Jim

Moran says it had to happen sometime. For one, I don't think he's right. There's something we could have done. One or all of us, some extra care or precaution we could have taken. For another, I wish he wouldn't say it anyway because it doesn't make it any easier to take. Now, the world hasn't ended; they didn't get any of us. Yet, I suppose. The work is safe too. I'm still not a known face, I don't think, and once we get Dani back she'll be able to report on it all.

This didn't have to happen, though, I'm sure of that, and I hate the fact that it has.

"If we can find out," I tell Moran, "who's responsible for this? Don't get offended when I don't ask you to shoot them, okay? It'll be in the post. It's just that I'll have to do some work first to make it much harder than just shooting them, okay?"

"Understood. Appreciate the advance warning. You're looking a bit murderous yourself there, mate. Do yourself a favour; try and keep it down for now. It won't serve you 'til the time."

"Appreciate it." I really do. It's sound advice. But it's easier said than done. Where I'm from, the way I do business, you go after the person you want. And yes, maybe that involves finding some roundabout way to get them, fine, but you do not try to use their nearest lieutenants. It doesn't work for the drugs squads and it will not work for these fuckers. Top of the list, my lieutenants are too fucking smart, or they wouldn't be who they are. I make jokes about Moran and his big mouth, but that wouldn't really happen in the pinch.

And damn close to top of the list? It's just rude. And I really, really hate that, in business. So calm down, yes, is good advice, but maybe not just yet. Maybe not while I'm only just starting to shape in my mind how fucking biblical it's going to be when it comes.

Sherlock

The good news is, I don't feel like I'm in danger.

The bad news is Danielle Mies has deceived me, and the way I feel, before. Sometimes I feel that may well be what her business is, even before she could dream of picking the first pocket.

So far, she has sat next to me, less than a foot between us, on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. Very calmly, without a word, with the tip of a steel nail file, she scraped the little sticker off her phone. Went and washed it down the sink, left the water running. Sorry, Mycroft. Since she came back, she's been using nail varnish remover, sharp acetone, to wipe away the residue.

"So," she says, "I was to be getting an explanation?"

"You're my best criminal contact. And I needed to know... If I made you think of anything."

"Are you being deliberately vague, or do you want to take a second and plan what it is you want to say?"

When I was at my worst I could have phrased this perfectly in half a heartbeat. Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself. In actual fact that's just how quickly I would have said it, mistakes and all. Would have given too much away. Maybe that's why she used to like talking to me so much.

The way I put it, eventually; "There is a rumour, currently, amongst the security services, about the criminal classes. And it occurred to me that the best way to test its veracity would be to make the same rumour move in the criminal classes and see what came out of it."

Putting it together, simplifying it, "Bug me, knowing I'd be wary considering how we parted ways, see who I ran to or warned... It's quite a sound plan, actually. Little bit too subtle to work properly. I mean, I believed your twelve-step story. There's also the fact that you could have just asked. I owe you that much for not telling your brother I'm still in the country. I don't forget favours like that."

Decent of her. Maybe I'm spending too much time with the like of Mycroft and Lestrade. Forgetting, the way the proud and the thoughtless will, that just because somebody operates outside of the law doesn't mean they aren't still somebody. Forgetting everything I already knew about a woman just because I knew she was a thief.

She says, "Does he know you're here, by the way?"

I toss it up. There's a safe answer and a true one but... But she's being straight with me, so far anyway. "No."

"Okay. So what's this rumour then?"

I tell her. What else can I do? Sorry Mycroft, sorry, Sally Donovan, but some spook I turned out to be. Captured my first time out and now about to just ask a straight question. It's so ridiculous there's almost a chance it could work. "The recent spike in the crime rates. The rumour is that somebody... orchestrated that."

Perfectly serious, with real interest in those sharp eyes, she says, "What, like a puppetmaster sort of idea?"

"Yes."

"Like a Blofeld?"

"What?" But when I turn my head for her answer, she's just starting to smile. In a dark and uncontrollable way, like she doesn't want to laugh in my face and can't help it. "So you think it's unlikely..."

"I think they'd love that, an explanation that easy. But... Well, put it this way; I was working during all that and you know me. I don't take my cues from anyone."

"Not even a whisper from anyone else?"

She laughs, right out loud now, not fighting it. "Nothing along those lines, gorgeous." She bends a little when she laughs, leaning away from me. The hand on her stomach is natural and I accept that, but the two fingers stretching out, trying to touch something at her side... I hook just the hem of her top and lift it. But the bruises are yellow, almost gone. The stitches are gone and the scar is dark and hard and no longer tender. "Yeah, it didn't exactly go to plan, what I was working on. You'll forgive me if I don't give up any details."

"I... I suppose you always were a fast healer."

The tip of my finger brushes the sealed wound (no longer swollen, no warmer than the surrounding skin). She winces and pushes me away. She's looking at me, studying, but as I lift my eyes she looks away. Sliding down from her stool; "Not all that fast. You'll excuse me; just going to knock back something barely legal, but I'll do it where you can't see."

