Chapter Eight.

.

John kicked himself out of the duvet and shuffled into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Christ, he was tired. There was a dull ache beneath his eyes, puffy with jetlag as they were, yet his all-to-hell circadian clock was insistently demanding that he get up.

As quietly as possible, trying not to wake Mary, John slipped out of bed and padded barefoot into the tiny bathroom. He filled a glass with water from the tap and gulped it down, wincing at the sight of his purple-ringed eyes. He filled the glass again and drank more slowly, leaning against the bathroom cabinet.

Sherlock had been in his dream.

It hadn't been like that, he hastened to reassure the smug, insinuating little voice in his mind – the voice that usually sounded like Irene Adler, but sometimes like Greg or Harry or Mycroft or Mrs H. or, if it was feeling particularly cutting, his wife.

In his dream, he'd been watching the last Harry Potter movie. It was a real memory – something they'd done in that strange limbo-time after Sherlock had jumped; John and Greg, Greg's two boys, Sarah and Sally Donovan and Sally's brother Noah. They'd gone to the midnight screening along with half the teenagers in London, all of them with dorky glasses and lightning bolts painted on their foreheads and the kids wearing home-made cloaks over their pyjamas. In his dream Billie had been there too, which was stupid because Billie hadn't even been born then; Mary hadn't waltzed into their lives in the bar of the Cavalier, hadn't chatted Greg up over a pint, hadn't asked John who had died.

In his dream, Greg's youngest had wanted to hold Billie and John had handed her over, though he'd felt vaguely unsettled by thoughts of the six-year-old Sam taking Billie out on his motorbike. He'd looked up into the kid's face and noticed the lightning bolt scar; and then, when he'd turned to look over his shoulder, Sherlock had been there. There was a scar on Sherlock's forehead as well; or more accurately, a wound. The blood was dripping down the side of his face, but Sherlock hadn't seemed to mind. He'd just grinned at John, and John had heard his voice, a deep, rich murmur against his ear (The Game, John!). And John, without a second thought, had got up and followed him.

After that, the dream had been jumbled. Just running, feet ringing against asphalt, chasing Sherlock's shadow; Sherlock leaping across gaps between buildings, reaching back a hand, giggling like a fool. And John had woken in a too-warm bed in a too-stifling hotel room with the realisation that he could scarcely even remember Sherlock's face.

He turned on the tap again and splashed his eyes with water. It ran off his chin and soaked the neck of his shirt.

John slouched back against the wall and pressed his fingertips against his eyelids, trying to remember Sherlock's face and coming up with nothing but an aching hollowness. It wasn't the specifics he was lacking – he knew the details. Long, angular face; high cheekbones; narrow, slightly slanted eyes. He knew all those things. What he couldn't picture was how they fitted into an integrated whole. If he concentrated, he could hold the image of Sherlock in his mind, but always slightly blurred, always missing some small nuance he couldn't have articulated if he'd tried. He was probably over-thinking it, he knew, but it still unsettled him more than it really should have.

Taking care not to wake Mary or Billie, John slipped back into the main room. He found the jeans that he'd discarded the previous evening and retrieved his phone from the pocket. Sinking down against the wall, he skimmed through his albums, searching for photos of Sherlock. There were only a handful. A short series of Sherlock on the couch (thinking; sulking; sprawled out like a diva with his forearm over his eyes). Sherlock with a stunned expression and a piece of toast dangling from his mouth. Sherlock on his arse in a puddle. A grainy shot of the two of them passed out in a police cell. And that was all. Not much to show for the best years of his life. You'd think he might have learnt that lesson, after the fall.

Paging through them again, John paused at the shot of Sherlock thinking; it was one of the few in which his face was properly visible. John studied the photo, trying to remember how that face moved – the way he winked; the way he tucked in his chin against his chest when he was playing coy; the lines that appeared in parallel with his jaw when he laughed. He looked at the photo for a long time. Finally, he shoved the phone back into his pocket and went to see if Billie needed changing.

Coulter couldn't help the flinch that ran through him as the woman snapped the whip mere inches from his face. The crack of it rang, shockingly loud, in his ears.

Bitterly, Coulter castigated himself for his own idiocy in having allowed her to tie him to his bed. He'd been too caught up in the fantasy of it to think about the implications, and now he was cursing himself for a fool.

