The door between Helen's room and the Superintendent's office is ajar, so Helen and I resort to pantomime when I come in.
"Who is it?" I enact, jerking my head at the half-open door.
She shrugs.
"Any idea?" I mouth at her, raising my eyebrows questioningly.
"Home Office?" she suggests soundlessly, and my eyebrows go up even further.
There is no time for more, unless we want to be caught at this. I nod thank you to her, and walk over to knock on the door.
The two men in the room are in quiet conversation, but they fall silent and turn towards me when I enter.
I've never seen the Superintendent's visitor before, but Helen can't have been far off the mark. He wears a three piece suit that makes him look ten or even fifteen years older than he probably is, and it also makes the Super look as if he picked up his in a charity shop.
The stranger's face is a contradiction in itself, and that makes it hard to read. His prominent nose made him look formidable in profile, but straight on, it's roundish and smooth, giving the impression that it was actually made for laughter. But the arrow-straight lines of his thin eyebrows and his piercing eyes suggest that he hardly ever allows himself such a luxury.
"Thank you for coming so promptly, Detective Inspector," he greets me. There is a slight rasp to his voice, and also a slightly nasal tone. They make for an odd combination. The Superintendent never says a word.
"As you've heard, there is an urgent matter that I would like to discuss with you." He doesn't introduce himself, neither with a name nor with his rank or role. Instead, he turns to the Superintendent. "If you wouldn't mind - ?"
The unthinkable happens. The Super nods, meek, assiduous even, and walks out of his own office, closing the door softly behind him.
His visitor waves me to the chair in front of the desk and sits down in the Super's own. He puts the tips of his fingers together and regards me in silence for a moment.
If he's trying to make me uneasy, it works.
"I'm sure you're not wondering why I asked you to come here," he begins at last. He doesn't bother to say 'we asked you'. But then, what I've witnessed in the last two minutes makes it perfectly clear that the Superintendent will have no say in whatever this man has in mind for me.
"I'm sure you're about to tell me," I reply, trying to keep my voice as neutral and polite as his.
He smiles a cold, detached smile. "I think I'm about to surprise you."
"Feel free to surprise me, then."
A corner of his mouth twitches, as if he expected me to sing a lot smaller by now. But there is no point, I tell myself, in sitting here like a bird before a snake. At least not until I know for a fact that I'm on the menu.
"I'm here to congratulate you, Detective Inspector," he says, and admittedly, that is a surprise. Underneath that urbane surface, he's certainly either secretly making fun of me, or trying to trick me into admitting to something that will mean trouble. Or both.
"Congratulate me on what?" I ask suspiciously.
"On doing justice to your reputation," he confuses me further.
"Which means - ?"
"That you have shown yourself lately to be a man to whom the strict letter of the law means little when he has a greater aim in view."
What an elegant way of saying that I'm found out, and done for. Now the only question that remains is why he – whoever exactly he is - thinks that it is a matter for congratulations.
"You mean I have a reputation of being a lawbreaker?" That comes out a tad more hostile than I meant it to. I am getting nervous.
"A strange epithet for a police officer, Detective Inspector," he reproves me. "And an ugly word to describe any decent man."
"Thank you."
He smiles at my dry tone. There is another silence before he speaks up again.
"I'm also here to tell you that it is over."
"What is?"
I may not be giving the impression of great intelligence right now, being deliberately obtuse, but it's the best defence I can think of.
"Playing hide and seek." He's watching me for my reaction, and the thin-lipped smile returns. "Yes, I expected that you'd be more relieved than worried to hear that," he remarks with maddening accuracy. "Sherlock Holmes can be quite a handful, even sober. But no matter. You can pass that responsibility on to me now."
No more point now in denying it, or playing stupid. "What do you want with him?"
"The same as you."
I snort. "You want him to solve crimes for you?"
"I want to keep him alive, and safe."
It is at least half a minute before I remember to close my mouth again.
