Well , here's a surprise! I wasn't expecting to complete this just yet but here it is.

Chapter Forty-Eight

It was shortly after nine am when Sherlock arrived at Mycroft's office in the basement of the River House. His brother had provided him with a key card that gave him entry to all but the most restricted areas so he had made his way there unimpeded.

'Good morning, brother mine,' Mycroft greeted him. 'How may I be of service?'

'Someone broke into my flat last week. I think they intended to kill me.'

That got Mycroft's attention.

Of course, Sherlock was then obliged to explain about the two missing days. He kept the location of the bolthole to himself but he did have to come clean about the hidey-hole under the bed. As far as he was aware, Mycroft still did not know about Leinster Gardens and, of all the secrets worth keeping, that was the most valuable.

'I think you're correct in your assumption that this was Edwin's work. We've now established beyond doubt that he was behind the boating 'accident' which took the Garridebs.'

Clearly, a pattern was emerging of Sir Edwin utilising the resources of MI6 to his own ends.

He's not alone, thought Sherlock but chose not to voice the sentiment.

'But more pertinently, how long have you been experiencing blackouts?'

Sherlock had to admit he really didn't know. He could have had others and just be unaware of the fact.

'Well, you need to speak to someone. We have some excellent psychologists working here that I could recommend.'

'If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not bare my soul to someone with who specialises in PsyOps,' Sherlock replied. 'Never know what they might winkle out of me.'

'Not all our psychologists are in PsyOps,' Mycroft retorted, clearly disgruntled by Sherlock's presumption, even though it was mostly in jest.

'Well, anyway, I already have someone in mind, someone with a proven track record, so thanks but no thanks.'

'As you wish,' Mycroft replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. 'But since you're here, Alicia has instructed me to invite you and Dr Hooper to lunch or dinner in order to discuss some family matters.'

The inference was not lost on Sherlock. He wasn't surprised. As stated previously, Lady Smallwood was a woman of rare perception.

'When might that be?' Sherlock enquired. 'I only ask because Molly is working nights this week so dinner would be out of the question unless it were to be an early evening engagement.'

'What about Sunday lunch, then? Will the night shift rotation be complete by then?'

'I believe so,' Sherlock replied.

'Sunday lunch it is, then' Mycroft confirmed.

'And this family business, would it concern the sale of Rudi's house?'

Lady Smallwood wasn't the only person around here with rare perception.

'It would,' Mycroft nodded, 'and the subsequent division of the spoils.'

When it came to Rudi's 'spoils', Sherlock would rather do without but he wasn't about to get embroiled in a discussion of that nature just now.

'We shall look forward to lunch, then,' he replied and took his leave.

There were a number of tasks he needed to attend to. One was something he had promised and then rather neglected. He intended to put that right immediately.

On exiting the River House, he crossed over Vauxhall Bridge to the Pimlico side of the river and walked North along the embankment until he arrived at Tate Britain. He went inside, found the café, ordered a coffee, black, two sugars, and took a seat. Taking out his mobile, he dialled Charlotte's number.

'Good morning, Sherlock,' she answered. 'I'm afraid Eurus is still sleeping. She had a rather rough night.'

'Is she alright?' he asked.

'As well as can be expected,' Charlotte replied, 'but, as you probably know already, I spoke to your brother this morning about a referral to a therapist.'

'Oh, really? He didn't mention it,' Sherlock huffed. 'I hope he didn't recommend one of his government psychologists.'

'No, fortunately not. Anyway, I didn't really give him the option. I have someone specific in mind, here in Edinburgh. Mycroft has agreed to cover the fee. I just need to make the first appointment.'

'Well, that's good to know. And it's also good to know she has you to fight her corner.'

'Well, thank you,' Charlotte replied, deeply touched by such a vote of confidence. 'She loved your gift, by the way,' she added. 'That was a very thoughtful gesture.'

'It didn't start out as such,' he felt the need to clarify. 'Initially, it was just a means of proving that the legal representatives came from me and could, therefore, be trusted. But once that was no longer an issue, I felt she should have it anyway. She's waited long enough, after all!'

'She said it smelt of 'home'.'

Sherlock could appreciate that sentiment from Eurus's point of view. The hairband was all tied up with her last experience of normal life.

'I wanted to let her know that Mycroft and I have told our parents that she is no longer incarcerated and that she has chosen to live in Edinburgh with you.'

'For the time being, at least,' Charlotte cautioned, to Sherlock's surprise.

'Do you think she's likely to change her mind?' he asked.

'I'm not counting my chickens,' Charlotte replied. 'There's such a thing as the Stockholm Syndrome.'

'I'm sure she doesn't think of you as her jailor,' he insisted.

'I'm not sure she knows what she thinks, to be honest. It's all terribly new and frightening. She has sort of exchanged one jail for another.'

'Is she going out?'

'She has been out once - on Monday. She went to get her hair cut. She looks more like you, now.'

