fubar].
At Baker Street, Sherlock’s eyes are closed as he envisions the scene.)
LESTRADE (voiceover): The drunk guy survived; they managed to pull him out, but when they put the fire out and examined the parked car ...
(There’s a burned skeleton in the driver’s seat. It seems to be covered with the remnants of some kind of material.
John leans forward in his chair.)
JOHN: Whose body?
LESTRADE (now sitting on one of the dining room chairs facing the boys’ chairs): Charlie Welsborough, the son.
JOHN: What?
LESTRADE: The son who was in Tibet. DNA all checks out. The night of the party, the car’s empty, then a week later the dead boy’s found at the wheel.
(With his eyes still closed, Sherlock chuckles delightedly.)
LESTRADE: Yeah, I thought it’d tickle you.
JOHN: Have you got a lab report?
(Greg had already been reaching for his briefcase at his side and now puts it on his lap and takes out some folders.)
LESTRADE: Yeah, Charlie Welsborough’s the son of a Cabinet minister ...
(John lets out a silent, “Oh,” and nods understandingly.)
LESTRADE: ... so I’m under a lot of pressure to get results.
(Sherlock’s eyes snap open.)
SHERLOCK: Who cares about that? Tell me about the seats.
JOHN: The seats?
SHERLOCK: Yes. The car seats.
(John takes the sheet of paper which Greg is offering him. Sherlock sits up and holds out his hand and Greg gives him a folder. Sherlock opens it and looks at the contents.)
SHERLOCK: Made of vinyl ... two different types of vinyl present.
(He looks up thoughtfully.)
SHERLOCK: Was it his own car?
LESTRADE: Yeah. Not flash - he was a student.
SHERLOCK (sitting back again): Well, that’s suggestive.
LESTRADE: Why?
SHERLOCK: Vinyl’s cheaper than leather.
LESTRADE (looking confused): Er, yeah, right.
JOHN: There’s something else.
SHERLOCK: Yes?
JOHN (looking at the document Greg gave him): According to this, Charlie Welsborough had already been dead for a week.
(There’s a brief flashback of the car exploding and the skeleton with the melted material on it.
Sherlock stares at John with a delighted smile forming on his face.)
SHERLOCK (softly): What?
JOHN: The body in the car - dead for a week.
SHERLOCK: Oh, this is a good one. (He looks at Greg.) Is it my birthday? You want help?
LESTRADE (drawing in a breath): Yes, please.
SHERLOCK: One condition.
LESTRADE: Okay.
SHERLOCK: Take all the credit.
(John raises his head.)
SHERLOCK: It gets boring if I just solve them all.
LESTRADE: Yeah, you say that, but then John blogs about it and you get all the credit anyway.
(John laughs, then gives the medical report back to Greg while looking at Sherlock.)
JOHN: Yeah, he’s got a point.
LESTRADE: Which makes me look like some kind of prima donna who insists on getting credit for something he didn’t do.
JOHN: Oh, I think you’ve hit a sore spot, Sherlock.
(Sherlock looks startled, and shakes his head at John as if he doesn’t understand.)
LESTRADE: ... like I’m some kind of credit junkie.
JOHN: Definitely a sore spot.
LESTRADE (waving towards Sherlock): So you take all the glory, thanks ...
SHERLOCK (still looking bewildered): Okay.
LESTRADE: ... thanks all the same. (He looks frustrated.) Look, just solve the bloody thing, will you? It’s driving me nuts.
SHERLOCK: Anything you say, Giles.
(John and Greg both give him a look. He smiles at Greg.)
SHERLOCK: Just kidding.
(As Greg starts packing away his paperwork, Sherlock turns and mouths to John.)
SHERLOCK (silently): What is it?
JOHN (mouthing the word): Greg.
SHERLOCK (silently): What?
JOHN (saying the word more pointedly with as little sound as he can manage): Greg.
SHERLOCK (silently): Oh.
(Greg looks up from his briefcase as Sherlock lowers his head a little, looking towards the floor. Greg looks suspiciously across to John.)
