CHAPTER 17: ANDERSON TRIUMPHANT
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2015
She awoke to a dark London sky. The sun was rising gradually earlier as the winter slowly, recalcitrantly, wore itself out, but she still needed to be to Bart's by eight, and, what with the questionable morning commute, she would want to leave the flat no later than a quarter past seven, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. She reached for her phone: 06.05, and no missed calls, no unread texts.
She clipped on the bedside lamp and pulled back the covers, rather amazed she had slept at all. After Sherlock had left her bedroom, she remembered lying back while listening for any more sounds coming from the sitting room and trying not to cry. At some point, despite herself, she must have slipped off into a dreamless sleep. If she didn't know better, she would have believed this was a morning like any other: she would rise, shower, feed the cat, feed herself, and be off. But she did know better. This was no ordinary morning: there were two extraordinary men in her sitting room, a dead bird in her refrigerator, and no cat at all.
For a few seconds, wondering whether she had the strength even to face the day, she considered calling in sick, but there was no sense in it. She would drive herself mad cooped up in this place, and she couldn't likely intrude any longer on Sherlock and John. She was in perfect health, she knew, so she might as well make herself useful. She shivered into her slippers and dressing gown and eased open the door. The hallway was darkened, as was the sitting room; at some point in the night, Sherlock must have turned off the lamp. Stepping lightly, she drew closer, expecting Sherlock to be settled in her armchair. Instead, she saw the once-again empty seat and the now-closed laptop, this time set on the coffee table. Two more soundless steps, and the sofa came into view.
The streetlamps pressed enough light through the windows for her see them clearly: John slept peacefully, stretched out on his back. One leg was bent and propped against the back cushions, and one hand rested on his stomach. His head had slipped off the pillow and now lay near the edge of the sofa, his face turned out toward the room. And seated on the floor, his back propped against the sofa at John's head, Sherlock slept, too. In imitation of John, one leg was bent, the other stretched out, and his interlocked fingers lay across his stomach. His head had drooped back against the armrest of the sofa, barely supported. His and John's heads were close together, nearly touching.
He might have chosen the armchair. Though not an ideal bed, it certainly would have been more comfortable than the floor. And he hadn't even touched the spare blankets she had set out. She was no Sherlock, but something about the scene suggested to her that he had intended to keep vigil all night, like a parent watching over an ailing child, or a dog guarding his master. But sleep—exhaustion, more like—had overcome him. And rather than leave John's side, if only to cross the room and seek out greater comfort, he had opted for the security that came from physical proximity. And maybe, Molly thought, that was why John always slept in the sitting room.
Not wanting to disturb even a few minutes' worth of precious sleep, she slipped back toward the kitchen and switched on the single, low light above the cooker, trusting it wouldn't disturb them. Trying to make as little noise as possible, she filled the coffee pot with water from the tap and set the machine to percolate. Meanwhile, as the rich smell of roast coffee swirled into the air, she pulled down three mugs (assiduously checking each for signs of lipstick) and the sugar bowl. The creamer was in the fridge, which meant she wouldn't bother with it this morning, despite her preference.
When the coffee was ready, she began to spoon out the sugar: two for the first mug, two for the second, and she was just turning the spoon over into the third when a long hand reached forward and covered it from rim to rim. Sugar crystals spilled and scattered. She jumped and turned.
'John takes his black,' Sherlock said with a grin. He spoke just above a whisper, and his early-morning voice was low and rough. He picked up the mug beside John's, blew over the surface, and took a sip. He made an appreciative noise in the back of his throat.
'I didn't hear you,' she said, matching his voice for volume.
'Obviously.'
She blushed and tried to recover herself. 'Biscuits? Toast?' She moved toward the cupboard.
'Thank you, no. Any word from Lestrade?'
She shook her head, trying to hide her disappointment behind a devil-may-care mask of unconcern. 'His phone keeps going to voicemail.'
'Ah.'
'Is John awake?'
'Not yet.'
But he lifted John's mug anyway and returned to the sitting room. He set the coffee on the side table nearest John's head, then settled himself again in the armchair and pulled Molly's laptop close, perfectly at home. Perhaps he meant to give John the impression that he had spent the whole night in that very spot, and not on the floor. She wondered whether John would even question it.
She finished her own coffee in the kitchen and tidied up a bit. Then she poked her head around the corner. 'I'm just going to pop into the shower,' she said quietly.
'Don't touch the mirror,' said Sherlock by way of response, though he didn't bother to glance up. He took another sip from his mug. Whatever he was reading on her laptop had his full attention. John didn't stir.
Lestrade was huffing by the time he rounded the corner and came within sight of Molly's front door. The sky was greying with light, and the sun would be breaking over the horizon soon, so he hoped she hadn't left for work yet. He wanted to surprise her. It was Valentine's Day, after all, and for the first time in more years than he could bother remembering (including those during the latter years of his failing marriage), he had someone to share it with.
