![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fic: Showbiz (V)
Fandoms: Muse/ Sherlock BBC (no spoilers for series 2)
Summary: Muse frontman Matt Bellamy is being stalked. After receiving several threatening messages, they decide to contact a certain consulting detective named Sherlock Holmes...
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence; sexual situations; slash
Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story are fictional, even those based on real people and material (having been altered, added or left out for dramatic purposes). I do not own Muse; I do not own Sherlock Holmes nor the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and so fabulously reworked by Moffat and Gatiss .
Big thanks to my ever faithful beta
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
deadstarbug who even shares my obsessions LOLSorry for being MIA lately and for taking so long to post this.. Hopefully some of you will still remember this!
CHAPTER FIVE
Sherlock was pacing the living room with his hands steepled under his nose in the ‘praying-to the-god-that-is-my-brain’ position he favoured. A serial killer falling right into his lap? He could have hardly asked for more after the initial request for assistance seemed to indicate that this would be a painfully uninteresting case.
“The police didn’t do their research, failed to make the connection,” he began abruptly. “The deaths are all linked; these people were persecuted and murdered by the same man. I don’t know how he does it. Obviously they were all drowned, but how? How does he do it without ever raising suspicion? There were never any witnesses to claim that they fell, or were pushed in the Thames and there were no injuries to suggest they were forced underwater... but all the victims had alcohol in the bloodstream so he must have baited them somehow and...” The detective’s pacing came to a halt. “Oh! He gets them drunk, drowns them in privacy, maybe in some sort of tank, and dumps the bodies in the river afterwards. Possibly -“
“Stop, just stop!” Dom was white as a sheet. “You’re saying... you’re saying that the man stalking Matt has killed people? Multiple people? That he’s going to do it again... to Matt?!”
Faced with the drummer’s anguished expression, Sherlock sobered quickly. It would be Matthew Bellamy suffering the same fate if the murderer wasn’t found at once. The detective bent over the table, bracing his hands and dropping his head, staring down gravely. “Are you calling Matthew?”
“Yes. Yes!” Dom rushed to the couch where he’d left his phone, hands shaking as he dialled. “He’s not answering,” he reported after a few seconds. “Come on... shit, come on, Matt, don’t do this to me...”
“He’s been captured.” Sherlock spun around, digging one hand into his hair and ruffling the curls frantically as Dom re-dialled. “He’s been captured, but he’s still alive. He will be for five to six hours at most, the first four victims all were after their disappearances, which gives us -”
“Sherlock, are you sure?” John spoke quietly, sparing a quick glance at the drummer, who still had his mobile attached to his ear but appeared as if he’d just seen a ghost. His flatmate replied with a simple but effective eye roll.
“No, just... what the fuck are you saying...” Flopping down on the couch, Dom let his head hang low. ”Come on, Matt, answer the bloody phone, you can’t do this to me...”
Grabbing his scarf and coat, Sherlock spoke as he put them on. “John, I need you to take Dominic and go to the Connaught. We need to retrace Matthew’s steps. Find out if he managed to get there and if so, when he left. It’s highly unlikely he was abducted from there, even the atrocious hotel security would have made an effort not to let a guest who’d been assaulted previously be kidnapped from their own lobby. He must have been lured away somehow.”
John recalled one of Sherlock’s very first deductions - that the stalker had known Matt from a young age. The thought left an unpleasant feeling in his gut. “Where are you going?”
“Scotland Yard. I need Lestrade to give me access to the case files for these deaths, they must have opened an inquiry for each. I need to solve these murders.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Dom rose from the couch, livid. “You’re saying there’s a serial killer who’s got Matt and you’re going to investigate dead people instead of trying to find him?”
Sherlock leaned menacingly towards Dom, their noses almost touching. “If I find who killed them, I find who has Matthew. Now do what I tell you and don’t waste my precious time!” And he stormed out of the flat.
