Long Live the King (1/2)
Title: Long Live the King
Author: hope_tang
Rating: PG
Spoiler Warning:The Reichenbach Fall
Warnings:
[(includes potential story spoilers; click to open)]
assumed major character death, discussion of violent crime, non-graphic violence and attempted murder(s), brief mention of off-screen harm to children
Summary: The seven or eight months After are hell. The seventeen months after that aren’t much better.
Disclaimer:Other than being a fan, I have nothing to do with Sherlock. I’m not even British…
Betas: As always, my gratitude goes to agent_bandit, powdered_opium, bluewillowtree, and dkwrkm for reading over this story multiple times. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
Author’s Note: This can be read independently, or as a sequel to Disjunctive Pieces.
The seven or eight months After are hell.
The seventeen months after that aren’t much better.
The entire CID force is put under a microscope by internal affairs for their conduct, professional and personal, over the past seven years. Secrets come out, old grudges come back to life, and it’s a bloody mess. The only thing that Greg can be thankful for is that the lead investigator on the inquiries is Victor Gates. He’s a hard-arsed chief inspector who runs a tight ship, but he and his squad are the type of investigators that every honest copper wants to stand trial in front of for a fair day in court.
Naturally, given his close association with-
Right, no need to state the obvious, is there?
When the inquiry hearings begin, he isn’t surprised that he is the first copper in the dock. With his union solicitors by his side, Greg threads the narrow gap in the horde of spectators and journalists on the pavement. The vultures push and jostle against the constables’ interlocked arms, but the human barricade holds firm. He locks gazes with the female sergeant on crowd control duty and hopes that is sufficient to convey his gratitude. With his head held high, Greg walks into the Yard to face a committee of five. Whilst the impromptu courtroom itself is secured-Scotland Yard personnel only-the transcripts will be a matter of public record. The political pressure is intense, with activists, politicians, and the public taking sides in the debate. The media is salivating over the possibility of a scapegoat for the Yard, namely him.
Greg faces the intense questioning with unwavering dignity. Even when his interrogators bring up his failed marriage, he answers with a quiet integrity that is difficult to ignore. He lets his work (their work) speak for itself. Yes, he utilized unconventional methods to solve cases, but the case evidence itself was always solid. No, he did not believe-he did not believe that the consultant, a former drug user, was involved in the commission of the crimes that he solved. Yes, he did suspect that the consultant, from time to time, did commit minor crimes in the course of the investigation. No, these crimes were never condoned and repeated citations were issued, though for reasons unknown, they never came to court. Yes, the consultant was…difficult to work with, less than civil, but- When time is of the essence, a police officer’s job is to protect the public by whatever means necessary, and with all tools at hand.
If that meant I called on the skills of a respected Forensic Science Society fellow with advanced degrees in chemistry, biology, and pathology, then that’s what I did. Sherlock Holmes was a bloody insulting genius, but he was also a good man. If doing my job to the best of my ability costs me my career, then that is the price I pay for helping to keep London safe for twenty-three years. I can live with that. It is, and has always been, an honour to serve and protect.
Despite, or perhaps because of, his honesty, Greg retains his position and his pension. He knows that he will never make DCI. Even before this, it never really mattered, but now… It doesn’t matter to him. He can carry on with the Job (the Work) better where he is, out on the streets, than behind a desk. He returns to an entire CID unit on edge, and a fractured team of constables and sergeants. The newest transfers in are understandably bewildered by recent events, and it’s hard to have a functioning squad that’s also under review by an inquiry board. People pitch in when they can, but Greg notices that extra bit of resentment around him. He ignores it. There is nothing he can do or say to change the situation-nothing he is willing to do, anyway.
