"Mr Holmes."

George Edalji looked nothing like his photograph. The portrait that Sherlock had managed to convince the police into emailing to him had shown a serious-faced young man with dark hair greying already, though he was only thirty-one years old. Skin-tone slightly dusky, as befit his paternal heritage. A pair of startlingly prominent brown eyes. The face in the photograph was plump and filled-out, with a wide-based chin and a soft-lipped, expressive, almost feminine mouth.

The man who was shown into the interview room at Stafford Prison bore most of these traits, but only as a sort of tribute to them. His skin was duller than the photograph, and those plump cheeks were now all but hollowed out. But above them, his eyes were even more prominent than ever; as he fumbled for the chair and sat down, Sherlock reflected that the man reminded him of some strange insect. He shook hands with him. George Edalji was not considered a violent risk and there were officers posted at the door, so he hadn't been cuffed.

"Mr Edalji," Sherlock said stiffly. "This is Detective Inspector Lestrade..." He paused as Lestrade greeted the man. "Won't keep you long; we're due back in London this evening. We need to talk about how you feel about ponies."

Edalji stiffened. "I didn't do that, Mr Holmes." His voice was softer than his photographs suggested, and a register higher. "I wouldn't do that. That's disgusting."

"Agreed on all three accounts," Sherlock said placidly. "You wouldn't do that, did not, in fact, do that, and it's quite disgusting. But my personal opinion has never been a good reason to reopen a case or reorder a trial, so we're going to have to do better than that."

At the mention of the reordering of a trial, Edalji's eyes had lit up briefly, and he stopped slouching a little. Sherlock cleared his throat.

"Why are you called George?" he asked.

George looked at him, brows knitted together in confusion.

"Just wondering. When parents have multiple children they tend to give names according to internal logic. You might get families where every name starts with the same letter, or ends with the same syllable, or has the same number of syllables and the same metre. And with your family, it seems your parents have taken a Biblical approach to naming their children. What's Jo short for? Josiah?"

"Jonah," George muttered.

"Ah, Jonah. So we have Malachi and Jonah and Ruth and... George. I don't remember any Georges in the Bible."

At this, George simply looked even more confused.

"You have no ancestors named George?" Sherlock prompted him. "Maternal grandfather, perhaps?"

"No. My maternal grandfather was Nathaniel. Mr. Holmes, why are you asking? I don't know why I'm called George. I've never asked."

"Never mind, I'll ask elsewhere," Sherlock suddenly dropped the subject and picked up a new one just as abruptly. "So George, if I may call you George, I've just been reading the police report of what happened that night," he said. The Stafford police hadn't allowed him to remove the police report or make copies of it; that hadn't mattered much. Ten minutes, and Sherlock knew it word-for-word. "What were you doing in Jones's Lane in the middle of the night on the thirtieth of March?"

Edalji looked at him in disbelief. "I wasn't," he protested. "I told the police - I told everybody at the trial. I was never there that night, or any other night -"

"A man named Dennis James and his wife were returning home from her parent's house in Bloxwich at around midnight that night. Driving up the lane, they saw you. Or rather, Dennis did, since Anne was most inconveniently asleep in the front seat at the time. Caught you in the beam of the car's headlights. Dennis said you were carrying a large blade in your left hand, one that was later found in the ditch outside the field, wiped clean of prints. How did Dennis James see you if you were never there?"

"He didn't see me. I wasn't there."

"The report says your shoes were seized from the house the following morning," Lestrade broke in before this could degenerate into a squabble. "They were soaking wet and covered in mud. Are there no footpaths in your street? Because we went over where the pony was killed yesterday, and I noticed that there aren't any in that lane. Anyone off on a stroll down there would get his shoes in a bit of a state, especially in the dark. Dennis said you didn't have a torch of any kind. Blunder into a few puddles, did you?"

Edalji swallowed and said nothing.

