Another shorty but it seemed like the right place for a chapter break. :)

Since first describing the interior geography of 23/24 Leinster Gardens, in Ch 8, I have discovered that the external 'doors' of these two spaces are not side by side but at opposite ends of the façade so I have edited Ch 8 to take that into account and the description in this chapter reflects those changes, too.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Sherlock strolled casually along the pavement, past the houses of the Regency terrace, Leinster Gardens. It was late – around ten in the evening - and almost all the curtains at the windows were drawn, shutting out the cold November night. On reaching the path that led to No 23, he did a quick scan up and down the road, established that no one was around and turned down the path, key in hand. With great alacrity, he unlocked the door and slipped inside, closing the door behind him.

He didn't bother switching on the lights of No 23 but, instead, took out his Maglite and used it to illuminate his way along the narrow space to where the old wheelchair still sat, innocuously guarding the entrance to No 24. He moved it forward, found the hidden door handle, opened the door, stepped through, pulled the wheelchair back into position and closed the door behind him. Then he reached up to the main service board, switched on the lights and gazed down the length of No 24.

It was immediately obvious that someone had been here but it was hard to believe it had been himself, since he usually left the space neat and tidy and ready to be used again. Instead of a clean, ordered space, what greeted him was mayhem. The floor was littered with empty Pot Noodle containers, the sleeping bag was dumped on the camp bed in an untidy heap, the hold-all was open on the floor and its contents scattered about, not neatly folded inside. There was an air of frenetic panic about the place that brought Sherlock out in a cold sweat.

He walked slowly down the length of the narrow 'room', scanning the entire area and noting every detail to a granular degree. The clothes cast wildly around included a pair of PJ bottoms and t-shirt. That was odd. He had never bothered to bring nightwear here because it was unnecessary. When he slept here, he usually either remained fully dressed or stripped down to his boxers, so the nightwear was completely out of place. Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, however improbable, must be the truth. And the only probable explanation was that he had arrived in the nightwear and left it here when he departed.

Checking in and around the bag, all the other items of clothing were clean, unworn – a shirt, some underwear and socks – whereas the PJs and t-shirt were gritty and grimy to the touch. The other thing he noted was that the pair of trainers, t-shirt, jogger bottoms and hoody, which he kept in the bag for emergencies – when he needed to be in disguise – were missing. In fact, there were no shoes of any description here.

So, deductions so far – he had arrived in his nightwear but bare foot and left, two days later, wearing his 'homeless person' disguise. And, presumably, those items would now be somewhere in 221B. An additional conclusion, based on the general disarray, was that he had been in a heighten state of nervous anxiety during his stay here and, consequently, unmindful of keeping the place tidy.

He needed to put that right straight away and began by picking up the items of clean clothing, refolding them, and returning them, neatly, to the hold-all along with all the other things that belonged there, like his First Aid kit and the reels of strapping tape, some of which had rolled under the camp bed. It was while he was on his hands and knees, on the floor, peering under the camp bed with the aid of his Maglite, looking for the reels of tape, that a sudden flash of memory knocked him for six and, quite literally, threw him backwards onto the floor.

Sherlock was asleep in his bed at 221B Baker Street when a sound brought him instantly awake. He lay still, listening intently, and there it was again. Someone – or something, an urban fox, perhaps – was interfering with Mrs Hudson' bins, down in the back yard, under the window at the far end of Sherlock's bedroom. He listened again and, this time, he heard two sounds – one was clearly that of a person, not a fox, climbing onto one of the bins; the other was of someone ascending the stairs to 221B and failing to avoid the creaking step, half way up. This was clearly a two-pronged attack.

Rolling sideways, Sherlock dropped to the floor next to the bed, on the side furthest from the door, and rolled underneath. Once under there, he felt to his right and found the loose edge of the floor board he had primed for just this eventuality. He lifted the edge of the floorboard and slid it to the side, taking its nearest neighbour with it because he had screwed them together, using flat metal brackets, when he first moved into this apartment. He then lowered himself into the exposed recess, below the floor boards, and manoeuvred the 'lid' of the secret hidey-hole back into position. Lying still and completely flat, his arms held tight to his sides and his legs stretched out in front of him, he just fitted into the space, with barely a millimetre to spare all round.

He then listened as someone climbed up to the outside of his bedroom window, used a device of some sort – probably a knife – to unlock the sash clasp, lifted up the bottom sash and climbed into the room. They clearly knew what they were doing as they made barely a sound. At the same time, another someone crept down the corridor from his kitchen and quietly pushed open his bedroom door.

