"We could go out," John said as Harry shooed him into a chair, giving him a sisterly scowl.
"Coffee's already being made," she replied reasonably, rummaging through his fridge and cupboards. John watched her carefully, looking for any reluctance in her expression that hadn't made it into her words.
After Mary, his sister had been wary of leaving her flat for anything other than work, claiming she felt like she was being watched. Whether by Mary's people or by strangers who might associate her with the story, John didn't know – but he certainly understood the feeling.
He smothered a flare of anger, not wanting Harry to pick up on it. If Mary was watching Harry – even through someone else's eyes – he would make her regret it.
He took another slow, deep breath for good measure, remembering what Sherlock had said the night before about letting Adler live in his head. He didn't need to crowd his life with Mary too, and Harry certainly didn't need him obsessing over it.
"Anything I can do?" he asked and Harry snorted, giving him a grin.
"Yeah, sit there and try not to fall over," she replied. "Or get kidnapped, or shot. I know it's a bit of a tall order for you."
John rolled his eyes in return but couldn't fight down a smile; at least she was beginning to joke about it now. It was easy to forget, in the wake of everything that had happened to him and Sherlock, how Harry must have felt when he'd vanished while pursuing a murderer.
Particularly after everything else she'd just gone through.
"So," she said, the casualness of her tone belied by the intent way she was focusing on making breakfast rather than looking at him, "how are things?"
"Things are fine, Harry," John replied, surprised at how little it took for him to believe that today. She cast him a quick glance and John sighed, offsetting the expression with a small smile. "Really, they are."
"Your shoulder?" she asked.
"I'm managing," John said. "Sherlock's been a good nurse. He has," he added, chuckling at her surprised expression.
"I just… worry," she said.
"Thanks, Mum," John replied, and Harry rolled her eyes, depositing a plate in front of him.
"I'm your sister. I'm allowed to worry."
"You could compare notes with Sherlock."
"Yeah, right," Harry muttered, waving her fork at him. "He was dragging you off on a case when I got here."
"And he's been very conscientious about my arm the whole time," John replied. "You'd be amazed at what I'm not allowed to do right now."
"Well at least one of you has some sense," his sister said, and John raised his eyebrows.
"'Sense' isn't a word I'd normally associate with Sherlock. Unless it came after 'he has a complete lack of'."
"Ha," Harry said. "Given your way, John, you'd be chasing criminals over rooftops and through alleyways, shoulder or not."
"I'll have you know we were mapping some tunnels yesterday and I refused to try and climb a ladder."
"You were crawling through tunnels?" she sighed.
"Walking," John corrected, and Harry's lips twitched.
"You always used to talk about how you'd come back from the war and settle down," she pointed out, but there was a cheeky grin on her face, the triumph at proving him wrong.
"I've lived here for years, and don't intend to move," John said. "That's settled."
"Sure it is," Harry agreed. "At least you're safer here than Afghanistan. Probably."
"London has a distinct lack of landmines and bombings," John pointed out. "And I get shot at a lost less here."
"Yeah, 'a lot less' doesn't make me feel loads better," Harry replied, rolling her eyes. She paused, then gave her head a small shake. "You know, I've got a friend who has a cottage in Sussex. He offered to let me use it whenever I'd like."
"Who're you planning on taking?" John asked, waggling his eyebrows. Harry sighed, tapping her fork impatiently against her plate.
"Not me, you idiot. I meant for you and Sherlock. In case you'd like to get away for a bit. From everything."
John reached across the table and squeezed her hand likely, shaking his head.
"Thanks, Harry. But I'm not sure a weekend in the country is exactly what either of us would consider a holiday right now."
"It's Sussex, John. Roads and mobile signals and shops and everything."
"Sherlock needs to work," John said. "We both do, really."
"Well, the offer stands if you ever want it. It doesn't have to be right now."
"Thanks," John replied, half doubtful he'd ever take her up on it; he knew the reluctance to leave the city probably wouldn't last, not forever, but it was difficult to believe himself, to shake the idea that if he left London, he'd never see it again. "Maybe you should go."
