Chapter Twenty

When the taxi taking them home from the clinic turned onto Baker Street, John could see two cars were outside 221b, despite the double yellow lines. Mind you, it helped deter the traffic wardens that one of the vehicles was a police car and the other the anonymous type of sedan that John had come to know as Mycroft's wheels.

He sighed, then decided to pre-empt the inevitable fireworks from Sherlock when he did finally look up from his phone and saw the sight. "We've got company."

He wasn't prepared for the almost casual response, "good. I asked them to come." Sherlock didn't even look up from his phone. John was still pondering that comment when the cab drew up outside the flat.

"John. I haven't had a chance to get to a cash point recently. Just get them to put it on the account, will you?"

John wasn't sure whether it was the thought that Sherlock was actually talking to him about it rather than just leaping out of the taxi in his usual style, or the idea that, despite having no money on him, Sherlock was reminding John that the account in their names should be used rather than empty John's wallet. Whichever it was, the statement was remarkable coming from Sherlock. And it was yet another piece of evidence that something very significant had happened to his flatmate's behaviour. It made John realise that over the past six months the man's thoughtless, totally self-absorbed, uncommunicative nervous energy that had been getting worse was just…gone. It was totally unnerving.

He gave the cabbie the account number and signed for it before going in the front door to witness the sight of Mrs Hudson putting her hand on Sherlock's shoulder. She was smiling, and although Sherlock's back was to him, John could see that he was not resisting her touch. "It's good to have you back, and see you looking so well. What did the doctor say about that arm?"

"It will be fine; it's healing."

John interrupted. "Mrs Hudson, we've got visitors that are expecting us, so catch you later, alright?"

Sherlock went upstairs in a measured pace, rather than his usual manic two steps at a time, so John arrived at the living room the same time as his flatmate, who took off his coat and scarf and hung them on the usual hook. Then he turned to see Mycroft standing by the fireplace, Lestrade in Sherlock's chair, and Esther Cohen sitting in John's. The atmosphere in the room was tense.

"Glad you could make it, Lestrade. Let's start with you." The baritone was precise and steady. "I hope you've had time to at least scan the data I sent you?"

"Yeah- thanks for that. Uh, for future reference, I will be changing my password on a daily basis now- just got a lecture about it from our IT people. But, um, I'm not going to argue about it this time. The details you provided explain a lot- now all we have to do is find the culprit."

Sherlock gave a shake of his head. "That won't be possible. It's likely that all five were killed by the same hit man- a skilled assassin, but he's not really the person behind this."

Now Sherlock turned to acknowledge Mycroft properly. "This is your territory, brother. The stakes are simply too high for it to be the work of an ordinary criminal or to remain a police matter. Have your people taken a view?"

"We're working on it. Thank you for the information." Mycroft gave one of his slightly strained smiles. "It will need a proper task force, an interagency working group and the assistance of overseas friends, as well. I've explained things to the Police Commissioner. He says the Met are relieved to find that they no longer have this as an open case on their files. We will find something to deflect the media's attention." He was scrutinising Sherlock very, very intently as he said this.

Sherlock fished into his suit pocket and pulled out two USB sticks. "One each. The evidence that I didn't think was wise to put in an e mail or even a HOLMES2 file. This one for you, Lestrade, will help your team learn how to tackle this sort of crime in the future. And yours, Mycroft, should help that group get started. A most interesting case."

John had taken off his coat and sat down on the sofa. He wasn't about to let Sherlock off the hook, and by the looks they were giving Sherlock, neither were Mycroft and Esther. The silence lengthened. Greg glanced from Sherlock to the other three, and sensed they were no longer welcoming his presence. But, he gave Sherlock a quiet look, and brown eyes locked on a pair of grey green eyes. "Are you done with me, or would you rather I stayed?"

That provoked the tiniest of smiles on Sherlock's lips –and it reached his eyes, too, so Lestrade knew it for real. "Go. You have work to do. And they won't eat me alive, I can handle it."

