CHAPTER 23: ASSASSINS

MAY 8, 2015

Greg Lestrade stood stock still and hands akimbo, his eyes raking the hoard.

'Did you count them?'

Behind him in the open doorway, careful not to touch even the walls with her latex-gloved hands, Donovan said, "Two hundred and thirteen boxes. Two hundred and twelve of them containing a single pair of shoes. Boxes and shoe brands don't match up, though. Nikes housing Birkenstocks, that kind of thing. Everything from trainers to brogues, loafers, sandals, heels, flats. Every kind you can think. Men's, women's . . . and children's sizes.'

Lestrade was disturbed, but unsurprised. 'He started young. His first victim was a child. Carl Powers.' He looked over his shoulder at her. 'That would account for the empty box, I'd wager. Those shoes are now sitting in evidence.' He let out a whoosh of air and scrubbed his face. 'We always knew he was a murderer. A serial murderer, no doubt. It's just, putting a number to it? It's nauseating.'

'This could help close a lot of cold cases,' said Donovan. 'Don't you think?'

He nodded, an automatic response more than concession to a plan. In fact, he meant to do quite the opposite, for now.

'We don't tell the Yard.'

Donovan dropped her folded arms to her sides. 'Sir?'

'Let's think, shall we?' He revolved to face her. 'This is Sherlock's old flat. The tenant who took it over was obviously using a pseudonym. Now, you and I know who the false identity is attached to, but others at the Yard will be happy to reach a different conclusion.'

'That Sherlock kept the flat,' she said, eyes lighting with understanding, 'as some sort of bolthole.'

Lestrade nodded gravely. 'And what will people believe about the shoes?'

'That they're his trophies.'

'They're framing him. It's clear as day, Sally. Anthea said They wouldn't have just one plan for how to do it, but a hundred. Bill Murray didn't work out for them, so they've moved onto Plan B: smear him as a serial murderer, replete with a flat full of evidence to damn him.' He frowned. 'You don't look convinced.'

She sighed. 'Look. I don't trust this old coot any more than you do. I don't like getting little clues slipped into my pocket or being treated like a pawn. But why the hell would they send me chasing Tony Pitts' ghost down a rabbit hole? It led me to James Moriarty, not Sherlock Holmes. So how does that incriminate Sherlock?'

'I don't know. What I do know is that we need to verify beyond a shadow of a doubt that this room'—he snapped his head, indicating the shelving with its dozens upon dozens of filled shoeboxes—'is in no way connected to Sherlock. So I want to know everything about every pair of shoes, and I want it all tied to Moriarty, down to the aglets.'

'How do we do that without resources?'

'We have them. Just not through the Yard. First, Dryers. He's moving in here with a duffle and a sleeping bag. He's still suspended, so he won't be missed. If anyone in the buildings asks, his name is Aiden.'

'You're not worried about, I dunno, trespass?'

Lestrade shrugged. 'You were explicitly given a key. As far as I'm concerned, that's a direct invitation to make ourselves at home. No, it'll be good to have Dryers right here. He can get to know the neighbours, maybe talk to the landlord and figure out how this place is being paid for, four years after the death of its tenant. That's one end of things. As for the shoe collection, I'll have Molly bring some equipment from Baker Street. Sherlock has quite a lovely little laboratory scattered around the kitchen, microscopes and such. We'll run what tests we can in-house. Molly can transport additional samples to more sophisticated labs, ones the Yard doesn't use, so we can run analysis.'

'How do we pay for that?'

'Mycroft Holmes has means,' he said vaguely. 'But evidence collection is tricky business, especially at this volume, and we don't want to run the risk of contamination. It seems to me we'll need a proper forensics expert, and neither Molly nor Dryers qualifies. So what do you think?'

Donovan nodded. 'You want me to talk to Reddy? Maybe Chen? They're all right blokes.'

'No no, no one on payroll.'

'Then who—?' She saw his expression and hardened hers. 'No. No way, boss.'

'Anderson was Head of Forensics.'

'Before he got sacked. I thought we were all in agreement on this one: Anderson is one of the bad guys!'

'He's a tosser,' said Thomas Dryers, suddenly stepping into view in the hallway behind her. 'And a weasel besides, but, I dunno, he's harmless, really.'

'Harmless!' she balked. 'Where were you in January? February?'

'Kitty Riley can't pull his strings anymore,' said Lestrade. Then he shrugged. 'Doesn't make him any less a puppet. Why not play at being puppet master ourselves?'

Donovan shook her head, but her jaw was so locked it looked painful for her to move at all. 'He won't do it.'

'He's desperate to put himself back into your good graces,' said Dryers. 'He'll do it.'

She twisted around to face him. 'He despises Sherlock.'

'He doesn't need to know this has anything to do with Sherlock,' said Lestrade.

'Like he won't figure it out. He's an idiot, but not altogether stupid. In any case, Sherlock would hate the idea that we were working with Anderson.'

Lestrade couldn't help but smirk. 'Since when did you care about Sherlock's feelings?'

But Donovan was in defence-mode, and not easily shaken from it. 'Scott Anderson directly conspired against Sherlock with that harpy reporter! He bullied Watson, right in front of him! In front of all of us! Don't tell me you've forgotten the vile things that he said!'

'Jesus, Sally, I'm not saying we forgive him, I'm trying to use him. No matter what you think of the man, he's a good scientist. He knows how to investigate a crime scene, avoid contamination, collect and analyse evidence.'

'So he's Sherlock's replacement,' she griped. 'Anderson.'

'He's a specialist. We're not. Lacking our usual resources—both the Yard and Sherlock Holmes himself—I'm using whatever tools I have at my disposal. Got me?'

She huffed and folded her arms again. 'Gregson'll have your arse, if he finds out.'

'It's not my arse I'm trying to save here.'

To avoid rousing suspicion, or at the very least to skirt any questions from Chief Superintendent Gregson, Lestrade and Donovan both made regular appearances at New Scotland Yard. They did the usual work of running meetings, debriefing the team, collecting reports, analysing strategy, and putting out press statements when required. In short, they were model professionals, leaving Gregson and the rest none the wiser about the as-yet unnoticed disappearance of Holmes and Watson. But then, why would anyone notice? Most disappearances were reported by friends or loved ones, and all of Sherlock and John's friends knew to act the part.

It was a sobering thought—the kind Lestrade was prone to these days as he made his way to Baker Street—that this all began with the report of a missing person. He still remembered the sinking feeling in his stomach the moment he had seen John's face on the wall and heard O'Higgins declare him missing.

