Lucinda Beckett was not entirely sure what to make of her new colleagues.
The relocation from a fairly small town in Essex to London wasn't without hitches, but it had also been a god send. If she'd had to spend any longer in that bloody town she might have ended up on the other end of homicide, and she thought that was probably bad form for a police officer. London and Scotland Yard had the promise of a little bit more room to breathe (even if the air was like 39% nitrogen, 5% oxygen and 56% pure pollution, according to her parents).
She liked her new flat a lot even though it was costing her the entirety of her pay rise and her first born, but she'd never liked children much anyway. The location was good. The job was just brilliant... she didn't think she'd ever get to be a Sergeant in London, but she has and she is.
It was just... it wasn't even like her colleagues weren't nice, because they were. She liked how Sergeant Donovan didn't expect them to be friends just because they're both women in the force, and bypassed that irritating girl power talk that Lucy always found slightly condescending. Her Detective Inspector seemed like a really good guy, and his solve-rate was excellent, and everyone always said the man has the patience of a saint.
But, that's sort of one of the things that makes her slightly uneasy. She mentions 'DI Lestrade' and the 'homicide team' to the other yarders, and there's this moment where this look is exchanged, as if the name is somehow significant. One the first day, she just chalked it up to the solve rate, but now she was starting to think they were hiding something.
She doesn't like being kept in the dark.
When she was fourteen it turned out her father had another family behind their backs and ever since then she's liked complete transparency for absolutely anything. She might have forgiven her ex-fiancée if he'd just told her about the affair, or at least admitted straight off that he'd done it to get back at her for missing their anniversary dinner. She wound up in detective work because she liked answers, and when the idea that there was an office secret formed she found herself cataloguing everything slightly suspicious.
The first time, it was barely anything at all.
She was working on some paperwork with a slightly stressed Greg Lestrade.
He was displaying the classic behaviour she'd come to expect from overworked police workers... ignoring his frequently vibrating phone, occasionally picking it up and frowning at it, before sighing and placing it face down on the desk. She knew Greg Lestrade was married and she'd heard someone mention something about his marital problems being outed over a case, but it was hardly a newsflash; people didn't die on a schedule and certainly not one that fit in with long term relationships, and she'd lost her fiancé thanks to putting in too any hours.
She knew that feeling, and she had a slightly complex where she liked to be liked and trusted in, so she'd tried to aim for a bit of a small talk.
"She's persistent," Lucy had said, nodding towards the phone with a sympathetic nod.
"What? Who?"
"Your wife,"
"Oh, no," Lestrade said, rubbing his forehead with a grimace, "that's... an informant."
"An informant?"
"Of sorts," Greg said, shifting uncomfortably.
"And you're ignoring their messages?"
"You haven't met the guy," Greg said, "complete arsehole. If he wasn't so informed..."
"What's he informing you about?" Lucy asked. She supposed that it had to be a complicated situation, because most homicides were short term enough that informants didn't really come up. At least not in occasions where it wasn't imperative to contact them back as soon as possible, and not over a long term basis. Usually, informants were for drugs and human trafficking and messier, long term things like that.
"Just about bloody everything," Greg said, shaking his head before reluctantly picking up his phone and firing off a few text messages. The phone buzzed continually for the next ten minutes, before Lestrade sighed audible and left alone in the office.
Two hours later, she heard him having an angry discussion down the phone with, from what she could work out, was a lawyer at a pleasure cruise company called 'Tilly Briggs.'
(She checked on the records, and they definitely hadn't had a case involving any kind of cruise ship).
0o0
The pub trip was a force tradition that she was mostly familiar with, although back in Essex she'd known everyone for years and now she was the new girl all over again. It was the same old pretence of trying too hard and smiling a bit too much, but that was the price to be paid to come across as likable. They'd gone through a series of introductions that she'd smiled her way through, but had settled on sitting with Sergeant Sally Donovan and DI Greg Lestrade for the sake of getting to know them better.
"Dimmock," Greg said, glancing up at another man – also on homicide, if she remembered correctly – and offering a sympathetic grimace.
"You owe me a pint," Dimmock said. The man did look like he'd had the day from hell and, for some strange reason, smelt very strongly of peppermint. Before Lucy had a chance to ask and make a light joke, Lestrade was up on his feet and walking towards the bar, apologising and saying something Lucy definitely couldn't follow.
Something about an umbrella, an abandoned warehouse and a mild explosion?
"What...?" Lucy asked, turning towards Sally Donovan with curiosity.
"You don't want to get involved."