He still had options. He was minus his boots but otherwise still fully clothed, and he was only tied by the wrists; he could probably tear the fabric, given time. He was ninety percent certain that the woman was after information; he could placate her with what she wanted and convince her to let him go. He needed to find out who she was working for.

His options became significantly more limited when the woman stepped away from the bed, placing the business-end of her whip directly against his crotch.

She lowered her lashes coyly, her red mouth curving in a coquettish smile. "I think Tomas here is ready to talk, don't you?"

Coulter choked on a gasp as a tall man emerged from the patch of shadow beside the wardrobe. How long had he been there?

The tall man stepped forward into the light and placed a proprietary hand on the woman's shoulder. "I must say, my dear, it is a pleasure to watch you work."

Tomas Coulter sagged back into the pillows, gasping with the sheer relief of released adrenaline.

"Ice Man. You prick. You utter prick."

Mycroft Holmes smiled urbanely. "Hello Tomas."

"Christ… Prick… Nearly gave me a heart attack. Bloody Christ…"

Mycroft did not reply. Hitching up the knees of his trousers, he lowered himself into Coulter's chair and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. Irene perched on the chair's arm and crossed her legs, idly tracing the toe of her boot with her whip.

"Alright, what's this about then?" Coulter asked, still huffing. He flexed his forearms against the restraints on his wrists. "You can let me go, you know."

"Mm. I think not, actually."

"What the hell do you mean?"

"You were in Amsterdam a week and a half ago. You acted as a contact for a man named Sigerson. You undertook to send a postcard for him, from Copenhagen."

"Yeah, so?"

The tips of Mycroft's index fingers twitched. "Who did he talk to, Tomas? Who sent him to Cuba?"

"Not me."

"Then who?"

"How the hell should I know?"

He struggled, and Irene tutted demurely. "Uh-uh-uh. Naughty. Don't try to get up now."

The whip snapped lightly across the heel of her boot in what Coulter couldn't help but feel was a rather pointed fashion.

"Alright! He met some bloke. German guy named Olbrich. But don't bother looking for him. He was out of town before your boy was. No idea where the hell he went."

"Alright," Mycroft said in a measured fashion. "Tell that to me again, and this time tell me what you know."

Coulter's struggles with the ties stilled, and he looked up at Mycroft with a gaze that was suddenly assessing. There was no trace of fear left in his countenance, Irene realised. Slouching back insouciantly against the headboard of the bed, arms slack against their restraints, he grinned. For the first time, Tomas Coulter looked dangerous.

"Well well..." he smirked. "And here I thought you knew everything."

"A patently ludicrous supposition."

Coulter grinned, eyes glinting darkly. A red tongue flickered out and touched his upper lip.

"Didn't you know Ice Man?"

Irene's whip lashed out, snapping viciously against his sock-clad foot. "What?"

Coulter yelled, flinching violently, and drew his feet back hastily beneath him.

"Fucking ow! Can't you rein her in, you English bastard?"

Mycroft smiled thinly. "I shouldn't like to try it."

Irene's mouth made a soft, ironic moue. "Don't sell yourself short, handsome. How do you know until you've tried?"

"I thank you for your confidence," Mycroft said, drily. "But it doesn't answer my question. Tomas?"

Coulter laughed, brashly and without humour. "How badly do you want to know?"

"Allow me to put this as politely as possible, Tomas. You are tied to your own bedstead; you are alone. You have no neighbours close by; no one to hear you scream. And I want to know quite badly."

Coulter's eyes flicked from Mycroft to Irene and back again. His left hand twitched, the knot of the tie fumbled between palm and fingertips. This time, Irene didn't bother with a warning. The whip moved so rapidly that it defied sight, a scarlet weal springing into being across the delicate skin of his exposed wrist. Coulter screamed.

"Tell me."

"Fuck you, Ice Man."

"Tell me."

Another whip crack.

"Tell me."

Coulter snarled, his body rising half off the bed as he surged forward. The knots held. He jerked back against the headboard, slumped and panting. Then, rather to Irene's surprise, he began to laugh. It was a sound without a trace of mirth in it, vicious, vindictive and spite-filled.

"He's alive. Your boy's alive."

Irene frowned in confusion, letting her whip fall to her side.

"Oh, not little brother," Coulter jeered softly. "Though I daresay he's still kicking, for now."

He licked his lips, casting a sly glance at Mycroft.