"I might," Harry replied, pushing her food around vaguely on her plate. "Might be nice to get away, have some time to myself. Not that I don't have that anyway– Jesus that sounds so self-pitying."
"I think you've got the right to feel sorry for yourself," John said.
"Maybe," his sister agreed. "But I don't want to. It makes me feel– it makes me feel like she's winning. Mary. All those awful things she did, all those lies, and I still miss her. I don't want to, but I do."
"I know," John said. "I do too, sometimes. Well, the person we thought she was."
Harry nodded, eyes downcast.
"Why not take a friend with you?" John asked. "To Sussex. You don't have to go alone. Make a short holiday of it."
"I might just do that," his sister replied, looking up again, giving him a small smile that was genuine around its edges.
"I've been known to have good ideas," John joked.
"From time to time," Harry replied dryly, reaching for his plates. "And I know you, John Watson. You want seconds."
"Found anything?"
Lestrade ignored the annoyed scowl aimed right at him when Sherlock glanced over his shoulder. The detective shifted a bit to one side, but Lestrade held his ground; for all the times the damned git had invaded his personal space, he could suffer a little taste of his own medicine.
But the information on the monitor didn't make sense, no matter how close he leaned in to peer at it.
"Not yet," Sherlock growled.
"You've been at it almost an hour. Must be some kind of record."
"It was expertly done," Sherlock snapped.
"Thought you could have expertly undone it."
"This isn't amateur hour at the Yard, Lestrade! Whoever did this knew what he was doing–"
"Or she," Lestrade interjected.
"Yes, or she, fine – that doesn't change the fact that this isn't simple. What were you expecting, perhaps the killer left an obvious email identifying himself and providing an address and time where we could conveniently come round to arrest him?"
"D'you know, that would make things a lot easier."
"Keep wishing," Sherlock retorted. "Perhaps one day you'll have a conscientious killer. Not today. Whatever was being sent from Douglas' email was very efficiently erased."
"But not completely."
"No, not completely."
"So you're still better at this than whoever did it."
Sherlock drew back, managing to pack offended, impatient, and 'obvious' into one very disdainful expression.
"Can't you make yourself useful?" he demanded, turning back to the monitor, dislodging Lestrade by reaching for the mouse. "I could use some coffee."
"Not my job," Lestrade pointed out.
"Surely you have constables for that sort of thing? Let me work."
With a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head – that were, of course, completely ignored – Lestrade left Sherlock to it, waylaying a likely constable to fetch some coffee, and (rather heroically, he thought) resisting the urge to order cream in Sherlock's.
A couple of disaffected techs were working down the hall on Sarraf's computer; the DI wondered if Sherlock had kicked them out or if they'd opted not to work with the prickly genius. Could have gone either way, he supposed – Sherlock was not what anyone would call tolerant of other people's skills and workspace, and since John wasn't there, he'd likely taken to talking to thin air.
"Anything?" he asked, pausing in the doorway.
"Not yet, sir," one of the techs replied.
"Keep at it," Lestrade sighed, leaving them in whatever relative peace could be found in the Yard and finding his way back to his office. He gave a defeated, unsurprised sigh when the stack of files he'd left there greeted him mutely. He'd been hoping if he ducked out for long enough, Hassard would be seized with a sudden fit of generosity and read over them for him.
Of course, if she did that, she'd probably return the favour by leaving him with the bulk of the paperwork she was currently immersed in.
Fine, he thought, hoping the coffee would reach him soon. Let's see what we've got.
Interviews from the Douglas' house staff and those who had worked directly with the late Sir Richard Douglas, it seemed. As well as lists crammed with names of those working in the adjacent building. John Watson couldn't have known the can of worms he was opening when he figured out those maps, but another office building meant a whole new pool of suspects – not to mention they had crews checking the third office building and the bank. Even if someone in the other two buildings had known about this… Lestrade sighed, drumming a pencil against his desk absently.
With the amount of people Douglas had known, and the possibility of four buildings' worth of potential suspects, it wouldn't be long before he could expand this to the whole of London.
Or close enough as made no difference.
