Fic: COUNTDOWN (Part I)
Title: COUNTDOWN
Author: missilemuse
Part: 4/4
Wordcount: 17,635
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: for mentions of child abuse and drug use.
Summary: Detective Inspector Lestrade takes a trip down memory lane, to find Sherlock at all the important stops.
Spoilers: for all the three episodes.
Disclaimer: John and Sherlock belong to ACD's grey cells. Lestrade in my story, is inspired by Rupert Graves’ take on the character in the B.B.C. reincarnation.
Author's notes: This is the first time I have attempted to write a Lestrade-centric fic. That is not saying much, as this is only the second story that I am posting. I was terrified of getting the character less perfect than the exact way I wanted him. This was supposed to be a small; less than 1500 word fic. But after the first five lines, it mutated to develop its own feet and I had to run with it. It includes my versions of their first meeting, post-ASIP, post-TGG and post-Reichenbach from Lestrade’s POV. For those of you who will have the patience to read it, I am thankful in advance. Please do review!
(December 31, 2011)
“TEN!”
(The crescendo reached his ears. He shivered as a visceral response kicked in, which had nothing to do with here and now and transported him to another time and place!)
“What! What did he say? It’s a kid! Oh God, it’s a kid! Jesus!”
His hand had flown to his mouth. His brain had frozen in panic, till he had worked a miracle, as usual… touch and go- it had been so close. Even the memory gave him goosebumps.
“THE VAN BUREN SUPERNOVA!”
“NINE!”
“She was nine years old!”
“Sergeant Donovan, you need to calm down.”
He hated pulling rank, always had, but she was giving him no choice. Sally was new to the team; young but very competent with tremendous potential. He had bodily dragged her away from his Consultant Detective before she could do some real damage.
Her voice held all the violence that she had been unable to release, “She was a nine year old girl, Sir. Her body has not stiffened yet and he still has the gall to walk up to her parents and ask them if their daughter was sexually active. You think that’s ok?”
He looked steadily in her eyes trying to make his point. “If he leads us to the guy who did this, then yes.”
She looked at her Boss, her gaze unflinchingly honest. “You cannot demand that I respect that man when he doesn't even respect the victims, SIR.”
Before Lestrade could reply, the object of their discussion loomed at his shoulder.
“It was the mother.”
Sherlock ignored Sally, ignored the bruise blooming up on his chin, ignored the drop of blood about to trickle down his chin, which was giving Lestrade a sudden absurd urge to reach out a hand and wipe it away.
“The father was abusing the girl; the mother killed her to protect her.”
He quashed the urge, but turned his back on Sally to face him properly. “Alright…Gimme…”
“EIGHT!”
“Congratulations Mr. Lestrade. In eight months, you’ll be a father!”
Damn it! He was supposed to feel happy. It was a textbook happy moment. He had been newly promoted; his wife was healthy, beaming. They had waited so long for this. He worked his facial muscles into an approximation of a smile for Julia’s benefit.
She didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his doubts.
So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise then, that as soon as they had returned home from the sonologist she faced him calmly and said, “This isn’t working, Greg.”
It was Sherlock’s fault. He had made him used to brutal truths being casually flung in his face…probably the reason why he was still standing even when it felt like Julia had taken a cleaver to his heart.
“Julie, this is not the time. We are having a baby!”
“No, Greg, I am having a baby. You are never here. Between your work and that boy, it’s a miracle that we even conceived in the first place.”
Anger came first. “That boy stopped an innocent man from being jailed for life yesterday. Don’t blame him for our problems. So that’s it, you’re pregnant, so you decide you can leave me now, as I have served my purpose in this marriage.”
She shook her head helplessly, “I had the papers drawn up two weeks ago; was just waiting for you to be home for more than four hours at a time to tell you. This… just happened.”
“This, is our future you're talking about.” His voice broke, pleading, “I’ll try harder, Julia. Please… don’t do this!”
Her eyes were tearful as she walked up to him and gently placed a kiss on his forehead.
“You could have been an amazing husband, Greg. You will be a great father. I am not going to take that away from you. But with you, the greater good will always come first. You’re just not selfish enough to want your own happiness. I want more, both for me and our child. Please understand. Don’t make this harder than it is.”
Don’t break down in her presence; his brain was screaming at him. He clenched his fists and bit back his tears.
His phone buzzed.
ROBERT HENLEY MURDER.
22, BENTHAL GREEN.
NEED YOU. - SH
He grasped the last three words like a drowning man would clutch a life-preserver. He turned and walked out of the door.
“SEVEN!”
“Only seven hours, Detective Inspector!” the voice was mocking. “You are already passing out on us. That just won’t do.”
The commanding tone told him that the man in charge had finally arrived.
He was tied to a chair inside what looked like a warehouse. They had done a number on him for the interrogation. Lestrade had made his head fall boneless, lolling forward on his chest. He was in a sea of pain, but it would stay the beatings if they thought he wasn’t completely lucid. He was not a coward but right now, self-preservation took precedence.
The team knew that he had taken the weekend off to finalise the divorce. He had been leaving the court, intending to get plastered at the nearest pub when this lot had had got their hands on him. If the man was right, there were nearly thirty hours to go before he was supposed to turn up for work; forty-odd hours before he would be considered missing. The math was disheartening.
He felt a gloved hand hold his chin and pull his face up. The man in front of him would have been a shoo-in for Penguin in a Batman flick. Peter Carney aka ‘Tiny Pete’; mob-boss, drug-lord, nigh untouchable for the Met…until now.
“You ready to talk, Inspector? We know, you got that rat-bastard Lenny to turn witness. All you need to do is give me the address of his safe-house. You have my word; we’ll let you walk away. No one will know you helped us.”
His answering words were faint but to the point.
“Fuck off!”
He was expecting the fist that rammed into his solar plexus; that didn’t make it hurt any less.
“Bad answer, hero. Don’t worry; we’ll talk later when you have changed your mind.” The voice had moved further away when it commanded, “Get Bruiser in here.”
Julia had wanted it to be ‘Jennifer’. He had argued on principle, even when he didn’t have a particular name in his mind.
Now as he heard the room clear and leave him to the tender mercies of Bruiser, he thought ‘Jenny’ wasn’t so bad.
As he heard footsteps approach the chair, he took a deep breath resigning himself to the oncoming pain.
