The Curtain Falls

Sleep of the Dead – The Realisation of Mycroft – Getting Comfortable – I Want You to Watch – Something's Wrong – The Boring Straw – An Appointment with Murder – A Matter of Some Urgency – Volunteers? – Coffee and Death – A Little Help – Knifepoint – A Decision.

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Grace was already feeling drowsy by the time Greg helped her up the stairs to her apartment. She vaguely registered he seemed to be making a habit of this. Too numb to utter the thought, she made no objection when he took her keys and opened her front door, easing her inside and closing the door behind them both. There were no words when she plodded through to her bedroom and, pushing open the door, dropping her bag and outer gear on the floor, uncaring where it fell.

Lestrade looked around the large room, trying to fathom how the blinds worked, both the normal ones in the big windows, as well as the extraordinary one that covered what seemed to be a glass ceiling. It didn't take him long, a fact he took some comfort in. He was, after all, a senior police officer and a detective.

By the time he turned back to her, Grace had rolled onto her side on top of the covers and curled into herself, silent and clearly desperately upset.

"Do you want me to stay?" It was the only question that came to him; none of the others, the police-type questions, were even relevant. Not right now.

"Yes," her voice was almost inaudible, but the single syllable was clear enough.

He stepped around the bed, sitting on the end as he lifted her feet to pull off first one trainer and then the other.

"How about you get under the covers, eh?" he frowned as he looked into her face which was far too pale, even for someone with her light colouring. "How are you feeling?" he asked, gently. "Would a cup of tea help?"

"No tea," Grace closed her eyes tight. "I think I'm going to be sick ..."

"Want a hand to the ..." Greg was about to offer to help her to the loo, when she jack-knifed up off the bed and flew out the door towards the toilet, a hand clamped across her mouth. Judging by the heart-wrenching sounds, she just made it in time.

Heading to the kitchen where, only that morning he had cooked them both breakfast in a much happier frame of mind, Lestrade filled the kettle and dug out the tea. Something hot with a touch of sweetness in it would do her no harm. He opened cupboards looking for honey.

"Is that tea?" Grace sounded exhausted as she leaned against the corner of the kitchen units sounding both washed-out and half-asleep.

Looking up, Greg realised she still looked grim, but perhaps not quite so green as before. "Yes," he nodded. "You crawl into bed and I'll bring it through in a minute."

Without a word, she vanished, her socked feet making no sound on the polished wooden boards.

By the time he found the honey, made the tea and brought two mugs of it into her darkened bedroom, Grace was under the covers, her face shadowed.

"Here you go," he said, putting a mug down within easy reach as he sat on the side of the bed by her feet. "Do you want to talk about it now, or wait until you feel better?"

She was so still and quiet, Greg wondered if she'd fallen asleep.

"Nobody knew where he was," she whispered. "I wanted to know if he had any mail for me and went looking for him. I was going to tease him about going off to flirt with some nice young man," she added, her voice husking into silence as her eyes filled with tears.

Deciding to let her speak, Lestrade remained mute. It might be a good idea for her to get it out now rather than later.

"I wasn't even going to start looking downstairs at first," Grace wiped her eyes on the pillow. "But the down-lift arrived while I was there so I took it. I went into the storage room and I thought the place was empty, but then I saw his shoe underneath the cabinet."

There was such a long pause that Greg wondered if she had decided not to say any more.

"I opened the doors and saw him inside ... it was awful," she whispered again. "Awful."

Lestrade picked up the mug of tea and held it out for her. "Sip this," he said. "It will make you feel a bit better."

Like a child, she pushed herself up on one elbow, taking the mug in her good hand. Shuddering as the warm liquid flowed down through her, Grace managed several swallows before she handed it over.

Collapsing back down into the bed, she rested her bandaged hand over her eyes. "I couldn't hold him up and undo the ... belt, so I phoned the security men at reception and got them to come down ..." Grace paused again. "I remember the ambulance people coming in and I remember lots of voices and noise and then everything just went grey and faded out," she shrugged under the covers. "That's everything I know, sorry."

"It's more than enough for now," Greg sipped his own tea, feeling the heat relax some of the inner tension he hadn't even realised he was feeling. "You should sleep," he added. "You have to be feeling shattered."

"A bit," Grace was mumbling now, her words muffled by the softness of the duvet. "Don't leave."

"Wasn't going to," Greg replaced his mug on the bedside table and kicked off his shoes as he slipped his jacked down his arms. "Scootch over,"

Looking blearily up at him, Grace saw that he was about to climb into bed, completely clothed. She felt an hysterical urge to laugh. He was the second man who'd crawled into bed beside her, fully dressed. What was it about her, or the people she knew that made this seem like a good idea?

But she desperately wanted his company ... any company, really, so she kept silent and scootched.

Pulling the duvet back over them both, Greg reached across and carefully got close. He had no real understanding what the hell he was trying to achieve, but whatever he was doing seemed to be acceptable.

She was freezing cold.

"Christ, woman," he muttered. "You're a block of ice."

"Don't feel well," she mumbled, the sensation of his warm arm suddenly around her shoulders a deliciously welcome counterpoint to her increasing chilliness. Grace could feel the drug in her system pulling her down into sleep and all she knew was that she couldn't be alone right now.

"Just don't leave me for a while, please ..." she whispered again, her eyes closing beneath the influence of the medication.

Turning his head, Greg could tell immediately that she'd dropped off; the unusual slackness in her face a mark of unnatural somnolence. He sighed, folding his unencumbered arm behind his neck and staring up at the dark-blue shadowed ceiling. Grace Chandler was not going to find the next few days easy.

###

"Whoever did this is a fool," Sherlock was in Gerald Palmer's office, seated, for once, beside his brother with no overt sign of animosity. "While there was still a question as to the identity of the traitor, they should have laid low. Clearly we are not dealing with a criminal mastermind."

"Unless there is an element of desperation at work here," Mycroft rested the side of an index finger against his mouth in thought, his eyes momentarily distant. "If the perpetrator has no control over his clients' demands, it's entirely possibly they could be forcing his hand."

"You're sure it is a man doing this, then?" Palmer looked from one Holmes to the next.

Barely managing to avoid rolling his eyes in despair, Sherlock linked his fingers and looked pityingly across the desk.

"Of the two women in the Archive Department, which one would you say has the physical body-strength to not only overpower a much-taller young man, but to drag him into a cupboard and hold him up high enough in order to complete the act of murder?" he asked tightly. "Your Intelligence Officer, Ruth Lannagan, perhaps?" he asked sarcastically. "All five-feet two inches of her? And exactly how tall was Mr Ward? Hmm? Or perhaps it was Magda Borowski, your DM Specialist? A woman who has become something of an expert in fast-response keyboard games in an effort to hide the fact of her rheumatoid arthritis?" he added, waving a hand in the air. "Perhaps she magically lifted him into that cabinet by her enormous power of will?!" he stood, irritated. "Of course the murderer is a man. The two most likely suspects therefore, being Meath and Thomas."

"Now, now, Sherlock," Mycroft blinked slowly. "No need for melodrama."

Sherlock leaped to his feet, walking to stare out of one of the massive windows overlooking the Thames. "But why now?" he asked of himself. "Why kill Ward now? What has changed that necessitated the boy's death?"

"There was the debacle at Milton's last night, of course," Mycroft adjusted one of his cufflinks. "If our man were there, he might have felt impossibly pressured and acted out of panic. Perhaps Colin Ward found out something that demanded his permanent silencing?" He frowned. That Grace Chandler had been the one to find the victim and with whom, by all accounts, she had formed an immediate friendship, added to the troubling situation.

All four remaining members of the Archives team were now being treated as suspect, regardless of what Sherlock might argue about the women being unable to handle the physical elements of the murder. Each one of the four had evidenced extreme shock, both together as a group, as well as in their individual interviews. Not one of them had given away the slightest clue of involvement in the terrible death, and each one had a concrete alibi in that at least one other member of the team was with them at the time of the boy's death.

And yet at least one of them was lying.

Mycroft closed his eyes in an effort to keep his focus on the problem at hand while simultaneously clearing his thoughts of ... other matters. On top of this increasingly disturbing business, there was the problem he had finally been forced to admit he was having with the new Director of MI5 Archives.

