CHAPTER 16: RHYMES WITH 'FALL'

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015

When Sherlock announced, 'We're spending the night' as though it were simply a matter of course, Molly, though unused to having anyone else in her home, offered only a token objection. She fully expected it would be overridden, and it was. She really didn't want to be alone in her flat. Not tonight. And Greg's phone had gone straight to voicemail.

'You're sure you don't mind?' she said, continuing in the vein of apology for being such a burden.

'Not remotely. John will do smartly on the sofa, won't you John?'

John bobbed his head once. 'Of course.'

'What about you?' Molly asked.

Sherlock smiled to reassure her. 'Oh no, I'm fine. Couldn't sleep if I tried, too much on the brain. May I borrow your laptop?'

After setting Sherlock up on her laptop and offering them both something to eat (John declined straightaway, and Sherlock said that he knew his way around her kitchen well enough and insisted that she not bother herself with tending to them), Molly passed through the kitchen, turning down the lights as she went, and on to the laundry where she stored extra blankets in a cupboard. It was just in sight of the sitting room and not quite out of earshot, and she noticed that, at her retreat, John had stepped closer to Sherlock, his head bowed a little, and he spoke out of the side of his mouth. Molly pretended to be occupied, but she held her breath to listen.

'I've forgotten—that is, I haven't taken my pills.'

From the corner of her eye, she watched Sherlock incline his head toward John, speaking just as softly. 'I can go back. I'll hurry—'

'No no, it's fine. Just. Erm. Just stay alert, yeah?'

Sherlock agreed with a nod. Then they parted.

When she was certain that the private moment had passed, she returned and set the stack of blankets at the end of the sofa.

'You're sure there's nothing more I can get for you? Tea? Coffee, Sherlock, if you're going to be up all night anyway?'

'Thank you, Molly, but I'm fine. John? Chamomile?'

'Nothing for me, thank you, Molly.'

At last, she retreated to her own bedroom (which she'd had Sherlock double check for anything amiss and John examine for security). With the door closed, she stood still and listened to the distant murmur of their voices, tones mild and words indistinct. She found she was glad to hear them, glad of their presence. It was a little odd, though, to hear men in her flat, to see men in her flat, especially men settling in for the night. And even though it was strangely comforting, she was still a little on edge. A woman—one she knew nothing about, beyond the memory of seeing her dead in her morgue—had been in her home, in her cupboards and bathroom and underwear drawer. Beyond naming her, Sherlock hadn't said anything more about her, or even why he suspected (he must have suspected something) that the woman (was she a former lover?) had broken into Molly's flat.

Still, just a woman. A crazy one, perhaps, a disgruntled ex most likely, but at least it wasn't the man who had taken John. There was some relief in that. She felt rather foolish now for nearly losing it and crying in front of him. Tomorrow, they'd track her down, and they'd get Greg to arrest her on the charge of breaking and entering. And that would be that.

Thinking of him again, she went for her phone and called his number, but her heart sank when his voicemail picked up instead. She wanted to cry, or scream, or throw the phone against the wall. Seconds passed in silence after the tone as she debated what to do, what to say. In the end, she could manage only two words: 'Call me.' And she hung up.

Molly's bedroom door had been closed for some twenty minutes, but neither Sherlock nor John made any sign of retiring to bed.

'Well?' said John. He sat forward on the sofa, elbows on knees and fingers loosely laced. Sherlock was reclined in the under-stuffed overstuffed armchair, fingertips templed, head inclined—his usual pose for intense contemplation.

Sherlock's head came up. 'Well what?'

'I can practically hear you thinking. You're joining dots, aren't you? You've figured something out.'

'I can't claim to have solved the puzzle,' said Sherlock, 'but the picture is becoming clearer.'

'Care to share?'

'Do you really want to know?'

'I think I ought to. If Molly's in danger—'

'Aren't we all.' He looked at John without turning his head. 'Will you be leaving her the gun?'

'I already have,' said John simply. Then, to fill the pause, 'It's her best chance of defending herself, if she must.'

'Where is it?'

'In the top drawer of her bedside table. Taped to the ceiling of the drawer with a strip of duct tape.'

'To avoid its being discovered too easily.'

'Yes.'

'Good.'

'So will you tell me now?'

Sherlock considered. 'How are we doing tonight?'

John nodded emphatically. 'Fine. I feel fine. I'm a two.'

He was never a one.

