There's some rather misogynistic language in this chapter, including the use of a gender-specific slur, towards the end.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

For the second morning in a row, Sherlock Holmes was waking up in bed beside Molly Hooper – a different bed in a different room and it did not escape his notice that they had now 'christened' both their homes though he wasn't sure why that seemed to be significant – and he was still getting to grips with this momentous development in his personal circumstances. He lay on his side, watching Molly sleep, recalling her 'creepy' comment and smiling to himself. He didn't quite know why but watching her sleep gave him a great deal of pleasure – those endorphins at work again, no doubt. If that was creepy, so be it.

A ping from his phone, on the bedside table, alerted him to the arrival of a text. He rolled over, picked up the phone and held it at arm's length, squinting at the screen to identify the sender. Holding reading materials at arm's length seemed to be becoming the norm, these days. The message was from Mycroft's phone but the mere fact that it was a text told him that Mycroft had not sent it. He opened it and read:

Difficult night, calmer this morning. Anthea interviewing, today. Will keep you advised. Document destroyed.

'You should probably get your eyes tested,' Molly mumbled, her sleep curtailed by the text alert.

'Mmmm?' he replied, distractedly, rolling towards her, onto his back.

'Everything alright?' she asked, prompting him to angle his phone screen in her direction so she could read the message for herself.

'Oh, poor Mycroft,' she exclaimed. 'Thank goodness Alicia's there to keep an eye on him.'

'Yes,' he muttered, frowning. 'I expect she's spent most of the night talking him out of resigning.'

'Oh, god, no! He wouldn't, would he?'

'Oh, god, yes! He would! He's just too damn honourable! Nothing like Rudi, obviously,' he added.

'Well, I'm sure Lady Smallwood is up to the job,' Molly declared.

'In deed, she is. She's a highly intelligent woman of rare perception. Mycroft is a very lucky man. In fact, despite being patently lacking in any and all the prerequisite skills for forming relationships, my siblings and I seem to have been extraordinarily blessed in the partner department.'

He turned to gaze at her, newly awakened, with her tousled bed hair and sleep-moistened eyes, and he smiled.

'Good morning,' he said and stretched out his arm for her to snuggle into. This, he observed, was fast becoming his favourite time of day, when they could lie together – what had Molly called it? 'Spooning'? - and just be. Neither spoke for a while and then he said,

'What were you and Hudders conspiring about last night, when we came in? I thought I was going to have to send in the cavalry to rescue you.'

'I wasn't that long, was I?'

'Long enough for me to rearrange the furniture. They'd put it all in the wrong place.'

'Oh, that was just as well, then. I got to see the Director's Cut.'

'The what?'

'Never mind. Mrs H wanted to know if you were alright because you didn't come home when you said you would and she hadn't seen you for days. I told her about Eurus. I hope that was OK?'

'Oh, yes, of course. I probably should have said something myself but, you know, once a case is solved, it's on to the next one. And she really shouldn't worry about me.'

Molly gave him an old-fashioned look.

'You might as well tell water not to be wet.'

He had to concede that point.

'Perhaps if you didn't raise her expectations by giving her an eta?' Molly ventured.

'I didn't, did I?'

'Apparently, you did. You told her on Tuesday that you were going out early on Wednesday but would be back by mid-afternoon, that same day.'

'Ah, yes,' he nodded.

'But then you weren't.'

'Wasn't I?'

'No, apparently not.'

'Oh.'

'So where were you, on Wednesday and Thursday?' she asked, out of idle curiosity.

'Erm…' He scanned his memory banks, with screwed up eyes and a wrinkled brow, then shook his head and said, 'I have absolutely no idea.'

ooOoo

Eurus stood by one of the tall windows in the first floor sitting room, sipping a mug of English Breakfast tea, observing the Monday morning comings and goings in the square. Charlotte came up behind and wrapped her arms around her waist, resting her chin on her shoulder and gazing out at the scene below.

'That car, over there,' Eurus said.

'Mmmm?' Charlotte hummed.

'I'm being watched, aren't I?'

Charlotte sighed and gave her a squeeze.

