Desperate (8/9)
BBC Sherlock
Rating 15 (explicit slash, swearing)
Summary: Greg's not quite as alone as he thought he was.
Many thanks to The Small Hobbit for betaing.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.
The next nasty surprise was the door-stepping. Though Greg should probably have expected that, he supposed. Every newspaper was desperate to get their own follow-up scoop on Sherlock, and he'd been pictured enough at Sherlock's side to be an obvious possible source. A pack of reporters followed him down the street as he went off to the supermarket the next day, yelling repeated offers at him "to tell his side of the story".
He knew better than to trust any of them. He switched off his phone, picked up a week's load of supplies, and headed back to the flat to wait out the siege. They could make up stories without his help, thank you very much. He wasn't going to have his words twisted to harm Sherlock or the Met.
He watched television, but not the news; found internet sites that discussed motorbikes, not true crime. It had quietened down a bit outside, but he was still getting several reporters trying to get into his flat every day. Claiming they were delivering pizzas or come to read the gas meter.
"Fuck off or I'll arrest you," he told one particularly persistent reporter, who'd made it into the building and was literally calling through his letter-box.
Stupid threat to make, he thought, when she'd finally given up and gone. He couldn't arrest her; he didn't have his warrant card any more. For a moment he considered phoning John and asking if he could have one back from Sherlock's cache, but then he remembered. He shook his head - God, he was so tired he couldn't think straight. He'd read John's first angry blogpost in the few minutes before it had been taken down. The one that raged at Mycroft, at the police, at the "people who killed Sherlock". But Greg hadn't dared contact John, even to send his sympathies. He had to stay away from him and all his friends or he might get them into more trouble. The first thing you did when investigating a bent copper was tap their phone, read their e-mail. The Met would be looking for collusion, conspiracies, someone to pin some crime on. If John said something rash to him, they'd both be in even deeper shit.
***
He risked a look at some tabloid websites eventually, and discovered that the big news was that a Premier League footballer had got himself involved with a porn star. No stories in the last twenty-four hours about Sherlock, he realised. The papers had hounded him to his death and now they'd lost interest. In less than a week. Four days. No, five. Because it was Wednesday today, not Tuesday; with nothing happening, he kept on getting confused.
Which meant - oh shit - that he'd been supposed to take Emily to her swimming lesson yesterday and he hadn't done it. He switched his phone on - voicemail full up with messages, almost all from eager reporters. But among them, here was Ruth: Greg, I heard on the news about a DI being suspended: I presume it's you. If you need any help, let me know. And another unexpected message, in a slightly nervous West Country burr: I'd like to leave a message for Inspector Greg Lestrade. This is Alec Fletcher Robinson from Grimpen. Could you phone me back, please?
Why had Alec phoned, Greg wondered, even as he dialled Ruth's number. The phone rang and rang, but finally she picked up.
"Hi," she said, "I almost didn't answer, but then I realised it might be you, not the Daily Mail."
"O God, have the reporters been bothering you as well?"
"I told them I didn't know what you'd been doing since we split up," Ruth replied calmly. "And that I'd never met Sherlock Holmes, which is almost true."
"I'm sorry," Greg said wearily. "I should have warned you, and I should have sorted out about Emily, and it's a complete fucking mess-"
"-It's OK," Ruth broke in, and she sounded the way he remembered her, a woman who could cope with anything. "I got Karen to take Emily swimming and I told Robert and Katy to ignore all the reporters, they were just chasing after us because Big Brother wasn't on. They seem to have stopped hassling us in the last twenty-four hours, though."
"Thank God for that."
"So what is going on, Greg?" Ruth asked. He wondered how much he should tell her, who was listening in. Still anyone who was would doubtless know the score already.
"Professional Standards are investigating me," he said. "For making unauthorised disclosures of confidential information to Sherlock."
"But they knew he was working with you."
"I've got nothing in writing to say my superiors agreed to that. And given the claims that Sherlock was a fake-"
"He wasn't," Ruth said, and the conviction in her voice was oddly heartening.
"You know what the papers are saying," he pointed out reluctantly.
"Sherlock Holmes was a horrible man, but he wasn't a fake. You'd have spotted him if he was."
