Nine Months Ago: Close to Home
I was wondering when Moriarty would strike again.
This time it's half two in the afternoon when we set off in a cab for a respectable café where dear Jim has left us his latest gift- in a women's washroom.
"Sherlock, there's something you should know-" Lestrade is saying.
"You're standing in front of me," I remark indifferently as I steer deftly past him. "You can walk and talk, can't you detective inspector?"
"Sherlock, the victim-"
But I've beaten him to it. I've already seen and deduced what he thought so important to tell me.
"Phone Mycroft," I say. "He will wish to be informed."
Whatever reaction Lestrade was expecting, this is not it. I think even he expected some kind of emotional reaction from me, but I am solving a puzzle. I find the injection site and take some extra time examining her corpse simply to avoid the stares.
I'm tired of everyone's constant surprise over my alleged emotional deficiencies.
"But I don't understand," John is saying.
"That's-" Lestrade begins.
I stand and turn just in time to interject, "my mother. Moriarty thinks he can get at me by killing off dear old mummy. Definitely sends a message, don't you think?"
John follows me out of the room. "Sherlock-"
"It'll be a morphine overdose, just like all the others," I inform him tersely.
"Sherlock."
"You think I should be upset," I acknowledge. "Maybe I should, but she was hardly a mother to me. Never acted like much of one, never treated me like a mother should treat a son. I'd think you'd be able to deduce that yourself, John. After all, good mothers don't raise high-functioning sociopaths."
"But she was still your mother."
I have no answer to that.