Jim

"Say that again."

"Alright, love, no need to get wound up."

"It's not a threat, Danielle, just say it again, the last thing you said."

She has to think about it. Got too wound up herself then, thinking she was in danger. "…One man government department?"

Oh, fucking bingo. Got you now, you invisible bastard, got you by the fucking scruff. I point over at Dani and then to the door. "Get out."

Crisp, asking me if I want to correct myself, "I beg your pardon?" Fear of threat didn't last long did it. And no, no, I don't want to correct myself, dear, sorry.

"Get out now, is that any clearer?"

I've got work to do. She'll hover. She'll be waiting. Won't mean to, but she will, and it'll put me off. So much as I don't like sending her out of the room with her hackles up (that's a lie, by the way), that's what I have to do right now. She's got work to do herself anyway. Her and Moran both, and they've been neglecting it. They have other things on their minds. I've been allowing it. Shouldn't have done that; spare the rod and spoil the sociopath. So if she could graciously be in the next room for a couple of hours thinking about a steal-to-order that can wait no more than another week, that would be excellent just now.

I'll make her a drink later on, something like that. After all, it was her little rant that solved this.

Because one man does not a department make.

My problem with Holmes was that he was everywhere at once without ever actually being anywhere. It seemed to me to be a unique position. But that's only because I've never come across it before. And look at the hours of tireless slog it took to even get that far. Oh, this is gorgeous. This is a stroke of accidental genius. Really must remember to get a look at all this later on, try and break it down so I'll be able to do it again someday, because flashes of inspiration like this must be so, so rare.

I've got everything I need ready and waiting. Already had people hack all the personnel records I've been studying. Really, it's just a case of cross-referencing. Not looking for Mycroft anymore, nah, I'm finished with him for now. He's in a mantrap and will stay where he's been put until I'm ready for him. Because I've got him.

SIS Associated Persons, HMAF Consultancy Records, FCO Trusted Agencies, every letter in the alphabet and every piece of jargon, it's just a case of running it all together and seeing where the repeats happen.

And then, like doubled up trading cards, they appear. One by one as they are picked out, I stack them up in print-outs on the desk. Nothing more on them than I have on Holmes; name and portrait and that's all. But what else do I need, really? I wait and a couple more pop up. I wait.

In the end there are fourteen of them. Not a one of them worth looking at. They are, for the most part, carbon-copy jobsworths in grey suits. Except for one game old bird with a pink rinse, but when it comes to the British Government, nothing would surprise you anymore. Fourteen. Name and picture, I take the print-outs and put them up on the wall behind the desk. Then, as an afterthought, draw the blinds down. Just in case. But there they are, by the yellow light of the desk lamp. This is your department, Dani my dear. Thirteen-man department, plus one bright-eyed old bitch I instinctively worry about.

That was easy. Genius always is, and didn't I tell you it was genius?

The question now, and the one where I could use another bright and sudden light of new knowledge, is what fucking department?

Granted, I've done no research on Mycroft's newfound friends, but I bet they're all like him. Who are these people, planted everywhere, without existences? Sanctioned by everybody and known by nobody. God, if only I could be sanctioned by everybody. I wish they were a big proper department. Somebody could slip my name onto one of those lists and I'd be having a whale of a time. But with just fourteen of them, I've got a feeling they'd notice me.

While I study them, I set up another search. I'm not really expecting results, if I'm honest. I'm running their names through the usual checks, and all the data I've gathered of late. I've been working hard, remember, and hard work brings rewards. A lot of stuff has been filtering back to me. Until now I haven't had time to go over it properly. What the computer turns up, I'm not sure I would have noticed it even if I had.

Eight out of the fourteen names appear. This goes right back to last year, to a file I got off an American mercenary about the death of an African dictator. And yes, that sounds a lot more glamorous than it really was. Next to or near or in the vicinity of seven of those eight occurrences, the same word turns up. 'Diogenes'.

There's a professor at Trinity with a dog called Diogenes. That's probably not the connection, but somebody asked him once what the name was all about. He said it was what the academe was all about; over-intelligent sods refusing to talk to each other, pulling small-minded stunts, and scratching their fleabites.

