Are you absolutely sure? – SH

Im standing next 2 grave mr homes says catherine jean doherty 18 june 1967-31 dec 2002.

No sign of Doherty? – SH

Not yet but reckon hes around

Be wary. Don't be seen in that churchyard, and keep a wide berth if you do find him. Let me know immediately and I'll issue further instructions. And for God's sake, use a spellcheck or an autocorrect or something – SH

Dolan dismissed the relatively meaningless latter half of Sherlock's text and shoved the phone in his pockets, followed by both his chapped hands. His text to "Mr. Holmes" had been true to the letter; he looked again at the glossy, speckled tombstone before him, with its gold lettering and generic, stencilled rose transfers.

Eric Dolan was a thief, a liar and a criminal. But he was not a wife-beater, a rapist, a kidnapper, a kiddy-diddler or a murderer.

True, Mycroft Holmes was missing a man, not a woman. But then, Dolan reasoned, it was sort of the same thing, really. So far as he could relate to things with his narrow understanding of the world, Paul Doherty had kidnapped and tortured some bloke's wife. Dolan had never heard the expression "honour amongst thieves" and wouldn't really have understood it if he had, but that hadn't stopped him putting the principle into practice, as instinctively and easily as breathing. Steal from 'The Man'?: why not? Nobody was going to miss what you took, except maybe some rich bastard who had no right to it in the first place. Steal the life savings of some little old lady? No. Eric Dolan's gran had been dead for fifteen years, but he'd had one. He also had a wife, two kids, and six months to live, and since the obliging Mr. Holmes had sprung him out a good five weeks before his sentence ended, he was prepared to be a good sport and help him out in return.

And the thought of Kim and the kiddies prompted him to pull his phone out again as he walked through the icy, windswept churchyard and up toward the road. They'd all been there to greet him when he'd been released that morning. He'd even prised the kids off his legs for long enough to get Kim in one of the conjugal visit rooms for a desperate, hurried screw before they left, but sex on fancy sheets and helping the kids with their homework on the living room floor was going to have to wait another forty-eight hours. They were put up in a hotel in Knightsbridge for a few days. No sense in getting them too close to danger. He pulled his thin jacket around himself with one hand, trying to keep out the searching, frigid nor'easter of the North Sea.

After three rings, the phone was picked up; being that it was Kim's mobile, he expected she would be the one answering it. But there was clumsy breathing on the line for two seconds, and then a high-pitched, juvenile, "hello...?"

"Emmy, it's Dad," he said, feeling the sides of his mouth stretch from disuse; there was smiling because you were supposed to look pleasant and smiling because you were actually happy, and it had been a while since he'd had any cause for the latter. "'You being good for your mum?"

"Yes."

"Is your brother being good?"

"It's boring here," the seven-year-old opined, which was as good a confirmation as any that her nine-year-old brother was climbing the walls by now and driving Kim insane. The Dolan kids were "free range", used to the woods and meadows of northern Norfolk, Kim's native land. London bewildered them and hedged them in. It wasn't right, the Dolans felt, to raise kids in concrete jungles.

"When can we go home, Dad?"

"Soon, Emmy. Dad just needs to do a job for Mr. Holmes first." Emmy knew that Dad was 'coming home' because of the nice Mr. Holmes, though she had never laid eyes on Sherlock and, Dolan reflected, so far as he knew she didn't really understand that her father had been in prison since she'd been barely three. He paused, listening to her breathing.

"You got a cough," he said, frowning.

"Yeah. It's yucky."

"I bet. You look after it, okay? Is your mum there, sweetheart?"

"She's in the toilet," Emily remarked, just as he heard a distant flush and then a door opening. He chuckled a little to himself as he heard Kim sharply admonish Emily and grab at the phone.

"Eric?"

"Enjoy the toilet?" he teased her.

"I swear, I'll tan her backside if she keeps this sort of thing up."

"Ah, she's just being honest, love. Shouldn't really tan her backside for that, right? Just letting you know I'm okay and I reckon I might finish this job before even Sherlock Holmes expects me to."

"You're being careful?"

"Always, Kim."

"He's dangerous."

"He's kidnapped and tortured some bloke's boyfriend. Reckon that's about as dangerous as they get." To Dolan's way of thinking, he regarded men who dealt in straight, cranial bullet executions to be less dangerous than those who went for ear-chopping and sick phone calls.

There was a tense sort of silence between them for a second or two. In the background, he could hear Daniel doing... something that involved screaming, "Die! DIE!" He hoped it was GI Joe or whatever it was that kids played with these days.

