Sherlock Holmes and the All-Ireland Rally

by cheekywagon

John and Sherlock get themselves into a whirlwind of adventure between London, Cardiff, and Ireland, thanks to a murder mystery around Sherlock's training as a rally driver. They set off to solve an archaeological mystery in Cardiff to find out that the criminal underworld of Ireland have now noticed them, and life will get very interesting as a result, especially at the rally.

Sherlock Holmes was about to walk into Barts morgue pathology lab in a foul mood. Mycroft had just ruined his day. Most of it, anyhow.

As he stomped the two miles down Oxford street to St. Bartholomew's, unable to scrounge the 10 quid for a taxi, he hammered out a text on his phone to his brother. "Thanks for ruining ATM card strip. Please send money currently unavailable. SH"

Of course, Sherlock only had to show ID at a Lloyds TSB anywhere near Baker Street, and fill out a draft to get cash while the bank reissued his card. However, what was important was the principle. The principle was that Mycroft had just made his life very difficult, and Mycroft would pay him for the inconvenience. That, and his drivers license and passport were somewhere under a pile of papers back in the drawing room of 221B, where he would have to actually take the time to look for them.

Tedious, he thought crossly, and doubled his pace, his brows furrowing deeply and the tail of his tweed overcoat flapping up behind his calves. The phone vibrated shortly thereafter.

"Just being a good brother. MH"

There would be an envelope with 500 sterling left with Mrs. Hudson tonight with "Sorry, Mycroft" quickly scribbled on the outside. More than enough to get a taxi with a hungry John, just off his shift at the Barts NHS outpatient clinic, to yet another boutique restaurant, and passively apologise the hundredth time for a cooktop and kitchen table occupied by the ghoulish accoutrements of his profession.

It was not as if Sherlock genuinely cared about money. Thanks to his tedious brother, and the millions of pounds at his disposal, that was not an issue. But the dowdy, lovable, and badly decorated rooms at 221B were a point of his masculine pride in self-sufficiency, and meant more to his self respect, comforted by the well-ordered, well-earned tchotchkes and familiar shabbiness of an upbringing by middle-class intelligentsia.

As for rich bloody Mycroft, sod him, he thought bitterly.

The reason Sherlock's ATM card was unusable, was because Mycroft had sent a SIM locator signal to Sherlock's phone, which was a bit more powerful than the usual text signal or call, and it had de-magnetised his card. He had absentmindedly forgotten to put his phone in the other pocket of his overcoat. Being able to make ingenious deductions definitely does not make you superhuman or incapable of mistakes; this situation had happened twice before and made him curse himself repeatedly. And more angrily each time it happened. He was seething now.

Mycroft did this on occasion to keep tabs on the well-being of his brother, also to cross-reference any known drugs locations in less respectable areas of town. This had not been necessary for over a decade, but old habits die hard. His brother ruthlessly protected his hard earned social standing by being an insufferably nosy prick.

To let him know this, Sherlock made the motion of always smoking in his presence now that the government officially frowned on it, and Mycroft had quit. Yet, Mycroft did not admonish him, mostly because he did not want the immediate dressing down of a sharp-witted fat joke delivered by his 37-year-old baby brother. And Mycroft also occasionally enjoyed an illicit cigarette. It was a mutual understanding, but personal space was otherwise always in lack of supply between them.

Mycroft was infuriatingly nosy regarding Sherlock's appetite for troublemaking for the sake of entertainment, and for good reason. Getting criminal scumbags in a good hot-tempered bother was just Sherlock's cup of tea, and getting them to act out was his idea of pure victory. The internet calls them trolls, but Sherlock took it to a dangerous level, just doing it to chuff himself in real life and avoid boredom.

Mycroft was the high success in the upper levels of government, and Sherlock the coattail black sheep, or so Mycroft seemed to present it, and it drove Sherlock round the bend. This time around, however, Sherlock had other and more important things on his mind.

Like murder.

In specific, two murders the previous night, in the old Irish section of London, in two separate housing estates. One an old man, the other a young man, both living in unremarkable flats, but surrounded by cartons and cartons of branded cigarettes, ashtrays bursting to full, fingers stained from smoking, both simply falling dead seemingly of spontaneous asphyxiation with no ligature marks.

At the first flat, the old man's body was sealed down with health and safety strip and plastic around it to prevent contamination. There was little to do regarding the corpse until it got to Barts, so he went about inspecting additional evidence.

Both of the victims were on public benefits, but their flats, one dingy and the other filthy, denoted an otherwise middle class standard. Even though their wallets were empty, obviously to make it look like a robbery, the cash section of their wallets had been stretched to bursting. Both of them had nothing but post office account cards where they got their benefits in, so Sherlock had made a deduction and quickly followed a well-trodden dirty section of carpet and floor in each of their flats to hiding spots full of money. There was over 120 grand in each nook, which was unheard-of for your average scumbag drug pusher. The old man kept his stash behind a false wall in his sink cupboard, the young man in the roof breezeway just behind the immersion tank.

They both wanted for nothing, but in this day and age it was difficult to spend without anyone noticing. And these two obviously didn't want anyone to notice until they had enough to get to Spain.

Spanish language CDs and holiday pamphlets were at their flats. It was more than obvious they were planning a great escape, but to two separate dream locations- Tenerife, for the young man, and Barcelona for the old man.

Obviously the two murders were connected, but since they were not family and did not have official work together, he would have to find out who saw them together, and where. And he knew by the smell of brackish harbour mud on their shoes that he wouldn't have to look too far to get to the London shipyard storage dock.

The cigarettes were awful. Sherlock made a mental note to add knockoff Marlboros from Eastern Europe to his reference collection of tobacco ash, because their smell was distinctly rank. Worse than bodegas, which Sherlock hated due to being occasionally caught out in foreign locations by police inspectors fond of Fidel's weapon of choice.

Normally, Lestrade wouldn't have rung Sherlock on the deaths of two part-time cigarette smugglers who very likely had stolen from their employer in some fashion. But the cigarettes were from Eastern Europe, there had been a lot of them, and both men were Irish. Lestrade did not like where this was going, and wanted to see if Sherlock could activate his Homeless Network to sniff out a bit more. Especially since whoever murdered these two men apparently didn't care about the enormous amount of money they had socked away.

They died because of something else, thought Sherlock. They were in someone's way, or saw something they shouldn't have. This was a fairly easy deduction, but something else caught his attention: identical rally driver certificates for both men at both flats, signed by the same instructor.

Here's our big connection,thought Sherlock. Bigger than money, holidays, or smoking habits. The difference was, the old man had carelessly folded his certificate tightly and put it in his wallet. The young man had hidden his entirely, in the same spot where he had hidden his money: through the ceiling access and up under the immersion tank.

But for one special reason, Sherlock also rolled that certificate and stuffed it into his inside coat pocket before he shouted down to Lestrade from the access ladder that he had seen money. For now, thought Sherlock, these murders need to remain unrelated on this level until my questions are answered.

Sherlock then put on his forensic examination gloves to inspect the victim and noticed that the sheet over him was again sealed to the floor with double sided health and safety strip, meant to keep in contaminants, biological or otherwise.

He gave Lestrade an inquisitive but annoyed look.

"No touching my good man." said Lestrade. "It's for your safety, for good reason."

"Well that's a waste of my potential." Sherlock sounded cross, and crosser still that John was not here asking more questions, keeping him on the ground and pulling the rank of expertise.

"I'll give you the reason in a minute." Lestrade went to the equipment station to open a large locked box, wrapped in plastic.

Well, this is certainly not as interesting as 300 live ducks suddenly appearing in someone's back garden. He bitterly regretted not jumping at the new email he had gotten from the British Museum in Cardiff, instead of doing this.

Apparently the museum had lost a very important ancient artefact, and reports of unearthly screaming and disembodied drumming were reported outside Merthyr-Tydfyl after midnight last had emailed the curator back apologetically letting him know that he was being currently engaged by Scotland Yard, but that it sounded fascinating, and meanwhile the curator should lock the most important artifacts in the local bank vault until he could inspect them. The curator sounded on edge and worried on the phone later when Sherlock had to confirm his interest, but he agreed to help make for a delay.

I'd love to bother with that one as soon as possible, thought Sherlock. The IRA is boring and foul. Slow attrition, American propaganda, kitchen chemical bombs, smuggling rings, and now politics, were bloody tedious as ever. I'd rather stab myself in the perineum with a metal fencepost than waste my time chasing down alcoholic psychopaths. That's MI-bloody-5's job. But he stayed quiet, due to the questions he had simmering over the rally certificates that he needed answers for.

Sherlock was able to see the soles of this man's shoes peeking from under the sheet, and huffed internally with delight. The local politically questionable boozer between the two disconnected estates, (thankfully there was only one left) was a well-decorated but raucous hole with tolerable pub grub called the Fenian Inn, and this young man had sawdust from its floor on his shoes. For a man who didn't work in carpentry, it pointed fairly obviously to his sawdust-employing local, and Sherlock knew the place by name as his Homeless Network easily reached there.

He also remained quiet about this detail.

Then Lestrade did something new just before Sherlock left the second scene. He pulled out an evidence bag from the plastic bagged, chemical hazard labeled lockbox with a set of long forceps, and in it were two business cards on smart parchment stock. On both were one letter:

-M-

Sherlock's eyes lit up like ice blue fire. He instinctively reached out to grab the triple wrapped bag. Lestrade jerked it back. "Don't come near these, Sherlock. They're the murder weapons, both coated in sodium cyanide. We're lucky that the discrepancy between time of death two days ago and the odd lack of insects led to noticing the bitter almond smell. You can thank Phil Anderson for that."

Anderson, Sherlock's devoted pain-in-the-hole Number One Fan and Top Critic, was in his white forensics onesie. He looked up from scraping blood off the kitchen counter into a labeled plastic jar, and haughtily cocked his head with a disdainful look of acknowledgment. "Obviously my lack of smoking habit gave me the ability." he went on casually. "Amazing I could detect it in this fog of filth." He went on scraping.

Sherlock sneered internally and seethed momentarily at Anderson. He sidled over to the counter and looked at the blood. It had been shed over a week ago from an unrelated incident, and the beer can pop top responsible for the man's nick to the thumb was even on the counter with a small bit of blood on the edge. Sherlock was amazed that nobody noticed it, so he reminded Anderson that the blood was completely unrelated to the current crime scene, and was caused by a rogue, criminal aluminium can a week before this even happened.

Anderson looked decidedly disgusted, while Sherlock glimmered with deductive self-righteousness. Not being the one with the pleasure of finding something as interesting and dangerous as cyanide calling cards, with his nose no less, massively got his goat. So he whipped out a zinger for Anderson in a low, quiet, voice.

"I'm not certain if my smoking habit has dulled my sense of smell. But smoking dulls my wits just enough not to stab the witless to death." he smiled. Anderson shrugged, still disgusted, and refused to look up at Sherlock. Sherlock whirled round on his heels and brightened his tone for Lestrade. "Ring me day after tomorrow, Gary. I have some thinking to do. Also, get me anything else you can get on those cards as long as they don't kill your lab techs. …Well, all except one." Anderson ignored the barb silently. "…I'll be in touch."

"Fine, Sherlock. …Som'ing else as well," Lestrade clipped in his warm, gravelly cockney voice.

"What?" Sherlock wheeled round as he was lifting the crime scene tape and stalking out the door of the flat.

"IT'S GREG," Lestrade grinned as Sherlock grunted and left. He added "…you silly tit." after Sherlock was out of earshot. Anderson snorted. "Really, for the 'undredth time." Lestrade chuckled in exasperation.

"I HEARD THAT." barked a Queen's-English baritone halfway down the walkway of flats as he walked to the main road to hail a cab. But for an egocentric dramatist, he didn't sound that particularly upset.

That was the night before, while John Watson had been engaged in catching-up hours for the outpatient clinic, thanks to his deliciously bad habit of engaging in adventures with Sherlock. A gigantic wave of summer holiday norovirus patients had just bowled over the Barts ER at midnight, and John had regrettably left Sherlock to entertaining Lestrade on his own.

This put Sherlock in a morose mood, without his usual sounding board and best friend. After coming in at 4 a.m., John then spent most of the morning sleeping while Sherlock paced the drawing room in his dressing gown, muttering to himself, frustrated that he was alone drinking Mrs. Hudson's morning tea. Twenty minutes of tearing out Brahms on his violin at 10 AM did not have any effect on waking John, a lump under his duvet upstairs, so he went on and added "Knockoff cigarette ash" to his "Science of deduction" website's tobacco ash section.

He was also incredibly on edge, wondering when he would get Moriarty's game invite, if at all. It was only an M…it could be a copycat. His network markers were all silent. He flinched inside thinking of copycat arch-criminals wasting his time vying for attention, when far more interesting cases were always afoot. This is why he did not care much for fame. Of course, John cared for it even less.

"John, is my teacup on the fireplace?" he absentmindedly asked while staring down his website entry over interwoven hands. No reply emanated from the ugly orange lounge, and its uglier tartan lap blanket where John would normally have been digesting a ridiculously awful tabloid and drinking tea. But tabloids were also the source of a good bit of their odder case material, so John had the job of maintaining his awful habit for the good of their entertainment and profession.

This is rubbish, he thought. Stay upstairs sleeping John, I don't bloody care. He shuffle-stomped to the bath in a huff with his curly black hair cheekily bouncing behind him, showered, shaved, dressed and threw on his overcoat and scarf. He whipped out his phone and pocketed his leather wallet that had been sitting on the dining-now-blogging table. "Going to Barts lab." He texted. "Let me know work hours, IOU dinner. SH" He slipped the phone into the wrong coat pocket, flew down the stairs, and then popped out of the black lacquered doorframe of 221B like a smart, curly-headed cork. He stomped his way down to the Lloyds ATM two blocks away for cab money.

Just then, John wandered downstairs grizzled and yawning to find a cold tea service and no Sherlock. Mrs Hudson had gone off to meet a friend at the cinema. Not being proud, or a tea mad aficionado, he shuffled into the kitchen and committed tea treason by microwaving the pot for two minutes, and sitting back with a hair-raising cuppa that had steeped for over three hours. He tossed it back in three gulps, woke up promptly, gave his silvering ginger head a good scratch, and made a beeline for the shower. It was 11:45 and he wanted to be in at work for 3 or 4 hours of paperwork duty.

Sherlock headed for the ATM. The plan did not last long. A prolonged buzz emanated from his phone. Thinking it was set on vibrate, he pulled it out, but there were no text messages. His mood instantly sank. Mycroft. I'll bet my card is banjaxed. The ATM agreed with him, and he bent forward in hopeless existential rage, teeth and eyes clenched.

"aaaAARRRRRGGH!" Sherlock raised his hands to his head and clasped his temples. Then he noticed that the familiar Kensington residents were out lunching and mingling, and walking their teacup dogs. People were looking at him with puzzled expressions.

Sherlock breathed, straightened, smoothed his scarf, cleared his throat, pocketed his phone, and began walking the 2 miles to St. Bartholomew's Hospital morgue. His mood was temporarily too foul to wait for the London bus, or take the underground. People: no.

When he got to the coroners back entrance at Barts, Sherlock discovered that the ID strip on his hospital authorisation card, in his wallet just behind his ATM card, also wouldn't work at the employee entrance. He tried it twice and growled on the third attempt. But he held his temper in and thought about buzzing the door button, and the ribbing he would get from Molly Hooper for the explanation he'd have to give.

Fortunately at that moment, the coroners van got in from the primary investigation of a double homicide at different addresses in Cricklewood. Sherlock simply followed in the morgue attendants through the double doors by the entrance, and made his way to pathology.

Sherlock put his coat and scarf in his usual locker just outside the pathology lab doors, and exchanged it for a fresh folded lab coat from the scrub tubs. He rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands to the elbows in the scrub station, shrugged his coat on, and sidled into the pathology lab to see Molly in a plastic mask, putting on the hazard jacket.

She looked at Sherlock with wide eyes. "Don't go near the tables, Sherlock! There's cyanide in today. I don't bloody believe it. They've actually got a wall up round the whole autopsy room."

Sherlock casually stole one of her custard cream biscuits from next to her teacup, which she would not be finishing for several hours at this stage. He munched it and picked up the coroners report.

"Believe it. I was on them last night. I was amazed their smoking habits didn't kill them first. And I smoke. …Occasionally."

"But how does someone get their hands on cyanide in England?" Molly bagged her feet with double scrubs and put on a rubber glove to her elbows, and then another on top of it. "Unless they made it here."

"Unlikely. Too expensive." said Sherlock, mouth full of biscuit. "But it's easy enough to transport if you have the nerve to do it. A bit tricky though." Scenarios flashed through his mind of a multiplicity of ways and means to transport crystalline cyanide into Britain, such as a wax matrix in a fake lipstick, or a filled shampoo bottle in the packed baggage, nonchalantly triple bagged. He curled his lip and wrinkled his nose. "Not a job I'd like having, if you ask me."

