An Age of Silver (12/23)
An Age of Silver (12/23)
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5a / Part 5b / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8a / Part 8b / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11
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Hopkins’ friend was a portly fellow by the name of Ron, and the two men exchanged some pleasantries in Ron’s office while Sherlock was left to his own devices in the corridor outside.
McCormack Industries was actually a sprawling complex made up of multiple buildings. Sherlock and Hopkins were in McCormack Suite, which was comprised entirely of offices. This was where the consumer side of the business was conducted. The actual manufacturing was done in the three massive, grey buildings behind McCormack Suite.
Pleasantries dispensed with, Hopkins emerged from Ron’s office with visitor badges for the both of them. He handed one to Sherlock.
“He’s given us free rein of the place,” he said as they set off down the corridor. “It sounds like there are a couple of people still here on the campus working late. We’re allowed on our own until they leave. So let’s make this quick, yeah?”
They made a perfunctory search of the rest of McCormack Suite, but the offices there would have offered the killer little privacy. Manufacturing Building One was their next stop. It was a vast, open factory floor with no rooms that would have offered the killer a secure place to conduct his murders, so that one was out of the question. Building Two, just next door, was comprised mostly of laboratories, but they were also very open and would have offered someone very little privacy.
Building Three, however, proved to be a little bit more promising.
There were more offices in the basement of this building, and they lined both sides of a labyrinth of corridors. From the labels on the outside of each one, it appeared as though this was where all the shift managers were housed. The offices appeared to be dank, cramped rooms with no windows and no contact with the outside world once the door was shut. Like the other two buildings, this one was entirely soundproofed, and it offered anyone who used these offices a good amount of privacy.
Each office was abandoned at this hour of the night, and every door was closed but unlocked. Hopkins and Sherlock went up and down the corridors, systematically opening the offices and glancing inside. Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure what they were looking for, and couldn’t be certain what ruled the offices out as potential kill sites. He supposed he would know it when they came upon it.
Hopkins’ theory overall was a sound one, especially given the evidence that had been found on Sarah Burlough’s body. But it was also a stretch, and as the minutes passed, Sherlock couldn’t help but start to feel that this trip had been in vain.
“Hopkins…”
“Don’t say it,” Hopkins said sharply. “We’re not done here yet.”
Sherlock shrugged and moved on to the next office on his side of the corridor. He readied his torch and pressed his shoulder against the door, preparing to have a quick glance inside the darkened office, see nothing, and move on.
But the door didn’t budge, and the door handle wouldn’t turn under his hand. It was locked.
“Interesting,” he muttered under his breath.
“What is it?” Hopkins was at his side in an instant. Sherlock handed over his torch and pulled out his lock picking tools.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But something different. This is the first locked office we’ve come across tonight.”
He made quick work of the lock and opened the door.
“Whoever uses this office obviously doesn’t want anyone getting in here after hours,” Hopkins noted. He gave Sherlock back his torch.
“There’s nothing terribly unusual about that, Hopkins. You lock your office door,” Sherlock said. He stepped into the office, Hopkins on his heels.
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
They lapsed into silence, running the beams from their torches over the office walls and furniture. The room was plain and sterile, with only a nameplate on the desk to personalize it.
“Anthony Dawlins,” Hopkins read. His voice was hushed. “D’you think it’s him?”
“My skills are astounding, Hopkins, but even they cannot divine a serial killer from his name,” Sherlock said dryly. He cast his torch over the technical manuals that lined the bookshelves. Hopkins shut the door behind him, and the room was thrown into total darkness, apart from the twin beams from their lights.
“This is a dead end,” Sherlock said after a moment, casting the beam of his torch over the bare walls and spotless desk. The office was as immaculate and plain as Hopkins’ own, and he could deduce very little of it. “Hopkins, there’s nothing here.”
“Yes, there is,” Hopkins said. He swept his light over the desk and twelve volumes of Theory of Applied Robotics that took up one shelf on the bookcase. Sherlock sighed in frustration. They were wasting time. “There has to be.”
“Your hunch was wrong, Hopkins,” Sherlock hissed. “This is a dead end. It was a long shot to begin with, you knew that. And now we need to leave.”
“No,” Hopkins said simply, and Sherlock was about to grab his elbow and haul him away when he reached out a finger and tapped it against the wall next to the bookcase. The deep sound that reverberated back to them was unmistakable, and Hopkins rapped twice more with his knuckles before glancing at Sherlock.
It was hollow.
“Give me a hand,” he said brusquely, pocketing his torch and bracing his hands on the bookcase. Sherlock grabbed the other side, and they pushed it out from against the wall, just enough so that one of them could squeeze behind it.
The wall behind the bookcase was a shade lighter than the rest of the room, ivory instead of eggshell. There was an obvious indentation in the wall, the height and width of a door, and a small handle was set into the wall at hip height.
“Not very well disguised, is it,” Hopkins mused.
“He obviously wasn’t concerned about someone finding it,” Sherlock said as he dug through his pockets for his lock-picking tools again. “Give me a light, would you?”
Hopkins dutifully shone his torch on the keyhole, and Sherlock made quick work of the lock. He then turned the handle, ignoring Hopkins’ protests-there was no way he was going to allow Hopkins to go into the unknown room first-and pushed open the door.
It quickly became apparent why this door, though hidden, was not disguised particularly well. The room Sherlock stepped into was almost completely bare, and to an untrained eye it appeared as though it was simply a storage space. There was an old, stained mattress in one corner of the room, and Sherlock quickly averted the beam of his torch so that he wouldn’t have to look at it for very long.
The beam of light fell on the opposite side of the room instead, and he could see that there were several cans of the specialized grey paint stacked there. Three appeared to not have been opened yet, while one was obviously in use. A dried paintbrush laid on top of that particular can, and dried tracks of paint covered its side.
