Chapter 2

Two weeks earlier:

"Sherlock, how often do I ask for you assistance?"

The consulting detective deigned to throw a cold glance over the music score he was studying, but made no other reply.

"What would it take to persuade you to cooperate?" his visitor asked, with a sigh.

"Mycroft, what would it take to persuade you that I will not be manipulated like all your other toys?" He spoke softly, and this time, addressed the music score.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, Sherlock. You are not a child. This is not about me manipulating you, nor you defying me, nor who you see I see as toys, nor how your response to your perception of me will result in this juvenile and recalcitrant behaviour."

"Well done, Mycroft. You kept control of that sentence admirably; it was threatening to run away with you at one point." He nodded and flashed his canines in his brother's direction, in the parody of a smile. Mycroft returned the expression with a little more false charm.

"At least hear me out, Shock."

The glare was the kind only years of practice since early childhood could achieve.

"Don't start to adopt long lost pet names. I loathed it when I was a kid, and nothing's changed. What do you want? Keep it short, I'm busy."

Mycroft's upper lip gave the most minute of upward quirks. He had known, of course, that irritating Sherlock in one respect was likely to distract him from his determined insubordination. Both brothers also knew, and knew the other knew, that Sherlock was demonstrably not busy. However, this game of theirs had certain unspoken rules, which both chose to abide by. Without the rules, there would be no way of telling which brother had won; an unthinkable situation in this competitive pair.

"Very well. Short and sweet. I rather think this will appeal to your sensibilities.

"Currently, I am assisting, in a consultancy-only capacity of course, in a large scale corruption investigation." Sherlock's eyebrow lifted a fraction. Mycroft did everything in a consultancy-only capacity; the alternative – actually diverting from his usual routines – necessitated an unacceptable level of effort. Believe this made him slapdash at your peril. This master puppeteer kept track of every twitch his puppets made, and predicted many in advance.

Mycroft smiled at Sherlock. "As you can imagine, it is not exactly on a petty scale. The police, the civil service and the Forces are involved. It is a situation where it becomes difficult to separate the law from the criminal." A look as if he had just bitten into a lemon crossed his face. "It is possible it even extends to my own department."

Sherlock lounged back in his seat, broadcasting his feigned disinterest. "Conspiracy theories, Mycroft? How very plebeian. What's next, men in dark glasses behind the scenes, watching our every move, secretly controlling our destinies... hold on ... that's you, isn't it? Or at least, you'd like it to be."

"Have you finished mocking? I am not being over dramatic. This is one of the biggest operations of its kind in recent years. The kind of weeding any government that has even pretensions towards honour and decency must undertake every now and again. Where-ever there is crime, there is money and power. Whenever there is power, there is a tendency to crave more power. Mix the elements together, and some of the most powerful men in our country find they have a great affinity for crime, and indeed, for criminals."

"I'm sure you'd make an excellent criminal, Mycroft."

"So would you." Declared his brother, distastefully. "I often think you are half way down that road already. And you were such an adorable child, it's difficult to understand where it all went wrong. I'm sure the drugs played a part of it, but you've been clea..."

"Shut up!" Both brothers realised they had inadvertently strayed from the rules of the game into territory where they could actually hurt each other, and both scrabbled to recover the delicate equilibrium.

"So, the case." Mycroft almost stammered, his face slightly tinged with pink. "It seems to be the kind of tedious snowball effect that underpins most of these situations. A small favour, slightly illegitimate, here, a reciprocal gesture there, somebody else finds out and chooses to profit from the situation rather that expose it... the favours and gestures get bigger, more ambitious, more ruinous. Most of the time, of course, these sorts of shenanigens get discovered, and the perpetrators either are detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure, or shuffled off this mortal coil a little more rapidly than they would choose, either by their own hand or others, or have to make red-faced press statements surrounded by their vacuous looking families in front of their houses saying their wife and the Prime Minister support them utterly, until they are eventually, inevitably, fired and divorced."

"But occasionally, through a run of luck, or unusually good planning, the situation goes viral."

Mycroft sighed. "OK, goes viral, if you insist on adding a subcultural vernacular. Such is the situation we have now. I doubt we will ever know exactly how it all started. Contrary to popular believe, the Government has neither the time nor the inclination to conduct the kind of exhaustive surveillance into the daily life of the Joe Public that would give us an early heads up. People would be so unflattered if they knew that most of the time, we haven't the foggiest and don't give a damn what they are up to, and that most of the time, CCTV is to catch muggers and violent thugs, or for junior security officials to post footage of bonking couples on YouTube."

