Jim

It is admirable, is it not, that under these circumstances, under this immense pressure, as I stand behind the door readying myself to open it, the only question in my head is what bloody name I put down when I got this place and if they're going to know that. That's not like panicking at all, no way. It'll turn into panicking, if I get it wrong, but for now it's not panicking.

Then they knock again and there's no choice but to let them in. I've got the door on the chain, but that's not going to last.

Lucky for me, the second I lean into the doorframe, "Mr Phelps?"

Jim Phelps, sweet Jesus... I have to stop with these novelty IDs. "Yeah, that's me." The man who spoke, Dani was right, he's a cop. Plain and simple CID. That's all over him, from a day's worth of stubble to the cut of his suit. But he's got two other fellas with him. Now usually I would take that for a raid and it would be a matter of killing time until Moran gets here. That'll be twenty minutes at least and I'm not sure I can kill that much time on my own. Unless Spidergirl had an idea, we were pretty fucked if this was raid.

Except, now I'm not sure it's a raid. The other two aren't in suits. Both wear glasses. One has a steel case under his arm, which might look like a breezeblock but which I know to be a state of the art laptop and…

I've hesitated too long. Under the circumstances it actually fits; nobody's too sure when people like this come knocking. The gent, the cop, shows me his warrant card. D.I. Calloway, and a grim looking sod he is too. "Have you a computer on the premises, sir?"

That's his opening gambit. Here's mine and give it a sharp ear because it's another work of minor genius under pressure, fucking right it is. "You were quick…" He begs my pardon, but I've already got the door off the latch, already leading them through the office. The other two are tech forensics. "You must have been in the area, were you? Does it really take three of you for this? Is it that f-?" Like a broken, mourning man, I am a moment too late in remembering whose company I'm keeping, "…Banjaxed?"

I present to them my dead computer, and all my hopes.

Face blank and locked as a bank vault. Tell them, "It just stopped. I swear I saw smoke coming out the back of it." And then, as they stare, and as it dawns on me, "You're not from the Curry's Fix-It Squad, are you?"

Calloway takes me aside, into my own living room, as the two technicians start salvaging and seizing. Let them take it all. For tonight, I'm a clueless shill who got the wrong signal bounced off his Wifi (there are, actually, a number of people in the world to whom this applies, because of me). And by tomorrow there will be no Jim Phelps and Jim Stark will be looking at nicer flats than this one.

…No, not Stark.

Maybe that's how Phelps happened; it's been an accident. There are a lot of Jameses about, we've just gotten to all the decent surnames. And this is what's going through my head while this walking grimace talks me through what they suspect might have happened. Well, I say 'talks me through', I've had to help him a couple of times. I just can't watch a moron struggle. Usually I'm in a position to get them out of my life, but this one, I need to help. Anyway, one half-hour of guided jargon-busting later, we get to the part anybody with a television can probably recite. They'll need to take any computer equipment away tonight. They'll need me not to leave town. They'll be relying on my cooperation. "If you've done nothing wrong," he says, with love and affection for the old cliché, "You've nothing to fear."

That's one of my favourite clichés, too. All the best clichés are like that one; not necessarily all that true.

"Except for this serial killer running about."

He doesn't say anything. Which is alright, if he can't think of anything to say. If he's thought of something and he's questioning the wisdom of telling me… But no, I know what all this is to do with. It's because I went digging on Holmes, and on Diogenes. Not that I got a chance to do much digging on Diogenes, in the end.

Then the techs want to ask questions. Mostly about how it came to pass that my computer is dead. Channeling Moran as best I can manage, I tell them, "It just, like, bang. There was this little crackle and everything was just gone and then it was just… gone." So, having been utterly useless to them there, they move on to giving me the third degree over the machine's behavioural history. And I use the word machine there with emphasis, because they talk about it like a sentient beast. They're saying all this like I should have seen the signs that it was moonlighting as an information superhighway bus station for evil, that this betrayal should have been written all over it, like a wife who suddenly starts buying presents and making dinner to cover the guilt of her affairs.