Hopkins pushed past Sherlock, casting his beam of light over the bare walls and dusty floor. It, too, landed on the mattress before quickly flicking away to the paint, which Hopkins stared at for a good long while. The smell of paint in the windowless room was almost overwhelming. A dull ache started to form behind Sherlock’s eyes.
“Hopkins, we should - ” he started.
But then there came the sound of a door closing, and Sherlock whipped around. His torch caught the side of Hopkins’ face. It appeared abnormally-pale, and he was staring at the back of the door. Sherlock approached him and peered at the smooth wood.
“I rather think,” Hopkins said after a stunned moment, “this is exactly what we’ve been looking for.”
There were gouges scratched erratically into the door, not deep enough to be noticeable at any distance, but they were certainly apparent if one was looking at them. Sherlock remembered the victims’ hands-he recalled the scratched fingertips; the torn nails.
“He locked them in here,” Hopkins went on, quietly. “He locked them in here, and they couldn’t get out.”
He moved the beam of his torch to the door handle, which Sherlock noticed only now was painted grey - Silver Sea Glass, the shade of the specialized paint. The door handle on the other side had been brass.
Sherlock cast his beam of light over the cans of paint in the corner of the room, and then flicked it back to the door handle. In an instant, it all made sense. The killer didn’t paint his victim’s hands after they were killed, as they had been assuming.
The truth was something a good deal more disturbing.
“They all got paint on their hands accidentally,” Sherlock said quietly. Hopkins nodded, his eyes wide and his face still pale.
“And it happens before the killing,” he said in a low, horrified voice. “God, Sherlock - he was marking them.”
“He locks them in this room,” Sherlock said, “and paints the door handle. He leaves them in here to wait. There are no clocks, no windows… no way for them to tell how much time has passed. It’s maddening. They panic. And when they try to get out, the paint gets on their hands. It must be like a brand to him. He must get a thrill from seeing it; from knowing that they have been marked… marked as his own.”
“It also explains why the paint doesn’t always appear on the same hand,” Hopkins said quietly. “Some of the victims have been right-handed, and others have been left-handed. You tend to grip a door handle with the dominant hand first.”
There was a bitter taste in the back of Sherlock’s mouth, and he swallowed hard. Hopkins was the one who broke out of his horror first.
“Come on,” he said, shaking his head slightly, as though he could physically rid himself of all they had just seen. He reached for the door handle. “Let’s get out of here. I need to call this in.”
“What are you going to say?” Sherlock asked as Hopkins opened the door and they stepped out of the room. He turned around to close it and do up the lock again. “‘Chief, I was on a tour of a factory and just happened to stumble across the very room we’ve been searching for all this’ -”
There was a sudden pop, and Hopkins fell to the floor with a hiss. Sherlock dropped instinctively to the ground, for he knew the sound of a gun when he heard one, and he looked up to see a man standing in the shadowed doorway. He was tall and lean, and that was all Sherlock could make out in the darkness. It was all he had time to see, too, for the gun then swiveled in his direction.
Sherlock rolled, and a bullet embedded itself in the floor where his head had been just moments before. He reached for Hopkins, snaring the gun he had carried with him and whipping it out of its holster. He wasn’t fast enough, though, and the man in the doorway fired again. Hopkins gave a muffled grunt of pain and recoiled from the impact. Sherlock grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him backwards, knowing that the movement would hurt him further. But he needed to get Hopkins out of the way, and he angled his body so that if the shooter fired again, he would hit Sherlock first.
But the shooter didn’t get that chance. It had been years since Sherlock last fired a gun, but it was instinct by now; second-nature, thanks to all the lessons Victor had drilled in his head decades ago.
The man shooting at them had taken three shots, each of them sloppy even if two of them did manage to hit Hopkins. Sherlock fired once, and only once, and it was enough. He aimed for between the man’s eyes, and his shot was true. He didn’t even hear the gun go off, but he felt the recoil in his hand and saw the man drop, unmoving, to the ground.
Sherlock tossed aside the weapon and turned back to Hopkins, who had worked himself into a sitting position.
“Are you all right? Are you all right?” Sherlock demanded, his hands hurriedly pushing aside Hopkins’ clothing so that he could get at the wounds. “Damn it, man, answer me!”
“I’m fine,” Hopkins managed finally. His voice was breathy and weak, but steady. “I’m f - Sherlock.”
He grabbed both of Sherlock’s wrists, stilling his frantic movements. One of his hands was soaked with blood, and Sherlock wrenched himself out of Hopkins’ grip so that he could check the wounds.
“Where did he hit you?” he asked briskly.
“Arm. Side,” Hopkins grunted. Sherlock found the larger of the two wounds first, the one on Hopkins’ torso. The bullet had only grazed Hopkins, but the gash it left behind was long and bleeding profusely. He tugged his scarf from around his neck and wrapped it around Hopkins’ torso, binding his chest tightly and hopefully applying enough pressure to put a stop to the bleeding.
“These are superficial,” Sherlock said, more for his own benefit than Hopkins’. “You’re going to be fine.”
“I know,” Hopkins said. Sherlock pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it against Hopkins’ arm, where the first bullet had ripped through his jacket and the shirt underneath to leave a welt and a small gash behind. It wasn’t bleeding nearly as badly as the wound in Hopkins’ side, though, and after a couple of minutes Sherlock pulled the handkerchief away. No new blood pooled in the wound.
“You’re an idiot,” Sherlock said finally. His heart rate was beginning to slow, and every breath Hopkins took eased the panic that coiled tightly in his own chest.
“I know.”
“An idiot and a bloody fool.”
