We Few, We Happy Few.
It intrigued me that Holmes and Moriarty share an Irish connection. This is my take, from Moriarty's point of view, as to what that connection could be. Let me know what you think. :-)
It was nearly 2am when Moriarty returned to his flat in a quiet corner of Mayfair. It was a small, sparsely furnished apartment with a single bedroom, the box room having been converted into a study. Moriarty was sure that his living arrangements would disappoint devotees of detective and spy fiction. He was a criminal mastermind after all. Wasn't he meant to have a large underground lair? Something ostentatious with a shark tank and an efficient staff of lycra-clad young women? In another life maybe, he thought to himself with a smile. For now, he had bigger things on his mind than the inadequacies of his interior décor.
Undressing in his bedroom he was careful to hang up his suit. His mother had taught him the virtues and frugality and thrift. He owned precisely three suits which he rotated through during the week. For formal occasions, which he attended rarely, he hired a tuxedo and when he was at home alone he wore casual clothes. Power dressing was pointless if there was no-one to intimidate. Pulling on his pyjamas and dressing gown he moved through the living room to pour himself a drink. The light on his answering machine was flashing so he pressed the play button.
"Hi Jim, it's Clara. I'm in London for a few days and wondered if you fancied our usual game? Same time and place? Text me if you can't make it."
He poured himself a large whisky and settled down on the sofa. Clara Nelson was a business associate, a rather talented arms dealer if the truth be known and an utterly ruthless squash player. She always liked a game before lunch so he would have to set his alarm for an early start. It would be good to blow off some steam after the night's events.
Moriarty had always known that Sherlock Holmes was not an idiot. Arrogant, sociopathic, over-confident, over-educated but not an idiot. Even his brief flirtation with drugs had failed to dull his intellectual capabilities. For that reason Moriarty had known his life was not in danger at the swimming pool and he was reasonably confident that Holmes felt equally assured. Holmes needed Moriarty just as much as Moriarty needed Holmes. They drove one another on and without the chance to pit their wits against each other their lives would become intolerably dull. One of them might kill the other one day but not yet, not so soon, not when there was so much sport to be had.
Moriarty sipped at his whisky. It was a single malt from a small distillery in County Fermanagh. The taste reminded him of home and of his mother, Caoimhe Moriarty, a woman whose only weakness, her love for the man who had deserted her, had led her to a life of drink and an early grave in a pauper's cemetery on the banks of Lough Erne.
Yes, Holmes and Moriarty were two sides of the same coin but how much did Holmes realise that? Even as a young child he must have noticed his father's long absences from the home. It must have been mentioned to him that Holmes senior had an important job with the British government. That this meant he spent several months a year living in Ireland. Had he realised, as a teenager, that his parents slept in separate rooms and had he wondered what had driven them apart? Was he ever curious as to why his father had given him an Irish name when the Holmes family were so proudly, quintessentially English? Was he wondering now, back in his flat on Baker Street, what a coincidence it was that the man who wanted to tear his comfortable little world apart was an Irishman?
Moriarty hoped that, on this subject at least, Holmes was completely ignorant. He wanted to be there, to see the look on Holmes' face when he told him just why it was that he hated him so much. Why he'd spent the last twenty years clawing his way to the top of the criminal profession just so that he could finally be in a position to take his revenge on the Holmes family. They had destroyed his mother so he would destroy their youngest son, the apple of his father's eye.
"So, here we are Sherlock." Moriarty said, toasting the empty room with his glass. "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. Where shall we go next?"