Chapter Four – Poison and Daggers

"So," John started as they walked out of the hospital and straight into the cool night air. It was late; time seemed to slip away while they were working and he often became disorientated as to what time of day it actually was. He glanced at his watch - half nine - all he could think about was how he hadn't managed one mouthful of Mrs. Hudson's pasta bake before he'd got caught up in another Sherlock whirlwind of excitement, and he was starving. "Jane and your brother eh?"

"Don't be absurd," Sherlock answered, hailing a taxi and bunching his coat up around him. "For whatever reason they met up it certainly wasn't to do with romance. At least not on Jane's side. Her body isn't displaying any of the evidence of a new found romance; no flushed cheeks, no dilated pupils when I mention Mycroft. Plus, she'd made an effort with the shirt, but no perfume or extra make up."

"Oh come on," John smiled as a black cab pulled up. "Budding office romance, or something like it. Jane seems like a nice girl, and your brother's single right?"

"Yes," Sherlock replied climbing in. "But he doesn't date. And Mycroft is not Jane's type; haven't you noticed she's a little bit low key, keeps to herself? A flashy government man would hardly suit her - he's away all hours, at meetings and his club, and she wants stability and dependence. The whole picket fence shebang." He leant forward to talk to the cab driver. "Baker Street please."

"Sherlock, you can't always put people into boxes, and there's the age old adage that says 'opposites attract'. Maybe in your world they're not a match, but people who don't seem suited work out all the time," the doctor said, marvelling at the fact that for a man who could read them so well, Sherlock would never understand people at all.

"I beg to differ. People are notoriously easy to categorise. How on earth do you think I work if I can't look at someone and say 'you're that type of person'?" Sherlock retorted, sounding a little irritated.

"I think you're wrong. Not everyone's as predictable as you make out. What about Moriarty? You didn't figure out it was Jim."

He knew he'd taken a low blow with that one as he watched Sherlock's jaw clench and head move to look out of the window. "That was an exception."

"Well then; couldn't Jane be?"

Sherlock seemed to be amused by that. "Absolutely not."

"You and women..." John muttered. He couldn't exactly describe Sherlock as an out and out misogynist, but he certainly held a rather dim view of the opposite sex. Predictable, and their crimes were nearly always tied to an intense emotion which was always foolhardy. It made you clumsy and that's why so many of them got caught. Not that he was ever impolite or brutish towards them - whenever they had a female client come and ask Sherlock to do a case, he was always quite the gentlemen in front of them, which surprised John. His argument was that he had never met a woman who surprised him, or who wasn't easily readable, and until he did he would continue to view them in that way. Mind you, looking at the women in Sherlock's life, it was hardly surprising he didn't value them; there was Sally Donovan at Scotland Yard, Mrs. Hudson and Molly. None of them particularly shone for their sex. "Well if it wasn't a date, then what was it? Why'd they meet?"

Sherlock glanced at him. "I've not figured that out yet. But the problem at hand is our Shakespeare murder, so my brother's meeting with a Scotland Yard pathologist will have to wait. He probably offered to pay her to spy on me, like he did you. He's not terribly original. As if she'd take it."

John paused thoughtfully and frowned at the man. "Sherlock, what happens when the killer runs out of deaths to copy? Not all the plays were tragedies."

Sherlock didn't answer at first, but just before he did, a strange smile crept across his mouth. "Then we'll see if this is about Shakespeare, or just about murder."

XXXXXX

London was a hot bed of possible Romeo's and Juliet's, he marvelled as he strolled down the street, bunching his jacket around him. There seemed to be couples everywhere for him to choose from, but none of them quite fit his plan. The boy and girl kissing on the bench were too loose; they hadn't been dating long, and he could tell that their relationship wasn't about longevity, it was about sex. No, his Romeo and Juliet needed to be the real deal – a real pair of star crossed lovers. No need to fret. Fate had been obliging so far. They would turn up. He only had to be patient.