He had almost convinced himself that the sensation Grace Chandler aroused in his chest every time she was close at hand was merely an inconvenient coincidence, regardless of every dictum he himself acknowledged about the probability of coincidences. He had almost reached the point of belief that the slight breathlessness he experienced whenever those clear grey eyes looked into his was nothing more than collegial interest, and his constant concern over her wellbeing these last few days nothing more than the unsettling effect of old memories.

Until, of course, he had read that blasted American medical text which had unreasonably removed his every option for self-delusion and complacency. Not even he could rationally argue against human biochemistry, no matter how much he might desire to do so. Nor, apparently, was there anything biologically or chemically that might be done about his current predicament, unless either he or she somehow managed to avoid coming within a mile of one another for the next, oh, ten or eleven years, to be on the safe side. There were some things about the physical, emotional and intellectual connection between an Alpha and an Omega that defied not only logic but common politeness.

Though they were not formally connected or allianced in any personal way, yet his body and his mind were telling him Grace Chandler was his intended ...mate.

The American text had been quite clinically revealing, explicit even, about the entire encounter. While there was a natural biological and chemical affinity between the two mutated offshoots of Homo sapiens, it was usually only an initial and quite temporary thing, something designed to secure only the sexual interest of the one for the other in the services of procreation and the continuation of the genera. Mother Nature was a cunning and somewhat ruthless panderer, in this regard.

In a very few cases, the initial chemical attraction, usually facilitated by an enhanced sensory input of the pair in question, became somehow so overwhelmingly implanted, that a physiological and occasionally psychological bond was created, often so rapidly that the involved parties remained blissfully unaware the union had occurred until they were required to exist separately. If there was enough of both time and distance, the bond would eventually dissipate and wither. If however, the union was revitalised by renewed or ongoing contact between the pair, then it became further entrenched, inflicting genuine discomfort and even physical pain on one or both parties if separation was enforced. Occasionally, such a union affected one of the pair more than the other.

Mycroft realised that an event of this nature had happened between he and Grace in Cambridge, almost two years prior; some shared event or incident that had forged an unseen and latent bond. Something his unconscious nature had chosen to interpret – more or less – as the beginnings of a mating dance, though he could not say with any certainty what it might have been. According to the several authors of the text, this form of involuntary determination, though on the uncommon side, was not without precedent. References were made to a number of historical couples who had fallen prey to the same precondition. Victoria and Albert; Salim and Anarkali; Napoleon and Josephine. Even the present day Elizabeth Windsor and Philip Mountbatten were mooted to have experienced a similar concord. Not that becoming an unwilling subject of his own biological imperatives made the situation any less problematic, no matter how vaunted the company might be.

Though his initial decision to break off any potential relationship with Grace had apparently been successful, at least superficially, the renewed contact with her had re-inflamed a determination his body had already made. He was, for want of a better description, infected with her. And according to the American writers of the text Anthea had harangued him into reading; the only way out of this was for the two affected individuals to have absolutely no contact whatsoever.

For at least ten years.

Given that contact had been renewed between them, and relatively close-quartered contact at that, his subconscious had apparently arrived at the unilateral conclusion that Grace was his chosen partner, the regeneration of their acquaintanceship sufficient to convince his entire biology that she was to be his mate.

He pressed a finger to the side of him temple where an incipient headache was making itself known.

Omega ...

He could attempt to disregard or even deny the repercussions of this biological hijack, at least intellectually. But his physiology would not be easy to convince.

According to the Americans, he was the intended of one Grace Chandler, and there was very little he could do to persuade his evolutionary systems otherwise. There were, of course, drug interventions, but they were still highly experimental, unproven and possessed both an irregular success rate and unsavoury side-effects. Thus his options were relatively few and hideously clear.

He could suffer in silence and hope the ... connection dissolved of its own volition sooner rather than later. He could risk the still-undocumented consequences of experimental chemical intervention. He could take certain steps to ensure that he and the attractive – the chest-crushingly desirable – Director of MI5 Archives, never again met again in the same enclosed space. Equally, he could resign his post in favour of herding goats in the Andorran foothills for the rest of his natural.

Or ... he could take the bull by the horns and follow the path he had refused to pursue two years before. But Mycroft knew it was not in his nature to be forced into anything against his will, and the idea of taking any step that was not fully of his own election, was anathema. Whatever his biology might be saying, his intellect would always reign supreme, whether it meant self-exile in Andorra or not.

Plus, of course, there was the fact that this was not only his decision alone; regardless of his ... feelings ... on the matter, it did indeed take two to tango, especially in this particular circumstance. It mattered not if he were to pine away to a wraith, if the focus of all his biological yearnings was not of the same mind, and, by the looks of things, Grace Chandler, though inexplicably unpartnered for the last two years, was about to make up for lost time with the handsome and socially-resourceful inspector from New Scotland Yard.

At the memory of Lestrade's hand in the small of her back at the hospital, Mycroft felt his throat tighten.

And on top of everything else, his intent to protect Grace from herself after their Cambridge affaire, brief though it was, had seemed to have backfired in a most glorious fashion now that she had become so personally and dangerously embroiled in the current investigation, the exact reason he had chosen to snuff out their relationship before it had gone too far in the first place. Clearly, however, their relationship had progressed far more rapidly than he had imagined. He was, as the adage went, up the creek without a paddle.

Mycroft sighed internally. Through the best of intentions, his private life had become a morass of questions, uncertainties and brain-clogging emotion. The situation could not be permitted to continue.

Something had to be done.

But first, to locate the trouble-maker within MI5 and bring them to justice. Once that problem had been laid to rest, he might then be able to divert a small portion of his thoughts to the resolution of his own predicament.

He returned his focus to the matter at hand.

"There is also the recent upgrading of both hardware and software within the department to consider," he mused, almost to himself. "It may well be that somehow, the unfortunate Mr Ward became privy to information that ultimately proved fatal," Mycroft looked across at Palmer. "A log is kept of all software uploaded to all computers, both personal and mainframe terminals?"

"Of course," the Head of MI5 nodded. "Nothing is uploaded to anything linked to any internal system, whether via direct connection or Wi-Fi that is not automatically logged and recorded. Why?" Gerald Palmer hadn't been given his current job because he was a pretty face.

"Because something has obviously changed in the last twenty-four hours," Sherlock whirled himself away from the view over Southbank to face the man. "Whoever is involved in this has clearly had their hand forced, in some way, by the investigation, and desperate action has resulted," he paused, meeting his brother's gaze. "I need to know what has been done on every one of the remaining four computers," he said. "Every particle of upload and download from the internet; every phone call, every email, every keystroke ... I need to know everything that has moved or changed on each one of these four independent systems since yesterday."

"That will mean going through the equivalent of four day's work, second-by-second," Palmer frowned. "How will you be able to make any progress in time? Time is, after all, of the greatest importance now."

"Each of the remaining Archive staff are suspended pending the investigation?" Sherlock stared at him.

"Of course, it's standard operating policy," Palmer nodded. "And we are maintaining surveillance of all four of them until further notice."

"In which case," Sherlock's words were almost to himself, "I will need help."

###

She was still out for the count when he jerked awake to the muted buzz of his mobile inside his jacket pocket. Problem was, his jacket was slung over the back of a chair in Grace Chandler's bedroom and he was about fifteen feet away, in her bed.

He had been asleep in Grace Chandler's bed.

In bed beside a gorgeous woman, who, even in her current distressed and unkempt state would knock any magazine cover-model into a cocked hat.

Greg Lestrade blinked heavily several times, debating whether to answer the phone or let it go to voicemail. The decision was removed from him when the buzzing fell silent.

He knew he needed to move from this incredibly warm and restful place, to leave the side of his sleeping companion and go and be what the Met was paying him to be, and he would.

In a little while.

Obviously his own lack of sleep had helped him succumb to drowsiness; he would never have dozed off if he hadn't been so unbelievably comfy.

Lestrade turned his head slightly to observe his temporary bed mate.

She was dazzling. Even in this rumpled, exhausted state, each curve of her sculpted face, each line of her eyelids and her mouth ...

