On the eleventh day of Sherlockmas... "The man with the twisted life," a gift fic for goldvermilion8
Author: [redacted]
Title: The Man with the Twisted Life
A gift for: goldvermilion87
Characters/Pairing: Molly, Sherlock, Lestrade, John
Category: Gen
Rating: 12/PG-13
Warnings: No warnings apply
Summary: John learns a secret about Molly's past
Author's Notes: many thanks to T for betaing
Summer 2010
Molly was putting back together Mr Murphy's skull when John turned up in the morgue.
"Do you mind if I finish this?" she asked. "I've just got a few more stitches to do."
"That's fine," he said, and watched quietly as she carefully put the finishing touches to her work. She couldn't say even now that Mr Murphy looked his best, but for someone whose face had hit a road at forty miles an hour, all her hard work had made him appear surprisingly peaceful.
"Have you come for eyeballs again?" she asked, as she started to tidy away her kit. "Because I did tell Sherlock there wouldn't be any till after Wednesday's dissection practical."
"Ears," John said, "A matching pair, preferably." His face widened into a smile. "I'm sorry, that sounds totally bizarre."
She smiled back at him. "I'm used to it. You get a lot of strange requests working down here."
"So how did you end up working in a morgue?" John asked, as if it had only just occurred to him that it was an unusual choice.
"I needed a job after I got divorced, and a friend of mine suggested this," she said. The usual evasive answer she gave.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd been divorced," John said awkwardly. "It's tough when things don't work out..." His voice died away.
"It didn't last long," she said hastily. "I found out Neville was cheating." Another evasive answer, but suddenly she wanted him to know what had happened. Except she couldn't think how to put it into words.
"Ask Sherlock," she told him. "He found out about Neville, what he was up to." She saw John's mouth open in an O of surprise, but surely he must have realised that she and Sherlock went back a long way?
"I'll see if we've got some ears," she said, and hurried off towards the cool store.
***
Summer 2005
Molly had wanted to be a doctor when she was growing up. Well, didn't all girls who were good at science dream about that? But her grades hadn't been quite good enough, and she'd mucked up the interviews for medical school. She'd ended up studying biology in Manchester more because it got her away from her parents than because she had any real idea what she wanted to do.
And then she'd met Neville and it had suddenly all seemed so clear. They were going to get married and move to London and he'd be a solicitor in one of the Magic Circle firms and she'd be a research scientist. Everything seemed possible, worth doing, when Neville was around, his clever actor's face smiling at her and telling her she was wonderful.
The first few years in London had been hard, especially when Neville wasn't kept on by Linklaters after his training contract finished. But Molly found a lab job with a cosmetics firm that paid extra for shift-work and they could just about cover the rent. And Neville, after the depression of months of failed applications, announced that he'd got a job with a firm of solicitors in Brentford.
Molly had never heard of them, but she didn't care how small they were if they were happy to take on Neville. And he seemed to be getting on well, was talking about a pay rise. Then six months later, on a baking hot Monday in June, Molly went to Docklands to meet a friend for lunch and got lost on the way back.
***
She was hopelessly lost. Google Maps denied the existence of Fresno Street, and Upper Swandam Lane, which she wandered into next, was no better. Molly looked around. Nowhere she could get a taxi, no bus stop, nothing but a shabby row of shops and a few run-down warehouses. Docklands regeneration obviously hadn't found this bit of east London yet. She walked towards the shops; maybe at least she could find someone to give her directions.
She was just approaching a takeaway called the "Bar of Gold" when she saw him: Neville, opening a second-floor window. He looked down at her, made an odd kind of choking sound and vanished abruptly, and she knew at once something was wrong. He didn't have his tie on, for a start, and Neville was always smartly dressed. And what was he doing in this grotty bit of London, miles away from his office?
She hurried towards the takeaway, trying to work out where exactly he'd been. There were offices on the upper floors; after a brief argument with the takeaway owner, she headed up two narrow flights of stairs to find a stuffy office and a heavily-accented Indian man at a desk piled high with papers.
"No-one called San Clear here," he insisted. "Me and Mr Beck, no-one else. Got the wrong address, you'd better go home, miss."
He kept on insisting that while Molly looked round. Why would Neville have come here? But she was sure she'd seen him, and the Indian seemed very nervous. And then she spotted another room behind the first one and ducked round the man to investigate.
The back room was even more cluttered, piles of papers and boxes obscuring the grimy window looking onto the river. But there was one patch of colour among the yellowing printouts. A vivid emerald green tie that Molly had last seen round Neville's neck. And when she went to pick it up, beneath it was his shirt, crumpled and ominously stained with blood. Even as the Indian appeared beside her, protesting that those were nothing to do with him, Molly pulled out her phone and dialled 999.
***
The Indian man - Molly never did find out his name - had disappeared by the time the police arrived. For what seemed like hours officers milled around and asked her questions and then disappeared and came back to ask the same questions. Eventually, a sturdy middle-aged man in an open-necked shirt came and found her where she was sitting, slumped on the stairs. Greg Lestrade's hair hadn't gone grey back then, but he already had the patient, fatherly kindness of a policeman who'd seem far too many bad things happen.
"There's a cafe just round the corner that's got air-conditioning, Mrs St Clair," he said. "You need a cup of tea and a biscuit, and then I'll tell you what we've got."
Molly followed him, and yes, it did help to be out of the heat. She sat in silence as she drank her tea, wondering what the inspector had found.
"I'm sorry it's taken so long," Lestrade said, "but we had to check the whole building. There's no sign of your husband, apart from the tie and the shirt. We'll send that to forensics, and if they're confirmed as his, we can be sure it was him you saw here."
"I know it was him!"
"You did only see him very briefly. No-one we've talked to remembers seeing Mr St Clair. But there's a fire-exit at the back, so he could have got out that way without you seeing him."
"Why would he do that?" she asked.
"We don't know yet. There's a narrow footpath there, between the river and the back of the shops, if he was trying to get away."
"The river?" Molly breathed. She'd known they were near the Thames, but putting that together with "get away" brought sudden horrible images.
"Please, Mrs St Clair, don't presume the worst. We've reason to suppose that your husband was in the building and may have been injured, but there were no signs of a struggle. So we have to presume that he left voluntarily. You haven't heard from him?"
"No," Molly said. "I keep on trying his mobile, but I just get his voicemail."
"At the moment, therefore," Lestrade said, "we're recording him as a missing person. If we find evidence to suggest that anything more serious has happened, we'll upgrade the investigation. But for now, I'll give you the contact details of Victim Support and also a number you can call if you remember anything else. Or, of course, to let us know if Mr St Clair returns home."