"Not him. The other one. Your precious Knight. Alive and – probably not very well actually, but what's a little torture between friends?"

Mycroft's jaw had tightened at the mention of Sherlock. "How did you know?"

"That he was your brother?" he bared his teeth in a malicious grin. "Call it family resemblance."

Mycroft's nostrils flared slightly. "I see. And Knight?"

"Ten years in Guantanamo," Coulter said softly. His tongue flicked out again, as if relishing the words. "Ten years in Guantanamo, and you never knew." He chuckled darkly. "And here I thought you'd sent him there."

.

"You left him alive," Irene said musingly. "Why?"

She stood at the window of a shabby safe house, looking down into a narrow, tree-lined street.

Mycroft was at the room's only table. He was in his shirtsleeves, his tie hanging loose about his neck. His eyes were glazed, as if seeing something that wasn't really there. His elbows rested on the table, hands meeting in front of his mouth. Between the fingers of his right hand he held a cigarette, slowly crumbling to ash. A thin trail of smoke peeled away from the tip, twisting in the still air in front of his face.

"Mycroft?"

He roused himself painfully, blinking up at her, and glanced at the long column of built-up ash with an air of vague surprise.

At last, with a great effort, he stirred himself to reach across the table and tap the cigarette into a yellow saucer. The column of ash collapsed into a soft, feather-grey heap.

"Bodies cause questions." Mycroft said, without inflection. "Tomas will wake tomorrow morning with what feels like the world's worst hangover and no memory of tonight's conversation. It's easier that way. Neater."

"Do you think his information was accurate?"

Mycroft hesitated. He slipped the cigarette into his mouth and took a slow draw, only the first she'd seen him take since lighting it. The smoke swirled blue in the cavern of his mouth before he exhaled.

"It confirms a theory."

"The German, Olbrich?"

"Yes."

He looked up at her with sharp, steady eyes.

"I thought that Knight had died eleven years ago. I had all the evidence. I knew who was there, and I knew what was said. Olbrich was one of those tasked with killing him." He drew another breath of smoke, and exhaled. "It now appears that he had a better offer."

"Meaning what?"

Mycroft shrugged elegantly. "A price. Feign Knight's death, make it convincing enough that neither the Germans nor the British come looking for him, and sell him to the Americans. For a price."

"Doesn't anybody stay dead anymore?"

"It would appear that you are a trend-setter in that regard. Congratulations."

He reached across the table again, long-armed, and crushed his cigarette neatly against the rim of the saucer. She marvelled briefly at the movement of his hands, the natural grace that rendered even the most mundane of actions exquisite.

"Why is he important, Mycroft? Why does he matter?"

"It doesn't matter. Not really."

She shook her head, her eyes challenging him. "I don't believe you."

Mycroft shot her a soft, fleeting smile. He raised his arms behind his head and leant back against his clasped hands. He glanced at her, and the light flickered over the planes of his face.

"Because I was wrong."

Pippa Grey stood in the shadow of a large plane tree and observed the sad expanse of wasteland that passed for playing fields at the state-owned Kelston High School. Two of the pitches were empty – pockmarked turf and abstract patterns of holes from metal-sprigged boots. The third was occupied by a team of rag-tag girls hacking awkwardly at a soccer ball.

Located in the London Borough of Brent, Kelston High School served a jumbled and often itinerant segment of the community. The unemployment rate was high, the wages poor, and the opportunities for advancement almost nil. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the school itself enjoyed one of the highest rates of diversity in Britain. Almost a quarter of the regular attendees were refugees or recent immigrants, while those born in the UK comprised a range of ethnicities usually seen only on glossy, diversity-conscious political brochures. Musingly, Pippa assessed the aspiring footballers. Of the fourteen girls, only seven shared racial heritage with another member of the team: three Pakistani, two Iranian, and two white British.

It wasn't the footballers that Pippa was interested in, however, but their coach – a tall, slim woman with a mass of corkscrew curls fighting their way loose from her ponytail. Pippa had seen Sally Donovan in person only twice, but knew more about her than most of the people Sally called friends. She knew that Sally's father was an optometrist and her mother a vicar in the Church of England; that she was the eldest of five siblings, two male and three female; that she was thirty-four years of age and precisely a month younger than Sherlock Holmes, with whom she had a fierce rivalry and mutual antagonism, not entirely un-tinged with regard; that she liked John Watson, had little time for Molly Hooper, and got on like a house on fire with Martha Hudson; that she remained on friendly terms with Phillip Anderson, though not with Debbie, his wife; that her relationship with Greg Lestrade was both closer and more nebulous than she liked it to appear.