Despite himself, Greg felt parts of his body beginning to wake up faster than others and he grimaced. This was not what she had wanted him to stay for ... not yet, anyway, his subconscious added silently. Right now, Grace Chandler needed a friend and Greg was determined that, no matter what, he could be that for her. He stretched his legs and studiously ignored anything other than the sound of her breathing.

…And the way the corners of her mouth curved slightly upwards, even in the deepest sleep; the way her light golden eyelashes lay across the subtle rise of each cheek, two elegant fans that quivered as she breathed. Even the quality of her skin fascinated him; its fine sheen like matt silk stretched over her bones.

"If you're going to stare, at least let me wash my face and comb my hair," Grace mumbled without opening her eyes, her lips curving a little.

"I didn't think you'd be waking up just yet," Greg acknowledged sheepishly. "I don't get the opportunity to look at many gorgeous women this close up any more," he sighed. "Didn't mean to intrude." He lay back against his pillow and stared instead at the shadows on the dark-blue ceiling.

"You're not intruding, you great silly," Grace rolled over onto her side, her bandaged left hand sliding unselfconsciously across his chest as she rested against him. "I'm not used to having a wonderfully kind policeman sleep in my bed either," she muttered. "It makes me feel very comfortable."

Comfortable. Yes, it was the right word.

"How are you feeling now?" Greg tipped his head sideways enough to see the expression on her face. "Bit better?"

"Not so icky as before," Grace closed her eyes tight as the realisation of the situation washed over her again. "But I think it's going to be a while before things are back to better."

"Give it a couple of days," he said, knowingly. "You'll be amazed what a couple of night's kip can do."

"You will need me to make a formal statement," she said.

"Soon as you feel up to it," Greg inhaled slowly. "Not that there's much you can say we didn't already know."

"Will you catch whoever did this terrible thing?" Grace rested the side of her face against the cotton of his shirt and felt the soft thud of a heartbeat through the warmth of skin and fabric.

"Yes," Lestrade was very much aware this situation was not one he would ever be able to leave unresolved. No matter how long it took. "We will."

"That's something, at least," she rolled over onto her back and thought for a bit. "And I am going to continue helping you and Sherlock both," she added.

"Not so sure that's such a great idea now," Greg spoke slowly, thoughtfully. "You've already been hurt in more ways than one, and there's no guarantee this is as bad as it's going to get," he paused, shifting until he was looking down into her face. "I think I'm going to tell you it's too dangerous to stay involved."

"You think?" she smiled.

"Yes," he grinned and ducked his head. "I think I will tell you that."

"But you need me," Grace rolled onto her side again, the better to see the expression in his face. "There are things neither you nor Sherlock know, but I do," she said, seriously. "And besides, I'm already involved and if anyone knows about the risks, then it's going to be me, isn't it?" she looked sad, acknowledging recent events. "There's no way you're going to be able to stop me."

"I could have you arrested," he stared down into eyes that were wide and clear in the deep water-darkness of the shaded bedroom. "I could, you know."

"You aren't going to have me arrested."

"You seem quite sure about that," he said, assessing her face. Such a lovely face.

"I think you need me more than you imagine," Grace offered, watching every shift of his gaze, every tilt of his head. In the dim light, everything was indistinct and uncertain.

"I think I don't want you hurt anymore," he murmured, leaning down and pressing a soft kiss onto her mouth.

As there was no immediate objection, he did it again.

"How long have you wanted to do that?" Grace felt a strange sense of disconnection from reality.

"Since last night," Greg grinned. "It was that fancy snake transfer that did it."

"I'm really not that kind of a girl, you know," she tried to make light of what had just happened.

"I know," Lestrade rolled away to stare back up at the ceiling. He would not push anything now. "I have to go soon. Will you be alright by yourself, or do you want me to get someone to come and stay with you for the night?"

Grace sighed. How did she really feel? Exhausted? In need of a more refreshing sleep than just a couple of hours? Time to get her head straight? All of the above, and more. Did she need anyone to be with her?

"I'll be fine," she said, patting the middle of his chest carefully with her hand. "I'm sorry to have been such a problem for you already. Thank you for everything you've done and please don't worry about me another second ..." she pulled the duvet away from her legs and swung her feet down to the floor, facing away from the door.

Everything went a little blurry as the room spun.

"You absolutely positive you'll be okay?" Greg was already on his feet, reaching for his jacket, looking for his shoes. He pulled one of his Met business cards from an inner pocket. "If you need anything," he said, dropping the white rectangle on the bedside table. "Anything at all, then ring me directly on this number, okay?"

"Okay," she nodded. "When do you want me to come and make that statement?" she asked, her back still towards him.

He checked his watch. It was nearly nine, later than he had expected. Too late for her to do anything much tonight.

"Mycroft has his people watching everyone in your team," he said. "He's also put some of his CCTV cameras on this place for you," he added. "Something about wanting to make sure you had no more unpleasant surprises."

Grace closed her eyes and allowed her head to droop.

"Mycroft Holmes might be a royal pain in the arse, but he's a good man at heart," Lestrade shrugged into his jacket, mistaking her body-language for irritation.

"I know," the words were a sigh.

"So ... right then," now that he'd decided to go and get on with the job he was supposed to be doing, he wanted to be off. "If you're sure you're going to be alright? I'll call you tomorrow morning and if you feel like it, you can come down to the Yard then? I'll have them send a car for you."

She stood then, turning and smiling, a little wanly. "I'll be fine," she nodded. "I'll be perfectly okay by myself tonight, and I'll definitely be right to come and give my statement tomorrow morning," Grace nodded again.

"Good ... that's good," Greg felt oddly unsettled; like he'd forgotten something important and would regret it when he realised what it was. "Tomorrow, then," he said, watching her as she walked up to him and rested her good hand briefly on his arm, just above the elbow.

"Tomorrow," she agreed, stepping past him and walking out of the bedroom.

###

John folded his arms across his chest and looked unconvinced. On receiving a typical Sherlock call for help, he had, as he always would, gone running.

Need you urgently at MI5 Millbank. Time-critical. SH

But now he was here, John wasn't quite so sure he was going to be of much use.

"And this is why you and Greg Lestrade have been running around London the last couple of nights?" he asked, waiting to be brought completely into the story. "The pubs, the clubs?"

"Of course it is," Sherlock's scowl was fleeting but epic. "None of them were the kind of places I'd select were I seeking entertainment," he announced. "You cannot possibly imagine we were doing it for enjoyment."

"And now it's all hit the fan and you need me to help you do what, exactly?" the blonde man knew the younger Holmes far too well. Obviously, there was a big ask coming along, any …second …now ...

"I need a safe pair of eyes to trawl through approximately eight hours of unexpurgated Secret Service work-day," Sherlock said, meeting the lighter blue eyes of his friend and colleague.

"You want me to go through eight hours of someone's work ... why?"

"I want you to watch, John," Sherlock lifted his eyebrows. "Just watch."

###

Grace found herself back in the kitchen, going through the motions of making tea, though her thoughts were far, far away from any such domestic activity.

He had kissed her.

Not demandingly, or with the slightest hinted attempt at any form of suasion. He had simply felt a desire to touch her, perhaps to show her there was still gentle contact to be had in this awful world, and so he had.

What was she supposed to feel? Greg Lestrade was a genuinely lovely man; a kind, morally decent human being, with a dry sense of humour and eyes that held the most wicked promises of transgression. Grace already knew she liked him, probably liked him quite a bit, but how was she supposed to feel now he had actually kissed her?

Surprised? Excited? Shocked?

The kettle boiled and she poured water over the dry tea leaves.

Surprised and pleased, probably, she nodded to herself as she stirred the tea in the pot. If she were going to be kissed unexpectedly by a nice man, especially one who had just done her the great kindness of keeping her warm in bed, then being surprised and pleased would be the right things to feel.

Grace frowned.

Because she had felt nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a quickened heartbeat.

Perhaps it was the drug in her system that made it hard for her to feel anything but tired, or perhaps she was still in shock after the ... after what had happened earlier. But if she could feel the shock and horror of the earlier event, then she must surely be able to have felt something. It didn't seem right to be kissed by a perfectly acceptable man and then feel absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Something was off with her perception, although Grace knew her head was far too scrambled right now to make sense of anything more complicated than brewing tea.

