"Jim Moriarty. Deceased. Body never found... Napoleon of crime…. Obsession with Sherlock Holmes. Known associate of Euros Holmes..." Sherlock read the highlighted keywords out loud, skipping through the documents. "Musgrave was collecting information… Some of these are just prints from online blogs and newspapers but these" He held up a handful of papers "Are taken directly from the Scotland Yard archives." The Detective spread them flat on the table in his kitchen. Reports of the Yard on the suicide killings, the bombings, his break-ins and various other crimes connected with Jim Moriarty. Lestrade frowned, crossing his arms. "How the hell did he get those? Took me weeks until they gave me access." Sherlock shook his head. "The question you need to ask is what does he want with them? Information about his crimes, theories on his web of criminals and his connections, I know all these, I've researched them myself but they're not important, they don't tell much. There's no reason to lock them away in a safe, he had financial struggles and these things are very expensive."
Greg furrowed his brows. "He was concerned worried someone would find them, then! These are confidential reports after all." With a sarcastic laugh, his friend shook his head. "The Yard wouldn't notice if I ripped their notes from their hands." He hesitated. "No offense."
He walked up and down, hands folded against his lips. "It wasn't about the Scotland Yard, there was someone else he didn't want to know, he was hiding them. Who would care? Who is dangerous enough that you can't simply hide it in your own house?"
The front door opened and John entered, Rosie on his arm. Sherlock snapped out of this thoughts and stepped into the living room. His face lit up, eyes warm and soft, as he picked up Rosie and greeted John with a quick kiss on the cheek. Greg watched, leaning against the doorframe, smiling warmly. Domestic life suited them well. Not that much had changed, they always looked at each other with undisguised affection, but it was little things, like John gently placing his hand on Sherlock's back they walked back into the room, that showed how much more comfortable they were. Rosamund laughed gleefully and duck her hand in her dad's black curls. "What did I miss?" John asked, taking of his coat. "We found Musgrave's personal safe. He was collecting information on James Moriarty." Lestrade answered. "Sherlock thinks he wanted to hide from someone. Someone smarter than the Scotland Yard." He handed his friend the papers, watching Sherlock from the corner of his eyes, feeling pride swell up in his chest. Who could have ever expected the cold, lonely man would one day be playing with his adopted daughter, kissing his boyfriend, living a somewhat normal life.
"Maybe he used to work for him. Moriarty." John suggested.
Sherlock shook his head. "Why would he research a man he had once worked for? "
"Okay, trying to build up his own empire then?"
"By reading blog entries?"
"Blimey, Sherlock, just tell us you're theory already, you drama queen! And stop showing our daughter corpses…" With a sigh, he pulled the newspaper, showing Tracy Wilhelms blood covered body on the front page, from his partner's hands. Sherlock's eyes lit up with amusement and excitement. "Not yet, dear John, not yet." John shook his head, smiling. "Need a big, dramatic reveal?" "Why, of course, an artist needs his stage!"
"Oy!" Lestrade exclaimed with a grin. "You can flirt later. I'm tryin to find a killer if you two don't mind." "Hmm 'trying'." Sherlock commented.
He was interrupted by a ringing at the door and Mrs Hudson shuffling up the stairs. She looked slightly annoyed. "It's him again." She said. "Really, don't you have an office?" She asked Greg judgingly and left the room with a last wink at Rosie. Mycroft entered, elegant and determined as always, a large briefcase in hand. Greg's heart fluttered and his chest tightened simultaneously, as he noticed he was staring right through him, his face a mask of ice.
"Ah, always a pleasure, brother mine." Sherlock said dramatically. He put Rosie down on the floor between her toys and moved back into the kitchen. Dropping the briefcase and opening it dramatically, Mycroft explained in a diplomatic voice. "As requested, I acquired information about Tracy Wilhelm and her boss. Turns out she was an informant, employed by one of our minions. The man she worked for, Mr. Keith Clyde, has been under suspicion of running a small drug cartel for a while. One of our agents discovered an illegal brothel, managed by Mr Clyde. We have not acted upon this information yet, in hope of finding him to be connected to a more important person." He spread some papers on the kitchen table. John picked one up, disgust clear on his face. "35 women are being kept as illegal prostitutes and you have done nothing to help them?" He shot Mycroft an angry look.
"They are not held there against their will. Most of them are drug addicts and other lost souls. They aren't slaves."
"You could help them!" John said harshly and Greg flinched, taking a step back from the scene. "Some of them are still children, Mycroft, do you even have the slightest bit of humanity in yourself?" He waved the documents around angrily, his face reddening with fury. Swiftly, Sherlock moved behind him, placing his hand on John's arm. "It's okay, John, we will take care of it." He said quietly, softly. "Right now we need information." With a sigh, John dropped the documents and leaned against Sherlock's chest.
Mycroft's eyes flickered between them and Greg for a moment, his face unreadable. Then he continued shifting through papers.
"As you might have guessed, Reginald Musgrave employed Clyde, he is not connected to the brothel but we have evidence of his involvement with the trade of cocaine and heroin. 'Bit's and Pieces' is, as you have realized by now, not a real company but merely a cover-up. They used the shipping company and Clyde's own company to try and cover up the tracks of their business."
Sherlock stared, thoughtfully. "Why would you take interest in drug dealers? It's hardly a high class of criminal, I would know at least 10 people in this street alone who could supply me." He said.
Mycroft frowned. "It came to our attention because someone is funding them. Both Musgrave and Clyde get regular transfers on their bank accounts, the same sums at the same time, but from completely different accounts all across the globe."
"Still nothing that marks them as mediocre criminal, you usually hand these to me. What is it, Mycroft?"
He took a deep breath, straightening his back. "Euros Holmes."
Sherlock flinched.