“I know.”
“I swear to God, Hopkins, if you ever do something like this again -“
“What, get shot by someone I didn’t even see coming?”
Sherlock couldn’t tell which one of them moved first, but a moment later his mouth was crushed against Hopkins’. He fisted one hand into Hopkins’ shirt and cradled the back of his head with the other, tasting salt on the other man’s lips. Hopkins cupped Sherlock’s face with one hand and parted his lips under the relentless press of Sherlock’s tongue, kissing him back just as fiercely. It was desperate and needy, and Hopkins kissed like a starved man being offered his first meal--hungry and aching, it was as though he expected it never to happen again.
“I’m all right,” Hopkins said breathlessly when they parted. “I’m - Sherlock, I’m okay.”
“I know.” Sherlock kept his fingers tangled in Hopkins’ hair. He pressed their foreheads together; squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in the sharp scent of Hopkins’ sweat and blood. “I know.”
“Come on. I need to call this in,” Hopkins said wearily. He allowed Sherlock to pull him to his feet, wincing as his injuries were jostled. “Who was this guy?”
They stepped over the body and out into the corridor. Sherlock used his foot to turn over the man’s ID badge, which was clipped to the front of his shirt.
“Anthony Dawlins,” he read off quietly. “This was his office.”
“But was that his kill room?”
“Even if it wasn’t, he obviously knew about it, or he never would have fired on us.”
Hopkins raked a hand through his hair. “Fuck. Ron’s never going to forgive me for this.”
In the end, though, Hopkins’ friend was far more forgiving than either of them deserved.
“He was always a quiet one, Tony,” Ron told the officers interviewing him sadly. “Never thought him capable of such horror, but I s’pose you can never tell for sure.”
“We don’t actually know that he had anything to do with this, Ron,” Hopkins said, but his words were far from convincing. “I truly am sorry for all the trouble -”
Ron looked at him as though he was mad.
“One of my own workers shot you and you’re the one who’s sorry?” he asked incredulously, gesturing at Hopkins’ injuries. “Jesus, man, you haven’t changed in twenty years, have you?”
“Don’t write that down,” Hopkins said dryly to Sherlock, who had been put in charge of writing everything down in Hopkins’ notebook. Hopkins was holding his left arm tightly against his side in order to keep pressure on the wound, and as a result he couldn’t write. If Sherlock and Donovan had had their way, he wouldn’t even be doing this much. But Hopkins had refused Sherlock’s offer of a chair and he wouldn’t allow Donovan to send him to the hospital. He insisted on being the one to interview Ron, and he wouldn’t leave the scene until everyone else had left, too.
It was going to be a long night.
Hopkins had allowed Sherlock to only check the wound once since the shooting. At the time, blood was starting to seep through the scarf. That was almost half an hour ago, and Sherlock didn’t want to think about what it looked like now.
Eventually, though, the body was taken away, the questions were exhausted, and Hopkins ran out of apologies he could make to Ron. He was in quiet conversation with Donovan about how they should proceed from here when his mobile went off.
“Shit,” Hopkins muttered as he glanced at the screen. Sherlock lifted an eyebrow at him, but Donovan appeared to know right away what had happened.
"Chief?” she asked, and Hopkins nodded. He stepped away to answer the call, which took less than half a minute. When he returned, his lips were set into a thin line.
“Chief Superintendent. He wants to have a word about tonight.”
Sherlock drove Hopkins back to the Yard, because he didn’t trust the Inspector’s bloodless face and the way the occasional tremor ripped through his frame. Hopkins allowed Sherlock to take over without protest, and he spent the ride in silence, one hand still applying pressure to the wound on his torso.
“That might need sutures,” Sherlock pointed out. Hopkins shook his head wordlessly. His face was still white. “Have you ever been shot before, Hopkins?”
“Never even been shot at,” Hopkins muttered. “Christ.”
Max Guerra had only been Chief Superintendent for three years, but Sherlock far preferred him to his predecessor. He had an air of weary resignation about him, and he was willing to let a lot of things slide so long as he saw results. At the same time, however, there were certain things he refused to compromise on, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be taken advantage of. Sherlock could admire that, even if it had caused him headaches in the past three years.
Guerra was a big man - not quite as tall as Sherlock and Hopkins, but at least twice as wide. He was a remarkably calm man, too, and he merely lifted an eyebrow when he saw Hopkins’ state.
“Betcha that hurts like a bitch,” he grunted when Hopkins appeared in his office doorway. “Sit down, son. Actually, on second thought, don’t; I don’t need you bleeding all over my chair. Just stand there. You too, Holmes.”
Sherlock, who had turned to wait in the corridor now that he had delivered Hopkins-in relatively one piece-to his destination, paused.
“Don’t look at me like that, Holmes,” Guerra went on. He pointed at the empty spot next to Hopkins. “You, too.”
Sherlock approached the desk and stood there with his hands clasped loosely behind his back.
“I suppose it would be too much to ask for an explanation for what happened tonight,” Guerra sighed. He took off his glasses and leaned back in his chair, regarding them both heavily.
“I had a hunch and I followed it up without consulting my team,” Hopkins said at once. “And I brought Holmes along because I thought he might be useful. Seeing as he saved my life, it turns out that I was right.”
Guerra lifted an eyebrow.
“Well, Stan, you’re nothing if not honest, aren’t you?” he said dryly. “They’re telling me you found the kill site, is that right?”
“We won’t know for sure until Forensics can get in there,” Hopkins said. “But if you’re asking for my opinion - yes. We found where he takes them.”
“Christ,” Guerra said, shaking his head. “And in the name of all that is holy, Holmes, please tell me that you shot that man in self-defense.”
