Complexities of An Unexpected Nature
Looking For Trouble – An Unusual State of Affairs – A Meeting of Consequence – Chemistry – An Inspector Calls – The Nice One – Poulet au Citrone – No Place For a Lady – Transformation – The Bluff – An Empty Night.
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After a restless night where her thoughts leaped from one problem to another and back again, Grace sat in her kitchen in the grey morning light, sipping hot tea. She was reasonably satisfied she had thought of a way forward which allowed her to do her job and to keep at least a fragment of moral integrity, if only in her own eyes.
She knew Palmer would agree to all her surveillance suggestions; the ones she was going to tell him about, anyway. Since virtually every piece of new information was digitised before classification and storage these days, then all illegal transmission of materials would be necessity have to be electronic; either sent directly from some internal server to another, or via the internet in some way, or downloaded onto a storage device and taken out in a physical sense. Grace realised she couldn't do all that much about the physical checks; she have to leave that to the usual security devices and the internal cameras which everyone knew about. She would ask for a trace on every phone, including her own; individual email logs; real-time processing of browser activity; the shadow-broadcast of all virtual meetings, and logging of all software interactions including printing. But Grace had decided she also wanted to tackle the problem from both ends, so to speak, and find out more about the missing classified materials. So far, there had been precious little detailed information forthcoming in that area. If she wanted to provide any real support against her Director's obvious desire for a swift, and possibly radical conclusion to the problem, and if Gerald Palmer and Mycroft Holmes wanted confirmation there was a traitor in her team, then she wanted confirmation that there wasn't.
But how? And even more importantly, how to do it in a very short time?
The idea appeared out of the blue, but once it formed in her mind, it seemed entirely logical. She would find out herself what information was being traded around London and she would try and track at least one of the documents down to a specific buyer and whoever sold it to them. Perhaps if she could find a lead towards the purchaser, the powers-that-be might be able to do something official with the information. Palmer had told her investigations were underway in the search for the missing material, but perhaps she might have an advantage in this area which she could put to good use.
After working for some time in the rare and often unethical rare document market, but also, and more importantly, in the legal industry, Grace had accumulated a fair number of friends in low places.
Some of them in very low places indeed.
In fact, some of her most useful contacts were currently guests at Her Majesty's pleasure in various forms of custody, but Grace knew of several ... sources who were alive and well and gadding freely around the city. It was one of these individuals that she wanted to talk to now. The image of a face formed in her mind.
An older man; thinning hair the colour of a winter cloud, face permanently brown and wrinkled from working most of his life on the docks. Short and stocky with scarred hands and a less than genteel turn of phrase.
Timmy Dobson. Man of mystery and light fingers; honorary granddad to umpteen East End kids; friend to forgers and wideboys and with a scholar's true passion for beautiful manuscripts and ancient writings. Timmy was also a lifelong supporter of The Grapes Pub, a sixteenth-century riverside watering hole in Limehouse. But whereas the tourists, the hipsters and the rising young financial wizards of nearby Canary Wharf sat pontificating upstairs in the sunlight by the linen-clad tables, eating grilled tofu and roasted cashews, Timmy and a select few friends sat downstairs in a small stuffy room marked Private, drinking slow pints of very dark ale and playing endless games of Cribbage.
Grace had once been in that room and had drunk a pint of the bitter brew with Timmy as, between them; they had carefully crafted a way to defeat a rival American buyer for the quill-written deathbed confession of a Virginia Colonist. In their plan's success, they had wrought the beginnings of a lifelong friendship and gentle conspiracy against a great many things of a legal persuasion.
And now she needed his assistance once again. If anyone would have heard of classified documents or papers being sold on the QT in the city, it would likely be him, not that Timmy would have anything to do with the selling of British secrets. His Union Jack tattoo may have been invisible, but it sat big and bold on his arm, nevertheless.
At mid-morning, she closed her office door and rang The Grapes asking if she could leave a message for a Mr Dobson to the effect that she would be calling at the pub that evening around five in the hope of a private meeting. It was the only way Grace had of contacting the man; he was very protective of his privacy was Timmy, and she couldn't really fault him for that.
Thus, after spending a good chunk of the following day at Thames House setting up her own computer and assisting Stratford to wrangle his own software preferences into shape, as well as getting everyone to go through the online tutorial for the new archival software, the day was shot. Telling the team to head off early again but to be ready to make up the hours once all the systems were in full-throttle, Grace sat waiting until everyone had gone.
So much had changed in only two days.
Much of the pre-existing department furniture and old storage units had gone, replaced by new modular pieces, each configured to house the very latest in technical marvels. Every member of her team had up-to-the-minute hardware and software systems and all the support they could wish for. Stratford had his new phone-system; the setting-up of which had made him inordinately proud. Colly was in the process of devising new methods by which he could maintain the current level of supplies and perceived status for the department. And now that Shane had rescued and reinstalled the several photographs of his children onto his new computer, he and Magda had come up with a couple of intriguing ideas on shortcutting processing times for backlogged materials awaiting classification, registration and storage.
Everything seemed so upbeat and optimistic that Grace found it very difficult to accept that anyone in her team might be involved in a conspiracy to sell information to foreign buyers, let alone harbour any genuinely treasonous ideas.
It was still fairly early as she left Thames House that afternoon and grabbed a cab to take her to Limehouse and, hopefully, a meeting with the one man who might be able to help her start believing there wasn't a traitor lurking in the MI5 Archives.
###
Sauntering into the inner sanctum, Anthea flipped through the printed versions of several reports as she usually did in order that she might offer a synopsis if required. Himself preferred written reports when possible; he said printed words gave his brain something concrete on which to focus. Apparently, words on a screen provided insufficient traction and decelerated his thinking.
A name popped up that she hadn't heard for some time. Grace Chandler. Now that was an interesting coincidence. Mycroft Holmes, Defender of the Realm, Protector of the Great British Public and a man for whom she held no little respect and affection, had, since yesterday, twice been caught staring out of the window in his office as if the sky itself offered a philosophy of which advantage might be taken. This was a fairly unusual state of affairs and worthy, Anthea felt, of further investigation.
"I see you've been meeting with Doctor Chandler again," she tested the waters cautiously, her eyebrows slightly raised. "Any problems there I should know about?"
