Lestrade snatched the phone receiver out of Jake's hand and pressed redial, waiting a few anxious seconds before the line reconnected. "Donovan?" he barked.

"Yeah." The dull roar in the background of Donovan's call betrayed that she was probably in a moving car, and Lestrade hoped for a moment that she wasn't actually the one driving. He'd told her a thousand times…

"'You free to talk?"

"Jones is driving. The Biondis have gone to the station in their own car."

Lestrade knew that once at the station, the officers there would ask the Biondis to sign a release for Celeste's autopsy, to be undertaken as soon as possible. Probably that night. He felt sick.

"Where are you headed now?" he made himself ask, just as if this were one of his usual cases.

"Vita Biondi gave us a list of some school friends of Celeste's, so we're headed out to round them up for interviewing now."

"Who laid out the preliminary forensics report?"

"Anderson, sir."

Lestrade hissed in dismay. It was something of a Yard joke that Philip Anderson was about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike, and perhaps he was, at most things. But as for forensics, he was top class and rarely made mistakes.

"Donovan," he said, "work fast. The second this hits Dawson's desk, he's going to give this case to another DI and throw most of my guys off the case. You… you know why, don't you?"

"Yes, sir." Donovan paused. "Is your boy okay?"

In their ten-year working relationship, Lestrade couldn't remember Donovan ever asking about the welfare of "his boy." Nor had she ever asked about "his girl", "the wife", "the girlfriend" or anyone else in his life. And in fairness, it had only been just before she took leave to get married that he'd even found out the bloke's name - Rahul. It wasn't that kind of a working relationship.

"Not great," he said wretchedly. "I need to call his mother... Donovan, call Sherlock Holmes and get him to come with you when you do your interviewing."

"Sir –"

"Please, not more of this bullshit between you," he cut her off. "He sees things we don't. Call him. Do it quickly."

He remembered how Sherlock had walked away from him at the crime scene and suddenly, the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Normally, the obnoxious prat would still be around, either taking up unofficial residence in his work office or standing right there in the kitchen, regaling anyone who'd listen with his wealth of knowledge…

But he'd known about… what Anderson had found. And he'd bloody walked away from it.

"I'll call him now. Just leave this with us, Boss," Donovan said, in tones that were very gentle for her. "We'll get this sorted out."

With a vague grunt of dismissal, Lestrade hung up.

Perhaps because time hadn't had a chance to jade him, Jake was an absolute godsend with shocked and distressed witnesses, and with a victim's family members. Melissa had by this time moved in on the scene as well. Glancing back into the dining room, Lestrade saw them both huddling over Matthew in a way that was loving and supportive and probably correct according to some textbook somewhere, and which was clearly annoying the shit out of the poor kid.

His thumb hovered over the phone keypad. Instinct was telling him exactly as he'd told Donovan: Call Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, his strong common sense was telling him to call Julie.

Matthew had gone back to Julie's house the night before, straight from the crime scene. If further investigation of Celeste's death involved a narrow margin of time, she might be her son's only alibi. And in any case, she'd be able to provide valuable information on what sort of state he'd been in when he'd arrived home.

As the line purred, Lestrade remembered with annoyance the incident of the wedding invitations. The week before, Hayley had shown him her mother's wedding invitations, inviting the recipient to the wedding of Mark Anthony Farrow (worthy of a snigger) and Julie Caroline Lestrade. He'd never before considered whether Julie still used his surname, and ordinarily, he'd told himself without conviction, he wouldn't mind about that. But the fact that she'd put it on an invitation to her second marriage had downright made his teeth itch.

"Hi," she said efficiently. Not thrilled to hear from him, but past calls had generally opened with, "What?"

"It's me," he said. "We've got to talk about Matthew, now. He's about to be arrested."

Caitlin Trent tucked her crossed ankles behind the slats of the chair she was sitting on and scrubbed at her puffy, damp eyes with the heel of her hand. Her brother Edward, nearly two years younger, stood in the doorway. He'd folded his arms awkwardly over his chest and was looking around, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do next.

Sherlock hadn't had far to travel when Donovan's call had come through. The Trents lived only four streets away from the Watsons, though he'd left John at home wrangling with his strong-willed daughter and brushing up his knowledge on the Scottish Play. Now perched owl-like in an armchair in the Trent's living room, he bundled his coat around himself and leaned back, gaze flitting back and forth as he took in everything around him at record speed.