"So you're not going to do anything?" Molly asked. Lestrade sighed and looked at the table.
"We'll investigate the ownership of the office, and try and trace the man you described meeting there. But I'm afraid that missing adults aren't an immediate priority: more than half of them return within twenty-four hours." He paused, tapping his fingers on the table, and then looked up and added:
"You're sure there's nothing that might give your husband a reason to want to run away? Unhappiness at work, money problems? Or sometimes people overreact to arguments..."
"There's nothing like that," Molly insisted. "Everything was fine." She hesitated, staring into Lestrade's warm brown eyes, and then asked: "Do you believe me? Do you think he is in some kind of danger?"
He said nothing.
"I'm not going to get hysterical," Molly insisted. "I just need to know."
"I think there's something fishy going on," Lestrade said slowly. "But I've no idea what. I'll make sure the lab get a move on with forensics; at least that'll give us something to work with. I'll have one of the constables take you home now, but as soon as I find out anything more, I'll let you know."
"Thank you," Molly said, and followed him wearily out of the cafe.
***
Three days of terrifying silence and then, on Friday morning, she got a call from Lestrade.
"I need your help, Mrs St. Clair," he said.
"Call me Molly, please," she said, because it was easier not hearing Neville's surname. "What can I do?"
"Last night, the body of a young man was fished out of the Thames," Lestrade said. "There is a possibility - a small one - that it might be your husband. Would you be willing to try and make an identification? If it's too distressing, if there's a friend or colleague of Mr St Clair's you might suggest..."
"I'll do it," Molly said hastily. She could be brave; time to start proving it. "Where do you need me to come?"
***
When Molly got to Poplar Mortuary, she saw Lestrade chatting to a small Chinese woman, her long hair tied back in a pony-tail.
"Hi, I'm Lily," the woman said and her accent was pure Home Counties.
"Molly," Molly replied, trying to sound calm.
"I'm organising the viewing session," Lily told her. "In a moment, I'll take you into the viewing chamber, and you'll be able to see the deceased. We've cleaned him up, but I'm afraid he's suffered quite a lot of head injuries, so it may be rather distressing. If you need to leave at any time, that's fine. Do you feel ready to go in now?"
"Yes," Molly said, and she followed Lily into a small white-tiled room where the body of a man lay. Molly had seen dead people before, when she'd volunteered at the hospital, but nothing like this, where the man's head was no longer the right shape. She stared in incomprehension at the body.
"Are you OK?" Lily asked, putting a warm hand on her arm. "Come outside for a minute and sit down."
Lily led them to what was obviously some kind of waiting room. Molly could feel Lestrade watching her as she slumped into her chair, but he said nothing. It was Lily who asked, "Do you need someone else to do the identification?"
"No," Molly insisted. "It's not that." She sat up, forced herself into calmness and then said, "I know this sounds stupid, but I can't...I'm not sure if it's Neville or not. I can't think what Neville looks like. I've been married to him for three years and now I can't remember his face."
"You're tired and you're under stress," Lily said. "The mind can shut down. Just sit there and try closing your eyes." They sat in silence for a minute, and then Lily went on, "Can you imagine that you're lying in bed and your husband's beside you?"
"OK," Molly said nervously.
"What's his body like? I don't need to know about his face. But is his skin smooth? Does he have a hairy chest?" Lily's voice had become soft, reassuring.
"No," Molly said, and suddenly she could see Neville's body, almost feel it. "He's got quite pale skin, not much body hair. And three moles in a little triangle on his right side, just above his belly-button."
"What are his hands like?"
"Long fingers," Molly said. "He has nice hands, he doesn't bite his nails like I do, but he keeps his nails very short. And he has quite narrow feet, so he has problems finding shoes that are comfortable."
"Do you feel able to come and look at the body again?" Lily asked. "You don't have to look at the face, I can cover that up. But look at the body and the hands and the feet and tell me if you think it's your husband."
"OK," said Molly, because suddenly it was, just about. She had Neville back, at least in her head, and she needed to know what had happened to him.
***
It wasn't him. She knew at once when she went back in, and she came out and told Lestrade that, as Lily brewed them all cups of tea.
"I'm sorry about this, Molly," Lestrade told her. "We'll keep on looking, but there are no obvious leads."
"I have to find out what happened to him," Molly said. "Whatever it was, I need to know."
"You could-," Lily said, and then broke off, looking warily at Lestrade. "Only the DI might not approve."
"What is it?" Molly asked, as Lestrade smiled ruefully at them.
"There's a private detective I met a few months ago," Lily said. "He came to the mortuary and looked at an unidentified body we had - well, half a body - and then somehow managed to track down who the dead woman was. A very odd man, but he seemed to know what he was doing."
"What was his name?" Lestrade asked.
"Holmes," Lily said. "He had a strange first name. Sherlock, I think it was. Because one of the other technicians reckoned it should be "Sheer Luck", that it was pure chance he was right about the woman being a sewing machinist."
"Sherlock Holmes," Lestrade said slowly.
"Do you know him?" Molly asked.
"I've never met him," Lestrade said, "but I've heard about him and he knows his stuff. I wouldn't normally advise someone to use a private investigator, but he might be worth talking to."
"I've got his card somewhere," Lily said. "And if there's anything else I can do, let me know. Sometimes...sometimes it's easier to talk to someone who's an outsider."
***
Molly wasn't sure what she'd expected a private investigator to look like. Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe, or maybe someone like Lestrade, but a bit older. Not a tall beautiful man who looked like he was barely out of school, and yet lived in a posh flat in Montague Street. But the moment Sherlock started asking her questions, she knew he was the best hope for finding out about Neville.
"Upper Swandam Lane has a reputation for organised crime," he said. "Drug-dealing, of course, but the Whitneys may have diversified. I'll need to go under cover, find out who's based at the "Bar of Gold". You say your husband had no tie on when you saw him?"
"Yes," Molly said. "I mean, no, he didn't."
"What else was he wearing? He was opening the window, so you'd only have seen his upper body. Did he still have the shirt on that you found later? Could you see the collar of that, where the tie should have been?"
"I'm not sure-"
"Think, Molly." His rich voice thrilled through her, and she shut her eyes, trying to bring the memory back. "Was he opening the window with his left or his right hand?"
"Right," she said. "His arm was across his body and...and he didn't have his shirt on. He was wearing some kind of white T-shirt, with no collar at all. It wasn't like him, he's always very smartly dressed."
"But it was him?"
"Yes," she said. "He recognised me, he rushed away."
