Help Will Graham

"What am I doing here in this endless winter?"
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis and Other Stories

"You want me to prove he's innocent because you're in love with him." Holmes surveyed the woman in front of him—young, but not too young. Pretty, but not vulgarly so. She smiled.

"I won't deny that I'm attracted to Will Graham, but what makes you think I'm in love with him?" She looked at him like a cat contemplating a ball of string.

"No need to form any complex psychological suppositions about my mental processes," he answered, not altogether pleasantly. "It's pure logic."

"No one takes her first leave of absence in five years and travels overseas at considerable personal cost for the sake of a colleague, even a favorite colleague. If Will Graham was nothing more than a good friend, you'd have contacted me through my website and taken your chances. But you couldn't risk it. He's too important."

"Who's doing psychoanalysis now?" she asked mildly, picking up her teacup and surveying its complex map of Great Britain before setting it down gently and staring Holmes full in the face. "I really don't care how much you know about me. What I care about is whether or not you're willing to help Will Graham." Her tone was level, but he could tell her projected aura of calm was costing her great personal effort.

"That seems reasonable," Watson suddenly saw fit to put in. Holmes was forever amazed by his friend's bizarre timing. The doctor would say it was social courtesy, but the placement of his remarks seemed invariably random to his friend.

"We'll come," said Holmes.

"Excellent," said Dr. Bloom, a little too quickly. She traced the embroidered Union Flag on the pillow next to her. "How long will it take you to work out immigration?"

"Not long," the detective answered, offering no more than that. "Of course, you'd have sorted that already if you weren't doing this behind the backs of everyone in your department." He showed his hand on purpose, wanting her to see how much he knew and infer the futility of trying to play him the way she was obviously playing her superiors.

"True," she answered simply, unperturbed. "My boss thinks Will Graham is a deluded serial killer. Not exactly apt to provide an expense account for a trip to another country to recruit an amateur detective."

"Forgive me, Dr. Bloom," said Watson hesitantly, "but if you work for the FBI, why do you need Sherlock?"

Holmes smiled and provided his own answer. "Really, John, I'm the best in the world."

"I read the account of the Hudson case," said the woman, exactly as if he hadn't spoken. "It's part of the profiling curriculum."

"A book?" asked Watson, obviously annoyed that Holmes had never informed him of its existence.

"I've never read it," said Holmes. "I haven't time to care what inanity a psychiatrist surmises about a clear-cut case of serial murder."

"Hardly clear-cut," said Dr. Bloom, addressing Watson. "He made connections no one else in the world could have made. The book is a parallel between Mr. Holmes's movements and Mr. Hudson's. It's a profile of two types of abnormal psychology, the criminal's and the detective's. It's considered a classic in the field." She turned back to Holmes.

"You'll have to meet the author, whether you want to or not. Will Graham is insisting that he's the real killer, even though there's no evidence linking him to any of the murders. He was my teacher, a long time ago. His name is Hannibal Lecter."

Holmes pressed his fingertips together. "I look forward to meeting him."