Disclaimer: This story is "fan-fiction", based on the Television programme: "Sherlock", 2010 onwards contemporary TV series 'reimagining' which remains the intellectual property of creators/producers Steve Moffatt, Mark Gatiss, Steve Thompson, BBC1 et al.

It is not owned by "The Cat's Whiskers"; no money is being made, and it is purely for the enjoyment of fans of the show, etc., etc. Legal counsel has advised that "fan-fiction" falls within the bounds of "fair use" as defined by UK law (1740) and US law (1976). All 'Original characters, plots and story-settings remain the intellectual property of 'The Cat's Whiskers' and may not be reproduced or continued or expanded without her express permission to reproduce, continue or expand same. The Cat's Whiskers may be contacted at any time via Private Messaging for this purpose to request same. All excerpts of and reference to on-screen dialogue and aired episodes (including deleted scenes, episode commentaries, gag reels, additional (a.k.a. 'bonus') content) and on-screen named characters remain the property of the screenwriter(s).

Notice: You are expressly and explicitly permitted and encouraged to save this story to your personal computer and/or other such device for your personal reading pleasure (only) if you so wish. Some years ago I suffered a serious loss of much of my works due to a computer software malware issue, and I managed to get 60 percent of it back thanks to other writers and readers who had saved my stories on their computers or knew about "web caching" and the Wayback Machine™ website archive service. Since I err on the side of paranoia, if I one day need to go through that process again [aaagh!] for any reason, you may be the reader who is able to help because you have the story saved on your hard drive/memory stick/iPad etc. Please do not, however, circulate the stories without asking me first. I can be contacted in all instances via Private Messaging Service.

Summary: Some thoughts about 'how is this my life?' by one John Hamish Watson, blogger, sidekick, gallowglass and all round unsung hero of this lunatic asylum.

Rating - important: for site purposes only: K+ to M for references to suicide, psychopathy, sociopathy, BSDM, general family dysfunction and sundry unpleasantness.

Why? I do not believe that written works should be age-rated; it is a foolish and cruel form of censorship that discourages and de-incentivises reading at all, for both knowledge and pleasure which is disastrous for the hope of producing the next generation of Keats, Milton, Twain, Shakespeare, Christie, Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton, Cavendish, Blyton, C.S. Lewis, Joss Whedon, John Sullivan, Ian la Frenais & Dick Clement, James Perry & David Croft, Roy Clarke, Ronnie Barker & Ronnie Corbett, Eric Kripke, Jaime Paglia, Kyle Killen, and so on. Children know when they are being patronised, condescended to and cotton-wool bubble-wrapped from how the World Really Works and nothing is more guaranteed to stop them reading for pleasure and for knowledge as fast as that.

The above rating is listed so it conforms to ' ' requirements to rate all stories. This story contains mildly intemperate language entirely in context by very stressed people and sundry mild references to violence, drugs and rock 'n' roll, all of which can be seen and heard on daytime soaps (how's that for pre-watershed) by anyone from toddler age upwards.

Unfortunately Western social culture today after forty years of the liberal bigotry of Political Correctness is a pornographic and paedophilic society where promiscuity and selfishness are glorified as "good" and self-control, self-respect and personal responsibility are vilified, and as a result most of this stuff is now pre-watershed TV or actually watchable for free as live-action porn anywhere you spot any group of 12-25 year olds at about 11:00pm on a weekend.

The content in here is very tame compared to sexting, hook-ups, misogynistic and misandrist supposed 'erotica' reading and the casual daily porn viewing most third graders and older are now accessing from their smartphones in the school lunch break in between mainlining heroin as an expression of their 'right to self-expression' and dealing smack to the Babies and Toddlers group, because hey, if mum and dad are happy to dose them up with Ritalin to keep them quiet, quiescent and out of the way whilst they focus on their career, retail therapy, golf weekend or whatever's really important, what's wrong with big sis or bro getting in on some of that pocket money supplementing action?

I kid you not – according to police research data by 2013 one of the world's most successful 'new' online .com businesses (founded 2011) was "Silk Road" which sells illegal drugs by mail order direct from the manufacturers to any customer who can pay, cutting out the 'middle-man' drug traffickers/gangs/lords. They saw 200 percent growth in the first 18 months of business, which is beyond satire.

Setting: This is a two part story: Part 1 is set general mid-late Season 2 and is told from John's POV. Part 2 is set after the famous Season 2 finale, before the premiere of Season 3 and again is mostly from John's POV.

Story content note: As with all my fan-fiction, I have tried to keep this story as accurate as to "canon" as possible. I have no option but to avoid the whole "pot-kettle-black" thing because I teach Creative Writing and wrote a textbook; Writing Fan-Fiction for New Writers (Is it 'Real Writing' and is it Useful?) © The Cat's Whiskers 2010-2012 and I am, therefore, very keen on 'Taking Your Writing Seriously'. My view is that fan-fiction is an excellent 'primer' for someone who has just started out writing (whatever type) and also for anyone moving into fiction writing from another writing field, as was the fact in my case.