Sherlock dropped his hands to the armrests where the fingers of his right hand began to drum the faded pink upholstery. He was eager to talk. 'It has long been a question in my mind as to whether'—he wrinkled in nose in distaste—'that woman was playing any part in this scheme. Darren Hirsch we are certain is involved. Of Moran, we have every reason to suspect. But she might have been content to sit back and watch the pieces fall. I should have guessed she would have Moran on a shorter leash.'

John's head cricked to the side at the word, but straightened again. 'Why do you say that?' he asked. 'She may not have had her hand in all of it. The murders, I mean. Aside from a bit of a scare, Molly's been left unharmed. Seems like a bit of a deviation from the pattern.'

'Yes, but for an essential element: that which connects it to all the other crimes.'

'What's that?'

'The note.'

John shook his head. 'This is the first time there's been a note.'

'Not at all, though perhaps my choice of word is misleading. What I mean is, the message. All the messages have been, at their core, identical.'

'What messages?'

'Do keep up, John. You were there when we received the first.'

John stared at him, baffled. Then, 'You mean, with the shoe in the tree? The text you received to your mobile?'

'Yes. What did it say?'

'It was a line from a rhyme. A nursery rhyme.'

'And the line?'

'The cradle will fall. From Rock-a-Bye. But what did that—?'

'The second was more subtle. When we found O'Harris, we discovered his pockets had been stuffed with hemlock and rose petals.'

'You never did explain that.'

'I was still gathering data, piecing it all together. But it's clearer to me now. Do you know what a small bunch of cut flowers is called, John?'

'Um . . .'

'A posy. I'll leave you to the join those dots.'

John's eyebrows knit together before they rose in surprise. 'Ring a ring o' roses,' he said. 'A pocket full of posies.'

'Indeed. And how does it end?'

'Atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down.'

'Very good, you remember your nursery rhymes.'

'Not much of a feat, that,' said John, thinking Sherlock was taking the piss. 'They are rather ingrained in us as children, aren't they?'

But then he saw Sherlock's slight frown. 'I didn't have them memorised. I had to research them.'

'What? Why?'

'In my nursery, John, the au pair was not permitted to read to me children's tales or teach me children's songs. Father said simple stories nurtured simple minds, and he would have none of that. My earliest bedtime stories were Crime and Punishment and Machiavelli's The Prince.'

'Damn,' said John, lips fighting to keep in a straight line. 'But surely you heard standard nursery rhymes. On the telly, or at school.'

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow as if to say, Telly? In my house? if not, I went to public school, John. 'I'm not entirely unfamiliar with them.' His tone was scathing, but John knew him well enough to detect a note of embarrassment. 'One hears them often enough in parks and cafes, mothers speaking to their children . . . Look, that's all beside the point. The point is the message: The cradle will fall from the lullaby. We all fall down from the Ring a Ring o' Roses.'

'London Bridge is falling down.'

'Now you're seeing it.'

'And this latest? The bodies found in a skip?'

'There was a note left,' said Sherlock, a little evasively; he had told John very little about this one, 'though not a nursery rhyme. Like with the second murder, the message here was more subtle. The victims: Ralston Winters and Lynette Avery. On the street, they were commonly known as Jack and Jill.'

'I see.'

'You remember their fate, of course.'

'Jack fell down and broke his crown.'

'And Jill came tumbling after, yes. Molly places Winters' death about twenty-four hours prior to Avery's, so we know he "fell" first, as per the rhyme. His skull had been bashed in—the crown of his head split like a melon. But few curiosities with these murders. In the first place, these two victims broaden the victim profiles considerably. Jefferies, O'Harris, and Nichols were all homeless white men within nine years of age of one another. This suggested that the Slash Man had a type, and most officers down at the Yard believed that type to be, well, based on you. Forgive me, I believed it myself. Body type, hair colour, approximate age, and race—they were not far dissimilar to you, John.'

'I noticed it, too,' John said softly.

'But Winters and Avery don't fit that pattern. Winters and Avery were both black, and, obviously, Avery was a woman. She alone would have broadened the profile, but the two together in a double murder? A clear deviation. The reasons are unclear, but their deaths may have been in the sole interest of conforming more closely to the rhyme, which only intensifies the significance of the rhymes. Second, as far as I have been able to ascertain, they were known as Jack and Jill only to other homeless men and women, which makes sense, as they were the ones to dub them as such. This suggests to me not only that the culprit is indeed a member of that community but furthermore that every step of this has been planned. What is the likelihood of finding a homeless man and woman going by such monikers that merely happen to fit into an empty slot in the template? No, every victim has already been carefully, craftily selected. Five so far, but how many more? That I do not know. There are hundreds of nursery rhymes.'

