I can't breathe in the new place. Since I moved in at Baker Street my throat and lungs have acquired a considerable lining of dust. The air here is so clean. And there's nothing. I know exactly what size the sitting room is, because I can pace it in both directions. No stacks of books, no shelves, no curio cases. There's a desk, but it's pushed right up against the window. And all there is on it is my laptop and a dictionary and a physician's desk reference.

I used to live like this. Never thought anything of it. Now it feels like an office with a telly in it. I've been here weeks now and it still feels like that.

The days go by right and quickly, nothing much to remark on. Send emails and letters around the hospitals and the practices, expressing interest. Receive replies politely turning me down. None of them directly mentioning Sherlock and all of them meaning it.

'Confirmed bachelor' John Watson is, thankfully, gone. However it has been replaced with 'confirmed believer.' And I'm pretty sure a couple of those hospitals sold my new address because reporters keep finding me. That was why I had to leave Baker Street, because of the vultures. I don't feel too bad, though; Mrs Hudson's still there to give them what for.

Of course she's still there.

Mrs Hudson leave Baker Street? England would…

That's the other reason I had to leave Baker Street.

That's why the nights here at the new place still pass here at the new place. I haven't been going out much. I get recognized now. I've gone from being the other guy in the picture to being the only one left in the picture, so I get recognized. It's just a lot of hassle going out, that's all.

I've been reading, actually. Mostly because I'm scared if I turn on the television again I'll never turn it off. Not reading anything in particular. Non-fiction, mostly. Bit of history, bit of nature study, bit of science. It's a box of books that got sent over from Baker Street by accident. Not mine. They have thumbprints on the corners and annotations in the margins. I don't understand what they mean half the time, and that's when I can read his writing, but they're there. And the books have a damp, crushed kind of smell about them.

They're dusty.

About midnight, the fox starts up. The fox starts up about this time every night, and every night I forget it's going to happen. If I would remember, I'd go to bed, and hold the pillow over my ears. But as it is, every night, it starts, and I hear my own voice from a long, long time ago echoing, "Why is there a dead fox in the fridge?"

Every night, I hear him say, "Would you rather there was a live fox in the fridge?"

There'd been a fox in the bins for weeks, rattling and screaming all night. Driving Mrs Hudson to distraction. I'd called the council, but they hadn't done anything yet. And then there was a fox in the fridge with its neck broken and then there was no more fox in the bins. You don't need to be him to put it together, do you?

The only thing I never understood is why he put it in the fridge. Why not just dump it and be done with it? That's all that happened, in the end. I took it down from where he'd hung it by the tail and carried it down to the bins in a plastic bag. And every night I end up sitting here, listening to that fox scream, asking myself why the hell he put it in the fridge.

Tonight, though, I don't get to wonder for too long. Another noise joins the fox. Weird, distracting shriek and I go to the window.

A cat.

Foxes won't usually take a cat on. They're about the same size and they're both vicious, so they don't get in each other's way. But these two are ready to get stuck in.

No.

Don't ask me why I care, but I do. I don't want this, tonight. The only thing about the new place is, there's nothing just sitting around that I can throw.

The dictionary off the desk ends up going. Not a bad aim either. It lands on the bin lid between the two animals and they scatter in opposite directions, suddenly quiet.

That's it, so far as I'm concerned. They've shut up. Nothing's going to be out there moaning all night or getting half killed. I'll go down and get the dictionary in the morning. Right now, I'm going to bed.

There's nothing to keep me up. Wonder if I'll be able to sleep.

I sleep late. And deep, too; slept through the phone. There's a message when I get up. Mrs Hudson, asking how I am, saying the reporters tend to go home on a Sunday and I should come for dinner. Saying it's quiet without, and stopping there, because she doesn't want to end that sentence anymore than I want to hear her do it. I don't know. I'll think about it later, but I'm probably going to have breakfast and I'm not really doing enough with my days to justify two full meals. Especially not my Sundays.

For the first time in a while, I drift towards the laptop. There's a very faint, very light shimmer of dust on the lid. It's been a while. I had to stop the blog. Even with the comments disabled it was getting out of hand. The 'Believers' were worse than the idiots. I haven't touched it since, except to send out CVs.

Not that there's anything to record. I don't know why I end up over by the window.

I just know what I see beyond the desk. Something at floor level, crushed between the glass and the bars of the Juliet balcony. And the window smeared with blood.

I haul the desk out of the way and crouch to study it.

A bird. Or it used to be. The mangled body of a bird, one wing almost completely detached, feathers matted.

It didn't just fall there either, it's wedged tight.

I fetch a brush and a plastic bag and open the window. I need to get rid of the thing before I look into where it came from. I just need to get rid of the thing, full stop. And there's no one here telling me not to move the body, nobody wanting to poke the little corpse for clues. I don't know if that's refreshing or if, somehow, it makes the whole thing less interesting, less exciting.

I'm poking with the brush handle, trying to coach the bird upward. A sound draws my eyes left.

Perched, four little feet in a line, on the bar of the next balcony, that cat again. A rough, skinny looking thing with a half-ear and a scarred muzzle. Watching me.

From the cat to the bird and back again. "Was this you?"

Don't ask me what makes me do it. I leave the brush hanging in the bars and step back, leaving the window open. And yeah, the cat hops balconies and walks right in. Down over the desk, leaves a paw print on the laptop and sits in my chair. I should just point out from this very opening moment, I don't like cats. I don't want a cat. That's not what's going to happen here.

But somehow the flat feels a bit less empty.

But, no, I don't want a cat. Especially not a cat that takes on foxes for sport and territory. This is clearly the Charles Bronson of the cat world. And it's acting like it owns the place already, which I'm not mad about. It can smell the bacon burning in the kitchen and it's going for it, tail in the air and oh, sorry… Charlene Bronson.

She stands expectantly by the open oven. The grill's too hot for her to touch, but she knows that I can do it. Anyway, the bacon's too far gone for me now. I prise it off the foil and dump it in front of her.

When she bends her head to eat I notice her collar.

Which is good, because I wasn't going to keep her. I can't afford a cat. And anyway, I don't want one. I was never planning on keeping her.

She works the edges of the bacon with bird blood probably still on her teeth. Distracted, happy, she doesn't mind that I ease the collar round to check her tag.

My name, it says, is Sherly. Please return me to 221b Baker Street.

And on the back of the collar, someone has scratched a smiley face with the point of a compass.

I stand up and I pace away.

That cat, for all I know, is about to explode.

She doesn't know that, though. She notices that I'm agitated now, stops eating and looks up. And when I hold an arm out, she jumps up into it. I pick up the bacon too so she won't feel hard done by, and I carry her back to the window. Looking out again. Looking down into the yard by the bins.

Down below, the fox is dead. Someone has laid it out with the legs tucked down and forward, and the tail straight out behind. Like it's hanging.

They've drawn a line around it in chalk.

And my dictionary is lying at an angle to its bashed in little head.

"Now that, I say to Sherly, "wasn't you."