Othello and Macbeth had gone off rather nicely, and he'd been deeply satisfied with his Hamlet. It was truly a thing of great artistry when the artist could step back and be pleased with his work. No flaws; at first he might have been a little clumsy, but the mistakes were smoothed out each time. Hamlet had been particularly elegant. And how Hamlet had cried. He couldn't deny how comforting it had been to get a reaction. Hadn't he delivered his lines so well? The camera had been a nice touch. Even he could admit that it must have been suitably ominous. Oh to be a fly on the wall, or a policemen. Had they been horrified?

And yet however pleased he was, he knew he could be better. The next would prove that.

The plan would take some fine tuning. A double role in the scene he had to pan out, and a far more intricate murder. Poison and daggers. Once he'd found his players, it would take a few days to set it all out. But that was the fun part. Almost like directing.

"Kate – relax," a boy with a shaved head said as he passed him, the words catching on his ears. "Your dad's too busy with that court case to give a stuff who you're with."

"Yeah," the lavender blonde sighed as they paused outside the deli shop. She wrapped her arms around the boy's waist and squeezed him tight with a worried look. "Knowing him, he'll have sent someone to spy on me though!"

He was aware he'd stopped too, pretending to be interested in a magazine stand but the words on the covers were blurred as he listened to the couple.

"I don't care," the boy said softly. "I love you. And we live in London; we can make a life for ourselves doing whatever we want. Stuff your Dad, and stuff my Mum! We don't need them, right?"

"Right," she said with a smile, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss her boyfriend on the lips. "Come on, I'm starving."

Perfect. They sounded perfect. Parents that didn't approve and young love's dream. Fate had been kind once again. He waited until they were a good few feet ahead of him, and then he replaced the magazine in the rack and began to follow them.

Poison and daggers, he thought to himself.

XXXXXX

"Oh, hi," Jane smiled as Lestrade pushed open the door to the lab where she had the belongings of Kenneth Grimes' stretched out across a table. She eyed the grey haired man up and down, taking in his jacket, loosened tie and tired expression. "Molly said you were on your way."

"Yeah, I just wanted to have a word about the case," he said rubbing his jaw wearily. "You got anything more from the victim's belongings?"

"Nothing much," Jane said blankly. "I was going to send the notes over - you didn't have to come all this way."

Lestrade gave her a weak smile. "Just passing." Jane concealed the urge to raise an eyebrow; she doubted that very much, seeing as Scotland Yard was nowhere near St. Bart's. "Actually, while I'm here, what did Sherlock say about the new vic?"

"That he was a military man with a guilty conscience," she said going over to the laptop to type something in. "I wrote it all down."

"Is this it?" he asked pointing to a few sheets of notes. She looked at them calmly and shook her head, as she gathered them. They were personal notes - detailed work on Kenneth Grimes' watch, not that Lestrade would have noticed. She could have probably walked into the room in a stripy shirt, a mask and bag labelled 'SWAG' and he wouldn't have paid her much dues. He wasn't the brightest of men even though he was the Golden Boy of the Met, but he was nice enough. A real family man - if he hadn't have been married to the job for twenty years. It was obvious to everyone that he liked Jane a lot; he valued her opinion, took her advice, and went out of his way to talk to her, much to Donovan's amusement, who ribbed Jane about it as soon as Lestrade's back was turned. She was fond of him in a way – he was one of the few people she worked with she actually liked.

"Here," she said handing him the list of things she had scribbled down that Sherlock had mentioned earlier and returned to her work, bending down a little to work at her laptop. Lestrade seemed to hover for a moment, the file wrapped close to his chest, waiting to ask something. Jane rolled her eyes before looking over her shoulder with an expectant smile. "Was there something else Greg?" she asked.

"You do know it's nearly ten o clock," he said, staring hard at her. She glanced at the clock on the wall and then back to his face.

