Sherlock

"Okay," says Lestrade, "So that's something we should have noticed. But what does it actually tell us, hm?" Three brown hairs and tousled bedding. The answer is there, and I can see it, and if he'd just shut up for a second- "Nothing, when you think about it. It's just another detail for when we talk about how elaborate he makes it."

"But that's it. The sheer lengths he goes to, there's no way this one thing can be incidental."

"Well? Come on, then. I'm waiting for brilliance, here." I wish he'd take that tone out of his voice. We're all half-slept and under pressure. There's no need to start tearing lumps out of each other. Trying to blot him out, trying to think it over. There's an answer, but nothing's working, nothing's making it real.

The other officer knocks the door. "Come in," he calls, "Yes, Sally?"

"Sir, it's Forensics. I can't even get sense out of them anymore. The phone's lying of there and I think he's still talking-"

Lestrade holds out a hand to quiet her, starts to get up. Muttering, "Ghoulish bloody wankers…" He eyes me on his way past but other than that seems content to leave me here. His subordinate lingers a little longer in the doorway. It's probably a few second too long before I turn to look at her.

"Do… do you remember-?" she starts, when I don't speak. I nod and she stops. "I think we-" And another pause, this time because Lestrade has suddenly cried out for Christ across the room. She leans back, checks there's nothing urgent, and looks back to me. Forensics, it seems, are a frustrating department to work with. "I think we got off on the wrong foot."

She's young to have found herself a detective. Not far beyond twenty-five, at a guess. A slope in her stance that speaks of dogsbody status. Nails painted, but bitten down to stumps that speak of taking it hard. "Not really. You misheard. No harm done." Jeans and blouse are boxy, shapeless; compensating for femininity in a predominantly masculine workplace. Her cuffs are still buttoned. Hard work and stress and her cuffs are still buttoned. I don't know what it means yet, but I respect it.

She approaches, sticks out a hand to be shaken. Says her name is Sally Donovan, but I already knew that, from Lestrade and from the swipe-card clipped to her front pocket. What's new and interesting is where that cuff pulls back and the skin on the back of her left wrist is more pink than brown, shiny, a little twisted. A burn. Gained in adult life, seeing there's no stretching or sign of any skin grafts. A burn. Just the edge of one, and perhaps it doesn't extend very far but then again, her cuffs are buttoned. So I introduce myself in return. But I suppose I mustn't lift my eyes; she takes her hand back, self-conscious.

I look past her, checking there's no one nearby. Then tell her, "Between you and me, there are good scars and bad. The good kind show that you came through something painful intact and they shouldn't be hidden." I know this because I have several of the other. I tell her this because… Because when it's told and over with she doesn't immediately snap at me to mind my own business and I knew that would happen.

Out across the office, Lestrade is starting in, "Listen to me, you grave-robbing piece of-… Hello?"

"I think I'd better go and help him," Sally says, and goes about it. Leaves me where it's quiet again, leaves me to thinking about sheets and hair and skin and all the little things a body sheds and… and that's it. I shout for Lestrade, but he's busy trying to get the reticent laboratory back on the phone. I'm about to go and get him when another phone rings.

It's in this room. The longer it rings, it's in Lestrade's coat, outside left pocket.

Lestrade's busy, like I said. Could be important. Could be to do with the case, maybe even the photographs, which I really do need to see. More so now than ever, now that I know what I'm looking for. And there could be no harm, so long as a thing is tastefully and thoughtfully done and I don't go yelling and calling anybody names. I've learned that from watching him.

So, yes, I fish it out, on its ninth or tenth ring now, and answer, "D.I. Lestrade's phone?"

"Then you are not him." Voice is thick, a little guttural. Scandinavian, maybe. English is learned, impeccable really. Too good to be newly arrived in the country, and too good to belong to an intelligent person who would have made it more colloquial by now.

"No."

"You are his friend?"

Interesting question, but I don't feel like I should be discussing semantics right now. "Yes."

"Good. You will do." Funny enough, I'm not sure I want to. This isn't a photo printer I'm speaking to. This isn't a professional. It isn't even anybody who knows Lestrade. "I want you to ask him what he thinks of my work, please. Yes?"

At this I get up and walk out across the office. Lestrade has his back to me. Tapping his first two fingers on the desk, holding the phone to his shoulder while he makes notes and mumbles a string of curses that doesn't even seem to allow him to draw breath. "And what work would that be?" I'm saying, at the same time as I'm tapping his shoulder. He won't turn. Waves me off. Sally is standing on the other side of him. Maybe it's his phone in my hand that worries her. Maybe something else. I tap again and he won't turn.

On the other end of the phone the unknown voice is saying, "He will know when you ask him the question."

"I'm not sure he will. You see, he's got an awful lot of cases on at the moment and I'm afraid one rather blurs into the next, so if you could just let me know who I'm speaking to?" If I'm right, what I've just said will deeply offend this voice, which, if I'm right, belongs to the last person in the world anyone sane would want to offend right now, but I'm stalling. Stalling for just long enough to grab a marker from a holder on the desk and on the nearest piece of paper scrawl the words 'Serial killer'.

Lestrade won't turn, so I hold it round in front of his face from behind.

And then he turns. Stares wide-eyed. This time it's definitely the phone which is the shock.

