This chapter was getting very long, too, so I've split it in two.

Chapter Sixty

The electric hire car drew up outside Molly's house at seven thirty precisely, the next morning. Molly, standing by the front window in the sitting room, already wearing her coat and hat, waved to let Sherlock know she had seen him then hurried into the hall, pulled on her black ankle boots, picked up her bag and exited through the front door. As she slid into the front passenger seat, she leant across the central console and he ducked his head to exchange a 'good morning' kiss. Molly placed her bag in the footwell and buckled her seat belt as the car drew away from the curb and moved off smoothly, toward the main road.

From the moment she got into the car, it was clear from Sherlock's general demeanour that he was in an introspective mood. Although he paid due attention to the road conditions and behaviour of other drivers, he was very quiet and thoughtful throughout the journey, his brow creased into a little frown, contemplating the ordeal that faced him in Edinburgh. But he managed a little smile when she placed her hand on his forearm and gave it a sympathetic squeeze and reciprocated by placing his hand over hers for a second or two before returning it to the steering wheel.

As they navigated their way through Docklands, the rush hour traffic was beginning to build up but wasn't yet up to maximum congestion so they made good time to the Blackwall Tunnel and, from there, it was plain sailing since they were driving south, out of London, whereas the bulk of the morning traffic was heading North, into the capital. So, it was just approaching nine thirty when Sherlock pulled into the layby at the end of his parents' lane and switched off the car's engine.

'Wait here,' he said, sliding out of the car and retrieving his Belstaff from the back seat where he had tossed it, earlier. 'I won't be a moment.'

'I'll get in the back seat,' Molly announced, 'let your dad ride shotgun.'

Sherlock appeared about to object but then seemed to think it through and nodded his approval. As Molly scooped up her bag from the floor of the car and transferred it and herself to the back seat, Sherlock disappeared around a bend in the lane lined with tall, thick hedgerows. Sitting alone in the quiet car, Molly was struck by the complete absence of any manmade noises in this environment. No machinery or radios, no shouts or sounds of workmen at their labours, no children laughing or crying, no car horns blaring. All she could hear was the sigh of the wind in the trees and hedgerows and the raucous cawing of a large flock of corvids which had taken up residence in the nearby trees. Were they a murder of crows or a clamour of rooks, she wondered? Either way, there were a lot of them and they were making quite a racket. It was a mournful sound, reminiscent of every horror film she had ever seen that involved a country churchyard.

She was mindful of the fact that this was where Sherlock had grown up – from the age of six, at least - and the similarities to her own early life did not go unnoticed. She had spent her childhood in a village in Northamptonshire, not quite so isolated and remote as here in High Hurstwood, the place name she had spotted on the signpost they just passed, above a polite request to 'Please drive slowly through our village'. Molly wondered how many people respected that cri de coeur.

Molly's early life had been very much on her mind of late, triggered by the incident yesterday, with the posters and the entry on Facebook page. The unprovoked attack had thrown her straight back to a time in her life, aged from eleven to sixteen, when she had been the victim of a vicious and sustained campaign of bullying by two girls at her secondary school.

It had begun, more or less, on the very first day she set foot in the 'big' school as a 'Year 7' and continued, unrelenting, until the perpetrators left at the end of Year 11.

Molly had no idea why they chose her as the target for their malicious intent. She had never met or even heard of either of them before she went to that school, having attended the local village Primary School and them being not from her village. She had nothing in common with them at all, except that they were all in the same set for nearly all their lessons, which meant there was no escape from their taunting.

The two girls arrived at secondary school with a readymade entourage from their primary days. They were both strikingly pretty, even as eleven-year-olds. One was a honey blonde, the other raven black; both tall and willowy and good at sport; and they were very popular, especially with the boys. They came from good, supportive families and they were reasonably academic, too, which was why they were placed in the top set. So, it was hard to know why they felt the need to pick on Molly, who was small, quiet and unremarkable, with her chestnut hair always restrained in two plaits – which was probably why they called her Pocahontas – and who kept herself to herself and tried as hard as possible to be invisible.

But in lessons, especially Science and Maths, every time Molly put her hand up to answer a question, her two tormentors would sigh very loudly or pretend to yawn, theatrically, and the other children would giggle and snigger, causing Molly to blush like a tomato, which earned her another nickname – Chilli Pepper. Eventually, Molly stopped putting her hand up and would only answer questions if asked directly by the teacher, which happened quite often, especially in Science, because those teachers knew that Molly knew all the answers.

Her Chemistry teacher tried to help. He reprimanded the two girls whenever he noticed their shenanigans and he even spoke to their parents at Parents' Evening but, unfortunately, they could see no wrong in their respective daughters. This Molly person must be doing something to provoke their girls, they insisted. And the girls themselves, when they realised the Chemistry teacher was on to them, just went underground and confined their bullying to out-of-lesson activities, like Break Time and Lunch Time and the journeys to and from school.