She poured herself a mug of the golden liquid and looked out through her kitchen windows across the dark of London, wondering what part of her had stopped working.

###

It was long after midnight and the small, dimly-lit room was already scented with several rounds of coffee and that peculiar burning ozone odour of over-warmed technology; as if a television has been left on for too long.

There were eight lit screens, two each to a desk; one screen showing a continuous real-time feed of activity and the other, the view from a surveillance camera shooting from behind and over the shoulder of the four individuals whose work-feed was being checked. Shane Meath, Ruth Lannagan, Magda Borowski and Stratford Thomas. Each set of screens was being scrupulously studied, almost frame-by-frame, by a critical pair of eyes for whatever information or secrets there might be to discover.

John was the first to push away from his particular screens, leaning back in his chair as the joints in his spine creaked. He rubbed both eyes and stretched his arms until he felt things pop.

"God; how long have we been at this?" he groaned, rolling his neck and paying particular attention to an increasing stiffness in his left shoulder. He had been given the recorded work input of the Archivist, Stratford Thomas. So far, the only thing worth noting was that the man's work seemed to be improbably and incredibly dull.

"Not even a quarter-way through the feed yet, John," Sherlock's steady voice came from over to the left, where the younger Holmes was staring, almost unblinkingly, at two screens of his own. Shane Meath was the star of his particular production.

"Soldier on, Doctor," Mycroft sat away over in the room's far corner, his eyes focused on the slightly speeded-up replay of both the work-feed of Magda Borowski as well as the associated surveillance footage. Thus far the woman had done absolutely nothing beyond those things classified as part of her normal work-routine, although Mycroft noted his brother's accurate observation of the woman's medical condition as she had several times now paused in her duties to undertake a repetitive series of exercises and calisthenics clearly designed to alleviate stiffness in the hands and wrists.

"I feel your pain, Doctor Watson," Gerald Palmer, the room's final occupant was seated in the last quadrant of the room, he too rubbed his eyes. "It's been a fair few years since I've had to do this sort of thing, but the need to keep this information out of general circulation is vital."

"Consider this an opportunity to regain the common touch," Sherlock's wry mutter came from the far side of the room.

"I had completely forgotten how tedious an Intelligence officer's job was at these lower levels," Palmer blinked several times before renewing his scrutiny of Ruth Lannagan's daily activities. The woman appeared to undertake most of her communications, even the internal ones, by email. Faster that way, he realised, opening up Lannagan's entire email log for the day, barely stifling a groan. There were dozens of the damnable things. Had it not been for the combination of the lack of time and the need for absolute discretion, he'd have hauled in a dozen subordinates to do this job, and have them lose sleep instead. Rank ought to have some privilege, after all.

Taking a deep breath, John leaned back in to his task, watching with bare patience as Stratford Thomas subjected a digitised document to multiple layers of scanning, each scan taking ten minutes or more. He sighed, closing his eyes briefly as the surveillance footage moved on.

Upon refocusing his attention, he saw that his subject had vanished from both screens. The man had left the computer scans running, but had physically left his room. Checking the time-stamp, he saw it was around eleven on the morning of Colin Ward's murder.

"Do we have access to multiple camera feeds internal to the building?" John looked over his shoulder at Palmer. "My subject's just left his office and I have no way of knowing where he went."

"We maintain internal cameras only in sensitive areas, Doctor," Gerald Palmer's eyes didn't leave his own screens. "But those areas also require a swipe-card to gain access and all traffic is recorded in a separate log. None of these four went anywhere near a sensitive area yesterday. Sorry not to be of more help, old man."

John's mouth fixed in a flat line. There had been senior officers in the RAMC who'd called people old man. Maintaining an outward silence, he turned his head to look in Sherlock's direction, just catching the edge of a smile on his friend's face. Shaking his head a little at the British upper classes, John returned to the task in hand, now entirely sure he had pulled the boring straw.

He looked at his watch again. Three hours down. Only another five to go.

He sighed.

###

Though she still felt as if a great weight was resting on her chest, Grace had to admit those little pills the doctor had given her definitely helped with a full night's sleep. She'd taken a single tablet with her late-night tea and had slept, unmoving and unaware, for ten glorious hours. The knowledge of Colin's death sat heavily within her, but from a physical perspective, Grace realised she was feeling a lot better. So much better, in fact, that she decided to go and visit her friendly neighbourhood Detective Inspector to finalise the formalities of this horrible situation.

Rough-drying her hair, Grace was munching half-heartedly on a slice of toast when her mobile rang.

It was Shane Meath.

"Sorry to bother you at home, Boss," he sounded unspeakably depressed. "But none of us have any real idea of what's going on and nobody is willing to even talk about what happened yesterday," he added. "Is there any chance we could maybe meet up this morning somewhere for coffee of something? We're all feeling pretty bad about what happened, guilty, even."

Putting her own distress aside for a moment, Grace realised her people would be in an even worse state; after all, they had all known Colly for a great deal longer than she. It was to be expected that they would all be terribly upset.

"Where are you?" she asked. "Are you all together?"

"Actually, we are," Meath confirmed. "We're all having coffee at Le Pain in Covent Garden," he said. "It's a midway point for all of us, and we sometimes get together here when we all need to discuss something. We wanted to talk about what's going to happen next ... after Colin ... Could you, maybe, come and meet us?"

Checking the wall clock, Grace realised that if she took another hour or so before she turned up at Scotland Yard, no great harm would be done.

"I can do that," she half-smiled down the phone. "I realise it's got to be awful for everyone. Give me twenty minutes and I'll meet you there," she said, ending the call.

Dialling the number on the card Greg had left for her, she got his voice-mail and was invited to leave a message.

"Hello, Inspector," she shook her head at her own formality. "I'll be coming in later this morning to give my witness statement," she said. "Though I'm going to meet up with my team from the archives at Le Pain in Covent Garden for a bit of a weep," she added. "I'll grab a cab to see you after I've spoken with them; maybe they want to talk about Colin's funeral or something," she sighed. "Call you later."

Her hand was also feeling a lot better she realised, as she dressed. While it was still sore and a bit on the stiff side, the throbbing had mostly gone. Unwinding the bandage, she peered beneath the dressing, seeing that the butterfly strips had partly given way, but that the skin across her knuckles seemed to have knitted together quite well, regardless. The bruising looked worse than it felt, and she decided to leave the wrappings off to let the air get to it. She healed faster that way.

Wriggling into a pair of old Levis, she dragged on a t-shirt and then an artfully raggedy jumper about three sizes too large. Finishing her ensemble with her old Cambridge scarf and a knitted woollen cap, she slung her bag over her shoulder and prepared to meet the day.

Starting at Covent Garden.

The Garden had always been one of her most favourite places in London and she knew it well; the cafes and the bars and the little shortcuts and alleys that took you from one place into what seemed to be a different world. She loved the touristy shops and the eccentric eateries and flower stalls.

Walking around to the junction of the main road, Grace flagged down an empty cab and told the driver where she wanted to go.

###

"Makes you wonder however people managed to chat to each other before bloody email came along," John was almost at the end of his ability to focus. After nearly seven hours of scrolling through the piece-meal activities that were the daily grind of one Stratford Thomas, John was prepared to vote every staff-member an enormous pay rise if this was any indication of what these people went through on behalf of the British people. As far as he was concerned, this was little short of torture and he vowed to be very, very clear on what was at the other end of anything he agreed to do for Sherlock in the future.

Apart from going cross-eyed, his head felt as if it were about to explode and there was so much caffeine in his system, his fingers were starting to twitch. What he needed now was a nice long drink of cold water, a hot shower and a walk in the bracing fresh air of London in the winter.

"There's nothing here, either," Mycroft ran fingers across his forehead, clearly wearied by the mind-numbing activity and yet still looking far fresher than his companions-in-surveillance. "Nothing," he sighed, frustrated. Turning slightly, he watched his brother's body-language to see if he had been any more successful than the rest of them.

Sherlock's shoulders were unnaturally tense and held in a way that suggested his mind was still focused on the data before him. With a sudden exhale and a slap of his hand on the keyboard, the younger Holmes signalled his utter disgust at a wasted night.