What he didn’t expect, was the ‘uhnff’ sound followed by a crash as the only other guard in the room collapsed to the floor at his feet.
Lestrade blinked, looking at the prone form and then dragged his eyes up to see the man responsible for making it happen.
He was tall, ginger-haired, with a full beard and a pony-tail, beetle-black eyes, lithe form; he was wearing only a vest over his jeans which showed off his broad shoulders and thin yet muscled arms with tattoos on both sides. The second shock came when he stepped nimbly over the guard’s body and fell to his knees in front of Lestrade’s chair, whipping out a pen-knife to cut the ropes.
“You alright, Lestrade?”
OH!
“YOU!”
He hadn’t seen him for nearly three weeks, after having turned him away from the last crime-scene where he had turned up as high as a kite. Lestrade found himself temporarily speechless. Somehow his mind couldn’t reconcile the two images; that of his posh, great-coat wearing, swanning Consultant Detective and the man in front of him.
“What… How! What did you do with the real Bruiser?”
“Oh! I am Bruiser. That’s the name I use to box at this illegal club when I’m bored. Pete has been trying to recruit me for months. I just pretended to be interested today.”
“YOU are bloody insane!”
“And you, Lestrade, are a moron to get kidnapped by a bunch of nincompoops. Seriously, the Carney Case! It's not worth getting tortured and killed over. It’s dull!”
Lestrade laughed. He couldn’t help it; just as he couldn’t help noticing how the fingers that were working his ropes free were trembling. He found his voice. “Hey, relax... its ok; I’m alright.”
Later at the hospital, he used the phone next to his bed to call his now ex-wife.
“Hello Julia, it's Greg.” He cleared his throat. “Just called to say that I changed my mind. I think Jennifer is a lovely name.”
“SIX!”
This was the sixth time he had rushed to the hospital. Five false alarms had made him complacent. Julia had been very understanding, had made it clear that she didn’t expect him to be there when their daughter was born. But Lestrade was nothing if not stubborn. Nothing in the world would make him miss the one positive thing that was happening in his life.
At least that is what he had thought…
This was the first time he had skidded into the hospital lobby after Julia. Since he was late, this had to be the real deal.
“Mr. Gregory Lestrade. You’re the father.”
“Yes that’s me”, he patiently repeated to the woman at the desk. “The expectant mother is Julia Andrews. She must have reached here about fifteen minutes before me.”
“Yes, of course. Please take a seat. Dr. Patel will be out to speak with you shortly.”
Dr. Patel turned out to be a diminutive middle-aged brunette with kind brown eyes.
“Mr. Lestrade, your wife has experienced a placental bleed. Thankfully it is not severe, but we had to sedate her for the pain. The bleed appears to be causing some foetal distress. We need your permission for a C-section. I don’t anticipate any complications during the procedure. Your wife has been very prompt in seeking help.”
She thrust a form at him, which he signed with shaking fingers; feeling overwhelmed and out of his depth.
“Doctor, will they be alright?”
She patted his back, as she got up to leave him, “We’ll be taking her into surgery now. Don’t worry; we’ll do our best.”
The walls seemed to be closing in on him. He left the waiting room to pace the parking-lot of the hospital. He felt tense and stretched like a trip-wire. He was on his fifth cigarette, when his phone buzzed. He wanted to ignore it. Not today! He thought. Wanting was not enough though. Julie had been right. He was pathetic. He groaned on seeing the sender name.
M tell mummy im sorry.
No signature, no comma, no capitals…SORRY?
He froze mid-step, cigarette dangling limp between his fingers, unable to ignore the spike of fear uncoiling in his belly. It could be innocent. He had no idea who M was, but the message was definitely not meant for him. He should feel relieved but as he stared at the words, he felt fear crawl its way up his spine and grip his throat. His fingers were trembling as he called back. The line connected; he could hear the phone ring.
Pick up! Pick up! PICK UP!
The mobile rang into silence.
SHIT!
The cigarette had already been flung aside. He found himself racing to his car. By the time he was peeling out of the driveway, he was on the phone with Emergency Services. If it turned out to be nothing, he would take the flak for it later. He reached Montague Street to find the ambulance already there; with a barely breathing pale figure being loaded into the back of it.
For the second time that night, Lestrade found himself using the siren on his car to escort the ambulance back to the hospital in record time. All the while, the past four years were flicking through his mind like a photo album- faces of the people who owed their lives to Sherlock when they didn’t even know of his existence; the thankless, anonymous existence of a ghost.
Please God, let him live, he begged. They needed him. He needed him.
He had overdosed on morphine. Thankfully the E.M.T’s had got the Naloxone into him before his breathing had deteriorated enough to require a respirator. When he was given the good news, he collapsed into a chair out of sheer relief. That was how Dr. Patel found him, when she came to tell him that he was now the proud father of a healthy baby girl.
It was later when he held his daughter in his arms for the first time that he realised the root of his feelings for Sherlock; the fierce pride, the overwhelming urge to protect.
Next morning, he entered Sherlock’s room with his daughter in his arms. He was halted in his tracks by a cutting baritone, “Before you say anything, I wasn’t trying to kill myself. It was an accident. I realised it was an overdose after it happened. So you can spare me the speech. Just leave me alone.”
Lestrade calmly crossed the room and placed the swaddled bundle in the Detective’s lap. He scrambled to hold her like she was made of crystal looking at Lestrade like he had gone mad.
“WHAT are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”
Lestrade fixed his daughter’s eyes with his own and gesturing towards Sherlock, said very solemnly, “Jenny, this is Sherlock.”
She gurgled in response.
“Lestrade, this is an infant. She can’t comprehend what you are saying… this is ridiculous!”
“He is an amazing genius who did a very stupid thing yesterday and the worst part is, he doesn’t even think it was wrong.”
“Yes, using your spawn to give me a life-lesson; very original!”
Lestrade continued as though there had been no interruption, eyes focussed on Jenny.
“But you should also know that on most days unlike yesterday, he's a great man. He saves people when he is not being stupid. He is the reason why Daddy will get to watch you grow up, coz he's saved my life many times over. I know that one day; you will want to thank him properly for that yourself, wouldn’t you? So…you will want him to stick around for that day, right?”
His eyes snapped up to the blue-grey ones. Lestrade knew his voice had choked towards the end. He could barely see through the film of tears in his eyes, but he repeated his question firmly holding the piercing gaze, “Right?”
