Chapter Forty Eight

During the night, though force of habit, Sherlock and Molly had gravitated towards one another so, when the gurgles and chirrups of Violet's morning aria woke Molly, she found Sherlock curled around her, his breath blowing gently on the back of her neck. For a moment, she luxuriated in the feeling of comfort and security that his embrace engendered but, as she became fully awake, she remembered she was cross with him and crawled out from between his arms.

Passing Violet's travel cot, on her way to the bathroom, Molly gave her daughter a little belly rub and assured her that she would be back in a minute to open the milk bar. True to her word, she soon returned to the bedroom and lifted Violet from the cot, to be rewarded by a beaming smile.

During her absence, Sherlock had rolled back to his side of the bed and all she could see of him was a mass of matted curls, where his hair was clumped together by the wax he had used to slick it back, the day before. Molly could only guess at why he had used so much product on his hair. She assumed it had something to do with the peculiar collection of clothes on the bathroom floor. No doubt all would be revealed, eventually.

'Breakfast is served,' Molly cooed, as she settled herself on the bed, cross-legged, with her pillows bunched up behind to provide lumbar support. She cradled Violet in her lap and lifted up the right side of her nightshirt to nurse the baby.

'No nipping,' she cautioned, giving Violet a stern look, as the little girl latched onto her mother's nipple and began to suckle vigorously.

Violet was a bit of a nipper, Molly had discovered. At first she thought it was just because of the teething but she had since realised that her daughter was not above the odd nip of disapproval, when she thought things were not quite going her way. Molly had adopted the 'three strikes and you're out' rule, for these circumstances and Violet was beginning to get the message – having had her mealtime interrupted a time or two while Mummy expressed her milk rather than delivering it direct from source.

On this occasion, the mealtime passed without incident and when Molly sat Violet up in order to bring up her wind, mother and baby were still on good terms.

'Look who's here,' Molly murmured, drawing her daughter's attention to the motionless mound on the other side of the bed.

Violet recognised the back of Sherlock's head and gave a loud chortle, waving her arms and legs. Molly reached over and poked her husband in the back.

'Hey, Daddy, there's someone here wants to say hello,' she said, loud enough to break into his post-case coma and rouse him. He went to stretch and roll over but was rudely reminded of his physical injuries by a sharp stab to his right side, as his intercostal muscles protested at being required to do such work. He rolled over more carefully and met Violet's almond shaped, opal coloured eyes with a sleepy smile.

'Here, I think she wants Daddy-cuddles,' Molly surmised and passed the baby over to him. 'Careful, though. She hasn't burped yet.'

Sherlock sat the baby on his chest and supported her with one had whilst patting her back with the other. Amid a cacophony of giggles and gurgles, Violet emitted a very loud belch, which set both her parents chuckling, though Sherlock's quickly morphed into a coughing fit, closely followed by gasps, as his throat and ribs conspired to torment him.

'Do you need me to take her?' Molly asked, being careful not to sound too sympathetic. She wasn't as angry as she had been the night before but she wasn't about to let him off the hook.

He shook his head and, using his feet and one arm, scooted himself up the bed, so that his shoulders were on the pillows and his head against the head board, and began pulling faces at Violet, who obliged by pulling them back. Molly watched him and his daughter sharing this moment and it only served to reinforce what a terrible tragedy it would be for her three children if their father were not to come home one day. Stupid man! she thought.

The sound of the door from Hamilton into the connecting bathroom announced the imminent arrival of the Hooper-Holmes boys. Freddie came barrelling into his parents' bedroom ahead of his older brother and stopped dead, just across the threshold.

'Daddy! You is back!' he exclaimed, shrilly.

'Freddie, I just told you Daddy was back,' William interjected, entering the room in a far more dignified manner, 'didn't you hear me?'

'Yet, I did hear you, Willum, but now dat I tan see Daddy, I know dat it is twue!' Freddie replied, nodding vigorously.

'But of course it's true!' William was appalled. 'Why would I tell you something that isn't true?'

'Pfff, I don't know. Maybe if you was habing a joke, you would tell me sumfing dat isn't twue,' Freddie suggested.

'I would never joke about something as serious as Daddy coming back. That would be cruel!' William was deeply shocked at the very idea.

'No, dat would not be a vewy funny joke,' Freddie agreed – but then had an epiphany.

'But, if you said dat Daddy was not back and he was, dat would be a good joke and I would laugh!' Freddie beamed and, turning his attention back to Sherlock, ran towards the bed, shreiking,

'Daddy! You is back!'

William wrinkled his brow and shook his head in bewilderment. He really did not understand Freddie's logic. It was so…illogical!