"Hopeless!" he growled. "We've been through everything from each remaining member of the Archives team and we have nothing to show for it," he snapped. "And yet there has to be something, some link that will tell us who is behind both the theft of the materials and the murder of Colin Ward. There has to be." He dragged long fingers though his mop of hair.

"The only thing I found odd was the fact that rather than walk a few yards into each other's office, they seemed to be doing a lot of emailing between themselves," John yawned mightily. "Great flurries of them."

"Flurries?" Sherlock turned and fixed his flatmate with a sudden look. "Define flurries."

"Well, you know," John wrinkled his forehead. "Flurries. Little groups of them; waves of emails."

"Waves?" Sherlock turned back to his keyboard and summoned up the email logs for Shane Meath.

There were indeed flurries. Possibly even waves.

Sherlock looked thoughtful. "Mycroft, check your candidate's email log between ten and eleven yesterday morning, will you?"

Turning back to the digital files, the elder Holmes skimmed rapidly through the suggested time-period. "There are several incoming and outgoing emails during that time to each of the three other members of the Archives team," he acknowledged. "However," he paused, opening up several of them. "They appear to be blank."

"There's no reason for them all to be blank," Sherlock scowled. "One, sent in error, perhaps. But several? No, no," he shook his head, the scowl a seemingly permanent feature of his face. "There has to be something here, some use of code, something," his expression turned slightly feral. "Just like the coded sheet in the child's photograph."

Turning his focus once again to one of the blank emails, he scrolled right the way down to the very end where a brief disclaimer advised what to do if the mail had been received in error. Buried, tiny and almost invisible at the very end of the final sentence, was a strange symbol.

Clicking the symbol, he was taken to an unknown but linked attachment; a document consisting of a paragraph of inexplicable square pictographs and other, equally unusual figures, but figures and shapes that looked intriguingly familiar ...

Sherlock froze, his entire frame suddenly rigid as his brilliant mind arrived at a precipitous yet logical leap of awareness. "John ..." his voice was a whisper. "The photographs ..."

Ignoring the several expressions of curiosity on the faces of the others in the room, he swivelled violently on his chair, rattling the keyboard until the surveillance tape, the one from the camera observing every move on Shane Meath's screen from over his shoulder, leaped into life. Scrolling back at speed until he found the specific shot of Meath's computer screen; the one where he momentarily flicked to his desktop screen.

The desktop screen with the photographs of his children.

His three, dark-haired, children.

"Yes!" Sherlock sounded like a five-year-old at the fair. He swivelled back to stare at his brother, his eyes wide with victory. "Your Archivist said that she'd seen photographs on Meath's desktop before," he said, almost breathless. "Of his children," he added. "His three, dark-haired, children."

"And?" Palmer looked confused.

"Look at Meath's desktop as at yesterday morning," Sherlock's sweeping gesture was grand and theatrical, as he drew everyone's attention to the image of the desktop that sat before them now.

There were indeed photographs of children, three of them, in fact.

But these children were all blonde, the centre one being of a young child standing beside a garden slide.

"Meath was using photographs of children to smuggle out digitised material hidden in the textels of the image?" Palmer was clearly appalled, the muscles of his jaw standing rigid and taut.

"Not just Meath," Sherlock called up the email log, highlighting and enlarging the screen so that the time-stamp and IP address for each one stood dark and clear. He stepped across to John's log for the same time, and then Palmer's and finally Mycroft's. In each case he highlighted and enlarged the same group of emails, each carefully blank of content, and yet each sent with a purpose and design. There was no error here.

"All of them," he said. "All of them were in on this."

"All of them?" John was astounded. "The whole team?"

"A conspiracy, indeed," Mycroft was already pulling out his mobile, speed-dialling Lestrade. With luck, they could have officers at each of the four houses virtually simultaneously.

"Ah, Lestrade," the elder Holmes was smoothness itself. "I want you to place each of the remaining four MI5 Archive team members under arrest and bring them here," he said. "It is now a matter of some urgency."

There was a burst of low-volumed speech from the other end.

Mycroft's expression stilled and went curiously blank, as if his mind suddenly focused on something far more critical than maintaining a socially-acceptable countenance.

"When and where?" he demanded, the tone of his voice alerting the others in the room.

Something was wrong.

"How long ago did she leave the message?" There were further words from the other end of the conversation, none of which melted Mycroft's frozen face one iota.

"Take them all, now. Do whatever you need to do, but ensure her safety at all costs, do you understand? Use force, if necessary. I repeat, you are authorised to use force."

Ending the call, Mycroft immediately placed another, this time to one of his operatives within the CCTV surveillance section.

"Covent Garden, subject Reader. Trace and confirm to me and the following number," he said, rattling off the digits for Lestrade's mobile. "Emergency Level One, Alpha One," he added, authority cold and hard in his words.

Straightening his back, he turned slowly and met the combined stare of the others. He took a measured breath and deliberately eased his shoulders.

"According to the inspector," he said, deliberately. "Grace Chandler has gone to meet her entire team at Le Pain in Covent Garden to discuss a funeral," he paused and looked down at the back of his clenched right hand, absently noting the absolute whiteness of his knuckles. He looked up again, this time his words were for his brother. "Let us hope it is not hers," he added softly.

###

"Jesus Christ," Greg looked blankly at the phone in his hand for a second, before twisting away from his desk and sticking his head out into the main concourse of the section. "I need an emergency squad to take down four suspects in Covent Garden," he yelled. "Armed Response Unit and individual firearms have been authorised; I need volunteers. Who's with me?"

Sally Donovan was already pulling her coat on and walking to the far end of the section-office, to the tiny barred and locked room at the very end which contained various articles of defensive clothing and a formidable, double-locked, heavy steel cabinet.

Locating a very specific key among a ring full of others in her pocket, she unlocked the top security bolt. "Waiting on you, Guv," she yelled back, as Greg strode into the room, his own key at the ready.

Opening the double-doors of the steel locker, Lestrade quickly handed a clipboard around to the several members of his team already gathered and waiting. For each signature, Sally handed over a semi-automatic Glock, noting the serial number beside the name. Reserving a final pistol for his own use, Lestrade also signed out two single-fire Carbines; one to Sally and the second to the only other man on the squad trained in the use of the two-trigger automatic. Himself.

"Grace Chandler is deemed to be in serious danger; we've have to find her and bale her out, while arresting four other members of her MI5 team, so let's be having you," he said, carrying the Carbine muzzle-down and walking swiftly towards the door and down to the courtyard where two powerful cars were waiting beside his BMW. The sound of multiple car doors slamming in unison was a convincing argument that help was on the way.

###

At this early relatively hour of the morning, right after peak traffic, the roads were fairly clear and the cab had Grace Chandler at the main entrance of Covent Garden Market in less than ten-minutes. The place, even on a cold and wintery morning, was packed as usual with tourists and people selling things to tourists, especially in the stone arcades that ringed the entire marketplace, the old hangout of flower-sellers and barrow-boys.

It was a lot warmer inside and she unwound the scarf from around her throat as she walked along the stone-flagged passages and through the thick stone arches until she came to the front door of a café that was always larger on the inside than it seemed. Le Pain had rooms all over the place; great big ones out back for large groups; tiny little ones upstairs for intimate family meals, even a range of small booths for couples hoping for a discreet hour away from the rest of the world.

Telling the smiling young man who greeted her that she was looking for her four friends who had been here for at least half-an-hour, his face brightened with recognition.

"You have to be Grace, yes?" he smiled, nodding. "They're all up this way," he said, beckoning her to follow him as he ran up a narrow flight of stairs and into a semi closed-off mezzanine space with a single large table and half-a-dozen chairs. Four of the chairs were already occupied.

Shane Meath stood, an odd look on his face; part awkward, part embarrassed.

"You came, then," he nodded. "Wasn't sure if you would or not."

"You asked me to come," Grace took in the faces of the people around the table. None of them looked particularly happy she was there, but that was, perhaps, understandable. She was still a stranger and the youngest of their team had just died a gruesome death. No surprise if they felt she was intruding. "Or have you changed your minds and would rather I leave you all in peace?" she asked, willing to leave if they felt she was too much the outsider.