Sherlock dropped his eyes to Jenny’s face and answered softly, “Right.”
“FIVE!”
“…its five thousand pounds. There has to be a mistake!”
“Uh…Sir”, the clerk’s polite voice was slipping. “Are you implying that you have more money in your account than you are supposed to?”
“Damn right, its more. I had fifty pounds in there. What the hell happened?”
The clerk cleared his throat audibly. “You have to understand Sir, that this is the first time that we are having a complaint of this nature. Uh… but our records show no discrepancies at our end. The amount was deposited in your account electronically yesterday using passwords only you are privy to. It is not like we can remove the money anymore than we can put it in. I’m sorry, but there’s only so much we can do.”
Lestrade slammed the phone in frustration. He wished he could ask Sherlock, who would definitely have an answer to how and why someone would hack into his bank-account to give him money. But the Detective had left for Surrey the day before, muttering something about an interesting missing person’s case. Keeping Sherlock busy was Lestrade’s withdrawal strategy for him, and so far it was working admirably.
It had to be a bribe or a frame-up of some sort; the first step towards implicating him in something shady. But the lack of someone claiming credit was weird.
Then there was the timing of the unexpected windfall. Temptation was a seductive bitch! Between the alimony, child-support and moving into a new place in London, Lestrade was flat broke. He had yet to make this month’s rent. That hadn’t stopped him from insisting that Sherlock move in with him temporarily, till he found a new place. That Sherlock was humouring him was a silver lining in an otherwise grim situation.
He made a formal complaint at the Met regarding the money; then forgot all about it for the rest of the day. He let himself into the flat that evening thinking longingly of his bed. But he had grown used to his life, where nothing ever went according to plan.
“Good Evening, Detective Inspector.”
The voice was silky, smooth and deceptive; as was the appearance of the man sitting comfortably on his couch. He was tall, middle-aged with slightly thinning hair and a piercing gaze which belied the benign expression on his face. The old-fashioned three piece suit (if it hadn’t been hideously expensive) and the brolly, on which he was resting his hands could have passed him off as a Uni professor. But (with nearly twenty years of experience backing him), he could instinctively sense the aura of power that clung to him like second skin. This was a man who was used to being obeyed. Sitting calmly on his second-hand sofa, he radiated the kind of menace that men like Peter Carney failed to inspire even with half a dozen armed thugs surrounding them. The apparent geniality didn’t fool him one bit. This was a very dangerous man indeed.
He then realised that he had frozen in his living room, one hand already in his pocket to call for help.
“There is no need to be alarmed, Inspector. I merely wish to have a chat.” The man placidly gestured to the chair opposite to the sofa, with his umbrella. “Do sit down. You must be exhausted after a long day at work.”
The gall of this housebreaker to offer him a chair in his own house, prompted Lestrade to speech. “I don’t care who the hell you are. Since you already know I’m a cop, I’ll give you exactly one minute to come up with a reasonable explanation for your actions before I put you under arrest for B & E.”
The man wrinkled his nose slightly. “Come come, Inspector, I would hardly call it breaking and entering when I let myself in using a key.”
Lestrade followed the gesture his hand made to the side table, where he saw the key…the sturdy key-chain in shape of a violin that he had purchased on the day of Sherlock’s discharge.
Sherlock’s key…
The man was smiling at him. It was the smile that made him snap.
Red hot fury gripped him as he stalked to the sofa, grabbed the man by the lapels of his posh coat and hauled him up till his face was inches from his own.
“Where the hell is he? What have you done with him? I swear, if he's hurt…”
His words were cut off by the sound of the door he had forgotten to close being pushed open, followed by the last voice he had expected to hear. “Lestrade, did you know that the doo... What the…”
For an instant, it was a frozen tableau. The first thing Lestrade felt was surprise, at being able to surprise Sherlock, followed by relief that he was unharmed. The next instant his common-sense reasserted itself and he dropped the man as though he had been scalded. He stepped back ready to apologise for the presumption, but before he could speak the second impossible thing happened.
Sherlock burst out laughing.
Real, unfettered, uncontrollable, honest-to-goodness laughter; a phenomenon that Lestrade had never seen in the five years that he had known him. It made him look ten years younger. Just for a moment, the stranger in front of him mirrored his own expression; incredulity warring with hope, like he was witnessing something that he had given up on, a long time back.
As Lestrade blinked, the stranger’s face closed again, showing nothing but haughty derision at the sight of Sherlock still convulsing with laughter. But he had seen and understood. This man could not harm Sherlock any more than he could.
“I am glad I could amuse you, Sherlock.” He turned to Lestrade with a faintly flushed face, “I am Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s brother. I think that I can safely assume that he has never mentioned me.”
“IT… WAS… PRICELESS”, Sherlock finally sputtered. “It was completely worth letting your minion pick-pocket me today. Had I been just a minute late, he would have broken your nose and it would have served you right, you overbearing git.”
Mycroft (M?) turned to look at Lestrade, who was now red-faced and staring at his shoes, hands in his pockets. He couldn’t meet the man’s eyes.
“I shouldn’t have…” he started to speak.
“It’s alright, Detective Inspector. My irksome brother has a tendency to rouse the strongest feelings in the people he chooses to interact with. Usually those feelings are negative.You had good reason to be suspicious.” He gave Lestrade a small genuine smile which was tentatively returned.
Sherlock could sense the non-verbal conversation in which he wasn’t included and marched upto his brother to chivvy him to the door. “That’s it, Mycroft. You came here to see me. I’m alive. Now that your morbid curiosity has been satisfied, you may leave.”
“Sherlock!” Lestrade hissed, appalled at his behaviour.
He whirled on him, “Oh God, not you too!” He closed his eyes and stomped to the spare bedroom, stopping at the door to throw his words back at Lestrade. “Fine, don’t say that I didn’t warn you!” He slammed the door.
Looking meaningfully at the closed door, Mycroft said, “I should leave.” Just as Lestrade began to voice his protests, he said, “No, it’s fine really…if you could just walk with me to my car…”
After having nearly decked the man, Lestrade couldn’t help but agree. His car turned out to be a black, bullet-proof behemoth that dwarfed the Street and had been nowhere around when he had come home. Mycroft didn’t mince words when he faced Lestrade.
“I wanted to say that it was me who had that money transferred to your bank account.”