'We are being watched,' she replied.

'What? You, too?'

'Yes, I'm afraid so. Mycroft's orders.'

Eurus took another sip of her tea, then said,

'I can sort of understand him watching me but what on Earth does he think you're going to do?'

'He's still convinced we conspired to murder my husband so we could run away together.'

Eurus shook her head and gave a mini eyeroll then raised her mug in greeting to the watchers in the car and twisted around to face her partner, draping the arm not holding the cup over her shoulder and smiling into her eyes.

'Have I told you lately how much I love you?' she asked, paraphrasing a song she'd had playing in her head all morning. It was an old song she remembered from one of her twice-a-year childhood visits to Uncle Rudi's. She'd been thinking about those excursions rather a lot in the last couple of days, appreciating that they had helped her keep abreast of how the outside world was changing, thus mitigating the culture shock of her sudden release from Sherrinford, two days ago.

It was a pity those outings had stopped, abruptly, after Rudi died, because the world had changed a lot in the intervening years. But Mycroft preferred to visit her rather than the other way around. Perhaps he was afraid she might escape, on his watch. That was never going to happen, of course. Even when she had the chance, on the occasions that she came out with Charlotte to be 'E' and 'Faith' and 'the therapist', she didn't take it.

But Mycroft wasn't to know that, was he, she supposed.

Or perhaps he was afraid she might murder him in his sleep. Rudi never worried about that because he knew she wasn't a psychopath.

She was yet to set foot outside the house, pending the delivery of the clothes she and Charlotte had ordered on line yesterday, but she was looking forward -with perhaps a little trepidation - to her first outing, a visit to a hair salon to have her hair professionally cut, for the first time ever.

'Not for at least half an hour,' Charlotte replied, features contorted by a faux sulk.

'Well, it's heaps,' Eurus murmured and captured Charlotte's lips with her own.

ooOoo

'Now, remember, Mycroft. We're just observing,' Lady Smallwood reiterated as he and she took their seats, just after lunch on Monday afternoon, in the observation gallery in the bowels of the River House, by Vauxhall Bridge.

Currently, the large video screen showed only an empty room – empty but for a table with two chairs, one either side. Suspended above the table was a large microphone, rather like the ones used for boxing matches, that drop down from above in the centre of the ring so that the referee can address the audience. It was sensitive enough to pick up every word spoken in the room, even when whispered.

Video cameras were positioned all around the walls and in the ceiling, to provide a varied selection of viewpoints, and could deliver individual and group shots, as required - a control board allowed the observers to select viewpoints at will. A microphone was also provided in the gallery so that the observers could communicate with the interrogator and suggest lines of questioning, However, the interrogator had the final say as to whether or not they acted on those prompts.

Mycroft crossed one knee over the other and leant back in his chair, folding his arms. After some reflection, he had conceded that Alicia's idea to have Anthea conduct the interrogation was a master stroke. Sir Edwin's latent misogyny would work in their favour. It would make him arrogant and, therefore, careless. He would play right into their hands.

A door in the far wall of the interrogation room opened and Sir Edwin was led in by two guards. He was dressed in the blue overalls that everyone enjoying the hospitality of The River House wore and he was shackled at the ankles and wrists, thus requiring him to shuffle along rather than striding out as he normally would. He was manoeuvred onto one of the chairs then the manacle was removed from one wrist, slipped through a metal ring attached to the table and replaced, restricting his ability to reach out in any direction.

'This is preposterous!' he snorted, scowling at his escorts. 'How dare you treat me like a common criminal?'

The guards gave no discernible response to his outburst; they simply left the room and closed the door behind them, leaving him alone. He looked around, eyeballing individual cameras, trying to work out which one was most likely to be the current viewpoint of the observers whom he knew would be in the gallery. He chose the wrong one and glared into the void, exclaiming,

'I will have your head on a platter for this, Elizabeth Smallwood!' deliberately using her less preferred forename.

Alicia merely raised an eyebrow and sighed, in a bored fashion.