He carried a bouquet of roses wrapped in green cellophane—picked up from floral department at the closest Tesco just twenty minutes before—and had bothered with a red tie and some cologne, feeling only a little foolish. It had been a long time since he had wanted to impress a woman, and he didn't want to overdo it. But he wanted the gestures to be clear.
He also wanted the flowers to serve as an apology. When he had finally made it home last night (or rather, early that morning), he had every intention of crashing right there on the sofa. Sod the stairs, the empty bed. He was exhausted. Though he had been led out of the building without incident, there was no car to meet him on the street. Instead, the instruction kept coming: walk here, turn there, stop, wait, go, hide! Until, some twenty minutes later, while crouching in the shadows of a particularly rank skip, clutching the box to his ribs, a car had finally rolled up and taken him home. He had felt a little worse for wear. He still didn't know what was in that top-secret box now hiding in a crawlspace in the larder, but right then, he couldn't be arsed to care. He would deal with it soon. First, he needed what few short hours of sleep were left to him before he was expected at a morning briefing at the Yard. But before he could fall half-conscious onto the sitting room sofa, he had at least turned his phone back on.
Two missed calls, both from Molly. And a voicemail. 'Call me,' she had said, though her tone was indiscernible. Was it disappointment in his unreliableness? Frustration that they'd not spoken in, what was it, three days now? Anger at him for being such a crap boyfriend? He wasn't able to make much of those two words, but he was damn near positive that it presaged a row: the pause before speaking, the brevity of the message, and the late hour she had called were all ominous. He knew he had done wrong by her, and she would let him know it. That was not an unfamiliar scenario, and he groaned to think that he was making the same mistakes all over again as he had with Angela. He was halfway to calling her back when he checked the time: 03.13. Chances were, she was now asleep, and experience (with Angela) told him that she would appreciate being woken up at such an hour even less.
He had promised her that he would answer when she called, whenever she called. He had meant to be her knight in shining armour, prepared to drop anything to reach her side at any moment, and he had failed. Damn that Mycroft Holmes.
So now he needed to make amends.
He approached the front door and was shifting the roses from one hand to the other to ring the bell when he felt something rub against his leg. Looking down, he saw a calico cat.
'Cheshire?'
The cat mewed.
'What are you doing out here?' He hadn't thought Molly ever allowed the cat out of doors. He scooped it up and tucked it in the crook of his arm as he pressed a thumb to the bell. The cat squirmed, but he juggled it with his elbows before catching it by the scruff and shifting it back into his arms. The flowers crumpled only a little.
Two seconds later, he was buzzed in. That was quick, he thought. She must have seen him coming through the window that overlooked the street. The lack of greeting through the speaker, though, was yet another sign that he was in for it. If she was anything at all like Angela, she would be hopping mad and ready to let him have it. He didn't expect the flailing against his upper arms and chest (and once his face), not from Molly, but he steeled himself for a tongue lashing as he mentally prepared a long and heartfelt apology.
But when he achieved the landing, he stopped short, and the look of contrition slid from his face entirely.
'Sherlock!'
Sherlock Holmes was leaning against the doorjamb, one hand in his pocket, sipping coffee. 'Morning, Greg,' he said equably, the hint of a smile on his face. Lestrade could feel the blood draining from his own. Then Sherlock quirked an eyebrow at him and cocked his head. 'A dozen roses? A tad cliché, isn't it, Lestrade? Don't get me wrong, I'm terribly flattered, but really, you shouldn't have.'
'I—'
'The cat, though, may earn you a few points.'
'What the hell are you doing here?'
'You ask me that a lot.'
'You have a habit of showing up in places you're not'—he bit his tongue to stop himself from saying wanted—'expected. Well? Why are you here . . . so early?' He thought he was doing a decent job of sounding merely curious, perhaps concerned, but not jealous. No, definitely not that. But he shouldn't have any reason to be! Should he?
'Come now, Lestrade, I thought you were a proper detective. By my flattened hair, yesterday's attire, and shoeless feet'—his tongue clicked the t—'you should be able to deduce that I spent the night.' He proffered another close-lipped smile and took another swig of coffee. 'Did you know,' he continued with an air of casual dismissiveness at Lestrade's dropped jaw, 'that Molly doesn't own a single article of black underwear? Pink, yes. What might we make of that?'
Lestrade made a strange noise somewhere in the back of his throat that sent the blood returning to his face.
'He's just ragging you, Greg.'
To his further surprise, John Watson came into view behind Sherlock. He was also in his socks and day clothes, and he looked halfway to amused by the conversation he was overhearing and what must have been a look of alarm on Lestrade's face. Lestrade was struck with both relief (a sentiment he currently did not wish to explore) and increased consternation: with the Baker Street boys both in attendance, something must have happened.
'Let the man in, Sherlock.'
The bastard kept smirking even as he moved aside, but as Lestrade stepped past him, he felt Sherlock's eyes give him one of his specialty once-overs—scanning him head to toe, making him feel like he was being x-rayed—and the insufferable sod even leant in and gave him a sniff.