He was on the verge of a bout of melancholy, missing and worrying about his friends, when, just two buildings down from his temporary front door of 221 Baker Street, he came up short. A woman was on the step, pressing a thumb to the buzzer, then stepping back and looking up at the first storey, seemingly frustrated that she was getting no answer, despite the lit windows. It was dark, just past sundown, and he didn't recognise her at first. When he did, he almost pretended not to know her and just carry on. But Molly was in the flat—as indicated by the light—and it would not do to leave her to be harassed by a relentless buzzing.

'Ms Warner, is it?' he said, slowing as he approached.

Michaela Warner turned her head in expectation, likely supposing that the subject of her visit had just returned home. Her face fell in disappointment upon seeing Greg Lestrade.

'Oh! Detective inspector, hello.'

'What brings you here?' he asked, carefully balancing courtesy with ice to let her know that she was not exactly welcome. 'I'm sure you've been informed, but neither resident of 221B is giving interviews.'

'Every paper in the city knows that,' she replied with a forced sort of laugh, as though they were sharing a joke. Lestrade didn't crack a smile.

'Then every reporter should be keenly aware that they won't hesitate to sue for harassment. You're a rising talent, Ms Warner. I'd hate you to be smeared as a paparazzo.'

Michaela shifted her weight uncomfortably, clearly embarrassed by trying to maintain an amiable—if not professional—demeanour. 'I'm not here to cause problems,' she said, nearly overbalancing on her heels. 'I'm not looking for an interview at all, actually. I was'—she laughed, shyly—'looking for a detective, I guess.'

'You found one.'

He smiled, this time to put her at ease. He still didn't trust her motives, but he had a sense about people, and this one wasn't malicious or even grubbing for headlines. Michaela Warner was no Kitty Riley.

'You? I mean, heh, I know you're a proper detective, but you're also . . .'

'Police?'

She nodded.

'And you want to keep the police uninvolved.'

'I wanted to figure out if I have something worth involving the police in.'

'Right.' He glanced up at the window, hoping Molly wouldn't mind waiting on him just a little bit longer. 'Let's go somewhere and find out.' He held his arm out, gesturing down the street. Not far was an all-night café where they could sit and talk, Speedy's having closed some hours before.

'Oh. Um.' She glanced upward as well. 'You weren't going up?'

'It can wait till morning. These days, I don't like disturbing them unless it's absolutely necessary. You understand.' His arm remained extended. At last, she acquiesced, and followed him to the café. A step just behind, he pulled out his phone and sent off a quick text to Molly to tell her he would be delayed. If Michaela saw him do it, he let her suppose he was texting Sherlock.

In the café, he ordered her a lemon tea. For himself, a pint of pale ale, a signal to her that he was not on official police business.

'Off the record, yeah?' he said, sipping from the rim. 'For both of us?'

'Sure,' she agreed.

He smacked his lips and set the glass down. 'So then.' He nodded his invitation to her to begin.

She took a breath. 'I want to make sure my informants are protected. Legally.'

'Do you need legal counsel? Off the record or not, as an officer of the law, if a crime has been committed—'

'No. I mean, maybe. I mean . . . I don't know what I mean. Things are getting scary, and I may be in too deep.'

He frowned. 'Are you in danger?'

She laughed nervously. 'Sorry. Scary is the wrong word, I shouldn't have used it. As a writer, I really should be more mindful of the words I choose. I'm not afraid.' But it looked like it was the first time the idea it had occurred to her that she may have tapped into something dangerous, and she was troubled by it.

'It might be unwise,' said Lestrade, 'if you don't tell me what's going on. Why did you want to talk to Sherlock?'

Michaela lifted her eyes from her tea. 'Do you know the name Matilda Williams?'

Lestrade's eyebrows pinched together, thinking. His fingers tapped the side of the glass. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it.

She answered her own question. 'She was a juror. One of twelve who voted to acquit James Moriarty of alleged crimes back in 2011.'

'Alleged. Right,' he said, sitting back. It was all coming back to him now, the fallout from that trial and the confessions of jurors, all in the wake of Sherlock's death. He had not been directly involved in that investigation—Tony Pitts had wanted him far removed from anything concerning Sherlock Holmes—but he learned as much as he could from colleagues and the papers.

'She was also the ex-wife of the serial killer Jeff Hope.'

'Come again?'

'He was the taxi driver who—'

'No, no, I know who he was. I was the lead investigator into those murders. I was there the night he was shot. And his ex . . . I interviewed her. She was—'

'Matilda Hope, back then. By the following Christmas, she had remarried a man named Marcus Williams.'

'Oh my god. And she served on the jury that failed to convict Moriarty?' If he had been allowed to take part in those interviews, if Pitts had allowed him anywhere near, he would have recognised Matilda, no matter whether she was a Hope or a Williams. 'Was she involved? In the serial murders, I mean.'

'Oh no, she had no idea!' Michaela Warner looked offended by the question and defensive of her informant. 'I promise, she was mortified. But it does seem peculiar, doesn't it? That of all the people chosen to serve on that jury . . .'

'Peculiar, yes,' murmured Lestrade, his mind racing. 'A most peculiar connection.'

'Maybe not the only one.'

'How do you mean?'

She shook her head, looking flustered. 'I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me see if I can put it into some sense of order. So first: Matilda believed Sherlock Holmes was the mastermind behind both the serials murders and the Richard Brook scam. She was an avid reader of Kitty Riley, for one, but also she was wounded, right? She had been personally victimised, duped, so of course she believed it. Until recently, that is. Last month, she reached out to me, and told me her story.

And Michaela Warner told it to Greg Lestrade:

In 1998, Jeff Hope and Matilda Hope (née Henning) married. It was her first, his third. The marriage was rocky from the start. Jeff was a fair bit older than she, and smart. Maybe too smart. He called himself genius-level smart, but Matilda saw little evidence of it herself, beyond his watching trivia game shows on the telly and reaching the answers before the contestants, all with a self-satisfied air about him, and eyes casting to see, from the corner of his eye, whether Matilda was impressed. At first, she was. But the parlour trick wore off pretty quickly for her, in the shadow of his sloth. What good was intelligence without putting it to use? Jeff drove taxis. Matilda was a schoolteacher, and between the two of them, they were barely making it in London.

It wasn't long before she discovered his temper. He was never violent, but belittling, snide, manipulative, and cruel. Some misguided sense of loyalty and 'lying in the bed she made' kept her in the marriage through giving birth to two children, a girl and a boy. They were still very young, both under five, when in 2004 she filed for divorce. Jeff fought for custody and lost. He was granted supervised visits, just once a month. Matilda felt guilty. She knew he loved his children, and he missed them. But the plain truth was, he was no good for them.