If you are writing an AU story, you do have leeway, but otherwise it is only courteous and respectful to your readers, and a good way of honing your research skills, to make as much effort to be as accurate to canon as possible – if you are serious about being a proper writer, you need to learn and practice doing proper research and getting facts right – otherwise you will end up being a "must read" for all the wrong reasons – like people only watch Ben Hur for the centurion wearing the wristwatch, or Braveheart for the battle scene where the man falls over to reveal a pair of very modern jeans under his kilt – or the collectible historical romance set in 17th Century England where the hero invites the heroine to 'freshen up' in his indoor bathroom…with flushing WC.

It also shows your respect to the creators of the show, the scriptwriters and production crew who film the series and work long into the night editing it all together, often in atrocious weather or stuffy little mixing suites but who never get the glory; remember the cameraman and boom operator are also out there filming in the howling gale/downpour for fifteen solid hours and they never get any red carpet treatment. If you've ever gone to a fan convention/Comic Con have you ever taken ten seconds away from salivating over Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones or Lara Pulver's particulars, depending on which way you sway, to let Steve Thompson or Steve Moffat bask in the fan-love? For another example, all those shows filmed in England or Vancouver, where the weather is wet or wetter - and the actors themselves, who work very hard and put a lot of time and effort into getting their on-screen characters "right" and again work through illness/injury (e.g., Jared Padalecki's broken wrist in Supernatural, and Alex O'Loughlin's shoulder injury in Hawaii 5-0) or things like pregnancy (e.g., Erica Cerra in A Town Called Eureka) and other stresses to give the viewer good value.

As well as being respectful to everyone involved with the show you are writing about, adhering to canon tropes also gives you great story material. Shows like A Town Called Eureka is very good for giving you snippets of plausible sounding 'real life' Scienceze, without drifting into Star Trek techno-babble. One of the best things about Hawaii 5-0 the 2010 reimagining is that because all the episode titles are in Polynesian, and both Polynesian and Pidgin are used in the show, is that it really makes you think about words and context and language – making sure that character 'A' really does talk like that does a great deal for honing your ear for dialogue and helps you create fictional realisms by giving your characters 'authentic' voices – Danny Williams uses words like 'ergo' and 'commensurately' in context and with precision, even in the midst of a cargument or Danno-rant, but he does not use words (unlike Steve McGarrett/Chin Ho Kelly/Kono Kalakaua/Kamekona), such as 'brah', 'hoa', 'lanai', 'aloha' 'da kine', 'pakalolo' etc.

I have tried my best in this regard, but it has been a bit difficult: dark colours, especially dark eye-colour, don't show up well on screen And of course, that doesn't account for the fact that in Real Life, every person's eyes change colour several times a minute, depending on the amount of literal light reaching the eye, the individual's emotions, their physical level of tiredness or alertness and so on; any accurate/true-to-life novel would never contain anything else other than 400 pages of what colour a person's eyes were every twenty seconds or so.

The same applies to everyone else – if you have ever watched any TV shows regularly and then met or seen some of the cast in real life you will know that moment of surprised 'Huh' because the camera really does change how a person's height, weight, body posture, hair-colour, eye-colour, skin tone and voice sounds appear to be from what they actually are, as well these also being just as much affected by the person in question being ill, tired, happy, alert, etc. Not to mention of course that actors go into 'make-up' which again alters the colour of their eyes, skin-tone, etc.

Credit/shout-out/blame-placement: This story has been posted to for 'The Hobbet' who asked if I'd written any Sherlock fan-fiction…Yes, in a word.

Holmesian Logic

Part I

Chapter 1

"Been banished, have you, Doc?"

The avuncular comment, with a hint of smugness, didn't make him splutter as he swallowed a hot gulp of tea – he'd had NCOs whose favourite method of testing your 'steel and sangfroid' had been to silently glide up behind some poor sod just as he had taken a mouthful of food/drink and then bark out: "'Smith you 'orrible little excuse for an 'uman bean!'" at which point the hapless 'Smith' would end up spraying food/drink/spit all over his unimpressed comrades and possibly even superior officer(s) while he hacked and choked and spluttered and babbled and scrabbled to his feet trying to salute and come to attention all at the same time.

But he'd been through the meat grinder that was military medical college, and so such stunts as this one were as candy floss to a half-brick in comparison. So as Greg Lestrade pulled out the chair the other side of the table, lifting it slightly so the metal legs didn't scrape over the lino, and sat down, he corrected mildly, "Not officially, no. Mrs Rabani, could I have another mug here, please, and a fresh pot of tea, thanks."

Mrs Rabani beamed at him as she proffered a plain white and blue-rimmed mug suspiciously similar to the old British Rail tea-room mugs (and which the canny lady had probably got as a job lot sometime back in the '80s), and hurried off to brew yet more tea.

By the time he'd finished his first ever breakfast and morning cuppa in this café, he had learned she and her husband had immigrated here from India in 1972; they'd worked a 100 hour week to ensure all their children had a public school and then university education. She had learned he was a doctor, and single. She liked doctors, and particularly single male doctors, because her youngest was a spinster paediatrician; all her children were medical professionals of one type or another, although possibly because they hadn't dared do otherwise.

Greg Lestrade took the mug with the due reverence of a Mediaeval pilgrim to the Holy Land touching a piece of the True Cross, and poured himself the last of the current pot of tea, swatting in four lumps of sugar and glugging milk from the jug, stirring it like he was whisking batter mix before he leaned back and took a big gulp, closing his eyes momentarily in sensory bliss before opening them and raising his mug slightly in ironic salute. "But still in a snit that the sidekick cracked the case and not the great Consulting Detective, if you're in here, all on your Sweeny Todd?"

