Archive of Our Own

“…and of course he’d put them exactly where I told him to look in the first place.”

“Hmm,” Mycroft offered into the receiver he was holding in his left hand while the right drove his fountain pen over the final draft for the Independent Press Council bill, jotting down corrections and alternative formulations.

“Are you listening, Mikey?” His mother’s voice had acquired the peeved tone she had spent years polishing to a precision few women in history had managed to reach, Lady Hamilton included. Mycroft rolled his eyes, sighed inwardly and put down the pen.

“Of course I am listening to you, Mummy,” he replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s rather difficult to do anything else.”

“There’s no need to get snippy with me. Do you know, in some ways you’re only a little better than Sherlock! Sometimes I wonder what I did wrong to deserve the two of you. Such wayward children…How is Sherlock, by the way? Have you heard—”

“Sherlock is dead,” Mycroft cut into the verbal torrent. His free hand balled into a fist. They had talked about the need never to discuss Sherlock over the phone. He had instructed both his parents repeatedly. Not that his father needed any instructing. The man wasn’t even allowed near the instrument.

“Yes, I know that,” his mother said, the pitch of her voice conveying her opinion of Mycroft’s mental faculties loud and clear. “But we’re worried and you never tell…”

Mycroft replaced the receiver in the cradle. Fifteen seconds later the phone started ringing. Seething internally Mycroft reached for the other phone on his desk, the secure line. His parents belonged to the chosen few who had the number—Mycroft himself had entered it into their landline explaining they only had to press the number ‘six’ for three seconds to establish a connection. Yet his mother persisted in calling him on one of the other, less secure lines, and began each conversation with a diatribe on the amount of keys she had to tap in order to contact him.

“Holmes speaking,” his father answered his mobile after it had rung for half a minute straight. He was a little out of breath. In all probability a frantic search for the phone had just been conducted.

“It’s Mycroft, Daddy.”

“Oh, Mycroft, my boy. What a coincidence. Your mother was just trying to call you again. The line was disconnected all of a sudden. Wait… wait, I’ll hand you over to her…”

The sounds of a minor scuffle travelled over the line, soon followed by his mother asking sternly, “Mikey, is that you? Why did you hang up?”

“I didn’t, Mummy.” Mycroft chose to play innocent rather than engage in another endless discussion on Mrs Holmes’s scorn for the security measures he tried to impose on her. “These things happen sometimes, even in our modern day and age. Now you were asking about Sherlock. He was in Tibet last I heard, working hard on his Dharma.”

# # # #

The day was so swelteringly hot it was really unpleasant. The sun was beating down on him mercilessly as Mycroft loitered beside his new Jaguar coupé at their local station car park. He was leaning against the searingly hot metal of the hood with what he hoped was casual grace, his one buttock—clad in the inconspicuous camel twill he’d changed into upon arriving at the parental home—slowly roasting.

His mother had sent him to the station to collect his seventeen-year-old brother. After some demurring, which Mycroft undertook for the sake of form rather than the expectation that it would affect the outcome of their discussion, he had acquiesced with her request. Sherlock, he ratiocinated, would suffer as much acute vexation at having to use this particular form of transportation as Mycroft would from having to put up with him for the duration of the drive to their home. Contrary to Sherlock’s discomfiture, however, Mycroft’s would be sweetened by the pleasure of driving his own beautiful car. Mycroft shifted his stance against the gracefully shaped metal of his pride and joy. To derive satisfaction from the idea of one’s younger sibling eating his heart out was rather immature, Mycroft supposed. Yet in this particular instance there were enough exonerating circumstances to condone such base emotion—a little at least.

The train had stopped at the station about a minute earlier and the first hasty travellers began pouring out into the car park, clashing with the few belated stragglers who were hurrying towards the station in the hope of catching the train. Behind him Mycroft discerned the sound of hurrying high heels, striking the tarmac to the irregular rhythm of a desperately panting breath. As, earlier, Mycroft had found the parking lot filled to overflowing necessitating him to manoeuver the Jaguar into a slot at quite a distance from the station itself, it was easy to deduce this late arrival was going to miss her train. A girl his own age materialised at his side, then slowed down and halted. She was dressed splendidly, but the overall effect was spoiled by her slightly crouching posture and the hand that was pressed against her side in acute physical distress.

“Blast,” she muttered, glaring at the station building. She took a look at her watch and then back at the station that glimmered in the distance like the mesmerising mirage of an oasis in the overheated haze that rose from the blistering pavement. After drawing in a few deep breaths the young woman straightened. She fixed her eyes on the building with renewed vigour and lifted a foot to start walking at seemingly more leisurely pace.

Something she must have spotted made her put the foot down again. The same thing lit a beaming smile on her face. Mycroft could just hear her inward “Oh my!” She had the luminosity of someone who had chanced upon an exceptional work of art. Intrigued, Mycroft followed her gaze to see what had piqued her admiration.
He was amazed to realise that the vision her eyes were drinking in was none other than his little brother. Sherlock had just separated himself from the throng of commuters churning out of the station and had halted on the second-to-last step, posing like a statue on a dubious pedestal. The step was part of the corrugated iron overpass, whose twentieth-century utility made short work of the attempt at elegance the Victorian architect had endeavoured to imbibe to the original station building by adding such details as the mock Tudor herringbone brickwork, the mullioned windows and the steeply pitched roof.

After flinging his holdall to the ground Sherlock’s fingers delved into the pocket of his bluer to whip up a packet of cigarettes. His heavily despised, oblique hat was conspicuous for its absence; stuffed into the holdall, no doubt.
Eyes scanning the parking lot, Sherlock lit up the cigarette and threw his head back to draw the first inhalation of nicotine deep into his lungs. The long column of his throat shone pale beneath the darkness of the overpass roof, its creamy incandescence contrasting with the bright-hot flare of the cigarette tip above.

Two city workers, dressed in the identical, insipid garb of the harassed pen pusher, burdened with attachés and with the urge to start the weekend, jostled past him. The burlier man inadvertently bumped against Sherlock’s shoulder in his haste. Sherlock shot him an annoyed glance, sighed deeply and flicked his cigarette, then wrapped his lips around it again. He took another drag before hopping down the last couple of steps and bending forward to lift his bag from the ground. He slung it over his shoulder with the casual grace of a black panther lifting itself up on its hind legs to sharpen its nails on the bark of the tree from which it had just descended.

Mycroft had forgotten the girl’s existence but was reminded of it by her sighing and resuming her journey across the car park. Whether the swing of her hips was wholly attributable to the relative height of her heels was a question Mycroft, who had never held much interest in women’s footwear, preferred to refrain from answering.

Sherlock, naturally, ignored her. He sauntered towards Mycroft, tossing his curls when he discerned what exactly Mycroft was leaning against. His eyes travelled over the discreet Davy grey leather of the seats and the steering wheel, as well as the beautifully wrought walnut dashboard. The curl of his lip conveyed his opinion on Mycroft’s pride and joy all too clearly. Challenging his elder brother with his stare he whisked the bag off his shoulder and dumped it onto the backseat. Then, deliberately turning his gaze away from Mycroft, he opened the door from the passenger side, slid into the seat, pulled the door shut, and tipped some ash of his cigarette onto the asphalt beside the car. Slowly, he took another drag and just sat waiting for Mycroft to enter the car and chauffeur him home, eyes scrunched closed and a look of long suffering on his features.

The whole time Sherlock’s exhibition of ennui had lasted—with the world in general and with certain persons of his acquaintance in particular—Mycroft had been unable to move, or even speak. He vaguely perceived that he was opening and closing his mouth helplessly. Why had he thought he could beat Sherlock at his own game?

Sherlock’s chest heaved with the effort of another sigh. “What,” he began, voice saturated with suppressed irritation, “is it now?”

Mycroft’s gaze had latched itself onto Sherlock’s profile, the heavy shelf of his lower lip, the long, flowing line of his slightly retroussé nose, all in plain view beneath the jumble of curls that both fell haphazardly over Sherlock’s high forehead and brushed his nape, just above the bluer’s collar. The urge to slap the insolent, little wisenheimer was overwhelming.

“You…” Mycroft only managed, but thankfully that sound was the ‘open sesame’ he needed to make himself get into the car.

“Nothing,” he said, starting the engine. His left hand reached for the clutch.
The car shot forward as if of its own accord, nearly bumping into a Vauxhall Viva which, despite creeping at a snail’s pace, had suddenly sprung up in Mycroft’s vision.

Next to him Sherlock huffed impatiently and turned his head away, disdain tugging down at the corners of his mouth.

# # # #

Three seconds after the brief knock Anthea stuck her head through the gap of the open door.

“Sir,” she addressed Mycroft, throwing the Secretary of State for the Home Department an apologetic smile. “Lazarus wishes to speak to you.”

Mycroft forced himself to rise from his chair with his usual composure rather than with the intemperate haste beating in his chest.

“Would you excuse me for a moment, please?” He inclined his head briefly to acknowledge the permission his guest granted him and followed his PA out of the room.

“Where?” he asked.

“Leatherby is not in today, sir. He phoned yesterday evening, the talks in Scotland are taking longer than he expected.”

“I’ll want to speak to him about that later today,” Mycroft said. True to form, Anthea’s fingers were flying over her Blackberry while he was hurrying out of the anteroom.

In Leatherby’s office one of the phones on the desk was already ringing. After Mycroft picked up he waited for half a second to make sure the light indicating the line was secure was indeed flashing.

“Yes,” he spoke into the receiver the moment he was convinced no one was listening in.

“Jesus Christ! Don’t tell me that enormous backside of yours got stuck in the chair straining under your weight.”

Relief washed over Mycroft at hearing Sherlock’s tone was its usual mixture of brazenness and impatience.

“What do you need?” he asked, terse. God forbid Sherlock picked up how happy the realisation his little brother was in no immediate danger made Mycroft.

“I’m done here. Some further arrests have been made. You’ll be contacted about those shortly.”

“Good. Any glimpse of the main aide yet?”

“Not really. It’s nothing but whispers; as if the man doesn’t exist.”

“That would be too good to be true, so most likely it isn’t.”

“Yes, brother mine, I do realise that.”