Life goes on. He makes sure his constables aren’t tainted by association, and his sergeants perform their duties to the usual standards of high professionalism. For a couple of weeks, he fills his spare time with monitoring team dynamics instead of chasing down potential leads. He has no chief sergeant to keep the younger ones in line. He…needs the distraction. The constables are uneasy around him, but they continue to take their cues from his calm, patient demeanour. Unless it’s absolutely necessary to disturb him, the sergeants who know him better, and who trust him, give him a wide berth of privacy. It’s not the first time he has lost someone on his watch. It’s a hazard of the Job.
Sally Donovan is exonerated of any wrongdoing, rebuked for ‘conduct unbecoming,’ and assigned to transfer away to another team in another borough. The inquiry committee finds her investigation of Mr Sherlock Holmes justified, regardless of the tragic outcome. It also (grudgingly) commends her for continuing the Bruhl investigation until the actual perpetrator was apprehended.
The official reprimand is for her failure to prevent Dr Watson, formerly of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers, from assaulting Chief Superintendent Stanton. The journalists swallow the justification without comment. No one else does.
A censure for conduct unbecoming must be added to Detective Sergeant Donovan’s file for
her noted distraction in the course of performing her official duties.
In no way will this reprimand
impact her promising future with the Metropolitan Police Service.
In the face of public scrutiny, the committee frames her transfer as a ‘normal career progression’ that will ‘expand her investigative and leadership skills.’ In the official orders that land on his desk, the phrase ‘protective measure’ appears as the internal justification for this not-exile.
The Yard grapevine knows the black mark on her record is due to two factors.
The first is her persistence in clearing Sherlock Holmes as a suspect in the Bruhl case, even after she was put on garden leave and then enforced suspension.
The second is her alleged affair with David Anderson.
The commission has no actual evidence of this liaison-which both parties accused vehemently deny-besides the observations of a man they’re all on trial for listening to.
Irony, thy name is bureaucracy.
Greg blocks the reassignment.
He is not overruled.
(He doesn’t question why his superiors concur with his decision when they doubt his judgement for the past seven years; he merely accepts that his choice is accepted. He has little energy left for idle thoughts, these days, no room in his life for the mysteries that he does not have to solve.
He does not reach for the cigarettes in his desk drawer, or the bottle of scotch at home. He calls his sister instead, and asks after the family. He surrounds himself with his nieces and nephews because his own children are old enough not to need him, and his wife never did.
None of that confronts the guilt and grief that he carefully walls off in his mind.)
He calls Sally into his office for a quiet word.
Both of them are aware of the curious (and nervous) eyes watching their interactions. The newest transfers take their cues from their DI and his head Sergeant. She calls him “Sir”
and strictly enforces his orders with subdued professionalism. He calls her “Sergeant”
with his usual calm and forces himself to trust her to trust him. The old-timers watch and wait.
They know that all is not well, and might never be again between the mentor and the mentee.
The ensuing conversation is one he never wants to repeat again with any member of his team, but he worries when it’s done, and she stands up with her head held high and goes to run the Sergeants’ daily brief without a flicker of emotion. He senses that there is an edge to her now, an anger that drives her, and if she doesn’t find a way to channel it, the guilt will consume her. It’s not her fault that she is human. They all are. They saw what they were meant to see, and she figured it out a little too late. (A little too late is still too late; he’s still dead. Nothing I can do or say will-
We all could have made different choices. You shouldn’t have gone above my head. I should have brought you along and questioned him from the start. I know-knew how he would react, and… We pushed too hard, too fast.
No, Sir. I pushed the case. I didn’t-You’re my boss. I listen to you. End of story.
There’s a place for you here, Sergeant, if you want it. I’m not going to say that it’s going to be easy, you know it won’t be, but. You’ve watched my back. I can’t ignore that.
I didn’t do a very good job of it, Sir.
No, but we all make mistakes. None of us are perfect.
How many of us are- His work was everything to him. You and I both know that. None of us are perfect, but that doesn’t change the fact I went above your head. I didn’t listen to you.
You followed the evidence. Just like I’ve taught you. Just like he was always going on about. Hindsight is 20/20. More experienced coppers than us have cracked under the same political pressure.
