Chapter One - The Personal Diary of Molly Hooper

You could see the sadness. It was around his eyes. When he looked at Dr Watson, it was there unobserved. I didn't know what it meant yet part of me did. I can't explain it. I think it surprised him that I knew. Maybe we aren't all clever like him but every so often, we glimpse at an expression and the truth is obvious. Even to us.

He said he was going to die. I should know better than to disagree so I didn't say so but I didn't believe him. I mean. He is always right, isn't he? But this one time. I didn't believe him. Turns out I was right, after all. He didn't die. Well he did. But he didn't.

He was so very specific; every detail exacting and demanding precision. That's what he does. Mental autopsies. Vivisections on us all. Never wastes a breath. Never a word chosen to soften a blow or show a kindness. He is heartless; a human laser cutting deeply to expose the truth.

I was on my way home. He scared the wits out of me sneaking up like that. Not even a hello or nice to see you. He brought crisps. It wasn't necessary. He didn't need to bribe me. I would have stayed regardless. He said he needed me. He never needs anyone. Well, maybe Doctor Watson. But he certainly never needs me.

"I need your help."

He said he was going to kill himself and that it wouldn't work unless I helped. I couldn't. I couldn't do that. Whatever he had done … whatever was the matter … I told him that there were people he could talk to. I tried to talk him out of it but it made him angry and he turned on me. He does that. He gets angry. Turns on people. He stopped so suddenly I nearly bumped into him.

"It will be an illusion!" He didn't finish it with "you stupid woman" and I thought that rather nice of him even though it was all in his voice and his face. He doesn't think so much of me that he filters his insults. I don't know if he even realizes they hurt. Still. I took his restraint as a sign of desperation.

I tried to defend myself but I couldn't really get the words out. It was lost on him and he had no patience. With a wave of his hand, he demanded my silence. We went back into the morgue of St Barts.

He palmed a rubber ball. Put it to his eye then threw it up high and snapped it out of the air.

"This. Will be sewn into my shirt. Here." He struck an open palm under his right arm as instruction. "Make sure you remove it before you dress the body."

Body?

"There will be a corpse waiting. It will have to convincing. I have a distinctive profile but people see what they expect to see. This is important. Are you listening?"

I opened my mouth. I didn't have a chance to answer. The lab door swung open.

"Brother." A stranger's voice interrupted. We both turned.

"Mycroft." He did not sound pleased.

"What are you doing, brother?"

"I am planning to kill myself. What does it look like?"

"Don't be daft. We decided to leave the arranging all to me. There are too many things that could go wrong … "

"You decided. I agreed to nothing."

I didn't much like being in the middle of a fight. It seemed wise to move to the side. I looked down. Then away. Then up at him. His face pinched up and he was breathing hard, like it was an effort to restrain himself.

"Now is a fine time to consider what might go wrong. At this late date, do you not think you have caused enough damage? Besides. It is my life."

Blue eyes had turned to ice. I shivered.

"That was unfair."

"It is true."

"Let this be my amends to you, then. Who the devil is this?"

"Molly." He paused. "She is with me." He added it as a throw away and then stepped so that he came between his brother and I. It was defiance; a dare.

His back was my shield. Broad shoulders just above my eye level. I could almost feel the heat from his body. The smell of him – exotic and complex – wafted close, like a teasing entrail of smoke. He used the whole of his chest to breathe. Expanding and contracting with the same control as used for everything else. His voice cut deep. Just a single word order.

"Leave."

"Not until we agree upon the myriad of details, Sherlock. This is going to be complicated. You must know. I am unwilling to speak about them in the presence of … others."

"And I am not willing to speak of them under any other terms." He paused again. And then he said. "She stays."

"How do you know you can trust her?"

The lab went still and all I could hear was that far off hum of the vents, a metallic ticking and soft hissing of air. He didn't answer at first and I dropped my head waiting for the inevitable patronizing dismissal.