“Good,” Mycroft repeated. “Did anything happen to cause a change of plan?”

“No, my plane for the next destination leaves in three hours.”

“Excellent. I’ll let them know you’ll be in the vicinity.”

“Fine.” A sharp click in his ear told Mycroft Sherlock had ended the call, robbing Mycroft of the chance to implore him to be careful. Slowly, he put the receiver back in place. Perhaps that was better, after all.

# # # #

Considering Britain’s reputation as an island languishing under a perennial onset of precipitation in all conceivable forms, it was a tad unsettling that so many memorable events in Mycroft’s life took place on bright, sunny days.

More than thirty years later he could still feel the warmth of the sun coalescing in the freckles on his nose as he rode his bicycle home from school, that fateful day when he’d first failed to live up to Sherlock’s expectations. He’d only been eleven years old at the time. But seeing as he was Mycroft Holmes, that tiny detail didn’t suffice to absolve him from letting down his younger brother.

After parking his cycle in the garden shed he discovered the kitchen to be empty. A pot of tea was sitting in its usual place beneath the cosy with a stack of sandwiches and a slice of fruitcake next to it.

“Mummy!” he called.

“Your tea is on the table, Mikey,” his mother called back. Her voice came from up high which informed him she was in the attic, ironing shirts in all probability.

“Thank you!”

Carefully, for the pot had been his great-grandmother’s as he was reminded every day, Mycroft poured himself a cup of tea and took a bite from a sandwich. Munching, he strolled through the short passageway into the sitting room in search of Sherlock and his inevitable four-legged companion. The sunny nook where Sherlock had been spending a lot of time since he’d learned to read was empty. Mycroft returned to the kitchen, finished his cup of tea and took his sandwich outside. He walked to the clump of yew trees surrounding the great beech at the far end of the garden and soon enough spotted Redbeard’s gleaming red coat amidst the greenery.

The dog’s tail began a half-hearted thump at Mycroft’s approach but the animal’s gaze remained locked on the structure resting on the beech’s lowest branches. Mycroft’s heart sank a little when he didn’t see the rope ladder dangling from the small platform in front of the treehouse, for this meant the situation was even worse than he’d feared.

“Hello, Redbeard,” he greeted the dog in soft tones, thereby announcing his presence to the building’s occupant. Redbeard whimpered, his tail whacking more enthusiastically when Mycroft scratched him behind the ears. The beast’s main attention, however, stayed with his little master, who had turned his back upon the world and gone into hiding behind the buttresses of his wooden castle stuck high up in the air. Surreptitiously, for Sherlock was probably observing him through one of the cracks between the floorboards, Mycroft followed Redbeard’s gaze upwards in search of movement. All he could see was a stirring of the fresh green leaves in the faint breeze that had risen in the course of the afternoon.

“Sherlock?” Mycroft didn’t raise his voice knowing his brother could hear him perfectly well. “Sherlock, why don’t you lower the ladder so I can come up?”

He stepped away from the tree, waiting. After a few moments his ears detected the scrape of Sherlock’s soles against the planking, followed by the quick, white flash of his brother’s hands throwing the ladder over the side of the platform. Mycroft tugged a few times to test whether the ladder was secured firmly enough to support his weight and began the laborious climb up to Sherlock’s hideout.

“Sherlock,” he called out in an undertone once he’d reached the platform. He seated himself on the edge with his legs suspended in the air and planted his arms behind himself to support his upper body. Inside the house, Sherlock shifted. Mycroft didn´t look round, quietly praying his nonchalant pose would draw his little brother out of his self-imposed solitude.

Redbeard’s sudden yapping informed Mycroft that Sherlock had emerged onto the platform. He lifted his right hand and held it out in invitation. When he felt Sherlock’s small, blazing-hot hand land on his palm, he closed his fingers around it and squeezed.

“Was it that bad?” he enquired, carefully keeping his face averted from Sherlock who had crept so close Mycroft’s side was warmed by the heat that his tiny body exuded. On the ground beneath them the shadowed outline of Sherlock’s head nodded. A sob wrung itself from his throat. Below them, Redbeard whined in response to the sound of its master’s despair.

“There,” Mycroft murmured, squeezing Sherlock’s hand some more. “There, there.” Suddenly Mycroft’s neck was enwrapped by Sherlock’s stick-thin arms, holding onto him for dear life. Sherlock’s wet face was pressed against his cheek, covering it with a film of snot mingled with warm, bitter tears.

“It was horrid,” Sherlock cried. “I never want to go there again. But Mummy says I have to. She said you liked it…”

The last sentence was spoken in accusing wonder. Mycroft patted Sherlock’s soft curls. The shafts of sunlight that penetrated through the beech’s canopy struck fiery glints of auburn in the dark, silken whorls.

“Yes,” conceded Mycroft. He paused, torn between loyalty to their mother—who honestly tried to provide her children with all the elements that constituted her idea of an idyllic childhood—and his little brother who so sincerely lacked the wherewithal to pretend to conform to the prescribed rules of social niceties she laid down for the family. As happened so often, compassion for his sibling’s sensibilities prevailed.

“Yes,” Mycroft repeated. “I told her I liked it. That’s what she wanted to hear.” He paused. Beside him Sherlock sniffled, his breath coming out as a warm gust of air against Mycroft’s neck. “You see,” continued Mycroft. “It’s easier that way, for everyone. She lives a constant lie, because she wants to believe in it. Thus, my diversion from the truth served us both. I was saved from her fretting; she was saved from the need to fret.”

“But they’re all so stupid! And some of them are mean…”

Mycroft slung his arm around Sherlock’s back and pulled him closer. “I know,” he murmured. “You’ll have to get used to them, it will be the same in school. Always remember you have one advantage, Sherlock. You’re cleverer than any of them.”

Upon hearing these words Sherlock began snivelling even louder. “I hate them!”

“Please, Sherlock, listen to me.” Mycroft shook his brother lightly to extricate him from his misery and have him pay attention to Mycroft instead. “Most of them are stupid and mean, just like you pointed out, but you shouldn’t let that upset you. You should make use of it. Mingle with them and pretend to be interested in their silly games.” Sherlock’s hand shot up in fierce dismissal of Mycroft’s suggestion. Ignoring the gesture, Mycroft pushed on, “All you need to do is observe them for a few days. Find out who the bullies are, and their victims. The rest is unimportant.”

Briefly, he closed his eyes. God, Sherlock was so right in despising those children and in being angry with their mother for making him interact with them. Why couldn’t she accept that she had two exceptional sons and let them fend for themselves? In a year Sherlock would have to attend school, but at least Mrs Whitby would be there for him with her special cupboard full of mathematical riddles, and science problems, and historical puzzles to solve. To have Sherlock participate in a playgroup was akin to an act of severe cruelty. The sole excuse was, as with everything Mummy undertook, that it was done with the best of intentions.

Suppressing the surge of anger with their parent that crested in his chest, Mycroft continued. “The bullies are the meanest, and the stupidest. Make use of that knowledge to put them in their place. Then, you will be the king of the realm and the others will leave you in peace. They will be happy enough to know you’re there to protect them against any sudden attacks.”

“Is that what you do?”

Mycroft smiled down at him. “Yes it is. You’ll find it to be surprisingly easy, once you get the hang of it.” He rubbed Sherlock’s arm. “I realise you couldn’t care less, Sherlock, but if you follow my advice the hours you’ll have to spend there will be bearable at least.”

“Can’t you talk to Mummy?” Sherlock asked, hopeful.

Mycroft sighed and shook his head. “You know her. It won’t be any use. I already told her I didn’t think it was a good idea when I heard her discussing sending you to the playgroup with Daddy.”

“You should have warned me,” Sherlock complained, his voice raw.

Mycroft flinched. Should he have? He’d chosen not to, in order to spare his sibling the anxiety over the inevitable doom hanging over his head. Except, perhaps, in deciding to screen Sherlock from future unpleasantness, he’d only lent a hand to augment the shock. Remorse draped its debilitating veils over his mind, temporarily shrouding access to his quick decision-making capabilities. The touch of Sherlock’s hand on his arm roused Mycroft from his stupor.

“Talk to her. Please, Mycroft?” Sherlock fixated him with his most beseeching look, the look no one in the world could resist, apart from their mother. His fingers grabbled at Mycroft’s arm, begging him to intercede.

“All right.” Mycroft yielded. “I’ll talk to her. But I’m telling you in advance, she won’t budge, Sherlock.”

# # # #

The car drew to a halt at the next traffic lights and Mycroft stifled the sigh of annoyance he felt pushing against his teeth. Next to him Anthea kept working her fingers over her phone while she said lightly, “You still have ten minutes to spare, sir.” She knew as well as he did that he was aware of both the time and his agenda, so her remark served merely to convey her sympathy and remind him of her faith in his powers, even if the car he was sitting in had to stop for a red traffic light just like anyone else’s. In answer, Mycroft grumbled something indefinite; ending with a sincere “thank you” for her remark had chased away most of his irritation. These days he was suspiciously prone to sudden mood swings. Of course, their origins were transparent to anyone who’d have cared to observe. Mycroft supposed he ought to be grateful that in one of those perverse twists fate delighted in the continuing absence of the one person capable of doing just that was the cause of these occasional slips from his customary impassive demeanour.

His gaze flitted over the mass of pedestrians struggling past the front of the car. So many people, each of them living their tiny, unimportant lives and believing themselves the centre of the Universe. Good God, the term pedestrian certainly was an apt description for the lot of them. All they wanted was a little love and the leisure to indulge in a few dreams every now and then. It didn’t take that much to have them happy and satisfied. Mycroft should know as it fell to him to ensure that they were. Of late he had thought his self-imposed task increasingly trite. Never before had he been so blasé about the welfare of his old friend’s subjects, and their interests which she expected him to serve.

Suddenly a man appeared in his line of vision and Mycroft straightened up further in his seat. It was John Watson, hurrying along in that black coat of his with a Tesco shopping bag in his hand. The image struck Mycroft as so iconic that he felt an indulgent smile form itself at the inside of his cheeks. Then John shot a look at the car—it would have been impossible for him to discern Mycroft and Anthea behind the tinted glass—and Mycroft’s smile melted off his mouth, leaving him with an unpleasant sense of something icy, as if he’d just taken too big a gulp of improperly chilled white wine.

