LIFE

"All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes, pray who does not steal?" ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Milo could hear the commotion all the way to the roof. She was waiting for it to amplify. They'd already searched the house extensively and in less than half an hour they'd get into their cars, start a sweep around the neighbourhood. They assumed she was on foot, which meant they'd take longer in their assessment in order to look at backyards and empty houses.

She supported her head on her palm, watching the succession of cars on the near bare streets. It was such a quiet place. Children had come home from school alone or in pairs. A young man held a girl around the shoulders, carrying both book bags. He left her at a nearby yellow house and continued walking with a skip in his step.

The house in front of her eyes seemed a good place to rob. The second and third did not. The cars were all sedans or vans.

Milo imagined growing up here. The people were nice. Definitely middle-class. A Mr and Mrs Jones kissing at the dinner table, raising smart, well-behaved children, mowing the lawns on Saturday and having a family barbeque in the yard on Sunday amidst polite neighbours and picket-fences. It brought a sense of panic and irritation.

They were there and she was on the roof and that was an accurate enough description of their differences to end her thoughts right there.

Her phone vibrated and she spared it a glance, keeping an ear out for movement inside the house.

And then she stared at the Vermeer painting with eyes sparkling with adulation. Two close-ups, one of the signature, the other of the river and an ensemble picture. It was beautiful, masterful. It resembled View of Delft, painted during the night, with accentuated horizontals, subtle texture and lighting. A punctuation of light and darkness with pointillé, perfect use of colour.

But her heart wasn't in it. It was hard to say it wasn't a Vermeer, from the blues to the yellows to the forms. It really was but…

The clouds? The stars? The water? Something was simply…

The frame? Yes, it was the frame. The frame was wrong. Only rarely were Old Masters paintings found in original frames and for Vermeer, it was lacquered black oak. There were always simple, earthy, trying to subtly underline, not eclipse. That was for France or Italy, gold-leaf gilded frames. Vermeer and Rembrandt always went for dark…

It was called Dutch Black for heaven's sake. The frame determined the entire ambiance of the picture.

And it was signed. How many paintings had Vermeer signed? Sixteen. She knew them all by heart, had made a point in seeing them in person, even if she had to break into several well-guarded locations for it. He'd only dated three: 'The Procuress', 'The Astronomer' and 'The Geographer'.

View of Delft was signed with a monogram, under the boat, while he was still experimenting with it. This one was signed with the IVM in ligature with a prolonged 'r' like 'The Love Letter', almost seven years after, something that hadn't been repeated, before or since. In the …wrong place? His favourite was either the upper left corner or hidden around the painting. That was just nit-picking but…

There was the fact there was one item missing or lost, of 'a view of some houses'. And half a dozen historical references to his paintings made for wonderful speculation but were too vague to determine anything. There were six lost paintings. The idea that he'd painted another scene of Delft in exactly the same way – ludicrous since he'd already modified the scenery in the first one – was disappointing, anti-climactic and just a little unlikely.

The only two paintings relatively similar were 'The Astronomer' and 'The Geographer' which meant, the room, the lighting and the furniture shared lines and proportions.

Milo had been hoping for his portrait, amongst various accessories, deemed 'uncommonly beautiful' in historical notes. She actually would have stolen that one simply to stare at it daily, and make sure it was safe, forever. Which brought the question:

Did you break into the Gallery?

A pause.

No. SH

She quirked a smile, the first genuine one in three days. Yes you did. The exhibit is still closed.

I didn't break in. They just let me walk inside. Even gave me the keys. SH.

Milo paused as the grin settled gently on her face. You would make a great brief if not a very moral one.

She stole a glance towards the cars. Four of the men were leaving, two in each car. That left four on premise: two guards, one at the post and Carrow…

Do you think it's a fake? SH.