"Or to intimidate my flatmate. Oh, and no-one says bonking any more Mycroft."

"Mummy does, although I don't think she means what I meant", replied Mycroft. Mummy Holmes used the word to refer to the sensation when one is so hungry one feels lightheaded.

Both brothers grinned genuinely at each other for the first time, again in a way that can only be experienced if shared childhood experiences (preferably enabling mocking of parents) exist. The lessening of tension seemed to confer a more businesslike air upon the discussion.

"Oh, yes, surveillance is a very useful tool if you pique our interest, but you have to pique our interest first."

"I take it your interest is officially piqued by this case?"

"Very much so". The exaggerated lift of the eyebrows made Mycroft's sincerity appear contrived, although for once, it probably was not.

Sherlock pushed his music stand to one side, laying down his violin and leaning back with his eyes narrowed and his fingers steepled. He was ready to listen.

"There are certain people, who we have had our eye on for some time, who we believe to be dabbling in some particularly unsavoury trades, and yet who preserve the public façade of respectability with some skill. You have heard of Kenneth Nevill?"

"Yes, of course. Part of where our circles of influence cross, I believe."

"Indeed. Ostensibly a tobacco magnate, a profession which automatically requires a degree of moral pliancy. Active supporter of the Conservative Party, although his offers of donations have been perceived as being too much like dirty money. The Guardian and Private Eye would be frothing with eagerness to discover the least suggestion of policy influence he has had; the Tories view him as being 'bad for the image'. Plus, a few of them are even quite decent chaps, and they don't like the aura of viciousness that hangs around him. If he wants influence, he has to gain it via back door trading."

"Yes. And I understand back door trading is one of his sidelines."

"Sherlock, are you being deliberately disgusting?"

"Mm. He certainly is. He's an active supporter of organisations who recruit young men and women to trade the only thing they have to offer in order to fund their habits, or to remain in this country. People trafficking and prostitution. It's big business, my homeless network tells me. I've helped a couple of them get away from his associates, and most of them avoid his lot, but the gossip still spreads. They're not the kind of people who can often get other people to listen to them though. May be illegal immigrants. Often mentally ill, vulnerable, abused as kids. Or Addicts. Often personality types who don't fit in with 'normal' people."

Sherlock was suddenly speaking with great bitterness, and Mycroft, for a moment, looked extremely distressed. Then any emotional undercurrents were smoothed over, and the brothers continued their discussion as if they were talking about the weather.

"I take it none of this information is of a type that will allow you to get any of these accusations to stick?"

"Not yet. Working on it, but the leads have dried up for the moment. Nothing concrete to go on. All circumstantial. He'll make mistakes eventually, but I have to wait for reports to come to me. I expect he keeps his involvement to a minimum, so it may take time."

Mycroft leaned forward. "He has help. We have a good idea who much of that help is, and we are fairly sure we know who the chief helper is. We know several of the intermediaries. Some are in the Immigration Office. Some are in the police. Some are in the forces – we believe he has links with the illegal arms trade also. Some are policy makers. Between the lot of them, they can arrange a blind eye on entering the country, charges to be inexplicably dropped, legislation which would be inconvenient slowed down. We don't know the details, and that is the problem. We need an Al Capone situation, a reverse snowball, or reverse viral, if you like, to catch him and the other main players."

"You mean, you catch the little people, those whose involvement has been slight enough that they could reasonably expect to walk away with only minor damage, and they start implicating those higher up the ladder, with a dominoes effect?"

Mycroft smiled. "What a lot of metaphors. Indeed. Oh, we could catch our main player, but a lot of the middle ranking conspirators would escape, and they are a terrible influence, I'm afraid. We could do with a clean swoop."

"So, who do you believe your chief right hand to be?" There was no mistaking Sherlock's interest now.

"Superintendent Mark Whittard of Scotland Yard."

Sherlock let out a reverential whistle. The Superintendent was one of the most influential men in the Police Force, his own department responsible for interdepartmental and external liaison. He already had his fingers in a great many pies. He had obviously got greedy.

"What did you want me to do?"

Mycroft took a sip of the tea he had made for himself earlier. "I have had one of my most trusted people investigating this. He is not generally known to be answerable to me. He has established the right connections to be able to recommend a junior police officer, in whom I also repose total trust, to another corrupt member of Whittard's team. This officer has been accepted into their little circle, and I had hoped it would be possible to directly gain the confirmation we need. However, we have not got so far as this.

