Sherlock nodded approvingly at John as he came down the stairs suited-and-booted and ready for a day of corporate skullduggery at 7am on Tuesday morning. The approval turned into a frown as John tugged on the sleeve of his jacket for the fifth time and adjusted his tie.

"God this is uncomfortable, I feel completely restricted in this jacket," John grumbled as he flexed his arms in front of the impeccably dressed (as always) detective. "How am I supposed to do anything if I can't get my arms out straight? I'm sorry Sherlock, I know you don't see the problem, but not all of us spend our lives in suits. Give me practical clothing any day - never thought I'd miss army fatigues…"

"You'll be fine," Sherlock interrupted impatiently as he herded John out of the door, grabbing his coat and passing John's to him as they went. John felt somewhat better for the unexpected, and unusual, reassurance until Sherlock followed it up with "Besides, no-one will be looking at the stain on your jacket whilst you are wearing that monstrosity of a tie."

Mycroft, who had been sitting quietly in one of the armchairs drinking a cup of tea, absolutely refrained from doing anything as childish as sniggering at the bickering flatmates. He took another sip of tea as he caught John's retort as the two men went out of the front door in search of a taxi.

"What stain? You couldn't have told me sooner? Well at least my shirt fits! No one is going to be looking at me full stop - they are going to be too busy watching you to see when your buttons give in to the strain…I swear if your shirts get any tighter you are going to have to glue them on..."

The picture Mycroft's mind conjured up of his brother using superglue to keep his shirt on absolutely didn't cause him to snort his mouthful of tea in a most undignified way across the room. What with that and the way his cracked ribs ached ferociously from the pressure of not laughing, it took Mycroft several minutes to compose himself after John and Sherlock had left. Worth it though, he thought, smiling to himself as he cleaned away the spilt tea.

oOo oOo oOo

Despite the inauspicious start to the day John had cheered up by the time they reached the first of the offices they were targeting - those of Pearson & Turner, who made surgical instruments for export. This had been the smallest contract in terms of monetary value of the four identified by Anthea, and was an easy first target.

Anthea's purloined files had turned up a veritable goldmine of information about not only the company but the Chief Executive. The reason Mycroft had rejected them from the trade agreement the first time round was down to a gut feel about their accounts not quite adding up. Mycroft had explained that there had been another comparable supplier with impeccable records so the team had chosen them and not looked any further into Pearson & Turner.

Sherlock and Anthea had spent some time the previous night looking into the financial reports and had highlighted what appeared to be extremely creative accounting and more than a hint of illegal activity.

The somewhat sketchy plan they had drawn up was to get in to the offices, find some evidence they could pass on to the police, and hope they moved quick enough so that whilst the company was under investigation they would have to pull out of the trade agreement and leave the way clear for the original supplier to be reintroduced. There was a lot of detail missing from that plan but Sherlock had been confident that once he was in front of the Chief Exec and Chief Financial Officer he'd be able to deduce who was responsible for the fraud.

oOo oOo oOo

The offices of Pearson and Turner were as expected - the same as every other medium-sized company with central London offices. An entrance with lots of glass, hard-lined black sofas and an odd flower arrangement with big waxy looking green leaves greeted them, along with a desk with a security guard, and behind him access to the rest of the building.

Sherlock strolled confidently over to the burly guard in front of the bank of lifts while John picked up some of the marketing material on display. Thanks to Anthea 'Mr Holmes' had a breakfast meeting booked with the CEO and CFO at 8am, so Sherlock simply had to show his identification and they were provided with visitor passes, buzzed through and directed to the third floor.

Once the lift doors closed John and Sherlock exchanged a small smile - things were going well so far.

"Makes a change to see you use your own ID, Sherlock," John remarked, "Usually when we end up somewhere like this one of Lestrade's warrant cards makes an appearance."

Sherlock smirked and dug a warrant card out of his jacket pocket and flashed it at John. "I'm saving this for later on today. I have a feeling they aren't all going to be as easy to get into as this one was."

He'd just about managed to slide the card back into his pocket when the lift doors opened and Sherlock switched on his corporate-office persona. John hung back slightly and watched Sherlock stalk over to the reception desk. The change was subtle but John could see it - there was an extra edge of arrogance on display along with a hint of impatience, alluding to an important man with a very busy day ahead. John smirked slightly to himself as he realised that Sherlock was mimicking Mycroft's usual demeanour. He lacked only the umbrella to make the picture complete.

The receptionist was busy and threw a glancing look at their visitor passes before escorting them to the meeting room where two men were standing at the back pouring coffee. The one nearest to them was a large man - heavyset, with ruddy cheeks and a slight pot-belly. By contrast his colleague was tall and thin with wispy hair around a round face and wire rimmed glasses that gave the impression of someone permanently startled by the world around them.

"Hello! Mr Holmes! Good morning!" Boomed the first man as they walked through the door. Sherlock winced imperceptibly and steeled himself before offering his hand to be shook, knowing that a voice like that took pride in an excessively firm handshake. Sure enough, Sherlock's fingers were left with a slight tingly feeling once he had them returned.

"Simon Harwood, Chief Executive," the man had introduced himself as, "Pleasure to finally meet you Mr Holmes. And this is Robert Scott, our Finance Director"

"The pleasure is mine," Sherlock demurred as he shook hands with Robert Scott (medium-firm, warm from the coffee cup), "Thank you so much for meeting us at such short notice, it really is appreciated."