That doesn’t matter now. It really doesn’t.
It does. Take your time before you make a major decision like this. If you still want to transfer out, I’ll make sure to put in a good-well, my word might not mean much anymore, but I won’t let you be sent out of CID like this. Look, he-he was my consultant. You’re one of my people. That means I’m responsible for you.) So she stays, and he watches her, and although she’s fine at work, he sees the way she holds herself at the scenes and on pub nights. He knows that he might need to intervene soon. Let the gossips say what they will about his reason for keeping her on his team,
out of a need to punish her wrongs, to preserve his reputation, to warm his bed like she supposedly warmed Anderson’s; everyone has their own reasons and answers to the question that neither she nor he ever intend to answer:
How can they still stand the sight of each other?
he is responsible for protecting his people. As their inspector, he is in charge of making sure they do their jobs, and in return, he watches their backs: at crime scenes, on arrests, and with the brass. He is their mentor, their rock, and their shield. He will save them from themselves, if he has to.
He’s failed at that once. He’s not going to fail again.
Two months after (five months After) they’re both back on duty, a man’s body is found on the shores of the Thames. The death is ruled a suicide.
He waits two days and then he sends her to counselling. It might ruin
her career prospects, but they both understand: she needs it.
She goes.
~
In response to the media outcry,
The Met: corrupt and incompetent?
Murder-Suicide? Actor and Yard consultant both found dead
Human rights groups demand police accountability
Sherlock Holmes: police consultant, criminal mastermind?
Yard consultant driven to suicide at St Barts
Thousands of criminal convictions suspect
Genius, faker, or both?
the Commissioner assembles a ‘Professional Conduct Inquiry Board’ to review the CID’s cases for the past seven years. Every case this unit has worked, even the ones judged too dull and pedestrian to merit Sherlock Holmes’ attention, are reopened and examined in excruciating detail. The Commissioner isn’t foolish enough to appoint an internal committee or an all-civilian board; no, that would start a field day on the Yard. Instead, officers from other CIDs are “volunteered” to work alongside Crown Prosecutors and carefully selected civilians from various police watchdog groups. None of these members have any reason to be particularly friendly to the unit-the Met officers must uphold the institution’s professional integrity; the Crown Prosecutors wish to avoid the publicity nightmare of multiple miscarriages of justice, and the civilian watchdogs are on alert for any scent of blood.
The commission’s review drags on for months, and the media eventually lose interest. The CNN Effect, as those American researchers had coined it, means that there are always other, more scandalous news items to shock the public imagination. The entire Holmes scandal becomes another old headline buried in the musty archives of university collections and library holdings. The commission plods on, but the officers have better things to do, the Crown Prosecutors still have to show up in court, and the civilians just want the ability to sleep through the damn night again without screaming nightmares at 3am.
Nearly thirteen months After to the day, the Professional Conduct Inquiry Board’s findings are quietly released into public record. There is no major media announcement, and not a single journalist highlights the press release. The official report exonerates the Metropolitan Police Service of any wrongdoing and recommends upholding the statuses of all the cases reviewed. In conjunction with another review conducted by the Crown Prosecution Service, the commission concludes that there is no compelling reason for mandatory re-trials for any of the convictions obtained in the relevant cases. The committee finds inconclusive evidence to support the accusation that Sherlock Holmes was a fraud. (They do conclude he was a dick bastard, but that’s not news to anyone who ever met the man.) So that’s… that.
Life has gone on.
Except for those who cared about him.
Even if they won’t admit it.
No one pays any attention to a University College London science and society student who downloads a copy of the entire report within the week. She is a nobody-an idealistic, persistent nobody who is involved in a bit of investigating into the life of Richard Brook: successful actor, murder victim…except her brief foray into the man’s career, an academic flirtation (if you will), turns into something else. She has a scholarly-trained mind, and when her research goes from ‘the life of Richard Brook’ into ‘the existence of Richard Brook,’ Helen Wilkinson follows the evidence. No one pays attention.