She and Mycroft heard another door open, out of sight of their current viewfinder and observed with satisfaction how Sir Edwin responded to the newcomer. Initially, he seemed surprised, then confused and, finally, scornful.

'Mycroft too afraid to face me, is he? Sent his tea lady, instead!' he mocked.

A sub-screen in the top left-hand corner of the main screen came on, showing Anthea taking the seat opposite the prisoner and placing a file folder on the table in front of her, then looking across at Sir Edwin and saying,

'For the tape, the time is 13.30 on Monday, 23rd November, 2015; Agent Smith has entered the room and will be conducting this interview. Please state your name for the tape.'

'My name, as you well know, is Sir Edwin Beauchamp, CSC, KBE, Knight Companion of the Garter,' Sir Edwin opined, giving his full name, rank and honorary titles.

Anthea nodded her thanks, opened the folder in front of her and scanned the top document before picking it up, turning it around and placing on the table before Sir Edwin. A second sub-screen opened up at the top of the main screen in the gallery and showed an image of the document taken from an overhead camera.

'Do you recognise this document, Sir Edwin?' she asked.

'Of course, I do,' he snapped.

'Would you mind explaining what this document is?'

'Well, I would, actually. A person of your rank has no authority over me. I have the right to be interviewed by someone of equal or superior rank to myself,' Sir Edwin huffed.

'The authority to conduct this interview has been conferred upon me by the most senior rank in this department, the Home Secretary herself,' Anthea replied, calmly.

Sir Edwin shot a glare at his designated principal camera, correctly assuming that the Lady Smallwood was in the gallery, but still wrong about her viewpoint.

'I suppose I have little choice in the matter…'

'It is entirely your choice whether or not you answer my questions, Sir Edwin, but I suspect we'll get this interview over with more quickly and with a lot less fuss if you do, rather than not.'

'It's a copy of the standing orders issued to the Governor of Sherrinford by Sir Rudi Vernet in April, 2004, just before he died,' he snapped, impatiently.

'And to what do these orders relate?'

'They relate to the day-to-day care of Eurus Holmes, also known as Patient A, the sole occupant of the Special Unit, situated on the lower floor of that institution.'

'And what do they state, specifically?'

'That in all exceptional circumstances pertaining to Patient A, the Governor should defer to myself, as Rudi's chosen successor with special responsibility for Eurus Holmes.'

'And who else knew about these standing orders?'

'Well, the Governor at the time, obviously, and myself. And the new Governor, of course, after he was appointed.'

'No one else?'

'Not to my knowledge.'

'So, not the Home Secretary or the Minister for Justice, past or present, or the Attorney General, the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Chief Justice or any of the Justices of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land?'

'I don't believe so.'

'What about the oversight committee? Do you not think it appropriate that they should have been made aware of these orders?'

'Entirely surplus to requirements. Rudi was adamant on that point.'

'And did it not occur to you that this might be in any way illegal?'

'No, why should it? Eurus Holmes was Rudi Vernet's niece. He was her legal guardian and he passed that responsibility on to me.'

'But Eurus Holmes was and is a ward of the state,' Anthea countered. 'Rudi Vernet, though her biological uncle, was not her legal guardian, the state was and is. And the legal responsibilities of the State are administered by the offices I have just listed, and, in this case, overseen by the oversight committee, who were, according to you, unaware that this document existed and, therefore, unaware of your role in the care of Eurus Holmes.'

'Well, that's hardly my fault. I was just carrying out Rudi's orders…'

'Which ceased to have any authority upon Rudi's demise…'

'But they weren't rescinded!'

'No, they were not, because their existence was kept secret…by you.'

'And both the Governors!'

'Yes, and the governors, one of whom is also now dead.'

Anthea's calm, analytical approach to the interview process was clearly grating on Sir Edwin but not as much as her line of questioning. His defence rested solely on his assertion that he was acting under orders. The legitimacy of those orders was now being contested. Such audacity! How dare these goldfish – these women - challenge the wisdom and judgement of his mentor, Rudi Vernet? Sir Edwin was outraged but he fought to maintain control of his emotions. They were deliberately goading him, he knew, in the hope that he would slip up and say something incriminating. He was a past master at this game. Lady Smallwood and this Smith girl would have to get up very early in the morning to get the better of him. And it was already mid-afternoon!