Well, not the family, he reminded himself. Sherlock had cleared them, and Lestrade was inclined to believe his mad consultant, because both he and Hassard had been there as well. Three suspicious, analytical minds were better than one, after all – and if Douglas' wife or any of their children had been faking the shock and grief, he'd fry his badge and eat it.
He'd seen his share of convincing performances before. Enough to have a pretty good idea when he was being played.
He accepted the delivered coffee with a thanks and a sigh, wishing for something stronger or sweeter. Cliché as it was, there had to be a box of doughnuts around here somewhere. Surely no one would really protest the boss helping himself to one? It would be good to get up and stretch his legs too. Get the blood moving.
Another, deeper, sigh returned him to the files; a well-deserved break was one thing. Procrastinating was another. There were two likely killers at large in London and two dead bodies in the morgue.
The reports on the staff were utterly unilluminating. Lestrade sat back, tossing his pencil lightly onto the desk, toying with the idea of checking on Sherlock again (even if it would irritate the hell out of him) or seeing how Hassard was doing with the paperwork.
The sudden rattle of the blinds on his door as it swung open startled him out of his reverie; Sherlock nearly filled the frame, grey eyes snapping and bright.
"Maps!" he said.
"What?" Lestrade asked, earning an aggrieved sigh, Sherlock's fingers drumming impatiently against the wall.
"Maps, Lestrade. He was emailing maps. Of the tunnels."
"He was sending them as the information was coming to him – or, more likely, as he was discovering it."
Lestrade peered over Sherlock's shoulder, aware that his own confusion was mirrored by Hassard's and was only compounding Sherlock's impatience.
"Okay, but why?" he asked.
"Providing information to the killers, obviously," Sherlock snapped.
"You think he was in on this?" Hassard asked.
"Clearly. Who better? It wouldn't seem odd for a CFO to access information about his company's building or those in the surrounding area – if asked, he could easily have explained it away as research into the value of their assets, property values, funds needed for renovation, et cetera. As an experienced mountaineer, he would be adept in map-reading, which would explain how he was able to determine the most easily accessible paths in and out of the tunnels, presuming, of course, that he didn't go down there himself."
"But why?" Lestrade asked. "I mean, what could he possibly be getting out of this?"
"His own death," Hassard murmured.
"Hardly something he would have been aware of," Sherlock snapped. "And that's entirely the wrong question, Lestrade." Lestrade opened his mouth to retort, but Sherlock held up a hand, giving his head a sharp shake. "We should be asking is, given who we know is behind all of this, how was he convinced to do this?"
"You think he was working for Irene Adler?"
"I don't know," Sherlock said, and Lestrade was certain he wasn't imagining the distinct flicker of discomfort over the detective's features. It vanished before he could really pin it down, but it had been there. "Whatever his reasons were, I doubt he knew he was plotting his own death – you saw the office. Hardly a man who intends to be beaten. By anything."
"But he was," Hassard said, voice quiet, as if talking to herself. "Who was he sending those emails to?"
"Ah, the right question!" Sherlock said, and Lestrade glared at the exultation in his voice. "No idea." At this, Hassard raised an eyebrow.
"What do you mean? Why not?"
"Because our killer – or at least one of them – gets about. Across the entire city," with this, he pulled up a map of London, each little location marker making Lestrade's heart sink even more, "without any obvious pattern – not on any of the tube lines or bus routes, nor corresponding to any commercial delivery schedules. Email accessed each time from public computers – libraries, cafés, et cetera. Never from a private computer, and never from the same computer twice."
"Cabbie?" Lestrade asked.
"Ha!" Sherlock replied, pushing himself to his feet, pacing the length of the narrow space. "That would be obvious, wouldn't it?"
"It would now, anyway," Lestrade sighed.
"Maybe, although potentially difficult for a cabbie to take that much time between fares that consistently."
"We'll start by canvassing the places his most recent emails come from," Hassard said.
"Yes," Sherlock agreed. "No! Wait!"
Hassard paused, giving Lestrade a puzzled look that he returned with a shrug as Sherlock screwed his eyes shut, heels of his hands pressed against his temples, tips of his fingers twitching lightly.
