The soundproofing in the Palace was good, but not good enough to stifle the sound of a grown man sniffling in the next room or the broken cadence of his voice. One of the guards--an old hand named Murray--fidgeted, shot a glance at his ginger counterpart.

"That's a first."

Ginger didn't reply. (What was his name again? Sigmund? Samson? God, it was taking forever to learn the newbies' names this round.) He seemed pretty absorbed in examining the doctor's mobile phone.

"Hey. You're not supposed to--"

"Relax. I'm not messing with anything." Ginger sort of twiddled the mobile briefly, long fingers fidgeting along its surface. "My girlfriend's looking to get an upgrade. Think she was talking about this model."

"Ah."

Several more minutes went by, during which the noises of misery from the other room grew briefly more intense before quieting. Poor bastard. Hard to imagine what could make a grown man break down in front of the Queen.

"Oh--I've just remembered. Blakeney said she wanted to talk to me, do you mind if--"

"Yeah, go ahead. I'll give him the phone back."

"Cheers."

Ginger handed him the mobile and disappeared down the hallway a half-second before Doctor Watson emerged from the sitting room.

"I--thank you, really, ma'am. Thank you so much," he said, his smile genuine if watery. Murray returned the phone and pretended not to notice how red the man's eyes were.

What he genuinely didn't notice was the mini-SD card that came to life half a second after John had turned the power back on.