Sherlock

Donovan has no family in London. An elderly grandmother and young sister somewhere near the Welsh border, but no one close and able to travel. I suppose if you need a reason why I'm still here after dark, you could have that one. Lestrade is gone, back to his own ward. Both doors have a police guard on them. Nobody's questioned me or my presence so maybe nobody needs a reason after all.

I took a look at her charts after the last set of observations. All the signs are strong. The impact on her brain isn't deemed to have been too great. A knock-out blow, yes, and no skull fracture might ever be described as minor. But there was no call to drag her grandmother down out of her rural idyll, apparently.

The quiet television says the manhunt for Carl Hedegaard continues. Naturally it has 'intensified' since his 'brazen attack' on two police officers in a family home. The reporting of the case has escalated to portray Hedegaard as the sort of crazed maniac who would not be out of place in a comic book. It's not helping. Vilifying him will not help them find him. In fact, to be staging any sort of 'manhunt' at all, the police must have leads I don't know about. How else would they have any idea where to look? This killer moves with apparent impunity all across the city and…

Perhaps I'm just frustrated. Last night catching up with me, the unconscious woman in the room. There are a lot of factors. Maybe just the fact that I can't think of anything to help anyone. I did try phoning Mies again, but there was no answer. It's probably not a good idea anyway. Part of me knows I should accept any help offered, swiftly and with gratitude. But there is another part, with a voice that sounds a lot like a bad impression of Mycroft, telling me to be careful where my information comes from.

I was told a joke once… No, not a joke exactly. This was before I started to actually quit, the months where I talked a lot about quitting, masking procrastination as preparation. Somebody, a girl I think, was laughing. Maybe that's why I think of it as a joke. She was laughing. She said shooting up was like dancing with a gorilla. The gorilla decides when you stop dancing.

That's what I mean, about Mies and anybody like her. They are dangerous animals, and once one has gotten involved with them it could be very difficult to get away again.

Lions and tigers and gorillas, oh my…

This is the problem with sitting in half-light with nothing to do; my thoughts wander. How did I get onto this? Ah; my phone is vibrating. That's why it's on, see? Shouldn't have it on in the hospital. I've been told off about that in the past. But if there's even a chance one of these calls could prevent more incidents like the one at Lestrade's home, then really I'm doing them a favour.

It's also a call I have to actually answer, sooner or later.

"Hello, Mycroft."

"Sherlock, where are you?"

He's tearing his hair out. I know he's got a lot on his plate at the moment, and perhaps I should be showing a little more compassion. But I'm not much in the mood for compassion. I quite like that sound on his voice. But it's sad, and it's brutal, to even think that. We were doing so well and now here we are, where we started, where I'm happy to say, "In hospital."

"What?" It's not a question, not genuine shock. He just can't believe I landed in somewhere official, with records, and he wasn't informed.

"With a… a friend."

"Lestrade."

"No, another one. The kind of friend you don't have to pay."

A sigh hums on the line. "We really ought to have a talk about that."

"Yes, well, I'm… preoccupied." She moved. Donovan, her hand beneath the blanket, she just moved. I hang up on Mycroft and go back to the bedside. "Sally? Sally, if you're there, don't try to sit up."

Fast and afraid, her eyes open. "Why?"

"Oh, don't be scared; you have only your headache to worry about." I reach out to put a hand on her shoulder. She flinches, violently, both hands coming up in defence. I withdraw. It was reflex, pure and simple, and she relaxes almost immediately. Then another reflex kicks in; the movement has left her arms free of the sheets, bare below the sleeves of the hospital gown. With as much speed and suddenness, she covers the left again. Covers up the smooth, pinkish scarification that runs, sinuous, like mountain contours on a map, from her wrist up to her shoulder. If her hair didn't cover quite so much, it's not unthinkable I might see something similar on her neck, collarbone. For her sake, I quite deliberately see nothing. "I'll get a nurse. They said to inform them if you woke up."

"Hospital," she mutters, as if just realizing. "Leave it a minute. I hate hospitals. Never bloody out of them…"

"Well, you're in a dangerous profession."

"Oh, not for me," she says. Then seems to think she's said too much. Holds her head so I won't ask. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing." That's true. "Lestrade's here too. I came to see him." That's a lie. A kind one, I think. It gives both of us some room, and some professionalism. "How much do you remember?"

Donovan shuts her eyes and smiles at the ceiling. "Breaking and entering."

"Beg pardon?"

"Lestrade's place. Spare key under the mat, daft bastard. I remember letting myself in. And then… And then feeling useless." She means that too, her hand falling hopelessly down from her head, thumping the mattress.

"No," I say, as calmly as I can. "Hedegaard is huge and you were unarmed. That doesn't make you useless, far from it. That you even made him aware of your presence puts you miles above useless." All of this, I tell to the television up in the corner. Feeling her look round in the dark next to me, "Now if you'd had a gun, we could talk about useless." She breathes out laughter, until it hurts her.