Okay! So maybe Sherlock did have a point…
“Please let me explain. It is not my intention to cheapen what you are doing for Sherlock and I would be grateful if you didn’t take it that way. I have pulled Sherlock back from the precipice three times before this but he has never been able to resist the pull of trying to jump again. I am infinitely glad that fate chose for you to help him this time. But what relieves me more is that he continues to accept your help. I … would trade places with you in a heart-beat… if I could.”
He could neither explain nor protest at the pained expression on Mycroft’s face. Although, he did seem to know that Lestrade’s involvement in the incident was wholly by accident. He imagined what it would have been like to be in his place; to have received the message that had come to him by mistake. He shuddered to realise the helplessness a man like Mycroft must feel at the moment; the level of trust he was placing in him, a total stranger, by walking away.
“…but it is your help that he wants and needs.” His expression became pragmatic. “Taking care of a recovering addict is hard enough, without all the other burdens that you are carrying. If this is the only way that I can be of some help, please don’t deprive me of the opportunity to do my bit.”
***
After Mycroft left, Lestrade hurried back up the stairs to find Sherlock sitting on the sofa, glowering at the door. He gave Lestrade a venomous glance.
“So? Did he offer you money to spy on me?”
Lestrade considered the question before replying. “Yes.”
“Did you take it?”
“Yes… thought we could split the fee!”
There was a pause, as he gave Lestrade one sharp searching look.
It’s a day of firsts, Lestrade thought in the next moment, as they both burst out laughing together.
“FOUR!”
It was the fourth serial suicide when he decided that Sherlock was right.
His eyes had barely stopped to take in the unassuming man sitting in the chair in Sherlock’s new apartment. He had looked more closely when the man had followed him to the crime-scene. But when Sherlock abandoned him there, Lestrade didn’t spare him a second thought. That was his first mistake.
The drugs-bust was regretful but necessary. This was the first time Sherlock was going to be on his own since his overdose. The charade had served three purposes- letting the Doctor know his flatmate’s history, find any hidden drugs in the stuff that had yet to be put away and lastly, recover ‘borrowed’ evidence. Seeing the man bristle at Sherlock’s implied drug-use should have been his second clue.
That Sherlock had then decided to go gallivanting off with a serial killer was not the surprising part. The surprising part was that Dr. John Watson had chosen to follow.
Lestrade wasn’t a Holmes. So he took his own time in coming to the conclusion that one John Watson entering the life of Sherlock Holmes was going to be a life-altering event for everyone concerned.
“The bullet they just dug out of the wall's from a handgun. A kill shot over that distance, that's a crack shot. But not just a marksman,a fighter. His hands couldn't have shaken at all so clearly he's acclimatised to violence. He didn't fire until I was in immediate danger though, so strong moral principle. You're looking for a man probably with a history of military service, and... nerves of steel...” Lestrade bit back a gasp at his epiphany, as Sherlock tapered off staring at his new flat-mate.
He watched dumbfounded as the pair walked off giggling, right into the waiting arms of his new boyfriend and the blackberry toting Venus he had for an assistant. Seriously, Mycroft would never have gotten away with keeping her had he been straight and not been sleeping with her in the first place.
It was strange to use a word as mundane as boyfriend in the same sentence as Mycroft Holmes; not least because the word did no justice to their relationship. Easy, Greg it’s just been a few weeks, he reminded himself. Neither the lack-lustre terminology nor the reminder did anything to diminish the jolt he always felt on seeing the man.
He took stock of his crime-scene. Hope’s corpse had already been moved to the morgue and Forensics had finished their job. The paperwork would anyways have to wait till he had Sherlock’s statement. He left Sally in charge of the mop-up and left to meet Mycroft who was patiently waiting for him, having dismissed his retinue for the night.
Lestrade grinned at him tiredly as they walked to his normal work-a-day car. The upside to being in a relationship with an omniscient man was that you never had to tell him how bad your day had been. Then again, Mycroft had the uncanny ability to strike at the heart of any matter which reflected in his question. “Why don’t you look happy enough to have caught a serial- killer?”
As he started the car, Lestrade debated on how much to tell him now. He would get his hands on the official report later but that wasn’t going to reveal anything either. Hope had been found unarmed (the fake gun wouldn’t have fooled Sherlock in a million years). Yet he had been shot. If his suspicions about the shooter were correct, Sherlock had to have been in danger, which led to the conclusion that he had been about to take the pill under no coercion or threat to his life…just on Hope’s say-so.
Sherlock had almost jumped again today. Mycroft’s blood-pressure would not react well to that.
Mycroft watched the by-play of emotions on his face and smiled reassuringly. “It’s okay Gregory, I monitor the CCTV cameras opposite 221B. I know he went off voluntarily with the cabbie.” That explained why, since the first time they had started dating; Mycroft had turned up at a crime-scene.
Lestrade smiled ruefully back, “I wish that was the part I was afraid to tell you about.”
Mycroft studied his face before sitting back slowly, smile disappearing. “Oh, I see…” He gave Lestrade a puzzled look, “But the taxi-driver was shot and Sherlock doesn’t possess a gun.” As his mind came to the same conclusion with half the data, he gave a brilliant smile, “After knowing my brother only for a day… amazing!”
There was barely suppressed mirth on Lestrade’s face too as he concentrated on the road. “I have no idea who you are talking about. As far as the Met is concerned, the shooter escaped.”
“Of course”, Mycroft nodded solemnly, though he couldn’t stop smiling. “Flat-mate to friend in the course of a day. It’s a new record for Sherlock!”
“Oh I wouldn’t just say ‘friend’ now, would you?” Lestrade said nonchalantly.
“I would say that it's time we told Sherlock about us," Mycroft replied with a mischievous smile on his face.
“I can't wait to tell him, how his big brother has a penchant for falling for someone who can manhandle him." He dropped a light kiss on Mycroft’s lips before getting out of the car which he had stopped in front of his apartment. "As long as you remember that you owe me a hundred pounds, if he has already figured it out.”
Mycroft didn’t stay beyond dinner that night as he had an early morning conference call. Just before going to bed, Lestrade couldn’t help sending a message.
TO: SH
CONGRATULATIONS FOR THE CASE
AND THE NEW FLAT-MATE. ;)
Almost instantly, his phone buzzed with a reply-
SAME TO YOU.
HE IS A FAT GIT, BUT I AM HAPPY FOR YOU. - SH.
Lestrade went to bed chuckling to himself as he thought of Mycroft’s face and how he would spend the hundred pounds.