'But not all of them have to do with falling,' said John.

'In that you are right. That number is more limited. But that does not dispel their penchant for creativity. Look at Molly.'

'Polly put the kettle on, we'll all have tea,' John recited. 'You're right. Nothing about falling in that.' His eyes suddenly lit with understanding. 'Oh. It got her to look in the kettle, though, didn't it? Where she found the bird.'

'Not just a bird. The point is that it was a wren. At least, I think there's significance to the species. This winter has been a harsh one, and native wrens, being so small, perish easily in the conditions. Furthermore, they're evasive, hard to spot, let alone catch. So the fact that there was a wren in the kettle seems to be a deliberate selection. But I may be drawing lines where there is no intended connection. And given the perps' penchant for stories . . .'

'Go on.'

'There's an old story. Not a fairy tale or nursery rhyme. A fable. German. It's about how the wren came to be called the King of Birds. Do you know it?'

'I can't say I do.'

'In short, it describes how all the birds desired one of their own kind to rule over them. To determine the most worthy, an owl fashioned a test: the bird to fly highest would become king of the birds.'

'And the wren flew the highest?' John asked.

'No, it was the eagle. But the wren, thinking himself clever and suspecting that the eagle would fly higher than all the others, hid himself in the eagle's feathers. And when the eagle flew as high as he could, the wren emerged and flew higher still.'

'So . . . he won?'

'That depends on the storyteller. But in the original version, no. The owl, when he heard what the wren had done, called him a trickster and a fraud. The eagle was named king of the birds, and the wren was reproved and punished to always keep close to the earth, never flying very high at all. Ultimately, the wren was shamed and despised of all other birds.'

'I don't see what this has to do with the bird in Molly's kettle.'

'If I'm right—and I'm not saying that I am—about their reasons for selecting a wren, then it appears that they are taking the bird's punishment even further. Its wings were clipped. Not the feathers, the wings. The humerus—snipped on both sides. One of the wings was entirely detached, the other still clung on by only a flimsy bit of skin. And what happens to a bird that can't fly?'

'So it was a symbol.'

Sherlock shot forward in his chair. His hands spread wide like the spokes of a wheel. 'All of it. A prelude of what is to come. This whole series of crimes, every piece of it, is one long charade, a narrative built around one central theme: the fall. My fall.'

John frowned. 'You mean, when you . . . ?'

'Not that one.'

'Sherlock—'

'The one that is still to come.'

'Sherlock, stop.'

John bowed his head into a hand, shielding his eyes from looking at Sherlock. As he let out a shaky breath, Sherlock settled back again into the chair and said, 'I'm sorry. I should let you rest.'

'No. It's nothing. It's just . . .' He exhaled, straightened his back, lifted his head. 'You can't say that's what will happen. You can't. We can stop it. We can still stop it.'

'I'm trying. But I need more answers. I know who the culprit is. I know how the victims died. I even know why they died. What I don't know is—'

'Who's next,' John finished. There was a loud pause in the room. Their eyes were locked; it was as if the room were spinning around them, and the only thing keeping them grounded was this.

'So what do we do?' John asked.

'I don't know. They're at least two steps ahead of us, probably more. This whole thing has been planned, every part,' Sherlock said again. 'So if I could anticipate the next move, I could stop it. I could save whoever is next in line for the gallows. I could stop the Slash Man from ever hurting any more unwilling martyrs caught up in a crusade they know nothing of—avenging Moriarty. I can get one step closer to Moran and Adler.'

'You said there was a note,' said John, 'on Jack and Jill. Not a nursery rhyme. What did it say?'

Sherlock's templed fingers returned to his chin, and his head bowed as though in prayer, except that his eyes never closed, hardly blinked. He seemed to be debating whether to answer. 'It was a riddle. I hate those.'

'What did it say?' John asked again.

'On Jack: Ever drifting down the stream,' he recounted. 'And on Jill: Life, what is it but a dream?'

'That sounds like Row, Row, Row Your Boat,' said John. 'Sort of. But that doesn't have to do with falling, either. And it didn't lead you to a symbol of falling, like with the kettle. So what does it mean?'

He let his hands fall again and said with an air of nonchalance, 'I don't know. The thing is, it's not quite Row Your Boat, is it? That's why it's a riddle. It has to be. It doesn't fit the mould of any of the other messages. So if any piece of this is an outlier, it's that.'

