August

A heat wave had settled over London, as one had every year of John’s life—and yet the whole city seemed to be completely unprepared for this turn of events. John reassured himself it wasn’t as bad as Helmand got in the summer, but that was by a slim margin.

He woke earlier than usual, already sticky and drenched with sweat despite the two fans blowing directly onto his bed all night; over the past few days, his Georgian-era flat had done its level best to roast him to death. Grudgingly aware that things would only get worse as the day went on, John hauled himself up out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen. He passed the sitting room on the way, where they’d opened up all the windows and set up multiple fans to get something resembling a breeze going through.

A pair of slippers propped up on the arm of the sofa confirmed the presence of John’s flatmate; over the dull roar of street noise he could just make out the sound of long, thin fingers plucking idly at the strings of a very expensive violin.

“You’re up early,” John remarked, and received a wordless grunt in response.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, John checked his phone. The latest episode of the podcast had been queued up for this morning, and already some of the analytics were rolling in. Decent traffic so far, but the automated cross-post to video had failed once again; he’d have to upload that manually.

Once he’d fixed himself a cup of tea and buttered some toast, John made his way to where he’d left his laptop on the coffee table. As he passed the front door of the flat, it opened to reveal a young woman standing in the doorway.

John stared. So did the woman—no doubt because John was wearing little more than a pair of boxers, modesty being one of the first things he abandoned as the heatwave crested.

“Er …” said the woman, after a moment. “I’m looking for Sherlock Holmes?”

---

“I’m really sorry,” the woman repeated, for the fourth time. She’d introduced herself as Aubrey Kruger; she was dressed in a pale blouse and knee-length skirt, her hair pulled into a bun that was already starting to fall apart. “The email said I should come right up. I didn’t think—”

“It’s fine.” John had taken a minute to duck into his room and hurriedly dress himself. The microphone was already set up on the coffee table in the sitting room, set to an omnidirectional pickup pattern. With all the background noise coming in from the fans and windows he’d have preferred to use a shotgun mic, but the main subject of his recordings tended to wander about the room. “Sherlock is supposed to tell me when we’ve got clients coming over.”

“You were asleep,” Sherlock said, unrepentant. “And Ms. Kruger is quite anxious.”

Aubrey winced. “Was I that obvious?”

“Not in your correspondence, no,” Sherlock assured her. “You were perfectly professional. However, the shoes you’re wearing have a rather heavy block heel, which gives your tread a distinctive signature. You were pacing up and down the street outside from 6:50 onward, even though the Bakerloo line you would have taken from Lambeth runs every seven to eight minutes. You were wary of arriving late to our appointment, and so took an earlier train. That, to me, suggests a matter of great concern.”

The expression on Aubrey’s face was, by this point, familiar to John. “I … yes,” she managed to stammer out. “You see, a few days ago I got a call from my mum …” she trailed off, eyeing the microphone. “Sorry, did you say this was for a podcast?”

“That’s right,” John confirmed proudly. “True crime. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Have you heard of it?”

“No,” Aubrey replied immediately, taking the wind right out of John’s sails. “My mate Violet said you were a big help when she had that weird job offer, but she never mentioned—”

“You received a call from your mother,” Sherlock broke in, irritated by this particular tangent.

“Right,” Aubrey said, getting back on track. “Only it wasn’t Mum—it’s this doctor, calling me from her phone. He said—” the words caught in her throat, and she took a shaky breath, “—he said she’d been in an accident, and I needed to get to the hospital right away. Mum lives in Sheffield, so I had to get a train, and the whole time I’m thinking this is it, this is how it happens, and …”

She paused, briefly overcome; John reached for the box of tissues on the coffee table and passed it to her. “Take your time.”

Aubrey sniffled and grabbed a few tissues, dabbing lightly at her eyes—careful not to smear her makeup. “So I get to the hospital, and Mum’s not even there! They’ve got no record of her at all. I try to call her, but it doesn’t go through—just keeps ringing. Finally I think to stop by the house, and there she is!”

“She’d been discharged?” John guessed.

“No, she was fine!” Aubrey said, baffled and a little angry. “There was never any accident at all. Her phone wasn’t working ‘cause someone had managed to steal her number, or something.”