I pick up the work phone. While I'm talking, turn around and look at the pictures again. Two rows of seven; something about that is annoying me.

The gent I'm calling is called Xkwisit. It's probably not the name his mother gave him, but for now, that's all you need to know. So Mr Xkwisit answers and I ask him, "Do you know whose voice this is?" He does. "And do you know the way you've got that thing for married women?" He does, yeah. "And do you remember the woman that was married to that East End face and you came begging?" He remembers that and all. He's a good lad, that way. "And do you remember how you told me you'd do just about anything except for Central Government?"

"I remember," he says. "But I'm standing by that one. Tell the fucker, I don't care. Take my chances with him over the spooks any day."

Well, that's fair. That's Mr Xkwisit's decision. He's entitled to it. I can't force him to go diving for a certain very alluring keyword, now, can I? "Okay," I tell him.

Him, sounding deeply suspicious, "Okay?"

"Yeah, absolutely okay. I'll look elsewhere." I won't. He's the best on my books or I wouldn't have bothered calling him. "Look, if you change your mind, it's big money and it's all yours. You have a number for me, don't you?"

Still sounding very shocked, "Yeah… Yeah, I do."

Cheery as I can be, "Bye then!" Hang up. Dial another number.

"Hello?"

"Moran, I need you to go visiting for me."

I can't force Xkwisit to help me. I'm in a flat, far from him, rearranging the faces on the wall. Two rows of seven was wrong. Departments have hierarchies. I pick an elderly gent who was too grumpy to pose properly for his portrait and put him at the top. Under him, the flamingo woman and a man with a face you could cut cheese on. That's enough, isn't it? One general, two lieutenants, and then the foot-soldiers. Isn't that how organizations like this work? No, I'm too far away and far too busy to force Xkwisit into hacking anything.

Moran can do it, though.

The word is Diogenes, and there is no other word.

Sherlock

Lestrade is otherwise engaged. Donovan talks me through the crime scene. This time the killer's entry into the building is a factor for investigation. Past the guard at the back, and avoiding the regular nightly patrols in the area, it shouldn't have been possible. We'll come to that. Another factor is the distribution of the victims. The mews here are broken into apartments that sleep seven. Six of the victims were in one flat, with one young man left alive. The last victim was from next door.

After the family in their hotel suite, and the three housemates out at Friday Hill, I'm starting to question the way the killer moves around these scenes, how he manages the murders and the ritual disposal without discovery. How he even knows they're all asleep.

But we'll come to that too.

Because there is one more important thing in all of this. This time, there is a witness. She is the only student still in the building, in her room across the hall from the murder scenes. Sitting on the edge of the sofa, sobbing, as one might well imagine and understand. Holding a cup of tea in trembling hands like she doesn't dare lift it up to her lips. I can see all this because the door is slightly ajar. I'm not spying. There's just nowhere else to go. The men and women in white boiler suits have already arrived, filling the corridor with equipment and blue lights, creeping along the edges of everything with tweezers in one hand and evidence bags ready in the other.

"We call them the aliens," Donovan tells me. Not hard to see where that comes from, but I appreciate her wit, her attempt to include me when we're both stuck on the periphery. I am, however, lingering by the open door, not-spying and I motion for her to be quiet.

Inside, a deliberately-softened voice is saying, "In your own time, Emilia. Just tell us exactly what happened."

"Well, um," is the start. Not exactly promising. "I was late getting in. I was at the library." There's a very slight change in the tension; nobody in that room believes what she just said. "I was. I have essays due next week, I was at the library, I'd been there since lunchtime. Anyway, it closed at midnight, so it was probably half-twelve when I got back here? Everybody was… I don't know, in their rooms anyway if they weren't sleeping. And I heard somebody in the hall, heard them rattling a door handle. I thought it was Mark from just across because he was at the library too and he's always locking himself out. So I stuck my head out. And it wasn't him. I didn't know the person. I asked if he was alright, and he said he'd come to see David, and it was important so it didn't matter that it was late. Funny accent, funny way of talking English, y'know? And that was it. I didn't ask what he'd come about. If it was important I wasn't going to pry, was I? So that was it… Oh, no, it wasn't. It was… It was too weird. He asked me if I was a lion, because he was a lion too… But I didn't understand, I didn't know what to say to him. But that, definitely, that was it. I was probably in here eating bloody toast while he was…" The sobbing takes over here and the story ends.