"We have gained access to his computer. He is not a born master criminal, he is a police officer and manager at heart. He will need to record his dealings to keep track of them. However, he has not been entirely careless. My informant tells me keeps a datastick clipped to his car-keys, which he always has in his trouser pockets. I would very much like to see what is on it."

"It could just be his shopping list."

"He is acutely careful with it. He keeps his hand in his pocket over the top of it whenever he is outside his office. This mannerism is something he has adopted in recent years. Also, when my informant has undertaken his instructions or brought him useful information, he has loaded the stick into his computer and typed down what he has been told."

"I thought you said you had searched his computer?"

"He has disabled all versions of auto-save, and never saved anything on to his hard drive. We have been able to recover fragments of Excel documents; enough to arouse suspicion, and also to tell us that thankfully he does not use a code, but not enough to incriminate all those involved. What it has told us is that Nevill is quite probably not his only client. Word gets around, if there's a way to circumvent the authorities, and I imagine Whittard is quite popular."

"You want me to obtain that datastick." It was a flat statement.

"Yes." The reply was equally unemotional.

"Why can't you just have it removed from his person?" Mycroft's face twisted slightly, as if a wasp had just stung him. "Ahhh. You said you suspect your own department. You are worried, that if you went down the official routes, there would be a leak, and Whittard would be tipped off in time. Really, Myke, it's very careless of you to not keep a tighter ship. I would have assumed you could sniff out a treacherous thought before the owner had thunk it."

Mycroft tried to look impassive, but Sherlock was evidently close enough to the truth to rile his sibling.

"I have narrowed it down to three. In a few days, I will have narrowed that to two. I will find him, by whichever means necessary. But that will take time, and I would rather not wait."

"What's the hurry?"

"I believe Nevill has a major shipment planned. There is twittering. It would certainly be desirable to contain whatever antisocial produce he wishes to flood the country with. It is unfortunate timing, as I really cannot miss the summit in Toronto."

Sherlock was silent for a few minutes, apparently lost in thought. Mycroft allowed him to cogitate, then, when Sherlock raised his silver eyes to meet his own, he continued.

"We know that he locks the stick in his study at night. My loyal police officer has seen it is so. I have the specifications of his burglar alarms."

"Surely you have people who could do this sort of thing for you? Some 00-agent or somesuch?"

"I see John has helped you brush up on popular culture."

"Why me?" persisted Sherlock. He evidently already knew the answer, as he was clearly suppressing a triumphant note to his voice.

"Oh, very well, I suppose you will insist on hearing it, and I dare say you will be insufferably smug about it", huffed Mycroft. "I wish you to steal the datastick because I trust nobody else to do it as well as you."

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Sherlock regarded the two masked men standing in front of him. Carefully inflecting his voice with as much icy contempt as he could manage, he spoke.

"Ten out of ten for effort, but I'm afraid you lack originality and imagination."

"Where's the flash disk, Sherlock?" asked the shorter of the two. It was quite a pleasant voice, cultured, with a slight lowlands Scots edge to it.

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about", answered Sherlock, coldly. He sounded bored and unimpressed; certainly nobody would have guessed from his demeanour that his insides were seething with fear.

"Mm", said the shorter man, sounding equally unemotional. "Perhaps a minor demonstration of the type of experience you can expect if you don't tell us what we want to know."

The taller man held up the pliers, and Sherlock started to sweat.

The eyes behind the mask were hazel. They were not cold or ruthless, but there was no hesitation in the man as he reached for Sherlock's hand. Sherlock instinctively tried to curl his fingers tightly to protect them, but the tall man imperturbably continued, forcing his middle finger out straight. The rubber gloves helped grip tightly against the damp skin.

Oh God oh God Oh God... they're going to pull out my fingernails... right, this is going to hurt a lot. Grit your teeth, don't scream yet though, it's too early...

Sherlock looked after his nails. They were useful things for probing, scraping, delicate work; not to mention it would perilous if he were a nail biter when he handled so many chemicals. Now the pliers gripped the neat white tip carefully. With an steady, inexorable motion, they pulled, hard.

Sherlock screamed.

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Well, what has Mycroft got Sherlock into? Thanks for the hooked and horrified amongst you for reviewing! Reviews do make my day, so I would always love a few more!

Continued in Chapter 3...