Chapter Text
Saturday, January 3
For Sherlock, returning to Baker Street after the Magnussen extravaganza, his visit with Her Majesty's Intelligence services, and his aborted Eastern adventures had been stranger than the return after his two-year hiatus. But Mrs Hudson hadn't screamed her head off when he reappeared this time, which had been a welcome improvement.
On the drive back from the airfield Mycroft had been unnaturally quiet, had seemed almost chastened. Ordinarily, Sherlock would have revelled in the sight of his brother so set back, but it had only added to the sense of unreality of the situation. They'd watched coverage of the “Moriarty video” on the small television in Mycroft's car. Other than “But he's dead; he wasn't a foot away from me when he did it,” and “Yes,” no words had been spoken the entire trip. At Baker Street there had been a brief litany from Mycroft on logistics and politics and other things that Sherlock hadn't wanted to think about, and he now realised he probably should have attended to more.
Superficially it had appeared to be just another return, but they'd both known it had been no such thing. Mycroft had stood in the middle of the flat watching Sherlock stalk from one end of the space to the other, touching things: chair, violin case, skull, microscope. He hadn't known then why he'd done it, but doing it had calmed him somehow. Now he understood: he'd needed the reassurance that what he saw was real. That he had returned to Baker Street, to his things and the dust and Mrs Hudson and London and everything else.
His phone pinged; it was John
You OK?
He stared at the message for ten seconds before replying. Fine. SH
Sherlock sat in the lengthening dark, his coat pulled tight around him, and listened to the street noise from below. His city, and he'd almost had to leave her for good. He fell asleep curled up on the sofa, the murmurs of his truest love the only lullaby he'd ever want.
~ + ~
Sunday, January 4
The next morning, Sherlock was still laying on the sofa, wrapped up in his coat, when he heard Mrs Hudson hauling herself up the stairs. She had a bundle of newspapers in a carrier bag.
“Everyone's talking about that awful thing, Sherlock. It's all over the papers.” She pulled out the Sunday Mail and shuddered at the sight of the front page, a still from the video, Moriarty's leering face in close-up and “HE'S BACK” covering almost the entire front page. Sherlock held out a hand for the bag. She dropped it on the floor nearby and ignored his scowl. “I'll just get your tea, then.” She paused at the door. “It's good to have you back home, dear. Even if you won't tell me where you were,” she said quietly before continuing on down the stairs in the little hop-step that meant her hip was acting up again.
After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, Sherlock stood and walked over to the window. As he'd suspected, there was quite a lot of press on the doorstep, waiting for him to make some sort of statement about Moriarty. There'd been a few of them scrounging about when he and Mycroft had arrived the day before but he'd ignored them, which was a guaranteed method for ensuring they proliferated.
Sherlock pulled out his phone and scrolled through his various feeds. Moriarty featured heavily, as well as a fair bit of speculation as to why Sherlock hadn't made a statement yet. Well, they could wait; he had nothing to say on the matter. Moriarty was dead. It had happened not a foot away from him and it had finally even been proved in court. If people were stupid enough to believe otherwise, then he wasn't interested in wasting his time attempting to disabuse them of their delusions.
He heard Mrs Hudson's step on the stairs again and flopped back onto the sofa. By the time she made it to the top he was rummaging through the newspapers in a desultory fashion, glancing at the front pages and in an attempt to amuse himself, composing the first paragraph of each title's main story based on the front page headline text, font size and strap-line. By the time he got to The Observer at the bottom of the pile, he was running at a miserable eighty percent success rate.
“Aren't you going to read them?” Mrs Hudson asked as she deposited the tray on the small table by John's chair.
“Why bother. I know they don't know anything. If Mycroft doesn't know what's going on, Rupert Murdoch certainly doesn't.”
She picked up the Mail from where she'd dropped it before. “Such a horrible little man.”
“You make him sound like a grocer who shorts weight.”
She tsk-ed. “Who do you think it is, then?”
“It's a fake, obviously. Some time tomorrow the real story will get out that it was some sort of asinine publicity stunt. I look forward to Mycroft regaling me with the tale of whoever was responsible being tortured at a CIA black site in Morocco.”
“Honestly, Sherlock. That imagination of yours.”
“Would you rather it was real?”
“Of course not. Don't be silly.”
“Well, then.” He snapped open the front section of The Observer and leant back into the sofa.
“Don't let your tea go cold,” she said as she ambled down the corridor to wreak havoc on the bathroom.
~ + ~
Sherlock was bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. He stared at the Inbox on his phone. No cases, no inquiries, not even a glow-in-the-dark rabbit to take his mind off his infernal, dangerous boredom. Even the prospect of another Moriarty-related chase in his future didn't alleviate it.
Where are you? Expected you hovering annoyingly at the crack of dawn.
SH
Busy. Not everything in the universe is about you, Sherlock.
M
Why am I here?
SH
Ah, the supposed consolations of philosophy. Middle age imminent, is it? But then, forty is just around the corner.
M
You'd know about the decrepitude of middle age.
SH
Returning to old haunts?
SH
?
M
Oxford
SH
Not my decision. Good luck with it, though.
M
He stared at the final message. Well, that cleared up a thing or two, he thought. And raised another pair of questions in their place.
Sherlock had spent two decades brushing off Mycroft's overtures to upgrade his status from irregular contractor to bound serf of the security services, and now here he was, being unceremoniously shoved into it against his will. Not that he had anyone to blame but himself. Well, he could blame Mycroft for not managing to finagle a way out for him, but Sherlock conceded, in the often ignored-corner of his brain where he stored his nascent sense of responsibility, that Mycroft might just have a point this time. Murder was a teensy bit over the line and Sherlock was going to have to pay some sort of price for letting his emotions get the better of him.
Being a killer for hire, one of the officially unrecognised tools at the far edge of the bell curve of acceptable diplomacy, was a tricky game. Branching out on your own exposed you to all sorts of risks that were avoided when contracted by the government. But let the edge of a toe creep over the line and those protections disappeared.
And now here he was. For someone who'd spent three decades refusing to acknowledge any higher authority, it was especially galling to be in his position: government asset fully owned and amortized, to be disposed of at the whim of unseen, unanswerable, unknowable Whitehall bureaucrats. Mycrofts, all of them. And the man himself unwilling, or more likely unable (and wasn't that a thought) to do anything about it. The situation left Sherlock with an unfamiliar and unwelcome feeling of vulnerability. But in the short term, he was going to have to at least go through the motions of obeying whatever diktats came down from Thames House regarding the disposition of his time. They could have not made him wait, though. The waiting for whatever it was, was driving him mad.
He pulled up the last message he'd received, earlier that afternoon, with an address in Oxford and a time five days hence. No name, no indication of what it was about, but Sherlock knew that this was the first salvo in the beginnings of his new life, and he wasn't at all happy about it.
