Still not beta'ed...
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock in any way, if I did, Sarah would not exist...
Elisabeth's p.o.v.:
In another part of town, more specific, at New Scotland Yard, a woman walked to the front desk.
"Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find DI Lestrade, I was asked to meet him here today." The man behind the desk looked shortly at her, before he found a slip of paper, but he didn't give it to her.
"Would you mind telling me your name first?"
"Oh yes off course, it's Elisabeth M. Ross." She quickly found her driving licence, so he could check her identity. He took it, looked at it, and handled it back to her.
"DI Lestrade had to leave for a crime scene, but he left an address, and asked us to drive you to it. Wait here a moment, and I'll find an officer to drive you." Elisabeth nodded, and the man shortly disappeared, before he came back together with an officer. He greeted her, but didn't say much else; he just drove her to the scene.
The crime scene was in the inner city of London, and Elisabeth couldn't see anything because of the horde of people, which had gathered to get a look at the scene. She signed, before she quickly removed the dust which had appeared on her dress from the ride in the not-to-clean car. She hadn't expected to go to a crime scene today, so she was wearing a floor long dress, with long sleeves and a high neck. It was a tight fit, which didn't leave much to the fantasy, apart from waist down, where the scarlet and golden silk the dress was made of waved around her legs. She wasn't a jacket today, she had decided to take her handbag with her instead, and was wearing long leather boots with high heels. Her long, white hair, was collected in a ponytail, and was waving down her back. Even in the heat of summer, she was still wearing her long, white silk gloves. She started to walk through the hordes of humans, making her heels click against the asphalt, making people stand aside and form a path to the police tape. When she walked through, with her heels clicking, and stance of military, people started to go silent, and when she arrived at the police tape, everybody around her was silent, even the journalists standing nearby, so she easily cached the attention of a police officer.
"Excuse me, could I get you to find Di Lestrade for me? He asked me to meet him here." The officer disappeared quickly into a nearby house, and Elisabeth had to wonder if Lestrade had told them to look out for her. While she was waiting, two men walked through the horde of humans, just like her, and stood to wait next to her, not looking at her, talking to one another.
"I wonder where Donovan is." The shorter of them muted. The officer came back a few seconds later, but she didn't look at Elisabeth, she looked the two newcomers and frowned.
"Freak. What are you doing here?"
"I was called here to help." The officer didn't answer; she just lifted the tape, and signed for Elisabeth to follow her. She docked under the tape, and followed the two men and the officer into the house. Inside was the first well-known face she had seen all day.
"The freak is her, and so is your guest." The officer pointed at her, before walking further into the house.
"Long time, no see." She didn't give Lestrade time to react, before she gave him a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Do you still prefer to be called Lestrade?" She couldn't help study him a bit, his hair had few more gray strains then she was used to, but overall, he didn't look much older, and for some reason, he looked less stressed.
"Yes, long time no see, Elisabeth. Glad to have you back." He hugged her back.
"Oh thank you. So what's today's job? Can I have a look?" She smiled slightly flirting at him.
"That one won't work with me; try it on some of the other guys." Lestrade smiled at her. She was still a bit smaller than him, even with her heels on.
"No way, they'll actually think I'm flirting with them. So can I have a look?" she pouted a bit, before giving him a hopeful glance.
"Hah..." Lestrade couldn't help but sigh; it was have a younger sister with Elisabeth around him.
"Yes, please do. Maybe you can find something our expert can't." He turned around and walked into the house with a hopeful grin.
"It's in the living room." He noted, walking into the room, where a small amount of people already was gathered. She quickly took the room in. It was a quite big living room for an apartment, which this seemed to be. There was two windows facing the front, but the curtains were shut. In the middle was a chair, with the victim sitting in it. The apartment seemed inhabited, but there was a thin layer of dust on the nearby shelve. A busy women then, since her floors was mostly clean. In the room were, apart from herself and Lestrade, four other humans: the two which had walked past her before, the officer from before and someone whom looked like an idiot. No stance and an aura which emitted only idiocy, a man made to put others of. She had to sigh, before turning to the victim and the person examining it
"So, since when did you start getting help from outside the Yard? Really, it doesn't seem like the Lestrade I remember, less proud, but so much more effective. I like it." She smiled at him, before turning her attention to the victim. The people around the room seemed to have notice her by now, even the high man with the curly hair.
"For a few years now..." He was interrupted by the idiot-looking man.
"Who are you?" He said, looking dump.
"You really aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you? I'm Elisabeth, and I'm here to help." She wondered if it sounded too much like an insult, but didn't bother wondering for too long. She walked further into the room, and started to stare at the victim. It was a lady in her thirties, killed with a single gunshot through her heart, but there wasn't much blood at the scene. She took a quicker look over at a few other things, before turning to the smaller of the two unknown men.
