Sherlock

Who the hell is Jon Darcy?

I'm pretty sure that's what it says. There's a note from last night which, I believe, says 'Was Jon Darcy gone to wither?'

'Gone to wither' sounds like poor Jonny might have been dying when last we met. But I don't remember ever meeting a Jon Darcy. Not a massive surprise; there are quite a few things I don't remember. That is rather the point of the exercise.

The odd spelling implies a shortening of Jonathon. That leads to school, leads to Cambridge, but I didn't know any well, and definitely not well enough to know who was dying. Never mind withering. Withering is a strong way to phrase it. Withering sounds like it was something slow and horrible, something leaving him decrepit before the end.

Got thrown out of Hugo's, by the way. Turns out Ruby has friends on the staff. I was asked to leave first, but that's hardly fair. I could hear my own heartbeat, for God's sake, I was busy listening to that. That was nice, you know. Boring, but in a warm, relaxing sort of a way. When it no longer hurts to be alive it can be quite soothing to know one's heart is soldiering on unruffled. So I didn't hear them ask until I was being carried between two of them to be dumped outside.

Outside wasn't too bad. Not the illustrious National Gallery roof, not by a long shot, but I've had worse.

But it does mean I can't go back and ask if any of them know who Withering Jon Darcy is. Aside from, very obviously, a white, middle class invalid. And occasional blues singer…

Maybe he doesn't matter. Maybe he matters more than anything has ever mattered before and I need to remember so I can answer this question. Was Jon Darcy gone to wither, for heaven's sake? Everything could depend on this. Or nothing.

Either way, he's passing the time.

Jim

She's left the door open so I can see, but as the morning comes she's brushing out her thick black hair with harsh quick strokes that leave little strands drifting all over my kitchen floor. I keep telling myself that it's fine, that it can all be swept up. But my face is still on fire where she touched it and I'm having a hard time making it stick. I'd really be much more comfortable if she'd take a knife to some of my more delicate places, but then she knows that. That wouldn't be torture.

She says she'll stop when I admit what I did to her, and when I tell her honestly why I did it. She's said that a couple of times now. When she was filing her nails down to the roots all over my sofa, she shouted through that she'd do that. When she was going about spraying her perfume on all my soft furnishings until the whole flat worked up to a dizzying stink, she was telling me she'd do that.

When I asked for water, and held my head back by the hair and poured it down my throat, she was saying she'd do that.

She just blew her nose on one of my tea towels. I scream for her through the gag and, as she has every other time, she comes as quickly and quietly as a trained pup. Stands perilously fucking close behind my chair and slips the gag away, all hands, all body heat, still all skin. "Yes?"

"I need a piss."

Rounding the chair, perching again on the edge of the table, "Knock yourself out, dear."

"Oh, you're fucking joking m-"

"Well, this can all be over very, very quickly when you just come out and say-"

"I haven't done a bastard thing to you!"

That's a bit too loud for comfort. Danielle, I've learned, has very nimble toes, and her foot shoots up now, hooking the gag, bringing it back to me. It's something about that move, and the speed of it, the straight line-of-sight along her leg and into that obscure shadow between the two of them, but the pad of her big toe brushes a tooth and I clamp my jaw up on it. The gag slides in in the process, but when Danielle yelps, when she slides down off the table, and lands hard on her arse, she knows I'm laughing. Doesn't miss a beat, though; the damaged foot rears back just as fast and is brought thundering down on my groin.

She hears me now, alright, but doesn't laugh. Gets herself off the floor and grabs me by the hair again, tilting my head so she can whisper close and hot, "Done something now alright, haven't you?"

She sways away from me again, and this time ignores me when I call. Says instead, "Your bedroom's just next to here, isn't it? Shares a wall. This wall here behind your head. Haven't been there, yet, actually. Back soon."

Piece of sage advice, from me to you; never bite a woman unless she asks you to. She won't take kindly to it. It will ravage from her the last scrap of decency I've been thanking God for all night and she will no longer hesitate to defile the most sacred of spaces.

I can taste blood, hers, in my mouth. I lean as far as my bonds will allow to one side before I'm sick.

Sherlock

To hell with Jon Darcy. Oh, but it's not 'gone to wither' after all, it's 'got on the wire'. A criminal, perhaps? Exposed through a tapped phone line. But to hell with him anyway, because I am being spooked. This isn't just comedown paranoia either. I know them when I see them. I see enough of them. It's not so much that you'll see the spook themselves as you'll be aware of being watched, and a car will pass you once too often showing patently too little interest in you and you'll know they're there.