JOHN: It’s obvious, though, isn’t it, what happened?
SHERLOCK: John, you amaze me. You know what happened?
JOHN: Not a clue. It’s just you normally say that at this point.
SHERLOCK (smiling): Mm. Well, then ...
(He stands up and heads for the door, taking off his dressing gown as he goes. The buttons on his white shirt scream in anguish as the shirt stretches across his chest. The fandom once again urges them to give up the fight.)
SHERLOCK: ... let’s help you solve your little problem, Greg.
(John and Greg have also stood up and Greg now looks in startled surprise at John.)
LESTRADE: You hear that?
JOHN: I know!
(They both smile, and Greg grins towards Sherlock’s back as he disappears onto the landing.)
LESTRADE (leading John out of the living room): So how’s it going then, fatherhood?
JOHN: Oh, good, great! Yeah, amazing.
LESTRADE: Getting any sleep?
JOHN: Christ, no.
(Sherlock is on the landing putting on his jacket. Greg stops at the top of the stairs and turns back.)
LESTRADE: You’re at the beck and call of a screaming, demanding baby, woken up at all hours to obey his every whim. (He looks pointedly at Sherlock.) Must feel very different.
(John lowers his head to try and hide his smile and follows Greg down the stairs.)
SHERLOCK: I’m sorry, what?
(He follows the other two.)
JOHN: Yes, well, you know how it is. All you do is clean up their mess, pat them on the head.
SHERLOCK: Are you two having a little joke?
[Your transcriber falls off her chair in delight at the return of the mighty ‘k-click’ on the final word. Many people have given different and various reasons why they didn’t like Season 3. Me, I think it’s because Sherlock didn’t over-emphasise the ‘k’ at the end of a word for the entire season.]
JOHN: Never a word of thanks. Can’t even tell people’s faces apart.
SHERLOCK: This is a joke, isn’t it?
LESTRADE: Then it’s all, ‘Ooh, aren’t you clever? You’re so, so clever!’
(Sherlock stops on the bottom step while John follows Greg to the front door and takes his jacket from the coat hooks.)
SHERLOCK: Is it about me?
LESTRADE (as an aside to John): I think he needs winding.
[Transcriber’s note: in this context, ‘winding’ means that he needs burping, like a fretful baby who has wind or colic.]
JOHN: You know, I think that really might be it.
SHERLOCK: No, don’t get it.
[Transcriber’s note, as suggested by SwissMarg: When Sherlock says this line, he’s reflected in the hall mirror and so obviously his image is reversed, which has caused much online confusion as to why his parting briefly appeared to be on the wrong side of his head.]
WELSBOROUGH HOUSE. The boys are walking along the drive towards the house.
LESTRADE: Charlie’s family are pretty cut up about it, as you’d expect, so go easy on them, yeah?
SHERLOCK: You know me.
(John’s phone has started ringing notice of a Skype call and he answers it.)
MARY (over phone): Hey, hello!
LESTRADE (unhappily, in response to Sherlock’s last comment): Yeah.
JOHN (into phone): Got ’em, don’t worry. Pampers; the cream you can’t get from Boots.
MARY (holding Rosie at home): Yeah, never mind about that. Where are you now? At the dead boy’s house?
JOHN: Yeah.
MARY: And what does he think? Any theories?
JOHN: Uh, well, I texted you the details.
(We see that Mary’s phone is propped against a mug on the table so that she can look into the camera.)
MARY: Yeah, two different types of vinyl.
(Sherlock looks round and snatches John’s phone from him.)
JOHN: Hey!
SHERLOCK (looking into the camera of the phone): How do you know about that?
MARY: Oh, you’d be amazed at what a receptionist picks up. (She leans closer to the phone and whispers loudly and dramatically.) They know everything!
SHERLOCK: Solved it, then?
MARY (smiling): I’m working on it.
SHERLOCK: Oh, Mary, motherhood’s slowing you down.
MARY: Pig!
SHERLOCK: Keep trying.