"And ten minutes later you find his blood-stained shirt in the office," Sherlock said. "I'll need to have a look at that. Who's the officer in charge of the investigation?"
"DI Lestrade."
"The Met obviously have no interest in the case," Sherlock announced. "Typical stupidity."
"Is Lestrade no good?" Molly asked with sudden worry.
"No idea, never met the man. But most police officers are idiots and they'd have put a more senior man on the case if they were sure it was a homicide. Bradstreet, probably."
"But you think Neville is dead?" She had to know if her fears were justified.
"I have seven hypotheses at the moment and four of them involve him ending up in the Thames last Monday. But I need more evidence first. I'll call you in a couple of days, but if you have any more useful information before then let me know. Don't bother me with trivia though, and don't go talking to strange men. You're a terrible judge of character and you'll just put yourself in harm's way."
"I...I..." Molly said. Sherlock jumped up from the chair.
"I've got all the information I need now, I have to think, easier if you're not here, close the door as you go out, please."
***
Molly got through the weekend, but Monday was worse. No word from the police or Sherlock and she had nothing to do. When she found herself cleaning the bathroom in the flat for the fourth time in three days, she realised she had to do something. Get out, talk to someone. On an impulse she phoned Lily.
"I saw the detective you suggested and he thinks Neville is dead," she told her.
"I'm sorry," Lily said. "I really am."
"Can I come and talk to you?" Molly asked and then wondered why she'd said that. Maybe because Lily seemed to know about death and Molly's friends didn't.
"Of course," Lily said. "My shift finishes at five, if you want to come then."
***
Lily took Molly to a cafe on Poplar High Street.
"They do lovely cakes," she said. "I don't drink and I don't smoke, not after what I've seen, but I can't resist chocolate éclairs."
"I like them too," Molly said. "Only-"
"Have you had a proper meal in the last few days?" Lily asked. "A cream cake or two isn't going to harm you."
"You're right," Molly said, and Lily got éclairs for them both.
"What do you need to know?" Lily asked, and it was suddenly easy to talk.
"Does it hurt drowning?" Molly blurted out. Lily looked thoughtful as she replied.
"Drowning itself is very quick, less than a minute, so I've read. There might be a period of distress before that, with the person in the water, trying to swim." She looked down at her plate and added, more slowly. "Someone in the Thames wouldn't get hypothermia this time of the year. If they were a strong swimmer, they might last an hour, but it could well be a lot less. The current's very fast and there are lots of obstacles you might hit. Once that happens, you'd probably lose consciousness. So painful, but not for long. Much quicker and easier than an overdose or dying of cancer."
"Thanks," Molly said. "For not lying to me."
"Some people want accuracy, some want comfort. You have to work out which."
"It must be a difficult job."
"Sometimes," Lily said, and then she smiled. "But you get used to it. We all have to die, and it's important to get things right when that happens."
"What do your family think?" Molly asked.
"Oh, they're just disappointed I didn't become a doctor. Or a pharmacist - that was their other bright idea. But I was never very academic."
"I tried to get into medical school and I messed up the interview," Molly said. "I had this horrendous interviewer at Manchester..."
For a few minutes, she could forget about Neville, just talk to someone about ordinary things. And then her mobile phone trilled in her pocket, announcing the arrival of a text.
"Excuse me," Molly said, "I ought to..." It might be Sherlock, she thought; it might be Lestrade. But when she dug the phone out with shaky hands and looked at the screen, there was an unexpected message:
Mollykins don't worry. I'm OK. Tell the police that. love Nev
***
Lily, of course, knew exactly what to do with someone who was feeling faint. She soon had Molly sitting with her head before her knees, while cheerily fending off waitresses.
"It's good news, surely," she said.
"I'm not sure if it's really him," Molly said at last. "He hates having his name shortened."
"So it might be some kind of warning, or it might not come from him at all?"
"I don't know," Molly said. "I don't know what's happening."
"Well, the police need to know about this," Lily pointed out.
"I...I need to tell Sherlock first. He'll know what to do." It was funny how sure she was that he'd have the answer.
***
When she phoned Sherlock he demanded that she come to his flat, so he could check her phone. Molly said goodbye to Lily and headed off to Montague Street. The moment she got there, Sherlock almost tore the phone out of her hand, but a few moments later he was slamming it down on the sofa.
"Anonymous SMS," he yelled, "The curse of the electronic world. I need data and 140 characters isn't enough." He got up and started to pace around. "You say your husband would never call himself 'Nev' and yet he refers to you as 'Mollykins'?" He almost spat out the nicknames.
"Yes," Molly replied nervously, wondering if it had been a good idea to come and see him.
"So the message was probably sent by him, but indirectly. The reference to the police strongly suggests it was sent after Monday, but that, of course, does not prove anything about his current status."
"He's alive," Molly said. "I'm sure he is."
"You were equally convinced a few hours ago that he was dead. We need analytical reasoning here, not sentiment. Hand me that cushion."
"Which one?" Molly said.
"The Union Jack one. There are some cigarettes as well. Find them, they're probably in the bedroom somewhere. Bring the pillows from there as well and put them on the floor here."
Molly did as he said; she didn't even feel able to ask what he was doing. Making some kind of pillow fort, apparently. She wondered if she should point out that smoking in bed was dangerous, but she didn't dare to.
"Switch all the lights off except for that table lamp and then go away," Sherlock announced, as he tugged on a blue silk dressing-gown. "Your respiration rate is far too high, it's distracting me."
The last thing Molly saw as she headed out was Sherlock perching himself cross-legged on his pile of pillows, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Then he sat motionless, like the world's first smoking Buddha.
***
It was nearly two a.m. before Molly finally fell asleep in her double bed, and it felt like only a moment later when her mobile started to ring. But when she staggered downstairs to retrieve it, she found it was twenty-five past four in the morning.
"Mrs St Clair," Lestrade said, "I'm very sorry to disturb you at this time of night, but we think we've found your husband. Can you come to Charing Cross Hospital, please? We'll meet you at the main entrance."
He hadn't said the morgue, Molly thought, but she didn't dare ask more. No time for worrying about anything more than how she could get to Hammersmith as quickly as possible.
***
Lestrade and Sherlock had found some smoker's corner and were puffing away when Molly finally got to the hospital.
"We'll take you up in a moment," Lestrade said. "The man's in one of the acute wards, under the name of Hugh Boone. But we think he's your husband. He was in a car crash."
"Is he badly injured?" It suddenly seemed like an ordinary tragedy, the sort of thing that did happen to people.