'I'd like to see that.'

'I could get her to Facetime you, when she wakes up.'

Tell her to WhatsApp me. It's more secure…Speaking of 'secure', are the spooks still outside?'

'They are and she has spotted them but she seems OK with it. She waves to them, whenever the opportunity arises.'

Sherlock had to smile at that. It was exactly what he had done, on many an occasion in the past. But he quickly sobered.

'There's something I need to talk to Eurus about, something I've remembered about our shared past; but I feel it must be discussed face to face, not at a distance.'

'Well, I hope you know you're welcome to come here whenever you wish. You stuck by her through thick and thin. We're both enormously indebted to you for that…'

'I'd rather you didn't feel indebted,' Sherlock was quick to say and immediately changed the subject. 'Our father would very much like to see Eurus - our mother, too, I expect, but she's still a work in progress with regards to Rudi. I wonder if she might give some thought to the possibility of perhaps me and Pa popping up, just for a flying visit, sometime in the next week, perhaps?'

'I'll sound her out, if you like. Or you can ask her yourself, when she calls you.'

'I would appreciate you asking her first so she doesn't feel obliged to agree,' he replied.

'Of course.'

They exchanged a few more pleasantries and then ended the call. Sherlock finished his coffee and then set off walking North along Millbank but a No 87 bus happened along so he hopped aboard and rode to Westminster Tube station. From there, he took the Jubilee Line to Baker Street, then walked home.

When he entered the front hall, Mrs Hudson was standing at the hall table, sorting through the post.

'Nothing for you, I'm afraid,' she announced. 'Just a load of junk, actually. More trees chopped down for no good reason.' Mrs Hudson was a staunch ecowarrior.

'I wonder,' Sherlock asked, 'could I borrow your vacuum cleaner?'

Mrs H was immediately suspicious.

'Is this for an experiment?' she demanded.

'No, nothing like that,' he assured her. 'I actually wanted to do some cleaning.'

At first, Mrs Hudson looked quite shocked but then she burst out laughing. Sherlock bore the brunt. He knew he deserved it for being such a preppy brat and, eventually, the laughter subsided and she stared at him in surprise.

'Are you serious?' she demanded.

'I am,' he assured her.

'Well, if you really want to use a hoover, you've got your own upstairs, you know.'

'Really?'

'Yes, its in the cleaning cupboard.'

'The what?' he was intrigued.

'In the cleaning cupboard.'

'And where, might I ask, is that?'

'Under the stairs, of course?'

'What, these stairs?' he asked, indicating the ones they were standing beside.

'Yes, but the next flight up, the ones to John's old room.'

Sherlock had never even noticed there was a cupboard under those stairs, let alone that there was anything inside it. One lived and learned.

'Oh,' he said, simply.

'Yes, there's a Henry in there, easier to carry up and down the stairs to John's room than an upright.'

Sherlock thanked his landlady and took the stairs, rather distractedly, to the first-floor landing. And there, low and behold, was a door under the stairs to John's old room. He opened the door and found a cupboard that contained a mop and bucket, a sweeping brush, a dustpan and hand brush, a bucket containing a selection of cleaning products and clothes, and a bright red Henry Hoover, complete with googly eyes and a big, broad grin.

Sherlock picked up the hoover in one hand and the hose in the other and carried them through the kitchen to his bedroom and round to the opposite side of the bed. He removed his coat and scarf, and then his shoes, suit and shirt and put on his PJ bottoms and t-shirt which, if they got dirty as a result of this rare foray into domesticity, could just be thrown in the laundry, just as the set from Leinster Gardens had been, last night. Truth be told, the only reason he was doing this himself was because he didn't want Mrs H to know about the secret hiding place he had crafted in her precious floor.

He unwound the power cord and plugged in the Henry then, Maglite in hand, got down on the floor, reached under the bed, lifted the cover of the hidden recess and shone the torch inside.

The first surprise was the discovery of his 'homeless person' disguise – trainers, joggers, t-shirt and hoody – stuffed into the hollow. That was weird. Why had he hidden them away in there? He pulled them out, one item at a time, and dropped them on the bedroom floor behind him. Scooting further under the bed, to get a better view into the recess, he shone the torch inside again. It was pretty grubby in there. Several years' worth of dust and other detritus lay in a thick layer in the bottom of the coffinlike aperture, including not a small amount of mouse droppings. That explained the smell! Although it didn't permeate the room when the hole was covered, it was clearly discernible when open to the elements, despite the fact that the mouse infestation was historic and not contemporaneous. That smell had probably added to the trauma of being stuck in there, at the time.

Sherlock was about to grab the Henry hose and set to with the hoover when his brain suddenly registered a discrepancy in the weight of one of those items of clothing he had just pulled out of the hole. He reached behind him again and picked up the hoody. It was decidedly heavier than it ought to be. Surprise No 2.

