Jim

Upon returning to the comfort of my dear, dear home, and having quietly apologized for abandoning it while Moran was lagging behind with the bags, I learned two things.

One, I'm not as good at bugging out as I'd been thinking. Two, the Creep's not even as patient as we had previously thought.

I left the scrambled line plugged in. Threw the handset out, naturally, but never took the cord of the base out of the wall. Moran, who probably doesn't know he has a death wish, told me chirpily that I'd know for next time. Like I say, he was looking murdered, no doubt. Should have a word with him about that when I'm not the one that wants to do the murdering. Anyway, that phone is designed for privacy and to be untraceable. The line runs to an exchange where it gets bounced quite literally to Kathmandu, where another exchange makes the signal cellular and… somebody explained all this to me once. But it was a while ago, and the young South-East Asian lady in question had a knife to her throat. Moran, in fact, was holding it, and above her head I watched him as word-by-word of her jargon his eyes glazed over. It was fascinating. I suppose I wasn't listening to her as closely as I might have. But it works. I absolutely trust that it works and she didn't just sell me a phone and screw me over. After all, she had a knife to her throat.

He hasn't left any messages, is what I'm supposed to be saying here, phone doesn't work like that. But he's been calling. All the calls are logged when I get back on my own network.

Which is when I really know I'm home, by the way. All the rest is just stuff and things that I own, which is well and good, but it's not until I sit down and see my own main computer greet me, my own network, everything intact, everything I might have had to rebuild if things had gone more wrong, it's not until that that I really feel home. Like when you come back from a foreign holiday and finally get tea the way you like it again, that big sigh sitting down in your own chair; that feeling.

I know I keep getting off the point, but I really can't emphasize how nice it is to find my own slippers under my own desk.

Anyway, sorry, never mind that. Murderer. Creep. Him. He's been calling. Repeatedly. The calls get closer and closer together. They start out sane; one at lunchtime, I'm not in, so one after teatime. Then one the next morning. Another one at eleven, twelve-thirty, one…

Moran sees me staring at this, then comes over to see. "And you're absolutely sure," he says, "he doesn't know where you live? Because it's not too late to move back out."

"No," I say, too fast and not caring. "No, he doesn't know. So is it still one-way traffic, is it? Should I still fail to reply?"

I'm taking the piss but he looks at me like I've lost it. "Yeah. More than ever. You call him back now it looks like you've been all breathless and you're running to the bloody phone, doesn't it, mate?"

He leans past me, looking at the times. Addressing the side of his studious face, trying not to let the noise of the gears going in his shiny little head drown me out, "You had a very clingy client once and you don't like talking about it."

"Client? Me? I was in the army right up until I met you, remember?"

"I believe you, Sebastian…"

"Anyway, looking at this he'll probably call you in about three minutes anyway."

"And I should sound dead casual and like I've hardly thought of him."

"Shouldn't be too much of an act to put on, James…"

Well, I suppose I ought to have something ready for him, then. I put my mind to it, and Moran gets bored. Asks if I want coffee. There's still no machine, but I tell him yes. Just out of interest; I want to see what he does. Keep him amused while I think of something to keep Creepy Carl amused while Mycroft Holmes keeps me amused. Me? Oh yeah, I'm a plate-spinner.

It's really not difficult. Considering I gave him Dirty Harry already, he should have been able to keep himself happy. I suppose that's why it worries me that he's kept calling. That could be a problem. Burn that bridge when I get to it, though.

For now, I look again over my notes on the aforementioned-Chosen-One, blessed is he amongst coppers, chosen out by chance over a roulette table. It's the case of a lifetime if he plays it with any wit, though I doubt he will. Not even I can be that lucky in a casino. I read again all of that stuff about the man's ill father, and about his children, the eldest of whom is a boy and (all the information I have) 'at uni in the city'.

But with a name like Lestrade he shouldn't prove too difficult to pinpoint.

Actually, it takes about ten and a half minutes, because that's what I tell Moran when the phone rings. "What did I tell you?" he says, and I tell him how much more than three minutes it was. There's a silence, and I don't need to be looking at his perplexed, frustrated face to know he's asking himself how he's used up all that time and gotten no closer to even boiling the kettle.

"Are you alri-?" I begin.

"Just answer your fucking phone."

Because I'm a grown man and not the camp comic relief on a bad sitcom, I resist the urge to make the 'Ooh' noise. The one with three syllables where you have to, physical imperative, lift up your hands like a begging dog and make it all look as mincey as possible. I resist. I really, really resist.

Then, dead calm, dead nonchalant, I answer my fucking phone. "Hello?"

"Where have you been?" Ah, Jesus, a few days holiday from that voice and suddenly it's fresh all over again. It goes up my back in waves and settles at the place where he put his hand on my shoulder that first time we met.

You'll notice, though, if you're not busy trying to coax your skin out of whatever corner it's crawled into, that there was no 'hello' there. There was not, even, any form of address. He's very edgy. It's making him rude.

I lead by example, by my absolute relaxation. "Has there been some sort of problem, my friend?"

After a flustered pause, "No. No."

"Then what can I do for you?"

A challenge. I already know. I have everything he needs set out in front of me. But he can ask for it. I'm waiting for him to ask for it. Sounding lost, sounding small, "Where should I be?" he says.

"Get a pen and paper."