She tried to eavesdrop when the pair arrived back with a scotch and another pint, but all she managed to gleam was that Lestrade was very interested in the British Government and that he was sorry he hadn't been at hand to do damage control previously.
"If it helps," Greg said, holding up his pint, "I think he likes you... in relative terms, at any rate."
Dimmock looked more worried than anything else.
0o0
Three weeks after Lucy began at Scotland Yard, she had a run in with the resident office gossips whilst photocopying a stack of paperwork.
Before working in the police force in Essex, she'd worked in a number of crappy offices alongside her part time degree. Before that, she'd been at school... so she was well verse in how gossip worked. She'd played systems and social groups enough to figure that getting in with these people was probably in her best interests, particularly in light of digging up the office's resident skeleton-in-the-closet.
"You're new on Homicide, right?" The woman at the front asked. Lucy recognised her from one of the pub trips and thought she might work in forensics, but she'd been introduced alongside so many others it was difficult to say.
"Yeah, Lucinda Beckett. Lucy, Sergeant."
"You met him, yet?"
"Him?" Lucy questioned, glancing between them. They smiled and looked at each other knowingly, highlighting one of the top reasons why she didn't like being left in the dark. There was superiority in knowledge and she did not like feeling inferior to anyone.
"Obviously not," The second woman said, offering a tiny shrug.
"Well, when you have... we're running a betting pool on whether or not he's with the doctor," The first woman asked, before offering a conspiritory wink and heading for the exit.
There were multitudes of hims in the office, but evidentially this particular 'him' should in some way be remarkable enough for her to know exactly who they meant. Besides, a mysterious 'him' just about aligned with the other bits of information she'd gathered so far.
0o0
When Lucy arrived at the Yard on Monday morning, it was evident that something had happened on her day off.
Lestrade, for all the reports that he was probably the second most patient man on the planet, had a tendency to look incredibly stressed at least fifty percent of the time. She'd never seen him actually lose it, nor did she think she'd previously ever thought he would... but, this was different.
The man was on his fourth cup of coffee and it hadn't even hit eleven yet.
Normally, Greg Lestrade would fill in the tedious volumes of paperwork with his feet on his desk, idly conforming to the red tape with an air of obvious distaste for it (but then, Lucy thought, what police officer actually wanted to fill in all those forms?). Today, however, he'd been fully concentrated on one stack of paper without writing one word. He'd sporadically pick up a pen, click it furiously, before slamming it down on the desk and disappearing to get another of copy.
Each time, Sally Donovan would make some comment about how she'd told him and Lestrade would cut back with something biting.
"You can't keep doing this," Donovan called after his back whilst Lestrade went to retrieve his fifth cup of coffee, "there's going to be a legal fall out eventually."
"When you can deduce the motive from a paperclip then, yes, of course, we'll stop using him," Lestrade bit back, "and the widow isn't pressing chargers."
"This time," Sally Donovan said, distaste evident.
0o0
The next day, Lestrade – still as harried as the day previously – accidentally left her phone on his desk when he bought over a case file.
She honestly never meant to read his text messages.
She'd just picked it up and the screen lit up. Then she remembered the conversation she'd had with Lestrade about the arsehole-informant, and this infamous 'him' and her hatred of not know what the hell was going on... and then she was glancing at the screen, which happened to be displaying a whole text conversation anyway and... well, where was the harm in it? She'd just read the conversation hat was already open, which probably had nothing to do with this 'him' anyway.
Except of course it did.
I require the name of the brother's dog – SH
What? - GL
I made myself perfectly clear, Detective Inspector – SH
Lucky – GL
What's happening, Sherlock? - GL
Check brother's computer for spreadsheets. All data there. – SH
The files are encrypted – GL
Sherlock – GL
If you know the password, Sherlock, I will charge you with wasting police time – GL
Idiot – SH
Any more riddles and you're off cases for two weeks. You could have just said the password was Lucky – GL
212 Sussex Gardens. Require Assistance – SH
And possibly an ambulance – SH
If you do anything like that ever again, I'm barring you for the Yard premises. Understood? - GL
I need a case - SH
CASE? – SH
Yeah, not happening Sherlock. – GL
BORED – SH
LESTRADE – SH
Greg didn't look very pleased when Lucy reunited him with his phone. Lucy rather thought he might have being tried to avoid whoever SH was.
(And hadn't there been that case with the melting laptop a few weeks ago? With the encrypted files? She remembered being impressed when Greg had interrupted the team of computer specialists to suggest they tried 'Lucky.')