“This is a fucking nightmare...” Dom covered his face with his hands, the words coming out muffled. “Please tell me he’s wrong.”
“Come on, we have to go.” John patted the blond’s shoulder sympathetically. “We need your help, too, Dominic.”
There was no reply from the other man as he rubbed at his eyes, clearly distraught. They were bloodshot when he finally faced John. “We should go to the police. How does he plan on solving this by himself in a couple of hours?”
“If anyone can, it’s Sherlock. He’ll find Matt.” The doctor tried to be as reassuring as possible. “And Scotland Yard will be involved, too, you heard him.”
“He said there’s only a few hours left!”
“I’ve seen him do this more times than you can imagine. And he always works better under pressure.”
He decided to keep to himself how he’d never seen his partner working a case in which he had even the remotest connection to the victim before, and that John had no idea how the detective might be influenced by it.
***
Matt’s cab stopped just outside number 6, Syon Manor Road in the suburb of Hounslow. From the singer’s perspective, it seemed an ordinary house in an ordinary neighbourhood, comfortably middle class. The front yard seemed well-maintained, everything clean and neat, two cars parked in front of the garage. As he didn’t know how long this would take, he paid the cabbie and asked him to wait, but leave if he didn’t return in five minutes. Sherlock’s belief that the man was a teacher and appeared a perfectly average citizen from the outside briefly crossed Matt’s mind... No, he’d have to be mad to send Matt to his own house. He’d recalled on the way that the woman Tom was dating was from Hounslow, so that gave him some comfort.
The singer walked towards the front door and knocked, taking a deep breath and shifting on his feet in the cold as he waited. A middle-aged lady’s face peered around the edge of the door when it was opened slightly in answer. Wearing glasses and a polite smile, her gaze wandered up and down, left and right without meeting Matt’s.
“Hello. May I help you?”
“Good morning. Yes, I... my name is Matt. Matt Bellamy. I, uh, came to meet my friend Tom Kirk. This is the right place, isn’t it?”
Perfectly ordered shoulder length brown hair, nice if extremely conservative clothes... this couldn’t possibly be the woman Tom was shagging. Well, unless his tastes had drastically changed. In fact, she was probably old enough to be their mother. “Indeed, it is, you came to the right place. He’s been waiting for you, Mr. Bellamy.” Head hung low in a humble, almost subservient manner, she opened the door and stepped aside. “Please, do come in.”
Matt hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at the waiting cab. His gut instinct was telling him to leave; if something went wrong, he had no one to come to his aid and nothing to defend himself with, the weight of the iPhone in his jacket pocket of little comfort. Tom had asked him to come, though...
He followed the woman inside.
The house was so stuffed with dark, old-fashioned furniture, china figurines, rugs, paintings and assorted pointless, occasionally downright ugly, ornamentation that, for a fleeting moment, Matt felt like he’d just stepped into his grandmother’s house back in Teignmouth. The impression didn’t last, though, evaporating completely when his eyes fell on a collection of porcelain dolls. Their dead, staring eyes creeped him the hell out.
“My husband will be here momentarily. May I offer you a cup of tea?”
“Your husband..?” Matt asked absentmindedly as they entered the sitting room, his attention arrested by a stuffed deer head on the wall.
A hunting trophy. Fragments of conversation with Sherlock and John over the past few days flashed through Matt’s brain. Tom was nowhere to be seen.
A male voice from the doorway turned the blood to ice in his veins.
“Good morning, Matthew. I’ve been expecting you.”
Matt turned slowly. There was a man in his early 60s standing there. Round, clean-shaven face, framed by short, white hair; he wore brown corduroy trousers and a buttoned shirt under a pale yellow cardigan. He had fluffy slippers on his feet and looked like a TV grandpa. He freaked the living daylights out of Matt.
“This is my wife, Mary Alice.” The lady fidgeted, a tight smile passing swiftly over her face, her eyes glued demurely to the floor. “And my name is Mark Smith. We’ve met before, Matthew, but I trust you may not remember. Understandable. It’s been a good while since you stepped in a classroom for a history lesson, hasn’t it?”