Decent of her. But those wounds are older than the spike in audacious robberies. I need to stay and figure out why she would lie.

Jim

Moran's upstairs, choosing the best window to watch the street from. I told him and told him, nobody could know I'm here, but he says he's staying nonetheless. When I'm being totally honest with myself that slows my heartbeat down for the first time since I called Danielle.

I'm downstairs, myself, comfortable so long as I can still hear him moving about. Trying to set up as much as I can, but nothing I can't move in a hurry if it happens again. It's hard to settle, to concentrate. Can you blame me? All the things I don't know and I'm not in control of. Not even in my own space. I'm trying to think who was the last person we stashed here and if I sent round cleaners when the job was over. I must have done. I must have. I always do. The half-jug of fermented milk in the fridge, that was a one-off, an oversight. That's not waiting for me anywhere else in the house, no way.

It's not.

"Moran, do you want a drink?" I shout up the stairs. He's just thinking about his answer, but there's a pause. It's absolutely shocking how wound up I manage to get in that silence, even when I know he's up there, even when I know he's only thinking about it.

The reluctant (and blessed) reply comes back, "This is all a bit much like being on the job, so I'll not bother."

"Probably sensible; I don't even know what there is."

I'm just started to walk away again when he calls, "Jim?"

"Yeah?" This is the closest we've gotten to normal conversation all night. I think it's helping, actually.

"Last safe house me and you got stuck in, I locked a fella in a cupboard, do you remember?"

"Yeah."

"Did we ever let him out?"

"...He got out, but it wasn't us."

"So long as it was somebody."

And that, it would seem, is all he has to say on the matter, and all he has to say in total. Leaves me to the quiet and to searching out that drink. Not that I need it or anything. It's more, actually, about passing a bit of time until something happens, because God knows I'm not getting any work done this evening.

See, I anticipate situations like this. Not usually for me, but for clients. If you're having to be rushed to a place like this, likelihood is something important and carefully planned has just gone balls-up. I always make sure I can support my people. But I guess the last guest must have been a hell of a drinker, because I'm not finding anything. I should look that up. That would be old records; they're on a different hard drive in a bank box I'll need to get cleared out tomorrow. Find out what account any money was wired from and charge them some sort of minibar bill...

Then there's a phone ringing. Not mine. Not here but... Upstairs, Moran.

"Is that her?" I call on my way up.

"Unknown number. Could be."

"Put it on speaker," I say, and give him the nod.

He hits answer and the first words we hear are venomously hissed, from midsentence, "-fucking pick up, lads, don't have all night in here, you b- Hello?"

Her. Very definitely.

"Dani, where do we stand?"

"Nothing here I can't handle," she says. Fumbling in the background, working at something fiddly. "You?"

"Safe."

"Don't tell me where until I'm out of this flat."

I need to get her here, find out what she knows in secure surroundings. "I'll arrange a messenger, somewhere to meet and call you back. All you have to do is make it there without getting followed."

"This number, five minutes."

I worry about her when she's having to whisper. I worry more about whoever is there with her when she sounds that fucking pissed off. If I didn't know better I'd say there was something personal going on.

Moran doesn't sound worried though. His thoughts are elsewhere. All he needs is to hear the voice and know she's alive, see? If Danielle says she can handle herself, he'll believe that.

So, as an awful thought swells in my head, one that starts with, If this was her fault-, he graciously interrupts, "Always end up feeling sorry for her, y'know. Always her on the far end of that conversation."

Oh, I can hardly keep the contempt from burning the words alive, "Don't feel sorry. This is what sociable people get. This is the destined lot of people who get closer to other people than a telephone line or a telescopic sight. She brings this shite on herself."

Sherlock

She must have left her shoes in the bathroom. This is my first thought as something sharp and painful strikes me in the side of the neck. I didn't hear her coming. But it's a very strange way to cut a throat, and it's not until there's an all-too-familiar liquid rush that I realize what's happening. Too late to fight. I don't know what it is, but it hits me fast. I try reaching behind me to shove her away, but my hand won't comply, is limp and ineffectual.

Trying to say her name, it's just sounds.

Quietly, at my ear, "I really was glad for you, that you were in recovery." I am, I still am, why is this past tense? "But I don't like people trying to use me the way you just did. That shot was most of what's left of my painkillers. I was in a lot of pain. I don't know if it'll kill you, or put you in a coma, or just get you right off your face. And I don't much care. If you do survive, get out of here. Bring anybody else after me... Well, you'll see what happens if you try it. Just stay away."

Strong hands lay my head down, stroke my hair. With concentration, I can move my eyes and follow her. There are things she takes with her, though very little. She leaves in sportswear with a small backpack on, looking exactly like someone training for a marathon. I can't move when she leaves.

It's not good. There's no euphoria, or not enough of it to cut through the pain anyway. It hurts. It's been a long time since I was afraid of what was in a needle. A long time since I've hated somebody for giving it to me.