He gets up from his chair and wanders over to the window. For a moment, he looks out with his back to me as if to make up his mind about something, then faces me again. With the bright light coming in from behind him, I can hardly make out his expression.
"When I said that you have a reputation for occasionally putting what is right before what is correct," he says in a quiet, even voice, "you mustn't think that I was censuring you. I hesitate to call it a virtue, because that would raise to lofty heights what is in fact often no more than a simple necessity. But that means that it is not a vice, either. Not in my book, at any rate."
Now wouldn't I just love to know what sort of book exactly that is. I can tell that he's waiting for me to ask, and I decide that I'm not going to do him that favour.
"There are exactly four persons," he continues after a moment's pause, "who have ever seen both the best and the worst of Sherlock Holmes. You, Detective Inspector, are one of those four. And even among those select few, you are the only one to whom he has granted that privilege of his own free will. I admit that this may sound like a questionable honour, but then my brother has always had his own unique ways of paying compliments."
He drops the word so lightly, so casually, that I almost miss it. Then my tired brain catches up, first with his actual words and then with their meaning, and that sends it reeling. Almighty God.
He walks back to the desk, deliberately turning his head so the light falls onto his face again.
"I know, it's not very obvious," he assures me in an understanding tone as he sits down again.
He's right. They really don't look alike. The hair colour is the same, and they're probably within an inch of each other's height, but I can see nothing of Sherlock's features in this man's face, nor hear anything of Sherlock's voice in his.
"We usually both perceive that as an advantage," the older Holmes elaborates. "One of the few things we agree on, actually. But I digress."
He squares his shoulders and raises his chin as if to conclude this particular part of the conversation.
Ironically, I do see it then. It's the same rise of the head, the kind that immediately puts them both on the height from which they like to communicate with us lesser mortals. They both radiate the same kind of confidence, and the same kind of arrogance. They share the same habit of command, and the same kind of condescending impatience whenever we others don't jump quickly enough to obey. I almost wonder now why I didn't see it the moment I entered the room. In fact, it could very well be that I've only seen the copy so far, and this is the original.
"My brother is a man of extraordinary abilities," he continues now, "but he has his faults. One of them is that he has not yet learned to approach certain matters and situations with the necessary degree of detachment. This, in turn, occasionally puts him in a state of mind that carries a certain risk, and that requires intervention. I'm talking about experiences such as the one he had, a fortnight ago, when you called him in to hunt down the man who murdered his three children."
I feel the blood rise into my face. "Are you saying that I'm responsible for - "
He raises his hands in a gesture of appeasement. "No, no, not at all. I was merely attempting to describe the kind of circumstances that cause these… tailspins. I call them danger nights."
I frown.
"That expression is, of course, both unnecessarily lyrical as well as inaccurate," he concedes. "Those moments can occur in bright daylight as well as by night. And while the object of our concern would certainly approve of the touch of drama which the term conveys, he takes care not to advertise those incidents openly. Quite the contrary, in fact."
He takes a moment to look out of the window again before he continues.
"My brother strives for perfection, and he is certainly more justified to do so and also more successful at it than most other men of either your or my acquaintance. But it is one of the ironies of nature that the closer one approaches to perfection, the more intensely will the remaining deficiencies chafe."
I can't claim that I have any idea how that feels. But it must be true, because it confirms what I'd worked out before.
"In short, you mean he doesn't know how to handle failures," I sum up. After all, I told Sherlock as much myself, earlier this morning, and didn't hear him disagree.
"In short, yes."
I've never taken the time to wonder who instilled those sky-high, impossible-to-meet standards into Sherlock in the first place, but I do wonder now. Then I realise that the answer is probably sitting and smiling at me across the Super's desk. That smile. It makes me want to punch him, just to make it go away.
"And you think you're the one to teach him that?"
I don't really mean it to come out as an accusation, but it wipes the smile off his face alright.
"What makes you think I'm not?" the older Holmes replies in a rather sharp, almost harsh tone.
