CHAPTER 3: WHERE THE MADNESS GOES

THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2015

At eight in the morning, Sergeant Sally Donovan dropped her ID on the receptionist's table and signed the ledger. Slow and awkward, that was her mode these days. At her insistence, and with reluctant physician approval, the plaster was newly removed, and though she was encouraged to wear a sling to keep the right elbow immobilised, she couldn't bear to wear it while going about her professional duties. She had an image to maintain, and it wasn't that of a maimed or otherwise vulnerable police officer.

Nevertheless, letting the arm hang was, perhaps, not her wisest choice. Every now and then, when she was in a rush or too tense, a twinge reawakened in her elbow and vibrated down her arm, resulting in a flash of pain in her hand. Nerve damage, though nothing debilitating. The therapy was helping. But it aggravated her, not having full mobility or trustworthy reflexes. Until it was fully recovered, she couldn't carry a firearm or apprehend a suspect. It was a feeble exercise, perhaps, when she silently coached herself not to feel the pain, but she halfway believed that through sheer stubbornness and force of will, she could speed her own recovery.

Retrieving her ID and returning it to her pocket, she let one of the nurses lead her to the third floor hospital bed in which lay their Jane Smith, pulled from the Queen Mary Reservoir sometime in the middle of the night. The near-drowning victim was suffering a mild concussion, multiple abrasions on arms and legs, and a right hand broken in four places. On top of that, she was also recovering from moderate to severe hypothermia. Doctors believed the trauma had led to some temporary amnesia, which explained why she couldn't tell anyone who she was or where she was from. But she did give one name: Greg Lestrade, a detective inspector at New Scotland Yard. It was Lestrade she wished to speak to, and so Lestrade they contacted. But DI Lestrade, detained in London on more urgent business, had sent Donovan.

'Her name is Anthea,' he told her over the phone. Donovan was awake and half dressed, phone to her ear as she brushed her teeth with short, hurried strokes. 'I need you to talk to her.'

Donovan spit into the sink. 'I can be on the road in five minutes.'

'Quicker the better. And Donovan. Consider this one strictly confidential. Private interview. Just you in the room.'

She readily agreed, practically leaping at the opportunity to get into the field again. Having been chained to deskwork for the last three weeks, she was grateful for something to do, anything, and was not a little indebted to Lestrade for calling on her to do it. He must have known she was unhappy cooped up indoors, as well as perfectly capable of returning to her work.

It wasn't exactly official, but given all she had seen and done in the last six months, she very much considered any matter involving Sherlock Holmes or John Watson her work, her case, or at the very least a case she should be directly involved with. She knew as well as anyone that the death of the Slash Man (Darren Hirsch, she corrected herself) did not conclude the Moriarty Mayhem. It was far from over. Even in the aftermath of John Watson neutralizing one of the worst predators the streets of London had known in recent history, and the subsequent relief, she knew it was only a matter of time before another tragedy struck or more evidence surfaced, and she intended to be at the heart of the investigation that would at last bring an end to it all.

So when the phone call concerning Mycroft Holmes came, it had been far from surprising. It was like she had been waiting for it.

'Is she awake?' she queried as the nurse pulled back the curtain. The woman in question was lying on her side, plastered hand on top of the blankets, eyes closed. But hearing Donovan speak, she stirred.

'Sorry to bother you, miss,' said the nurse kindly, and softly, so as not to wake the other two patients sleeping in their beds, 'but this officer's come down from London, if you're up to talking.'

'Sergeant Donovan,' she said, stepping forward, 'of the Metropolitan Police.'

'I know who you are.' With a groan, the woman reached for the controls on the side of the bed to raise herself up.

The nurse smiled at them both and left. As Donovan came around to the side of the bed, the woman resituated herself and the blankets, then folded her hands (one casted) regally in her lap, assuming an air of decided professionalism. Despite the loose, dark strands escaping its plait—a nurse's fix for unwashed hair—and the hospital gown gaping wide at the neck to accommodate a heart monitor, she appeared every bit the professional.

'You know me, you say,' said Donovan.

'Yes,' the woman said simply. 'I know your partner; therefore, I know you. I assume he sent you.'

'Lestrade isn't exactly my partner.'

The woman gave her an impatient look, like she was wasting time with technicalities. 'Why didn't he come himself?'

'He's been unavoidably detained.'

