Sherlock

I've had all of thirty seconds on the scene when Lestrade catches up. "Wait," he says, and I turn, on the point of telling him that we're not going to talk about the envelope and – But he's holding out a pair of latex gloves to me. "Scenes of Crime haven't been in yet."

I put them on, taking a cursory first look around. "So, your lot came thundering in here at sunrise, waking half the building and-"

"And nothing, yeah."

"But he was here last night, wasn't he? You checked on that, surely?"

Lestrade crushes down the look he'd like to give me, fighting it since he's trying to make friends. It's quite fun to watch him, actually. "Donovan and another officer followed him home from work, on foot. From what I hear it was a professional, well-executed operation."

"And then, I imagine, kept the place under surveillance."

"Ah, now, before you start-" he says, sounding pleased that he can defend himself on this one, "before you even start, we've already gotten to the bottom of that. See, there are two entrances onto the car park. Naturally we had people at both. Late last night a car pulls in. Woman gets out, lets herself in. So she works nights, or she's been out, nobody thought anything of it. Only she must have left something at the office, because ten minutes later she's back out again. Back in her car. Takes it round behind the building, out onto Fulver Street."

"But that," I tell him, "is just what your people at the front of the building saw, am I right? Your people at the back of the building saw somebody waiting for a lift and getting picked up."

"Something like that. They're running down the car now."

"And the woman? Surely this place must have functional CCTV."

"One of the cameras is. One of them was paintbombed a couple of days ago, not cleaned up yet."

They won't get anything from that. And the car will be found burnt to a shell somewhere and it probably wouldn't have helped anyway. But none of that matters because the question isn't 'Where is the car?' or 'Who is the woman?', but really, honestly, 'Who cares?'

Who comes running in the middle of the night, risking exposure, to warn and escape the Sleeping Beauty killer?

That is a question to keep thinking about. For now, I don't know how long I have in this flat. If there are clues to what he might be working on, his source of information as regards Lestrade, or where he might have gone, it's imperative that we pick up on them right away. Every minute he's out there, and knowing we know who he is, he becomes more and more dangerous. There's no chance of him disappearing, thank God. No, he's done too well for that. But he's got nothing to hide anymore and no reason to hide it. Second by second, all of this counts.

Only one other thing is certain; if any of that is here, I'm going to have to be the one to find it. There's only one question Lestrade wants answered, and that's why. Not the general, semi-useful sort of why that might help him catch the bastard either, but specifically he wants to know why it was him, why he was chosen. Why it was his son who woke up in halls yesterday surrounded by dead flatmates and having to know that, through no fault of his own, he had been the cause.

"Lestrade."

"Yes?"

"Swap places with Donovan." He starts to beg my pardon. "You're hungover and too involved. You leave or I do. I won't touch anything, won't take anything. All will be left exactly as you see it now. Send Donovan in."

"You don't get to give orders, here, Sherlock."

"Not since you gave back the money." Oh, of course it was a bribe. You'd have to be a fool not to have seen that. Reimbursement for keeping me involved with the case, my little distraction from greater problems, like recovery. Recovery, and from getting too deeply wound in what Mycroft is toying with at the moment. It was a bribe, had to be.

But I've mentioned it, and they are magic words. Grudgingly, he goes. Grudgingly, Donovan replaces him, and finds me on Carl Hedegaard's couch. "I don't think you should be sitting there," she says.

"Don't worry, I've got gloves on," and I lift up my hands to show her. "Anyway, why not? Carl does. Every night, by the feel of it. Look at that armchair; it's never been used. And yet one sinks quite nicely here, in the centre cushion."

"Yeah," she says. Standing with her arms folded still, refusing to look either at me or where I ask her to look. "Hedegaard lives alone. Are you all that surprised?"

I shift around, looking at her over the back of the couch. "Why are you letting the fact that you don't want to be friends anymore affect your work, Sergeant?" Caught out, and outraged about it, her mouth flaps, searching for justifications I think she'll find aren't there.

Then, settling, she corrects me to "Constable," voice dead, emotionless.

"Really?" She nods. Can't think of anything further. "What's that at your foot?" I ask, to give her an exit. Donovan looks down. It's a fly, lapping at the dregs in the rim of a lager can. She turns her heel and sends the fly spiralling off to safety, the can rattling across the floor. Lestrade, rather quickly, is in the doorway. "It was her," I tell him. "I didn't move anything."

"Sorry, sir," she mutters, on a sort of reflex.

He mutters back, "Hardly matters. Plenty of mess to go around." And they seem content, then, to mope at each other. I am, understandably I hope, baffled.

"Why is nobody else getting anything?" I'm getting things. Alright, so so far it's all useless or disjointed, but I am getting things. I'm also getting up from the sofa, hoping that my activity might spur them on to some of their own, going through to the attached kitchenette. Opening all the cupboards. There's alcohol, but no spirits. Lager and alcopops, nothing stronger. There are Pot Noodles and Super Noodles, Savoury Rice and Rice Pudding, tinned soup and tinned custard. Crisps. Chocolate. Bin full of paper wrappers from a well-known sandwich chain.

