Sherlock

My arm is being shaken, but they're asking for somebody called Jeremy, so they've got it wrong. If I just leave it they'll realize eventually and go away.

Then I remember where I am and who I'm being today and open my eyes. Danielle is handing me my own mobile. "I tried to take a message," she says, "But he's insisting." She gets up as I take it from her, padding to the kitchen. "Do you mind if I cook?"

"Go ahead. Hello?"

"A little siesta, is it?" Mycroft. Can't even pass out in peace anymore. "Then again, I hear you had quite an eventful night."

Covent Garden. Definitely something we need to discuss, but not something Danielle needs to hear. I peel off the sofa, down the hall. I'll get what I can from Mycroft behind a closed door and decide what to tell her afterward. If anything. Nobody says I have to share anything with Danielle. Just because she's… nice, Christ, it keeps coming up…

Closed into the bathroom, "Yes; what do you know about what happened? Can't see any of Her Majesty's lot having the gall to fire a gun at the opera. Even if it was during the interval."

"Mmh, unfortunate incident," he says. And maybe it's just because I'm still a little bit high, but I have to laugh at that. Most British thing I've ever heard. Laughing at Mycroft, however, is a mistake. Now he can say, "Who was that who answered?"

Danielle hasn't given any preferred false name, so I'll have to go generic. "Friend. It's something people do sometimes, but you won't need to worry about it. What do you have on the shooter?"

"It's a third party. All under control. That's all I wanted to say, actually. A female friend who's there when you're asleep?"

Oh, she said 'asleep'. That was kind.

"You wouldn't like her, she doesn't look like Mother. What do you mean 'all under control'?"

"Exactly what I say. We got them. Mies and Darcy. So there's no need for you to continue with any investigation."

Usually I don't like to state the obvious, but this one is just too delicious. I want to lay this one right out so I can enjoy it properly like a fine cigarette, and take my time over it. Are you ready? They may very well have Jon Darcy. I have no information to the contrary. The tiger could be in captivity. But the lady is at large and, oh, brother dear, that you could know it, making me dinner as we speak.

And to state the slightly-less obvious? I must be in real danger for him to be lying about it.

I must say, I've woken up to much, much worse.

"Oh, both of them? Overnight? Well done you."

"Yes, it would seem the minions aren't quite as incompetent as you would have it, Sherlock."

"I've never said they were incompetent." I told you; I don't like to state the obvious. "Is that everything, Mycroft? My services are no longer required?"

"Mummy wants you to come home for a bit."

"Why?"

"Glutton for punishment?"

"Make my excuses, would you?"

"Sherl-"

"Goodbye, Mycroft."

I never tire of hanging up on Mycroft. I don't think I ever will. It's one of the few absolutely consistent tiny pleasures in this life. But very quickly after that I leave the whole conversation locked in the bathroom and return to Danielle.

She's still on the phone. Holding it against her shoulder, pretending not to notice that I'm there. Trying to find a place for her cat, it would seem. Still preoccupied with the brute creature that probably doesn't even know it's changed hands… "What if I say 'please' though? Really? Take a second and think about that because I can say it really nicely. Oh, go on, it's only a couple of days. He takes care of himself. If he could use a tin opener he wouldn't even need us stupid humans… Hello?"

But her intended rescuer is gone, and not a tail hair of his white steed left behind. She swears, lets the phone fall to the floor and kicks it away.

"Bad news?"

"My flat's not secure. I need to find a sitter for Treadstone before I can steal him back. What about you, anything interesting?"

"Good news."

"Oh?"

I should stop. Absolutely, I should stop and think about what I can and can't, should and shouldn't tell her. But for one, it's irresistible, and for another, she's standing at a cooker I personally have never used, preparing food for me, wearing my slippers and blanket and I just feel like she deserves the laugh.

"Brilliant news for you. You've been caught." She stops, slowly turns. The blanket falls off one shoulder and she fixes it. Begs my pardon. "Yes. Friend of mine, bit of an insider, says they got you last night. You and Jon Darcy."

"Oh. Well, I hope they're pleased with themselves. Your insider, we're not… expecting him or anything?"

"Yes and no. There could be somebody watching the place pretty soon."

Mycroft heard a woman answer my phone. I won't be on junkie-spiral priority number one, but as soon as he gets a minute, I'll be under curiosity surveillance. But that's Britain all over; the most watched nation in the world, no such thing as the private life, a tabloid culture displaying more evolutionary development than the current technology markets, and Mycroft does so try to embody his work. There's no sense in lying to her about it. It'll only get her caught. And the more I think about it she really doesn't deserve a prison cell, or whatever other hell might be waiting for her. I've sent people to my brother before and I know for a fact they've never seen prison. Or anything else for that matter, ever again. Not sure I really want that for her.

Even the idea of surveillance shakes her. She leaves the stove, fetches her dress from the floor, her tights from the radiator.

"You're not leaving?"

"I have to stay under, I can't be seen."

"…What's the plan, Danielle? You can't intend to live like this. What's the exit?"

As she moves between cooking and dressing, there's a long bitter laugh. "The exit? The exit, Jeremy, was perfect and beautiful and I did a truly stunning job, and then it all caved in and the exit is currently a pile of rocks where an exit used to be and now I'm fucked."

"Excuse me?"

On her way to the fridge she gives up on the ruined tights, slings the dress back on. "You knew about the heist, right? The Gilès disappeared from the archive. What does that tell you? And do you own crockery?"

"Top cupboard."