"Want mine?" she added dryly, snapping down the edges of her hazmat suit.

He picked up her tea, gave it a good gulp and nabbed the other custard cream. "Be sure to give them a good wash down as soon as you take the skin cultures, then I'll be in to inspect the secondary details. Anything I might have missed last night." He took another gulp of her tea and Molly rolled her eyes. She snatched the coroners report clipboard out of his hands and stomped away through the PVC curtains at the end of the lab leading to the main autopsy room.

Well, it'll be three hours prepping these lads at least, thought Sherlock. Time for a meeting. He shrugged his lab coat back off, set it by his microscope station, gulped down the remainder of Molly's tea, binned the cup and left to find John. He was due to be in work by now, for a few hours of paperwork after yesterday's ER assistance, and then they would be free for the evening.

But that was no reason not to go bother him during lunch. Sherlock was a professional at bothering people, and an appointment for a discussion with the one man who didn't mind being bothered by him was just what began to lift his mood a little.

Sherlock whipped out his phone. "We have a case. Helping SY find killer. Criminal scumbag tedium, but involves cyanide. Looks interesting. Postmans Park in 5 minutes? SH"

John Watson had just left the taxi on Little Britain to make his way to the outpatient clinic on Bartholomew Close. His phone went off, and he stood and visibly sighed with an "ugh". He would be in for his paperwork in 5 minutes on time. But as always he would be a bit late, thanks to Sherlock Holmes, so this was never, ever to happen. He mentally shrugged and made his way down toward Postmans Park. The truth was, he genuinely did not mind.

His phone went off again. "Bring tea if convenient. Morgue tea is rotten. SH" John looked up and rolled his eyes. He had just passed the coffee shop. He turned around and went in.

John hesitated quietly with the tea tray while walking up the park footpath. Sherlock was parked nonchalantly in the same exact bench where Mike Stamford had met his old friend John Watson during his lunch hour a number of years ago, and told him that another acquaintance using the Barts morgue pathology lab was in need of a flatmate. So many years ago it seems, thought John. He quietly grinned to himself, looked down and sighed at the thought of such a world of history and breathless adventure between then and now.

Sherlock was hawkishly gazing in the opposite direction, bolt upright as usual, scanning his environment, hands folded in his lap, curls blowing in the light breeze, jaw muscles clenching and relaxing as his mind worked. His head had not yet turned toward John, standing still about 50 feet away. John started walking again toward the bench, and Sherlock turned his head and gazed toward John on a smooth, owl-like swivel. John sat down. Sherlock wordlessly picked a cup from the tray and checked his tea for the requisite extra milk and sugar.

Check. "Thank you."

"You practise that one, then?" John chuckled and squinted upward at his statuesque companion. He knew Sherlock had made a character leap of atypical gratitude.

Sherlock sighed and answered with his slight cockeyed smile and familiar baritone. "My consideration is well earned, John." His usual flat tone brightened on describing last night's murder scenes. "Meanwhile I saw two murders last night. Cyanide. Something you shouldn't have missed, just for the reference."

"Cyanide! That's mad." John was shocked; such a toxic substance was as rare in England as polonium. "Did the corpses have the characteristic lividity and bitter almond smell?"

"Smell, yes. Lividity, no. They were actually quite pale. Now I'll be more interested in the toxicology report."

"How was it delivered?" asked John, sipping his tea.

"Parchment business card with an 'M' printed on it and nothing else, hidden underneath the back shirt collars of both of them." said Sherlock ominously.

"You don't bloody think…" said John worriedly, his heart jumping into his mouth.

"Not sure. I've had no calls, no warnings, no indications. My network picked nothing up. It's confusing, so I'll just keep my eyes open for now."

John breathed in, then out slowly, and started to relax. "I wonder how they acquired the internal dose then, if any." he said, and cleared his throat.

"You wonder, indeed. I'm questioning if that was how they died. The cards were meant for the investigating authorities. Obviously." Sherlock stared ahead at the oak trees in the park, placidly shimmering in the increasing sunshine. It was rapidly warming that afternoon and approaching 30 degrees, so his shirtcuffs were still up and he had foregone his familiar overcoat. However, being Sherlock, he still had a buttoned waistcoat on over his shirt, belt, and ironed trousers. Of course.

He sipped his tea again and brightened his tone. "Meanwhile, I have a plan for this evening. How does pub grub sound? Shepherds pie, chips, that sort of thing." He looked over at John, eyebrow raised. His curious vocal tone quickly indicated that they would be on the job, so to speak. Or, at least, working up to one.

John's eyebrows raised. Sherlock was fond of boutique restaurants, the kind that served salads, and the typical working class fish and chip fare seemed a bit gritty for his preferences. But he would always surprise him at odd moments, and John loved a proper British Sunday roast plate of meat and potatoes, though he wouldn't tell Sherlock. That fare he usually had out alone to keep Sherlock from rolling his eyes, but Sherlock would always annoyingly detect the smell of malt vinegar in John's clothes and complain about it back at the flat. So of course, he was surprised.

"Yeah, all right." He cocked his head to one side in bewilderment. "Pub grub? When was the last time I saw you in a pub?"

"The last time I drank enough to realise I shouldn't be in one. Fermented grapes are bad enough." said Sherlock with a sniffing grimace. "And that was to make you happy." He sounded positively doleful. "However…you are required to enjoy a drink this evening. I will be playing my violin."

"You? With an audience? You don't do audiences." chuffed John, becoming progressively more entertained.

"I will tonight, but I'll be in the background. And jigs and reels aren't exactly Brahms." snorted Sherlock. That having been said, he had to remind himself to practise traditional flourishes and gracenotes in his bow technique, as they were certainly not familiar ground for a long while, and often far more technical than a sustained vibrato.

"Irish music. That's a new one." John had never heard Sherlock fiddling out Irish tunes.

Sherlock sighed. "It was a phase." …and that's all he said.

12 years ago he recalled a blissful 3 weeks of summer in Kerry playing traditional music almost nightly, until he uncovered a hashish ring coming in through the local harbour via Spanish fishermen. As the rules in Ireland were different, he hedged his bets with the local Fine Gael political party office, instead of the police. That ten minute sit down with the local campaign officer running for TD resulted in a gigantic haul of cash and product for the Criminal Assets Bureau and Gardai. It was a very smart move, though he had to exit stage left immediately and be on a plane from Shannon the next day to be certain about his safety.

Sherlock was sad about leaving the incredible musical assortment of traveling virtuosos in the town where he stayed that summer, but the locals found him a bit tiring and grating, if his music pleasant. Angering the wrong individual in such a "who-you-know" culture would otherwise eventually prove very dangerous, and Mycroft was just a little too far away to get backup within 10 minutes.

He had seen later online back home in London that the man he talked to had gone on to win his section of Kerry as a TD in the Irish legislative Dail, rousting out the Sinn Fein TD, something about which the remains of the Provisional IRA was obviously not happy. Sherlock quietly hoped that the IRA wouldn't know who he was beyond London tabloids, which would be bad enough.

"Is country and western your next foray?" John grinned, interrupting Sherlock's quick reflection.

"Not very likely. I dislike cowboy hats."

"That's relieving. So do I." John smiled and sipped his tea. "So I suppose it's tweed hats and knit jumpers tonight."

"I'll stick with the hat. It's not as ugly as the deerstalker, and cable jumpers look better on short people." John rolled his eyes and sighed. "On me they look like…" Sherlock looked thoughtful. I look like a Kerry fisherman off the boat, he thought. His creamy pallor and black hair nailed him for a man from the southwest of Ireland. This was why he preferred suits, to avoid working class entanglements and to be taken seriously in London. "…Actually," he said, "I'll go with a cardigan tonight. And corduroys."

John leaned backward and stared at Sherlock incredulously, with his usual bewildered smile. "You really are going outside your comfort zone, aren't you?"

"Everything has its purpose."

What Sherlock did not mention, was that while he was on that nice long holiday in Kerry 12 years ago, he had also learned how to drive a turbo rally car down a six foot wide back boreen at 120 km an hour, without ditching on hairpin curves.

Mycroft had told him to find another hobby, in order to stay out of trouble. He even paid for the instructor, who was shocked by Sherlock's immediate skill. ...Coincidentally, the same instructor whose name was scribbled at the bottom of the younger victim's cert, in his coat inside pocket back at Barts morgue.

Game on.

At 3 PM after having John buy him a salad for lunch, Sherlock wandered back into the pathology lab to find the crew still busy with contamination procedure and skin sampling. He poked his curly head in through the PVC zippered barriers and asked Molly how long they'd be. The team barked in concern, but he didn't step in further. She shooed him off with "Hour, tops." He zipped up the barrier and sat in the pathology lab to read about cyanide toxicology at the Internet station.

Of course with Sherlock, being entertained doesn't last long. After ten minutes of scanning information, he got bored quickly, and looked round the lab. Under a protective cover was the generously donated head of a well-lived older gentleman with drooping jowls and closed eyes, on a refrigeration tray.

The mouth was open about two centimeters. Molly had been preparing it for the introductory neurosurgery week of undergraduate gross anatomy at London School of Medicine, just adjacent to Barts.

Sherlock figured it would be kind to have him tell a joke one last time, if he had told any during his lifetime. Few possess such an entirely ghoulish sense of humour as Sherlock Holmes, but when he decides to have a laugh, usually at your expense, the only option is to take it well and move on.

He got up and casually looked round the lab for clean airway tubing, and found a still-packaged tracheal airway vent. He attached the tubing to the vent, put on a pair of fresh gloves, gently lifted the man's head and inserted the tracheal vent firmly into the open tracheal hole at the bottom of the neck. He then quietly set the head back in position, casually trailed the tubing to the other side of the table, and sat back at the microscope station, waiting for Molly to finish and come back into the lab. This would make the wait worthwhile. He went back to scanning the internet.

After about half an hour, an exhausted Molly stepped out of the PVC containment unit and zipped off her suit, tossing everything inside the zippered door for incineration to pick up.

"Right, the containment unit will be off in about ten minutes when the health and safety get in. Then they're all yours, Sherlock."

"Very good. I'm curious to find everything I can." he said cheerfully. More cheerfully than usual, but Molly hadn't noticed.

She sighed and took the report paperwork to her desk station to fill out, and she sat on the stool just opposite the center lab table where the head was sitting. She hadn't noticed the cover was off. All she noticed was that Sherlock had not replaced her cup of tea and custard creams, which would have made her a little cross, if she hadn't known him so well.

Fortunately, in knowing the rate of the coagulation of saliva after death, and also knowing this gentleman had died just all of 48 hours ago, Sherlock figured the soft palate certainly wasn't too sticky to separate from the back of the throat and vibrate the vocal cords. He covertly lifted the tubing to his mouth and blew firmly.

He was not disappointed by the result.

"hngaaaaaaaa" said the head in a toneless, but higher tonality than Sherlock's familiar voice. Molly looked up and round the lab, puzzled.

"Did you hear something, Sherlock?"

Sherlock had hidden the tubing and placed it down. He looked up from the laptop. "Hm? Nope." he glanced down deadpan and continued looking at his laptop screen.

Molly looked somewhat perplexed, and sat back down to scribble things. Sherlock grinned, and blew again.

"…gknaaaaaaaaa" said the head. Molly threw her own head up, whirled around, and said to Sherlock, "You had to have heard that." She got up to check outside the doors of the pathology lab. Sherlock had gotten red round the ears and looked like he was about to explode, but he swallowed it deadpan as soon as Molly turned toward him. He casually looked up and shrugged.

She put her hands on her hips and gazed around the lab, looking for an explanation.

Just as her gaze fell on her neurology prep for Queen Mary College gross anatomy, Sherlock slipped the tubing into his mouth behind his laptop screen, and blew hard.

"GNGAAAAAAA" said the head.

Molly screamed so loudly, that the orderlies came bolting down the hall from 40 yards away. Over it they heard the inexplicable sound of Sherlock laughing…the rarest of all noises.

She laughed as well when she could finally catch her breath. She didn't tell the orderlies what had happened, just through gasps of combined shock and laughter that she had forgotten to cover her gross anatomy prep and had surprised herself. Sherlock was bursting deadpan behind his hand, and shrugged, ears redder than Christmas.

These diamond-rare moments of silly insanity were the reason why Molly had a soft spot for Sherlock. It was too shockingly unorthodox and disrespectful, at least to normal people.

People who weren't Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock waited for Molly's nerves to calm down while she picked up the papers she had dropped in shock. Sherlock's practical joke had been done in immensely bad taste. After asking if she was all right, (John had told him he needed to do this if he intended further practical jokes in future) he shrugged his jacket back on, and put on a mask and pair of eye protection goggles. He took two elbow length latex gloves and put them on, smearing them thoroughly in petroleum gel in case of any projectile spray. Both bodies were starting to bloat, and he did not want to be in the way, but his job was not that of the autopsy team in later at 8PM.

His job was to deduce whatever clues remained on 2 freshly washed bodies, although toxicology would answer his biggest questions in 48 hours. Both men were pale, indicating that they may not have, indeed probably had not died of cyanide poisoning. Both were unremarkable, mostly unmarked, and had shown no signs of struggle. The older man had advanced renal enlargement and had lost about a third of his teeth, most of them being crowned. But Sherlock recalled that both men had vomited just outside the doorways to their respective flats, and only had time to set keys on their sitting room tables before they fell down in a heap and stopped breathing. So the poisoning would have been delivered outside, where it was much more difficult to deliver something that lethal without detection.

The older man had LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles along with an assortment of scummy Mountjoy jail house smudges up and down his arms. Classy, thought Sherlock. The younger man, about 26, who had the sawdust on his shoes, had no tattoos and clean, perfect teeth. Family approval, thought Sherlock. Respectable? He picked up the toe tag.

"DONAL UI' FLAITHEARTIG

B 1989.2.11

NIN 867735417"

Yes, traditional spelling of Donald O'Flaherty. This family was probably from the genteel Gaeltacht area in the southwest of Ireland, obviously not West Belfast republicans pushing a linguistic and cultural agenda for political reasons. Gaeltacht families were usually long established, respectable, and politically moderate. Why was this respectable young man at the Fenian, wondered Sherlock. Well, John and I may find out tonight.

The taxi left John and Sherlock off in a quiet cobbled side street in Cricklewood, surrounded by smart landscaping and pleasant looking storefronts, closed for the evening. It certainly wasn't as scummy as John had feared given the etiquette and instruction Sherlock had quietly given him in the taxi to fade in as local. But the banter was clearly very loud inside, and a jukebox of some kind was playing Irish music, badly.

"Time to do some listening, John. My advantage here is distinct. As a musician, I am required neither to drink nor talk to anyone. I'll be both playing, and hearing everything."

"Sounds like a perfect position, for a six foot antisocial enigma." said John dryly. "What do I get to do?"

"Order anything you like for dinner. I'm on the job." said Sherlock, his eye suddenly sparkling with curious anticipation. He was carrying his violin case and had slapped a shamrock sticker onto it for good measure. He had a black felt paddy cap on, and was dressed in a maroon cardigan, blue and maroon tartan flannel shirt shot through with yellow, brown belt, blue corduroys, and light brown brogues. All John had to wear was his usual favourite cable knit jumper and shirt collar, and jeans, and he fit right in, merely donning Sherlock's other brown paddy cap.

Since they both had perfect eyesight, they both had non-prescription frames for the evening. Sherlock wore a set of Franklin frames, and John in tortoiseshell Buddy Hollys. The disguise was complete, more or less. Time to start listening.

They squeezed into the tiny front entrance and found a hot, raucous bar full of patrons with mixed accents; half Irish, half London. Luke Kelly was roaring out of the jukebox and pints of Guinness were passing back and forth. Sherlock went to find a corner near the front window, occupied by a knot of overly made up women together for a night out. He shyly asked if he could take the corner for the evening, and his looks guaranteed the women were entirely too charmed to do so, clearing a spot for him immediately on the worn tartan bench. John had ordered fish and chips and gotten two half pints of Guinness at the bar, and brought the glasses over to Sherlock's round table.

Sherlock grimaced at the black mud and white foam that had been set in front of him, and grimaced at John. John broke out into a grin and offered it to him silently in the din of babble, pushing the glass toward him. Sherlock preferred cracking his case open immediately, taking out his bow, fiddle, cloth and rosin, and closed the case to set at his feet. He generously twisted his flashing bowstring in a cloth and a lump of rosin, up and down, looking intent and serious, and curtly set the violin (now fiddle) under his chin.

He bent his wrist forward, back stiff as a board, bolt upright, and then leaned into the tune.

And from Sherlock's fiddle came the music of angels. No scratching Beethoven, no tired Bach, no half-hearted Brahms, no confused Vivaldi, no waltz missing a half-step and going west instead of south. The imperfections that James Moriarty found a point of humiliation for Sherlock had vanished.

