Chapter 4: Dyes n' Do's

On Saturday afternoon, Martin arrived in time for his hair appointment and duly had it dyed. It had to be done regularly to hide the darker roots and he was thoroughly sick of hairdresser conversations. There was only so many times you could talk about your holidays. He'd actually taken to making up increasingly wild trips just to see what he could get hapless hairdressers to believe. Finally though, the torture was over and he was ready to leave. As he was paying, Molly Hooper came in to book her own appointment. Of all the hair salons in all of London…..

"Martin? Is that you? What are you doing here?"

"Molly! Hello. I was just getting my hair cut."

"Croydon seems pretty far from where you live…."

He steered her back out on to the street, where the nosey receptionist couldn't hear.

"Yes, well, my cousin's wife works there and she gives me a discount," Martin said, embarrassed.

"Oh, that's cool….it's just, it's around the corner from my house. What a coincidence!"

"Is it?" What bad luck! When did she move? thought Sherlock.

"Do you want to come over for a cup of tea?"

"Er…." Martin hmmed while he had a short internal argument and then agreed to a short drink.

"Sure…I have to be somewhere at half 5 though, so I can't stay long." Best to give himself an out.

Molly led him down a side street to a row of cutesy terraced houses. Sherlock couldn't resist a question or two.

"This is pretty far from your job too."

"I know, but I wanted to put a bit of distance between myself and work. I used to do a lot of overtime, and now that I live here, I'm much more likely to leave on time and come home," she explained.

She opened the front door and gestured for him to enter.

"Welcome. You may notice a cat skulking around. That's Toby…he doesn't like most people but will probably just snarl and go away."

"Right…I'm not very good with cats," admitted Martin.

"Come through to the kitchen: the sun shines nicely at the back of the house."

He had to admit she was right. The kitchen was a large bright open plan room, obviously an early addition to the house.

"So where are you flying to next?" she asked conversationally as she made the tea.

"Oh, not sure. Carolyn, my boss, takes the bookings. She usually gives us about one day's notice, which isn't great in terms of planning."

"I can imagine it plays havoc with your social life," she sympathised.

"Well, yes, and my other job," he said.

"You have another job as well as being a pilot?! Whatever for?"

"Extra money," Martin looked a bit embarrassed.

"Right, well, always useful, extra money. What's the other job?"

"Er, I have a van and I do removals, stuff like that."

She nodded and waved a packet of Jaffa Cakes at him.

"Biscuits?"

"Yes please."

Toby the cat made an appearance. Now it just so happened that Sherlock was one of the few humans he liked, and he was delighted to see him again. Toby jumped up on Martin's lap and head-butted him in the stomach: the universal cat sign for "pet me".

"Oh my gosh! Toby hates almost everyone. I haven't seen him be that friendly since…well, in a long time. Toby, get down. Martin doesn't want to pet you."

She scooped the cat up off Martin's knees and shooed him out the back door.

"Sorry about that."

"It's fine." He faked a sneeze. "I'm a bit allergic to cats though, so hopefully he won't come back!"

Molly set down mugs of tea and opened the packet of biscuits. Martin suddenly realised he hadn't had any breakfast, never mind lunch and dived on them.

"Do you ever have to work weekends yourself?" he asked.

"Not since I took on this new job. In fact, I mainly work 9-5 at the morgue now. It's brilliant – I get to socialise. Just last night, I had drinks with my friend John and his new girlfriend, which would have been unheard of before."

Sherlock choked slightly hearing John's name.

"Crumb down the wrong way!"

"Are you ok? I am a doctor…" she said with a wink.

"Yes, fine. So were you vetting this new girlfriend?"

"Er, sort of. I really liked her. I'd said there'll be wedding bells before long."

Martin had reached the point of extended politeness about people he didn't know but Sherlock had not.

"Maybe we can all go out some time."

"Sure, I guess."

"I mean, presuming you want to," he said, pulling a rather stricken look.

"Oh I do, I do. Just might be a bit weird. Might as well tell you. John's former flatmate, well, I used to have a bit of thing for him. Anyway, he's not around anymore, so both John and I might find it a bit weird. Everyone knew but it was totally unrequited."

"I'm sure it wasn't," said Martin.

"What do you mean? No, I'm afraid he was totally uninterested."

Martin felt there was an opportunity. He put his hand over Molly's on the table and gave it a small squeeze.

"His loss is my gain then."

Molly gave him an uncomfortable smile and extricated her hand. Was she really not used to compliments? After all that work he'd put in complimenting her over the years…

"Why don't you give me a call when you know your schedule for the next week and we can plan to go out for a drink?" she asked.

"I will," said Martin, while his alter ego said he would not. He needed to cut this off now before someone got hurt, and after all, wasn't this the point of the whole damn charade?