Molly's ordeal ended as suddenly as it had begun. Relief came after GCSEs, because her nemeses left High School to go to the College of Further Education – Honey-Blonde to study Hair and Beauty; Raven to Travel and Leisure. Molly never knew what became of them after that. Their paths never crossed again. And she enjoyed two peaceful years studying for her A-levels.

She never discovered why the girls singled her out or what inspired them to persist with their campaign of victimization for five whole years. After A-levels, she went off to university and never went back to live permanently in her home village. She went home during the holidays but only for short visits. And when her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she spent as much time as she could in her childhood home, making the most of what little time she had left with him. But her relationship with her mother had always been strained and, after her father passed away, visits home gradually dwindled to nothing.

Molly hadn't given those two girls a moment's thought for years but it would seem they had always been there, lurking in the background, waiting to jump out and shout 'Boo!' It probably explained why, even to this day, she really hated being the centre of attention. And if she was being honest with herself, the most upsetting part of this recent incident wasn't that two people had singled her out as an easy target, but that two more people had done just that! What was it about her that encouraged such abuse? And there lay the problem. She was looking to herself for the cause. Victim blaming! How would the scourge of bullying ever be eradicated if even the victims blamed themselves?

Molly was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't notice the sound of men's voices approaching until two figures appeared from behind the hedgerow and Molly was immediately struck by how much Sherlock resembled his father. They were of a similar height and build, though Mr Holmes Senior had a tiny suggestion of a paunch. They even shared the same gait but the most striking similarity was their facial bone structure. The longish face, broad forehead, strong brow, smallish eyes, sharp cheekbones and rounded chin removed any doubt that these two men were closely related, precluding any need for a DNA test.

The only slight difference was in their noses and ears. Sherlock's nose was short and retroussé whereas his father's was a little longer, with a moderately more bulbous end. His earlobes were longer, too, but both these features were likely due to the aging process – a combination of the breaking down of the collagen and elastin fibres of the cartilage that made up the nose and ears, and the force of gravity causing the tissues to stretch and sag. Add to that the fact that skin, which provided structural support for the cartilage of the ears and nose, also contained collagen and elastin fibres, and the overall effect was the general drooping and lengthening of those structures.

Switching out of 'pathologist' mode, Molly noted that both men also had a thick mop of curly hair, though the elder Mr Holmes wore his locks brushed back off his forehead and they were a sandy grey, suggesting that as a younger man his hair colouring had been strawberry blond. And Molly knew that to be true because she had seen the home movie taken at the beach.

As the two men came up to the car, there was something about them – stress lines around the eyes and a certain tension in their shoulders – that told Molly something had happened back at the house. She opened the car door and climbed out, in order to greet Sherlock's father.

'Pa, this is Dr Molly Hooper. She's my…' Words failed him again. He still hadn't quite found that single word which could encompass everything that Molly meant to him. He wondered if such a word even existed.

'Molly!' Mr Holmes exclaimed, stepping forward to take her hand in one of his and placing the other one over it, giving it a single shake, accompanied by a chivalrous bow of the head. 'I know exactly who you are. I've heard so much about you, recently. It is an absolute honour to meet you, my dear.'

Mr Holmes was charm personified and Molly could see exactly where Sherlock got the inspiration for his charm offensive, even though his was usually a sham. Her cheeks bloomed bright scarlet and she lowered her gaze, self-consciously.

'It's a great honour to meet you, too, Mr Holmes,' she mumbled.

'Oh, please, call me Siger. There's only one Mr Holmes in this family and that's Mycroft. The rest of us prefer to be less formal.'

Molly's embarrassment was only matched by Sherlock's obvious alarm at his father's reference to hearing so much about her recently, fearful, perhaps, of what revealing details Siger was about to divulge.

'We should probably get going,' he said, hurriedly. 'We do have a plane to catch.'

As Molly and Siger climbed into the car and made themselves comfortable, Sherlock went round to the rear of the vehicle to stow his father's greatcoat in the boot, along with his own, and retook his place in the driving seat.

'I'm glad to see you chose an all-electric vehicle this time,' Siger remarked, as they set off down the lane. 'Just a pity we're taking an internal flight to Edinburgh rather than the train.'

'Yes, sorry about that, Pa, but Molly could only be spared for one day…'

That was true, of course, but he had always intended to travel by plane, even before Molly came on board.

'…and it takes over four hours to go from London to Edinburgh by train, even on a good day, so that's eight hours in all and that doesn't even include traveling to and from the stations so…'

'Sherlock, my darling boy! I'm just teasing,' Siger chuckled. 'I appreciate that time is a factor. And I'm sure we can find a way to offset our carbon footprints – maybe plant a few trees?'