John looked dreadful—the English language offered no better word for it—with hollow cheeks which had lost all their colour and sunken eyes gazing out from their orbits with something dead in them. The man’s shoulders were drooping, lending him the aspect of a dejected dog suffering under a regime of daily beatings. He was still mourning Sherlock, then, after almost a year. Good heavens, that couldn’t be natural, could it? Not if they’d been nothing but flatmates and friends.

The hideous beast of jealousy—always affecting a deep slumber in the subterranean dwelling to which Mycroft had banished it, but perpetually on the lookout from the narrow slits of heavy-lidded eyes—reared its ugly head. Oh, how from the very first moment he’d found it a struggle not to resent John Watson and his easy access to his brother’s affections. Sherlock must have been lonely, as lonely as Mycroft, to let John insinuate himself into his life so wholeheartedly.

Every encounter with John had felt like a slap to Mycroft’s face. A fresh reminder of Sherlock’s steadfast determination not to approach the one person who had always gone out of his way to help him, who’d bent down and picked him up from whatever floor dirtied with Sherlock’s own vomit and the instruments of his addiction. Had Mycroft made a mistake then, in wishing his brother should live?

Mycroft’s fingers tightened their grip on his umbrella handle, pressing the thick ribs of the Malacca cane against the nerve-endings in his palm until the pain had tears threaten to prick behind his eyes. In the next instant John was gone, devoured by the ever-roiling masses of London.

Perhaps Mycroft should call him to enquire after his wellbeing. A visit, naturally, was out of the question.

# # # #

In his talk with Sherlock Mycroft had portrayed the art of manipulation as one of the easiest things in the world. It was the bane of his young existence that this was indeed the case, except with regard to his parents. Sometimes he felt that he’d wasted most of his barely over a decade long life on the observation of their mother. She was as fierce and fickle as a force of nature, charting her own course through life with the inevitability of the thunderstorm that had been brewing in the air for the whole of the long, blazingly hot summer day.

Later that evening, after Sherlock had been put to bed, Mycroft brought up the subject of the playgroup. The three of them were sitting cosily around the kitchen table, their father with The Times, Mycroft with his homework and Mummy with her sewing basket and Sherlock’s new trousers which already sported a tear on the right knee. Every now and then the comfortable silence was disturbed by Redbeard snorting in his basket.

In all fairness Mycroft had to admit that his mother never interrupted him when he spoke. In that he was better off than his father, he supposed, who hardly got the chance to finish a sentence he’d begun.

Now she sat silently thrusting her needle in and out the fabric of the trousers and the patch she was applying. “Are you done?” she asked when Mycroft had delivered his last argument.

Mycroft nodded. “Sherlock is really unhappy there,” he finished. One of Daddy’s few firm beliefs was that everybody should be happy, so Mycroft hoped against all odds that this remark would impel his father to side with him and speak up against his wife on behalf of his youngest son.

Instead—as he’d feared—his father rustled his newspaper and appeared to be shrinking behind it.

“I realise Sherlock didn’t have a good time today,” Mummy began, her needle fiercely stabbing its way through the cloth. “Ms Holly called me three times to ask me to come and fetch him as his constant crying was disturbing the other children. What you fail to see, Mikey, is what this is about.” A particularly sharp prod accompanied the last word.

“Unlike you, Sherlock has a tendency to be antisocial. The only people he deigns to speak to are us, and that nice Mr Wiggins from the Post Office. Now, if you stop to think for a moment, you’d agree with me that he needs to learn to play with other children. Otherwise school will be nothing but a punishment for him, and I don’t want that.”

“But Mummy,” Mycroft protested, “in sending Sherlock to the playgroup you’re punishing him as well.”

“Nonsense! He’s crying now, but the playgroup will help him discover friends are fun and he’ll be rearing to go there every day. You probably don’t remember this, but you weren’t too enthusiastic about playgroup the first few times I took you there, either.”

She used the scissors to snap the thread and started putting the sewing basket away. Recognising he’d effectively been dismissed, Mycroft bent over his homework. Early tomorrow morning he’d have to explain to Sherlock that he had done his best, but Mummy had defeated him as always. If Sherlock would put Mycroft’s advice regarding playground politics into practice he would have a hold on the other children in a mere three days.

Still, Mycroft realised to a four-year-old three days were an awfully long time, especially for such an impatient four-year-old.

The look of hurt betrayal Sherlock shot him on the following day tore at his heart, all the more that Sherlock then appeared to serenely accept his fate.

“I understand, Mycroft,” he said, sitting up in his bed with Mr Buzzy, the stuffed toy bee, clutched tight against his chest. His lower lip wobbled and he was blinking furiously to force back the tears that were threatening to spill over. “Thank you for asking.” He raised his arm and used his pyjama sleeve to wipe at his eyes. The blue and yellow teddy bears tumbled happily over each other as the cotton slipped back and forth along his arm.

“I wish I knew how to make her listen,” said Mycroft. Later he’d remember how thoroughly helpless he had felt at that moment and he would vow he’d let no one else get so close to him, ever.

“It’s fine. Maybe I won’t have to go if I tell her my tummy hurts.”

“Does your tummy hurt?”

“Oh yes, terribly,” Sherlock replied immediately. The blue streaks in his wide open eyes glinted in bright innocence.

“I’m afraid she won’t buy it.” Mycroft smiled. He tousled Sherlock’s curls and levered himself up from the bed. “Besides, you would be lying and you know lying is a very bad thing to do.”

“Not always.”

“Well.” Mycroft thought for a moment. “It depends,” he conceded. “But it would be bad if we were lying to each other.” He accompanied the last sentence with a mock-stern look at Sherlock, who sat staring up at him, still holding Mr Buzzy close in his arms.

“You’ll never lie to me, won’t you, Mycroft?”

“No, never.” Mycroft promised. “Not unless I can possibly help it.”

A scratching sound at the door informed them Redbeard was trying to gain admittance to the room. Mycroft opened the door and the setter leapt past him, straight for his little master who fell back onto the mattress and sought the aid of Mr Buzzy to defend himself against the onslaught of the overenthusiastic dog. The bedclothes churned up into a heaving tangle of limbs and legs from which peals of laughter and exhilarated barks erupted at irregular intervals.

“Boys!” their mother shouted up the stairs, adding her voice to the general chaos. “Your toast is getting cold. Mike, you’ll have to hurry or you’ll be late for school.”

After breakfast, while riding his bicycle out of the shed, Mycroft watched how Mummy grasped Sherlock’s hand and told him they must be off to the playgroup. Sherlock followed her to the car with his head hanging down, as quiet as a lamb led to the slaughter.

# # # #

The clock on the wall cabinet behind Mycroft’s back struck six. Mycroft finished the sentence he’d been writing and screwed the cap onto his fountain pen. After clearing his desk and locking the confidential material away in the safe, he got into his coat, slung his scarf around his neck, and picked up his umbrella. Balancing on the balls of his feet he threw a last, longing look at his den, before bracing himself and straightening his shoulders.

“I’ll be off then,” he informed Anthea casually, while pulling the door shut behind him. Her gaze unlocked itself from her computer screen and swivelled towards him. Her fingers meanwhile kept running over her keyboard. They stuttered to a halt when she took a look of his face.

“Oh,” she said. “Of course…I forgot.” Frustration flitted over her features but then they lit up. “Perhaps you’d like me to text you, sir?” she suggested. “You can show them the message during the interval and go AWOL. Well, with leave.”

A most tempting offer and a more sophisticated plan than the one Mycroft had toyed with before rejecting it as too outlandish. Initiating a minor Cabinet reshuffle in order to eschew a visit of The Phantom of the Opera with his parents was not quite a viable option. He’d endure the experience and play the dutiful son. After all, he’d spent years practicing the part.

“Thank you.” He raised his umbrella to emphasise his appreciation. Anthea had met his parents once, briefly, when she’d brought over some files to his flat when they had happened to be on one of their twice-yearly visits. As she actually had eyes and knew how to use her brain, one look had been enough for her to gauge the lay of the land.

“It can’t be any more tedious than the European budget talks we sat through three weeks ago,” Mycroft endeavoured, putting on a brave face.

“No, I guess not. But a lot louder.”

“You astonish me. I always come prepared.” Mycroft dipped his fingers in his right hand jacket pocket and produced a small Perspex box with a pair of earplugs. “Those should do the trick. I might even catch a wink of sleep.”

She smiled. “I assume you’re familiar with the story, so you probably can afford it.”

“Even if I were a stranger to the tale’s contents, I’m sure it wouldn’t have impaired my ability to contribute to the discussion of the events on stage. I look forward to the dinner afterwards with great confidence.” Mycroft paused. “I suggest you call it a day. Enjoy an evening off.”

Now she laughed. “I might do that. After I finish this first. Good night, sir.”

She didn’t wish him a pleasant evening.

Bright girl.

# # # #

“Thank you, Mr Graham. And please give my kind regards to Mrs Graham.” Mycroft handed their local cab driver the fare and lifted his suitcase from the ground.

“I will, Mycroft. Same to your Mum and Dad. Enjoy your holidays.”

After throwing the man a last weak smile, Mycroft pivoted on his heels and began the trek up the garden path, suitcase and his new, hideously expensive but already indispensable umbrella swinging at his side. His new London life fitted Mycroft’s twenty-two-year-old person like a glove. While strolling down the corridors of power, affably nodding his head or raising an eyebrow at various some- and nobodies, he knew he’d found his element at last. This was what he’d been preparing himself for at school and University, where he’d always felt a little ill at ease, surrounded by too many goldfish. Now he was among the best and brightest of the land, in that quiet nook of exclusivity where he belonged, his humble birth notwithstanding.

In the house Mycroft deposited his suitcase by the stairs and made his way to the kitchen. On the kitchen table the best tea set was laid out amongst stacks of sandwiches and his mother’s citrus cake. A tray of fresh scones was cooling on a rack. Obviously, their mother had decided to go all-out in celebration of her two boys visiting simultaneously for the summer holidays, never mind last Christmas had felt like a disaster on a scale akin to a civil conflict in a Balkan country.

