Sherlock - The Game Is On!

The Six Thatchers- Six

Chapter Six

The Diogenes Club

We walk in and step into Mycroft's office. Sherlock takes of his coat and pulls the chair out for me, whilst he paces the area of the underground office. "Sherlock, Michelle. What can I do for you?"

Sherlock proceeds to tell his brother about the latest case whilst I sit and bare my surroundings. "I met her once."

"Thatcher?"

"Rather arrogant, I thought."

"You thought that?" I question, chuckling along with Mycroft. "I know!" Sherlock shows the phone to him and his smile drops. "Why am I looking at this?"

"That's her. John and Mary's baby."

"Rosamund-Mary Michelle Watson." I mumble happily. Mycroft spares me a glance. "Oh, I see. Yes. Looks very... Fully functioning."

"Is that really the best you can do?"

"Sorry. I've never been very good with them."

"Babies?"

"Humans." Mycroft and I chime. I laugh lowly. Sherlock steps forward and takes the phone from his brother and puts it in the inside pocket of his jacket. "Moriarty. Did he have any connection with Thatcher? Any interest in her?"

"Why on earth would he?"

"I don't know. You tell me." Mycroft sniffs, then leans forward and opens a folder on his desk. "In the last year of his life, James Moriarty was involved with four political assassinations, over seventy assorted robberies and terrorist attacks, including a chemical weapons factory in North Korea, and had latterly shown some interest in tracking down the Black Pearl of the Borgias, which is still missing, by the way, in case you feel like applying yourself to something practical."

"Oh, it's a pearl. Get another bloody one." I huff out. Mycroft rolls his eyes. "There's something important about this."

"There's something buried deep, I'd say." I murmur, steeping my fingers against my mouth. "I'm sure. Maybe it's Moriarty. Maybe it's not. But something's coming." Mycroft frowns and leans forward, folding his hands on the desk. "Are you having a premonition, brother mine? Or is it Michelle?"

Sherlock blinks and they both peer to me. I spring up from my seat and start to pace the room. "The world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other. What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics." Mycroft snaps his gaze away from me to smile at Sherlock. "Appointment in Samarra."

"I'm sorry?"

"The merchant who can't outrun Death. You always hated that story as a child. Less keen on predestination back then."

"I'm not sure I like it now."

"You wrote your own version, as I remember. Appointment in Sumatra. The merchant goes to a different city and is perfectly fine."

"Goodnight, Mycroft." Sherlock places his coat on and walks to the door. He turns to the door. "Keep me informed."

"Of what?"

"Absolutely no idea." I go to follow, waving to Mycroft.

"Now, you haven't always been in life insurance, have you? You started out in manual labour." I stated to our client. Sherlock sits down in his chair whilst the man opens his mouth in surprise. "Oh, don't bother being astonished. Your right hand's almost an entire size bigger than your left." Sherlock chimed. "Hard manual work does that."