'Then I guess it's the key.'

'That's the key.'

After initial contact, Lestrade never heard anything from Mycroft Holmes until after he'd completed his mission, and if he tried to call back, he encountered a wall of silence. There was no question who was in control in this oddly functional if not disgruntled relationship.

He never knew and seldom saw the other players. He was one cog in Mycroft's large and complex pocket watch, in which none of the pieces knew what the others were doing or how many of them there were, but they all kept working just the same, turning, ticking, and grinding, at the winding of the master clockmaker. He knew who that reminded him of—he knew exactly who—and it did not rest well with him.

But he knew his part well enough. He knew, for instance, to leave his phone at home, lest someone try to trace, call, or identify him. He knew to check the hubcap back tyre of the vehicle that rolled to a stop to pick him up, as that was where he would find the subtle identifying marker ensuring the trustworthiness of the town car. And he knew that, once inside, it was pointless trying to talk to the driver. Instead, he was to locate the envelope in the six-digit password-protected attaché case beneath the seat, read any further instructions, retrieve and affix the earpiece, and wait patiently for his drop-off. Only then would a digitally masked voice come to life within his ear and begin to give him step-by-step instructions, which he knew to follow to the letter. There was no sense in talking back, asking questions, debating actions. It was a one-way communication device. Lestrade was on his own, every time, and he knew it.

Whatever the voice in his ear said to do, he did, and less so because he trusted Mycroft or believed in their cause, but more so because he was afraid of what might happen if he didn't. If the voice said to walk straight, he did. Turn left, he did. Stop in the shadows, he did. Though he was frustrated by it all outside of the scope of the mission, inside the confines of his spywork, he was content to be a puppet. He was rarely, if ever, responsible for making any split-second matter-of-life-and-death decisions of his own, and he rather preferred it that way, if he was to be walking in the dark.

And that was how he found himself, at one o'clock in the morning, wearing the name tag for Charles Eddington, an MI5 man who would inexplicably be made redundant in two days' time, and standing in a concrete stairwell, poised by a door that would take him to the counter-terrorist division of Home Office, half a mile's walk from New Scotland Yard. His heart was drumming. If things didn't go to plan, he thought fleetingly, he doubted whether he would ever see the Yard again.

'When I tell you to,' the distorted voice in his ear said after four full minutes of radio silence and Lestrade standing there feeling like an idiot waiting to be found out at any moment, 'you'll open the door and take your first left. At the end of the hall, before the next corner, stop.'

He nodded, repeating the instructions to himself. He licked his lips and wiped his palms on the front of his trousers.

'Now.'

Trusting there was no one on the other side, Lestrade swiped Mr Eddington's card into the reader to unlock the door and pulled it open, revealing an empty hallway branching in three directions. He hung a quick left and made it to the end of hallway. Then, per his instructions, he stopped, and waited to be directed further.

So it went. Down halls, around corners, through mazes of deserted cubicles, and in and out of doors locked by key cards and codes, Lestrade made his way closer and closer to what he understood was the 'vault' Mycroft had mentioned. He wondered whether he was being watched by the almighty watchman in the sky—through a camera, that was; or, for all he knew, his earpiece also served as a tracker; or maybe they were using heat sensor detection and could pinpoint his location that way; or maybe he had seen too many spy-tech films—or by one of the other cogs in the machine, someone who knew his movements and could therefore direct him when it was safe to go, exigent to stop, and so forth. He felt a little like a character in a video game, his every action the result of some kid with his thumb on the joy stick.

Until he was forced to act on his own.

He had just used the key card to enter another division of offices; the door locked behind him, and he knew that once a door had been unlocked once, he could not reused his card there for at least fifteen minutes. He didn't understand it, but he had been led to believe that it had something to do with circumventing the security alerts. So there he was, moving forward, slinking down a short hallway past an out-of-service water fountain and the men's loo, when he heard voices.

'. . . before we send them down to Albright in immigration.'

'I'll have it drawn up first thing in the morning.'

Lestrade halted and his heart stopped. He waited for instructions in his ear.

'You're heading straight into a snare. Retreat.'

He whirled around, but there was no place to retreat to! He couldn't go back through the door he had just used—it might as well have been a dead end.

'Hide in the bathroom. Go.'

'Hang on, MacDowell, I'm just going to pop into the loo. Be right with you.'