Anthea returned the first document to the folder and removed a second, placing it on the table in front of Sir Edwin, two sheets, side by side. It was the section of Nathan Garrideb's Employment Record relating to the disciplinary hearing which had led to his dismissal.

'Do you recognise this document?' she asked.

He looked closely at the first sheet, noting the name and the date, and briefly scanned both sheets for content.

'I have never seen this document before but I am familiar with the matter to which it pertains,' he replied, archly.

'Could you elucidate, Sir Edwin?' Anthea requested, politely.

Edwin sighed, expressing most eloquently his impatience with this whole business.

'It pertains to an internal disciplinary hearing, held at Sherrinford, into a number of incidents concerning an inappropriate relationship between an in-patient and a member - that member - of the care staff.'

'Were you present at that hearing?'

'I was.'

'In what capacity?'

'As a representative of the oversight committee.'

'Who appointed you to attend that meeting on behalf of the oversight committee?'

'Why, I did! I 'appointed' myself!' he exclaimed, outraged that the question was even being asked.

'Is that a standard procedure?'

'For a member of the committee to attend such hearings? Of course!'

'For a member of the committee to appoint themselves to attend such hearings.'

'Well, I was available and everyone else was busy so…it seemed the logical thing to do.'

'And did you advise any of the other committee members that you would be attending this hearing?'

'I don't recall…' he huffed, dismissively. 'I may have sent a memo…'

'So, you didn't report back to the committee at the next meeting, following the hearing?'

'No, I don't believe I did.'

'Why not?'

'It wasn't on the agenda and…'

'You could have had it placed on the agenda. Or you could have raised the matter in Any Other Business, could you not?'

'As I was about to say before you interrupted me so rudely, we always have such a lot of important business to get through in these meetings and a very short time in which to do it so adding even more business is not terribly practical.'

'Do you have a record of this memo?'

'Sorry, what?'

'You mentioned a memo. Do you have a copy of it?'

'I've no idea! As I said, I may have sent a memo. This was six years ago! Do you honestly expect me to remember?'

'I believe it would be standard practice to have kept a record of all your involvement with Sherrinford, as a member of the oversight committee, yes?'

'I'll need to check my records…'

'We have already checked your records for this period of time, Sir Edwin and there is no such memo recorded.'

'Then why did you ask, if you already knew the answer?' he snorted.

Anthea made no response other than to raise an eyebrow. She then returned her attention to the document itself.

'You say you have not seen or read this document before today?'

'Correct,' he snapped.

'So, you permitted this report to be submitted as a permanent record of that disciplinary hearing without reading it through or checking it for accuracy?'

'The Governor would have done that. I see no necessity to duplicate effort. Why keep a dog and bark oneself?'

'Do you know for a fact that the governor checked it?'

'Of course not! I assume. Because the Governor was a very diligent man and, even if the Governor did not check the report for accuracy, I have every faith in the Governor's PA, who took notes in the hearing, that they would record exactly what took place.'

'Your confidence in your co-workers is admirable, Sir Edwin,' Anthea commented; then,

'So, would you please read it through now and confirm, for the record, that this is a full and accurate account of what took place?'

'My dear girl,' Sir Edwin drawled, 'as I have…'

'Sir Edwin, I would remind you that this is a formal interview and would ask that you address me appropriately, as I will endeavour to address you?'

The former head of MI6 glowered at his interrogator, jaw clenched indignantly, but complied with the request.

'Agent Smith,' he snapped, aware that this was not, in fact, her real name, 'these events took place a long time ago and were just one instance in a lifetime of similar events so I would be lying if I were to say I could be sure they were accurate now.'

'Which is perhaps why one should have done so at the time?' Anthea ventured but immediately moved on, taking a third document from her file and placing these two sheets of paper on top of the other two. It was the record of Alex Garrideb's disciplinary hearing, which had taken place on the same day as that of his brother.

'Are you familiar with this document?' she asked.

