Chapter 3 – I Need Data

Violet paused at hearing the question, her hand raised in mid-air, part-way through carding her fingers through Sherlock's hair. The detective lay with his head resting atop a cushion that was positioned on Violet's lap. They were spending Sunday evening relaxing on Sherlock's sofa, now that the celebratory afternoon tea downstairs was well and truly done with. The couple were absorbed in their own tasks—Violet reading her script, and Sherlock using Violet's iPad to read every news article he could find on Sebastian Moran, despite his earlier insistence that he was going to pursue the case from the perspective of the victim, Ronald Adair.

Sherlock looked up at his girlfriend, eyebrows raised. Surely it wasn't that difficult a question to answer. Why was she hesitating?

"Maybe in about six months time," she replied.

"Six months!"

He struggled to sit up; this was not an acceptable answer to the question, When are you moving back to Baker Street?

Violet thought he may get upset, but the situation didn't have to be as dire as he thought.

"We share the lease," Violet explained, "so I can't leave Spencer and Alice to pay my third of the rent, and I don't want to be paying rent in two places."

"What do you mean, paying the rent in two places? I'm paying for the room upstairs. I didn't want Mrs Hudson letting it out again."

"You shouldn't... I don't want you to pay my rent. As it is, I already owe you money for the wages you kept paying into my account after we broke up."

"What wages?"

"For being your personal assistant. You didn't cancel the automatic bank transfer."

"Why would I have done that?"

"Well, you should've done it, but you didn't. I no longer worked for you, remember? And I... may have spent a little when I didn't have any work on. But I kept most of it aside so I can pay you back."

Sherlock lay back down onto Violet's lap again, his mouth down-turned as he did so.

"I don't want it back," he said, resting the iPad on his chest. "Buy yourself something nice," he added, waving his hand in the air flippantly, "when you're out and about not spending time with me."

Violet chuckled lightly at Sherlock's sulky behaviour.

"I'm going to spend a lot of time here," she replied, and she playfully ruffled his hair. "Just try keeping me away. And don't forget, you can come over to mine any time you like."

"Uh, nope."

"Why not?"

Sherlock hesitated for a split second before answering. In that micro interval of time, he was able to determine that telling Violet the absolute truth—that he hated her messy, cramped, cold bedroom, and her flatmates even more so—would be a bit not good. So he said, "I'm a Consulting Detective. My clients may turn up at any time, day or night. I can't be spending copious amounts of idle time wading through the toxic dump that is your bedroom all because I want to avoid contact with those moronic friends of yours."

There was silence, punctuated by the ticking of the clock on the landing.

Sherlock quickly cleared his throat and said, "In hindsight, the beginning part of my reply regarding my clients was all you needed to know. Ignore the last bit."

-o-

Sherlock regarded the papers and files in front of him. He wasn't given the luxury of taking these home to Baker Street. He was spending Monday morning sitting in an office of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, SOCA, in Vauxhall, and Mycroft had advised him that since the Denial of Service attacks to their public website the previous year, which had probably masked a more malicious intent, the agency had become quite strict on who had external access to classified information.

Sherlock furrowed his brow; he was in need of a cigarette. He read under his breath, "Moran came from an impoverished family... criminal career began when he was a doorman at various clubs around Manchester... irrelevant ... irrelevant... useless..."

Sherlock shuffled the papers around, then quickly scanned a few more, drumming his fingers on the desk as he did so.

His mind drifted back to Violet. Usually, during a lull in between cases, he'd review the past weekend, wondering where Violet had been, and why hadn't he been able to organise accidentally bumping into her. But that phase in his life was all behind him now. He'd just spent the weekend with her, albeit a very short weekend. What kind of relationship would they have now that Violet wasn't going to live with him? And what universe had he stumbled into where Violet Hunter had been required to work on a Sunday, and was up earlier than he had been on a Monday morning?

Violet hadn't been too happy with his comment about not wanting to spend time at her flat. In fact, she had replied, "I'm in two minds about spending a lot of time here now." And then she'd got all huffy, and decided she needed to say her lines out loud upstairs. She had disappeared for a couple of hours before Sherlock decided to seek her out, intending to entice her back downstairs with offers of dinner and snuggling.

He had stood on the landing outside her old room, listening to the one-sided dialogue. Sherlock had been both intrigued and impressed. Here was Violet bringing life to the flat words he'd read in the script. It sounded as if Christa Barlow, with her dark tresses and smudged eyeliner, was actually standing on the other side of the door, full of attitude and smarmy comments, but someone had muted the sound on her mother's responses.

Sherlock had knocked twice, then hesitantly opened the door when he concluded that Violet had finished her scene. The actress was in a much better mood to receive the detective's affections, and the rest of the evening had progressed as Sherlock had originally planned—dinner and snuggling.

