Missing Parts

John stretched out on the sofa in Studio Five, watching the rain lash against the window. The sound was soothing, particularly when accompanied by Mike’s gentle strumming of some old Stones song that he couldn’t quite place and he closed his eyes, wondering why he had ever complained about taking a trip out of London because this really wasn’t all that bad.

“… You know that little indestructible black box they put in planes?”

He took a deep breath and turned his head to the side, where Tre Cool was lying spread-eagled on the studio floor, his bloodshot eyes following the dusty ceiling fan.

“Yeah…” Mike murmured, his fingers pausing on the strings for a moment. He lifted his feet up onto the desk and leaned back in the office chair, then began playing again.

“Like… why don’t they just make the whole plane out of that?”

John blinked, as Tre nudged him in the side, then waved a gently smoking roll of white paper vaguely in his direction. He had to admire his ability to chill out in the face of adversity.

“Um, no thanks, mate… got to keep a clear head on the job. Excellent question, though… get the Air Transport Association on line one.”

“No need for sarcasm, Dr. Watson…” Tre drawled, heaving himself into a sitting position. “Where in the name of holy fuck is Billie Joe? Do my eyes look red?”

Mike replaced the acoustic in the rack and folded his arms across his chest with a worldly sigh.

“As usual, Tre, you look like fucking Mumm-Ra. I can’t even believe you can get baked at a time like this… and I have no idea where Billie Joe is, I called him twice already.”

John couldn’t help but grin at Mike’s usual dead-pan delivery and Tre only sighed, then stumbled to his feet.

“What do you suppose they’re doing? Is this whole bonding thing a special extra service you guys provide?”

“They aren’t bonding,” John insisted, dismissively, “They’re discussing the case. But don’t be surprised if your mate comes back wanting to forget the whole thing and chuck Sherlock back on the plane. We get a lot of that.”

“Why can’t they discuss it here? With the rest of us?”

John opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again, with a frown. The truth was, he had no idea why, and Sherlock’s apparent chumminess with Billie Joe was as much a cause for confusion as it was unsettling. Sherlock didn’t strike up friendships with clients. He didn’t care about how people were feeling. He didn’t get taken out for coffee.

“Because… he just can’t. There’s nothing weird about it, it’s just coffee. Normal, boring coffee… and he’ll be back any minute so there’s no need to get-”

“Alright, pipe down, Inspector,” Tre smirked, swatting John’s head as he passed, “… I was only askin’.”

John let out a breath, smiling in surrender, and Tre chuckled, then opened the studio door and stretched.

“I’m starving,” he announced, “And there are sandwiches in the fridge with Pat’s name on them. I trust you boys won’t blow my cover. Peace!”

Mike let out another long sigh, picking up the guitar again, as the door closed behind him and John turned his attention back to the rain, wondering where all of that California sunshine had gone.

It felt like hours before Sherlock and Billie Joe returned but in reality, John knew it couldn’t have been more than five minutes. Mike wasn’t half way through Smoke on the Water while Tre wasn’t half way through his sandwich and John didn’t have him pinned as a slow eater.

“Holy crap, you guys,” Billie Joe muttered, waving his arms in front of his face, as though it might clear the air. “Did you hot-box our studio? It stinks like a freakin’ Dutch coffeeshop in here…”

“Tre...” John murmured, catching Sherlock’s smirk. He cleared his throat. “How was your… meeting? Did you make any progress?”

Billie Joe shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto the couch.

“Uh… progress. Kind of. Hey Tre, that waitress you like – Maisy? Daisy? Whatever. She wants to know why you didn’t call her back. Here’s her number again… I told her you’d be in touch.”

“So many girls, so little time, huh Tre?” John smiled, as the drummer took the crumpled paper napkin from Billie Joe’s extended fingers, then turned it over to examine the numbers scrawled in blue ink on the back.

Tre rolled his eyes.

“Don’t joke. There are literally too many of them, John. It’s hard to know which leads to follow sometimes, you know?”

“Well, that’s the exact opposite of Mike’s problem…” Pat chuckled, entering the room behind Sherlock, carrying a notepad and a coffee. “Try a day in his shoes.”

“Hah…” Mike muttered, looking back at his guitar strings, “I’m so glad you’re here. Can we get on with it, now?”

“Absolutely,” Sherlock nodded, as Pat took a seat next to Tre and looked, indignantly, at what he was eating. Luckily for Tre, he was cut off before he could object. “I have a couple of things I want you all to take a look at.”