It almost broke her heart to reply Yeah, almost certainly. Stare at it. See if oil is fully hardened. Takes about 50 years unless you use synthetic resin. You would need to test it to be sure, but at first glance…

She let the sentence hang. The idea of another existing, discovered Vermeer was nice. It was a dream in any lover of art to be confronted with an unknown painting by a master, untouched, on an original canvas, without any restoration, just as it left the artist's studio. Nice but so improbable. Finding it intact, signed and delivered after so long was quite questionable. And she was not in the type of situation that allowed her to contemplate it.

Freaky sky, though, right? I can't remember any painting of his that featured the night sky or …well, night, period.

The cars left. She watched them go until they split off into the streets and smiled.

The turns of the cameras were timed and as soon as they faced a blind spot, she slinked off the roof, in flexible motions, her entire weight alternated between hanging by her toes and her fingertips. In a fluid movement, she swung off the eaves guttering, letting go enough to fall onto the windowsill with the pads of her feet and balanced herself enough onto the sides to jump inside.

It was easy to spot the wires. It had always been easy to spot details. In fact, it was always quite hard not to, each small, mundane item being fascinating on its own, dangled just at the edge of her vision and mind.

Small chips wrapped in matted plastic with two metal wires prodding out danced across her knuckles.

She was going to steal a house.

It was five or six o'clock in the morning and a child lived to see another day.

John bought a coffee and drank it on his way. He hadn't been sleeping. Neither of them had, but Sherlock always seemed to run on adrenaline, while on a case. He didn't, or rather, the adrenaline only held for so long and afterwards he felt worse.

But it had been a job well done. Sure, they'd nearly been killed by an assassin, ran all over London, had walked around the homeless tunnels and had felt the fear of condemning someone to death – even indirectly. What a life.

His life, now.

His phone betrayed an avoidance of the social part of it, missed call from Sarah, Harry who still wanted to go for drinks and of course, Mycroft's message, burning a hole through his pocket.

It was that last message in particular that made John leave Sherlock to piece the case for the police department and head towards supposed suicide scene at the train tracks, dragging his feet and gulping down hot liquid as though it was in short supply. The walk, for he did walk from the coffee shop to the train station, was just long enough to question the validity of his investigation and short enough as to not question his path.

It seemed to him that Mycroft was only pressuring John because Sherlock didn't care.

John didn't have the benefit of being related to the man and as such, could reserve a healthy amount of reserve towards him. It was hard not to find the man intimidating – he still vividly remembered their first meeting – and he had the additional inkling of an idea that if Sherlock was mostly harmless, if annoying, his older brother was anything but.

Also, national security.

There was a matter of national security.

Of course there was.

He'd introduced himself and his mission which was received far better than he had expected. He needed no accreditation. John figured that they wanted the situation over and done with as fast as possible. Police presence or strict men in dark suits made for a tense situation at work. It was impossible to let it go, not that they really could, but at least pretend…

He was given a bright orange vest. That was fine. He pulled out a notepad he carried around with himself since before his days with the army, in which he'd written the details of the case and tried to identify the peculiarities of the case, compare the file to what he had been told. He looked around and scribbled right next to one, as the sound of trains passing filled the air.

Yes, 'Westie' was found there.

Yes, he might take long because he had no clue what he was doing and he was trying to both think like Sherlock and like himself and that was giving him a headache. And what he managed was…the lines were really clean, weren't they?

No, he was not the police. Well, he sort of was, although by that account he was also 'sort of' MI6 or 5 or 7 or something. And he was learning that, despite said fact, quite a few people did listen if you said you were going to help.

Strawberry jam.

Was there ever a more morbid description than that? Even as a doctor, who had seen and joked about many afflictions, the term simply seemed so removed.

And as a doctor…when did the body not bleed when something happened in such a traumatic manner as being ran over? The slightly oily metal had no traces of the fluid.

Had Sherlock been there, he would have noted that the dirt and the pebbles didn't either, which were more reliable, by being less easy to clean, but he was not, and John didn't notice.

The worker stepped away, almost unsurely, wanting to be off but also slightly curious.

John recounted the events out loud.