'My, my, what have you been up to?'
'Back up a bit, eh, mate?' He dropped the cat on the sofa. Then his eyes swept the flat for Molly, but all that he could see different was a stack of folded blankets on the end of the sofa. He also heard the water running in the bathroom. 'Molly in the shower, is she?' he asked.
'Your detective skills are spectacular for so early an hour,' said Sherlock. 'What tipped you off?'
Lestrade gritted his teeth and turned to John. 'Did you let him have too much sugar in his coffee again?' he seethed. 'I've warned you how fussy it makes him.'
'Shall I pour you a cup, inspector?' Sherlock returned, unfazed. 'Or perhaps you've already had too much. Clearly, you were up half the night. Not exactly about your copper duties, though, that's plain. Tell me: How's Mycroft?'
John was staring with wide-eyed astonishment.
'Would somebody tell me what the bloody hell is going on?' Lestrade shouted. He knew his face was flushing again, and it was all he could do not to whack the flowers he was holding in Sherlock's face. 'Why are you two even here? Did something happen to Molly?'
'There was a break-in,' John supplied before Sherlock could get another dig in. 'Nothing taken, no one hurt. But it gave Molly a bit of a scare.'
'What? Did you call the police?'
'He wasn't answering his phone,' Sherlock said snidely, sitting in the armchair and crossing a leg over.
'Sherlock,' said John.
'Don't worry yourself, inspector, I saved you all the interesting bits. The brassiere, the claret, the mutilated bird . . .'
At John's sharp look, Sherlock at last backed off and entered what sounded like a rehearsed monologue of facts and timelines and hypotheses. As he spoke, Lestrade felt his anger rising like the mercury in a thermometer. How could Sherlock be so blasé about this? This! Irene Adler! The first hint of the woman, and she's been inside Molly's flat. Molly's! They were targeting Molly! They must have known about her, what she had done, the trust Sherlock had placed in her. Damn that Sherlock Holmes. Could he not take a step without dragging those around him into the crossfire? And furthermore, why had there been no missed phone calls from Sherlock? Had the thought of calling him not even entered his sodding computer of a brain? And if it had, why the hell had he dismissed it? Did Sherlock really find him that inconsequential? After all, he had brought John—John!—who had, of his own volition, stepped back from cases like these.
'I guess that answers everything then, doesn't it?' said Lestrade, curt and hot around the collar as Sherlock concluded with his supposition that Irene Adler had walked through the front door, despite its being bolted. He failed to disguise the bitterness in his voice.
Sherlock's eyebrows knitted, regarding him. 'Not quite. There's still the matter of where you were last night, and why you neglected your phone for several hours.'
'You're the genius,' Lestrade said tightly. 'Deduce it.'
'Oh, I am.'
Lestrade's jaw clenched. 'I may not be the most intelligent man in this room, but at least my maladaptive behaviours don't lure homicidal psychopaths to my doorstep, and the doorsteps of my friends.'
'Hey,' said John softly but intensely, taking a step forward to place himself between them. He held up a hand, palm flattened, as though to keep Lestrade at bay.
But Lestrade was spared from responding, for the moment anyway, because behind him, he heard a tiny voice say his name—a timid, hopeful query: 'Greg?'
He turned. Molly was standing in the hallway, fresh from the shower and dressed in a mauve polo neck jumper, her shoulder-length hair pulled into a simple French plait on the side of her head. Her hands were clenched together in front of her as she stared at him. She looked so beautiful, and he was so damn sorry.
'God, Molly,' he began. 'Are you—?'
But she didn't let him finish. At a near-run, she crossed the distance between them and threw her arms around his waist. She buried her face in his chest and instantly began to cry.
Lestrade was shocked. Shocked, but not unmoved. He shoved the bouquet of roses into Sherlock's arms so that his own were free to wrap around her, and he put a hand on her head to hold her close. He felt like such a fool. Again. Again! He had been wrong to compare this woman in any way to his ex-wife, to think that Angela's intolerance for his faults, her withholding nature, and her perpetual grudges would translate themselves in Molly Hooper. He was not expecting this instant forgiveness, this ready embrace. Above all, he was not expecting her tears at the sight of him. He could scarcely comprehend them. They were tears neither of anger nor fear. They seemed to be tears of release. She had been longing for him, him, and that was a wondrous thing indeed.
Jesus, he wanted to throttle Mycroft.
'Is she all right?' said Sherlock in a rare tone of bewilderment. 'All signs indicated that she was coping admirably, given the unfavourable circumstances, and—'
'Time to go, Sherlock,' said John, reaching for his cane.
Lestrade didn't raise his head, and Molly didn't move, unless it was to fit herself even closer into the warmth of his body. A few seconds later, the front door closed, but still, neither of them moved an inch.
'What was all that about then?' John asked.
'Mm?' said Sherlock, pulling his eyes away from the window where he kept himself distracted from monitoring John's plate while occasionally remembering to eat from his own.
