Gregson was in his office when Joan arrived to meet Sherlock later that morning. He nodded at Joan, their eyes connected, and both felt the spark of anticipation.

"Oh please, no need for blushes. Where is he taking you, dinner and a movie?" Sherlock peeled himself off the wall and followed Joan into Gregson's office.

"Not even close. " Gregson slapped the case file onto his desk and gave Sherlock a stern look. "And she's taking me."

Before Sherlock could articulate the Oooh, on his lips, Gregson cut in. "The lab confirms CO2 poisoning."

"The means of murder is not in doubt," said Sherlock."Only the motive, and the identity of the killers."

Gregson sighed. "Ok, what are you thinking?"

Sherlock paced the room, turning with a flourish as he reached each wall. "Two things. First, no note, none of the usual teenage histrionics accompanying a suicide pact. I spoke to their parents. These children were planning their wedding, not a date with their maker. Second, this."

He stopped at Gregson's desk and placed something on it. Joan and Gregson leaned in to peer at it.

"A piece of duct tape. A snippet, fresh, dropped carelessly on the ground beside the car where these young people died."

Sherlock began pacing again. "I visited the car impound and found traces of the same tape around the exhaust pipe and, crucially, the door frames. The outside of the door frames."

"Someone sealed them in, " said Gregson. Joan shivered.

"And then that someone or someones came back and attempted to remove all evidence from the car which now contained two dead teenagers. Yes."

"No witnesses, "mused Gregson. "No cameras covering that spot, nothing."

"Why would anyone want them dead?" said Joan. "Two kids, what could they have done to attract that kind of attention?"

Sherlock hopped onto the desk and sat swinging his legs. "I believe that the planning application for that piece of waste ground may cast some light on it."

"If there is one," said Gregson.

"This is New York, of course there is one. Or, if I'm right, several, in conflict with each other, providing a motive for one party to try to poison the scene for another, halting the planning process." Sherlock jumped down. "Come on Watson, let's spend some quality time with the planning department of this fine city."

"See you later, " said Joan to Gregson. He nodded and waved them out.

xxx

Sherlock was frowning at the planning applications. Joan was flipping through pictures of the crime scene and pathologist's report. They were back at Sherlock's, both ignoring the clock ticking down the hours to Joan's date.

"A row of shops and a launderette," said Sherlock. He grimaced. "I was expecting something a little more high powered." He hunched over the stack of papers, knitting his slender fingers together.

Joan passed him one of the pictures. "Look at this, the alignment of the entrance to the Korean bank and the street. It's off. That's unlucky." Sherlock blinked at her. "You know, bad feng shui. Even banks hire specialists to make sure their feng shui is correct, you know."

They bent over the photo together. "You're right," said Sherlock. "Feng shui principles require the entrance not to have a prospect which encourages so called negative energy to flow in. But the bank's entrance faces the bin store of the diner opposite. But if it could be moved just a few metres to the left..."

"It would face the diner's main frontage, far more auspicious." Joan smiled at him. "Worth a look?"

"Maybe." Sherlock drummed his fingers and shuffled paper. "I would make two points though. One, there is no application for an extension from the bank, putting them in competition with the other requests to build, and two, Korean corporations do not, as a rule, go in for feng shui of the same flavour as, say, Chinese. Nothing suggests that this alignment would be inauspicious for them."

Joan sighed. "Then what?"

"Let's visit the other applicants. Maybe one of them will turn out to have a very strong motive for instigating a police investigation which would delay the planning process."

"They were so young, " said Joan. "Hardly old enough to be considering college, let alone marriage."

Sherlock sniffed. "Marriage. An outdated institution devised to encourage social stability, keeping all parties in their supposedly divinely ordained places. Maybe they're better off without it."

"Sherlock!"

He had the grace to look abashed. "Sorry. Look, you talk to the strip mall developer and I'll tackle the would be launderette. See if we can figure out who would want to throw a giant, murder-shaped spanner into the works."

He trickled off, humming Saint-Saen's Danse Macabre, and Joan shook her head.

People just appeared as collections of features to him, not beings with feelings, ideas, passions. How had he ever been in love? His passion was purely for the intellectual.

She couldn't imagine him enraptured with anything so messy, complicated and demanding as a person.

So why was she trying?

"Stop it, " she said out loud, and Sherlock made her jump by sticking his head back round the door.

"What?"

"Nothing." Some hidden part of herself prompted her to add bitchily, "You couldn't understand. It's a woman thing."