How would he occupy himself for five whole days? There was only so much time he could spend on Twitter following the #hesback hashtag and watching crap telly.
He could do something useful, like tidy the flat. Mrs Hudson would be thrilled, of course, and he might come across something entertaining under the piles of paperwork. But not likely. Messy though it was, Sherlock knew every document in the room. And MI5 would have taken anything interesting during his incarceration after Christmas.
He could follow up on some of the experiments he'd begun before Christmas, but that would entail going out and getting supplies, which would require losing his MI5 surveillance and running the gauntlet of the press outside his door. It sounded too exhausting, so he discarded that idea. He rolled over on the sofa and thought about the kitchen table, covered in his scientific equipment. It called out to him. The calming focus, the distraction of intense observation. But for some reason, he hesitated.
He wondered what, exactly, it would take to flush out his new surveillance. Not that he had to wonder about Mycroft's people; he knew from long experience exactly the threat level necessary to get them crawling out of the woodwork, though it required a trip to his old haunts in Tottenham or Hoxton if he wanted the man himself to make an appearance.
Sherlock looked around him and wondered just how much trouble he could get into based solely on the existing contents of the flat. He wondered how far he could go with appearing to build a bomb before someone came and took him away. Not that he wanted another visit to his old MI5 cell. He'd need to de-bug the kitchen beforehand, then.
But if he was going to go to the effort of de-bugging the kitchen, he might as well do the entire flat. A moderately interesting minute passed while he contemplated the probable distribution between the cameras secreted around the place by MI5 and those by Mycroft's people.
Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there, he thought as he leapt off the sofa and strode into the kitchen. A minute's rummaging garnered two jars whose interior residue he couldn't remember and didn't recognise. Without bothering to rinse them out, he dropped them onto the kitchen table, mentally labelling the jar on the left the MI5 jar and the one on the right MI6. Then he got to work.
Sherlock reasoned that a systematic approach would yield the most reliable data, so he started in the room least likely to yield anything: the bathroom. For even spies had their limits, presumably. Hopefully.
His fingers scoured every surface, inside and out, of every thing that might possibly be able to hide a camera. Nothing. Then he turned his attention to the bedroom.
He spent an entirely enjoyable three hours running his hands over every surface in the flat. Once found, he divided his prizes based on the makes and models, working from the assumption that the newest and most expensive ones were from Mycroft's people. The man had always refused to deny himself the best in anything, especially if he wasn't personally footing the bill.
As the jars filled, MI6 took an early lead and stayed ahead of the competition through the entire afternoon. Halfway through the process, Sherlock wondered if this act would in itself be sufficient to draw out MI5. He was confident, in the end, that he'd found them all, including the camera in John's old room. After all, they were effectively deaf and blind in Baker Street now that their equipment was marinating in the (likely) remains of a months-old chemistry experiment and wouldn't have the opportunity to replace it until Sherlock left and they could re-bug the flat.
He searched his desk until he found an old pad of John's neon green post-it notes. On the top sheet he wrote, “Still second best. Must do better next time,” and stuck it to the top of the MI5 jar. Just to ensure they got the message, he labelled the jars “MI5” and “MI6” in black marker.
He made himself a cup of tea and sat on the sofa and stared at his phone for a minute or so while his tea cooled. Then he texted John.
Coming over. SH
As Sherlock slipped on his coat, his phone pinged.
M under the weather. Dinner tomorrow?
Sherlock tamped down the niggle of unease that arose at the idea of Mary being unwell, then responded to John in the affirmative.
~ + ~
Monday, January 5
John was baffled by his emotions on seeing Sherlock sitting with Mary, calmly chatting away in the kitchen of their flat as if the last two weeks hadn't happened. Or the last six months, for that matter. Happiness, relief, confusion and anger swirled in a multi-coloured fog that disorientated John for a moment. Then he forced himself past the emotional disorder, and removed his coat and scarf and carefully hung them on the hooks by the door.
“How was your day?” Mary asked as he joined them.
“The usual.” John gave her a quick kiss before taking the chair next to her. “Hi,” he said to Sherlock, who watched them with open curiosity, as if he’d never seen them kiss before.
Mary held out her hand. “What?” John asked. She dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone, then turned the power off. John sighed; it was going to be one of those conversations.
“We’ve been busy,” Sherlock began, and foreboding entered the melee going on in John’s head.
“Okay.” John turned to Mary. “I’m assuming you aren’t talking about doing the laundry.”
“John—” she started.
“We cleaned up your flat,” Sherlock interrupted. “We need to talk. I did mine this morning. Very liberating.”
“How nice for you.” John ensured he expressed the expected amusement.
Mary shrugged. “He insisted.”
“There was no arm-twisting required, if I remember correctly,” Sherlock countered with a bit of a scowl.
“Okay,” John replied, acquiescing to their united front against his caution. He was exhausted after a horrible day at the clinic and the last thing he wanted was a row, especially now that they had Sherlock back and John could stop worrying about him until his friend went off on another of his calamitous misadventures. “So what do you think the response will be?”
“Oh, they’ll just re-bug it the next time you go out. I expect mine was within an hour of me leaving this afternoon.” Sherlock sipped his tea with a self-satisfied expression that John was pleased not to see on Mary’s face as well.
At least one of them has some sense, he thought. “So, we’re going to have to keep doing this for how long before MI5 or 6 or whoever it is just get irritated and haul us off again? Not that the rest wouldn’t be nice, actually, after the week I've had. Comfy bed, three meals a day. All the peace and quiet you'd want. Pity about the interrogations, though.”
Sherlock made one of his dismissive little waves that John always thought he would be horrified to know made him look just like his brother. “Oh, they won’t. They’re not really interested in you anyway.”
“So our house was bugged for fun?”
“That’s just them being what they think is thorough. It’s easier than doing anything really useful and it makes them feel productive.”
“Glad to be of help to our security services overlords.”
Mary laughed into her tea.
There was a 'ping' from the cooker and Sherlock leapt to his feet. While John looked on, amazed, Sherlock carefully drew out a dish of lasagna. John turned to Mary, who looked on, bemused. “He said he wanted to help.”
John poured the wine and Mary placed the bowl of salad on the table, and the three of them sat down to eat in a scene of such mind-bending normality, under the circumstances, that John thought he might be in a dream. Or a David Lynch film.
“I made the salad dressing myself. From scratch,” Sherlock said with a hint of pride.
John's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. “Really?” He glanced at the salad. “I didn't know you could cook.”
“I'm a graduate chemist; of course I know how to cook.”
“I lived with you for two years and never once saw you make so much as tea or toast. So I guess that was just laziness, then,” John replied with a smirk. His fork resumed its journey to its destination. He recognised the recipe as one Mary made frequently, though Sherlock appeared to think that doubling the garlic would be a good idea. John wasn't looking forward to the consequences later that night, but held his tongue.
