Jim

Carl is waiting in the basement. He was quite happy to do so. He wants to spend a bit of time soaking up the atmosphere left by his predecessor, get a good sniff of the bloodstains in the concrete, that sort of thing. I told him I was coming upstairs to get a phone signal, so I could start making arrangements to hide him. This could yet prove to be true. I haven't decided yet.

The door is shut on him. Moran is standing with his back to it. If Carl approaches on the other side, he'll sense it. Well, with any luck he will. This isn't a conversation I want the big fella listening in on. Moran's hand is behind him, drumming his fingers on the heavy wood. I made him start that up; not because of the echoes on the far side, not because Carl's bulk would interrupt it, but because it tells me his hand isn't drawing his gun again. I'm starting not to trust his trigger finger. Ever since Dani got grabbed, he's looking a bit twitchy on it.

Said-victim is perched up on bundles of lurid pink glossy covers, trying to smoke with the cigarette trembling between her fingers. Right hand side of her neck, there's one big round bruise from his thumb. On the other side, four sharper, slightly smaller ones blurring into a line. She keeps touching them. Swears she's alright, but she keeps touching them.

Watching that, Moran snaps. He says straight out what I've been trying to sugar-coat, hissing over, "What'd you go and provoke him for?"

"Oh, right, so it's my fault, is it?" I could have told him she'd say that. "I was asking for it. Right. Fine."

"You know he's not exactly balanced, Dani."

Ignoring him, she looks down at me. "I stated a fact; Mr Hedegaard is going to be caught or he's going to die; that's the only two endings. And you were the one who said we can't afford for him to be caught." I did. I said that. You can hear her shaking on her voice. "I'm not blaming you, Jim, and I'm not saying you made a mistake. But he is a walking disaster. Anything you do now is only damage limitation." I look up, at that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the end of it there sounded a lot like she was blaming me and saying I made a mistake. She makes candid, unafraid eye contact and ploughs right on. "It was an experiment, it has not worked. Neutralize it before it blows up in your face."

She's talking too much. And making eye contact. When we came out here she couldn't look at anything but her cigarette or her cuticles. Sitting above me, looking so very sincere. No, there's something wrong here. Far, far too much effort.

"Come down from up there," I tell her. And she does, happily, slips off and stands square to me, arms open, still looking right at me. "Alright. Now tell me why you provoked him."

This isn't the same question Moran asked her. Not by a long shot.

Sherlock

Once I confessed to a nurse that yes, Ms Donovan was awake and that yes, by then she had been for some time, I was asked to leave. I suppose it wasn't so bad; I left her in good spirits. As good as could reasonably be expected anyway. I think I managed to get the word 'useless' out of her head, and that was what I really wanted to do.

But after that, naturally, I've come home. I'm outside the flat right now, right this very moment.

For the first time in long weeks, I dread the other side of the door. Those weeks, I've been so very happy, and it's only now that I really realize. Now that I'm back at square one. Standing outside my own flat, and there's a scent here that I recognize. Shoe polish and bloody Brylcreem, same as a door-to-door salesman or a schoolboy on picture day. My brother is here and I want to run away. Square one all over again.

Still, can't stand out here forever. I shut my eyes and fumble the key into the door. Not looking doesn't change anything, nor does it make me feel any better, but I do it anyway.

On the other side of the door, he's waiting. Before he can speak, because I need a foothold, "Anything on Hedegaard?"

Irritable, distant, "Who? Oh. Come along, Sherlock, there are more important things going on."

It's been some time since I expected Mycroft's reactions to match those of the average human being. This, though, is too much. "There isn't. I just left a friend in hospital with a fractured skull, not to mention Lestrade's in some sort of shock. There is nothing more important going on."

"We located our man. He'd been shot in the head. A few bruises, a broken bone, but no sign of real torture. We located him because she phoned and told us where to find him."

Passing him, I switch on the TV, flick until I find the news. "Your mysterious contact sounds very helpful."