That is, until two months later, when her attempted murder in broad daylight, right outside of King’s Cross and St. Pancreas, brings her to the attention of the authorities.
The first Detective Inspector on scene is Greg Lestrade.
Eventually, the case is assigned to Detective Inspector Amanda Whitney’s MIT.
The subsequent police investigation and mysterious leakage of her scathing critique on modern investigative journalism standards (part of her undergraduate thesis) to the major London news outlets, thrusts Sherlock Holmes back into the spotlight, sixteen months after his-death. If she survives her injuries, Ms Wilkinson might never have a journalism career after taking the entire field to task, but she now has friends in the law enforcement community who would be interested in speaking to her.
Once the media digs its teeth into the subject, the existence and life of Richard Brook crumbles like a house of cards. The same harsh spotlight that branded one man a fake, a charlatan of the highest order, finds that his accuser is no better. People decry the hasty nature of public opinion, as if they carry no guilt in the death of an innocent man.
(The press vilifies Kitty Riley. She claims that she has received death threats and that the authorities have refused to protect her. Only one of those claims is true. The investigating officers wish they could drink whiskey on duty.
Sally receives multiple death threats, at the office, at her flat, at her sister’s place. She ignores them. She handles one mugger who thinks that a single woman walking home at night can’t possibly defend herself. Greg puts in a request for a small protective detail and talks her into a temporary relocation, at least until the vultures disappear.
John rings her out of the blue, and whatever the ex-RAMC soldier says is enough to convince her to disappear into the back of a dark, unmarked car. Greg tells Mycroft to protect his ex-wife and in-laws out in Dorset, his children in Edinburgh and Cambridge, and then to leave him the hell alone. He has been a police officer for nearly twenty-five years. He can handle the press.
For the next two months, Greg pretends that he doesn’t notice the protective detail on his flat.)
The people closest to him, the ones who have struggled to move on in the After, none of them have any comment.
They’ve always known the truth.
PART II
Author: hope_tang
Rating: PG
Spoiler Warning:The Reichenbach Fall
Warnings:
[(includes potential story spoilers; click to open)]
assumed major character death, discussion of violent crime, non-graphic violence and attempted murder(s), brief mention of off-screen harm to children
Summary: The seven or eight months After are hell. The seventeen months after that aren’t much better.
Disclaimer:Other than being a fan, I have nothing to do with Sherlock. I’m not even British…
Betas: As always, my gratitude goes to agent_bandit, powdered_opium, bluewillowtree, and dkwrkm for reading over this story multiple times. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
Author’s Note: This can be read independently, or as a sequel to Disjunctive Pieces.
The seven or eight months After are hell.
The seventeen months after that aren’t much better.
The entire CID force is put under a microscope by internal affairs for their conduct, professional and personal, over the past seven years. Secrets come out, old grudges come back to life, and it’s a bloody mess. The only thing that Greg can be thankful for is that the lead investigator on the inquiries is Victor Gates. He’s a hard-arsed chief inspector who runs a tight ship, but he and his squad are the type of investigators that every honest copper wants to stand trial in front of for a fair day in court.
Naturally, given his close association with-
Right, no need to state the obvious, is there?
When the inquiry hearings begin, he isn’t surprised that he is the first copper in the dock. With his union solicitors by his side, Greg threads the narrow gap in the horde of spectators and journalists on the pavement. The vultures push and jostle against the constables’ interlocked arms, but the human barricade holds firm. He locks gazes with the female sergeant on crowd control duty and hopes that is sufficient to convey his gratitude. With his head held high, Greg walks into the Yard to face a committee of five. Whilst the impromptu courtroom itself is secured-Scotland Yard personnel only-the transcripts will be a matter of public record. The political pressure is intense, with activists, politicians, and the public taking sides in the debate. The media is salivating over the possibility of a scapegoat for the Yard, namely him.