"Keith Clyde's correspondence was monitored after we discovered the brothel. Those two words are keywords that I will be informed about immediately. He got a text from a burner phone a few months ago containing just that. Her name."
The Detective furrowed his brows, subconsciously coming closer to John in a protective move. "We had suspected she had an accomplice." His head jerked up. "But Musgrave? He's nothing but a dirty pawn, she wouldn't have needed him! That leaves whoever sent the message."
"Moriarty?" John suggested. "He shows up and employs the two guys as footmen, so one of them does some research?"
"Moriarty is dead, John." He said calmly and looked over to Greg, who had been standing in the back, watching silently.
"So we are looking for someone else with connections and knowledge like Moriarty's, only alive?" The Inspector suggested, his eyes flicking to Mycroft, who stared determinately at his suitcase. "The Woman did warn you of someone who is too dangerous for her to betray.
Someone Moriarty passed his legacy on" Sherlock said darkly. John's eyes sparked with jealousy for a moment. "The Woman? You've talked to her?" He crossed his arms, looking confused. Greg sighed. "I talked to her." "And I thought her involvement was to be kept secret!" Mycroft said coldly, making Greg's chest tighten. "Mycroft, it's not his fault!" His brother stepped forward, subconsciously shielding his friend. "You should have expected me to find out, I've been in contact with her, I know she's back in England." "And yet nobody's told me." John murmured. Silence fell, the men staring into the distance, thinking. Sherlock leaned against the kitchen counter, hands folded to his lips, John drummed his fingers on the table, Mycroft stared darkly at the paper reporting the two code words. Greg stared at Mycroft, carefully, wondering, his heart aching. He envied Sherlock and John, standing so close to each other, their shoulder touching casually. "There is no record of anyone with a legacy like that." Mycroft said quietly. "We have been watching and spying and intercepting but there isn't any trace. Sherlock spent two years picking through the network-"
"Then you have missed someone." John said curtly.
Rosamund started crying, an attention-seeking, tearless wail that made Mycroft frown in disgust. His face softening, John dashed to his daughter, rocking her in his arms, talking soothingly. Sherlock watched him, thoughtfully, his eyes warm and caring. "Someone he trusted. Who would he have trusted? A man who didn't care about anything, who was willing to die, just for the sake of chaos and destruction. The psychopathic genius, alone in a world full of ordinary, boring people. Goldfish." He said looking at his brother, whose eyes stared forcefully ahead. "Who would he have trusted with his life's work?" He closed his eyes, hands against his lips, standing perfectly still. Carefully, Greg glanced over to Mycroft, standing frozen in a pose of authority, his face hard and cold. Even Rosie seemed to feel the tension, she was quiet now, looking at her adoptive father, chewing her plush bee.
With the elegance of a dancer, precise and quick, Sherlock suddenly whipped around, spreading the papers, scanning them, picking selected single sheets and holding them up. "Stupid, stupid me!" He shouted. His daughter squeaked. "Moriarty had a partner!" The Detective slammed the documents on the table. "Not just an accomplice but an actual partner, a boyfriend or husband." "But he's a psychopath" John said "why would he care about dating?" "He wasn't completely stripped of emotion, John. That day, on the roof of St. Bart's, I saw it. I looked into his eyes, he was- he was lonely and confused. Emotions didn't work for him like they do for you ordinary people but that doesn't mean he didn't have any. There must be someone-"He held up the papers. "Moran. I was blind, I was so focussed on Moriarty's name, I didn't notice, the name keeps coming up. It's just a side note, an unimportant background character. But if Jim Moriarty passed his valuable legacy, his empire of crime, on to some else, it would be the only person he actually cared about."
"And what makes you think it's that guy, this Moran?" John asked.
"Because" Sherlock handed him two documents. "His name shows up in Mycroft's files about Ms Wilhelm and in the blog post about Moriarty's trial after the break-ins." Mycroft moved forward, walking past Greg, who tensed, and took a look. "He was just a dealer, a homeless drug addict living on the streets of London. He was the one who brought the brothel to Tracy Wilhelm's attention. That is all we know of him, we can't keep track of every lost soul on the streets." He smiled grimly. "I could take a look in our archives and see what I can find."
His brother stared for a moment, then he whipped around, grabbing his coat, scarf and phone. "I'll be back in an hour, this is a job for my faithful network, the most reliable agents you will find in this country." He threw his brother a look of superiority. "We'll see who has the best insight by this evening, brother mine." John had put on his jacket simultaneously and strapped his daughter to his chest. The man's eyes were alive with the excitement of the hunt as he followed his partner out the door. "You try to find Musgrave, Lestrade, I need to question him!" The door slammed shut behind them, leaving Gregory and Mycroft standing in the living room in silence, surrounded by papers and children's toys.
Greg walked through the room until he faced his partner. His chest was tight and his stomach felt strange and tingly. The last time he had been so emotionally confused, he had been a teenager. "Are you okay?" He asked quietly.
The pale blue eyes softened a bit as the men's hands touched tentatively. For a moment, the tension fell. "I don't know." Mycroft said, running his hand through his hair in exasperation. "I have no idea what's going on, I- sorry." Pain blazed up in his eyes, he was shaking his head, stepping back. Gregory tried to reach out for him but he avoided the touch in a swift movement, like a sceptic animal. "You have a criminal to catch and I have work to do." Mycroft said curtly, his features settling back into a mask of cold stone. His movements were hurried and tense, as he gathered his documents, sorting them into the suitcase, not looking at his boyfriend. The Inspector watched, a pained expression on his face, sadness and worry washing over him. "Maybe we should-" "Gregory, please…" There was a pleading, pained sound to his voice that made Greg flinch. He nodded. "Okay." Grabbing his coat, the Inspector left Bakerstreet without another word, feeling strangely empty.