"Right, so Andrew West…got on the train somewhere. Or did he?" he paused. "There was no ticket on the body…"

He would have had a ticket. Well, John would have bought a ticket. It wouldn't have done to not buy one, get caught and then have the suicide interrupted…

Right?

"So how…did he end up here?"

And the answer screeched at his feet, lines moving towards him. He knelt, answer slowly dawning.

"The points" a voice said to his left, depriving him of stating his own deduction.

"Yes!" he gleefully got up. And then realised that Sherlock had followed him.

He was smiling.

Bastard.

"I knew you'd get there eventually. West wasn't killed here, that's why there was so little blood"

John glared.

"How long have you been following me?"

"From the start"

Of course.

"You don't think I'd give up on a case like this just to spite my brother, do you? Come on, we've got a bit of burglary to do"

And John relaxed and started to put away his notebook because he didn't need it anymore, feeling slightly better because he had been afraid of having to solve the case alone. This was familiar ground.

Wait, burglary?

The cameras looped a steady image of empty rooms, comforting for someone who preferred to stay out the public eye – or lens – their whole life. She tested the little chips by moving something about the room and waiting for the guard, but, as always, they never failed.

She returned to her previous cage, grabbed her clothes and put them back on before taking a swing out of bottles strewn lasciviously about the room. Her stomach rebelled and she hadn't eaten in far too long but it woke her up. It burned downwards like fire, nearly buckling her knees. She rubbed her eyes slowly and took a deep breath. It wasn't hard to play the game. She'd done it her whole life. It had been good practice, even while starving, tired or shot.

But it wasn't a long distance game.

She tossed a final glance towards the mirror. Her face was still cadaverous, hair seemed made of chalk, roughened by the wind, and her teeth were slightly purple from the previously consumed alcohol, matching her dark eyelids. Still, she smirked.

Just in case of returning guards or cameras with a wireless feed, she exited through the windows. The one room she hadn't checked, besides security control, was the one the main kidnapper was drinking away in. The wire into the room hadn't even been disguised, so he knew he was watched.

The only problem that originated from her questions was: did it work for him or against him?

The applause came as soon as she entered through the window.

Facing her, Carrow clapped without much enthusiasm, sitting in a chair.

It was a sad room, cold and unfurnished like the rest of the house. All the elements that put it together were improvised, gathered from all the recesses of the house or brought in on sale or from the rubbish: a lawn table, pine chairs, bottles placed on tables. The discordant element, the bottles themselves of superior quality.

"You know, I kept asking myself who you were" he started, curling his fingers around the tumbler of scotch. "I had convinced myself that you were here just for ransom, a game for money, for fun, revenge…what have you. It's not, is it?"

She moved away from the window carefully, keeping a distance. Calm marks were always the unpredictable ones. Anger was always a better choice. His affected politeness was not overly reassuring.

"I don't know why I'm here" she admitted, quietly.

He lowered his head. "And neither do I. But we can both suspect at something, can we not?" he lifted himself from his chair and sipped his alcohol. She nodded in approval and leaned on the wall.

"Why are you involved in this?" she asked, leaning against the wall.

"Tell me, have you ever played a game that you knew you were going to lose?"

"No"

"Figures" he gave a mocking smile. "I have"

"So why play?"

"Because you have to"

Milo snorted softly, turning her head. "If you start a game thinking you'll lose, you won't win even if you've had that chance"

"While I admire your life philosophy, it's not that simple. Sometimes, there are situations in which you have to lose"

"And what did you lose? Money?"

"Not something as simple as that, no"

Milo sat down on the opposite and crossed her legs. Her bare toe leaned against the foot of the table, casually, but fully prepared to topple it as a distraction, while her fingers gently disentangled the knots in her hair, back into its wavy shape. He had moved towards the window, back to her.

The hand basket was still in motion.

"You know a…friend of mine thinks that the world out there is a war. The streets, the lives, the criminals. He says that there were few people who could see the battlefield and even fewer who know its full extent. Me? I don't think it's a war" she cocked her head to the side, thinking of Mycroft's chats, in the rare moments he was talking and trying to explain his opinions. For all his acidity and standoffish behaviour, he was a fascinating conversationalist and she was not adverse to discussing philosophies, if content and drunk enough.

