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Marshall Cunningham is a unpleasant looking man, wearing dirty jeans and far too many sweatshirts. Suspect in at least four murders, but undoubtedly responsible for at least twice that many. He's as tall as Sherlock, even folded in his chair, but he has width as well, filling space in a square and imposing sort of way. An ugly sort of way. John takes some comfort in the fact that he's currently handcuffed to a table. Because he's a man who has a history of using more than his size to intimidate those around him.
Sherlock doesn't seem to care in the slightest, sitting stiffly in the chair opposite him. He's wearing the expression John has deemed 'bored with a hint of annoyance.' There's an air of impatience to him too, but John knows where that comes from.
"The police aren't going to find anything," Marshall grunts out. When neither John nor Sherlock say anything for almost a minute. His hands are folded on the table in front of him, his large knuckles are callused, nails dirty. He looks bored, but there's an offensive sort of satisfaction to him, as if he's been enjoying wasting his time indulging the questions of the Metropolitan Police. "They've been after me from the beginning. I didn't do a thing, it's all lies. Some people just have it in for me." He leans back in his chair, slouches and gives a shrug, followed by the rough beginnings of a smile.
John very rarely hates someone on sight, but Marshall Cunningham is a man that deserves the sentiment. He's right though, at the moment the police are wasting their time, they don't have any evidence. No one has been able to find any evidence. Not just because of Marshall's fondness for committing murders when it's raining. Lestrade is drowning in the amount of evidence he doesn't have.
Sherlock had called Marshall a tedious brute that he didn't have any time for. He knows he's guilty of course. Sherlock always knows. Always.
Lestrade will have to let the man go in two hours, if they don't find a reason - or an excuse - to hold him. But Sherlock's evidence doesn't exactly hold up in court.
"I'm going to be out of here in an hour." Marshall's voice is grubby, brick-hard and low in his throat. "Won't miss the place, it's fucking freezing in here, you'd think they'd turn the heating on at least. Shocking treatment of an innocent man, that is. I reckon someone cut the power in my place as well. You should get them to look into that. That's harassment you know."
It is cold in here, much colder than outside. "Two hours actually," John adds helpfully. "They can still hold you for two hours."
"Shut up, will you please." Sherlock says. "I can't think when you get emotional."
Marshall's brow furrows, deep lines of confusion, as if he's not sure whether to be insulted or not. John knows that feeling intimately, it's always nice to see it on someone else.
"He's not talking to us," John points out, not surprised by the interruption at all.
Marshall continues to look confused. Now that's an expression John's used to.
Sherlock drums his fingers angrily on the table.
"Yes, well that does you no good now, does it?" he snaps, and then levels an irritated look somewhere in the direction of the far wall. "Now shut up and let me get on with it."
"Is he entirely right in the head?" Marshall asks, there's more than a touch of annoyance to his voice now.
"Not even slightly," Sherlock says flatly, and finally turns to face him. "Though I suspect I would object entirely to having a brain anyone would consider normal, unexpected annoyances aside." He drags his scarf free in one restless movement, lets it fall into his lap.
Marshall leans back in his chair. John thinks he's already told himself that Sherlock isn't a threat to him, that he doesn't have anything important to offer. Or threaten him with.
"If you think you're going to trick me into admitting anything -"
Sherlock pulls a face, it looks insulted from the side but it could just as easily be disgust. Sherlock's face is strange and not always reliable.
"I'm not interested in tricking you. The case against you is paper-thin, any further investigation would almost certainly find you innocent due to lack of evidence. For all that it's obvious, obvious, that you're guilty. New evidence would be almost impossible to get after all this time, and the near-constant deluge London has been suffering. No, I'm simply here to give you a message, if only so I'll have some peace."
"Sherlock," John nudges.