"No, he's got a fractured wrist and concussion, but not much else. But there's been some delay in discharging him-"
"-Probably because he is lying about who he is," Sherlock broke in.
"Why would he do that?" Molly demanded.
"Because Mr St Clair is still trying to conceal his exact role in the crime," Sherlock said, stubbing out his cigarette end, and then, bizarrely, putting the butt in a small metal case he'd produced from his pocket.
"What are you talking about?"
"We think Mr St Clair is involved in a crash for cash ring," Lestrade said.
"You thought nothing of the sort," Sherlock objected. "Once I had pointed out the only logical possibility, you simply accepted my ideas as your own."
"Yeah, well," Lestrade replied, "Sherlock here thinks he knows what happened, Molly. I'll let him tell you about it."
Sherlock was obviously happy now he'd got his audience. "I went undercover at the 'Bar of Gold'," he announced, "and it didn't take me long to trace the Indian man Molly had met. I found him hanging round a garage in Bermondsey owned by the Whitney family, a garage with a reputation for cut and shut cars. So I looked for a motoring connection to Neville St Clair."
"We don't own a car-" Molly began.
"-But your husband works for a firm of solicitors who specialise in personal injuries claims. Car accidents in particular, as I discovered," Sherlock went on, faster and faster. "One possibility is that your husband was simply an innocent who suspected some fraud. Could explain why he was in Upper Swandam Lane, but what about the bloody shirt?"
"If there was a fight-," Lestrade began.
"No, no, we missed the obvious point about the shirt. I should have realised the moment I saw the photos, even if your forensics people were too incompetent to do so. The blood is St Clair's, but the pattern of the stains indicates that the shirt was removed before the blood was put on it. The whole thing was faked."
"But why?" Molly said.
"Right question," Sherlock went on, raising his hands, "Why fake an accident and not follow through with it? Suggests a change of plan. What more can we say? St Clair's shirt and tie are already off before you see him at the window, no sign of a struggle in the room. When he sees you he doesn't call for help or tell you to run away - obvious action if he's in danger or being held captive. Conclusion, he's complicit in faking the accident. But it's not a major accident: not enough blood on the shirt. Two men connected to cars, plans for a minor accident that suddenly get altered; we're probably looking at insurance fraud."
He flashed Molly a brilliant smile. "I confirmed that by checking your husband's recent case files: three claims for car crashes, all repairs dealt with by the Bermondsey garage. All involved rear-end shunts near pedestrian crossings and substantial claims for whiplash injuries. Different drivers each time but the medical reports are almost identical."
"Neville wouldn't-" Molly began and then stopped. Because suddenly, she didn't know what Neville might have done. He'd been desperate for a job, hadn't he? Had he agreed to turn a blind eye to something shady?
"But what was he doing in the 'Bar of Gold'?" she said instead.
"Collecting the car he was expected to crash. I suspect the Whitney family, who are behind all this, wanted to make sure he wouldn't talk. He was told he would be faking a car accident and obviously misinterpreted the injuries required. A cut on his finger beforehand, perhaps, to provide a few bloodstains, but that wasn't what his masters wanted. They wanted him to crash a car and he did so."
"Unfortunately," Lestrade said, "he mistimed his collision and got more of a crash than he had bargained for. Once we..." - Sherlock rolled his eyes - "once Sherlock had worked out that we were probably looking for a car crash soon after half-past four on Monday, it wasn't too hard to track down our man. Driving under a false name, of course, and he didn't dare contact you at first. We think one of Whitney's men sent the actual message, once they'd been able to get in to the ward to see him."
This isn't real, Molly thought, but she knew it was. Neville had made a terrible mistake and they were both going to have to pay for it.
"What do you want me to do?" she said, staring at the two men. She'd inspected a corpse already, she reminded herself, she could cope with anything.
"We need you to come and confirm that it is your husband," Lestrade told her. He sighed and said: "And if it is, we'll be arresting him."
"I understand," Molly said. "I'm ready to come now."
***
When she got up onto the ward, she spotted Neville immediately, despite the heavy bandages his head was swathed in. Which was odd, she realised afterwards, given that she wasn't sure any more that she really knew who he was.
***
Summer 2010
"Are you still after ears?" Molly asked when Sherlock erupted into the morgue a couple of days later, with John scurrying after him.
"They said they'd bring Blessington here," Sherlock announced, gazing intently round the morgue. "Fat man, hanged, last twelve hours, where are you hiding him?"
"I-"
"No, not here yet. I need to look at the ligature marks more closely. I'll be in the lab upstairs, text me when he arrives." He whirled round and headed out of the morgue again. John shook his head and turned back to Molly.
"We don't need any more ears, thank you," he said. "We had a case where a client had been sent two of them in the post. Sherlock was trying to work out how fresh they must have been when they were sent."
"So he's solved it now?"
"Oh, he worked it out almost at once. A jealous husband who'd killed his wife and her lover. But Sherlock still wanted to check about the timing. Only I don't think we're popular with the postman at the moment, because the second cardboard box was a bit oozy by the time it was delivered."
Molly winced, and then grinned at John, because they were both used to oozy.
"Isn't most of what you get in the post fan-mail anyhow?" she said.
"And death threats," John replied, grinning back. And then the smile left his face and he said quietly. "Sherlock told me about your...about Neville St Clair. It must have been a terrible shock."
She nodded.
"What happened to him?" John asked, and she wondered if Sherlock had never bothered finding out or had just deleted it as unimportant. But John was looking at her steadily, a man who knew that it mattered how stories ended.
"He didn't go to jail," she said, staring at the floor, willing the tears - anger, not grief - to stay away. "He testified against the rest of the gang and got a suspended sentence. But he was struck off the roll, barred from working as a solicitor again." She could hear her own voice getting tighter. "I think he went back to Chesterfield, where he'd grown up. That was where I heard of him last."
"I'm sorry," John said, "It must have been...I'm sorry."
"I wanted a fresh start after that," Molly said, and wondered if he might possibly understand. "To do something that mattered. Not just help test face creams."
"Life and death situations," John said nodding. "Well, death situations, at least."
She saw him smile the weary smile of the old soldier. He'd seen people die horribly as well, of course, Molly remembered. He went on slowly, "I guess...maybe it's easier not to get too close to people after something like that. It's hard to trust anyone."
"Live people," Molly replied. "The dead don't lie." John nodded, and she smiled at him and added, "You'd better go and find Sherlock. He's probably still talking to you." John's grinned broadened as he hurried out.
***
Of course, a year later she helped Sherlock demonstrate exactly how big a lie a dead body could tell. But then Molly always had had terrible judgement where the men she fell for were concerned.