That one, I can answer. As to her first question, it's not that I don't know. I just don't want to say it out loud, not in front of her. She's absolutely right, of course; whenever I think back to that first story in the newspaper, back when she was still just a rogue art student as far as anyone was concerned, and I know she planned it perfectly. Those drawings vanished like nothing ever happened from a locked room.

Nobody was supposed to know.

Nobody would have known. At least not until Darcy and Mies were far, far away. Not if there hadn't been some bloody smart-arse scumbag who had to make a point to a duty sergeant. They might not even have checked for months.

Danielle is putting soup down in front of me and I've piled rocks in front of her exit. Says she's starving, wishes she could stay, says it's not an option. And when she's halfway to a much easier door, all I can think to do is call her back.

"Leave a number. They won't stay long. I'll call when they're gone and… well, if nothing else, your cat can stay."

She all but jumps, with a cry of great relief. Flies back across the room on the balls of her feet and, quickly, before I can do anything about it, kisses my cheek.

"Wonderful man! You already have my number."

"Do I?"

From the far side of the door, closing herself out, "Why do you think I had your phone?"

Jim

She took her fecking time. When I finally realized she wasn't just going to walk up to the door, I put out the lights and went where she wouldn't be able to see me from the windows. I'm out in the dining room when I finally hear the dull crack of something being jammed into the frame. I stay back behind the door to watch.

Danielle slips the latch with the jimmy bar and pushes. The window only opens towards the top and less than a foot. This must have been how she got in last time. She told me she slipped in before I shut the window, and hid in the spare room wardrobe. All the torture, all the messages, she did that from her phone. And when I left she bolted a chair to the floor and the rest is history. But I'm interested to see how she does it.

She hangs by one hand from the window frame, and I get my heart up in my throat as she reaches down and unbuckles the harness around her waist. It's attached to the rope that brought her down from the roof and it's all that's supporting her. But she doesn't seem afraid. It falls away, and bounces up on some kind of retractor. Then with both hands on the frame, Danielle very simply lifts her feet up in front of her and curls her body up inside. Moves one hand from outside to the edge of the window, then the other, and rolls down heels over head. The actual drop is about three feet, and she's practically silent.

Made it all look so easy, too.

She does a quick sweep of the exits, a cursory check for me, and then starts to pad about, hissing for Treadstone.

She finds him asleep on my pillow. Scoops him mewling into her arms and turns, only to find me in the doorway.

Yeah, I can be sneaky and quiet too, in my own home. Me not being a horrible thief I wouldn't do it anybody else's.

And yes, I'm holding the Caravaggio, but it's only a precaution. I'm holding it down at waist level so she doesn't have to look, and she doesn't. Tips her eyes to the ceiling while she's swearing at me.

"Impressive entrance. Can you not do doors?"

"I thought you might have somebody watching the front."

"I'm not out to get you, Danielle. I should be. I have every right from the Lex Talionis to the current British legal system to be out to get you, but I'm not."

"You do a fucking good impression. And by the way, Hugo's lot are visible at about a hundred yards. He's never a good option."

"What else could I do? We need to talk and you wouldn't come back by yourself."

"So you thought you'd kidnap my cat?"

"Pet ransom is a truly blossoming area. Anyway, you're lucky the Americans didn't get him."

That's the key. I mention that lot and suddenly she's willing to talk. On the condition that I put the painting down and get her a sandwich, she's willing to talk.

I can do that. Put the painting down, I mean. I've still got the stereo remote in my pocket if she tries anything.

"Where've you been hiding yourself, then? Do you have a stable of fools to fall back on or is it a luck-of-the-draw thing?"

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

"Come now, Danielle, I think you mean 'weakness'."

"Same dif… So you spoke to Count Zaroff then?"

"Tall grey gentleman, big facial scar?"

"That's the one. His real name's Steele."

"How very appropriate. Yeah, he accosted Ruby at your place, showed up to me with the cat." She's not letting go of Treadstone by the way. Holding him against her, and he seems content to lie against her chest. She even eats around him. Any moment her hand is free it's stroking back his ears.

"I presume the two of you reached some sort of deal."

"You," I tell her, straight out. "You in exchange for all information on you and Darcy, what you've done, why you're in this."

"…Why?"

"Because I'm curious." She opens her mouth, maybe-just-maybe about to tell me something interesting for once, when there's a knock at the door. Her head whips round and we know, both of us, just exactly who it is. The timing's too perfectly fucking awful to be anyone from this country. "Danielle, I swear I didn't know-"

"I know you didn't, you're not that fucking stupid. So what are you going to do?"

"Stay very still and hope he goes away?"

"You're fucked when you don't have me. You don't get points for trying."

Another, less patient knock.

"Any suggestions, love?"

She chews her lip, puts Treadstone down at her feet. "How long can you stall him?"

"About two minutes, with nothing to tell him."

"I need four." Large parts of me are crying not to be left alone with an angry American for four whole minutes, but Danielle is already on her way back out the window. She wasn't really asking me if I could do it; it was more a statement of how long she would be.

There's a pounding at the door this time, and my name being called. He must know for sure I'm here or he wouldn't be quite so adamant.

Danielle is looking back at me through the glass, flexing her hands for the climb back up. "Leave the door on the latch," she says. "Now, I'm coming back for him, but I swear to go, if I get so much as a sniff that you're fucking me over-"

"I won't. I was never going to."

Although, now that she mentions it? Now that she's disappearing and I'm walking to the door all on my own with no idea if I'll even last four minutes?

I'm not saying I'm going to? I'm just saying you can't deny the idea has many more merits than it does flaws…