Chapter 1

I stumbled as I turned away, tripping and falling onto the uneven earth around Sherlock's grave. The world around me disappeared as my tears began to fall, slowly at first but then in gasping, racking sobs which left me lying prostrate on the ground, my arms and legs flailing in sheer hopelessness. I couldn't hear the shivering of the tree leaves in the breeze above my head or feel the pale rays of the sun as it tried to break through the grey cloud above. All I knew was the pain inside my chest; the paralysing, suffocating pain which gripped me harder and more relentlessly than any human hand had ever done.

I'm John Watson, Doctor John Watson. I'm a medical man, trained to be calm and competent in the face of human suffering. I've held the hands of the dying in hospital wards in England and in the mountains of Afghanistan. I know the smells and sight and sounds of death across three continents. In Helmand I fought and often failed to hold together the shattered bodies of soldiers whose vehicles had driven over a hidden IED, breaking the inevitable news to comrades with a sympathetic squeeze of the shoulder before turning my face away. I'd lifted the bodies of mortally wounded children from the cold steel of the operating table at Camp Bastion and placed their small, slight bodies into the arms of grieving fathers. And in London I'd kept my eyes on my friend – my very best friend – as he took his last step off the roof of the building where my medical career began.

I was not afraid of death; in Afghanistan or London I faced it with the calm certainty that it could not be beaten, only cheated for a short while. But here in the desolation of a London graveyard, I knew that death had won. This death, Sherlock's death, had burnt away the heart of me. I could still move my legs and arms, blood still pumped around my body and my lungs still filled rhythmically with air, but inside the spark that had made me feel so alive and vital for the last two years had died.

The exhaustion of the last few days finally overcame my tears and I lay curled up like a foetus. In the frenzy of my weeping I had shifted back towards the headstone and now I lay, quiet and clenched on top of Sherlock's grave. As my ear pressed to the newly turned earth I thought I heard another person stirring, but there was no comfort there, no reassuring heartbeat thudding through the six feet of earth, no warmth of another body under mine.

He was gone. This man, this astounding, irritating, brilliant, arrogant, man, who broke so many limits of what was humanly possible, had been just like everyone else after all. He was dead. There were times when I didn't think he was human, but the pedestal on which I'd placed him had shattered. There were no miracles, no comebacks, no magic tricks or smart manoeuvres. Sherlock was dead. The grief began to rise up again, choking me as I tried to breathe and swirling round like a maelstrom, making me dizzy in my despair. The completeness of my loss overwhelmed me and with no glimpse of light or hope to reach for or hold onto, I passed out cold.

A flash of light burst through my eyelids. And then another, and another. Coming to, I slowly stretched my legs, stubbing my feet on the heaped earth. Blinking I opened my eyes, becoming conscious of the falling temperature around me and the shadows cast across the grave by the dying sun. A man was standing in front of me, tall and slim, repeatedly pressing the shutter on his camera which was flashing in my face.

"What…? Wh…? Who...? ". I couldn't speak.

"Dr Watson? Daniel Duckworth, journalist. How are you coping following the death of Sherlock Holmes?"
"You … journalist? How the hell… what are you doing here?" I sat up, now fully alert, and scrambled onto my knees, shaking my head free of earth.

"I got a tip off. You were asleep on Sherlock's grave, Dr Watson. Missing him are you?"

I stood up and turned away, so he couldn't see my face. "Stop flashing that thing in my face. Get lost."

"We'd like to do an interview with you Dr. Watson. Our readers really care. After all, he duped everyone, didn't he? All of us journalists and all our readers, we were taken in just as you were. How about it – an exclusive on your life together? All the personal touches, that's what our readers like. What he was like to live with, how he used to relax, his love life… that kind of thing."

I took a deep breath and turned to face him. "Why don't you just fuck off."

"We're going to run this anyway…. I've got the pictures now. You may as well co-operate; it'll run better for you if you do. Otherwise, I'll just have to draw my own conclusions. You know, lonely batchelor John Watson sleeping on Sherlock Holmes' grave. That kind of thing."

"I don't have to talk to you." I turned and ran, staggering and stumbling to the exit to find a cab.

Daniel Duckworth's piece wasn't the only one. Journalists hounded me day and night, hammering on the door at 221b Baker Street, ringing and texting, leaving messages on the blog. Their tactics were resourceful and varied as they offered ever increasing sums of money, or threatened to expose what they called the true story of our relationship. There were even suggestions that only an interview with me could help clear Sherlock's name. Others took the sympathetic tack, offering a listening ear and a chance to talk, telling me how much they missed him too.

I ignored them all. My mobile rang and bleeped until the battery died. I didn't bother to recharge it. I heard Sarah's voice and Lestrade's among the many calling through the letterbox, but lay still until their calls died away and I heard the letterbox flap spring back down into place. Each morning Mrs Hudson brought up handfuls of card-shaped envelopes, most with the address handwritten, no doubt by well intentioned sympathisers. They formed a growing pile on the floor by the sofa where she placed them until the thought of Sherlock flicking through them, deducing the personal life of each sender by the lick of the postage stamp and the shape of the handwriting caused me such pain that I kicked the pile flying across the room. Mrs Hudson didn't bring any more up after that.

I missed him. I ached for him. I craved him. It felt as if my very nerves were straining out to have a sense of him: the sound of his voice, the sight of his shadow, the touch of his hand on my shoulder. I succumbed to the grief, letting it conquer and overwhelm me, unaware of the passing of the hours or the time of day. Only sleep bought respite: dreamless, heavy, jagged sleep, punctured each time I woke by the realisation that something was missing, followed by a leaden despair as I remembered it was Sherlock.