Title: The Man with the Twisted Life
A gift for: goldvermilion87
Characters/Pairing: Molly, Sherlock, Lestrade, John
Category: Gen
Rating: 12/PG-13
Warnings: No warnings apply
Summary: John learns a secret about Molly's past
Author's Notes: many thanks to T for betaing
Summer 2010
Molly was putting back together Mr Murphy's skull when John turned up in the morgue.
"Do you mind if I finish this?" she asked. "I've just got a few more stitches to do."
"That's fine," he said, and watched quietly as she carefully put the finishing touches to her work. She couldn't say even now that Mr Murphy looked his best, but for someone whose face had hit a road at forty miles an hour, all her hard work had made him appear surprisingly peaceful.
"Have you come for eyeballs again?" she asked, as she started to tidy away her kit. "Because I did tell Sherlock there wouldn't be any till after Wednesday's dissection practical."
"Ears," John said, "A matching pair, preferably." His face widened into a smile. "I'm sorry, that sounds totally bizarre."
She smiled back at him. "I'm used to it. You get a lot of strange requests working down here."
"So how did you end up working in a morgue?" John asked, as if it had only just occurred to him that it was an unusual choice.
"I needed a job after I got divorced, and a friend of mine suggested this," she said. The usual evasive answer she gave.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd been divorced," John said awkwardly. "It's tough when things don't work out..." His voice died away.
"It didn't last long," she said hastily. "I found out Neville was cheating." Another evasive answer, but suddenly she wanted him to know what had happened. Except she couldn't think how to put it into words.
"Ask Sherlock," she told him. "He found out about Neville, what he was up to." She saw John's mouth open in an O of surprise, but surely he must have realised that she and Sherlock went back a long way?
"I'll see if we've got some ears," she said, and hurried off towards the cool store.
***
Summer 2005
Molly had wanted to be a doctor when she was growing up. Well, didn't all girls who were good at science dream about that? But her grades hadn't been quite good enough, and she'd mucked up the interviews for medical school. She'd ended up studying biology in Manchester more because it got her away from her parents than because she had any real idea what she wanted to do.
And then she'd met Neville and it had suddenly all seemed so clear. They were going to get married and move to London and he'd be a solicitor in one of the Magic Circle firms and she'd be a research scientist. Everything seemed possible, worth doing, when Neville was around, his clever actor's face smiling at her and telling her she was wonderful.
The first few years in London had been hard, especially when Neville wasn't kept on by Linklaters after his training contract finished. But Molly found a lab job with a cosmetics firm that paid extra for shift-work and they could just about cover the rent. And Neville, after the depression of months of failed applications, announced that he'd got a job with a firm of solicitors in Brentford.
Molly had never heard of them, but she didn't care how small they were if they were happy to take on Neville. And he seemed to be getting on well, was talking about a pay rise. Then six months later, on a baking hot Monday in June, Molly went to Docklands to meet a friend for lunch and got lost on the way back.
***
She was hopelessly lost. Google Maps denied the existence of Fresno Street, and Upper Swandam Lane, which she wandered into next, was no better. Molly looked around. Nowhere she could get a taxi, no bus stop, nothing but a shabby row of shops and a few run-down warehouses. Docklands regeneration obviously hadn't found this bit of east London yet. She walked towards the shops; maybe at least she could find someone to give her directions.
She was just approaching a takeaway called the "Bar of Gold" when she saw him: Neville, opening a second-floor window. He looked down at her, made an odd kind of choking sound and vanished abruptly, and she knew at once something was wrong. He didn't have his tie on, for a start, and Neville was always smartly dressed. And what was he doing in this grotty bit of London, miles away from his office?
She hurried towards the takeaway, trying to work out where exactly he'd been. There were offices on the upper floors; after a brief argument with the takeaway owner, she headed up two narrow flights of stairs to find a stuffy office and a heavily-accented Indian man at a desk piled high with papers.
"No-one called San Clear here," he insisted. "Me and Mr Beck, no-one else. Got the wrong address, you'd better go home, miss."
He kept on insisting that while Molly looked round. Why would Neville have come here? But she was sure she'd seen him, and the Indian seemed very nervous. And then she spotted another room behind the first one and ducked round the man to investigate.
The back room was even more cluttered, piles of papers and boxes obscuring the grimy window looking onto the river. But there was one patch of colour among the yellowing printouts. A vivid emerald green tie that Molly had last seen round Neville's neck. And when she went to pick it up, beneath it was his shirt, crumpled and ominously stained with blood. Even as the Indian appeared beside her, protesting that those were nothing to do with him, Molly pulled out her phone and dialled 999.
***
The Indian man - Molly never did find out his name - had disappeared by the time the police arrived. For what seemed like hours officers milled around and asked her questions and then disappeared and came back to ask the same questions. Eventually, a sturdy middle-aged man in an open-necked shirt came and found her where she was sitting, slumped on the stairs. Greg Lestrade's hair hadn't gone grey back then, but he already had the patient, fatherly kindness of a policeman who'd seem far too many bad things happen.
"There's a cafe just round the corner that's got air-conditioning, Mrs St Clair," he said. "You need a cup of tea and a biscuit, and then I'll tell you what we've got."
Molly followed him, and yes, it did help to be out of the heat. She sat in silence as she drank her tea, wondering what the inspector had found.
"I'm sorry it's taken so long," Lestrade said, "but we had to check the whole building. There's no sign of your husband, apart from the tie and the shirt. We'll send that to forensics, and if they're confirmed as his, we can be sure it was him you saw here."
"I know it was him!"
"You did only see him very briefly. No-one we've talked to remembers seeing Mr St Clair. But there's a fire-exit at the back, so he could have got out that way without you seeing him."
"Why would he do that?" she asked.
"We don't know yet. There's a narrow footpath there, between the river and the back of the shops, if he was trying to get away."
"The river?" Molly breathed. She'd known they were near the Thames, but putting that together with "get away" brought sudden horrible images.
"Please, Mrs St Clair, don't presume the worst. We've reason to suppose that your husband was in the building and may have been injured, but there were no signs of a struggle. So we have to presume that he left voluntarily. You haven't heard from him?"
"No," Molly said. "I keep on trying his mobile, but I just get his voicemail."
"At the moment, therefore," Lestrade said, "we're recording him as a missing person. If we find evidence to suggest that anything more serious has happened, we'll upgrade the investigation. But for now, I'll give you the contact details of Victim Support and also a number you can call if you remember anything else. Or, of course, to let us know if Mr St Clair returns home."
