"No, send that to the pink phone. Can people please stop getting confused? This is the biggest, the most intricate, the most fecking impressive thing I have ever put together. Whoever makes a balls of it for me will suffer torments that would make Lucifer wince like it's all a bit much. Is that in any way unclear?"

Moran and Danielle glance at each other. They have this snide little way of talking without actually talking. Now, I could honestly care less what people say about me behind my back. I'd just rather they didn't do it in front of me. I'd overlook it if they hadn't been so completely out of order. Moran was about send the picture of 221C to Sherlock's personal mobile. Which, for one, completely blows us for later on and for another, what was the point of sending him the pink one?

Well, alright, to put him on the back foot, hopefully scare some little ray of living daylight out of him, but mostly it's to keep us, this end, these numbers, untraceable. You know how it is. You're blowing people up and you're making your point and you're teasing this arrogant sod of a detective all around the town and then, oops, oh no, you've been arrested because your twat of a mate sent a picture to the wrong fecking phone. I would like those who are assisting me to get things right.

Do you know what went in to even getting that photograph? Don't even talk to me about the shoes. There's a whole other novel could be written about getting those shoes. Then I had to decide where I wanted them. Accessible, but meaningful but not so meaningful that all the places that follow on would pale in the comparison. Finally settle on that, that's fine, right? Then I have to get them in there. Which meant sending Dani to break in, plant them, and lock the door on her way out again. It also meant giving her the work phone so she could take the all-important photograph itself. Do you know what it's like, being separated from the work phone on a day like this? Do you? Because you don't know stress until you know this?

It also meant trusting her to set up the transmitter trigger on the doorframe so that we'll know when they're actually in the room, and in such a way that His Highness isn't going to notice it. (I can only hope he has enough sense to worry that the door's rigged to blow; that might distract him.)

All that. All that for one photograph. One photograph that Moran nearly just used to damn us all.

…That's it. He's a liability. I'm going to kill him now, before he does any more damage. It'll hurt me, yes, but it has to be done.

Danielle raises her eyebrows at me. "That's your murder face," she states. "Hard day at the office, dear?"

I could give you another couple of pages on the trials of working in hospital IT. I won't. I won't inflict that on you. I won't put myself through the horror of recounting it. Long story short, she shouldn't be taking the piss out of me right now. She really shouldn't. I can run the rest of this alone. It'll only take a couple of days too; I can just put their bodies in the bath until I've got time to take care of it.

"Picture's sent," Moran says. Then adds, in his very prissiest voice, "To the pink phone, thank you."

I start out of my armchair toward him. Danielle stands up between us. Rather than shove past her I stop where I am. "Seb, go and set up the computer so we can talk to the pager. Jim, you've got time for a coffee."

"I'm fine," I tell her. "It's just that this is very important and if it's not perfect then it's nothing. If it's not perfect it's just shite. And I just don't think-"

"I think you've got time for a coffee, that's all."

She's got the machine on before I can say anymore to her. There's just this trace of a smell that makes me want to forgive the insubordination, just let her get on with it. "It's Holmes," I say, while I'm waiting.

With utter patience, "I know."

"It has to be perfect."

"And it will be. You've got it too well planned."

"Take your intervention voice off."

"Did you see Hooper today?"

Yes. We had lunch together, down in the canteen. Which is a rip-off, but it's a nice place to meet and it makes it easier to skive for a bit more than the allocated half-hour. She was all giggly today, bless her heart. Her and her big military-operation of a plan to introduce me to Holmes. God'll forgive me, but I was sitting there and all I could think was that she put weight on. Pains me to admit it, but I actually wondered if there was something she wasn't telling me, something she was comfort eating over. And then we got up to leave and… My head hits the kitchen table. "Aw, Dani, I'm supposed to meet her tonight, why did I say that?"

"Because you're giving Holmes twelve hours over the shoes and if you sit around here you're going to be unbearable with the waiting?"

"Shut up or I'm going to kill you." There's a clunk. The sound could almost be that she had a full mug of coffee in her hand and she set it down, just too hard. But her back is to me. Whatever made the noise is on the far side of her. And I have other things on my mind. "I need her to bring me to Holmes." There's this very slight crunching noise. Maybe she was angry enough to crack my marble worktops. She better stay angry enough to fight gravity because she could find herself going out the window soon enough.

But then she stands back with a spoon in her hand and coaxes something over the edge with a crooked finger. "What're you doing?"

"Making you coffee, remember?"