'Steady on, Freddie!' Molly exclaimed, 'Daddy is a bit…delicate. Don't go jumping on him.'

Typical Molly, Sherlock thought, she may be mad at me but it doesn't stop her caring. And she would never dream of disparaging him in front of the children.

He flicked a cautious grimace of gratitude in her direction, being careful to avoid eye contact so as to show the correct degree of deference due to her infinite moral superiority.

Freddie came to the side of the bed and rested his forearms on the mattress.

'Tan I tum in bed wiv you, Daddy?' he asked, putting his head on one side and smiling, appealingly.

'Yes, of course you can come in bed, Freddie,' Molly replied, 'you both can. But come round this side and don't jump on Daddy. He has poorly ribs.'

'Poorly ribs and a poorly throat?' William queried. 'How did that happen?'

Sherlock saw the concern etched on William's face and felt the barbs of a guilty conscience for being the source of that concern, yet again.

'Daddy met some very bad men, darling,' Molly explained, pulling William into a reassuring hug and giving Freddie a helping hand up onto the bed. 'They were a bit mean to him but Uncle Mycroft caught the bad men and now they can't be mean to Daddy or anyone else, any more,' she concluded, brightly.

Hang on a minute, Sherlock thought, how come Uncle Mycroft gets all the glory? After all, it was me who lured the bad men into the trap. It was my plan that won the day! All Mycroft had to do was work out a simple puzzle, that should have taken him about half the time it actually did take, considering he's supposed to be so bloody smart!

As these thoughts flashed though Sherlock's mind, they also flickered across his face, like scenes from a silent movie. But Molly had moved on.

'OK, I'm going to leave you boys – and girl – to your fun and games while I just have a shower. I may be gone some time!' she announced and trotted off to the bathroom, feeling an immense sense of relief at not having to hold the fort any more, as the lone parent. She paused, in the bathroom doorway, looking back.

'Oh, and, Daddy…Violet's night nappy needs changing,' she smiled and closed the bathroom door.

ooOoo

Mycroft was at his desk, in his study, by seven thirty that morning, and on the phone to Anthea.

'Do we have the entire cell in custody now?' he asked.

'We believe so, sir. They are part of a much bigger network, of course, but we think that all the men specifically under Moran's leadership have been apprehended. The racehorse trainer, Miss Burrows, has been particularly helpful. She claims to have been completely in the dark about Moran's terrorist activities. She insists he is just her landlord. He does own the yard and all the other amenities, as well as the house, presumably bought with the proceeds of his Eastern European drug trafficking. She's given us free access to all the CCTV footage from her security system. I understand you already have the footage from the house.'

'Yes, I do. I haven't had time to look at it all so, since I won't be in the office today, perhaps you could send someone over to collect the DVD's and make a start on them.'

'Of course, sir,' Anthea assured him.

'There are some VHS tapes, too, which I believe contain some very sensitive footage. I don't have a video cassette player here. Perhaps someone with maximum security clearance could look at those? And some equally sensitive DVD's – doctored images that have been cleverly manipulated for the express purpose of inventing a scandal involving me. I want the tech people to work out how these videos were produced. That's rather urgent, actually. Top priority. If there are any other copies out there and they were to be made public, I want to be prepared with a cast iron explanation of how the illusion was achieved.'

Anthea made a note of all these instructions.

'Will there be anything further, sir?' she asked.

'Yes, I've sent you a final draft of a press release. With all that wild activity in Central London last night, no doubt the rumour machine is running full throttle, this morning. So we need to put the public's minds at ease. It's the usual sort of thing - terror plot foiled, arrests made, you know the drill. The PM should read it out, standing out in front of No 10, to give it some gravitas.'

'Very good, sir. I'll see to that personally.' Anthea replied.

'And then there's Arthur's family. They need to be de-briefed and taken home. The sisters and mother might want to visit him at St Hugh's and I'm sure he'd like to see them. Facilitate that, would you?'

Anthea replied in the affirmative.

'Have I forgotten anything?' Mycroft asked.

'Sherlock's witness, sir, Mr Wiggins. He's still enjoying our hospitality.'

'Do we have a statement from him?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Let him go home…or back to wherever he calls home, anyway. Oh, yes, and Marcus Frayne. I need the name of his accomplice, the one who assisted him in the snatch. I think he has something that belongs to me. I want it back. Tell him, if he tells me who that person is, he can go about his business.'

'And if he won't, sir?'

'I'm sure we can link him to any number of extraordinary renditions that have occurred in the last few years. He may never see the light of day again.'

'Very good, sir,' Anthea affirmed, with a smile. Don't mess with Mycroft Holmes, she thought, as she closed the call and resumed her breakfast.

ooOoo

'Daddy, are we doeing home now you're back?' Freddie asked.