Greg gave a little nod. "Well, you know where to find me." And then he was gone.

Sherlock wanted to sit, but decided against the sofa where John was. He carefully pulled a chair out from the table, looking at the three of them. "You have questions."

No one was entirely sure where to start. In the end it was Sherlock who broke the ice. "Let's revert to the previous game plan you had. Three questions, one each. John, you can start, if you like."

The doctor started to open his mouth, then shut it. Then started again, only to stop, again. Finally, he just blurted out, "Are you really alright, or is this just an act?"

"I'm fine. No, I'm actually better than fine."

John just looked amazed and a little shocked. "How is that even remotely possible? What did you do?"

"I built a new Mind Palace. It turned out that the old one had just outlived its purpose. Rather than re-build it using the old system, I started over again. Went back to first principles. And it worked."

John looked confused. "What does that actually mean, Sherlock? I don't understand."

Sherlock turned in the chair to face Mycroft. "Why don't you explain the principle? You were always better at describing it than I am."

Mycroft pursed his lips. "The method of loci. Memory palace. The Roman Room, the Journey Method. It's been called a lot of things over the century or so it's been in use. Basically, it's a technique which engages spatial memory in such a way as to tag information you want to retrieve later."

He nodded towards Esther Cohen, who joined in, adding "Psychiatrists and medical professionals have proven how the process engages the medial parietal cortex, the retrosplenial cortex and the right posterior hippocampus. It's been scientifically proven to expand the potential of memory significantly."

Sherlock resumed. "Our mother taught it to Mycroft first. Then me. I think of it as the mother board* of my hard drive. We use it for different purposes, however. Mycroft's takes the form of a physical archive. My Mind Palace was at first a physical set of rooms when I was a child, but it wasn't enough. The SPD and the Spectrum complicate matters for me- I can't filter memory the way he does."

"My approach… evolved. It changed most when I reached adolescence. At my first term at Harrow, I was introduced to IT and ever since then, I've used my own program language and storage system- no longer spatially confined to sequential steps. Like a hard disk, my brain could store data anywhere, so long as the directory and path programmes work."

Esther was eyeing him carefully. "So why did you decide to suppress memory?" She was determined to get Sherlock to focus on what she believed to be a traumatic experience. If he truly was 'better', then this would be the true test.

He tilted his head a little, as if considering the question. "Limitations of space in the declarative memory meant that I needed to delete the pathfinder tags for a lot of memories. Sensory overload creates that necessity. So, every so often I had to delete things, do a de-frag scan, clean things up. But, if you've ever deleted something on your PC by mistake, then you probably know that it's still there on the hard drive. You just need an expert user or a special software tool to recover it for you. Fortunately, in the new Mind Palace, that's a thing of the past now."

Mycroft looked dubious. "Why?"

Sherlock looked up at him standing by the fireplace. "Why don't you sit down, Mycroft? Looming is a rather transparent tactic, and it isn't necessary." This wasn't delivered as the usual acerbic jibe, but in a rather bemused tone. "The Mind Palace 2.0 has unlimited storage capacity. I don't have to segregate according to long term or short term memory anymore. No longer confined to sequential programming language, I'm now working in four dimensions." There was the tiniest trace of Sherlockian smugness in that statement.

"Four?!" Mycroft's disbelief was clear.

Sherlock responded, "There were advantages to getting the Geek case at just the right time. Think corelet, only better."

"Prove it." Mycroft's challenge hung in the air. John took a breath in- was it wise to return so directly to what it was that had driven Sherlock away?

"How would you like me to do that?" It was in a quietly confident baritone.

"Tell us exactly what happened between you and Guilliams on the night of the 17th of August 1994, and what father made you say when he got back and you came home from the hospital."

Sherlock actually smiled. "You think it was Dirk Guilliams? Interesting. What makes you think that?"

"You refused his photographs after he died. And the so-called suicide note I heard about from the West Sussex Chief Constable said that you couldn't live without the man who had been fired. I learned from Frank Wallace that Guilliams had left unexpectedly for London- and there was no further contact between you."