Mike set down his guitar, as Sherlock reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out a grainy picture, which appeared, at first glance, to be the room they were all sitting in now.

“Studio Five,” he explained, holding it up between his fingers, then passing it to Billie Joe, who squinted at it for a moment, then passed it to Pat. “This is what that camera showed at three- fifteen am on the twenty-sixth of June. Five days before the crime occurred.”

John studied it, when Mike passed it into his hands. It was dark, of course, but the streetlight coming through the window gave just enough illumination to make out the sofa on which he sat now, the gleaming row of guitars and the reflection on the flat-screen monitor sitting on the desk in the corner. He passed it to Tre, who shrugged, then handed it back to Sherlock.

“What does that mean?” Pat asked, dubiously, “I don’t see anything.”

“Of course you don’t. It’s three-fifteen in the morning. There’s nothing to see.” Sherlock tacked the picture up to the pin board behind him, then reached into his pocket again and unfolded a second picture. “Three-fifteen am on the twenty-ninth of June. One hour before the crime occurred.”

John watched Billie Joe swallow, as the new picture was passed into his hands. He leaned forward, watching the guitarist’s eyes narrow in confusion.

“Sherlock, I… I don’t see anything different.”

“Lemme see…” Pat urged, taking it from his hands. He frowned. “Nope, me either…”

The picture flew around the group quickly, met with frowns, shrugs and impatient sighs, and when it landed in John’s own hands he studied it carefully, determined to catch where Sherlock was going with this but thoroughly confused all the same. There wasn’t anything to see in that picture either. Except…

“It isn’t the same,” he reported, looking up at Sherlock for approval. Sherlock smirked.

“And why, John…”

“Well, I mean, it’s the same, but…” He stood up, walked to the pin board and tacked the second picture up next to the first. “On this picture, you can see three guitars… on this one you can see six. The camera shifted… towards this side of the room…”

He gestured towards the instruments and watched Billie Joe turn a little pale.

“Fuck…” the guitarist muttered, “You’re right. When did it change?”

“It changed at two-fifteen pm on the twenty-eighth,” Sherlock announced, as John returned to his seat. “… Thank you, John. At around noon there was a power cut across the South of Oakland and Alameda, which lasted just over two hours. By the time the cameras came on again at quarter past two… the view had changed.”

“I remember that,” Mike frowned, “We were down in the cafeteria going over the recording schedule, remember? Tre got pissed that the coffee machine in the lobby quit working and the receptionist told us the power was out. So we stayed in the cafeteria and took a long lunch until it came back. Remember?”

“Sure, I remember…” Billie Joe agreed, as Tre nodded, “But that means someone was up here while we were down there… so why didn’t they just take the tape then? They’d never have been caught.”

Sherlock held up a finger.

“Would you like to know what happened next?”

“Hell, yeah…”

“The camera remained in that position… in fact it still remains in the position now. If someone enters through the main door, or the fire door - both of which are alarmed – they can be clearly seen by the security station in the basement. However… we now have a blind spot.”

The group watched, transfixed, as Sherlock moved to stand at the back wall beneath the camera, and stretched out his arms.

“This area of the room is inaccessible to the camera… which is convenient. Because I’m going to have a guess… that your tape lived in… here.”

He moved towards the locked cabinet next to him and tapped it, once. The dull, metallic sound resonated around the room, making his captivated audience jump.

“Yeah,” Mike croaked, his eyes wide, “… That thing’s full of recordings. And locked.”

“And the key is…”

“Well, we all have a key,” Pat explained, “But the spare is in the top desk drawer, right there.”

“This one?” Sherlock confirmed, opening the drawer that the five pairs of eyes were now fixed upon. “... Handy. The camera can’t see me here either.”

He reached into the drawer and removed the key, then went about unlocking the cabinet. They listened to the key turn, to the drawer squeal on the runners, then Sherlock’s chuckle.

“Alphabetised?”

“Loosely...” Billie Joe mumbled, “But… I swear, y'know… I know where everything is.”

John snorted, rolling his eyes towards Sherlock.

“Sounds like someone else I know…”

“What I don’t understand,” Pat sighed, his voice edged with frustration, “Is how they got in? I mean, fine, the camera can’t see you now but how would they get in the building in the middle of the night without the alarms going off? And how would they know where to find the spare key? This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Well, you’re quite right, Mr. Magnarella,” Sherlock nodded, “I already mentioned the doors were in full view of the camera. But we know they got in the room. So, clearly, the thief didn’t use them.”