“Mummy,” Mycroft called.

“Is that you, Mikey?” Her questioning voice sounded from the scullery. “I had expected you on an earlier train.”

“I had to finish some work.”

“Well, I must say I fail to see what can be so important to have you be late for a visit to your family but never mind. Go and find Sherlock, would you? He’s out in the garden somewhere. He got back three hours ago and he’s already got himself in one of his moods.”

Well, Mycroft mused, while pulling open the backdoor, at least that was nothing new.
Outside, he ambled across the small terrace with its elaborate setting of lobelias, geraniums and impatiens in terracotta pots and enamelled buckets and down the turf to the far end of the garden. The treehouse had been demolished two years earlier, but this corner of the garden remained one of Sherlock’s favourite spots when home from school, as far away from the house as possible while remaining inside the garden walls.

As expected Sherlock was sitting on the wall, his back turned towards the house. He’d already shed the detested school uniform and donned his habitual garb of faded blue jeans that slung low on his hips and a simple white t-shirt. The arms protruding from the frayed sleeves were pathetically thin, even for a wiry fifteen-year-old that was nothing but floundering limbs and angles and general clumsiness.

Mycroft positioned himself in front of the wall next to his brother. Sherlock’s eyes remained locked on the tiny herd of clouds in the distance, gliding along the line of the horizon. Below them fields of clover stretched from the garden into the valley where a fast, clear stream gurgled among clumps of willows and alders.

They stayed like that in silence for almost two minutes. Mycroft scratched at his nose; he felt distinctly uncomfortable in his suit and waistcoat, attire more suitable for air-conditioned conference rooms than for a garden in the height of summer. Sherlock didn’t move at all. Even his lashes didn’t waver once during the ten seconds Mycroft directed his gaze at him.

When he’d moved it away again, Sherlock said, “I’m not going to thank you for coming over to be miserable with me.”

“Always this tendency to think everything revolves around you.”

“Oh, please.” There was no need to look at Sherlock for his sneer to be evident. Mycroft cleared his throat. Sweat was beginning to prick on his brow.

“Actually,” he said, “I was wondering whether you’d want to come back to London with me for a few days. The flat has ample space, you’d have your own room, and I’ll be off working, so I won’t be in your way…” His voice trailed off, withering at the massive bulwark of Sherlock’s silence.

A bee droned past them, its body a tiny nudge of golden pollen glittering brightly in the sharp afternoon light. They both followed its dance with their eyes until the insect dipped into the clover and disappeared from their vision.

“Why ever would I want to do that?” Sherlock enquired, in what seemed genuine bafflement.

“Because you might like it. You’d be able to visit some museums, the libraries, spend time at Kew Gardens,” Mycroft enumerated. After a deliberate pause, he played his trump card. “You wouldn’t have to be here.”

Sherlock laughed—a sharp bark devoid of true emotion. “No.” He pretended to wipe away fake tears of merriment from his cheeks. “I’d be with you. Tell me, in what way would that improve my plight exactly? I loathe you every bit as much as I do them.”

“Grand words,” Mycroft murmured. More than anything he wanted to get his handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wipe at his forehead, but he foresaw the gesture would subject him to further ridicule.

“Not if they’re true,” shot Sherlock, twisting towards Mycroft. “And I’m afraid, brother dear, though you like to pretend otherwise, they quite, quite are. I loathe you, I loathe you, I loathe you!” He paused. “And do I need to remind you that—unlike some of us— I never lie?”

He deliberately raked his gaze from the top of Mycroft’s head down to his feet and back up again. The scrutiny drew even more beads of sweat from the pores on Mycroft’s face. In the crease between his eyebrows a drop pearled and toppled over, on a descent down the line of his nose. To prevent the embarrassment of having it hanging from the tip, Mycroft capitulated and whipped up his handkerchief. Turning away from Sherlock he dabbed his face with the cool linen. In his back he could feel the holes burned by Sherlock’s eyes.

With measured, slow movements he refolded the cloth and put it back into the pocket. It wasn’t until he’d patted it flat that he rotated once more to confront Sherlock.

“Is my opinion important to you?”

“Of course it isn’t. You’re nothing to me.”

“Wrong answer, Sherlock. In order to truly loathe someone one must spare them more than the occasional thought.”

“Your clever conundrum just serves to support my assertion.”

Mycroft shrugged and pushed himself up from the wall and onto his feet again. “Fine,” he said. “You stay here and rot for the duration of the summer. Pardon me for suggesting a diversion from your pleasant plans.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m going to put up a beehive this summer. I wrote to Mr Wiggins from school. He promised to help me.”

“Just out of curiosity, have you discussed this project with Mummy yet?”

“No.” Sherlock pushed his lower lip forward in aggressive defence.

“Ah,” Mycroft said. He slid his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked back onto his heels, but didn’t issue any additional commentary.

“What?” Sherlock’s shoulders rose in self-protection.

“Nothing. Anyway, we’re wanted for tea. These family gatherings are always such a delight, aren’t they? We’re all so happy.”

Mycroft pivoted around and walked away from Sherlock. He could feel the sharp aim of Sherlock’s stare prodding between his shoulder blades, but kept his back erect and engaged in pretence of enjoying the garden’s abundant florid offerings. Next to the rose border he drew to a halt and with great fastidiousness chose a Rose de Rescht. After taking in its scent deeply he drew the stem through his lapel buttonhole, and proceeded on his lazy perambulation back to the house.

# # # #

He hadn’t heard from Sherlock for over a month and by now Mycroft was frantic with worry. As ever, the strain was affecting his weight, and he had to put in on the treadmill many extra hours he couldn’t really afford. Apart from the sheer discomfort, this had the drawback of giving him ample time to work out increasingly distressing scenarios in his head. While his feet thumped the endlessly revolving rubber matting, his mind raced along between Sherlock shot by a sniper—the merciful script—to Sherlock taken prisoner to be raped and tortured for weeks until he expired.

While seated at his desk Mycroft’s hand reached for his phone innumerable times to start dialling the number of his agent in the country Sherlock had left for five weeks ago, only to withdraw it and pull a file towards him instead. His eyes scanned the letters, but they were as meaningless to him as an unknown script from a civilisation that was wiped from the face of the earth a long time ago.

Never before had he spent so much time standing in front of the window in his upstairs office, gazing down to the heads moving along the sidewalks of Marsham Street.

# # # #

There was a knock on the door. Mycroft sprang up from his bed, stashed the book he’d been reading between the bed and the wall, straightened the bedspread and fast tracked for his desk.

“Come in,” he called in a tone that indicated he’d been so engrossed in his homework he’d only belatedly realised someone had been seeking his attention.

The door opened to reveal the pimply visage of Trevors, the house prefect. Mycroft considered him the most perfect example of exasperating mediocrity he’d encountered at the school so far, but he was sixteen as opposed to Mycroft’s fourteen, and that was aside from being the house prefect where Mycroft was still practically nobody.

“You’re wanted on the phone, Holmes.” Trevors threw at the room at large and disappeared, no doubt to engage in some vaguely offensive act. Pressing the tallow out of the pimples that shone on his forehead in blatant mockery of Christ’s crown of thorns came to mind.

Mycroft sighed, pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.

“Mycroft Holmes,” he spoke into the receiver he found dangling from the telephone’s body in the main hall.

“Oh, Mikey.” The sound of his mother’s teary voice hit his eardrum. “Oh God! It’s been such a horrid day. We had to have Redbeard put down.”

“What? Why? What happened?” The animal had been fine when Mycroft left back for school three weeks ago.

“I don’t know,” Mummy wailed. There was the sound of her blowing her nose, some sniffling and then she continued in a voice thick with grief. “He was fine until last week. Then he started eating less and his coat lost its shine. At first I thought it was this sudden unexpected heat, what with him already being ten years old, but this morning I got really worried when he didn’t even thump his tail after I put his food in front of him.”

She broke off. Mycroft produced some sympathetic humming sounds to indicate he was listening. His mother sniffed a few times before resuming. “So I took him to the vet and she said it was cancer and poor Redbeard must have been in agony. He didn’t whimper at all, not once, the stupid beast. Just lay there looking at us with his tongue hanging out. She suggested putting him down straightaway and I felt so sorry for the poor thing that I said she should do it. He died in my arms, and…” She started crying loudly.

It was so unexpected coming from his mother that Mycroft felt glued to the ground. “Oh, Mummy,” he said, trying hard to soak up his voice with more sympathy than he felt. Redbeard’s demise left him a little cold, as he’d never greatly cared for the animal.

Then he thought of his younger brother. Oh god, Sherlock!

Before he could query after the reaction of his sibling, his mother was talking again. “He was dying; but oh, Mike, he just looked at me as if he wanted to thank me for delivering him from pain. Oh, the poor, poor animal. Imagine him having suffered so much. I felt so bad—”

“How did Sherlock react?” Mycroft cut straight to his sole interest in the story.

“Oh, he doesn’t know.” At least his mother seemed to have got a grip on herself again. “When… After… When Redbeard was dead the vet asked what I wanted to do with the body. It wasn’t until then that I realised Sherlock hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to him and… Well, he’s only seven years old so he doesn’t understand the concept of death yet. I called your father and he suggested we tell Sherlock that Redbeard had jumped over the garden’s fence then run off and gone to live in a happy little valley.”

“What?” Mycroft couldn’t help his incredulous exclamation. His mother pressed on, ignoring his yawp.

“I thought it was a great suggestion. So I left Redbeard at the vet to be disposed of and went home to make Sherlock his favourite dessert.”

“And what did he say when you spun him the tale of Redbeard galloping off to his ‘happy, little valley’,” Mycroft sneered.

“I don’t wish to hear such a tone from you, young man.” His mother corrected him sharply. “I’ll have you know your father and I still know what’s best for you, never mind you’re doing so well in school which we’re very glad to hear. Sherlock looked a little dubious at first, but later on he seemed to accept it, and he had two helpings of his Queen Victoria pudding.”

