Sherlock

Three brown hairs are all it takes to keep me awake at night.

Don't get me wrong; insomnia is something I've been putting up with since childhood. I lie down in the dark and the silence and try to rest, want to rest. Then, utterly unbidden, whether there's anything to think about or not, my mind kicks into gear, accelerates to maximum velocity and will not stop. I've found there's very little you might even put in its way. It'll go through a flock of sheep in much the same away a combine harvester would. In fact, the only consistently effective cure I've ever known was…

But I'm not letting it in. Not even the word and especially not in the darkest hours of the night.

Actually, the thought of another sort of insomnia, of nights spent rolling in clammy sheets and unable to think coherently for a minute at a time, that helps to hold that other word at bay.

Tonight's sleeplessness is different. It's not a simple case of a brain perpetually hurtling into nothing, and it's not sick. Tonight, all it takes are three brown hairs.

One for each hotel room. Missed in the initial searches because, and I believe I quote, it wasn't a murder investigation yet. Three brown hairs which tied the scenes to a man who worked in the hotel and, aside from a few basic facts, could have been responsible. It wasn't a terribly clever frame-up… But it worked. When you think about it, you have to admit that it worked.

So why strike again? Why set that up only to give it all back?

It crossed my mind, of course, that having performed once the killer couldn't resist another round. The more I think about that the less sense it makes. He never intended to quit. Stopping will never have so much as entered this man's mind.

But what does that leave? What other cause to leave three brown hairs on three tousled pillows? And what should we have expected to find on the three new scenes?

And in this fashion, three brown hairs are keeping me awake.

Jim

God help me, I will never understand morning people. The Creep is a morning person. It's not so bad from him; he's a mental case, so removed from the normal, everyday run of things I wouldn't be shocked if he celebrated Unbirthdays. But any so-called 'normal' person who will wilfully get up before the sun, I want nothing to do with.

It's only in a very slow and yawning way I creep out of bed and stop hitting snooze. Can't be late. Wouldn't look professional, would it? You see, considering what I've got planned for my Peter-Lorre-voiced friend, I felt like I owed him some small concession. He wanted to meet in the morning and here I am, shivering my way to the shower. Mornings are cold. Just for any bloody morning people out there, here's an argument for you; mornings are so fecking cold. It's the spring, yeah, but this is England.

Y'know, since this whole business with the client base started, I've never met a single one of them face-to-face. It seemed so much safer and, really, there's never been any need; you can send an eighteen page instruction manual for early inheritance in the post. Even on the highly unlikely chance somebody finds it, they'll think it's a joke. And if they don't, it's hardly proof of conspiracy, nobody will have acted on it yet and it's illegal to read somebody else's post. So no, I've never actually gone out in the world and looked one of them in the eye. Much less a lunatic murderer with the same approach to his hobby as those who run fifty mile marathons.

Much less a lunatic murderer I'm supposed to be meeting at six thirty on Primrose Hi-oh God, I'm going to die, aren't I? Jesus Christ… And round there there's even bound to be a mattress abandoned in the bushes somewhere. Stitch me into my own genius idea, oh dear sweet Jesus, I'm going to die… I'll die before I even get there, because now I have to call Moran and try and get him up too.

Maybe if I just baffle him with orders he won't have time to think of killing me. So when he answers, on the tenth ring, I say quickly, "Moran, just get a gun, put a big coat on and try and look like a trained killer. Meet me on Primrose Hill, soon as."

"Wh-?" But I cut him off there.

A couple of minutes later, on my way out the door, this tremor runs through me like I don't want to go after all, it's alright, we'll be fine… Call him back.

"Yes, James, and good morning to you too…"

"But you are coming, aren't you? You didn't just roll over."

"No. I didn't just roll over."

Sherlock

By the time I finally give up the ghost, it's morning anyway. I really should make an effort to see more mornings, you know. There's something very hopeful about them. When you're falling, travelling in the other direction, every morning is just another hill you can't be bothered climbing anymore. That's why I sleep through them, why I'm trained that way. That and the fact that there's no alarm clock in the world can wake you out of the sort of stupors I used to put myself in, not until I was good and done with it anyway. But now, or this morning anyway, despite the exhaustion… I look out the bedroom window for a moment thinking to myself, there's a serial killer out there. And just because I haven't figured it out yet doesn't mean I'm not going to. Obviously the police will see it as their job but, well, that's precisely the problem. It's a job to them, most of them. In an ideal world, Lestrade's efficiency would not necessarily crush out the hope, the sense of vocation, I felt from the young officer yesterday. Sally , didn't he say her name was?