“A SIM-swap,” Sherlock supplied. “It’s a fairly trivial bit of social engineering.”

“Right, that,” Aubrey said. “Anyway, I stayed overnight and got on an early train back to London. The police said it was just a prank, but … I’m not so sure. And Violet said you might be able to help.”

Sherlock had paused by the mantelpiece; his fingers tapped lightly at its edge as he gazed absently through the wall. “While you were in Sheffield,” he said, “did you run into any trouble?”

“Trouble?” Aubrey repeated, confused by the question.

“Were you followed? Waylaid? Attacked?”

“No,” Aubrey said. “Nothing like that.”

Sherlock swivelled on his heel, hands held behind his back as he studied her intently. “Aside from the situation with your mother, you didn’t encounter anything out of the ordinary?”

Aubrey shook her head.

Sherlock considered this. “And where do you work?”

“HGS,” Aubrey replied. “I’m an accountant. Junior associate.”

Sherlock appeared to find that intriguing. “Do you work from the office? Or from home?”

“Er … both, really. It’s hybrid. I’m in the office three days a week.”

“And were you scheduled to work from the office the day you received the phone call?”

“No. Well—sort of.” Aubrey seemed uncertain as to how this was relevant, but went on: “I was supposed to be helping with an audit for one of our clients, at their offices.”

Sherlock had the look of a terrier on the trail of an elusive rat. “You have a security pass for these offices, then?”

“Not exactly,” Aubrey said. “We have to check in at the front desk, and then we get a visitor pass.”

“Tell me,” Sherlock said, as the terrier found a promising burrow, “which client was this?”

---

As with any tech company that served an international clientele, BasePairing had branch offices all over the world. Its UK headquarters in London occupied three floors of a towering, steel-grey office complex which enclosed a small plaza in the West End, not far from Covent Garden.

John was grateful for the shade. The trip from Baker Street on the tube had been stifling; by contrast, even the scorched pavements aboveground were a relief.

The plaza was largely empty in the hours between the start of the workday and lunch; as he and Sherlock crossed, John kept his voice recorder to hand. “BasePairing, for those unfamiliar, is a genetic testing company,” he narrated aloud. “Customers can send in a DNA sample and get back … well, all sorts of results, really, about what genetic conditions they might have, their ancestry—”

“Many of which are inaccurate,” Sherlock interrupted, “as BasePairing’s testing methods border on pseudoscience.”

“I’m going to have to cut that bit,” John muttered. “This is an American company, you know. They really like suing people.” Clearing his throat, he continued, “As for what we’re doing here …”

“While I obviously can’t prevent you from sensationalising my work,” Sherlock said, after a second or two of expectant silence from John, “I’m under no obligation to participate.”

Plaintively, John said, “Sherlock …”

Sherlock sighed, conceding for the moment. “The call to Ms. Kruger was obviously intended as a lure. As nothing untoward occurred during her brief sojourn to Sheffield, it follows that the goal was not to lure her to a particular location, but away.”

“The caller wanted her out of London,” John surmised. “So, unless Aubrey happens to live next door to a bank vault …”

“… then it’s most likely the caller wanted to keep her away from BasePairing,” Sherlock concluded.

The temperature fell a few degrees as they passed through a pair of revolving glass doors into the air-conditioned lobby; John made a quiet sound of relief. A row of turnstiles stood between them and the lifts. Sherlock led the way to the glossy white reception desk off to one side, the squeak of his trainers echoing in the vaulted, glass-walled space. The receptionist looked up and noticed them, and John became keenly aware he’d sweated through his shirt.

“Hello,” Sherlock said to the receptionist, with his usual brisk manners. “My name is Sherlock Holmes. I need to speak to whoever’s in charge of the BasePairing office about what happened on Tuesday.”

The receptionist blinked at him, struggling to parse the sentence. “I’m sorry?”

“Tuesday,” Sherlock repeated. “There was a security breach. Someone attempted to enter the building under a false ID.”

John’s powers of observation were nowhere near Sherlock’s level, but even he registered the exact second the receptionist decided this whole situation was above her pay grade. “Let me give them a ring,” she said, reaching for the desk phone. “If you’ll take a seat …?”

With a nod, Sherlock retreated to the loose arrangement of industrial grey sofas along the wall opposite the desk.