(He hands the phone back to John as they approach the front door.)
MARY: So, what about it, then?
(Sherlock glances upwards as they step into the porch.)
MARY: What, an empty car that suddenly has a week-old corpse in it? And what are you gonna call this one?
JOHN: Ooh, the ... uh, The Ghost Driver.
SHERLOCK (stopping in the hall): Don’t give it a title.
JOHN: People like the titles.
SHERLOCK: I hate the titles.
JOHN: Give the people what they want.
SHERLOCK: No, never do that. People are stupid.
MARY: Uh, some people.
(Sherlock leans over to look into the camera.)
SHERLOCK: All people are stupid. ... Most people.
(He straightens up again. As Greg speaks, John smiles and then winks into the camera and then shuts the phone off.)
LESTRADE: Bizarre enough, though, isn’t it, to be him? (He looks at Sherlock.) I mean, it’s right up your strasse.
(Sherlock throws him a look and then heads towards a nearby closed door. A man opens it and leads the boys into the same room which the Welsboroughs were in when they took Charlie’s phone call. Charlie’s parents are sitting on a sofa and they stand as Sherlock walks towards them.)
SHERLOCK: Mr and Mrs Welsborough. (He takes Emma’s hand to shake it.) I really am most terribly sorry to hear about your daughter.
JOHN (instantly): Son.
SHERLOCK (instantly): Son.
LESTRADE: Mr and Mrs Welsborough, this is Mr Sherlock Holmes.
DAVID: Thank you very much for coming. We’ve heard a great deal about you. If anyone can throw any light into this darkness, surely it will be you.
SHERLOCK: Well, I believe that I ...
(He glances to his right and trails off when something catches his attention.)
SHERLOCK (slowly): ... can.
(David is talking but his voice almost fades out while Sherlock concentrates on what he has spotted across the room.)
DAVID: But Charlie was our whole world, Mr Holmes. I ...
(His voice disappears entirely. Sherlock is now totally focussed on a small round table in front of the window. The window is shuttered and the light in the room is blue and wavy, as if deep water is rippling all around. At the back of the table is a framed large white card on a stand; the card is an invitation to David to attend a reception at 10 Downing Street, sent by Margaret Thatcher when she was Prime Minister. In front of it to the left is a framed official photograph of Thatcher and to the right is a framed photo of her and David. In front of the solo Thatcher photo is a small commemorative plate with a painting of her, and in front of the other picture is the small painted figurine that we saw earlier. Sherlock focuses in on the space between the plate and the figurine and sees that the leather cover of the table is scuffed. He homes in briefly on the official photo and then on the plate, then the perspective changes and it’s as if he is alone in the sitting room but now the shutters on the windows are open - as they were when he entered the room - and daylight is streaming in.
Standing beside him, John speaks distantly.)
JOHN: Sherlock?
(The Welsboroughs look towards the window, then turn back to Sherlock.)
DAVID: Mr Holmes?
(Sherlock gasps in a small breath and turns to them.)
SHERLOCK: Sorry. You were saying?
DAVID: Well, Charlie was our whole world, Mr Holmes. I ... I don’t think we’ll ever get over this.
(Nodding, Sherlock turns his head toward the table again.)
SHERLOCK: No, shouldn’t think so.
(The Welsboroughs look at him, startled at his indifferent tone. He continues to stare at the table, frowning, then pulls in another breath and looks at the couple.)
SHERLOCK: So sorry. Will you excuse me a moment? I just ...
(He turns and walks closer to the table. David looks at John and Greg.)
JOHN: I’ll just, um ...
(Clearing his throat, he follows Sherlock, who stops in front of the table and looks down at it. The Welsboroughs sit down and John walks to Sherlock’s side.)
JOHN: Now what’s wrong?
SHERLOCK: Not sure. I just ... ‘By the pricking of my thumbs.’
[An explanation of the full quote is here.]
JOHN (scoffing sarcastically): Seriously? You?!
SHERLOCK: Intuitions are not to be ignored, John. They represent data processed too fast for the conscious mind to comprehend.