"You don't seem like the sort of person who does failures."
"On the contrary, Detective Inspector," he disagrees, still in that cold voice. "Much as I would wish that you were right, you are not. I have, over the past years, certainly failed several times already in one specific task, and a short time ago, I had good reason to believe that my latest failure of that kind would be a final and absolute one."
He looks, almost stares, at me across the desk with those unfathomable eyes of his, as if to challenge me to disbelief or protest. But I can find nothing wrong with loving your brother enough to go out of your mind with worry when he starts flirting with death. Small wonder this man doesn't get anywhere when he tries to lecture the same brother on the necessity of emotional detachment.
But for the first time since I entered this room, the idea occurs to me that it might make more sense to see him as an ally, rather than as an antagonist. And after all that I've put at risk lately, I could do with one.
"So," I say when he remains silent. "You say that you care when he gets in trouble. There's something of that sort right now that needs to be put straight." I hesitate. "But I suppose you know all about that already, too."
"I do." He smiles again. "And I'm glad to be able to tell you that it has already been put straight."
"I mean that warrant," I say, to make absolutely sure we're not talking at cross purposes.
His smile intensifies. "What warrant?"
"So you made it disappear?"
"No, you did."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You did, you and your very astute young colleague. When you started wondering, and asking inconvenient questions. Oh, don't be alarmed." He must have seen me stiffen at the mention of MacDee. "You were right to, both of you."
"But that database - "
"Suffice it to say that the resources of the Home Office are at my disposition when the need arises."
"This was a court order."
"Yes. The same applies to the resources of the Ministry of Justice."
"So you can make a court rescind a warrant of arrest?"
"Oh, no." He looks almost comically scandalised at the notion. "That would be unconstitutional. At least in the case of a real warrant."
Jesus Christ. The things he's telling me, still in that calm, unruffled tone.
"You faked a court order? To get your own brother arrested?"
He gives me a look as if he can't quite see what might be wrong with that, but doesn't deny it.
"I merely tried to make sure that he was found as quickly as possible." At least he acknowledges that this requires some sort of explanation. "I concede that the execution wasn't as watertight as it should have been. But I was in a hurry. And I also admit that I didn't expect you and your sergeant to take the matter quite so much to heart, and to go to such trouble to try and prove that which must not, cannot be."
He's mocking me again, and it makes my hackles rise. "So all of that was a lie. Absolutely none of it was ever true."
"I'm afraid so, yes." He puts his hands together again, and I'd say he looks almost contrite, if he seemed capable of such a feeling at all. "I took care to make it plausible, of course, as well as effective. The charge had to be related to his current troubles, to direct your own drug squads and their Mancunian counterparts to the right places and circles. It had to be sufficiently serious to make sure that the matter received the attention it deserved. And I also took the liberty of adding a touch of colour, to make sure that once he was found, any leniency or lax handling that would open an opportunity for him to go astray again would be out of the question." I must look appalled, because now, his perpetual smile definitely takes on an apologetic quality. "A necessary precaution, I fear. He can be a slippery fish, I assure you."
I suppose most men would rather see their own brother in cuffs and in a cell than dead in the gutter with a needle in his arm. But to go to such lengths to make the one happen in order to prevent the other is just plain frightening. After all, if the brother in question is a grown man, then who except he himself has the right to decide which hell he prefers?
But at least I'm beginning to see what he meant when he said that breaking the law in a good cause wasn't a vice, in his book. If, in fact, he is what I think he is, that concept must be second nature to him. But I also know that men who regularly and professionally operate on that principle are likely to lose their grip and overstep the bounds at some point.
"Right," I say slowly. "So the moment you heard that your brother had decamped from that clinic, you enlisted us to help you catch him, and drag him back there?"
"Not quite. I do have a greater respect for the excellent work that you do with often very limited resources than you give me credit for. I didn't resort to that measure until I realised, early on Tuesday of last week, that it would very likely take us too long to find him by other means."