Next Part
Author: missilemuse
Part: 4/4
Wordcount: 17,635
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: for mentions of child abuse and drug use.
Summary: Detective Inspector Lestrade takes a trip down memory lane, to find Sherlock at all the important stops.
Spoilers: for all the three episodes.
Disclaimer: John and Sherlock belong to ACD's grey cells. Lestrade in my story, is inspired by Rupert Graves’ take on the character in the B.B.C. reincarnation.
Author's notes: This is the first time I have attempted to write a Lestrade-centric fic. That is not saying much, as this is only the second story that I am posting. I was terrified of getting the character less perfect than the exact way I wanted him. This was supposed to be a small; less than 1500 word fic. But after the first five lines, it mutated to develop its own feet and I had to run with it. It includes my versions of their first meeting, post-ASIP, post-TGG and post-Reichenbach from Lestrade’s POV. For those of you who will have the patience to read it, I am thankful in advance. Please do review!
(December 31, 2011)
“TEN!”
(The crescendo reached his ears. He shivered as a visceral response kicked in, which had nothing to do with here and now and transported him to another time and place!)
“What! What did he say? It’s a kid! Oh God, it’s a kid! Jesus!”
His hand had flown to his mouth. His brain had frozen in panic, till he had worked a miracle, as usual… touch and go- it had been so close. Even the memory gave him goosebumps.
“THE VAN BUREN SUPERNOVA!”
“NINE!”
“She was nine years old!”
“Sergeant Donovan, you need to calm down.”
He hated pulling rank, always had, but she was giving him no choice. Sally was new to the team; young but very competent with tremendous potential. He had bodily dragged her away from his Consultant Detective before she could do some real damage.
Her voice held all the violence that she had been unable to release, “She was a nine year old girl, Sir. Her body has not stiffened yet and he still has the gall to walk up to her parents and ask them if their daughter was sexually active. You think that’s ok?”
He looked steadily in her eyes trying to make his point. “If he leads us to the guy who did this, then yes.”
She looked at her Boss, her gaze unflinchingly honest. “You cannot demand that I respect that man when he doesn't even respect the victims, SIR.”
Before Lestrade could reply, the object of their discussion loomed at his shoulder.
“It was the mother.”
Sherlock ignored Sally, ignored the bruise blooming up on his chin, ignored the drop of blood about to trickle down his chin, which was giving Lestrade a sudden absurd urge to reach out a hand and wipe it away.
“The father was abusing the girl; the mother killed her to protect her.”
He quashed the urge, but turned his back on Sally to face him properly. “Alright…Gimme…”
“EIGHT!”
“Congratulations Mr. Lestrade. In eight months, you’ll be a father!”
Damn it! He was supposed to feel happy. It was a textbook happy moment. He had been newly promoted; his wife was healthy, beaming. They had waited so long for this. He worked his facial muscles into an approximation of a smile for Julia’s benefit.
She didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his doubts.
So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise then, that as soon as they had returned home from the sonologist she faced him calmly and said, “This isn’t working, Greg.”
It was Sherlock’s fault. He had made him used to brutal truths being casually flung in his face…probably the reason why he was still standing even when it felt like Julia had taken a cleaver to his heart.
“Julie, this is not the time. We are having a baby!”
“No, Greg, I am having a baby. You are never here. Between your work and that boy, it’s a miracle that we even conceived in the first place.”
Anger came first. “That boy stopped an innocent man from being jailed for life yesterday. Don’t blame him for our problems. So that’s it, you’re pregnant, so you decide you can leave me now, as I have served my purpose in this marriage.”
She shook her head helplessly, “I had the papers drawn up two weeks ago; was just waiting for you to be home for more than four hours at a time to tell you. This… just happened.”
“This, is our future you're talking about.” His voice broke, pleading, “I’ll try harder, Julia. Please… don’t do this!”
Her eyes were tearful as she walked up to him and gently placed a kiss on his forehead.
“You could have been an amazing husband, Greg. You will be a great father. I am not going to take that away from you. But with you, the greater good will always come first. You’re just not selfish enough to want your own happiness. I want more, both for me and our child. Please understand. Don’t make this harder than it is.”
Don’t break down in her presence; his brain was screaming at him. He clenched his fists and bit back his tears.
His phone buzzed.
ROBERT HENLEY MURDER.
22, BENTHAL GREEN.
NEED YOU. - SH
He grasped the last three words like a drowning man would clutch a life-preserver. He turned and walked out of the door.
“SEVEN!”
“Only seven hours, Detective Inspector!” the voice was mocking. “You are already passing out on us. That just won’t do.”
The commanding tone told him that the man in charge had finally arrived.
He was tied to a chair inside what looked like a warehouse. They had done a number on him for the interrogation. Lestrade had made his head fall boneless, lolling forward on his chest. He was in a sea of pain, but it would stay the beatings if they thought he wasn’t completely lucid. He was not a coward but right now, self-preservation took precedence.
The team knew that he had taken the weekend off to finalise the divorce. He had been leaving the court, intending to get plastered at the nearest pub when this lot had had got their hands on him. If the man was right, there were nearly thirty hours to go before he was supposed to turn up for work; forty-odd hours before he would be considered missing. The math was disheartening.
He felt a gloved hand hold his chin and pull his face up. The man in front of him would have been a shoo-in for Penguin in a Batman flick. Peter Carney aka ‘Tiny Pete’; mob-boss, drug-lord, nigh untouchable for the Met…until now.
“You ready to talk, Inspector? We know, you got that rat-bastard Lenny to turn witness. All you need to do is give me the address of his safe-house. You have my word; we’ll let you walk away. No one will know you helped us.”
His answering words were faint but to the point.
“Fuck off!”
He was expecting the fist that rammed into his solar plexus; that didn’t make it hurt any less.
“Bad answer, hero. Don’t worry; we’ll talk later when you have changed your mind.” The voice had moved further away when it commanded, “Get Bruiser in here.”
Julia had wanted it to be ‘Jennifer’. He had argued on principle, even when he didn’t have a particular name in his mind.
Now as he heard the room clear and leave him to the tender mercies of Bruiser, he thought ‘Jenny’ wasn’t so bad.
As he heard footsteps approach the chair, he took a deep breath resigning himself to the oncoming pain.
What he didn’t expect, was the ‘uhnff’ sound followed by a crash as the only other guard in the room collapsed to the floor at his feet.