Beyond those monthly visits and the occasional phone call reminding him that he owed her child maintenance payments, Matilda had very little to do with Jeff, and he with her. Then, in 2006, Jeff called to tell her that he had been seeing a doctor for headaches, a stiff neck, and a droopy eye. He had a brain aneurysm. He was a ticking time bomb, he told her, ready to go off at any minute. Given their history, she believed him to be manipulating her. It was just another way to get her to change the custody arrangement. She accused him. He cursed at her. She hung up the phone. She never told her children that their father was dying. In any case, knowing Jeff, it might not even have been true.

Looking back, knowing how things unfolded, she felt such terrible guilt. If she had only been a little less stubborn in the face of a dying man who, despite his faults, loved his children and wanted to make sure they were cared for when he was gone, maybe he would not have got involved with the murder for hire scheme in the first place.

Lestrade knew this part of the story, though it was difficult to say how contact first happened. There was no record of communication. But at some point, a deal was struck. Thanks to Sherlock's final conversation with Hope, Lestrade already knew about it: 'For every life I take, money goes to my kids. The more I kill, the better off they'll be.' Jeff Hope had found himself a sponsor, and in October 2009, he took his first life, followed by a second, a third, a fourth. Lestrade, believing them to be suicides, had been chasing the wrong tail. It had taken a combination of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson to stop him.

'We looked for the money,' said Lestrade. 'Never found it.'

'It was put into a foundation,' said Michaela, 'called the Hope Foundation. I thought it was a play on words, you know? Jeff Hope, Hope Foundation? It was established in only in 2009, but not, apparently, by Jeff. Rather, it was by some charitable organisation called Altruists for Generous Relief and Aid, but my research isn't turning up much about them. I don't think they're in business anymore, and their presence on the internet archive is really sparse.'

'And how is it you learnt about the foundation?'

'Mrs Williams received a letter from the foundation after Hope died, something like a year later, early 2011. By then, she had remarried and had a baby. She still has a copy of the letter and she showed it to me. It named her children as benefactors of an inheritance and her as executor.'

'How much inheritance?'

'One hundred thousand pounds. It came with an account number and everything.'

Lestrade suppressed a groan. Matilda Williams knew the police had looked for the money. She should have suspected that it was dirty and reported it. But he also knew the human heart. One hundred grand—twenty-five thousand per hit, it seemed—was enough to tempt even the already wealthy, and Matilda was not a rich woman. Of course she hadn't turned it over.

Matilda didn't touch it right away, Michaela explained. For a while, she pretended it didn't exist, didn't even tell her new husband. For one, she was suspicious of its origins, given what the police had told her. But then, in 2012, her oldest got into a rather pricey boarding school, and she needed the money. She dipped into the account, taking out just under twenty thousand pounds. More precisely, £19,899. She lied to her husband, said her kid had received a scholarship. But that autumn, she got a different sort of letter, not from the Hope Foundation, but a statement for a loan, holding her responsible for a debt of £19,899, plus interest. Panicking, she tried to contact the Hope Foundation, without avail. Then she saw, overnight, that the remainder of the money from the foundation, some eighty thousand pounds, had been transferred into her personal bank account without her consent. She used it to pay off the loan, wiring the money to a foreign account, and put the rest in a secret bank account to keep her husband from learning about it. But then, only a month after that, she got a new statement for the £80,000, again, plus interest, and she was broke. Her debts were climbing by the month, and she was frantic. She didn't want to tell her new husband that she had sunk them a hundred grand in debt in the space of a year. But the letters kept coming, every few months, and she didn't know what to do about it. She didn't know who to contact, and the letters were turning threatening until the next summer, 2013, when they suddenly just . . . stopped. She had not received one since. So she tucked the statements away and tried to forget about them.

'It wasn't until recently that she began to suspect that it all might have something to do with the trial, and with James Moriarty.

'Why's that?' Lestrade was itching to reach inside his jacket and extract a notebook to start jotting things down, but he refrained.

'Because of another juror.'

A few months before, Matilda had been stewing over the latest Kitty Riley article to be printed in The Sun—one that decried Sherlock Holmes as dangerous and violent after attacking a police officer and called him mentally and emotionally unstable—when she happened to catch the eye of a man at a Boots. He was staring at her, and her first reaction was one of anger and disgust . . . until she recognised him, as he did her. It had been some four years, but she instantly knew the face of a fellow juror. Before she knew what was happening, she had asked him to coffee, just to talk. They went, but they didn't talk. In fact, they almost didn't say a word to each for thirty minutes and left without mentioning the trial, James Moriarty, or Sherlock Holmes at all.

She grew more and more restless, her conscience badgering her to do something, anything, but she didn't know what. Then Michaela Warner published her first opinion report. That afternoon, she found herself back at the Boots, and her fellow juror, who had been coming to that very same Boots every day since their first meeting, was there waiting for her.

They did coffee again, but it was much the same as before. Neither had the courage to talk about the trial or the threats laid against them if they did. Another week went by, and the pattern repeated. But the third time they did coffee, Marcus showed up. A friend had spotted Matilda with the stranger, twice now, on his commute home and told her husband, who now confronted them both and was on the verge of accusing his wife of having an affair. But she pulled him into a seat, and it was his presence that broke the dam and led to her confession. 'I have something to tell you. George and I'—she nodded to the stranger, who looked terrified—'served on the same jury four years ago.' She laid it all out: how her children had been threatened, why she had voted not guilty and let a clearly guilty man go free, her confusion about Moriarty and Richard Brook, Jeff Hope and Sherlock Holmes, debts and threats and mysterious foundations.

'And wouldn't you know it,' said Michaela, 'but George's story had all the same beats. Well, not the bit about having an ex who turned out to be a serial killer. But George Dawson had a brother who, once upon a time, needed money, and got money, a lot of it, and died of a drug overdose, and when those debts were called up, it was George who was being held accountable for them. He had received letters, too.'

Lestrade wasn't quite sure what to make of it all. He wished he had Sherlock's brain, some days. Most days. Her story of this Matilda Williams was filling in some holes in a story he knew the broad strokes of, and he would be sure to get her full testimony and assign a team to look further into it. But it didn't quite address his more immediate concerns, that of finding and stopping Sebastian Moran, and keeping Sherlock alive.