They ate largely in silence. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement between them to save the serious conversation for afters.
When they were done and the dirty dishes waited in the sink, Sherlock didn't hesitate to dive right into things. “You're probably wondering what's going on.”
John and Mary exchanged a look before turning their attention back to Sherlock. “Well, yeah, of course,” John replied for them both.
“Firstly, I have to ask Mary, if in her travels she'd ever heard of Moriarty having any associates outside Europe.”
Mary looked genuinely startled. “I'd never even heard of him before John told me about you and the suicide, and everything else.”
“Oh.” Sherlock looked crestfallen. “Really? Nothing?”
“Nope. I didn't work in Europe much back then. And after, well, just what everyone else knew. The Tower and the trial and all that. What was in the papers.”
While Sherlock hummed in thought for a second, John allowed his tired mind to wander. He suppressed a laugh at their idea of after-dinner conversation: psychopathic killers, espionage, fake suicides and identity theft. But this was John's first chance to ask Sherlock the questions that had been floating around the edges of his consciousness for the last two weeks. “I think we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves here. I mean, what's been going on since Christmas?”
“What do you mean? Nothing's happened. That's the problem. I haven't—” Sherlock paused and his confusion lifted. “Oh, I see what you mean. There isn't anything to tell. A deal was made, then revoked when that ridiculous video was out. Not that anything has been said officially.”
“What's Mycroft's plan?” Mary asked, turning the conversation in a direction John had little interest in.
“Wait a sec. Can we just go back a bit.” John turned to Sherlock, who was looking a bit put out for some reason. “You killed a man and MI6 was sending you off on some sort of punishment mission—”
“Yes,” Sherlock interrupted with his “well obviously” voice.
“And now they've brought you back—”
“Yes.”
“Sherlock, can you let me finish a sentence?”
“Oh for heaven's sake, John. Just ask without all the recapping. We were all there, if memory serves.”
John held his tongue for a moment, until his annoyance passed. “What's going to happen about Magnussen?”
“Oh, I imagine Mycroft's dealing with that at his end. Nothing you need worry about.”
Mary leapt in before John could reply. “You 'imagine'. You mean you haven't spoken to Mycroft?”
Sherlock hesitated. “No,” he said slowly.
John and Mary shared a stunned look. “What? Why not?” John asked, appalled. “I thought he was organising all this.”
“Perhaps. But I appear to be on my own at the moment. Typical Mycroft, always hovering when he's nothing but a nuisance and when I actually need him for once he's nowhere to be found.”
There was something behind Sherlock's words, something he wasn't telling them, and John didn't know whether to be angry that Sherlock was again withholding information that affected them all, or upset for Sherlock that he was being cut off from one of his principal support systems.
“So no one's officially given you your orders?” Mary asked.
Sherlock grimaced at the word “orders” and John couldn't help a small snort of amusement.
“Well, they're not exactly difficult to guess. If you can believe what's in the festering sewer of our so-called press, the government have no idea who is behind the broadcast hacking, and have no idea how to proceed with finding out. My role, presumably, is to do the job that MI5 and MI6 appear to be incapable of.
“Why?” John asked.
“Why what? Why MI5 and MI6 are too inept to perform the job for which British taxpayers give them billions of pounds per year?”
“No, why you?”
“No idea.” Sherlock grinned. “It should be fun, though, don't you think? Come on, John. Moriarty! It should at least not be boring.”
“So why are you asking for our help this time?”
“What do you mean? You're my friends—”
“I mean, last time you were up against Moriarty, you never told me what was really going on. You lied to all of us. Well, except Molly. And your homeless network. And probably Lestrade. Actually, you just lied to me and Mrs Hudson.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Here we go—”
“Yeah, sorry for bringing up the uncomfortable truth.”
"Let it go,” Mary interrupted. “It was more than three years ago.”
“No, I think this is important. Last time around with Moriarty, you and Mycroft created that ridiculous fake suicide plan. Yeah, yeah, I know why you did it, I get it.” John paused and was pleased to see the other two refrain from talking over him again. “What I want to know is, why are you involving us this time?” He pointed at Mary while holding Sherlock's eye. “Are you using Mary as a replacement for Mycroft?”
“John, don't be stupid,” Mary interjected again.
“No, I think it's a fair question. What's changed since then? He certainly doesn't trust me any more now than he did then. He didn't tell me anything about what he was planning with Magnussen.”
Sherlock huffed and muttered, “Not this again,” under his breath.
“The only thing that's different now is you.” John turned to Mary. “I know he respects you more than me. And yeah, with your background, I probably would, too. But the last thing we need is you getting more attention from MI5.”
“Oh, MI5 doesn't care about Mary.”
“Doesn't matter, anyway,” she added.
John recoiled at her blasé attitude. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“They probably know all about me already.”
“Not likely. I doubt you'd be sitting there if they did.”
“Well, Mycroft has known who I really am since about half an hour after our first date, probably.”
John glanced at Sherlock, who mirrored Mary's bemused expression at John's expense. “What?”
Mary sighed. “When we were dating, Mycroft knew that Sherlock was alive and probably coming back to London.”
“No probably about it,” Sherlock interjected.
“He knew that whoever came into your life then would be in Sherlock's life when he came back. So obviously Mycroft had me checked out. He probably checked out every woman you dated since you two moved in together.” She glanced at Sherlock, who nodded. “Most definitely. Sarah was his favourite.”
“Oh, that makes me feel special. No wonder he didn't come to the wedding,” she replied.
John glanced between the two of them. “Uh huh. Okay.”
Mary continued. “Mycroft's people would have found out about me, so he would have dug into it until he found it all. Everything.”
Mary continued. “Mycroft's people would have found out about me, so he would have dug into it until he found it all. Everything.”
John didn't quite know what to think of the idea that Mycroft knew Mary's former name while John didn't. It made him uncomfortable.
“And obviously Mycroft doesn't have an issue with any of that or I wouldn't be here,” Mary said, then shrugged. “I have no idea why.”
“Really?” Sherlock asked, looking genuinely perplexed. “But then, you don't really know Mycroft.”
“Care to let us in on the secret?” John asked.
“It's not relevant. And we have more important things to discuss than the labyrinthine games that Mycroft plays in his head to stay awake during Cabinet briefings.”
Mary laughed and John wished he could join in the fun.
“Do you really think it's someone connected to Moriarty? Anyone could have put that video together.” Mary asked. “Though, taking over the entire broadcast system is a different story.”
“Indeed,” Sherlock replied. “The government is, of course, focusing on that aspect of things, in their usual stunning insistence on obsessing with the least important details.”
“A lot fewer people could do that than make the video, though.”
“True. And Moriarty does have form for blackmailing and manipulating people to do what he wants.”
John watched as his wife and best friend blithely discussed the possibility of there being more Moriarty associates active in Britain, as if they were weighing up the new season's fashions. He wasn't sure how to respond to any of it.
