Jim giggled and got into the back seat. Oh dear what was his driver's name again? Sebastien, Seb, Syd? Whatever, his workforce, his giggle his staff their names were as endless as they were meaningless.

'Good date, Sir?' asked his driver

'Oh the best! Simply the best!' Jim decided to elaborate, 'Have you ever had that feeling? That excited feeling? Why I think I have butterflies in my stomach! I think…I think things have just gotten….INTERESTING!'

Syd, it was Syd thank you very much but with a boss like Moriarty it hardly mattered his name changed with the boss' mood, eyed his boss quizzically. He had to be careful here one word out of place one question too many and this bonhomie could turn deadly.

'Care to share sir?' Syd was feeling bold tonight.

'You know I never kiss and tell, Steve,' A sigh, he was bored with this conversation already.

'Home' he directed, 'I need to go home and sleep.'

Syd nodded and watched his boss relax in the backseat. He was reminded of a trip to the zoo with his ex-wife and his daughter, they had all gathered around the Ocelot display. Smaller than the other big cats by far but more beautiful they had watched with rapt attention as the cat laid out and stretched in the unusually hot and sunny summer weather. Uncoiled, yes his boss possessed that same feral magnetism and right now some invisible change in the atmosphere had caused him to relax.

Sherlock had various organic and inorganic samples he needed to analyse and despite his persistent attempts at installing his own medical laboratory (items sourced via legitimate and not so legitimate channels) Mrs Hudson would not be moved.

'Sherlock, think of what it would do to the property value, no one wants to move into the bloody morgue!'

He stared, her mouth twitched at the corners.

'Well almost no one… Anyway I'm off! Bingo waits for no one. Oh did I tell you?'

Again Sherlock stared at his landlady with an utterly ice cold expression.

Mrs. Hudson recoiled slightly, 'It's an over 65 bingo and whisky tasting singles mixer!'

This elicited a blink, 'Well I left part of a ham joint in the fridge if you get hungry. '

She left and all was blessedly silent. Her presence never failed to remind him of a garish 1970s afghan throw his mother's sister (his aunt, though he could never bring himself to call her as such) had given him for Christmas one year. His worst ever Christmas present. Sometimes now when she spoke he pictured that throw talking to him and even animated it was still deadly dull and insipid.

A knock at the door broke his reverie.

'John?'

'I've just had a call from the lab,' John paused waiting for his heart to stop beating frantically in his chest, 'And Molly's missing Sherlock, she didn't come into work, didn't call, and won't answer her phone.'