I think back to the fresh marks that I saw on Sherlock's arm when he arrived at my house, and to what got him into hospital in the first place. I can kind of see why his brother decided to pull out the stops. But still -
"He made an excellent job of avoiding us, at least at first," he continues. "We had no word of him at all until Wednesday morning. He'd been very careful to dodge cameras, but one in Manchester did catch him then. Of course, he was gone again by the time my people moved in. But it was a lead, and it turned out that we had been barely two steps behind him when he left that town, going south."
"You mean you chased him half-way across the country, in that state?" I can feel my anger flaring up again. What a strange, strange concept of brotherly love this man seems to subscribe to.
"I object to your choice of words, Detective Inspector," he protests, affronted. "I prefer to say that I kept myself aware of his movements. I was intrigued by his decision to leave Manchester and head back home. Of course, his only motivation might have been that he knew that only here in London would he have a chance to evade me for any length of time at all. But there were other possibilities, too. And as for his state, it was anything but obvious at the beginning. We lost him again on the way, too. He didn't resurface until Thursday afternoon, when he had made the decision to swap secrecy for speed. Another camera caught him on the platform at Birmingham New Street then, and it was only then, too, that I fully realised why he was in such a hurry to make headway. By then, the photographic evidence was quite eloquent."
I can still see Sherlock when he arrived at my house, shivering and sweating and twitching. He must have been a case for an ambulance already when he boarded that train. I can't believe that nobody noticed his state, and offered help, or at least alerted the staff on the train or at the station. And I can hardly believe that this man - the same man who professed himself to care deeply about his brother's wellbeing not ten minutes ago - was sitting somewhere in front of a screen watching it all, and still didn't intervene.
And here I was thinking of him as a possible ally.
He must be reading my thoughts. "I did intervene," he says. "Only in a less visible manner than you might have expected."
This takes a moment to sink in.
"You mean you let him carry on?" I ask then. "You let him get to London, and you let him go to ground at my place, even though you could have swooped down on him and hauled him off any minute then?"
He nods.
"Then what made you change your mind?"
"The same thing that made him change his mind."
"You mean that once you knew that he was trying to quit, you let him try?"
"Yes."
"Then what was it that made him decide that he was going to quit?"
We've finally got to the one remaining mystery, the one question Sherlock never gave me an answer to, neither in so many words nor in any other way.
His brother opens his mouth, but even before he can speak, I've got it. Wednesday morning, in Manchester, when Sherlock had been careless enough to let himself be seen on camera, and when he'd evaded his brother's people only by inches, he must have known that he was on a countdown, and that they'd get him sooner or later. And that must have been when he decided that even if his brother would have his way in the end, he would at least get there on his own terms. Walking upright, not being dragged.
Did he really go through those five days of purgatory out of pure spite?
God help him. God help them both. And God help anyone who gets caught in the crossfire.
Oh, right. That's me.
"But - but how did you know that he was coming to stay with me, and that I would -"
Not a good idea, to say it out loud in your own Superintendent's office that you've been flouting your duty. Even if the Super himself is neither present nor likely to be listening at the door.
"I didn't know," the older Holmes corrects me, "but I was willing to trust my brother's judgement. Don't tell him I said that, though," he adds drily. "It will just go to his head."
"So you, too, were actually counting on me to help him through that nightmare, instead of turning him in?"
"I was certainly not going to stop you, once you had made that very commendable decision."
Well. Being tricked and used by a Holmes is anything but pleasant. Being tricked and used by two Holmeses at once is unpleasantness squared. But being tricked and used by two Holmeses working against each other does things to your self-esteem that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.
"Those cars outside my house -"
"Yes?"
"Your surveillance team."
"Your support team, Detective Inspector. Just in case. And I hope you noticed that I withdrew them once the decisive battle was fought and won."
"And once I started asking inconvenient questions," I remind him, and he rewards me with an almost conspiratorial smile.