Knock open the nearest door. Bedroom. Unmade bed, but we'll forgive him that. Probably get dragged out of it last night. Messy floor, though, pornography just visible at the end of the bed. Posters on the walls; Metallica, AC/DC. And one right above the headboard; a red lion rampant on a black field, crowned and outlined in gold and holding what appears to be a Stop sign. Actually, now that I've seen it there, I see it on the t-shirt dumped over the armchair, on a sticker on a laptop, on one of three books lined up in the corner of the windowsill.

Two DVD boxsets next to the television, well-loved and much handled, softened and falling apart at the edges of the cardboard sleeve. One of them bears the lion emblem again. The other, predictably enough, a blue unicorn crowned in silver, holding what appears to be a streetlamp. The two boxes next to each other, the shields are clearly poised for combat.

The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown…

Donovan sighs, shakes her head. "I hate when this happens. It's bloody Texas Chainsaw. Or Marilyn Manson. Somebody gets hold of this and then all of a sudden nobody cares about why he's really a bloody maniac. This is just easier."

Which is certainly interesting and very cogent commentary, but it's got nothing to do with the crime scene. What do they teach these people anymore? Ironically, the average TV viewer would probably know a lot more about turning over a suspect's home than…

Lestrade, in a distant, soft way, like he can't quite help it, starts to laugh. And when I ask him what's funny, all he has to say for himself, "Nothing. It's… It's like they got the days backward. Yesterday morning… I always thought this was how students lived."

Which doesn't even have the good graces to be interesting and cogent commentary. Donovan has developed a little bit of sense, stares at him for a second. But then she stares at me, as if to ask if I'm thinking the same thing. I'm not. I wish I was; looks like she might be on to something.

"Students," she says quietly. "Like, first time away from home. Independence. We're looking at this like it's squalor, but… But he doesn't. He looks at this and it's freedom. Hedegaard sits down where you were sitting-"

"Right in the middle of his couch, spreading out-" I continue, nodding along, encouraging her.

"- Thinking he's the king of the bloody castle."

"That he's got it made. This is his, all of it, and it's all that he wants. His little kingdom with the posters on the walls."

Donovan, carefully, looking at me and then at Lestrade like we should know any better than her. "He'll come back here, won't he? Come back to claim it all, or send somebody at least. After we've cleared out, I mean."

Lestrade tells her, "After he thinks we've cleared out." They get into discussion over that. I don't really see what there should be to discuss. I don't hear it either; my phone rings and I excuse myself.

Well, I have to answer him sometime, I suppose. "Hello, Mycroft."

"Sherlock, where have you been?" His relief is too much. Not only does it raise some small semblance of guilt in me, but it makes me thinking there must be a reason for it.

Not that I'm rising to it. "Trying to catch a serial killer. Where have you been?"

"Trying to think of a way to ask for your assistance."

I'll say this for my brother; he doesn't feel the need to apologize often, but when he does…

Jim

"James, he's a giant and very scary teenager. And I know you and Seb, so I know a giant teenager when I see one, but this one is scary. Get me out of here. Get me out of here now. Get me out of here before I start making threats, because there are beds here, and the way he talks about you, if I start making threats against you, I'm going to end up inside one of the beds. Get me out of here. Get me out of here. Get me out of here. Please. I can beg. He won't mind me begging. I can beg before I threaten, but we're getting damned close to threats. We're getting damned close to me just walking out. Well, running. Running to the nearest car I can steal, and hence by car to Folkestone, and hence, via train, to Paris. Far from him. He won't leave the country, the second half of his favourite series starts up again on Saturday night, did you know that?, he has theories about it, get me out of here. Get me out of here."

Danielle is having a few issues around babysitting the Creep.

I just thought I'd put that there in summary in case anybody hadn't guessed. The short version, she would very much like to get away from him now. She is finding him somewhat disturbing, and is in some small fear for her personal safety. We actually came in about halfway through her little rant there. First words out of her mouth when I said hello were, "I am alone with him and I don't have my gun." She's whispering all of this in the bathroom of a small damp flat in SW9, afraid of being overheard.

"Wait," I say, just to make her stop talking for a second. It's a service I'm doing her, really; when she stops breathing she gets lots of little burst capillaries round her eyes and nose and she'll get through a full tube of concealer in the week, and spend the following week complaining how much the concealer costs. A service to me, not having to listen to that. …Now who's ranting? "Wait, go back. What about me, way he talks about me, what interesting loveliness did we skim over there, angel?"

"Oh, he loves you. And I'm just the bloody secretary, after all." And that's her ramp to go sailing off into another rant. I'll spare you the details, because I'm not listening to him. I just filter out anything she says that doesn't feature the word 'you', i.e. anything not about me. And what I hear, the truth that transpires, is that I have come to be rather idolized by our own dear Mr Hedegaard.

There's a really awful photofit of him all over the news, all his details, his crying mother, the tower block Dani hauled him out of last night. And he's thinking of me.

Yeah, alright, so it's fecking terrifying, but it's nice of him nonetheless.

"And when you say, 'his hero, his everything'-?"