"And when you were asked why your shoes were so dirty, you reacted like that," Lestrade continued. Sherlock half-turned to him. It had been a long time since he'd sat in on a proper interview with Lestrade. He'd almost forgotten how confident he was in the interviewer's chair. "Legally speaking, silence is not an indication of guilt. But I'll give you a hint. It doesn't look good, George."

"But what can I do?" George implored. "I didn't do anything, Inspector. I was in bed asleep that night. I can't tell anyone any more than that. I don't know how my shoes got that muddy. It had been raining the day before. I must have stepped in a puddle somewhere else... or something... you ask my father where I was that night. He said -"

"That you were at home in bed asleep all night," Lestrade finished for him, shaking his head. "George, do you know where my daughter was at 2am last Thursday morning?"

"No..."

"Neither do I. In theory, she was in bed asleep. If the police came knocking on my door and charged her with a serious crime, that's what I'd tell them. But I'd be testifying to a fact I had no way of knowing. And your dad doesn't know everything his kids get up to in the middle of the night, either."

There was a short silence. Sherlock was looking at George's twitchy hands, curled up in one another.

"George, tell me about your sister. I don't mean Ruth." Sherlock was picking his words carefully. This was something important; he couldn't afford to get George offside with it. "I mean... is her name Sarah? Or is it Grace?"

"Sarah," George faltered. "Did my mother -"

"Your mother tried to pretend she didn't exist, George, which is suggestive in itself." Sherlock leaned back in his chair, pleased that he'd been able to narrow down the girl's name by process of deduction. "She doesn't live in Great Wyrley anymore?"

"No."

"Where is she now?"

George shrugged. He was looking down at his hands. "Don't know," he muttered. "London somewhere."

"How long ago did she leave, and why?"

"January. She had a disagreement with my mother. They've never got along."

"What was the disgreement about?"

George Edalji looked across the table at Sherlock. For a few seconds, he gave the consulting detective the same stony look his mother had when she'd visited 221B earlier that week. That the same expression could come out of two wildly different faces was striking.

"I don't know," he said finally. "Why don't you ask my mother?"

~~oo~~oo~~oo~~

"We need to find Sarah Edalji," Sherlock told Lestrade as he slammed the car door in with more force than was necessary. "As soon as possible."

"That's going to be fun," Lestrade remarked as he started up the engine. "She's not a minor, she hasn't been reported missing, she's not wanted in relation to a crime, and she may well not even be using her own identity. She won't be easy to find." He paused, concentrating as he turned the car onto the main road. Sherlock was silent; he was staring absently out the window.

"What are you thinking, Sherlock?"

Sherlock stirred. "Lestrade, if there was a rift between you and Hayley -"

"Don't even start."

"No, it's a serious question, Lestrade. What kind of a row could you have with Hayley where she'd end up on the other side of England, and you didn't know or care where she was?"

"No kind of row," Lestrade responded promptly. "But Hayley's a kid and Sarah Edalji is twenty, so there's a big difference there. Sarah wasn't kicked out, exactly. Maybe she wanted to leave."

"An event or situation where a girl of that age would want to leave her large and seemingly happy family? That's also suggestive. And you're not really answering my question."

Lestrade sighed. "I told you. I don't think I'd ever have Hayley out of the house and not care where she was. But I can tell you the big issues with kids who're off and never seen again, and you know them all yourself. Mental illness, petty crime, drugs, alcohol, a dickhead boyfriend, behaviour the family considers to be sexually immoral, or a pregnancy or abortion the parents didn't approve of."

"Since we know almost nothing about Sarah, that puts us at a disadvantage," Sherlock leaned back in his seat and half-shut his eyes, like a sleepy cat. "And we're not likely to get any help from her parents, either."

"Maybe Hannah knows? Do you think you could convince her to talk?"

"Oh, I imagine so." Sherlock sounded dismissive. "Getting her to tell me useful things will be the challenge. I want copies of those poison pen letters, Lestrade. I have a feeling they mention more than the Edaljis would like about their home life."

