We quickly head to Scotland Yard. Once we get here, Greg hands a sheet of paper to Sherlock as he leads us into the department’s main office. "This fax arrived an hour ago." There is a large handwritten note on the paper saying: HURRY UP THEY’RE DYING! Sherlock hands the note to John. "What have you got for us?"
"Need to find a place in the city where all five of these things intersect." He hands him a piece of paper.
"Chalk, asphalt, brick dust, vegetation... What the hell is this? Chocolate?"
"PGPR. It's used to make chocolate." I correct him. He just ignores me.
"I think we’re looking for a disused sweet factory."
"We need to narrow that down. A sweet factory with asphalt?"
"No. No-no-no. Too general. Need something more specific. Chalk; chalky clay – that’s a far thinner band of geology."
"Brick dust?"
"Building site. Bricks from the 1950s." Greg rubs his face in despair.
"There’s thousands of building sites in London." I notice that Sherlock looks exasperated at the distraction.
"Greg. Calm down. He's got people looking." I assure.
"So do I." He retorts.
"Homeless network – faster than the police." He smiles snidely. "Far more relaxed about taking bribes." Sherlock’s phone trills a text alert, followed by several more alerts. He brandishes his phone triumphantly at Greg while the messages continue to pour in. "John, Nakida." He shows us his phone that has a picture of purple flowers on it. "Rhododendron ponticum. It matches." He pauses to look at the picture again. "Addlestone."
"What?"
"There’s a mile of disused factories between the river and the park. It matches everything." He turns and hurries out of the office with John and I in hot pursuit.
Several police cars race to a disused factory and the police officers, together with Sherlock, John, and myself, run inside the dark building. Everyone switches on flashlights and Sally coordinates the police as they start to search in all directions. "You, look over there. Look everywhere. Okay, spread out, please. Spread out." I follow Greg's team and stick to Sherlock, mostly because my past was slowly catching up with me and I also didn't want to have an anxiety attack away from people.
"Look in there. Quietly. Quietly." Greg softly directs the officers.
As we make our way deeper into the factory, Sherlock finds a large number of empty sweet wrappers scattered on the floor around a candle on a plate. Sherlock touches the wick of the candle. "This was alight moments ago." He calls out loudly, "They're still here." I clench my shirt in hopes of calming myself down. John noticed this and put a hand on my shoulder.
"You okay?" I nod.
"Just my nerves. I'll be fine." He nods and the search continues. I hear Sher mumbling something as he picks up one of the wrappers. He holds the wrapper closer to the beam of his flashlight and sniffs the paper before touching the tip of his tongue to it and grimacing. He looks at the wrapper in startled realisation of what he has just tasted.
"Mercury." I took a sharp breath, my heart racing faster than normal.
"Oh god..." Greg turned to us.
"What?"
"The papers: they’re painted with mercury." John groans and I just fall to my knee and put my head in my hands. "Lethal. The more of the stuff they ate..."
YOU ARE READING
ONLY HUMAN Book 1 ✅
Fanfiction[COMPLETED] Nakida suddenly had the opportunity to move to London for a job offer and immediately jumped to it, after wanting to go to the UK for years. After knowing an alarming amount of London life, he finds that he will be working alongside Dete...