'Molly and I planted about a hundred bulbs on Saturday. Do they count?' Molly had never known Sherlock to be so desperate for someone's good opinion.

'Yes, I'm sure they do,' Siger declared.

'And we shopped at a farmers' market instead of going to the supermarket,' Sherlock added, bolstering his 'green' credentials still further.

'Well, there you are. Consider your debt to the planet paid!' Siger turned in his seat to give Molly a wink, confirming in her mind that she absolutely adored him.

And as an involuntary eavesdropper to the conversation between father and son, from the back seat of the car, it was perfectly obvious to Molly that Sherlock absolutely adored his father, too, and vice versa. Yet, for most of the time she'd known him, he had never so much as mentioned him. Or his mother. She had always assumed both parents must be deceased. It had come as a great surprise when John described how they had turned up, unannounced, at Sherlock's flat after he returned from his two-year sabbatical.

It made sense that they hadn't attended his 'funeral', following The Fall. Why would Mycroft put their parents through the pain of burying a son who wasn't actually dead? They obviously knew he was alive.

Molly could relate to Sherlock's poor relationship with his mother, which she assumed accounted for why he had virtually air-brushed both parents out of his adult life. But she thought it a great shame that his animosity toward his mother had resulted in so much lost time that father and son could have enjoyed together.

Something else Molly gleaned from the men's conversation on the journey to Gatwick was that Mrs Holmes was not coping well with the revelations about her brother. Siger described how she was veering from complete denial to absolute renunciation and every position in between. Sherlock expressed his concerns but they were mostly for his father's welfare.

'You shouldn't have to cope with this alone, Pa. It's not a problem of your making.'

Molly noted that Sherlock omitted to mention the suggestion he made to Mycroft on Sunday about offering Mrs Holmes psychological support. Obviously, he wouldn't want to raise his father's expectations by promising something he couldn't deliver. Such services were in the gift of Mycroft and Lady Smallwood, only. Molly hoped they would give the idea due consideration.

The journey to the airport was uneventful, although it had the added bonus of taking Molly on an unguided tour through some of the most beautiful countryside that the south-east of England had to offer. On arrival at Gatwick, Sherlock handed over the keys of the hire car at the desk in the Departure area and confirmed that another vehicle would be waiting on their return, later that day.

From there, they proceeded to Check In and, in due course, boarded their flight. Sherlock had booked Business Class with British Airways, avoiding the low budget airlines like the plague. Consequently, their accommodation was very comfortable – wide seats, lots of leg room, a double seat on one side of the plane and a single across the aisle. Siger insisted that Sherlock and Molly sit together while he took the single, claiming selfish motives but they both knew he was being considerate to them. It gave Sherlock an opportunity to bring Molly up to speed, in hushed tones, about what had occurred back at the cottage when he went to collect his father.

Mrs Holmes had, apparently, been extremely upset at being excluded from this trip to see their daughter.

'Pa was diplomatic, of course. He told her that Eurus was still emotionally fragile and not yet up to seeing too many people at once. But Mummy is not accustomed to being refused anything…' He made this comment with particular ire. '…and took it rather badly.'

He explained how she had blamed him for her omission from the guest list and accused him of turning her daughter against her.

'I'm afraid I rather let my emotions get the better of me,' he admitted, curling his bottom lip over the top one. 'I told her, no, I hadn't done that because she had managed to do that all by herself when she handed her daughter over to Uncle Rudi without a second thought.' He gave a deep sigh, his brow wrinkled in a frown. 'Probably not the most diplomatic thing to say, especially since it put Pa in an awkward position, too.'

As a consequence, Siger had declared that he shouldn't go to Edinburgh, either, since he was just as guilty of abandoning Eurus as his wife.

'So, then I had to lie and say that if Pa didn't come, Eurus would think that her parents really had abandoned her all those years ago and that Rudi was right when he told her they didn't want anything more to do with her. Then I just grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away.'

This encounter with his mother had been very upsetting. Whist he sympathised with her over Rudi, he found her self-obsession quite unpalatable.

'She's given birth to three babies, for god's sake, yet still managed never to grow up!'

He wondered how his father could be so patient with her.

'But, in so many ways, Pa has been groomed, too. Since the moment they met, I think his role has been to smooth Mummy's path through life and he has embraced it fully.'

It all sounded horribly melodramatic and the last thing that anyone needed, at such an emotionally fraught time. Knowing the fragility of Sherlock's state of mind, Molly could understand why he had so little patience with his mother. She just hoped that his conversation with Eurus didn't upset him still further.