“Do you think it might be connected to Magnussen?” John eventually asked.
Sherlock turned and gave John a chilling look. “You're like a dog with a bone. Let it go.”
“Nope.” John tried to keep his tones neutral and even tried for a smile, but he didn't think he was very successful. “There's going to be fall-out from that. Regardless of them bringing you back.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes and responded as if he was explaining something to a child. “It's obvious that I'm on probation. But by the time I sort out this 'Moriarty' situation Mycroft will have sorted something out on the Magnussen issue. Stop fussing, John. It's unbecoming,” Sherlock added in tones that would have done a Victorian matron proud.
John couldn't help himself; he let off a small chuckle and decided to leave it for the time being. It was obvious Sherlock wouldn't discuss it and now that the three of them were finally together again, the last thing he wanted was to send Sherlock off in a huff.
“Now, seeing as you've barely given me a moment to speak with you banging on about Magnussen, of all things, I haven't had the chance to ask you a question that's been on my mind all evening.” Sherlock paused for dramatic effect and John gave him his best “yes, well?” expression. “Aren't you even the slightest bit intrigued about who is behind that video?”
John felt Mary's eyes heavy on him as he pondered his response. Sherlock seemed surprised that John didn't immediately pick up on the game and was taking the question seriously. Eventually he sighed and acquiesced. “Yeah, of course I am. But am I looking forward to anything related to Moriarty in our lives again: no, I'm not. I've had more than a lifetime's worth of crazy from that fucking lunatic, thanks very much. His timing is really shit.”
“I'll be sure to pass on that assessment once I catch up to them.”
“What's your plan?” Mary asked. “What do you need us to do?”
John could tell that Sherlock was uncomfortable with either the question or the answer, which he did not give them until he'd paused for a few seconds. “I'm not sure.”
“You can't say it, can you?” John teased.
“Say what?”
“You don't know. You can't say that you don't know what to do next.”
“Don't be absurd, John. I'm more than willing to admit to my limitations. You make me sound like a maladjusted child. For example, I freely admit I know nothing about Assyrian art.” John and Mary shared a look, then burst out laughing. Sherlock's affront was entirely and obviously fake, which John considered a good sign. “Oh, shut up, the two of you,” Sherlock eventually said, in a poor attempt at feigned outrage.
“No, really. Where do we go from here?” John eventually asked as he wiped his eyes.
“I have some probably very boring people to deal with first. Just what I need: more cut-rate Mycrofts in my life.”
~ + ~
“Well, that was less enlightening than I'd hoped,” John said after Sherlock left and he and Mary turned to the dinner clean-up.
“Maybe he really doesn't know what's going on. Not that that makes any sense,” she added, her attention drifting off as she methodically dried a plate. “And maybe if you hadn't wasted half the night with all the Magnussen questions. What was that all about?”
“I'm an accessory to that murder; I think I have the right to know what's going on.”
She shrugged. “If Sherlock isn't going to be charged, then I don't think you have anything to worry about. I'm more worried about Mycroft's disappearing act.”
“I don't know whether or not to believe that.”
Mary just gave a contemplative little hum in response and John knew to leave that thought with her. He sensed she had a much better grip on what might be going on with Mycroft, MI5 and all the rest of the SIS nonsense going on in the background.
“Sherlock's certainly excited about it all,” she eventually said.
“Yeah. Not thrilled to see that, actually,” John muttered as he attacked the lasagna dish with a scrub brush. “Jesus. How much cheese did you put in this?”
She chuckled. “You'd rather see him depressed? Bored? Trying to make up his own entertainments?”
John paused while he tried to corral the rampaging memories of anxiety and fear and excitement of those days, hunting Moriarty across London. Irene Adler. The great game, and then the fall. The exhilaration of watching Sherlock at his best, then (apparently) crashing. The horrors of the disappearance and the lies, and then looking back and seeing the mania that had seemed to drive Sherlock in those days. And the guilt of not having recognised the signs of impending destruction.
“I'd rather see him nowhere near anything to do with the man who sent snipers after me and Lestrade and Mrs Hudson for leverage to make Sherlock kill himself as part of some stupid game of chicken.” John turned to her and forced the rising anxiety that Mary so often misinterpreted as anger out of his voice. “Do you want to deal with that? Right now?”
“Better that than Sherlock on his own in Eastern Europe, facing God only knows what.”
“Yeah, well, you weren't around then. You don't know what it was like.”
“You're right. But it can't be Moriarty himself. He's dead.”
“We thought Sherlock was dead for two years, too.”
“You think Sherlock lied to you about Moriarty?” Mary looked scandalized and John couldn't tell if it was the idea of Sherlock lying to them she found shocking. He certainly hoped not; if so, she was delusional, because Sherlock lied to everyone all the time. “That's a bit much, don't you think?” she continued. “Why would he lie about Moriarty being dead?”
“If Mycroft told him to, he probably would. I can imagine MI5 wouldn't mind having the world think Moriarty's dead while they had him stashed somewhere. And you have to know they wouldn't be able to hang onto him; he'd escape eventually.”
Mary pondered the idea, then shrugged. “Maybe. And it could still be someone unrelated.”
“But if it isn't, and this is someone from his gang—” John didn't want to think about the consequences. The chaos. The trouble they'd have flushing them out. Whoever it was would probably know everything about what Sherlock and Mycroft had done to get rid of Moriarty and everything Sherlock did to take down his gang. And this might be someone who had survived, had beaten the brothers at their game, and John didn't want to think who might be able to do that.
John was torn between the urge to protect Sherlock, to help him find the culprit behind the broadcast hack that was obviously an attempt to provoke Sherlock into a chase that would bring him out into the open, and the need to step back and protect Mary and the baby. On one hand, Sherlock's success would hopefully buy him some sort of reprieve from the consequences of his killing Magnussen. On the other, the thought of dragging his family into another game like the last one made John feel ill. If it were just the two of them, Sherlock and him, there would be no question; he'd be at Baker Street right now. But he knew Mary would never submit to his protection if it meant leaving Sherlock vulnerable, especially without Mycroft working in the background.
“I don't want that in our life. Especially not now.”
“We don't have any choice, John.” She gave him a withering look that he knew meant she'd guessed at the horrible, traitorous idea lurking in the back of his mind. “I think you're just sensitive about Moriarty because he's the reason why Sherlock lied to you for all those years.”
“Uh, no, that's really not it.” He paused. “I want to know where Mycroft is in all this. Because I can't see Sherlock solving this if Mycroft's spending all his time at his club trying to save his own skin.”
“Mycroft being taken down doesn't help Sherlock,” Mary countered. She gave a mirthless little chuckle. “I can't believe I'm defending Mycroft Holmes. God, the world's really gone upside down, hasn't it?”
“Feels like it, yeah.”