"That, too."
"But why me?" I feel a sudden genuine need to understand. "I mean, I know I give him work, and he enjoys it, but he still spends so much time calling me an idiot, why does he -"
Now his older brother positively chuckles, and that's a very strange sight and sound.
"Don't hide your light under a bushel, Detective Inspector," he intones sententiously. "Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognises genius. And vice versa."
Definitely a family thing, making odd compliments.
"And you certainly more than lived up to his and my expectations," he commends me. "I assure you that you have my sincere gratitude for rising to the occasion in such a selfless manner, and for never leaving his side until he was back on his feet."
"That's not true though," I admit guiltily. "I wish I'd managed that, but -"
"Oh, that," he waves it aside. "I was speaking figuratively. Please don't feel any qualms about that little excursion. Sherlock tells me that you seemed rather badly in need of a break at that point, so he made sure you took it."
He lets me digest that in silence. It's a good thing that there is virtually none of my self-esteem left by now, because this would probably have cost me the rest of it.
But maybe that is what makes me reckless enough to say what I say to him next.
"So, you said that he's your responsibility now?" I repeat his words from earlier on.
"With your permission."
That's just rhetoric, of course, but I'm going to take him at his word, and see how he likes it.
"Not sure you've got it."
Again, the smile is gone from his face in an instant, and it takes on the same hard expression that I saw before, brows drawn together, eyes narrowed. I know by now that this is a man whom you anger or disobey at your peril. But I'm also one hundred percent sure of what I'm going to tell him in a moment.
Of course, two weeks ago, I didn't know yet what a danger night was, so I didn't recognise it when it happened. And Sherlock's brother, who knows exactly what a danger night is, had no means of knowing that one of them had come up. And that almost ended in something that doesn't bear thinking about. If we'd joined forces, if we'd been in touch back then -
But I can still see Sherlock's face, when I asked him on Friday night what had become of his brother - the brother that he, younger by seven years, never had a chance against unless he fought dirty. I can still hear Sherlock's voice echoing around my bathroom, too: Why doesn't anyone understand? Anyone, ever? And I remember how he left my house this very morning, to report himself back and clean again to that same someone who never understands, with about as much enthusiasm as a man on his way to the gallows.
"Look, I appreciate that you care about him," I tell him, "and that you wish him well. But you can't - "
What was I going to say? Treat him like a child? Then what was I doing all weekend, making him tea, and tucking him into bed, and holding his head when he was sick, and reading to him to keep him calm and entertained?
" - have him locked up?" his brother suggests with a rueful smile.
My mind takes a funny jump then, not back to the mystery of the faked warrant, but further back, to those eight days when Sherlock was in custody last year. Those eight days that he spent going through a factual enforced detox, while the court was making up its mind so very, very slowly whether to grant him bail or not.
I find myself wishing that his brother won't tell me that he was behind that, too, because I might just throttle him on the spot if he does. Then I realise that the only reason why he doesn't tell me is that I've already guessed it anyway.
I stare at him for a moment, until the urge to close my hands around something and press down hard subsides.
"No, you can't," I repeat then, impressed with myself at my calm tone. "Or when you do it next time, I won't help you. Because no matter how much you care, I'm not going to aid and abet you in making your brother's life a misery in the name of saving it."
There is a silence while he regards me quietly and steadily. As far as self-restraint goes, it looks like I've got nothing on him.
"We're on the same side, Mr Lestrade," he says then, and I note that it's the first time he addresses me by name rather than by rank. "We work towards the same end. It would be foolish not to cooperate."
That is certainly true. But if Sherlock finds out that we do, I'll have lost him, just like I would have lost him if I'd hauled him off straight away when he turned up at my house, four days ago.
And if I know one thing, it is that we didn't go through those four days and nights together in vain. I'm not going to throw that away, and his brother isn't going to take it away from us, either.
"On one condition," I reply.
"Which is?"
"That I don't just do what you tell me. Because I won't."