'Tell me what has happened.'

Donovan's eyebrows rose and her jaw jutted out a little. 'I've actually come to interview you, Ms . . . Anthea, is it?'

The woman nodded.

'Anthea what?'

'Anthea is good enough.'

Donovan sniffed, a little derisively. Evidently, the victim did not need to be treated as delicately as she had initially surmised. 'Not even your real name, is it?'

'It'll serve. You won't find me in any system, Sgt Donovan, so there is no point searching for me there. My employer has made sure of it.'

'Your employer.'

'Like you, I have a job to do, so let's get on with it. Lestrade should have come himself, but he sent you. You may be his most trustworthy and reliable officer—his words, not mine—but you're still, technically, outer ring. So I am disinclined to talk to you. At least, not until you've told me what has happened.'

But Donovan was there to gather information, not offer a report, and she riled at the tone of command. 'What has happened, miss, is that someone nearly killed you. Last night, you were rescued from the middle of Queen Mary Reservoir after a pair of trespassing teenagers watched a car fall off the back of ferry, hopped in their speedboat, and found you treading water, barely hanging on. They pulled you from the water and called for an ambulance. An hour ago, Surrey Police dragged to the surface a 2015 Mercedes-Maybatch S600 registered to a Mr Adam Davenport of Central London. Incidentally, they also recovered the body of Mr Davenport, who, according to preliminary reports, died as a result of drowning. Being the lone survivor of this tragedy, we thought you might know a thing or two about why a luxury vehicle was dumped in the middle of a lake, and who is responsible for what was very nearly multiple homicides.'

The woman, Anthea, looked at her long and hard, a look Donovan returned. But what she first read as defiance began slowly to give way, and behind the veneer of trained comportment, Donovan discerned a shadow of fear. So when Anthea spoke, again, she spoke softly.

'Is Mycroft Holmes dead?'

At this, Donovan's own hard veneer cracked at the edges—she had not expected the woman to yield in any way. 'Mycroft Holmes. Is that who you mean when you say employer?'

Anthea's pained expression was her only response.

Donovan knew few of the details herself, neither his condition nor ongoing care. The fact was, she knew almost nothing about the man, other than the fact of his being Sherlock Holmes' elder brother. Mycroft Holmes had been to the Yard a time or two, nothing more, at least, not while she was there; and she had spotted him at St Bartholomew's back when John Watson had been in hospital following his terrible ordeal. Beyond that, she could only speculate: What his relationship was like with his younger brother she couldn't even guess at—they both seemed so peculiar—but she had suspected for a while now that DI Lestrade had fostered something of a professional relationship with the man, though a clandestine one. Knowing that Mr Holmes was in some way connected with Home Office and MI6, and believing him to be a man of some great power and influence, she had deliberately not meddled in or questioned the true nature of Lestrade's association.

She knew even less about this woman who apparently worked for him.

'I'm not at liberty to disclose.'

'If Greg Lestrade sent you—'

'Of course he did.'

'—if he sent you, then I can assure you, Ms Donovan, he meant for you to tell me.' Her eyes beseeched her now. 'Please. Is Mycroft Holmes dead?'

Sally Donovan chewed her inner cheek, debating. At last, she shook her head. 'He is in hospital,' she said, 'and alive.'

'Thank God.' Anthea brought her hands to her mouth and squeezed her eyes closed, allowing herself to be overcome, if only for a moment. When she spoke next, her voice was a whisper. 'What happened?'

'He was poisoned. Doctors have induced a coma while they assess the damage. I'm sorry, I really don't know anything more than that.'

'Poisoned,' Anthea repeated. She drew in a long steadying breath, composing herself. With her unbroken hand, she wiped her cheeks free of tears. 'Very well.' Her breath escaped in a huff, returning her to a business-like state. 'I need to get out of this bed. What hospital, did you say? He needs proper security detail, and if he wakes he'll want immediate reports—'

'Hang on there, whoa, stop. Just—' Donovan put her hands out to keep Anthea in the bed. 'Don't forget, you're in hospital yourself. And don't think we don't have it covered. You think Lestrade isn't over there, right now, handling these things? You seem to trust him. If you trust him, you can trust me.'

'Can I?' Anthea asked with wry tone. She cocked her head to the side, evaluating her.

'I may be outer ring, Ms Anthea, but I know how to do my job.'