But Michaela was on a roll. 'So Matilda tells me her story, right? And she tells me about George Dawson, and I think to myself, isn't it peculiar, these similar stories? What if they aren't the only ones? So I went digging. I found the names of the other ten jurors—'

'How?'

'—best you don't know—and paid them all a visit. Well, not all. Four refused to talk to me. But the other six? All six had received letters demanding payment for past loans with exorbitant interest rates, loans that none of them had taken out themselves. So I asked them if they had ever had a relative who had been in trouble with the law. Guess what I learnt.'

'All six?'

'All six. In one way or another, they were all connected to known criminals, and not petty ones. Matilda Williams had her ex-husband Jeff Hope, another juror had a brother-in-law named Ewart involved in an elaborate false identity scheme, another had a grandparent who was a known terrorist, and yet another was sister to Anton Willoughby, a taxi driver—'

'Willoughby!' Lestrade choked. Only a few swallows of this ale were left, but he pushed the glass to the edge of the table to lean forward in earnest. 'Anton Willoughby? But that's—'

'Yeah, I looked him up. Arrested last December.'

'I arrested him. Jesus.'

He collapsed backward in his chair, reeling. It was Anton Willoughby, an unassuming cabbie, who had been the first to play a part in John's abduction.

'These were all Moriarty's people,' he said, breathless.

'It's like they were on a list or something,' said Michaela. 'Like those jurors had been pre-selected. But they had no idea they were all connected! Not just because they had criminal relatives. I mean, some of those relatives weren't even discovered to be criminals until well after James Moriarty had died. But that wasn't the real link, was it? It was the debts, the letters, the threats, all surfacing over a year later. I asked a few of them, do you still have those letters? And they did. I collected them. I've been studying them, looking for something, but I don't know what. None of them are from the same organisations. The stamps on the envelopes aren't from the same places. I know there's something there, but I can't see it! So I thought, maybe show them to the most observant man in London, Sherlock Holmes, and see what he can make of them.'

Lestrade regarded her carefully, mindful not to give away anything in his expression, tone, or language that might suggest to her that contacting Sherlock was impossible.

'You have the letters with you, then?'

She nodded, now a little wary herself, like she was afraid he might yell at her for tampering with evidence. Clearly, she was smart, but lacking the cutthroat instincts of her more pernicious colleagues.

'You've the makings of a talented investigative journalist, Ms Warner,' he said kindly, and was pleased to see her blush and smile. The compliment put her at ease once more.

'Just doing my due diligence.'

'At the behest of your editor, or your own intuition?'

'Oh. Harry, my editor . . . he doesn't know I'm doing this.'

'No?'

'No, he's got me on this'—she waved a hand, trying to be flippant but failing in her tone—'other thing.' She sighed. 'Dr Watson.'

Lestrade's eyes narrowed carefully. 'What about him?'

'Everyone wants Watson's story. From the horse's mouth, you know? Not just whatever scraps we can gather from where he's been and who he knows. That's my assignment. But . . .'

'I see. So, contacting Sherlock, that's just a way for you to wiggle closer to John.'

'No!'

'I'm going to tell you right now, as a personal friend to John Watson: he needs to be left alone.'

'I believe you. Trust me, from all that I do know of what's happened to him, well, I think it's quite enough.'

'He's gone through enough, you mean?'

'That, yes, but what I mean to say is, I know more than I need to. Frankly, all the British public know more than is any of our business.'

He sat back, thoughtful. 'You're in the wrong profession, Ms Warner.'

'Sorry?'

'The media, paparazzi, so-called journalists. Their battle cry is for truth, and they've anointed themselves the purveyors of it, and damn anyone it might bring to harm. Not all truth is a kindly light. Sometimes, it's just fire. But you—you're not exactly a firebrand, are you?'

'I care about truth,' she replied.

'But fairness also. I can see that, plain as day. Not all truth is for every man. It's a wise woman, it seems, who knows when and how to portion it out.' He finished off his glass. 'I'm no Sherlock Holmes, I'm afraid. But I am a detective, and I care about truth and fairness, as well, and frankly, you're meddling in my case.' He smiled. 'So I'd like to see those letters.'

Seeming a little defeated, a little relieved, Michaela nodded. Her bag was at her feet. She reached into and came back with a clear, resealable freezer bag, stuffed with white envelopes. 'So do I no longer have a story?'

'We'll see. Come by the Yard tomorrow at nine,' said Lestrade, taking the bag. 'I'll buy you a coffee.'

They parted amicably, and he watched her walk away in the direction opposite the flat. It was then, reflecting on their conversation, that he began to see Michaela Warner in a different light. He was right—she was in the wrong profession. Maybe she could have greater value elsewhere.

He shook his head, turning back toward home and toward Molly. It wasn't just Michaela. More and more these days, he was seeing the world like a chessboard, dividing people by their motives, their virtues, their utility. It was numbing, really, and a little disconcerting, seeing the world through the eyes of Mycroft Holmes.

May 15, 2015

It was strange living in 221B. Those first few days, he and Molly both felt like interlopers, afraid to move things out of their places or to use anything more personal than a mug or the coffee pot. They avoided sitting on Sherlock's and John's chairs entirely at the start and debated greatly about where to sleep. Eventually, they reasoned themselves into sleeping in Sherlock's bed. 'We didn't ask for a place to stay,' Lestrade reminded them both as they stood at the foot of the mattress, contemplating. 'He invited us, so of course he didn't expect us to sleep on the floor.'

'It just seems so . . . intimate,' said Molly, who once upon a time had fancied herself in that very bed under very different circumstances, for which she was now greatly embarrassed. But that was a different girl in a different life.

'Sherlock doesn't get too twisted up about personal space,' Lestrade replied. 'The man once raided my underwear drawer. He wore my pants for a solid week.'

What had been far more difficult, however, than living in their space and eating from their fridge and showering in their bathroom was breaking the news to Mrs Hudson that Sherlock and John had gone, and no one knew where to or for how long. Lestrade, who had spent a career delivering bad news to loved ones, felt his own heart break as Mrs Hudson dissolved into tears. The sad truth of the matter was that she didn't believe them—that her boys had simply gone on into hiding. Rather, she believed they had died, and that no one had the courage to tell her when or how. Why else would they have gone without saying goodbye? Why else would Lestrade and Molly come to live in their home? Why else would there be no way for her to contact them, or them reach out to her to let her know they were okay? Conclusion? They were gone, murdered, and nothing either of them could say could fully persuade her against that hateful belief. It was as if she had lost Sherlock all over again, and John with him.