Pulse quickening at man’s words, memories fluttered to the surface of Matt’s mind, triggered by the man’s name and supported by many of the things he’d talked about with Sherlock the night before. Classrooms, history lessons, teachers... Mr. Smith. Hadn’t he taught Tom’s class...? And he filled in for Mrs. Blackwood, one of Matt’s teachers, who was frequently not present due to her poor health. She had passed away over a decade ago, as they had discovered during their research.
“Oh, I see it’s starting to come back to you. How flattering. You see, I don’t expect my students to remember me. But I never forget a student’s name, or face. I remember every single one of them. Even those who I taught only a few times when filling in for a colleague.” He smiled. “But before we continue our conversation, as we have so much to talk about, Matthew, I will kindly request that you remove your shoes. Mary Alice takes great pains to ensure the house is kept in pristine condition, and rightly so. She will also bring you a cup of tea at once.” At that, the woman left the room without a word.
“Where’s Tom?” Matt croaked.
“Dear Mr. Thomas Kirk, I presume? Home, where I left him after our brief meeting late last night. He hasn’t changed a thing after all these years, has he?” A trace of a smile lingered on his lips. “There’s no reason for you to be concerned, he only suffered a slight concussion when I went to borrow his phone. I could have asked nicely, of course, but I had the feeling he wouldn’t oblige me without putting up a fight, loyal to you as he is. Now, Matthew,” and the authoritative tone he employed, combined with the undertone of inherent condescension, made him feel like he was back in the classroom, an ordinary boy at the back of the room, struggling to pass a test so his grandmother wouldn’t ground him. “Enough chit chat. The shoes, if you please.”
He was so fucked. Why hadn’t he follow Sherlock’s advice? Why hadn’t he at least told Dom where he was going? And was Tom okay? He crouched down to remove one black boot and then the other, taking his time, brain churning as he tried to think of a way to get himself out of this mess. He could try to dash past him and make a break for the door. It didn’t seem like either him or his wife were armed. Maybe he could escape if he disabled the man? He was bigger than Matt but he couldn’t be more agile. Perhaps running for the nearest window would be best…
His mobile started in his pocket with Dom’s ringtone. Did they know? Or were they only wondering now why he was taking so long to return to Baker Street?
“Ah, your phone, of course.” Smith reached out his hand, palm turned up, a wedding ring barely visible on a chubby finger. “I’ll look after that for you.”
Matt didn’t think, he simply acted: he flung the mobile at Smith, hard. It hit him square in the face, making him stumble, and it was enough to leave the criminal momentarily distracted. Running towards him, Matt shoved the former teacher against the doorframe, Smith struggling to keep his feet, and sprinted blindly for the front door, skidding on his sock-clad feet on the highly waxed floorboards. He made it, but realised in a panic that it was locked and the key was nowhere to be found. And in the split second he stopped to think of what to do, a sharp pain flared in his shoulder. Hand flying to the spot, he discovered a dart buried in his flesh. He yanked it out, but it was plain what was going to happen. Dizziness arrived, his vision blurring and his limbs ceasing to function. He collapsed to the floor in a heap, incapacitated.
The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness were the faces of his two abductors hovering above him.
“Just as I told you, Mary Alice. This one has been a trial from the start.”
***
Sherlock barged into Detective Inspector Lestrade’s office and dropped the newspaper with the news of the body found in the Thames from a few days before on his desk. That the silver-haired man was already in a meeting with three other people was of little importance.
“I need you to get me everything you have on this man and these,” he added several copies of older newspaper articles on top of it. “Now.”
There were displeased murmurs all around as Lestrade went from confused to angry in a fraction of a second. “Sherlock, are you barking mad? What do you think you’re doing? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a meeting?”
“Not my problem right now. I need everything you’ve got about these deaths, there isn’t a second to waste!”