(He turns to the Welsboroughs while pointing to the table.)
SHERLOCK: What is this?
DAVID: Oh, it’s a sort of shrine, I suppose, really.
(He stands up and walks over to the boys.)
DAVID: Bit of a fan of Mrs T. Big hero of mine when I was getting started.
SHERLOCK (smiling politely at him while he takes his magnifier from his pocket and clicks it open): Right, yes.
(He bends down to look more closely at the table, then frowns and straightens up again.)
SHERLOCK: Who?
DAVID: What?
SHERLOCK: Who-who is this? (He gestures to the table.)
DAVID: Are you serious?
JOHN (sternly): Sherlock.
DAVID: It’s ... it’s Margaret Thatcher, the first female prime minister of this country.
SHERLOCK: Right.
(He has bent down to look at the table again but now straightens up.)
SHERLOCK: Prime minister?
DAVID (starting to sound a little tetchy): Mm. Leader of the government.
SHERLOCK: Right.
(He squats down again, then lifts his head.)
SHERLOCK (hopefully): Female?
JOHN: For God’s sake. You know perfectly well who she is.
(David walks away and John steps closer.)
JOHN: Why are you playing for time?
SHERLOCK: It’s the gap. (He focuses on the space between the items on the table.) Look at the gap. It’s wrong. Everything else is perfectly ordered, managed ...
(David sits down next to Emma and looks across to Greg, who shrugs.)
SHERLOCK: This whole thing’s verging on OCD.
(He turns to look at the Welsboroughs, pointing back to the table.)
SHERLOCK: My respects. This figurine is routinely repositioned after the cleaner’s been in. (He points to the official picture.) This picture’s straightened every day, yet this ugly gap remains. (He points to the vacant spot in the middle of the table.) Something’s missing from here, but only recently. (He squats down again to focus on the scratched leather.)
DAVID: Yes, a ...
SHERLOCK: ... plaster bust.
DAVID (a split second afterwards): ... plaster bust.
EMMA (exasperated): Oh, for God’s sake. It got broken. What the hell has this got to do with Charlie?
SHERLOCK (straightening up and speaking loudly as he clicks his magnifier closed): Rug!
EMMA: What?
SHERLOCK: Well, how could it get broken? The only place for it to fall is the floor, and there is a big thick rug.
EMMA: Does it matter?
JOHN: Mrs Welsborough, my apologies. It is worth letting him do this.
EMMA: Is your friend quite mad?
JOHN: No, he’s an arsehole, but it’s an easy mistake.
DAVID: Look, no, we had a break-in. Some little bastard smashed it to bits. We found the remains out there in the porch.
SHERLOCK: The porch where we came in?
DAVID: How anybody could hate her so much, they’d go to the trouble of smashing her likeness ...
[Bloody hell, David, where have you been hiding all these decades?]
SHERLOCK: I’m no expert but, er, possibly her face?
(John closes his eyes briefly.)
SHERLOCK: Why didn’t he smash all the others? Perfect opportunity, and look at that one. (He points to the official photo.) She’s smiling in that one.
EMMA: Oh, Inspector, this is clearly a waste of time. I mean, if there’s nothing more ..
SHERLOCK: I know what happened to your son.
(The parents stare at him hopefully.)
EMMA: You do?
SHERLOCK: It’s quite simple. Superficial, to be blunt. But first, tell me: the night of the break-in. This room was in darkness?
DAVID: Well, yes.
SHERLOCK: And the porch where it was smashed: I noticed the motion sensor was damaged, so I assume it’s permanently lit.
(Brief flashback to Sherlock looking upwards as he and others approached the front door, and seeing the cracked motion sensor and the porch light on in broad daylight.)
LESTRADE: How’d you notice that?
SHERLOCK: I lack the arrogance to ignore details. I’m not the police.
JOHN: So you’re saying he smashed it where he could see it.
SHERLOCK: Exactly.
JOHN: Why?
SHERLOCK: Dunno. Wouldn’t be fun if I knew.