'About Mycroft. You said something to Lestrade about Mycroft.'
'Ah. Yes. Well.' He took bite of buttered toast, silently encouraging John to keep working on that bowl of hot porridge. 'I suspect Mycroft had his hand in our dear inspector's absence last night.'
'How so?' John dragged his spoon through the colourless gruel, but he seemed more interested in watching it slide off his spoon than eating it. It had been Sherlock's suggestion that they stop for breakfast before returning to the flat. On the pretence of already having eaten, John had politely turned down Molly's offer to cook something up last night or call for takeaway. Most likely, however, he had not had a bite of anything in more than fourteen hours, and Sherlock wanted to make sure he had something substantial in his stomach before he took his medication, for which he was already twelve hours overdue. And so, the simple invitation: 'Breakfast?' If recent history was any indication, John would decline, and Sherlock would end up scraping something from the fridge together with the hope that John would it eat. So it came as a surprise when, after a moment's pause, John had answered, 'Yes, all right.'
Sherlock downplayed both his delight and relief, but when they stopped at a café, his heart sank a little upon observing the breakfast menu, which consisted of variations on the traditional full English, and therefore was filled with things that—for one reason or another— John would not or could not manage: grilled tomatoes, beans, fried eggs, sausages. John spotted the problem, too, though neither of them spoke it aloud. In the end, they'd both ordered simple plates à la carte (Sherlock: toast, chips, and bacon; John: porridge and an orange; both had tea), but even then, John had taken only a few bites so far and was already showing signs of premature satisfaction. But maybe if they sat there long enough, eating would simply seem like the thing to do.
'I've suspected that my dear brother has been occupying Lestrade's so-called "free" time with odds-and-ends spy work for a while now.'
John looked up from his bowl in surprise. Two seconds later, he scooped some porridge into his mouth. 'Based on what?'
'A hunch.'
'A hunch? You don't work on hunches.' Another bite.
Sherlock shrugged, determined not to show any pleasure in John's diverted eating. 'Lestrade has demonstrated to me that they can sometimes be useful.' He made himself take another bite of toast. 'One of his groundless hunches proved accurate last October, and therefore valuable.'
John sidestepped that. 'You must have some reason for thinking Lestrade's working for Mycroft.'
'Nothing solid. The compendium of information he's given me access to—directly and indirectly, I know he's leaving things on his computer for me to hack—is not the sort of intelligence the Yard concerns itself with. It's more, shall we say, military. Lestrade has no business concerning himself with files like that. I've noticed the way he holds his breath whenever Mycroft is mentioned, how he tries ever so slyly to shift the course of the conversation. I'll give him credit: he's quite good at it. But not good enough to fool me. Last night, his phone went straight to voicemail. Why would a copper ever turn his phone off? He's not an undercover police officer, so his doing so went against protocol; therefore, it couldn't have been a job associated with the Metropolitan Police. Conclusion? He didn't want it to be traced. He was somewhere he should not have been. It was an assignment, one he didn't want me to know about. Why not? He was instructed not to tell me. And who has a long and proud history of not telling me things? Mycroft.'
John was shaking his head, a wry expression on his face. 'You don't know what the word hunch means, do you?'
'Lestrade thinks he's clever, hiding this all from me. It makes him feel special, so I've let him get away with it until now. But for Molly's untimely return from her shower, I would have pressed him. But I suppose it can wait.'
'You may want to back off him a bit,' John said, stirring his porridge. 'He's not doing so well these days.'
Sherlock's eyebrows lowered in confusion. 'What do you mean?'
'Well, he's seeing a therapist himself, isn't he? So things can't be good.'
'He is? What for? How do you know?'
'Maybe I'm having a little hunch of my own.'
'No, really—how?'
John sighed. 'You heard him. Maladaptive behaviour. That's a shrink's term.'
Sherlock closed his eyes and tilted his head back. 'Of course,' he whispered. 'Obvious.'
'So maybe a little less needling.' But John's lips twitched; the corner of his mouth turned up by degrees. 'You're perfectly awful, you know that? Not a single article of black underwear,' he quoted. 'Jesus, Sherlock. The look on the poor man's face. You do know you're being cruel.'
'I was ragging. This is how blokes rag each other, is it not?'
'When they're twenty, utter wankers, and not standing in the scene of a crime committed against one of the bloke's girlfriends. Where, I might add, the blokes happened to spend the night.'
'You caught on.'
'I know your slanted sense of humour. And I also know that you're really not very good at telling jokes. You might try being a little less deadpanned about it. It's always a bit startling, hearing you josh. Like hearing your granny tell a dirty joke.'
'I never knew my grandmothers.'
'Mrs Hudson, then.' Sherlock smiled at this, and John set down the spoon, not even half the bowl gone, the orange untouched. 'Right then. You finished?'