"How've you been feeling?" Kim asked in much gentler tones.

"Don't, Kim. I'm fine," he said, skirting around how tired he felt – his next port of call was going to be the caravan he'd rented at the near-deserted tourist park nearby so that he could sleep. There were times he almost forgot he was terminal, and the last thing he wanted was Kim bringing it up all the bloody time.

Mycroft Holmes' name literally opened doors but, John reflected, Sherlock Holmes' voice served the same purpose.

Classism, pure and simple – alive and well in 21st century London. John Watson was all too aware of his respectable middle-class decency, and had never been self-conscious about it before meeting Sherlock. He knew that his accent strayed slightly when he was angry or distressed, and of his subconscious lilt while he was working, or around people he didn't know but wanted to impress. Still, he was hardly a chav, and had never felt like one until the spring night three years ago when he and Sherlock had gone to a tapas bar in Soho for dinner after leaving a crime scene. All had gone well until John had called for a cab and was told none were available in the area for forty-five minutes to an hour. Sherlock had silently taken the phone and called the company back. Cab from Poland Street to Baker Street? Ten minutes? Marvellous!

Bastard.

So it was definitely the best idea to give Sherlock the phone, shut up and let him do his posh-voiced thing. He went upstairs instead, to the bedroom that had once been his own and which was now housing Mycroft for the time being. Mycroft had taken his shoes off and stowed them neatly in a pair under the bed, but was sitting on the mattress otherwise fully clothed – jacket, belt, cravat and all.

"How's your head?" he asked.

"It's all right." Mycroft rubbed it wearily, flinching a little.

"Haven't had any blurred vision, vomiting, anything like that?"

"No."

"Give me a look..." Mycroft clicked his tongue impatiently as John tilted his head up toward the light for a better look at his eyes. "Bit bloodshot," he remarked. "But it doesn't look like you're getting any worse."

"Of course I'm not."

"Yeah, well. I knew an American soldier who died of cerebral bleeding after being hit on the head. He was only out for ten seconds, and felt fine for the first few days," John remarked guilelessly. He paused; then, seeing Mycroft's expression, he quickly changed the subject.

"Sherlock's tracking down Eliza Doherty now, so we'll be on that this afternoon," he said. "I don't really know what Sherlock wants to do with that, but..." He shrugged. Sherlock always had a plan; too bad he wasn't always diligent about letting those around him know what that plan was. "I think you should try to get some sleep, in the meantime."

"I'm not tired," Mycroft said, as if he was commenting on the weather. "You brought Charlotte with you?"

"Uh, yes. But Molly will be over to pick her up in half an hour or so. She's downstairs with her grandmother."

All initial references to Mrs. Hudson as "Grandma Hudson" had been dropped weeks before and now she was just "Grandma", despite Sherlock's frequent protests that one shouldn't address people by names that didn't belong to them. He sincerely disliked the constant "Uncle Sherlock" teasing, and lived in a holy horror of the day that Charlie was old enough to address him as "uncle" for herself. The idea that Mycroft would also be addressed as "Uncle Mycroft", and was even more horrified at the notion, only sweetened that deal slightly.

Mycroft was looking at John in still contemplation, as if the man were an interesting specimen he'd not come across very often. After a few rather uncomfortable seconds, he spoke. "You've always been protective of your loved ones, haven't you?"

"Yes." John did not hesitate.

"Does it never worry you, your family's safety?"

John looked at him in silence for a few seconds, trying to keep a lid on something that had just surged up in his throat. "Mycroft, my family's safety worries me every minute of every day," he was finally able to say.

"So does mine." Mycroft glanced at the floor. "I only bring this up because..."

John gave him a few seconds to formulate a conclusion before realising Mycroft didn't actually have one.

"Yeah, well, thanks for the concern," he said, trying to walk the line between sarcasm and sounding soft. "I'll handle it."

"I sincerely hope so."

There was another awkward silence. John cleared his throat and was about to break it with some meaningless comfort about Eliza Doherty when he was saved from it by his phone ringing in his pocket; with an apologetic glance at Mycroft, he drew it out.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, it's me." 'Me' was Lestrade; by the sounds of things he was in or near traffic. "Sherlock's been ringing me, and now I can't get him to answer the phone. What's going on?"