Guilt? There's only one person in this room with any cross to bear and I'm standing here about to cry out, "I killed the bloody thing!" It hurts enough without them talking like this great slight wasn't even a matter of choice. I wouldn't be here if somebody else had done this. I'd be at the nearest sympathetic computer finding the bastard and I swear, I swear, blood and skin and excretions or not, I would take care of it personally. They wouldn't even find the fucker's bones. I can't even think what I would do, because I can't think of anything that would be enough.

But I have to stand here, and channel my absent marksman, say 'No' and 'Never noticed' and 'Don't think so' and, more than once, 'Sorry, what?'

Does Calloway notice I knew a lot more about computers when the techs couldn't hear me? Does he fuck. He's just glad there's somebody else in the room as clueless as he is. And he's thinking, because of this rapport, that I'm alright, actually, that I'll do. He's thinking, even if I prove useless, I'll be a good, solid citizen about it all. Bless his cotton socks…

Without so much as a caution of a caution, that's it. They take my poor dead everything with them, sealed in an evidence bag, but still, they go. And I suppose it's fried corpse is no good to me. I just… I never got to tell it I was sorry.

I can't watch it go. When the door closes, I turn my head towards the sound, but that's all. And when I turn back, Danielle's climbing back in the window. All my worldly possessions (the ones of any real worth) bundled on her back. Oh, it's a sad sight, that. Like a hobo's suitcase left behind on a train platform, that is.

She snaps her fingers before I realize she's been holding out her mobile. Saying into it, "Just a second; he's being maudlin about something-" I roll my eyes and reach out to accept it. "Do me a favour, Sebastian," she adds, "when I put him on, will you remind him I'm not his-"

"Secretary, I know," and I take it off her. "I managed all by myself, thank you, Moran."

"I know, I watched most of it. Well, you said not to worry about the speed limits. But there's still a black car, tinted windows, across the street from the main door, and it's not the one the cops are walking to."

"…Nothing's ever fucking simple, is it?"

Sherlock

Mycroft told me everything I needed to know to understand his fears.

Enquiries have been made about something very secret, and to which secrecy is very important. These enquiries began with him. He's not just afraid of the person asking the questions, but of having to answer for them to his own superiors. They can be ruthless sorts, when it comes to people they think are a danger. And this could all very possibly be because I went out to try and help him and got caught by the wrong person.

Or the right person, depending on how you look at it. I got it too right.

In all of this, there is only one course for me to take. I have to go back and see Mies again. Obviously. Get enough from her for him to fetch back to his masters, that's all. Let them take it from there. I will provide the information that will spare him their current suspicions. This, in the process, will vindicate the theory he originally brought forward, about the recent spike in the crime rates.

Have to be careful, of course. Have to track her down, and find her weak. Have to do it on my terms, and with no subterfuge. Subterfuge doesn't work, learned that lesson. And I don't know yet if I'm on a timer or not, so I have to get started.

Except all of this going through my head? It's already gone through Mycroft's, and now he won't let me out of his sight. We can't even discuss it, out loud. The second I mention it it's bound to turn into an argument and I'll never win out in an argument with Mycroft. So the first order of business is getting rid of him, somehow, or at least finding some justifiable excuse to get away.

It happens, the way everything's been happening lately, with a phone call. This one from Donovan. I'd asked her to let me know when the dead witness was taken for post-mortem. That's what it is. She'll be able to get me in, but she can't delay it. I need to go now. Mycroft overhears all of this. Given he's been breathing down my neck, it's only natural he should overhear. It leaves him in a position where he can't question it, and can't deny that it's important for me to go. He even says, "Take my driver."

"I'll leave it, thanks." I'd rather nobody reported on my movements, thank you. "In case you end up needing him."