Where the hell was the women's loo!, he though desperately, casting around for another place to hide. For half a second, he felt paralysed. Any second now, that man would round the corner and find him standing half crouched and splay-legged, as though preparing either to sprint or shit himself. Then a memory jolted him. He sprang two steps back, snatched the out-of-service sign from off the water fountain, and slapped it soundlessly on the door of the men's loo even as he disappeared inside of it and eased it closed behind him.

'You'd be surprised how no one ever questions these,' Molly had said, pointing to a handwritten sign reading Do Not Enter, which Sherlock had made himself. 'I suppose that's true.'

On the other side of the door, he held his breath, eyes round with fear, and waited.

'Well, damn,' said the male voice, and the sound of feet came to a stop. 'Why does nothing ever get fixed around here?'

And to Lestrade's amazement, the steps departed.

He caught himself in an audible moan of relief and clamped a hand across his mouth.

'Hold your position,' said the voice in his ear, unperturbed, seeming to know nothing about how he had almost been caught and blown the whole operation. 'When I give the word, leave the bathroom and continue down the hallway. Take your first right. Pass two junctions and take a left. You'll see an unmarked door with black glass and a key pad. Swipe your card, then punch in the code 6-6-9-8-3-0 and enter the room. On my mark, you will have seventy-five seconds once you leave the bathroom to enter the code and close the door behind you.'

He nodded, sweat dampening his face. He didn't understand all the mechanics and ins-and-outs of it, but someone somewhere was changing the key codes to these room; to remain undetected, those codes expired in usually under two minutes. Hand on the door awaiting his signal, he wiped his opposite sleeve across his brow.

'Go. Commencing radio silence.'

Lestrade pulled the door open, trusting to see an empty hallway, which he did, and followed his orders, all the while counting—somewhat unreliably in his head, he thought—one sugarplum, two sugarplum, three . . . The hallways stretched longer than he had hoped, and he had to pick up his pace, because by the time he came in sight of the door with black glass, he had counted sixty-three sugarplums. He sped forward, and his silent monologue switched from marking seconds to repeating the code. He swiped his card and punched the numbers with the knuckle of his right forefinger:

6-6-9-8-3-0

With a small click, the red light turned green, and he entered the dark room. The door closed behind him.

And he waited.

A full minute passed, but the voice hadn't returned.

Warily, he stepped further into the lightless room. He could barely make out the shadows of long rows of desks from the small lights blinking on sleeping computer monitors. It was a tech room of some kind, both long and deep. As he slowly walked past the rows and his eyes adjusted to the dark, he figured that there must have been sixty, seventy computer stations in that room. And at the back was another door.

Again, he awaited instruction. Another two minutes went by, and nothing.

Lestrade ran a hand across his face, thinking. He reviewed his instructions carefully, wondering if he had missed something, but he was positive that he had not been told what to do once he was in the room. Should he try to get into the next room? Try to go back? But the key codes would have changed by now! He hated just standing there, waiting for the sky to fall. Unable to keep still, he turned and headed back toward the first door.

That's when he noticed one of the computer screens was awake, something he had not been able to see when he had first entered. The background was black, but a little cursor blinked in the upper left-hand corner. And a single letter in pale, digital green: L

Swallowing with a dry throat, Lestrade put forth a hand, hesitated, then tapped the L on the keyboard.

A command appeared:

Enter alphanumeric code.

And a countdown appeared beneath it: 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . .

He stared. Code. What code! The code he had entered to get into the room to begin with were just numbers. What was he supposed to enter? He wiggled the earpiece set deep inside his ear, wondering fearfully if it had stopped working.

7 . . . 6 . . . 5 . . .

Shit! Shit! Shit!

4 . . . 3 . . .

In desperation, he quickly typed in the only alphanumeric code he could remember: MZ1065QR—no! RQ! And he hit enter.

There was a loud hum and click behind him. He whirled and saw that the door in the back of the room now had a green light. It had been unlocked. Before he went for the door, however, he took one last glance at the screen:

You have four minutes before the room seals. Retrieve the box and get out.

He cursed under his breath and spun about once again, hurrying to the back door.

What he found on the other side could only have been described as a library. There were rows and rows of tall filing cabinets, and rows and rows of shelving holding not books but narrow boxes, all uniform in a non-descript grey-brown, in shape, and in size, with little indexed labels on. He stared. Then he cursed Mycroft seven ways till Sunday for not giving him more information about the layout of this room—was this, this, the vault?—as the voice remained infuriatingly silent.