Turning to meet her eyes, the fingers of one hand supporting his chin, Mycroft was momentarily distant. He smiled faintly as his thoughts returned from whatever far-off place they had been visiting. "Not a thing," he said. "You anticipate trouble?"
Anthea shrugged. "You didn't part well after Cambridge," she looked thoughtful. "I like to be prepared for any contingency, so you will let me know, won't you?"
"Know what?" a small frown arrived between his eyes.
"Tell me if there's anything I need to know about you and Doctor Chandler," she said, smiling guilelessly. "Just in case."
"Really, you're speaking in riddles today," he scowled for a second before his face cleared. "She's the new Director of Archives at MI5," he said sounding introspective. "I'm sure she'll be a credit to the service." His words tailed off as he pursed his mouth and returned to the window.
Yes, Anthea nodded slowly to herself. An unusual state of affairs indeed.
###
Hotel 41 was just as glitzy as the last time Lestrade had cause to visit, lacking in nothing to please the jaded eye. Acres of hand-crafted marble flooring; pillars of polished Etruscan stone, gilded and roccoco'd to within an inch of their lives. All carvings were rainforest hardwood and the carpets all hand-knotted Persian and exorbitantly lavish. Polished, gleaming glass and brass added another layer of hushed, moneyed opulence. There was every single thing the weary traveller might yearn after.
The only thing missing was a certain couple of gentlemen from the land of date-palms.
By the time he and Sherlock met up in the hotel's lobby the following morning and chased down the Day Manager – who escorted them swiftly into his private office lest their conversation affront the sensitive hearing of the rich and easily offended – only to be advised that the two patrons they sought had long since left the establishment for warmer climes.
"South of France? Where in the South of France?" by the look in Sherlock's eye, Greg wondered if he was about to hear a suggestion they fly over there and continue the search.
"If they've gone, they've gone," Lestrade sent the registered names back to Mycroft's phone where Anthea would find them and no doubt do something exquisitely illegal in order to locate the two flown birds, although he wasn't going to hold his breath. "I'm not about to head off to the Cap d'Antibes after a couple of possible buyers," he shook his head. "There's other places we can look."
"They probably went to Marseille," Sherlock mused silently for a moment. "It's the logical spot for any illegal trade in information. I'll have Mycroft track their movements. But in the meantime, we should see this chap," Sherlock handed Lestrade a grubby, much-creased piece of paper on which were scrawled several pencilled words.
Squinting, Greg was just able to make out the writing. There was a name, a location and a time. "What's this?" he met Sherlock's pale blue-grey eyes. "A lead?"
"From my homeless network," Sherlock pocketed the scrap of paper and looked around the hotel's lobby where the hotel Manager was still attempting to usher them forth onto the street and far beyond the view of his delicately-visioned and obscenely wealthy clientele. Sherlock looked at the man with ill-concealed distaste. "I sent the word out last night when you dropped me off at Victoria Station. Perhaps I should ask my people to meet me here in the future," he mused, looking around. "Might liven the place up a bit."
"And end up with some poor sod banged up in in the cells for the night?" Greg looked askance. "Hardly seems fair."
"These are members of my homeless network we're talking about, Inspector," Sherlock said. "The key word here being 'homeless'. I'd think they'd probably welcome a nice warm cell for a change; inside toilet, perhaps a hot breakfast ... you make a good case," he nodded, looking around the illustrious surroundings again. "It might be worth it."
"Not sure I'd inflict this place on anyone," Lestrade dropped his voice as he surveyed the hotel as they exited the hotel. "Bloody awful mausoleum, if you ask me."
"It's a couple of hours before we can realistically expect our contact to be there to meet us," Sherlock looked at his watch. "What say we spend the time in a little target-practice?"
"What kind of target-practice?" Lestrade sounded wary. If Sherlock had gotten hold of a gun from his brother, there would be words. Several of them would have no more than four letters.
"You'll see," Sherlock grinned, wrapping his scarf tighter around his throat and lifting the collar of his coat as he hailed a cab and gave directions to the driver.
The Judd Street building in front of them seemed fairly nondescript; late Victorian or early Edwardian; red bricks and white painted windows. Something commercial or semi-industrial. The sign on the wall on the outside said it was a studio of some kind.
Target-practice in a studio?
Following the younger Holmes inside, Lestrade was glad of the sudden warm. He hadn't realised quite how chilly the day had become as they headed up a couple flights of old wooden stairs. Up ahead, Sherlock darted through an open door. The sound of heavy thuds echoed from within.
As Greg poked his head inside, he was able to watch as four people, all lined up parallel with the room's far end, brought one hand back to the level of their shoulder then let fly almost simultaneously.
At nearly the same instant, four knives of various description zipped through the air and buried themselves deep into four of the targets resting in front the wall.
Knives? Sherlock was into knife-throwing?
Lestrade shrugged and pushed his hands deeper into his coat pockets. No reason why Sherlock couldn't practice throwing knives, he thought. Better than playing with firearms.
Taking a stance at the farthest end of the line-up, Sherlock had already filled his left hand with a selection of blades. Letting fly with three of them in rapid succession, he managed to hit the centre ring, or very close to the centre in all three cases.
"You're improving, Sherlock," a dark-haired and shapely young woman walked to his side. "Bit you're still holding back with the last bit of shoulder-flex," she made a small face. "Are the muscles still troubling you?"
"A little," Sherlock rolled his right arm and shook it out, taking the final blade between his fingers as he took a short breath and flung it mightily at the target.
It sank in almost dead centre. A complete bull's-eye.
"Better," the woman nodded. "Get that shoulder to a physio for some stretching and you'll be able to do that every time," she clapped him gently on the arm and went to speak to one of the other impalement artists.
"Never knew you went in for knives, Sherlock," Greg watched, fascinated as he and the others retrieved their spent blades, returning to stand behind the painted line on the bare wooden floor. Lestrade estimated with a practiced eye. They must have been standing at least eighteen feet away from the targets. There was some pretty good aiming going on.
"It's all a matter of simple mechanics, really," Sherlock murmured, sending his stock of blades hurtling once again in rapid sequence into the padded target.
The final one hit too close to the rim and bounced off.
"Damn," Sherlock scowled blackly, as he rotated his right shoulder again. "My aim has been wavering since I went off the roof chasing Lowell Grantham last week," he winced as something pained him particularly.