Although, it would be an idea. Tell you what, it's a good thing I'm off the skag with all these taxis to pay for. London, don't know if anybody's noticed, but it costs a bloody fortune. I must be working for at least three separate agencies at the moment, overt or covert; you'd think one of them could stand me an expense account. Then again, it's all just fund money that goes on something useful rather than anywhere else, so no, I won't take Mycroft's driver and no, I'm not complaining.

Donovan meets me outside Bart's Hospital. Apparently it's where all the Met's favourite dodgy deaths go to get sliced. I should probably get to know it a little better than I do. As I step out of the cab, she sees me looking both ways. Says, "You're alright, it's only me."

"I told you they'd pay attention to you if you made them."

She laughs. "You must be joking. Break on another case, it pulled back some of the manpower."

"But this is Lestrade's case. Is he still with his son?"

She swallows, before she nods, before she says, "Something like that." Conclusions drawn; Lestrade is supposed to be here. Donovan is covering for him. She is feeling out of her depth. She oughtn't be. She changes the subject far too quickly; maybe guessing that I'm onto her. "Coroner hasn't started on the post-mortems, but he's had a look. Says they look to be the same, simple smothering, no sign of drugs or bruising, any other coercion." Coroner and I might need to have a chat about that, actually. The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. It's one of the issues I had first thing this morning, before Mycroft happened. "The girl and her effects were lying ready when I came downstairs. He said he was alright about waiting, but he wasn't, not really."

"For God's sake, try and act like somebody with the authority to make arrests, would you?" She looks at me, not knowing whether or not to be offended. "You could call it perverting the course of justice, couldn't you? Obstructing an investigation?"

"Never thought of it like that." I open my mouth to speak. "And now he'll tell me to start and think like that. Why aren't you a copper, then, if you're so clever?"

"Because I'm too clever. If you were clever enough to spot that you wouldn't be a copper." This time she's not offended, but she glares, and pushes the door open.

The coroner is waiting. Eating a sandwich. He starts telling Donovan all about his trainee, how the criminal element is keeping him busy and without this poor girl down the hall taking on the whole hospital workload he'd be… and then he turns, sees me. Donovan explains me as best she can. Which isn't very well, but at least she stops when she comes to the limit of her knowledge. If he has more questions, he's welcome to ask them, but this time she's not letting him forget who's the copper in the room.

"Don't worry," I tell him. "I'm not staying long."

Our witness is heavy-set. A dour, unhappy face. She wore glasses. They're in with her effects. Her cadaver is unlikely to tell me anything about her final encounter, but her belongings… I don't even need to take a closer look. I see it magnified, beyond the glasses.

Emilia, for all that she never saw anything, turned out to be a damned good proxy for a witness.

I pick it up and hand it to Donovan. Point at the corpse, "She was a lion. He's a lion. Find out what the hell a lion is."

"She was letting herself in," she says. "He saw the lion on… This really is something, this time."

True. And she would have found that herself, if I hadn't come to spot it. It's a double celebration; a break in the case and a break for Sally Donovan. But I have somewhere else to be, other things to be doing before Mycroft gets the idea that maybe I'm swinging the lead a bit on this autopsy; I don't have time to enjoy it. I turn for the door. Donovan calls me to stop. Does it too late, which is what keeps me from ignoring her. She thought of it, she dismissed it, then decided it was worth it in the end.

That's what makes me stop.

She follows me into the hall, still holding the witness' keys. "You're not staying?"

"You have all you need. It is, quite literally, in your hand. You would've found it."

"But I… Listen, what you said, the other day, that…" Lowering her voice, "That you were dry." Bless her; people who pick up a delusion and run with it have proven very useful to me today, haven't they? "Could… Doesn't matter."

She turns back towards the morgue. "Could I what?"

Quick, grateful, "Call Lestrade? And not have ever spoken to me about the topic?"

No. I have a murderous thief to locate and a brother to… help? Is that, even…? But there's a part of me, which is clearly a very sick part and I ought to get it looked at, but which is also irresistible, and that part is not used to being needed, and which resents the idea of treating being needed as a bad thing. And before I quite feel the word forming, and against all my better judgement, against logic, I say, "Yes."