“He had shot an officer of the Met twice before I got to him. He was on his feet with a gun in his hand, plainly meaning to do both of us harm. I didn’t shoot him in the back, and it wasn’t unprovoked,” Sherlock said shortly. Guerra considered him for a moment before giving a tight nod.
“And tell me, the man who died - is that our killer?”
“Anderson will have to see if he can match the man’s DNA, even partially, to one of the samples we pulled from Sarah Burlough,” Hopkins said. “But Anthony Dawlins has been an employee of McCormack Industries for over twenty years. That’s as long as the killings have been happening, yes, but that still means someone else would have had to supply him with the specialized paint.”
“Hm,” Guerra grunted. “Well, either way, that’s a major break for this case. Even if it was a bloody stupid thing for you to have done, Hopkins. I expect better from you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take the rest of the night off. Let your team finish processing the scene. Get yourself patched up, and take some time to contemplate how bloody careless you were. You could have compromised the entire case.”
“Yes, sir.”
Guerra pointed the end of his pen at Hopkins. “I don’t want to see you here before eight in the morning tomorrow, Stan, is that clear? I don’t know what happened to the Inspector I know, but he and your common sense seem to have fled, and this is a bloody awful time for that to have happened. Take tonight to get your head back on right.”
“Yes, sir.”
Guerra’s eyes flicked to Sherlock. “And I expect better of you, Holmes.”
Sherlock couldn’t help the incredulous snort.
“Do you?” he asked dryly. Guerra rolled his eyes.
“No,” he said. “Not at all. Except where Stan is concerned. I don’t need something like this happening again, gents, is that clear?”
They both nodded, and Guerra sighed.
“Right, get out of here, both of you. And Holmes - make sure this one gets home.”
Sherlock drove them both back to Hopkins’ house. He humoured Hopkins’ brief examination of him and, once Hopkins had been satisfied that Sherlock was largely uninjured, he allowed himself to be steered into the bathroom.
"Ruined your scarf," Hopkins noted morosely as Sherlock peeled the bloody material from around his chest. It took the two of them to get Hopkins' shirt off because the wound pained him so, but eventually they worked it off his arms without straining his chest too much. Sherlock deposited both garments in a corner. They could be dealt with later.
"Ruined your shirt," Sherlock pointed out. "We'll dispose of them later. Come on, up."
“You’re awfully calm for a man who has just killed someone,” Hopkins said as Sherlock began tending to the wound on his torso. He was sitting on the counter now, his knees bracketing Sherlock’s hips while Sherlock stood between his legs. Every once in a while Hopkins’ foot brushed against Sherlock’s knee, almost absently.
“And you’re awfully talkative for a man who nearly went on a suicide mission alone,” Sherlock retorted, and Hopkins pursed his lips. “I’ve killed before, and with less provocation. Don’t expect me to feel remorse over that man.”
Hopkins was quiet for a long while.
“Have you had to do that a lot?” he asked finally. Sherlock finished cleaning the wound and started applying the regenerative ointment. The wound should be healed over by morning, though the new flesh would be pink and raw for a few days after.
“Kill someone? Not in recent years,” Sherlock said. At the look on Hopkins’ face, he added, “It’s still an odd feeling, if that’s what you’re asking. But I don’t lose sleep over it.”
“I assume you’ve been shot in return.”
“Shot at, mostly, but yes - sometimes they got lucky.” Sherlock pulled his shirt to reveal a jagged scar along his hip, and another just above it - an obvious bullet wound. “Both of those are from a case John and I worked during the second year of our association.”
“Looks like that hurt,” Hopkins said, brushing his fingers over the mottled flesh.
“It wasn’t exactly pleasant,” Sherlock admitted dryly. He dropped his shirt and picked up a roll of bandages. “Hold your arms out.”
Hopkins obliged, and Sherlock bound his chest. Mostly, this was to keep the wound protected until the ointment had chance to take hold. It was no longer bleeding, and didn’t appear to be in any danger of opening up again, but one couldn’t be too careful. When he had finished, Hopkins dropped his arms. His shoulders slumped, and he heaved a great sigh.
“It’s over,” Sherlock said quietly, squeezing Hopkins’ arms in what he hoped was a bracing manner. “It’s over, Stanley. We found the kill site, and it appears that someone who was involved in these killings is dead.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s over and you know it. It’s highly improbable that you shot the actual killer,” Hopkins said. He sighed. “But thanks for trying. I appreciate it.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. It was only then that Sherlock noticed that his fingers were shaking slightly.
Sherlock stepped back, casting an appraising glance over his work. But what he noticed instead was that Hopkins’ face was ashen, and that deep purple crescents pooled under his eyes. When he slid off the counter and looked at Sherlock, his gaze was bloodshot. He was worn at the edges, weary, and Sherlock wanted nothing more than to wipe away the marks this case was leaving on him.
“You should sleep,” he said finally, brushing his thumb over the creases at the corner of one of Hopkins’ eyes.
Hopkins stepped closer and Sherlock reached out to meet him, his hands framing Hopkins’ hips while Hopkins curled his own around Sherlock’s upper arms. His mouth was soft and warm--entirely unexpected. Sherlock had expected this kiss to be as severe and disciplined as Hopkins himself, but here, when they away from the adrenaline and rush of the chase, he found that it was actually exceedingly gentle.
They parted after an age. Sherlock’s mouth was dry and a thin sheen of sweat had broken out across his forehead. A tight warmth was beginning to coil low in his belly, and his blood was already rushing south. He had quite forgotten - he had missed -
His thoughts stuttered to a halt as Hopkins slid his fingers between his own. He gave a gentle tug, and Sherlock, blood pounding in his ears and heart knocking erratically against his ribcage, followed him into the bedroom.