But there was nothing for it. As the seconds ticked by, he ran to the first cabinet and found it locked; so he abandoned it and darted to the first row of shelves, feeling like the least suave, least competent James Bond imaginable. He pulled the first box off the shelf to check its number: AA-029.1 FD

He jumped to the next row and found that the two leading letters began DB. Thank god, it was alphabetical. He jumped again to the next row (the Fs) and to the next (beginning with Is) and so forth until he found the first M and hurried down the row, eyes grazing the spines of the boxes, his heart in his throat and his breath caught somewhere below that.

More than half his time was expired (he knew it) by the time he found his first MZ, and another thirty seconds gone before he located the 100s on a shelf higher than his head. By the time he spotted it—MZ-106.5 RQ—he had no more than twenty seconds left. He grabbed it off the shelf, double checked the index label, and laughed in half-relief, half-exasperation. It was wider than a shoebox, but just about as long and deep, and not so heavy. Its contents, however, did not shift easily, suggesting the box was full. Of what, he had no way of knowing. It was made of thin, plated steel and locked on three sides, the fourth being hinged, the bottom to the top. He didn't know how he was meant to destroy its contents, but that, at the moment, was the least of his concerns.

Clutching the box in sweat-slippery fingers, he rushed from the room. And then, not knowing if the room to be sealed was the library or the tech room, he gambled—acted on a hunch—and walked out of the front door, which was fortuitously unlocked for him, and back into the bright hallway.

The moment the door locked behind him, the voice returned.

'Do not attempt to open the box. It is imperative that you leave the building. Follow my instructions.'

Though still distorted, the voice was decidedly different to the one guiding him before. It didn't matter. He would follow it just the same.

Something startled Molly from her shallow sleep. Adrenalin and fear coursed through her body, fuelling her to sit bolt upright with the duvet tucked tight around her chest and up to her chin. She swung her head to the window, the wardrobe, then to the door, looking for anything amiss, waiting for the shadows to move.

In a drawer of the bedside table, John had left her the pistol. Before taping it on the underside of the table top, he had shown her that the safety was on and reminded her that it was fully loaded. She had been uncomfortable with its presence, but now she was of half a mind to grab it as her imagination supplied her with all manner of spooks and villains. But then she heard the sound again. It came from beyond her bedroom door, from the front room, where she was unaccustomed to hearing midnight noises. She swung her feet over the side of the bed and crept toward the door, ear cocked. A rumble, like thunder, disguised as a voice; and another, a songbird in panic.

She hurriedly slipped into her oversized terry dressing gown and eased open the bedroom door. Her bare feet were soundless against the cold floor as she toed her way down the darkened hallway toward the dim glow emanating from a single lamp in the sitting room. The overstuffed armchair came into her view first, but it was unoccupied, save for her open laptop, which had been left on the ottoman. Just before she reached the corner of the wall, she heard it again, and this time knew what it was—a dry sob joined with the words, pitched high and distressed, no no no, followed immediately by a softer though sturdier voice, speaking words so low she couldn't make them out.

Something was wrong; she could feel it like electricity in the midnight air, gathering to strike. But she hesitated in rounding the corner, debating within herself whether she should return to her room and give them privacy, or look to see what was happening. Finally, her heart compelled her, and, keeping to the shadows, she peered into the room.

In an instant, she took in the scene. John, blankets slung about his waist and drooping onto the floor, was sitting upright on the edge of the sofa, perched like he might fall off at any moment if touched by the wrong sweep of air. His head hung low and his shoulders were hunched, and he rocked where he sat, left and right, always on the verge of rising to his feet. But Sherlock, who was crouched down in front of him with his back to Molly, wouldn't let him. If he went right, Sherlock touched his right arm; if he went left, Sherlock touched his left. They were gentle touches but had the effect on John as though he were without gravity—one tap, and he floated in the opposite direction. Sherlock kept him from floating very far.

'Where is she?' John was saying, his voice tense in panic. Hands fisted the blankets tangled in his lap. 'Where have you taken her?'

'Shh, shh, just lie back down,' said Sherlock calmly. Molly couldn't see his face—she could see only John's—but his voice was like a mother's lullaby: at once tender and consoling, unwavering and strong. She'd never heard him speak like that before.

John's hard breaths stuttered and strained to escape. 'I— I heard—'

'You're sleeping, John. This is a dream. You're still asleep.'

And he was right. Molly had never seen it before, but at Sherlock's words she recognised the glassy eyes, the lack of light and focus. In their place was darkness and fear. Tears slid unnoticed down John's face, across his lips, which were spread and quivering as he tried to speak but couldn't find the words. In this state of unconsciousness and unreality, he was unmasked, revealing an emotional state too raw, too real, to be borne, she felt her eyes begin to burn.

