Ralph Inglis' silver sedan was in the front drive of his house in Wembley, though several minutes of knocking on the front door hadn't produced a response. Lestrade stood on the doorstep, pondering what to do next. It had taken him four hours to procure warrants to arrest Ralph Inglis for murder and search his house and car. In the meantime, the man might have…
"Hope he hasn't flown the coop, sir," Dyer commented helpfully. Lestrade scowled. Inglis was probably halfway to Calais by now.
"He's got a laboratory around the back, apparently," he said. "He might be out there. Come on."
Lestrade led the way down the narrow gap between Inglis' house and the block of flats beside, nudging past the recycling bin and negotiating a rusty side gate before he and his team found their way into the back garden. Donovan and Thompson went to the back door and knocked on it; Lestrade went over to the small stand-alone shed nestled at the far end of the overgrown garden. He glanced at the small, square-paned windows lining either side. Torn plastic shades, all down.
For a moment the only sounds in the garden were the rustling of leaves in the wind and Donovan still knocking on the back door. It was only a matter of moments before she was going to ask Lestrade if she and Thompson should try to break in. Lestrade reached out and turned the handle of the laboratory door. It twisted the whole way down, as if unlocked; but as he pushed it in, it met with resistance. He peered through the half-inch gap into the laboratory, but all that could be seen was sooty blackness.
He could smell something, though. He was too well-acquainted with that sour stench to not recognise it immediately. Just then, Donovan wandered over.
"Sir, should we-"
"Shhh!" he hissed at her, holding his hand up. For a few seconds they listened in silence. Beyond the purr of the wind in the trees above, there was another sound from behind the door; a sort of rough gurgle.
"Shit." Lestrade pushed harder at the door, but it refused to give; he stepped backwards, looking at the side windows to the laboratory and then turning to Donovan.
"Could you get in that window?"
She sized it up for half a second. "Yes, sir."
"Right, guys, give her a hand with it. Don't break the glass unless you have to. The last thing we need is someone bleeding all over the place."
The first window on the northern side was unlocked, and after Halloran had shoved it for a few seconds it gave and the sill lifted without much resistance. With a bit of help from Halloran and Patel, Donovan neatly climbed in feet-first; Lestrade, still at the door, heard her exclaim. "Suspect's down, sir!"
Lestrade turned to ask Dyer to call an ambulance; the young DC was already on his radio. "What's wrong with him?" he asked her through the shut door.
"Overdose… there's some glass container in his hand..." Donovan's voice was muffled by what Lestrade imagined to be her sleeve.
"Right, guys, go around to the other side… we need every window open…" Lestrade shoved open the window next to the one Donovan had climbed in, pitching forward as it gave way and slid up. He could smell it more strongly now – damp earth, bitter chemicals and sour vomit. Looking in, he could see Donovan crouched beside the prone form of Ralph Inglis, breathing into her sleeve and taking his pulse with her other hand.
"He's alive."
"Dyer's calling for backup. Listen, we've got to get in, so can you move him away from the door without making him worse?"
Donovan looked between the door and the man on the floor, sizing him up. Lestrade realised, perhaps before Donovan herself did, that Ralph Inglis, while not a large man, would be difficult for a small woman to drag across the floor without help. Donovan had a habit of overestimating her own strength in many ways.
"Jones, get in there and help her," he barked, sizing up the other female officer on site and figuring she would probably have no more difficulty climbing in than Donovan had. "Please!"
As he helped get Lauren Jones through the window, he noticed a rectangular square of white paper on the laboratory floor near one of Donovan's shoes. It was only after the ambulance had arrived and whisked off his comatose suspect that Lestrade investigated what it proclaimed in Inglis's doctor's scrawl.
I am guilty.
"You do realise," Mycroft commented, "that deliberately impeding the progress of an investigation is a crime in this country."
Mycroft had quite easily deduced that this was going to be a rather belligerent confrontation- at least on the part of La Tremoille. Mycroft himself took pride in the fact that he rarely showed outward anger to anyone – rarely showed any unhelpful emotion, as a matter of fact. In light of the nature of their meeting, he had invited La Tremoille to his office, rather than to Linwood or – God forbid – the Diogenes Club again. La Tremoille had been awkwardly ensconced in the leather-bound chair opposite, but he hadn't been in it for long and was now pacing up and down the room. At these words, though, he'd stopped.
"Impeding…?"
"You're aware of what that word means in English," Mycroft told him, comfortable with the sturdy oak desk between them and knowing there were plenty of witnesses just down the hall if La Tremoille wanted to continue these theatrics. "There are clear signs when a man genuinely does not comprehend and when he is obfuscating. You were obliged at all times to reveal anything you felt might have been important to this investigation. And knowledge that Adelaide was not just in a sexual relationship with her brother-in-law, but was in love with him and wanted to leave Edwin to marry him, may well have solved this case a lot quicker – and saved Timothy Bartlett's life."