Sherlock shook his head. "You're wrong, Mycroft. Dirk wasn't the guilty party." He looked thoughtful. "Why would I want photographs? I can remember every scent, sound, touch and feel of Pirate, and every moment I spent with him. Why would I need a two dimensional paper representation of him?"

Mycroft returned to his original thrust. "So, why did the trainer leave on the 17th?"

Sherlock replied instantly. "Because his wife in London had been taken ill. He needed to go back overnight to look after the children when she was admitted to hospital. He planned to meet us at Gatcombe if he could get away. I told him it didn't matter if he couldn't make it- Pirate and I were ready."

Mycroft looked at Sherlock very intently. "Then who was it who assaulted you?"

Sherlock sat back in the chair, taking a stronger posture, his right hand calmly resting in his lap. "Do you remember the Friesian, Geert Maes? You authorised Guilliams' hiring of him. He trained Pirate to jump and worked him when I couldn't fit it into my school timetable. He drove the horsebox to the competitions. He also turned into a bloody bastard when it came to losing to someone like me. His jealousy festered until it became verbal abuse and then more. What happened on the 17th was his way of getting revenge. He'd been fired that morning by Guilliams who caught him with a scalpel about to cut a nick in the distal sesamoidian ligament of Pirate's left front pastern. It would have lamed him, and kept us out of the competition. Dirk fired him on the spot, put him onto a train with a boat ticket to Holland and told him that if he wasn't out of the UK in twelve hours, he'd report him to police. Then he drove up to London."

Esther decided to enter the conversation. "How then did this man assault you? Can you remember now the memories you were suppressing?" She said it warily, worried that she might trigger a traumatic reaction. Yet, she also knew that she had to get Sherlock to surface the memory if they were to help him overcome the PTSD associated with the event.

She felt a pair of grey green eyes looking at her coolly. "You need not be alarmed, Doctor Cohen. I can recount exactly what happened without difficulty. I always have been able to do so, if I really needed it. A file you delete by accident on a PC can almost always be recovered, and even though I had removed the directory tag of the original memory, I could always find it, if I wanted to. The question was, why would I want to?"

Before she could reply, he carried on. "But, to answer your question directly, so you don't think I am avoiding it, Maes went one stop on the train and then came back. He got back to the stable and then assaulted me when I got back from working Pirate. He beat me, stripped my clothes off, tied me up and then used a riding crop to punish me for being the reason he was fired. Then he set fire to the stable. He meant for both Pirate and me to die, while he caught the last train and then the last ferry. I got free by using a tin of saddle soap to smash the bones in my left hand and wrist enough to squeeze through the restraint, and got free. I then went after Pirate who had hurt himself when he broke through the wooden wall. He died about a quarter of a mile away, just after I found him. At some point soon after, Frank Wallace found me and I was taken to hospital."

The tale was told in a factual voice, as if recounting one of his crime scene reconstructions- without emotion. John still found the whole idea of someone doing this to a fifteen year old just profoundly shocking.

Mycroft was not through. "Sherlock, I need to understand why this was kept secret. The Chief Constable said that when he investigated, father told him that you had set the fire and that you meant to burn down the barn, taking your own life. He said he'd been shown a fax with your signature. What actually happened?"

"Maes sent the fax- it was his alibi. He thought, quite correctly as it turned out, that if the fire was blamed on me, and the evidence of the fax taken into account, that they wouldn't bother looking for him."

Esther had been listening with an increased sense of horror. "But, surely you told the truth when you recovered at the hospital? "

Sherlock looked at her, and said almost gently. "I told father. He refused to believe me."

It was John who finally broke the stunned silence. "Why, in God's name, wouldn't he?"