'And do you choose to remain outer ring, Ms Donovan?'

'Pardon?'

Anthea's eyes marked the open door at the end of the room, beyond which the life of the hospital flowed unrestrained. There was little chance they could be overheard, but Donovan picked up on the signal and moved to close the door anyway. For added good measure, she pulled the curtains closed around them, too, and when she returned to the bedside, Anthea's look was approving.

'I asked, sergeant, whether you mean to remain on the fringes.'

'I've no idea what you're on about.'

'There is no use pretending.'

Donovan withheld a sigh. She was not in control of this conversation, and she needed to take it back. A more direct approach, perhaps.

'Let's start from the top. Can you tell me where you were when you were abducted? What time it was?'

'Nothing I can tell you will help you find him.'

'Him?'

'Sebastian Moran. That's who you're looking for, isn't it? It doesn't matter. He was not one of the men who attacked us last night, who injected us with anaesthetics and wrangled us into the boot of the Mercedes. Was he behind it? Almost certainly. So this isn't about me at all, is it? It's not even about Mycroft Holmes. Not really.'

'What are you saying?'

'Mycroft has many enemies, at home and abroad. It comes with the job. But attacking him—and his staff, for good measure—was just another way of going after his brother. Of sending a message to tell Sherlock just what kind of blows Moran can still deliver. With Mr Holmes laid up and myself out of commission, for the time being, Sherlock is more exposed and vulnerable than ever. We can't have that. Mycroft won't stand for it.'

'Mycroft Holmes doesn't have a lot to say about it, at the moment.'

'He doesn't need to say a word. The protocol is in place. Lestrade knows it, and so he will be stepping into the elder Holmes' sizeable shoes. I'll need you to step into mine. But I'll not have someone standing where I stand if she is not one hundred percent on board.'

Donovan stared, perplexed. She felt like she was being chastised, but why? And who was this woman to rebuke her, command her, when she didn't even have a proper name, when they had never before met? Anthea let her stew and reached for a glass of water at the side of the bed, taking her time drinking.

'If you have something to say, why don't you come out and say it? There's been a crime, and it doesn't matter if the victim is Mycroft Holmes or Joe the Plumber or the Prime Minister himself—I'll work the case whether you want me to or not, because it's my job.'

Anthea's eyes flashed. 'You're more than your job, Ms Donovan.'

'What the hell is that supposed to mean?'

'It means you're a good copper. You play tough and by the book, and you get the job done. But your jurisdiction is small. And we need you to step outside of it and see that there's something bigger going on, something greater at stake.'

'Bigger than Moran, you mean.'

'Moriarty,' Anthea affirmed. 'None of us, not even Mycroft Holmes, knew how great his influence was before his death, nor could we have predicted the chaos his network would be thrown into when Sherlock removed him. We see it now, the battle lines, the size of the armies. And it's scaring the hell out of us. For good or ill, to our success or our detriment, we're in it till the end. But you. You have yet to fully enter the fray. You, Sgt Donovan, get something that none of us did.'

'And what's that?'

'A choice. Sherlock Holmes didn't have one—he was marked from the start, and his brother with him. I stepped onto the field with both eyes closed. John Watson was deceived. Greg Lestrade was coerced. Others were pushed or dragged or tricked. But you, of all of us, having seen the danger, having witnessed others pay the cost of fighting in this war, can simply walk away.'

Donovan stood stiff, immovable, in part understanding exactly what Anthea was saying, but resisting understanding all the same.

'You have the chance to serve in the interest of the greater good.'

'That's bullshit.'

Anthea's eyes widened, taken by surprise.

'I don't buy into by-any-means-necessary or for-the-greater-good rhetoric. Those who do use it to rationalise circumventing the law to achieve their own brand of justice, which always—always—leads to corruption in the name of self-interest. People say that things aren't always so black and white, and maybe that's true. But what's also true is that black and white don't disappear in the presence of grey. People just refuse to see it. What they also refuse to see is that the law is the system serving the greater good. So that is what I serve.'

With new light in her eyes, Anthea straightened in the bed. 'Yes, yes, and this is why we need you, Sgt Donovan.'

'Come again?'

'You have loyalties to the law, emotional distance, objectivity. You're uncompromising and stalwart and oftentimes fearless. You provide an anchor to Lestrade, balance to Sherlock, and support to John Watson.'