Sherlock

Can't believe I brought morphine into the flat. I swear… I get through a whole hospital stay completely clean, completely safe, barely so much as a bad twinge, and on my way out, for the love of God, I pick up this stupid, ugly little thing to bring home. Bringing it without a second thought into a space I have kept cathedral-pure since I first arrived here. It's not a breach of sanctuary if you take the mob by the hand and invite them inside. Christ, the stupidity of it, the blind, stumbling stupidity is just bloody incredible. All this time and now, like a spy who is shot and screams in their own language, here it is. This is my native tongue.

Of course, the flat is just an arbitrary space. It makes no difference whether I brought it here or went somewhere else and fired it before I came back. It doesn't. Objectively, that is. Subjectively, if I had been sitting here on this sofa, and had seen myself coming in with the needle I would have shoved self and needle both back out the door and shot all the bolts and piled furniture against it to keep this away from here.

Objectively, what has actually happened is that it's only now, too late to save myself, that I am sitting on the couch, and the still-wrapped needle is sitting on the end table. It's not even in the corner of my eye. That doesn't mean I can't see it.

Morphine is an especially relaxed sort of high. Anyone who's ever had to have it in hospital can tell you that. Morphine can take you down out of crucifying agonies and make it stop hurting. With some drugs, you just stop caring about the pain, but with morphine… that's it, it's gone. And when there's no pain to kill it will work its way over all of you, and make the tips of your fingers and toes tingle away into numbness. If you lie very still you can feel movement. A rising and falling, as if your soul could breathe, or a sensation of horizontal travel, like lying in the path of a warm, gentle breeze. Meditation can take you there too, but it's a bore. With morphine, you don't have to ask for that release, and it doesn't ask if you want it or not.

If you knew how good it was you wouldn't be shaking your head. I can only talk about it but if you knew, if…

It's temporary. It's temporary, it's temporary, it's temporary, it's temporary, it's temporary, it's temporary, it's temporary, it's temporary. This isn't working. It's temporary. This isn't working. Temporary is better than nothing. It's small. It's not a high like the old high. It's just a little corner, a little dark place. I'll crawl in, and crawl out again fresh and rejuvenated. That's all. It's a night's sleep, that's all. (It's temporary, but what does that matter?) This isn't working, so far, and the morphine is guaranteed to work, even it is only temporary. It's a chemical. A chemical must, by nature, work. It's reactions are set. Variable, yes, but essentially set. I know what it's going to do to me and…

And there's a knock at the door.

Mycroft. I'm starting to get used to this. So I get up, and first I go to the window… But maybe he has a driver and a PA out there and maybe they'll see and I'll never hear the end of it. So in the end, I put the needle in the cupboard under the sink. I'll go back and throw it out later.

Then draw a glass of water, to clear my throat. By which stage, Mycroft is knocking again and really, I appreciate the polite little effort, but if I'm getting used to it, he should be too. I call, "It's not bolted."

Almost immediately, I know it was a mistake; the hand on the door handle is slow, tentative. The door only half opens, and then someone is looking for where my voice could have come from. I say nothing. Ready to duck if something other than a human hand creeps in at the door, ready to get a knife out of the drawer if it comes to it.

It is, however, a human hand. A black one, with familiar damage at the just-seen edge, that makes me relax and say, "Over here."

Donovan edges in, looking round for me. It strikes me almost every time we meet I'm just sparking up a cigarette. At least this is the first one she's witnessed that I really need, that is to steady a tapping finger, a familiar shudder in the muscles. What must she think of me? Matter of fact, first thing she says is, "You alright?"

"Just a bit shaky."

"Maybe should've stayed in hospital." Oh, that's what she meant. There's still a small plaster over the puncture on my neck, though the bruises are starting to yellow away at the edges. "I've been over there already."

"Sorry. It was something a snap decision. Did they give you this address?"

"Lestrade did. He wants to say thank you. That noise sample stuff, it was a real break for us."

I don't ask her why he didn't come himself. Think about it; they never did call me back. I am out, and they'll be looking for any involvement on my part. Monitoring him. Hence, our go-between. Much as I hate to admit it, her low status is working in our favour. They don't miss Sally Donovan when she just nips out of the office for, oh, two or three hours. I don't ask her what I already know. Instead, I tell her, "I'm sorry you're stuck in the middle of this."

Donovan shakes her head. "Don't be." She stands still a second longer. Then, without any trigger I'm aware of, goes to sit down at the table, shrugging off her jacket.

"So what's happening now?" I'm staying by the ashtray, by the way.

"They're looking at the areas that match. Although any time you get in touch with them they're eating…"

"They're… what, patrolling?"

She nods, "They're a bit obvious to be stake-outs."

Oh, for God's sake. Give all that hard work over to my brother, go and get stabbed in the neck trying to repay him in kind, languish in a hospital bed and they flood all possible opportunities with face-stuffing prats who might as well wear their old uniforms and drive around in bloody panda cars… Honestly, I can't be the only one seeing this, could I? You'd cry, sometimes, wouldn't you, seeing it all…

"Then he's gone."

"What?" she says.

Like I should have to explain this. A very careful operator who has escaped notice, or at least identification, at his two prior scenes. They had him while he was weak. There were options, but somewhere in the middle of it all they had him. And they marched in waving a big flag that said, 'the poleece iz heer' and blowing trumpets and now… "And now he's gone."

Then, while that's sinking in with her, while the nicotine is starting to hit, the afterthoughts come. It's just nebulous dread at first, but it takes form, solidifies, gives itself features and details, becomes a probability more than an instinct.

"Gone," I tell her, "and probably rather annoyed, after such a close shave."

"You're saying it won't scare him off?"

"Not even a little bit. He'll be out to teach you all a lesson, more than likely…"