Taken aback with the seriousness of the other man’s voice, the DI crossed his arms obstinately in front of his chest. “And why would I do that? I’m busy!”
“Because there is a serial killer on the loose that Scotland Yard has neglected to notice and he has already captured his latest victim. And if this man dies, your career will be ruined, because he’s a celebrity. However, I guarantee you that even if he weren’t, I would personally see to it that you never work in law enforcement. Ever. Again.”
“Woah, woah, woah! A serial killer?” Lestrade stood and dismissed the other officers, who left amidst hushed grumblings. “What is this about? Who are you working with? Dimmock?”
“I stumbled upon it, he’s a private client and I’ve just discovered the connection to the other deaths. We are wasting time, Lestrade!”
“Alright, I’m going, I’m going! Give me the names.” He sat down and pulled the newspaper and copies towards him. “Who’s your client? He’s the one who’s missing?”
“Missing for about an hour. His name is Matthew James Bellamy, 32, and he’s the frontman of a band called Muse. We have no more than five hours to find him before he’s dead; the other victims were murdered within five to six hours of their disappearance. Bellamy was attacked the night before last by an accomplice who escaped and was then found dead yesterday morning. I know how he kills them, but I need to find the connection between them. The priority is to check their high school teachers, there has to be a name in common.” He still couldn’t understand how they hadn’t found the killer when going over Matt’s teachers; the answer should have been there.
“I’ll get Donovan to help you.” Lestrade gave him a look that spoke of the gravity of the situation. “Isn’t John with you?”
“He’s at the hotel Bellamy was staying at as we speak, collecting data.” He dropped to a chair in front of Lestrade’s desk, clutching his head in his hands for a moment. The uncharacteristically stressed behaviour didn’t go unnoticed by the DI.
“What is he to you?"
"What?"
"Your client, this Bellamy guy." The name of his band was vaguely familiar to Lestrade and he wanted to ask Sherlock if he was a friend, no matter how odd the notion of Sherlock having a friend was. A friend other than John, that was. Curious as he was about their connection, the hateful look he was getting didn't encourage him to repeat the question. "Alright! Will you calm down?” He turned his computer screen and keyboard towards the detective. “You can work here in my office, it’s all yours. I’ll get you the case files. But I want to be informed of everything that happens, understood?”
***
Dom and John were watching the footage from the surveillance cameras of the Connaught Hotel, looking for evidence of Matt’s arrival and departure. They’d had no problem getting access to it once they’d asked to speak to the hotel manager, who, judging by his embarrassed expression when he saw Dom, well remembered the incident in Matt’s suite two days before.
“So he came and left alone by cab... nothing seems out of the ordinary...” John summarised, Dom agitatedly wringing his hands with glazed eyes beside him. “He had his mobile in his hand, looks like he was texting someone or waiting for someone to call.” John shook his head, at a loss.
The drummer knew that Matt rarely switched the iPhone off. Dropping back in his seat, he rang Matt again only to once more reach his voicemail. “He’s... Matt’s always on the phone, you’ve seen what he’s like...” Dom said, voice dazed.
John recalled Sherlock’s earlier words. “But someone could have called him, threatened him or baited him somehow. He wasn’t kidnapped in front of our flat because at that hour Mrs. Hudson would have seen it...” They had asked their landlady on their way out if she’d noticed anything out of the ordinary. “I don’t think he ever tried to return, he went somewhere else from the hotel.”
Dom’s phone rang. “Don’t recognise the number.” He glanced at John, who nodded at him to answer the call. “Hello? Oh, hey, Tom, it’s you... Listen, I should’ve called you before...” But he paused, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “Matt’s... God, he’s missing, Tom. He went missing about two hours ago...” He was quiet for a long time, listening, and then sprung out of his seat, pained voice gone high-pitched with new worry. “Jesus, are you hurt? Did he hurt you? Did you see the fucking cunt?” Dom was staring at John now. “Listen, I’m with John Watson, we’re at the hotel, we’re coming straight to you now... I’ll tell you everything as soon as we get there, alright?” He paused again. “No, it’s not your fucking fault, you idiot. I don’t know, I hope to God he’s okay. We’re coming to you now.”