"No, no, sit, please," Ruth Lannagan pulled out a chair beside her. "We simply didn't know if you were going to be up for an outing after yesterday, and being injured the other night and everything," she said, her eyes dropping to Grace's left hand. "Is that it?"

Realising that Ruth was staring at her bruised and reddened knuckles, Grace shrugged, taking the indicated seat. "It was an accident, no big deal," she looked rueful. "Are we having coffees?"

"Yeah," Meath waved at a passing waiter, asking him to bring another large pot of coffee for them and some more milk.

"So," Grace leaned her elbows on the table, looking from one to the other of her team. "Was there anything specific you wanted to talk about, or are we having a bit of a wake for Colly?" she asked, feeling her throat grow tight as she said the boy's name. This was not going to be an easy discussion, no matter what.

"Um, well," Ruth Lannagan looked down at her clasped hands, waiting as the server came by and dropped off another pot of fragrant Arabica. "We were wondering what you know about everything that happened yesterday," she said. "Because we thought you weren't going to come in and then you did ... and then you found Colly in the basement ..." her words tailed off.

"So we were wondering if there was anything you knew like, that you could tell us about; anything that we might find helpful to know," Shane Meath's Geordie accent was stronger than usual this morning, Grace observed with some peripheral part of her brain. Must be the upset. It was affecting them all.

"Like what?" she was a little uncertain. "What do you think I might know that has to do with Colly's death?" she frowned slightly. "And there's no real reason behind me coming in yesterday except that I'd finished all the reading I had to do at home and found myself walking near the office," she looked around them again.

There was something strange in the air, some odd kind of tension that didn't feel as if it had anything to do with Colin Ward. It felt as if the tension was directed at her.

"Why?" she said, suddenly curious, looking at them. "What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on, nothing at all," Magda Borowski's laughter was brittle and manifestly false. Something was very wrong here and Grace felt her invisible Omega antenna start to twitch.

"No, there is something wrong, isn't there?" she looked at each of her team in turn. "Something's wrong and for some reason you want to know if I'm involved in whatever it is that is making you worried."

A piece of information clicked inside her head. She turned back to look into Ruth's nervous eyes.

"How did you know I'd hurt myself the night before last?" she asked, slowly. "I never told any of you, nor did I mention it to Colly in my email. I only came into work with a bandaged hand; I could have done it yesterday morning for all anyone knew, so why did you think I'd hurt myself the other night?"

The expression on Lannagan's face went from mildly uneasy to suddenly stricken.

"We merely assumed it had been done in the evening after you had left work for the day," Stratford Thomas interjected smoothly. "We all wondered when we saw the bandage."

But Grace was still watching the Intelligence Officer's face, as Ruth's skin darkened into a deep blush and the younger woman eventually looked away.

Grace didn't really need her additional senses to know a lie when it was flailing about under her nose. Not when it was so blatant.

"You already knew I'd hurt my hand that night," she murmured, staring down at the scrubbed wooden table top, thinking hard. How could Ruth Lannagan know about her hand? How could the woman have possibly discovered that piece of information ... unless.

Grace lifted her head sharply. "So who was there?" she said. "Clearly one of you was there, at that place. Who was it?" She stared around at each of them.

Slowly, the two men first, each member of the Archive team inhaled softly and sat back, a strange look of detachment shared between them.

"Told you it was a mistake to bring her here," Magda pursed her mouth and looked disgusted. "And now look what's happened."

"Yeah, well, that's not going to help us all much now, is it?" Shane Meath folded his arms sullenly. "This has totally fucked up the situation."

Still not entirely sure what was going on, Grace felt the skin on her arms and the fine hairs at the back of her neck rise up and begin to prickle. She realised that whatever was wrong was a lot worse than she'd imagined. But how much more wrong ...

There was only one way to find out.

"So why don't you tell me all the details?" she said as nonchalantly as she was able, reaching down and lifting her cup of freshly-poured coffee. "Clearly I'm going to hear all about it one way or another, so it may as well be from you lot."

"You have no idea what you're getting into, Doctor Chandler," Stratford Thomas blinked slowly. "You're already in an invidious position."

"We're in the middle of a bustling café in the middle of Covent Garden which," Grace paused, gesturing with her bad hand. "Is hardly me being in an invidious anything," she said, replacing her cup in its saucer. "Plus you may also note, Mr Thomas," she added, staring the older man straight in the eye. "That I am not of a panicky disposition and it will take quite a bit to rattle me; so don't even try it. I didn't get this MI5 job because I was a shrinking violet, y'knaw."

Unexpectedly, Meath laughed. "And that's the Geordie right there," he said, shaking his head from side to side and heaving a deep sigh. "If only you hadn't come into the office yesterday," he said. "Everything would have been so much easier and less messy."

Finally, Grace realised what none of them were actually saying.

Colin Ward's death was on their hands.

Her throat was suddenly sawdust-dry, and she forced herself to swallow past it, reaching down for her coffee again. Though she could no longer taste anything, the warm liquid eased the terrifying constriction a little.

"Why did Colly have to die?" she found herself whispering. "He was a boy."

"He saw something he wasn't supposed to see," Shane looked momentarily haggard. "And our Colly was never one who could keep his trap shut about anything he found odd," he added. "Eternally curious and always asking questions about things, he was. Too many damned questions."

"So you ... killed him?" Grace almost let her cup fall from between nerveless fingers. "A boy who probably forgot whatever it was you think he noticed the minute he went off to do something else ... you killed him callously and in cold blood, you rotten bastard," she spat the last few words across the table at Meath, the anger rising inside her so fiercely that she wanted to pick up her chair and deck him with it.

Everything in her vision went slightly red as Grace felt her heart roar in her chest and her skin burn with the sheer weight of her fury.

"And there'll be no more of that," Shane Meath scooted across to the seat beside her as she felt a hard sharpness press into her side, just beneath her left armpit.

"One more squeak from you and this knife will make sure there won't be a second one," he hissed, half under his breath.

"You'd kill me here and expect nobody to notice?" Grace no longer cared what she said, her anger was transcendent. "How can someone so clever be so stupid?" she snarled, trying to wrench herself away, only to be pulled up short by an acute stab of pain in her left side.

"That's only a taste of what it'll feel like if I really decide to do this," Meath promised unpleasantly as she felt a trickling warmth of blood down the inside of her t-shirt where he'd cut her. "Now what we're all going to do is get up from the table and go downstairs to pay our bill," he murmured. "And then we're all going to take a little walk to the cab-rank. And there'll be no noise and no fuss or my little friend here will go for something a little more critical," he added, placing the sharp point of the blade directly against her lower spine. "Dying is one thing" he said, nastily. "Being crippled for life might not be quite so pleasant, eh?"

Standing, Meath dragged Grace up beside him as the others got to their feet, the knife still pressed into her back.

"Time to go for that walk," he said.

###

In the seconds following Mycroft's announcement, the other three stared at him, the tension in the room an electric, tangible thing.

"But your surveillance operatives on each member of the team would have seen them and each other?" John questioned. "Can't they do something?"

Gerald Palmer was half turned from the group, his phone pressed hard against his ear, a series of rushed instructions issuing from between his lips.

"If Grace Chandler has already met up with her people, then the four MI5 operatives will not be enough to take down the entire group and ensure public safety," Mycroft tightened his jaw, a rising sense of angry impotence beginning to spiral inside him. "Nothing can be done until the police arrive," his scowl was even more imposing than his brother's. "Lestrade's team will be enroute as we speak."

"They'll be delayed by the road works on the north side of Parliament Square," Sherlock muttered, already striding towards the door. "Car?" he demanded, staring fiercely across the room towards his older sibling.

"Outside," Mycroft was already on his phone as both Sherlock and John left the room at speed, advising his driver to take them both to Covent Garden. Immediately he ended the call, he called the Director of Greater London's Traffic Authority, issuing a series of terse directives.

Palmer raised his eyebrows.

"A little help," Mycroft replaced the phone in his pocket, checking his hunter for the time. The idea of staying here, while everything important was taking place less than a mile away as the crow flew, was testing. Extraordinarily testing.

"What kind of car are you driving these days, Gerald?" his smile was fleeting.