Replacing them, came a perfect stature and form, his bowstrings flashing into effortless flourishes and gracenotes, like a shoal of herring under a rolling ocean swell. His face was that of a statue while his wrist shot up and down like the piston of a perfectly oiled machine. Yet the sound that came from him had a warmth that John had not once heard from his violin in the years he had generally ignored his playing at 221B. Sherlock's brow was as hard as granite, his curls and locks glowing like deep mahogany embers under his cap, in the light of the soft pub lamp above their heads.

The tune was "The Maid Behind the Bar", one of the most recognizable session tunes in Ireland, but it made no difference to John. He had never heard it before, and never heard anything like it coming out of Sherlock. By the time Sherlock had done 3 repetitions and set the turn in the tune from the key of D down to C for the Red Haired Lass, John was grinning stupidly, and half his Guinness was gone.

The entire bar was also completely silent, all eyes on Sherlock. The reason was simple. Good session musicians don't visit republican bars at all. The traditional music society frowns on venues that bandy politics for good reason: Ireland is a deeply divided nation on all fronts. So when a decent traditional musician nods at Republicanism, they become wanted for all the wrong reasons; whether they knew what they were doing, or were merely being nice, or worse, completely naïve.

But John didn't know this. All that John knew as Sherlock turned the tune slowly to "Si Bheag, Si Mhor" by Turlough O'Carolan, was that for those few minutes of grace, he did not know Sherlock at all. There was no familiar cynicism or bitter sardonic distance. Just a bursting, aching heart behind those notes that overflowed through the strings of his fiddle, and he had only heard once before on his ill-fated wedding day to Mary Morstan.

The whole bar was silent as a stone, and John breathed deeply and closed his eyes as a tear rolled down his cheek, not once noticing the silence. The last note ended with an extended vibrato, and for a full count of five, the silence extended until Sherlock set the fiddle down on the rosin-cloth on his leg, and looked up.

The entire bar erupted with applause. So much for anonymity, thought John. I wonder what our next plan is going to be.

"Just go with it," said Sherlock, reading John's face for the thousandth time. "This could be the better option."

"I hope you're right." said John, finally preparing to tuck into fish and chips, sans the vinegar at Sherlock's request. Sherlock took a few minutes to shake a slew of hands thrust at him in thanks, acknowledging with a curt nod, and prepared for the next solo set. He took a long draught from his half pint of Guinness. It wasn't nearly as bad as he remembered, though still not his thing. But it bode him well to look convincing, he thought.

Just before playing again, Sherlock pointed at a pile of business cards and at least ten upside down empty shot glasses on the table, denoting drinks for him (and John, by proxy) that were already paid for. John reached for a shot glass, and Sherlock quickly shook his head and pointed again at the business cards. He leaned over and whispered in John's ear. "Look for O'Flaherty."

John cracked his second gigantic fillet of pollack, hungrily sucked fish grease off his thumb, then scrunched his napkin to dry his fingers. Thumbing through the cards quickly, he found a local used car dealership called Flaherty's Motors. It was the only card among Kellys, Jamesons, O'Dowds, Reids and Mcdonoughs that qualified, but the owner of the venue had an oddly spelled name. He raised his eyebrows and held it up for Sherlock's inspection. Sherlock looked at it, then turned it over.

WAKE MONDAY 9PM TO SUNRISE

WILL PAY

His usual sardonic smile returned. He mouthed the word "bingo" at John, then slipped the card into his pocket and calmly returned to the music for another set to give John time to finish eating. Afterward, Sherlock casually sidled outside for a smoke. Five minutes later, John even more casually sidled out with his violin case in hand, giving one last woeful gaze to a table full of the unfulfilled potential of free drink. As soon as John was out the door they took off walking, marching in step, silently congratulating themselves on their cleverness.

"That was amazing." said John, smiling, after half a block of silence.

"It's not often that a lead walks right into my hands," said Sherlock in agreement, "so I think we should ring this man and jump on it as soon as we get to a taxi. I have a feeling this is a very short lived offer." Sherlock's hair on the back of his neck was up. He suspected being followed. He knew there were eyes in the back of the pub.

"No, I already know you're amazing being able to deduce being in the right place at the right time", said John. "I'm used to that with you. It's your playing I'm talking about. I honestly have never heard you play like that."

"Probably won't again." sighed Sherlock, and let it lie for another 50 yards while they walked to the main road for a taxi.

Then he stopped for a second. "…You really liked it?"

"I have never heard you play like that." repeated John. "It's a whole new you I've never seen before. Or old you I never knew, I suppose. When did you learn it?"

"A long time ago, John. I might even do it again, but I'm not sure." he began to walk again, a bit more slowly.

"You just did it!"

"Because I had to." said Sherlock.

"Well you always manage to surprise me, then. Maybe you can play it back at the flat. You know, not for anyone else, if you don't want to. Just me."

Sherlock looked at him sidelong.

"Please." added John.

Sherlock hesitated and looked down at the footpath. "Yeah, alright." He smiled and kept walking, looking down thoughtfully.

Sherlock had seen the tear on John's face before he had self-consciously blinked away a flood of them and wiped his face quickly, clearing his throat before tucking into dinner, pretending all was as it was. It caught Sherlock completely by surprise. He was used to being the one thoughtfully and clandestinely gazing into John for approval. Now the man was genuinely moved, and it left Sherlock wondering how admiration worked.

John kept a fond grip on the handle of Sherlock's violin case, with a happy heart. He was genuinely glad to see Sherlock bloom with talents that hadn't seen the light of day for a long time, hidden under a rock due to old wounds and redirected into a morality war with the whole world.

Even in the midst of making enemies as they did daily, there were moments that Sherlock existed outside that war and outside his head. Tonight, the light in his face while playing convinced John fully that such a man did, indeed, exist.

But by its own fleeting nature, joy is a difficult thing to hold on to.

Three old men in leather jackets sat in the back of The Fenian and laughed after John and Sherlock had left. They lingered laughing, because The Network, what was left of it, socialised at this pub. And The Network, not being stupid, knew that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were sniffing around a dead rally car driver, and doing it in the most conspicuous manner possible, in beard-and-jumper Postcard Paddy disguises. To hard, cynical old murderers like these men, the effort seemed excruciatingly absurd.

"Right lads, d'we know where they're going then?" said Murderer #1, letting his hard chuckling die down.

"Aye." said Murderer #2. "Away t'ring aul Niall Flaherty and wake his boy Monday night."

"Aye, and they're away t'ring him now and meet up, I'd think." said Murderer #3. "Sure, we can head t'Niall's in a bit and have a wee nosey."

"Good job settin' Niall's card on the table. His lot's Fianna Fall, five generations. Them'uns wouldn't be caught dead here." said #2.

They continued chuckling at the two seeming cartoon characters who had just left their pub, battering away at the jigs and reels. Only those completely innocent and clueless wouldn't have noticed London's two most noticeable detectives. Others did, but mostly because they thought it was just community support.

Both parties decided they had gotten the clandestine end of the deal.

Sherlock and John caught a taxi up at the main road going back east toward Westminster. As they got in, Sherlock brought out his phone and rang the man on the card: Niall Ui Flaitheartig. Two rings, and an older man answered. "Hello?"

Sherlock put on his best Galway and Midlands accent, a soft singsong Irish broadcasting brogue that wasn't the hard half-cockney of north Dublin or the Scottish twang of Northern Ireland. "Mister O'Flaherty. Firstly let me say I'm sorry for your trouble."

"Well, thanks very much, he was our only boy. His mum is gutted. We're still waiting for the hospital to release him."

"My name is John Sheeran. I'm a fiddle player from Galway City and I was left your business card when I was playing session tunes tonight. Says here you need a wake done." said Sherlock.

"Yes. We're hoping desperately for Monday night, and that the police will be done with our poor Donal." The voice on the line began to break. "That's when all the family will be getting in."

"We haven't left Cricklewood yet. You mind if I stop in to get details? I'm just in the car now." It was barely 8:30 in the evening, so Sherlock guessed that they would be willing to receive visitors.

"Certainly. Give the driver this address. 544 O'Donnell Crescent."

"Cheers." said Sherlock. "We'll be round in about ten minutes."

They got to the address in eight minutes, paid the driver, and walked up to the door of a well maintained gingerbread and stained glass semi-detached 3-bedroom with an east garden wall bursting with climbing roses. Their scent was heady in the summer evening, and mixed with sweet woodbine and fuschias on the other wall. Several seven-day saint candles flickered in the window behind the stained glass border.

John sneezed. "Uh oh. Forgot the clarityn." He sniffed forlornly. Sherlock pulled out a fresh pocket handkerchief with a posh H monogram, and handed it to him. John looked up at Sherlock and smiled. "How retro."

"Never left home without one. In my job you never know what sort of foul thing it'll have to pick up."

"Thanks. That's the first compliment my bogies ever got." John rolled his eyes, then emptied his sinuses aiming right for the embroidery. Sherlock reached up and rang the doorbell.

"Whisht. Respect for the dead." said Sherlock, looking at John from the corner of his eye as his friends' nose rapidly began to redden. He half-smiled.

"Since when have you had respect for the dead!" whispered John with a sarcastic huff, as a set of footsteps thumped toward the door. It opened to reveal a warm, dimly lit and perfectly spitspot house with white leather furniture and beveled mirrors, and a short man at the door in his late forties.

"Come in, John, come in." he said, addressing Sherlock by his pseudonym. He was also sniffling, but for different reasons.

Sherlock stepped in with his violin case and Watson behind him. They were still outfitted for their pub excursion and still in the glasses. Good impression, he thought.

"I'm sorry for your trouble, Mr. O'Flaherty," he repeated. "Your son was a decent, kind, respectable young man." The accent suited Sherlock, who bandied it without effort; he could learn an entire language in a week. "I knew him from going to the pub time to time with me workmates." Not suggesting any political affiliation was a good idea.

"Och, tsk. It's such a shame he never mentioned you." said Niall. "Please sit down, I'll put the kettle on. Oh," he turned to John. "Who's this?" Sherlock hadn't introduced John yet with any pseudonym.

John introduced himself quickly. "Er, Sean Reilly" he answered. Sherlock rolled his eyes. Sean was Irish for 'John', so their pseudonyms were now John and John. How creative! thought Sherlock.

Tea. There was always tea to start with in Irish homes, night or day. Tea was the universal social icebreaker of the Isles, and Niall quickly came out of the kitchen with a tray, teapot, three mugs, milk and sugar. Niall sat down.

Sherlock figured that now was the time to bring out his leverage in clandestinely milking this poor soul for information. He went to open his violin case, and instead of bringing out his instrument he brought out a rolled document.

"Donal gave this to me for safe keeping, and I figured you would want this. It meant everything to him." said Sherlock, and handed it to Niall.

Niall unrolled the certificate and gazed at it. He began to cry, probably for the hundredth time in the last two days. "I don't believe it. You must have meant the world to him. Rallying was his passion, as it was once mine. Our car's still in his auntie's shed in Sligo." he honked into his own handkerchief. John Watson joined him, his own eyes tearing up between allergies and the compassion that Sherlock was almost heartlessly manipulating to his advantage.

"Donal left it to me because we had the same rallying instructor. I was trained out in Kerry twelve years ago by the same man. The best three weeks of my life." said Sherlock.

"Right." said Niall. "You're family then." Uh oh, thought John, and looked at Sherlock with a puzzled expression. What does this mean? Niall left the room, quickly returned with a set of keys, and ceremoniously sat down. "The Escort is yours now." John and Sherlock looked at each other incredulously.

Niall went on. "The Donegal rally runs in five weeks, I want you in it as a tribute to my son. He wasn't a champion, but it's our passion anyways. Maybe you can win it. She's no looker but we put eight grand in that engine."

Sherlock didn't hesitate. He took the keys, beaming. "We'd love to, and be honored to do it. I haven't done the Donegal rally for work reasons, and the investment in a rally car I'm still building. This is brilliant. Donal's memory demands nothing less. Nothing less." exclaimed Sherlock, and pocketed the keys. John silently groaned. He knew Mycroft would insist on his attendance as well. Probably in the front seat of the car, no less. He could almost hear Mycroft: You watched my brother agree to this mad excursion, you can make sure he survives it, John. His hand migrated to his forehead and he closed his eyes.

"Now, about the wake." said Niall. "How does nine o'clock sound? I'll give you 300 quid for the night. Sod it, 400. You're family." He slapped Sherlock on the shoulder.

"Well, before I gave you Donal's cert, Niall…"

The doorbell rang. "Two minutes, John." Niall stood up; he had had quite a few consolation calls at the door that day.

An older man, about 55, came in wearing a leather jacket and jeans. Niall was polite but looked less than pleased to see him. "Mr Sheeran," he said, gesturing to Sherlock, "Jimmy Mcdonough. He was Donal's part time employer up at the London docks."

Mr. Mcdonough was entirely too friendly on shaking Sherlock's hand, and smiled a bit too widely. Sherlock's Danger Hackle, located just under his shirt collar, began to rise slowly. Mcdonough turned back to Niall. "So sorry for your trouble, Mr. O'Flaherty. Just let me know how we can help the family." Niall knew this was a courtesy gesture and meant little else, but thanked him nonetheless. And taking assistance from Sinn Fein was at the bottom of his social list, deduced Sherlock.

What gave away the affiliation was more than obvious. Easter lily pin on the coat collar, betting form in the pocket, fat wallet in the other pocket, half a badly rendered Bobby Sands tattoo on the right forearm, barely covered by the jacket sleeve. Sherlock could make out the dead MP's jawline and smile in the artwork.

Sherlock internally retched but kept perfect decorum. If John Watson's British military background was serving him in any capacity, he'd be a little nervous right now. But Mcdonough kept a very friendly tone.

"Ah, the Wake Man." he said, looking at Sherlock's violin case. "Your lot are the cornerstone of Irish tradition. My thanks go out to you, sir."

Sherlock nodded. "I do what I can for the community, and cornerstones of the community like Mr. O'Flaherty." he said, carefully and quietly. Niall invited Mcdonough to sit down.

"Oh, we're out of tea," said Niall. "I'll get another pot for us." he stood up, but Mcdonough quickly interjected.

"Nonsense. You're grieving, sir. Stay sittin', 'tis no bother." Mcdonough quickly whisked the tray and its contents to the back kitchen, and they could hear the electric kettle beginning to boil again for another pot.

Niall sighed. "I was saying there just before Jimmy rang the doorbell that we needed to arrange a time for you to arrive. I said 400 as well, right?"

Sherlock felt an urge to leave very quickly, but he kept his decorum. "Actually Niall, my mum had surgery for second stage cancer yesterday and she's scheduled to be discharged on Monday night. I was about to tell you that as long as the wake was any other night, I'd be able to do it."

Niall looked positively crestfallen, especially after such a meaningful exchange regarding the family's rally car in Sligo. "But," Sherlock added, "Donal meant the world to me and I have every intention of honoring your family in the Donegal rally by putting your dealership's logo on the sides of the car as sponsor. Just get me the decals and it's done." said Sherlock. "And when it's over, if the car's still fine, I'll bring it back on the Dublin car ferry to Holyhead and back here to you."

Niall sighed. "It's the engine we really made perfect, and if it's on the telly with ours and Donal's name on it, I'll be happy enough."

Sherlock held out his hand. "No bother. It'd be an honour."

John Watson cleared his throat. He had hackles up as well. He had no intention of butchering an Irish accent to blow their cover, as tenuous a cover as that was. He put on a cockney clip as London Irish instead. "She was expecting us at Barts over half an hour ago, John."

"Oh right!" exclaimed Sherlock. "I am so sorry Mr. O'Flaherty. We have to go."

Just then, Mcdonough came back out with a full tea tray and four strong cups already poured. He handed them out to Watson, then Sherlock, then himself and Niall. "Don't hurry out. Sure you're just in."

"It would be rude to forego one more cuppa." said John. He quickly creamed his tea and tossed it back in two gulps. Sherlock sipped his and left most on the tray.

"I'll have the car decals for you in a week," said Niall. "I'm honestly so pleased, anyways. It was lovely to meet you." the tears began to quietly return.

Sherlock and John stood up. "That's us then," said Sherlock, and they shook hands warmly with Niall, neutrally with Mcdonough, and left.

John didn't say a word as Sherlock rang the taxi company. Sherlock pocketed his phone and stood on the main road at the end of the crescent. John remained silent as Sherlock brought out the escort keys and twirled them on his finger in victory.

John said nothing, however, even after the taxi picked them up. Only as they got to 221B and unlocked the door did he speak up.

"You're a dickhead. What you did worked a charm, but I bloody well don't like you all that much. He was grieving and you took full advantage."

Sherlock sighed with a posh tsk. "Part of the work, John. You know that."

John stomped up the stairs. "My bedside manner doesn't agree with you Sherlock." He threw off his cardigan onto the green pleather settee and stomped away to the bath to wash up for bed. Sherlock took off his cap and cardigan and put them in his closet, then returned to check his email in the sitting room.