'Daddy can't talk, Freddie, remember? He's got a poorly throat,' William reminded his younger brother.

Sherlock was kneeling on the floor, with the baby bag beside him and Violet lying on her changing mat, on the bed. The offending night nappy had been removed and he had freshened her delicate skin with baby wipes and was now applying talcum powder to her derriere before putting on a fresh nappy.

What a bizarre life he led, he thought. Yesterday, dicing with death, in the lair of a dangerous criminal; today, changing a baby's nappy and trying to hold a conversation with his sons, without speaking.

With his principal spokesperson otherwise engaged, Sherlock had to find an alternate means of communication. The pad and pen that had been so useful thus far were still in the pocket of his trousers, on the bathroom floor, so also unavailable. A thought occurred and he broke, for a moment, from the baby wrangling, took hold of Freddie's hand, drew a letter 'a' on his palm and gave him a quizzical look.

'Ooh, Daddy! Dat tickles!' Freddie giggled. 'Are we pyaying Wound and Wound de Darden, Yike a Teddy Bear?'

'No, Freddie, He's writing on your hand. That's a letter 'a'…' William began, then,

'Oh!' he exclaimed, looking exactly as Sherlock did when he had a sudden revelation. 'Do you know the BSL alphabet, Daddy?'

A light went on in Sherlock's Mind Palace and a musty old cupboard door creaked open. Yes, of course, he thought. Didn't everybody know the British Sign Language alphabet? He'd learned it at school.

He smiled and nodded at William and, having completed the nappy changing task, he cleaned his hands on a baby wipe, cleared away the debris into a nappy bag, tied the handles together and tossed the bag into the bedroom waste basket, then climbed stiffly back into bed. With Violet lying across his belly, he finger-spelled the answer to Freddie's question. William acted as interpreter for his little brother, who hadn't completely mastered the written alphabet yet, let alone the signed one.

'I need to do something first, then we can go home,' William translated.

'What do you need to do?' he asked.

'Say it wid your pingers, Willum!' Freddie squeaked. He thought this 'talking with your hands' was a great game. William obliged by spelling out the words as he spoke them. Freddie tried very hard to copy but only succeeded in twisting his fingers into peculiar knots, though he didn't seem to notice the difference.

Sherlock explained that he would be going with Uncle Mycroft, Katy and Charlie to see Uncle Arthur because there was something very important he needed to tell him. And only he could do that.

ooOoo

Molly stepped out of the shower with her hair wound up in one towel and a second towel wrapped around her wet body. She looked at the pile of clothes lying in a heap on the bathroom floor, where Sherlock had discarded them the night before. She was pretty sure that he would have no further use for them. They really weren't his style. But once they had been laundered, she thought, they could go to the local charity shop.

She bent down to pick them up and drop them in the laundry basket, and felt a weight in one of the trouser pockets. Feeling inside, she found the pad and pen that Colonel Moran had given to Sherlock. She looked at it with curiosity and read the first note, a two digit number and a London postcode. She didn't recognise the postcode but she assumed it was the address of Sherlock's secret bolthole in Leinster Gardens

She sat on the side of the bath and turned the page to read the next note:

'Members have private lockers. I am a member. Memory stick in my locker.'

And the next:

'LOCKER ROOM'

She read on:

'PRIVATE club. Only members and guests of. You need me to GET IN.'

'Come in. I'll show you.'

'No talking AT ALL. IT'S THE CLUB RULE.'

'Don't like, don't join,'

Molly was confused. These notes were all about the Diogenes Club, the private club where Mycroft was the current chairman. So far as she was aware, Sherlock was not a member. In fact, he despised the place. Why had he been talking about it like that? Was that where he had taken Moran and his men? And if so, when was that decided? And how did Mycroft know?

Was this why Mycroft had asked to see the original text of the email that Sherlock had sent to her? Were the references to the 'little place in Bayswater' just a red herring? That was it! There was another message, hidden in the email but where and what it was, she had no clue.

Wherever it was, thank God Mycroft had figured it out in time! It chilled her blood to think what might have happened if the double bluff had not come off, and she was suddenly grateful to be sitting down. She felt physically sick. It brought back into full focus the enormous risks that Sherlock had taken with his own life.

'Stupid, stupid man!' she gasped and threw the pad and pen on the floor.

There were more notes to be read but she couldn't face them, just at the moment. The anger that had mellowed slightly overnight was back up to full power. She rubbed furiously at her hair, to dissipate some of the emotion. She had to calm down before she went back into the bedroom because, right now, she really did feel like punching him! But she would not risk upsetting the children. They had been through enough.

ooOoo