----
Part 13
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5a / Part 5b / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8a / Part 8b / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11
---
Hopkins’ friend was a portly fellow by the name of Ron, and the two men exchanged some pleasantries in Ron’s office while Sherlock was left to his own devices in the corridor outside.
McCormack Industries was actually a sprawling complex made up of multiple buildings. Sherlock and Hopkins were in McCormack Suite, which was comprised entirely of offices. This was where the consumer side of the business was conducted. The actual manufacturing was done in the three massive, grey buildings behind McCormack Suite.
Pleasantries dispensed with, Hopkins emerged from Ron’s office with visitor badges for the both of them. He handed one to Sherlock.
“He’s given us free rein of the place,” he said as they set off down the corridor. “It sounds like there are a couple of people still here on the campus working late. We’re allowed on our own until they leave. So let’s make this quick, yeah?”
They made a perfunctory search of the rest of McCormack Suite, but the offices there would have offered the killer little privacy. Manufacturing Building One was their next stop. It was a vast, open factory floor with no rooms that would have offered the killer a secure place to conduct his murders, so that one was out of the question. Building Two, just next door, was comprised mostly of laboratories, but they were also very open and would have offered someone very little privacy.
Building Three, however, proved to be a little bit more promising.
There were more offices in the basement of this building, and they lined both sides of a labyrinth of corridors. From the labels on the outside of each one, it appeared as though this was where all the shift managers were housed. The offices appeared to be dank, cramped rooms with no windows and no contact with the outside world once the door was shut. Like the other two buildings, this one was entirely soundproofed, and it offered anyone who used these offices a good amount of privacy.
Each office was abandoned at this hour of the night, and every door was closed but unlocked. Hopkins and Sherlock went up and down the corridors, systematically opening the offices and glancing inside. Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure what they were looking for, and couldn’t be certain what ruled the offices out as potential kill sites. He supposed he would know it when they came upon it.
Hopkins’ theory overall was a sound one, especially given the evidence that had been found on Sarah Burlough’s body. But it was also a stretch, and as the minutes passed, Sherlock couldn’t help but start to feel that this trip had been in vain.
“Hopkins…”
“Don’t say it,” Hopkins said sharply. “We’re not done here yet.”
Sherlock shrugged and moved on to the next office on his side of the corridor. He readied his torch and pressed his shoulder against the door, preparing to have a quick glance inside the darkened office, see nothing, and move on.
But the door didn’t budge, and the door handle wouldn’t turn under his hand. It was locked.
“Interesting,” he muttered under his breath.
“What is it?” Hopkins was at his side in an instant. Sherlock handed over his torch and pulled out his lock picking tools.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But something different. This is the first locked office we’ve come across tonight.”
He made quick work of the lock and opened the door.
“Whoever uses this office obviously doesn’t want anyone getting in here after hours,” Hopkins noted. He gave Sherlock back his torch.
“There’s nothing terribly unusual about that, Hopkins. You lock your office door,” Sherlock said. He stepped into the office, Hopkins on his heels.
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
They lapsed into silence, running the beams from their torches over the office walls and furniture. The room was plain and sterile, with only a nameplate on the desk to personalize it.
“Anthony Dawlins,” Hopkins read. His voice was hushed. “D’you think it’s him?”
“My skills are astounding, Hopkins, but even they cannot divine a serial killer from his name,” Sherlock said dryly. He cast his torch over the technical manuals that lined the bookshelves. Hopkins shut the door behind him, and the room was thrown into total darkness, apart from the twin beams from their lights.
“This is a dead end,” Sherlock said after a moment, casting the beam of his torch over the bare walls and spotless desk. The office was as immaculate and plain as Hopkins’ own, and he could deduce very little of it. “Hopkins, there’s nothing here.”
“Yes, there is,” Hopkins said. He swept his light over the desk and twelve volumes of Theory of Applied Robotics that took up one shelf on the bookcase. Sherlock sighed in frustration. They were wasting time. “There has to be.”
“Your hunch was wrong, Hopkins,” Sherlock hissed. “This is a dead end. It was a long shot to begin with, you knew that. And now we need to leave.”
“No,” Hopkins said simply, and Sherlock was about to grab his elbow and haul him away when he reached out a finger and tapped it against the wall next to the bookcase. The deep sound that reverberated back to them was unmistakable, and Hopkins rapped twice more with his knuckles before glancing at Sherlock.
It was hollow.
“Give me a hand,” he said brusquely, pocketing his torch and bracing his hands on the bookcase. Sherlock grabbed the other side, and they pushed it out from against the wall, just enough so that one of them could squeeze behind it.
The wall behind the bookcase was a shade lighter than the rest of the room, ivory instead of eggshell. There was an obvious indentation in the wall, the height and width of a door, and a small handle was set into the wall at hip height.
“Not very well disguised, is it,” Hopkins mused.
“He obviously wasn’t concerned about someone finding it,” Sherlock said as he dug through his pockets for his lock-picking tools again. “Give me a light, would you?”
Hopkins dutifully shone his torch on the keyhole, and Sherlock made quick work of the lock. He then turned the handle, ignoring Hopkins’ protests-there was no way he was going to allow Hopkins to go into the unknown room first-and pushed open the door.
It quickly became apparent why this door, though hidden, was not disguised particularly well. The room Sherlock stepped into was almost completely bare, and to an untrained eye it appeared as though it was simply a storage space. There was an old, stained mattress in one corner of the room, and Sherlock quickly averted the beam of his torch so that he wouldn’t have to look at it for very long.
The beam of light fell on the opposite side of the room instead, and he could see that there were several cans of the specialized grey paint stacked there. Three appeared to not have been opened yet, while one was obviously in use. A dried paintbrush laid on top of that particular can, and dried tracks of paint covered its side.