What I mean is, the police might not be the best equipped force for actually solving crimes. A very effective means of enforcement and of meting out justice but when it comes to the actual investigation… It's become a job to so many of them.

And yet (and this is what I meant about mornings being hopeful), when I leave the bedroom the first thing that catches my eye, back in the dim of the windowless corner kitchen, is a little pulse of light that means I have a message on my phone and have had for some time.

Two facts become apparent very quickly. Firstly the message came in at around four-thirty. Secondly it's from Lestrade.

It says, what about the hairs though?

There's a heart in him. I knew that and never doubted it. We met last year and I came very quickly to know he had some semblance of a brain, and a very definite heart. That's why it's been so disappointing to see him changed, to see all that gone out of him.

I text back, I know. Can we meet?

But nothing comes back. At first it's just not right away. Maybe he had better luck than me and fell asleep in the end. Maybe he's getting ready for another long day's work, or still having trouble dragging himself out of bed, or having trouble dragging his son out of bed for college. Maybe he's lying next to a more attractive prospect, as far as breakfast companions go, smelling of perfume again, committing the copper's cardinal sin of silencing his phone.

I get dressed, make coffee, finish it, light a cigarette. Still nothing. Finish the cigarette. And then my foot starts tapping, and gets too fast for its own rhythm, becomes jittery and erratic.

Thinking to myself, three brown hairs. Three brown hairs that make no sense, but my brain has lost those firm moorings and in the quiet, tired morning is starting to pick up speed again, with a counter firing up and up as it ticks off every tap of my foot and the corner of my eye trying to trace the lightning-like cracks in the ceiling plaster and a very familiar and most unwelcome instinct wanting desperately to count the floorboards between me and some arbitrary point like the back of the sofa, and paining me for every moment that instinct is denied and it hurts again, everything hurts again. Trying to think about nothing more than the three brown hairs, but I've let go of it now and it's gone. Spent too long thinking it over and not getting anywhere. It's not enough to go on, alone, it needs some point of comparison, probably from yesterday's crime scenes, but I need Lestrade for that and Lestrade hasn't text me back and I wish he would, I hope he does, I wish he would, because I know this feeling and I know exactly where I'm going to end up and how soon and what it'll feel like and how long that's going to bloody last and what'll happen when it's over and I know, and I know, and I've known it all before.

As calm and stoic as I know how to be in this state, I go to the low bookshelves under the next window, and out of the phonebook I take the strangest thing I've ever found useful. It's the little card Mycroft left, the one that came in the violin case. The instrument itself has been placed carefully in the very farthest corner of the deepest darkest cupboard (turned out to be the one under the sink), but the card… I kept that. Keep that in the phonebook. So it'll always be there and not get damaged or lost.

It works better than methadone. I don't know why. Just that one note he left me, a time and a place and an invitation which had already accepted to be declined. But it works. At first I can hardly make the letters stand still to read it, but I can force that. I can force that, and those words anchor me. Meaningless, trivial words. No, not meaningless. Trivial was correct, but not meaningless. Not when they can weigh me back down, bring my feet back to earth. And even when the card is read and read again and more than read, I still sit there holding it, looking without seeing. Until the phone rings or until it stops working, whichever comes first.

Jim

Where I'm standing, later in the day when sunlight has had a chance to warm the mist off, there'll be an iconic view of London. Right now, there's not. Right now there's mist, and though Moran assured me he'd keep me in sight, I can't see him. Not that I need to, not that I don't trust him, not that I can't handle myself if it comes down to it. I'd just… like to know, alright?

Anyway, despite snoozing and having to rouse a sleeping hitman for company, I ended up early. In terms of the professionalism, the theatre of the moment, it works out quite well. I am easily defensible here at the top of the hill, and whatever direction you come at me, I'm probably cutting a decent silhouette in the veiled morning. In terms of giving me too long to stand around thinking about who might be coming to see me, it was a very bad idea.