Five minutes later, Sherlock heard an odd splashing from the loo. …explosive sickness, that wasn't good. John had barely drunk anything. He raised his head up in concern from checking his laptop, and started to walk toward the bath. Just then he heard a body hit the floor and a head hit the door, and he scrambled in panic to wedge it open, to see John's eyes closing and his neck going limp.

Sherlock flung out his phone.

999 *send*

London Dispatch Recording Archive July 27

Hello, state your emergency

It's my friend. John Watson. 221B Baker Street. Someone gave him a drug in his drink I think. I'm not sure what happened. He's just blacked out and his breathing is really shallow. Heartbeat very light and elevated. Get here soon he may be dying.

221 B Baker Street? Do you need fire or medical?

BLOODY HELL I SAID HE WAS DRUGGED I THINK HE'S DYING *static*

Hang on. We're dispatching an ambulance.

Make sure it's for St. Barts. John's a doctor there.

You mean Mr. Watson, the emergency?

Yes. The emergency. Get here on the double. I'm putting the phone on speaker so I can get him out to the sitting room and administer CPR.

The ambulance is on its way.

…*static*

John.

John, stay with me. I was an idiot. It didn't occur to me, I was too busy trying to get us out to realize. I am so sorry John. Just stay with me, they'll get the tube down you in no time.

That was stupid. I got what I needed but you're not supposed to be the price, John. Bloody hell, stay with me. Stop this at once, right? Keep breathing. Are you breathing? I'm going to go unlock the door. Please keep breathing.

*sounds of running downstairs, door opening, sounds of running upstairs*

Come on John. I don't know how long those two blokes had before they died. Toxicology was supposed to tell me day after tomorrow. Twenty minutes, two hours, I don't know. But now it's you and I can't…no. Don't do this John. Please don't do this. Please don't die.

Hello, are you still on

Yes. Yes. Is the ambulance coming.

They should be there within 5 minutes.

Right…how did this happen…beer? No, too long between pub and home. Tea?…tea…tea. Not Niall. No motive. Had no idea who we were. Had to be Mcdonough. What can't be tasted. If it were cyanide he'd already be dead. Couldn't be cyanide, too toxic. Had to be small. Nearly tasteless. Lethal dose before you can taste it. Easily transported. Legal. Easily obtained. BLOODY HELL. DIAZEPAM. DISPATCH! TELL THE EMERGENCY TECHNICIANS TO BRING A STOMACH PUMP AND ANTIDOTE. THIS MAN WAS DOSED WITH AT LEAST 500 MILLIGRAMS OF DIAZEPAM.

*static* John. John? I don't know if you can hear me. You were given diazepam in your tea. Bastard Mcdonough. He must have seen us down the pub. We have to be more careful. They'll be here soon John.

London dispatch, checking to see if you're still with us

Yes, of course. I'm here. His…his eyes aren't dilating. I'm about to…to administer CPR. I can't feel his breath. Bloody hell. Don't die, John. If you die you can piss off. Oh here goes. *static* One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, *static*….one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, *static* ….one, two…

They should be there any time now.

All right. …One, two, three, four, five, six…

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

GET IN AND UPSTAIRS THE DOOR IS OPEN. GET IN NOW. JOHN IS DYING.

*sounds of footsteps coming upstairs* London emergency.

*sound of equipment bag hitting the floor* Alright, let's get him on the cot and an oxygen vent

-end dispatch record-

The EMTs lifted John on his cot and carefully maneuvered him down the stairs of 221B and out to the ambulance. Sherlock nabbed his cardigan with every intention of hopping into the ambulance, but the EMT stopped him. "Right mate, he'll be well sorted now."

"RUBBISH. I WORK FOR SCOTLAND YARD, HE'S MY FRIEND."

"Calm down, e'll be fine. If it was diazepam like you say, he's on a breathing system to keep his lungs going and by proxy his 'eart. The antidote's waiting at the hospital for him. You'll need to make a police statement, so if you could get in within the hour, we won't send them round. Alright?"

"WHY?!"

"If you know what caused this then the police will need to have a word."

"Call Inspector Lestrade at Scotland Yard at once. He's my friend and he'll sort it."

"You'll need to do that, sir. We need to stabilise this man's life signs."

"GET ON WITH IT THEN." Sherlock whirled round and threw himself on the settee, with his head in his hands.

As soon as he heard the door shut downstairs, he began to shake quietly with rage and relief. Mrs. Hudson came in just as the ambulance left and headed toward Oxford Street. She came upstairs quickly to see Sherlock curled into his hands, shoulders shaking. In a flash, without any fear of Sherlock's usual imposing standoffishness, she dropped her shopping bag and sat next to him, her arm tight round his shoulder.

"Oooh dear, what's the matter." she kissed Sherlock's curly head as he kept shaking.

"John got poisoned while we were out tonight. I think he'll be fine."

"Oh heavens. Oh no." Mrs Hudson squeezed tighter, and rubbed his back. He kept his face behind his fist, trying to hold it in, but her comfort didn't do any good. He sobbed for a good five minutes, while she held him tightly.

He took a deep breath and gathered himself. "Are you all right, love?" asked Mrs Hudson.

"Alright now. I have to go to Barts immediately. Um…"

"Yes love?"

"Is it possible you could clean the loo?"

"I'm your landlady, dear, not your housekeeper." She gave his shoulders a big squeeze, rubbed his back one more time, kissed his head and went downstairs.

Well, he's been willing to go to jail with me. I suppose it's the least I can do…ugh. Sherlock cheered up at the return of his cynical senses, and permitted himself a smile. He took a deep breath and went to change back out of what seemed to him silly brogues and corduroys to his usual sober, dark and stoic suit, to head to Barts behind John.

With a serious headache.

John woke up sixteen hours later with the worst sore throat of his life. Bloody hell. Gak. Bleh. The lights of the window were entirely too bright and he squinted his eyes open. I feel as flabby and red raw as an arse after dysentery. His filters were not on yet, so he said the first thing that came into his mind.

"Fk'nell. Bleh. Mouth. Fart."

The dozing occupant of the chair by his bed snapped his head straight up. "What?!" asked Sherlock.

"What the …hell… happened?!"

"Well, you got sick, fell on the floor, I rang 999, dragged you to the sitting room, waited for an ambulance, and administered CPR till they could get an oxygen vent and antidote here."

"Wait…"

"It was Mcdonough. He poisoned you, and it's a bloody good thing your Walther is in the lockbox you bought after that time I got bored."

"Right. Bloody good thing. Mouth tastes like a fart." John's filters were still off and he was still coming round, but Sherlock jumped right into the major revelation next to the bedside, animatedly describing the situation.

"Well, he poisoned both of us. I'm 20 kilos heavier than you at least and only took a sip of that tea. After I got in to make the police statement, I passed out on the floor in here and processed about 50 milligrams of diazepam."

"Diaze…fuck." John was coming round now. Filters, not so much.

"You got 500 milligrams." said Sherlock.

"FUCK." said John. "Wait…" he lifted and waved his hand shakily.

"What?" said Sherlock.

"You administered CPR?"

"Yes."

"Don't tell anyone."

"OH. Thank you for saving my life, Sherlock. Thank you. What about that gratitude you lecture me about all the time to save me from social adversity? It doesn't matter! Sherlock's mouth breathed for mine because I was DYING. Don't tell anyone." He threw himself in a petulant strop back into the chair next to John's bed.

"Look. Sorry. I didn't mean…oh forget it. Sorry." Then John really began to become lucid. "Oi. Who died for two BLOODY years?"

They were both quiet. Sherlock was silent and sullen. He breathed and rubbed his hands together. Sherlock knew he was being petulant, but John knew he had poked a very raw spot in Sherlock's inner being.

"Sorry.".. "Sorry." They both said it at the same time, and then sighed.

"Well, there is one good thing about this." said Sherlock.

"What?"

"When toxicology tells me that those two men died of diazepam and not cyanide, we'll also know the bastards who did it. Now all we need to know, is why."

"Well, yes. There is that." said John. "Now do you have any mint roll? My mouth tastes like a fart."

Sherlock dug into his pocket and whipped out a roll of Mentos. "I had the same problem when I woke up a while ago,"

"Cheers." said John, and popped three of them. "And…thanks for not getting bored long enough to be here when I woke up. I think that would have been a bit scary."

"No problem, John. I need you with me when we go to Cardiff on Monday."

"Wait. Cardiff?! I have to work next week."

"Apparently not. Your boss is giving you the week off while the police determine that you aren't suicidal. Mycroft will have a chat with someone and sort it, but you should have heard him roar at me for poking the IRA."

"Oh god. You mean the IRA were the ones responsible for poisoning me. Is that what you're BLOODY saying?"

"Diazepam. It's the new bullet since the peace agreement in 1998. Didn't you know?" Sherlock's eyebrows raised in teasing inquisitiveness. "Don't worry. They never use the same technique twice. And we should be right as long as nobody sees us in a republican bar again." he said. "Not that I mind. I got what I needed." He pulled the rally car keys out of his pocket, and Niall's home number.

"Here, do you think Niall would have been told who we were, if Mcdonough knew?"

"Niall would have supported us all the more. He wants to know what happened to his son. I'll be able to tell him after we put the pieces together at the Donegal rally in two weeks."

"Oh, god. I knew I'd be coming with you to that. Sherlock, wherewill I find the time for that?! London, of course. Cardiff, yes. But Ireland? With danger involved." …Alright, he answered himself.

"You always find time. And you can always play up." said Sherlock.

"Doctors don't 'play up', Sherlock." John sighed. "All right, I guess we could use a change of scenery if I have an involuntary two week hiatus."

Later that day, an orderly came in to give John a psychological assessment before the department discharged him. He chuckled. He answered as normally and cheerfully as possible, but told her that he'd probably be somewhat off-kilter and a bit traumatised for two to three weeks. When she asked what kind of drug he ingested, he told her he was at an Irish bar where he got slipped a really big Mickey, and that Sherlock deduced just how big a Mickey it was, because he was Sherlock Holmes.

Deadpan.

She turned bright red and tilted her head, and walked out biting her bottom lip. She reads the British tabloids too, he thought. Oh well, a little fun never hurt anyone.

"OI. Sherlock. I 'ear tell you went off looking in the right place." Lestrade had rung the doorbell and Mrs Hudson had let him in, looking inquisitive. She went off to make tea while the DI went upstairs, chatting to Holmes as he came up. He was holding the toxicology report Sherlock had needed to determine cause of death on the 2 men in the morgue.

It was Saturday afternoon, and John had been discharged the previous evening. John and Sherlock were both looking a bit the worse for wear, still in bathrobes and slippers, sunk into their chairs.

"Inside voice, please" quietly croaked John, taking a sip of his tea and nursing a raw head. The chafing in his throat from the various breathing and stomach apparatus he had to put up with at the hospital the day before had not made him chatty at all.

Sherlock sighed and looked up at Lestrade. "I suppose your lecture is coming, is it?"

"No, Sherlock. Truth is, I admire you. Nobody my generation would set foot near even the old IRA. They came out the woodwork after the peace agreement but even an 'ard man would palpitate at the thought of facing them. You're a special breed, I'll give you that."

"I didn't exactly expect anyone to be up to murdering us with a cup of tea." said Sherlock. "I hope the toxicology report points to diazepam, because you'll have your man if it is."

"Beyond a doubt. Along with alcohol, but there it is." said Lestrade, pulling open the paper and pointing at the positive result. "Who exactly is your man?"

"Owner of a small time importer down on the docks, Jimmy Mcdonough. Contraband Polish cigarettes, obviously. He tried to do us in with tea at the home of a man named Niall O'Flaherty. Who, by the way, shouldn't be questioned. It's his boy lying dead in the Barts morgue."

"You mentioned in your report yesterday, but you were a bit too out of it for us to get specific details. How did you get into the middle of that?!" said Lestrade.

"You don't exactly show up with a DI's badge at an Irish home and expect the full story, do you. I had to play a few jigs and reels." said Sherlock.

"Well if you needed proof that you two are way too recognisable, it should be now." said Lestrade. "You were a joke to those old boys, and they had their fun." Mrs Hudson came in with the tea tray. "You can bet that bloke Mcdonough is on a boat probably back in Ireland by now, and all we can do is inform the Irish government and sit on our asses. Thanks for giving him the warning." He looked disgusted.

Lestrade took a cup of tea and sat on the green settee, and sighed deeply. "Of course since it's IRA we probably won't do anything anyway." he said, more to himself. "Those lads were involved in criminal work to begin with, so their assets will just get confiscated, they'll be released to their families and that bloke will stay on the lam." said Lestrade.

"I don't think Donal was a criminal." said Sherlock.

"Why?" asked Lestrade.

"I think he was asked to do something criminal and had second thoughts." said Sherlock. "The cyanide was meant for me to think Moriarty had something to do with this, when in fact it was the IRA trying to put me off the scent."

"Over cigarette smuggling?"

"No. Something more important."

"What would that be?" asked Lestrade, curiously.

"Bet fixing on a major car rally. Donal's a rally driver." Sherlock said, looking over his teacup. "And so was the older man who died the same time, Robert Reid. He won the Donegal Rally back in 1982 and went on to ruin his future being IRA neutral and easy to buy off. Owns three betting shops in Cricklewood. Or co-owns them, I should say. He must have decided to do the right thing along with Donal, ditch the ra altogether, flee to Spain with their buyoff money, and paid the price."

"Who else co-owns them?"

"Family. Cousins, uncles, brothers. The usual." said Sherlock flippantly.

"Well, I suppose that's us then. Respectable or not, Donal's probably not going to get any justice after working for that lot. The rest of the problem lies across the pond, and they can prosecute it there. My department got over 240 grand in confiscated criminal assets from those two.

"Mcdonough's getting the charge on your word, and we've got no leads on his whereabouts. Thanks for your help anyhow." Lestrade sighed. "But the cyanide thing really annoys me. That's 'ard core. It was meant to put you off the culprits and blame our favourite criminal mastermind." He put down his cup of tea on the tray, and smiled sidelong at Sherlock.

"…I wonder what he thinks of them using his name like that."

"I wonder indeed." said Sherlock, absentmindedly stroking his upper lip.

In the middle of the evening the previous night, what they did not know was that a fishing vessel was chased down and boarded by a sleek yacht that sliced through the water faster than a sheik's blade. Jimmy Mcdonough was made to tell the name of the party who had provided the cyanide, (a small time Russian gun dealer). Mcdonough was then promptly shot in the head, chained to eight cinder blocks and shoved off the side of the fishing boat.

As his pallid body sank underneath the water twelve miles off the Isle of Man, the other two on the boat were strictly told to deliver a message to their boss when they got in:

"Don't try to shift the heat again. I will not take responsibility for sloppy work. Retirement is your best option. –M"

Sunday came and went. On Monday morning, at 2 AM, a black Lexus pulled up to the side entrance of Stormont Castle in South Belfast, and the halls echoed with the relentless yapping, droning rage of retired IRA heavyweight Marvin Mccandless barking monotonously down a telephone line at Mycroft Holmes.

Mycroft Holmes listened to Mccandless yammering about "bad form", "police harassment", and "undue blame". He was using the book of sundry buzzwords, playing victim to the hilt.

Mccandless should have known better. This was Mycroft Holmes.

Mycroft sat in his dressing gown while Mccandless was harping away on his speakerphone, and acknowledging with various grunts.

First, he listened. Then, he toyed with his pen. Then, he drew lots of funny faces on the backs of envelopes; rediscovered his desk zen garden and raked it, launched about twenty rubber bands at various office portraits (finally getting Her Majesty the Queen squarely in her nose), found the yo-yo in his desk drawer, practiced his backspin, walked the dog, and toyed with his pen once more, and finally drew a big bald angry-looking phallus wearing a black balaclava as a hat.

When Mccandless finally tired, Mycroft spoke once. "Marvin, I sympathise with your frustration, really I do. However if your minor goons in London put themselves in the way of my brother again by being so stupid, I will simply laugh at you. They really do have no excuse.

He looked at his perfectly trimmed nails, eyebrows raised as high as possible, and went on. "What I do expect is your full cooperation. Thanks to your boys' antics garnering his attention, my brother will be in the Donegal rally representing the family of the young man your goons put down. He will be there to sniff out the big players, and that's his game. The best thing you can do is avoid him entirely, and keep the course clean and free from sabotage, or you are in immense trouble with me specifically. You will send me a map of his safe areas, I will give it to him, and you will adhere to it religiously.

"And, you also know who will watch you now for his own reasons. I think you annoyed him. I find this all quite amusing, of course."

There was a speechless squeak from the end of the line.

"My dear Marvin, everyone who doesn't agree with you is a reprehensible racist. We all know this. I am at peace with this. Just do as I tell you.

"If opposing your various leftover goons makes us anti-Irish racists, then the eighty-two percent of the Irish Republic's voters who don't votefor your party are anti-Irish racists. This, of course is as ridiculous an idea as confronting me over things that are obviously caused by stupidity on your end. Good NIGHT, Deputy First Minister."

In the middle of another barking fit on the Stormont end, he pressed the phone button to cut the line off, and rose to go back to bed.

