Jim

Well, in a very brutish, blunt instrument, very Danielle sort of a way she was on to something. I made her shut up then too. Let her know I understood what she was telling me, but then I made her shut up. No sense ruining a good breakfast with business. I let Moran go back to his story instead. Even though it was a story that was utterly certain to feature the phrase, 'And then I shot the bastard', eleven times plus the substitutes, he needed to tell it, so I let him. He's an incredible creature, y'know; if something, like that little interruption for instance, perplexes him, but then appears to be dropped? Moran just bypasses it completely. It's good to have him around when I don't want something like a nice breakfast ruined.

But breakfast is over now. All cleaned up and everything returned to normal. Moran's on his way to the airport. I sent Danielle off to a man who runs a props warehouse in the West End and some of them aren't actually props. Obviously she knew I was getting rid of her, but she loves a shopping list. I think they're a challenge to her. Couldn't resist, in the end, and anyway, I wasn't giving her a choice. She wants to get involved, that's fine, but no more writing her own ticket. This is my big play and I'm going to stay in control of it.

So I got this morning's queries out of the way. They were unremarkable, but for the classic, the one for the Christmas card, 'I have been lying on the same roof with the money for three days now. Have you had any ideas yet?' Yeah. Three days ago I had the idea the guy was a moron and really unworthy of any further ideas. And I told him so. And he's stayed on the roof.

I sent back, 'Jump off and believe. My trained eagles will catch you.'

So we'll see how that pans out. It has the potential for hilarity, I think you'll agree. But yeah, other than him, nothing really stands out. I got it all done inside half-an-hour or so and then put it all to one side. Moving papers off the desk, I found a print-out of the map. Dani must have gotten bored sometime last night. She given it a viewer friendly, TV weather report feeling, doodling a bagpiper getting hit over the head with a mallet and a football-shaped bomb over the appropriate portions of the country. Northern Ireland is under one giant mushroom cloud and I'm trying to think back to my various correspondences, but I don't think… I mean, I'm hoping I wasn't tired or irritable enough to send nuclear warheads. I'm not even sure where I'd get one of those but, well, you never know. But I don't think so. I hope not…

Anyway, the other thing she's done is drawn many big, lazy red circles around the Greater London area, and a big lazy red question mark in the middle of it. Bitch. So bloody sarky sometimes… Obviously London's gotten off light. Everybody knows, you don't shit on your own doorstep.

Oh, but then again, everybody knows that. Really I should have picked, like, Hull or Stoke or some other arsehole-of-nowhere settlement and given that a wide berth. Yeah, well, if there'd been any planning time I would have come to that. As it is…

As it is…

Another face. Like a puppet. Somebody with no honest connection to anything, but who can focus it, centralize it. Somebody to be me, but leave me free to work. And yeah, this person will be captured at some stage, and either imprisoned for a long time or, more likely, shot. Not only will the spooks show up to shoot them, but if they're captured they're liable to get all truthful and I'll have to get Moran to visit. But then I'll just replace that one with another one.

Oh, yeah, yeah, it's a great plan, it's a work of minor genius, absolutely. Barring, of course, one rather large obstacle; where do you find one who would be headcase enough to take that on? Can't just frame one; their cluelessness would be too obvious. Can't frame somebody who already knows of my existence because… well, they already know of my existence.

Dani was onto something. But the more I think about it, the reason I didn't come up with it myself is because it's something that doesn't go anywhere.

Thinking the problem over has clarified it. Here it is, in short, easily comprehensible sentences. I have, in the last week, bent this country over and fucked it rigid – if you'll pardon the metaphor. If you'll forgive me extending it, Britain won't be able to sit down for a year, and it'll be a long time before it stops thinking about me. But nobody has realized yet exactly what's happened. So what I need, in fine, is a way to test their reaction. I need to know how the world would feel about me, but without ever actually being real or present in any way.

…Yeah, maybe I should just concentrate on London for now.

I put the map up big on the projector and, for a relaxing while, fire paperclips at it with an elastic band. Doing pretty well, too. The only time I miss is because the phone's ringing. The scrambled one, the work-line, so I don't answer with Hello or anything. I just pick up and wait.

After confused seconds, "Hello? Mr Moriarty?" Ah, it's Peter Lorre again… the Night Nurse (it's totally going to be Night Nurse. While I've got him on the line I bring up the Sun's website and look for breaking news)

"Yes?"

"Did your secretary give you my message?" I have to cover the phone a second until I stop laughing. Wait 'til I tell her. I'll bet this scumbag thinks he knows what cruelty and pain are. He's seen nothing yet, let me tell you…

"She did, yes. I suppose you'll be wanting somewhere to hide your head now they've found them."

"No, no, no," he says, very quickly. Really does have a very scary voice, y'know. "No, I am ready for another challenge."

Aw, such relish! How can I tell him to fuck off in the light of that kind of enthusiasm? Aw, he's a good lad, at heart, this one. He can't help it if he sounds like he should be voicing a cartoon germ for a Domestos ad.

So why not? He's London-based anyway. I've no darts to throw at the map, but I've got a street guide in the desk. So I pull it out, drop it on the desk, and with my eyes shut I put my finger down on the page it opens at. "Um… Kitchener Road. Small, residential street, right out Friday Hill way."

I hang up, and give the map a new pin, out Friday Hill way.

