Author's Note: Fast forward about 15 months after last chapter. Lestrade has by now figured out that John is one of the "good guys". This is case fic...

Chapter Thirty Six: The Stockbroker's Clerk Part One: Early Morning Visitor

"I need the keys to your motorbike."

Greg cracked one eye open to peer through the pre-dawn gloom of his bedroom. There was a tall apparition with a baritone voice standing two feet away from his bed. For a moment, Lestrade wondered if this was a dream (nightmare?). He opened the other eye and glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. 4.17am.

"Sherlock, why are you in my bedroom in the middle of the night?"

"Oh really, Lestrade, what part of my statement did you not understand? Was it the word 'keys' or the word 'motorbike'?"

The older man shifted himself up onto an elbow and glowered at Sherlock. "Ok, smart ass, let me re-phrase that question. Why couldn't this wait until daylight? Or better still, why didn't you just carry on and steal the keys? I am sure that someone able to break into my flat without disturbing me should have been able to deduce where I keep the keys and leave without waking me up."

"Because I know you take at least 36 minutes to wake up, shower, shave, and have a coffee before you can even think of moving out the door, and we have to leave here by five if we are to arrive in Brighton before eight am." This was delivered in Sherlock's usual blistering speed, without drawing more than a single breath.

Lestrade groaned and flopped back onto his bed. "You mean you want more than the keys, Sherlock; 'we', you said 'we', which implies that you want to involve me in some way. What, you want me to drive you there, with you on the back of my bike? Why can't you just take the bloody train like everyone else?"

"Yes, of course, I want you to come along. The plan will work much better if there are two of us. Less likely to arouse suspicion."

"What plan?"

"I will explain as you are getting ready."

"Sherlock, this is the first weekday off I've taken in months, and I had a nice lie-in planned. Why on earth would I want to go gallivanting across the countryside of southern England?"

"Consider it a busman's holiday. I'm on the trail of a gang that is behind the spate of thefts from stockbrokers over the past three months, and the motorcycle is a key part of our disguise."

"What thefts? I haven't heard anything about thefts from stockbrokers."

"Well, no, you wouldn't have. First of all, it's in the jurisdiction of the City of London Police, not the Met, and second because none of the brokers have reported the thefts to the police, for fear of putting off their wealthy private clients."

Lestrade groaned. "If this isn't even on a station blotter anywhere, then how can it be a policeman's holiday?"

"Just get up and head for the bathroom. You know that once you are awake, you'll enjoy this more than what you were planning to do."

"And how the hell would you know what I was planning to do with my one week day off in weeks?"

Sherlock looked up at the bedroom ceiling as if looking for some divine assistance to help him deal with the idiot lying in bed in front of him. "Oh, all right. Stay at home then. The shopping list that you left on the kitchen counter means that Tesco is on your itinerary, as is doing the laundry and returning the library books that you niece checked out when she was last here three months ago, but which you will only just find today because this is the first time you will have cleaned the spare room properly since she left. Shall I go on with this parade of domesticity, or have you really lost all interest in solving crimes?"

By now, Lestrade was sitting on the edge of the bed, running his hands over his face and through his silver hair to wake himself up. "Well, since you put it so nicely, maybe I wouldn't mind getting the bike out. It's been a while. Weather forecast for today is good, might make a pleasant outing."

Sherlock grimaced, but the effect was lost in the gloom of the bedroom. "Pleasant outing? Not if I get my way," he muttered as he wandered into the flat's kitchen and started preparing coffee.

oOo

Shaved, showered and dressed, Lestrade seemed more awake as he drank the coffee that Sherlock had made them. "Where's John? Shouldn't he be with you, rather than me?"

"Last time I checked, John didn't own a motorcycle, and I know for a fact that he considers them suicidal given the number of traffic fatalities that occur due to their use. A bike like yours is crucial to my plan. You look the part, and I can get in with the bikers easier if they aren't suspicious."

"You think I look like a biker?" The role of a detective inspector these days had managerial responsibilities as well as duties dealing with the public so he cultivated an aura of be-suited but approachable professional. Lestrade was secretly pleased that Sherlock thought he looked like someone who could be a biker; it seemed more macho and youthful than his day job. To be honest, he had been passionate about the bike twenty years ago, and enjoyed being a bit of a lad on it, but the opportunities to keep it up had faded over time. Still, the thought of selling his Norton would be too much of a formal goodbye to his youthful days as a boy racer.

"Well, yes- there is something about someone in obviously worn biker's leathers astride an antique Norton that kind of projects the correct image, doesn't it? I assume you still have both? And I still have my kit." Sherlock gestured to the sports bag at his feet.

Lestrade found himself touched by the fact that Sherlock had kept the leathers for the years since the two of them had last ventured out. It had been during the second time that the Detective Inspector had banned Sherlock from crime scenes for a month due to his cocaine addiction. What was different this time is that instead of going into rehab as his brother demanded, Sherlock had talked Greg into sleeping on Sherlock's sofa for the weekend while he came down and put it all behind him, again. Withdrawal from cocaine was less physically awful than from heroin, but depression and anxiety were common side effects. Without cases to keep him occupied, Lestrade had given Sherlock the keys to his bike and told him to get out in some fresh air. He'd never asked where Sherlock had gone, but he often thought that the young man's encyclopaedic knowledge of London's road network might have been born in those four weeks.

He finished the coffee and pulled on his sweatshirt, then rummaged around in the bottom of his wardrobe for the set of leathers and boots. When he reappeared, he looked the part. Sherlock just looked at him, really looked at him, with the usual forensic intensity he reserved for corpses, and Greg frowned a bit at him, self-consciously.

"You'll do."

Greg decided that was as close to a compliment as Sherlock would ever get. He crossed his arms and watched Sherlock feed his lanky limbs into skin tight leathers. You have no idea what a picture you are, Sherlock Holmes. It was one of the oddest things that Greg had realised years ago, when he first met Sherlock. The young man had no idea what effect his looks had on the people around him. All that forensic insight, and he's totally blind to how people see him. Or maybe not, as the first thing that Sherlock seemed to do when meeting new people was to open his mouth and offend them. Back off; I may look nice, but I bite! It took a person with remarkable patience, a thick skin and more than a little self-interest to hang around the younger Holmes brother. Greg's clear up rate was one of the highest on the force, but he knew that at times that success had been purchased at the expense of his own and his team's feelings. Despite Sherlock's now ritual abuse of his intelligence, Lestrade was actually very good at his job, and in his ability to read Sherlock like a book.

And this book is telling me something interesting right now. The fact that Sherlock had not blasted him with facts at a mile a minute suggested that this plan of his was probably risky. The fact that he had not involved John was further testament to the fact that it was probably very risky. John would possibly have stopped him, so he has come to me instead, and hopes to keep me in the dark until it's too late to argue.

Lestrade's arms were still crossed against his chest, leaning up against the kitchen doorframe when Sherlock realised that he wasn't being followed out of the flat. He stopped and looked back at the DI.

"Right, now that I've got your attention, Sherlock, gimme a rundown, or this show will not get on the road. You promised an explanation, and I'm not going anywhere until I get it."

Sherlock glared at him, but the silver haired detective was immovable. What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Lestrade was about to find out.