Mrs Rabani arrived with a fresh pot of the ambrosia of the gods, at least what constituted it at this hour of the morning by anyone not alcohol-dependent. He was in fact open to coffee as a breakfast beverage, even what passed for it as served by a hungover/uninterested/the-world-owes-me-adulation- for-merely-existing teenage Uni' student 'barista'.

And yes, even mocha lattes in their place in his world, but nothing beat the great British morning cuppa, especially not at 'Aaagh! o'clock', that always special time of the morning when, having been aggravated by Sherlock for most of the night, he was tired, tetchy and most tempted to take up Mike Stamford on his occasional suggestions of a permanent position at Bart's either as a lecturer or surgical research fellow… He handed over a fiver to Mrs R., with a keep-the-change quick shake of his head; she had no idea how good it felt to be able to do that again without having to worry whether doing so would precipitate a heat or eat decision for his finances.

Greg made a move towards his own coat pocket but he shook his head again and a man who really was one of the Met's finest raised his mug in another salute before drinking more tea, clearly savouring each swallow like a man lost in a desert plunging into an oasis and finding the stuff was vintage champagne to boot.

"Not about me solving the case…as such…more…because I didn't have to solve anything. No observation, no deduction, no detection. All I did was take just one deep breath and game over, case solved, scumbag in jail. It…offends his sense of the appropriate, I think."

"Did he realise how you were able to know with a single sniff or has he gone straight into the sulks?" Greg asked perceptively - but quietly, almost gently.

Ah yes, there was nothing obtuse or stupid about Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade of Scotland Yard. If he hadn't had the shrewdness – and the integrity – to eschew politicking and instead keep utilising Sherlock Holmes' talents to help innocent, vulnerable people these past few years, Greg Lestrade would have been getting close to being Commissioner of the Met on his own merits by now.

And on top of that wasn't there the very suggestive fact that Gregory Lestrade, though ostensibly on a busman's holiday when Mycroft had sent him to Baskerville to ride herd on Sherlock, had had no problems making like the cavalry with a handgun to help save poor Henry Knight at Dewer's Hollow when Sherlock had finally had the sense to call in reinforcements? His own experience had shown him just how lucky he'd been to get to keep his Browning, so either the Met now allowed a lot more officers further down the food chain than SO19 to go around town tooled up like they were in an episode of The Professionals, or else there was more to Greg Lestrade than met the eye…

And he knew which answer tick-box he would pick for those options. For example, it was absolutely ludicrous to entertain the notion that Mycroft Holmes had just accepted the ongoing alliance between his precocious teenage brother and this 'DI Lestrade' of the Met without making forensically 'sure', probably to the sub-atomic level, about Gregory Lestrade.

Back when Sherlock had been a precocious enfant terrible skipping free from the dreaming spires of Oxford, resolutely ignoring his elder brother's existence and setting up his own website and self-invented career as a Consulting Detective, he himself had been in Afghanistan. The Science of Deduction had held its own in the niche market of 'online oddballs', but it wouldn't have taken more than a few weeks for the 'Net cognoscenti back home here in Blighty to boost the newcomer's provocative profile and for Sherlock to come to the notice of some in the thin blue line.

He would have given a great deal to have seen footage – or at least read the report – of when and how Sherlock and Greg had first crossed paths and, hopefully only metaphorically, swords. He certainly had no doubt that Lestrade had been the one to take the initiative and have the humility to keep returning to a useful resource that 99 percent of his police colleagues would just have ignored out of personal egotism no matter how much faster or more accurately Sherlock blitzed the cases for them – DI Anderson and Sally Donovan being classic examples of that mindset.

Mycroft, in turn, initially able to ignore his younger brother's 'dabbling', certainly wouldn't have continued to do so when someone – the Met Commissioner, perhaps, or even higher up – the Home Sec, even? – had been made aware of 'some blithering DI setting the Met up to be made a fool of – always on the phone or in consultation with some shady online guru about murder cases – name of Sherlock Holmes, ever heard of him, M? M?' No indeed, in post-Dunblane Britain which had ripped up historic gun laws and re-legislated a mess so badly written that the British Olympic and Commonwealth Pistol Shooting Teams could only legally practise abroad and the only people with easy access to handguns were criminals, Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade hadn't just 'happened' to have a handgun handy on his holidays.

Now, he shrugged to convey both an answer in the negative and a silent request that Lestrade not bring this subject up in front of Sherlock.

Thing was, Sherlock 'knew' he'd been a serving soldier in Afghanistan in the same way he himself had known human anatomy by memorising Dad's textbooks when he was twelve – all theory, no practical – knowledge, but without understanding. If Sherlock had possessed that he'd never have rabbit-punched him out of left field in that lunatic plan to get himself invited into Irene Adler's house as a just-mugged vicar.

Beheaded by terrorists, poor cow…not that he quite believed it. In fact, he wouldn't believe The Woman was really dead until he throttled her himself and got rid of the body. But still, Sherlock wouldn't have got in his face about that 'surprise punch' and not-in-a-good-office-party-way if the idiot had had any real inkling of what the 'sidekick' kept tamped down, way, way down in the dark of his soul. Sherlock had caught him off guard in that and he couldn't allow that to happen again…he might not be able to stop himself in time from…hurting…someone…because experience was the harshest of teachers, but a very, very good one…

"Sherlock would have got it himself, in another five seconds. New build house, but industrial paint used to decorate just one interior room? Using a bad smell to hide a worse one was…"

"Taliban S.O.P?"

