It was almost two o clock when they finally got to their hotel in Cheltenham. They had spent hours at the local police station. In order to avoid trouble, Sherlock had told them that they'd just been there for the fair, something officer Owen didn't entirely seem to believe, but she was tired too, so she probably just let it slide, knowing she could always contact them again. She smiled and was much kinder than Sherlock had remembered her.

Sherlock was glad that he'd had the foresight to find a hotel in Cheltenham and not Winchcombe, away from the drama of the Christmas market. It had turned out better than he'd expected but admittedly, that was mostly due to luck. They were sharing a large twin room in an old-fashioned style. He sat down on his bed, tired but not ready to go to sleep.

He felt tired but very satisfied. Not only had they seen a glimpse of the murderer, he now also had a clearer idea of what kind of person they were dealing with and how this person's communication through the advent calendar worked.

'Tea?' John asked. .

'Yes please.'

John boiled the kettle and made two mugs of tea.

Sherlock put his pillow up against the wall and leaned against it. 'He's a local and there's something very particular about him: he wants to be seen and he wants certain people to be his audience. Find those people and we find our killer.'

John gave him a mug and sat down on the other bed with his own. 'So you're happy then?' he asked.

'Of course. We learned a few things about him and even the kid is alive.'

'Right.' John sipped his tea in silence. He looked exhausted.

Sherlock drank his tea and waited for John to speak his mind.

John put his tea mug on the nightstand and sighed. 'I had to persuade you to come here.'

Sherlock rolled his eyes. 'Getting involved emotionally with a case clouds my judgement; we've been over this before.'

'Yes and it's rubbish. You've manipulated me over and over again and then you're surprised that I'm not laughing. It's not exactly professional distance we're talking about here.'

Sherlock felt how his frustration built. 'When will you ever stop nagging about that? I'm not like anybody else. I thought that would be obvious by now.'

'Because you just want people to see how clever you are. You even lie in order for people to find you clever. That's not normal, Sherlock.' John buried his face in his hands for a moment. Then he switched off his light and rolled onto his side.

Sherlock stared back, into the darkness. 'Nobody ever claimed that I was normal.'

'There's something about you that is so cold, it's unnerving.' John said. 'Be aware of that. Disrupting emotional processing severely impairs decision making. That's a medical fact.'

While John went to sleep, Sherlock stayed awake and went back into his mind palace. One hill in the mind palace was now cleared of its objects.

'You've worked yourself into quite a bit of trouble. Though you must admit that your friend has a point. You do like a bit of drama, don't you?'

Sherlock looked at his brother who had appeared next to him. 'Since when do you care about relationships?'

'I'm not your brother. I'm part of your unconscious mind, and apparently it's occupied with other things than the subject at hand.' Mycroft gestured to the objects on the hills. 'You could still do some good, instead of being consumed by sentiments. You've been behind every step on the way because you don't plan ahead and let your emotions run your actions. Control yourself. '

'Only you could be berating me for saving a child.'

'You saved a child, yes, well done Sherlock. But at whose expense?' Mycroft pointed at the church. 'Christmas eve. Lots of people attend a service at that time, even people who normally don't go to church. Any chance you could connect any of the other objects?'

'Cracker and log; murder weapons, most likely, some kind of bomb, nativity scene probably the topic of the sermon. Church and bell refer to location.'

'So we need a church with a bell.' Mycroft chuckled. 'That'd narrow it down.'

Sherlock looked at the train tracks again.

'No, Sherlock, you're not paying attention.' It was Molly, now standing on his other side. 'There is a second part to this problem. With the train switch, most people would choose to flip the switch, saving two lives. In the second part of the problem, you're standing on a bridge.'

Between hill one and hill three a bridge appeared. Then, he and Molly were on it.

'It's the same problem as with the switch, only now the trolley goes on a single track underneath a bridge. Three people are on the tracks and they will be killed if you don't stop them. However, there's one man on the bridge. If you push him off, that man will be killed, but the three men on the tracks will be saved.'

She looked at him. 'The question is: would you push him off?'

He looked from her to the characters and back. 'It would be logical.'

She shook her head. 'You're avoiding my question and I know why. With the switch, over sixty percent of people said they would change the switch, with the bridge, almost no one would push someone off the bridge, even though the gains and losses are exactly the same.'

'You're lying.' Mycroft said. 'You'd never push him off.'

'But you'd think about it.' John said. He now stood on his other side. 'That's what makes you different. It's so cold that it's not even cruel.'