Mary paused while she put the plates away. “He needed to get Sherlock away from whoever is coming after him. It wasn't just about Sherlock being punished for getting rid of that vermin.”
“Mycroft wouldn't have wanted to send him away.”
“But he did.”
They paused and John could feel them each emotionally step back a bit, unwilling to push the argument and upset the still-new accord they'd reached at the Holmes' on Christmas Day.
“I don't think he had any choice, John,” Mary whispered, almost as if to speak of Mycroft Holmes possessing any vulnerability would bring down thunderbolts onto their heads. “He's not Oz the Great and Powerful. I know Sherlock says he is but he's not. I don't think he ever has been, and I really don't think he is right now.”
John's exhaustion of earlier was catching up with him again, so he sat at the table and couldn't help dropping his head into his hands. “So what do we do next?”
Mary joined him and took one of his hands in hers. “We wait for Sherlock to tell us what he needs.”
“He needs Mycroft to get off his arse and help him. Much as I hate to admit it, we're not going to be much use getting information about hacking systems or espionage or anything like that.”
“Well, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. Unless he can find a way around whoever it was forced him into sending Sherlock away in the first place.”
John didn't answer right away; he was focusing on trying to keep his head above the waves of memories from that night: the anger, then the gunshot. The shock, the lights, the panic at the laser sights sweeping over them, the noise of the helicopter. The look on Mycroft's face as the SAS commander took Sherlock away. And then he remembered Mycroft's words from their meeting at the Diogenes on Boxing Day: “There are more sides to this game than you know, John. It doesn't pay to make assumptions”. God, he thought, he knew already what was going to happen; it had probably already started. The thought made John even more tired.
Mary watched him and he couldn't tell if she was trying to figure out the puzzle, or was deciding whether or not to share what she'd guessed already, as if she were afraid of angering or panicking him.
“From what I can tell, there's two possibilities. Whoever it is could be blaming Mycroft for what Sherlock did. Not being able to control him.”
“No sane person would expect anyone to control Sherlock, of all people,” John scoffed. “It's not like Mycroft was responsible for him; Sherlock's an adult. Sort of.”
“As far as the security services are concerned, Mycroft was responsible for Sherlock; he was his handler and you're responsible for the people you run, especially when they go rogue like that.”
“Mycroft was not Sherlock's handler.”
“Um, yeah, he was.”
“Sherlock hated all that spy stuff.”
“Sherlock hated taking orders from Mycroft. But he still did. What about that case you told me about? The one with the plans. You said Mycroft—”
“Yeah, okay, he was working for Mycroft, then,” John conceded. “Though Sherlock made me do all the work, you know.”
She laughed. “Sounds like him. The worse possibility is that someone high up thinks Mycroft was in on the plan to kill Magnussen.”
“Would Mycroft— God, of course he would.” The thought that Mycroft would want Magnussen dead—for his own sake, of course; he'd never have done it for theirs—raised the man a measure or two in John's estimation and erased a bit of his bitterness over Mycroft's defence of Magnussen at Baker Street the previous summer, on that horrible day of the visit to the drug den. “Do you think he did?”
Mary paused again, working on her answer. “I don't know. I don't know if he'd be willing to use Sherlock as a weapon that way. Put him in danger like that.”
John knew she didn't mean physical danger; it was obvious that Mycroft had no qualms about that.
“Does any of it really matter, though?” Mary's soft-spoken words had a steel to them that John recognised. “He did that for us, John. And he knew what the consequences would be. He needs us now. That's all there is to it.”
John knew it should be that simple. And if it had been before Bart's and the fall, and if it hadn't been Moriarty, it would be. But it wasn't, and he didn't know how long he was going to be able to pretend to Mary that it was.
~ + ~
Tuesday, January 6
“Are you ever going to tell me where you were after Christmas?” Mrs Hudson watched as Sherlock rummaged through a cupboard, looking for a clean pair of nitrile gloves.
“I was in a secret MI5 facility being interrogated by a spy-cum-psychiatrist about why I murdered a prominent American businessman,” he muttered.
“Really, Sherlock. If you didn't want to tell me you only had to say.” She paused as she picked up one of the jars on the dining table. “What are these?” she asked as she peered through the chili sauce residue coating the inside of the jar.
Sherlock looked up from a drawer. “Cameras.”
“What?” She dropped the jar as if it were superheated. “Cameras? Why have you got—?” She glanced around the flat. “Are they spying on you again?”
“Calm down, Mrs Hudson. I very much doubt they bothered to bug your flat.” He paused after brandishing a pair of blue gloves. “Though perhaps I ought to take a look anyway.”
Mrs Hudson dropped onto the arm of John's chair and pulled her cardigan closed. “Do you really think—?” She shuddered. “You ought to speak to your brother about those horrible people. They're as bad as the press.” She paused and an expression crossed her face that indicated she was mustering her nerve about something. “Mr Chatterjee was wondering when you were going to give a statement. Well, we both are.”
Sherlock pulled on his gloves and began disassembling the equipment that covered most of the table.
Mrs Hudson continued, a hint of disaffection in her voice. “It's ridiculous, having to push through that crush just to get to my own front door. And the cafe's suffering, too. Driving his customers away.”
“Nope.”
“Sherlock—”
“I have nothing to say to the press, so there will be no statement.”
“You have to say something. They're never going to leave until you do.”
“Yes they will. Some actress will get married or divorced or pregnant—or something. And they'll go haring off after her, and you will once again have free and unfettered access to your bins and your own front door.” He turned in circles, looking at the various piles of clutter. “Did you move my anti-bacterial soap?”
“Of course not. You need to say something, or they'll just make up horrible lies and say it was you who made that video.”
Sherlock paused. Of course he'd already realised that that was one of the likely outcomes of his ongoing public silence. Not that he was overly concerned about the opinions of ordinary people, but the idiots at MI5 would likely believe anything they read in the papers and that particular lie would result in complications. He shrugged. “Trying to prevent idiots from believing nonsense is a Herculean task I'm unwilling to take on.”
“Well, whatever you think best, I suppose. She seemed far from convinced. “You really don't know who—?”
“I really don't.” The conversation was veering into territory he was unwilling to traverse with Mrs Hudson, so he resumed his search in his bedroom.
A few minutes later, finally successful in his quest, he returned to the kitchen. To his chagrin, Mrs Hudson still hadn't left; instead, she was staring down at the small crowd in the street below.
“Sherlock?”
“Yes.” He peered into a beaker, unable to remember the exact composition of the greenish residue at the bottom.”
“Who are those men?”
He sighed and asked without looking up, “Which men?”
“The ones just over there. Men in suits don't tend to loiter in the street, do they?”
Sherlock ambled across the flat, maintaining an air of nonchalance, to stand behind her. He followed her gaze and to his complete lack of surprise saw the two men she must have been talking about. They weren't making much of an effort to hide themselves. “MI5, presumably.” He returned to the kitchen.