"Because he'd been paying Maes to spy on me for almost two years. And Maes filled his head with all sorts of rubbish, including the fact that I fancied him, that I was a homosexual who had an adolescent crush on him. The first time he laid a hand on me, I went to father demanding that he fire Maes, but he called the man in and he said that I'd come onto him and that he'd beaten me up to teach me a lesson. Father approved of that. And he paid Maes to keep it quiet, lest my 'perversions' as he called it brought shame on the family name. So, whatever evidence trail Maes left when he assaulted me, father was pre-disposed to believe it."

Mycroft had just closed his eyes and sighed. "Yes, I can understand how it happened. But why didn't you tell someone else? Frank Wallace, or Doctor Cohen?"

That provoked a tilt of Sherlock's head. "Don't you think father would have taken steps to ensure I didn't do that? What part of your experience of him suggests to you that he would leave me that option? Of course, he made it impossible for me. He called me at the hospital and told me over the phone that the records of my admission would be destroyed, that he'd fix it to hide my shame from the police and social services. He made it clear that if I spoke to anyone about what had happened, he would use the suicide note with my signature on it to get me sectioned and sent away to a secure psychiatric facility. I valued my freedom too much to risk that. So, I just dealt with it and got on with my life."

"You should have told me, Sherlock." Mycroft was, for once, not hiding his sadness behind the usual icy mask.

"Father told me later that you knew. He said that he'd told you in September. When he died, I knew I was free from the threat of him sending me away. But you knew and had the evidence, and that gave you the power to put me away. So, nothing much had changed. And by then I'd build the first proper Mind Palace structure, and could deal with the memories and any…unpleasant side effects."

"I didn't know, Sherlock." This was uttered in genuine pain. "I'm sorry. I had no idea."

"You healed yourself alone, in the only way you knew how." Esther said it softly.

Sherlock shrugged. "It worked."

John's brow furrowed. "Then what went wrong at Musgrave Hall? Was that PTSD?"

His flatmate shook his head. "No, I don't think so. The idea that the memories were traumatic doesn't really feel right. It might be to a neurotypical, but I just don't think of it in those terms- and I didn't really at the time, once the initial physical shock wore off. I was distressed by Pirate's death, but the rest was different. Assault by people I piss off isn't that remarkable in my life. It might distress what you once called 'real people' in their 'real lives', John, but it didn't have the same effect on me. It pushed me into making the Mind Palace better at compartmentalisation, which helped me grow up a lot. In a way, it was the push I needed."

Esther interjected, "But what about the emotional numbing, withdrawal? Surely…."

Sherlock waved a hand in dismissal; "That's just me. It was me before the fire."

John had to look away at that admission. He had been trying to comprehend the impact that such a savage act of brutality would have on a normal fifteen year old. He'd assumed that a fifteen year old Sherlock would somehow be more vulnerable because of the SPD and his being on the Spectrum. But here was Sherlock telling him that it was actually an advantage- that his neuroatypicality gave him the means to overcome something that might have emotionally crippled someone else. It sort of turned everything on its head, and he looked at Sherlock with new-found respect.

"You are amazing." It slipped out quietly without John thinking about it. And it provoked a gentle smile from Sherlock- one of his real smiles- in response.

Esther wasn't entirely convinced. "But, then why the flashbacks? The meltdown? John, you saw these last week, and we all saw what happened four days ago. How do you explain that, Sherlock?"

"What happened there was symptomatic of the breakdown of my previous version of the Mind Place- and that's been acting up for ages, at least six months or more. Declarative memory failed; things kept coming up in current memory that had no reason to be there. I haven't been working at my usual level for some time, and the whole structure just fell apart in the end. I suspect the two general anaesthetics were the final straw that pushed me into finding a new approach. And I left Baker Street because you three didn't understand what I needed, and I was too far gone to explain it. So, I found a place where I wouldn't be disturbed and sorted it."

Then Sherlock leaned forward. "Now, would you mind if we get onto something more interesting? What are you going to do about this computer criminal, Mycroft? I want to be involved in this case; it's fascinating."

*Author's note: Thanks to Macgyvershe for this lovely concept. It also gives me an excuse to thank all of the reviews for their reviews and contributions over this and earlier stories- YOU are the reason why I keep writing here.