'Sleep,' Sherlock repeated.

John shook his head in anger and he punched both fists into the cushions on either side of him. Molly jumped at the sudden transformation. His arms shook, making his whole body tremble as though he were being shocked. 'I hear her. I can hear her!'

'There's no one else here,' said Sherlock, unfazed by this abruptness. 'It's just you and me. You're okay, John. You're safe—'

'She's crying,' he said as tears stained his own cheeks. 'Oh God! They're hurting her!'

Sherlock repositioned so that his knees touched the floor and steadied him. His voice was a bit more insistent now. 'John. John, can you hear me? It's Sherlock. I need you to wake up.'

But John was crying in earnest. 'I can't find her! Mary, oh Mary! Ah—!' His head snapped to the side as though he'd been struck.

Molly covered her mouth with both hands, her own tears flowing freely now. Oh God, she'd never seen anything like this. She felt paralysed, unable to either turn away or move forward to help—not that she would have any idea what to do, other than grab him, shake him, scream at him to wake up and escape wherever he believed himself to be.

Another unseen hand struck him and his head wrenched around on his neck as he cried out in pain.

But Sherlock did not shake him, or shout at him. He only kept speaking to him, low and steady, saying his name, and barely touching him at all; only when John's hands began to draw together did Sherlock reach forward to guide them apart—serenely, gently, like handling a delicate instrument made of glass.

And so it went. For uncounted minutes, John, imprisoned within the torture chamber of his own mind, relived the horrors of that kitchen. He called out for Mary, jerked away from invisible blows, and wept. Sherlock, his voice never failing, called him back from the brink time and again; but when it seemed that he was calming, quieting, and that he just might be returning to a more restful sleep, the ugly memories flared again to life, and the terror started playing itself out again.

'They've taken her, they've taken her and they cut off her hair and they're frightening her, they're frightening her, and I can't stop them, he won't let me, he won't let me move, won't let me see her, and she doesn't know anything, she doesn't!'

'Breathe, John. Please. You're hyperventilating. I need you to breathe.'

'Please, she doesn't know him! She never knew him! He's dead! He's dead!'

She thought she heard Sherlock choke back a sound and his head dipped a little, and when it did, when his hand fell on John's knee, John's whole leg spasmed, jolting his whole body like an electrical shock. His back arched and his head flung back. Sherlock jerked his hand away and was poised to retreat entirely. But as John came back down, he reached forward and gripped Sherlock at the shoulder as though for balance, to keep himself from tipping off the sofa. He kneaded Sherlock's shoulder for a short while, taking his time to regain his breath. Then his hand moved up and wrapped around the back of Sherlock's neck, pulling him closer. Sherlock looked up, and their eyes met, and for the first time Molly doubted whether John really was asleep: he looked straight into Sherlock's face like he was really seeing him. His fingernails were sunken into the skin of the back of Sherlock's neck, latched fiercely, but Sherlock had stilled like a statue.

When John next spoke, he was so quiet that Molly might have missed his words if she had not been watching his lips.

'You can't be here,' he said, leaning in even closer, like he was sharing a secret. 'They put you in the earth, and after, no one came back to bring you flowers. Not even me.'

It was too much. Molly couldn't stand to watch another second, but nor could she abandon him and return to her room. So she placed her back to wall and slipped down to the floor, and listened. To keep silent, she left her hands clamped across her mouth but let the tears fall. She had had no idea that this was what things were like for John and Sherlock now, but though she was struck with sorrow at John's suffering, she was left in awe at Sherlock's care of him. She had caught glimpses of it before, perhaps, or at least suspected that he was capable of such feeling, but she had never witnessed it in action; and that, as much as anything else, was what glued her to that hallway wall.

The clock ticked in the kitchen as the hour passed with her on the floor, Sherlock on his knees, and John in a prison miles away from them both. The cycle kept repeating. Until finally, Sherlock broke it.

'Please, oh god please no. Please no, I'll do anything,' John was saying again. His words were almost unintelligible, mangled in tears and panting.

'John, stop,' said Sherlock. His voice was unexpectedly forceful, and Molly recoiled. Then, just as quickly, it softened again. 'Tell me about her.'