It had been a mistake, Lestrade thought, for Sherlock and John to leave without saying goodbye to her. But then, that was partly his fault. He made them go, and with no warning. It couldn't have been easy for them either, and so it was only right that Lestrade be left to pick up the pieces.

They tended to Mrs Hudson as best they could, inviting her to dinner whenever they were home at a decent hour to sit down for it. Molly took her to do the shopping and for walks in Regent's Park, and Lestrade saw her to her hair appointment on one occasion and helped her fix a running toilet on another. As the weeks wore on, she calmed, and she no longer accused them of lying, but Lestrade and Molly knew she didn't wholly trust them, either. And she was listless, in some ways hollow, not at all herself. Lestrade confided to Molly that he was afraid she wouldn't make it, and that when Sherlock and John did come home—as he kept telling himself they would—it would be only to discover that their beloved landlady, who had been as a mother to them both, had passed away.

'Don't say that. I can't bear the thought,' said Molly.

But Lestrade couldn't help the dark thoughts. He wished he could contact Sherlock, find out that they were okay, and beg them to in some way reach out to Mrs Hudson to reassure her. Anthea, however, was insistent. Any contact, in one direction or another, could compromise them. They simply didn't know who might be watching. Moriarty was a spider with a thousand eyes.

'We know some things,' she said to him in the sitting room of Mycroft's penthouse, some two weeks after Sherlock and John's departure. 'We know a lock box was accessed in Elbasan, Albania, and emptied of its contents.'

'What contents?' he asked.

'Pistols and ammunition.'

'So they're armed.'

'Yes,' said Mycroft, stretching out his legs with a groan. He was more mobile, more steady on his feet these days, but still he tired easily, and he still struggled to communicate even a portion of his brilliant thoughts. 'Protection. For my brother. The little one knows how.'

Lestrade rarely visited Mycroft, and he never stayed long. Too much foot traffic, Anthea said, even through backways, was dangerous. Mycroft was still presumed dead, for now, and she frankly did not know how much longer they would be able to sustain the charade. Just like Sherlock, he was a threat, one that needed to be eliminated. None of them said it out loud, but they all shared the thought: when he re-emerged, he would have to be stronger, smarter, and more powerful than ever if he was to survive this.

He left the penthouse through the backways, checking corners and cameras to make sure he wasn't seen.

That night, as he was joining Molly in bed, a text alert noise sounded on the chest of drawers on the opposite wall. He froze. Molly sat upright.

'But that's—'

'Sherlock's,' he finished. It was the mobile Sherlock had left behind. They kept it charged in the bedroom, next to John's. Neither phone had sounded since their leaving.

He got up from the bed and crossed the room to the lighted phone, inputting the code to unlock it. He navigated at once to open the incoming text from Caradoc.

'Who is it?' Molly asked, a hopeful note in her voice.

He read the text silently to himself:

Fancy a pint? Been a long
day, and I'm gasping for
a pilsner.

It was code. A pilsner meant success, an ale meant failure, and a cider meant the operation had been compromised.

'A friend,' said Lestrade softly.

Apparently, Bill Murray, his would-be assassin, had just returned to the service of Sebastian Moran.

June 2–3, 2015

When Thomas Dryers joined Detective Inspector Lestrade's team back in 2013 as a DC, he was informed by other constables and long-timers that he had sadly missed out on all of the drama of the Sherlock Holmes years, when the meddlesome, know-it-all young man had fluttered into every crime scene like an uninvited rooster, shoving his beak where it wasn't welcome and flashing his feathers like he and he alone was the cock of the walk. He was that, at least. That is, a cock. Some of the brasher constables spoke of his death like it was the satisfying ending to a long and aggravating story.

Dryers remembered it happening. All police officers had talked about it because all police officers were only one or two degrees away from someone who had known or worked with Holmes over the years and had an opinion about him. For his part, Dryers had merely been disappointed. He had long nursed a hidden desire to be one of those officers, just to see him in action. It was one of the reasons he had angled himself to join Lestrade's team, just to get a little closer to the man. It seemed a bit of an anti-climax, then, to finally get his transfer only after Holmes' death. Once, and only once, had he tried to bring it up to his boss.

'Think Sherlock Holmes coulda cracked it?' he asked DI Lestrade when one of the trails they were pursuing went cold, and it was looking less and less likely that they would ever find the killer they hunted.

Lestrade said nothing, but the cold stare he received as answer was enough to shut him up.

But though he was disheartened to join Lestrade's team after Holmes had perished and never got the chance to meet the infamous consulting detective, he soon discovered a different reason to make him look forward to coming to work every day: a detective sergeant in heels.

DS Sally Donovan gave him almost no thought beyond what the workday required, he knew that. And frankly, he didn't see her as a romantic prospect. Most of the lads, it had to be acknowledged, were afraid of her, or rather, of getting on her bad side, and some said she had nothing but bad sides, top to bottom, front to back. But Dryers couldn't help but admire her. She was exciting: you never knew when she would snap at you. She was witty: no one could string together insults more quickly or more artfully in response to a snide remark. She was intelligent: it was no wonder she was Lestrade's go-to detective for all of the trickier cases. And it couldn't be denied: she was beautiful: a blind man could see it, and Dryers had 20/20 vision. It was a privilege, really, to be on her team.

What he didn't understand was why a beautiful, intelligent, witty, and exciting woman like her had ever had anything whatsoever to do with a pillock like Scott Anderson.

He stared at the man from the other side of the sitting room of the surreptitiously occupied flat, which was so draped in plastic sheets it looked like they were preparing for a murder, not trying to solve one (or dozens). Dryers was at the computer, where he was supposed to be inputting data into a spreadsheet. So far, they had examined ninety-four pairs of shoes, and into the spreadsheet Dryers had catalogued each pair's type, brand, size, colour, and any notable characteristics. He had taken photos from every angle and included the file attachments. He wrote extensive notes as Anderson dictated his findings, and when lab analysis came back—he had no idea how this was being funded—he included that, too.

But the work was slow. Anderson could only come after his shift. He worked at Brigg Scientific now, as some kind of forensic toxicology technician, but he didn't talk about it, and Dryers didn't ask, but he knew that it was a major step down from his role with NSY, and probably for half the pay. There was some vindictive satisfaction in knowing that the Anderson had fallen so low . . . or maybe that was Sally's emotions bleeding into his own.