"Mysterious," Mycroft scoffs. "You and I both know exactly w-"

"Not what you said to yourmen."

"You can find her."

"What, track her down? Like a case?" The news are reporting cricket scores; Hedegaard has been relegated to a scrolling headline at the bottom of the screen, 'Manhunt continues'. Damn. "I've already got my little distraction for this week, thank you. Even without the hired help…"

Mycroft sighs, "What passed between Lestrade and I-"

"Was about five hundred quid. I take it that was a weekly sum. To keep little brother occupied, keep the cravings at bay. For your information, Mycroft, that's not how it works. And honestly it makes my skin crawl that the murders of twenty-one people, the attempted murders of a further two, are nothing more to you than an opportune distraction. Worse, that you think the same of me."

"Oh, for God's sake!" he snaps. In charge of me, older and wiser. My teenage years return in an unpleasant flood and have to be forced away. "We're talking about national security. It is bigger than your pettiness." I look silently for another news bulletin, one just starting, trying to catch what should be today's main story. Behind me, softer, and with a touch of threat that makes my heart sink. "If you were anybody else, you would have been taken in days ago."

"As it is, you just torture me out here in the world."

"Grow up."

"Piss off."

Jim

"We're not moving off this spot until you give me an answer, Danielle. A true one, preferably. Why did you provoke the Creep?" I've given up calling him that, but it's still in her head, it's still everything to her, a perfect description. Just saying it, another tremble runs through her, another unconscious touch of the bruises. "Look at you. You're terrified of him. Why would you stand there and basically threaten to kill him?"

No answer is forthcoming. I don't know, maybe it's a difficult question. It doesn't sound very difficult to me. But then I'm an honest person, at heart. For my money, that's the main reason why I so hate to be manipulated. You could, of course, argue that manipulation is what I do for a living. I'll accept that argument, quite happily. I will, however, counter with the theory that working on an overarching, abstract level, is a little bit different to your everyday interactions, to dealing with your own people, the ones you're supposed to trust, who are supposed to trust you.

But enough of the psychoanalysis. I still haven't gotten an answer. Getting a bit bored now, bit frustrated. Can't keep my foot from tapping. Can't keep the sing-song thing from happening, "Why did you do it?"

Moran stops drumming his fingers. Hard to care.

Dani hardens, snarling. Says, "Because you should have dealt with him days ago, and you know it." Stabbing the air between us with her cigarette. She really does look like she means it too. But it's the same mistake. She's far too earnest about it all. "What you've done instead is just leave him lying around with the fuse lit, and now he's struck at two cops and you're about to get blown wide open. And I couldn't figure out why you hadn't done something. That's why I did it, alright?"

I'm not watching her anymore. Eye contact is poison. I look at my feet and just listen. That's why I'm shaking my head. Feeling Moran off on my left sort of tensing up, leaning forward without taking an actual step, like he wants to cut in. Still shaking my head, I look round at him. "Go and see if Carl's okay."

"No."

"Go and see if Carl's okay."

This time he hears me properly (that's what's going on here, don't question it). This time he hears me and he does it. Goes back through the basement. And look, the silly sausage has left the door open. Ah well, we'll not hold that against him. Easily fixed. All I have to do is reach out and pull it closed, no problem. He's a big lug sometimes, we'll just forgive that…

Now it's just Danielle and me and a hundred-thousand splay-legged models.

"Get candid," I advise her. "Do so with considerable speed."

"Don't threaten me," she says, but in a very off-hand way, waving a dismissive trail of smoke and ash through the air. I allow it. Let her continue. This is partially because of the look on her face. It's the same as at Moran's house, sitting next to the sink, asking herself whether she should tell me about Mycroft's phone number or not. The answer then was yes. The answer now is yes. She comes to that conclusion pretty quickly, in the silence.

"What do you still need to know about Diogenes?"

"Alright, I need to know who this source of yours is."

