The Thinker Challenge

Chapter 11: Drugs & Doodles

In the hospital, Sio is sitting up in bed, her leg wrapped up tight in bandages. She is scribbling something on a pad of paper. When the door opens, she quickly flips the pad over, revealing a fanciful doodle.

“Oh, it’s only you,” she sighs in relief seeing Sherlock walk through the door. She flips the pad back over and makes a couple of notes before looking back up.

“They took my laptop away. I’m meant to be drawing pictures,” she complains.

“Should you be working?” He asks, mildly concerned.

“It’s fine.” She rattles a bottle of pills sitting on the table by her bed as an explanation. She opens, it, takes out a tablet and tosses him one. “They’re really good and don’t make you itch like the morphine.”

He hesitates a moment, “Don’t you need them?”

“A little pain is good. I’m sure they’ll send me home with a big bottle.”

He nods and swallows the pill. “I’d watch the head nurse. She’s taking anti-malarials and putting considerable effort into hiding her sweat. Her wife is cheating on her with one of the doctors, so sort of a time-bomb, really.”

“Noted.” After a pause, she adds “Tell John you were right. You needn’t have come.”

“He was very insistent and then Mary joined the chorus and it was all I could do to shut them up.”

“They’ll release me tomorrow into the care of my father, who will dutifully drop me off at my flat and be on his way. I would have left today, but they put me on bloody suicide watch.”

“You did stab yourself. Twice.”

“Do they know that? I can’t remember what was said when I was admitted. I wonder if we could control the narrative on this one. Could I have been stabbed, perhaps? I mean, I was in your company and you do tend to make a lot of people angry.”

“The angle and force of the wounds, the weapon – it would be a tough sell to be anything other than self inflicted.”

“But the police are idiots, aren’t they? You’re always saying so. And you are here – I could be consulting with you about the crime for all they know. Maybe a drug deal gone wrong?”

“You think drugs would go over better than self-harm?”

“Most definitely. People practically expect geniuses to be drug addicts – they love the narrative of us ‘throwing it all away’ to get high. Otherwise, it wreaks of insecurity.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he relents, blandly. “Do you need anything else?” Off her look, “John insisted that I ask,” he sighs.

“The book I wasn’t reading when it happened. Perhaps you could have Mrs. Hudson pop it in the post,” she responds.

He waits a beat, noting her hesitation. “What is it? You obviously have something else you want to say.”

“I suppose I should thank you for saving my life. Though I did do the hard bits myself. And you were supposed to be paying attention and making me blink. Still, if you hadn’t hit me…”

“You did bleed all over my floor.”

“Didn’t I already offer to pay for that?”

“And it was rather inconvenient timing, in more ways than one.”

“The case?”

“The case, and….”

She takes a breath and catching his gaze, says simply, “Thank you.”

“Shall we move on?”

“Excuse me?”

“That wasn’t what you wanted to say. You’re stalling. Which is unusual for you. I would blame the medication, but it should be wearing off about now as you skipped the last dose. And then there’s the doodling.”

She grips the pad, defensively flipping it over, “I told you, the bloody staff psychologist forced me to draw…”

“Not that side. That’s obviously a farce. The front – that’s not work. The pencil marks are weak and you’ve over-spaced the characters. That is doodling.”

Knowing he will figure it all out in a moment, she intervenes.

“When did this happen?” She glances down at her leg. “What day?”

It takes a moment for him to respond, as he is busy deconstructing their interaction.

“Thursday.”

“You said it before – ‘the case, and..’, my injury not only interrupted your case, but also our plans for later that evening. But we meet up on Wednesdays and Saturdays.”

“You want to stop,” he quickly blurts out before she has finished speaking.

“It seems the sensible choice.”

“Of course until you have had a chance to heal – I can’t imagine you being very limber with a gaping hole in your leg,” he responds with an unusual light-heartedness.

“Two holes, actually. But…” She feels a pang of something, at his temporary obtuseness.

He experiences a quick flush of embarrassment. At least, he imagines that is what it is. “You want to stop for good. Right.”

“I don’t really see there is much more I can teach you anyway. You are perfectly capable of going on to impress the lady of your choice,” she responds, doing her best to keep her intonation as neutral as possible.

“What should I do about your things?”

“I’ll send Harry around with anything you left at mine and he can pick up any bits and bobs. Other than the book, as I mentioned, which is a bit more urgent.”

“Fine. I’ll be going then,” he responds in kind, having recovered quickly.

“Goodbye,” she says in a voice that is uncharacteristically cheerful.

After watching him leave, she resumes her doodling.

Author’s Note: This is the place in the timeline where the first chapter takes place. Go back to Chapter 1 if you would like a refresher.