There is another pause. Then he takes out a wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket, produces a business card from it, and places it on the desk between us.
'Mycroft Holmes', it says. 'Consultant'. Nothing else. No address, no phone number, no e-mail.
I look up at him in surprise.
"Oh, of course, I forgot," he apologises instantly. "People don't usually contact me. I contact them. But in this case, I believe an exception is called for."
He borrows a pen from the Superintendent's desk and jots down a mobile phone number on the back of the card. Then he picks it up and offers it to me.
I take it.
#
We're both on our feet, and he's collecting his briefcase and a furled umbrella from the top of a filing cabinet by the door, when he turns back to me as if he's just remembered something else.
"By the way," he says, "I'm dining with the gentlemen from the Indonesian embassy on Thursday. What am I to tell the military attaché - can I congratulate him on his impending marriage, and put his mind at rest as far as his bride's welcome to our country is concerned? Or will Doctor Sudarmaputri still have any legal unpleasantness to fear when she comes to join her husband?"
I've had enough practice by now, so this time I manage to stop my jaw from dropping.
"Are you saying that you planted those files on me for Sherlock to - "
"Oh, please, Detective Inspector," he talks over me in a slightly patronizing tone. "Your sense of timing is off. I may occasionally be able to make things happen, but even I can't predict the future."
He's right, of course. Those files landed on my desk after noon on Wednesday of last week, when Sherlock hadn't even got as far as Birmingham.
"But I saw a certain likelihood that you might find yourself glad of a means of distraction, sooner or later," Mycroft Holmes continues in a kinder voice, "so yes, I took the liberty of providing it, just in case. And I admit that there is a certain satisfaction, too, in being able to make at least a little contribution to a good cause. Particularly when one is usually relegated to a spectator's spot on the sidelines."
His lips twitch as if he's trying to force them into another of those fixed smiles, but this time, they don't quite obey. For a fraction of a second, I feel as if I'm getting a glimpse of what's really going on behind that cool façade, but then it's gone, and he's got himself in hand again.
"Besides, I saw an opportunity to tie up a loose end," he goes on. "For all his faults of character, Neil Gibson was a valuable man. I admit that it chafed a little that the manner of his death wasn't fully cleared up by your predecessors. I always feel that we owe our people that, at least."
Now my jaw does drop again, after all.
Mycroft Holmes sees it, tilts his head back and laughs outright in honest amusement. "Oh, of course. I should have known. Yes, there is always something that he misses, isn't there? I keep telling him so." He chuckles some more, as if to invite me to join in, but that's the last thing I feel like doing. He notices it, and sobers up quickly.
"Gibson was one of the first on the spot there, back in the early nineties," he explains. "He spoke the language excellently well, he knew everyone who mattered, and he had a firm grasp of our - and others' - petro-strategic interests in the region. So his death was in fact quite a loss. But of course," he reassures me, "we took care to back out of the investigation again very quickly and quietly, once we had established that his death could have had nothing to do with this particular side of his business activities. So I would never have held it against you not to have seen it. In fact, it would have indicated rather sloppy work on our part if you had."
"So are you telling me that you knew all along how he really died, and just gave me the case so we could -"
" - have some fun with it?" he suggests sardonically. "No. Again, Detective Inspector, I have a greater respect for your limited time. As I told you, we backed out once we had eliminated the possibility that his death touched upon matters we were interested in. We left all the rest to those that are constitutionally in charge of these things, as well as best equipped and most experienced to deal with them."
And who would have completely failed to do so, again, if it hadn't been for Sherlock Holmes.
"So," his brother reminds me gently after a moment, calling me back from - from somewhere else than this office, at any rate. "I take it that there is nothing left now that could stand in the way of the newly-weds' happiness?"
"No. I mean yes. It's all fine now. All well."
"Thank you." He smiles, and holds the door open for me.
#
When we emerge into the corridor together, he is there, in one of the chairs in the waiting area outside Helen's office, true to his word and true to his hour.