'The hell I do. Holmes and Watson have never relied on me for anything,' said Donovan. 'And Lestrade is loyal to the law, same as I am.'

'But not above all. Already, he's bent and broken the law in the interest of saving a man's life, and who can say he was wrong to do it? We need people like him. But we also need people like you. More specifically . . . you.'

'You want me to become like you, is that it? Lackey to a greater man, being sent on errands and keeping a diary and coordinating with the driver, all while keeping state secrets? You're an intelligent human being, Ms Anthea. And yet the work you do for your employer is going to get you killed. Even now, lying in a hospital bed, only hours removed from an attempt on your life, you're acting as though you're on the clock.'

Anthea cocked an eyebrow. 'Would you be any different? As I recall, you almost died yourself in the interest of helping Sherlock. Your superiors had to insist you go on leave after your accident.'

'Right. At least I haven't given up my own name in the interest of his work, and who knows what else besides. Was this what you wanted your life to be? Don't tell me you no longer have a choice in any of this. I don't believe it. Why aren't you the one walking away?'

Rather than get defensive, as Donovan expected she might, Anthea considered her question. 'In the beginning,' she said, 'before I had any comprehension of who was hiring me or why, I believed that I was entering into something significant and exciting. I had the hope of doing something great, being part of something bigger than myself, something of terrific consequence to the world. I believed I was doing something important.'

Donovan wondered how many years ago that was. Anthea still seemed fairly young, most certainly younger than she; and yet she spoke with the reflection of the aged and wise.

'And now?' she asked.

Her dark eyes met Donovan's, boring into them with intensity and conviction. 'Now I know I am. Will you?'

As the morning drew on and his initial state of numbing shock wore away, Sherlock's brainpower came back online. Every shiver in the corner of his eye, every pat of a footfall, and every waft of cool air that unsettled his hair or made his skin prickle bore the full weight of his attention.

He wished he hadn't dropped his phone in the flat. He was loath to admit it, but he felt helpless without the mobile. It wasn't just a repository of instant information; it was his link to John, to anyone. Hours had passed, and John had not yet returned.

Mycroft had been moved from the operating theatre and placed into intensive care, where Sherlock had been allowed only a brief visit. His status remained critical but stable, and Sherlock was left to understand that the balance might tip at any time, for good or ill, which didn't sound stable at all. They told him to keep close by. 'Just in case,' said the nurse, but she didn't finish that thought. She didn't need to. But he had no intention of leaving. Once again, he was making trips between the waiting room and the hallway. Again, he was turning an eye of suspicion on doctors and nurses and staff. As before, he was constantly braced for pronouncement of the inevitable. We're sorry, Mr Holmes. He didn't make it. You were too late.

He knew it was paranoia. To some degree. What he was not convinced of, however, was that his paranoia was unjustified.

The lift doors at his lonely end of the hallway dinged, but a pair of nurses stepped out of them, not John. Fighting down his mounting agitation, he turned on his heel to walk the length of the corridor back to the doors leading to intensive care. As he drew near where the security guard stood just beside the double doors, a man, a stranger, a face he had not yet seen in those halls, exited the ICU. The man was old—eighties, maybe, public school-bred and business elite, judging by his gait and comportment—and wore a dark blue suit and a straight black tie. He made eye contact with Sherlock, but only briefly; then, when they passed each other at the shoulder, Sherlock saw it: the man turned his head subtle degrees away. It was a subconscious gesture. This was a man who had been seen, but who did not wish to be.

Or perhaps Sherlock was misinterpreting. Just an ordinary old man. He shook his head and stepped up to the double doors. But before he pushed them open, he turned to the guard. 'How long was that man in ICU? What was he doing here?'

The guard blinked, as though in slow motion, as though clearing his eyes to make Sherlock out properly. 'Sorry, what?'

'That man, how long was he inside?'

'What man?'

'The one that just walked out of here, two seconds ago!'

'Mr Holmes, no one has walked through these doors in ten minutes.'

Sherlock twisted back around, but the hallway was empty.

He threw open the doors to intensive care.

'Mr Holmes!' cried a scandalised nurse.

'Who was that?' He pointed out the door. 'The man who was just in here. Who was he?'

'Who?'

'Damn it.'

He strode past her at a lumbering gait.

'Mr Holmes, I really must insist you ask before charging in here!'