0o0
"– double homicide in an office on the strand," Lucy said, leaning into Lestrade's office. Greg Lestrade pressed the phone into his neck for a second and nodded before grabbing hold of his coat.
"I'm not having him in," Lestrade said down the phone, "Christ, John, I know he's a pain in the arse but he stole a bus and I've spent three days straight trying to work out how to file that in a way that won't get me fired... yeah, rather you than me. God knows how you live with him... yeah, well, until the bus thing dies down you're going to have to... yeah," Lestrade half laughed, holding a door open for her and Donovan to follow, "... I dunno, tried board games?"
Sally Donovan scoffed and folded her arms over her chest.
"Take him to the cinema," Lestrade suggested, "God... yeah, I imagine the continuity errors would get to him... look, I have to go. No! No Sherlock, I'm not giving you an address. I don't care if you can deduce it, I'll have Donovan chuck you off the crime scene if you so much as consider turning up here."
Lestrade hung up, despite the voice still coming from the other end of the telephone and pocketed the device with a roll of his eyes.
"I thought we 'needed' him," Donovan said, grimace in place.
Lestrade didn't reply.
(Lucy filed away 'John' and 'Sherlock', the latter of which she supposed could just about be a name if the parent was sadistic enough.)
0o0
"It's his sort of case," Sally Donovan said evenly.
Lucy balked and stopped reading over the case file. Every single time there'd been a reference to him – Sherlock, the supposed informant – Donovan had treated the notion with disdain and obvious dislike of the idea. Whilst Lestrade hardly seemed fond of the man, she'd come away with the impression that he was the one who called the shots in regards to the informant.
And Sally seemed to be suggesting getting him involved.
...Which also meant Lucy might actually be delivered all the answers immediately.
"God help me," Greg Lestrade said, "all right, I'll text him."
"Anderson's on forensics," Donovan said, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling and retrieving her own phone, "I'll warn him."
"Right," Greg said, "Lucy… we should probably warn you about this."
"About Sherlock?" Lucy asked, smiling slightly at the mild surprise on Greg's feature.
"Yeah," Greg said.
"People talk," Lucy supplied, "he's the arsehole informant… who stole a bus?"
"Jesus," Greg muttered, "Don't remind me about that. Yeah… so, Sherlock's a genius. Our solve rate? That's Sherlock. We pull him in on cases like this… he's good. He understand how criminal's minds work,"
"You can say that again," Sally muttered, not looking up from her phone.
Greg ignored her.
"He's also… difficult," Greg Lestrade said, reaching for his coat and glancing back at his phone, "I'll explain more in the car."
0o0
Lucy was humming with a nervous excitement that she usually associated with first dates, which was probably inappropriate considering they'd been skirting round a corpse for the past forty minutes, waiting for the infamous Sherlock Holmes (she had a surname to add to her collection, now) to finally 'grace us with his presence.'
Greg Lestrade was currently trying to persuade Anderson to leave.
"It's my crime scene,"
"It's not a toy, Anderson. Besides, he's only going to chuck you out when he gets here,"
"If,"
"He's coming," Lestrade said, pulling out his phone again. "This is my punishment for keeping him off the last two cases," Lestrade reported to Lucy, sending another text message (presumably to Sherlock, or potentially John).
"Which was his punishment for stealing a tourist bus?"
"He won't pass up something like this," Greg said, taking a quick picture of the corpse – a rather bloody affair that was still making Lucy feel slightly sick, even forty minutes after entering the room – on his mobile.
"You're sending him a photo?"
"It'll speed him up," Greg said. Anderson rolled his eyes and took a step backwards, leaning against the wall of the hotel room. Donovan let out a huff of air, but remained stoic and standing upright. "Right," Lestrade said, a few minutes later, "he's on his way. Someone needs to go meet him in the Lobby."
"I'll go," Lucy said, a little too quickly. Everyone in the room turned to look at her, eyebrows simultaneously arching into question marks. "He's going to dissect my darkest secrets and assassinate my character, right?" From Greg's description in the car, she'd been preparing herself and wondering what exactly he'd be able to tell about her; there was something slightly thrilling about the idea. "I'd rather get it over with down in the lobby, instead of up here with an audience."
"Smart move," Greg said, "and good luck, Lucy."
0o0
She'd been given a brief description from the others upstairs – tall, big pretentious looking coat, scarf, 'psychopath hair' and 'looks like a tosser' – before Lestrade had told Anderson to shut up and said she'd probably be able to work it out.
However, no one had mentioned attractive.