For the first time since finding him in this state, Molly heard silence from the sitting room. She rolled her head slowly along the wall to see beyond the corner. Staring into nothing, John was unmoving, but for one hand, which trembled relentlessly. Carefully, Sherlock covered that hand with his own. Two, three seconds of stillness followed. Then John's other hand locked atop Sherlock's. Sherlock rested his free hand on John's knee. This time, John made no move to pull away.

Sherlock continued, even more tenderly than before. 'Tell me about Mary, John. Please. What was she like?'

Tick. Tick. And no response, only a loud, nasal breathing punctuating the quiet. Sherlock prompted one more time, softly, one string on the cello. 'What was she like, John? Your Mary?'

'She loved me,' John said in wonder.

His voice was changed—the pitch had dropped, slowed. He sounded utterly spent.

'Yes, she did,' answered Sherlock. 'Very much. What else?'

'She told me so. Right before he . . . before he . . .'

'No, John, tell me about the day you met. You and Mary. Do you remember?'

'Yes.' A pause, drawn out like a musical rest. 'She was looking for Sherlock. She needed a detective and found me instead.' Another pause. Then, what sounded like a small laugh, if Molly believed John were capable of such anymore. 'She faked chest pains to get an appointment at St E's. When I first saw her . . .' His voice drifted away, remembering quietly, until Sherlock urged him to continue aloud. 'She wore a paper gown, no makeup, and her long, ginger hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.'

His voice was slipping away, and though he continued to talk and Sherlock continued to ask questions, both men spoke so softly that she couldn't make out what was said after that. As for herself, she continued to sit on the cold floor, straining to hear, fearing that any movement of hers, any sound louder than blinking, and the spell might break.

Then suddenly, Sherlock's tall shadow stood over her.

Startled, she gasped into her hands. Then she hastily wiped at the wetness on her cheeks, feeling ashamed to have been discovered. But he said nothing, only extended a hand. She was embarrassed to offer him her tear-stained fingers, but he made no sign of displeasure, only gripped her hand and pulled her off the floor.

'I'm so sorry!' she whispered. 'I know I shouldn't have—'

He hushed her and stepped aside to show her that John lay sleeping once again, curled on his side on her sofa, his head tucked halfway beneath a blanket. Then he turned her about and walked her back to her bedroom. She felt like a little girl being caught awake past curfew, being put to bed by a stern parent, never mind that this was her flat and Sherlock was a guest in it. But when he entered the room and sat with her on the edge of the mattress, she realised that she had been mistaken in her evaluation—his mood wasn't one of displeasure. He seemed too tired to show displeasure.

'He has good nights,' he told her, his voice rolling like far-away thunder, 'and bad. They aren't predictable.' They sat in the dark, the only light coming from far down the hall where John slept. Sherlock was just a shadow, expressionless, ghost-like.

'You should have gone home,' said Molly, matching his low volume. 'If he were in his own bed—'

'He doesn't sleep in his own bed. He sleeps on the sofa, every night.'

'He does? Why?'

'I don't know, precisely. He can't abide total darkness, and his room gets very dark at night. There are solutions to that, but he won't talk about them. I don't know why he prefers the sitting room.'

They lapsed into silence. Molly tried to think of something to say, something wise or optimistic or comforting, but she could come up with nothing that could make right what she had just seen. She knew only that she didn't want to make things worse. 'In the morning,' she said, 'what should I do?'

'Nothing. He won't remember.'

'What? Nothing?'

'If anything, he may remember a bad dream. But he won't want to talk about it. He won't know what he did, what he said. He never does. He doesn't remember when he walks around the flat or moves things about or tries to hurt himself. I tried to tell him, once, that he had spoken Moran's name in his sleep, and he got angry and left the room. So I can't tell him about the other things. I don't know what else to do. But it would upset him, Molly, if he knew you had seen him in that state.'

She nodded her understanding, but realising that he couldn't see her in that dark, she said, 'I won't say a word.'

'Thank you.'

He stood and moved toward the exit. 'He's resting now, but I don't know if he'll make it until morning. If you hear something . . . Just try to sleep. I'll watch over him.'

He put a hand on the door to pull it closed. Before he could close it, she said, 'Sherlock?"

The door swung only halfway closed, and paused.

She couldn't quite put into words all she was feeling, and her tongue fumbled in her mouth. At last, she said simply, 'You're a good friend to him. I think it's good that he's with you.'

His dark outline didn't move. For a few seconds, she thought he might say something in return, either to disabuse her of the notion or acknowledge that she was right. But whatever he was thinking, he kept locked up inside. Softly, he closed the door.