Sherlock held his breath.

He knew whoever it was would only have to feel under the bedclothes to know that he had only recently abandoned his bed because it would still be warm. He also knew that, if these intruders had any heatseeking or night vision devices, they would be able to detect him by his body heat, under the floorboards. He just had to hope they didn't think to do the former and hadn't brought the latter.

He felt as much as heard one of his night visitors kneel on the bed and feel around but he couldn't tell if that was above or beneath the duvet. Then a bright light filtered through the gaps between the floor boards as someone shone a torch under the bed, to check if he was hiding there. Next, he heard the adjoining door to the bathroom open and one of the intruders carried out a visual search in there while the other one rifled through his wardrobe. Then one of them spoke, very low.

'He's not here.'

'There's a second floor with another bedroom,' the other one advised and Sherlock heard them both retreat down the corridor to the kitchen and out onto the landing, heading for what used to be John's bedroom.

He didn't wait around. The moment they were out of range, Sherlock pushed the lid of his hiding place aside, climbed out and slid the lid back in place. He slipped out from under the bed, feeling all the accumulated dust and detritus from beneath the floorboards clinging to his skin, hair and nightwear, grabbed his mobile and house keys from the bedside cabinet and climbed out of the window, which the intruders had conveniently left wide open. He dropped, noiselessly, down onto the bins and then to the floor and sprinted to the rear wall of the yard which backed onto an alleyway, between the two rows of buildings. Vaulting the wall, he ran down the alleyway and disappeared into the night.

Sherlock lay on his back, on the floor of No 24 Leinster Gardens, gasping for breath, in the grip of another panic attack – not as bad as the one he'd had at St Bart's on Monday night but bad enough. Inside his head, he conjured up Mind Palace Molly and her calming voice, telling him to breathe slowly, in through his nose and out through his puckered lips; telling him he was safe now and no one could harm him; telling him she was there for him and him alone. Slowly, surely, his heartrate slowed and his ragged, shallow breathing became deep and even again. He dragged himself up off the floor and rolled onto the camp cot, stretching out on his back, eyes closed, allowing the dizziness brought on by the hyperventilation to clear and nausea to subside.

So that was why he bolted – someone broke into his flat and they were after him. And he had presumably deleted it from his memory because of the parallels with the incident in Rudi's study, all those years before – hiding in a confined space, covered in dust, listening with trepidation as danger approached. Or, perhaps, because it triggered memories of being hunted down by Baron Maupertius' men, in Serbia. He was no psychologist and could only speculate. But, on this occasion, he had at least evaded capture.

And it explained why the soles of his feet had been a little tender for a day or two after the blackout. He'd obviously treated whatever cuts or abrasions he'd picked up on his flight here, using the First Aid kit, and done so very well because he had barely registered any discomfort in the days that followed and whatever he had, he'd dismissed as inconsequential.

On the plus side, he had recovered at least part of this memory quite quickly, assisted no doubt by the retrieval of that day when, as a six-year-old, he stared into the face of pure evil and knew he was entirely at Rudi's mercy. He now knew how he got here and why. but he still had no actual recollection of what he had done during the two lost days or how and when he had returned to Baker Street. He could only speculate about that, too, at the moment.

The important question, however, was who was behind the invasion of his flat that night? And the answer seemed obvious. Sir Edwin. The whole incident had Black Ops written all over it. Edwin had, presumably, sent a team to 'dispose' of him, either by extraordinary rendition – aka, state sponsored kidnap – or, more likely, by lethal means. Either way, thanks to his foresight in creating the hidey-hole, he'd had a very lucky escape. And, having failed to neutralise him, Sir Edwin had tried to neutralise Eurus but been thwarted in that enterprise, too.

Sherlock rolled over and sat up, without any negative side effects, and so resumed his mission to tidy the bolthole and gather up everything that needed to be removed and dealt with – the empty Pot Noodle containers and the dirty PJs and t-shirt. He straightened out the sleeping bag and wiped down the top of the fridge, emptied the kettle and squirted some thick bleach around the inside of the toilet bowl.

Satisfied that No 24 was as clean and tidy as it could be, he picked up the plastic bag full of 'removals' and made his way out of the Lie of Leinster Gardens. Out on the street, there was nobody about as he walked back towards 221 Baker Street, making a mental note to hoover inside his hidey-hole at the first opportunity because it was obvious to him that part of the blind panic he had experienced that night was brought on by the physical sensation of being covered in dust, just as he had been that fateful day in Rudi's study.