Thank you, he breathed, because it was good to know there was someone else out there who still believed in Sherlock. And then his body slumped, as he remembered the situation.
"It doesn't matter if he was a fake or not. The Met want me to leave quietly."
"Have they told you that?"
"Not yet, but I know too much." The cover-up at Baskerville; Irene Adler's faked death; Mycroft kidnapping John. The list went on and on. "They wouldn't want all that coming out."
"So you'll be cleared?" Ruth asked hopefully.
"I'll be offered the chance to take early retirement on the grounds of ill-health. They'll say I made 'errors of judgement' because of the stress of the divorce. I keep my pension, they give me a reference."
"And everyone's left believing you're guilty of something," Ruth protested.
"If I fight it'll be worse." He'd drag the rest of his friends down as well, if he tried, he'd worked that out in the last few sleepless nights. John Watson, for the Pink Lady killing. All the other coppers who'd used Sherlock over the years, or turned a blind eye to his misbehaviour. Someone had to pay for the Met's embarrassment, and better it was just him than Dimmock and Gregson and the rest as well.
"It's not fair!" Ruth almost shouted, and he wished she was here with him and he could give her a hug.
"I know it's not," he said instead. "But there's nothing we can do about it."
There was a long silence at the other end of the phone; he could imagine the angry expression on Ruth's face.
"It'll take them a few weeks to sort out the paperwork, I expect," Greg said at last. "Till them, I'm just suspended. On full pay, but not expected to do anything. So if you need me to come round and put the shelves up in the kitchen now would be a good time." It'd been, what, nearly two years he'd been promising to do that?
"That would be good," Ruth said quietly. "The kids would like to see you...Thursday week? No, all of next week's frantic, but the week after that. Monday 15th, maybe?"
"That'd be fine," he told her. No need to reach for his diary; none of the meetings and courses and deadlines he'd scribbled in there were happening any more.
"Is about ten OK?" Ruth asked.
"It's a date," he said, and wondered for a split-second if it could be. But no, they couldn't go back now, too much past to be rewritten.
"See you then," Ruth said, and she was gone.
***
It wasn't till Friday morning, as he was frying himself some bacon, that Greg remembered about Alec. Better find out what was going on, he thought, once he'd finished his breakfast. Check there's no problem.
"Alec, it's Greg Lestrade," he started to tell the answering service, and then Alec's voice cut in:
"Thanks for calling back, Greg. How are you?"
"Fine," he said automatically, "well, you know..." His voice died away.
"I heard on the news you'd been suspended," Alec said. "After Mr Holmes killed himself."
"Yeah. They got that bit right," Greg replied cautiously.
"Your picture was in all the papers," Alec went on. "And lots of stories claiming Mr Holmes was a fake. But he wasn't, was he, Greg?"
"No. But the truth doesn't matter much to the tabloids."
"Someone's got to clear his name," Alec went on, "but I reckoned if you'd been suspended, you couldn't talk to the papers, case it got you into more trouble. So I've been talking to people down at Grimpen."
"What do you mean?"
"Gary and Billy, and Mr Henry and Dr Stapleton as well. Between us we can tell people what happened at Baskerville. That Mr Holmes couldn't have faked the Hound, because it was Dr Frankland who was to blame for everything."
"You can't...you'll get into trouble with the authorities if you start talking about Baskerville."
"Mr Henry has the address of that TV reporter," Alec said. "Once we've been on TV, they can't do nothing to us, or everyone will know what we're saying is true."
"They could discredit you. Accuse you of...things." Greg hesitated, wondering if he dared be more explicit.
"I'm out to my parents," Alec replied immediately. "And my friends know as well. If I tell the TV people what happened, what does it matter if I'm gay or straight? Might even get a bit of publicity for the tours." He paused and then added: "I won't say anything about you being down here."
"Alec...I, I..." Greg shook his head. He didn't know what to say. Alec and the others barely knew Sherlock and yet they were prepared to stick up for him. And here he was, doing nothing.
"You OK, aren't you?" Alec demanded. "They haven't got at you for...you know, Plymouth? Coz if you're back with your wife-"
"-I'm not," he broke in. "Not any more. We're getting a divorce. Things... it just didn't work out."