"Yes, John, thank you. " Sherlock leans forward, a hair away from invading Marshall's personal space. Marshall stays exactly where he is. The size difference is obvious, though Sherlock doesn't seem fazed at all. Ignores the curling of Marshall's fingers. "Messages from the deceased, it's all so maudlin and ridiculous. Not the sort of thing I would usually make time for. I have better things to do, and I hate talking to dead people. They're done, finished, irrelevant. But I've recently discovered that -" Sherlock sighs out a breath and glances at John pointedly. "That ignoring them isn't a permanent solution."
"God forbid anything difficult turn up, eh?" John can't resist a smile.
"It's not my fault that so many of them find it difficult to accept that they're dead and move on." Sherlock says, with more than a hint of petulance. "Making it my problem -"
"I'd imagine it's a bit vexing though, being murdered." John doesn't look around. Even though he can't see or hear anything...sometimes the room Sherlock's in can feel uncomfortably full.
"Yes, well, it's not like they're in a position to do anything about it, not usually anyway. Aside from the occasional helpful observation they're mostly useless."
"You're a humanitarian of the dead," John mutters.
Sherlock pretends he didn't hear that, and turns back to face Marshall.
"I don't know their names because I've been ignoring them, dead people aren't particularly interesting you see. The one's that hang around tend to be possessed of a singular sort of focus. Screaming, whispering, knocking things around in a disruptive, irritating sort of way. I don't usually stand for it any more than I would for the living. A constant stream of people with problems - so I rarely bother to ask their names, or remember the ones they give me. Irrelevant details."
Sherlock fidgets, nails clicking on the metal table.
"Though I can describe these particular dead people, if you'd like?" Sherlock's expression suggests he doesn't care at all whether Marshall wants him to or not. Marshall moves his wrists in his handcuffs, makes a noise that sounds like amusement, as if he's resigned himself to whatever theatrics - or insanity, it wouldn't be the first time he's been accused of that - Sherlock intends to perform.
John doesn't think he's going to be wearing that expression for very long.
Sherlock raises a hand, and casually points over Marshall's left shoulder.
"Older woman, seventies, grey hair in a bun, green dress, obsessed with birds, you smashed something heavy and sharp-edged into the side of her head, and she died instantly. You knew her, no family resemblance though, a neighbour perhaps? Then behind you there's a disappointed looking man in his late forties, scar across the back of his left hand. Also not a relative, but he put you in a position of trust, which you betrayed - you stabbed him at least seven times, maybe more, he tends to only be visible from the front. Stares at me constantly, doesn't speak, very disconcerting."
Marshall's no longer laughing. There's a dazed, sickly sort of focus to him now. The shape of him larger somehow, no longer slouching but stiff in his chair.
Sherlock continues like he doesn't particularly care what reaction Marshall's having.
"Youth over there, scruffy-looking, ordinary sort of face, red hoodie - stab wound to the neck." Sherlock lifts a hand and aggressively stabs two fingers against the side of his throat to demonstrate. "Not tidy, he put up just enough of a fight to make a mess. Just behind him, Blonde Woman in a yellow dress, expensive looking, well, I say 'yellow' but it's mostly a reddish-brown, since you slit her throat from behind. You kept her ring, with the flowers on, and she's very angry about that, she doesn't like you touching it. Oh and Angry Looking Businessman, to my left, who won't stop talking, unfortunate mustache - don't look at me like that, it is. You beat him to death, urinated on his corpse, stole his watch, which he says you keep in the bottom drawer in the dining room cabinet. There's a streak of blood that's sunk into the metal that you can't get out, no matter how much you scrub."
The lights above them flicker, two bursts and then an over-bright swell, before they settle again.
Sherlock's head ticks sideways.
"He's understandably testy."
All the colour has left Marshall's face, it's pale and sweaty now. He's staring at Sherlock with a horrified sort of panic.
"Then there's the Girl, six or seven, she hasn't moved from your side since we came in. Judging by her injuries, you felt she needed to be punished for something. Though what a six year old girl could have done to deserve that -? A younger sister? She's been dead much longer than the rest though, her dress looks rotten, you buried her underground, didn't you? You hid her because you felt ashamed."
Marshall wheezes out a single breath, he looks like he might be sick.