Sherlock realised he hadn't touched his food for too many seconds in a row, making John think he was done. Before he could lie and say he was still working on it though, John had grabbed his cane and was pushing back from the table.
From Molly's, their flat wasn't far by cab. The conversation over breakfast was ended, but the silence between them now was . . . companionable. Easy. In a way it hadn't been for a long time. Sherlock was amazed, if not a little puzzled. Last night's nightmare had been a bad one, one of the worst, and it had lasted nearly two hours. But John seemed untouched by it, as though it hadn't even happened. Did he even remember it? After he had fallen back into a more restful sleep, John had moved only once—to stretch himself out onto his back, a sleeping position he hadn't observably assumed since his long stay in hospital. These were little changes, little evidences of progress in his wellbeing, almost too slight to merit mention to anyone who didn't watch John as closely and Sherlock did.
The cab rolled to a stop a few doors down from 221 (John had looked curiously at Sherlock when he gave the wrong address, but he didn't question him). They were just arriving at the front door when Mrs Hudson stepped out of it, buttoning her coat.
'Oh, boys! Were you out all night?'
'On a case, Mrs Hudson,' said Sherlock with restrained pleasure.
'Look at you, such a cheeky smile. It's good to see.' She turned to John. 'He's not running you ragged, I hope. You've still got a bit of resting up to do.'
No one but Mrs Hudson could make such unconcealed remarks about his condition, and John took it in stride. 'I rest when I need to,' he said agreeably.
'I'm popping off to do the shopping. I was thinking, tonight, of a hearty cock-a-leekie. How does that sound to melt the chill off the bone?'
'Lovely, Mrs Hudson.'
She bid them farewell, and John and Sherlock entered the flat.
For a few seconds, as they ascended the stairs, Sherlock felt seized by a bout of euphoria. He was a tightly wound ball of energy, and the only thing stopping him from bounding up the steps, taking them two or three at a time, was that John went before him at his slower though suddenly less gruelling pace. He began unwinding his scarf and pulling off his coat.
When they finally stepped through their door, however, Sherlock noticed three things too late: John's blankets had been folded on the sofa and the items on the table tidied; lines in the rug indicated a recent hoovering; and a sharp, sterile scent hung the air—ammonium hydroxide. Mrs Hudson had been cleaning.
He spun and cried out a warning, 'John, wait—!'
But it was too late. John was bolting for the bathroom, knocking past the kitchen chair and banging into walls in his haste to reach the toilet. Seconds later, Sherlock heard the lid slam open and a loud retching pulling deep from a half-full stomach. Dropping his coat, he hurried down the hall, and coming to the bathroom door saw John on his knees, hands splayed on either side of the bowl to brace himself as another fit squeezed his stomach muscles, and he threw up again.
The smell of household ammonia was even more pungent in the enclosed space of the bathroom and on a toilet most likely coated in it. It might have even been in the bowl itself, mixed with the water and half-digested porridge. Sherlock reached over him and flushed the toilet even as John violently retched a third time, spilling stomach acids from an emptying belly. As the blood rushed to his gut, John's limbs were left bloodless; his fingers curled into claws he couldn't unclench, and he began to shiver uncontrollably even as his face flushed with heat.
'We need to get you out of the bathroom,' said Sherlock urgently. But John, sweating and shivering, shook his head dazedly; his muscles clenched again, and he vomited some more.
Ammonia hydroxide. It was the solution Moran had used to soak the rag that had served as John's gag. It had made the simple functions of breathing and swallowing acts of torture as the long exposure and fumes scoured his gums, tongue, and throat. The gag had effectively silenced him when they forced it on him, but even when they didn't, the lingering burn made speech painful, and eventually he had stopped talking altogether.
Now, John's stomach continued to convulse, and he gagged over the bowl, but nothing else was coming up. He was empty, but with every breath he was bombarded anew with the stench of the ammonia, the sharpness of memory, and he vomited dry air. He gasped and his eyes streamed, and he retched again without result, exhausting his overworked body. Sherlock knew he had to get him away from the smell. But the flat was full of it. Mrs Hudson had been too thorough. The only place she knew never to touch was his own bedroom.
He kicked the bathroom door wide, seized John under the armpits, and dragged him bodily from the bathroom. John cried aloud, either in pain or panic, but Sherlock didn't stop until he had dropped John onto his bed, closed fast the door, and thrown open every window to let the cold London air swirl into the room. Then he grabbed an old chemistry magazine from his shelves, sat on the edge of the mattress, and began fanning John's hot face.
John lay panting, eyes squeezed shut and fighting to uncurl his rigid fingers. He was still sweating profusely and began pulling at his coat with weak, uncooperative fingers, anxious to relieve the heat and constriction. Seeing this, Sherlock set aside the magazine and assisted by pulling the coat down his shoulders, off his arms, and letting it drop over the side of the bed. Then he returned to the fan.
A few minutes passed while he churned the air in front of John's face and John breathed, shivering occasionally as the temperature in the room dropped and the cool air circulated in and out of his body. Sherlock heard him begin to mutter to himself, his face pressed into the duvet: 'I know he is not here. I know I am not mad. I know this will pass.'