"Things!" he said, eyes opening as if in realization.
"What?" the DIs asked in unison.
"I need some things. From home. Things I forgot. Amanda." He searched for a pen and paper, scribbling something frantically. "I need you to go to Baker Street. Get these things. All of them. Very important."
"What?" she demanded. "I'm not an errand girl! We have constables that could drive you–"
"No, it has to be you, you're the only one clever enough to get it right."
"Greg's at least–" she began, even as Lestrade bristled at the obvious – and probably deliberate – barb. He felt a stab of professional pride that she'd be willing to defend his intellectual honour.
"Please," Sherlock said, extending the piece of paper to her, expression all innocent guile. Hassard let out a sigh, hands on her hips.
"Fine," she conceded, snatching the sheet from him. "But only this once."
"Good, yes, of course," Sherlock agreed and Lestrade rolled his eyes – their genius consultant would probably try that again as soon as he thought it might work. "Lestrade, you go run after baristas and librarians. I've got work to do."
At least she was getting out in the fresh air. Stretching her legs. A bit of a break from the Yard. And she wasn't in the damn tunnels.
It didn't help much with the irritation, but Hassard shook that aside with a sigh. If this was the most annoying she had to face all day, then she'd consider herself lucky. Parking down the street gave an excuse for a short walk, too.
A flash of colour and movement caught her eye, triggering the instinctive police response before anything else, assessing appearance, height, and weight automatically. Startled posture, flicker of guilt and realization across young features.
"Oi!" Hassard shouted, breaking into a run, but the young man – a boy, really – was quicker, driven by fear, darting away like a deer and vanishing over a fence as soon as she rounded the corner into the alley. Hassard stopped with a scowl, hands on her hips, slowing her breathing with controlled inhalations and exhalations. There was no point going after him; two murderers on the loose far outweighed some idiot teenage intent on a little vandalism.
He hadn't even got far, she noted. A blue line, swirled around itself, cut off abruptly. It would probably come off with some paint thinner and a little elbow grease, and she made a mental note to have the Yard take care of it; they could take it out of whatever Sherlock was paid. If they even paid him at all.
She'd have to tell John, too – maybe not the best news to get first thing in the morning, but since no one had been killed today (yet), she supposed it could be worse.
"Expecting someone?" Harry asked at the sound of the doorbell.
"Nope," John replied. "Client probably."
"I'll wash up," his sister offered, waving him off when he tried to protest, leaving him to clatter down the stairs and open the door, an apology ready on his lips. It died when he saw Hassard, a flash of panic seizing him until he read the irritated expression on her features.
It was a familiar one for anyone having dealt with Sherlock.
"Just caught some kid trying to spray paint your wall," she said in lieu of greeting. "Well, I say caught. We'll pay for the cleaning though."
"Um," John said, trying to catch up. "Thanks."
Hassard waved a dismissive hand, giving her head a shake.
"Sherlock sent me to fetch some things he claims he forgot," she sighed.
"What things?"
"He gave me a list."
John rolled his eyes, wryly unsurprised.
"And just this morning he told me he's a genius who doesn't forget things."
"Yeah, right," Hassard muttered, eyes glinting with amusement.
"You might as well come up," he said, beckoning with his good arm and leading the way up the stairs. Harry appeared in the doorway, drying her hands on a towel, and both women paused, surprised.
"Amanda," Harry said. "Hi."
"Harry – good to see you. Good morning," Hassard replied. "I'm sorry, I wouldn't have come barging in if I'd known John had company."
"We were just finishing up," John said. "Sherlock knew she was here, after all."
"If he bothered remembering," Harry replied with a snort.
"He certainly neglected to mention it," Hassard said dryly, earning a grin from Harry as she stepped back to let them into the flat.
"Everything okay?" Harry asked.
"Oh yes," Hassard replied. "The glamorous life of a DI, being sent on errands and chasing would-be vandals down alleys. And here I thought Greg was exaggerating when he told me about the Yard, back when we were at Chiswick."
"It can't be all bad," Harry pointed out with a smile.