"Well, I wasn't there, but I think he wanted to tell you that the body wasn't Stephen –"

Mycroft unceremoniously plucked the phone straight out of John's hands and put it to his ear. "Lestrade, get onto your public relations department immediately. I want to give another public statement to the press this evening... yes, I'm absolutely serious... you'll find out when I say it, I imagine. If Paul Doherty thinks he is going to run any more circles around me, I'm afraid he's very much mistaken."

God, I dread to think what Mycroft's going to do with Doherty once he tracks him down.

Despite the huge number of unsolved kidnapping cases on Scotland Yard's files, it had never once occurred to John that Paul Doherty, his brother and brother-in-law might actually get away with what they'd done. The only anxiety he had was that they could be caught before kidnapping and assault could become kidnapping, assault, and murder. Or worse, kidnapping, assault, murder and suicide.

~~oo~~oo~~oo~~oo~~

With a sigh, John left Mycroft with the phone and headed downstairs again to make a much-needed cup of coffee. Sherlock's own smooth bass tones were flowing out from behind his shut bedroom door. He was working his charm on some hapless government employee... or perhaps the highest in the land. Who knew? There were some things about Sherlock's work that he preferred to keep a mystery, and some things John had instinctively realised he couldn't ask about.

From the flat below, he could also hear Mrs. Hudson having a rather one-sided conversation with his small daughter; there was a tinny sort of clinking noise, but he wasn't sure if it was one of Smudge's toys or a rattle. He smiled briefly, then remembered Mycroft's words and put that consideration out of his mind, giving his attention to the kitchen.

An absolute mess – perhaps in all this drama even Mrs. Hudson hadn't had the time or energy to deal with it.

He cleared the fridge of inedible food (most of its contents) and took it to the downstairs bins, being forced to take two different trips. He had no idea what Sherlock was going to be eating for the next few days, but it wasn't going to be leftover Indian takeaway or fruit and eggs that had been there since approximately the first week of November. How Sherlock Holmes hadn't literally killed himself with food poisoning yet was still a complete mystery. Or a miracle, depending on how you viewed it, he reflected, slamming the bin's lid for the second time much more forcefully than necessary.

Am I seriously cleaning out the fridge when Stephen's being held captive, naked, with his ears cut off?

As he climbed the stairs back to the flat, he reminded himself that there was absolutely nothing else he could do to help just at that second, and that looking after Sherlock's practical needs so the man could think untethered by considerations like illness or food was helpful to the case. After a bit of creativity he managed to clear and clean half the table, something he knew was going to draw Sherlock's wrath once he noticed. For all the time John had known him, he'd maintained that he wasn't disorganised. He was, he insisted haughtily, one of the most organised people in existence. It wasn't his fault nobody else understood the inner workings of his sock index or why he felt human eyes belonged in the microwave. John had only just made his coffee, and had taken a few sips, when the door flew open and Sherlock stalked out again.

"Bethnal Green," he announced on his way to the coat stand, without even glancing at John. "She's living in government housing; I've got the address. Come on, we haven't got time to spare, John!"

"But... wait... how the hell did you...?"

"Friends in high places." Sherlock knotted his scarf. "Well, when I say 'friends', I mean, 'people who owe me favours.'"

John got reluctantly to his feet, reconciling himself to the fact that his coffee was a lost cause. "You can't just go and knock on someone's door and say, 'hi, you have absolutely no idea who I am, but I got 'round privacy laws to track you down at your house because your estranged jailbird father –'"

"I see absolutely no reason why not," Sherlock interrupted. He sounded casual, but he was pulling his gloves on and looking at John with an inexorable, steely expression; a challenge for John to throw any more cold water on his idea. "Aren't you the one who'd tell me that a man's life is more important than a woman's temporary emotional comfort?"

John reached for his own jacket, which he'd folded neatly over the back of the armchair. I suppose Charlie will be okay with Mrs. Hudson for half an hour, and Mycroft doesn't need babysitting. "What's this going to accomplish?" he wanted to know peevishly.

"Everyone has their pressure points," Sherlock told him, and John had an idea that he was once again being purposefully vague. "I'll know more when I meet Eliza for myself. Where's Mycroft?"

"Upstairs. I told him to get some sleep, but last I saw he was on the phone ordering Lestrade around."

"Charlotte?"

John resisted the urge to remind Sherlock that his daughter's name was Charlie. For a start, Sherlock would be likely to immediately remind him that the name on his firstborn's birth certificate was, in fact, Charlotte. And secondly, his chagrin at being corrected might urge him to revert to calling her It again. Instead, he explained.

"Then I see no reason why we can't leave immediately. Hurry up."