Her displeasure at Anderson's involvement had not subsided in the past two weeks since inviting (coercing) him to serve as their forensics specialist, and she exuded her revulsion like a block of ice, chilling the whole room and everyone in it. Her tactic for dealing with it was to intensify her professionalism. With Anderson, she was all business, and she was entirely uninterested in pleasantries, small talk, negotiating terms, or anything not directly connected to the work they were all doing outside the purview of legitimate policework. Dryers took this in stride, and Anderson hung his head like a whipped dog. Only Lestrade ever snapped at her for it.

Because of Anderson's actual job, they often didn't get started until about seven at night, and worked into the wee hours of the morning. Sally usually came at the crack of dawn to take their collected samples to the lab, exchange terse words with Anderson, forget to soften her tone with Dryers, and leave a new set of instructions or lab results to be analysed. He wished she would let him take her out for coffee some morning, but neither of them were happy at the prospect of leaving Anderson alone in the flat.

They were some twenty days into their examination. The whole flat had first been investigated—pictures taken, samples collected—and now the sitting room was transformed into a veritable laboratory. Dryers slept on the uncomfortably short sofa, Anderson in a sleeping bag by the computer station. It was . . . weird . . . having Anderson as a flatmate, of sorts, and he couldn't wait for this to be over. They didn't talk much, outside of what was strictly necessary, which was both a relief and an annoyance. At the start, Anderson had been surly but compliant, and any objection he raised with Donovan was met with snappy, 'So leave.' And he never did. Dryers suspected Lestrade was responsible for that one. After a few days, though, the surliness eroded away, leaving behind a man that seemed simply resigned to his fate, like a prisoner with a whole life order. He didn't ask questions. Just worked.

Until, it seemed, his curiosity got the better of him.

'Why does Sherlock Holmes never come round?' he asked, tone forcibly casual as he set a pair of trainers back inside their box, carefully, with hands still swathed in latex.

'Eh?' Dryers was saving his work on the computer and extracting the flash drive to pocket it.

'This has his name written all over it,' said Anderson. 'I would have thought it right up his street.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

Anderson sniffed. 'Since when did you join the inner sanctum?'

Despite who asked it, it was a fair question, one Dryers had often wondered himself. Last summer, he'd been one of a dozen busybodies on Lestrade's team, reliable but unremarkable, and mostly noted for his one liners—among his fellow constables, at least, with whom he would for a pint at the end of a long day. But then autumn came, and word got round that Holmes' mate, John Watson, had been abducted. O'Higgins was lead detective on that one, but Lestrade was visibly riled by it, as anyone could see. Dryers didn't blame him. He knew his boss had known Watson personally, having known Holmes. It was enough to shake anyone.

But Dryers had been involved in the Vander Maten case, never suspecting that the two would intersect. He hadbeen the one to report to Lestrade that a body had been dumped on Baker Street. He hadbeen there when Lestrade was arrested and escorted to interrogation. And he had been working late that night, when the call came in that they had found Watson. Donovan was calling the shots. He could still hear the sirens scream as he joined the queue of speeding police cars to an abandoned convent in Whitechapel. He never went inside. Instead, he patrolled the grounds, waiting anxiously while paramedics ran inside and Donovan barked orders through the com on his shoulder.

When they brought him out on a stretcher, Dryers thought he was dead. He almost didn't hear Donovan order him into the back of the ambulance, and as he moved, she gripped his arm, forced him to look her in the eye, and said, 'He doesn't leave your sight.'

He promised. In a small way, one he knew he hadn't earned and had no right claiming, he still felt the force of her words as a command, and felt responsible for John Watson. So when, at a crime scene in Borough Market last January, Anderson had taken such a disgusting dig at Watson, he felt like he had personally failed to protect him.

So why was he in the inner sanctum?

'Since I was among the few who wasn't an absolute cock to John Watson,' he said, in answer to Anderson's glib question. 'Or, for that matter, to Sherlock Holmes.'

He expected Anderson to scowl, at the very least, if not launch into a tirade of defences of what he had done. So it was to his surprise that Anderson, tight-lipped, merely nodded.

'You deserved what Holmes gave you,' Dryers said. 'You know that, right?'

'Yeah.'

'That and worse.'

'I know, I know.'

'Because he was innocent from the start.'

'I know! I get it! Jesus.' Anderson pushed aside the closed shoebox and scratched his gloved hands through is scruffy hair. 'I was wrong, I was an idiot, and it's the biggest mistake of my life.'

'Is that why you're here? Penance?'

Anderson lifted his head. 'Why am I here? I'm here because Greg Lestrade asked me to be here. I'm here because this is the work I love, and I don't get to do it anymore. I'm here because I was promised a fat paycheque, and I need rent money, and bus fare, and it might be nice to eat a nice meal out again someday.' He laughed bitterly. 'I used to blame Sherlock for everything, you know? I blamed him for my divorce because he was the one who spotted my affair. I blamed him for making us all look like blind-eyed fools and sullying the reputation for the Metropolitan Police, even after his supposed suicide. And I blamed him for coming back and turning Sally against me and making me fall in with that Riley bitch, and then of course, I blamed him for breaking my nose after what I said against his mate. But that was all me, wasn't it? I cheated. We were all fools. I turned against Sally, not the other way around. And god . . . Yeah, I did deserve worse for what I said. Penance? Sure. Let's call it that. The truth is, my life is shit, and I don't know how to make any of that right. The best I can do right now is put myself somewhere near the good guys for a change, and help them as I can.' He shrugged. 'For as long as they'll let me.'

'Well shit,' said Dryers.

'Yeah.'

'I gotta ask something.'

Anderson just stared at him. The silence Dryers took as concession.

'You stay close to the good guys long enough, maybe start acting like them . . . Is it all to win her back?'

Anderson frowned, one part disgust (perhaps at the question), another part grief. 'No. I know she's done with me. So no, Dryers, I'm not creeping on your turf.'

'I wasn't suggesting you could.'

Anderson shrugged, but it was a forced action. He wanted to be perceived as someone who didn't care, but it was a lie. 'She's happiest alone. Honestly. Not exactly a cuddler, know what I mean? She'll use you and drop you. One day, it'll be your turn.'

That was the end of the heart to heart. Anderson turned his back and didn't ask any more questions, least of all about Sherlock Holmes. Minutes later, they turned out the light and tried to sleep, but for his part, Dryers was restless, agitated, and as morning dawned, he doubted he'd slept more than a full hour at a time.

Anderson was up and gone as early as he could manage it. They allowed themselves to use the toilets, but not the kitchen, so Dryers was just getting ready to get himself a coffee when his phone dinged with a text.

Buzz me in.

Seconds later, Donovan was stepping through the unlocked door, two coffees in hand. She had never brought him a coffee before.