He repeated these words over and over. It sounded like a rehearsed mantra, and Sherlock could only suppose that it had been Ella, his therapist, who had recommended it.
And maybe it was working. John was coherent enough to think of it, to use it, in a moment of the kind of crisis that had, in the past, triggered intrusive images and flashbacks. And perhaps he was having them now. But if he was—and Sherlock couldn't be sure—he at least knew that the hallucinations weren't real and was making attempts to dispel them and regain mental, if not physical, control. Sherlock only wished it hadn't happened on this morning, when, for the first time, things had been going so well. It felt like an abrupt setback, pulling the rug out from under them at the first sign of a positive turn.
'I know he is not here. I know I am not mad . . .'
John was flexing his fingers now as the blood returned and his breathing steadied. Stale perspiration still beaded along his brow, but Sherlock mopped it up with a tissue, and his skin remained dry.
'I know this will pass.'
'John?'
John opened his eyes, shivered. Without moving a muscle, he lifted his eyes to see Sherlock. 'It's cold,' he said.
Sherlock stood and pulled the duvet up from the other side of the bed to wrap around him. It was less constricting than the coat, anyway.
'Is it passing?' he asked.
John nodded tiredly.
'Just rest. I'm going to air out the flat, bring you some water.'
'God, I hate this,' he said.
'I know. I'm sorry. But it's . . .' He hesitated, then said it: 'It's getting better.'
John sighed, and as Sherlock slipped out the door, he heard him say drolly, 'At least now I have an excuse never to clean the toilet again.'
They hadn't been home an hour when Lestrade phoned Sherlock.
'You're needed back here. You and John both.'
'What's wrong?'
He heard Molly's voice in the background. 'Tell him we're fine!'
'Nothing's wrong,' said Lestrade, 'so to speak, but—'
'Tell him to move his arse.'
Sherlock frowned at the less familiar voice. 'Who's that?'
'Dimmock.'
'DI Dimmock?'
'Yes.'
'You called it in, did you?'
'Of course I called it in, which is what you should have done last night!' There was a huff of air on the other end of the phone, and when Lestrade spoke again he was suddenly much calmer. 'Look, it's not my case. I'm homicide, after all, and there's no . . . overt connection between the Slash Man murders and this break-in. Yet.' The full extent of Irene Adler's involvement was unknown to the Metropolitan Police. The official record still listed her as dead, and Sherlock's word on the matter had been dismissed as an 'unsubstantiated claim', being that he was the only person to have seen her alive in more than three years. 'In any case, I'm too intimately connected with the victim in this one, so it's fallen to Dimmock.'
'So what do you need me for?'
'Tell him I don't appreciate him tampering with my crime scene!' Dimmock hollered from the background. 'I'll thump him one, I swear to the Lord God Almighty.'
Lestrade spoke more loudly to override him. 'Forensics will be here soon, but you spent the night in the flat and handled the evidence. He wants to question you. And John.'
'Can't it wait? We're . . . unwinding.'
John came limping in from the kitchen, an arm around his middle and a little wan, but upright and moving. 'Are we needed?' he asked.
'If it were up to me, I'd give you all the time in the world . . .'
'It's not up to you.' Dimmock again, louder this time, as though he were speaking right into the receiver. 'You're lucky I'm not sending officers to bring you here in handcuffs, Holmes.'
'Oi! Back off!' Lestrade growled. Then, mildly, as if nothing had happened, 'How soon can you be here?'
'This really isn't the best time, Lestrade,' said Sherlock
'No, it's fine,' said John. 'It'd probably be good to get out, actually.'
'Dimmock's not kidding about the cuffs, Sherlock,' said Lestrade. 'Let's not do that again.'
Sherlock paused, debating. But John gave him a sharp nod. 'On our way,' he said.
In the end, Sherlock wished he had resisted more strenuously.
They arrived to find an overly agitated DI Dimmock in a heated conversation with Lestrade, though both fell silent once Sherlock and John stepped into the room. Molly—who evidently would not be going to work that morning after all—stood by the window where she had anxiously been watching the street for their arrival. Another officer, a burly sergeant by the name of Gannon, hid his own discomfort with the pretence of examining Molly's inharmonious collection of anatomical texts and Victorian romance novels, stacked haphazardly in her bookcase. Its lack of organisation made Sherlock itch.
The first thing Dimmock did was send Lestrade away, as he was 'compromising the integrity of the investigation'.
'Take your girlfriend out for a morning latte,' he said somewhat snidely, meaning no offense to Molly but plenty to Lestrade.
'I'd rather stay, if it's all the same to you,' said Lestrade.
'It's not, in fact. I can't do my job with you hovering about, giving Holmes daddy's coattails to hide behind.'