"The Mayfair Mugger?" Lestrade pursed his lips. "Didn't know you were in on that one."
"I wasn't, initially," Sherlock waited until his compadres had all finished their throw before he went to collect his blades again. He lined up three feet further away from the wall. "I just happened to be in the right place at the right time," he muttered, taking another deep breath and aiming.
Again, three sank deep into the target, with the final one slipping just fractionally off- camber. Heaving a short, unhappy sigh, he rolled his shoulder one final time. "No point doing this anymore until I have this seen too," he scowled again. "Wretched nuisance."
"You went off the roof?"
"Not all the way," Sherlock smiled. "Fortunately, I have long arms," he said, offering no further explanation. "Want a try?" he said, offering Greg the knives.
"Never been much good at throwing stuff," Lestrade accepted the proffered steels, weighing them up in his hand. The blades were unusually flat, while the wooden handles were smooth and almost soft to the touch. There were no rough or angular edges to drag at the palm or be deflected in the air.
Seeing that everyone else had walked over to grab a coffee and listen to the woman as she demonstrated a particular stance, Greg mimicked pulling his hand back as he had seen the others do and, holding the blade between a finger and thumb, sighted the target and let fly.
The blade zipped right over the top of the straw target and to impale itself into one of the rough wooden planks stacked against the wall for that very purpose.
"Oy!" the dark-haired woman shouted. "No mucking around, Sherlock."
"We're going now. See you next week," pushing Lestrade out in front of him, the younger Holmes had them back out on the pavement and waiting for a black cab inside the same minute.
"Who's the woman?" Greg looked back over his shoulder to see if there was a name anywhere near or on the door.
"Catina Dalca," Sherlock spotted a cab and raised his arm, grimacing again as his shoulder twinged. "Comes from a circus family in Romania," he added. "They train here in London when they're touring Europe."
"And you know her how?" Lestrade was imagining all sorts of exotic adventures. Kidnappings in dark, melancholy forests in eastern Europe; minor royalty involved in hidden scandals.
"One of Catina's brothers is a taxidermist," Sherlock pulled open the cab's door and climbed in. "He fixed my bison."
"Of course he did," Lestrade sighed forbearingly as he clambered into the cab.
Giving the address to the cabbie, Sherlock sat back and watched as London passed by, the bare winter trees and the cold grey pavement just another version of the city he knew so very well.
Though not late, the early winter's dark was already drawing in by the time the cab creaked to a halt outside a street of very old, bay-fronted terraced houses in a wide street. Greg knew they were still north of the river, but by the smell of the salty water, it was obvious they were extremely close. It was only when he saw the building in front of him all lit in the winter's late afternoon that he understood where they were and relaxed immediately. If they were going to try and meet anyone, here was as good a place as any.
Another old pub on the river.
Ducking their heads as they entered the front door – the building was constructed long before modern building regulations – Lestrade followed the swish of Sherlock's coat through a cheerfully lit and well-occupied long, narrow bar to the top of an even narrower flight of stairs heading downwards. Taking the twisting steps at a reckless pace, they passed by several closed doors at lower levels, the décor growing less ornate as they descended two floors down to what had to be river-level.
There was one more door ahead of them, an ancient dark oaken thing, partly ajar with the soft mumble of voices inside.
Not bothering to knock, Sherlock had his fingers around the edge of the door, pushing it inwards as he crossed the threshold, taking in the two people currently sat either side of a small round table playing cribbage.
"Well, well, well," Sherlock strolled on in, hands sliding into his pockets. "London is becoming smaller by the minute," he paused, a tight smile curving his mouth. "Positively diminutive, in fact."
Entering the room behind him, Lestrade wondered what on earth would have provoked such a claim. It wasn't until he saw the faces of the two people at the table that understanding dawned.
A most interesting understanding.
Of the two sets of eyes now gazing up at them, one pair belonged an old lag everyone around the river knew as Dibby Dobson, his rheumy denim-blue squint amused and nonchalant.
The other was a grey, wide-eyed stare of searching uncertainty and belonged to the woman whom Mycroft Holmes had called by name, right after she had crashed into him in the entrance hall of MI5.
Now why would the new Director of MI5's archives be spending time secreted away with a known felon like Timmy Dobson? Lifting his eyebrows and smiling in a very calculatingly way, Greg took one of the unoccupied seats and rang the little brass bell on the edge of the table. This was a conversation he had no intention of rushing and as all of this was under the radar, he might as well get a pint in.
###
She had insisted the same surveillance be placed on her as on the rest of her team, Mycroft realised as he scanned down the emailed details of the tracking measures Grace Chandler had requested. It could not be said that she was taking the simple way out of any of this, and he found himself shaking his head a little. There was no need: nobody would have questioned her absence from scrutiny. There was no purpose to this action save one.
Rubbing fingertips across his brow, Mycroft realised he was tired; had felt tired for a while, actually, but had only now come to acknowledge it. An unusual form of weariness seemed to have settled upon him in the last few days; possibly he was coming down with some common virus, although he was rarely ill. Perhaps it was simply the weather.
Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes momentarily, his thoughts flaring outwards to all the matters his department had in hand at that moment ... the Iranian peace treaty ... the newest bomb-factory discovered in Manchester ... the discovery of financial irregularities at Porton Down ... all of these issues were magnitudes more complex than the possibility of missing documentation from the MI5 archives, and yet ...
And yet.
Despite his best efforts, his mind kept spiralling back to a pair of wide grey eyes that had looked horrified at the thought someone in her team might be stealing and selling classified material. Though he dealt with each and every matter that crossed his desk in the same exemplary fashion, every time he paused, those eyes were examining him still. It was as if she were sitting in the chair the other side of his desk, her fingers steepled, watching him with an amused curve to her mouth.
Rubbing his head again, he pulled the next file up on the screen of his laptop, determined to rid himself of this unnervingly distracting sensation. Clearly the surprise of meeting Grace Chandler again had, in some small way, affected his emotional equilibrium, although why, and possibly more importantly, how, he had no clue. Perhaps it was a residual guilt? Perhaps his intellect was only now dealing with the effects of their earlier disconnection, now that he might have to be in more regular contact with her?
The memory of blonde curls spilling onto his chest in sleep made his heart thump.