There was the possibility, of course, that the stranger she was ogling from across the hotel foyer wasn't actually Sherlock Holmes, but then he fit the admittedly brief description right down to the slightly shorter sandy haired companion.
He remaindered her a bit of her ex-fiancée, but then she'd always had a thing for dramatic facial features and posh types. It was probably just a mixture of the vague resemblance (the height and the dark hair), with the fact that she was already incredibly interested in the enigma purely because everyone had gone through such lengths to keep it a secret.
"For goodness sake," The man said, his voice oddly deep, from across the hallway, "it's irrelevant –"
"– Sherlock," the shorter man cut across (which meant she was right, and the other man was John),"I was right in the middle of a date. Again."
"Please," Sherlock said, "she left half an hour ago. You were just trying to make a point."
"You sent me a picture of a decomposing lung and she saw Sherlock!"
Lucy wondered whether it was appropriate to laugh and watched as they crossed the foyer, still listening. Sherlock was idly removing his scarf, his long strides meaning John had to walk excessively quickly to keep up. Sherlock didn't appear to notice.
Not together then, despite what the Yard rumour mill would have.
"A lung is hardly an obscene –"
"– we were out for lunch! I don't think she was expecting my tosser of a flatmate to send me a picture of a rotting internal organ."
"I'm sure it's far more interesting than the photos she sends you,"
"If you touch my phone – "
"Please, I didn't go near your phone. I simply – "
"I don't want to know," John interjected "particularly not here. Particularly not now."
"I hardly see why the time reference makes any difference to your desire for knowledge."
"Of course you don't," John said, and Lucy recognised the resigned weariness from Lestrade. Apparently, that was a side effect.
"Sherlock Holmes," Lucy called out, eyes catching the way his gaze seemed to absorb her for a moment, before looking back towards John. "Sergeant Lucinda Beckett."
She'd been told not to bother aiming for a handshake, because Sherlock was more likely to get offensive if he thought someone was trying to invade on his personal space (according to Lestrade, Donovan had scoffed and said 'or at any given opportunity')… but, apart from the momentarily glance, he seemed to dismiss her entirely.
"Forth floor," Sherlock said, reaching out and pressing the button for the lift before Lucy had a chance to.
"How?" John asked, looking slightly bemused.
"Obvious," Sherlock sighed, stepping into the rest before her and sending John a withering look, "I'm surprised you missed it."
"Really?"
"Really," Sherlock deadpanned, "even you should have been able to –"
"– Yes, yes," John said, "I'm an imbecile. Fast forward, Sherlock."
"The hotel keeps the keys behind reception, significantly more keys for the fourth floor hanging up… indicating they've already begun moving the other guests. Or, more likely, simply avoiding placing new guests on that floor. I can't imagine many guests staying here for multiple nights."
"Well, is he right?" John asked, addressing Lucy with a smile as his finger hovered over the button.
Sherlock sighed audibly.
"Yes," Lucy said, "although excuse me if I'm not impressed until he guesses the correct room number."
"Please don't give him more permission to show off," John said, lips twisting upwards slightly as he pushed the button for the fourth floor.
"Oh, I don't mind," Lucy said, trying to catch Sherlock's eye (and failing quite miserably), "I've heard interesting things. I'm expecting to be impressed."
"New here?" John asked, glancing back at Sherlock. He looked amused.
"Yes, new Sergeant. Lucy,"
"What sort of hotel still has keys rather than key cards, anyway?" John asked, gaze turning away from her and back towards Sherlock.
"Better question," Sherlock commented, an almost smile almost reaching his lips for a split second.
"Liking the Yard?" John asked, turning back to her. Whilst Sherlock was the definition of aloof and seemed neither to notice nor care that she existed (although she was sure she could change that), John was open and inviting. The contrast was slightly odd, but it was certainly interesting.
"Please," Sherlock muttered, "wasn't the last date disastrous enough?"
"I'm being polite," John said, offering her an apologetic look, "and it would have been fine if you hadn't sent that bloody picture."
"You said the lung experiment was interesting. I merely thought you might like an update on its progress."
"No, I didn't."
"You did."
"I didn't. How would you know, anyway Sherlock? You never listen to a word I say."
Sherlock hummed slightly in response, just as the lift came to a stop.
"Room four one six," Sherlock said, before he was heading down the corridor. He had an oddly fluid way of moving that was graceful but slightly arrogant, and Lucy found herself watching him without moving out of the lift.