Jim

Where I am is the damp brick basement of a Victorian butchery. Above us is a warehouse full of contraband European pornography belonging to a prominent East End face I'm not going to advertise. The basement's out of use since, five years ago (and for legal reasons I should state this was before said-face had ever even heard of the place), they discovered eight mutilated teenagers being kept by the capital's last great crazy.

Suffice to say, I didn't pick this place. I wasn't wasting another safe-house on this wanker. This was Danielle's idea; there's a chimney stack somewhere in the dark recesses she uses as a dead drop for fencing sometimes. But honestly, from my place to Seb's to the motorway overpass and now here… I'm staying at the Savoy when this is over. Not long. I just want butler-service for a couple of nights, and I don't know that anybody would hold that against me.

Carl's not complaining, though. Phoned for a lift, like I'm a fecking cab company, after his latest little escapade. Big bastard didn't even have the good graces to finish Dirty Harry off, left him alive and chatting by the sounds of things. "But the other one," he says, "is dead, I think." Oh, yeah, that was the other thing; apparently there's another one now. I could cry, but Carl's not complaining. Carl, actually, recognizes this place.

"This," he says, "is the place where Mr Liam Croster did very good work before. I recognize from the Detection Channel. He was very much an artist." There you go; the name of London's last best loony before Carl Hedegaard stepped up to fight for the crown. I've sort of given up thinking of him as 'the Creep' since we started spending all this time together; when he says things like that I could go back to it, easily. "You were helping him, too?"

Moran still has his gun with him. He could put it to the back of Carl's neck and put him down like an aged mutt. That's just a possibility. It's a thing I'm thinking about. It's not necessarily my reaction to being accused of serial-proxy-serial killing.

But if you're wondering, as you might well be, as I am, how Carl's getting a chance to say all this, I can help you there. It's because he's actually left me speechless. I don't pretend to understand it. He makes me want to scream, and beat him until there are more teeth in his stomach than his mouth, and I know all the things I want to say to him. But you can't just talk to a psychopath. There's a way of putting everything. You have to bite back on everything that might really be going through your head. Have to not scream. Have to fit into the way he sees the world as working.

It requires a supreme act of will just staying silent. Moran's watching me like I might go off at any minute and take a sizeable chunk of the borough with me. It's very possible. Shading to likely, actually. Dani, with last night still on her mind, is far from all of this, sitting on the stairs with headphones held to one ear. Listening to police frequencies. We'll need to move him again, but I wanted a word before he ends up on the run. I can't think what to say, and she won't look at me because of it. She had to climb off her cop when Carl lashed out at his. I was still getting over the loss of Mr Bruce when she rang up, letting me know what to expect.

And I still can't think how to talk.

In the meantime, Carl is wandering around, studying his new surroundings. "Is good place," he says. Grins to himself, "Docklands is Lion stronghold."

…Nope, sorry, he's lost me there. But around me, Danielle's looked up, is exchanging glances with Moran. He's nodding, but looks as if he wants to keep her calm. She, however, doesn't want to be kept calm. Says to Carl's back, "Uncivil Union?" He turns, still grinning, face lit up like he's found a friend. She grimaces back, "The bloody TV program?" Carl's face falls.

Danielle puts her radio to one side, puts down the headphones. Stands. Crosses over to the rest of us.

She says to him, "Do us all a favour and don't mention that when you're questioned."

"If," he corrects, shrugging his shoulders.

"When," she corrects back. Where Carl can't see me I'm shaking my head, not a good idea, but she's angry now, and determined. "It's very much when."

"And if I am not captured?" He gets this look in his eyes. Playful. You'd think she'd recognize it; you see it a lot in cats. Usually when they've got a mouse's tail under one paw.

"The only way you're going to evade capture now?" she tells him, matter-of-fact, and it's all very true, but I wish she wouldn't say it, "is if we kill you."

It's fast as the lights going out in a power cut; his hand is round her throat, hard, pulling her up onto her toes. Dani gasps, but the air doesn't go anywhere. "What is 'we'?" Carl smiles at her. "You would not dare. The order has not been given."

Moran's got that gun of his out, pressed to the back of Carl's skull, about to prove him very, very wrong. Dani's hanging hand is working towards her back pocket, feeling for her knife, ready to slash his wrist. Part of me is inclined to let them get on with it. The rest of me warns Moran off with a glance, steps up to interrupt. "Put her down," I say. Sharp as I can, deliberate, unequivocal. Hopefully unequivocal. He's hesitating, maybe just unwilling to show weakness. "Put her down now, or the order will be given and you'll be put down and all, Carl."

With incongruous care, he sets her back down on her feet. Then and only then does he loosen his grip and let her breathe. Dani raises both hands; it's not surrender, more 'I give up'. Charges away upstairs to choke and hide amongst the wank-mags.

Carl is still standing exactly where he was, where he held her. He is still looking in that same direction. Now I know how to speak, I get in front of him, where he can't help but see me. "You're not so useful to me you can get away with that shite. Lift a finger against me or one of my people ever again, and Moran here will put so many holes in you you'll look more like Kerplunk than a human being. Is that in any way unclear?"

Breathing out, long and shaky, "No."

"Good." You should hear this. I sound so hard and heartless, totally fearless. You should totally hear this…