So I drop it, because if anybody talks again there'll be issues. "Here," I say, and hold my phone out to her. Not the work one, that's still through in the living room. Not my personal one, that's locked in the office so I won't use it by accident. No, this is my IT man's phone, full of false contacts and people from the hospital. Disgusting little thing. Just technological enough to feasibly belong to an IT man, carefully busted up enough to match his wage packet. I hate it. But this is the number Molly… Doctor Hooper has for me. "Here, take this. You'll know what to say. Get me out of it. Be charming."

She gives me my coffee, but will not take the phone. "She's your girlfriend. Think of something; it'll relax you."

"Go and make sure all the connections are set up. Us to the girl in the jacket, her to the pink phone, pagers, mobiles, transmitters. And God help you if you refuse to be useful to me one more time."

She leaves the room with her fists clench-and-releasing, as though she's squeezing the blood out of two hearts. Feeling much the same way, I look down at the phone on the table. Can't go out with M… with Hooper, tonight, can't do it. I'd like to, actually, we were going to the pictures, but can't. What if I get another trigger during the film? Can't stand in a lobby and send these messages, can I? Not when there's some poor sod in a Semtex waistcoat out there. I wouldn't be doing him justice, would I?

Well, let's just be honest with her. As I start in on the coffee (which, to give the grumpy cow her dues, is not half bad), I compose.

Can't come out tonight. Playing with your other boyfriend. Sorry. x

That's not going to work. Maybe next date I have to cancel. Depends what exactly Holmes reads into me when we're introduced. One way or another I probably won't be seeing an awful lot of Molly Hooper after that. I save it, just in case it ends badly. I'll send it to her if the two of them give me reason to be cruel.

Can't make it for movie tonight. Feeling awful. And then, again, Sorry. x

Yeah. That'll work, won't it? I send that and kick back to wait. And wait. That clock's slow. It keeps doing this lately. It creeps along. The second hand is ticking around, but too slow. I get up from the table, take it down from the wall. Giving it a shake doesn't work either. So I put it in the bin and take my coffee through to the desk. Moran is just finishing up. Danielle is smoking out the window and drops the cigarette when she sees me, like she's just been caught in the school toilets all over again.

"Feeling better?"

"Little bit. Is this different coffee? It tastes different."

Moran, with just this little touch of a snide, derisive laugh, "Yeah, that's the good stuff."

"Piss off," I say, and I'm surprised at myself for actually joining in and interacting. "Like you're such a connoisseur."

Smug as can be, he fires back, "What'd you tell the Angel Hooper?"

"Cried off ill." Danielle makes this little noise in the back of her throat. "Well, it could have been something elegant and turned around to be romantic and suave, but you wouldn't help."

"Were you ill at lunch?" she asks, and of course I have to say no. "Did she eat the same as you at lunch?" and I have to say yes, starting to see where she's taking this. "And it's about the sort of time where she would have already been fixing herself up to meet you. Yes, charming and suave, in spades…"

"Shite… What part of the bit where I told you how much I still need her went past you."

"Don't overreact. Just remember to sound sick when she phones."

"Nah, she'll just text back. She doesn't like talking on the phone that much."

Shaking her head like I'm supposed to know these things, "You're ill. Of course she'll call." Is that how it works? Surely Hooper couldn't care enough about me for all that, could she? Then again, this is Dani we're talking about, and they do say tramps give the best relationship advice…

"Moran, do you think she'll call?"

"You stood her up by text. Wonder she's not on the phone already." As he says this, he is finally getting up out of my seat. As I sit down, I am newly distracted with a whole brace of coroner-related problems that weren't there before. I did not need this. I didn't need any of this right now.

I left my coffee on the windowsill. Danielle brings it over. One hand sets it down at my elbow, the other slaps the back of Moran's head. "Stop talking," she tells him. Tells me, "And you, stop worrying. This is the first contact. And yes, it's the hardest part, but in a couple of minutes it will all be over and-" My phone buzzes on the desk. I pick it up before it even gets to bleep. A text. Just a text, that's all. It's grand. It's all fine, all grand, all absolutely fine…

"Ha!" and I lift it up to show them. "See? 'No worries', she says. See?"

"No worries and a smiley face so you know she's not angry?" says Moran. And, well, no, no, there's no smiley face.

Dani chimes in. "No worries and a sad face so you'll know she's disappointed and sorry you're not feeling great?" It's not that either, though.

"No worries and a couple of Xs, at least, Jim, come on.

After a long enough pause to show that everyone in the room is worried, "No worries and one X?"

A final time, I have to shake my head no. Moran falls away into the sofa, "There's an ex here now, alright."

"Oh, James," sighs the one who wouldn't help and who I'm perfectly content to blame this on. Somehow, when I put my phone down, the mug is right there. If they thought I need this before, they've got no idea now.

