Dinning with Frogs

10. Victoria Station

For a week after Musgrave case life is unnervingly peaceful. Irene keeps expecting Fiona to call her with a new assignment but her phone remains stubbornly silent. Sherlock is also remarkably quiet, spending long hours by the window their room and scowling at the street below. When Irene tries to speak to him he merely snaps 'Thinking,' so she leaves him to it. She remembers Watson telling her that Sherlock often got so wrapped up in his own thought process he was be unaware of who was or wasn't around him. Now and then Irene looks catches Sherlock staring at her with an expression of intense concentration on his face.

Bored, Irene decides to escape from the rather intense atmosphere brewing around Sherlock and spends more and more time in the hotel bar. She devises a game, trying to figure out how many drinks she can have bought for her without speaking a single word to anyone. She stops when she realises there is she is in danger of impairing her liver function.

In the end Irene succumbs to the temptations whispered by the hefty wodge of cash in her pocket and decides to work off her boredom in the shops. She can't risk being seen in her old haunts, unfortunately, but London is large enough and there are places even she hasn't explored. She is in a small boutique trying on a chic purple dress when her phone chimes. Irene ignores it at first, smoothing out her skirt and turning to admire the fit of it in the mirror. Very nice.

The phone chimes again. Irene sighs, and picks up the phone. Two messages – from Fiona.

I'm sending a mutual friend to meet you. He has got himself into a spot of trouble, and I think you could be exactly the person to help him out.

PS – That dress would look better in red.

Irene looks up, locating the security camera, and rolls her eyes. She dresses with deliberate casualness, and then leaves the shop (though not before purchasing the dress). Leaving the shop she is completely unsurprised to find a young man in a leather jacket and jeans leaning against the wall waiting for her.

"Miss Hosmer?" He asks, pushing himself off the wall and holding out a hand. He is very good looking, Irene realises – soft dark hair flopping into hazel eyes, broad shoulders, very white straight teeth. He isn't as young as he appears at first sight– there are fine lines around his eyes, and his posture is a conscious imitation of carefree youth rather than the thing itself.

"Yes," Irene says cooly, taking his hand. "And you are?"

"Jack Elsworth," the man says smoothly. (Pseudonym, of course.) "My friend Fiona mentioned you. How about I take you for a drink?"

"All right."

He takes her around the corner to the Levington hotel, and orders champagne without asking Irene. Neither of them consider the fact that it is still only eleven o' clock in the morning worthy of comment.

"Well, now," says Irene, taking a sip of her drink , and leaning back into the comfortable leather sofa. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Jack smiles at her in a way that is absolutely calculated to be dazzling. Irene wonders idly how often he has his teeth bleached.

"Miss Hosmer – Angela. May I call you that?"

"Of course." Irene says drily. For all his air of casual intimacy, Jack undoubtedly knows as well as Irene does that she is not using her own name.

"You see before you a desperate man. One who can only come to you and beg most abjectly for your help." His eyes sparkle at her inviting her to join in the joke, but Irene isn't fooled. His foot is twitching under the table and his carefully groomed nails show recent signs of being bitten. This man's anxiety is very real.