John's seen this happen more than a dozen times now. People always find the term 'police psychic' amusing to start with, until Sherlock starts talking. He never bothers with theatrics, he never fishes for clues, he goes straight for the truth, honest in a way that hurts. Because he knows where all the bodies are buried. Literally.
John hadn't believed it himself at first. Not when Sherlock had introduced himself, warnings about his personality and habits in that brutally honest way he had. That he played the violin, smoked, tended to be anti-social, and that he could see dead people. John had been desperate enough to agree anyway. Though Sherlock had still insisted he wouldn't stay in the flat for long. John hadn't believed any of it. But there were only so many times you could listen to a woman crying in an empty bathroom, or watch doors open and shut on their own. Sherlock had been surprised when he didn't move out. He'd told John 'most people move out.' John had told him he wasn't most people.
Sherlock says nothing while the clock in the room ticks every second out. His eyes don't focus on Marshall but something behind him. When his eyes eventually swing back to look at him, John sees the man give the tiniest flinch.
"They've been with you since you killed them, oh, not all of your victims, just the ones angry enough or determined enough to stay, circling you, watching you, waiting. You'd be surprised how persistent the dead can be. Annoying, yet determined. I'm amazed you haven't felt them, that large a concentration of the dead, crowding in close to you. They must make every room feel like a fridge."
There's a sharp, clean noise, like breaking ice. The mirror across the room now has a fine, hairline crack.
Sherlock twitches his head sideways.
"Yes, I'm aware thank you."
Marshall's head sweeps to the side, eyes searching the empty space Sherlock had addressed. But, of course, there's nothing there, nothing he can see anyway. The quick movement doesn't seem to have helped his nausea.
"They would like me to give you a message," Sherlock says simply.
Marshall tries to swallow twice, finally manages it. When he speaks his throat crackles over the words. He looks oddly smaller now.
"What do they want?"
"What do you think?" Sherlock sounds bored, which somehow makes it worse. "What could they possibly want from you. I'm sure it'll come to you."
There's complete silence while Sherlock re-ties his scarf. John doesn't dare move.
"I'd say you couldn't possibly make amends to any of them. They intend you to know that they're there, haunting you, draining enough energy that eventually you'll hear them, feel them, maybe even see them. And when you die - and you will die eventually, everyone does - I suspect they'll try their best to tear you into pieces. Over and over...at least until the wraiths find you that is. They're especially attracted to people like you, and they'll do significantly worse to you." Sherlock tugs on his gloves, one by one, hissing something inaudible to his left. He shakes his head, as if to dismiss whatever is trying to get his attention.
"I can tell them." The words are small, breathed out in Sherlock's direction, from the opposite side of the table.
Sherlock looks up briefly, snorts, and then ignores Marshall as if he doesn't matter any more.
"I can tell the police," Marshall insists again, slightly louder, voice dry. "I can show the police where they are. They can bury them - they can - they'll leave then, right? I could fix it so they go away?"
Sherlock shoves the chair back with a long grate of noise, stands slowly.
"You could certainly try."
John follows him out of the station. One of the younger constables is watching Sherlock, as if afraid that he'll suddenly head in his direction, spot the ghosts around him. Sherlock pretends he doesn't notice. It had taken John a while to spot all the things Sherlock pretends he doesn't notice. All the things he forces himself to ignore. The irrelevant details he tunes out. John can't help but wonder sometimes how he's not completely mad.
"That was cruel." John doesn't actually intend to make that sound quite so approving.
Sherlock wrinkles his nose, makes an odd shrugging motion.
"You're always telling me I should help people, that I should stop ignoring the dead." He twitches, hands pushed deep into his coat pockets, John can feel his urge to fidget, restrained. Sherlock's spent a long time running away from ghosts. John's not sure what he said, or did, to convince Sherlock to stop and look at them. To convince him that their stories mattered. No more than he knows why Sherlock offered to share a flat with him, a complete stranger, one of the living.
"I need a cigarette," Sherlock complains at last, and heads off at a pace John has no trouble keeping up with, and he has no doubt at all that the dead trail after them.