Sherlock's ability while driving to settle into a long reverie, without getting bored, was thankfully due to his instincts for instant decision making being used every second in lucid meditation. His eyes were currently on the M4 motorway, heading directly west to Cardiff. While he drove, Sherlock was perfectly sane, logical, and even downright pleasant to be with. This was a welcome state for John, who, having recovered from his interesting previous week, only wanted to enjoy a complete change of scenery from London.

They had gotten up entirely too early to finish packing. Mrs Hudson brought their tea up when she heard movement, which John especially appreciated. His throat was still a bit sore.

They picked up the usual top of the line gunmetal Landrover Defender at Westminster Motors, picked up Sherlock's new bank card at the Lloyds branch office, and were off.

Just outside Reading, John put his seat back. "You mind giving me the full briefing closer on to Bristol?" asked John.

"Not a problem." Sherlock glanced over at John. "I think you'll really like this one. A bit more relaxing. Disappearances of museum artifacts, screaming in the night, that sort of thing."

John smiled. "Can't wait." And rolled over to snooze with the M4 hurtling past. He had thrown away his last day of pain meds out of stubbornness, and figured a little sleep would sort him out along with a few extra cups of tea. He was thankful that Sherlock hadn't kept him talking.

While driving, Sherlock went to his secondary mind palace, recalling the last email he had gotten from Doctor Owen Pritchard, junior curator of the antiquities department of the national museum in Cardiff and lecture professor next door to the museum at Cardiff University.

Pritchard seemed scared to death in his last email, and had come near to begging Sherlock to get there as quickly as possible. That had been on Sunday, and Sherlock was able to tell him that he'd be able to depart the following morning, and it seemed to comfort Pritchard a little.

Sherlock recalled the oddest part of the letter. "I woke up this morning up at my holiday cabin in Merthyr only to have a beautifully forged pictish bellows spear embedded in the front garden, jammed into the ground on my guest lecture photo. It had been newly made. So either an ancient tribal blacksmith has awoken from two thousand years of sleep and given me this as a present, or someone is attempting to scare me, and they are succeeding.

"In addition to the drumming and screeching the last two nights, I might add. There's nobody around living within 500 metres of this cabin, and it's adjacent to the Tydfil forest. So I am not safe getting threats at my home in Cardiff, and less safe here."

"Please help me find whoever's doing this. I know why, but it doesn't make any sense. You'll find out more when you get here."

Sherlock had looked up a few details of Pritchard's letter, but preferred to let him provide the details, since full interaction always spoke volumes. The bellows spear was a multi-barbed Pictish and Celtic weapon native to pre-Christian tribes in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but not to the Brythonic tribes of Wales.

Somebody meant business, obviously, but it was historical business. Over something that Pritchard had in his possession, obviously.

John snoozed quietly as the flat midland fields of Wickham charged past.

Outside Bristol, John yawned, stretched, and picked up the atlas showing their destinations in Cardiff and further north in the Merthyr vale.

Then he turned it sideways to look harder at the placenames. He glanced up. "You have to wonder how many Y's, W's, double-L's and double-D's you can fit into a word before it becomes unpronounceable. A lot, apparently."

"John." sighed Sherlock.

"What?"

"Your London's showing. Zip it away." He shifted lanes to come off the M4 for a quick bite to eat in Hambrook.

"Do you think I could learn Welsh while we're there?" asked John.

"Probably not. But that's not a problem." said Sherlock. "Have you ever been to Wales?"

"No. Not Ireland, either. Just most of the Middle East and half of Western Europe. I'm afraid that I'm horribly boring." John thought Sherlock would notice his sarcasm, since John attended regular conventions on updated pharmaceuticals and equipment for the medical trade, held in Dublin. (Apparently not.)

"No, you're just horribly English." said Sherlock. "Gallivanting about the planet and an insular local back home. Desiring everything back home to be as predictable and boring as possible, down to your brand of biscuit."

"Tell me that's one thing you don't like about me. Say it." John taunted, grinning.

Sherlock smiled. "I won't. Someone has to be that, I suppose. Otherwise life would fall apart."

"Thank you." John nodded and looked again at the atlas. They pulled into a motorway express rest area and got out to stretch their legs.

At the counter where Sherlock was purchasing crisps, nicotine patches and Red Bull, he noticed a headline in the paper for Newport, just across the headwater of the Bristol Channel. "Irish antiquities board requests return of carving missing from Cardiff Museum"

Sherlock bought it and gave it to John, who was on the way back with a sandwich and two teas. "Here, read this out while we're on the road. I have a feeling we need to get our skates on."

They quickened their pace back to the Defender, and pulled out. Sherlock, being one to notice everything that other people thought was furtive, saw a plain white transit van in the rearview, pulling out of the lot behind them and getting on the M4, keeping a steady 50 yard pace behind them and changing lanes when they changed.

John put his belt on and put his tea in the holder. He opened the Newport gazette to the page of the article. " 'Bog ivory statue of goddess wanted back by Ireland's national museum'. A formal request by Ireland's government falls on a missing bog ivory statuette kept by Cardiff's national museum until only 2 weeks ago when it was reported stolen.

"The only goddess statuette in Britain of Morrigan, or Morgan la Fey as she was called in Arthurian tradition, reposed in Cardiff's national museum under the junior curatorship of Professor Owen Pritchard. Now she is gone, and both the British Museum and National museum of Ireland want to know why and how. Currently Dr Pritchard says he has 'the best working on it' and is currently unavailable for comment.

"Given the murky history of the Bog Morrigan, and the recent claim by the Irish government, we can only guess that the intrigue surrounds a questionable lot of Irish antiquities that made their way into the infamous collecting hands of the Earl of Carnarvon in Scotland, shortly after the Irish Easter Rising in 1916, which saw the museum of Ireland very quietly looted of various items that they imagined wouldn't be missed, and sold for weapons for the forces of Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera at the time.

"The Earl photographed and catalogued the Bog Morrigan among various other linnulae, penannular brooches, hoard rings, sword hilts and head carvings, also from bog ivory. Later, he donated various items to the museum of Cardiff, claiming that the carving was Morgan la Fey. However, the Irish antiquities board claims that she was originally found by a fisherman on an isolated island in the Lakes of Fermanagh in the mid 18th century, in a 'rath' or ringfort, and kept until his family was offered five pounds for it by an antiquities scout in the late 1890s.

"It too, had been photo catalogued by the British Museum in Ireland until it quietly went missing after 1916. The big question is, which country owns this carving that nobody can now find?"

John Watson folded the paper. "So, who are we working for?"

"Not either government," said Sherlock, "but Pritchard himself. He supposedly wants us to find this carving and get it to the auction house to be valued and kept in a vault until this can get sorted." he sounded guarded.

"You don't sound completely certain."

"I'm not." said Sherlock. "I think Pritchard has this item hidden and in his possession. I think a private collector is about to offer him a lot more for it."

"Does it seem that obvious to you?" asked John.

"You do recall that business with General Shan?" asked Sherlock. John raised his eyebrows and sucked in his breath, recalling just how deadly the Chinese can be regarding antiquities.

"Someone wants this item, and they're willing to pay more than the Irish government requesting a donation. The professor in his email isn't asking me to find it, except to say in passing that it needs to be found. He's asking me to find out who's threatening him. Passive reference to your crisis missing item screams 'guilty' to me. He has it, but who's the buyer, and why is he terrified?" asked Sherlock. "I can only figure this out when I see him. Also, we…have a shadow. In a transit van."

John snapped his head down to the rearview and adjusted it to see the white transit van behind them. "So, what's the plan? Lose them?" asked John.

After passing the toll booths on the other side, Sherlock noticed a large bank of fog swallowing the M4 bridge across the Bristol Channel. "John, get the map out of the M4 here at the Severn Bridge. We need to find a really quick hiding spot just off the bridge because this fog bank won't last. Lay-bys, service roads, anything."

"I'm on it," said John, and yanked out the map while they entered onto the suspension bridge. The two gigantic H-shaped suspension towers at the center crept slowly toward them. Just past those, the fog bank swallowed the bridge.

"Right. Buckled?" said Sherlock. The transit van nonchalantly kept up with them. Sherlock quickly put on his leather gloves.

"Yep." said John, flipping quickly through the atlas.

"Right." said John. "There's a lay-by as soon as the bridge ends. Almost exactly one hundred yards from where the bridge rails end flush to the ground. The lay-by connects directly to the service road behind it that parallels the M4, and looks like it heads in both directions. We can either keep going, or…" he looked at the map. "Or, we can double back for the 100 yards, go under the bridge and head north till we get to the A48 and take that secondary road all the way into Cardiff."

"We probably need to do just that. I suspect if they don't see us, they will wait at the toll bridge, and there won't be any side roads going past it, to prevent toll avoidance." Sherlock had been slowly accelerating as they crossed the bridge, and their transit van shadow had kept up with them. They were now rapidly approaching 90 miles an hour, well over the speed limit. Now they knew they had to get rid of the van.

"Hang onto your tea." said Sherlock. He leaned forward at the wheel and shifted into the middle lane, to avoid the slower cars. He pulled the switch for the fog lights and punched it. Right past the suspension poles, he entered a white night at 110 miles an hour.

John went as white as the fog. The visibility in front of them couldn't have been more than 60 yards at the most, and they were now plowing into it at top speed. He couldn't think of anyone doing anything more stupid.

Sherlock wasn't keen on it either. He was a beast of precision maneuvering. "John, will I have to fully stop to get on the service road?" he asked intensely.

"No. You'll be able to maneuver onto it at least 30 miles an hour."

"All right. I'm trusting you." Sherlock passed 3 cars that were in the far left lane, wsst, wsst, wsst… and shoved the Defender back into the far left lane, at over 100 miles an hour.

"The bridge rails are about to end. As soon as they end it's one hundred yards." Said John, gripping the bar above the window and the handbrake by instinct. His heart was in his mouth. He looked in the rearview and the transit van was not visible, but it couldn't have been more than two hundred yards behind them.

Sherlock rapidly began to brake and the lay-by approached with three seconds to spare before they passed it. He rapidly shifted into fourth, and the Defender fell in speed without squealing a single tire. Sherlock heaved the car off the motorway, first once onto the lay-by then onto the back service road in rapid succession, and suddenly they were on the gravel track behind the motorway and behind a verge of trees.

Sherlock noted the gravel was good for a handbrake turn. Lightning fast he gripped the handbrake and pressed the button. John and he both heaved the handbrake upward in unison, both of them thrown to the left by the immediate centrifuge. Sherlock's shoulder slammed against John's, hands gripping the wheel, and John's head would have hit the side window if he hadn't been holding his tea away from his lap, but he had dropped his tea in his lap to grab the bar above his head instead.

Quickly, while facing the opposite direction, Sherlock slammed his foot on the accelerator and headed down to the gravel underpass beneath the M4 they just exited, and booked it, dust and gravel flying behind them. They stopped beneath the M4 and waited for their shadow.

Both were short of breath and heavy with adrenalin. John's hand had gripped the handbrake and sissy bar above his door window so hard, that he had to pull his hands off by the wrist and wriggle his fingers to regain mobility. He was piled into the back of his seat by forward thrust and his eyes were so wide, they took over his entire face. Sherlock looked like a deer in the headlights, heaving his chest up and down.

Ridiculous with terror, they looked at each other and broke into gales of laughter. "My tea's gone down my leg," said John breathlessly. "and the front of me." he laughed. "But that was some nice driving. Actually, BRILLIANT driving."

"I know." said Sherlock, without a gram of humility.

"Where'd you learn?!"

"County Kerry. From a Northern Ireland rally driver named Sterling Cook."

"The champion?! Fergus Sterling Cook?"

"None other. He was the best of the best. It…feels good to let it out again. I despise driving in London." said Sherlock, rubbing the wheel with both his hands and gazing icily at the road in front of him. He looked over at John. "But we'll be doing this again in two weeks, and you will be reading out the turns, distances and decelerations."

"Wait. You want me to be your map reader at the rally in Donegal? Fifty yards turn left, twenty yards turn right, slow to thirty, all that sort of rubbish?"

"It isn't rubbish, John. You did it just now, and that was the most difficult thing any rallier could do. You're a brilliant navigator. I wouldn't have anyone else except Sterling himself navigating for me."

"I dunno, Sherlock. I could get us killed in a second doing that." John furrowed his brows and looked down, rubbing his sore knuckles.

"You won't. I trust you. And representing the O'Flaherty family in the rally will get us plenty of answers that the police can't get. Mycroft has us protected while we're there." Said Sherlock, and hesitated. He looked back over at John, and sighed out his last bit of adrenalin.

"I trust you." he said again, pursing his lips, and slowly blinking his eyes, the way he did when his sincerity was fully bare and without a single veil, the only such Sherlock that existed when telling John what he meant was, you are everything I stake my being on. Don't forget that.

He sighed, and started the engine. John gazed at him for a long moment, the whites of his eyes glowing thoughtfully in the darkness under the M4 bridge. He cleared his throat and found the towel in the glovebox to wipe the tea off his front, pressed the heater button to dry himself, and got a fresh shirt out of his day backpack.

In those tiny moments of pure sincerity, Sherlock was more human than anyone John knew who wore their heart on their sleeve. And it got him every time.

"All right. If you trust me, I'll do it."

"Thank you." the Defender roared off northward and rejoined the A48 down into Cardiff.

"By the way, you didn't pay the toll." mentioned John in passing with a half-smile.

"Bugger the toll." said Sherlock. "If the speed camera could get me in that fog, Mycroft would be ringing already."

John and Sherlock arrived in Cardiff about two hours later than expected; the A48 was a secondary road subject to multiple delays. It was three in the afternoon, and the timeframe they had to tour the antiquities department with Pritchard for a full briefing was running perilously thin. Fortunately due to the political and media kerfuffle surrounding the Bog Morrigan, Pritchard was able to arrange an extended briefing.

Sherlock parked the Defender in a less conspicuous location, behind a clinic off Park Lane, and they walked one street over to the main entrance of the museum. Sherlock brought out his mobile and dialed Pritchard.

"We're here…right, Iron Age, ten minutes." Sherlock turned over to John and nodded. They got into the main foyer and grabbed a map, and wound their way to Archaeology on the third floor.

As soon as they got into the Iron Age display gallery, Owen Pritchard came over with a wide smile and shook their hands. Sherlock made some quick observations. Pritchard seemed a bit more relaxed than his emails had indicated, but behind him came a PA, about 27 years of age, a moderately pretty, medium built woman in black skirt and green blouse who was carrying a large file in both arms and seemed far more uptight.

Deduction came quick and fast.

Her neck was so tense and her body language so terse that Sherlock sensed near panic. But she was incredibly soft spoken and wore a beaded necklace with a star on it. No, a pentagram. Her hair was not that shade of red naturally; up, but a bit messy; she smelled of patchouli and sandalwood, she smoked.

Cat hair on her shoes and cardigan. Antler tattoo barely visible under her shirt collar on the back of her neck…large tattoo. Two earring holes, empty. Earrings removed to look respectable. One set of holes extended, tribal phase in college with ear extensions. Nose ring removed. Did she get conservative, or does she live a double life? Museum ID lanyard covered in gold pins of statues, neolithic spirals, Venus of Willendorf. Feminist. Proud of working here. Semi-permanent college employee, state employee, lifetime in institutions. Eyes on the floor, embarrassed, mortified.

Pagan.

Sherlock's eyes drifted over to Pritchard. Close trimmed brown and white beard, about 47 years old. Relaxed suitcoat with leather patches, corduroys, no tie under the shirt collar. Chalk dust on the front left hand pocket from reaching up to a chalkboard. Left-handed. Antique gold spectacles with filigree. Old money family? Wedding ring mark etched into left hand ring finger. Removed. Divorce. Widower would likely still be wearing his.

Sherlock reached his hand out. "Good afternoon, Doctor Pritchard."

Pritchard smiled pleasantly and shook Sherlock's hand. "I am so thankful to have you here, gentlemen. It's a pleasure to meet you." Posh accent. Didn't ask for first name basis. Old money, middle aristo. Or second or third son of Earl.

"This is my PA and understudy, Breege Bailey." She held out a limp hand to each Sherlock and John, gave a curt nod, and then her eyes fell to the floor again. Irish pronunciation of Bridget, thought Sherlock.

"John Watson." John held his hand out and shook Pritchard's.

"Yes, Dr. Watson. I have the pleasure of reading your blog, and both you and Sherlock have the distinct experience in the recovery of antiquities. We are in great need of this experience right about now."

"We read in the papers that there is an antiquity that the government of Ireland is demanding be returned to the National Museum. It looks like a fairly sticky situation." said Sherlock, guardedly.

"Stickier than you know." said Pritchard. "It appears that the Bog Morrigan has instigated a massive underground feud, and we are at the centre of it." his eyes furtively glanced over to Breege Bailey. Sherlock noticed disgust in his tone of voice, and she looked positively mortified. She has something to do with this, and confessed to him, thought Sherlock.