Hopkins pushed past Sherlock, casting his beam of light over the bare walls and dusty floor. It, too, landed on the mattress before quickly flicking away to the paint, which Hopkins stared at for a good long while. The smell of paint in the windowless room was almost overwhelming. A dull ache started to form behind Sherlock’s eyes.
“Hopkins, we should - ” he started.
But then there came the sound of a door closing, and Sherlock whipped around. His torch caught the side of Hopkins’ face. It appeared abnormally-pale, and he was staring at the back of the door. Sherlock approached him and peered at the smooth wood.
“I rather think,” Hopkins said after a stunned moment, “this is exactly what we’ve been looking for.”
There were gouges scratched erratically into the door, not deep enough to be noticeable at any distance, but they were certainly apparent if one was looking at them. Sherlock remembered the victims’ hands-he recalled the scratched fingertips; the torn nails.
“He locked them in here,” Hopkins went on, quietly. “He locked them in here, and they couldn’t get out.”
He moved the beam of his torch to the door handle, which Sherlock noticed only now was painted grey - Silver Sea Glass, the shade of the specialized paint. The door handle on the other side had been brass.
Sherlock cast his beam of light over the cans of paint in the corner of the room, and then flicked it back to the door handle. In an instant, it all made sense. The killer didn’t paint his victim’s hands after they were killed, as they had been assuming.
The truth was something a good deal more disturbing.
“They all got paint on their hands accidentally,” Sherlock said quietly. Hopkins nodded, his eyes wide and his face still pale.
“And it happens before the killing,” he said in a low, horrified voice. “God, Sherlock - he was marking them.”
“He locks them in this room,” Sherlock said, “and paints the door handle. He leaves them in here to wait. There are no clocks, no windows… no way for them to tell how much time has passed. It’s maddening. They panic. And when they try to get out, the paint gets on their hands. It must be like a brand to him. He must get a thrill from seeing it; from knowing that they have been marked… marked as his own.”
“It also explains why the paint doesn’t always appear on the same hand,” Hopkins said quietly. “Some of the victims have been right-handed, and others have been left-handed. You tend to grip a door handle with the dominant hand first.”
There was a bitter taste in the back of Sherlock’s mouth, and he swallowed hard. Hopkins was the one who broke out of his horror first.
“Come on,” he said, shaking his head slightly, as though he could physically rid himself of all they had just seen. He reached for the door handle. “Let’s get out of here. I need to call this in.”
“What are you going to say?” Sherlock asked as Hopkins opened the door and they stepped out of the room. He turned around to close it and do up the lock again. “‘Chief, I was on a tour of a factory and just happened to stumble across the very room we’ve been searching for all this’ -”
There was a sudden pop, and Hopkins fell to the floor with a hiss. Sherlock dropped instinctively to the ground, for he knew the sound of a gun when he heard one, and he looked up to see a man standing in the shadowed doorway. He was tall and lean, and that was all Sherlock could make out in the darkness. It was all he had time to see, too, for the gun then swiveled in his direction.
Sherlock rolled, and a bullet embedded itself in the floor where his head had been just moments before. He reached for Hopkins, snaring the gun he had carried with him and whipping it out of its holster. He wasn’t fast enough, though, and the man in the doorway fired again. Hopkins gave a muffled grunt of pain and recoiled from the impact. Sherlock grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him backwards, knowing that the movement would hurt him further. But he needed to get Hopkins out of the way, and he angled his body so that if the shooter fired again, he would hit Sherlock first.
But the shooter didn’t get that chance. It had been years since Sherlock last fired a gun, but it was instinct by now; second-nature, thanks to all the lessons Victor had drilled in his head decades ago.
The man shooting at them had taken three shots, each of them sloppy even if two of them did manage to hit Hopkins. Sherlock fired once, and only once, and it was enough. He aimed for between the man’s eyes, and his shot was true. He didn’t even hear the gun go off, but he felt the recoil in his hand and saw the man drop, unmoving, to the ground.
Sherlock tossed aside the weapon and turned back to Hopkins, who had worked himself into a sitting position.
“Are you all right? Are you all right?” Sherlock demanded, his hands hurriedly pushing aside Hopkins’ clothing so that he could get at the wounds. “Damn it, man, answer me!”
“I’m fine,” Hopkins managed finally. His voice was breathy and weak, but steady. “I’m f - Sherlock.”
He grabbed both of Sherlock’s wrists, stilling his frantic movements. One of his hands was soaked with blood, and Sherlock wrenched himself out of Hopkins’ grip so that he could check the wounds.
“Where did he hit you?” he asked briskly.
“Arm. Side,” Hopkins grunted. Sherlock found the larger of the two wounds first, the one on Hopkins’ torso. The bullet had only grazed Hopkins, but the gash it left behind was long and bleeding profusely. He tugged his scarf from around his neck and wrapped it around Hopkins’ torso, binding his chest tightly and hopefully applying enough pressure to put a stop to the bleeding.
“These are superficial,” Sherlock said, more for his own benefit than Hopkins’. “You’re going to be fine.”
“I know,” Hopkins said. Sherlock pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it against Hopkins’ arm, where the first bullet had ripped through his jacket and the shirt underneath to leave a welt and a small gash behind. It wasn’t bleeding nearly as badly as the wound in Hopkins’ side, though, and after a couple of minutes Sherlock pulled the handkerchief away. No new blood pooled in the wound.
“You’re an idiot,” Sherlock said finally. His heart rate was beginning to slow, and every breath Hopkins took eased the panic that coiled tightly in his own chest.
“I know.”
“An idiot and a bloody fool.”
“I know.”
