October, 2004

Seven years passed and Lestrade saw neither hide nor hair of the teenager who had solved the Everton case faster than you could say "murder". From time to time Lestrade thought about the young genius and aspiring detective, and he always pictured him while on a particularly baffling case that turned cold. Sometimes Lestrade simply wondered what was Sherlock was doing right at that moment. Of course, there was no way he'd ever find out, but he did wonder.

The end of another year was beginning to roll around once again, and Lestrade's team had been called to a suspected homicide. He was cursing his luck. Why couldn't someone else's team have gotten this one? The case was baffling. Arriving at the scene and looking around, he thought it wasn't often he'd seen a cleaner crime scene, a cleaner crime. The victim was found on her living room couch; there was no weapon, no fingerprints, no DNA, no forced entry, no enemies of the victim that would like to see the end of her, and no hints whatsoever, it seemed. Just signs of a minor struggle and a wide open back door. There was a wound right where the victim's heart was with a river of blood pooling on the ground next to her.

The only evidence that could be used to incriminate the murderer were the dying words of the dead woman: a neighbour had testified that she heard a scream, a cry of "Help!". Coming to investigate, she'd found Kate Moon lying prostrate on her carpet, and in her last moments had pointed towards the open back door, and choked out something that the neighbour made out to be "he went that way". The neighbour hadn't seen anyone. And Lestrade knew that what they had to go on wasn't nearly enough to even begin searching.

As he directed his new team, he desperately wanted to simply go home and settle down with a nice, hot cup of tea. It wasn't helping that a thin shower was falling over London. If it's going to rain, it shouldn't be this stupid, weak drizzle. At least commit to being rain or don't rain at all! He was starting to be thoroughly annoyed with everything when he saw a figure in the distance. With a big black coat, skin as white as paper and curly black hair. Thank goodness! Lestrade internally leapt for joy.

"Good evening Inspector," Sherlock greeted him.

"Hello Sherlock. Thought you'd dropped off the face of the Earth."

Sherlock gave him a wry smile, and Lestrade noted how he looked older, as one would expect after seven years – but not just seven years older. He looked much older, he'd seemed to age more than usual. And the reason for his mature looks became apparent when he came closer to Lestrade.

The last time they'd seen each other, Sherlock had been very thin and gaunt, more than usual. But now it was a different story. He looked drained, and he looked sick. His sharp eyes sat atop deep circles, and his every bone could be seen through the white skin. Lestrade thought his hands shook slightly even. There was something else that was worrying Lestrade that he couldn't quite place. His locks of curly hair were much longer and scruffier than before and the cheekbones more prominent and pronounced. Sherlock was still very shrewd and perceptive though, and his light blue eyes darted around where he stood, noting and taking everything in.

"I needn't ask how you've been because you've been very well. Except this case is troubling you. I can help you with that, no need to fret."

"And how have you been?" Lestrade asked.

"Spectacular."

Though he didn't look it, Lestrade thought. He looked as if all he needed was someone to sit him down and take good care of him for a few weeks. And a good strong cup of tea wouldn't harm him. Lestrade wondered where Sherlock had been for the past seven years.

"Excellent. Well, this one's inside the house," Lestrade explained everything he knew about the case to Sherlock. "I'm not sure what I'm going to tell everyone, but –"

"You tell them I'm a Consulting Detective, consulted by the Yard. It's not a lie; I am a Consulting Detective now, you are part of the Yard, and you're consulting me."

And Sherlock strode into the house. He strode around as if he owned the place. As Lestrade followed, he was stopped short by a tan, frizzy haired newly promoted Sergeant. After being moved up a rank from constable, Lestrade had taken a liking to her policing skills.

"Yes, Donovan?" Lestrade asked.

"Sir, we have an intruder. His explanation when I asked what he was doing here was 'Lestrade'."

"Ah yes, he's a…Consulting Detective. Going to be looking in on the case."

"Oh," Donovan looked reasonably surprised. "I've never seen him around before, what's his name? Is he new at the Yard?"

"His name's Sherlock Holmes. You probably haven't seen him around the Yard."

"So he is new?"

"Well, in a manner of speaking…but – not really…"

She was looking at him disbelievingly, until Sherlock yelled "Inspector!" and Lestrade excused himself. He entered the very bland white front room that seemed to lack any sort of character, and saw Sherlock pacing the floor, back and forth, back and forth. If he didn't stop, Lestrade thought that he'd wear the pale carpet down so much he'd have to pay for a replacement. Suddenly, the detective's features erupted into a grin.

"Yes…yes…oh, how I love it when it's clever! The clever ones are the most fun," Sherlock cried.