Lestrade's eyes flashed in anger, and his jaw dropped with a ready retort, but Sherlock stepped on his first word. 'It's fine, Lestrade. Let the detective inspector feel like a big boy for a change.' Dimmock sneered.
So, reluctantly, they went. Once Dimmock had them alone, he and Sherlock stood facing each other for a moment in silence, one sizing up the other. Sherlock had the advantage of height and a naturally intimidating bearing, but Dimmock had arrogance on his side. He was a little man who had struggled all his life to be taken seriously, and he had developed a rather sore attitude about being proven wrong. Four years ago, he might have been inclined to trust, even admire, a man like Sherlock Holmes, a hobby detective who was right far more often than wrong and who had the stamp of approval from a well-respected senior officer, Greg Lestrade. But then came the fall, the proof that all Sherlock claimed to be was just a lie. And Lestrade fell with him. Dimmock felt foolish ever to have been taken in by them, and disillusionment he had cultivated and disappointment he had nursed for so long did not dissipate with Sherlock's return and acquittal. Dimmock had spent the last three years determined to prove not only that his own detective skills were worth something in their own right, but that they were superior—not a glitzy fabrication worthy of the tabloids but solid, credible police work. He would prove it again today.
He interrogated them together (and interrogate was exactly the word), demanding to know anything and everything they may have touched, questioning their unwillingness to call the cops ('Something you're trying to hide, Holmes?'), and expressing his dubiousness over Sherlock's conclusions, such as the intruder having waltzed through the front door, as his own theory suggested the fire escape. He was appalled to see how Sherlock had altered the original state of the note, touched the wineglasses with bare hands, removed the black brassiere from the drawer where it had been found, and even bagged the bird, claiming he had surely contaminated evidence. He was just laying into John about aiding and abetting criminal behaviour when the forensics team arrived.
'Just stay right there, you two,' Dimmock said with a warning finger, 'I'm not through with you.' He set about barking orders as the team filed through the door, ordering them to sweep for prints and gather samples of hairs and fibres and to photograph every corner and surface from at least three different angles.
'Is his head a little larger, John,' Sherlock muttered, just loud enough for Dimmock to hear, 'or is my memory off?'
'You've always had an impeccable memory, Sherlock,' John replied. 'From what I've observed, you still do.'
Dimmock's face went red, but he snorted as if unstung. 'This coming from the man who failed to observe he was being kidnapped?'
John's face fell, Sherlock's eyes blazed, and Dimmock realised his mistake at once.
'Sorry, sorry,' he said hastily. His face quickly adopted an entirely different shade of red. 'That was entirely uncalled for, grossly inappropriate. I'm sincerely sorry, Dr Watson.'
Recognising his defeat, he turned away, muttering half-heartedly, 'Just stay put a moment, yeah?'
As he slunk away to the kitchen, Sherlock seethed between his teeth, 'Insufferable maggot.'
'It's fine,' said John, though he leaned more heavily on the cane and stared at his shoes.
'It's not fine, it's—' But his jaw snapped shut as the last of the forensics team entered the room.
'Right then, chaps,' said Anderson, hefting a black bag; he was already wearing latex gloves, 'a classic housebreak, I'm told. Let's start with a standard top-to-bottom sweep . . .' Then he caught sight of Sherlock standing near the windows, and John with him. 'The hell?'
Sherlock's chest swelled indignantly. 'I thought you were suspended from cases like these, Anderson.'
Anderson ruffled in return. 'Yeah, well, you heard wrong.'
'Did I.'
With an air of petulance, Anderson shifted his weight to face them more squarely. 'I'm not suspended. Lestrade and I have simply agreed not to work together anymore. Conflicting personalities, as it were. A professional decision. Not that you'd know anything about working a legitimate job. The real question is, what are you doing here?'
'I need some air,' said John suddenly. He crossed the room and pushed past Anderson, who was blocking the door.
Anderson winced and sucked air through his teeth. With feigned sympathy, he said to Sherlock, 'Not doing so well, is he?'
Sherlock could hear John descending the stairs; his steps were heavy for a man so light. He felt a sudden and violent need for a cigarette.
'I should go after him. Apologise. You know. For what was said that night.'
'You can stay the hell away from him,' said Sherlock, and he made to follow after.
'Oi! Sherlock Holmes! Just where do you think you're skiving off to?' Dimmock shouted. 'I'm not finished with you!'
'Arrest me.'
He found John just outside the front door, shifting his weight to stave off the sudden cold.
'Hell of a day so far,' John said. He may have meant to pass it off as a joke, but his breath was ragged and his left fist clenched and unclench at his side. But this wasn't panic. It was anger.
'We can go,' said Sherlock. 'Dimmock's heard everything he needs to. He just wants to bully us.'
'I hate to be chased away by that.'
'Anderson's a right tosser.'
'He is a bit, yeah,' John agreed, exhaling slowly. He scrubbed a hand across his eyes, trying to calm down. 'Have we bungled this? I mean, by not calling the police to start with.'