"So you suspect who is at the centre of this, then?" asked Sherlock.

"Poseurs and playacting." snorted Pritchard. "But we'll discuss this out of the public eye later on."

"So, tell us about this carving." said John. "How old is it? What's it depict?"

"She's a goddess figure, eight inches high, carved out of brown Irish Elk antler ivory, and it's just a simplistic carving of a woman carrying a crow figure on her arm. But she's wearing a helmet, and dagger, over her dress, and her dress is decorated with La Tene-style spiralling." They were slowly walking through the gallery, and Pritchard pointed over to the remains of a magnificent bronze shield. "do you see the decoration on that shield?" he asked. Sherlock looked closer.

"400 BC." he said, without looking at the placard dating it.

"Very close." said Pritchard. "That's the dating of the carving. 2400 years ago. So we're looking at mid-Iron Age before Roman occupation."

"She's quite a find then." said John.

"Yes indeed." said Pritchard. "We had her in the collection since the early twentieth century; it was the infamous Earl of Carnarvon up in Scotland who sent her down to us just before the even more infamous Howard Carter expedition in KV."

John barely recalled his primary school history lesson. "King Tut…" he mentioned to himself. "…Kings Valley?"

"Precisely." said Pritchard.

"So, where is this Bog Morrigan figure now?" asked Sherlock, cutting abruptly to the chase.

"Well, that's where we need to go up to my office in Numismatics." said Pritchard. "Let's discuss this over some tea."

Breege had been following quietly behind, while Sherlock waited patiently to pick up her accent. "I'll make the tea for us and bring it up from the canteen." she said, and veered away to go back down the lift to the restaurant on the second floor.

Posh Dublin accent. Ballsbridge, D4, Killiney, Blackrock, Bray, thought Sherlock. Getting her doctorate when something embarrassing happened, he thought, and she's desperately attempting to mop up the tatters of her career.The British Museum network was internationally a really big career step. She could be studying archaeology in Ireland well enough, he thought, but this internship was her future bread and butter to curatorship internationally.

And she's made a really huge mistake, somehow connected to this.

Breege offered to take John and Sherlock's coats and hang them on the very old mahogany hat tree just outside Pritchard's office in Archaeology and Numismatics. Sherlock hesitated a second, looked her in the eye, and accepted her offer. John said he had a chill, and kept his military jacket on.

Coming out of an echoing corridor, Sherlock and John entered what was once a beautiful set of rooms with high windows and vaulted ceiling. Now they were partially obstructed by shelves and shelves of books, piles of dusty oriental rugs, and case after case of thoughtlessly jumbled artefacts in the middle of cataloguing, or up for research purposes forgotten five or ten years ago. The entire wall by the door was stacked with opened cardboard boxes from various addresses all over Wales and western Britain, products of various digs which had to be brought out, catalogued, cleaned, restored, carbon dated for verification, and placed in the vault.

Between a half-dead fern and a spider plant gone mad with runners, Breege found a location near Pritchard's desk to place the tea tray. The spot she chose was the least covered in unidentifiable dust and dead bluebottle flies. The bright summer daylight poured thinly through high Edwardian windows, opaquely yellowed with decades of pipe-sporting curators long gone with the new smoking laws. She switched on the Tiffany lamps in the corners and started pouring the tea into perfectly rosy Royal Albert china that did not match the shambles surrounding them.

"Cream, sugar?" she asked them generally.

"Double whack of both, please." said Sherlock, who liked sugar more than most diabetics.

"Just milk, please." said John.

Sherlock and John sat down in two grandiose teak monstrosities padded with crushed and arseworn upholstery that had long lost their patterns, except for the barest hint of paisley at the brass rivets. Pritchard's seat behind his desk was the world's ugliest wheeled office chair. Breege handed him his tea, and passed theirs to John and Sherlock, who both took the barest sips and simultaneously placed both saucers on the edge of Pritchard's desk.

Sherlock cleared his throat and looked straight at Pritchard. "I'd like to see the artifact, please."

"It's lost." said Pritchard. "What I need from you is to find out who…"

Sherlock switched on his deduction machine. John could see the steely glare suddenly manifest, the rod snap tight in Sherlock's back, his hands calmly interlaced in his lap, the small bend forward. He sank in his chair and turned his gaze from Pritchard, looking away apologetically just to avoid their inevitable mortification.

"It is not lost, it is in your possession. Breege works in the vaults here cataloguing artefacts for your office. She knew that the Bog Morrigan was here, but somehow she found the Bog Morrigan cross-referenced in a Dublin museum catalogue that predated the Irish civil war and assumed that it was property of the Irish state that had been stolen. Carved deities are rare in the Celtic tradition except as stone pillars and early Christianity took care of most of those, so a carved statue of a goddess would be valuable beyond fortune.

"The two of you are enjoying a fling, you because you're lonely, her because she thinks it's good for her career. But that's where her loyalty ended. She discovered an artifact that she thought was stolen by the British from Ireland, and it was too much for her not to inform the authorities in Ireland. Which she did. She sent them both catalogue entries. So now the Irish State officially requests the item to be returned, probably at the valued price it was bought around what, 1918? 1920? At what was considered the cut rate price of a few quid thanks to unscrupulous employees of the museum in Dublin, and the scouts of the earl of Carnarvon.

"But the earl made a generous donation to your museum to stay in the good books of all the British institutions. He sent you the Bog Morrigan. And your PA here, Breege, found her in the vaults and took her home to keep. And I think she told people. I don't know who. But they're the ones threatening you now. And it eventually dawned on her somehow that she made a mistake that could cost her a career.

"So she gave it back to you with her shameful confession in order to keep her job. And you have it, here, hidden in the insanity of your office that no one could possibly have the covert time to rifle through, so someone is trying to scare it out of you, or has offered you a large sum of money, or both. You reported the artifact stolen and you are biding time to see what you are offered between warring bidders."

"So, Dr. Pritchard. I would like to look at this artifact. Please get it for me."

Sherlock sat stock-still, waiting for a response. Pritchard was holding onto the edge of his desk and leaning back in shock. Breege was sheet white and looked absolutely defeated.

Slowly, with shaking hands, he reached to the middle drawer of his desk, opened it slowly, and brought out something wrapped in a tea towel and white crepe paper.

Sherlock reached out with his eyes glaring down Pritchard's, and lifted the towel wrapped item. He peeled back the tea towel and the white crepe paper, and there was a dark coffee-coloured statue of a goddess in dress that seemed to summon the Book of Kells, sporting a crow in her upturned hand, spirals on her dress, a helmet and dagger, and a spear behind her. It was a flattish figure, carved out of a wide, thick section of Irish Elk antler, and was half sculpture and half engraving as the features were not fully carved out.

It was pretty, and fairly detailed. The cracking of the antler indicated it had seen a very many years, and there was a section of the edge of her dress that seemed cut off. "Radiocarbon dating?" asked Sherlock, almost to himself.

"The antler is 14,000 years old, it's Irish Elk."

"14,000 years ago was the ice age. Uninhabitable." said Sherlock.

"You're right." said Pritchard. "So we have to go on that these markings were made later, but still during the mid-Iron age. And it was found in an Iron Age ringfort on an island in Fermanagh. But that's not why I rang you."

"Why did you ring us?" asked Sherlock.

"To help find out who is terrorizing me, because the police have no idea, and can only ask me to find out so I can get them an ASBO. That's all. And I'm dead tired, and scared, and haven't gotten any decent sleep for a week thanks to all the threats. Which, by the way, are terrifying. Mail drops written in blood, blood and candles on my doorstep, dead goat in my driveway up at my cabin in Tydfil, bellows spear in my garden, whooping in the wood.

"I am literally at my wit's end. Please help." Pritchard's voice was breaking.

"You're debating with yourself as to selling this but you're afraid of what someone else may do to you, professor, isn't that right." said Sherlock. "Look, I'll help you, but you need to be honest with me. Obviously since it isn't lost, selling it isn't an option, it's museum property. But you're afraid of what will happen to you if you don't sell it, or if you send it to Dublin, or if you sell it to one party and not another. You are damned in all directions, and the only option you have to keep your professional reputation and person safe, is for me to expose and discredit whoever is doing this to you."

Breege burst into tears and fled the room. Her conscience had gotten the better of her.

Pritchard's head was down looking at the ground, his hands were still on his desk, fingers dug into his leather desk cover, and he had pushed his chair back. His motives were bare now thanks to Sherlock. John looked up to see his face.

Pritchard raised his head, tears in his eyes. "Yes." He said. "Yes to all of it."

"Good." said Sherlock. "Now, you are going to give me a lead to interview tomorrow to see what's going on."

"Only if you tell him that you are the law, and there's nothing he can do to me now. He's been putting the pressure on me to sell this to him like you wouldn't believe. But I surely think he's not the main culprit for the threats." said Pritchard.

"Write down his address and number, and we will interview him tomorrow." said Sherlock. Pritchard sighed deeply and wrote down the name and number.

Before giving the paper to Sherlock, he added, "Please. Whatever you do, this man gives enormously to the community. His grove volunteers for soup kitchens and fundraising. They own charity shops that benefit the elderly and children with cancer. Please do not address him disrespectfully, and send my utmost regrets and regards."

Sherlock took it, folded it, and nodded. "We'll ring you tomorrow." and they left.

John and Sherlock burst out of the front doors of the museum and bounded down the steps onto Gorsedd Gardens Road. "Right." said John. "Where first?"

"Where indeed." said Sherlock. "How about dinner?"

"Bit early for you." said John.

Sherlock stopped for a second and drew a folded piece of paper from his pocket; it wasn't the one Owen Pritchard had given him. "Breege has given us the answer to most of this riddle. She feels horrible about what she did. And it's gravy for us."

John took the paper and read it.

Bigwig meeting tonight, all parties involved re the Morrigan. Meeting at Pontypridd rocking stone circle at midnight. Please, whatever you do, stay hidden. I will be escorting in J. She does not know I have changed my mind. She is dangerous.

My religion was everything to me, but I have discovered of late that it is also a means to an end for the ruthless. This is called a witch war, and I am mortified that I brought this on by informing my superiors in the tradition. This has spiraled out of control and it is my fault. I love Owen. Please don't let anything happen to him.

B

They took off again down Park Place and took the path one street over to get to the car just on the other side. "Religion?" asked John. "How is this about religion?"

"Neo-paganism." said Sherlock, walking so fast his coat was flying behind him. John kept pace. "Probably the most deeply divided set of beliefs on Earth, belonging to those who academically batter about with contrived sorcery and animistic shamanism because they haven't the courage to be atheists. The problem is, like tribal pagans, it's rooted in racial and cultural identity and not any particular genuine ideology, so when it's pagan versus pagan, there's no moral structure there to buffer a battle of beliefs."

"You know, there were some blokes in the Army making a bit of a fuss about being acknowledged as pagans and having their own chaplain. I remember that too." said John. "But I can't recall actually knowing any of them."

"It's the same as any other form of religion. Believing that someone invisible likes you the best. It's tiresome nonsense whether or not it's a god or goddess." Sherlock whipped out his keys and pressed the unlock button on the fob.

"Sherlock, you know how I get when you start god-hating. We all need a moral compass." said John as the car chirped, and he opened the Landrover's door.

"Ugh. Not again. You really think this is as legitimate as any other form of superstition?" sighed Sherlock in agitation. "My moral compass doesn't need an invisible deity who made the universe, John. It works fine on its own." Sherlock made it to the Defender, launched himself in, and slammed the door shut.

"Yes, I can tell." said John. "By how compassionate and caring you are for humanity's suffering." he added, acidly.

He regretted that immediately, because he knew Sherlock better than to strike out so quickly. Sherlock employed the art of being a complete judgmental jerk to protect his own compassion, because that compassion was far bigger than the well most people have at their disposal. "Sorry…it's just…sometimes." John's eyebrows furrowed deeply. "You're a bit of an atheist ass."

Sherlock sighed deeply, licked his lips, and didn't answer back. He took another deep breath, and changed the subject. "We don't have to work until eleven tonight. We'll be staying in Pontypridd, north of here, at a B&B right outside town and adjacent to the rocking stone circle." He started the car. "Right now, there's a nice independent Italian restaurant just on Cardiff Bay, just above the Ianto Jones Memorial on the boardwalk. I like to go there to walk and think. You mind Italian?"

John looked at him quietly. "Not at all. You're buying, as always."

"Always." said Sherlock, and took off to Cardiff Bay.

On Mermaid Quay, John and Sherlock sat outside in the evening sunshine. John was tearing into a lovely bowl of mushroom stuffed ravioli in bacon and caramelised onion alfredo sauce, and Sherlock sucked thoughtfully on a breadstick. He had finished his prawn crisps and red bull much sooner, with John just starting his main course.

Sherlock pulled the bit of paper out of his pocket with the contact info on it for Dafydd Pryce, retired Labour MP, Archdruid of South Wales, and the cultural coordinator for the Rhondda Valley Arts Council, and had a good long think while John devoured his ravioli.

Dafydd Pryce stepped out into the light of the lit torches in the circle of the Pontypridd rocking stone. His chiseled face was as angry as an ancient oak tree's gnarled iron, and he was not in any form of garb for the entry to the circle, just his usual tailored blue work suit and red tie. A thin, waifish woman in jeans and cardigan with long brown hair sat casually on the rocking stone, waiting for a neutral discussion. She was barefoot.

"So. Here we are." he expelled his breath in exasperation.

"Here we are. You wouldn't happen to have the Morrigan on you by any chance?" She looked up from toying with her pentagram necklace.

"She may not be in my hands but she isn't yours to have anyhow." he glowered. "She is part of history, not 'magick', whatever you call the aggressive manipulation of powers that should be free and unfettered by your filthy politics."

"That's a long-winded way to say no." she said. "Look, she's catalogued in Dublin, she disappeared to raise money for the guns of war, now we want her back. That's all. Just a trinket. Why all the bother?"

"It's not the price, woman. It's the principle. She was bought and paid for fairly." Dafydd looked exasperated.

"Paying for a woman. Yes, typical of a male dominated tradition like druidism." While she spoke, he shook his head at her out of exasperation.

"Bl-oody nonsense. You know well as I do that we have priestesse..," he interjected.

"DO NOT INTERRUPT." she suddenly roared. She gathered herself and her eyes were smoldering. "You'll need to simply accept she was never anyone's to sell, especially Eamon de Valera's. She belongs to Irish wicca, fair and square."

"How dare you make such a claim on the basis of a contrived religion chartered by a Satanist." he spat. "She is better off in our care and not in the hands of repugnant perverts with a mandate from Aleister Crowley."

She shot her head up and hissed at him. He raised his chin at her in defiance. "Your traditions aren't more than seventy years old." he continued ruthlessly. "Your religion is a farce, and it is a tradition of manipulation and self-aggrandizing sorcery."

"Well, arch druid. You have such beautiful things to say about the Gardnerian tradition. You seem to forget that your ancestor William Price's devotions were based on contrived traditions."

"We rebuilt our language and culture. We keep civic duty our top priority. Your people don't even have a civic presence. It's full of drug-pushing dissident Republicans and card carrying Satanists. Crowleyan rubbish who do what they wilt, and harm everyone in their way." Her eyes were fire, but he was seething.

She pursed her lips, staring into his eyes. "It's a legitimate form of fai…,"

He stopped and shouted at her. "Faith? FAITH. Right. WHAT sort of moral code do you actually even have? Crom Cruach, that's your code. Consume everyone in your path. Take no prisoners."

"We're a feminist earth religion, you should know that." she said venomously, pacing quietly.

"BOLLOCKS." he was furiously pacing widdershins inside the circle around her. "You sell that nonsense to Llandudno books, but I know for a fact your lot is as bloodthirsty as that crow you worship." He walked straight up to her and seethed in her face.

"Just…like…the…terrorists. You feed gullible Americans and hippies across Western Christendom with your rubbish, take the book royalties, create an alternative religion, but that's not the beast you are. I see the beast you are, woman. You're not feminists, you're monsters. All the hardest feminists I know are atheists. Your manipulation of the sacred to your purpose, and not the people's, makes me want to burn the groves my family kept sacred and take on their disbelief."

He kept his face in hers, his green eyes flaming, his trimmed brown and grey whiskers arching forward at her like a sea lion's, his nose flaring at her.

She calmly and quietly faced him, eyes locked. "Always the Labour lefties, you Rhondda druids." she smiled. "Always 'for the People'. For the civic good. For the 'working man'." she paced quietly around the stone. "How about, 'for the Goddess'? Will you do nothing for Her?" she asked.

"The Goddess knows her own mind. I worship Her, I don't claim to be a puppet of voodoo possession by your goddess. You do. That's disturbing and nothing I want close to me." he said.

"Well, she says she wants her image back in Ireland where she belongs paired with Crom." she walked away from him dismissively. "And since you don't perform the rituals of possession, I suppose you can assume she is speaking through me, and take my word for it."