He gave one sharp affirmative nod, taking a drink of his tea; his mind flashing back instantly in vignette memory-moments of one, two – a dozen or more – such encounters; the Taleban terrorists had often killed animals – or murdered people – and rigged the corpses with IEDs to detonate when touched, but as a hot country with rapid putrefaction of dead organic matter they'd resorted to dousing the corpse with some pungent scent because the good guys – anyone in-country who was Western and Christian, though political correctness zealots would have him skinned alive if he ever let that slip out - had very quickly learned to do nothing without sucking up air as if a human vacuum cleaner and sniffing like they were auditioning to make like a foxhound at a hunt meet…

The taxi pulled around in front of Amberley Crescent, a graceful curving crescent of new build houses in Belgravia – pretentiously built to look exactly like Regency townhouses as favoured by the capital's aristocrats about town circa 1820; nowhere near the much-needed new social housing the politicians were always going on about. Happily, though, Amberley Crescent was a good few streets away from the former residence of a purportedly now-deceased dominatrix.

The Three Anti-Musketeers were waiting for them as Sherlock bounded out of the cab like a Springer Spaniel puppy without a backward glance, taking it as read that his unglorified sidekick would pay the fare and make sure the cabbie waited.

Lestrade, impatient and irritated; Inspector Dimmock, alert and interested, and to date, most recent member of the Sherlock Holmes' fan-club after that business with the Tong and the millennium old hairpin gave his career a kick-start and the Speckled Blonde case added a further boost – Detective Inspector rank like Lestrade loomed on the horizon for the far from dim Dimmock. And finally Sergeant Sally Donovan, contemptuous disdain as clear as neon across her face, although admittedly Sherlock hadn't helped his cause by pointing out in front of the world's best worst gossipers – i.e., London's coppers – that she had been mistress to the adulterous, antagonistic Anderson, the Met's CSI wunderkind. He wondered if that little sordid affair was still going on.

Sherlock was practically bouncing in his boots like an overgrown Tigger in Lestrade's wake as the DI moved towards No.15 Amberley Crescent and opened the door; he trotted in at the back with Dimmock and Donovan – perfect name for a double-act as ever there was – drawing in a deep and deeply annoyed breath of exasperation at it costing a twenty note just to guarantee the cabbie didn't suddenly remember an urgent fare across town and –

And the smell grabbed his tonsils and twisted like a Baghdad hooker demanding payment; the cream emulsion smelled as if it was designed to whitewash the inside of a cow barn, not a house.

"He killed them."

"What?" Lestrade turned sharply.

The words had bypassed his better judgement, but he knew with absolute certainty and could not prevent himself finishing his unintended utterance, "Lewisham, the owner; Josie Barker and Ray Ernest – they're both dead. From the stench of that paint in…" he inhaled deeply, then again, "…the downstairs front dining room… I'd say that's where Lewisham hid the parts after he dismembered the corpses."

"Dismembered them!?"

Donovan's disgusted exclamation was fainter than in reality because for a moment his hearing was dimmed as in his mind's eye he was back in any one of several interchangeable Afghani villages, with the powerful scent of exotic blooms bringing a microsecond of pleasure to the eyes and nose until you snapped back into it as to why they'd been planted and what that sickly sweet scent was intended to disguise.

Greg Lestrade was looking into the offending room with a sort of violent wistfulness, as if contemplating taking a sledgehammer to the walls himself. "Lewisham warned me about the paint – said he'd caught the decorators using knocked off industrial paint instead of proper house-paint and he'd fired them." Lestrade's voice tone changed as he obviously quoted Lewisham, "'Luckily I caught them when they'd only done one room, and I'm away on business for the next six weeks, so the place will be tolerable when I get back.'"

"No," Sherlock vetoed instantly, "the last house on this crescent is still under construction, never mind there being internal decorators reaching No.15 already? So Lewisham did that paint job himself and," he whipped out his Smart Phone and scrolled as he muttered, "from that angle that room gets most of the sun, and we're forecast a heat-wave so…he was hoping for complete decomposition in that period to reduce the smell…no that doesn't…"

"Sealant," Dimmock suggested suddenly, "like a clay oven; or one of those things you can buy for your back garden…"

"Chimera!" Donovan declared,

"No, Chiminea," corrected Sherlock without looking up from his phone and so missing the venomous glare – or maybe it simply bounced off him unnoticed.

Possibly to make it so he didn't have to arrest his own duty sergeant for attempted murder – bludgeoning of a conceited know it all – Lestrade interjected as if neither had spoken, "…Industrial paint – thicker, more waterproof than normal paint, and the new brick would be fairly watertight too. Put the…pieces in the cavity between the outer wall and the interior wall, coat the interior wall with a nice, thick industrial sealant and leave for six weeks; the temperature would be too high and too dry for spores and vermin so the corpses wouldn't rot –"

"They'd dehydrate, mummify," Sherlock jumped in, "of course – the olfactory variation on 'hiding in plain sight': just use one strong odour to cover another whilst the whiffy fresh meat dried into jerky. When Lewisham came back his victims would be the consistency of old leather and look nothing like a hacked up body. Strip back the paint and redecorate in a nice Everyman magnolia and then dispose of Barker and Ernest one chop at a time just by using his dustbin. "

"Would you really have wanted it to turn into one of Sherlock's type of cases?" He challenged, and nodded at Lestrade's suit, which was so creased he had clearly been wearing it since yesterday, "When you were up to your eyes in this lot?"