"Damn it all," he growled, pushing himself out of his seat and towards the door, snatching at his coat and umbrella as his did. A brisk walk in the bitter London afternoon would chase away this unwelcome invasion of his thoughts.
"Getting some fresh air," he almost snapped at Anthea as she raised her eyebrows at his passing, several papers on her desk levitating in protest at the unusually forceful airflow.
Watching until Mycroft's stiff back disappeared from view, Anthea returned to her reading of a medical text she'd downloaded from the internet.
Though it was American in origin, it was well-researched, thorough and written with a pleasing directness that allowed the medical and physiological details to be understood by those who might not be appropriately trained or qualified.
She was already up to chapter three and it was becoming rather interesting. Scrolling down to the next section she read the heading and allowed herself a little smile.
The Chemistry of Genetic Variation: Alpha and Omega.
###
"So let me get this straight," Lestrade spoke slowly as he sipped his beer, a contemplative look on his face as he pondered his way through the labyrinthine situation. "You decided, arbitrarily and without any kind of consultation whatsoever, to go into the private detective business with an associate, in order to track down whoever it was who was selling the MI5 stuff?" he kept his eyes firmly on those of the woman sitting on the other side of the small table.
Grace nodded, equally slowly. "Yes, of course," her tone suggested he was stating the obvious.
"Your associate in this endeavour being one Dibby Dobson; known felon; thief, forger, con artist supreme and all-round questionable entity on the law-and-order front?" He glanced across at the older man. "No offence, Dibby," he lifted a couple of fingers as a rider.
Timmy Dobson knew when to stay quiet. He held his beer and his peace.
Furrowing her forehead, Grace looked between the three men sat at the table; the silver-haired man asking the questions, the tall, dark-haired one who hadn't said anything since he sat down but who was using his stare like a weapon, and, of course, Timmy, who was currently sitting quietly with a half-smile on his face.
"Is Mr Dobson on any existing wanted list?" she fired off a question of her own. "Is he being hunted in the name of some abstract public good? Are you, in fact, after him for anything at all?" Grace knew her eyebrows were raised and she must sound like some kind of prosecutorial virago, but she didn't really care much for the policeman's tone. And it was obvious to anyone with half a brain the man was in law-enforcement.
"Hang on a minute," Greg lifted a hand. "I'm the one asking the questions at this point, and you need to give me some answers."
"Do I?" Grace almost flounced; she definitely heard something like a flounce in her voice. "All I've had since you came in that door and sat down, completely uninvited, I might add, to interrupt a very private conversation, for no demonstrable reason other than you felt like it, has been a barrage of poorly phrased accusations interspersed with pointed questions about things which are clearly none of your business," she paused, her eyes wide with a growing annoyance. "So please tell me why I have to answer a single one of your damn questions?"
"This might be an acceptable reason," Lestrade fished out his ID wallet and laid it flat on the small table between them, the shiny metal badge flanking the plastic card which made it extremely clear who, and what he was.
Grace peered down at the silver crest of the Metropolitan police force and closed her mouth. She'd seen the identical insignia enough times in the past to know it was the genuine article. The ID card said the bearer was a Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade of the Met. Looking up into the man's eyes, she drew a short breath. "You should have made it clear when you came in that this was an official visit, in that case."
"I would suggest this makes it official," the dark-haired man spoke, finally, his slightly mocking advice delivered over sharply steepled fingers as his pale blue-grey eyes never left her face.
"And who are you?" Grace was well aware these were the men who'd accompanied Mycroft Holmes to MI5 the night she had careened into him. Now she knew the older man was a police inspector, but the other one just as clearly wasn't.
"My name's Sherlock Holmes," he focused on her face. "I'm Mycroft's brother."
Oh Christ, Grace felt her stomach sink. Two of them.
"Yes," Sherlock smiled briefly though her thought was unspoken. "There are indeed two of us."
"And you know who I am," she was relieved she was able to sound relatively normal. The idea of two of them ... "And this is Mr Timothy Dobson," she said, lifting a hand towards the old man at her side who had remained silent throughout. "Scholar, expert in ancient documents and my personal friend," she added, turning to face Lestrade again with slightly narrowed eyes. "And our conversation here this evening is entirely our business and nothing to do with the Met, or Mycroft Holmes, I can assure you."
"Apart from the fact that you made a unilateral decision to go chasing after some potentially very dangerous people who might take it amiss at being hunted down?" Greg looked and sounded unimpressed. "For someone as smart as you have to be to do the kind of job you do, I'm surprised you thought you might get away with anything so incredibly stupid. You're going to have to stop this, I'm afraid."
And that was quite enough. Grace gritted her teeth.
First these two interlopers barge into a private conversation and now she was being told she couldn't help in tracking down the missing materials? Materials from her own archives?
"I wasn't aware the Met allowed its senior officers to drink while on duty," she smiled, coolly.
"They don't, as a rule," Lestrade smiled equally coolly back, sipping his beer.
Sherlock closed his eyes. "Inspector..."
"In which case, I take it this ... meeting is unofficial and off the record?" Grace smiled a little more.
"Something like that, yeah," Greg couldn't help appreciating the clarity of her eyes. They were quite an exceptional shade of grey.
"So in that case, Inspector," Grace leaned forward, her smile unchanged. "You can take your official ID card and shove it. Unless you want to make this into something more formal, neither Mr Dobson nor I have to sit here and listen to you spouting off a moment longer."
"Wait," Sherlock spoke softly, but it was loud enough to do the job. "I find myself in the unusual position of acting as umpire in this infantile squabble," he leaned forward across the table at the exact same angle as Grace, his pale eyes fixing themselves firmly on hers. "Reg Lestrade is not the dimmest candle in the Met although I understand how you might have reached that conclusion. It would be reasonable to hear him out."
"Gregory," Grace responded without thought.
"Reg, Greg, irrelevant," Sherlock waggled his fingers and frowned. "But it wouldn't hurt you to listen," he added sincerely. "He's not entirely incompetent."
"Well, thank you very much," Greg put his glass down with a slight thud and looked offended. "Being damned with faint praise does not encourage any great sense of camaraderie, y'know."