There was a long silence at the other end. And then Alec's voice, gentle now: "Sorry about that, Greg. Look, it must be a bad time, but there is just one thing. I wanted to ask if you knew anything about Mr Brook?"
Mr Brook? Greg's brain had obviously seized up, because it took far too long to register. Rich Brook, who was really Jim Moriarty. Sherlock had told him that, and Sherlock wasn't a fake and he was almost always right. Jim Moriarty, the master criminal who'd broken into the Tower of London and brought down Sherlock. His gut clenched as he finally realised what Alec was suggesting.
"Stay away from him, he's dangerous," he blurted out.
"You reckon?"
It wouldn't be enough for Moriarty just to destroy Sherlock, would it? He'd always wanted more. If he got the chance to hurt more people who Sherlock had helped...
"Look Alec, you...you and the others mustn't do this. Don't go to the TV people or the papers or anyone. "
"Why not?"
"If you do, you'll make yourself a target for the criminal who's behind all this."
"So are you in danger?" Alec asked and Greg could hear the fear in his voice.
"No," he said, hoping he sounded convincing. "I'm not a threat to Mor...any more. No-one's going to believe a copper kicked out of the Met. But if you and your friends kick up a stink, I don't know what might happen."
"So what do we do?"
"Nothing," Greg said. "Keep quiet, at least for now. There are people working on this who'll clear Sherlock." It was a lie, of course, but if he could just make it sound convincing...Or maybe it wasn't a lie. Sherlock still had friends after all.
"You're sure there's nothing else I can do?" said Alec, and there was a hopefulness in his voice that caught at Greg's stomach in an entirely different way.
"Come to London," he said, without thinking, and winced as he heard Alec's voice, suddenly tentative, reply:
"I can't right now, Greg..."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," he replied hastily. What the fuck had he been thinking? "Forget it, it doesn't matter."
"No," Alec said. "I wanna come. I wanna see you again. But it's the height of the season, you see?"
The tourist season, Greg's brain told him belatedly. Alec has a job, remember? Thing you used to have.
"So when...when do you get off?" he asked tentatively.
"I finish end of October with Halloween," Alec said eagerly. "Nothing then till the Christmas Hound specials in December. Got the whole of November free."
"Would you like to come then?" London in November: hardly ideal. Well, unless you were planning to stay indoors most of the time...
"Yeah, that'd be good," Alec said. "Only ever been to London once, when I was a kid. There's lots I'd like to see."
He sounded so young. What the hell am I doing, Greg thought, but he wanted to see Alec again. Whatever happened, it would be good to have his company.
"Work out what you want to see," he told him. "We'll talk nearer the time. And I'll see you in November."
"Take care, Greg," Alec said.
***
Stupid thing to do, Greg told himself, once he'd got off the phone. Alec coming would just mean trouble for them both. Never mind Ruth probably doing her nut, what were his team going to think about their boss running round with his sort-of-boyfriend?
Not Ruth's business who he slept with any more, though. And he didn't have a team left to gossip about him. Nothing left of all he'd worked for. Didn't matter what he did, did it?
Except it did, suddenly. He'd been sitting moping in his flat and forgetting that that bastard Jim Moriarty was out there. Probably planning how he could outdo breaking into the Bank of England and framing Sherlock. Someone had to try and stop him, and it looked like it was down to him.
Even more stupid to think that he could catch Moriarty if Sherlock hadn't been able to. But he knew more about him than anyone else at the Met. Least he could do was get everything down on paper so someone brighter than him could work on it. And maybe, just maybe, he could spot some chink in Moriarty's armour.
***
It took him five hours of writing and rewriting, but he finally had a file detailing what he knew about Jim Moriarty. Not much there, but him being "Rich Brook" had to be the starting point of any investigation. You couldn't create a false identity and leave no traces.
But what could he do while he was suspended? He couldn't go charging off to Catkin Productions and ask them if Rich Brook really had worked on Time for the Storyteller since 2009. The Met would crucify him for pulling a stunt like that. But who could he find who watched the show and might know one way or the other? Only kids even younger than Emily, probably.
