The Silent Banker
A Compromising Silence
Hearing that the kettle had still not finished boiling its water, Rose decided to make use of the time she had alone in the flat. And with that thought she went down to her room, picked up her laptop and went back to the kitchen, to find, finally, the kettle had boiled.
After making her tea - and ignoring the plastic zip bag of thumbs in the fridge - she went to sit on the sofa in the living room. She had put a little thought into it, and had come up with the perfect password to keep Sherlock out of her laptop. It appeared obvious, but really wasn't. She even went as far as to put a hint on there.
Something Sherlock doesn't understand.
Taking a sip of tea, she though about her password, and made sure he wouldn't be able to get it. The hint alone would annoy the egotistical man, she thought.
One of the many things she had learnt over the years - and was actually useful in life, she mused - was that success was partly psychosomatic. If you believed something would happen, likely hood is that it would. The same going for simpler things. For example; she would leave her laptop in the living room tonight, and let Sherlock see it. He may see it as a challenge, or as a simple slip of her mind, but he wouldn't waste an opportunity. But she believed in herself, and her ability to choose a good enough password to keep the ever observing genius out of her precious laptop.
She also knew how to tell the effects of what she had done.
If he did guess the correct password, he will either treat her just the same as he did now, or slightly differently.
If he didn't he would most likely ignore her tomorrow. She smiled at the thought. The great Sherlock Holmes; silent for a whole day!
Her humorous thoughts were interrupted however by the beeping of her phone. She had a message.
A car for you, my dear. MH
It made no sense, it really didn't. And she knew it. She knew she should just brush it off, and go ahead with the plan she had formed in her head. But the man had done it again.
He had called her dear.
And so, with renewed temper, she snatched up her coat, making sure the cigarettes and lighter were in there - she thought she might need them when she calmed down, and was just plain stressed - left her laptop on the desk, and stormed down the stairs again, yanked open the front door, and slammed it behind her.
As promised, a sleek black car sat outside her front door. She took a steadying breath, and opened the door, sitting in the roomy back seat. To her surprise, next to her sat Mycroft Holmes himself. She had expected to be taken to another warehouse or something similar. But no. He sat right there, and just looking at the stormy look in her eyes, he was not expecting a friendly conversation.
"Hello again, Mr Holmes." She said in a tight voice. Though he didn't show it, he was a little puzzled. From what his assistant had said, she was perfectly calm when she left, and it hadn't been ten minutes from her leaving, and receiving his message.
"Miss Spencer, I do believe you wanted to speak with me."
"I do. It seems you are more than a little insistent on bugging my flat." She spoke calmly, and it made him think that maybe it hadn't been him that angered her. Perhaps Sherlock had left something unpleasant she had found - he knew all to well the types of things his brother kept in his kitchen, both at present and in the past.
"It would seem that way, yes." He replied in a cool manner. She pushed her anger down again, he didn't even try to deny it!
"Well, it we appear to have a problem then. You want to watch my flat, and I don't want you to."
"Well, yes, that does appear to be a problem for you." He was purposely mimicking her tone and the words she used. Another small thing that really shouldn't annoy her. But Mycroft Holmes just had a special talent for getting under her skin.
"Just for me?" She asked. She thought it would be a problem for him as well.
Smiling, he replied. "Well, you could keep destroying my cameras, but I will just replace them, and think of more creative methods of finding out what is happening in your little flat." His smile grew, and she recognised a glimmer of life in his usually cold eyes. It was the same look Sherlock got when presented with a challenging puzzle. It must be a Holmes thing, she decided.
"Then lets save us both the time and effort. Lets try to come to some sort of compromise." She didn't miss the shock that passed in the mans eyes for a split second. He wasn't expecting this, of all things. "You know I would rather you didn't have cameras in the flat, but what would you like, exactly?"
It took him a moment to realise that she was actually willing to compromise on the matter.
"An eye in every room in the building, except bathrooms of course, and preferably two in the main living room." He stated after collecting himself, trying not to show his surprise. This was certainly not the conversation he had expected to have with the young woman.
"You can have the living room, and the kitchen, as well as the hall way if you really want it, but your not having an eye in my room, and I doubt Sherlock or Doctor Watson would want you in their rooms either." She sounded calm and collected, but inside she was panicking a little; she had not thought to check her room, or any of the others for that matter.
He thought for a moment, the whole flat, apart from the bed rooms and bathrooms. It was reasonable, but he wouldn't tell her about upgrading the cameras to knew ones with built in microphones. "That seems reasonable. And I suppose I can let Doctor Watson have his room to himself." He left the unspoken statement lingering in the air, and she heard it loud and clear.
"Fair enough. He is your brother, what you catch him doing is on your own head." The insinuation was not lost on Mycroft, but he knew his brother held little interest for such activities. Though his mind was cast back to when they were younger, and he had caught his little brother doing an experiment with a particularly potent acid in his room. He had not told their mother, only confiscated the acid, and warned the boy not to play with such substances. To this day he didn't know where he got the acid, and he doubted he ever would.
"Indeed. Well, I will have someone stop by in the next few days to fit the devises." The car glided to a halt, and she opened her door to see she was out side her flat once more.
Closing the door, she saw Mycroft do the same, and waited for him to come round to her side of the car before holding out her hand; a sign of the silent truce between them. "Until next time then, my dear." He said, not missing the way her eyes flashed in anger. A theory formed in his head quickly, but he soon found that he didn't need to test it out.
As they shook hands, she leant forward to whisper in his ear. "Call me dear again, Mycroft Holmes, and you may regret it."
The threat almost made him laugh, but he kept her in place, and whispered back a reply. "My dear, I would like to see you try." It wasn't that he had never been threatened before - countless time in fact - but he always liked to see them try, and enjoyed the moment when they gave up, and realised that he was not a person to be messed with.
She stood straight again, a dark shadow in her eyes, and she gripped his hand a little harder; an acceptance of the challenge.
Mycroft gave an unusually natural smirk. This would certainly be more interesting than the assassins and politicians he had dealt with in the past.
"Until next time, Mr Holmes." With that she turned back to her flat, and opened the door, deciding that a cigarette and a plan of action was in order.