Grace almost smiled on hearing the complaint in the Inspector's voice, when she suddenly had the strangest feeling. She was so close to this younger brother of Mycroft's that the faintest wisp of the man's scent reached her senses, not the subtle cologne that moved with him, but the darker, underlying scent that was uniquely his own and which clung to him like an aura. Without realising it, her eyes widened. She sat back in her chair.
"It's not only me you need to convince," she muttered after a moment's pause. "What do you want to do, Timmy?" she turned to face the little old man sitting serenely beside her.
"I think," the perpetually tanned features looked thoughtful for a moment. "That we all need another drink."
###
Alpha ... Grace knew it the moment she was close enough to sense beyond the redolence of his cologne. Mycroft Holmes' brother, clearly a younger brother, was just as much Alpha as his elder sibling.
But that was impossible. Almost impossible.
The Alpha variation was as rare as her own; entire families probably never seeing more than one mutation of either type in a single generation. Even to a parental match of Alpha and Omega, the idea of having more than one child beyond the spectrum of Beta was almost unheard of. Not entirely impossible, of course, which is why she would bet her next pay cheque that Sherlock Holmes was Alpha, just like his big brother.
Two Alpha sons ... then their parents could only have been ... Grace wondered which parent was which. Did they take after an Alpha father, with all the stereotypical issues around authority and protection of the family? Or had their mother provided the Alpha genomic sequence, combining strategic cleverness with ferocity?
After they had agreed to Timmy's suggestion, there was some re-arranging of seating in order to make the rest of the conversation a little more comfortable. This brief distraction allowed Grace to get her thoughts back into focus.
Mycroft's brother was an Alpha. Their childhood must have been ... combative to say the least. No wonder Mycroft sometimes overplayed a controlling hand.
About to retake her seat, she became aware of a presence standing at her side as Sherlock stood to take off his heavy winter coat.
"That's an enviable sensitivity you have," he muttered softly, folding the greatcoat over the back of a nearby chair. "You're quite right of course, and in case you're wondering, it's my mother," he said with a half-grin. "She terrorises the both of us, especially at Christmas."
Apart from the disquieting fact that the younger sibling seemed to possess the same unnerving ability to read minds as did the elder, Grace realised they both had a similar off-beat charm; there was something incredibly appealing about such all-encompassing and agile minds. And then, of course, there was the mother ...
The sudden image of the two tall, imposing, Alphas being harangued into submission by an equally formidable older woman made Grace smile. She wondered what Mycroft's mother looked like, if she was as polished as her eldest child.
"How on earth does your father cope?" Grace couldn't help but ask. "With the three of you?" she paused, wondering. "Or are there more?"
"I think three Alphas under the same roof are more than sufficient to test anyone," Sherlock muttered, looking rueful as he tweaked his eyebrows. "However, my father has always managed to soldier on despite everything my brother and I, and occasionally my mother, deemed fit to hurl in his direction," he hesitated. "You'd probably … like him."
Unsure what possible response she might offer, Grace said nothing, but felt a little warmed inside. The contrast between the Holmes brothers was striking; how different Mycroft's younger brother seemed. Thoughtful and considerate, rather sweet, even. It was something of a relief to know that there was at least one pleasant Alpha around. If there was going to be a problem with the police in tracking down the stolen materials, then Sherlock Holmes might just turn out to be a godsend. Clearly, this brother was the nice one.
It would be an agreeable change from dealing with the elder Holmes' stiff omniscience. Taking her seat and lifting her fresh drink, Grace raised her glass to him. "Cheers," she smiled.
"Gracie here tells me she's looking for some government papers wot might 'ave gotten lorst in town," Timmy Dobson took a long pull on his bitter and sat back, waiting. It wasn't every night he held court to people from MI5 and the Met, although he'd never quite be able to see Miss Grace as havin' anything to do with them spy-boys.
"We are," Sherlock sighed, a little impatiently, absently rubbing his shoulder as if it was giving him pain. "And the guilty parties are absconding even as we sit here fiddling while Rome burns."
"Rome is not burning, Sherlock, so stow it," Lestrade sighed too, but for a different reason.
"If you're not here officially," Grace turned to face him, "then why?"
Inhaling slowly, Greg linked his fingers across his stomach and met her eyes. Such luminous eyes. Eyes like that could see right through to a man's soul if he let them.
"Ask Dibby," he said. "I've been drafted in for local colour. Your boss Palmer wants to keep this as low-key as possible in case anyone twigs there's a search on and fancies doing a midnight flit. It's people like Dibby here who might know the people we need to see."
"So you came here to speak to Timmy for the same reason I did," Grace sipped her Tanqueray-and-tonic and looked reflective. "We're actually after the same thing."
Swirling a couple of fingers of reasonable scotch in a tumbler, Sherlock pursed his mouth. "Not exactly," he said slowly. "Mr Dobson agreed to meet with us and provide, for a small consideration, a certain level of information. Armed with this information, the Inspector here and I are going out on a little treasure-hunt which may, in all likelihood, bring us into close proximity with the person or persons who both bought and sold the documents in question, however," he leaned forward again, his pale eyes suddenly much harder. "Graham and I are both reasonably experienced in taking care of ourselves out on the streets whereas you ..." he left the statement hanging, waving the glass at her before swallowing half the contents in a single gulp.
Grace decided right then there was no way she was going to be kept out of this. It was her team at stake; her archives that had been plundered.
"I have two points to make at this stage," she said calmly, placing her class on the table and smiling, linking her fingers just as they had. "Point one is that I have no intention of becoming involved in anything violent; I am quite content to leave that to you gentlemen should such a thing be considered necessary or desirable," she said. "The fact that you are both experienced in taking care of yourselves on the streets means that I can quite happily leave you to it should anything untoward occur."
"Now wait a minute ..." Greg didn't like the sound of this one little bit.
"And your second point, Doctor Chandler?" Sherlock lifted his glass again, staring at her, unblinking, over the rim.
"My second point is that I don't particularly give a damn what either of you want me to do; I have my own agenda and if you don't want to work with me, that's fine. But you may as well understand right now there is no way you're going to make me stop doing this," she added. "I've made up my mind."
"Then you can bloody well unmake it," Lestrade scowled. "If this becomes an official police matter.."
