John

She immediately swept up a baby who was indeed about eighteen months old from an armchair and sat in it, waving Sherlock and I distractedly to the other two. It appeared we had stepped into a suburban living room belonging to a middle-aged spinster. There were another few seconds of silence in which the woman stroked the baby's feathery hair, Sherlock drank in the room with his eyes and I sat awkwardly wondering how to break the silence and wishing I'd taken more painkillers for my arm.

"So, Gunthe." Said the woman, smiling unconvincingly at Sherlock, who was obviously the leader I guess, "This is his place but you won't find him here. He had to go away for a bit, sorry."

"Yes…" Sherlock smiled scarily back, "About that… we actually know of your husband's whereabouts."

The woman jumped, "I never told you he's my husband."

"No…" Sherlock agreed, "but he was. You're not wearing a ring but you have been, it's too tight so you've been married a long time and put on weight since the wedding, I'd say it was between ten and fifteen years ago. You have another son, an older one, from before you were married, and this child is your only other one. You're worried about Gunthe so it couldn't have been anyone else-"

"Alright!" The woman yelled, "You win. Just tell me where Gunthe is."

I braced myself. Sherlock is extremely talented at many things but being tactful is not one of them. A hot prickling was crawling up my neck and ears, I was thinking of Harry and it was making me want to cry.

"He was found dead yesterday, badly beaten and partially encased in concrete. In a warehouse belonging to the Moonblood Cult, an illegal alcohol trading ring, probably because he'd divulged information about them to us but, then again, possibly not, seeing as he was dead long before we arrived there so they'd have had to have spies, which is, of course, not unlikely; can you think of any other reason he may have been killed?"

I quickly sprung forward and grabbed the baby, who was slipping off the woman's lap and onto the floor and sat back in my chair with him on my knees. The woman appeared to have collapsed in on herself; she was clutching the sides of her chair and sobbing uncontrollably.

Sherlock looked at me, exceedingly alarmed. He attempted to provide some comfort with the pathetic, "Er, it's okay. Well it's not, obviously, you're husband's dead…um…"

I rolled my eyes at Sherlock and tried to project as much of the pain I felt for my loss into my voice, "The thing is, if you can tell us anything at all about Gunthe it will help us to bring his killer to justice."

"Yes." Said Sherlock, flashing a half grateful, half sympathetic smile in my direction.

The woman carried on weeping as though she hadn't heard me.

"And, and, you've… got this little baby to look after!" Sherlock cried triumphantly; his clutching at straws had evidently uncovered something close to her heart.

She snatched the child off me and started patting his back and jiggling him up and down on her knees as she cried.

Sherlock walked over to me. He stood behind my chair, stroking the back of my hair with one of his fingers: letting me know he was there, warning me to hold it together for this woman, asking me for help…

"So," I began, "What's your name?" I asked the mourning woman, reaching across my chest with my good arm to stop Sherlock touching my head and lock my fingers into his. We held hands over my shoulder, resting our togetherness on my original bullet wound from Afghanistan.

"Mollie." The woman sniffed, calming down a little; she could this, it was good to have something to do that might be helpful to solving the mystery of her husband's death, it was easy to answer questions, "And this little boy is Timmy."

"Good. Where did Gunthe say he was going the last time you saw him?"

After a few deep breaths Mollie answered, "He said he could get us some more money by giving information to some detective person."

Sherlock tightened his grip on my hand; I had to blink rapidly to stop the tears from spilling out of my eyes. The last time Mollie had seen her husband was before he'd come to see us. It hurt me to know I was probably at least partially responsible for inflicting such tortuous pain as I felt and that I knew by now would never go away upon a person. Sherlock massaged the triangle of skin between my thumb and forefinger. It lessened my hurt a little.

"As I said before," Sherlock began, unconcernedly, "That may be a possible reason why he was killed… Oh!" Sherlock ripped his hand from mine, "Oh!"

I twisted around in the chair, gritting my teeth as my injured arm jarred against the upholstery. Sherlock was leaping up and down, beaming like Christmas had come early, with his hands pressed together in front of his lips, "That's it!" He cried, "Of course! Come on John, we're leaving!"

I pulled myself out of the chair and shook Mollie's hand, "Thank you for your time tonight-" I started,

"Hurry up, John!" shouted Sherlock.

"- and I really am very sorry for your loss." I smiled as much as possible before Sherlock literally dragged me out of the room by the back of my jumper.

Sherlock

They're hiding something! Obviously they're hiding something. Nobody cares this much about alcohol… besides it would hardly so profitable as people, say, prostitutes. If you're comfortable being paid a tidy sum or a good lot of alcohol for sex, you wear a certain piercing… of course you do! It's a very probable explanation. I found myself not wanting to relinquish my hold on John but realised it was no longer appropriate so let go after probably too long. We were halfway across the 'Heavenly Bodies' lobby when a man entered the area from a door to our left.

He was a prostitute and had been subjected to violent anal sex from an older man within the last four minutes, he had ended the sex hurriedly and bit hit hard across the face for the trouble, he had received no payment, he had to be Mollie's other son; he was worried about her and wanted to reach her as soon as he could, so soon in fact that he'd endured abuse without complaint that he normally not have stood for… there were tears in his eyes, I was unable to discern if this was from the pain of being hit or the pain of hearing his mother's crying from behind the bead curtain.

I recognised him… his face was stored in my memory which meant he was important to me in some way. I only allow myself to retain relevant information. Without thinking I stopped him by placing both my hands on his shoulders and staring at every inch of him. He didn't drink; he didn't smoke; he took no illegal drugs… he had a tattered black hoody tied by the arms around his neck… he'd been with Harry the day she'd died. I'd seen him on the CCTV footage of her in Wimbledon Park. He was who she'd been waiting to meet.

"Er… Sherlock?" John said, attempting to lead me away from the young man.

"Yeah, sorry, I'm in a bit of a rush; any other night, including Christmas, I'd be happy to do anything you like…" the man explained, squirming to try and stop me from touching him.

I held him even tighter and said, "I don't want sex. I want to talk to you about Harry Watson."

"What?" John exclaimed; he let go of me.

The prostitute's eyes filled with panic and he squirmed even more, "No! No, I don't know what you're talking about!"

John pinned me to the man and the man to the wall by leaning his whole weight on my back, "Yes you do! You obviously do!" He hissed.

"Okay, John, calm down," I said as I struggled to prevent his bulk from pressing my face into the prostitute's.

"No." John answered flatly. He reached his non-bandaged arm over my shoulder and forced the prostitute's head into the wall.

I extracted myself from the bundle so that John was keeping the man against the wall by leaning his entire body on him.

"Please, we only need a few minutes of your time…" I explained, "I would suggest tipping your mother out of that room over there but we just broke the news to her that her husband was brutally murdered which does seem to have thrown her into hysterics somewhat. Shall we go for a walk, then?"