"The coffee is infinitely better," Hassard replied, sending John a cheeky grin when he snorted. That was true, but wasn't any real praise for the coffee he'd had at the Yard. "But that reminds me, I did try that place you suggested."
"And?" Harry asked.
"You were right – it's amazing. I'm afraid to tell anyone; it'll be overrun by police officers if I let it slip."
"Police officers willing to pay a lot for their coffee," Harry replied dryly.
"True," Hassard replied with a smile. "But there are some of us who appreciate quality, and you wouldn't believe the peer pressure among cops."
"I'm a solicitor," Harry said. "I've got a pretty good idea."
"It can't be as bad as all that," John commented, resisting the temptation to tease his sister about comparing coffee shops when he'd been missing. He couldn't blame her for having found distraction wherever she could – that wasn't at the bottom of a bottle.
"I did agree to come here for a detective who isn't even a real cop," Hassard replied wryly, arching an eyebrow at him. "And I'm not even sure what I'm getting out of it. It was probably a thinly veiled excuse to check up on you."
"It's barely been an hour," Harry sighed.
"And I was about to head over there," John added.
"Ah, so errand girl and personal chauffeur. Well since I'm here, I might as well fill this list. If Sherlock wants to send me on a fool's errand, he's going to get what he asked for out of it. Let's see." She pulled out a folded piece of paper, eyes skimming over it, eyebrows raised.
"Fool's errand indeed," Hassard huffed. "One tea bag, emptied of tea. The sextant, which, he writes in brackets, is 'on top of the thing'. Your dog tags, apparently. His two spare watches from his dresser, and two and a half biscuits. You're supposed to be sure to measure that. Precisely."
John sighed, aware of his sister's sardonic gaze as he gestured for the paper. It was Sherlock's writing all right, that familiar hasty scrawl. It probably was an excuse to send Hassard to round him up, but John was happy to side with her. If Sherlock wanted these things, he could have them. And then he could deal with bringing them home.
"Give me a couple minutes," he said.
"You're not really going to?" Harry asked, folding her arms, eyes twinkling.
"See how much he likes it," John grouched, given away by the smile on his lips. He collected Sherlock's haphazard list, half wondering how the mad genius had come up with it. The watches hadn't worked in the entire time John had known Sherlock, but he dropped them into the bag before heading into the kitchen. The tea bag was tricky to cut open with his left arm in its sling, but he managed, then turned to making a careful measure of the half biscuit with callipers for the extra precision, all while keeping an ear on the conversation in the living room and smiling to himself.
The sextant was on top of the fridge – of course, perfectly logical, John thought – and he left it there for the moment, waiting for the conversation to ebb into a small, awkward pause. When it did, he called Hassard's name, knowing Harry would follow out of some vague sense of sisterly obligation.
"Could you give me a hand?" he asked, gesturing vaguely to the sextant's unlikely resting place.
"Two, even," Hassard replied, standing on tiptoes to take it down, making a face at the thick layer of dust. Harry took it with a tea towel, shooting John a mild scowl.
"Right," he said, as his sister handed him the dusted instrument to drop into the bag. "That's the lot of it."
"I guess this is my cue for a graceful exit," Harry said.
"I'll call you soon," John promised, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before she left.
Hassard helped him out of his sling so he could shrug his coat on carefully, and carried the bag of Sherlock's random requirements down the stairs without being asked, dismissing his thanks with a shrug and a wave of her hand.
John paused just inside the front door, hand wrapped around the handle, debating quickly and silently with himself before turning back.
"Can I give you a bit of advice?" he asked.
"About Sherlock?" Hassard replied. "You're the expert."
"Ha," John muttered, almost under his breath. "No, not about Sherlock." Hassard arched an eyebrow, expression both curious and cautious. John drew a breath and plunged ahead before he could talk himself out of it. "Harry really likes Vietnamese food. And Thai. But good Thai."
Hassard was silent for a moment, features unreadable until a small smile quirked on her lips and she nodded, a short, curt movement.
"Thank you, John," she said. "I will definitely keep that in mind."