Sherlock wasn't the only one who could do observant – Lestrade looked somehow both exhausted and exhilarated – he recognised the oxymoronic expression from countless mirrors in Afghanistan and before that Iraq and before that Sarajevo and before that Belfast and before that…other places. When you were up to your neck in muck and bullets but you didn't care because you were winning and winning spectacularly.

Besides, any first year Med student could – and should – be able to see past the faux ruddy bloom of Lestrade's cheeks and the pseudo-sparkle of his eyes, forged by adrenaline saturated blood, and instead notice the underlying grey pallor of utter weariness and the sclerotic eyeball redness of a bloke who'd gone a good thirty hours sans sleep. The impression wasn't helped by the fact that the deep bronze beach-holiday-in-Barbados tan that had made Greg so acutely out of place in the middle of the bleakly beautiful British chill-fest that was Dartmoor (usual temperature: we passed absolute zero a half-hour back) had now faded to a sallow off-yellow hue, reminiscent of jaundice or a fading bruise.

"True. I wouldn't have been able to wrap up John Oldacre in a big red bow for the Criminals' Protection Service – at least not this fast, if I'd had to divide my time between Blackheath and Sherlock's latest contremps."

"Congrats. So, are we likely to hear those three little words soon?"

"Eh?" Lestrade, divorced with children, looked confused and slightly wary.

"Detective Chief Inspector."

Lestrade finished his mug of tea, and deflected, "Above my pay grade, mate, but…it's a good result though; I'm well pleased."

"Oh. I see. Mozart."

"Eh?" Lestrade leaned forward slightly – and not just because the hard-moulded shit-brown cheap plastic chairs were hell on the back of mortal man after the first thirty seconds – looking as if he were considering whether to forcibly check if John had been lacing his tea with whisky.

"Leopold Mozart was one of the most gifted and respected musician-composers in 17th Century Austria. He and his wife's only surviving child, Maria, was a gifted pianist – a child prodigy, fêted in Vienna and Salzburg and all the aristocratic salons by the time she was six."

"Right," Lestrade bit his lip, clearly wondering whether he should arrest John on suspicion of being under the influence of some illegal herbage, or call an ambulance.

"Which was the year when Leopold's wife had a little baby boy they named Wolfgang, the only other of their seven children to survive infancy after Maria. When he was three he composed his first concerto."

"Yeah, that Mozart, The Magic Flute, et cetera. I have an 'A' Level in Music, Dr Watson."

"Exactly," he countered. "After little Wolfgang started wowing the crowds, by the time he was ten everyone had forgotten his less showy but not less talented older sister. He was the sun – big bright and glowing – to her moon – smaller, paler, cooler – but this third rock of ours would be well stuffed without the moon."

He paused to take a swig of his tea, having no doubt Lestrade got the analogy, but said it anyway, "Would I be very far out if I were to suggest that your bosses," he doubted if the very intelligent, very capable, very authoritative Greg Lestrade had any superiors at New Scotland Yard, "have got themselves so used to your prudent use of the resource that is Sherlock Holmes that they've forgotten how nothing but your own talent was fast-tracking you up through the ranks a few years back when Sherlock Holmes was still an acne-addled enfant terrible nobody had ever heard of getting himself transferred to Oxford one step ahead of Dublin Trinity slinging him out by the scruff of that flash greatcoat he wears?"

"Should I start singing, The Hills Are Alive with the sound of Music?" Lestrade raised his mug in oblique acknowledgement of the accuracy of this supposition.

"I'd rather you didn't, people talk enough about the supposed 'real nature' of mine and Sherlock's relationship – not that any exists outside Mind Your Own Damn Business - as it is without it getting around that John Watson likes show tunes as well." He'd already had Mike Stamford, with what the bloke obviously fondly imagined was subtlety, asking oblique questions on the subject – mind you, that infernal, apparently perpetually circulating photograph didn't help – that paparazzi double head shot of him and Sherlock coming out of the theatre back door in those ridiculous excuses for headgear – he'd never worn a flat cap in his life and that deerstalker Sherlock had grabbed just had to combine with that swirling greatcoat to do wonders for those already impressive cheekbones, hadn't it…Lestrade, no doubt by well-practiced design, hadn't been captured in-shot at all and now the blasted snap was the only one the news media – in print or online – ever seemed to use.

He wasn't surprised by Lestrade's cagey response though; from his own decade plus change of medico-military service dealing with the fallout from politicians' grandstanding and commanding officers more interested in furthering their own careers and covering their own backsides, he could well imagine what Greg Lestrade's working life had been like living through what more than one bloke in their unit - and plenty more regiments besides - had sarcastically called 'The Blair Witch Project Years' – what with Ian at the Met and Tony in Downing Street, anyone who still believed in being a real copper must have had a hairy time of it during the last fifteen years.

"Well, I haven't got until tomorrow to write up all the reports on this," Lestrade shoved back his chair and stood up, "thanks for the cuppa char – I wonder if there's any chance of getting Mrs R. to take over our canteen?"

