221B Week, Day 1: The Unpleasantness at the Diogenes Club
BBC Sherlock
Rating 12 (implicit shady goings-on and violence)
Spoilers: minor for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy
"They don't want a repeat of nineteen seventy-two" -- Mycroft Holmes on the Diogenes Club.
Mycroft didn't know what the big building was or why it was called the Digger-Knees. He just knew it had the best buns he'd tasted in all his five years. On every trip to London, he pestered his parents to be allowed to go back there. Till the day that Father came home with a bloody nose and a swollen lip, and announced:
"Had to resign from the club. Sorry, Mycroft, old chap, no more buns for you when we go to Town."
Mycroft pretended to read his Enid Blyton, secretly listening to Father's quiet, angry explanations to Mummy.
"Lot of argy-bargy there recently about the Troubles and the Reds. Then today a crowd from the Circus turned up." Mycroft's ears pricked up, but the next thing Father said was odd. "Including a new scalphunter: some thug called Ricki Tarr. I don't know why, but halfway through a conversation someone took a swing at him."
"Really, Siger," Mummy said. "And you got involved in this brawl?"
"Seemed a chance to give Bill Haydon a little lesson," Father replied in a flat voice, and Mummy's face went red, and she told Mycroft to go upstairs.
It wasn't till next summer that Mycroft thought to ask Mummy why he and she were no longer getting their special little visits from his Uncle Bill.