Greg faces the intense questioning with unwavering dignity. Even when his interrogators bring up his failed marriage, he answers with a quiet integrity that is difficult to ignore. He lets his work (their work) speak for itself. Yes, he utilized unconventional methods to solve cases, but the case evidence itself was always solid. No, he did not believe-he did not believe that the consultant, a former drug user, was involved in the commission of the crimes that he solved. Yes, he did suspect that the consultant, from time to time, did commit minor crimes in the course of the investigation. No, these crimes were never condoned and repeated citations were issued, though for reasons unknown, they never came to court. Yes, the consultant was…difficult to work with, less than civil, but- When time is of the essence, a police officer’s job is to protect the public by whatever means necessary, and with all tools at hand.
If that meant I called on the skills of a respected Forensic Science Society fellow with advanced degrees in chemistry, biology, and pathology, then that’s what I did. Sherlock Holmes was a bloody insulting genius, but he was also a good man. If doing my job to the best of my ability costs me my career, then that is the price I pay for helping to keep London safe for twenty-three years. I can live with that. It is, and has always been, an honour to serve and protect.
Despite, or perhaps because of, his honesty, Greg retains his position and his pension. He knows that he will never make DCI. Even before this, it never really mattered, but now… It doesn’t matter to him. He can carry on with the Job (the Work) better where he is, out on the streets, than behind a desk. He returns to an entire CID unit on edge, and a fractured team of constables and sergeants. The newest transfers in are understandably bewildered by recent events, and it’s hard to have a functioning squad that’s also under review by an inquiry board. People pitch in when they can, but Greg notices that extra bit of resentment around him. He ignores it. There is nothing he can do or say to change the situation-nothing he is willing to do, anyway.
Life goes on. He makes sure his constables aren’t tainted by association, and his sergeants perform their duties to the usual standards of high professionalism. For a couple of weeks, he fills his spare time with monitoring team dynamics instead of chasing down potential leads. He has no chief sergeant to keep the younger ones in line. He…needs the distraction. The constables are uneasy around him, but they continue to take their cues from his calm, patient demeanour. Unless it’s absolutely necessary to disturb him, the sergeants who know him better, and who trust him, give him a wide berth of privacy. It’s not the first time he has lost someone on his watch. It’s a hazard of the Job.
Sally Donovan is exonerated of any wrongdoing, rebuked for ‘conduct unbecoming,’ and assigned to transfer away to another team in another borough. The inquiry committee finds her investigation of Mr Sherlock Holmes justified, regardless of the tragic outcome. It also (grudgingly) commends her for continuing the Bruhl investigation until the actual perpetrator was apprehended.
The official reprimand is for her failure to prevent Dr Watson, formerly of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers, from assaulting Chief Superintendent Stanton. The journalists swallow the justification without comment. No one else does.
A censure for conduct unbecoming must be added to Detective Sergeant Donovan’s file for
her noted distraction in the course of performing her official duties.
In no way will this reprimand
impact her promising future with the Metropolitan Police Service.
In the face of public scrutiny, the committee frames her transfer as a ‘normal career progression’ that will ‘expand her investigative and leadership skills.’ In the official orders that land on his desk, the phrase ‘protective measure’ appears as the internal justification for this not-exile.
The Yard grapevine knows the black mark on her record is due to two factors.
The first is her persistence in clearing Sherlock Holmes as a suspect in the Bruhl case, even after she was put on garden leave and then enforced suspension.
The second is her alleged affair with David Anderson.
The commission has no actual evidence of this liaison-which both parties accused vehemently deny-besides the observations of a man they’re all on trial for listening to.
Irony, thy name is bureaucracy.
Greg blocks the reassignment.
He is not overruled.
(He doesn’t question why his superiors concur with his decision when they doubt his judgement for the past seven years; he merely accepts that his choice is accepted. He has little energy left for idle thoughts, these days, no room in his life for the mysteries that he does not have to solve.