Maybe he'd barely looked at her, but he hadn't assassinated her character and he'd indirectly responded to her request that he deduce the room number… from what she could work out, that was probably the best first meeting any of the other Yarders had had with Sherlock Holmes.
"Impressed yet?" John asked and, yeah, he was definitely flirting a little bit.
Lucy's gaze turned back towards Sherlock's retreating back...stopping, momentarily, at his arse.
"Definitely."
0o0
Lucy had come to understand that 'his sort of case' meant spectacularly odd.
The man, currently an unknown male (although feelers had been put out immediately, so hopefully they'd have a name before the end of the day), had been found in a hotel room that was not his own, without his left hand or his tongue.
"It's hard to tell with all the blood," Lestrade said, "but his clothing looks a bit more expensive than you might expect from a place like this, we were thinking – "
"– No," Sherlock interrupted, holding out a hand.
Lestrade immediately shut up.
Sherlock crouched down on the floor, serious expression lining up with the man's head. He lifted up the man's other arm, checked his pockets and, for a reason that Lucy didn't understand (but definitely wanted to), removed his shoes.
"As always, you fail to observe even the most basic details. The shirt is silk, but has been re-patched badly on a number of occasions; the trousers are three years old, maybe four, worn on a regular basis; cheap shoes and socks. The man was some kind of performer and these were his singular set of performance clothes."
"So?"
"So it's hardly unexpected for him to be in a hotel of this calibre, which means the rest of your train of thought is also wrong and completely unfounded."
"You don't even know what it is," Lestrade said.
Sherlock sent him a pointed look.
"Who found the body?"
"Maid," Lestrade said, "the guy who's renting the hotel room hasn't showed up yet, so he's obviously our first suspect –" Sherlock made a derisive noise at the back of his throat that Lucy presumed meant he didn't agree, " – but we're not really expecting him to turn up, so anything you can tell us about him..."
"Forties, married, two children, cheating on his wife with a long term lover, dislikes his job, doubtless too apathetic to bother cutting out someone's tongue."
"How?" Lucy asked, without really meaning to. Sherlock turned his gaze towards her for the second time, stare raking up her form in a way that was so un-sexual she didn't think it was possible. That look was a hundred percent analytical. "How do you know?"
"No," Sherlock said, simply, gaze boring into her skin for a few seconds. Then he was back to facing Lestrade, offering a stream of information quicker than Lucy thought possible. "The victim knew the killer. Cutting out someone's tongue is difficult, personal. Pre-mediated. Performance likely something to do with both the hand and the wrist… Possibly career related? Tongue was cut out first, the victim struggled and spat blood down his shirt; wrist next, then the final stab wound to the stomach. Largely unnecessary, the blood loss sustained would have been enough to cause death."
Lucy's face was burning.
"Maybe the killer had second thoughts. Wanted to put him out his misery?" John suggested.
"More likely he wanted to leave quickly. I imagine watching someone bleed to death could get dull. Find a contact number for the man renting the hotel. See if his wife knows about the affair. Text me the details."
"That's it?" Anderson asked, expression twisting into displeasure, "Losing your touch?"
"Please refrain from talking, Anderson, it's preferable for everyone involved… come on, John," Sherlock said, removing his gloves and pocketing them, reaching for his scarf and heading towards the door.
Lucy felt a spark of something like disappointment, but her face was already flushed from the 'no' she'd received early, so – on balance – she decided the fact that Sherlock was now leaving was a near miss. There was no real justification for the feeling of dissatisfaction, because everyone had warned her that being taken down a peg by the infamous Sherlock Holmes was physically painful.
"Oh," Sherlock said, pausing in the doorway and looking right at her, "You wanted to know what I deduced? Thirty five, attempting to look twenty five. Failing. Reapplied lipstick in the lift in an unsuccessful attempt to hide the total lack of personality. Interested in rich, eccentric men who are doubtless too good for you due to belief that it will make you appear more interesting. Drank too much last night, probable argument with ex-fiancée. You slept badly, put on more make up than usual in an attempt to hide bags under your eyes – don't bother, next time, it doesn't help. Toast for breakfast, two cups of coffee. Live through other people's secrets. Painfully dull desire to appear in some way remarkable, particularly to me. Boring. Obvious."
Lucy felt her breathing hitch in her throat and had to remind herself not to cry.
"Is that what you had in mind?" Sherlock asked, finishing with the added flourish of a fake smile.
It was most distinctly not.
It's been quite awhile since I started a Sherlock story and it's good to be back! This will be switching over to focus mostly on Sherlock&John (and the case) in the next chapter