Mycroft swallowed the sarcastic remark that was burning on the tip of his tongue. “I doubt you’ve chosen the wisest path,” he put forth instead. “Sherlock found that dead bird in the garden last year, remember? We buried it beneath the treehouse. You could have made use of that to tell him the truth. Now he will think Redbeard decided to abandon him.”

“Nonsense. We told him to be happy for Redbeard as he’s in a better place. And of course we promised to buy him another dog. He was quite content when I put him to bed. You’re not exactly being of help, Mycroft.”

In his mother’s world not being of help was an offence the enormity of which could not be excused under any circumstances, safe for the outbreak of World War III perhaps.

“I’m sorry, Mummy.” Mycroft offered in his most contrite tones. “And I’m sorry to hear about poor Redbeard.”

“That’s more like it. Now please confirm the story to Sherlock the next weekend you visit. He’s bound to ask you whether it’s true.”

“You’re ordering me to lie? Really, mother!” It was, he realised, rather childish of him to try to get his own back by drawing out his mother’s unease with the situation, but he was so exasperated with her he felt he could be excused for his momentary lapse from the role of dutiful son.

“Mike,” his mother said, warningly.

Mycroft sighed and rubbed his nose. “Fine,” he uttered. “I’ll support your silly story. But I still think you’ve not acted terribly wise in this.” Suppressing the urge to end the call there and then, he added, not shielding the reluctance from his voice, “Good night.”

# # # #

Mycroft hardly recognised the face that peered at him anxiously through the crack between the partly opened black door and its frame. Schooling his features into a bland smile he held up the bouquet of lilac, forget-me-nots and early tuberoses that Anthea had ordered for him that morning.

“Mrs Hudson,” he said pleasantly. “How are you?”

None too great, obviously, but perhaps her haggard looks were attributable to a recent illness. Upon realising who was perched on her stoop, his brother’s landlady opened the door wider.

“Mycroft.” Her voice quavered a little but her eyes widened and a tiny spark flickered up in them. “Oh, how lovely,” she warbled next, noticing the flowers. “Come in, come in. It’s lovely to see you.”

Her right hand flailed nervously next to his arm while she backed into the hallway, her whole body intent on urging him to step inside so she could smother him with her hospitality and months of untapped affection. How odd that John had not visited her. Mycroft had assumed the landlady and her former tenant were naturally going to seek comfort in each other’s company from time to time. Had he underestimated not just the depth of John’s grief but that of Mrs Hudson as well?

“…DI Lestrade, which was nice of him,” Mrs Hudson was finishing whatever she was saying while showing Mycroft into her kitchen. “I hope you won’t mind, Mycroft, but the parlour is in shambles with the spring cleaning I’ve been doing. Here, let me have those.” She swept the bouquet he was still carrying out of his hands. “Oh, Mycroft, they’re gorgeous. And what for?”

Mycroft shrugged his shoulders. “Sentiment?”

“Now you’re being silly. Sit down, I’ll put the kettle on. And I baked a cherry almond cake yesterday. You’ll have a piece, won’t you? I keep baking these cakes even though… Well, I’m silly like that. And John, he loves my cakes. I’ve been sending them over to Mrs Turner’s tenants, but Ted complained Jonathan was growing ‘love handles’. I’ve always preferred a man with some meat on him, but…”

After checking himself that a smile of innocuous encouragement was plastered firmly on his face—in addition to making the required humming noises of agreement—Mycroft tuned Mrs Hudson out. Her chatter receded to a faint drone in the background that wasn’t too troublesome. Its resonance reminded him of the buzz of a bumblebee enjoying a pollen feast on a bright summer day, and he felt irony tug at his lips when he spotted one hovering in the sharp sunlight falling upon the pot of zinnias on the windowsill over the sink.

“Oh, out you go.” Mrs Hudson opened the window and shooed out the insect. “Imagine, a bee in the middle of London! And here I was, watching this documentary on the Beeb only yesterday. They’re all dying, apparently, from the pesticides or something similar. Can’t you do something about that, Mycroft? It would be nice for Sherlock’s memory; he did love bees, didn’t he?”

The palaver went on and on while she busied herself around the kitchen. Tea appeared in front of him—the brew was of its habitual inferior quality by the smell of it, but at least she had remembered he had it without milk—together with a plate bearing a large slice of cake. While placing it in front of him Mrs Hudson brushed her hand over his shoulder.

“Thank you for visiting, Mycroft,” she said. “I know you’re a busy man so for you to take the time to come over…that’s really sweet of you, I mean, I’m just your poor brother’s landlady…” A small whimper of distress escaped from her lips when she seated herself on the other side of the table. Carefully, she lifted her cup from its saucer with a hand that trembled, the knuckles of her fingers whitening from the grip on the cup’s handle.

“Oh, my hip,” she complained. “It’s been giving me so much trouble lately. Oh well, the summer is nearly here and the sun always helps, I find.” Pursing her lips she blew at her tea. “Funny, I never cared much for the summer when I was younger. I’ve always been more of a winter person. I wasn’t too eager when Mr Hudson first told me he wanted to immigrate to Florida. That’s another thing Sherlock and I had in common, I think. He loathed the Florida climate. Oh dear, he never was one for mincing his words, was he? We were discussing it only a few days before…”

Mid-prattle she broke off to regard him over the rim of her cup with slightly rheumatic eyes. Whatever she read on his face—and Mycroft worked hard to meet her scrutiny with his blandest smile—caused her voice to be much softer when she resumed. “I’ll never understand why he did it, Mycroft, but I just wish he hadn’t. I miss him, I do. And I am sure John does as well, though I haven’t seen him for months, the poor man. He was really suffering, you know. You haven’t spoken to him, have you? I wish you would. People should support each other.”

Mycroft swallowed his bite of excellent cake. “True,” he murmured. “Regrettably, John has decided to live under the illusion that I am to blame for Sherlock’s decision to end his life.”

“Oh, yes, I know.” Mrs Hudson sighed, mercifully employing her gaze to an observance of the contents of her cup once more. “It must have been so horrible for him, horrible. That phone call and then to have to watch your best friend jump off of that roof right in front of your eyes… And then, after, to see him lying there on the pavement, all mangled up, and all the blood. Such a beautiful boy, Sherlock was, I don’t want to think what… I suppose that was why you had to have the closed coffin…” Her voice wavered and she hid behind another hasty gulp of tea. On the wall behind Mycroft’s back the clock ticked away the seconds. Close to the zinnias the bumblebee crawled over the window glass.

“So,” Mrs Hudson addressed him again after she put down her cup. “What brings you here? Everything is still upstairs, you know. I’ve thought of renting out the flat again but I don’t need the money, not really. So I’ve left it all the way it was; even Sherlock’s clothes are still there. I…Somehow I couldn’t summon the energy to sort things out, and it’s not like it’s bothering me. I just don’t go up there.”

After drawing out his handkerchief and patting it at the corners of his mouth, Mycroft nodded. “I confess your cherry almond cake rivals the one they serve at the Dorchester, Mrs Hudson,” he told his hostess whose face beamed at the compliment. “My apologies for not appreciating your plight,” he said next. “If you would like, I can have a few people come over and clear out the flat for you. It will take them less than a day.”

“No!” Mrs Hudson’s vehemence quite belied the harmless exterior she usually presented to the world. “No, I like the idea of the flat remaining the way it was. Maybe John, once he comes to his senses a bit, would like to come back. Otherwise…Ah, you’ll probably think I’m a daft old woman, and I know I am. But I feel that if I leave it untouched, I don’t know, it feels like Sherlock might walk in again any minute.”

Mycroft smiled.

“Silly, isn’t it?” Mrs Hudson smiled back.

“Quite,” Mycroft confirmed. “But that’s what sentiment does; catches one at a disadvantage when one cares too much. Sooner or later, all hearts are broken. Whether the fracture was caused by a criminal husband or an addict tenant, the outcome is the same.”

“Oh, Mycroft.” Mrs Hudson’s face crumpled, vacillating on that small ridge between grief and relief. Tears welled up in her eyes but she sat smiling through them, wiping them off with her hands and smearing mascara in the process. Mycroft delved into his other pocket for his spare handkerchief and slid it across the table.

“Oh, thank you.” She sniffed, plucking it from beneath his hand and reducing the snow-white linen to a soiled rag almost instantly by daubing at the stains around her eyes. “How can you talk like that? You loved your little brother, never mind you were always putting him down in front of others. You did that because you worried about him…Everyone can see that…”

A fresh outbreak of tears caused Mycroft to shift in his seat uneasily. He lifted another bite of cake to his mouth, found he couldn’t swallow it no matter how hard he tried, and had to take a swig of the awful tea to wash it down.

Putting him down…

Mrs Hudson’s phrasing had been rather unfortunate, to say the least. Of course she wasn’t aware of it, or she would have chosen her words differently or burst out into a round of apologies. It was simply impossible for her to know about Redbeard and the story of his sudden demise. Sherlock never mentioned the dog, to anyone.

Not after that awful day.

# # # #

The weather was unseasonably warm for June. Mycroft lay lazing in a recliner on the terrace, wrapped up in Pelling’s biography of Churchill. A faint breeze ruffled the cheery green and golden fringe of the big green parasol whose gentle shade protected him against the fiery heat of the sun’s rays. His mother had thrown him disapproving glances on her way to and from the clotheslines that were strung at the side of the house, grumbling about lazy, good-for-nothing twenty-year-olds beneath her breath. Mycroft had in fact worked quite hard at Oxford during the past term so he refused to acknowledge her remarks, raising his book a little higher to shield himself from them instead. Now from somewhere inside the house the faint ebb and flow of conversation put up some effort to disturb his general sense of wellbeing but he bravely battled the tiny flicker of annoyance the sound sparked in him.

Whatever other advantages his Harrow education might have brought him, he counted the carefully cultivated ability to turn a deaf ear to random noise among those that were the most useful to him. Instead of pricking up his ears to distinguish the words that were being spoken, the part of Mycroft that was not concentrating on his book was able to dilute the sounds with the gentle hum of the bumblebees tumbling over the flowers that gave off a fresh waft of sweet fragrance with every flurry brushing their petals.