“What happened?” John asked anxiously when the call ended.
“Someone showed up at Tom’s house late last night, he was in bed. He went to the door and someone whacked him on the head when he opened it. When he woke up, he was tied up and couldn’t free himself. He was lucky his girlfriend was stopping by this morning. They thought he’d been robbed ‘cos his phone was missing, but then Tom realised nothing else was.”
John recalled his and Sherlock’s visit to the media manager’s house and instantly understood his concern – Tom’s photography equipment was worth a small fortune and would be of irresistible appeal to any regular burglar. “Someone used his phone to lure Matt somewhere,” John concluded, jaw tight. “We have to tell Sherlock.”
***
Matt found himself sprawled on an uncomfortable surface when he regained consciousness.
He felt extremely drowsy and his neck and right shoulder were aching. It was difficult to breathe. He opened his eyes and, through what seemed like a glass pane, took in his surroundings. It was probably the house’s basement, judging by the lack of windows, unfinished walls and scattered gardening equipment. Smith was there, sat comfortably in a chair, glasses on the tip of his nose, reading a newspaper which he folded immediately once he noticed Matt was awake.
“Ah, yes. You’re awake. Sooner than I expected, too. Good, good. I use that tranquiliser for deerstalking, I wasn’t completely sure of the effect it would have on you considering your body weight. I wasn’t expecting to need it, to be perfectly honest.” He removed his glasses as he stood and walked closer to the singer. “I believe you may experience a brief period of disorientation. Nothing serious.”
The man’s voice seemed to reach him from far away, though he was right in front of him, and Matt felt as though he was trapped in some sort of mushroom-induced hallucination. Sitting up with effort, he began feeling out his surroundings. Was it glass all over? He could sit and stretch his legs but that was about it. He was locked inside a fucking transparent box!
“Before you ask, you are inside a fish tank, Matthew. It was custom made to fit in the cavity in that wall. Don’t bother attempting to break it because this acrylic glass,” and he tapped the surface with a finger, “is bulletproof. You also won’t be able to tip it over because there are metal bars here and here,” he pointed to the top and bottom of the cavity, “to prevent such a thing and to keep it in place.” Matt gaped as the man spoke, his heart already beating wildly in his chest. “So now that you know there is no escape and it’s useless to attempt it, you will be entirely focused on me and we will be able to converse properly. If you accept my terms, you may leave unscathed as early as tonight. If you don’t, Matthew, you will also leave tonight, but you will not be alive to know it.”
“You fucking nutcase, let me out right now!” Matt banged his fists with as much strength as he could muster against the glass but it was as hard as described and he knew he would only hurt himself further by continuing.
“The circular opening in the lid where you can see a tube attached,” he paused as Matt’s head swerved around to see what he was referring to, “is what is providing you with oxygen. It will also serve as a channel for water to flow inside and fill the tank in case our conversation results in an unacceptable outcome. Naturally, you will drown.”
“Let me out of here now!” Matt bellowed. “There’re people who know where I am and they’ll be on to you! I told Dom!” The weird acoustics of the box were making his head throb when he talked, as if it would implode if he uttered one more word.
“No, you didn’t, Matthew. I’m not a high-tech individual, but even I can check your phone’s text message and phone call records.” There was a small smirk lurking at the corner of his lips. “As expected, you told no one. Which was my intention when I borrowed Mr. Kirk’s phone. Anyway, what I want to know, Matthew, is how -“ Smith stopped at the sound of his wife arriving, carrying a broom. Without looking at Matt, she placed it in a corner. “Mary Alice, I told you at lunch that I was not to be disturbed when with our guest, did I not?”