Ordinary teenagers, he'd noted with a little disappointment. Caitlin was a bottle-blonde, with brown eyes set wide apart in her face and a snub nose. Edward was round-faced, with a modest layer of puppy fat he hadn't yet shed and, Sherlock quickly decided, he probably sprouted obnoxiously cherubic dimples when he smiled. The children's stepfather, a dull, tired-looking financial advisor who'd introduced himself as Robert, sat on the sofa next to DS Lauren Jones. Seeing Edward's awkwardness, he rose and gestured him to the seat he'd vacated. Edward shook his head slightly.

"I know you," Sherlock said suddenly, addressing Caitlin.

She blinked twice and sniffled, tweaking her tissue between her fingers. "I don't remember," she said bluntly. "Who are you?"

It was a moment before Sherlock himself knew where he'd seen Caitlin Trent before. He and John had been leaving the Watson residence four streets away just a month or two ago when she'd blundered out from behind the neighbour's front hedge. John, backing the car onto the road at the time, had nearly hit her. He'd slammed the brakes on and got out of the car, giving her a lengthy, furious piece of his mind, while she stared at him like the proverbial deer who had narrowly avoided becoming roadkill. All biting, dress-sergeant stuff, until he'd got back into the driver's seat. Sherlock remembered how his right hand had shook as he put the key into the ignition.

"Never mind," he said dismissively. "Go ahead, Sergeant Donovan."

"Thanks so much for your permission," Donovan muttered. She glanced down at the brief she held, then gave her brightest smile to Edward, still lingering in the doorway. "Edward," she said. "Do you want to sit there next to Lauren while we talk?"

Lauren, Sherlock noted as he watched Edward reluctantly cross the room and sit down next to her. Nobody ever called DS Jones Lauren. Even Donovan called her by her surname. The Trent kids were getting the treatment usually reserved for the under-ten crowd. Jones even patted the sofa cushion beside her before Edward finally sat.

"So," Donovan said after clearing her throat. "We're really sorry about Celeste. And we understand that you're upset about it. But we do need to ask you some questions, before your memories get a bit muddled. Did either of you see her last night?"

Caitlin shook her head, without pausing to think about it, and her brother murmured "no" into his hand.

"And she was a friend of yours, Caitlin?" Donovan sounded so uncharacteristically soft that Sherlock coughed into his hand. "But she was in the form below you, wasn't she?"

"Yeah," Caitlin said. "We didn't really hang around each other at lunch or anything. We were in the Dramatic Society together."

Donovan glanced at Jones for a second. "Okay. The Dramatic Society – so you put on plays?"

Caitlin nodded. Sherlock, listening in with a great deal of irritation, mentally gave her points for not rolling her eyes.

"And you're currently midway through a production of Macbeth – don't ask me how I knew that," he sniped before Caitlin could express more than a second of surprise. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Donovan turn her head toward him, and knew what it meant. The exasperatingly dim woman was trying to signal to him not to reveal crime scene details. "So which part did Celeste play, then?" he went on.

Caitlin frowned and shook her head. "She didn't play anyone," she said. "She was in the wardrobe department. Made costumes, is what I mean."

"And you?"

"Fleance… it's a character. A boy's part," she admitted with a shrug. "But it doesn't really matter, 'cause we've far more girls in the group than boys."

"But there were boys in the cast, too?" Jones asked carefully.

Caitlin wiped her nose. "Oh, um, yeah, a couple," she muttered. "Matthew Lestrade was playing Macbeth."

"I'm in it," Edward suddenly spoke up. "I play Banquo. I – um. Well, I s'pose I don't anymore. But I'd have done a good job of it." He dropped his chin, muttering into his chest.

"Oh, will you stop being so selfish!" Caitlin suddenly sprang out of her chair. "Who cares about the play being cancelled? Some horrible person murdered Celeste! And you're a terrible actor, anyway!"

"Caitlin," Robert tried, in weak tones that suggested that "Caitlin" was probably the only admonishment she ever received.

"Did they?" Sherlock asked calmly from his chair.

Caitlin turned to him, cheeks flushed. "Did they what?"

"Did some horrible person murder Celeste?" Sherlock glanced at Donovan, then clasped his fingers together and laid them in his lap in a sort of pre-emptive self-satisfaction. "Because I don't recall any of us ever telling you that Celeste was murdered."

Her mouth dropped open. "Well, of course she was murdered! What are you all, idiots or something? Why would all these police officers be here if it was just, like, an accident?"

"Caitlin," Robert tried again. "You're getting very worked up – "

"Of course I'm worked up!" she shrieked, with such force that she took a great gasping breath before the rest of it would come out. "Just all of you leave me alone!"