Unfortunately, most of the time paradisiacal peace and quiet and the Holmes household were as unlikely to meet as East and West. As the discussion inside grew more heated, the voices turned shriller, rising higher and higher in a discordant duet of enmity. Mycroft closed his book first and his eyes briefly after, and felt for the handle to put the back of the recliner into a more upright position. He had just succeeded in rearranging the chair and himself when the kitchen door was thrown open wide, crashing into the wall so loudly Mycroft was momentarily afraid the glass inset in the door would shatter.

“William Sherlock Scott Holmes!” Mummy shouted. “You come back right this minute and apologise!”

“No!” Sherlock whipped past Mycroft’s chair, running faster than a snap dog.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft called out, worry jilting his heart in his chest as he caught sight of his brother’s face. Beneath the wet sheen of brimming tears the blue and silver enamel of Sherlock’s irises was glittering even more brightly than usual. The look he shot his elder brother made Mycroft cower, for it was so full of icy hate it reminded him of Dante’s description of Lucifer, perpetually locked in the frozen lake fed by his own tears.

“Sherlock!” Sherlock paid him no heed but rushed on in the direction of the refuge he still sought out on a regular basis despite their mother’s remonstrations that he’d grown too big for the treehouse and it was dangerous to sit up there.

“Sherlock!” Now Mummy came scampering onto the terrace. Her face was glowing with a redness that certainly wasn’t thanks to the heat. “Where is he?” she huffed at Mycroft.

“Up in the treehouse, I surmise,” answered Mycroft, shrugging. “What’s wrong?”

“That boy, I swear…” Sighing dramatically Mummy flung herself down into a chair. “One of these days he’s going to give me a heart attack.”

Mycroft rearranged his features into the required empathetic mask.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with that child,” his mother went on complaining. “I simply have no idea what’s going on in that head of his. He must be intelligent for otherwise he would never have got himself a scholarship for Harrow, never mind your father and I can barely suffer the expense of the uniform. Not after having had to pay for yours as well.” Mycroft rolled his eyes inwardly.

“He’s simply obsessed with death. Did I tell you that a month ago I chanced upon a dead badger he’d stashed beneath his bed when I was hoovering his room? He claimed he needed it for ‘experiments’. I made him throw it away, of course, and had him scrub his hands with Vim. And now he’s foaming at the mouth because he just discovered what really happened to Redbeard. Well, I beg your pardon but if there’s one child that ought to have figured that out years ago, it’s Sherlock.”

Mycroft blanched. Suddenly the day’s heat seemed oppressing. “How did he find out, then?” he asked, affecting nonchalance.

“Apparently the vet told him,” Mummy replied. “Sherlock has been helping her out occasionally, cleaning the benches and looking after the animals that have to stay overnight. In return Mrs Johnson teaches him how to use a microscope and, as Sherlock puts it, “do science stuff”. He just confronted me with the tale and I told him that of course Redbeard had to be put down. I can’t for the life of me imagine he still believed that silly tale we only told him to spare his feelings at the time. Good heavens!”

“I see,” Mycroft murmured through thin lips.

“Well.” Mummy pushed herself up. “I’m going to call Mr Boulstridge and ask for him to drive over and take down that treehouse tomorrow. One of these days Sherlock is going to come crashing down with it and break his neck just to spite me. You can go and tell him he’s forfeited his dinner this evening.” She strode off into the house; in turn forfeiting Mycroft of the chance to inform her that Sherlock wasn’t likely to rue this particular form of punishment.

Peace and tranquillity descended on the terrace once more after his mother’s departure, but Mycroft found he was no longer in the mood to enjoy them. He threw his book a longing glance. Mr Churchill’s stern visage stared back at him and told him to go look for his little brother and stop the rot.

”Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

In some ways Sir Winston Churchill’s life had been surprisingly easy, never having been stuck between the opposing forces of Mrs Holmes and her youngest.

In the corner of the garden Mycroft found the ladder was pulled up onto the platform. His eyes searched the tree, but found no evidence of Sherlock. He had to be cooped up inside the small house. But then, the discomfort was probably just heightening the satisfaction of his sulk.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft called. As expected, the treehouse remained ominously silent.

“Sherlock, please,” Mycroft begged.

“Go away!” Sherlock shouted. His voice was wet and sounded thick with crying.

Oh, Christ. Mycroft balled his fists so hard he could feel his nails tear at the flesh. Why had their father ever come up with his stupid idea and why hadn’t Mycroft had the guts to step down on it and tell Sherlock the truth?

For of course Sherlock had grasped onto the story eagerly and held onto it all these years; that was how his mind worked. To him everything was true or false, black or white. The endless shades of shadowy greys were Mycroft’s specialty. Mycroft, with the advantage of someone who had seven years on his brother, had always been quietly fascinated by this difference in their outlook. Sherlock, once he became aware of it, had grown increasingly frustrated with it. He frequently complained to Mycroft about other people’s unwillingness to answer direct questions or give replies that were short and to the point. Meanwhile, he’d grown a reputation in the village for being the bane of his poor parents’ life and a nosy and impertinent youngster, never mind his perfectly angelic looks.

Six years ago the three people closest to Sherlock had all confirmed that Redbeard had galloped off to live his life happily in some other place. Today that story had been exposed as the blatant lie it was. The very foundations of Sherlock’s world had just been shaken with a force close to nine on the scale of Richter.

Jesus bloody fucking Christ, what a mess.

“Sherlock, please,” Mycroft said. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes to let the pain block the burning itch of the tears crowding there. When he trusted his voice to be calm and even again, he continued. “Sherlock, I apologise for lying about Redbeard. It was cowardly and bad of me and an offence to both of us. I know that in agreeing to go along with the story I’ve upset you greatly. I should have put my foot down and told Mummy and Daddy we ought to tell you the truth.”

Mycroft remembered then he had in fact done so, but his loyalty to their mother forbade him to mention this. Besides, the disclosure of that detail wouldn’t have served his argument. Worse, it would have shown Sherlock that Mycroft had capitulated again when confronted with the massive juggernaut of their mother’s terrifying will, and further exposed another crack that lay at the base of the rift that was rapidly widening between him and his brother.

“Sherlock? Will you say something, please?” Mycroft pleaded, gazing up to the platform. Nothing stirred except for the leaves rustling in the wind. Leaning his back against the trunk Mycroft let himself slide down until he was seated on the soft bed of moss and seedlings surrounding the tree.

“What do you want me to do? What do you need?”

He waited, his eyes locked up on the little house over his head. A sigh escaped his lips. Silently, he cursed the spineless creature that had been his fourteen-year-old self. The futility of his belated remorse made him huff in irritation. Lamenting the past was a fruitless exercise. Evidently, the only good thing that mulling over it brought about was the bitter memory of all the stupid mistakes one had made. Mycroft was being taught the hard way now. Sherlock was an excellent agent to drive the message home.

Never again would Mycroft let his brother down in such a spectacular manner.

“Sherlock?”

“Go away!” The cry was accompanied by an even louder crack as Sherlock’s foot slammed against one of the walls and shot through the rotten wood that gave way in a crushing hail of splinters.

“Sherlock!” Mycroft sprang to his feet. “Sherlock! What are you doing up there? It’s dangerous. Come down, please.”

Mycroft didn’t really expect Sherlock to react so he was forced to take a step back when Sherlock’s head suddenly appeared over the edge of the plateau. His face combined fire and ice—tear streaks tumbling down over his cheekbones like runlets from a molten glacier. In defiance of the laws of nature the heat of Sherlock’s distress closed a freezing fist around Mycroft’s heart.

“And what are you doing down there, Mycroft?” The sheer depth of contempt in the tone made Mycroft flinch. “You can stand there hollering for me to come down all day, but you know quite well I won’t do it. I won’t listen to you, ever again.”

“Sherlock, lis—Please. Come down. Staying up there is dangerous. You don’t want to fall and break your neck, do you?”

“I couldn’t give a hoot.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Come down here so we can talk this through like sensible people. I understand what you’ve learned today—”

“Tell me, Mycroft. What have I learned today?”

Mycroft swallowed. The whole situation was painful and extremely humiliating. However, there was no alternative but to plough through so he did.

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” Another great piece of advice by the great statesman himself. Mycroft couldn’t have said he was going through hell, but Sherlock certainly was, and it fell to Mycroft to help him through.

“You have learned the truth about Redbeard,” he offered carefully. “And you’ve discovered that we lied to you all those years ago, then never bothered to tell you otherwise.”

“I don’t care about them,” Sherlock said coldly. “But you, I’ve always believed you. You lied to me. You said you’d never lie to me, Mycroft! How many more lies have you told me? Can’t you see I can never trust you again? I wondered… I often asked myself… When I asked, that evening you returned from school, I knew you were going to tell me that Redbeard was dead, that it was just a story they had made up because they’re stupid and just assumed I wouldn’t understand. But then you…”

Mid-stride he cut off and his head vanished as abruptly as it had come into view two minutes ago. After a slight hesitation—somehow the motion felt like admitting defeat, a debilitating sensation Mycroft had been growing increasingly unaccustomed to—Mycroft took a step back in order to find out what was happening over his head. He was just in time to catch sight of Sherlock’s lower left leg slipping into the darkness of the hut.

“Sherlock?” he called.

“Why don’t you get lost and find someone else to appal?” Sherlock demanded in a voice so stony it sent a shiver of disquiet rippling down Mycroft’s back.

“Sherlock, please…” Mycroft pleaded, fighting the despair he felt gnawing at his insides. He fixed his gaze on the hut but nothing moved, save for the ever-shifting shafts of sunlight that waved their way path through the softly rustling canopy of the ancient tree. A few splinters chafed against the skin of his neck. He wiped at them with his hand and combed his fingers through his hair to get rid of them. Then, when he was sure Sherlock was prepared to stay inside the hut for as long as he would remain standing there, Mycroft pivoted on his heels and without looking over his shoulder once began the long walk back to the house.

# # # #

“I was worried,” Mycroft hissed into the phone.

“Oh, please. Save your boring fretting for those who appreciate it. If there are any that do.” If Sherlock intended to aggravate Mycroft even further with his breezy tone, he was succeeding admirably well.

Forcing himself to go back to sounding perfectly composed Mycroft spoke, enunciating every word. “My man warned me you were being reckless, as usual.”