'Ta,' he said.

'You've been working hard,' she said, taking a seat on the sofa, a strange suggestion that she meant to stay for longer than two minutes. Her fingers curled around her coffee, steam rising from the tiny hole in the lid. She looked unusually alert, like she'd had a good night's rest and a long hot shower. Her skin glowed.

'No harder than you.'

'Yes, but I'm getting paid,' she teased with a smile. 'So, I want you to keep your eye out for something.'

'Sure,' he said, taking a seat next to her.

'Last night I phoned JoAnna Brook—'

'Richard's mum?'

'—right, and asked her if she knew her son's shoe size. Nine, she said, sometimes nine-and-a-half.'

Dryers nodded. 'Sobering thought,' he said. 'So you think . . . one of those pairs in the other room might have been Richard's.'

'Can't discount the possibility. High probability, rather. Moriarty was maintaining this flat when Richard went missing.'

'Lots of size nines, though. And we haven't established whether there's any kind of order to how he filed them, though, chronological or otherwise. It may be completely random.'

'From what I've observed, Moriarty was a highly organised madman. I doubt its random. It may be that we just don't have enough data points yet to see a pattern.'

'Too bad we don't have a Holmes in our back pocket.'

She laughed, a surprisingly musical sound. 'He would deprive us of the pleasure of solving it on our own, wouldn't he?' But rather than seem annoyed by the thought, she sounded . . . almost wistful.

'The spreadsheet can filter for size nines, easy as clicking a button,' he said.

'What's your timeline?'

'At the rate we're going?' He let out a long breath. 'Gonna be another three weeks, I'd guess. We're only two men, and your old flame is meticulous, if not slow.'

'Lestrade wants it done by Sunday.'

'Sunday?'

'Yes, because Gregson wants to meet you Monday. My guess? He wants you reinstated.'

Dryers blinked. The thought took a moment to register.

'Lestrade's been petitioning. Trying to paint you in a positive light without revealing anything about what really happened, what with the old man drugging you. We'll have Anderson call in sick at his other job and work around the clock. It's a lot, I know, but we don't have the luxury of a snail's pace.'

'We need more man hours.'

'We'll send Molly, and I'll help as I can. But really, it'll be down to you two.'

He let out a whoosh of air. 'It'd be nice to get a paycheque again,' he said. But he felt a divided loyalty. The work here needed attention, and he worried Gregson would put him back on traffic control or something humiliating. 'On Lestrade's team?'

Donovan nodded sharply. 'If I have any say in it. It's where you belong.'

'Right, but given what Gregson believes happened—'

'I've missed you. Down at the Yard, I mean.' She looked away, a little bashful. 'I mean, I know I see you every day, but . . . I mean, Anderson is usually here, so it's not like it's a pleasure.' She looked startled by her word choice, and looked back, eyes wide at her own slip. 'Not that there's any pleasure in work either, not like that, but, erm, I mean . . . Well, you know what I mean.'

He fought a smile. 'No, Sally, I don't.'

She huffed. 'You're going to make me say it.'

'Whatever do you mean?' he said with affected naivete.

She slapped the tops of her thighs and pushed to her feet, then spun to face him with folded arms. She looked cross with him, but he knew she wasn't. Patiently, he waited.

But it was almost painful, watching her sort through it. This was not easy for her to find the words, let alone muster the courage to say them. At last: 'You said, a few weeks ago . . .' She looked put out, eyes casting around the room as though searching for help with an aggravating chore. 'You said that if I looked at you the way Watson looks at Holmes, you would stop wondering whether . . . you know.'

Feeling a stab of pity, he slowly rose to his feet and took a step nearer to her. 'Uh huh?'

Donovan looked murderous. It was adorable. 'I don't know how to look at you like that. But it doesn't mean I don't . . . feel it.'

He grinned. 'Aw, Sally. I'm touched.'

'Shut your stupid face,' she said. Then she reached for that stupid face and kissed him.

June 9, 2015

DID JAMES MORIARTY RUN A CRIME SYNDICATE?

Recently uncovered evidence implicates the Crown Jewels thief in dozens more crimes

Special Report, by Michaela Warner

London – Since substantiating the truth about who really died—and how—on the rooftop of St Bartholomew's Hospital in London in 2011, New Scotland Yard has been hard at work to uncover the secrets James Moriarty took to his grave.

Moriarty—once wrongly identified as Richard Brook—was once put on trial for breaking into the Tower of London, Pentonville Prison, and the Bank of London, crimes for which he was acquitted after threatening various members of the jury. But that is just scratching the surface of his nefarious deeds.

As has been previously reported, the jurors who once acquitted Moriarty of these crimes did so under circumstances of duress and coercion. New evidence, however, suggests that the jurors were plants from the start—unbeknownst to themselves—and a new investigation is currently underway to ascertain why and how these twelve were specially selected. As Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade says, there may already be a link.

'We believe the jurors were marks, or targets, in some way connected to an organisation Moriarty formed some years before his death, known only as A.G.R.A.'

While the exact nature and structure of this organisation remains unknown, victims of A.G.R.A., Lestrade notes, have been extorted for money, blackmailed, and defrauded, often to the sum of tens of thousands of pounds. Nor has such victimisation ceased, even in the wake of James Moriarty's demise. Its operators may still be at work. All Britons are urged to be on their guard.

DI Lestrade implores anyone with information on A.G.R.A., or who believes they may have been victimised by this organisation, to contact the Metropolitan Police.

June 10, 2015

In the kitchen, Molly was just opening a tin of cat food. Mrs Hudson was fixing herself a cuppa. And Lestrade was at the table in the sitting room typing up a report for the chief superintendent when Sherlock's phone buzzed at his elbow. From Caradoc.

Your DI shouldn't have
gone to the papers. He saw
the article. Warn him.

Lestrade glanced to the kitchen, but the women hadn't noticed him receive the message. All the same, he angled his body to hide the screen and typed back to a man who believed himself to be communicating with Sherlock Holmes.

Warn who?

A few seconds later, the response came.

Your DI friend!

And another.

He's gone mental. No one
is supposed to know about AGRA,
no one! Least of all the police.

Lestrade's pulse had quickened. He had debated about giving Michaela the greenlight to write that article. On the one hand, they were running a covert investigation into Moriarty's past, and he still hadn't told Gregson about the flat and the trophy room full of shoeboxes. On the other hand, there was a public still and risk and villain who needed to be dragged into the light. It might very be that the public might be able to cast that light themselves.

Where is he? What is he
planning?