And then a memory abruptly came back. Ruth, sitting at a computer a few years ago, laughing while she read some online forum. It's all about which of the CBeebies presenters you fancy, she'd told him. Jim Moriarty was a good-looking man. And who watched Time for the Storyteller? Bored mums who probably let off steam on the internet every now and then.
He found Mumsnet after a while and after a quick scan of their talkboards was almost tempted to post something anonymously himself asking how you told your kids that you might possibly be in love with a bloke? But that wasn't what he was here for. Lots of posts about children's TV, but was there anything about Brook?
He stopped around midnight, when he couldn't see straight and there were several posters he was tempted to track down and murder. But he had something at least. There were people posting in the last few days who "remembered" seeing Rich Brook as The Storyteller. But there was no-one who mentioned him before then, even though he'd supposedly been on the show for two years.
It wasn't proof: you couldn't prove something negative like that. And his superiors would just laugh if he told them. But it did show that Moriarty had cut corners setting up the fake ID. He hadn't taken over someone else's identity; he hadn't led a double life. He must be relying on fake documents and blackmail. A strong enough story to fool a not-too-bright journalist like Kitty Riley. But give it a hard enough push and it might just collapse.
But the only man who could be guaranteed to spot the flaws was dead. Rich Brook had lasted just long enough to outlive Sherlock. Greg might possibly be able to untangle the details of how Moriarty had set up Kitty's scoop. But he would never, ever be fast enough to catch up with him. No-one would.
Wrong. It was as if he suddenly heard Sherlock in his head. And what was it he'd told Greg once, at the end of some long rant about the Melas case? If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my brother would be the greatest investigator that ever lived. As it is, he's just a lazy sod with a head full of plausible theories.
Mycroft Holmes, Greg thought, and realised he'd said the name out loud. The one man alive who was a match for Moriarty, who might be able to bring him to justice.
Or maybe not. What was it John had claimed in his blog post? That Mycroft had captured Moriarty and then let him walk free. It sounded impossible, but it was hard to say anything was impossible where the Holmeses were concerned. Those brilliant, devious minds, always so many moves ahead that it was as if they were playing a different game to you. Well, he might have spent six years running after Sherlock, but he wasn't going anywhere near his brother again.
Part 9
Rating 15 (explicit slash, swearing)
Summary: Greg's not quite as alone as he thought he was.
Many thanks to The Small Hobbit for betaing.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.
The next nasty surprise was the door-stepping. Though Greg should probably have expected that, he supposed. Every newspaper was desperate to get their own follow-up scoop on Sherlock, and he'd been pictured enough at Sherlock's side to be an obvious possible source. A pack of reporters followed him down the street as he went off to the supermarket the next day, yelling repeated offers at him "to tell his side of the story".
He knew better than to trust any of them. He switched off his phone, picked up a week's load of supplies, and headed back to the flat to wait out the siege. They could make up stories without his help, thank you very much. He wasn't going to have his words twisted to harm Sherlock or the Met.
He watched television, but not the news; found internet sites that discussed motorbikes, not true crime. It had quietened down a bit outside, but he was still getting several reporters trying to get into his flat every day. Claiming they were delivering pizzas or come to read the gas meter.
"Fuck off or I'll arrest you," he told one particularly persistent reporter, who'd made it into the building and was literally calling through his letter-box.
Stupid threat to make, he thought, when she'd finally given up and gone. He couldn't arrest her; he didn't have his warrant card any more. For a moment he considered phoning John and asking if he could have one back from Sherlock's cache, but then he remembered. He shook his head - God, he was so tired he couldn't think straight. He'd read John's first angry blogpost in the few minutes before it had been taken down. The one that raged at Mycroft, at the police, at the "people who killed Sherlock". But Greg hadn't dared contact John, even to send his sympathies. He had to stay away from him and all his friends or he might get them into more trouble. The first thing you did when investigating a bent copper was tap their phone, read their e-mail. The Met would be looking for collusion, conspiracies, someone to pin some crime on. If John said something rash to him, they'd both be in even deeper shit.
***
He risked a look at some tabloid websites eventually, and discovered that the big news was that a Premier League footballer had got himself involved with a porn star. No stories in the last twenty-four hours about Sherlock, he realised. The papers had hounded him to his death and now they'd lost interest. In less than a week. Four days. No, five. Because it was Wednesday today, not Tuesday; with nothing happening, he kept on getting confused.