There was a short silence; both men were thinking hard. At length, Lestrade spoke up again.

"Sherlock, at the risk of being dim again, I don't get it," he said. "What's Sarah got to do with George ripping up livestock in the dead of night? She'd left town by then."

"No, she left town after the mutilations started. It wasn't just the one offence, remember? Though very curious that the pony was the only incident George was accused of." Sherlock steepled his fingers and put them to his lips. "It's obvious that George is innocent. He doesn't have the wits, upper body strength or sociopathy necessary for a crime like that. All we need to do is form a convincing case for his innocence -"

"And there's no more convincing a case than finding who actually did it?"

"Exactly. We need to find Sarah, Lestrade."

"I'll put people onto it when we're back in London. We might find her in eighteen months."


Someone was in the flat.

Sherlock, arriving home after dark and coming in the street-side door, knew it instantly. He prided himself on being able to tell these things. Mrs Hudson's televison was on; she was in her own flat, but there was another human presence in 221B. Quiet, unobtrusive... but there.

He started up the stairs softly. On the first landing, he stopped and sniffed. Rose-hip shampoo.

He knew exactly who that was.

The living room door was open, as usual. Sherlock rarely shut it, except on very cold nights and, recently, whenever he thought Smudge would be likely to go on a destructive rampage and urinate in his shoes. Smudge was in the flat; she was sitting on Molly Watson's lap, purring contentedly. Molly, in turn, was nestled in the old patched armchair. Sherlock paused in the doorway in confusion.

"I'm sorry to scare you," she said, putting Smudge gently on the floor and standing up. "Mrs Hudson said it was all right for me to just come up and wait for you."

Sherlock made no response to her - no verbal response. Molly, following his gaze, looked down at herself.

"Um." She tweaked at the hem of her shirt self-consciously. "Yes, I know, you can see it now. But you don't need to stare."

He blinked and looked back up at her face. "I wasn't staring," he protested.

"You were staring."

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds.

"How long have you been waiting for me?" Sherlock slipped off his scarf and hung it on the hook behind the living room door.

"I don't know. Half an hour, I think."

Sherlock was now unburdening himself of his coat. He made care to invert the collar and brushed some non-existent dust off it before hanging it up behind the door beside his scarf. "How can I help you?" he muttered over his shoulder.

During John's stint in hospital, Molly had faithfully kept Sherlock updated on his condition and the likely prognoses from various different specialists. There had been daily phone calls. Multiple ones, often. But those had dried up as John's condition had improved and he'd been able to make those calls for himself. Sherlock had neither seen nor spoken to Molly Watson since John had been discharged more than two months before.

He was pretty sure she still hated him.

"I have something I need to show you." Her words were very soft, even for her. Sherlock turned to her; saw her pallor, the dilation of her pupils, the hesitation of her hands. He gestured for her to sit down again.

"Well, you have my attention." He cleared his throat.

It was wrapped in a flannel, but Sherlock instantly recognised that which Molly drew out of her handbag and put on the tea stand. He went over to it and drew back the swathes of cloth to confirm it. The Browning, and not a trick or a replica either. Sherlock knew John's gun when he saw it. Fully loaded. Safety on.

"Why do you have this?" he asked her in a low voice.

"I need you to tell me how recently this was fired."

"Why do you have this?"

She looked up at him immovably for a few seconds. Finally, he huffed and picked it up, turning his back on her and examining it for a minute or two in silence.

"Cleaned yesterday," he finally announced. "Or perhaps early this morning. Unloaded and reloaded... yes, twice. That said, this hasn't been fired in a long time. A year, perhaps. Now if you'll be so kind, why do you have this?"

"He bought me flowers..." Molly's words were choked, and muffled by her hands. "Yesterday..."

"Oh, I rather think he did more than buy you flowers."