The officer had followed him inside. 'What's going on? Mr Holmes, don't make me remove you!'

Striding purposefully toward Mycroft's corner of the ICU room, he ignored them both. There, yanked back the curtain and found his brother lying in the hospital bed, just as he had last seen him, machines emitting their steady beep. 'Someone was here. What did they do, what did they touch?' He looked around, mentally scraping the details of the medical environment into a dozen Petrie dishes in his mind and sliding each under a microscope.

'Please, Mr Holmes,' said the officer, exasperated, 'don't make me call for backup.'

'Call them. Call them right now.'

'Shit, what's going on?'

'Call them!'

The security officer swore again, pulled out his radio, and sped away, the nurse hesitating in the doorway before following him.

'Who was here, Mycroft?' he asked aloud, wishing to God he would answer. He ran a hand down his brother's arms one by one, then his legs, feeling for something—anything—that shouldn't be there. He dragged a hand under the mattress, dipped his head below the bed, circled and checked the other side. He examined the cannulas and instruments sustaining his life. Then his eye fell on the heart monitor. Slowly, he reached behind it, felt the foreign element, and peeled it off. Opening his palm, he looked down and saw a black transmitter, the size of a fifty-pence piece.

He dropped the transmitter into the pocket of his pyjama bottoms just as the security officer returned.

'I have men on the way—' he started before Sherlock cut him off.

'Tell them to check the security footage for the last thirty minutes in the ICU and every corner of this hospital. You're looking for a man in his eighties, medium build, five-nine, thinning white hair, wearing a dark suitcoat and tie. And you'—he pointed an accusatory finger—'I want you gone.'

'You don't give me orders!'

'A man so easily hoodwinked has no business serving as security to the most important man in Britain.'

'Hoodwinked?'

'Get me the footage! Go!'

The man's face purpled with anger, but he spun on his heel and stalked away. Sherlock threw himself into the chair besides the hospital bed. Then he reached into the pocket of his pyjamas and withdrew the transmitter. For a few seconds he examined its coiled copper and silver plates, but no amount of optical examination would force it to yield its secrets. He threw a glare at Mycroft, whose breathing machine and heart monitor were the only indications he was still alive.

'Wake up, won't you?' he said bitterly.

But of course, Mycroft gave no retort.

Greg Lestrade sat numbly at the wheel, staring straight ahead through the windscreen without seeing the pedestrians crossing the street. His brain was divided down a dozen different paths of thought, and not one of them seemed to reside with him on the road.

A blaring horn startled him back to the present, and he saw the light was green and the pathway clear. Flustered, he threw the car into gear and shot forward, screeching the tyres and earning him more horns and a rude gesture or two at the corner of his eyes. But he didn't give two shits about their petty annoyances. Didn't they see it? The sky was falling.

In the passenger seat, his phone lit up, and a second later, through the Bluetooth, his speakers dinged with an incoming call. He tapped a button on his steering wheel.

'Talk to me, Donovan, give me good news.'

'She's going to be fine, sir. Some contusions and a broken hand, but she's recovering well from the hypothermia, and no lasting effects from the drug. She's very . . . clear-headed. But the driver wasn't so lucky.'

'Davenport?'

There was a brief, calibrating pause. 'Drowned. He has been recovered from the reservoir and taken to the mortuary at Ashford Hospital, but I'm having him transported back to London. Do you want Molly to take a look?'

'Yes. That would be best.' Damn. He struck the wheel with his hand. The man had a wife, grown sons, a granddaughter on the way. He would need to deliver the unhappy news himself. It was only right.

'Sir?'

'I'm here, Donovan. Look. Things are moving fast, and we need to move faster. Last night, I got a new lead regarding Moran and the St Mary's Abduction plot, and I want you to join me on pursuing it.'

'What's the lead?'

'Just a name, to start. Corporal William Murray. I'll fill you in on the details later, but I have an address. I want to talk to him. Today. Surprise visit. Are you back in London?'

'Leaving Hounslow just now.'

He thought. 'Murray lives just outside of Edgware on Orchard Cres. Meet me there in an hour.'

'Got it. And oh. Lestrade.'

'Yeah?'

'Is this Yard business? Or is this part of your new commission as steward for Mycroft Holmes?'