EMMA (tearfully): Mr Holmes, please.
(Sherlock straightens up and turns towards them. He takes a breath.)
SHERLOCK (quick fire): It was your fiftieth birthday, Mr Welsborough; of course you were disappointed that your son hadn’t made it back from his gap year. After all, he was in Tibet.
DAVID: Yes.
SHERLOCK: No.
DAVID: No?
(Flashback to the car parked outside the house. People can be heard singing ‘Happy Birthday To You’ inside the house.)
SHERLOCK: The first part of your conversation was, in fact, pre-recorded video. Easily arranged.
(In flashback, Charlie is sitting in the driving seat of the car holding his phone. As the ‘buffering’ circle spins, he lifts the phone to his ear. Inside the house, David looks at his ringing phone.)
DAVID (in flashback): It’s a Skype call.
SHERLOCK: The trick was meant to be a surprise.
DAVID: Trick?
SHERLOCK: Obviously.
(In flashback, Charlie speaks into his phone.)
CHARLIE: Could you take a photo and send it? (He grins.)
SHERLOCK: There were two types of vinyl in the burnt-out remains of the car: one the actual passenger seat; the other a good copy. Well, good enough.
(In flashback, Charlie takes a loose seat cover from the passenger seat and puts it over his face and body. David walks towards the car, getting the camera ready to take the photo. In the near darkness, Charlie can see what’s happening through dark gauzy material inserted into the face area of the cover.)
SHERLOCK: Effectively a costume.
(Having got the cover in place, Charlie tucks his hands inside and is now obscured from view from the outside.
In the present, David and Emma stare in disbelief.)
DAVID: You’re joking.
SHERLOCK: No, I’m not. What he wanted was for you to get close enough to the car so he could spring the surprise.
(In flashback, David takes the photo of the Power Ranger attached to the car’s grille. As he lifts his phone to his ear, Charlie rips off the seat cover, grinning at him. David stares at him in delight.)
DAVID (excitedly): Oh my God!
CHARLIE: Surprise!
(The not-real flashback goes into reverse.)
SHERLOCK: That’s when it happened.
(Hidden inside the seat cover, Charlie frowns as if in pain.)
SHERLOCK: I can’t be certain, of course, but I think Charlie must have suffered some sort of a seizure. You said he’d felt unwell?
(In flashback, David speaks into his phone.)
DAVID: You all right?
CHARLIE (over phone): It’s nothing. Probably just the altitude.
(Inside the seat cover, Charlie’s eyes go blank.)
SHERLOCK: He died there and then. No-one had any cause to go near his car, so there he remained in the driver’s seat hidden until ...
(Flashback to the drunk driver’s car smashing into Charlie’s car, which then explodes.)
SHERLOCK: When the two cars were examined, the fake seat had melted in the fire, revealing Charlie, who’d been sitting there quite dead for a week.
(Emma breaks down in tears.)
EMMA: Oh, God!
(Staring at Sherlock in shock, David reaches across to comfort her.)
LESTRADE: Poor kid.
SHERLOCK: Really, I’m so sorry. Mr Welsborough, Mrs Welsborough.
(He walks rapidly out of the room and is soon examining the concrete on the porch with his magnifier.)
SHERLOCK: This is where it was smashed.
(John and Greg are just joining him.)
LESTRADE: That was amazing.
SHERLOCK: What?
LESTRADE: The car, the kid.
SHERLOCK: Ancient history. Why are you still talking about it?
JOHN: What’s so important about a broken bust of Margaret Thatcher?
SHERLOCK (straightening up): Can’t stand it. Never can. There’s a loose thread in the world.
JOHN: Yeah, doesn’t mean you have to pull on it.
SHERLOCK: What kind of a life would that be? Besides, I have the strangest feeling.
(He has a brief flash of James Moriarty looking into the camera over his right shoulder.)
JIM: Miss me?
(Sherlock shakes the thought away and stands up, pointing to the black cab parked nearby as he walks towards it.)
SHERLOCK: That’s mine. You two take a ... bus.
