Sherlock picked at the lint on his jacket and scowled.
"You're quiet." Lestrade prompted from the seat next to him. Sherlock narrowed his eyes as he turned his head to look at the DI as he tooled the car easily around the city streets.
"Is there something in particular you wanted to ask?" Sherlock intoned.
"No, it's called making conversation. You've heard of it I imagine?"
"I see no need for it." Sherlock went back to inspecting the lint.
"Ok, how did you know about Sally's boyfriend?"
"Dark shadows on her wrists from being held down, she pulled back when I invaded her personal space, slight elevation in her pulse rate, there were several small blood spots on the left side of her hairline which indicated her hair had been pulled forcefully. Faint odour of Hugo Boss aftershave, eyes slightly red rimmed from crying. Sally doesn't scare easily, and yet she was wary of a male presence, one that she knows, and despite our acerbic relationship she still found cause to be afraid. So deduction she had been compromised possibly abused recently by a male, since the physical evidence indicates a new relationship and I know she has ceased her liaison with Anderson, it was simple really. Do you really need me to talk that much that you want me to go through the twenty seven steps to prove it, or would you much rather accept that I do know what I'm doing."
"Sherlock, sometimes you can be so damned irritating."
The Detective smiled at this. "Only sometimes?"
"Yes, most times actually." Lestrade laughed. "He loves you you know."
Sherlock almost felt the whiplash as the subject changed so rapidly. "Yes."
"But?" Lestrade slowed the car down.
"He's worried about meeting my mother. He shouldn't be should he?" Sherlock frowned, the protocols of relationships still confused to him.
"Firstly yes, it's a big deal to meet the significant other's parents, or siblings. Secondly, get a grip Sherlock, this is your Mum, I've met her and she has the ability to unnerve me and I'm not sleeping with you."
"Is it obvious?"
"You kissed him in the squad room Sherlock, kinda gave it away don't you think?"
Sherlock wiped his hand across his face. "Merde."
"Are you swearing? 'Cause my French is terrible."
"Probably. The banker and his wife, did you see?"
"Not what you're referring to." Lestrade grimaced.
"The house was full of items that they could not or should not be able to afford, and yet there is no hint of impropriety." Sherlock dug out his phone, put it on loud speaker and dialled.
"Sebastian, its Sherlock."
"Twice in one year! Good to hear from you again old man." Sebastian's voice was cordial but strained. They had never been friends.
"Oh, I doubt that Sebastian, but I do need to talk to you about Wainwright."
The pause and quick drawn in breath gave away his anxiety. "Sure, I'll have my secretary make an appointment."
"No not really a good idea, you can meet us as Scotland Yard in an hour."
"Us? Now see here Sherlock, you can't go ordering me around."
Lestrade frowned.
"Really? I don't see why not, I am with Detective Inspector Lestrade now, would you like him to make it formal or informal?" Sherlock's voice was icy.
"Formal." Sebastian bit out.
"Excellent." Sherlock smiled.
"I'll have the warrant executed and we will arrange to have you picked up at your office." Lestrade's eyes gleamed with sinister delight, he didn't like the slimy man on the phone, and moreover he didn't like the condescending way he spoke to Sherlock.
"No, no you're serious?"
"Yes I am." Lestrade barked.
"Alright, give me an hour I'll meet you at the Yard."
"Excellent, always a pleasure Seb." Sherlock ended the call.
"Want to tell me who that was?"
"Sebastian Wilkes, Thomas Wainwrights boss." Sherlock checked his phone for messages and frowned when he saw no new ones from John.
"Bloody hell do I always have to pull teeth to get information out of you?" Lestrade growled.
"No, sorry. Am I? Probably not." Sherlock smiled. "Sebastian and I went to University together."
"Not well liked then?"
"No, I was never liked." Sherlock grunted and Lestrade pulled the car over.
"I was referring to this Wilkes character."
"Oh."
"Sherlock, for all your intellect, it is obvious you don't know how people react in emotional situations when they are personal to you. So, if you get lost, don't know what to do or just generally need some help, you know you can ask me." Lestrade said gently.
"Um, thank you." Sherlock bit his lip and absently rubbed his stomach.