###

Already in Mycroft's big black beast of a Jaguar, the driver had them flying across Lambeth Bridge and towards Lambeth Palace Road. The traffic lights were nicely green and the car roared through without pause. All the way down past Thomas' Hospital, and up York Road, not a single red stop light slowed their progress.

"This is amazing," John peered out the left-hand side window. "The gods are on our side, that's for sure," his eyebrows lifted a little higher as they zoomed through yet another set of traffic lights gleaming brilliantly green.

"At least one," Sherlock's tone was dry as he checked his watch. It had been less than five minutes since they'd left Millbank, but they were already across Waterloo Bridge and over the Strand, heading for Burleigh Street, Southampton Street, the back end of Covent Garden Market and Le Pain Quotidien.

"This is as close as I can get you," the driver announced over his shoulder as the car sighed to a stop. "It's all pedestrianized from here."

"It'll do." Flinging his door open, Sherlock's long legs strode over the cobbled ground as John sprinted alongside.

"Where can they hide?" a soldier's question, John's eyes scanned the morning crowd for the striking blonde.

"They may still be in the café," Sherlock checked the faces of everyone they passed, the flare of his coat a dramatic dark wake behind him.

There was a young male barista at a coffee bar near the entrance, doing something complicated with a large, stainless steel machine. The pungent aroma of roasting coffee was fragrant in the air.

"Very attractive blonde woman arrived a short while ago looking for a group of four people," Sherlock said, without preamble. "Seen her?"

The coffee-maker shook his head. "Not me," he said. "But Marcel's been on the door this morning," he paused, looking around. Catching sight of another white-aproned man, he whistled, beckoning him over.

"These gentlemen are looking for a blonde lady, not long since arrived, with a party of four," he said. "Did she turn up?"

"Oh yeah," Marcel nodded, grinning. "Grace, one of the men in the group said her name was. Too good-looking to forget, was that one," he grinned some more. "Took her up to the mezzanine room; her friends were already there having coffee."

"And are they still up there?" John straightened his back and stretched out his fingers in unconscious preparation for a physical confrontation.

"Nah. They finished and all went out through the inside door towards the rest of the market about five minutes ago," the man looked momentarily concerned. "She didn't look very well when she left though," he said. "Maybe that was why they seemed to be getting out in a bit of a hurry."

"Which direction did they take?" Sherlock was already heading towards the inner market exit.

"Think it was around towards the left," Marcel wrinkled his forehead, considering. "Maybe down towards the Arcade," he said. "Can't say for sure, though."

Sherlock's phone rang in his pocket.

"Mycroft," he took the call. "I need eyes," he said. "The probability is they're still in the vicinity," he announced. "But there's too many bodies to see through; I need your eyes."

There were sounds from the other end of the phone.

"Good. And where from there? We need to get them away from the crowds or it might get messy."

With his phone still clamped to his ear, Sherlock navigated his way through the busy crowd of tourists, his height a real benefit as he was able to see over the heads of most people.

"Hurry, John," he instructed. "Mycroft has them on CCTV; they're heading towards the north end of the market; perhaps they have a vehicle there. If they get Doctor Chandler in a car, she'll be in mortal danger."

Climbing up a nearby indoor lamppost, John managed to get a good four feet higher than even his flatmate could see and he searched the surging mass of people ahead for anyone who looked familiar.

There was a man.

A man whose face John knew nearly as well as his own after a night spent trawling through almost eight hours of his mind-numbing work. Stratford Thomas was about sixty-feet away, but heading directly for the nearest exit. There were several people with him, but John couldn't see Grace Chandler.

"They're directly ahead, walking slowly," John pointed from his high perch. "Another thirty feet and they'll be outside and away."

"We have to stop them," Sherlock was already accelerating to intercept the group, searching for whichever individual was closest, when his peripheral vision caught the arrival of three light-coloured late-model cars in the road across the courtyard beyond, led by a silver-blue BMW. Though they each drew to a halt with little fuss or bother, it was clear the occupants of each care were together, judging by their disciplined and regimented movement.

Lestrade's team had finally arrived.

But if they confronted the small group heading directly towards them, who knew what the ramifications might be? Until the four MI5 personnel could be isolated, not only from Grace Chandler, but from the rest of the bustling mob around them, then any direct confrontation was perilous. Sherlock swiped a name on his phone and stabbed a finger on Call.

In less than two seconds, Lestrade's soft voice was in his ear.

"Thank Christ," the detective announced, realising the younger Holmes and probably John, had beaten them to it. "Where is she?"

"Stay where you are, Inspector," Sherlock's tone was adamant. "They are in a group, heading directly towards you. It would be unsafe to confront them at this stage; too many potential hostages."

"I don't see them ... wait ... yes; got them now," Lestrade muttered instructions to the several Met officers around him. "We're armed; Donovan and a couple of others are going to cut around behind them to stop them from running back inside the market, but we need to corner them in a building or something where there are no easy targets."

"Agreed. Let's herd them into the colonnaded arcade to your right," Sherlock had one eye on the police, another on the figure of Stratford Thomas with whom he was almost level, though several yards apart, with tourists roving in between.

On identifying the entire group, John had drifted casually across to their far side so that he and Sherlock were now walking parallel with Meath and Thomas. Looking unconcerned, John had both hands in his pockets, looking about him as if this walk through Covent Garden market was the highlight of his day.

In order to avoid getting too close, the group of four, with Grace in their midst, changed the angle of their direction, moving fractionally across to the right. But on that side was a tall, dark-haired man, staring down into a market map; he seemed a little lost. They changed direction again so that they were heading at an almost oblique angle across the inside of the line of exits.

Lestrade had his people mirror the change of direction from the outside, although Sherlock grimaced at the pathetic attempts of Met officers to assume the appearance of normal people. The fact of their vocation was as clear as the ungainly lumps inside their respective coats which spoke of a range of weaponry.

For the first time, Sherlock was able to see the object of his brother's affection, for it was becoming painfully clear that Mycroft's emotions and wellbeing were, for some reason to do with the uselessness of emotions and bodily demands, connected to Grace Chandler, and thus affection was no longer hyperbole.

She looked pale, but that was hardly surprising. Other than that, the blonde woman appeared to be in no direct or imminent danger. Meath had an arm around her shoulders, which suggested he was using the cover of their bodies to hide a weapon of some sort, likely a knife, judging by the proximity and angle. Sherlock was oddly content his sibling was elsewhere; this scenario would have caused him significant discomfort. Though Mycroft was the principal, and most exasperating cause of vexation in his life, and though Sherlock was not adverse to seeing his brother come a cropper at times, he did not wish it to be this way, with this cause. Nor would he allow Doctor Chandler to suffer foul play through this inept effort at abduction. He could not permit his own reputation to be so sullied by such a travesty.

Bright daylight brought the awareness that they were all now outside, although much further across the courtyard towards the colonnade than before. Any moment now and Meath, who seemed to be the leader of the group, would realise he was being funnelled into a corner. It was about to become dangerous.

A slight movement from behind John as DS Donovan fell into place, her right hand holding something long and weighty inside the cover of her coat. She turned her head to catch Sherlock's eye and nodded once. From his position, the younger Holmes was also able to observe at least one other of Lestrade's people waiting just at the corner of the farthest exit to the right; the hand in his weighed-down coat-pocket clearly outlined holding something angular and heavy.

Stratford Thomas stopped suddenly, his footsteps faltering as he paused, looking around him, a wild expression on his face. He turned unexpectedly, finding a grim-faced John Watson mere feet behind him. That John neither looked away nor kept moving was enough to confirm the man's fears.

"We're being tailed," though not a shout, his words were loud enough to carry. "Scatter and run for it!"

Meath also turned, shocked, his eyes scanning the nearby crowd, apparently finding one or two people too close for comfort. Grabbing Grace by the collar of her jumper, he pulled her roughly across what little open space remained, until he had them both bailed up behind a trio of tall stone pillars in the corner of the colonnade. He knew this location wouldn't shield him forever, but it would be long enough for him to convince them all he was serious.

"Back off!" he yelled as he pressed the point of his knife beneath Grace's jaw.