Lestrade blinked, looking at the prone form and then dragged his eyes up to see the man responsible for making it happen.
He was tall, ginger-haired, with a full beard and a pony-tail, beetle-black eyes, lithe form; he was wearing only a vest over his jeans which showed off his broad shoulders and thin yet muscled arms with tattoos on both sides. The second shock came when he stepped nimbly over the guard’s body and fell to his knees in front of Lestrade’s chair, whipping out a pen-knife to cut the ropes.
“You alright, Lestrade?”
OH!
“YOU!”
He hadn’t seen him for nearly three weeks, after having turned him away from the last crime-scene where he had turned up as high as a kite. Lestrade found himself temporarily speechless. Somehow his mind couldn’t reconcile the two images; that of his posh, great-coat wearing, swanning Consultant Detective and the man in front of him.
“What… How! What did you do with the real Bruiser?”
“Oh! I am Bruiser. That’s the name I use to box at this illegal club when I’m bored. Pete has been trying to recruit me for months. I just pretended to be interested today.”
“YOU are bloody insane!”
“And you, Lestrade, are a moron to get kidnapped by a bunch of nincompoops. Seriously, the Carney Case! It's not worth getting tortured and killed over. It’s dull!”
Lestrade laughed. He couldn’t help it; just as he couldn’t help noticing how the fingers that were working his ropes free were trembling. He found his voice. “Hey, relax... its ok; I’m alright.”
Later at the hospital, he used the phone next to his bed to call his now ex-wife.
“Hello Julia, it's Greg.” He cleared his throat. “Just called to say that I changed my mind. I think Jennifer is a lovely name.”
“SIX!”
This was the sixth time he had rushed to the hospital. Five false alarms had made him complacent. Julia had been very understanding, had made it clear that she didn’t expect him to be there when their daughter was born. But Lestrade was nothing if not stubborn. Nothing in the world would make him miss the one positive thing that was happening in his life.
At least that is what he had thought…
This was the first time he had skidded into the hospital lobby after Julia. Since he was late, this had to be the real deal.
“Mr. Gregory Lestrade. You’re the father.”
“Yes that’s me”, he patiently repeated to the woman at the desk. “The expectant mother is Julia Andrews. She must have reached here about fifteen minutes before me.”
“Yes, of course. Please take a seat. Dr. Patel will be out to speak with you shortly.”
Dr. Patel turned out to be a diminutive middle-aged brunette with kind brown eyes.
“Mr. Lestrade, your wife has experienced a placental bleed. Thankfully it is not severe, but we had to sedate her for the pain. The bleed appears to be causing some foetal distress. We need your permission for a C-section. I don’t anticipate any complications during the procedure. Your wife has been very prompt in seeking help.”
She thrust a form at him, which he signed with shaking fingers; feeling overwhelmed and out of his depth.
“Doctor, will they be alright?”
She patted his back, as she got up to leave him, “We’ll be taking her into surgery now. Don’t worry; we’ll do our best.”
The walls seemed to be closing in on him. He left the waiting room to pace the parking-lot of the hospital. He felt tense and stretched like a trip-wire. He was on his fifth cigarette, when his phone buzzed. He wanted to ignore it. Not today! He thought. Wanting was not enough though. Julie had been right. He was pathetic. He groaned on seeing the sender name.
M tell mummy im sorry.
No signature, no comma, no capitals…SORRY?
He froze mid-step, cigarette dangling limp between his fingers, unable to ignore the spike of fear uncoiling in his belly. It could be innocent. He had no idea who M was, but the message was definitely not meant for him. He should feel relieved but as he stared at the words, he felt fear crawl its way up his spine and grip his throat. His fingers were trembling as he called back. The line connected; he could hear the phone ring.
Pick up! Pick up! PICK UP!
The mobile rang into silence.
SHIT!
The cigarette had already been flung aside. He found himself racing to his car. By the time he was peeling out of the driveway, he was on the phone with Emergency Services. If it turned out to be nothing, he would take the flak for it later. He reached Montague Street to find the ambulance already there; with a barely breathing pale figure being loaded into the back of it.
For the second time that night, Lestrade found himself using the siren on his car to escort the ambulance back to the hospital in record time. All the while, the past four years were flicking through his mind like a photo album- faces of the people who owed their lives to Sherlock when they didn’t even know of his existence; the thankless, anonymous existence of a ghost.
Please God, let him live, he begged. They needed him. He needed him.
He had overdosed on morphine. Thankfully the E.M.T’s had got the Naloxone into him before his breathing had deteriorated enough to require a respirator. When he was given the good news, he collapsed into a chair out of sheer relief. That was how Dr. Patel found him, when she came to tell him that he was now the proud father of a healthy baby girl.
It was later when he held his daughter in his arms for the first time that he realised the root of his feelings for Sherlock; the fierce pride, the overwhelming urge to protect.
Next morning, he entered Sherlock’s room with his daughter in his arms. He was halted in his tracks by a cutting baritone, “Before you say anything, I wasn’t trying to kill myself. It was an accident. I realised it was an overdose after it happened. So you can spare me the speech. Just leave me alone.”
Lestrade calmly crossed the room and placed the swaddled bundle in the Detective’s lap. He scrambled to hold her like she was made of crystal looking at Lestrade like he had gone mad.
“WHAT are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”
Lestrade fixed his daughter’s eyes with his own and gesturing towards Sherlock, said very solemnly, “Jenny, this is Sherlock.”
She gurgled in response.
“Lestrade, this is an infant. She can’t comprehend what you are saying… this is ridiculous!”
“He is an amazing genius who did a very stupid thing yesterday and the worst part is, he doesn’t even think it was wrong.”
“Yes, using your spawn to give me a life-lesson; very original!”
Lestrade continued as though there had been no interruption, eyes focussed on Jenny.
“But you should also know that on most days unlike yesterday, he's a great man. He saves people when he is not being stupid. He is the reason why Daddy will get to watch you grow up, coz he's saved my life many times over. I know that one day; you will want to thank him properly for that yourself, wouldn’t you? So…you will want him to stick around for that day, right?”
His eyes snapped up to the blue-grey ones. Lestrade knew his voice had choked towards the end. He could barely see through the film of tears in his eyes, but he repeated his question firmly holding the piercing gaze, “Right?”
Sherlock dropped his eyes to Jenny’s face and answered softly, “Right.”