“I swear to God, Hopkins, if you ever do something like this again -“
“What, get shot by someone I didn’t even see coming?”
Sherlock couldn’t tell which one of them moved first, but a moment later his mouth was crushed against Hopkins’. He fisted one hand into Hopkins’ shirt and cradled the back of his head with the other, tasting salt on the other man’s lips. Hopkins cupped Sherlock’s face with one hand and parted his lips under the relentless press of Sherlock’s tongue, kissing him back just as fiercely. It was desperate and needy, and Hopkins kissed like a starved man being offered his first meal--hungry and aching, it was as though he expected it never to happen again.
“I’m all right,” Hopkins said breathlessly when they parted. “I’m - Sherlock, I’m okay.”
“I know.” Sherlock kept his fingers tangled in Hopkins’ hair. He pressed their foreheads together; squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in the sharp scent of Hopkins’ sweat and blood. “I know.”
“Come on. I need to call this in,” Hopkins said wearily. He allowed Sherlock to pull him to his feet, wincing as his injuries were jostled. “Who was this guy?”
They stepped over the body and out into the corridor. Sherlock used his foot to turn over the man’s ID badge, which was clipped to the front of his shirt.
“Anthony Dawlins,” he read off quietly. “This was his office.”
“But was that his kill room?”
“Even if it wasn’t, he obviously knew about it, or he never would have fired on us.”
Hopkins raked a hand through his hair. “Fuck. Ron’s never going to forgive me for this.”
In the end, though, Hopkins’ friend was far more forgiving than either of them deserved.
“He was always a quiet one, Tony,” Ron told the officers interviewing him sadly. “Never thought him capable of such horror, but I s’pose you can never tell for sure.”
“We don’t actually know that he had anything to do with this, Ron,” Hopkins said, but his words were far from convincing. “I truly am sorry for all the trouble -”
Ron looked at him as though he was mad.
“One of my own workers shot you and you’re the one who’s sorry?” he asked incredulously, gesturing at Hopkins’ injuries. “Jesus, man, you haven’t changed in twenty years, have you?”
“Don’t write that down,” Hopkins said dryly to Sherlock, who had been put in charge of writing everything down in Hopkins’ notebook. Hopkins was holding his left arm tightly against his side in order to keep pressure on the wound, and as a result he couldn’t write. If Sherlock and Donovan had had their way, he wouldn’t even be doing this much. But Hopkins had refused Sherlock’s offer of a chair and he wouldn’t allow Donovan to send him to the hospital. He insisted on being the one to interview Ron, and he wouldn’t leave the scene until everyone else had left, too.
It was going to be a long night.
Hopkins had allowed Sherlock to only check the wound once since the shooting. At the time, blood was starting to seep through the scarf. That was almost half an hour ago, and Sherlock didn’t want to think about what it looked like now.
Eventually, though, the body was taken away, the questions were exhausted, and Hopkins ran out of apologies he could make to Ron. He was in quiet conversation with Donovan about how they should proceed from here when his mobile went off.
“Shit,” Hopkins muttered as he glanced at the screen. Sherlock lifted an eyebrow at him, but Donovan appeared to know right away what had happened.
"Chief?” she asked, and Hopkins nodded. He stepped away to answer the call, which took less than half a minute. When he returned, his lips were set into a thin line.
“Chief Superintendent. He wants to have a word about tonight.”
Sherlock drove Hopkins back to the Yard, because he didn’t trust the Inspector’s bloodless face and the way the occasional tremor ripped through his frame. Hopkins allowed Sherlock to take over without protest, and he spent the ride in silence, one hand still applying pressure to the wound on his torso.
“That might need sutures,” Sherlock pointed out. Hopkins shook his head wordlessly. His face was still white. “Have you ever been shot before, Hopkins?”
“Never even been shot at,” Hopkins muttered. “Christ.”
Max Guerra had only been Chief Superintendent for three years, but Sherlock far preferred him to his predecessor. He had an air of weary resignation about him, and he was willing to let a lot of things slide so long as he saw results. At the same time, however, there were certain things he refused to compromise on, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be taken advantage of. Sherlock could admire that, even if it had caused him headaches in the past three years.
Guerra was a big man - not quite as tall as Sherlock and Hopkins, but at least twice as wide. He was a remarkably calm man, too, and he merely lifted an eyebrow when he saw Hopkins’ state.
“Betcha that hurts like a bitch,” he grunted when Hopkins appeared in his office doorway. “Sit down, son. Actually, on second thought, don’t; I don’t need you bleeding all over my chair. Just stand there. You too, Holmes.”
Sherlock, who had turned to wait in the corridor now that he had delivered Hopkins-in relatively one piece-to his destination, paused.
“Don’t look at me like that, Holmes,” Guerra went on. He pointed at the empty spot next to Hopkins. “You, too.”
Sherlock approached the desk and stood there with his hands clasped loosely behind his back.
“I suppose it would be too much to ask for an explanation for what happened tonight,” Guerra sighed. He took off his glasses and leaned back in his chair, regarding them both heavily.
“I had a hunch and I followed it up without consulting my team,” Hopkins said at once. “And I brought Holmes along because I thought he might be useful. Seeing as he saved my life, it turns out that I was right.”
Guerra lifted an eyebrow.
“Well, Stan, you’re nothing if not honest, aren’t you?” he said dryly. “They’re telling me you found the kill site, is that right?”
“We won’t know for sure until Forensics can get in there,” Hopkins said. “But if you’re asking for my opinion - yes. We found where he takes them.”
“Christ,” Guerra said, shaking his head. “And in the name of all that is holy, Holmes, please tell me that you shot that man in self-defense.”