She clasped and unclasped her fingers in obvious distress. “Yes, I’m so sorry, I do apologise.”
He breathed out, lips pursed, clearly upset. “Tea is to be served at the usual time. I will be done with our guest by then, so you shall not need to call me, as I will be upstairs. Go now. Matthew and I are busy.”
Matt closed his eyes and let his head drop so it rested against one side of the tank. This was so utterly fucked up, he didn’t even know where to start.
“Now. As I was saying,” Smith brought the chair closer and sat down, crossing his legs, ankle resting on the opposite knee. “What I want to know is this: who did you steal the music from?”
Matt watched Smith through half-lidded eyes, bewildered. “What..?”
“The music you have released as your own and that has brought you so much success. Made you wealthy, allowed you to move out of Devon and travel the world, win awards and engage in relationships with Hollywood actresses.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He let out a small, despairing laugh.
“Do not pretend not to know what I am talking about. I taught you at school, Matthew. There is not a talented bone in that body. You were one of the dimmest students not just in your class, but in your entire year. Average to mediocre in every possible way. From a broken family, socially inept, incapable of conforming. Fated to a life of failure and petty lawbreaking.”
Matt knew what Smith meant. The year he taught him was the year his parents divorced. The year he moved to his grandmother’s, the year he picked up the guitar and had an uncontrollable urge to just play and play, when he’d begun to dream of being part of a band and nothing else mattered. Everything was fucked up, difficult; he’d been riddled with predictable teenage angst and disillusioned with everything. None of it made sense, there was no point to any of it. That was also the year he met Dom.
“You can imagine my surprise when I recently found one of Mary Alice's silly magazines on the couch and your name was part of a headline on the cover,” he scoffed. “So tell me, Matthew – who did you steal from? Tell me the truth and I may let you live past my afternoon tea.”
no subject
Brilliantly written again love. xxx
no subject
Poor matt (as always in my fics :p). We'll see what we can do..
no subject
no subject
no subject
Thanks for reading !
no subject
“Stop, just stop!” Dom was white as a sheet.
Dom hit the nail right there, Stop being so bloody HAPPY Sherlock. Normally I love you being happy, I ADORE you being all giddy about a difficult and dangerous case, but this terror that Dom is displaying was in my mind all the time too!
Thank FUCK Tom is okay, but now it's all about Matt again, isn't it? I'm smiling suddenly - what is it with you and bringing Matt into trouble? You just love our little wockstar being pegged down a bit and brought into danger, don't you? Once again his curiosity has brought him to this point... Locked in a fish tank? Bloody hell, that reminds me of the film "Cell", that freaked me out!
But this time we have the (mental, creepy, psychotic) killer right there, and asking him this absolute ridiculous question! If only he WAS a stalker! Then he'd knew Matt's musical geniality and that everything comes out of his mind for sure. Why is that teacher of his so obsessed with it in the first place? I feel for his wife... She must be completely brainwashed and under his control.
Please Sherlock, I beg you... SOLVE THE CASE! This is going to be a last minute thing, isn't it? Oh damn, you better not let me waiting so long this time!
Sorry for the much more incoherent comment but I just poured this all out in one go, hah. :)
I love you girl, you are so amazing. Screw every famous suspense-writer that ever lived - you are the best out of all! <3
no subject
more answers about the psycho killer to come in last chapter ;)
he and his wife were totally inspired by a couple who are clients where i work and i had a sort of argument with the man quite awhile back (both of them present) - and i remember going home that day and thinking to myself how he looked so pleasant at the first impression but then he gave such odd/dark vibes... and i thought 'he'd be an excellent villain in a story' HEHE
(the poor man probably is a really nice guy and would scream if he knew what he inspired me for LMAO)
and after all this pouring of love and praise, i dont quite know what to do with myself.
but i'll have you know, the motivation and kick in the arse i needed to finish the bloody fic? you can bet you're playing a huge role in that and im SO going to thank you when i post the next chapter *huggles*