However, this morning, he was quite disappointed to find Violet fully dressed, leaning over him to offer him a goodbye kiss.

"No," he'd said, his voice husky from sleep. "I have an erection. You can't go just yet."

Violet had laughed lightly at him, kissed his forehead and had left.

Sherlock clenched his jaw at the memory, and immediately dismissed his concerns from his mind. Back to the task at hand.

"...acquired businesses in London, Manchester and Newcastle," he read once more. "... gangland murder of a rival leader..."

Sherlock began to narrow in on the surveillance documents and photos from Manchester. Moran was currently residing there, although he made frequent trips to London. He had escaped police custody for the last five years. He appeared to be clean now, but the man was an idiot. Who was pulling the strings and keeping the heat off Moran?

-o-

There were disadvantages to staying in Baker Street, Violet found, as she rummaged through her bag in search of hand cream that she was now sure she had left in her old bathroom upstairs. She knew she was hopelessly disorganised, so remembering to collect all the belongings that she'd managed to scatter about in a single visit to Sherlock's flat was one more morning task too much, and these days, she was required at the studio quite early.

She glanced around the dressing room that she shared with co-stars Chenoa Burton and Priyal Gorham, whose characters were long-term Regency Roadresidents. Violet's Christa wasn't often featured in the same scenes with either of the young women, so Violet sometimes had the dressing room to herself.

As Violet stood in front of Chenoa's dressing table mirror, applying "borrowed" lotion to her hands, she scanned the photos and memorabilia adhered to the mirror and surrounding wall. She loved how her actress friend had personalised her corner of the room with candid photos of family and friends along with every soap magazine cover in which she had featured. Priyal's area was decorated in a similar vein. Both actresses had souvenirs from publicity trips around the UK and abroad, as well as items fans had sent them. Chenoa had been sent a Barbie doll that was clothed in the type of outfit that her character, Katie the waitress, wore.

Violet's own 'space' was tiny by comparison. She was only a guest star, after all, and wasn't going to have a regular recurring role. Violet's own fanmail resided in a shoebox inside the small closet that housed her personal belongings. She didn't need much space, and she could always share a mirror with either Chenoa or Priyal; there was a day bed and a couple of comfortable armchairs to loll about in, when she needed to revise her lines or have a small daytime kip.

Violet finished moisturising her hands, then grabbed the sides for today's scenes, before heading to her co-star's dressing room to go over the lines that had been altered at the last minute. They had half an hour until they were required at Stage A for the camera rehearsal. This set contained the interior of Florrie Barlow's house, the home of Violet's on-screen mother.

Since arriving at the studio at six thirty, Violet had already eaten a light breakfast consisting of muesli, yoghurt and fruit from the canteen, attended a dry rehearsal on set for blocking and going over lines, and had her hair and make-up done (her favourite part of the morning), all before being required back on set at nine.

Meredith Bourkely, who plays the Regency Road pub owner, Florrie Barlow, and Christa's mother, always became flustered whenever her lines were changed.

"I'm far too old for this," the fifty-something year old actress complained to Violet the other week. "My memory's not what it once was."

Violet found that there was a mutual benefit in running through their lines together. Florrie was constantly amazed that Violet could remember so much in so short a time, but she often spent their time together reminiscing about the 'good old days.' Violet loved hearing the stories—about which cast members had been rebels in their youth, which producers had been overzealous production assistants, and the names of casting directors to be nice to—so the majority of their time together in Meredith's dressing room was not spent on task.

Violet actually revelled in the challenge to shoot scenes with a cast member who was continually forgetting her lines. Meredith quite often commenced filming a scene with her sides grasped firmly in her hands until they were pried away at the last minute by a 2nd Assistant Director, or a hesitant but brave production assistant. Whoever was directing the particular scene would try to avoid cutting at Meredith's off-script delivery, unless the mistake was unworkable, which left Violet to improvise around the older woman until she could bring them back to script. On a couple of occasions, Violet was given a round of applause for successfully bringing the scene back to what was written. Since Violet couldn't bare to watch herself on the small screen, she didn't always know which take the studio ended up using, and if her creative efforts were good enough to keep. She'd never been advised not to improvise, so until that happened, her and Meredith's on-screen banter would continue on in the same way.

Violet didn't find Meredith in her dressing room, so she concluded that she was socialising in the green room. Violet decided to leave the 'old bird'—as Meredith called herself— to it then. She planned to stop by admin to check if there was any mail in her pigeonhole. Before she left the dressing room area, she ducked back into her room to retrieve her security pass.

"Ah, glad I caught you," a male voice said softly from the doorway behind her.