While Siger dozed fitfully, Molly and Sherlock enjoyed a quiet conversation and some restorative hand-holding throughout the short flight and, before anyone knew it, they were coming in to land at Edinburgh Airport. Business class was first to disembark and, this being an internal flight, there was no passport control or customs to negotiate. It was a clear run, through the Arrivals Hall and out to the taxi rank.

Suddenly, this meeting with Eurus was imminent and very real. All three of them felt it, each with their own degree of trepidation. Molly gazed out of the cab window at the passing scenery as they made their way through the city and into the suburbs, pulling up, at last, outside Charlotte's town house in its leafy square. As she looked up at the elegant Georgian façade, she thought she caught a glimpse of someone with dark, curly hair, very much like Sherlock's, peering down through the first-floor window, before they stepped back and disappearing from view. She gave Sherlock's hand an encouraging squeeze then they were out on the pavement and approaching the shiny, black front door.

Sherlock had barely raised his hand to the knocker when the door opened and there stood Charlotte, wearing a cautious smile which broadened when her eyes lit on Siger.

'Mr Holmes,' she said, offering her hand in greeting. 'I'm Charlotte. Eurus has told me so much about you I feel I know you already!'

'Siger,' he replied, taking her hand in both of his, as he had with Molly. 'I'm afraid I know very little about you, Charlotte, except that it was you who helped my darling girl to orchestrate her release from that ghastly place and, for that, I am eternally in your debt.' His voice shook as he said those words, prompting Sherlock to place a supportive hand on his father's shoulder.

'Do come in, please,' Charlotte entreated, standing aside to let them enter. 'And you must be Dr Hooper,' she said, as Molly crossed the threshold in the wake of the two men.

'Yes, I'm Molly,' said Molly. 'I've heard quite a lot about you and I'm delighted to be meeting you, at last.'

Meeting Charlotte's eyes, Molly could read the degree of stress and strain that the other woman was stoically masking beneath the sophisticated social mores of a seasoned hostess. No doubt it would have worked with most people but Molly could read a person like Sherlock could read a crime scene so it wasn't lost on her. Even though they had only just this minute met, Molly felt a strong emotional connection with Charlotte and, on impulse, she reached out and enveloped her in a hug, which was instantly reciprocated. Charlotte could not remember when she had appreciated a hug more than at that precise moment.

When the two women released one another, Charlotte was back in character as the hostess. She took everyone's coats and scarves, and Molly's hat, and hung them on the row of hooks in the hall.

'Eurus is in the sitting room,' she explained, indicating the staircase that led off the hall.

Sherlock turned to his father.

'You go up, Pa. We'll wait down here,' he insisted.

Siger looked a little dubious but Sherlock gave him a bright smile so he nodded and moved toward the foot of the stairs.

'It's more comfortable in the kitchen,' Charlotte advised her other two guests, as she ushered Siger up to the first floor. 'I won't be a moment and then I'll make some tea.'

Sherlock knew his way to the kitchen, this being his third visit to this house, so he led Molly down to the basement.

ooOoo

On reaching the first-floor landing, Charlotte directed Siger to the closed door which led to the sitting room.

'She's through there,' she said, smiling encouragingly. 'Go on in. She's waiting for you.'

His first couple of steps toward the door were hesitant but Charlotte urged him on with a reassuring nod. Siger squared his shoulders and strode forward, turning the handle and pushing open the door. As the door swung inwards, he paused on the threshold and looked into the room. Eurus was standing by one of the tall windows, silhouetted against the grey winter light. She turned to face her visitor and Siger took a sharp intake of breath.

The last time he had seen her was at the little family concert that Sherlock had arranged. She had been in that hideous panopticon, cut off, isolated and remote, like a museum exhibit inside a glass case, with her hair long and unkempt and wearing those awful prison pyjamas. She had played an impromptu duet with Sherlock but the lasting impression for Siger was of one of those French clockwork automata that used to entertain the guests in Victorian drawing rooms in the Nineteenth Century. There was no life in her eyes, just a blank stare.

What he now beheld was something quite different. With her hair cropped, like a boy's, her short, slight figure dressed in normal everyday clothes and her piercing blue-grey eyes fixed upon him, she was a real, living, breathing human being – hopeful but hesitant, eager but cautious, expectant but restrained. And across a chasm that stretched for more than three decades, Siger saw his little girl, his dear, precious, beloved child, the apple of his eye.

'Eurus…' The name was ripped from him.

'Daddy?' she whimpered.

'Oh, my darling child!' he cried and stumbled forward with arms outstretched as she tottered towards him across the floor and they seized one another in the middle of the room, both sobbing uncontrollably, and clung together as though they would never, ever let go.

Charlotte pulled the sitting room door quietly closed and retreated down the stairs to the kitchen.

ooOoo

Part Two coming soon...