“Your man, brother dear, is an incompetent moron who should be paying you for the privilege of being employed. Please tell me you’re not assigning these people to me as a chastisement for any wrongs I’ve unwittingly committed in the past.”

“I’m saving those for when you’re safely back again,” Mycroft said smoothly.

“Ah. Then perhaps you could do me the favour of sending over for the next stage someone with two brain cells. Functioning, preferably.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Mycroft said, and ended the call. Rather appear to be brusque than start shouting into the receiver—that certainly wouldn’t do. Besides, Sherlock was the last person in the world to be affronted by an abrupt dismissal.

# # # #

To say that Mycroft hadn’t been looking forward to the coming weekend was something of an understatement. He had gone out of his way to avoid his younger sibling for over a year. By now he was thoroughly done with Sherlock snubbing every attempt at reconciliation with a haughty toss of his head and a contemptuous twist of his lips. Mycroft was too engrossed in his career to concern himself with someone to who Mycroft, in his most private thoughts, referred to as a ‘giant pain in the arse’. One day, hopefully, his brother would grow up and cease his revolt of resentment against the people who ought to be his dearest. In the meantime, provided Sherlock didn’t enter any paths that led to actual self-annihilation, his little brother was free to wallow in the hellish morass of his own devising, if such was his wish.

Mycroft had brought down the number of his visits to their ancestral home to the lowest possible minimum, carefully planning his weekends to coincide with those during which Sherlock remained at school. At the end of the summer Sherlock would be off to Cambridge; he’d passed his exams with flying colours and rumour had it that the University was very eager to add him to the student body. Mycroft assumed that would result in Sherlock being at home even less, allowing Mycroft more of a breather. In the meantime, the few encounters Mycroft had been unable to avoid had merely served to prove his brother at eighteen was even more insufferable than at seventeen.

Friends of their parents—a couple both Mycroft and Sherlock had known all their lives—were celebrating their Pearl Wedding Anniversary by throwing a party to which they had invited half the village. Early on Mycroft had found out that a decline to participate in the festivities was simply unnegotiable. As he had nothing against the people in question he’d acquiesced. Only that spring he’d received a promotion to a position that—back in those days when he set his first tentative steps in the jungle that was the British government—he hadn’t expected to obtain before he was at least thirty-three. To a man who at twenty-five grasped what he’d envisaged to hold eight years later, the obligation to spend three nights under the same roof as his sibling should have been an encumbrance no more vexatious than the insistent buzzing of a mosquito in the bedroom. Thus, Mycroft had packed his suitcase and set off for the homestead, determined not to be shaken by whatever atrocity Sherlock might choose to inflict on them.

So far he’d succeeded remarkably well. A scarcely civil reserve reigned over any space the Holmes brothers shared. Mummy did her best to engulf the uneasiness in a cloud of cheerful chatter, but only succeeded in highlighting the awkward silence that stole down on the domestic scene whenever she had to pause for breath. Their father hid behind his newspaper or busied himself in the garden shed, while Mycroft turned another page of his book and smiled politely in answer to his mother’s request whether he would like a second slice of cake.

“Oh yes, keep stuffing him, as if he isn’t fat enough already,” Sherlock harrumphed from behind his own book.

“Thank you for your comment, Sherlock,” their mother told him. “Now apologise to Mikey.”

Sherlock’s answer was to shut his book and shuttle out of the room. Mycroft exhaled and closed his eyes. Only one more evening and another day. He’d make sure to leave at three in the afternoon at the latest.

On the evening of the celebration Mycroft and his parents sat waiting for Sherlock to come down so they could be off to the party. Both Mummy and Daddy had donned their best clothes. After some debate Mycroft had settled on a simple midnight blue two-piece he’d combined with a watery blue pinpoint Oxford shirt. His neck felt strangely bare without a tie but he believed it highly unlikely any man under thirty would be wearing one, and for his parent’s sake he wanted to blend in with the crowd. Besides, it was likely to be hot beneath the canopy that his father had helped erect earlier in the day, so he wouldn’t have minded the chance to profit from every breeze, however futile, sweeping past him.

“Well,” Mummy said. “I suppose Sherlock taking so long to choose what to wear must be a good sign.”

Mycroft offered his most non-committal hum. His father continued his contemplation of the rose bed in front of the window.

“Ah, there he is,” their mother began at the sound of Sherlock’s feet hopping down the steps. Her face fell when her youngest materialised in front of her eyes.

“What in heaven’s name!” she choked.

Sherlock was dressed in the pair of thin cotton trousers and oversized t-shirt he’d been wearing when he went upstairs an hour ago. One of his daytime activities must have been either to climb a tree or to burrow himself in a hole in the ground with nothing but his hands for an implement, for both the trousers and the t-shirt were incredibly filthy and his hands were covered with tiny cuts and bruises. His hair was the same messy jumble haphazardly falling into his eyes that it had been when he’d come home earlier. It was now complete with the remnants of some tiny twigs.

“Sherlock,” Mummy started again. Her face had acquired a reddish cast and she was practically wringing her hands. “For God’s sake, even you must understand you can’t go like this.”

“Can’t I?” Sherlock enquired with mock-jocundity. “I don’t see why not.”

“Because it’s Uncle Tim’s and Aunt Maisy’s thirtieth wedding anniversary,” Mummy screeched. She picked up one of their father’s newspapers and set to fanning herself with furious determination. From his vantage point on the last step of the stairs Sherlock cast their mother a dispassionate eye.

“First of all,” he said, his tone mimicking the pitch healthcare workers assumed when addressing either a child or the very, very elderly, “Mr and Mrs Evans are not related to us. Secondly, I fail to see how the clothes I’m wearing or the way I look would in any way influence the festivities.” One of the twigs in Sherlock’s hair wiggled whenever he moved his head, adding to the illusion he wasn’t a human at all but rather some forest sprite. “If their marriage can be rocked by such a detail as my attire,” he went on, “it can’t have been very good to start with, and we might as well save ourselves the trouble of showing up at all and stay at home, instead. Which I’d rather do anyway. Not that I like it here, but at least I have to contend with only the three of you, whereas at the Evanses I will have to endure the company of a whole horde of insufferable people,”

“Who are undoubtedly desperately looking forward to yours,” Mycroft quipped.
The sound of the door being shut informed them their father had left the room.

“Mikey, no one asked you to comment.” Their mother had found the command of her faculties and her voice again. “Sherlock,” she addressed her youngest. “You stop this nonsense right now and go back upstairs to change into something appropriate. And draw a comb through your hair!”

“Why?” demanded Sherlock.

“Because I say so! Because your Aunt Maisy and Uncle Tim are lovely people, and they’ve invited the Mitchells and the Ravensdales.”

“Ah…” Sherlock breathed while Mycroft shot an enquiring glance in his mother’s direction.

“I’ll explain, Mycroft,” Sherlock said in a smug voice. Sprucely, he took the last step and glided towards the sofa. He perched himself on its edge with the studied elegance of a society hostess, then continued to pretend to direct a pleasantly civil conversation.

“Naturally, with your always being so busy in London and therefore denying us the pleasure of your company, you are unaware of some of the delightful chitchat Mummy and I have indulged ourselves in recently.”

Here, he halted to incline his head to the left and stare straight at Mycroft, a hint of smile on his lips. Mycroft did his best to glower but ended up breaking the eye contact first.

“Sherlock,” Mummy began but Sherlock ignored her, turning away and crossing his legs, the gesture pointed.

“Now, now,” he said. “I feel we have been deceiving Mycroft for too long, Mummy. You see, Mycroft, by now Mummy has rather come to despair of the proclivity of her heir to provide her with his own heir, and so she has turned to her spare. Oh, this is rather fun, isn’t it? Just like Dr Seuss. Yes, Mycroft, you might as well rejoice in the fact Mummy has finally accepted you are an inveterate pervert—her private opinion, obviously, not mine. Personally, I don’t give a hang who or what you get off with. I have no interest in sex whatsoever, or affinity for it. We really ought to forgive Mummy, though. After all, she can hardly be blamed for having been brought up in the true faith.”

The last time Sherlock had delivered such a long speech must have been when he was eleven and had recounted to Mycroft how Mr Wiggins had explained the dancing patterns of the bees and their meaning. Their language, it seemed, was infinitely intricate, and yet it revolved solely around the question where the best and most abundant pollen might be gathered. Sherlock, apparently, was equally deft in his employment of words.

With his spiteful banter he’d swiftly managed to deal a blow to their mother’s dreams of a happy future filled with the laughter of grandchildren and to Mycroft’s unwillingness to discuss his sexual preferences with their parents.

Shaken, Mycroft still managed to draw his mouth into a disapproving moue and tutted at his brother. From beneath the curtain of his fringe, Sherlock stared back with a mischievous smirk.

“Sherlock! You have said quite enough!” Sweat was pouring from their mother’s brow. She mopped at it with a paper handkerchief she’d plucked out of her purse. “Go to your room right now. We’ll tell Uncle Tim and Aunt Maisy you’re ill.”

“Oh.” Sherlock’s face was a portrait study in disappointment. “But Mummy, I would have loved to make love to Lucy Mitchell, and Susan, and Lydia Ravensdale.” He looked so sincerely put out Mycroft almost laughed, with the humourless desperation a common Private must have felt as he crouched in the trenches while waiting for the next German attack.

“Well, you’ve missed your chance,” Mummy replied, tone arctic. “Maybe next week, at the Ravensdale’s summer picnic.”

“I’m already looking forward to it,” Sherlock said in a false cheery tone. “I’m so sorry you won’t be able to attend that most tedious of social gatherings, Mycroft. However, unlike some of us, I understand how London’s gay bars must hold a bigger sway over you. Right, I’ll be upstairs then. See ya.”

# # # #

The evidence Sherlock had sent Mycroft that their longest serving agent in Japan had sold his services to Moriarty a long time ago initiated an unwelcome flurry of activity. After some deliberation Mycroft delegated the task of screening every main agent in their employ to Anthea, the only person in the service he felt he could truly trust. Regrettably this also meant she had less time to spend at his side. Her replacement was more than adequate, an eager young man who would have literally tried to fly for Mycroft if such feat was humanly possible. Mycroft’s agenda was organised with ruthless efficiency and for the first time in years he found himself in the luxurious possession of the occasional half an hour free from any matter requiring his attention.