He crawled out from under the bed and sat cross-legged on the floor, squeezing sections of the hoody with his hand, seeking a foreign object concealed within. And there it was – a solid lump inside the front pocket. He reached in and pulled it out and recognised it straight away. It was an old Dictaphone that he used to use before smart phones came along, with built-in note-taking facilities. He had a vague memory of chucking it into a box of bric-a-brac, in the bottom of his wardrobe, years ago, and promptly forgetting all about it.

He turned the Dictaphone over in his hand, inspecting it visually. There was a tape inside and two Triple-A batteries. The batteries looked new. So, the next step was to see if it still worked. He felt a degree of trepidation about pressing 'Play' but he screwed his courage to the sticking place…and pressed the play button.

The first thing he heard was ragged, rapid breathing, mixed with guttural gasps and groans and then a voice, repeating over and over,

'Control, control, control…' followed by more shallow, rapid breathing, as though the person was out of breath from physical exertion but Sherlock knew this person was not out of breath. He knew this because he recognised the voice as his own, distorted though it was by the emotion he was clearly experiencing at the time of recording.

'Calm, calm, calm…' the voice gasped. It was hard to acknowledge it in the first person, this disembodied voice caught in the throes of a full-on panic attack. The panting, gasping and groaning was distressing to hear, even when his brain refused to recognise the sufferer as himself. But he listened, with a grim fascination as the voice spoke again.

'Whoever finds this…whenever you find this…the date today is…Thursday, 19th November, 2015…and it's eleven o'clock at night…' The speaker was interrupted by more gasping and panting and anguished groans but pressed on, as best he could.

'My name is Sherlock Holmes…My brother, Mycroft…Holmes is trying to…kill me…' The articulation of that statement sent him into further paroxysms of uncontrolled hyperventilation. He was clearly terrified.

'He is using MI6 operatives…to target me so…chances are…they will succeed.'

At this point, the speaker broke down in a series of ragged sobs but managed to pull things back enough to continue his monologue, albeit fractured by the all-pervasive breathlessness.

'He's wants to stop me…getting my sister, Eurus, released…from a top-secret government installation…in the Irish Sea…called Sherrinford, where she…has been illegally held since …she was five years old...Oh god, oh god, oh god…' he gasped and gave in to a renewed bout of rapid, shallow breathing.

'Whoever finds this…after I am dead…please take it to Inspector Greg…Lestrade at New Scotland Yard and…make sure you give it to him, in person…and to no one else.'

At that point, the sound went dead, though the reels of the tiny tape cassette continued to turn, leaving Sherlock sitting on the floor, staring at the Dictaphone in shock and disbelief.

First things first, it was patently obvious that the person on the tape – he couldn't bring himself to think of that person as himself – was obviously experiencing a major psychotic episode, with a generous dollop of paranoia thrown in, convinced that his brother was intent on killing him. And he was literally scared witless.

This testimony had been recorded before it was revealed that Sir Edwin was the true villain of the piece and, most likely, the person who had authorised the Black Ops team to break into his home. So, at the time, he believed Mycroft to be responsible for the attack. Yet, despite being convinced his life was in imminent danger, he had abandoned his safe haven at Leinster Gardens and returned to Baker Street with the express purpose of recording this message on the obsolete Dictaphone and hiding it in the hole in the floor, in the hope that someone would find it after his death and use it to bring Mycroft to justice and, hopefully, free Eurus from her prison. That was a very noble gesture but the basic premise was completely skewed.

When he bolted, he took his smart phone with him. He could have recorded his testimony on that phone and broadcast it to the entire world and, in doing so, thwarted any plans Mycroft may have had to dispose of him. Or, he could have just called Greg Lestrade and told him right there and then that Mycroft was trying to kill him. Had he been thinking rationally, there were a number of options available to him. He clearly wasn't. In fact, he appeared to be inhabiting some sort of Jason Bourne fantasy world, a living nightmare of espionage and intrigue.

Sherlock had already acknowledged that he was in need of psychological intervention but this tape was a wake up call for how urgently that help was needed. So urgent that immediate action was called for. He got up, rather stiffly, from the floor and crossed to the wardrobe, where he had hung his suit earlier, from the door handle. Reaching into the inside breast pocket, he took out his mobile and scrolled through the contact list to Ella Thompson and pressed call.

He didn't really expect Ella to answer. He assumed that she would be with a patient at this time of the working day and that the call would be fielded either by an answering machine or a receptionist so he was a little surprised when Ella answered in person.

'Good afternoon, Mr Holmes. What can I do for you?'

He was a bit thrown by it being her and the spiel he had intended to give died on his lips. Instead, he heard himself say,

'I need help. And I need it right now.'

ooOoo

Today is 11th September, 2021 - twenty years since 9/11. My thoughts today are with all those who lost their lives in that terrible attack and with their families and friends. And also with all those who have lost their lives and homes and loved ones since, as a direct consequence of what happened that day. Hugs to everyone.