I know, I know - it's been a terribly long time since I updated! Hopefully the next update will not be *quite* so slow. Thank you for the new reviews and follows! They are very much appreciated.
For the next few days, Sherlock awaited a break in the case. Or perhaps a new interesting murder. At the very least, new catnip. But nothing appeared on the horizon to break his boredom once he had analyzed the contents of John's new flat, none of which were terribly interesting. Boring job at a surgery, a few dull girlfriends, and a clearly ill thought out attempt to learn to make his own sushi were the only deductions Sherlock could make about John's life now. An overly cheerful young woman came to walk Gladstone in the afternoon, and he would come back after chatting with the other dogs on her route. John and Molly arrived home in the early evening, made dinner or brought home takeaway, and chattered inanely about their jobs. They watched crap telly (not even the good sort of crap telly) and Sherlock noticed that Molly carefully avoided the dull mystery programmes she often enjoyed in the evening.
The fourth day, Molly switched shifts with another pathologist, leaving Sherlock alone with John and Gladstone in the evening. To his surprise, Lestrade paid John a visit that night. He looked particularly less silver than gray, but took a moment to scratch Sherlock's ears while Sherlock inspected the hem of his trousers.
John opened two beers and the two men sat at the small dining table. Lestrade's face was bound up in concern, and he seemed to be hesitating about something that he wanted to say.
"You're going to think I'm daft," Lestrade began after a moment, "But is there any way – any way at all – that you think Molly Hooper could be involved in this murder?"
"What?" John almost spat out a mouthful of beer and looked at Lestrade incredulously. "How could you even think that, Greg? I mean, really. Molly! Involved in a murder."
"I know it sounds absurd," Lestrade sighed. "But we've got almost nothing to go on. No one else saw or heard anything from that alley – no one but her cat, apparently. And if it was anyone else, we'd find it suspicious that her cat ran across the body and the evidence separately."
"Fine, but – seriously, this is Molly we're talking about here. There's no connection between her and that bloke, and how could she have even lifted him into the skip? He was twice her size."
"True enough." Lestrade frowned and scrubbed his hand in his hair, making stand up even further on end. "God, I sound ridiculous, don't I? This case just has us in knots. The crime scene isn't really the crime scene, and the mess from the skip has made it almost impossible to figure out where that might be."
"Of course, Sherlock – " John began, but then stopped, closing his eyes as if he was wincing. "Well, never mind all that."
Lestrade sighed and rubbed his eyes. "He'd have had this figured out in a trice, yeah?"
"No doubt. And Molly's gratitude paid in – intestines or something for the rest of my days."
Sherlock sniffed. Intestines, certainly not. For fixing something like this he would have had entire limbs filling the fridge.
"I know Molly's not the sort to be around rough types, but - " Sherlock knew what Lestrade was referring to without finishing the sentence. Jim from IT indeed, but it seemed clear to Sherlock that Molly hadn't any inkling of what Moriarty was playing at, and now that he thought about it there had been no indication of any further callers sniffing around Molly's front door.
"I think we can trust that was a one-off," John said wryly, and they both fell into a slightly awkward silence again. Gladstone yipped at John, possibly in hopes of an errant crisp making its way to him. Lestrade smiled down at the pup, who wagged his tail hopefully. Sherlock rolled his eyes and congratulated himself on being born a less subservient creature.
"How's he getting along with Molly's little mouser there?"
"Oh, fine, fine. They're mates now."
"We are not mates," Sherlock grumbled. As conversation drifted to rugby or some other mundane subject, Sherlock wove his way over to where Lestrade's coat was draped over the back of the sofa. With ease he sank his teeth into the notebook in Lestrade's pocket and dragged it out, taking it into John's bedroom to read in peace, leaving only slight puncture marks with his claws as he turned the page.
The man in the alley had most recently hailed from Aberdeen. His connections were indeed unpleasant, hardly at Moriarty's level, but the sort of work where he'd make more than a few enemies. Sherlock frowned at one word amidst the information Lestrade had scribbled down – Murthwaite. He knew that name, but he didn't know why.
Sherlock frowned and sank his claws into the word, trying to recall where he had first encountered the name. Molly came to mind, but he had no idea if the connection was genuine, or if it was merely an artifact of the closeness of the case to her. Then he remembered, in a rush of images – a body with mysterious algae on the clothes, only found in a certain area of Cumbria. Molly had spoken of a place where she and her family had spent holidays when she was very young, a place called Murthwaite. Something else as well, but Sherlock remembered the algae he had been looking at more vividly than Molly's inane background chatter.
Squinting at Lestrade's writing, Sherlock finally made out what the rest of the sentence stated. The man in the alley had some business dealings there as well, but more critically, a son who remained there, and who was presently missing after skipping work for the past two weeks. Sherlock attempted to flick the notebook closed and dragged it back, dropping it on the floor beside Lestrade's coat when he found that putting it back was far more challenging than borrowing it in the first place.
He noticed Lestrade getting to his feet. Finally! He'd calculated his chances and this was the perfect opportunity for escape. The door opened, and he was off like a shot, sweeping past the detective inspector's trouser legs. The woman with a small boy would be getting home right about now, and it always took them a few minutes to get through the main door. Sherlock dashed down the stairs and slipped past the boy's legs as his mother tried to maneuver her briefcase and the boy's wheeled school bag through the door. He bolted through to the pavement and an overwhelming cacophony of sights, smells, and sounds.
The noise and bustle of John's neighborhood was immediately distracting. Just protecting his own tail from pedestrian feet was a challenge. Sherlock had thought so long about escaping that he hadn't entirely considered what he was going to do or where he was going to go. The man in the alley's son needed to be found, Molly had to realize that there was a connection, even a tenuous one. She would know, surely, as soon as Lestrade provided her with that information, but if Lestrade didn't see the connection, would he even bother – and did anyone actually pay attention to anything Molly Hooper ever said?
Sherlock yowled as two strong hands gripped him and scooped him up from the pavement. He found himself no longer seeing the feet of passers-by but John's very annoyed face.
"You, Midnight, are an absolute pain in the arse and I have no idea why Molly hasn't put you right back where you came from," John grumbled as he hauled a struggling Sherlock back into the building.
"But I need to find him – that man is the key," Sherlock protested. Lestrade showed John his notebook.
"Would you look at that? He was chewing on it."
"I was not merely chewing!" Sherlock protested, because although the leather had a pleasant quality for chewing reading had been his intent.
"Are you kidding me?" John asked. He plopped Sherlock down on the carpet. "Do we have to keep you in a box when Molly's not around?"
Lestrade eyed Sherlock suspiciously. "There are claw marks in some of the pages. You haven't heard the one about curiosity, have you, cat?"
Sherlock hissed as Lestrade showed John the marked page. If Lestrade was going to be an idiot, he deserved it.
"Murthwaite? What's that?" John said, and Sherlock felt quite smug that someone had noticed his deliberate hint.
"Somewhere in Cumbria. Not much there, horses and holiday lodges. Bloke in the skip – Simmons, he spent some time there. His son supposedly lives around there now, but he seems to have gone missing. Might be our real suspect, or another victim."
"Messy business," John said, shaking his head. "With any luck he turns up and can give you some answers."
Sherlock sighed. He was sure Molly had an answer...if only someone would think to ask her. Because he remembered the last bit of what Molly had told him: that her family had taken their holidays there until she was ten years old, when something awful had happened, and her parents had decided never to go back.