“All right,” John said, joining him. “What makes you think there was a security breach? I didn’t see anything in the news.”

“Nor would you,” Sherlock replied. “BasePairing haven’t called the police—not yet, anyway. They would’ve been obligated to do so if our mystery caller’s infiltration had succeeded, which means it must not have. And in that event, the breach would be kept quiet—no need for the company to publicise a potential hole in their security.”

“Might encourage others to try the same thing,” John guessed.

“And, no doubt, cause difficulties with their insurer. Especially if those security measures outlined in BasePairing’s insurance agreement don’t quite match the reality.”

There was a ding from the direction of the lifts. A woman wearing a precisely-tailored pencil skirt and blouse hurried through the turnstiles and, following a quick check-in with the receptionist, made her way to where John and Sherlock were sitting.

“Hello,” she said, a little breathless. “Come with me, please.”

They followed the woman back to the lifts, and she brought them up to what appeared to be BasePairing’s executive offices. At the end of the hall was a door with a nameplate, which read, “Andrew Leach, Managing Director.”

The woman led the way through a smallish outer office, past what was presumably her own desk, and opened the inner door just far enough to lean inside.

“Andy?” she said. “Mr. Holmes is here.”

She was answered with an enthusiastic, “Bring him in!”

The woman ushered Sherlock and John into the office. Behind her, the phone on her desk began to ring; she pulled away to answer it, letting the door shut behind her.

The occupant of the office turned out to be a clean-cut, grey-haired man of about fifty, wearing a collared shirt with no tie and a pair of designer jeans. John had the overall impression of a man who’d once been a hip young tech executive and hadn’t yet caught on that at least two of those terms were no longer applicable.

“Sherlock Holmes!” the man said, stepping forward to shake Sherlock’s hand. “I’m Andy Leach. Lovely to meet you.” He turned to John. “And you must be John Watson. Sorry, Doctor Watson.”

“You know who we are,” Sherlock said, clearly taken aback.

“I listen to Dr. Watson’s podcast on my morning run,” Leach replied brightly. “Big fan. That story about the Mormon ninjas and the cab driver? Incredible. I did my whole route three times just to hear how it ended.”

John beamed, delighted. Sherlock refused to look at him.

“Are you here on a case?” Leach went on, clearly hoping the answer was “yes.”

“I am,” Sherlock said carefully. “It’s related to the security breach on Tuesday.”

“Yes, you caused quite a bit of alarm about that,” Leach said. “Once I heard your name, though, it was hardly a surprise you’d figured it out.” He paused, regarding Sherlock with frank curiosity. “How much have you figured out?”

“That an unknown party attempted to enter these premises using the ID of an accountant from HGS,” Sherlock said.

Leach nodded. “He got as far as the lifts. Security tried to grab him, but he got away from them and made it outside.” He groaned and sank into his chair. “Now, of course, HQ is demanding to know if there’s going to be a second attempt.”

“My own investigation may shed some light on the subject,” Sherlock said. “If BasePairing were willing to cooperate …?”

Leach looked positively gleeful, but then his face fell. “Thing is, the board’s already hired someone to handle the situation. So it’s a bit, er—”

With a knock on the door, Leach’s assistant poked her head back in. “Your ten o’clock is here,” she said, glancing uncertainly between John, Sherlock, and her boss. “Should I reschedule?”

“No, no,” Leach said quickly. “Actually, this works out well. Send him in.”

The assistant nodded and withdrew, allowing a tall, lean man in a light summer suit through the door. There was an easygoing, handsome charm about him, despite the scars on his face—three long, slashing marks from the side of his head down to his temple, one just barely missing his eye. He noted John and Sherlock’s presence with keen interest, but otherwise didn’t react.

Leach rose from his desk and stepped forward to greet the man with a handshake. “Captain,” he said. “Lovely to meet you.”

“Likewise,” the man replied smoothly.

Despite his pleasant demeanour, the leashed energy with which the newcomer moved put John on edge. He had to be special forces, or formerly so.

Glancing at Sherlock and John, the man added, “Am I interrupting something?”

“Not at all.” Leach gestured their way. “Allow me to introduce you to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson—this is our new security consultant, Captain Sebastian Moran.”