“What have you done, Sherlock? I mean, MI5?”
“Well, they won't be Mycroft's people. Them you never see coming.”
“You didn't answer my question.”
“And Mycroft's people don't need to chase me around. My 'fan club' has been keeping tabs on me and regularly posting my location on Twitter and Tumblr. That assistant of his is probably just following them from the comfort of Mycroft's underground lair.”
“Sherlock—”
“Very clever. Having members of the public doing your job for you, free of charge. I wonder how much money 'fans' save the Exchequer every year, spying on their fellow citizens, doing the security services' job for them—”
“Sherlock, really.”
He gave her a quelling look from across the room. “You don't want to know.”
“I think I have the right to.”
“No, you don't.” He turned back to the disassembly of his distillery. “And you really do not want to know. Trust me.”
“I— Well, that's me told, isn't it?” she said as she headed for the door. She paused. “Sherlock—”
“You really do not want to know, Mrs Hudson.”
She grimaced and gave a half-hearted conciliatory gesture that he didn't acknowledge, then she returned to her flat.
For a brief moment, Sherlock pondered the possibility of leaving Baker Street. For Mrs Hudson's sake. Horrified, he instantly discarded the notion, but a sense of unease hovered in the back of his mind for the rest of the day as he deconstructed some of his pre-Christmas experiments.
~ + ~
Wednesday, January 7
Sherlock spoke as soon as the call was picked up. “Lestrade.”
There was a sigh at the other end. “What do you want, Sherlock? I'm busy.” In the background he heard traffic noise and voices.
“I want a case, Lestrade. Why else would I be calling?”
“You are aware I no longer run cases.” It wasn't a question, though Sherlock had, in fact, forgotten.
“So? And if that's so, why are you out on a case right now?”
“I'm not on a case.”
“Then why are you outdoors in the middle of the night?”
There was a pause and another sigh; he heard a scuffling sound, then Lestrade's voice rumbling in the distance, unintelligible but almost physically tangible. Lestrade had pressed his phone to his chest and was speaking to someone else. A woman, by the pitch of the responding voice.
“Sherlock—”
“Are you on a date?”
“That's none of your business. And I can't bring you in on cases I don't run.”
“Make one of your people give me a case, then. Dimmock. He's not entirely useless when he shuts up and does what he's told.” He paused and heard Lestrade take a breath. Sherlock rushed to continue before the man had the opportunity to become even more contradictory. “This is actually better than before. You can make your people give me cases and because you're now in charge you don't have to lie to the higher-ups about my involvement because now you're the higher-ups.”
There was a pause and Sherlock suspected that Lestrade was counting in his head in an attempt to prevent himself from yelling. “Okay, okay. Jesus.” There was another sigh. “Don't make me regret this, Sherlock. And you're going to have to be on your best behaviour. No, better than your best behaviour—a new standard of superior behaviour, or I'm cutting you off.”
“Cross my heart.”
Sherlock heard a choked-off sound that might have been the beginning of a laugh. “I can let a couple of DIs know I'm okay with you helping them if they want. And no, I won't be making the offer to Dimmock, so you can forget about turning him into your dogsbody again.”
“Fine. He's an idiot, anyway. Who did they promote into your old job?”
“Elliot. You don't know her.”
“Her?”
“Yes, Sherlock. Welcome to the 21st century. Women are allowed to be DIs, whether you like it or not.”
“I won't work with a woman, Lestrade.”
“Well, I apologise for not keeping that front of mind when making my decision.”
“Sarcasm, Greg. The lowest form of humour.”
“Greg?”
“Yes? Oh, did I get it wrong again? Go, on, what is it?”
“No, no. Greg's fine. It's— that's the first time in ten years you've got it right.”
“It won't happen again.”
“Course not.” His tone was a mix of rueful and amused. “Look, Sherlock, I have to go.”
“Of course. One thing, though. I was— Would you like to meet for a drink?”
“Are you asking me on a date, Sherlock Holmes?” Sherlock heard the mystery female with Lestrade laugh in the background. Definitely not Donovan, then.
“Don't be an idiot—” The laughter at the other end cut him off and he fumed a bit as he listened. “Very funny, Lestrade. There's something I wish to discuss with you and it would be best done in person.”
“Come on, admit it, you just miss me.”
Sherlock ignored this further attempt to get his goat. “Tomorrow, nine o'clock. Your usual den of iniquity.”
“Sure. See you then.” Lestrade resumed laughing as he rang off and Sherlock couldn't help a thin smile. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Lestrade laugh. The sense of something—satisfaction, perhaps—was surprisingly pleasing.
Sherlock lay back on the sofa and stared at his ceiling. How was he to keep himself occupied without cases? He'd missed the post-Christmas rush on familial discontent during his incarceration, leaving his public practice currently non-existent. The combination of boredom and too much to think about was driving him mad.
Mycroft certainly wouldn't be giving him any juicy little puzzles any time soon, seeing as he was apparently fixated on saving his own hide. Sherlock's reflexive 'selfish bastard' was half-hearted, though. He'd known in the back of his mind that things were likely far from rosy for Mycroft; Sherlock didn't believe it stretched the imagination to think that his former friends in the CIA were hovering on the boundaries, waiting for an opportunity to cart Mycroft off to some client third world country and torture every bit of intelligence out of that capacious brain of his. Sherlock felt what he assumed was a twinge of something resembling guilt—not even almost-guilt, perhaps proto-guilt—at his role in his brother's predicament.
He wanted drugs.
He needed a case to distract him from wanting drugs.
He wanted John there. He wanted to go back in time, to the point where it had all begun to go so horribly, unaccountably wrong, and smack himself in the head repeatedly until he noticed the one detail that would have told him that there were no vaults under Appledore.
~ + ~
Thursday, January 8
The next evening, Sherlock arrived at the pub, not Lestrade's usual haunt, but one identified by their code phrase 'den of iniquity', arranged years ago to avoid Mycroft's interference. It was next to impossible that Sherlock hadn't been followed, but at least it was unlikely the place had been pre-bugged before their arrival. Greg would be able to identify any likely-looking strangers, and Sherlock had long ago learnt how to identify agents on sight.
Sherlock pulled out his phone and checked his inbox. Still no messages from John, Mary or Mycroft. He heard a quiet throat clearing behind him. “Yes, what?” he said without looking up.
“If you're busy or something, I can take these back to the Yard and refile them.” Lestrade held up a supermarket carrier bag containing a dozen or so fat folders.
Sherlock fought down panic and kept his voice cool. “Don't you dare.” The two of them stared at one another for a moment before Lestrade dropped the bag next to Sherlock's almost-empty glass. “No date tonight?”