Which meant - oh shit - that he'd been supposed to take Emily to her swimming lesson yesterday and he hadn't done it. He switched his phone on - voicemail full up with messages, almost all from eager reporters. But among them, here was Ruth: Greg, I heard on the news about a DI being suspended: I presume it's you. If you need any help, let me know. And another unexpected message, in a slightly nervous West Country burr: I'd like to leave a message for Inspector Greg Lestrade. This is Alec Fletcher Robinson from Grimpen. Could you phone me back, please?
Why had Alec phoned, Greg wondered, even as he dialled Ruth's number. The phone rang and rang, but finally she picked up.
"Hi," she said, "I almost didn't answer, but then I realised it might be you, not the Daily Mail."
"O God, have the reporters been bothering you as well?"
"I told them I didn't know what you'd been doing since we split up," Ruth replied calmly. "And that I'd never met Sherlock Holmes, which is almost true."
"I'm sorry," Greg said wearily. "I should have warned you, and I should have sorted out about Emily, and it's a complete fucking mess-"
"-It's OK," Ruth broke in, and she sounded the way he remembered her, a woman who could cope with anything. "I got Karen to take Emily swimming and I told Robert and Katy to ignore all the reporters, they were just chasing after us because Big Brother wasn't on. They seem to have stopped hassling us in the last twenty-four hours, though."
"Thank God for that."
"So what is going on, Greg?" Ruth asked. He wondered how much he should tell her, who was listening in. Still anyone who was would doubtless know the score already.
"Professional Standards are investigating me," he said. "For making unauthorised disclosures of confidential information to Sherlock."
"But they knew he was working with you."
"I've got nothing in writing to say my superiors agreed to that. And given the claims that Sherlock was a fake-"
"He wasn't," Ruth said, and the conviction in her voice was oddly heartening.
"You know what the papers are saying," he pointed out reluctantly.
"Sherlock Holmes was a horrible man, but he wasn't a fake. You'd have spotted him if he was."
Thank you, he breathed, because it was good to know there was someone else out there who still believed in Sherlock. And then his body slumped, as he remembered the situation.
"It doesn't matter if he was a fake or not. The Met want me to leave quietly."
"Have they told you that?"
"Not yet, but I know too much." The cover-up at Baskerville; Irene Adler's faked death; Mycroft kidnapping John. The list went on and on. "They wouldn't want all that coming out."
"So you'll be cleared?" Ruth asked hopefully.
"I'll be offered the chance to take early retirement on the grounds of ill-health. They'll say I made 'errors of judgement' because of the stress of the divorce. I keep my pension, they give me a reference."
"And everyone's left believing you're guilty of something," Ruth protested.
"If I fight it'll be worse." He'd drag the rest of his friends down as well, if he tried, he'd worked that out in the last few sleepless nights. John Watson, for the Pink Lady killing. All the other coppers who'd used Sherlock over the years, or turned a blind eye to his misbehaviour. Someone had to pay for the Met's embarrassment, and better it was just him than Dimmock and Gregson and the rest as well.
"It's not fair!" Ruth almost shouted, and he wished she was here with him and he could give her a hug.
"I know it's not," he said instead. "But there's nothing we can do about it."
There was a long silence at the other end of the phone; he could imagine the angry expression on Ruth's face.
"It'll take them a few weeks to sort out the paperwork, I expect," Greg said at last. "Till them, I'm just suspended. On full pay, but not expected to do anything. So if you need me to come round and put the shelves up in the kitchen now would be a good time." It'd been, what, nearly two years he'd been promising to do that?
"That would be good," Ruth said quietly. "The kids would like to see you...Thursday week? No, all of next week's frantic, but the week after that. Monday 15th, maybe?"
"That'd be fine," he told her. No need to reach for his diary; none of the meetings and courses and deadlines he'd scribbled in there were happening any more.
"Is about ten OK?" Ruth asked.
"It's a date," he said, and wondered for a split-second if it could be. But no, they couldn't go back now, too much past to be rewritten.
"See you then," Ruth said, and she was gone.