Sherlock

The sound of my phone ringing brings me round. I'm in a bath, with the shower curtain pulled. Why was that? Oh, yeah, people were still using this bathroom, that's right… Hate these bloody dosses, but that's the point; I'm not bringing any junk back to the flat. The flat stays clean, even if I can't.

It's actually quite nice, back here behind the curtain. It's private and quiet. Except for the phone, of course, that's loud and echoing and insistent and doing my head in, so I have to stop it. I fish it out of my pocket and, without looking, hit the cancel button. But then a couple of seconds later there's a mumble, somebody speaking to me from very far away. I look down, actually open my eyes this time. It was upside-down. I hit answer instead of cancel.

"Yes, hello," I cover too quickly, "Hello?"

"Sherlock, is that you?"

Lestrade. I clear as much of last night out of my throat as I can, end up coughing. It's hard to feel ashamed of it, though; he doesn't sound much better off.

"I just thought I'd let you know," he says, "We got him."

"What?"

"Hotel killer."

"…What?" No. No, hold on. A killer who'd put that much time and effort into the kill and the cover-up, who had the better part of a week as a headstart? And they've got him? How long was I unconscious? No, there's something wrong here.

"The hairs in the beds. They weren't human. Made to look like it, yeah, but artificial. The lab came through with that in the early hours. Sent a fella back round to the hotel and they were able to tell him, straight away, yeah there's a concierge with a cheap toupee, came down in the lift with a luggage trolley on Thursday night. That was it cracked, once the hairs came through." He sounds happy, or as close to it as I'd expect. It's the relief of a man who can move a file off his desk and along to the courts.

"Lestrade, I-"

"Oh, God," he moans, with hate in it, "What is it now?"

If I just burst his bubble, he'll hang up and never want to come near me again, Mycroft or no Mycroft. What's the best way to handle this? "Nothing. I just wanted to ask if I could… see him. I mean, if he's still in your hands."

Most unorthodox, I know, but then again so was my involvement from the beginning. He appreciates that. Has to turn it over in his mind, but in the end he comes back, "Where are you? I'll send someone."

In a bath and other than that I won't be entirely sure until I step outside and see the street names. I delayed a little more in coming here by wandering farther than strictly necessary and, well, I forget just how far. "No, that's alright." I check behind the leather patch on the back of my jeans, and yes, the emergency money's still there. Old dosser's trick, that, in case someone goes over your pockets while you're out. "That's alright, I'll get a cab."

"I'll meet you at reception." He sounds agreeable. Maybe he's glad of the break. Maybe he's just relieved I didn't take away his supposed victory. Yet.

I could be wrong. The whole way over in the taxi, I know I could be wrong. I hope I am. I hope it's just been a one-off, maniac bellboy goes postal, nothing more to it than that. I hope I get there and take one look at him and I can turn and shake Lestrade's hand, say well done. But something about it just doesn't sound right.

He still looks proud of himself when I get there. He meets me with a coffee, to repay the cigarette he borrowed last night. A most agreeable arrangement, since I'm trying to stretch the last of this high until we finish here. Just to make matters worse, as he leads me down to the holding cells, passing me off as a witness, he says, "I was talking to your brother. Properly this time, not just the secretary. He tells me you're… recovering?"

Well, he shouldn't have. But Lestrade and I first met last year and I was a lot worse off than I am now, so I can see how the subject might have come up.

This morning, as I am, I can't really think of what to say to him. "If you don't mind," is where I get in the end, "it's sort of a private thing."

"Of course." And it really, genuinely sounds as though he's accepting it. The same way Mycroft did. The way I didn't expect either of them too. He's quiet after that, but not in an offended way. And then he's signing us in and we're on the dark side of two-way glass, looking through to an interview room, where a man has his bald, liver-spotted pate in his hands over a table, and is crying.

I take one look at him. Turn around to Lestrade and can only look at him. He lifts his brow, daring me to challenge him and I just can't help myself; pointing through the mirror, "Oh, come on!"

He folds his arms, starts to look how he sounded on the phone. But I've got him here now where he can't hang up on me.

"A divorcee with custody of his children, who was only covering that night-shift when he supposedly murdered all those people, which was probably a last minute thing. The only exercise he gets is playing football with his son which is, I presume, where you picked him up; well done, traumatise the child while you're at it, did anybody see the boy home? Thought not… Lestrade, take one look at that middle-aged, smiling, church-going customer service rep and tell me he could move a double mattress that didn't have two carefully posed dead bodies in it."

It's all there. White band on the third left finger, none of the marks of the sleepless single man, not to mention that tie could only have been chosen by a child, the slight mud spatter on the sides of his trousers, one tell-tale round pressure spot of it. He picked his son up from school and they messed about with a football on the way home. He's heavy, yes, but none of it's muscle. That alone should have been enough to clear him of all suspicion.

Lestrade could quite happily leap across the room and tear my tongue out by the root. He doesn't. He starts in, "Do me a favour, Sherlock…"

"I take it you have staff rotas for that night? Because I notice you didn't correct me when I said night-shift and, hollowing out seven mattresses, murdering eight people, I'd say we're looking at eight to ten hours work there already, wouldn't you?"

He cuts the air with both hands, as if calling an end to all this; "We're charging him."

With honesty, with a touch of moral superiority I probably have no right to feel, I tell him, "If I'd thought for a second you would ever say that to me… You know I'm the only reason you kept your job after-"

"After you were the reason I nearly lost it, yeah."

He's glaring, not at me, but over my shoulder at the door. "I take it we're finished here?"

"Bye-bye, now."