“Still none of your business.” Lestrade pointed at Sherlock's glass. “Another?” Sherlock shrugged. Lestrade pointed at the bag. “Don't make me take that to the bar.” Sherlock gave him his most brilliant fake smile, then scowled. Lestrade headed off to the bar and returned with their drinks as Sherlock was rummaging through the first file. “Hey, hey. Not here.” Lestrade trapped Sherlock's hand in the file as he slammed it closed and attempted to shove it back in the bag. “No one wants to look at crime scene photos in a pub.”
“I do.”
“Yeah, well. It'll be a treat for when you get home. Belated birthday present.”
“You're Father Christmas, you are,” Sherlock grumbled. “Another two hours of idleness and my brain may very well drop below critical mass from lack of use.”
“A risk I'm willing to take.”
“You would; it's not your brain.”
“Thank god for small mercies.”
While Lestrade checked a text, Sherlock looked around at the clientele. It was quiet, especially for a Thursday evening. Lestrade had given the place a casual, seemingly uninterested look-over when he'd returned from the bar and hadn't indicated there was a problem, so he obviously recognised the few other drinkers, none of whom were sitting nearby anyway.
When Lestrade finally sat, he pointed at the bag. “Cold cases is all I can give you right now.” Sherlock shrugged again; he'd already realised it was unlikely Lestrade would be able to bring him on to new cases for the foreseeable future. “Four cases. A double shooting in Golders Green, 2003. Mother and son. Never even came up with a suspect. The two most boring, well-liked people on earth, apparently. A jewellery shop owner shot in the back of his shop in New Bond Street in 2001. You'll see a familiar DS's name on that one.” Lestrade gave him a rueful smile. “The DI insisted it was just a burglary gone wrong. The DS didn't agree. Anyway, the last two I threw in with no expectation you'll be able to solve them.”
“Really, Lestrade. Ye of little faith. And memory, apparently.” Sherlock tried to peer into the edges of the files through the opening of the bag. Lestrade pulled it across the table away from him.
“At least five different DIs have taken a run at each of these, but no one's been able to make head or tail of them. First is a real winner; think you'll really appreciate it.” Sherlock snorted in disdain. “A girl disappeared in 1971. Eighteen years old, down from Leeds to visit a school friend. At least twenty witnesses saw her get off the train; never seen again. Her handbag was found in an alley near Lord's a week later, one side covered in blood same type as hers. Over the next couple of weeks, the rest of her clothes were found all over London, each with blood on them. Never found any remains, though. The Met scoured the city, dragged the river. Nothing. Had half the police in the country looking for her at one point. Never found so much as a fingernail.”
Sherlock pondered the possibilities of the last case while Lestrade took a long pull from his pint. He had four possible scenarios and he hadn't even seen the file yet.
“Last one's my favourite cold case, ever. There's a bit of a story to this one.” Lestrade settled back in his seat. “Two neighbours in Wimbledon, 1967. One has a dog, named Smith.”
“Odd name for a dog.”
“The owner's name, Mr Clever. Next door neighbour's a keen gardener. Named Jones. Yeah, really,” Lestrade interjected at the look on Sherlock's face. “Smith lets his dog run all over the neighbourhood. Keeps getting into people's yards, doing his business all over the place, digging up people's flowers. Generally a nuisance. Jones complains; gets no-where. This goes on for months. Back and forth across the fence, other neighbours taking sides. A real to-do. Anyway. Jones is a widower, lives alone. Daughter lives in Croydon, comes to visit once a week, regular as clockwork. She's the only other person with a key to his house.
“Smith's married; it's just him and the wife as the kids are all grown and gone. The house has two keys only; one for Smith and one for the wife. One day Mrs Smith goes out to do the shopping; she's gone about an hour and a half. She comes home, finds her husband in the kitchen, a bullet here.” Lestrade taps himself in the middle of the forehead. “Dead as can be, sitting up in one of the chairs in the middle of the kitchen floor. She calls the police, they come 'round, get the story of the neighbour who keeps complaining about the dog—”
“The police go to Jones' house and find him dead as well, killed in apparently the same manner, down to sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor on a chair.” Sherlock interrupted, bored.
“You know this one, then.”
“No, it's obvious that that's the sort of thing you would find 'interesting'.”
“Sorry my cases don't meet your deducting needs.”
“Apology accepted. Though do better next time.”
“I can always take them back.”
Sherlock's hand crept across the table and secured one of the bag's handles. “No, that's fine. I'm sure they can keep me occupied for an afternoon.” Lestrade smiled.
They drank in reasonably companionable silence for a few minutes, Sherlock pretending he didn't notice Lestrade's examination from across the table.
“So. What did you need to see me about?” Lestrade finally asked, sliding his glass away from his folded hands.
“You're in contact with Mycroft. What is he doing?”
“I don't know.”
“Don't be absurd. He'd have been summoning you within an hour of returning to London.”
Lestrade shrugged. “You do realise I have a job that doesn't entail jumping to attention every time one of you two snaps his fingers, yeah? And a life.”
“Ah, yes. The mystery woman. Who is she?”
“None of your business. Never will be.”
They stared at one another across the table; Sherlock knew that Lestrade would break first, so was willing to wait him out. To his complete lack of surprise, the other man leant back in his chair and crossed his arms. “What did you drag me out here for, Sherlock? I know it wasn't these.” He pointed to the carrier bag still parked between them on the table.
“I need to know what the Met's doing about the Moriarty video.”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, you're a font of information tonight, aren't you?' Lestrade pushed his chair out and made to stand. Sherlock called his bluff. “You could at least put in the effort to come up with a believable lie.”
Lestrade shrugged. “Not my division until a body shows up. Commercial crime, hacking into display company systems, broadcast signals: not serious crime, so not my division.”
“This is no ordinary hacking. And the absence of a 'serious crime' didn't keep you from grabbing the Tower break-in, Pentonville—”
Lestrade held up a hand and Sherlock stopped at the sight of his sour grimace. “Even if I wanted this, I'd never be allowed near it. You want information, talk to your brother.”
Sherlock couldn't help a sneer. How could the man be so dense, still, after all these years of working with Sherlock?
“Leave off the sighing and flouncing, would you?” Lestrade paused to smile at Sherlock's deepening frown. “Look. If I knew anything I'd tell you. Even if our division was involved, which they're not, I'd never be allowed anywhere near it. And if they tried to give it to me I'd fight it. It's a political case and they're the worst. Any copper can tell you that.”
“Why would they want you to not tell me anything? I'm supposed to be working on this idiotic case and no one's giving me any data!”
“Calm down, all right.” Lestrade glanced around with a placating gesture like he was trying to quiet a child in the supermarket.
“Stop telling me to be calm,” Sherlock hissed, leaning across the table. “My life could very well depend on solving this—”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I. Do not. Know. Anything. And no, I'm not exactly thrilled about that, either.”
Sherlock allowed himself to be somewhat mollified by this. “I thought you didn't want to be involved?”