"Have you eaten?" Lestrade opened the glove compartment of the car and pulled out a power bar. "Sorry it's warm."
"Did John give you these?" he eyed the dark wrapper suspiciously.
"Yes. Have you got your antibiotics?"
Sherlock narrowed his eyes but dutifully dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the thin strip. He popped one and opened the power bar and took a bite.
"Satisfied?"
Lestrade bit back on the chuckle and pulled the car away from the kerb. "Yes."
With all the alacrity of a recalcitrant child he wrapped the bar up and made to stuff it into his pocket. Lestrade trapped his hand and shook his head.
"If not all of it then at least half."
"Is this mother henning likely to continue?" Sherlock snarked.
"Possibly, so just deal with it."
"Fine."
~~~)))(((~~~
Anderson bagged all the contraband found in the Wilkes flat and tagged it. So many beautiful items, any one of which was more than he could afford he thought sourly as his eyes drifted to Sally Donovan.
"Are you alright Sally?" the black eyes complete with steri-tape made him look cross-eyed.
"I'm fine Mike."
"Ahuh, as in fucked up insecure and neurotic?"
"What?" She folded her arms across her chest in a purely defensive measure.
"Technical meaning for Fine." He smiled and reached out to her gently. "We may not be an us any more Sally, but leave me for someone worth the effort yeah?"
She felt a hot tear in the corner of her eye and wiped it away. "I could tell you he didn't mean it."
"And we both know you'd be lying. We've been here too long, in this job, we know, we've heard it all before. Don't, please don't be a statistic."
"Sherlock said I should dump him."
"Yeah well the Freak pisses me off on any given day, but on this occasion he's right."
"Um, thanks Mike, I ah, have to get back to the station. And don't worry, I've already told Sebastian bloody Moran that he can take a hike."
"Good for you." And surprisingly, he meant it, in that cold calculating and insincere heart, Mike Anderson loved her. He just couldn't be faithful, and she deserved so much more.
~~~)))(((~~~
Lestrade trudged into the squad room with Sherlock on his heels like an avenging angel. All dark curls and sinister arrogance. He stood apart and in this element, people fell back from him with a mixture of awe and grudging respect. He pulled of the fine leather gloves and shoved them down in the pocket of his Belstaff coat.
"Ah Sebastian." Sherlock intoned as he walked by the worried banker. "This way." He insolently led the way into Lestrade's office and sat in one of the two chairs, all the better to watch the reactions.
"Now see here Sherlock, just because we went to university together doesn't give you the right to make demands on me, my time is valuable."
"Mr Holmes has not made any demands on you." Lestrade motioned him to a seat. "I have. Now your banker Thomas Wainwright was found dead this morning along with his wife." Feeling in particularly nasty mood, Lestrade opened the folder of crime scene photos and laid the grizzly pictures on the desk top for Wilkes to see.
The banker went as pale as his silk shirt and closed his eyes. "I don't know what I can tell you."
"Really? That's not like you Seb." Sherlock hid the shark behind the facade of friend and could see it worked.
"So far this is unofficial, and it's normal procedure to interview those closest to the deceased." Lestrade added.
"So I don't need to call my attorney."
"Not unless you're guilty of something." Sherlock moved closer.
"Don't be ridiculous! Sherlock you know me, you know I could never do that." He waved at the pictures scattered before him.
"Do we ever truly know anyone?" Sherlock asked rhetorically. "The point here is not if you did it, but what you know about it. And you do know something don't you? Something you need to tell? What are you afraid of Seb?" his voice was a soft crooned baritone and like a snake charmer wooed the beast, so too did Sherlock employ the same almost hypnotic device on his one time friend.
"Yes, alright, but this is off the record." Sebastian began to sweat as he looked between the two men. Lestrade nodded.
"Do you need protection?" Sherlock asked again and Lestrade almost felt sorry for the poor idiot who was about to damn himself along with his murdered colleague.
"I might do. You've been to the flat?"
"Yes."
"Tom and his wife were gamblers."
"Go on." Sherlock steepled his hands together in the familiar prayer position and looked languidly at the cracks in the ceiling, seeming for the entire world disinterested.