It really does taste different, though, this coffee. Nice. Mellow, very full. I'm nearly sure this isn't something I had in the cupboard, y'know. The warmth of it seems to spread out through me, more relaxing than anything so highly caffeinated ought to be.

By the time the tips of my fingers start to tingle, I can't even be angry about it. Can only smile round at Danielle, pointing at it, "This is drugged."

"Don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm not annoyed at you, I think it's a stellar idea, love. How are you, by the way? I never asked when I got in. Never asked you either, Sebby," and I jog his shoulder so he'll know I'm talking to him, "How was your day?"

Over my head, he asks her, "What did you give him?"

When I look round, she miming, holding up thumb and forefinger to mean 'tiny little bit of something', but her hand flashes back down when she sees me looking. Says again, "Nothing."

"Then what's that on your shoe?" I ask her. Can't help but grin. I've got her now. There's a very fine sprinkling of pale blue dust. She crushed something against the worktop, remember? Then she scooped it off into the spoon, and a little bit of it got on her black patent shoe. Silly girl, got her now. Still, she breezes, "No idea what you're all on about. Jim, do try and concentrate, darling. Time for Holmes, any minute now."

"Oh, aye, right." I straighten up in my chair. Position myself properly at the keyboard. Prepare myself to speak in little fragments, little pager-friendly sentences. This is going to be dead straightforward. I'm going to address him professionally. Calmly. We'll do this like officers and gentlemen, him and I. I will be the picture of quiet grace. Just have to wait for the trigger now.

We are, all three of us, all waiting for it. And as nice as I might be feeling right now, we-all-three-of-us jump about a foot in the air when something on my computer rings like a bright little bell.

This is it, this is it, oh, finally, contact with him, this is… this is a chatbox from Molly Hooper in another window where the other me left himself logged on.

Hello? it says.

Less than a second after that appears, the device on the door at Baker Street goes off. The work phone starts to call the pink phone, patching in the earpiece on the woman with the bomb on her, I think. I don't know anymore. Because I do need Hooper, remember? I was thinking about that.

"It's okay," I mumble, mostly to myself. "The phone hooks through twelve different relays between us and him. It won't even be ringing for another thirty seconds. I can answer Molly before I even have to think about answering him. It'll be fine. Oh, but then I don't want to look like I was just sitting here at the bloody computer, I mean, I'm supposed to be sick, aren't I?"

"Jim-" says Moran, and he's got this little touch of a warning in his voice.

"Relax," I tell him. Give him my coffee, "Here, finish this, chill the fuck out. I've got time to answer Molly, yes I do." As I'm typing to her, "Hello-"

"Jim!" Dani yelps. Needs to take one of her own pills, that girl…

"-sexy, and send. There!" In the reflection of the screen, I watch Danielle drop her head into her hands. Moran reels away as if he just can't watch. "What? What's the matter with you all?"

But before they can answer me, the line to the pink phone is connected. A slight pause, and then Holmes' voice says, 'Hello?'

The cracking, choked voice of a woman far away from us answers him, "Hello, sexy."

Oh yes. Oh, that's professional. That's calm. That's gentlemanly, and behaviour becoming to an officer. Oh, God, my first words to him, Hello, sexy, oh my sweet burning Christ…

Then something strikes me. It's either madness or brilliance. Honestly, I don't care which. There's not enough room between the two for it to make any difference. Anyway, I'm in this now. What's done is done and all that.

I start to prepare the rest of the message. I've left you a little puzzle, just to say hi.

"What're you doing?" Moran moans. "Stop while you can."

"In for a penny," I tell him, "In for a pound."

I have to stop this elegant composition of mine to tell Holmes, I'm not crying, I'm typing, and this stupid bitch is reading it out.

"You asked me once," Danielle is ruefully whispering, as though her very soul had been harrowed up by this whole thing. But she's talking to Moran and not me, so it's not like I have to pay her any attention. "You asked me, do you remember, what it would take to make him flirt? Turns out the answer is 'half a Valium'…"

"You fucking lightweight," he mutters at me.

Twelve hours, I'm telling the great detective, to solve my puzzle, Sherlock. The next part is typed. Dani crashes down from the windowsill to hang on the back of my chair, "Oh, Jim, Jim, no, you can't be serious, just think about this-"and squeals "No!" as I send again

Or I'm going to be so naughty.

There, I cut the call. Get up from the computer. Sort of wave at it, "Someone comfort Hooper." One of them is murmuring that they might cry. Hard to tell which, hard to care. They should lighten up, shouldn't they? "Someone wake me up if he solves it. Nighty-night."