And the voice on the line is cool and assured and says, "He will know."

Jim

So, this might come across as an odd question, but do you ever get the feeling there's things going on that you're not being made fully aware of? It's that feeling, when you walk into a room and people go quiet. Either you're being really bloody stunning, or they were talking about you.

It's probably all in my head. This is another thing about getting up early; it makes the day so long. I'm all out of sync and everything was already strange. By ten o'clock I was already looking around, waiting for somebody to walk through the door. Dani and her tomato soup feels like days ago. So that's probably all it is. Nobody has showed up to keep me company. I'm just a little bit out of it.

After all, there's really no reason why I should be able to get hold of either of them.

I left them both still at her place this morning. Had to get away from all that… fluid. All the snivelling, the hack of a cough that was starting to develop, mucus rattling in a scalded throat, it was… I couldn't stay there. And Moran said, and I quote, "I'll just stay and tuck the princess in, and then I'm going back to my own bed, after such a rude awakening." Which was fine, absolutely fine by me, and I left them there sniping about the use of 'princess', and whether the term is affectionate or sarcastic, and other such typical Dani-and-Moran sort of concerns. Came back, sorted out the build-up from overnight, had lunch (at about eleven, this was). The afternoon was dragging a bit.

The thought that came into my head, how I was going to make time start passing again, was that I could call Moran. I would get him to talk to some people we know down at the Met, and find out where our Creepy friend stands. No details, just subtle. Just so we'd know what we're dealing with. After all, the big lad is my primary play right now. I need to stay in control.

And Moran's phone was off.

So I called Danielle's phone, in case he was still over there. She might have taken a turn for the worse. He might have turned his own off so as not to wake her, but hers would still be on.

She answered. At first I thought she was just snivelling, throat still choked up. But as she went on, mumbling, it became very clear she was speaking with her mouth full. Pig. Absolute pig sometimes… "James, what can I do for you?"

Suddenly, it just seemed like the most important question in the world. "What are you eating?"

"Sandwich, just."

"…It's not a big long sandwich in a sort of soft baguette type thing prepared for you by somebody who is contractually obliged to refer to themselves as a sandwich artist, is it?"

Dodgy as hell; "What difference would it make?"

"What branch?"

"Hardly matters."

"What shoes are you wearing?" She really did give me an argument about that. Went on about how I'm not the first man to ask her that down the phone and the answer is always 'whatever you want'. Then she tried to trick me, that she was no longer wearing shoes at all, but furry slippers. I asked again, more sternly, "What was on your feet when you dragged your wheezing, disease-ridden arse down to Subway, dear?"

"…Red ones."

Red and white, five inch heel, shipped in from Los Angeles the day they became available. So my terribly ill associate went out today and bought her lunch from, oh, any old branch of a chain we know the Creep to work for, wearing shoes she once described, in as many words, as her 'soul destroyers'. They have no power in and of themselves, but they… I can't explain it. The woman changes. I know the process; I feel the same way in good tailoring. I just can't explain it.

But the silence on the line was so innocent, so utterly vapid, and I didn't have the energy for the inevitable hours of interrogation. The truth, I suppose, will come to me eventually. It always does. So I moved on, "Why isn't Moran answering his phone?"

"Didn't he say he was going back to bed?"

"Mm-hm… Likely story. And what are you both up to, really?"

"Oh, sweetheart," she breezed at me, "only the veneration and protection of our beloved dark master, and the-" something unheard, because I hung up rather than listen to that shite. Then realized my mistake; she was probably counting on that. She knew as soon as she called me sweetheart the conversation was over.

But you understand, don't you, from even that much of a transcript, why I'm concerned. I'm not just pulling this out of thin air, am I?

Where they made their big mistake was not ten minutes later when Moran called. "Oh," I said, "So Dani can get in touch with you. It's just me you're not answering."

"Dani? I wasn't talking to Dani. I just woke up. My phone was off."

"Yeah, likely fecking story. So what is it that Sneezy and Sleepy have been getting up to since Doc walked out of the picture?"

A pause. He came back terse, but shaky; "You get an awful high opinion of yourself sometimes, mate."

"I just don't like people going behind my back." And speaking of… "Since when do you sleep on railway tracks? You should have told me if you'd hit hard times, Moran."

"What?"

"I just heard a train go past on your end of the line."

"No you didn't."

Okay, so now he was just lying. And he was calling me a liar. And saying I was hearing things. He wasn't even thinking about it anymore. Somebody, I'd wager, had whispered the words 'Deny everything' in his ear and he was taking that literally. I hope you can understand, I was getting frustrated. Sadly, it came over as just plain anger, asking again, "What are you playing at?" and asking it harder than before.

"Nothing you need to worry about."

"Then you don't need to worry about telling me, do you?"

Moran realized then he'd said too much and started giving me the whole nothing-to-tell, wasn't-what-I-meant line of crap. Must remember and tell him to bite his tongue out if he ever gets captured. He won't mean to. I'm not saying he'd turn traitor on me, never in a million years. In spite of everything, I trust him implicitly. He just shouldn't open his mouth sometimes, that's all.

Which is why I'm standing now in the corner shop, buying tins of tomato soup with a cab on the way. Moran's by a railway somewhere, but I know Danielle's at home, and if they think I'm not getting an answer out of one of them they've got another thing coming.