Sherlock
"We ate there," Sally says. She's been staring into space for the last couple of minutes. I took it for a side effect and let her. But this is what she's been figuring out the whole time, what she comes back with. "We ate at the place where Hedegaard worked."
"Did we?"
"The sandwiches. When I brought you the phone recordings. That's where he worked. I knew I recognized the address." This is a better response than I really expected. I've just sat here and, for lack of any clever way to put it, told her the whole story of what happened at the East London station. It's an interesting non-sequitur, but it's still a much better response than I have any right to expect. "He could have made those sandwiches. Sherlock, I feel a little bit nauseous."
"Have you seen the pelican outside the window?"
"What?" But she looks. It sounds ridiculous, but that was the point. Now she looks for the pelican. If I'd handed her one of the cardboard kidney dishes from the table at the end of the bed, she would have thrown up. Now she's not thinking about being nauseous, she's thinking about the pelican. "What're you talking about?"
"Oh, isn't there? I could have sworn…"
"Isn't it funny," she says, "the way things go out of your head when they don't mean anything? It's days now since they told me where Hedegaard worked and I'm only just making the connection now… We might have seen him." Oh. This is a very different thought to the one I believed her to be having. "He could have cleared our table and I don't even remember."
"Frankly, I'd just be satisfied that you remember your own name for now."
She shakes her head. Then mumbles, "You're right, you're right." Then, "Actually, no, you're still wrong. We still never had to let him go on lack of hard evidence."
"That's one victory I can't take away from you."
There's just the start of a smile on her face. It could use some work. And I could use the task, to focus my mind, to make just sitting here that much easier. Then, just as it's looking as though there might be a gentle way to pass an evening on the cards, the door opens. Lestrade.
"I thought they'd sent you home?" I say. This too is clearly news to Sally.
"What're you doing here?"
"You heard about Hedegaard?" He nods. "Donovan hadn't." It confuses her, me suddenly reverting to her surname, but I'm trying to encourage him, trying to keep that in his head.
It pushes his attention back to her as well. "Yeah, that's why I came back; we need to get you out of here. The journos are moving over the city in packs. It's only a matter of time before they get to this place."
She nods, in a bleak, exhausted sort of way. Then seems to be waiting. After long seconds, "Well, you'll have to get out and let me get dressed, won't you?" Lestrade opts for an old-fashioned embarrassed mumble, turning his back before he even looks for the door. I'm almost ashamed to say it, but I do the same thing.
Outside in the hall, side-by-side, I can hear but not see his fingers tapping the wall, wanting a cigarette. I sympathise entirely. For a long time a question hovers, unasked, between us. Then, as I open my mouth to speak he cuts in, "Don't ask how I am."
Jim
Alright, this time for sure, Carl is sorted. The man himself is dead, his interview has been reported on, and an invaluable insight from Moran, that when he shot the woman, he could see very clearly the image of a rabbit in the splatter, has been duly noted.
"Moran," said I, "if I were seeing bunnies in the way the blood fell at a scene, I'd keep that to myself."
"You asked for details. Anyway, I told Dani I'd look."
Oh yeah. 'Tea Leafy patterns'. I thought they were joking.
But what I mean, bunnies and all, Carl's over. As is Danielle's little huff of this morning, whatever it was about. She has deigned to re-enter our society. There's a knock at the door and Moran goes, half-running like a kid expecting a parcel, because she's brought the cat with her. "And he's starving," I hear her say from the hall, "So take the baseboards off the cupboards and let him work." Moran then abandons his guest, and comes back to the kitchen carrying his saviour. Awkwardly. He's more of a dog man, but he knows when he's onto a good thing.
Dani saunters in a minute later, phone in hand. And I swear I'm just nosy. I'm not a suspicious person, just a curious one. "Anything interesting?"
"Hijacked the account access of a Detective Sergeant."
"What if he tries to use it?"
"She's on sabbatical in Thailand. Was running with the drugs squad for a while, went a bit native…"
"Clever. Who set that up?"
"I do have my own network, y'know. I was a very successful thief already before your intervention." Yeah, but my best hacker got shot this week, so she could share. "Anyway, what do you need me for?"
Moran should probably be listening to this. He's a bit busy, though. From what I can see, he's pulling his kitchen apart to give the cat access, promising dear Valentin all sorts of pleasures and treats, a tree full of bluebirds, a thousand kitty virgins, all the Whiskas he can eat. Dani's watching all this with the closest thing to 'maternal' I've ever seen on her. That's what disturbs me, that's why I have to start talking. Moran can be filled in later on.
"We stumbled across Holmes. Now we need to find another of this Diogenes herd. I've a name and a picture for him, but that's all. He's another invisible, can't turn him up anywhere along the usual lines. Open season, Danielle; who can you talk to, what can you do?"
"What's the name?"
"Clayton Underwood." And then, remembering my researches, "The Third." Mr Bruce, sweet, lovely, late-departed Mr Bruce, do you remember? He told me Clayton Underwood Eye-Eye-Eye was the odds-on favourite to climb to the next gap in the organization. I need him now. Clearing up Carl and his mess was phase one. Underwood is phase two.