Honestly, Mycroft, MI5 have better things to do with their time. Do you even tell them what it's in aid of? Bet not. Bet they're waiting for me to sell on some special secrets or similar, eh? Or worse yet, do you tell them nothing, and set them out on the street with only their belief, their faith, that they earn their monthly wage serving queen and country, mortally betraying them without ever saying a word? Yes, I suppose that sounds more like you, old bean, old soak, old chap…

If I took off to France would it have to be MI6? I could do that, you know. I could go and get the train down to Folkestone and see if they still follow me. Might make for a diverting afternoon. Then again, I have no idea how to score in France. Mycroft's liable to know that. Acting on this fact, Mycroft is liable to have one of his little friends pick the passport from my pocket and leave me stuck there.

No, France is a terrible idea. Let London be the labyrinth it is and hold me in.

That's it; London as labyrinth. Use that.

There's a whole city here, a different one, within the city itself that people don't know about. A fire escape here, a quick jump there, routes for only cats and madmen and thieves to tread. Dead of night alleys, restaurant back doors.

Of course, the deeper you go, the darker it gets, and you can hear the beast yawning at the centre of the maze, tiring of you and getting hungry.

Or maybe that's just the Tube coming down the track.

I'm not being haunted anymore. Amazing what you can do with a quick dash across the overpass and an Oyster card. Honestly, British Secret Service aren't up to much, are they? I send Mycroft a text to that effect, enquiring just what sort of Commonwealth he thinks he's running.

Rather distractingly, he doesn't rise to it. The reply I get simply reads, 'Come Home'. Strange enough in itself, stranger still since Mycroft hates text and won't use it, but I can't think of any reason he wouldn't have called. Except, perhaps, that he knows I wouldn't pick up.

Because he didn't call me.

Because the feeling in my stomach is not guilt.

Because there is no one else to tell.

I send back, 'Was Jon Darcy got on the wire? - SH'

Quick, too quick for him to have really looked into it for me or to have known anything he had to consider, the answer comes, 'Come Home.'

Googling Mr Darcy, as Jon or Jonathan, yields no one of interest. Thus defeated (one's options being rather limited while on the Tube) I try again, this time couching the request in terms that should rather more appeal to Mycroft's personal tastes.

'Darcy is important. Everything could rest on Darcy. – SH'

Well, it could.

Jim

I try very, very hard to pretend I don't know what's going on in my bed right now. But Danielle Mies is exerting herself as greatly to make sure that I do.

The early sounds, the shortness of breath, the low moans, that was easy to ignore. But now it's the groaning, the rhythm of the headboard against the wall not four feet behind me, the Gods and Yeses and if you'd give the bitch anything you'd give her an A for effort. She's having a fucking time of it in there.

All fake, of course.

I hope.

In a way it doesn't even matter because in my head, it's still there. She's still writhing, rapt, in my sheets, gleaming with sweat, rolling herself dry. There's still teethmarks on the pillow and warm, damp patches between them. Worse, greasy smears all over the mattress, trapping the hot, muddy smell of the worst of her like candle wax, profane crosses where she draws her fingers back and forth to clean them.

She knows I don't have to see this for it to be true.

She brings herself off in one great long cry I wish I'd never heard and it leaves me swearing. Leaves her oblivious, giggling down into the pillows.

And for the longest time, longer than fake, it stays that way.

Eventually, "Brr… Cold now… Can I borrow a shirt?" There is no possible way she could mistake the noises I make for an assent. "Thanks." I have to listen to her, unclean, still sweating, still oozing every pore and gland, open my wardrobe and lean in, hear the hangers rattle, hear her flipping through, touching everything. Then the finer, sweeter sound of something rich and natural being removed. And the rasp of it sliding onto her.

Then she comes back. Stands in the doorway with the middle two buttons done and the cuffs around her fingertips, posing. It's stuck to the patches of sweat on her skin. It makes me sweat too, a thin trickle I feel run down from my hairline like an insect. "What do you think? Westwood, is it?"

"Wear a lot of men's shirts, do you?"

"Oh, you wouldn't believe." She comes over. Stands behind the chair and leans forward to speak in my ear. Just her being this close is enough, every inch of my skin spasms, wants to cry and dry out and fall away. "When you really need to worry is when you hear all that next door, and then you see me wearing one you don't recognize."

"Stop it. Fuck's sake, if you want me to…" I was going to say 'beg', but I didn't like the taste of it.

"Confess," she says.

Says me, "I would if I could."