He gave it a quick once-over, again noting the name and the date, then looked back at her.

'Again, I have not read this document but I am familiar with the matter it concerns. As I explained before, it pertains to an internal disciplinary hearing, held at Sherrinford, into a number of incidents involving an inappropriate relationship between an in-patient and that member of the care staff. And, yes, I was present at the hearing. And, no, I did not read the account before it became a matter of permanent record,' he huffed, indignantly.

'Thank you, Sir, Edwin, for your succinct but thorough precis,' Anthea smiled. 'It is very much appreciated. So, setting that document aside for a moment…' She took another sheet of paper from her folder and placed it in front of the prisoner.

'What's this?' he snapped.

'It's an abstract from the medical record of Patient A – a list of medications and other items of a medical nature.'

Sir Edwin scanned down the page then pushed it away, in disgust, rattling his manacles like angry castanets as he did so.

'I have no medical training whatsoever so this is meaningless to me,' he snorted.

'Well, fortunately, I can help you out there. We've had this list of items analysed by an expert in the field and I can tell you that they indicate that Patient A underwent major surgery on that date…' she indicated the dateline in the first column on the page '…and, by reference to other items listed elsewhere in this patient's medical record, they have concluded that the nature of this surgery was a radical hysterectomy.'

For the first time, Sir Edwin began to look a little less sure of himself. He licked his lips, indicating a dry mouth, and a few beads of sweat emerged on his forehead, which he wiped away by inclining his head downwards and rubbing it on the sleeve of his blue overalls.

'We have also been advised that there is no evidence in this patient's records of any condition which would call for a radical hysterectomy to be performed on medical grounds.'

She looked to Sir Edwin for a comment or any kind of response but all she got was tight lips and a nervous swallow.

'We also have it from the patient herself that she did not request or consent to this major surgical intervention and so we must conclude that this was, in fact, a forced sterilisation, imposed on Patient A by agents operating within the Sherrinford institution.'

She waited, again, for a response from him and got only an angry glare.

'I'd like to draw your attention once more to the date on which this surgery took place,' she said, pointing once more to the relevant part of the page, 'and refer you back to the previous two documents.' She removed the top page, leaving behind the two reports from the Garrideb brothers' disciplinary hearings. 'Do you notice anything significant about these two dates?'

'She was having sex with them!' Sir Edwin bellowed.

'She was being abused by them,' Anthea corrected, calmly.

'It was consensual!' he insisted. 'On her part, at least.'

'Sorry, Sir Edwin? What did you say?'

'I said…and I'm sure you heard me clearly…that the sexual activity between these men and Patient A was consensual.'

'According to who?'

'According to the men, of course.'

'Oh, really!' Anthea exclaimed, looking mildly surprised. 'And what did Patient A have to say about it? Did she agree that it was consensual?'

'Well, of course not! Why would she?'

'Why wouldn't she, if it were?'

Sir Edwin rolled his eyes, patronisingly, then drawled,

'We are all well aware of Patient A's particular talent for influencing the behaviour of others. On hearing the evidence, it was clear to me that she had coerced these men into engaging in sexual activities for her own personal pleasure. And, although we could and did dismiss these two individuals, it was considered extremely likely that Patient A would simply manipulate other members of staff into similar unholy liaisons, in order to gratify her lustful desires and so, to avoid the prospect of progeny resulting from this behaviour, it was decided that sterilisation was the safest, most secure means of prevention, since contraception can be unreliable and pregnancy termination was completely out of the question.'

'Well, it's good to know there are at least some limits to your amorality, Sir Edwin,' Anthea remarked, at which he was plainly outraged.

'I'll have you know, I am a devout Christian and a Catholic!' he retorted.

'Really?' she replied, dryly. 'However, returning to Document No 3,' and she placed the extract from Eurus's medical records back in the folder, 'I'd like to draw your attention to the second line in the third paragraph. I have taken the liberty of highlighting it, for ease of location.'

Sir Edwin's brow furrowed, irritably, and he pressed his lips into a thin line but it was wasted on Anthea. She continued to smile, politely and with the expectation that he would comply, eventually. And, eventually, he did by looking down at the highlighted line.