"Which it isn't at the moment, is it?" Grace crunched a piece of ice between her teeth. "In fact it's so very far away from being official I doubt this situation will ever see the light of an formal inquiry; there would be too many difficult questions for everyone to answer, and if there's one thing I know all about in the legal profession; the police do not like having to deal with difficult questions when they know the answer is going to put them in the wrong."
"Then what do you propose?" Sherlock finished the scotch and leaned forward, rubbing his shoulder again. "Clearly you have a counter-suggestion to offer?" he added, an eyebrow rising in line with the question.
"I do," Grace replaced her glass on the table with a sharp clunk. "I am an expert in the materials that have apparently gone missing. I know what they might look like, how they might be stored and transported. This is my work and I'm very good at it, whereas you two, forgive me," she raised an eyebrow of her own. "Must at best be considered enthusiastic amateurs."
"Amateur?" Sherlock smiled a little dangerously. "I can assure you, Doctor, there is nothing amateur about the work I do."
"In the sense that I am paid to do what I do and you are not, then there is," Grace was decisive. "Although I expect any brother of Mycroft Holmes would probably not need to be paid to do what I do or know what I know," she added. "You've worked with the sort of data that's gone missing before?" she asked.
"Occasionally," Sherlock waved an airy hand. "I tend to leave such minutia to others, however."
"Excellent," Grace nodded. "You can leave the details to me, in that case."
"But there's no way you're coming out on the chase with us," Greg knew in his bones that this was a bad idea and getting worse with every sentence. "It's not safe for anyone doing this, let alone a wom ... someone like you."
"Then aren't I lucky to have two such well-trained and hardened experts as yourselves to take care of anything risky?" she said, finishing her drink and turning to Timmy Dobson. "Okay, Timmy, this is where you get to amaze all of us with the things you have stashed away inside that incredible memory of yours," Grace sat back and looked ready to be informed.
Greg saw the woman was not going to be easy to ditch, but he'd wait until Dibby had said what there was to say and then he and Sherlock could leg it and there'd be damn-all she could do about any of it. He settled back in his chair feeling pleased with himself.
Sherlock watched Grace with his peripheral vision realising that, whatever happened, she was not about to give up this quest of hers, regardless of what Lestrade might think.
He also realised he could not possibly allow Grace Chandler to leave the pub alone.
###
Himself had returned after an hour, his usually pale skin brushed with healthy colour; the walk clearly hadn't done him any harm.
"Anything I need to know about?" Anthea stood to go and fetch tea. She gave him a long and penetrating look. "Do I need to bring the chocolate digestives?"
Mycroft shook his head. "Tea alone will be fine," he nodded briskly. The walk in the cold air had indeed cleared his thoughts as he'd made his way, somewhat more energetically than was his usual wont, along the Victoria Embankment and back. All he had to do now was keep his mind occupied until it was able to re-establish a new benchmark of normality which included the ongoing presence of Grace Chandler. Once that was emplaced, her distractive qualities would fade to nothing. He smiled faintly. The sooner the better.
"I'll be working late tonight," he said as Anthea came in with the tea-things. "Could you arrange a sandwich or something, as usual?"
"Of course, sir," Anthea almost snorted; as if she'd ever just arranged a 'sandwich' for the man in his life. She'd organise Poulet au Citrone for tonight; it was one of his especial favourites. And maybe a half-bottle of Montrachet, or maybe the Saint-Emilion, the one he liked so much. She felt he might appreciate a little pampering if things were happening the way she believed them to be.
After reading what she'd been reading all afternoon, she now understood several things that had piqued her curiosity about the man in the past. While she may not have, may never have all the answers, at least she was clued in on a few things that he'd never felt it necessary to explain to her.
Such as why he carried his umbrella like a sword, or why he sometimes developed a blinding headache in the middle of summer. Why he would rather stay silent than defend himself against criticism. Why he avoided personal entanglements.
Now all she had to do was read the chapters on Omega.
###
"Which is about all I can tell you, Mr Lestrade, sir," Timmy Dobson looked at the inspector from beneath his bushy eyebrows and shrugged apologetically. "There's bin a few whispers, but nuffin' concrete," he said. "No names nor places uvver than wot I just said."
"But you did say there was that one place not far from Sadler's Wells theatre," Grace reminded the old man. "The place that sometimes did business 'beyond the usual', I think is how you described it," she added. "Though you didn't actually say what the usual business was."
Timmy looked suddenly awkward. "It's not really the kind of place a nice lady as yerself would probably want to talk about, Miss Grace," he muttered uncomfortably.
Greg Lestrade felt confused for a moment, running a pictorial map of the area through his mind to get his bearings. "Where did you say this place was?" he asked, his gaze distant in thought.
"Top end of Arlington Way," Timmy smiled uneasily. "Just up from the Shakespeare pub."
"The one opposite the theatre?" Sherlock frowned as he too tried to place the mysterious business. Apart from the theatre, it was mostly residential apartments in the area. All except ... Ah.
Lestrade lifted his head at almost the same moment. "The only other thing that's down that way by the Wells but up from the pub is ..." he raised his eyes to meet those of the younger Holmes. And grinned.
"What?" Grace looked around the table, having absolutely no idea why the conversation was suddenly full of pregnant pauses. "What is it that nobody appears capable of saying?"
"Mr Dobson is referring to Milton's, a house of ill-repute which has, for a number of years masqueraded as a gentlemen's' club and is located at the southern end of Arlington Way," Sherlock sounded weary.
"A Gentlemen's Club?" Grace looked between Mycroft's brother and the now-grinning inspector, before turning to stare at Timmy who blushed a little. "Then business as usual would be ..."
"Indeed it would," Greg couldn't help the laugh that accompanied the admission. "Dibby here is only talking about one of the most disreputable knocking-shops north of the river."
Trying desperately to control her own smile, Grace wanted to look anywhere but at the blushing older man beside her – her laughter would only embarrass him further – when she found she was staring directly into the dark hazel gaze of the man from Scotland Yard.
It was quite magnetic.
"And when you say knocking-shop, you actually mean bordello?" Grace realised she was staring at the policeman but not really wanting to stop. His eyes were a liquid brown and green combination she found unexpectedly attractive.
"Bordellos are legal in Britain, as in other Commonwealth nations," Sherlock was watching Grace as she stared at Lestrade. "Although the management of one is still, strangely, a prosecutable offence."