There's a jogger on one of the paths far below me, just a dark blur with reflective stripes on his or her top. There's a woman in a long coat and a stupid hat walking an equally stupid-looking dog. But other than that, nothing.

Then he appears. Or I think he does, anyway. He's a blur at first. And then starts to resolve and Lord God, but he's a big fella. Heavy set. Shoulders as broad as two of me laid side-by-side. But from the shoulders he goes down in a triangle, to two ridiculously dainty feet that bring him steadily along the tarmac in a little sort of trot, like Frankenstein's monster trying out ballet. Wearing the kind of anorak and the kind of scarf your Ma might send you at Christmas, with his hands stuffed down in the pockets. And now, as he gets closer, I realize it's not the mist that kept his features undefined; he just looks that way. Big, doughy, baby-face…

Part of me wants to walk on whistling like I'm just out taking the air of a morning and nothing to do with him and leave him to wait for a totally different Mr Moriarty. But I suppose I've been looking at him too long to pull that now. He walks right up and says good morning. Me answering him is probably all the moment of recognition he needs. He says it might be best if we kept walking.

Not that I'm inclined to give in to every petty request, but that shape, that face… that voice coming out of it, good God… I just don't want to give him any excuse to argue with me. And may Sebastian Moran be skinned alive if he isn't stalking my every step like… like… I'm sorry, you'll have to think of something yourself. I'm walking alongside a serial killer and having to sternly remind myself not to call him the Creep to his face.

"I'm very grateful," he begins, "for your kind assistance so far."

"I'm glad to hear that," I tell him. "And for what it's worth, you've been very impressive." It's worth a lot, apparently; he lights up, from the inside, glowing the way you'd expect a saint to glow. Excitable as a child he asks if I really mean it and that I'm not lying and how happy he is to hear it. And, though naturally the flesh of my back is trying to cree-crawl, up over my shoulders, this is all good news for me, really. "I don't think you'll mind doing what I want to ask for you," I tell him, as soon as the dry, closed-over feeling in my throat can be swallowed down (he is a good eight inches taller than me. I'm not intimidated, I'm just saying).

We walk on while I explain it to him. At first he's a little reticent. That's understandable. It's never easy, coming out of where you're comfortable, opening yourself up. He'll turn himself into a target, doing this. But you don't have to pay him much attention to know he's not going to be the next Bundy. Prolific, god yeah, but he doesn't have that longevity, that restraint. I see, and he comes very quickly to see, that my way is good for him. It doesn't take him long to agree.

I hand over Dirty Harry's business card. Cheap, thin cardboard. Every cop has hundreds, for handing out to witnesses and victims and the like. Could have found it anywhere. But he holds it, my Creepy man-child friend, like gold dust, and places it very carefully in a very secure inner pocket of his red, padded anorak. To me, that's a good sign.

"This is…" he begins, and doesn't know how to finish it. "Strange," comes eventually. Then, "Good."

Maybe. Time will tell.

For now, we've come to the end of the path. The Creep claps me on the shoulder, like a friend – me trying desperately not to stumble under the weight of it, not at this stage – and says, "I must go now. Catch my bus. I am opening the restaurant today."

So that's why we're so early. But purely out of morbid curiosity, to see where I can send people that they might be served by murderous hands I have to ask, "Where do you work?"

With another swell of untempered pride, he removes from inside the coat a baseball cap, bearing the trademark of his exceedingly popular place of work. A sandwich chain. They're not paying me to advertise but if it had sprung up in London rather than New York, we would have had sandwich shops called Underground, does that help you?

He goes away, still with his excellent and most heartfelt grin on his face.

Out of mist or trees or whatever was hiding him, Moran appears next to me. Probably his greatest trick is that he doesn't spook me at all, just falls naturally into place, like a shadow, as we watch him go.

"Do you think he's going to turn around now?" I ask him after a while.

"No. Why?" But the second I heard the N leave his mouth I was showing him why; stopped fighting the urge and started trying to bat the shoulder of my coat clean of that hand, the flesh below of the pressure of it, the heat. It's not working. Really have to get my arse in gear and find a new dry cleaner…