The charge surprised him, as did the bite in her voice. What, exactly, had Anthea said to her? Lestrade had known Sally Donovan long enough to distinguish between her tone of disapproval and tone of disappointment, and this time it fell into the latter category. She had expected him to confide in her, and he hadn't. But it wasn't that he didn't trust her. Rather, he had believed himself sworn to secrecy. He hadn't told even Sherlock the nature of his professional arrangement with Mycroft Holmes, though John himself had mentioned Sherlock's suspicions.

'Where one ends, the other begins, Sally.'

'I've thrown all my chips in, inspector,' she retorted, throwing him further off balance. Now she was rebuking him, but he couldn't fathom why. 'You should know that.'

'Okay . . .'

'And I'm holding a strong hand. But even if I weren't, I wouldn't fold. I'm seeing this to end. You get me?'

Lestrade smirked, but he refrained from letting his pleasure, or appreciation, colour his tone. 'Looks like we've got a fighting chance then, eh? Better bring your poker face.'

'See you in Edgware,' she snapped.

The footage had been blocked. Frozen. From the moment the unidentified man entered the hospital until he had disappeared from it, every security camera froze for five to fifteen seconds at a time, as though his very proximity short-circuited the wiring long enough for him to pass by unseen. The only witness who had any memory of seeing him at all was Sherlock.

The transmitter, though a highly advanced technological gadget, seemed to be fairly simple in function: it was a one-way audio transmitter, not a camera, consisting of a simple though very tiny microphone. He had discovered all this while dismantling it in the loo. But despite his anger and paranoia, he resisted flushing it down the toilet: he had never been one to wilfully destroy evidence.

For hours—it felt like days—he vacillated between Mycroft, still hovering in limbo in the intensive care unit, and the lifts, waiting for John. All the while, he monitored the men and women, doctors and nurses, orderlies and caretakers. He couldn't trust technology or security, not as far as he could see them himself. They had already proved fallible.

Then, at long, long last, the lift doors dinged, and John marched out into the hallway, bearing two overnight bags, his limp barely noticeable. He looked left and right before spotting Sherlock, and they rushed to meet each other.

'A breach in security,' Sherlock said at the same moment John began, 'We have a problem.'

'What problem?'

'What breach?'

'An unidentified man bypassed all security monitors and personnel to plant an audio transmitter in the ICU, and left without anyone's notice. Anyone's but mine, that is. They're monitoring him. They didn't kill him, so they're looking for a window of opportunity to come in and finish the job. So far, so obvious. So we need to get him out. Sneak him out, hide him somewhere safe, leaving behind a decoy of some sort, I don't know, I'm still working out the details, and the fewer people who know about it, the better. I think we may even be able to fool the nurses, they're a dupable lot. Mycroft cannot stay here.'

John was nodding rigidly. 'No, he cannot.' Then he set one of the bags on the floor and reached into his pocket and withdrew Sherlock's mobile.

'Thank you, I was hoping you'd think to grab it.' He held out his hand for it, but John was slow to place it there.

It was then that Sherlock took in the whole of him. Despite his hours of absence and change of clothes, his appearance was that of one who had denied himself sleep: his hair had the same creases and flatness as seen the night before, unaltered by resting against a pillow; the skin beneath his eyes sagged, and redness tinged the corners of his eyes, seeping into the glassy whites; and his brow was lined with exhaustion. Sherlock doubted he himself looked much better.

'Why didn't you sleep?' he asked, palm still open, awaiting his mobile.

'Something's happened,' said John in a low voice. He glanced over Sherlock's shoulder to a man and young woman lingering not far away.

'Father with his daughter, on holiday from Dublin, wife thrown through the windscreen when they got rear-ended on the A3220. Come this way.'

Sherlock took up the dropped bag, turned John around, and led him to a deserted alcove off the main hall.

'Tell me,' he said.

John was steeling himself, one fist clenching and unclenching, jaw tight, head lowered. But his eyes rose to meet Sherlock's, and he said, unable to keep a quaver from his voice, 'He's back.'

There was no doubt who he meant, but Sherlock felt a chill rush through him. Six months, it had been. Six months of silence from the man himself while his lackeys and underlings ran about doing his bidding, devastating lives in his name, under his orders. Had he finally decided to step out of the shadows?

And how did John know of it? What had happened these past few hours that left John drained white as a sheet, as though he had seen a ghost?

'What happened?' he asked, reaching for John and gripping his arm at the shoulder.