"Please! He thinks he's your red right hand, the archangel on earth, and you are that which looks down upon his works and smiles…" And there the rambling picks up again, peppered with that pretty little chorus of 'get me out of here', so I'll stop listening again, if only to ask myself what I ever did to give him that impression.

I gave him his disposal method he wanted. That's what he came to me for and what I was paid for. Minor consultation, nominal fee. I just wanted him to go live during the crime spike. I was glad of him when the relative safety of the capital (or, 'the London Loophole') was pointed out of me. But that was as far as it went, really. After that… After that all I did was give him Dirty Harry, really, wasn't it? I asked him to take care of that for me. He knew he was going to get noticed anyway, probably knew he was going to burn out. I gave him the plan to do it in fine style, that's all. What did I ever do to give him this idea that he owes it all to me?

Gave him Dirty Harry, gave him the strike against his son…

"He talks a lot about you recognizing his potential. Send someone to replace me and I'll come over and tell you all about it." Taking an interest in him. Is that all it took? Is that how it starts and then just the fact that I have, on occasion, answered my phone to him is enough? "Jim? Hello? I've been asking you for the same thing since I picked up. You ought to have been able to organize something by now."

"I don't know whether to be annoyed that you think of me as your personal Yellow Pages or flattered you think I can find somebody else that I trust to take over with a very sensitive project in the space of ten minutes. And yes, by the way, you've been talking for ten solid minutes."

"I wanted you to understand just how very important it is to me that I leave here very soon and unaccompanied by Mr Carl Peter 'The Creep' Lorre Hedegaard."

"But you missed one key fact, Danielle; I called you."

"To check in, I know."

"Dani, why would I ever be arsed checking in? If there was a problem you would either have dealt with it, or called up to have your Yellow Pages do it. Now why else would I call you?"

Sheepishness blooms into rosy hope; "…You have something to tell me?"

"I know what we're going to do with Mycroft's phone number." The rest, I proceed to explain to her, is as follows. I have a plan. This plan requires the involvement of both herself and Mr Moran upstairs. It will be very dangerous, and possibly violent, and public, so I won't be in attendance. "Now, given that there's only you and Moran know about Carl, and that I trust to be around him-"

"Oh, God, no, Jim, don't do this to me-" She goes off on one again. I try not to laugh; I was waiting for that. Only said it to tease her. But that's what she gets for talking my ear off on a long day when I can't even go home.

"-I personally will come and take over the babysitting. I want words with that archangel of mine anyway. And you and Moran are going hunting, alright?"

"Oh. Oh, I like a hunt."

"You won't like this one; you're the fox. And please, dear, bite down hard on all the jokes that just jumped into your head-"

"Jokes? But you didn't say anything funny."

"Yeah, that would have been a thing to bite down hard on."

"Listen, I'm not being funny, but if you're really coming over here, get Seb to lend you something that goes 'bang'." No thanks. Don't like the bloody things. I can use one, but I don't like them. "Or 'slice', at least. You won't need it, but… in case."

"No more than two hours, Dani. Think you can hold out?"

"Now that I can see light at the end of this long and very dark tunnel…" There's a little rant-coda to come there, so I take that opportunity to say goodbye. She'll only be telling me how much I owe her one. Usually I'd tell her, under those circumstances, that I do have her on a very substantial retainer. But this one, yeah, maybe, if she really is scared…

With Danielle on board and off the line, I go to Moran in the attic. "No luck on that mouse."

"I can't wait for this fucking cat coming round, y'know…"

"Are we okay to leave?"

"Yeah. I think we're clear here. If me or Dani get stuck away after this, you can come back here, no problem."

"You won't get stuck. You'll have a beagle for me. Tethered and tied and ready for experimentation." And that, having exhausted both foxes and beagles, is the limit of my knowledge of the hunt. No more jargon from here on out. He knows what I mean, anyway, what I expect of him. We discussed this. It's more his type of planning than mine anyway, and it all rides on him. Only fair I consulted him.

Only now, out of the blue, he says, "Are you sure this is the best course, mate?"

Hm. Interesting. Because questions like that, questions like the inevitable follow-up, 'Are you sure you're sure?', that's what I have Danielle for. And I have Moran for sharp nods and silent acceptance and actions that speak louder than bellowing from the rooftops. And now I've got Dani telling me yes, absolutely she can hold on for another couple of hours and Moran asking, told you it was inevitable, "I mean, are you sure you're sure?"

"Yes."

"Only, because, the other plan would be that I go to see the Creep, right?"

"What good would that do? I can't do your part on this Diogenes thing so-"

"Hear me out. I go to see the Creep and… I'm sorry, I know you're a bit attached, but I leave it so that this Diogenes thing is all you have on your plate."

I'm not attached. I appreciate his cautious, deferent way of putting things, but I'm not attached. Actually, I take his point. I'm not sure how well we can hope to balance the Creep now that publicity, a mention, is really the last thing I need. The Creep represents some pretty hefty exposure waiting to happen. But it doesn't have to happen yet.

"I don't need you to kill the Creep. I need you to go and fetch me back a beagle."

And now we're back to the way he's supposed to be, the way I know him, where he nods, and accepts, and we go about it. Simple.

Simple is actually a word that makes me laugh, sometimes.