The sound of armament being readied echoed around the enclose stone space as visitors and tourists stood and gaped and watched. It was almost surreal.

"Let her go," Greg stepped forward. Not close enough to get in Meath's way, but away from the crowd. "Get everyone back," he spoke over his shoulder to one of his officers. "Clear everyone away."

He turned the whole of his attention back to the scenario before him. Lestrade met the eyes of the man who held the blonde woman's life in his fingers.

"Let her go," he repeated, gently. "Nothing terrible has happened here yet," he said. "Let her go now and the court will look more favourably on the whole thing," he added softly, persuasively. "Let her go and we can all walk away from this place as we are now, with no more harm done."

"Not a chance," Shane Meath pulled Grace tighter against him. "I let her go and that's it; no bargaining power, no nothing," he spat the words. "Let me go and I'll make sure she's released unharmed once I'm away."

"Not going to happen, sorry," Greg shook his head slowly. "You know I can't let you go from here; there's been a murder and that means my hands are tied. Best thing now is to make this as easy on yourself as you can," he said. "Let her go and we can see what we can do about the whole situation," Lestrade walked a few steps closer. "Let her go."

In answer, Meath pressed the blade harder into Grace's skin, a fine line of red appearing at her throat.

"Then take me instead, look," Lestrade had already dropped his coat to the ground, concealing the Carbine in its heavy folds. He stood there, his suit jacket open, arms wide, hands outstretched. "At least I know how to get you out of this place," he said. "She doesn't. She's a burden that you don't need, so just take me instead and let her go, okay?"

"Come around here, then," Meath indicated the far side of the pillars with a nod of his head, the knife not straying from its contact with the tender skin of Grace's neck. "If you're so determined to make yourself useful, come around here and I'll have two hostages instead of one."

Knowing that either he or Meath would be walking away from this, but probably not the both of them, Greg took a deep breath and began to walk around the far side of the stone pillars as directed.

He got his first look at Grace's face and took another sharp breath.

She was pale and clearly tense ... but that wasn't what made him suck air hard into his chest.

It was the look in her eyes.

Not, as he had partly expected, fear and anxiety and, maybe, a little relief at seeing him.

No, none of those things.

What he could see in the twin pools of blazing grey fire was fury. Grace Chandler was livid with rage and was about to tackle Shane Meath herself if nobody else did it.

"Tell someone to shoot this murderous bastard," she ground the words out between her teeth. "He killed Colin Ward and he did it all for money," Grace struggled beneath the arms holding her captive. "Just get someone to put a gun on him, don't worry about me, get him."

"Shut up," Meath pulled her harder against his chest, pressing the point of the knife in until she stopped fighting. "I'm going to walk away from this, and you're going to help make it happen," he muttered.

"Nobody's going anywhere," Lestrade moved one step closer, shaking his head sadly. "Give it up now and save yourself."

"I'll kill her," the Geordie grinned suddenly. "She's right; I did the boy and I'll do her too, I got nothing to lose now, have I?"

"Only your children," a new voice echoed off from the side as Sherlock appeared slowly. "Do this and you'll probably never see them again," he added. "Sure you want to do that?"

"You leave ma kids out of this," Meath was abruptly infuriated, his grip loosening slightly as he focused on the new threat rather than the one in his arms.

In a second, Grace managed to tear herself half-away, her baggy jumper loose enough that the blade was no longer in danger of slicing her throat.

"Inspector!" Sherlock tossed a compact black shape through the air.

Grabbing the Glock with both hands, Greg steadied and aimed the weapon in the same movement. "Let her GO!" he shouted at Meath, "Or I will fire!"

Too busy trying to hold a knife in one hand and recapture his hold on Grace with the other, Meath was too far gone to hear anything now, let alone listen. Snarling, he raised the blade to shoulder-height, preparing to end the woman who had denied him everything; a job, a future, even, now, escape.

The sound of a single shot echoed large across the stone courtyard as Lestrade put a round through Meath's thigh. The man screamed and staggered, but his madness now was so entire that not even pain was going to stop him. He raised the knife again.

Greg fired once more, this time aiming squarely at Shane Meath's chest. The second shot was just as loud as the first.

There was no need for a third.

Shoving the gun in his pocket, Greg ran around Meath's body until he could kneel beside Grace, helping her to sit up and catch her breath as she leaned into his body.

"You okay?" he asked. "Sorry, silly question."

"I'm okay," Grace closed her eyes and concentrated on the sturdy warmth of the man with his arm around her shoulders. "There wasn't time for them to do anything, really."

"Got all the others, Guv," Sally Donovan appeared around the far pillar, a look of some satisfaction on her face. "They weren't very good at running away."

"Call two ambulances," Greg bent his head over a mop of fair hair as his own breathing quietened. "And take this," he added, holding out the Glock between finger and thumb. "I know the drill as well as anyone."

"Are you in trouble now?" Grace frowned, still leaning back against his chest. "Because you shot him?"

"The British public still don't much go for coppers shooting people," he sounded philosophical. "There'll be an inquiry, but everything will be fine," he shrugged. "I'll have to take a couple days off work, is all."

Grace found herself wanting to get up.

"Ah ah ah," Greg laid careful fingers on her shoulder. "Not until the medicos get to look at you, so just stay put for a few seconds," he said, half-smiling. "It means I get to play knight errant for a bit longer."

"You're all bloody mad, the whole lot of you," Grace wanted to protest, but she felt just fine where she was.

###

"It's over, Mycroft," Sherlock spoke into his phone. "Doctor Chandler is safe and has suffered no serious physical harm. The MI5 people are in custody, except for Shane Meath who refused to listen to wisdom and suffered the consequences. Did you catch any of it on CCTV?"

The phone's reply laid a faint grin on his lips. "Of course," the younger Holmes was almost blasé. "I'll see he gets the message."

Walking over towards the remaining ambulance; the first one had already gone, taking Meath's body away to the nearest mortuary, he saw that Grace was currently having her hand rebandaged by a paramedic, while a warm orange blanket hung over her shoulders.

"My dear brother wanted me to assure you the inquiry would be a formality and you should be expect to be back at the Yard within hours, rather than days," Sherlock watched as the inspector's hand curved beneath her elbow as Grace made to stand.

"Looks like I'll be the one taking you home again," Greg grinned. "Seem to be making quite the habit of it recently, don't I?"

"I wouldn't get too comfortable being off-duty, Inspector," Sherlock narrowed his eyes a little. "You may be summoned to your desk sooner than you imagine."

"But it won't be tonight, will it, Sherlock?" Lestrade grinned again. "'Cos this afternoon I am going to have a nice long kip, and tonight, I am cooking dinner for two," he sounded quite determined, helping Grace to her feet and across to his car.

Watching them go, Sherlock scowled.

###

He stood silently, waiting until the last ambulance drove away and the crowds dispersed; people wandering back and forth across the cobbled courtyard as if nothing here had happened out of the ordinary.

Resting the palms of his hands on the strong, curved handle of his umbrella, Mycroft Holmes stepped closer to the stone rail of the balcony directly opposite the pillared colonnade which had so recently seen the demise of Shane Meath.

He had watched the entire drama, not through the lens of his CCTV cameras, but with his own eyes. He had seen it all. It would have been recorded; of course, he would watch it again later.

The flight and chase.

The capture and resistance.

The kill and its aftermath.

He had also watched, with acute interest, the behaviour of the inspector. How caring the man had been; how solicitous and thoughtful. Dinner for two?

The audible crack of the Malacca handle brought his attention back to the here and now. He raised an eyebrow as he inspected the curved grip of the umbrella. Really, this was too much; two in two days?

Something would have to be done. And it was up to him to do it.

Mycroft Holmes made his choice.

###

The End

... or is it?

My thanks, as always, to everyone who has taken the time to comment about this story. You are very generous and I love hearing from you.

(and for those who will not allow me to leave the story here)

NEW STORY COMING SOON ... THIRD ENCOUNTER

The concluding (or possibly not) adventure and romance that is Omegaverse.

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Note:

My job requires me to do a little travelling in the next couple of weeks, so I will probably not be posting anything immediately, as I intend to do some fairly substantial research into exotic cocktails and 5-star hotels. All dreadfully hard work, of course, but someone has to do it.

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