Chapter 2: Hurt Her and We'll Kill You!

I've had death threats before - mostly from small children hurling stones in war zone areas ... or Moriarty ... and I've never taken them particularly personally before - but I had no idea about the scope and venom that they could impart before we started to date. Even the army doesn't prepare you for that number of horrific ways of dying.

And then I met Xavier - her ex. Looks like a male model - saved her life shortly after her parents died - not sure I'd want to compete head to head. She'd been tomb stoning in Cornwall - trying to feel something after her parents' deaths, when they met. He and his sister took her with them to Europe where they were going to join the circus! No, seriously, I'm not kidding! She spent a summer with them working for a human circus, along the lines of Cirque de Soleil, but generally outdoors events. She was good at it from what he told me later, but when we first met I was just trying to avoid throwing the first punch.

She introduced us, noted the tension and then left us to it ... "Play nicely boys! I like it when there's at least two men in the room who've previously saved my life - like it better when they don't then try to kill each other ..."

Xavier was eyeing me critically. "So, that's who she chooses then ... an ordinary, little man!" he sneered. "Have you wondered why she might have settled for you when she could have any man in this - or any - room?"

"Every moment of every day," I replied and his face softened and he started to laugh.

"In other circumstances we might have been friends - as it is ... ah well, shall we settle for a truce until she wakes up to reality?" he suggested. "Hurt her, however, Mr Doctor, and all bets are off - I know ways of hurting a man that leave no mark - you understand? I cannot offer more - you understand my position!"

I'd already received lurid and imaginative death threats from two of her brothers, no less than three uncles, her weird tattooed niece, a maiden aunt, one of the boys from her youth group and - bizarrely - my own sister! ... and Sherlock hasn't issued his own yet, but says he heartily agrees with the sentiment - hurt her and you're a dead man! No recognition of my lack of violent tendencies ... I had the strong feeling that I was getting the worst of the deal here, with other people's assumptions - I was much more likely to be the one who'd get hurt and not through physical violence either.

So when I met the youngest of her father's sons I could be excused from flinching slightly and getting in first. After all he was 6'4", built like a wardrobe, covered on all exposed flesh - apart from his palms and areas of his face - with tattoos and had the look of a hired assassin. "I know! - ritual disembowelment ... slow tortuous death ... no doubt your experience goes much further than my imagination can ever get ... no intension of hurting her ... not a single hair ... be happy to help you crucify me if I ever did accidentally do anything ... anyone who hurts her deserves the worst that can be done to a body ..."

"I was going to say," he interjected, while pumping my hand in a strong grip and in an accent rather reminiscent of one of Mycroft's Eton friends, "Good to meet you ... just sorry we've not had the pleasure before ... been away ... heard a lot about you ... all good ... Mycroft says you're a stand-up guy ... good enough for me ... good enough for my little sister. You need anything, anything at all, John, any trouble, problems needs sorting, here's my number, just have to ask. Oh, and don't take any crap from her ... and don't let her bully you." He grinned, just like she does, and patted me on the back as he handed me his card. It was like being humoured by a grizzly bear. Turns out he was a good laugh and the gentlest of her many brothers, cousins and uncles - though I still suspect that the hired assassin part might be true from other things that have been insinuated since.

We got rather drunk together that evening and he told some hair raising and hilarious accounts of her upbringing on the farm with so many older brothers coming and going.

He told me how she'd learnt to drive before she went to school and once stole a tractor to go skinny-dipping in the moonlight. When she was thirteen she hid onboard an articulated lorry to see a concert in London - Rachmaninov concerto surprisingly. She nearly shot the son of a local farmer with her father's twelve bore and though she blagged her way out of that one, but was grounded for a month - not that that stopped her hitch-hiking to see a group called the Comsat Angels performing in Sheffield.

And then he told me about the last time she was grounded for going to the Hunt Ball dressed only in a pair of silver stilettos, her mother's diamond choker and bracelet and a roll of cling film! "But it wasn't what she was wearing that got her grounded - her hair was so long then that she could sit on it and she'd bleached it white to match the outfit. Dad was livid! - She looked stunning - you could not imagine!" ... I think he'd surprised how good my imagination could be when it comes to her.

And then he told me that she'd plaited up her long hair and cut it off as short as she could manage after their parents died. He was not sure where the plait had gone, but was fairly certain that if you exhumed their bodies you'd find it again.

He talked of their parents and I learnt more about them that night than she'd let on. I'm still not sure if her father was directly involved with MI5 or 6, or he had simply stepped in when asked a favour by his old school chum, who works with Mycroft, to save an agent come in from the cold. His post as local Rector could be a front after all.

There was no doubt that the relationship that developed was genuine however. Anyone that knew them and talked about their marriage got starry eyed and made 'I'd be so lucky' comments.

And then he said something that was mysterious to me about not being sure how much she knew about her parents' death and not to tell her anything I knew or would find out. Given what he said, and that Sherlock seldom had the opportunity - and less of the inclination - to say he's wrong, I figured there was more to that than I'd suspected.