Sherlock, Welsh borders, April.

I have a job.

This is novel.

My hair is growing back and so with a cheap shirt and polyester trousers I look, I think, pretty average.

I am an Administrative Assistant.

Of course I am also spying on the work of the Empty Hands whilst notionally filing and photocopying.

I don't mind the work, in fact. Except taking phone calls, which I do my best to avoid. I have an irrational fear that one day I will answer the phone and it will be John on the end of the line.

Even I would struggle to maintain my resolve in that case.

The rest is easy. I get a bit of attention as the new boy in the office, but I have let it be known that I have a long term girlfriend who lives far away but to whom I am utterly, religiously devoted. If anyone seems too interested, I begin boring them with the amazing good qualities she possesses. If that doesn't get rid of them I start talking about my hobby, which for this alias I have decided is railway tunnels constructed in the mid nineteenth century.

The Hands, as I think of them, are only lightly touching this clinic. Mostly the staff here in Admin have no contact with the medical and social work staff. Nobody has contact with the biosample deliveries to the lab on the top floor, except Bolton, who is the security specialist, rarely seen, a stoop shouldered, balding man with a thin smile and an office on the Admin floor.

His office door is always closed, and firmly locked at night. So far no attempt to pick it has been successful, and I must be surreptitious as this place has CCTV covering everywhere, even the toilets.

"A bit over the top for an office," I comment to the girl at the next desk, and she shrugs. CCTV is part of life for her.

A true citizen of Mycroft's world.

I have a gammy leg and a note to prove it, meaning that I have to get up and walk around a lot to relieve the pain. I act a bit dim when discovered in parts of the building which are off limits, as if the concept of boundaries is alien to me. John would laugh at that.

As if this does not keep me busy enough. I also have a second job, of sorts. At night I get changed in the Land Rover which is still my base camp, and wander down to the concrete underpass to hang out with my fellow dispossessed.

Our living room is a raw concrete ramp beneath the motorway. Prime spots are near the top where there is the most shelter from the frequent rain, but none of it is level and all of it is uncomfortable and miserable.

I am mostly silent, here, with a sympathetic expression and a willingness to sit compliantly while people tell me all about themselves. I have become known as someone the opposite of a raconteur... what is that? A racontee?

And one day, my waiting and watching at the tough end of the Hands' operation pays off.

xxx

A van arrives at the underpass, and a squad of outreach workers get out. Tonight, they are immunising.

I immediately develop a vocal dislike of needles and begin to back away. I will watch from a distance, thank you very much.

The workers are some of the clinic staff I recognise, plus a supervisor I don't, at first.

The outreach workers move among us with soothing voices and official looking lanyards. We are offered a cup of tea and immunisation.

One of them, a fresh faced girl with a small plastic box, approaches me.

"He's scared of needles," proclaims one of my new friends helpfully on my behalf.

"Don't worry," says the girl with a reassuring pat of my arm. "There's no needles here, see!" She opens the box and shows me a little pile of plastic devices which look like marker pens. "See! Non invasive."

I hesitate as if considering it, whilst actually considering how to steal one of the pens and escape, but then the supervisor comes up to me with a chuckle and says, "This isn't, though," and unceremoniously wrenches up my coat sleeve and sticks me with a sharp object.

I squeal in surprise and genuine alarm. This stuff has killed people. I look down as the fresh faced girl begins bandaging my left bicep before I can get a good look at what they've done.

I recoil and wrench away, my heart pounding. "Let go of me," I shout, bashing at the plastic box and sending the marker pens scattering. I catch one as it falls and as I flail about, get it into my pocket. "Leave me alone!"

The supervisor tries to grab me, growling at the girl, "You've got to be more firm with these people. see? That's why I give you targets to meet."

I elude his grasp, and struggle to get away from here. He doesn't give chase, leaving that to the juniors.

I flee and head across the wasteland towards town and my Land Rover. I am panicking because I have been injected with whatever it is, and because I have recognised him.

It is Crash.

I have been injected.

Oh God.