"The clever what?" Lestrade asked.

"The clever crimes. Yes…tell me Inspector – what is always cited as the quintessential perfect crime?" Sherlock's features were positively luminous.

"Uh…"

"Stabbed with an icicle?" Donovan supplied, leaning against the doorjamb at the entrance of the front room. "So the evidence and weapon melt away…"

"Exactly! You notice the wet patch here, next to her? That's where the icicle melted. The wound also looks just like it was made by such an instrument – I did an experiment approximately two years ago to see what an icicle stab looks like, and this is textbook."

"So, she," Lestrade indicated to Kate Moon, "was murdered after being stabbed with an icicle?"

It was possibly the strangest thing he'd heard. So they had the weapon, but it brought them no closer to finding the killer, Lestrade reflected gloomily, as the whole point of the icicle being used for the weapon was that it would melt away all ways of tracking the killer – if the murderer hadn't left any other traces. And there were no other traces. But Sherlock didn't seem at all disheartened. In fact, he strode purposefully around the room as if he was in complete control.

"You have your cause of death correct, but she wasn't murdered by being stabbed."

Lestrade looked at Sherlock blankly.

"She committed suicide – it wasn't murder," Sherlock explained. At Lestrade's confused face, Sherlock explained: "See her left hand? It's slightly damp and wrinkled which comes after being wet – from holding the icicle. This and other evidence around this room suggests she was left-handed, so if she was to stab herself in the heart, which is on the left side of the chest, the angle of the wound would be very distinctive, which it is. See the entry point here? And the trajectory of the icicle as it moves in – here.

"The only evidence of a struggle is this one armchair toppled forwards and a broken coffee table – but look at how back-heavy the chair is and how the legs splay to the front! Unlikely it would have fallen the way it has in a real struggle. And the break down the coffee table here is too clean of a cut to have been created during a real fight between this woman and an assailant. A larger commotion would have occurred if this was a murder by stabbing, and this isn't enough of a wrecked room. Nor is it realistically done for that matter. And there's the fact that there's no sign of forced entry, both these last two things suggest there was no one else here."

"But why would she commit suicide?" Lestrade asked.

"Mentally disturbed. She had a therapist and medication for depression," Sherlock produced a bottle of pills from atop the mantle, behind a photo frame. "Which she hasn't been taking of late, so the depression would, obviously, worsen," he added, inspecting the bottle.

"All right, that's all good, but why stage it as a murder?"

Before answering, Sherlock marched over to the calendar, flipped from November right back to April, and nodded. Lestrade's eye caught on Sherlock's forearm when his coat sleeve fell down to peel back the pages of the calendar. It was dotted with pockmarks. And it clicked; the nagging thing about Sherlock that had worried Lestrade. Sunken eyes, gaunt face, jittery, pockmarks. He's an addict. Cocaine? Lestrade said nothing about it, but resolved to ask Sherlock later. He hadn't thought Sherlock was doing drugs when they first met on the Everton case. Things, circumstances, change. Sherlock then picked up the victim's contact book, flicked through it, and turned to Lestrade.

"There are four names in this book – her sister, mother and father, and counsellor. She staged it as a murder because she didn't want to upset her only contacts by making them think she was so disturbed as to take her own life. She cherishes her family; these two birthday cards are still on display in November – her birthday was in April, it's written on the calendar. Excuse me for a moment," Sherlock said, and disappeared down the corridor.

Lestrade followed him down a characterless hallway and into the bedroom. Sherlock had dipped his hand under the mattress of the bed and was extracting a small, leather-bound, dark green book.

"How did you know where the diary was?" Lestrade asked.

"She had depression and trust issues, and I noticed that the corner of the mattress hadn't been replaced properly but the bed hadn't been properly made in a while so the mattress wasn't moved for that reason."

But Lestrade's heart sunk in disappointment when they opened the diary. All the pages were blank. The Inspector thought he wouldn't be able to convince the rest of the police and a jury that it was suicide on only the evidence they had. But Sherlock started stroking the beginning pages, and then went to the middle, started working backwards in touching each page, and stopped, smiling.

"This isn't a blank diary, don't worry Lestrade."

Lestrade watched as Sherlock flounced out of the room, brimming with excitement. By the time he'd come into the kitchen Sherlock was already taking out ingredients from the cupboards. Suddenly it hit Lestrade: the pages towards the front had been wrinkled, but those at the back hadn't. With a graceful flourish Sherlock swept a liquid he'd quickly made over the paper, and words appeared.

"Brilliant! Invisible ink!"