"So it is," she said blankly. "You didn't make it to Detective Inspector for no reason then," she teased lightly.

"Aren't you packing up?"

Jane, straightening up, folded her arms. "Did you have a point?"

Lestrade rubbed his jaw again. "Jane it's late. This can wait til the morning at least - we've got a whole bleeding team that can work on it. Give yourself a break," he said firmly before pausing awkwardly. He was stuck in a bizarre limbo; as her boss he had authority, which meant she had to do as he said, but as a man who found her attractive he didn't want to play that card.

"I've got to finish these notes first," she protested with a resolute tone. He sighed and reached inside his jacket.

"Alright. Have it your way. Can't accuse you of not working hard. While I remember, this came for you earlier," he said gruffly, handing her an envelope. On the front she could read her name - typed, not written - but there were no other distinguishing features. Jane murmured some thanks and turned it over, carefully pulling the flap up on the envelope as Lestrade headed for the door. As he reached it, he turned back to face her.

"Look," he started, scratching the back of his head, "Some of us are going out for a drink in a bit, and you'll probably say no but..."

"I'll come," Jane said abruptly, still hunched over the computer, holding the envelope he'd handed her. He couldn't see her face but she sounded even and calm.

"You what?" Lestrade replied with a frown, laughing a little.

"You were asking me weren't you?" she asked, spinning around with the envelope in hand, feigning embarrassment. Lestrade stared at her with wide eyes.

"What – oh, yeah, yeah I was," he said. In truth he'd expected her to say no; she usually did, largely because Sally Donovan was always there, and he knew the two didn't exactly have the greatest of working relationships. Jane didn't really integrate with her colleagues - oh she was liked and respected by most of them, after all she wasn't a horrible person - but she wasn't particularly good at letting loose. He supposed that was why he liked her; she was a no fuss kind of girl, completely at ease with herself, not really perturbed by what others thought of her. She was smart too - one of the only people he knew that could understand Sherlock when he was going full speed, not that the consulting detective paid that much heed. Lestrade did though, and it was useful having her around to break it all down for him afterwards.

"So you're coming then?" he repeated, still waiting for a refusal. "You just said you were going to stay."

She flashed him a wide smile, and cast her eyes at the envelope. "Yeah - this Shakespeare stuff's got me wound up all tight," she said dismissively. "I was being stupid. Something to take my mind off it would do me good."

Lestrade nodded and gave her a friendly smile. "We're meeting at the Feathers, so see you there." The Feathers was a pub only a short walk from New Scotland Yard - a real pub, with ale and hearty food. It had served policemen for years, and stayed open specifically for those that finished late and needed a stiff drink in a friendly environment to remind themselves of the good in the world, the ordinary things. In The Feathers, people weren't murderers. Or at least, the Met liked to pretend they weren't. It was one of their safe havens.

"Do you mind waiting and we could get a cab?" Jane said slowly, wrinkling her nose. "I won't be long - I'll pack these away."

"Er - sure," Lestrade said slowly, raising his eyebrows in surprise. That was a turn for the books; while he'd always liked Jane, she could be a bit frosty, a bit of a lone ranger, and now she was going with him in the cab? If she drank a lot, he could be on to a winner. The thought made him smile to himself. "I'll wait outside shall I?"

The brunette nodded and made towards the table to carefully replace everything in its bag, still holding her envelope, and Lestrade left the room. Jane watched him go, and once he was all the way down the corridor and out of sight, she let out a breath she'd been holding in and leant against the table to calm herself. She'd planned on staying the lab all night; she'd not forgotten Mycroft's charge, and she needed to work quickly before the case was either solved or swarming with other pathologists. But the envelope had changed her mind. Another calling card. And suddenly she had needed to feel safe, and be with other people, no matter how much she hated Anderson and Donovan. Pulling out the small card from inside the envelope to check she hadn't misread it, she sighed deeply and pulled a lighter from her work bag to burn it and the envelope it had arrived in.