Tear-choked, Caitlin blundered out into the hall. Robert went to go after her, but after a second, seemed to think better of it. They listened to her heavy, clumsy tread on the stairs and then a whump that suggested she'd either slammed a door or pitched something heavy at the wall.

"I'm sorry," Robert said, sitting back down and sighing heavily. "She can be strong-willed."

Sherlock's upper lip twitched for a second. No, that was never going to do. Donovan wouldn't tolerate Caitlin's "strong-willed" attitude for much longer, even if the girl did have a good excuse for histrionics.

Donovan glanced again at Jones, and then down at her notes; Sherlock silently noted how tightly she held her mouth. "It's okay," she said.

"Robert," Sherlock asked, "what hand does Caitlin write with? No, I don't want you to answer." He held up his palm before Edward could helpfully chime in.

Robert shrugged his thin, stooped shoulders. "Her right, I suppose. Don't most people?"

"Yes, you'll note that I didn't ask what hand most people write with – yes, fine, what's the answer?" Sherlock turned to Edward, who by this time was practically leaping out of his seat in anticipation at being called upon.

"Her left," he said promptly, as if racking up points in a quiz show.

"That does explain quite a lot. And how long did you say you and your wife have been married, Mr. Trent?" Sherlock asked politely.

"Seven years next month. Why?"

"Sherlock, is this going somewhere?" Donovan raised one eyebrow.

Sherlock's lower jaw unhinged itself for a few seconds before he realised and shut it again.

"No," he finally said, huffing and turning his head away from her in contempt. "No, you're quite right. I often ask witnesses pointless questions for no reason. I'll shut up now."

Donovan turned back to the notes on her lap, though she didn't seem to be actually reading them. For a few seconds an extremely awkward silence filled the room, and they could all hear Caitlin still slamming things around upstairs.

"Go on, then," Donovan finally muttered.

"No, you go ahead, Sergeant."

"Really, just – "

"You're asking the questions." Sherlock's tones were icily polite. "Continue."

"Sherlock, will you – "

"My questions don't lead anywhere anyhow, apparently."

"Just stop acting like a bloody toddler, Sherlock, this is a serious case!"

"Both of you stop it, now," Jones said suddenly. "You do know who we're supposed to report disputes to? I don't think he's in the mood for any of this. Not today."

At this, even Sherlock had a rare flash of regret. Although not strictly speaking a Yard employee, he was now an independent contractor. Any disputes he had with Donovan during the course of an interview had to be reported to the managing DI and that, for the next few hours at least, was still Greg Lestrade. Lestrade hated paperwork at the best of times, and there was little chance that Jones would take pity on all of them and not report a petty squabble to him once she'd warned both parties to shut it. She was even more by-the-book than Donovan, if such a thing were possible.

"Edward," Jones said calmly, turning to him. "We need you to give us a list of people from the Dramatic Society. Names and phone numbers and addresses, if you have them, please."

For God's sake, Lestrade pleaded silently, listening to Julie's quiet breathing on the other end of the line. We always knew. We always knew right from when he was born that there was something different about him. But if you start thinking he'd ever –

"Greg," Julie said, hushed. "Do you remember, when we were in fifth form, someone burned down the bike shed at school?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah."

"And someone called up the local force about it. They said they saw you and Rich Ansell leaving the scene just as it started to go up in flames."

"They came out to the house to interview me." And I just about starting crying like a girl, thinking I was going to prison.

"And your dad was mad as hell about it. He told them to get off his property, and come back when they had a warrant, didn't he? Because you told him that you weren't involved, and he believed you. And he never stopped believing you."

Lestrade shut his eyes. How the hell had Julie managed to remember all that? It had even escaped his own memory, even though the shame of being accused of a minor, laddish crime he hadn't committed was partly what had galvanised him into joining the police force in the first place.

"Julie," he said slowly. "This isn't the same sort of thing as burning down a bike shed. You remember Celeste… skinny girl with long dark hair? She's been killed, and we're... they're... treating it as suspicious. I've just come from the scene. Matthew was out there with her last night, and the investigators are going to think…"

"Oh, God," Julie blurted out. The last part was muffled, as if she'd put her hand over her mouth. "Oh my God, Greg, they think he murdered someone?"

"Just come over," was all Lestrade could trust himself to say. "As soon as you can. He needs you."

John sighed and faced the bookcase in front of him like it was pistols at dawn. He was an enthusiastic reader, but only when he had his own choice of reading material.