"And I suppose you divined this through some non-family-friendly deviant sex ritual designed to channel your goddess." he sighed disgustedly. "You know what, Jane Farrington, I am finished with you. Your mole in the museum might have reported the Bog Morgana to the Irish antiquities board, but it's not getting in your hands no matter how much money your army of faithful college prats has raised to buy it."

"Oh, I think the seller will have something to say about it." she said. "And the Irish Antiquities Board. I do not intend for it to fall into their hands; they don't have a third the money we have raised to pay for it." Jane smiled. "I only made my mole squawk so they would make the National Museum buckle to us and give it up."

"And I have told a group who want her in their hands for their own traditions. Traditions far older than yours or mine as neo-pagans, I might add. A group with far more money than your lot."

Jane turned and looked slightly displeased. "And who could that possibly be?!" she demanded.

"The Royal Mcdonoughs."

Jane Farrington blanched. "The wifebeating bare knuckle boxers?!"

"Yes. Bare knuckle fighters, dog runners, horse beaters, pull all their daughters out of primary school to marry at 12. Weddings cost 100 grand, own 10 separate family compounds in nine different counties, own Limerick, and will kill your granny for her penny jar.

"I told the Royal Mcdonoughs that she was in the market, to keep their eyes out, to let us know. Now through their fairy lore they think if they get their own hands on her, their bare knuckle leadership of the amalgamated travelling tribes incorporated will be a permanent thing. "

She glared at him, her eyes wide as dinner plates.

He sucked his breath in slowly, out of a sense of triumph. "They find it on you, and you're beaten or worse just to start with. I told them that perverts were about to claim leadership over the fairy horde of all Ireland, buying an image of the Banshee carved by their ancestors for fifty grand. You can imagine how that bonkers crowd perked up their ears."

Jane Farrington was horrified with rage and indignance. "HOW DARE YOU."

"I DARE IT!" he roared. "I am not afraid of your invisible servants. I don't just give those powers lip service for favours.

"It's better to need nothing and give everything, and it's a morality war between our gods now. May the best deity win." he walked out of the circle, and piped up as he left: "Now we are all on even ground. If we can't keep her, no one will. Pritchard did all of us a favour, sorceress."

The torches died out and the cold damp of the Welsh night returned in Pontypridd.

Jane was one angry witch, and Dafydd Pryce, great-great grandson of William Price, founder of the new druidism movement in the Rhondda valley of South Wales, was not afraid of her in the least.

Jane turned and stalked out of the circle in disgust, holding a torch to avoid tripping on the avenue stones leading in. Breege joined her with the other torch and helped Jane get her shoes on. Then they got in Breege's BMW and left.

Adjacent to the rocking stone, Sherlock and John clambered out from underneath a gigantic fir tree with branches drooping all the way to the ground, where they had shut off their mobile phones and sat since 11:30. They had quietly listened to the exchange in the circle on a bed of soft, noiseless pine needles.

Both of John's eyebrows were up near his hairline. "Well!" he said. "That was interesting."

"Yes." said Sherlock. "I am officially not bored."

Dafydd Pryce no longer worked out of his Rhondda constituency offices in Merthyr Tydfil for the Labour party. Instead, his offices were in the crisply restored Arts Council brick townhouse adjacent to the old town hall in the centre of the town, now in full swing of an immense restoration project for a new theatre and arts complex serving Merthyr College.

Pryce was the government employee in charge of overseeing a massive cultural project that would be yet another mark of integrity for the Rhondda district of South Wales. The signs above his cosy brick office entrances were hand-carved bilingual works of art in burnished oak relief, swinging slightly on scrollworked black iron in the cobblestone sunshine.

Next door, the smell of espresso steam wafted into the footpath, as a posh coffee shop was in full swing serving outdoor customers at reclaimed secondhand tables with daisy vases and mismatched chairs. On the other side was a shop blooming with every colour of hand-dyed scarf and handbag imaginable. And in the old town hall, now arts centre across the cobbled road, the din of pressure hammers in the cement replacing a faulty electric supply wire, the whacking of hammers putting up drywall in the new art gallery and the circular saws pealing through the summer breeze, currently ruined any attempt at posh pretense by any business in the district. Everyone grit their teeth and waited desperately for it to finally be finished in a month.

John was looking inquisitively at Sherlock in the summer sunshine over his cappuccino cup while Sherlock gazed across the road and up the laneway.

"There's no point being out this early if we're not going to see Pryce today." said John crossly. "This is a bit of a holiday for me, and I never get in till midnight, so one day coming out past eleven wouldn't go amiss. I like a good lie in."

"Which is ironic, seeing as you're meant to be the oh-so-motivated professional," teased Sherlock, breaking his gaze up the road for a sidelong glance. "Now let me watch the road. Pryce isn't in yet. We'll see how last night's altercation panned out."

"Why, how do you think it will pan out?" asked John.

"People who believe in magic wars and lightning bolts, witch doctors and favour of the gods. They believe in it so it affects them. If he's in a state, we can work that to our advantage. Get more information off him."

"That's like walking into a church and acting the holy roller to get information off people." said John, wearing his 'I can't believe you would do such a thing' face.

"It works." said Sherlock lazily.

"I suppose you've done it then."

"Pentecostals are the easiest. You have no dogma, just jump up and down a bit and wave your hands in the air. They'll tell you everything you need to know."

"I can't believe your nerve." John was laughing by now. "You're bloody unbelievable."

"I don't mind them. They make very bad liars. Most of the nutjob churches have fairly decent blokes in them. Watch out for the old women, though. They're vicious. They can smell you a mile off." Sherlock raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes in mock fear, then sipped his tea. "Catholics are another story, though. They're required to believe in dogma and that adds even more nonsense on top of resurrection and world deluges. They make astonishingly good liars."

John put his head in his hands. "God, Sherlock."

Sherlock gazed down the road. "Precisely. Now all we need to know, is which invisible god is doing the psychological smiting."

John looked wistfully at his watch, wanting the day to be over already at 9.30 AM. Adventure was certainly his cup of tea, but today the sunshine was beckoning a nice country walk and picnic. "Can't we just go do some research down at the museum? Breege invited us down. Or take a walk over in that wood by Pritchard's cabin." He breathed in a bit wistfully. "I wouldn't mind a walk in the woods. Since we're out of London. No rabid hounds to contend with, just mad tree worshippers."

"We'll be going soon." said Sherlock. "I just want to see how this war is panning out."

As soon as he mentioned it, Dafydd Pryce parked his silver Audi TT across the road, and in it was a great massive dent on the drivers side. He got out and was wearing a blue cast on his arm. Grimly he walked into his office, accompanied by his frail-looking and worried wife.

Sherlock grimaced and raised his eyebrows again, and looked sidelong over at John. John, however, looked concerned, more so than usual. And then he looked at Sherlock.

"Well, someone's voodoo certainly seems to have worked." said Sherlock.

"I need to find out more. I don't like this." John started to get up from the table, coffee only half finished.

"No, John, let's keep watching. Don't be too eager to blast off finding the truth when you haven't triangulated the lies." Sherlock stayed in his chair and beckoned John to sit. "A few more persons are going to arrive shortly."

"Triangulated the lies. What does that even bloody mean?!" asked John, exuding more than false exasperation on an otherwise lovely morning.

"I triangulate the truth by listening to the way that peoples' lies echo, like a game of Chinese whispers reverberating and checking itself within an organic field of self-organising chaos." said Sherlock tersely.

"Yeah, English please." John sipped his coffee.

"Deduction."

"Sounds like the selfsame voodoo rubbish you so eagerly love to rubbish." teased John.

Sherlock was gazing up the road. "SHH." he nearly barked. John frowned and then shot a quick glance next door. Two men in shabby brown suitcoats and jeans quickly made their way into Pryce's door without buzzing in. They were wearing small green glass baubles on silver chains under their shirts, and country caps. "The troops are arriving." He nonchalantly downed his tea mug and stood up.

John stood up as well and put a pound coin on the table. "Well, are we having a chat with him?"

"Not now. Let him have his meeting. I fancy a brisk country walk." said Sherlock.

"That's better, something to look forward to, right?"

"No. I hate nature, John. You know that. Be sure to bring the forensics kit and your lockbox." They left for the Tydfil forest.

John and Sherlock charged in the Defender up the A470 toward the Merthyr reservoir. The day was becoming prettier and more glorious as the morning progressed, and at a perfect 23 degrees with a grassy breeze tinged with coniferous pollen, John, through a quick progression of sneezes, still became more cheerful.

This did nothing to improve Sherlock's mood. Sunshine made him glower. He felt that sunshine and heat muddled his thought processes, and the smell of cut lawns and roses did nothing to improve his sense of smell for more subtle things. Heat made him feel stupid and slow, and sunshine tended to blind his skills of observation as well. He leaned over John, punched the glovebox, whipped out a pair of sunglasses, put them on and continued speeding toward the reservoir exit.

John didn't care about Sherlock's mood. Smiling, he pressed the radio button and it blared loudly on a commercial station playing the latest club thumps from everyone's Spain holidays.

It cut into a loud American action promo voice, advertising some local club DJ event sponsored by Tydfil's largest drink-till-you're-blind bar. John grinned behind his hand and counted to five.

"AAAAAARRRRggggh." spat Sherlock. John chuckled and hid his face toward the side window, giggling behind his hand. "DO NOT force me to subscribe to this mindlessness. YOU KNOW ME better than that." He punched the radio button to Classic FM and the haranguing American voice was replaced by the quiet Elizabethan trills of Thomas Tallis. Breathing in relief, he leaned back at the wheel, and glanced at the rearview.

Another white transit van was behind them, but it did not seem to be so intent on following them as the last. It was well behind a good 75 yards, so Sherlock only permitted a small bit of his observation to continue noticing it.

"So, a lovely walk today, then?" sighed John, leaning back in the chair and folding his fingers over his stomach. "Will we stop to get a picnic lunch?"

"Not in holiday mode, John. Just red bull and crisps for me."

John sniffed at that and smiled. "You live on those bl-oody things. If it weren't for the vitamin C in potatoes I'd tell you to eat a steak and not get bl-oody rickets. Good thing you're getting a bit of sun." he teased, immediately in Doctor Mode. Sherlock snorted.

"Coronation chicken salad and bottle of wine for me, I think. Shall we stop on the way?" continued John.

"Don't muddle your brain. We're not exactly out of the danger zone yet. I think we will be meeting our shadows very soon." Sherlock glanced at the rearview. The van was still far behind, and began indicating for a left into a garage. He allowed himself to temporarily dismiss any sense of immediate danger.

"Who do you think they are?" asked John, getting a little alarmed.

"I have my suspicions. Keep your heat close, take it out of the lockbox when we stop for the walk. I suspect with the sort we'll meet, being alone at the edge of a forest will be the perfect place for them to have a little talk." Sherlock patted the chest pocket on the black lightweight duster he was wearing, more appropriate for the sunny weather than his usual greatcoat.

John knew that Sherlock was patting the hiding spot for his latest Asian toy, an antique ninja Tanto that he had snapped up on ebay for 50 quid and instructed the importers to label as "cookware", which if x-rayed, would have appeared as a chef's knife and passed Customs…if they even cared to make the effort.

The tanto had been made with the usual 2,048 layer Damascus steel as was typical for Japanese military weapons of the late 1930s. The hilt and sheath were exquisitely tooled copper keywork designs punctuated by little silver horses, with the raised name of a long dead family member in kanji lettering on the sheath.

Sherlock nearly crowed with delight as it had arrived in the letterbox at 221B two weeks earlier, and had immediately ripped the box apart to show John. "Oooooohhh…Look at this! You could shave with it!" he grinned, almost evilly. "Look at that toolwork." He caressed it like an already-beloved memento.

"Bollocks. Shaving with a knife is miserable." John had glanced at it and went back to his Mirror tabloid and cup of tea.

"Really. HAH. Watch." Sherlock petulantly faffed off back to the bathroom and lathered his neck. He came in and stood in front of the beveled mantelpiece mirror, tanto in hand.

"Yeah, really, you might want to sharpen that." John clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes skyward. He had been in combat training with the usual large utility knife issued soldiers, and they had been instructed to always sharpen before shaving in the field, otherwise the burn and itch would distract the constant observation for long range snipers and IEDs. "The steel is in the kitchen. I think. Unless you replaced it with something nasty."

"Really, John. A steel would dull this. If it needs sharpening it will be at a jewelers. Now watch." Sherlock raised the blade to his neck and angled it slowly upward, pulling up a layer of foam. "Look."

John peered over as Sherlock bared his neck at him. Smooth as satin. "How sharp is that thing?!" he asked, immediately curious. Sherlock wiped the foam off and handed it to him, hilt forward, thumb and forefinger well away from the blade edge. He casually picked it up out of Sherlock's hand, and gently scraped his index finger horizontally across the blade. It was so sharp, that without barely a few ounces of pressure it had given John a nasty paper cut.

"OW!" said John, and handed it over to Sherlock like a dead rat, sucking his finger. "Bloody hell, your toys." John went back to his tea and paper, giving it a good crack outward to denote being somewhat put out.

"Told you." said Sherlock, and to make a point, continued shaving with it quickly and efficiently, wiping it on the towel on his shoulder, humming a bit of Brahms as the terra cotta Chinese warrior on the mantelpiece gazed on silently next to an expensive Harris tweed deerstalker, gleefully and vengefully pinned to the mantel with his Leatherman.

Only an Eton man could have rocked such a hat, and Sherlock despised both it, and Eton, as Mycroft was one of its inevitable products.

The Leatherman was now in his jacket pocket along with the usual jewelers scope, 3 evidence bags, a pair of emergency latex gloves, and small zipped kit of pincers, probe and scalpel. In his other pocket, a cigarette case he dutifully hid at home from the fretting doctor in a Turkish slipper he kept slid under the settee, which in a bachelor's flat was never, ever looked under until everything beneath it had noticeably evolved into a form of life.

Mrs. Hudson had no intention of moving sofas, so the slipper was safe from just about everyone, except perhaps for Mycroft, who would have deduced precisely that, and looked.

Intolerable.

Sherlock stopped at the garage before the exit and grabbed his soda and crisps. John bought a boxed chicken tikka sandwich and tea, and as they hit the road again, regretfully nibbled at its indifferent sogginess and lack of spice that would denote tikka-flavoured anything.

They pulled the Defender off the A470 onto a side road, crossed the dam, and drove north alongside the lake by a wood run by the National Trust, with various clean and well-kept fishing spots about every 50 yards along the lake. At the Trust lodge and gardens they kept to the right along the reservoir, and the stands of conifers surrounded by grassland soon began to give way to heavy stands of sycamore. The smell in the air changed to a deep tang of hardwood and the dappled light gave way to a deeper and greener stillness.

John rolled down the window and stuck his head out like a golden retriever, the air charging up his nose in great draughts of spring headiness. Suddenly a great stand of sweet woodbine filled the air with woody jasmine and honey. "OH, would you smell that, Sherlock! I AM most certainly on holiday, I don't care what you say!" he sighed.

Sherlock snuck a look over at him. His own affection for John's moments of joy gave him a small knot in his throat, enough to sneak a little smile, and a little mist in his eye, while John's face lit up with a disarmingly warm smile that Sherlock never ceased wanting to elicit.

Sherlock heard a great buzz on the stand, and glanced over at it to see throngs of honeybees all over the explosions of small white flowers. He immediately slowed down and pulled over. Grabbing a small hand net and leather working glove stashed in his duffel bag behind the seat, Sherlock immediately leapt over a small berm of poppies into the tall grass and over to the stand of woodbine where the bees were congregating.

John was surprised, but not too bothered. He got out to stretch his legs, bringing his tea, put his other hand in his pocket to dawdle with a shilling, and casually walked toward Sherlock. He was standing in front of the flowers and darting his head back and forth, following the wandering bees. Sherlock gently whipped the net over one of the flowers to catch a single honeybee and trapped it in the netting, then slipped his gloved hand into the net to let the bee wander on the leather, without alarming it to stinging.

John had not brought his kit, nor his gun. Certainly, it was completely unnecessary. He raised his eyebrows to carefully look over at Sherlock from a slightly safer distance.

"Hawthorn, sycamore, woodbine, field clover. This is prime beekeeping stock." said Sherlock, almost to himself. "Look at the beautiful grain on the back leg. You can literally smell what it's been gathering. The honey must be utterly incredible." Then John saw Sherlock's rare smile, the real one. "Look at the abdomen. Phenomenally well fed, no chemical pollution, just perfect." He let the bee fly free, slightly flustered but not angered.

"See, now you're getting in the spirit of it." said John, grinning. Sherlock breathed in and closed his eyes, finally allowing an entire minute of gentle delight to pass across his face in the breeze. The strains of Villanelle on classical guitar gently wafted from the windows of the Defender, which was now tinged slightly with yellow from the pine pollen.

There really couldn't have been a more perfectly wonderful moment of spring in South Wales.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to last.