"There's a group, private club that caters to the more eclectic tastes of gamblers."
"I'm assuming they don't play Blackjack?"
"I don't know all of it, but they invited me to play. They had won some serious items, Faberge Eggs, money, trips, stocks, gold bullion, expensive electronics, even a Stradivarius and an original Monet."
"The items were stolen?" Lestrade asked as he sucked on the end of his pen, days like this he wanted, no needed a fag.
"No, passed from one to another, but not as far as I know stolen." Sebastian said softly.
"You think that they were killed because they what, couldn't pay their gambling debts?" Lestrade opined.
"Oh, I think it's all a bit more sinister than that isn't it Seb? They gambled their lives, if it were debts then the items in the flat would have been taken in payment, but nothing was touched, so they gambled their lives, but against what?" Sherlock fixed his steely gaze on the man in the chair. Expensive suit and Breightling notwithstanding, Sebastian Wilkes dripped with the sweat of a man who was truly afraid.
"I don't know Sherlock; it was all a bit of a laugh to begin with, but then this." Sebastian held his hands wide.
"Is not the first is it?" Sherlock asked.
"Marcus Cavendish." Wilkes nodded. "He died a week or so ago, everyone said it was a car accident."
Lestrade opened his computer and ordered the files to be bought to his office.
"The contact, was it made directly to you or via Wainwright?"
"I was to be sponsored in next week."
"So do you have a contact?"
Sebastian looked like he was about to vomit. "Yes." He said softly.
"Excellent!" Sherlock clapped his hands together and grinned manically. "I suggest, old friend, that you give as much detail as you can to DI Lestrade here, if you expect to survive this."
Lestrade choked down the smile as he saw the snotty little man blanche and pointed to a waste bucket, at the same time John Watson entered the squad room talking animatedly to Sally Donovan. She held in her hands a violin wrapped in a plastic bag very similar to the one Sherlock owned.
"Donovan!" Lestrade called as she came directly into his room. "Please take Mr Wilkes here to interview room two and get a statement from him, oh and get him something to drink will you."
Watson's eyes went wide as he reached an arm around Sherlock's waist and smiled at the completely confused expression on the banker.
"Sebastian."
"Oh yes, Sherlock's colleague."
"Friend, partner, etc." Watson smirked as Wilkes eyes narrowed and Sherlock straightened his spine, with what looked to Lestrade like pride.
Sally handed the violin to Sherlock. "Found this at the Wainwright house, it's been dusted for prints."
"Yes." His voice soft now as he looked at the instrument with something akin to avarice, long fingers stroked through the plastic bag. "It's a Strada, similar to mine, a few years later, but original nevertheless, worth around mmmm, one to two million pounds."
John's shoulders slumped, he knew the violin at home was precious, Sherlock lavished great care and attention to it but to know it's true worth shocked the surgeon.
The detective for his part had snapped on latex gloves and turned the instrument over in his hands and peered at the back. "Ah, from the Van Holt collection, sold at auction through Christie's in October 2009, from memory. The provenance will be available; you can probably track down other members of the club. You will find all the items will be traceable through one if not all of the auction houses."
"It's already been dusted for prints." John pointed out.
"Anything useful?" Lestrade asked as he watched Donovan herd Wilkes out of the room.
"Database is still checking we have several full and at least four more partials." Anderson sneered. "Oh don't pretend you know how to play it!" he snapped at the lanky detective.
Sherlock looked to Lestrade for permission, pulled off the gloves then took up bow and violin with a flourish, checked it was tuned properly and drew the bow across the strings.
The tone resonated throughout the squad room as Sherlock swayed to the music, keen eyes bored into Anderson as his mastery of the instrument could never be doubted. Most of the squad room stilled as it heard the gentle tones, several more stopped to stare as the cold and calculating self proclaimed sociopath worked his magic upon the instrument, Nessun Dorma had never sounded more beautiful, more haunting or more tragic in those few moments and when he stopped he simply put the violin back into the evidence bag, along with the bow and turned on his heel past Anderson, the shadow of a smile on his lips.
The forensic man shook his head and muttered darkly.