There is no reason anymore, of course, why he should have kept our appointment. But I'm glad that he did anyway. I didn't know how good it would be to see him back here, in his dark suit and good shoes and long coat, as if he's never been gone. Apart from the fading black eye, I can see only one other small reminder of the trouble of the past days, in the way he's huddled deeply into his coat to keep warm. And even that is gone the moment he gets to his feet to meet us, bolt upright and unsmiling.
I can feel Mycroft Holmes at my side stiffen and straighten up in response. I glance at him, and then at his younger brother again, and wonder how I could have been so naïve as to suppose that there was no more reason for Sherlock to turn up here as agreed. He's had to leave the field to his brother for the past hour, but he's not giving him one more minute than absolutely necessary. And he's already busy working it all out, and drawing his conclusions. His eyes dart over my face, then - he'll never cease to scare me - to the right pocket of my jacket, where I put Mycroft's card before we left the Super's office, and then across to his brother's face. His lip curls in a derisive sneer. Mycroft raises his chin and returns his brother's glare with a look of supreme unconcern. Not one word passes between them.
I know that this would be the moment to put it all straight again, to tell Sherlock what exactly I told his brother, to make it perfectly clear that it's not quite what it probably looks like to him - but somehow, I can't bring myself to break that intense silence.
And then it's too late. Mycroft Holmes exhales audibly, tightens his hold on the handle of his umbrella and just walks away, passing between us and down the long corridor without looking back. For a moment, I almost expect him to jauntily twirl his umbrella as he departs, but he doesn't. And from the way Sherlock stares him out of sight, as if to literally burn a hole into the back of that fine suit, he wouldn't have survived it if he did.
When Mycroft has disappeared round the corner, Sherlock turns back to me.
"You're theorising ahead of the data," I manage to get out then.
"Am I," is all he says in reply, and he doesn't even make it sound like a question.
Knowing that there is no point in pretending, I take his brother's card out of my pocket and hold the side with the phone number out to him.
"You are," I say. "Because just so you know, I'm not keen on using this. The best thing that can happen is that I'll never have to."
"Oh, that's a comfort," he retorts, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Well, I'm glad you agree."
He frowns at me. "When did I do that?"
And then he turns and starts walking away, too.
But just when I'm beginning to feel that familiar twinge in my chest again, harder and more painful now than ever before, he stops again and turns back, eyebrows raised expectantly.
"You coming?"
"What?"
A corner of his mouth goes up in a one-sided smile when he sees my surprise. "Don't you feel like you need a smoke?"
As usual, he's right.
"Actually, yes," I admit after a moment's pause, stupid with relief. "I'll show you where."
I'm still waiting for a chance to explain myself even now, by the way - eight years, a death and a resurrection later. But it doesn't matter so much anymore.
Still proud of the lad.
THE END
April 2015
Endnotes:
Endless thanks to my dear beta reader Cooklet, who quite possibly loves Papa Lestrade even more than I do, and who – as opposed to me – actually knows what he should sound like, too. Without our hours of preliminary discussion on the Science of Addiction and the wonderful character that is Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade, her language help and generally extremely helpful feedback, this story would not have been possible.
Thank you also to everyone else who provided inspiration for this, in matters great or small:
maryagrawatson put the idea for this story in my head when she said that she would like to read how Greg and Mycroft came to cooperate on keeping Sherlock safe.
Neil Gibson and his two ladies (one a fury, one a saint) belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of course; as do Alec Macdonald of Aberdeen, Athelney Jones, Toby the Sniffer Dog, and Mycroft's odd compliment.
The little boy under the Christmas tree and Mycroft's business card belong to silverblazehorse.
Jia, her little café and her unspeakably delicious carrot cake are real and deserve a greater monument than this.
And thank you, last but not least, to all followers/subscribers and reviewers for yet another wonderful journey. Your feedback means the world to me! :-)
