Chapter 17

John was woken up from his position on the lilo by a huff of frustration. The room was dark, except for the glow from Sherlock's laptop screen. He glanced at his watch – it was the early hours of the morning.

"Not resting then?"

"Been sleeping all day. I'm twice as slow with all the medication, plus I can't type. It's infuriating. Needed to review this. Important."

Sherlock's face looked pale and pinched. He was stabbing at the keyboard with a pen held in the crook between his thumb and first finger.

"I know there's something that's stuck in my recycling bin (an analogy that worked quite equitably for both his Hard Drive and Mind Palace techniques – although he usually saved the compost for his more contemptuous storage). Just need to access it."

John sat up, yawning, and rubbing the back of his neck. He had been about to protest, but was stopped by the slightly haunted expression his friend wore. Distraction was good right now. The rest could wait until they were back in Baker Street. He leaned over to read over Sherlock's shoulder, then frowned.

"Sherlock – isn't that the Scotland Yard intranet?"

"Only bits of it. It's reassuringly difficult to hack the important bits, but I set up a handy little access point to look at these rotas and the personnel files again."

"You really are a dangerous nutter."

"Don't over-dramatise, John."

"What are you doing?"

"Checking the credentials of the IT department. They're ideally placed to… Oh! Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!"

He swung the screen around to John. John blinked at the picture of an offensively good looking man; all aftershave-model good looks and chiselled chin.

"I know him from somewhere. Where've I seen him before?" he muttered.

"The time we met Anthea and her boyfriend at the Bon Iver gig that I 'dragged you' to. Jared Ford. I thought he seemed uneasy at the time. Mycroft's only set eyes on him through surveillance photos."

"So, he works for Scotland Yard?"

"Apparently so. The IT department. I've been on the alert to what a good 'in' it is to an organisation, ever since dear departed 'Jim from IT'. Only thing is, he has a first class degree in computing from Oxford, then a masters from Harvard."

"So what's he doing working for the public sector, you mean? I see your point; our IT guys haven't got much past 'turn it off then back on again', and look at the NHS IT contract."

"Precisely. Scotland Yard pays peanuts. This man is an evolutionary level removed from their usual class of monkeys. They must have thought their dreams had come true when he shimmied onto the scene. Hmm. Aha! Got it – records of his application, including his CV. Worked for some prestigious companies in his time… and, oh look, What a surprise. This is fantastic! Stoper's Personnel Recruitment Agency."

"Sorry, is that significant?"

"Oh, keep up John. Judith Stoper's one of Nevill's contacts. She runs an outwardly squeaky clean successful recruitment service, with a branch specialising in au pairs and the like, big thriving company, you read about her in Whittard's records. I expect much of the trafficking must go through her, but so far, she's been untouchable. I really need to have words with Mycroft; he's had his eye on them for ages, yet somehow missed that his most trusted employee had shacked up with an ex-employee right under his nose.

"So the morally flexible yet technologically brilliant Jared Ford is presumably employed to legitimise some of their transactions. But business is booming – and not just for au pairs and live-in nannies. They need a more permanent arrangement. And there's Nevill with his tame connections deep in the heart of the Met. I wonder if Whittard had to pull any strings to get Jared employed – or maybe they just snapped him up, never believing their luck."

"So he's a mole?"

"He's a Super-Mole! Complete with little cape! Oh, this is brilliant! It's gift wrapped for me! Mycroft won't know whether to be cheered up or overwhelmingly pissed off! And then, he'll have to be grateful to me as well! He'll probably explode trying to process so many emotions at once! Because here's his leak, and it isn't any of his trusted stooges, not really, poor old Anthea's obviously thought her GCSE in computing and her European Computer Driving Course was sufficient to protect her phone – oh a little knowledge is a dangerous thing! Of course it wasn't enough to keep her clever obnoxious boyfriend out! She'd have been better off accepting she's a Luddite and taking better precautions like hiding the bloody thing – and she's always on it! All those lovely state secrets as a bonus, and a brilliant loop whereby he can watch those who might be watching him. Where is the fat git?"

Sherlock tried to bolt upright in his excitement, when the unexpected happened. A surge of pain flooded his entire body as he jarred himself, and he sunk back to the bed with a low moan. It hurts. It hurts. For a moment, his vision was greying, and the walls seemed to close in. His breath caught in his throat, and his mind skittered off its smooth track like a derailed Skalectrix. Frightened by the sudden loss of his usual command over himself, he mentally scrabbled for purchase, to convince himself he was safe, and out of the improvised torture chamber.

Then there was the warmth against his palm again, and John's voice, and exhaustion followed fear and exhilaration so suddenly and overwhelmingly that he only had a moment of frustration that he was being compelled to leave the puzzle half solved before he found himself helplessly watching the blurry grey bars of his eyelashes falling across his vision, as the thoughts swam away.

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