'He has your number,' said John, at last delivering the mobile. 'Seven texts, once an hour on the half.'

Sherlock took his mobile and unlocked it. Holding his breath, he opened his texts, and began to scroll.

But he saw nothing.

'Have you deleted them?' he asked.

John's head arose. 'What?'

'I don't see them.'

Taking the mobile back, John searched for himself, his fingers dragging up and down on the screen, and the faster he searched, the stronger his head began to shake. 'I don't understand,' he said without breath. 'They were . . . here. Right here. Seven of them.'

'What did they say?'

'They were taunts. Threats.' Sherlock saw that John was searching the deleted texts folder. It, too, was empty. 'Where are they!'

'Tell me. What did they say? Everything you can remember.'

'Uh . . .' John's eyes closed, remembering. 'That he'd not forgotten you. That Mycroft was payment for what I did to Daz. That this is a game.' His eyes opened again. 'Come and play.'

Come and play. He'd received that text before. Long ago. John had been the first to read those words, too, on that morning when he had last been unequivocally happy, before Moriarty re-entered the picture, and everything was shot to hell. But those were Moriarty's words. Not Moran's.

Again, Sherlock noted signs of stress and enervation, the elevated blood pressure, the quick, shallow breaths.

'John.'

Again, John's head came up. His eyes were round and fearful.

'You read the texts in the flat. Was Mrs Hudson with you?'

'No, I was . . . I was alone.'

'How were you feeling?'

It took only a second for John to understand the implication. His eyes darkened and his teeth clamped together. He took two, long breaths, nostrils flaring. 'I'm not making this up.'

But Sherlock wasn't so sure. 'All I'm saying,' he began, delicately, 'is that I think we were both waiting for the gauntlet to fall, especially after what happened with the Slash Man. And what happened to Mycroft is a big gauntlet.' Yes, saying it out loud made it feel more plausible. There would be repercussions for the Slash Man's death, and John would feel it more keenly than anyone. 'It's been a long, stressful night, for both of us, and neither of us has slept. We're raw at the edges. It's not . . . unreasonable . . . that the combination of all those things triggered memories and—'

'I'm telling you, it was not a hallucination. There were messages; I read them. I— I spoke to him.'

'You spoke to him?'

'Here, I'll show you.'

On Sherlock's mobile, he tapped and swiped, this time bringing up the screen for outgoing calls. 'He said, You know my number. And I do, don't I? It was my number after all. So I rang him up. I'm tired of this waiting, of sitting on my hands, not fighting ba—'

But he froze, staring at the screen. Moments passed in utter silence between them, a silence Sherlock knew better than to break.

'It's gone,' John whispered.

'John . . .'

'I don't . . . understand. I spoke with him. I did. I remember it perfectly.'

He could no longer hide his doubts. 'Lestrade and his team have been trying for months to reach that number, to trace it. No one gets through.'

At last, John surrendered the phone. He squared his shoulders and cricked his neck, clearly trying to maintain some sense of composure. But his eyes gave him away.

'So you don't believe me.'

'I think we both need some sleep.'

'Go on. Say it, then.'

'I—' He sighed. 'I'm looking for the evidence, John. I don't see it.'

'Right.' He sniffed, looked away. The glassiness of his eyes no longer seemed due to exhaustion. 'Fine then.'

Sherlock felt the guilt burning in his chest, a wrong he wished to amend. 'What is it he said?'

'Never mind, eh? Clearly, it's irrelevant.' He exploded a hand near his temple. 'A fabrication.'

'John.'

'Forget it, I said. Tell me about this breach. How did anyone get past the security detail?'

'I don't know. I'm working on it.' He slid the phone into his pocket to join the dismantled pieces of the transmitter.

'Have you checked footage?'

'They didn't pick anything up.'

'Just you then?'

'Yes.'

'Huh.'

'What?'

'Where's your evidence for that one, then? But no, let's not forget. I'm the crazy one. When it comes to the two of us, you're Brains, I'm Bedlam. Glad we got that straight.'

John pushed past him, returning to the lifts, and Sherlock had no choice but to let him go. He could not leave Mycroft.

Their eyes met just as the doors slid closed. But where Sherlock expected to see pain or betrayal, he instead saw fear. Damn it all, but John Watson was cursed, for above his own convictions, he trusted in Sherlock's. So if Sherlock said he was mad, he was mad.

And it terrified him.