It was a good story, wasn't it? Entertaining, I mean. It might as well have been, because a story is the only thing it is.

Donovan, who has accidentally overheard all this too, seeing she's standing right next to me, wells up with sympathy and understanding, murmuring, "Jesus Christ, poor girl."

"She'll be fine when the delusion goes off her. Pity you won't have her testimony."

"What?" Inside the room, they are trying to make her describe the killer. He was, she says, big, and the corridor was dark. It wasn't, though; the lights are on a motion sensor. "Are you saying she's lying?"

"No, of course not. Don't be so callous. She believes every word she's saying." Donovan stares, waiting for an explanation. I nod across the hall at the two open doors. "Which of those rooms had just one body in it this morning?" She indicates. "Female?" She nods. "Your eyewitness is the lonely corpse."

You only have to listen to Emilia's story to know she saw nothing. She hardly even remembers last night. I don't doubt for a second she really was at the library; I just wonder what she took to get her from lunchtime to closing time. She gets back, crashing. Things are quiet, though I doubt each and every of her flatmates was in bed. Outside in the hallway, a stranger is working at the door of one flat, and the seventh victim arrives at the door of the other. Says, "Can I help you?" and is told that he's here to see David. Emilia heard all of this, that's all. That's why she can't offer a description. The 'lion' comment she found so baffling probably referred to something in the corridor. It isn't her fault, not really.

"How am I supposed to tell them that?" Donovan says, more to herself than me.

I shrug, "Just tell them. Leave them no choice but to look into it. The evidence will bear it out. You just can't let that girl get to court; any case could collapse on her."

I suppose ultimately we have to be glad of Emilia's trauma. She lived to tell the tale, unlike the girl who actually experienced it. And it explains the presence of a seventh victim at all. It breaks the MO, you see; this killer clears whole rooms. If he'd gone into that other flat, it would have been to do another seven. But there are very few criminals so devoted to their form that they won't bend the rules to silence an eyewitness. I've yet to come across even one.

"What about the main scene?" I ask. "Six dead. Who found them?"

"Seven," she says, like I should have got this easily. "The other flatmate."

"Was there and asleep and left alive?" She nods. Still looking I should have… Oh. "David Lestrade. Damn."

I knew the choice of building bore that connection, but the choice of room? And why Lestrade, and how, where is the killer getting this information? Damn.

In the middle of all this, my phone rings. Mycroft. Anybody else I would ignore but given the circumstances, given what's going on and… To hell with the excuses; I excuse myself and go to answer it on the quiet rear stairwell.

He doesn't even let me say hello.

"Sherlock, where are you?"

"Damned serial killer. There's been another one. Different too, turning too bloody personal and-"

"This is more important. Come home at once." That tension in his voice, that tone of an order. He knows orders don't work. He's known that for years. Mycroft never gives orders because he expects them to be obeyed. He gives orders when he doesn't know what else to do.

"What is it, what's happened?"

"Please, come back."

Not without more. I don't mean to torture him, but I need to know something before I leave here or I'll end up running. "I'm needed here."

"Sherlock, who poisoned you?" He says this very quickly. It's all the explanation I'm getting. "I'm fully aware you didn't want to tell me and I tried to respect that but you might not be safe, where you are."

He really is in distress. Really is worried. About me, yes, but… But his voice rises and falls, and I'm listening closely enough to know why. He's in my flat, my tiny flat. Going back and forth past the bathroom, where the tiles amplify him. He's pacing, then, back and forth. Worried about me but… "The person you're talking about… they don't know that I've moved. You're alright there, so will you kindly stop wearing a track in the carpet?" He obliges, stops. But I get the feeling from his silence I haven't done much for his feeling of personal security. "I'll be right there."

Very briefly I run back to Sally Donovan. She wants to know what's going on and why I have to go. I have nothing to tell her, except that she really must let me know when and where the eyewitness is taken for autopsy. Then I leave for home.

[A/N - Halfway already... Tempus fugit or what? Hope you're still with me, still enjoying, and apologies in advance for any nastiness and heartbreak that might be on the way.

- Sal]