Murray's fingers must have been flying.

i told you i cant say
not now not yet i don't
know everything just
whispers

Lestrade was halfway through a reply when another text came through.

he finds out im texting
you hell kill me. Bfn

Wait! Lestrade texted.
What about Michaela Warner?
She ran the story. Is she in
danger?

But there was no reply.

June 23, 2015

Every second of the plan had been named, studied, and repeated. Every step of the landscape had been paced and memorised. Sherlock's Albanian was as good as it was likely to get, which, for their purposes was good enough. For his part, John was could only pray that he was as good a marksman as he had once been. There hadn't exactly been opportunity to rehearse.

He checked his watch, then marked the entrances. Two minutes.

It was an abandoned industrial building outside of town, windows blown out, walls barely standing, and disused heavy machinery littering the expansive floor. John's exit was behind him: a metal ladder leading down one floor, and with careful manoeuvring, to the side of a steep hillside, the other side of which was intended to serve as the rendezvous—assuming all went according to plan.

One minute.

He double checked his magazine. It was not ideal for the task, this handgun. It would have sufficient range, but it was not a precision weapon. One misfire, and he was unlikely to get a second chance. It had been quite a while since he had fired any weapon (whilst having his wits about him), and longer still since he had fired with deadly intent.

Today, we are soldiers, he reminded himself. This is war, and the battle must be won.

He heard them before he saw them, sure footsteps coming from below, almost exactly below, the floor he had made his hideaway. Then a line of men—seven, just what they had planned for—entered. They seemed calm, spoke little, and when they did it was too soft for him to make out any words. But he knew them, each of them, and fitted their silhouettes and faces to the profiles he had been studying for a fortnight. And that one, number three in line, was the mark. The kingpin. The first domino to fall.

It was tempting to take him out right then and there. But that wasn't the plan.

Less than a minute later, Arthur Doyle arrived, and he wasn't alone. He was flanked on either side by two men, whom they had discovered in their research, who had been victimised by the Albanian squad, or rather, who had lost loved ones, and they were ready for vengeance. John had been resistant to using them. Sherlock had been the pragmatist: they needed more bodies.

One of the kingpin's men patted them down, searching for weapons, but the only ones Arthur was carrying were in a silver, metal briefcase. It was an arms deal: guns for cash.

The story was—as Sherlock insisted, for credibility—simple. The hit squad wanted control of all firearms in the territory, and Doyle, an ex-pat British national, had gained favour of a rival gang, raided their stock, and was willing to make a trade for protection. He could offer seven pistols today, and more if the kingpin was pleased. None of this was true. Its sole purpose was to draw the kingpin out from his bunker and into daylight . . . and behind the crosshairs.

A conversation had begun down below. John heard it, but he didn't understand a word. It wasn't important. All he needed to understand was the signal.

The gun was poised. His finger was on the trigger, his sights on the kingpin. Inhale.

After a brief back-and-forth, John watched Arthur Doyle raise the briefcase, and held it in both hands, nodding to the man on his right to go ahead and open it, and the kingpin sent a man forward for inspection. Arthur was perfectly still, as was John. The only things that moved were his eyes, which were fixed on his target.

Exhale.

The man lifted a gun, turned it around in his hands, and said something over his shoulder to his boss. The boss made a reply, and Arthur said something in response.

Inhale.

At last, the kingpin nodded, and his man set the gun back into the case. The case, in Arthur's hands, began to overbalance, tipping toward the earth. It was the signal.

Exhale.

He had already taken aim. His finger was already on the trigger. He fired.

The kingpin collapsed just as the briefcase hit the ground and the men on either side of Arthur dove for the spilled guns. John got off two more rounds—the man closest to Sherlock fell, followed by the man quickest to draw his weapon—by the time those two bereaved arose as armed men, each finding a mark, and each firing and taking out two more. It was just enough time for John to shoot the sixth man and leave just one man standing, whom Arthur had already advanced upon and seized by the front of the shirt. No more than five seconds had passed.

With two weapons pointing at him (and third, unseen), the last of the kingpin's men did not struggle, but listened in fearful attention.

He was their messenger, their augury to the rest of the squad: your captain is dead, courtesy of Sebastian Moran.

John did not wait. He slipped out without a backward glance, and made his way swiftly to the other side of the hill, heart beating from exertion but nothing more. They would regroup, take the first train out of Albania, and disappear.

One down. Three to go.

Easy as that.

June 25, 2015

Lestrade was in the Yard, in his office, when his desk phone rang. He was buried in paperwork and for a moment considered not answering. The police had been flooded with calls and emails ever since Ms Warner had run her story, and Gregson had been asking for this report for over a week now, demanding a clear timeline and a list of evidence and conclusions related to how Lestrade had first become aware of A.G.R.A. and how it was he could justify tying it to both James Moriarty and Sebastian Moran. Lestrade was having a devil of a time relating the whole incident of the cottage without bringing Sherlock and John into it. No one yet had noted their absence with any great suspicion, and the longer he maintained that, the better off they all were, he was sure. So the narrative he was concocting was fill with truths, half-truths, and straight-up lies, and one day he would be made to answer for it.

But answer he did. It was the front desk, which was responsible for intercepting all external calls before rerouting them. 'Sounds urgent, but won't give a name,' said the front desk.

Without much thought, he said to put the unknown caller through.

'This is DI Lestrade,' he said.

The voice didn't bother with a hello, or introductions, or preamble of any sort. The stranger's voice was pitched with panic. 'Northeast stairwell! Northeast stairwell! Go go go go!'

The line went dead.

Lestrade felt a surge of fear pass through him like a wave. He did not reason, like a Sherlock Holmes, or question like a John Watson. The voice had been utterly frantic, and the fear stung him faster than a wasp, spurring him to his feet and out of his office on instinct alone.

In a sea of faces, he spotted her.

'Donovan!' he barked as he passed her among the cubicles. She jumped and spun, and at the jerk of his head began to follow, nearly having to jog to keep up.

'What?' she asked in an undertone, but she had sense enough not to press him as he angled straight toward the exit sign above a door leading to the northeast stairwell.

It was empty and echoing as the door shut behind him. There, at the landing, he hesitated. Up or down? The voice hadn't said.

He went down, Donovan on his heels.

'Lestrade, seriously, what is going—?'

She never got to finish her question. A terrific explosion rocked the air, cracked the concrete walls, and shuddered the steps beneath their feet. Lestrade was thrown down the stairs to the next landing. He was vaguely aware of a body collapsing beside him as the dust and rock rained down and the world went dark.