"That's got nothing to do with... oh, you're not even listening! Sherlock, he bought me flowers for no reason. He never does that. He says they were to apologise for - well, it wasn't even an argument, but anyway, he usually just says sorry for things like that. And then he moved the gun. And then he told Harry that he loved her... and you're making those mean jokes again when I need your help..."

Sherlock looked at her in silence for a few moments.

"Molly," he said gently, "guns need to be regularly checked and cleaned, or else they become dangerous. John took good care of this pistol when we were living here. I see no evidence to suggest that he was doing anything other than his usual safety maintenance, and while the timing is admittedly alarming..."

He trailed off, wondering what he'd do if she started crying.

"Sherlock, this can't go on," she said. "I can't do this. He can't do this. This isn't normal. Take him on this case with you."

"No."

"Take him on the case, Sherlock. Please. It doesn't seem like it's a very dangerous case this time, is it? John says you're trying to prove a man innocent of mutilating animals, not tracking down a serial killer or something -"

"That's beside the point. I'm not taking John on a case out of pity. I expect those I work with to work, not stand on the sidelines so that they can feel better about themselves. John is not -"

"Oh, but he is useful," she insisted. "Yes, he may be... a little restricted with what he can do just now... but that might change soon. The doctor might think he's all right to..." She trailed off. "Please give him a chance. He's smart, Sherlock. He's really smart. He didn't just... well... he did some of the thinking when you were solving crimes together, didn't he?"

Sherlock paused, reflecting on this. Well. John had been admittedly quite helpful for that case in Grimpen. He was an accurate and reliable recorder of information. Got around witnesses quite well. Gave a good interview. Lied extremely badly, but had an excellent poker face...

"And I think you're smart enough to see how this would help him, too," Molly was saying in a little voice. "Help all of us. I want my husband back, Sherlock. You want your best friend back. I know you do."

For a few seconds, there was silence so profound that both could hear the clock on the mantelpiece ticking away.

"I know what all this is about." Molly's tones were more gentle now. "You're afraid to take him in case he gets hurt again."

"I -"

"Last Christmas..." she faltered. "It was... the odds of it happening again..."

"I'd say if one takes up a sideline career in pursuing dangerous criminals, that takes the odds of it happening again up by rather a lot," Sherlock remarked. "And working with Sherlock Holmes seems an excellent way to get a price on one's head."

"Maybe," she said. "But Sherlock... that's... it's who John is. I knew that when I married him. You know it, too. So... maybe it's also worth that risk, for us to get John back?"

Sherlock suddenly kicked hard at the first thing available to him - the coffee table. It shuddered and then tipped over with a violent crash, and Molly drew back into her chair, alarmed.

"Molly, you told me to stay away from you," he snarled at her. "And I stayed away. You told me I'd ruined everything, and taken away everything you cared about. I never intend to make that mistake again. You told me you'd never forgive me for it. I accepted that. And now you've appeared in my living room at nine o'clock at night with a loaded gun in your hand, telling me that you take it all back, and you want me to take your husband on a case that might well get him shot again. Now in deference to your help several years ago, I'm prepared to consider what you want. But I am exhausted with trying to work out what the hell that is!"

They looked at each other for a few seconds. Then Sherlock glanced down and exhaled, as if he were about to speak. Before he could do so Molly got up, a little unsteadily, and reached down for her bag at her feet.

"I'm going home now," she said faintly.

Sherlock wrapped the gun carefully back up in its flannel cloth and put it in her hands. "Take this with you," he muttered, without really looking at her. "Before he notices it's gone."

Gingerly, she tucked the gun in her handbag, between her wallet and phone. Then she hoisted it on her shoulder, taking a few steps toward the door. Sherlock, meanwhile, had thrown himself into his own chair and tucked one foot under sulkily. "Molly."

She turned in the doorway to face him, but did not speak.

"I will continue to work in John's best interests," he said. "Will that do?"

"I don't know."

Then she shut the door gently behind her.