That voice spoke. His voice. Unexpectedly quiet and vulnerable. "You won't betray me, will you, Molly?"

The words shook me and my heart felt like it would burst. I could hardly breathe. I stared at his back – a swath of wool with a single perpendicular pleat straight down the centre. I didn't dare answer. So many of his questions are rhetorical but some aren't and I can never tell one from another. It was always better to say nothing. Less opportunity for him to ridicule. Then I realized he was waiting for me.

"Oh." It was hardly louder than the fans. "No." I cleared my throat and said it one more time. "No."

"See there, Mycroft?"

"You are betting your life on her word."

"I am betting my life on a great many things, Mycroft. There are a thousand things that could go wrong. Molly will not be one of them. Understood?"

I didn't know who he was talking to but I nodded just to be sure and echoed him. "Understood."

In the end, his brother arranged for everything else. My part was simple enough. They would pronounce him dead in emergency and I would collect him for the morgue. Then bodies would be switched. We would have only minutes and he would escape in the chaos.

That day I was in early. Before dawn. I couldn't sleep. No point being anywhere else so I came in and spent hours waiting. It was impossible to concentrate. I paced. Checked the replacement corpse. His brother must have extraordinary connections. The corpse was a very good match indeed. I ensured his clothes were stacked just right top to bottom so he could dress in order – from inside out. I went over the plan in my head again and again.

When it happened, it was fast and intense, like being hit with a tidal wave. I had only a briefest warning. News of a jumper on the roof travelled fast. I knew it was him and then felt sick knowing how complicated the fall would be. What if he missed? He couldn't miss. I paced. And then – a sudden silence and then noise - everyone knew all at once that it was Sherlock Holmes and that he was dead. I was summoned and two orderlies lifted him onto my gurney and covered his bloodied face with a sheet.

As soon as we got to the morgue, he jumped off and ripped open his coat. His hair was soaked in crimson and dripped everywhere. He tore off his scarf and kicked off his shoes and then undid his belt. "Where are my clothes?"

Then in that room with just the two of us and hardly any time at all to spare, he stripped off his clothes. All of them.

"Come on! Come on, Molly!" He snapped me out of my haze and threw his shirt with the sleeves inside out.

I had to wait until I had all his clothes to dress the corpse. He threw me the last piece and for an instant, he stood in front of me – utterly bare. There was a beat, a pause, a moment that seemed to last forever. The spell was broken with a blink and then he reached for the neat stack of clothes that I had arranged for him and I went to work on the corpse.

He was finished before I was. I knew it because the space behind me was suddenly still. Outside in the hall, an approaching chaos. Voices started clamouring … and above them, Dr Watson's fighting to be freed from those who restrained him. Grief and panic constricted his voice into anger.

"Let me go!" You could hear the terrible pain. He was wild, like a wounded animal.

I looked at him as he shut his eyes against the noise as if to block it from his memory. "Good bye." The whisper haunted in the echo of the morgue. It took my breath away.

"Good bye." I said. "Take … Take care of yourself. Please? Will you …when will … you be … back?"

He said nothing more but pulled down a cap to hide his face and slipped out the back. That was the last I saw of him.

In the end, I kept his scarf. I didn't see the harm in it. I would have given it back but no one missed it. I guess it made sense to others that it was lost in the confusion.

I keep it in a box on the top shelf of my closet. Once in a while, I take it down and stare at it and think of him. Sometimes I loop it around my neck the way he used to – fold it in half and then loose ends through the middle. When I pull it tight, I drop my chin into the cashmere and inhale. It's him – tobacco, sweat, a cologne that is so faint that I have to concentrate to find it, and the whole of London all mixed in. I think of his sharp voice and his ruthless intellect and how incompetence and fools frustrate him and then acknowledge that we are all incompetent and foolish compared to him.

I wonder where he is.

I wonder if he is well and safe … if he has any friends.

It must be hard being him.

And even harder trying not to be…