Naturally, his character in its perversity would not allow him to enjoy that rare commodity. Instead, Mycroft sat fretting, thrumming with his fingers on the side of his chair and living in even greater fear for his brother’s life.

# # # #

In the past Sherlock had visited Mycroft’s office occasionally. Each of these occurrences had been instigated at Mycroft’s behest and invariably started with a fuming Sherlock being marched into the room between two of Mycroft’s security personnel. Thus, Mycroft was rather surprised when on the first truly pleasant day of spring that year, Anthea informed him his agenda had been reshuffled at the last minute to fit in an unexpected caller.

“It’s your brother, sir,” she said. The words were hardly out of her mouth when, with a dramatic swirl of his coat, Sherlock swanned into the room. Anthea cleared her throat and closed the door behind her.

“Here are your boring plans,” Sherlock announced, tossing a memory stick onto Mycroft’s desk. “Now tell me everything you know about a man called Moriarty.”

Slowly, Mycroft pushed himself up in his chair. He picked up the memory stick and took off the tiny cap. A few drops of water fell out straight onto the draft of the new tax treaty with Germany that Mycroft had been correcting. He lifted an enquiring eyebrow at his brother. Sherlock merely shrugged and flung himself down into the chair in front of the desk.

“It fell into a pool,” he explained. “A bit.” He waved off any further conversation on the topic with a dainty flick of his wrist. “Moriarty, Mycroft. He’s a dangerous man and an outrageous criminal. You must be aware of his existence.”

“Of course I am,” replied Mycroft. He let the memory stick drop onto the hardwood flooring, before standing up and crunching it beneath the heel of his shoe, swivelling left and right for good measure. “What is he to you?”

“My new archenemy.”

“Ah.” Mycroft laid a hand against his heart. “I hope you realise how much it saddens me to have to relinquish that place.”

“Stop your theatrics, Mycroft, and be serious for a change.” Sherlock’s voice was so fraught with anguish that Mycroft sat down rather abruptly. He tented his fingers in front of his mouth and arranged his face in its most attentive expression.

“How can I be of your assistance?” he asked.

“That’s better,” Sherlock growled. Now that Mycroft took a proper look at his brother he noticed that beneath Sherlock’s usual paleness he was quite white around the nose. His teeth were worrying his lower lip, always a sign of nervousness on Sherlock’s part, rather than the display of sexual innuendo others had sometimes taken it for.

“I… He and I have been playing this game lately,” Sherlock began. Mycroft nodded. “It was quite fun, actually,” Sherlock continued. His eyes darted towards Mycroft and then away, to a spot above Mycroft’s head. “John remonstrated with me that people were dying which was unpleasant. John being angry, I mean.”

He halted and Mycroft nodded again for him to continue, also settling his gaze on a point that was not the other person in the room—the top of the doorframe served that purpose admirably well. When Sherlock recounted how the red dot had appeared on his forehead, Mycroft pressed the tips of his fingers so hard the blood started to drain away. At last Sherlock’s story reached its end. Somehow, miraculously, he and his doctor flatmate had walked out alive. Now, it seemed that Moriarty’s audacity to threaten John’s life meant Sherlock intended to hunt him down.

“So I decided to turn to you,” Sherlock wrapped up his account of his latest endeavours to get himself killed. From the fact that Sherlock didn’t finish this last sentence with the prerequisite, ironic ‘brother dear’ Mycroft deduced his encounter with James Moriarty and the subsequent revelation of his emotions upon another human being’s narrow escape from termination had shaken his brother badly. In the course of one night, it seemed, Sherlock had grown up considerably.

Screening his own emotions, Mycroft coughed discreetly behind his hand.

“I can, of course, start collecting information on the man, make inquiries,” he suggested, picking up his fountain pen and subjecting it to an elaborate survey.

“No,” was Sherlock’s immediate reaction. “He is too dangerous. We must do away with him.”

Slowly, Mycroft lifted his eyes from the pen to regard his sibling. “We?” he enquired. “Have we become an entity all of a sudden?”

“In order to defeat, Moriarty, yes.” Over the desk Sherlock locked eyes with Mycroft. His gaze was guileless. He didn’t waver, no matter how hard Mycroft stared at him.

“Ah, I see,” Mycroft forwarded at last. He took some time to arrange the pen on his blotter, positioning it first to the left than the right of the sheaf of papers in front of him. In the end he opted for placing it in the right hand corner, at a forty-five degree angle to the drafts. “You’re offering a truce,” he concluded. “But how about the time after you’ve defeated Moriarty? Provided that you succeed, of course.”

“I will.”

“You will do your best, I’m sure. But sometimes one finds, brother dear, that doing one’s best isn’t enough.”

“That depends.”

“Exactly.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “I loved that dog, Mycroft.”

Mycroft’s heart was beating in his chest so frantically he was amazed Sherlock couldn’t hear it.

He moved forward, folding his hands on top of the ruined drafts and settling his eyes on them. “As I loved you,” he said. The skin between his fingers was starting to feel unpleasantly warm and damp. His voice, however, was as flat as if he were dictating a letter to the President of the European Council.

There, it was out in the open. Privately Mycroft congratulated himself on posing his brazen declaration as if it were a natural part of their conversation. He braced himself for the inevitability of Sherlock’s derision. A part of his mind told him that was what he was after, what he wanted, what he needed, in order to maintain the resemblance of a relationship with Sherlock. Denial of all feeling was his best defence, enmity the citadel in whose twisted by-lanes he could chase the chimera of his devotion. That glorious summer day, a little over two decades ago, Sherlock had shut the door between them and gone off to tramp down his own trail through life, as friendless and solitary as a hermit secluding himself in the desert. Good husbandry incited Mycroft to maintain his side of the buttresses and secure them with an extra layer of stone.

On the opposite side of the desk Sherlock flinched, the sudden movement startling Mycroft out of his ill-timed reverie. He raised his gaze to his brother, momentarily afraid that in the rashness of his lowered guard he’d destroyed the first tentative buds of an understanding he wouldn’t have dared hope for ten minutes ago.

“Sherlock?” he pressed quietly.

“What has that got to do with anything?” Sherlock gritted between his teeth.

“Nothing, I suppose,” Mycroft replied, taking care to let his gaze drift back to his hands. Perhaps, indeed, it was better for both of them to remain aloof—after all, this was what they had become accustomed to. At heart, Sherlock was such a conservative being.

When he looked up again he saw his brother’s mouth already twitching with a curl of impatience.

“Right.” Mycroft lifted an enquiring eyebrow. “No doubt you’ve already concocted a plan full of unnecessarily dashing aspects. I’m all ears.”

# # # #

The instant the phone started clamouring at his bedside he was wide awake. He grabbed for the device and grappled with the buttons. “Yes,” he growled, his voice thick and heavy with sleep.

“Apologies for waking you up, sir.” Anthea’s breathless voice poured into his ear. “It’s Lazarus. It’s as you feared. He’s been apprehended. In Serbia.”

Mycroft was already out of his bed and getting rid of his damp pyjama jacket. The nights had been unaccountably, swelteringly hot lately. “Is the plane ready?” he asked.

“Almost, sir,” Anthea answered. “You can be off in three quarters of an hour. Your car will be ready to pick you up in ten minutes.”

“Good, thank you.” Mycroft ended the call and headed for the bathroom. After a quick shave and a shower he dressed himself hurriedly. A stack of dictionaries and grammar books on various Slavic languages had been lying, waiting, on top of the small desk in his bedroom since Sherlock’s departure for Eastern Europe. Now Mycroft extricated an English-Serbian dictionary and a book with a brief introduction to the Serbian language. After tossing them into his suitcase he still had one minute to put on his overcoat and select himself an umbrella from the extensive collection perched in the hallstand.

Once he hoisted himself into the faintly distasteful garb of a Serbian officer he’d have to relinquish the item. Until that time he’d relish the comfort of spinning the handle between his fingers as means to ward off what to his imagination constituted the stuff of nightmares. Their man in Serbia was an old hand, thank God, so it shouldn’t take Mycroft more than three days to insinuate himself into a position of power in the prison where Sherlock was probably being interrogated at this very minute. But three days were an awfully long time, especially for someone suffering through torture.

Briefly, Mycroft closed his eyes. Two days, he’d allow himself, no more.

His car glided to a halt in front of the gate just as he was locking the front door. His chauffeur sprang out to relieve him of his suitcase and hold the door open for him. Inside Anthea sat waiting, her fingers deftly working the keys of her Blackberry.

“Good morning, sir,” she greeted him.

“Good morning.” he replied, adding straightaway. “You needn’t have come.”

She smiled the mysterious smile that was her trademark. “Yes, but I wanted to,” she said, the sleek silver bracelet on her wrist glinting in the light of the streetlamps that rushed past the window.

“That’s very kind of you,” Mycroft said.

For a moment her gaze unlocked itself from the tiny screen in her hands and slanted in his direction. “You won’t receive a very warm reception in Serbia, I think.”

“Probably not.”

An awkward silence hung between them for a few seconds that felt like hours, then her fingers began tapping away at her phone again.

Mycroft shifted in his seat and peered out of the window. They had left The Thames behind them. His hand spun the handle of his umbrella of its own accord. It wasn’t until he felt Anthea’s gaze on his hand that he became aware of the motion, and stopped. On his right side The Tower loomed, the mass of white stone eerily shimmering in the orange blur of its floodlights that were muted by the fog rising from the river. Even dressed in muted colours the building was forbidding and locked in self-imposed solitariness, its walls prepared to turn their back in haughty indifference to the multitude that thronged past them on a daily basis.

In its splendid isolation The Tower managed to snub even the great pillars of the bridge that soared above its own turrets. Why should it feign interest in what happened on the other side of the mass of water that had flowed past its walls ever since it was first built? Mycroft smiled and tipped his head in a spontaneous salute to the building. Then the car swung onto the A1203 and left the castle behind. Mycroft turned to cast one last look at it but found that suddenly, what drew his eye was not The Tower but the bridge.