"And what was that name you said?" Greg forced himself to look at Dibby, still sitting quietly and stretching his pint.
"Masterson," he said. "Nasty piece of work in anyone's book," he said. "If you take my advice, you'll stay clear of the entire shebang," he mumbled into his beer. "No place for a lady, is that."
"But we have to find out who's been doing this, Timmy," Grace laid soft fingertips on the back of his wrist. "The police can't do it, and MI5 can't do it, so that really only leaves us, and there's no way these two are leaving me out of anything," she added. "But I appreciate your concern and I promise to be careful."
Timmy Dobson sipped what remained of his pint and looked sour, but he said nothing.
"In which case, what are out options for getting into the place and finding this Masterson person?" Lestrade narrowed his eyes, thinking. "If I go in waving my badge, we'll get nothing. If we go in under the auspices of MI5, then whoever's doing this will go to ground and we'll never find out who it is. This leaves only us and, as Doctor Chandler has said, but how best to use us?" he posed the question to the room at large.
"Hard to break into a place that never actually closes," Sherlock mused. "If they ever shut, which I doubt, then there'd be a chance, but given the nature of the business being conducted on the premises ..."
"We could always go in as clients, couldn't we?" Grace asked slowly. "Customers ... whatever they're called."
Greg found his brain closing down momentarily at the suggestion. She had said 'we'. Not you, or you and the tall streak sitting beside you, but we.
"You counting yourself into that equation, I take it?" he asked warily. "You see yourself as coming into that place with us?"
"Why ever not?" Grace frowned. "Can't women go into these places?" she wondered what the problem might be. "I've been to strip-clubs and burlesque before, in the States," she added. "Why should this be any different?"
"The business claims itself to be a gentleman's club," Sherlock interjected, "with the emphasis on man, I think you'll find."
Her eyes widening of their own accord, Grace was more than a little shocked. Not at the fact it was a place where men clearly went to buy sex, or that such places existed in London, but rather that it was still considered improper for a woman to enter such an establishment.
"What an utter load of balls," she said, eventually. "Are women actually forbidden to enter, or is it more of a preference kind of thing? I can't honestly see many women wanting to go into a place like that, but we should be able to if we did," she paused. "Want to, that is."
"You suggest we walk in through the front door?" Sherlock lifted his eyebrows. "A simple plan, one so unsophisticated that nobody with an ounce of strategy would consider it?" he was momentarily introspective. "Which is why it would probably work," his smile flickered on and off in an instant as he looked as Grace. "Though if you insist on accompanying us, you'll need to change into something less comfortable, I'm afraid," he said, waving vaguely in her direction.
"Why?" Greg made a more thorough appraisal of the woman's appearance. Apart from being too gorgeous for her own good, the doctor looked pretty normal to him. "What's the problem?"
Sherlock sighed, exasperated. "Obvious, isn't it?"
"Not to me," Grace looked down at her clothes. Charcoal trousers and good-quality, low-heeled black shoes. An elegant, black wool jumper over a silk t-shirt. Gold watch and earrings. Nothing untoward. She turned to look at Mycroft's brother with bewilderment in her eyes.
He sighed again. "Bad enough that Gerry here looks like an advert for the Police Gazette," he muttered. "But you could be off to an early dinner with the Prime Minister in that get up."
"Gregory," Grace still wasn't sure what he was getting at. "And?"
"And, if you, a woman, are going to walk into Milton's, then you need to look like the kind of woman who would do that. Right now you look like a portfolio manager for one of the larger hedge funds."
"A similar accusation might be levelled at you," she said, eyeing the expensive black suit and shoes, the costly greatcoat dropped so casually over the back of the chair.
"Yes, but a man, regardless of how he may be dressed, is unlikely to attract any attention whatsoever, yet any woman, by the exception of her gender in such a place, would be an immediate target for all manner of unwanted scrutiny, especially if such scrutiny suggests she may not be all that she purports to be."
"Yeah, and besides ..." Lestrade was about to add his own thought when he realised what he'd been going to say might be misconstrued.
"What?" Grace felt she may as well hear it all. "Besides?"
"You'll be attracting all sorts of attention in any case," Greg sighed, looking at her sadly. "You're a very attractive woman going into a place where men go explicitly to meet attractive women; you'll have to beat them back with a stick."
Grace smiled. Clearly he was joking and it wasn't going to make her change her mind; she was still coming with them. "Okay," she said. "What should my outfit say if not portfolio manager?"
Sherlock pondered for a second. "Expensive Madam might be your best bet," he said finally. "Something a little sleazy under the surface."
In the seat next to her, Timmy Dobson put a hand over his eyes and groaned.
###
They had decided to wait at her apartment on Southbank while she changed. Realising none of them had eaten, nor would likely have any time to do so, Grace recommended they raid her fridge while she hunted out something suitable for the role she was going to play. Not finding anything that specifically suggested classy procurer, she settled for a relatively slinky sleeveless black dress which she cinched in tight around her waist with an extra-wide black patent belt, making her shape even more hourglass than usual. Digging out her highest black heels and silk tights, she knew her feet were going to freeze if she had to do any outside walking later, vowing to get cabs all the way.
Not bothering with jewellery, she grinned in delight as she found something left over from Halloween rolled up inside her small junk-drawer. Thinking ahead, she dug deeper in the back of the same drawer, until her fingers found what they were hunting, bringing it out into the bedroom's light, she checked it before stuffing into a small black shoulder bag. Going to the bathroom, she re-did her makeup for evening lights, applying a dark red lipstick and smoky eyeliner and adding a goodly dollop of perfume. Staring at herself in the long mirrors, she made a rueful face and hoped it would do; it was all she had. Grabbing a glittery black silk scarf, she headed into the kitchen to see if Sherlock and the inspector had left her anything edible.
The younger Holmes had made tea and was nibbling a piece of cheese as she walked in.
"Took you long enough ..." Greg Lestrade's voice tapered into silence when she sashayed past him as he lounged against the workbench chewing a chicken sandwich. "Bloody hell."
It wasn't just the incredible curves that caught his eye, or the long, elegant legs, or even the sultry cosmetics and wafting perfume that made Grace seem like a model from an expensive magazine. It was the complicated, sinuous tattoo that ran the entire length of her left arm; a silvery-green and black snake whose tail coiled around her wrist while its fanged head rested on the curve of her shoulder. It lent her entire persona an air of immodesty.