“Not knowing a bloody thing about what's going on is a hell of a long way from not being involved. Never know what's coming down the road, do I? Can't defend myself. Bloody politics.” Lestrade toyed with his pint glass, staring at the dregs of his beer.
“But you're in contact with Mycroft?”
“Yeah, he reached out.”
“You just said you didn't know what he was doing.”
“Oh, for Christ's sake. You think he tells me anything?”
“Ah. He wants you to act as go-between.”
“If we can be discreet about it, yeah. So no more temper tantrums in pubs.”
“I was not— Oh, all right. Yes, I was angry. But not without cause—”
“Spare me.” Under the words, Sherlock heard 'Bite me,' and he smiled. It was lovely to have Lestrade back. The man had been correct the night before: Sherlock had missed him.
Sherlock stalled by staring at his whiskey for a few moments, swirling the glass around to catch the light in the liquid. “So what have people been saying about the video?”
Lestrade sat again and appeared to re-settle. “What people?”
“The public. I imagine there were a million 999 calls that morning.”
“Probably. Like I said: not my division.”
“You must have heard something.”
“Twitter not being helpful?” Lestrade gave one of his knowing smiles, then finished his pint. “That's me off. Got a meeting at eight tomorrow.” He winced.
“Middle management not to your tastes, then?”
“Middle management's just fine, thank you. I'll take the occasional eight o'clock meeting over chasing villains down alleys in the middle of the night, any time.” He pulled his coat on as Sherlock drained the last of his whiskey.
They made their way towards the door and Lestrade gave a tiny nod to a woman seated in a back corner, half hidden in the dark. Despite her hair being pulled back and the addition of reading glasses, she was instantly recognisable as Mycroft's Sloaney assistant of the constantly migrating names.
“When did she get here?”
“About five minutes after me. She's a regular.”
Sherlock stopped outside the door of the pub to button up his coat. “Really? She lives in this neighbourhood?” He glanced around them. “Mycroft needs to pay his people better.”
“You're welcome, by the way.”
“Very funny, Lestrade.” Sherlock set off for the Tube station; he heard the beginnings of a chuckle as Lestrade walked away in the other direction.
When Sherlock arrived home he opened the first folder on the pile. A standard 1990s-era Met case file, with one exception. There was a small slip of paper clipped to the inside of the folder, the only contents a name: Deborah Oppenheimer, written in a familiar scrawl.
Sherlock tossed the bag of files onto John's chair, and laughed.
~ + ~
Friday, January 9
Sherlock glared at the empty cab stand. He'd stepped off the train less than a minute ago and he already hated Oxford.
Oxford was Mycroft's town. Or had been, back in the dark ages. He imagined a proto-Mycroft, back in the days when his suits had only two pieces and his hair had still been its natural ginger, scurrying between the colleges, ferreting out the powerful to suck up to. Sherlock sighed, then collared a harassed-looking mother pulling a pair of young girls into the station and asked for directions. She pointed vaguely off to the left, and Sherlock pulled out his phone and looked up the address. While he waited for Google Maps to load, a cab pulled in to the stand and he nimbly jumped in the back, to the consternation of an elderly couple who'd been waiting.
“Sorry. Late for a doctor's appointment,” he said out the window as the cab pulled away.
Doctor Deborah's house was rather disappointing, Sherlock thought as he walked up the path to the front door. It was large-ish, yellow-ish, Edwardian-ish, and entirely nondescript. It looked like the kind of place that would be owned by a pair of striving early middle-aged chartered accountants, not a lesbian couple with links to the worlds of espionage and particle physics. But then, perhaps that was the point. Perhaps chartered accountants lived in houses that strove to appear as if their owners were deviants who dabbled in the underworld.
Sherlock was about to press the doorbell when he noticed a small, engraved brass sign next to it: Patient Entrance at the Rear. Rear of what, he wondered. Why couldn't people be specific? He pressed the doorbell anyway. And then again a minute later when no one appeared. And a few more times over the next five minutes.
How rude, he thought as he lit a cigarette and checked his watch. He'd arrived on time. Doctor Deborah could have made an effort to do the same.
When his cigarette was almost gone and he was contemplating whether or not to light another one, he heard gravel crunching underfoot around the corner of the house. Doctor Deborah appeared, a look of annoyance on her face.
“Are you blind, illiterate or an ignoramus?” she offered as her only greeting.
“I knew you'd come looking for me eventually.” He stepped up to the front door and waited for her to open it.
“Where do you think you're going? The office is this way.” She turned and headed back from where she'd come. She didn't look back to see if he was following, and Sherlock eventually ambled along the gravel path that circled the house.
There was a Mercedes parked in the drive. Not a new model, but a Mercedes just the same. Through the rear window Sherlock noticed a fast-food wrapper on the floor of the back seat as he walked past, then followed Doctor Deborah into the basement of the house.
She led him into a small waiting area with a pair of comfortable-looking armchairs.
“No magazines?”
“Lord, no,” she muttered as she pulled out a key card and swiped it against a sensor by the side of another door, then entered an eight-digit code that she carefully ensured Sherlock couldn't see. He smiled.
They passed through to the office proper and Sherlock was confronted with the most recent in his life's series of psychiatrist's offices. With the exception of the art on the walls, it was entirely unremarkable. Just like Doctor Deborah seemed entirely unremarkable until she opened her mouth.
Sherlock looked for the most likely hiding places for the cameras. When he turned to face her, Doctor Deborah had her Inquisitive Sparrow expression on again. She switched on a pair of lamps before taking one of the chairs in the middle of the room.
“Short of building a Faraday cage around the house, I've done what I can to minimise the chance we'll be snooped on. No promises, though.”
“Mycroft'll have you bugged to the eyeballs.”
She murmured something unintelligible as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and appeared to turn it off, then placed it on the low table in front of her. She pointed at the chair across from her. “Sit.”
“No sofa? There's that illusion shattered.” He sat.
“I'm having trouble imagining you with illusions. Not since you were about four years old, anyway.”
He stared at the painting hanging behind her desk. “Is that a Schiele?”
Deborah turned to glance at the painting in question. “Yes.”
“Has it resulted in a higher or lower suicide rate among your patients?”
She let off one of her barking laughs. “No change detected so far. But then, suicide doesn’t much factor into the deaths of my patients.”
“Is death a hazard of being your patient?”
“I prefer to think of it as correlation, rather than causation.”
He chuckled, then shifted in the chair. At least it was comfortable. “What do you have for me, Doctor?”
“So, we're skipping the 'getting-to-know-you' stage?” They gave each other wan smiles over the bad attempt at a joke. “Sorry. Professionally speaking, I don't have anything for you. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how this little enterprise is going to play out.”
“You mean to tell me you've never done this before? Isn't there some sort of manual?”
“Nope.” She gave him the beginning of a grin.
“Oh good. We can make up our own rules as we go along.” He returned the grin and she laughed.
~ + ~