“FIVE!”
“…its five thousand pounds. There has to be a mistake!”
“Uh…Sir”, the clerk’s polite voice was slipping. “Are you implying that you have more money in your account than you are supposed to?”
“Damn right, its more. I had fifty pounds in there. What the hell happened?”
The clerk cleared his throat audibly. “You have to understand Sir, that this is the first time that we are having a complaint of this nature. Uh… but our records show no discrepancies at our end. The amount was deposited in your account electronically yesterday using passwords only you are privy to. It is not like we can remove the money anymore than we can put it in. I’m sorry, but there’s only so much we can do.”
Lestrade slammed the phone in frustration. He wished he could ask Sherlock, who would definitely have an answer to how and why someone would hack into his bank-account to give him money. But the Detective had left for Surrey the day before, muttering something about an interesting missing person’s case. Keeping Sherlock busy was Lestrade’s withdrawal strategy for him, and so far it was working admirably.
It had to be a bribe or a frame-up of some sort; the first step towards implicating him in something shady. But the lack of someone claiming credit was weird.
Then there was the timing of the unexpected windfall. Temptation was a seductive bitch! Between the alimony, child-support and moving into a new place in London, Lestrade was flat broke. He had yet to make this month’s rent. That hadn’t stopped him from insisting that Sherlock move in with him temporarily, till he found a new place. That Sherlock was humouring him was a silver lining in an otherwise grim situation.
He made a formal complaint at the Met regarding the money; then forgot all about it for the rest of the day. He let himself into the flat that evening thinking longingly of his bed. But he had grown used to his life, where nothing ever went according to plan.
“Good Evening, Detective Inspector.”
The voice was silky, smooth and deceptive; as was the appearance of the man sitting comfortably on his couch. He was tall, middle-aged with slightly thinning hair and a piercing gaze which belied the benign expression on his face. The old-fashioned three piece suit (if it hadn’t been hideously expensive) and the brolly, on which he was resting his hands could have passed him off as a Uni professor. But (with nearly twenty years of experience backing him), he could instinctively sense the aura of power that clung to him like second skin. This was a man who was used to being obeyed. Sitting calmly on his second-hand sofa, he radiated the kind of menace that men like Peter Carney failed to inspire even with half a dozen armed thugs surrounding them. The apparent geniality didn’t fool him one bit. This was a very dangerous man indeed.
He then realised that he had frozen in his living room, one hand already in his pocket to call for help.
“There is no need to be alarmed, Inspector. I merely wish to have a chat.” The man placidly gestured to the chair opposite to the sofa, with his umbrella. “Do sit down. You must be exhausted after a long day at work.”
The gall of this housebreaker to offer him a chair in his own house, prompted Lestrade to speech. “I don’t care who the hell you are. Since you already know I’m a cop, I’ll give you exactly one minute to come up with a reasonable explanation for your actions before I put you under arrest for B & E.”
The man wrinkled his nose slightly. “Come come, Inspector, I would hardly call it breaking and entering when I let myself in using a key.”
Lestrade followed the gesture his hand made to the side table, where he saw the key…the sturdy key-chain in shape of a violin that he had purchased on the day of Sherlock’s discharge.
Sherlock’s key…
The man was smiling at him. It was the smile that made him snap.
Red hot fury gripped him as he stalked to the sofa, grabbed the man by the lapels of his posh coat and hauled him up till his face was inches from his own.
“Where the hell is he? What have you done with him? I swear, if he's hurt…”
His words were cut off by the sound of the door he had forgotten to close being pushed open, followed by the last voice he had expected to hear. “Lestrade, did you know that the doo... What the…”
For an instant, it was a frozen tableau. The first thing Lestrade felt was surprise, at being able to surprise Sherlock, followed by relief that he was unharmed. The next instant his common-sense reasserted itself and he dropped the man as though he had been scalded. He stepped back ready to apologise for the presumption, but before he could speak the second impossible thing happened.
Sherlock burst out laughing.
Real, unfettered, uncontrollable, honest-to-goodness laughter; a phenomenon that Lestrade had never seen in the five years that he had known him. It made him look ten years younger. Just for a moment, the stranger in front of him mirrored his own expression; incredulity warring with hope, like he was witnessing something that he had given up on, a long time back.
As Lestrade blinked, the stranger’s face closed again, showing nothing but haughty derision at the sight of Sherlock still convulsing with laughter. But he had seen and understood. This man could not harm Sherlock any more than he could.
“I am glad I could amuse you, Sherlock.” He turned to Lestrade with a faintly flushed face, “I am Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s brother. I think that I can safely assume that he has never mentioned me.”
“IT… WAS… PRICELESS”, Sherlock finally sputtered. “It was completely worth letting your minion pick-pocket me today. Had I been just a minute late, he would have broken your nose and it would have served you right, you overbearing git.”
Mycroft (M?) turned to look at Lestrade, who was now red-faced and staring at his shoes, hands in his pockets. He couldn’t meet the man’s eyes.
“I shouldn’t have…” he started to speak.
“It’s alright, Detective Inspector. My irksome brother has a tendency to rouse the strongest feelings in the people he chooses to interact with. Usually those feelings are negative.You had good reason to be suspicious.” He gave Lestrade a small genuine smile which was tentatively returned.
Sherlock could sense the non-verbal conversation in which he wasn’t included and marched upto his brother to chivvy him to the door. “That’s it, Mycroft. You came here to see me. I’m alive. Now that your morbid curiosity has been satisfied, you may leave.”
“Sherlock!” Lestrade hissed, appalled at his behaviour.
He whirled on him, “Oh God, not you too!” He closed his eyes and stomped to the spare bedroom, stopping at the door to throw his words back at Lestrade. “Fine, don’t say that I didn’t warn you!” He slammed the door.
Looking meaningfully at the closed door, Mycroft said, “I should leave.” Just as Lestrade began to voice his protests, he said, “No, it’s fine really…if you could just walk with me to my car…”
After having nearly decked the man, Lestrade couldn’t help but agree. His car turned out to be a black, bullet-proof behemoth that dwarfed the Street and had been nowhere around when he had come home. Mycroft didn’t mince words when he faced Lestrade.
“I wanted to say that it was me who had that money transferred to your bank account.”