'Yes, that's what you're like, get over it, focus on the problem,' Mycroft said, rolling his eyes. 'Not everyone can fake their deaths to their own best friends. You are a calculating person.'

John nodded. 'Yes, that's right, you don't care. You really don't care.'

'So get yourself together then,' Mycroft said. 'You're always so emotional. People will die if you don't get over your weaknesses. You have a responsibility. Focus!'

Sherlock opened his eyes, and was back into the hotel room, still shaken about what had happened. He'd just broken his mind palace.

The next day they drove back to London and met with Lestrade and Donovan in their office. Collaborating with the local police, they had interviewed almost half the village, found a few small village intrigues and ruled out Luton's employees who all had alibies. They were not a step closer to the murderer. They decided to focus on the Christmas market case.

'The child's name is Oliver Fuller, child of Gladys Fuller and Edwin Fuller. He owns a garage,' Lestrade said.

'Miranda's friend,' John helpfully supplied. Sherlock gave him a look as if he were offended, but indeed he'd forgotten the name.

'So we can rule out Gladys Fuller as a suspect. Enemies?' Sherlock asked.

'We could ask his peers at primary school,' Donovan said sarcastically. 'Maybe he's a bully.'

'Enemies of the parents of course.'

'Edwin Fuller had a bad relationship with someone named Gary Hall,' Lestrade said. 'Something about insurance fraud.'

Sherlock looked out of the window. Somehow it seemed really absurd. 'Those women are friends, that's the key to this case. So they did something that got them hated. But what?'

Donovan scrolled through the file. 'Miranda Shepherd was once Miranda Walker. She divorced Tom Walker two years ago. She said that Gladys Fuller supported her but that Jane Tiler was very upset about the divorce. It was against her worldview.'

'Still hardly a reason for murder,' John said. 'And it was a man.'

'Religion can be very motivational and she could have got help. We can't rule out Jane Tiler just yet.

'What about Tom Walker?' John asked 'He could be angry about the divorce, maybe he wanted revenge.'

'She divorced him because he cheated on her, not the other way around,' Donovan said.

Sherlock grinned to John. 'Rather weak motive for revenge, don't you think? However, we cannot rule him out completely. It's also possible that someone targets him; policemen make a lot of enemies. It could be a criminal. This is obviously the work of a very manipulative person.'

'So are you sure it isn't you?' Donovan joked.

Lestrade sighed. 'The only plausible suspect so far has been Charlie Brownsrigge. He's the only one with a criminal record and his separation with Shepherd wasn't exactly smooth. He also fits the weight and height requirements from the tracks and he really hates Gladys Fuller.'

'If it was him he would probably have worked alone. Arrest him.'

'We don't nearly have enough evidence.'

'But it's enough reason to hold him for a few days. In three days, there's a murder planned in the Cotswolds on the eighteenth of December. If he's in custody, we'll know very soon whether he's our man.' Sherlock smiled a broad smile. 'It's an experiment.'

'Oh, wonderful, an experiment,' John said.

Sherlock took out the prints of the remaining chocolates and put them in two rows of five:

Ghost, decorations, present, candy cane, slinky, skull and crossbones;

Nativity scene, Christmas cracker, yule log, church, bell, double skull and crossbones.

'Chocolates? Your base your theory on chocolates?' Donovan asked with a shocked expression on her face.

'It's complicated,' Sherlock said.

The four of them looked at the pictures.

'Those things are everywhere,' Lestrade finally said. 'Any idea about the church?'

'The murder and the attack on the boy were both in Winchcombe; therefore it's likely that the murderer is local. Quite possibly it's the church in the same village.'

John nodded. 'Saint Peter's.'

'That makes sense,' Lestrade said. 'Let's call off the Christmas service, better safe than sorry.'

Sherlock looked at the pictures again. 'We're looking for things that are rare. He wants to give us the idea that we can work it out so he can gloat if we won't.' He closed his eyes and scrolled through the pictures in his mind. 'There's one rare thing here.'

'The ghost,' John said.

'Indeed.' Sherlock looked at Donovan. 'Is there anything ghost related in the area? Haunted houses, horror films, Halloween-themed parties?'

She went to her computer and started searching. It only took a couple of minutes. In Winchcombe, there was a castle, Sudeley Castle, with a ghost story. They even did ghost tours. Now, there was a Christmas-themed ghost tour. Its date was the eighteenth of December.