A character in BBC One drama, Sherlock, Dr John Watson writes a blog after his return from Afghanistan

27th May

The Poison Giant

It all started when I received an email. There was no text just a picture of a pearl. I assumed it was spam but then, the next day, there was another one. Another email, another picture. Another pearl. And again and again. Six days, six pearls.

And then it just stopped with no explanation. I was happy to ignore it but Sherlock was intrigued. I think the thing that intrigued him the most was that I'd received the emails rather than him. Well, I think it irritated him. Well, I know it did. He called me one morning, shouting and demanding to know why the interesting people always emailed me and never him. Sometimes he really is just like a little kid.

We were able to trace the emails to a warehouse in Wapping owned by a Daniel Brennan. We found the warehouse but, unfortunately, we also found Daniel Brennan. He was lying next to a laptop, having been shot by a poisoned dart. Not that Sherlock noticed. He was too busy searching the laptop for further clues. He'd already worked out that basically we were on a treasure hunt. I made a joke about Anneka Rice's bum but he didn't get it.

We took the laptop back to Baker Street and examined it. It seemed to belong to someone called James Swandale, judging by the documents he'd oh-so-carelessly left on it. I didn't need Sherlock to tell me that it was some kind of trap. But still, he did.

He'd heard of Swandale. He was a jewel thief who could apparently get into lots of places easily because he was... well... short. Really, very short. I'm not sure what the correct word is these days.

What I couldn't understand was why he'd emailed me in the first place. Why lead me to an innocent man who he'd killed? And, most weirdly, why lead me to a laptop full of clues as to the location of his next heist? Obviously it was a trick of some sort. He wanted us to go the wrong place. But even then, why send me the emails at all? Or was it all a trick by someone else? Was someone else setting up Swandale? To be honest, I was baffled. But then again, when am I not baffled?

But Sherlock was Sherlock. It was all a big game. Someone had started a new game with him and he had to win. That was something I'd learnt myself quite quickly into our friendship.

The big clue we had to go on was that Swandale had got hold of the plans of a house belonging to some pop star from the 90s called Giles Conover. He'd been 'big on the indie scene' apparently. I don't actually know what that means but there you go.

So off we went to do a stakeout. At night. And that's when we met James Swandale. He was, to be honest, terrifying. And he had his poisoned dart with him. And he had a friend. A big friend. A really big friend. Sherlock recognised him as Phil Dickinson, known to some as The Headcrusher. So, there we were being chased across a rooftop by Swandale and his poisoned dart only to run straight into this bloke who could break me in half with his bare hands.

And that's what it had all been about. Somebody had wanted us dead and rather than hire an assassin had hired a pair of jewel thieves who were like the parallel evil universe version of Little and Large. They were trying to outfox Sherlock by not playing by the rules.

We escaped, obviously. Sherlock's good with a sword and I'd bought a gun. One of them went off the roof and the other's currently in prison.

We never found out who was trying to kill us. I felt we should investigate further but Sherlock had already dismissed it as boring and irrelevant. He was far more interested in a phone call he'd just received from Greg.

About an elephant.

So that was that. Off we went. Ready to solve our next case. It's exhausting but, God, I've missed this life.

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