"Molly," he called over his shoulder. "Do we even have an edition of Shakespeare in this house?"

"Fourth shelf up," she called back from where she was stooped over the washing machine. "On the left, I think."

The brick-sized book John edged out was old, though hardly used. A bookplate picture of mallard ducks on a calm pond: Ex Libris Molly Hooper. John didn't need Sherlock's skills to deduce that it was probably an old high school textbook. He sat down on the sofa with it, thumbing through to the index page.

"Only about twelve more years and I can put you onto this stuff," he said darkly to Charlie, who was playing with a stack of blue and red plastic blocks on the hearthrug. What were the odds, he thought, that being the unofficial handler of the World's Only Consulting Detective would involve reading so much poetry? First The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and now this.

"What's the matter?" Molly asked him, coming in to see. She had a box of washing powder in one hand and her phone in the other, held out as if she'd just been using it.

"Where am I even supposed to start looking for this quote?" he wanted to know peevishly. "And before you get clever, we know what play it came from. Sherlock wants to know how it relates to the crime, but this may as well be Chinese for all the sense it's making to me."

"You're smart," Molly reminded him. "You passed the horrors of Organic Chemistry. You'll figure something out."

"I also dropped Shakespeare for a reason," he said, thumbing through a few more pages. "And even when they made me learn it, I still used cheat notes."

"Well, what's wrong with that?" She looked down at her phone screen again.

"Nothing, if you have cheat notes. What's that?"

"Google… cheat notes. You might have thought of it, if you weren't so old-fashioned. There." She held the phone out to him. "It's awful, like we all thought. It's what Macbeth says, the first thing, when someone tells him that his wife is dead."

Lestrade had no sooner hung up the line than Hayley, now working for an insurance broker in the city, blundered in the door. She was exhausted but exuberant, and totally ignorant of anything that had happened. Another good use for Jake, to break the news and keep her out of this for the time being; Lestrade practically pushed them up the stairs together. Melissa was still with Matthew at the dining room table, but had apparently run out of meaningful things to say.

"It's okay," he heard her say as he came back in. "It's okay to be upset, Matty."

"Mel, could you, um…" Lestrade made a vague hand gesture toward the kitchen. She stood up obligingly, though he wondered if she was drafting another speech to him about saying what he wanted her to do instead of leaving her to guess. Listening to the sound of her bare feet on the kitchen tiles, he noted dully that she'd really left and wasn't eavesdropping. Matthew looked up at him in mute confusion, and he sat down heavily in the chair she had vacated.

"I called your mum, kid," he confessed. "She's coming over. It's okay, I didn't tell her about…" He stopped and cleared his throat, aware of Matthew taking note of every twitch of his face with his dark eyes. "Okay," he said at last. "I need you to listen to me, and listen carefully. Celeste didn't die by accident. And the police are going to be bringing everyone who's seen her recently in for questioning, and that includes you."

"But can't you just question me?"

Lestrade shook his head. "Not this time. They won't let me work a case like this when I knew Celeste, and I can't interview a relative. So they'll give it to someone else to oversee, and once that's decided, they'll probably be here to talk to you this evening. Now listen, your mother and me and Mel - we're all going to help you. But I need you to tell me the whole truth about every single thing I ask about, okay?"

Matthew hesitated, then nodded his head.

"Did you have sex with Celeste last night? No, I'm not asking for fun." Lestrade heard his tone sharpen in response to Matthew's flinch, and he reproached himself. Of course the kid wasn't keen on having this talk. And that, frankly, made two of them. "It's important," he said. "Did you have sex with her?"

"Yes."

"And it was unprotected?"

"Uh."

"Jesus, Matthew," Lestrade groaned under his breath. Every time. Every single bloody time Hayley left the house… well, no. He wasn't the one asking her if she had protection in her purse, since Melissa had gladly taken over that awkward role a couple of years before. But in all his fretting about Hayley, it was Matthew. Matthew, his little genius, who was so bloody stupid…

"And she was willing too, yeah?" he heard himself say next - then recoiled at his own words.

"Dad!"

"No, you listen to me. Whoever interviews you is going to ask you about that. No, they're probably going to grill you about that."

Matthew covered his mouth with his shaking hand. "What do I do?" he asked.

"You brought your phone and laptop over from your mum's?"

He nodded. Lestrade took a deep breath.

"I need to see everything on them," he said. "And I mean everything. 'Cause whatever they're going to find – texts, photographs, emails, video - I need to see them first."