He does not reach for the cigarettes in his desk drawer, or the bottle of scotch at home. He calls his sister instead, and asks after the family. He surrounds himself with his nieces and nephews because his own children are old enough not to need him, and his wife never did.
None of that confronts the guilt and grief that he carefully walls off in his mind.)
He calls Sally into his office for a quiet word.
Both of them are aware of the curious (and nervous) eyes watching their interactions. The newest transfers take their cues from their DI and his head Sergeant. She calls him “Sir”
and strictly enforces his orders with subdued professionalism. He calls her “Sergeant”
with his usual calm and forces himself to trust her to trust him. The old-timers watch and wait.
They know that all is not well, and might never be again between the mentor and the mentee.
The ensuing conversation is one he never wants to repeat again with any member of his team, but he worries when it’s done, and she stands up with her head held high and goes to run the Sergeants’ daily brief without a flicker of emotion. He senses that there is an edge to her now, an anger that drives her, and if she doesn’t find a way to channel it, the guilt will consume her. It’s not her fault that she is human. They all are. They saw what they were meant to see, and she figured it out a little too late. (A little too late is still too late; he’s still dead. Nothing I can do or say will-
We all could have made different choices. You shouldn’t have gone above my head. I should have brought you along and questioned him from the start. I know-knew how he would react, and… We pushed too hard, too fast.
No, Sir. I pushed the case. I didn’t-You’re my boss. I listen to you. End of story.
There’s a place for you here, Sergeant, if you want it. I’m not going to say that it’s going to be easy, you know it won’t be, but. You’ve watched my back. I can’t ignore that.
I didn’t do a very good job of it, Sir.
No, but we all make mistakes. None of us are perfect.
How many of us are- His work was everything to him. You and I both know that. None of us are perfect, but that doesn’t change the fact I went above your head. I didn’t listen to you.
You followed the evidence. Just like I’ve taught you. Just like he was always going on about. Hindsight is 20/20. More experienced coppers than us have cracked under the same political pressure.
That doesn’t matter now. It really doesn’t.
It does. Take your time before you make a major decision like this. If you still want to transfer out, I’ll make sure to put in a good-well, my word might not mean much anymore, but I won’t let you be sent out of CID like this. Look, he-he was my consultant. You’re one of my people. That means I’m responsible for you.) So she stays, and he watches her, and although she’s fine at work, he sees the way she holds herself at the scenes and on pub nights. He knows that he might need to intervene soon. Let the gossips say what they will about his reason for keeping her on his team,
out of a need to punish her wrongs, to preserve his reputation, to warm his bed like she supposedly warmed Anderson’s; everyone has their own reasons and answers to the question that neither she nor he ever intend to answer:
How can they still stand the sight of each other?
he is responsible for protecting his people. As their inspector, he is in charge of making sure they do their jobs, and in return, he watches their backs: at crime scenes, on arrests, and with the brass. He is their mentor, their rock, and their shield. He will save them from themselves, if he has to.
He’s failed at that once. He’s not going to fail again.
Two months after (five months After) they’re both back on duty, a man’s body is found on the shores of the Thames. The death is ruled a suicide.
He waits two days and then he sends her to counselling. It might ruin
her career prospects, but they both understand: she needs it.
She goes.
~
In response to the media outcry,
The Met: corrupt and incompetent?
Murder-Suicide? Actor and Yard consultant both found dead
Human rights groups demand police accountability
Sherlock Holmes: police consultant, criminal mastermind?
Yard consultant driven to suicide at St Barts
Thousands of criminal convictions suspect
Genius, faker, or both?
the Commissioner assembles a ‘Professional Conduct Inquiry Board’ to review the CID’s cases for the past seven years. Every case this unit has worked, even the ones judged too dull and pedestrian to merit Sherlock Holmes’ attention, are reopened and examined in excruciating detail. The Commissioner isn’t foolish enough to appoint an internal committee or an all-civilian board; no, that would start a field day on the Yard. Instead, officers from other CIDs are “volunteered” to work alongside Crown Prosecutors and carefully selected civilians from various police watchdog groups. None of these members have any reason to be particularly friendly to the unit-the Met officers must uphold the institution’s professional integrity; the Crown Prosecutors wish to avoid the publicity nightmare of multiple miscarriages of justice, and the civilian watchdogs are on alert for any scent of blood.
