Sleek white cardboard, jaunty bow, tag? While gifts may not speak louder than words, clients were at last learning that they provoked fewer awkward encounters than cathartic outpourings of thanks. Who's this one from then? Tag says… Molly. Oh!

Opened, tissue peeled back with a shiver of anticipation, Molly ran her fingers reverently over the woollen trench coat nestled inside.

"You approve?"

"Jesus, Sherlock! Don't sneak up on me! I love it, but…?"

"A gift, for the Westerby case. If you are going to come along with me, you need a decent coat, and Belstaffs are the best. So…"

I feel awful! M xxx

Why? SH.

Dunno… maybe that Chinese last night? Told you it tasted dodgy! :/ M xxx

Have you gone home? SH.

No, just finishing up paperwork for the day, then getting the tube. M xxx

Good. New case, it's a 10. Meet me at Kendall Green – I need you. SH.

Sliding her phone into her pocket, Molly cursed the chill damp still soaking her mac. Stylish yes, but obviously not waterproof - the joys of spring were still clearly yet to come this year.

"Molly, excellent! Got any gloves? Lestrade may want you to wear those boot things too –"

"Sherlock, what's Molly doing here?"

"I needed an assistant, John is busy. One doctor is as good as the other…" Hastily rephrasing at the black look fired across the crime scene, "I mean, someone with medical experience… Molly is clearly very qualified to assist… she's my pathol-"

"I know that, you git. I mean what is Molly doing here – the crime scene – instead of the morgue, where I just sent the body?"

"Oh, I just finished for the day, processed Nathaniel for you before I left. I think Jenkins is on tonight –"

"Not Jenkins. Molly can process the body tomorrow when she gets to work –"

"Oh I can, can I?"

Waving off his flustered attempts to backpedal, her head lurched in a drunken spin. Tucking her coat underneath, a barrier against cold and peeling paintwork, she perched on a door abandoned haphazardly against a low wall as her husband went to work.

"… six plausible explanations … you're looking for … left handed … so obvious … need to find the ligature …"

Calming her spinning head, Molly traced a triskele in the dirt with her boot, scuffing a ruby-hued ribbon away when it threatened the second swirling loop.

"… in the note - 'my Hester Prynne, tied up with a bow' … google, Lestrade? 'The Scarlet Letter'…"

At this, Molly shifted into a crouch, realisation dawning. Lifting the door slightly, she pulled carefully at the ribbon with latex-covered fingers.

"Um… Sherlock?"

"…infidelity – motive perhaps? Now…"

"Sherlock?!"

"Not me, Molly – the murderer! Do keep up!"

"But I wasn't–"

"Quite. Chances of infidelity in our relationship are practically non-existent-"

"Will you shut up and listen to me, you insufferable prat? I was trying to say – could this be your murder weapon?"

The resulting string of deductions had her husband darting away from the scene, Lestrade trailing bewildered in his wake. Molly would never tell him that an accidental nap on the tube had seen her well out of her way, arriving home only minutes before him.

"It seemed like the least I could do."

"Oh Sherlock. Its gorgeous, but you don't have to get me a gift every time I help you with a case." Moving his lips to interrupt, she calmly laid a finger on them, "But it just so happens that I have something here for you too."

Wrapping paper torn and cast to the floor, eyes widened, raised, met the expectant, amused gaze. Pale-knuckled fingers clenched reflexively around the sleeve of a second, much smaller coat.

"I thought you might have worked it out? Funny tastes, dizzy, naps? … I know its no Belstaff, but if we're gonna have a junior detective round here in nine months, they'll need a warm coat too."