"Dear Lord, what possesses parents… Sounds like something to pass on to Charlie, Raffles, that sort of crowd. Can't promise anything, but I'll make enquiries."
"Whatever you do, be discreet. He can't know we're talking about him."
"That's the problem, isn't it? Because anybody I contact, that's exposure so-"
"I can do it." This is Moran, piping up. He's on his knees on the tiles, watching the stalking cat go about its business, but he's been listening, and he answers. And it's not that we don't trust or believe him, it's not that we don't expect him to be able to help in these situations, not that we don't have faith in his abilities as a people person. But I turn over the back of my chair, and Danielle holds the table, leaning to look around me.
It's left to me to state the obvious, "Beg pardon?"
"Bruce, when he was spilling everything to you. Didn't he say Underwood was a military man?" As is Moran. Or used to be, but when I was putting together his current identity, I left him his service record. Anything I do that goes through HMAF, he's the primary contact. Jesus, how did I not think of this? "If he's made any impression, and he'd have to for this Diogenes thing to have picked him up, shouldn't be too hard to lay hands on." Me, I'm just kicking myself. God knows why Dani holds her silence and stunned expression. Moran looks up, gets all offended. "I'm good for more than just brute force, y'know."
Says the man trying to aid and abet in an animal's hunting…
Sherlock
The problem with this particular hospital, and especially with leaving it, is that all roads eventually go past the front step. The front step has now been annexed by the press hordes Lestrade was talking about. Them and, beyond them, another black Jaguar with tinted windows with a bored-looking suit leaning against it. You see my problem, yes?
There's a car waiting at the back for Donovan and Lestrade. It's not a panda, but that makes it no less obvious as police property. Journalists know that. As soon as that car goes past them, they'll know there's nothing here to see.
In an ideal world, Lestrade could drive that car past on the left, while all the hacks are looking right. By the time they looked back to the front step, he and Donovan could be gone. And the journalists would wait still, carefully watching a door that doesn't have anything to give them, not knowing that. In an ideal world.
I only came down for a smoke while the nurses perform final tests on Sally. Now I find myself discussing internally how to make a dozen or so wary vultures all look right at once. I'm trying to convince myself that it can't be done, that there are no options. This, of course, is a lie. There is one very clear option. You'll have spotted it yourself, no doubt. It's not exactly making itself look inconspicuous. Half the press-pack already has one eye on it anyway. It is making it very difficult to pretend it doesn't exist.
With a resigned sigh, I go back to Lestrade. Sally is just coming out into the hall, looking shaky, the lump on her head still large enough to be visible. But she's been okayed to go home, it seems. I walk up and tell them, "Press are here." Lestrade hisses, swears. Sally just looks afraid. "I think I can probably help, though, if you want." I explain to them what I can do. They're grateful. It's refreshing to offer a viable option and not be point-blank refused…
Makes it a bit easier to do.
It's simple, really. All I have to do is go back to the front of the building. Lestrade takes Donovan safely away. While I'm waiting for the green light from them, I pace, look down into the faces of the journalists, turn away from them. Twice I walk away and come back, as if to see if they might have left in the meantime. As you might expect, they don't.
When I get the message from Donovan, I let them see me checking my phone. Let them see me brace myself, turn up my collar, tuck my face in behind. Then I charge out, move through them as fast as I can, shoving as many as possible aside, and climb straight into the back of the black Jag.
Because if there's one thing a flashbulb loves better than a wounded officer, it's a tinted window. They can't resist. It's like an instinct with them. They gather, they crowd, they all look right. Out the far side of the car, I watch Lestrade drive away. Sally's in the passenger side, looking back towards me. Can't see me, of course.
Jim
Moran's back at that mirror of his again. He's worse than a budgie. He just likes to be spruced when he goes to see anybody army-related. Like he wants to set an example; you too can leave the Forces and (so far as I can tell) wear nice shirts and have a fine, glossy head.
Just as I'm about to tell him tonight would be wonderful, that just because nobody's going to catch him for the deaths at the police station doesn't mean we're not on a timer, that mate of his cuts in, protecting him. Dani raises a question she already knows the answer to just to distract me. "Your plan for Holmes… I mean, I have my suspicions what that is. And I don't see where Underwood fits in. Why not just feed this to Mycroft?"
I don't get the chance to tell her I know her little game. She's probably got the bulk of this figured. Once again, it turns out Moran really can listen and, in this case, preen all that once. He leans away from his mirror without looking away; "How come she knows the plan and I don't know the plan?"
Because her mind is sick and twisted. He, on the other hand, is getting all wound up about the impression he makes when he goes to visit a crowd of people he hates with a passion, in order that he may discreetly pump them for information on a very sensitive topic, a task which is very much out of his comfort zone. And that's just about the most normal thing in the world.
By the way, he's killed six or seven people in the last thirty-six hours. You might want to write that on your hand or something, because God knows I'm having trouble holding onto the fact.