"I am reporting to you, and protecting your source is the sign of a good reporter."

"The sign of an awful secretary."

"When have I ever let you down?"

"Never. But you're disappointing me."

That gets to her. I'm glad. Good to see her wilt, snap, "This is the offer. You want it or not?"

I get annoyed with people like her. Usually I don't put up with people I get annoyed with. But, like the lady said, she has precedent; I have yet to be disappointed. I have yet to suffer any adverse effect. And those bruises look vicious. She must have known she'd get hurt. I'm not as callous as people think, y'know; and I do understand what has to be in somebody's head for them to chance their life like that. Danielle means all of this for me. That, and only that, spares her the graver effects of her insubordination. Well, no; that, and the nature of the offer itself.

Do I want it? "Fuck yes. But we're giving Carl up alive."

Sherlock

Mycroft won't go anywhere. Has parked himself at my table and is demanding satisfaction. I've tried just going about my business; that's the usual way of dealing with this. Made a cup of tea, booted up the laptop, searched the news sites. This in itself has defeated me. They have nothing to teach me, nothing new. Which means I'm sitting here, with the usual frustration creeping in, and Mycroft's eyes burning into the side of my head to boot. It's not fair. Hard to take. Not when I'm still feeling the dose from two days ago.

Two days? Feels like seconds, and like years as well.

"What?" I ask him, eventually. "What do you want? Specifically, what is the least possible interaction that will make you go away?"

"Mies."

"Not a clue, Mycroft, can't help."

"I don't believe you."

Like it's my problem he doesn't believe me. We're brothers. He ought to trust me. I thought for just a little while that he did. When he first found me again, when he promised he wouldn't interfere… For a moment, I felt as if we'd gained something. All that time, I thought to myself we'd lost it to my addiction. But we never had it, did we? Not even before. Thinking back, thinking back, the world was always like this. I just forgot about it for a while. It was all just a pretence.

I bet I knew that, somewhere deep, the other night… "You have her number. Call up, see if she's free."

"I didn't hear that."

I should have known. Should have spotted it the second he sent me to Knightsbridge, to the hotel. That was beneath him. He shouldn't even have been dreaming of that. And yet I was stupid and flattered enough to think he really did need my help with something. Stupid.

"Ask Lestrade. You went to such lengths to keep him working with me, ask him if he's seen her…"

"That's not what happened."

"Mycroft?" I wait for him to look up. "I don't believe you." I said that in honesty, and in cruelty. But now that it's out, and we're both hearing it, we start to get the same idea. I don't believe him. Why should I give up anything if I don't believe him? Go on, Mycroft. Make me believe. Give me something to believe for once. Dispense with the spectre and subterfuge and for once in your bloody life tell a simple truth. What really happened?

"The money was nothing to do with the case. You were necessary to that. It was, rather… a further inducement. Just an extra, knowing that you and he were acquainted to… To keep an eye, I suppose." I watch him struggle through that. I watch him sink when it's over.

"You paid someone I could have considered a friend to spy on me."

"Yes."

It was a statement, not a question, but he's just confirming… I wonder if he knows this is worse. Bribery to keep me on the case? Well, like he said, I'm necessary to the case. I've done very well by the case. I could have been content with that, because I know I have worked hard and there have been results. But he gave Lestrade money to keep an eye. The recovering addict needs a watcher. The 'hopeless fucking junkie', to quote said-watcher. Yeah, that really worked out for him…

"You really do believe, don't you, in doing whatever it takes?"

Apparently this isn't what he was expecting me to say. Mycroft looks up, looking almost hopeful. He shouldn't. He should keep his hope in check. He has no idea what I'm thinking.

Again, like it's all he knows, like constantly reinforcing the positive is going to work on me, "Yes."

"And if one has a goal in mind, one should do whatever is necessary to achieve it. Provided, of course, it's a worthy cause."

"Yes."

Oh good. I was hoping he'd say that.