And was incredibly sexy.
"Bloody hell," Greg dropped his plate.
"It's a temporary transfer, Inspector, but a good one and should pass all but the closest of examinations," Sherlock nodded in satisfaction as he took in her changed appearance. "That should do nicely," he took out his phone. "I'll just let Mycroft know what we're doing in case he discovers where we are and sends in the SAS or something equally ridiculous," he said, texting a rapid message. "You might want to pick that plate up, by the way."
###
It was almost ten by the time Mycroft sat back from his laptop and eased his neck, beginning to ache a little now after several hours of scheduled meetings and the reading of their transcripts. Rolling his shoulders, he checked his hunter, deciding he'd probably done enough to be going on with. He could head for home and a sound night's sleep.
His mobile hummed gently as it received a text.
A text from Sherlock.
With a photo attachment.
###
The cab took them straight up Farringdon Street and then most of the way up Rosebery Avenue. Though London never really slept, the chill, miserable weather had much of the casual traffic off the roads; it was too unpleasant to leave the warmth of one's home unless absolutely necessary. They reached their goal in less than ten minutes.
Stepping out of the back of the cab, Grace looked around the see an multilevel, pre-war solid brick building with a number of blacked-out windows on the first two floors. There was nothing particularly exciting about this particular building except that it stood quite apart from similarly-built dwellings in the locale.
"Is this it?" she asked, inspecting the old red bricks and not being terribly impressed.
"You, of all people, Doctor Chandler, should know not to judge the book by its cover," Sherlock swept his way to the main front entrance, hammering on the solid wood portal.
Opening inwards, a young woman wearing a cliché of a French maid's costume smiled and opened the door wider to allow them all in.
"I wish to speak with the Manager," Sherlock announced, made a great show of removing his leather gloves and unwinding the dark blue scarf from around his neck. "We have private business to discuss." The woman scurried off.
As soon as she stepped through the double doors, Grace felt her skin prickle, though she wasn't at all sure why. The air carried a faint smell of something like incense or a smoking candle,, but wasn't either of those things. The lights were on the dim side, though still bright enough to make out details.
Walking through into a rather exotic-looking waiting-room, the rugs beneath her feet looked lush but felt thin and cheap. The walls were draped in heavy fabrics and adorned with large Victorian portraits of plump naked women lolling around beside men with impressive sideburns and whiskers and dark frock coats. None of them were terribly good paintings.
All the seats, and there were a large number of them, were upholstered in plush burgundy velvet or dark brown leather.
Grace sniffed. It was all a bit on the tacky side. No wonder women didn't want to frequent these places. It was a dive.
"You wanted to see the manager?" the man emerged from between closed drapes across the room, an insincere smile plastered across his face. "May I ask why?"
"We have a business proposition we'd like to discuss," Greg strolled forward, eyeing the man from shoes to the parting of his hair. "Privately."
"The manager will meet with nobody unless I first recommend the discussion takes place," the man's smile was oil on glass. "I strongly suggest you tell me what you want."
"It has to do with buying and selling," Sherlock stared the stranger down. "And unless you are in a position to turn away extremely some profitable custom, then I suggest you let us through and stop wasting our time."
The man looked between Sherlock and Greg, the corners of his mouth turned down as he pondered the next step.
Finding herself unwilling to wait a moment longer, Grace pushed between her two escorts and faced the man squarely, lifting her chin and half-lidding her eyes.
"I really don't have all night," she said calmly, opening her bag and extracting a tight bundle of 100-pound notes still in the bank's wrapper. She waved it boldly under the man's nose.
"If your organisation is in the business of making money, then we can talk about making more. If no-one here can be bothered," Grace's critical eyes roamed briefly around the room, "and I already see evidence to that fact, then I shall go elsewhere," she announced, replacing the cash. "Do not waste my time," she added softly, coldly. "It is worth a great deal more than yours, I promise you."
There was a discreet beeping-noise and the man removed a small phone from an inner jacket pocket. "Excuse me," he said, moving away.
Turning to face Lestrade and Sherlock, Grace rolled her eyes wide and gave them a minute shrug. "I have no idea what I'm doing," she whispered, "it just seemed the way to go."
Before either of them could respond, the man on the phone cleared his throat.
"The Manager will see you now," he said, his manner suddenly obsequious and faintly submissive.
Grace shivered inside her thick coat. She might not know what she was doing, but whatever it was, she had better be bloody good at it.
###
The room was almost pitch-black and still as she sat in the middle of the bed, a single beam of light shining down from almost directly above. Nude, save for a glittering snake which clung to the entire length of her arm, a wickedly unorthodox element that electrified him with its decadence; she was a blaze of white gold in a room of shadows.
Saying nothing, Grace merely looked at him, her gaze wide and uncomplicated as if assessing and cataloguing his behaviour, weighing it against her memories of Cambridge.
He hesitated, expecting her to speak, to say his name ... anything. But she was motionless and silent, watching his face. Watching, and waiting for him.
"Damn you," he groaned, his hand sliding behind her head, pulling her close in a powerful sweep, finding and taking her mouth in an irresistible kiss that bruised his lips and scorched down to the marrow of his bones.
Her pale arms slid tightly around his neck, compelling him closer, her naked body following suit as she enfolded him into her, dragging them both down to the bed into heat and flesh and the imperatives of sex.
Mycroft felt the softness of her skin, the sensation of lithe muscles moving beneath his fingertips as she arched into his embrace. The sharp scent of verbena blended with the earthy musk of desire as he held her close, breathless with each curve and valley her body offered.
Omega.
"I want you," his breathing was ragged, grazing the column of her throat with his mouth. "I have always wanted you."
"I know," Grace murmured against his temple. "I have always known."
Gathering her tighter into the security of his arms, her heat and fragrance sending his thoughts into a mad spin, he realised she was slipping away, vanishing back into darkness. He clutched tighter, thinking he could keep her here, beside him.
But all that remained was the black and empty night.
Mycroft awoke, sweating and achingly aroused, his heart a thunder in his chest. The bedside alarm said the hour was still early, but he knew without question there would be no more sleep for him tonight. He lay back against the sudden chill of his pillows striving for calm.
"Damn you," he whispered.