***
It wasn't till Friday morning, as he was frying himself some bacon, that Greg remembered about Alec. Better find out what was going on, he thought, once he'd finished his breakfast. Check there's no problem.
"Alec, it's Greg Lestrade," he started to tell the answering service, and then Alec's voice cut in:
"Thanks for calling back, Greg. How are you?"
"Fine," he said automatically, "well, you know..." His voice died away.
"I heard on the news you'd been suspended," Alec said. "After Mr Holmes killed himself."
"Yeah. They got that bit right," Greg replied cautiously.
"Your picture was in all the papers," Alec went on. "And lots of stories claiming Mr Holmes was a fake. But he wasn't, was he, Greg?"
"No. But the truth doesn't matter much to the tabloids."
"Someone's got to clear his name," Alec went on, "but I reckoned if you'd been suspended, you couldn't talk to the papers, case it got you into more trouble. So I've been talking to people down at Grimpen."
"What do you mean?"
"Gary and Billy, and Mr Henry and Dr Stapleton as well. Between us we can tell people what happened at Baskerville. That Mr Holmes couldn't have faked the Hound, because it was Dr Frankland who was to blame for everything."
"You can't...you'll get into trouble with the authorities if you start talking about Baskerville."
"Mr Henry has the address of that TV reporter," Alec said. "Once we've been on TV, they can't do nothing to us, or everyone will know what we're saying is true."
"They could discredit you. Accuse you of...things." Greg hesitated, wondering if he dared be more explicit.
"I'm out to my parents," Alec replied immediately. "And my friends know as well. If I tell the TV people what happened, what does it matter if I'm gay or straight? Might even get a bit of publicity for the tours." He paused and then added: "I won't say anything about you being down here."
"Alec...I, I..." Greg shook his head. He didn't know what to say. Alec and the others barely knew Sherlock and yet they were prepared to stick up for him. And here he was, doing nothing.
"You OK, aren't you?" Alec demanded. "They haven't got at you for...you know, Plymouth? Coz if you're back with your wife-"
"-I'm not," he broke in. "Not any more. We're getting a divorce. Things... it just didn't work out."
There was a long silence at the other end. And then Alec's voice, gentle now: "Sorry about that, Greg. Look, it must be a bad time, but there is just one thing. I wanted to ask if you knew anything about Mr Brook?"
Mr Brook? Greg's brain had obviously seized up, because it took far too long to register. Rich Brook, who was really Jim Moriarty. Sherlock had told him that, and Sherlock wasn't a fake and he was almost always right. Jim Moriarty, the master criminal who'd broken into the Tower of London and brought down Sherlock. His gut clenched as he finally realised what Alec was suggesting.
"Stay away from him, he's dangerous," he blurted out.
"You reckon?"
It wouldn't be enough for Moriarty just to destroy Sherlock, would it? He'd always wanted more. If he got the chance to hurt more people who Sherlock had helped...
"Look Alec, you...you and the others mustn't do this. Don't go to the TV people or the papers or anyone. "
"Why not?"
"If you do, you'll make yourself a target for the criminal who's behind all this."
"So are you in danger?" Alec asked and Greg could hear the fear in his voice.
"No," he said, hoping he sounded convincing. "I'm not a threat to Mor...any more. No-one's going to believe a copper kicked out of the Met. But if you and your friends kick up a stink, I don't know what might happen."
"So what do we do?"
"Nothing," Greg said. "Keep quiet, at least for now. There are people working on this who'll clear Sherlock." It was a lie, of course, but if he could just make it sound convincing...Or maybe it wasn't a lie. Sherlock still had friends after all.
"You're sure there's nothing else I can do?" said Alec, and there was a hopefulness in his voice that caught at Greg's stomach in an entirely different way.
"Come to London," he said, without thinking, and winced as he heard Alec's voice, suddenly tentative, reply:
"I can't right now, Greg..."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," he replied hastily. What the fuck had he been thinking? "Forget it, it doesn't matter."
"No," Alec said. "I wanna come. I wanna see you again. But it's the height of the season, you see?"
The tourist season, Greg's brain told him belatedly. Alec has a job, remember? Thing you used to have.
"So when...when do you get off?" he asked tentatively.
