Sherlock

It's like getting off a boat, when you still have sea legs but you're not at sea anymore. This is about walking when you're high, did I say that? I meant to. That's what I'm talking about, anyway. It's like sea legs. That's a funny phrase, sea legs. Like legs made of sea. That makes no sense whatsoever. Water can't bear up the weight of a human being. Unless it was frozen, but then seas don't freeze, not since the ice age, not with their salt content… Ah! Of course, it's the salt, in a high enough concentration, that could bear up the weight of a human being, thought it would almost certainly be pushing the saturation point, rendering the water itself completely useless and… Why did I want to know how sea water could hold a person up, please? I have no idea, by the way, where I'm walking to. It's not supposed to matter. I haven't done this in a long time, but I'm almost sure it's never mattered before. See, it used to be fun, it always used to be an experiment, to get up and walk whilst under this particular influence. The nature of the chemical reaction is that you shouldn't get up and walk, it doesn't want you to. It wants you to stay on the floor, provided you are somewhere which is not life-threatening and, if you're in a position to be choosy, which is reasonably warm. So getting up is a process. You learn it afresh, like a child getting up onto two legs for the first time. Then you roll, but the world does not roll with you, and you lurch side to side, staggering, like sailors on deck in a storm and that's how I got onto this. This topic, I mean, this particular thread. Obviously it's not how I got onto this. That had nothing to do with sailors. How I got onto this is a different matter altogether. It would be more fun, actually, if it had had something to do with sailors. Well… I can't actually imagine how that particular set of circumstances might play out. Maybe the word isn't 'fun', but 'harrowing'. Maybe that makes more sense. It would just mean there was something to tell, that's all I'm really saying. There's not really anything to tell. There is a story but it's not interesting enough to tell. Which really just means it's an awful story. Oh, no thank you, I don't want to hear any awful stories, that would be boring.

Speaking of, here's a boring story; a car's just pulled up next to me and stopped. You can't see who's in this car because it's got dark windows. If that's keeping you from knowing who's in that car, you need help. It just sits there, expecting me to get in. I just stand on the spot and look into the sky, planning my route away from the crouched, prowling thing by the positions of the stars. Maybe if I just look long enough at stars it'll go away. Like if I don't move it won't be able to see me, the way certain reptiles are. That would be nice.

But it doesn't. It opens a door, he opens a door, my borther opens and door and leans out. "Get in," he says.

The only thing unusual or interesting about this story is that this car is silver rather than black. I wonder who's driving him.

I ask, "Do I have to?"

"Yes."

"Even though I really don't want to and I'm thinking of running away?"

"You couldn't, even if you had the wit and energy to try." That is a right and true thing and I think it's the novelty of hearing rightness and trueness out of Mycroft's mouth that makes me relent. He moves over and I get in. He can give me a lift home if he wants. It's the least I deserve. It's the least he can do. This is all his fault. Something very deep and settled inside me knows that, that Mycroft led to this somehow. Whether or not I can remember the exact process is totally irrelevant. I'm offended you'd even ask me to explain it, frankly. Naturally, then, I won't bother. If you don't know I'm not going to be the one to tell you. After a while of my righteous, utterly vindicated silence, he says, "Looks as though you've overdone it a bit."

Absolutely, Mycroft. Determinedly, and at great cost and effort, I have overdone it considerably. Thank you for noticing. Thank you for… Thank you, Mycroft. I feel corporeal again. Existence has come rushing back all at once and come upon me like a wave, and with such force. I feel, to use the common parlance, like myself again. All you need to know, really, isn't it? And you may say, because I have thought the same thing myself, that I am taking the easy way out of my problems, medicating them away? You may say that, and you would be too bloody right, and why shouldn't I? What could be wrong with that? Explain, tell me, one good reason, just one – why shouldn't I take the easy way out? If there was some way to make your own life easier, to take the pain away from you, and if you thought it was worth it, then why wouldn't you? Of course you would. Whatever it takes. People do whatever it takes to ease their own way in life. If the cause is good and you act in the interests of the cause, then…

"I have news," Mycroft sighs. He sounds… sad, almost? That doesn't feel like the right word for him, but that's what I hear. Sad. Like all communication has failed and now he can only pass on a message.

"Good or bad?"

"You'll think it's good."

"Okay, then tell me."

"Somebody knows who murdered Hedegaard." Oh no, no, we don't have to talk about this, you don't have to talk about what happened, I don't have to be thinking about that anymore. Me and the needle had an agreement; I don't have to be thinking about that anymore.

"But it's not you."

"No."

Oh. Oh, right, right, I get it. Do you get it? Do you see? It's really very simple. Mycroft didn't come looking for me because this is his fault. Nothing like that. No. He wants me safe and sober, yes. But only so that I can help. So why, why shouldn't I, one good reason, shouldn't I, just one. Shouldn't I?