JOHN (laughing in disbelief): Why?
SHERLOCK: I need to concentrate, and I don’t want to hit you.
(He gets in and tells the cabbie his destination.)
SHERLOCK: The Mall, please.
THE DIOGENES CLUB. MYCROFT’S UNDERGROUND OFFICE. Sherlock has taken off his coat and is pacing in front of the desk while Mycroft sits behind it.
MYCROFT: I met her once.
SHERLOCK: Thatcher?
MYCROFT: Rather arrogant, I thought.
SHERLOCK: You thought that?!
(Mycroft chuckles.)
MYCROFT: I know!
(His smile drops and he holds up Sherlock’s phone.)
MYCROFT: Why am I looking at this?
SHERLOCK (stopping his pacing): That’s her. John and Mary’s baby.
MYCROFT: Oh, I see. (He looks at the picture.) Yes. (He smiles in a fake way.) Looks very ... (he pauses as he struggles for an appropriate term) ... fully functioning.
(Sherlock frowns at him.)
SHERLOCK: Is that really the best you can do?
MYCROFT: Sorry. I’ve never been very good with them.
SHERLOCK: Babies?
MYCROFT (smiling smugly): Humans.
(Sherlock steps forward and takes the phone from his brother and puts it in the inside pocket of his jacket.)
SHERLOCK: Moriarty. Did he have any connection with Thatcher? Any interest in her?
MYCROFT: Why on earth would he?
SHERLOCK (tetchily): I don’t know. You tell me.
(Mycroft sniffs, then leans forward and opens a folder on his desk.)
MYCROFT: In the last year of his life, James Moriarty was involved with four political assassinations, over seventy assorted robberies and terrorist attacks, including a chemical weapons factory in North Korea, and had latterly shown some interest in tracking down the Black Pearl of the Borgias - which is still missing, by the way, in case you feel like applying yourself to something practical.
SHERLOCK: It’s a pearl. Get another one.
(Mycroft rolls his eyes.)
SHERLOCK (thoughtfully, looking off to one side): There’s something important about this.
(For a few moments, the reflection and sound of dark blue rippling water seems to surround him.)
SHERLOCK: I’m sure. Maybe it’s Moriarty. Maybe it’s not. But something’s coming.
(The water disappears. Mycroft frowns and leans forward, folding his hands on the desk.)
MYCROFT: Are you having a premonition, brother mine?
(Sherlock blinks and looks towards Mycroft.)
SHERLOCK: The world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other. What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics.
(Mycroft smiles briefly.)
MYCROFT: Appointment in Samarra.
SHERLOCK: I’m sorry?
MYCROFT: The merchant who can’t outrun Death. You always hated that story as a child. Less keen on predestination back then.
(Sherlock narrows his eyes.)
SHERLOCK: I’m not sure I like it now.
(He picks up his coat from the chair in front of the desk and starts to put it on.)
MYCROFT: You wrote your own version, as I remember. Appointment in Sumatra. The merchant goes to a different city and is perfectly fine.
SHERLOCK: Goodnight, Mycroft. (He turns towards the door.)
MYCROFT (looking thoughtful at the memory): Then he becomes a pirate, for some reason.
SHERLOCK: Keep me informed.
MYCROFT: Of what?
SHERLOCK (walking out the door): Absolutely no idea.
Somewhere unknown, white plaster smashes. The camera pans across the dark room where this has happened and reveals another plaster bust of Thatcher, broken into pieces.
Elsewhere, a man lies with his eyes closed, his eyelids trembling slightly as he dreams or remembers something. His eyes snap open, tears running from them, and a voice sounds inside his head, speaking with a foreign accent.
VOICE: Ammo!
(The voice sounds again, louder this time.)
VOICE: Ammo!
(The man writhes on his bed in a small room while remembered screams echo in his head. The lights of a passing car swing across the window above the bed and the man cringes, his breathing ragged.)
Elsewhere, another white plaster bust of Thatcher smashes to the ground.
On to Part 2