They stared, silenced, as Sherlock reached for the unoccupied chair and dragged it to the back of the room, where the cabinet was left open. John watched, as he clambered onto it, considering for a moment whether he should remind him of the dangers of balancing on swivelling chairs.

He reached up with both hands, to the ceiling, placing his palms flat against the dusty white ceiling tile directly above his head, and pushed.

“No freakin’ way…” Mike breathed, and the rest stared open-mouthed, as Sherlock pushed the tile right out of place, squinting his eyes and coughing a little, as he was showered by the cloud of dust and grime he had displaced.

“That…” Pat recognised, “Is the white shit that was all over the console the other week… I think I accused Tre of snorting coke off of the sliders…”

“Unbelievable…” Tre agreed, throwing Pat an indignant scowl. “Go on then detective… how’d the dude get in the fucking ceiling?”

Sherlock hopped down from the chair, brushing the dust from his jacket and fixing Tre with a long, thoughtful, stare.

“I wondered the same thing myself,” he continued, carefully, “Until I saw that fire escape of yours. Somebody used it to climb on the roof – more than once, if the scratches were anything to go by – and the studio management had it repainted just last week. The vents on the roof are easily removed – a chisel, pen-knife… really, any kind of long, hard object would prise them off. Once you’re through the vents, you’re in above the ceiling. As long as you stay on the frame there’s little danger of falling through. This person knew where they were going. They knew the camera was pointing in just the right place. They knew they were in no danger of setting off the alarm. It was, in theory, the perfect crime.”

“Holy shit,” Billie Joe breathed, shaking his head. He leaned forward in his seat, rubbing his eyes, as he tried to take this new information in. “I mean… all of that makes perfect sense. I can’t believe I didn’t think of those shitty ceiling tiles myself but… none of this helps us figure out who the fucker was. The cops said they were wearing gloves - there’s no evidence!”

Sherlock sighed, peeling off his dusty jacket and dropping it onto the couch next to John.

“You’re right, Billie… of course you are. But none of that matters at all… because I already know who took your record.”

Five jaws dropped, silently, and Sherlock smiled, enjoying the moment. He took a deep breath, as he dropped into the chair he had been standing on, then let it out again.

“Well?” Mike practically growled.

Sherlock sighed, as though getting this far had exhausted him so much he wasn’t certain he could cross the finish line.

“I knew right from the start, of course,” he told them, with a casual wave of his hand, “I had a short list of suspects when I first set foot in this place and it didn’t take long to whittle them down. Who didn’t interest me nearly as much as why… and thankfully both questions turned out to be simple to answer.”

He let his eyes drift from one man to the other. John leaned forward on his elbows, forehead creased in anticipation. Billie Joe was clutching hard to Mike’s forearm, both of them paralysed with suspense and intrigue. Tre’s sandwich was halfway to his mouth, apparently suspended in time, as his blue eyes fixed hard onto Sherlock’s and his manager, sat at his side, joined him in staring with wide-eyed apprehension. His audience was spellbound.

“Of course,” Sherlock continued, after a suitable pause, “I don’t expect you to take what I say without proof and that proved to be rather more of a challenge. They planned ahead. They covered their bases. They were good, for the most part. But everyone… everyone… leaves a trace.”

Silence again. Tre broke it with a tight breath of frustration.

“Well? What was it?”

Sherlock smiled, reaching into the inside pocket of his discarded jacket and pulling out a pair of well-worn Zildjian drumsticks. There was a near-silent intake of air and it seemed to hold, as he held the sticks up next to each other, one standing up straight on each of his knees, like a pair of combat- ready soldiers.

“Huh?” Tre squeaked, as the group stared at Sherlock in shocked confusion.

John couldn’t help but smile.

“The one on the right,” he nodded at Sherlock, “It’s chipped and worn… I can see the grooves in the wood from here. The damage should be equal, if they’re used as a pair. Besides… what’s that black stuff smeared on the top?”

Sherlock grinned.

“That, my friend, is roof tar. Turns out the new tar paper was applied just last month to make sure the vents were sealed in preparation for this fine summer weather we’re having. And I dare say the management won’t be too happy about calling them out a second time, Tre.”

John smiled in disbelief, as he turned to his right to take in the reaction of his new Californian companions.

Just in time to see Billie Joe fly fist-first across the coffee table.