"I think it's a backroom game of poker, which is always a mug's game. You're in the dark, at a round table against men with no faces, the dealer is smirking and you've got a pair of twos while everyone's sporting a flush. You don't know who's lying until their cards fall, you don't count on anyone but yourself and unless you took extra precautions, you're up shit creek. Every card dealt brings the unlucky ones closer to losing everything – the shirt on their back, next month's rent and so on. And some schmucks end up with a gun in their hand, doing less than pleasant wet work to pay off their debt. You know who to shoot at, in a war. The dead get memorials. Backroom poker? Most you can hope for is for someone to kill you before he takes a scalpel to you for spare parts"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because, Mr Carrow, I've been trying to figure out if you've got the twos or the flush. Now…now I'm starting to think you're already out of the room, holding a gun…"

His head rapidly turned towards her. It was not comforting to be reminded of one's situation in those terms.

She looked amused, he noted. At him. He briefly wondered just how many others of 'him' she had seen in her life. What was she? Twenty? Twenty-five?

"Tell me. What is all this setup worth? Your life?" he furrowed his eyebrow for a millisecond. "No, your wife" The eyes widened just slightly. "Yes. But not just the wife" mouth opened just a fraction and she frowned. "Your wife and children in exchange for all this? Why? It's not that important" she licked her bottom lip in thought. It was dry, just like her mouth. "It doesn't have to be, though. Just a cog…Tell me everything"

His eyes showed their reluctance.

"Your guards are out. The ones who are in, can't see a thing" she rolled her eyes upwards. "Eyes are blind, arms are low. You can tell me"

His smile was sketched on his face for a second. He turned back towards the window, validating her claim. They hadn'treturned. It was a large place to map, golf courses, yards and empty houses. And it had been dark. He sighed.

"I was out. For a while. You can't be in with small kids and I had cash set aside. I tried to erase all of my debts before going out but-"

"But you can never be really out, can you?" she moved closer to the window, taking a drink out of his drink.

"No. No, I just learned that" he gestured with one hand to the outside world, behind the window's border. "It turns out, fate's got a long memory. And keeps trying to remind you of things, too. I needed money. Turned to the old ways and then, I owed somebody something. I can't risk them"

"Why you? Why this?" her index finger gestured circles. "Who's making you do it?"

He lightly shrugged. "I don't know the answers. To any of those. I'm not even from London. All I know is that the files were given and you had to choose. I didn't even send the information. I only got a few lines and that's that. I…" he breathed out a laugh. "I never even met him. He was…" Carrow paused.

The pause lasted for far longer than Carrow might have intended. In fact, it would last forever.

There was a dull thud and Milo raised a shaking hand to her cheek. The delicate fingertips came out stained dark red.

A rain of blood and bone and brains. Just like that. No scream, no nothing. The body just dropped.

Her eyes turned to the window, watching for the sniper rifle, awaiting the bullet that would tear through her. She was not afraid of dying. Her life was, as a decided fact, not her most important asset.

And, anyway, she couldn't move.

Nothing followed but the silence.

She didn't know his name.

Milo had arranged everything when Henry died, set up a fund to carefully trickle his cash into his daughter's fund, complete with forged letter of Henry's writing to show up when the granddaughter turned of age and she wanted to go to uni. It said that there was enough cash to pay for all of her education wherever she wanted. It had a signature and everything. She'd even set aside another account of her money in case there wasn't enough. Just in case she wouldn't be around when that happened.

And it was her fault because she'd asked.

And she didn't even know his name. He had children, for fuck's sake. She knelt down, feeling the blood between her toes.

It had been such a bad year. Apparently for a lot of people, but she was selfish and was mostly thinking of herself. Sure, she was still breathing but at least the lucky bastards didn't have to worry about things anymore.

Her head lulled to the side in dire apathy.

A car pulled out back.