It was too late to disturb Mycroft with this latest revelation but he would do so first thing in the morning.

ooOoo

Little did Sherlock know that, at that precise moment, he was a topic in that night's round of pillow talk between Mycroft and Lady S.

'I should advise Sherlock of this decision before I take it to our parents,' said Mycroft.

'Yes, I agree. He will be supportive and assist you in presenting the plan to your mother and father, in a united front. We should invite them to lunch - or dinner, perhaps - and you can discuss it there.'

'Invite my parents here for lunch?' Mycroft queried. 'I hardly think that would be the most appropriate venue in which to announce I'm selling Uncle Rudi's house.'

Lady S gave her partner a rather pitying glance before explaining,

'I wasn't referring to your parents, Mycroft. I was talking about Sherlock and Molly.'

Mycroft's brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

'Inviting Sherlock for lunch or dinner, I would agree, is an excellent idea but why would we include Miss Hooper?'

'Dr Hooper, dearest, please. If you are going to insist on addressing her so formally, at least use her official title.'

'Apologies,' Mycroft mumbled.

'And, of course, we should invite her as Sherlock's 'plus one'.'

'Does he require a 'plus one' in order to have lunch with us? It's hardly a formal occasion.'

'Mycroft, they are a couple! It's simply being polite.'

Mycroft was nonplussed.

'What do you mean?' he exclaimed.

'I mean, my darling, that your brother and Dr Hooper are in a relationship.'

'What on Earth makes you think that?'

Lady S shook her head in incredulity.

'I don't think it, I know it! One only has to look at them, the way they are with one another. It's as plain as the nose on one's face.'

'Not to me, my dear.'

'Then I suggest you trust my judgement on this.'

Mycroft nodded. He would always defer to Lady S in matters of the heart. She was by far the more experienced of the two of them in that particular field. He hoped she was correct in her assumptions. Since both he and Eurus had found comfort and companionship against the odds, it seemed only fair that Sherlock should, too. And if Dr Hooper was his chosen life partner, she seemed an appropriate choice – intelligent, a scientist and already engaged in crime-solving. A very suitable match, in his opinion.

ooOoo

Thursday dawned to find Charlotte sitting at the kitchen table, sipping pensively from a cup of Morning Breakfast tea. Eurus was upstairs, sleeping peacefully at last, following a bad night. The nightmares seemed to be becoming more frequent and more intense. At first, Charlotte's impulse was to wake her and offer comfort but it had recently occurred to her that this was her heart speaking, not her professional head. As a psychologist, she knew that dreams were the mind's means of making sense of the psyche's experiences. These nightmares, disturbing though they were to have and to witness, actually had a vital role to play in her recovery. The mere fact that she was even having them was an indication that she was processing her life experiences and rationalising them.

So, last night, Charlotte had made the decision not to intervene but to let the nightmares run their course.

It had been a tough ask, sitting back and watching her loved one experience these night terrors when all her natural instincts were telling her to wrap her arms around Eurus and sooth her anguish. But ultimately, it had proven to be the correct decision. Although she thrashed and moaned and cried and screamed for what seemed like hours at a time but was probably only minutes, eventually she calmed and relaxed and slipped into a deep, dreamless repose. At that point, Charlotte had experienced her own emotional meltdown and come down here to the kitchen for a soothing cup of tea.

Being supportive was one thing but what Eurus needed was intervention. She needed therapy. And, because of their emotional attachment, that was one thing Charlotte could not provide. It needed to be someone who could be objective. But that was one area in which she could be useful – choosing the right therapist. Charlotte knew everyone who was anyone in the business, especially here in Edinburgh, where she trained and began her career as a forensic psychologist. She had one person in particular in mind but he was very expensive. However, Mycroft had made a promise, the day he delivered Eurus to her door, that he was prepared to pay for her rehabilitation, regardless of the cost. It was time to hold him to that promise.

She glanced at the kitchen clock. It was eight am. Not too early to be calling the British Government…

ooOoo

So now nearly everyone who needs to, knows about Sherlock and Molly. And Sir Edwin's Plan B has been revealed, too. :)

Chapters still coming fast and thick, I'm pleased to say. But I am away this weekend so the next update may well take a little longer.