"Not really brilliant; quite simple really. The pages showed obvious signs of having being written on with a liquid from the crinkle in them. I found the last page written on, as that is the one that would probably help us the most."

Bending over the book, the two read the entry, dated the previous day.

I can't take it anymore. I look back on my life and when I ask myself what I've achieved, what I've done right, what good things there are left in the world, and I come up with nothing. I feel like I've failed and can't do anything to help myself. There's really no more point…I've prepared everything, and I know my parents will be happier thinking I didn't meet my end by suicide – they were direct in their letter that I would never be forgiven should I try to off myself. Murder would be much kinder to them all, but I wouldn't let anyone else be incriminated, so I'm happy to do it myself and stage it as a killing. And my icicle idea was, I think, my only achievement in my entire life, I'm rather proud of it…I'm afraid this will be the last you'll ever hear from me, diary. I'll see you in the next life.

-Kate

"And there is your testimony, from the mouth – or hand, that is – of your victim. Inspector, I believe we're done here."

Lestrade gave Constable MacPherson of all the relevant photos and evidence to collect, and he followed Sherlock out of the house, shocked that the case had already been completed. It was definitely the fastest Lestrade's seen a case completely solved and shelved. Lestrade noted with a strange pleasure at how much happier Sherlock seemed to be while bouncing around the crime scene, making deductions, connecting clues and solving cases, as opposed to how he looked before as he trudged down the street. It was liveliness, a new vitality. Lestrade liked it. The air was becoming colder and colder as December drew closer, and Lestrade saw how Sherlock was dressed – apart from the coat, he only had a thin shirt and thin, worn dress trousers on. He must have been cold, Lestrade reasoned.

"Where are you going now?" Lestrade asked.

"Vauxhall. Well, good-bye Lestrade, this was a wonderfully stimulating day," Sherlock began to traipse down the street.

"Sherlock, wait!" Sherlock rounded back on Lestrade at the yell. "Are you walking?"

"Yes, I usually just do that. Sometimes I go on the tube."

"You can't walk from Tufnell Park to Vauxhall! Don't be ridiculous – that must take at least two hours!"

"One hour fifty minutes, to be precise, my good Inspector. Don't worry, I'm used to it."

"Why don't you let me drive you? We're packing up here anyway and it's less than a ten minute drive from Vauxhall to the Yard, which is where I'm going now anyway."

Sherlock looked like he wanted to refuse, but had the conflicting opinion of desperately not wanting to trek home for two hours. He teetered on the verge of saying yes, and then saying no, and settled on not saying anything at all.

"Since you're in a limbo of indecision, let me decide for you: you'll come with me. Wait here while I pack up."

Minutes later they were in the cruiser, heading south. Lestrade had found Sherlock with Donovan stalking away from him, and was curious as to what had happened between the two of them. His mouth quirked up thinking about it. Lestrade was intrigued with the young man sitting beside him who he knew next to nothing about. But Sherlock didn't seem forthcoming with information.

After several attempts at conversation to find out more about Sherlock – So, you have a brother? Unfortunately. Have you always liked detective work? Yes. Do you live with anyone? Yes and no. What do you mean "yes and no"? It's a long story Inspector. Are you from London originally? No. Will I guess where you hail from? You don't have to if you don't want to – he gave up. Sherlock was obviously uncomfortable with talking about himself, and the only personal details Lestrade managed to extract from him was his mobile phone number. But when Lestrade mentioned the cold case of the disappearance of the mother of four in Devon, Sherlock started talking incessantly.

When Lestrade rounded onto Lambeth High St, Sherlock told him he could be let out there.

"I'm really happy to keep taking you though."

"No matter Inspector, you're crossing the Lambeth Bridge to get to the Yard, and going further means driving past the bridge. And the overseeing DI cannot be late back to the Yard to give his findings, can he? And where I'm headed is just the next suburb."

There was truth in Sherlock's words, so Lestrade let him out. Contrary to Lestrade thinking Sherlock was simply being polite, the younger man didn't want Lestrade knowing where he headed. As Lestrade watched him retreat from the car his curiosity grew, but knowing he needed to go back to work, he shelved his interest and drove off.

A/N: OK, so that's the first two chapters, and I'm expecting all the other chapters will be decidedly shorter than these two, probably about half the length. Both chapters were set-up/crime scene and I couldn't work out where to break it.

Also, in my personal headcanon, if Lestrade says in ASiP that he's shown Sherlock five years, and that's Jan 2010 (which is what John's blog says), then five years earlier than that is either late 2004 or early 2005. So I've opted for Lestrade having known Sherlock as long as possible.

Thanks for reading!