"I finish end of October with Halloween," Alec said eagerly. "Nothing then till the Christmas Hound specials in December. Got the whole of November free."
"Would you like to come then?" London in November: hardly ideal. Well, unless you were planning to stay indoors most of the time...
"Yeah, that'd be good," Alec said. "Only ever been to London once, when I was a kid. There's lots I'd like to see."
He sounded so young. What the hell am I doing, Greg thought, but he wanted to see Alec again. Whatever happened, it would be good to have his company.
"Work out what you want to see," he told him. "We'll talk nearer the time. And I'll see you in November."
"Take care, Greg," Alec said.
***
Stupid thing to do, Greg told himself, once he'd got off the phone. Alec coming would just mean trouble for them both. Never mind Ruth probably doing her nut, what were his team going to think about their boss running round with his sort-of-boyfriend?
Not Ruth's business who he slept with any more, though. And he didn't have a team left to gossip about him. Nothing left of all he'd worked for. Didn't matter what he did, did it?
Except it did, suddenly. He'd been sitting moping in his flat and forgetting that that bastard Jim Moriarty was out there. Probably planning how he could outdo breaking into the Bank of England and framing Sherlock. Someone had to try and stop him, and it looked like it was down to him.
Even more stupid to think that he could catch Moriarty if Sherlock hadn't been able to. But he knew more about him than anyone else at the Met. Least he could do was get everything down on paper so someone brighter than him could work on it. And maybe, just maybe, he could spot some chink in Moriarty's armour.
***
It took him five hours of writing and rewriting, but he finally had a file detailing what he knew about Jim Moriarty. Not much there, but him being "Rich Brook" had to be the starting point of any investigation. You couldn't create a false identity and leave no traces.
But what could he do while he was suspended? He couldn't go charging off to Catkin Productions and ask them if Rich Brook really had worked on Time for the Storyteller since 2009. The Met would crucify him for pulling a stunt like that. But who could he find who watched the show and might know one way or the other? Only kids even younger than Emily, probably.
And then a memory abruptly came back. Ruth, sitting at a computer a few years ago, laughing while she read some online forum. It's all about which of the CBeebies presenters you fancy, she'd told him. Jim Moriarty was a good-looking man. And who watched Time for the Storyteller? Bored mums who probably let off steam on the internet every now and then.
He found Mumsnet after a while and after a quick scan of their talkboards was almost tempted to post something anonymously himself asking how you told your kids that you might possibly be in love with a bloke? But that wasn't what he was here for. Lots of posts about children's TV, but was there anything about Brook?
He stopped around midnight, when he couldn't see straight and there were several posters he was tempted to track down and murder. But he had something at least. There were people posting in the last few days who "remembered" seeing Rich Brook as The Storyteller. But there was no-one who mentioned him before then, even though he'd supposedly been on the show for two years.
It wasn't proof: you couldn't prove something negative like that. And his superiors would just laugh if he told them. But it did show that Moriarty had cut corners setting up the fake ID. He hadn't taken over someone else's identity; he hadn't led a double life. He must be relying on fake documents and blackmail. A strong enough story to fool a not-too-bright journalist like Kitty Riley. But give it a hard enough push and it might just collapse.
But the only man who could be guaranteed to spot the flaws was dead. Rich Brook had lasted just long enough to outlive Sherlock. Greg might possibly be able to untangle the details of how Moriarty had set up Kitty's scoop. But he would never, ever be fast enough to catch up with him. No-one would.
Wrong. It was as if he suddenly heard Sherlock in his head. And what was it he'd told Greg once, at the end of some long rant about the Melas case? If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my brother would be the greatest investigator that ever lived. As it is, he's just a lazy sod with a head full of plausible theories.
Mycroft Holmes, Greg thought, and realised he'd said the name out loud. The one man alive who was a match for Moriarty, who might be able to bring him to justice.
Or maybe not. What was it John had claimed in his blog post? That Mycroft had captured Moriarty and then let him walk free. It sounded impossible, but it was hard to say anything was impossible where the Holmeses were concerned. Those brilliant, devious minds, always so many moves ahead that it was as if they were playing a different game to you. Well, he might have spent six years running after Sherlock, but he wasn't going anywhere near his brother again.
Part 9