A shiver ran down Violet's spine, but she maintained a cool exterior as she turned to face the studio executive that made her skin crawl—Stuart Jire. Why would he be here? she thought, hoping like hell he'd been looking for her fair-haired castmate, Chenoa.

Jire raised an eyebrow and quirked a lascivious smile, at least Violet thought so.

"You're a bit of a dark horse," Jire said to her, waggling a finger at her as he held up a magazine article.

Violet immediately wanted to be anywhere but here, in the confines of her dressing room alone with the likes of Stuart Jire. She drew her security card lanyard around her head, grabbed her water bottle and moved toward the door, saying, "Could we…" She glanced at the magazine page. The layout included photos of several actors, herself included, she noticed, with the headline, "Stagecraft vs. Screen Presence."

Jire seemed not to understand her gesture toward the door, or chose to ignore it.

He said, still in a mock accusatory tone, "You're actually a blonde."

Violet feigned a smile. "Yes," she said, her eyes dropping to the photo Jire was now tapping. It was a publicity still for Kara's War, her theatre play from last year. "I'm not a peroxide blonde. Hair dye. Like this is," she said, gesturing to her own hair. "Do you mind? I'm…" she added, moving toward the door.

Jire merely turned in her direction but remained firmly in the middle of the room.

"You look just like young Daisy Firmington," he said, with a wink. Violet felt bile in the back of her throat. "Do you know her?" he asked, moving toward Violet. "That American actress… who… died."

Violet nodded weakly. There it was again—someone pointing out her resemblance to a dead American actress, one who had descended into a life of parties and designer drugs at the height of her career. Wonderful. First Spencer's brother Jesse had made the comment, and now the sleazy Stuart Jire. If Violet had her way, she'd never go blonde again. However her raven locks didn't stop her flatmate Alice remarking that Jesse would now have to call her Black Daisy.

"I have heard that before," Violet said, mustering a great deal of politeness. "I really don't see it. Do you mind if we…" Violet stepped out into the corridor. "Could you pull the door shut?"

"Oh, yes." Jire seemed to snap out of his little dreamworld and moved toward the doorway. "You know, just a bit of advice, between mates…"

Violet's stomach churned a little. She stepped back and waited pointedly until Jire pulled the door shut when he joined Violet in the corridor.

"What's that?" Violet called back, as she then set a cracking pace along the corridor, past the other dressing rooms, most of which had closed doors.

"You really should go back to being blonde after you finish up here. It adds that old-style Hollywood look that is so sadly lacking amongst today's stars."

Violet could hear Jire wheezing behind her. Thank goodness for her almost daily fitness regime. Up ahead, she could hear the welcoming laughter of Meredith, presumably sharing wonderful stories with Annabeth Minogue, another Reggie stalwart.

"I'll keep that in mind," Violet called back, before turning into Annabeth's dressing room. "Morning!" she said brightly to both ladies, probably more enthusiastically than she normally would have.

Fortunately, the zest of her greeting was matched by Meredith who had a deep affection for the young actress. The older woman enveloped Violet in a hug, and stage whispered into her ear, "And what did you get up to over the weekend, you naughty thing?"

Violet drew back and smiled sheepishly as Annabeth held up her tablet, where Violet's nightclub snog with Sherlock was displayed. At that moment, Jire strode past the doorway.

"Morning ladies!" he called out, and thankfully, he continued along the corridor.

"Ooh, do tell. Who was he?" Annabeth asked eagerly, latching on to the chance to hear gossip firsthand, and completely ignoring the studio executive's greeting.

"Just an old friend," Violet replied.

At that moment, Meredith had quickly closed her dressing room door, a dark look growing on her face.

"Violet Hunter. Please don't tell me that man was just in your dressing room," her on-screen mother bid her urgently.

"Ah, just for a few seconds before I left to come here," Violet replied, as the two older women exchanged a look. "He wanted to show me a—"

"Sit down," Meredith said, and she gently pushed Violet in the direction of a small sofa.

"What, why?" Violet asked, a tiny sense of dread washing over her. She conformed to Meredith's request anyway, and sank down onto the plump cushions.

Again, Meredith glanced at Annabeth, and both women said simultaneously, "Lauren Myrtle."

"Sorry, who?"

Meredith took a seat next to Violet, and gently clasped the young actress's hand before she spoke.

"We've already told our Chenoa this, but that Mr Jire may just be turning his attention to you."

"Horrible, horrible man," Annabeth volunteered.

Violet felt that her gut instinct regarding Stuart Jire's sleazy intentions was just about to be confirmed by a colourful and gritty story about the "good old days." This morning's scene was practically forgotten as Violet straightened in her seat, poised to receive all of the sordid details.

-oOo-

Author's Note:

Sorry about the introduction of so many new characters there. I'll repeatedly mention the important ones as we progress through the story.