'Would you mind reading that line out loud, sir, for the benefit of the tape?'

He stared at the line, nostrils flaring, and, grudgingly, read it aloud.

'…based on testimony provided by Officer James Evans, to the effect that…'

'Thank you,' Anthea interrupted. 'The person named in this report as Officer James Evans was the whistle-blower who informed on the brothers about their nocturnal activities with Patient A, was he not?'

'It would appear so, yes.'

'And is 'Officer Evans' his real name?'

'I presume it is.'

'But, as a whistle-blower, Officer Evans would have been entitled to anonymity, wouldn't he?'

'Well, yes, of course but as it's highly unlikely that the subject of this disciplinary hearing would have access to this report, it is also unlikely that the identity of the informant would become known to him.'

Anthea looked puzzled.

'Forgive me, Sir Edwin, but under normal circumstances the subject of a disciplinary hearing would be entitled to receive a copy of the report of that hearing, especially since it resulted in his dismissal.'

'Well, in this case, he wasn't.'

'Can you be certain?'

'Indeed, I can! Because I specifically ordered that the brothers were not to be given copies of their dismissal hearing reports!' he snorted, angrily.

'How interesting,' Anthea replied and, returning to her folder, she peeled off the next document and placed it on top of the two on the table. It was an extract from the third Garrideb brother, Howard's, HR file. Before she could speak again, Sir Edwin blurted out,

'No, I've never read that document. No, I do not know to what it pertains. And, no, I was not present at any disciplinary hearing involving this person.'

'Thank you for clarifying that for us, Sir Edwin, but I wished only to draw your attention to the stated occupation of this person.' She indicated the appropriate box on the cover sheet of the HR file.

'IT technician,' Sir Edwin read. 'And?' he shrugged. 'I fail to see what that…'

'Do you think it possible that Howard Garrideb, IT technician, who remained in post for six months after his brothers were summarily dismissed from their lucrative positions without being allowed to read the reports that condemned them, might have been motivated to gain access to those reports, which he easily could have as an IT technician, and thereby discovered the identity of the whistle-blower who informed on his close family members?'

Sir Edwin's lips grew thinner and whiter as he pressed them together still harder, precluding any verbal response.

'For the tape, I am now showing the prisoner Document No 6, which is a copy of a case file from Police Scotland,' Anthea stated, blithely, as she removed the previous two documents from in front of Sir Edwin and returned them to the folder, replacing them with the new document – a fresh copy, obtained legally from DI Lestrade, not the one obtained illegally by Sherlock.

'Would you mind reading that document, Sir Edwin?'

'What, all of it?' he huffed.

'You can skip the boring bits, if you like, and just cut to the chase.'

'And do I have to read it out loud?' he sneered.

'No, no. Not this time. You can read it in your head,' Anthea smiled, brightly.

Sir Edwin skimmed over the administrative details of the case, down to the actual description of what had transpired, which he read with an air of bored detachment then looked back at his interrogator.

'And what does this have to do with me?' he asked.

'That person, the victim, James Evans, is the same James Evans who informed on the Garrideb brothers, which resulted in them getting sacked from their jobs. And, six months later, he mysteriously winds up shot dead.'

'Well, that is most unfortunate but I fail to see how…'

'It is our understanding that the Garrideb brothers conspired to murder Officer Evans as an act of revenge for his part in them losing their jobs.'

'Your understanding? You don't know for sure, then?'

'We believe we can prove it.'

'Then come back to me when you can,' he sniffed.

Without further comment, Anthea retrieved the police case file and replaced it with yet another document for Sir Edwin to peruse. It was a print-out of the four-years-old report from the Bushmills local newspaper, chronicling the tragic boating accident that took the lives of all three Garrideb brothers, in one fell swoop.

Sir Edwin read it, shrugged and looked up at Anthea.

'How sad,' he said, in a tone devoid of all such feeling. 'But, once again, I ask what this has to do with me?'

'The newspaper seems to think it was an accident.'

'So I see. And your point is…?'

'A rather convenient accident, don't you think?'