"You must be Doctor John Watson, right? Can you tell me how long have she's been death?" The doctor looked dump fooled at her.
"How...? Never mind, about three days, but it's hard to say in this heat." She looked properly at him now. She wasn't used to not having to explain. Something about him reminded her of something. She quickly ran through her memories.
"Afghanistan, one year ago, shoulder wound, shot in action." She rapidly fired of, mostly for her own sake. Everybody was staring at her now, not just looking like before, plainly staring.
"Never mind, three days you say? Are you sure?" John nodded, getting his expression under control. She straightened up; she had to bow down to look nearly at the corpus.
"First day back and I ran into a sadist of a murderer, now that's just my luck." She muted to herself again.
"Sadist?" It was the officer this time. Elisabeth looked at Lestrade to get an introduction.
"Sergeant Donovan." He just said.
"Ah... Are all your people that slow? I did expect the level to rise a bit while I was gone." She couldn't help biting a bit at people today, she hadn't expected to actually get to work today, and she hadn't gotten enough sleep to deal with the rather slow personal of the Yard.
"The murder didn't take place here; the murderer has been back multiple times and has spent quite some time around the victim, after her death. He's approximately 1.8 meter tall, slim, into fashion, and quite popular in this area." Sherlock interrupted them, getting bored by their talking. Now it was Sherlock which was the subject for everybody's glance, apart from John and Elisabeth off course.
"He's a travelling hairdresser and beautician." Elisabeth supplied, studying the well done nails of the victim.
"Come have a look Lestrade," She signed for him to come near, while she kneeled down on the floor in front of the victim, careful not to destroy any evidence.
"This type of nail art normally takes at least five hours to do, at least, look at all the layers and decorations, the fine strokes, precise laid, and it'll usually take at least two visits to a beautician to get it perfect. And it's not even completely hardened yet. A good nail polish takes about half an hour to dry and 3 hours to harden, multiple layers takes at least 12 hours; this one is no more than half that old. And the hair, look at the hair. So neatly done, it's impossible to tell from it that she collapsed after being shot. And there's no blood on her cloth or on the floor, so she must have been killed somewhere else, but not too far away, it would be impossible to get a body into this apartment without catching attention. Have a look at her bathroom, you'll properly find that to be the real crime scene. And have a look at her cloth; it's clearly her own, see so well it fit her, like she has brought it herself. You'll properly find fingerprints from the murderer on her closet. Did I miss something?" She looked at Sherlock, which already seemed bored again, yet fascinated.
"No, you got it right." He answered, studying her.
"Good." She quickly reached into her handbag, finding her purse and handled a business card to Lestrade.
"It's properly this man you are looking for, he has been the only travelling hairdresser and beautician in London for years. He knows every street of London, and is perfectly well-known in the entire city, among women off course." She turned to face Sherlock.
"Mister Sherlock Holmes I presume. I'm glad to finally meet you." She rose from the floor, but didn't dust of her dress for once.
"It seems like we'll get to work together in the future. Now, before I present myself, would you like to try deluding me?" She smiled sweetly at him, much like a child looking for a treat. Sherlock shoot her an amazing glance, Elisabeth could almost feel his intense glance and hear his brain work.
"You are an old friend of Lestrade, old childhood friend I presume, you have had a military career, been in Afghanistan, wounded in action and send back because of it, been travelling for some time, and is raised in a rich home." Elisabeth smiled at him, clearly satisfied; she looked almost ready to hug him, but decided against it.
"Old friend of Lestrade, yes, childhood friend, yes, I'm his cousin. Military, yes, Afghanistan, yes, wounded, yes, through not exactly in action. I haven't been travelling, just visiting a sister in Sweden, and a rich kid, yes. Would you care to tell the audience how you got those results?" She quickly pointed at Donovan, Anderson and John.
"Your way of talking with Lestrade suggests a good, old friendship. Your stance says military and you seem to know John from Afghanistan, even though he doesn't seem to remember you. Wounded in action; you are constantly gripping your left arm, as if something hurts. The travelling was a guess; you have multiple different foreign currencies in your wallet, so you must have been overseas. Rich kid, come on, that dress is made of silk, and you walk in it as if you never had been doing anything else." Elisabeth smiled at him, but couldn't help noticing Johns clearly admiring look, when he glanced at Sherlock.
"Oh, so correct. I'm Elisabeth M. Ross, I have just jointed the Yard again, as a DI." She walked forward, to shake his hand, pulling him near, so she could whisper something to him.
"Now, go get a room, you two clearly haven't had enough fun today." She smiled at him when she pulled away, and walked back to Lestrade, leaving a speechless Sherlock, whom quickly pulled himself together, and headed outside again, with John following closely behind him.