"So you're not going to do anything?" Molly asked. Lestrade sighed and looked at the table.
"We'll investigate the ownership of the office, and try and trace the man you described meeting there. But I'm afraid that missing adults aren't an immediate priority: more than half of them return within twenty-four hours." He paused, tapping his fingers on the table, and then looked up and added:
"You're sure there's nothing that might give your husband a reason to want to run away? Unhappiness at work, money problems? Or sometimes people overreact to arguments..."
"There's nothing like that," Molly insisted. "Everything was fine." She hesitated, staring into Lestrade's warm brown eyes, and then asked: "Do you believe me? Do you think he is in some kind of danger?"
He said nothing.
"I'm not going to get hysterical," Molly insisted. "I just need to know."
"I think there's something fishy going on," Lestrade said slowly. "But I've no idea what. I'll make sure the lab get a move on with forensics; at least that'll give us something to work with. I'll have one of the constables take you home now, but as soon as I find out anything more, I'll let you know."
"Thank you," Molly said, and followed him wearily out of the cafe.
***
Three days of terrifying silence and then, on Friday morning, she got a call from Lestrade.
"I need your help, Mrs St. Clair," he said.
"Call me Molly, please," she said, because it was easier not hearing Neville's surname. "What can I do?"
"Last night, the body of a young man was fished out of the Thames," Lestrade said. "There is a possibility - a small one - that it might be your husband. Would you be willing to try and make an identification? If it's too distressing, if there's a friend or colleague of Mr St Clair's you might suggest..."
"I'll do it," Molly said hastily. She could be brave; time to start proving it. "Where do you need me to come?"
***
When Molly got to Poplar Mortuary, she saw Lestrade chatting to a small Chinese woman, her long hair tied back in a pony-tail.
"Hi, I'm Lily," the woman said and her accent was pure Home Counties.
"Molly," Molly replied, trying to sound calm.
"I'm organising the viewing session," Lily told her. "In a moment, I'll take you into the viewing chamber, and you'll be able to see the deceased. We've cleaned him up, but I'm afraid he's suffered quite a lot of head injuries, so it may be rather distressing. If you need to leave at any time, that's fine. Do you feel ready to go in now?"
"Yes," Molly said, and she followed Lily into a small white-tiled room where the body of a man lay. Molly had seen dead people before, when she'd volunteered at the hospital, but nothing like this, where the man's head was no longer the right shape. She stared in incomprehension at the body.
"Are you OK?" Lily asked, putting a warm hand on her arm. "Come outside for a minute and sit down."
Lily led them to what was obviously some kind of waiting room. Molly could feel Lestrade watching her as she slumped into her chair, but he said nothing. It was Lily who asked, "Do you need someone else to do the identification?"
"No," Molly insisted. "It's not that." She sat up, forced herself into calmness and then said, "I know this sounds stupid, but I can't...I'm not sure if it's Neville or not. I can't think what Neville looks like. I've been married to him for three years and now I can't remember his face."
"You're tired and you're under stress," Lily said. "The mind can shut down. Just sit there and try closing your eyes." They sat in silence for a minute, and then Lily went on, "Can you imagine that you're lying in bed and your husband's beside you?"
"OK," Molly said nervously.
"What's his body like? I don't need to know about his face. But is his skin smooth? Does he have a hairy chest?" Lily's voice had become soft, reassuring.
"No," Molly said, and suddenly she could see Neville's body, almost feel it. "He's got quite pale skin, not much body hair. And three moles in a little triangle on his right side, just above his belly-button."
"What are his hands like?"
"Long fingers," Molly said. "He has nice hands, he doesn't bite his nails like I do, but he keeps his nails very short. And he has quite narrow feet, so he has problems finding shoes that are comfortable."
"Do you feel able to come and look at the body again?" Lily asked. "You don't have to look at the face, I can cover that up. But look at the body and the hands and the feet and tell me if you think it's your husband."
"OK," said Molly, because suddenly it was, just about. She had Neville back, at least in her head, and she needed to know what had happened to him.
***
It wasn't him. She knew at once when she went back in, and she came out and told Lestrade that, as Lily brewed them all cups of tea.
"I'm sorry about this, Molly," Lestrade told her. "We'll keep on looking, but there are no obvious leads."
"I have to find out what happened to him," Molly said. "Whatever it was, I need to know."
"You could-," Lily said, and then broke off, looking warily at Lestrade. "Only the DI might not approve."
"What is it?" Molly asked, as Lestrade smiled ruefully at them.
"There's a private detective I met a few months ago," Lily said. "He came to the mortuary and looked at an unidentified body we had - well, half a body - and then somehow managed to track down who the dead woman was. A very odd man, but he seemed to know what he was doing."
"What was his name?" Lestrade asked.
"Holmes," Lily said. "He had a strange first name. Sherlock, I think it was. Because one of the other technicians reckoned it should be "Sheer Luck", that it was pure chance he was right about the woman being a sewing machinist."
"Sherlock Holmes," Lestrade said slowly.
"Do you know him?" Molly asked.
"I've never met him," Lestrade said, "but I've heard about him and he knows his stuff. I wouldn't normally advise someone to use a private investigator, but he might be worth talking to."
"I've got his card somewhere," Lily said. "And if there's anything else I can do, let me know. Sometimes...sometimes it's easier to talk to someone who's an outsider."
***
Molly wasn't sure what she'd expected a private investigator to look like. Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe, or maybe someone like Lestrade, but a bit older. Not a tall beautiful man who looked like he was barely out of school, and yet lived in a posh flat in Montague Street. But the moment Sherlock started asking her questions, she knew he was the best hope for finding out about Neville.
"Upper Swandam Lane has a reputation for organised crime," he said. "Drug-dealing, of course, but the Whitneys may have diversified. I'll need to go under cover, find out who's based at the "Bar of Gold". You say your husband had no tie on when you saw him?"
"Yes," Molly said. "I mean, no, he didn't."
"What else was he wearing? He was opening the window, so you'd only have seen his upper body. Did he still have the shirt on that you found later? Could you see the collar of that, where the tie should have been?"
"I'm not sure-"
"Think, Molly." His rich voice thrilled through her, and she shut her eyes, trying to bring the memory back. "Was he opening the window with his left or his right hand?"
"Right," she said. "His arm was across his body and...and he didn't have his shirt on. He was wearing some kind of white T-shirt, with no collar at all. It wasn't like him, he's always very smartly dressed."
"But it was him?"
"Yes," she said. "He recognised me, he rushed away."