He clucked his tongue, "You mean in-house catering service. All those Politically Correct Marxist Liberal work place activists spend hours thinking up management jargon and here you are throwing around wholesale Plain English words like 'canteen'…the wrong senior 'artificer' at the Met overhears that and it won't be 'Lestrade you're up for DCI' but 'Lestrade, it's a BME diversity awareness course for you.'"

"They'll never take me alive," Lestrade's lip curled and he sounded, somewhat worryingly, like he meant it.

"Illegitimi non carborundum," he raised his mug in toast as Lestrade wove his way out around the tables, back out into the early morning fray, the eternal din of London hustle and bustle peaking momentarily until the café door closed.

Continued in Chapter 2…

© 2012, The Cat's Whiskers

All rights reserved

Author's Notes:

The title of this story is a play on the term "Empsonian Logic" coined in respect of my distant cousin, Sir William Empson, by The Times newspaper. William Empson (1906-1984) was one of the leading British poets and literary authors of the early 20th Century; his practice of 'close reading' literary texts – the method of intensively examining and producing a commentary on only a brief passage of text or a couple of lines of verse – and his willingness to consider interpretations not hidebound or deferential to current orthodoxies, led to the coining of the term Empsonian Logic in reference to his sometimes radical and innovative interpretations of Classic literary texts such as Milton and Shakespeare.

The Shorter English Dictionary defines: "Adjective: Resembling or characteristic of the logic of Sir William Empson (1906-84) English poet & critic" and quotes The Times Literary Supplement, "Sonnets marked by a somewhat Empsonian logic". His most famous work was Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930). The polymath Jonathan Bate stated that Empson was one of the three greatest British literary critics of the past three hundred years, 'not least because they are the funniest.'

Amberley Court, Josie Barker, Ray Ernest and Lewisham are all references to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short story, The Adventure of the Retired Colourman, published in 1926 in The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes and set c.1898 (according to Sherlockian scholar William S. Baring-Gould). In SACD's story, Josiah Amberley, who comes from Lewisham, hires Holmes to look into the disappearance of his wife and their neighbour, Dr Ray Ernest. In the story, the killer uses strong paint to disguise a smell betraying the murder.

Greg Lestrade's visit to Blackheath and his arrest of John Oldacre are taken from the Adventure of the Norwood Builder published in 1903 and set in c.1894, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes anthology. John Oldacre as I have used it is a conflation of Holmes' client, the 'unhappy John Hector McFarlane' a lawyer from Blackheath, accused of murdering his client Jonas Oldacre. The story heavily features Inspector Lestrade, who for most of the story appears to be on the right track in suspecting McFarlane is guilty. Blackheath was again used in The Adventure of the Retired Colourman.

NCOs – Non-Commissioned Officers, referred to as an 'En-See-Oh' (plural 'En-See-Ohz') in the UK and non-com/non-comz in the USA are military men of officer rank who have achieved the officer rank by promotion through the enlisted ranks (starting out in the mailroom/office tea-boy/apprentice level and working their way up through the 'company' to Managing Director or Vice-CEO in civilian equivalency).

Many officers in military services based on the historical British model/in the English-speaking world are commissioned; that is they enter military service at officer level often as a Graduate from a civilian university or a military officer candidate school (also college or university despite the designation of school) or in a career change moving in from a non-military civilian career or occupation to a military one. Commissioned officers are therefore likely to range from late 20s to late 30s or even around 40 years of age in some instances rather than be under age 25 years.

This is different from joining up at 'entry level' and working their way up through the ranks as an NCO does; since many of those who rise to become NCO rank are 'career military' (they have made that branch of the military their career choice) they often join that military service immediately after completing statutory education (last year of secondary school or high school) usually about the age of sixteen to eighteen years. This means, ironically, that an NCO and a commissioned officer can attain that officer rank at a similar age to each other, even though they have taken different routes to get there.

Traditionally in the British Armed Forces, 'NCOs' command immense respect and affection and are viewed as the 'backbone' of regimental discipline and heroism. Traditionally the NCO was responsible for discipline and drilling the enlisted men to achieve smartness and cohesion on parade and in combat, which in times past meant NCOs were noted for having voices that whilst not necessarily 'shouting' could be heard over considerable distance.

Some of the more 'colourful' NCOs could be quite well-known outside military life. Possibly the most famous was Regimental Sergeant Major Ronald Brittain, MBE (1899-1981) whom it was claimed had the loudest voice in HM Army. He featured in many British propaganda/training films of World War II and after statutory retirement from the British Army his voice training meant he was able to do a lot of voice-overs for radio TV advertisements and some acting, usually playing a Sergeant Major in cameo roles; his carrying voice and impressive lung power aided by being lucky enough to be born not only with good musculature but an imposing six feet three inches of height.

As a training officer at Sandhurst, he was credited with popularising the maxim of NCOs, 'you 'orrible little man!' no matter that the Sandhurst cadets he terrified with one bellow (his nickname being, appropriately The Voice) were often princes and titled sons – one of the cadets was the greatly respected King Hussein of Jordan, who had acceded the throne at 16 and who, following Brittain's death, recalled (with great fondness) being bellowed at by RSM Brittain as 'you 'orrible little monarch!'