"Not at all, not at all," Harwood replied jovially, "It is the least we can do given how busy you must be with the agreement just days away. We were surprised when your assistant called and said it would be yourselves attending. Thought it would be some minion with an armful of documents to sign… not Mr Holmes himself. I thought you government officials booked their calendars out months in advance?"

Sherlock simply smiled and let the assumption he was his brother stand as John was introduced and the social niceties of coffee and pastries with a side of small-talk were observed - John gratefully accepting both (breakfast time had been sacrificed to indecision on the tie) while Sherlock took coffee until they were all seated around the table. Now it was time for Sherlock to come into action.

"Gentlemen," Sherlock started, looking around the table, "We just have a few questions and forms to be completed before Wednesday's agreement can be signed - standard procedure, I'm sure you are aware…" and then proceeded to overwhelm them with terminology and clauses from the vast numbers of forms Anthea had provided - all completely official, long winded and filled with legalise, and all completely irrelevant to the deal.

Within minutes both Simon Harwood and Robert Scott were muttering amongst themselves as they flicked through the documents with clause after clause of requirements and penalties. Sherlock noticed smugly that both men were looking considerably more agitated as they read. The first couple of forms had been very standard agreements that no company would object to, but the one they were reading now was cleverly worded to enable Mycroft Holmes' government office full access to any part of the business they felt like looking into, for reasons no greater than 'they felt like it'.

Scott, the finance director, was the first to crack, and with a muttered excuse about contacting the company lawyer he bolted from the room taking with him a copy of the agreement. Sherlock and John sat back and drank their coffee, both with serene expressions as though this was all perfectly normal and they spent all of their time in rooms such as these. Sherlock leant down to the notebook he had in front of him and scrawled a note for John, who frowned in incomprehension for some moments before he deciphered the appalling handwriting,

"Harwood responsible for the fraud but Scott knows about it.

Need to get into his office.

You have to distract - need time

Scott will come for him in 2 mins. Stall him"

John tapped his pen against the table in a seemingly random way - dash dash dash, dash dot dash - and Sherlock was instantly up and excusing himself from the room. Harwood looked up, confused for a moment, and John smiled blankly and went back to shuffling papers and asking vague questions about the sub-sections until Harwood's attention was caught by yet another unreasonable clause. It was clear to John that neither man wanted to sign these documents but they also didn't want to lose out on the trade agreement and the millions of pounds of profit it would provide… so long as their less-than-legal activities could be kept hidden.

As expected, Harwood's PA knocked on the door a minute or so after Sherlock had left requesting Harwood return to his office for an urgent phone call. He left abruptly, giving John no opportunity to stall him, much to his frustration. John quickly sent Sherlock a text: 'Sorry. Harwood enroute to office. No sign of Scott. JW' and paced up and down the now empty conference room waiting for one or all of the men to return.

"Come on Sherlock," he said to himself checking his phone anxiously, "Don't mess this up now… the day's only just starting. If you get caught now it'll be over before it's even begun."

oOo oOo oOo

To John's surprise the first person to return was Sherlock, who flashed him a triumphant grin before returning to his seat, surreptitiously sliding a piece of paper into his notebook. John assumed this meant he'd found something of significance but didn't have a chance to ask before Harwood and Scott returned together, united now with instructions from the lawyer to sign nothing until she had the opportunity to review the clauses.

Sherlock agreed to this delay easily and suggested they couriered the signed forms back to the offices care of Anthea that afternoon. Making a show of checking the time, John said they had to leave for their next appointment, and before many minutes had passed the hand-shaking and insincere goodbyes had been completed and Sherlock and John were in the lift returning to the lobby.

"That man really needs to learn not to overcompensate for his multiple inadequacies as human being with a strong grip," moaned Sherlock, flexing his fingers in pain.

John hummed sympathetically, his own hand feeling somewhat abused too. He held off on comments until they had left the building and turned the corner of the street before rounding on Sherlock and demanding,

"Well? What did you find?"

Sherlock flashed another smile and patted his notebook.

"Not as much as I would have liked," he explained, "Harwood returned to his office a touch quicker than I predicted, limiting my opportunities to explore, but I've enough for Mycroft to get a fraud investigation started. Did you meet his secretary? She'll be the key to this - it was obvious as soon as I spoke to her that she doesn't approve and will have kept files that should have been shredded. The management underestimated both her intelligence and her moral code."

"That's great Sherlock, you were brilliant," said John admiringly, pleased to have got one of their tasks out of the way so quickly and with relatively little fuss.

Sherlock fished his phone out of his pocket and took a photo of the paper he had stolen and texted it to Mycroft, who called him straight back. They had a brief conversation where Sherlock relayed the achievements of the morning so far and Mycroft promised to use his police contacts to get the Met's fraud squad out within the hour.

All that was left to do was to send Anthea a quick text to her burner mobile to confirm the job was done so she could line up the original company to take the place of the soon-to-be-ineligible Pearson and Turner on the trade agreement.

"One down, three to go," John remarked to Sherlock as they clambered into a cab for their next destination, "Not bad considering it's still only 9am."

A/N - For those who can't be bothered to guess/google, the dashes and dots John tapped out on the meeting room table spelled 'ok' in morse code.

Sorry for the delays in getting this chapter out - real life got in the way!

Reviews, comments and con crit always appreciated x