The commission’s review drags on for months, and the media eventually lose interest. The CNN Effect, as those American researchers had coined it, means that there are always other, more scandalous news items to shock the public imagination. The entire Holmes scandal becomes another old headline buried in the musty archives of university collections and library holdings. The commission plods on, but the officers have better things to do, the Crown Prosecutors still have to show up in court, and the civilians just want the ability to sleep through the damn night again without screaming nightmares at 3am.
Nearly thirteen months After to the day, the Professional Conduct Inquiry Board’s findings are quietly released into public record. There is no major media announcement, and not a single journalist highlights the press release. The official report exonerates the Metropolitan Police Service of any wrongdoing and recommends upholding the statuses of all the cases reviewed. In conjunction with another review conducted by the Crown Prosecution Service, the commission concludes that there is no compelling reason for mandatory re-trials for any of the convictions obtained in the relevant cases. The committee finds inconclusive evidence to support the accusation that Sherlock Holmes was a fraud. (They do conclude he was a dick bastard, but that’s not news to anyone who ever met the man.) So that’s… that.
Life has gone on.
Except for those who cared about him.
Even if they won’t admit it.
No one pays any attention to a University College London science and society student who downloads a copy of the entire report within the week. She is a nobody-an idealistic, persistent nobody who is involved in a bit of investigating into the life of Richard Brook: successful actor, murder victim…except her brief foray into the man’s career, an academic flirtation (if you will), turns into something else. She has a scholarly-trained mind, and when her research goes from ‘the life of Richard Brook’ into ‘the existence of Richard Brook,’ Helen Wilkinson follows the evidence. No one pays attention.
That is, until two months later, when her attempted murder in broad daylight, right outside of King’s Cross and St. Pancreas, brings her to the attention of the authorities.
The first Detective Inspector on scene is Greg Lestrade.
Eventually, the case is assigned to Detective Inspector Amanda Whitney’s MIT.
The subsequent police investigation and mysterious leakage of her scathing critique on modern investigative journalism standards (part of her undergraduate thesis) to the major London news outlets, thrusts Sherlock Holmes back into the spotlight, sixteen months after his-death. If she survives her injuries, Ms Wilkinson might never have a journalism career after taking the entire field to task, but she now has friends in the law enforcement community who would be interested in speaking to her.
Once the media digs its teeth into the subject, the existence and life of Richard Brook crumbles like a house of cards. The same harsh spotlight that branded one man a fake, a charlatan of the highest order, finds that his accuser is no better. People decry the hasty nature of public opinion, as if they carry no guilt in the death of an innocent man.
(The press vilifies Kitty Riley. She claims that she has received death threats and that the authorities have refused to protect her. Only one of those claims is true. The investigating officers wish they could drink whiskey on duty.
Sally receives multiple death threats, at the office, at her flat, at her sister’s place. She ignores them. She handles one mugger who thinks that a single woman walking home at night can’t possibly defend herself. Greg puts in a request for a small protective detail and talks her into a temporary relocation, at least until the vultures disappear.
John rings her out of the blue, and whatever the ex-RAMC soldier says is enough to convince her to disappear into the back of a dark, unmarked car. Greg tells Mycroft to protect his ex-wife and in-laws out in Dorset, his children in Edinburgh and Cambridge, and then to leave him the hell alone. He has been a police officer for nearly twenty-five years. He can handle the press.
For the next two months, Greg pretends that he doesn’t notice the protective detail on his flat.)
The people closest to him, the ones who have struggled to move on in the After, none of them have any comment.
They’ve always known the truth.
PART II