"I fail to see why Timothy Bartlett's life was very worth saving," the older man growled.
"How Puritan of you, monsieur," Mycroft remarked, fishing around in his desk drawer for a cigarette. Theoretically, the entire building was non-smoking. In practice, not a soul had so far been prepared to tell Mycroft Holmes that he couldn't smoke in his own office. He sparked up and took a long drag before continuing his point. "Adultery, while generally looked down upon by most, doesn't carry the death penalty in this country," he said. "If it did, it would be bad news for Adelaide, especially when one considers that she was married, and Tim Bartlett was not."
"What will happen to her?" La Tremoille asked. Mycroft shrugged.
"Given her state, we can make an argument for her being mentally unfit to plead," he said. "Or rather, your legal counsel can do so. I'm not a lawyer."
"And Dr. Inglis?"
"I last received word from the hospital an hour ago." Mycroft sipped at the glass of water on his desk. "Aconitum poisoning, as we all suspected. He had a number of different extracts in his laboratory from earlier experiments." He shrugged. "He's conscious and being monitored closely. Hardly comfortable, but he'll survive to be tried for his role in this sordid business."
La Tremoille was silent for a few seconds. "Then let justice be done," he said slowly. "On Dr. Inglis, and on my poor child." He looked across the desk at Mycroft. "That surprises you."
"What does?"
"That I think of her as mine."
It was Mycroft's turn to ponder this. "No," he finally said, taking another drag on his cigarette. "No, that's one of the most reasonable things you've said in a week."
"Saturday week." John sat down on the sofa next to Molly, who had Charlie snuggled up against her neck. "Ten o'clock… if that's okay by you."
Molly nodded.
"Her name's Lydia Karpov… seemed nice enough when I spoke to her. She said you're more than welcome to call for a chat before we go… and she wants us to bring Charlie for the first visit."
"Really?" Molly looked at him in surprise. He shrugged.
"I guess she wants to meet the little troublemaker before trying to help out with the trouble," he said. "Got four kids of her own, so I guess she'd know what she was talking about… see look, there. You can't tell me that's not a smile. At you."
It was Molly's turn to smile. "Chrissy said that she might have been picking up that I was stressed and that's why she wouldn't smile for me," she admitted.
"You know how I feel about Chrissy, but do you think she might've been right on that one?"
"Yeah."
There was a short, companionable silence; John kissed Molly's neck. "Talked to work yet?" he asked in upbeat tones.
Molly nodded, nestling into him a little. "They say I can start again next month," she said, sounding pleased. "They've put me on a job-share with Sharon Knowles. Monday and Tuesday of one week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the next." She smiled. "Someone's been talking. Sean told me if I ever need care for Charlie, I should ask for help instead of bringing her to the morgue."
They both laughed, shamefaced.
"I said nothing," John said. "I promise." He paused for a few seconds. Then, in different tones, he said, "We'll get through this, Lolly."
"Yes."
"Everyone said it was going to be harder than we thought," he said. "We can't say we weren't warned, I guess."
"I didn't think other people were going to make it so hard," Molly said in a small voice. "Without even meaning to be… I mean, there's lots of people who are trying to help us, but they… um…" she trailed off. John nodded.
"I was telling Harry about that," he said. "You know I think even less about Harry's opinion than Chrissy's, but she was on the money with what she said."
Molly turned. "Oh?"
"Well, I was talking about people thinking you've got me on a leash, you know. Mike still thinks I'm kidding about staying home."
"What'd Harry say about all that?" Molly was smiling, already anticipating something delightfully caustic.
"She told me that if we're doing this because it's the best thing for Charlie and for each other, then people like Brooke Cade can fuck off with their stupid opinions."
Molly gave a little squeal of laughter, trying to cover Charlie's ears far too late. "John," she scolded. "She'll have worse language than Harry before she even goes to school."
"Oh, well, you asked what she said," he protested with a smile. "Anyway, if she doesn't pick it up from me, she'll probably pick it up from Harry. And there are worse things in the world than swearing a bit." He kissed Molly's shoulder; Charlie gave a placid little gurgle and curled her hands up.
"Who's our gorgeous girl, then?" Molly asked her softly, being rewarded with a gummy smile as Charlie's answer.
"Who's not going to be so very gorgeous while she's screaming at two o'clock tomorrow morning?"
"Oh, don't think about that," Molly said. "Enjoy her while she's… quiet…?"
For a minute or two, all three of them were quiet.
"Hey, Lolly," John said at length. "You're… going to tell me when you're stressed out from now on, right?"
"Yes."
"'Cause it's going to happen. All this is going to help, but... it won't magically solve everything."
"Right."
"And I don't know if you've noticed, I'm not good at picking this stuff up on my own."
"I noticed."
"Do you forgive me?"
"John."
"Is that a yes?"
For the next couple of minutes, both of them quite forgot that their daughter was even there.