Such was the power of Brittain's voice that it is claimed that on one occasion, a regiment of soldiers on parade heard the RSM's order to 'Ten-Hut!' and snapped to attention even though they couldn't see anyone present – and the actual RSM who hadn't spoken had to tell them that they had actually heard RSM Brittain who was 'two miles away' at the time. Welsh actor Windsor Davies (b.1930-) based his portrayal of Battery Sergeant Major 'Shut Up!' Williams on RSM Brittain for the 1974-1981 British sitcom, It Ain't Half Hot Mum!

The current most famous 'RSM' is (deep breath) WO1 William D. G. 'Billy' Mott OBE MVO of the Welsh Guards, who is now the GSM – Garrison Sergeant Major of the Household Cavalry stationed at Buckingham Palace, the London residence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. WO1 is Warrant Officer 1st Class, OBE is Order of the British Empire and MVO is Member of the Victorian Order. He is 'Her Majesty's Ceremonial Warrant Officer'. More commonly known by wags in the Household Cavalry as 'God's unofficial representative on Earth!', 'Billy' Mott is claimed to be the new holder of the unofficial title of having the loudest voice in the British Army. He was the Queen's 'military point man' deeply involved in planning the ceremonial aspects of the funeral of H.M. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the current Queen's Golden Jubilee State Procession in 2002. Mott also organises the repatriation ceremonies for those killed in action in her H.M. Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He and his brother Major Nicholas Mott of the Welsh Guards were two of the eight pallbearers at the funeral of Lady Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first and so far only female Prime Minister, in April 2013.

The NCOs – or Sergeant Majors – were also central to the supposed dry wit of the enlisted 'lion' when it came to the 'donkey' officers, with exchanges such as those below, taken from From Aldershot to Aden: Tales from the Conscripts 1946-1962 by Colin Schindler:

NCO, usually SM or RSM: Did you shave this morning, Private?

Private: Sah! (i.e., 'yes')

NCO: and was there a blade in the razor!?

Private: Sah!

NCO: Well next time stand in the same bloody room as it!

Or this:

NCO: And what were you before you joined the [Army, Navy, Air Force]?

Cadet: Happy, Sar'nt Major!

Candy floss (UK) is Cotton Candy (USA)

Lino is 'linoleum' – a floor covering made from composite materials rather than actual wood, slate or stone – solidified plant or tree oil or ground up tree bark 'dust', mixed with mineral 'fillers' such as calcium carbonate and pasted on a piece of canvas or burlap sacking – it is very easy to add coloured dyes and pigments to these composites to create patterns and pictures. The best quality linoleum floors are very durable and flexible and can be used in buildings where more rigid flooring like slate or stone or ceramic tiles would crack or be unsuitable. It was invented by Frederick Walton (1834-1928) in 1855, and named by him as Linoleum which he invented by merging the Latin words -inum ("flax") and -oleum ("oil").

Part of the usefulness of linoleum was that Walton could make difference 'gauges' of flooring – thicker densities for heavy duty use in public buildings like colleges, hospitals, etc., and thinner types for use in the home or where there would not be a lot of heavy foot traffic. Linoleum was also much lighter, cheaper and easier to 'lay' than actual wood or slate/stone and easier to clean so rapidly became popular with the military, especially the British and American Navies who used it in place of wooden decks. He also invented a way to create decorative patterns and even 'embossed' linoleum, where a crest, or badge of office (like the Presidential Seal in the Oval Office carpet) could be created.

On 13th March 1996, paedophile Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 primary school children and their teacher at a school in Dunblane, Scotland. The atrocity sparked a popular media campaign against what was perceived to be the way Britain's burgeoning 'gun culture' was aping that of the United States where the 'right to bear arms' was enshrined in the Constitution of civil rights as the Second Amendment.

Although it rapidly became clear that Hamilton had obtained his pistols (handguns) because existing gun laws had not been properly enforced, rather than inadequate gun legislation, John Major's Government destroyed the UK's historic gun-ownership rights with an outright ban on owning handguns by private citizens. This rushed legislation was so badly worded that the British Commonwealth and Olympic Games Pistol Shooting Teams – regular gold medallists – were not permitted to own or fire a single bullet to train for competitions even in secure Gun Clubs. Competitors had to bear the cost of travelling to Switzerland, the biggest non-UK competitive pistol shooting country, or else if remaining in the UK to 'practise' with 'air pistols' that were described as 'walking around carrying a feather in each hand to prepare for having to carry an anvil in your arms'.

In the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph edition of 28th December 2001, a four-times Commonwealth Games gold medallist Pistol Shooter, RAF officer Michael Gault, and a police officer Colin Greenwood, both concurred and averred that the 'knee-jerk' legislation had been an abject failure, supported by crime statistics evidence as reported in the same newspaper on 11th January 2001 and 17th July 2001 which demonstrated that gun crime – with the use of illegally owned handguns predominating – had risen significantly since the post-Dunblane ban of 1996.

In 1998, 18 months after the handgun ban became law, and a year after coming to power as New Labour, the incoming Blair Government signed into law the Human Rights Act; a noble concept and admirable in theory, in practice the HRA was hijacked by Marxist Liberal vested interests and utilised by the burgeoning profiteering Legal Aid 'industry' amongst British lawyers, which effectively eviscerated the British Criminal Justice system and rendered it ineffectual by giving all the rights and power to criminals and leaving victims and law-abiding citizens to fend for themselves.