"And ten minutes later you find his blood-stained shirt in the office," Sherlock said. "I'll need to have a look at that. Who's the officer in charge of the investigation?"
"DI Lestrade."
"The Met obviously have no interest in the case," Sherlock announced. "Typical stupidity."
"Is Lestrade no good?" Molly asked with sudden worry.
"No idea, never met the man. But most police officers are idiots and they'd have put a more senior man on the case if they were sure it was a homicide. Bradstreet, probably."
"But you think Neville is dead?" She had to know if her fears were justified.
"I have seven hypotheses at the moment and four of them involve him ending up in the Thames last Monday. But I need more evidence first. I'll call you in a couple of days, but if you have any more useful information before then let me know. Don't bother me with trivia though, and don't go talking to strange men. You're a terrible judge of character and you'll just put yourself in harm's way."
"I...I..." Molly said. Sherlock jumped up from the chair.
"I've got all the information I need now, I have to think, easier if you're not here, close the door as you go out, please."
***
Molly got through the weekend, but Monday was worse. No word from the police or Sherlock and she had nothing to do. When she found herself cleaning the bathroom in the flat for the fourth time in three days, she realised she had to do something. Get out, talk to someone. On an impulse she phoned Lily.
"I saw the detective you suggested and he thinks Neville is dead," she told her.
"I'm sorry," Lily said. "I really am."
"Can I come and talk to you?" Molly asked and then wondered why she'd said that. Maybe because Lily seemed to know about death and Molly's friends didn't.
"Of course," Lily said. "My shift finishes at five, if you want to come then."
***
Lily took Molly to a cafe on Poplar High Street.
"They do lovely cakes," she said. "I don't drink and I don't smoke, not after what I've seen, but I can't resist chocolate éclairs."
"I like them too," Molly said. "Only-"
"Have you had a proper meal in the last few days?" Lily asked. "A cream cake or two isn't going to harm you."
"You're right," Molly said, and Lily got éclairs for them both.
"What do you need to know?" Lily asked, and it was suddenly easy to talk.
"Does it hurt drowning?" Molly blurted out. Lily looked thoughtful as she replied.
"Drowning itself is very quick, less than a minute, so I've read. There might be a period of distress before that, with the person in the water, trying to swim." She looked down at her plate and added, more slowly. "Someone in the Thames wouldn't get hypothermia this time of the year. If they were a strong swimmer, they might last an hour, but it could well be a lot less. The current's very fast and there are lots of obstacles you might hit. Once that happens, you'd probably lose consciousness. So painful, but not for long. Much quicker and easier than an overdose or dying of cancer."
"Thanks," Molly said. "For not lying to me."
"Some people want accuracy, some want comfort. You have to work out which."
"It must be a difficult job."
"Sometimes," Lily said, and then she smiled. "But you get used to it. We all have to die, and it's important to get things right when that happens."
"What do your family think?" Molly asked.
"Oh, they're just disappointed I didn't become a doctor. Or a pharmacist - that was their other bright idea. But I was never very academic."
"I tried to get into medical school and I messed up the interview," Molly said. "I had this horrendous interviewer at Manchester..."
For a few minutes, she could forget about Neville, just talk to someone about ordinary things. And then her mobile phone trilled in her pocket, announcing the arrival of a text.
"Excuse me," Molly said, "I ought to..." It might be Sherlock, she thought; it might be Lestrade. But when she dug the phone out with shaky hands and looked at the screen, there was an unexpected message:
Mollykins don't worry. I'm OK. Tell the police that. love Nev
***
Lily, of course, knew exactly what to do with someone who was feeling faint. She soon had Molly sitting with her head before her knees, while cheerily fending off waitresses.
"It's good news, surely," she said.
"I'm not sure if it's really him," Molly said at last. "He hates having his name shortened."
"So it might be some kind of warning, or it might not come from him at all?"
"I don't know," Molly said. "I don't know what's happening."
"Well, the police need to know about this," Lily pointed out.
"I...I need to tell Sherlock first. He'll know what to do." It was funny how sure she was that he'd have the answer.
***
When she phoned Sherlock he demanded that she come to his flat, so he could check her phone. Molly said goodbye to Lily and headed off to Montague Street. The moment she got there, Sherlock almost tore the phone out of her hand, but a few moments later he was slamming it down on the sofa.
"Anonymous SMS," he yelled, "The curse of the electronic world. I need data and 140 characters isn't enough." He got up and started to pace around. "You say your husband would never call himself 'Nev' and yet he refers to you as 'Mollykins'?" He almost spat out the nicknames.
"Yes," Molly replied nervously, wondering if it had been a good idea to come and see him.
"So the message was probably sent by him, but indirectly. The reference to the police strongly suggests it was sent after Monday, but that, of course, does not prove anything about his current status."
"He's alive," Molly said. "I'm sure he is."
"You were equally convinced a few hours ago that he was dead. We need analytical reasoning here, not sentiment. Hand me that cushion."
"Which one?" Molly said.
"The Union Jack one. There are some cigarettes as well. Find them, they're probably in the bedroom somewhere. Bring the pillows from there as well and put them on the floor here."
Molly did as he said; she didn't even feel able to ask what he was doing. Making some kind of pillow fort, apparently. She wondered if she should point out that smoking in bed was dangerous, but she didn't dare to.
"Switch all the lights off except for that table lamp and then go away," Sherlock announced, as he tugged on a blue silk dressing-gown. "Your respiration rate is far too high, it's distracting me."
The last thing Molly saw as she headed out was Sherlock perching himself cross-legged on his pile of pillows, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Then he sat motionless, like the world's first smoking Buddha.
***
It was nearly two a.m. before Molly finally fell asleep in her double bed, and it felt like only a moment later when her mobile started to ring. But when she staggered downstairs to retrieve it, she found it was twenty-five past four in the morning.
"Mrs St Clair," Lestrade said, "I'm very sorry to disturb you at this time of night, but we think we've found your husband. Can you come to Charing Cross Hospital, please? We'll meet you at the main entrance."
He hadn't said the morgue, Molly thought, but she didn't dare ask more. No time for worrying about anything more than how she could get to Hammersmith as quickly as possible.
***
Lestrade and Sherlock had found some smoker's corner and were puffing away when Molly finally got to the hospital.
"We'll take you up in a moment," Lestrade said. "The man's in one of the acute wards, under the name of Hugh Boone. But we think he's your husband. He was in a car crash."
"Is he badly injured?" It suddenly seemed like an ordinary tragedy, the sort of thing that did happen to people.
"No, he's got a fractured wrist and concussion, but not much else. But there's been some delay in discharging him-"
"-Probably because he is lying about who he is," Sherlock broke in.