Okay! So maybe Sherlock did have a point…
“Please let me explain. It is not my intention to cheapen what you are doing for Sherlock and I would be grateful if you didn’t take it that way. I have pulled Sherlock back from the precipice three times before this but he has never been able to resist the pull of trying to jump again. I am infinitely glad that fate chose for you to help him this time. But what relieves me more is that he continues to accept your help. I … would trade places with you in a heart-beat… if I could.”
He could neither explain nor protest at the pained expression on Mycroft’s face. Although, he did seem to know that Lestrade’s involvement in the incident was wholly by accident. He imagined what it would have been like to be in his place; to have received the message that had come to him by mistake. He shuddered to realise the helplessness a man like Mycroft must feel at the moment; the level of trust he was placing in him, a total stranger, by walking away.
“…but it is your help that he wants and needs.” His expression became pragmatic. “Taking care of a recovering addict is hard enough, without all the other burdens that you are carrying. If this is the only way that I can be of some help, please don’t deprive me of the opportunity to do my bit.”
***
After Mycroft left, Lestrade hurried back up the stairs to find Sherlock sitting on the sofa, glowering at the door. He gave Lestrade a venomous glance.
“So? Did he offer you money to spy on me?”
Lestrade considered the question before replying. “Yes.”
“Did you take it?”
“Yes… thought we could split the fee!”
There was a pause, as he gave Lestrade one sharp searching look.
It’s a day of firsts, Lestrade thought in the next moment, as they both burst out laughing together.
“FOUR!”
It was the fourth serial suicide when he decided that Sherlock was right.
His eyes had barely stopped to take in the unassuming man sitting in the chair in Sherlock’s new apartment. He had looked more closely when the man had followed him to the crime-scene. But when Sherlock abandoned him there, Lestrade didn’t spare him a second thought. That was his first mistake.
The drugs-bust was regretful but necessary. This was the first time Sherlock was going to be on his own since his overdose. The charade had served three purposes- letting the Doctor know his flatmate’s history, find any hidden drugs in the stuff that had yet to be put away and lastly, recover ‘borrowed’ evidence. Seeing the man bristle at Sherlock’s implied drug-use should have been his second clue.
That Sherlock had then decided to go gallivanting off with a serial killer was not the surprising part. The surprising part was that Dr. John Watson had chosen to follow.
Lestrade wasn’t a Holmes. So he took his own time in coming to the conclusion that one John Watson entering the life of Sherlock Holmes was going to be a life-altering event for everyone concerned.
“The bullet they just dug out of the wall's from a handgun. A kill shot over that distance, that's a crack shot. But not just a marksman,a fighter. His hands couldn't have shaken at all so clearly he's acclimatised to violence. He didn't fire until I was in immediate danger though, so strong moral principle. You're looking for a man probably with a history of military service, and... nerves of steel...” Lestrade bit back a gasp at his epiphany, as Sherlock tapered off staring at his new flat-mate.
He watched dumbfounded as the pair walked off giggling, right into the waiting arms of his new boyfriend and the blackberry toting Venus he had for an assistant. Seriously, Mycroft would never have gotten away with keeping her had he been straight and not been sleeping with her in the first place.
It was strange to use a word as mundane as boyfriend in the same sentence as Mycroft Holmes; not least because the word did no justice to their relationship. Easy, Greg it’s just been a few weeks, he reminded himself. Neither the lack-lustre terminology nor the reminder did anything to diminish the jolt he always felt on seeing the man.
He took stock of his crime-scene. Hope’s corpse had already been moved to the morgue and Forensics had finished their job. The paperwork would anyways have to wait till he had Sherlock’s statement. He left Sally in charge of the mop-up and left to meet Mycroft who was patiently waiting for him, having dismissed his retinue for the night.
Lestrade grinned at him tiredly as they walked to his normal work-a-day car. The upside to being in a relationship with an omniscient man was that you never had to tell him how bad your day had been. Then again, Mycroft had the uncanny ability to strike at the heart of any matter which reflected in his question. “Why don’t you look happy enough to have caught a serial- killer?”
As he started the car, Lestrade debated on how much to tell him now. He would get his hands on the official report later but that wasn’t going to reveal anything either. Hope had been found unarmed (the fake gun wouldn’t have fooled Sherlock in a million years). Yet he had been shot. If his suspicions about the shooter were correct, Sherlock had to have been in danger, which led to the conclusion that he had been about to take the pill under no coercion or threat to his life…just on Hope’s say-so.
Sherlock had almost jumped again today. Mycroft’s blood-pressure would not react well to that.
Mycroft watched the by-play of emotions on his face and smiled reassuringly. “It’s okay Gregory, I monitor the CCTV cameras opposite 221B. I know he went off voluntarily with the cabbie.” That explained why, since the first time they had started dating; Mycroft had turned up at a crime-scene.
Lestrade smiled ruefully back, “I wish that was the part I was afraid to tell you about.”
Mycroft studied his face before sitting back slowly, smile disappearing. “Oh, I see…” He gave Lestrade a puzzled look, “But the taxi-driver was shot and Sherlock doesn’t possess a gun.” As his mind came to the same conclusion with half the data, he gave a brilliant smile, “After knowing my brother only for a day… amazing!”
There was barely suppressed mirth on Lestrade’s face too as he concentrated on the road. “I have no idea who you are talking about. As far as the Met is concerned, the shooter escaped.”
“Of course”, Mycroft nodded solemnly, though he couldn’t stop smiling. “Flat-mate to friend in the course of a day. It’s a new record for Sherlock!”
“Oh I wouldn’t just say ‘friend’ now, would you?” Lestrade said nonchalantly.
“I would say that it's time we told Sherlock about us," Mycroft replied with a mischievous smile on his face.
“I can't wait to tell him, how his big brother has a penchant for falling for someone who can manhandle him." He dropped a light kiss on Mycroft’s lips before getting out of the car which he had stopped in front of his apartment. "As long as you remember that you owe me a hundred pounds, if he has already figured it out.”
Mycroft didn’t stay beyond dinner that night as he had an early morning conference call. Just before going to bed, Lestrade couldn’t help sending a message.
TO: SH
CONGRATULATIONS FOR THE CASE
AND THE NEW FLAT-MATE. ;)
Almost instantly, his phone buzzed with a reply-
SAME TO YOU.
HE IS A FAT GIT, BUT I AM HAPPY FOR YOU. - SH.
Lestrade went to bed chuckling to himself as he thought of Mycroft’s face and how he would spend the hundred pounds.
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