He gave her a suspicious glance then disappeared again.

Planning applications. Think planning applications.

xxx

"You look..."

Joan stood at the foot of the stairs putting on her coat and hat. "Nice?" she suggested.

"Different," said Sherlock. He cocked his head on one side. "Red lace. Very suggestive. And impractical shoes, too. You really do aim to make an impression."

Joan did not reply. She had picked the dress, a fairly modest red silk shift with an overlay of lace, because it said Date and not Work. The brown patent heels contrasted nicely with it. That was all and she was not entering into a Sherlock dissection of her outfit.

"Careful, Watson," Sherlock said as Joan wound her scarf around her neck. "Gregson's no spring chicken. You wouldn't want to give him a heart attack."

"Thanks for your concern. I'll be back in two hours to test you."

She click clacked to the door.

"Effective," commented Sherlock to her retreating back. She turned, still at the top step, and raised her eyebrows at him. "The whole..." He waved a hand at her. "Ensemble. It's very effective."

Joan blinked at him. He was gazing at her intently as if examining her face for clues. She opened her mouth to say Thanks in a slightly sarcastic tone of voice, but under his gaze, no words came out.

Sherlock had been holding the door open as she stood on the top step. Joan turned and walked steadily away.

Sherlock lifted his hand and the door slammed shut.

xxxx

The waitress piled the last dim sum dish under her chin and hustled away. Gregson shifted in his seat, leaning back in the booth with a satisfied sigh. "That was something. This place is the best."

"I live on take out at Sherlock's, " Joan told him, similarly leaning back in her seat opposite him. "I was starting to forget what fresh food tasted like. I guessed you might feel the same."

Gregson laughed. They clinked glasses together and drank, but she held her hand over her glass when he offered the bottle for a top up.

"This is nice," Gregson said. There was a pause. "I'm not kidding myself," Gregson said into it.

Joan looked up.

"You're a beautiful young woman and I'm a tired old guy with a waist I ought to be ashamed of. I'm not flattering myself that there's going to be a second date. But I was glad to be asked."

"Toby!" Joan placed her hand over his. "You're a great cop at the top of your career. You're distinguished, not old."

Gregson chuckled and ran his hand through his silvered hair. "The mirror says I'm getting more distinguished every day."

"This has been fun," Joan insisted.

"Yeah, it has. But I'm not kidding myself that this is about me. This is, ok, I don't know what it is, but it's about Sherlock."

Joan was still. "Why," she said quietly.

Gregson shrugged. "Because he's a hot young stud? I don't know! But whatever it is with you and him, he's right in the middle of it too. He was always pretty crazy when I knew him before. No limits, you know what I mean? But since you moved in, he's..." He groped for the word.

"Settled down?" suggested Joan archly.

Gregson pushed away the last of the wine and gestured for a beer. "He's reined it in a little. He tries to act a little more like a regular person. And you know, even though he used to be wild with the ladies... he's an ok guy -kind of a nerd- but you get the feeling that for the right woman he wouldn't have a problem keeping it in his pants."

"The penis," Joan exclaimed.

Gregson choked on his beer. "Excuse me?"

She blushed. "I'm sorry. This case, the supposed suicide. Sherlock said there was no opposition to the relationship. But at the morgue... I noticed that the boy was circumcised."

Gregson took a deep breath. "This would be another reason you get on so well with Sherlock. The relentless focus on an unsolved mystery until you figure it out. But he doesn't even apologise."

Joan was reaching for her phone.

Gregson took a breath, let it slowly out. "Time to go?"

"I'm sorry."

"I'll see you home."

xxxx

"A tender doorstep scene," commented Sherlock from the sofa without looking up. "A chaste kiss on the cheek, a squeeze of the hand, but no invitation inside for coffee?" He flicked through channels on the bank of TVs with a languid wrist.

Joan threw her scarf on a chair. "Circumcision!"

Sherlock froze. Then he sprang up, snatched up the case photos. "They had a priest, not a rabbi. They were Roman Catholics. Why would the boy be circumcised, unless..."

He found the one he wanted and shook it triumphantly. "...He had converted from another faith such as Judaism where it is a common practice!"

"There could be other reasons of course. Medical issues, for example." Joan straddled a chair to watch Sherlock think.

"Or we could be looking at a religiously motivated killing." Sherlock looked grim. "It seems that the community was not quite as supportive of this love match as we thought."