“He had shot an officer of the Met twice before I got to him. He was on his feet with a gun in his hand, plainly meaning to do both of us harm. I didn’t shoot him in the back, and it wasn’t unprovoked,” Sherlock said shortly. Guerra considered him for a moment before giving a tight nod.
“And tell me, the man who died - is that our killer?”
“Anderson will have to see if he can match the man’s DNA, even partially, to one of the samples we pulled from Sarah Burlough,” Hopkins said. “But Anthony Dawlins has been an employee of McCormack Industries for over twenty years. That’s as long as the killings have been happening, yes, but that still means someone else would have had to supply him with the specialized paint.”
“Hm,” Guerra grunted. “Well, either way, that’s a major break for this case. Even if it was a bloody stupid thing for you to have done, Hopkins. I expect better from you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take the rest of the night off. Let your team finish processing the scene. Get yourself patched up, and take some time to contemplate how bloody careless you were. You could have compromised the entire case.”
“Yes, sir.”
Guerra pointed the end of his pen at Hopkins. “I don’t want to see you here before eight in the morning tomorrow, Stan, is that clear? I don’t know what happened to the Inspector I know, but he and your common sense seem to have fled, and this is a bloody awful time for that to have happened. Take tonight to get your head back on right.”
“Yes, sir.”
Guerra’s eyes flicked to Sherlock. “And I expect better of you, Holmes.”
Sherlock couldn’t help the incredulous snort.
“Do you?” he asked dryly. Guerra rolled his eyes.
“No,” he said. “Not at all. Except where Stan is concerned. I don’t need something like this happening again, gents, is that clear?”
They both nodded, and Guerra sighed.
“Right, get out of here, both of you. And Holmes - make sure this one gets home.”
Sherlock drove them both back to Hopkins’ house. He humoured Hopkins’ brief examination of him and, once Hopkins had been satisfied that Sherlock was largely uninjured, he allowed himself to be steered into the bathroom.
"Ruined your scarf," Hopkins noted morosely as Sherlock peeled the bloody material from around his chest. It took the two of them to get Hopkins' shirt off because the wound pained him so, but eventually they worked it off his arms without straining his chest too much. Sherlock deposited both garments in a corner. They could be dealt with later.
"Ruined your shirt," Sherlock pointed out. "We'll dispose of them later. Come on, up."
“You’re awfully calm for a man who has just killed someone,” Hopkins said as Sherlock began tending to the wound on his torso. He was sitting on the counter now, his knees bracketing Sherlock’s hips while Sherlock stood between his legs. Every once in a while Hopkins’ foot brushed against Sherlock’s knee, almost absently.
“And you’re awfully talkative for a man who nearly went on a suicide mission alone,” Sherlock retorted, and Hopkins pursed his lips. “I’ve killed before, and with less provocation. Don’t expect me to feel remorse over that man.”
Hopkins was quiet for a long while.
“Have you had to do that a lot?” he asked finally. Sherlock finished cleaning the wound and started applying the regenerative ointment. The wound should be healed over by morning, though the new flesh would be pink and raw for a few days after.
“Kill someone? Not in recent years,” Sherlock said. At the look on Hopkins’ face, he added, “It’s still an odd feeling, if that’s what you’re asking. But I don’t lose sleep over it.”
“I assume you’ve been shot in return.”
“Shot at, mostly, but yes - sometimes they got lucky.” Sherlock pulled his shirt to reveal a jagged scar along his hip, and another just above it - an obvious bullet wound. “Both of those are from a case John and I worked during the second year of our association.”
“Looks like that hurt,” Hopkins said, brushing his fingers over the mottled flesh.
“It wasn’t exactly pleasant,” Sherlock admitted dryly. He dropped his shirt and picked up a roll of bandages. “Hold your arms out.”
Hopkins obliged, and Sherlock bound his chest. Mostly, this was to keep the wound protected until the ointment had chance to take hold. It was no longer bleeding, and didn’t appear to be in any danger of opening up again, but one couldn’t be too careful. When he had finished, Hopkins dropped his arms. His shoulders slumped, and he heaved a great sigh.
“It’s over,” Sherlock said quietly, squeezing Hopkins’ arms in what he hoped was a bracing manner. “It’s over, Stanley. We found the kill site, and it appears that someone who was involved in these killings is dead.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s over and you know it. It’s highly improbable that you shot the actual killer,” Hopkins said. He sighed. “But thanks for trying. I appreciate it.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. It was only then that Sherlock noticed that his fingers were shaking slightly.
Sherlock stepped back, casting an appraising glance over his work. But what he noticed instead was that Hopkins’ face was ashen, and that deep purple crescents pooled under his eyes. When he slid off the counter and looked at Sherlock, his gaze was bloodshot. He was worn at the edges, weary, and Sherlock wanted nothing more than to wipe away the marks this case was leaving on him.
“You should sleep,” he said finally, brushing his thumb over the creases at the corner of one of Hopkins’ eyes.
Hopkins stepped closer and Sherlock reached out to meet him, his hands framing Hopkins’ hips while Hopkins curled his own around Sherlock’s upper arms. His mouth was soft and warm--entirely unexpected. Sherlock had expected this kiss to be as severe and disciplined as Hopkins himself, but here, when they away from the adrenaline and rush of the chase, he found that it was actually exceedingly gentle.
They parted after an age. Sherlock’s mouth was dry and a thin sheen of sweat had broken out across his forehead. A tight warmth was beginning to coil low in his belly, and his blood was already rushing south. He had quite forgotten - he had missed -
His thoughts stuttered to a halt as Hopkins slid his fingers between his own. He gave a gentle tug, and Sherlock, blood pounding in his ears and heart knocking erratically against his ribcage, followed him into the bedroom.
----
Part 13