'Nah,' said Sherlock, leaning up against the building. He reached inside a pocket to pull out his gloves. 'No laws were broken. I was working in my capacity as a private detective. Or, if you'd prefer, you were exercising your role as one of the Yard's official consultants, and I tagged along as your faithful assistant.'
John shook his head, though a light of amusement shone in his eyes. 'Right, a medical consultant, someone hired to examine dead bodies, called in to check the locks.'
'There was a dead wren,' said Sherlock, smiling. 'Your professional opinion, doctor?'
'Death by nursery rhyme.'
'There's a bit of that going around.'
They locked eyes again. There was something close to a grin on John's face, and his left hand had relaxed.
'Shall we?' Sherlock asked, nodding down the street.
'Hang on, Sherlock, I think there's still someone you need to talk to.' And John nodded in the opposite direction.
A man walking down the pavement slowed and pulled a ring of keys from his pocket. He was on the higher end of middle aged, copper-toned skin, and bearing the unmistakable look of a landlord: too many keys on the ring.
Sherlock stood taller and tugged his coat straight. 'Mr Fazal, I presume,' he said, walking straight up to the man and stepping into his path.
The man stopped short and his head snapped up. 'Hullo, yes, who are you?'
'I'm here on behalf of Ms Hooper, a tenant of yours.'
'Are you with the police?'
'I literally am, yes. You've noticed, of course, the funny little cars with lights on.'
Mr Fazal looked around and started, only now noticing the line of panda cars in front of the building. 'Blimey. What's all this about then, eh?'
'Were you at home yesterday, Mr Fazal?'
Behind him, Sherlock heard the front door to the building squeak open. He carried on, though. If it was Dimmock coming to fetch him back, he was determined to squeeze as much information out of Mr Fazal before he was forcibly made to stop.
'I was, yes. Well, not all day. I stepped out 'round four, four-thirty. What's this about?'
But it wasn't Dimmock whose voice he heard.
'Thought I'd step out, nip this craving in the bud.' Sherlock's head spun on his shoulder to see that Anderson had joined John on the side of the building. He was pulling out a pack of smokes and lighting up. 'Might be a long day. Care for one?' he extended the pack to John.
'Did something happen to Ms Hooper?' Mr Fazal said.
Sherlock was of half a mind to ignore Mr Fazal entirely and shout Anderson back up to the flat. But then Mr Fazal said, 'Is she hurt? In trouble? Is that why her sister came 'round?'
His head whipped back so quickly his neck cricked painfully. 'Sister?'
'I know, I know,' Anderson was saying. 'Bad for the lungs, eh? Well, good for you, staying healthy. More or less.'
'Yes, Molly's sister,' said Mr Fazal. 'Came calling yesterday. Real looker, that one.'
'Describe her. What did she look like?'
'Look, Watson. John. What I've been meaning to say: I'm sorry. For what was said that night. That was bang out of line.'
'You know, pretty girl. Stunning. Dark hair, eyes. Nothing like Molly. I'd never take them for sisters if I hadn't been told.'
His attention was dangerously divided, but he had to pursue this line of questioning. 'That's what she told you, is it? That they're sisters?'
'Yes. Are they not?'
'So you just let her in?'
'So no hard feelings, eh mate?'
'Yes. She said she's been visiting a couple days. She'd slept in, Molly'd already gone off to work, and she'd accidentally locked herself out of the flat getting the post.'
'You know, you might at least try to smile.'
'She wore nothing but a dressing gown. And I mean'—he leaned in conspiratorially—'nothing but a dressing gown, if you follow.' He winked.
'Might do you some good.'
'Couldn't just leave the poor bird locked out of her flat all day, could I?'
'Then one of these days, you might get over this self-pitying act . . .'
'Sorry. Who did you say you were again?'
'. . . and stop walking around like you've still got some bloke's dick up your arse.'
Something broke. Exploded. Sherlock saw white, like a bursting star, and felt red—heat and blood and rage. There was a roaring in his ears, and when he came to himself, he realised it was himself. Anderson was on the ground, blood gushing from his nose and smeared across the knuckles of Sherlock's gloved fist. His eyes were rolling in his head and he swam in and out of consciousness, but Sherlock still shouted, tightening his fists around what turned out to be the front of Anderson's suit coat as he lifted his upper body off the pavement, shaking him like a rag doll.
People were shouting at him to stop, to let go, shouting his name and malicious substitutes. But he couldn't let go. He wanted to stamp the man's face with his foot and rub it into the pavement.
'Sherlock, stop!'
In the end, it was John who pulled him off, who backed him away with one hand pushing against his heaving chest, and who said calmly, 'Don't. Don't.' John's eyes were blurring with tears. 'Don't.'
Sherlock looked over John's head and saw what he'd done. Anderson lay unmoving, his face a mess of blood. Someone was checking for a pulse. Someone was calling for a paramedic. And Dimmock, staring aghast from the doorway, turned to his sergeant, nodded at Sherlock, and said, 'Cuff him.'