Jim

Dani's hanging on every word of Newsnight, waiting for Paxman to win the bet for her. She seems so sure, and so desperate all at once. She keeps call him little pet names, making eyes at the screen, as if far away in television centre he'll suddenly feel the power of that flirting wash over him. Confidence will ensue, allowing him to mould to her will and laugh out loud about the death of the Creep.

I'm keeping an eye on her. She's tried to pass off a wry chuckle as a laugh, so far. It's the sort of task I would usually leave to Moran, but he's out in the garden. He's got a freezer bag full of half-eaten mouse, cocooned in tape, and he's burying it. He says this is to stop others coming to feed on the corpse. Y'know the way mice are vicious cannibals with no instinct for self-preservation, or self-respect, for that matter? Yeah, there's a tribe of those out there just waiting to descend and feast. That's Moran's story and he's sticking to it. And maybe it's true. Maybe I'm being judgemental, maybe I have a twisted mind. But he was all wound up about sharing his home with that critter. That, and his insistence on having Valentin with him at the graveside, I'm thinking maybe there's something else going on here. Less to do with hygienic disposal and more to do with deep, deep psychosis.

These are my nearest associates. If I concentrate really, really hard, I can make them and all their… quirks seem sweetly ridiculous. Like the character on any given American TV program who is played by a comedian whose face you know from somewhere. On a night like this, I can make them seem that way.

See, there's not that much for me to do but wait. We need Underwood to get back to us before we can move. Not that there's anything to worry about. He'll come through, of course he will. It's too good for him to turn down. Dani did a good job of the message.

First she told him all about Hedegaard. About his murder. She told him she knew where to find this murderer. Then, "So now you're asking yourself, what has all this got to do with me? This is police work, surely. But I'd have a word with Mycroft Holmes before you go passing any of this on to your local bobby."

My guess? Holmes and Underwood are tearing pieces off each other as we speak. I only wish I could watch that happening. I want to see them, in their awfully-terribly-horribly civilized way, behaving nonetheless like pack animals. You know how it is with wolves. The young bucks have to fight it out amongst themselves before they can start working towards alpha status.

The beauty of it all is, it doesn't matter how much Holmes gives up. When Underwood calls us back, it won't matter what we tell him either. It doesn't have to useful, or alluring. It doesn't even have to be true. Actually, if we were inclined to say nothing in response to him but a time and a place, he would be there. We are far, far too good an opportunity to him.

A conman explained this to me once. This is years ago, before everything really got started for me. He told me that if you set a trap with the right bait, you don't need to say a word. They'll do everything for you. If you promise them exactly what they want most, their heart's deepest desire, they'd walk off Beachy Head to follow you. He was telling me all that the way an old explorer might talk about Shangri La. Unattainable, a dream of perfection. Now here I am and I've got it. I should track him down and tell him. I want to see if it gives him hope or makes him top himself. The odds, in my mind, are fifty-fifty.

Speaking of odds, Paxo's starting to look awful derisive. He's this close to making himself a very powerful enemy. Especially when my horse has somehow managed to avoid the rampant press entirely. Short of an invisibility cloak I wouldn't have said that was possible, but he's done it. So Jerry up there may just think twice before he gets to giggling when I'm not even in the race yet…

"Dani?"

"Shh." From the arm of her chair, I get the remote, and turn on the subtitles. "Ah. Yes, dear?"

"Y'know Underwood?"

"Not personally, yet."

"Not important. I've just got this really awful feeling he'd be a lot of fun to keep on the hook for a while. He could prove useful, I mean."

"Oh yeah. Yeah, he could." Daft woman. This isn't what I wanted. I wanted her to convince me I was doing everything right, and that no mistakes are being made. But she just sits there, with her eyes following every word on the screen, still looking deep into the dark, chocolaty eyes of nightly news' answer to the Inquisition, and nods. Maybe she's not really listening to me. I'm about to ask if she is when she continues, "But the point is, Underwood isn't the objective. He's a means to an end. He gets us to Holmes. Yes, he could be a bit of a laugh, but we don't need him for anything else. You're planning the right thing."

"You don't know what I'm planning."

"I didn't, until you asked me that. You're not going to tell him anything, are you? It's the same plan as before. We draw him out and he gets his face shot off. This time, though, the issue won't be over who did the shooting, but who ordered it done."

Trying not to sound whiny or offended, neither of which I am, "It's not the same plan as before."

"I didn't mean it that way. Bottom line, if Underwood gets us to Holmes, we do what it takes."

She shrugs. That, it seems, is that. Simple as. See? This is what I wanted; absolute reassurance, no more nor less. You see, I have something for her. I wanted her to earn it, to deserve it. Now I feel happy enough to give it up. "Sorry," I tell her, "about lately. I know I'm not using you to your best." Again, that's something which can distract her from Paxman. Probably because she knows I'm talking shite. She has been worked hard and I'm not sorry. "All I've really had you doing is speaking for me. What I mean, you haven't really had any real thiefy, thief-type thieving to do since you were wounded."

"Your point?"

"I just think maybe it's time you got back on the horse."