"Why would he do that?" Molly demanded.
"Because Mr St Clair is still trying to conceal his exact role in the crime," Sherlock said, stubbing out his cigarette end, and then, bizarrely, putting the butt in a small metal case he'd produced from his pocket.
"What are you talking about?"
"We think Mr St Clair is involved in a crash for cash ring," Lestrade said.
"You thought nothing of the sort," Sherlock objected. "Once I had pointed out the only logical possibility, you simply accepted my ideas as your own."
"Yeah, well," Lestrade replied, "Sherlock here thinks he knows what happened, Molly. I'll let him tell you about it."
Sherlock was obviously happy now he'd got his audience. "I went undercover at the 'Bar of Gold'," he announced, "and it didn't take me long to trace the Indian man Molly had met. I found him hanging round a garage in Bermondsey owned by the Whitney family, a garage with a reputation for cut and shut cars. So I looked for a motoring connection to Neville St Clair."
"We don't own a car-" Molly began.
"-But your husband works for a firm of solicitors who specialise in personal injuries claims. Car accidents in particular, as I discovered," Sherlock went on, faster and faster. "One possibility is that your husband was simply an innocent who suspected some fraud. Could explain why he was in Upper Swandam Lane, but what about the bloody shirt?"
"If there was a fight-," Lestrade began.
"No, no, we missed the obvious point about the shirt. I should have realised the moment I saw the photos, even if your forensics people were too incompetent to do so. The blood is St Clair's, but the pattern of the stains indicates that the shirt was removed before the blood was put on it. The whole thing was faked."
"But why?" Molly said.
"Right question," Sherlock went on, raising his hands, "Why fake an accident and not follow through with it? Suggests a change of plan. What more can we say? St Clair's shirt and tie are already off before you see him at the window, no sign of a struggle in the room. When he sees you he doesn't call for help or tell you to run away - obvious action if he's in danger or being held captive. Conclusion, he's complicit in faking the accident. But it's not a major accident: not enough blood on the shirt. Two men connected to cars, plans for a minor accident that suddenly get altered; we're probably looking at insurance fraud."
He flashed Molly a brilliant smile. "I confirmed that by checking your husband's recent case files: three claims for car crashes, all repairs dealt with by the Bermondsey garage. All involved rear-end shunts near pedestrian crossings and substantial claims for whiplash injuries. Different drivers each time but the medical reports are almost identical."
"Neville wouldn't-" Molly began and then stopped. Because suddenly, she didn't know what Neville might have done. He'd been desperate for a job, hadn't he? Had he agreed to turn a blind eye to something shady?
"But what was he doing in the 'Bar of Gold'?" she said instead.
"Collecting the car he was expected to crash. I suspect the Whitney family, who are behind all this, wanted to make sure he wouldn't talk. He was told he would be faking a car accident and obviously misinterpreted the injuries required. A cut on his finger beforehand, perhaps, to provide a few bloodstains, but that wasn't what his masters wanted. They wanted him to crash a car and he did so."
"Unfortunately," Lestrade said, "he mistimed his collision and got more of a crash than he had bargained for. Once we..." - Sherlock rolled his eyes - "once Sherlock had worked out that we were probably looking for a car crash soon after half-past four on Monday, it wasn't too hard to track down our man. Driving under a false name, of course, and he didn't dare contact you at first. We think one of Whitney's men sent the actual message, once they'd been able to get in to the ward to see him."
This isn't real, Molly thought, but she knew it was. Neville had made a terrible mistake and they were both going to have to pay for it.
"What do you want me to do?" she said, staring at the two men. She'd inspected a corpse already, she reminded herself, she could cope with anything.
"We need you to come and confirm that it is your husband," Lestrade told her. He sighed and said: "And if it is, we'll be arresting him."
"I understand," Molly said. "I'm ready to come now."
***
When she got up onto the ward, she spotted Neville immediately, despite the heavy bandages his head was swathed in. Which was odd, she realised afterwards, given that she wasn't sure any more that she really knew who he was.
***
Summer 2010
"Are you still after ears?" Molly asked when Sherlock erupted into the morgue a couple of days later, with John scurrying after him.
"They said they'd bring Blessington here," Sherlock announced, gazing intently round the morgue. "Fat man, hanged, last twelve hours, where are you hiding him?"
"I-"
"No, not here yet. I need to look at the ligature marks more closely. I'll be in the lab upstairs, text me when he arrives." He whirled round and headed out of the morgue again. John shook his head and turned back to Molly.
"We don't need any more ears, thank you," he said. "We had a case where a client had been sent two of them in the post. Sherlock was trying to work out how fresh they must have been when they were sent."
"So he's solved it now?"
"Oh, he worked it out almost at once. A jealous husband who'd killed his wife and her lover. But Sherlock still wanted to check about the timing. Only I don't think we're popular with the postman at the moment, because the second cardboard box was a bit oozy by the time it was delivered."
Molly winced, and then grinned at John, because they were both used to oozy.
"Isn't most of what you get in the post fan-mail anyhow?" she said.
"And death threats," John replied, grinning back. And then the smile left his face and he said quietly. "Sherlock told me about your...about Neville St Clair. It must have been a terrible shock."
She nodded.
"What happened to him?" John asked, and she wondered if Sherlock had never bothered finding out or had just deleted it as unimportant. But John was looking at her steadily, a man who knew that it mattered how stories ended.
"He didn't go to jail," she said, staring at the floor, willing the tears - anger, not grief - to stay away. "He testified against the rest of the gang and got a suspended sentence. But he was struck off the roll, barred from working as a solicitor again." She could hear her own voice getting tighter. "I think he went back to Chesterfield, where he'd grown up. That was where I heard of him last."
"I'm sorry," John said, "It must have been...I'm sorry."
"I wanted a fresh start after that," Molly said, and wondered if he might possibly understand. "To do something that mattered. Not just help test face creams."
"Life and death situations," John said nodding. "Well, death situations, at least."
She saw him smile the weary smile of the old soldier. He'd seen people die horribly as well, of course, Molly remembered. He went on slowly, "I guess...maybe it's easier not to get too close to people after something like that. It's hard to trust anyone."
"Live people," Molly replied. "The dead don't lie." John nodded, and she smiled at him and added, "You'd better go and find Sherlock. He's probably still talking to you." John's grinned broadened as he hurried out.
***
Of course, a year later she helped Sherlock demonstrate exactly how big a lie a dead body could tell. But then Molly always had had terrible judgement where the men she fell for were concerned.