The combination of the ban on private citizens owning handguns and the HR Act meant that trafficking in illegal handguns spiralled upwards as criminals gleefully realised that law-abiding citizens had no legal way to own a handgun with which to defend their lives or their property and that even if they were caught, their prison 'sentence' would be derisory and served in an institution converted to have more in common with a luxury hotel than a place of penal servitude as prisons used to be like in the TV show Porridge.

Police officer Colin Greenwood stated that most police will admit off the record that handguns have never been cheaper or easier to obtain illegally since the post-Dunblane ban was enacted and that police forces have moved to a 'philosophical opposition' even to shotgun ownership with many farmers and sportsmen waiting months for certificates, whilst at the same time the police and government have done absolutely nothing to try and halt or drastically reduce the trafficking in illegal handguns – it is always easier, cheaper and faster to broad-spectrum punish the law-abiding citizenry than spend the effort, money and time necessary to constantly and consistently harass and prosecute illegal handgun trafficking. According to Colin Greenwood, gun crime statistics show that if British gun laws are designed to protect the law-abiding public majority from gun crime they are an 'utter failure', but if they are a deliberate secret Government policy of 'disarming law-abiding people for unclear motives, they can be said to be working well'.

One anonymous commentator on the gradually increasing prevalence of guns used in violent crimes, particularly amongst urban black youth immigrants from Second and Third World countries in black-on-black drug, human trafficking and gang crimes, claimed that the only real restraint against British criminals running amok with no fear of reprisals or that their law-abiding victims could defend themselves was, 'the long-standing culture amongst native Britons – by which I mean white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christian heterosexual nuclear families with married parents not on welfare, direct descents of the Celts and Vikings, so despised by the Hard Left – that gun-use is actually cowardly. We Brits like our violence up close and visceral – the crunch of knuckles to nose, the thwack of bat or blade against flesh, the spurt of bright blood and the mouth full of teeth and blood. One American colleague on a visit to the UK pointed out dryly that 'only in Britain is the guy who stands ten feet away and pulls a gun considered a wimpy wussy-pussy nancy nonce too weak and useless to flick a switchblade or knuckledusters and get stuck into the melee like a real man.' At this point, he's still right, but what should make us lie awake at night in a cold fugue sweat is the knowledge of what is likely to happen when the current feral underclass of white British kids grow up having spent their early lives absorbing a constant diet of violent American TV shows glorifying guns and aping the predominantly black immigrant African despot/Muslim fanatic gun culture of the street gangs that they now aspire to join and rule. Twenty years from now, it'll be a whole new crime scene, and having comprehensively made sure Britain's private citizens can't protect themselves or their families, the police and the Government have all but guaranteed a bloodbath.'

Either or both Taleban and Taliban are correct to describe the Afghani Muslim fundamentalist politico-religious group that ruled the country from September 1996 to December 2001.

Wolfgang Mozart's older sister was a child prodigy in her own right until eclipsed by her toddler brother. One researcher pointed out that scientists now know babies in the womb can hear sounds and recognise familiar repeated sounds, like their parents' voices; because of the musical nature of Leopold and his daughter's work, from the moment of conception, Wolfgang would have heard their music over and over again as they practised for public performances; Mozart was literally born already having learned many compositions, so his musical 'genius' was as much caused by Leopold and 'Nannerl' (his lifelong nicknamed for his sister) as with any independent creativity he possessed.

BME – in British Politically Correct speak this stands for 'black and ethnic minority'.

Ian Blair was the Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police at the same time that Tony Blair was Prime Minister – as far is as known the two men are not related to each other.

Illegitimi non carborundum also known as nil illegitimum carborundum is a pseudo-Latin aphorism that translates as 'don't let the bastards grind you down'. According to Wikipedia, lexicographer Eric Partridge (1894-1979) credited it to British Army Intelligence early in World War II (1941) at which point the phrase was adopted by US Army General Joseph 'Vinegar' Stillwell (1883-1946) as his personal motto during the War. Sometime during the 1940s it also became popular at the US Ivy League University Harvard, and by 1953 had been incorporated as the new first and third lines of the updated first verse of the 'unofficial' song, Ten Thousand Men of Harvard, a 'fight song' of the Harvard Marching Band, which had originally been written in 1914 by a student named Putnam:

Illegitimum non carborundum;

Domine salvum fac.

Illegitimum non carborundum;

Domine salvum fac.

Gaudeamus igitur!

Veritas non sequitur?

It was further re-popularized in the American public's imagination ten years after that in 1964 when it was used by US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in his election campaign. Perhaps because of that, although originating with the British Army, it has become popular as a real-life motto by several different United States' military units/services, as well as some civilian enterprises amongst others:

Echo Company, 1st Regiment, US Corps of Cadets: Foxtrot Company, 2nd Regiment, United States Corps of Cadets; the submarine USS Tunny; the University of Idaho Navy ROTC Drill Team; the USAF 490th 'Farsiders' Missile Squadron, Montana; 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), Washington State.

In US civilian life it is the motto of two newspapers in Alaska, the Nome Nugget and Whitehorse Star and the American newspaper comic strip Odd Bodkins. It is also the 'unofficial' motto of the US Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (university).

In the RAF it is the motto of the Nimrod Line Squadron