One of the girls made a particularly awkward pass, and Sally jogged to intercept it.

"Easy on the boot there, Keisha!"

"Aw, piss off. It ain't my fault."

"Piss off, yourself!" Sally replied, showing no signs of ill-humour. She collected the ball and passed it neatly back. "Now let's try to get it in the goal, yeah?"

The young girl flipped Sally the finger – not aggressively, just as a sort of vague riposte. She aimed another shot at the goal, this time coming within a couple of inches of the post.

"Hey! That's better! And again, come on."

Amongst other things about her, Pippa knew that Sally Donovan had been coaching the junior girls' soccer team at Kelston High School for six years now. She had taken it on when her own youngest sister had been in the team and their previous coach had absconded without warning. She'd bullied Greg Lestrade into joining her, appealing to his sense of social responsibility and his ego in equal measure. She'd ambushed him in his office one evening after work and informed him that the girls needed a decent male role model in their lives; needed to see that a white man and a black woman could work together and respect each other; most importantly, that women could have and rely upon male friends without being required to supply sex in exchange.

Sally checked her watch and seemed to realise that they were twenty minutes over time. She blew her whistle to summon the girls and they gathered in a jumble of chatter, shoving and shouted insults. Pippa listened with only half her attention to the arrangements for next week's match (who needed to be picked up from home; who had a shift at the supermarket they couldn't get out of; and did anyone know someone who could lend Jordan a pair of boots?).

"When's Greg gonna be back?" a young voice piped up.

"Couple of weeks still."

"He said he'd be there."

"Yeah, well. He's a useless tosser, in'ee? Look, I don't know any more than you do. He's not answering his phone."

"But he said."

"Yeah, I know. Look, I'll make him shout us fish 'n' chips when he gets back. Deal?"

There were cheers at this, and a loud babble of speculation and commentary. Ribbing each other, the girls packed away the balls and nets, untied their boots and began to pack up their bags. A few headed towards the changing rooms, but most had no kit to bother with. Finally they began to disperse, shouting farewells, a few waving at Sally as they left.

There was a dark blue motorbike in the staff carpark beside the playing field. Sally unlocked the storage compartment and retrieved clothes, boots and a helmet. She pulled on the jeans and the heavy kevlar jacket over top of her kit, then seated herself on the edge of the kerb to swap her trainers for snug, low-heeled leather boots.

Pippa slipped from the shadow of the plane tree and walked openly across the carpark. Sally saw her coming and frowned, her brow creased in an expression somewhere between confusion and annoyance.

"Stalking me outside the office now as well?"

Pippa smiled. "I wanted to see how the investigation was getting on."

"The putative investigation into the disappearance of Mycroft Holmes," Sally said sceptically. "And why, exactly did you want me to look for him?"

"Because I want to ensure that everything possible is being done to ensure his safety?" Pippa suggested sweetly. Sally gave an inelegant snort.

"Yeah, right. Listen, if you work for him – and I've seen you with him before, so I'm pretty sure you do work for him – then you know as well as I do that he's not going to be found by the Metropolitan Police. That's if he even is missing, which I doubt."

"Oh, I'm not asking you to find him," Pippa said demurely. "I'm only asking you to look for him."

Sally paused, her boot half-on, and her head cocked to one side. "And on whose account are you looking, exactly?"

A dimple appeared in Pippa's cheek. "Now you're asking the right questions."

Sally sighed. She zipped her boot and stood up, rolling her shoulders. She tossed her trainers into the bike's storage compartment and slammed it shut.

"I'm guessing I'm going to miss Top Gear tonight then."

The dimple widened. "I should think so, yes."

Sally scowled, but her dark eyes looked amused. "You have a name?"

"Several."

She raised an eyebrow. "Well, don't hold out on me."

"Anthea."

"Is that your real name?"

"What do you think?"

Sally groaned. "I think I'm going to need a drink."

.

.

A/N: Thanks so much for all your reviews folks! Keep 'em coming. :-)Next chapter: John's not a secret agent; he's a very naughty boy.