That moment, two battered transit vans coming from opposite directions screeched to a stop and pulled in, blocking the Defender on both ends. A brand new black and silver BMW pulled in just after. Two frighteningly beefy men got out of the BMW, and four more out of the transit vans.

Shite. My gun. Thought John, remembering he had left it in the Defender.

Sherlock turned calmly, pulling his gloves off and into his coat pockets, and faced an army of ginger and black-headed warriors, almost all with formerly broken noses, and jaws as hard and square as granite.

When Sherlock was about to fight, time slowed down for him. His mind could see all the weak spots of his opponents in slow motion, and the entire universe for him was suddenly choreographed in a sublime waltz that Johann Strauss could not best. Even the surrounding breezes slowed, and he could detect every beat of the wings of the bees surrounding him in the woodbine undergrowth behind him.

The grasses bent slowly down in the sun at his feet, and the bead of sweat on John's brow reflected the sparkle of the sun's orb. A concerto of tension pulsated in John's jawline, and in the veins of his hands. In this moment, breathing in was like drinking a draught of light, and the surge of adrenalin seized his lower back in electric ecstasy.

The line of freckled ginger and craggy, tan warriors facing him down were in flannel shirts, tees and Levis. They wore great leather work boots spattered with dust, and were sweating as well, though obviously more from the heat than from fear, as they did not know who they were confronting.

Sherlock spoke slowly to disarm their attack, hands at his sides, favouring one leg in a casual stance. "Gentlemen. To whom do I owe the visit?" he asked quietly, staring straight into the older man who stood in front of them, a full four inches taller than the tallest in their lineup, the shortest of whom was five foot nine.

"Well, that's depending on who's owin' who, now." said the tall mountain quietly.

"Whom." said Sherlock, pedantically correcting his English. "Who's owing whom. By the way, didn't you win that Big Brother rubbish, or have I mistaken you for another slab of bare knuckled beef?"

This wasn't going to turn out well.

The mountain glowered at him. "I hear you fairies are lookin' for fairies." said Big Man. The group tittered simultaneously, and Sherlock glanced around, sizing up each one.

Sherlock's heightened senses suddenly felt a radiance of heat two feet from him, knowing that John's rage had been ignited in the otherwise perfectly still statue beside him. He didn't dare look in John's eyes. He knew they had become black pools of potential obliteration as they stared down the lineup before them.

"We are sportsmen directed to a shooting range on a friend's property not far from here. Do you know of any fairies in the area? They're not game, but they might make for good practice." Sherlock's smirk was showing in his voice. He also was communicating that an exchange of blows could very well lead to bullets, which made two of the group balk enough to look over at their boss, who did not break his gaze.

"You know what I'm gettin' at, lads. You know very well. You're that fairy hat detective from London with your wee pig, and the museum sent you looking for a statue we want."

"Statue…statue…doesn't ring a bell. Unless it's Michelangelo, of course. Fairies love Michelangelo." Sherlock narrowed his eyes and smiled. "And don't call John a pig. I don't think he likes it, and getting him worked up isn't a very good idea." He looked over at John, who was ready to tread the ground like a bull in Seville, nostrils flaring a direct line to the magma chamber of Mount Vesuvius. Sherlock raised his eyebrows and turned his head slowly back to the leader.

"Nope, not a good idea at all." Sherlock smiled sweetly, his hands casually clasped behind his back. "But enough with niceties." he said. "We have not been properly introduced. I am Sherlock Holmes."

"Hughie Mcdonagh, and we know who you are." said the tall man, and narrowed his eyes at Sherlock. He pronounced his name 'cue-ee', which told Sherlock a world of information about how they would fight. Among other things.

Bare knuckles, head blows, facial blows, tendon punches on the arms and shoulders, liver shots. Tactics were planned out immediately, guaranteeing that not one blow would land.

"My brother Bobby, brother James, cousins Abraham, Jackie, and Johnny." he said. They all raised up their heads at their names. "Them's all proper Bible names for good lads, and not fairies like Sherlock. We're not settled pervert scum are we lads?" NO, came the group reply of rough voices, all laughing at once.

"Oh, gentlemen, tsk tsk. I'm the least settled man you'll ever know. I've had coffees in Paris more times than you can count. …Which is up to five, I'm guessing." Sherlock snapped his chin upward. "I don't sense any primary school graduates among you. Of course, you don't need to finish P-4 to flay a horse."

John snorted loudly next to him, and added, nearly shouting, "…Or cats and dogs."

"I don't think you're very polite, mister Sherlock." said the mountain. "I think you're very cheeky. Kind of like a fairy. They're pretty cheeky too." The group of men let out some loud guffaws this time, crossing their arms in continued curiosity over the direction of the banter.

"Maybe I'm cheeky because I know what you want, and not only do I not have it, but you're not going to get it."

"Says who?"

"I do." said Sherlock. "What would you lot do with an ancient artifact? Put it on the mantel? It doesn't exactly match plastic wrapped chairs in Italian leather. And caravans don't have mantels, do they." He began to pace slowly to the right, away from John, then stopped.

"You assume too much, fairy man." said Mcdonagh. "That artifact was stolen from my family's caravan site over a hundred years ago by a settled family in Fermanagh who didn't want us by their fields." said Hughie. "She was ours for fifty generations, she keeps the bean sidhe away from our childer and gives our family the right to kingship of the fightin' lads."

"Rubbish." said Sherlock. "It's worth fifty grand and you're selling it to the highest bidder. What'll that pay for, half a wedding?" he snorted. "That's if the bride doesn't have a dress full of budgies and Christmas lights."

"You're getting too free for us to keep our fists to ourselves, fairy." said Mcdonagh, which was precisely what he wanted, as well as the five other men. They were looking for a fight.

"Was it the archdruid who put you up to this?" asked Sherlock bluntly. As soon as he asked that, the entire group erupted with laughter.

"He wanted trouble, I think." said Mcdonagh. "We don't get put up to nothin'. We do what we like, and you are in our way, boyo."

"Not really. I'd stick to flogging electronics that fell off the back of a lorry, if I were you. It's better for your health." said Sherlock darkly.

At that moment one of the transit van doors opened to reveal a scrawny looking woman in her forties, in a plain retro-looking tan dress and her fiery red, obviously-coloured hair in a massive beehive that seemed not to have changed since 1963. A freckly and sullen 7-year-old boy sat next to her, staring straight ahead, sulking about not being out in the fight. She leaned over toward one of the men, an overweight but beefy ginger man named Jackie, and muttered quietly.

Sherlock's sharp hearing heard her asking with some impatience when they would get back, as she had "spuds on".

At that moment Jackie hauled off and boxed her in the ear, hard, with one meaty fist. She immediately crumpled, holding the side of her head, mouth open in agony. "Keep yer mouth shut, woman, this is business." he said matter-of-factly. "We're sortin' the pervos."

Sherlock's eyebrows went straight up nearly into his hairline, and John, simmering on a slow fuse, simultaneously exploded. He went airborne straight toward the ginger who punched her, and Sherlock reached out lightning fast for the back of his shirt collar. John stopped short, twisting in his skin like an electrified lizard, face as red as Christmas and his lips pressed white over bared teeth. He shot one glare at Sherlock, who snapped his head in a lightning "no" motion and mouthed, "wait."

At that moment, all the men stepped forward in ecstatic anticipation of one-sided mayhem. Hughie, James and Bobby got to within two feet of John and Sherlock, who was holding John back with both hands, and John had the front of Sherlock's good shirt twisted and wrung in his fist, raging at Sherlock's entreaty to hesitate. The three men leaned in, eyes flaming, waiting for the first blow to land, knowing that 'settleds' didn't like seeing women put in their 'place'. At all. This was their chance for a massive punch-up, and they wanted one. The other three cousins leaned in behind them, waiting their turns to land a blow.

Sherlock looked at John. John looked at Sherlock. Both loosened their grips and took a giant breath.

"PROTESTANT CHOPS." said Sherlock. Unlike 'Vatican Cameos', which was hitting the deck, this meant only one thing: a jump straight up into the air, and a simultaneous dispatch of two enemies with airborne Glasgow headbutts.

The choreography of West Side Story was reborn in a scumbag symphony. And in a crescendo of grace, John and Sherlock popped up into the air like spring-loaded corks, and brought their foreheads down slap onto the nasal bones of Hughie and Bobby Mcdonagh, shattering their lumpy noses instantaneously as their two great meaty fists landed right hooks in the air. K-SHMUCKwent the sickening, wet sound of flesh and bone. At that second, four men launched themselves at John and Sherlock. Both John and Sherlock grabbed their two men by the shirtfront and pulled them toward the other two. The heads of four men impacted one another simultaneously and all four crumpled to the ground.

The entire first round was over in literally five seconds, and John launched himself toward the Defender before any one of the big men could stand back up for another round. He tore the door open and found his lockbox under the seat, and as he desperately dialed in the 4-digit combination, Abraham, a dark and curly-headed man with a craggy and weatherbeaten face, got up slowly along with Hughie. It was too late, however. John's Walther was aimed straight at all of them and he shouted.

"Keep bloody still, or you'll walk home without tyres and a bullet in your arse." John was as cool as a slab of morgue steel at this stage. He angled his head down and was heaving great lungfuls of adrenalin-tinged air, eyebrows straight up. "You just pushed the Fifth Northumberland, and if you make one bloody move…" he aimed straight at Abraham, now staring down the barrel. "…you will get what the Taliban got." Abraham slowly moved toward John in a challenge of will, one foot closer to John, and raised his chin in defiance.

John answered by pulling back the hammer, his eyes now pools of darkness. "…don't." he said, very quietly. Even the breeze had died down, holding its breath.

"Yes, John. Very effective. Manly as hell. Let's crack on." Sherlock was standing legs slightly askance, his coat splayed out behind him in abandon, and missing two shirt buttons thanks to John's earlier grip. John kept the 30-caliber automatic trained on the group as he circled round to stand close to Sherlock. All the men were starting to get up now and slowly back toward their vans.

"Not you." Sherlock pointed to Hughie Mcdonagh, along with John's gun which shadowed Sherlock's arm. "You stand right there. The rest of you, get in your vehicles, and drive away. All of you. Now. Leave Hughie's car and he will follow you."

The group followed Sherlock's orders fast and peeled out of the gravel lay-by where the Defender was parked. The sunshine returned, and the slow trills of Classic FM returned noticeably to the day's events, now a Bach choral ensemble from one of the Brandenburgs.

John and Sherlock were still on high alert, gun trained on Hughie, but Sherlock had relaxed. They began to back Hughie toward his new BMW, still with its paper tag in the rear window. Sherlock walked toward him steadily, and Hughie backed up slowly until his back hit the back door of his car, pressing himself against the car while Sherlock leaned slowly into his face.

Sherlock pressed his right leg straight into Hughie's denim crotch. John cleared his throat, and averted his eyes with a sigh of exasperation, gun still trained on Mcdonagh. This would do nothing to dispel rumours, he thought.

Sherlock's tall form leaned in hard on Mcdonagh's beefy frame, both eye to eye, Sherlock staring him down with one hand leaning on the car behind Mcdonagh's head.

Sherlock leaned in to speak four inches from Mcdonagh's ear. "We're finished here, fairy man." he said. "Will we see you again?"

"You don't play nice or fair, Holmes. We will get our justice at some stage, you know that."

"It's not justice, you're scum, it won't be today, and it won't be for Dafydd Pryce, Hughie. Now be a good boy and run your whippets a nice, long, long way away from me." He stared straight into Hughie's eyes. "…And John. Alright?"

Hughie didn't answer. He merely stared at Sherlock.

Sherlock casually backed off from pinning Mcdonagh to the BMW with his knee.

"Get out." he seethed, quietly. Mcdonagh quickly slid into the car as smooth as satin, peeled off out of the gravel, and was gone.

John dropped his gun and uncocked the hammer.

"Interesting." he said, and quietly stashed it in the small of his back, covering it with his own tee and flannel shirt. "Shall we get to our destination, then?" he asked.

"Might as well now, they won't be coming to look for us again out of stupidity. It's our best window to examine the site." said Sherlock. "Shall we?" he wheeled round and stalked toward the drivers side of the landrover.

"Coming," said John, and jumped into the side. Then they were gone.

It took them precisely two minutes of coming down from the adrenalin high to begin the cackling natter of post-brawl man bonding. Although in Sherlock's case, it was decidedly more focused on the overtly disgusting faults of criminal muscle.

"Phwoarr!" said Sherlock. "Did you smell that lot?" He wrinkled his nose and grinned. "It was like a room full of French cheese covered with twenty canisters of Axe." John erupted with laughter.

"I thought it was more like the world's most rancid chip van in the East End. The one with the mice in with the chips. …And twenty cans of Axe." John leaned forward to pull the pistol out from his jeans, pulled back the chamber to take out the round, pocketed it and put the safety back on. "They use the Daily Mail to serve the fish and chips, so that you can even read shite while eating it."

Sherlock laughed out loud, sharing their distaste for a despised Tory tabloid. He was far more relaxed after a fight than before. He felt alive, powerful, and calm, and John felt his calm as well, both buzzing with a decidedly strange sort of afterglow that the rest of the world easily ascribed to other human joys. Most of the world couldn't understand what it meant to stand your ground, or how pleasurable it was when followed through.

But most of the world wasn't John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, a two-man army who accomplished more than an actual army in dismantling the liberties that scumbags seize from the gentle. Few people wasted the time and embraced the mayhem necessary to do just that, and to be honest, nobody ever sets out wanting it. It simply becomes an acquired taste after years of tiresome bullying. Sherlock's was at the hands of hatred, John's at the hands of Taliban, and both wouldn't put up with it for a second while simultaneously satisfying their deep seated and ghoulish curiosity.

It was a recipe for the world's deepest bond of friendship between two diametrically opposed individuals so different, that the collision of matter and antimatter couldn't possibly obliterate a conspiracy with greater gusto.

As their chuckling died down, the sycamores became deep and gnarled, mixed in with oak, white pine, and yew, all becoming mossy and enveloped in a magical green light. The whole forest smelled like deep moss and fresh turned dirt, and the reservoir to their right became a river, then a trickle, and fell in among rocks to a picturesque waterfall. They drew to the left at the Y in the road and 300 yards down, Pritchard's cabin came into view, with an odd round hillock behind the cabin, covered with hawthorn bursting with blooms.

They pulled the Defender up the drive and behind the cabin to hide it from the main roadway. They were screened by a barn and a berm of hedgerows at least two centuries old, but Sherlock couldn't be too careful. He reached into the duffel and pulled out a blanket of camo netting, and after liberating the sample kit and canteens in a backpack with John properly holstering his pistol under a light jacket, they both tucked the camo net under the front bumper and pulled it over the Landrover in one swoop.

"You think we need branches as well?" asked John.

"Not really." said Sherlock. "Just luck, if Pryce's friends come looking again." He cheerily whistled as he checked his pockets for the usual bits and bobs. All in order.

"Right. Now which direction?" asked John, looking around him at the quiet back courtyard of Pritchard's cabin, which he noticed now was built of long dark vertical cedar panels and sported a quite new tin roof. All around it was landscaped with fuchsias, and the crimson and lavender buds hung on the bushes in heavy bundles.

Sherlock dug deeply into his duster pocket and pulled out a dog-eared set of Google prints along with his email from Pritchard. "I have an elevation map of the forest area and the relative position of the cabin." said Sherlock. "The email gives me a general idea of the direction of activity, and the front door is…let's see…directly west. That's where he found the spear and heard the shouting."

John noticed something different. "You've not got your iphone. That's like living without a limb for you." he said, somewhat perplexed.

"Mycroft is sending locator signals because he's a tit. Also, you're here, so there's no point."

"Molly might worry, or your parents." said John, a bit bemusedly.

"Molly takes very good care of herself, and my parents can ring Mycroft if they need me that desperately." said Sherlock, looking up from the printed email. "There's nothing like wasting government resources to locate me, making him resort to comforting their sensibilities the old-fashioned way."

"What way is that?"

"Lying to them." Muttered Sherlock.

John chuckled. Sherlock continued to plot their path around the property, planning a spiral route that would cover the maximum amount of territory. The sun was high in the sky now, and it was decidedly warm. John pulled the military cap out of his jacket pocket and put it on along with a military spec set of Ray-Bans.

"Oh. Almost forgot." John pulled off the pack and unzipped it, reaching in. "For keeping the sun out of your eyes." He pulled out the despised deerstalker, and frisbeed it toward Sherlock's head, both fronts spinning like a perfect googly cricket ball. Against all laws of probability, it landed whap-smack right on top of Sherlock's curly mop, askance and with one front obscuring half his face.

This was too much. John erupted and danced in his military boots with laughter, clapping his hands. Sherlock stood stock still and allowed him his moment. He didn't dignify an answer, and not even touching the hat, looked back down at his Google notes and compass to continue studying them, deadpan.

John found this even more hilarious. He cackled for a full three minutes, punctuated by Sherlock's occasional, "Not funny, John." which of course was utterly betrayed by a chinny grin.