'Not for them,' Sir Edwin observed.

'No, but most definitely for you.'

'How so?' he sniffed.

'Let me throw this in the water and see if it floats,' said Anthea, not even apologising for the terrible pun. 'Imagine you are the Head of MI6 and you have a top-secret asset hidden away in a high security installation in the middle of the Irish Sea.'

Sir Edwin's eyebrows threatened to vanish completely if he squeezed them together any tighter.

'Then, one day, you discover that a couple of degenerate orderlies had been sexually abusing your asset…'

'It was consensual, they were coerced. The men were, therefore, compromised and could no longer be employed at Sherrinford. They had to go. End of story.'

'But that is not the end of the story, is it? Because you – or the Governor, perhaps, on your instruction – leaked the name of the whistle-blower in such a way that the third brother would discover it and assist his siblings in exacting revenge against the party that outed them…thus conveniently getting rid of the only independent witness to the sexual abuse of Patient A.'

'That,' Sir Edwin sneered, 'is utterly ridiculous.'

'But that still left three more witnesses,' Anthea continued, unabashed, 'the brothers themselves, whom you had denied copies of the written account of their misdemeanours - the only tangible evidence that such abuse had ever taken place. You couldn't be sure that they wouldn't at some point divulge this information to a third party. You decided they needed to be permanently silenced. So, you made use of those very particular resources for which your department is famed, in order to achieve that end. You had covert ops attack their boat and dispose of them.'

Sir Edwin stared at Anthea for a full minute and then threw back his head and roared with laughter.

'Oh, Agent Smith! I applaud your imagination. Seriously, you are wasted as Mycroft Holmes's PA. You should be a comedian or a writer of situational comedy or perhaps both. You have absolutely no evidence that anything you just invented ever actually happened.'

'Well, I hate to disappoint you, Sir Edwin, but actually I do.'

'Poppycock!' he snorted, still guffawing.

'A few hours ago, I spoke to the police in County Antrim and to the Causeway Coast Guard and they informed me that they still had the brothers' boat in a lock up, due to the fact that no one else in the family claimed it after the accident, so it had to be put into storage. They have very kindly allowed one of our forensic teams access and they have found clear evidence that the 'accident' was not an accident at all.'

'You lie!' Sir Edwin snarled, disparagingly. 'Even if one of my Black Ops units had interfered with the boat - which they didn't - they would never have left any discernible evidence.'

'Perhaps not discernible to an everyday forensic examination but, as you know, our teams are…specialists. And they can recognise sabotage when they see it.'

'That does not prove I ordered it!' he protested, feeling the net closing in on him but still clutching at straws.

'No, but the team you assigned to the task have been most helpful.'

'No! What? They wouldn't…No!' he screeched.

'It would appear, Sir Edwin, that they value their own careers more than their loyalty to you,' she remarked, as she returned all the documents to the file and closed it.

'This is outrageous!' he shouted, trying to get to his feet but restrained by the manacles attached to the table. 'How dare you, you filthy whore!'

The door behind him opened, admitting the two guards and, one on each arm, they forced him back into his seat and held him there while Anthea picked up her folder and rose to her feet.

'Thank you for your cooperation, Sir Edwin,' she said, politely, 'you've been most helpful,' and left the room.

Up in the observation gallery, Mycroft and Lady S watched as their former colleague – though never friend – was unshackled from the table and led, screaming and shouting, from the room. Then they looked at one another.

'Masterclass,' Alicia declared.

'Indeed,' Mycroft concurred. 'As ever, you knew best.'

'You would have thought of it first, if you hadn't been so…upset,' she insisted.

'Perhaps,' he shrugged and, as they both stood up to leave the room, he stepped forward and placed a gentle kiss on her cheek. 'Thank you for last night, my dear,' he murmured, 'and for every other night. And day. I really don't deserve you.'

'Perhaps,' she smiled, impishly.

ooOoo

Sir Edwin isn't given a surname in the series so I chose one for him myself. And the list of honours after his name are of the sort that a senior civil servant might accrue in the course of their career, so a bit of poetic licence.