Please excuse any spelling/ punctuation mistakes I have probably made and failed to correct.
I don't own. Only Emily.
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Emily glided her hand across the wallpaper, letting it trail behind her as she made her way up the stairs, listening to the tap of John's walking aid every other beat.
What she found waiting for them in the living room, was enough to make her pause, a confused look on her face as John entered the room behind her. There, lying on the settee, was Sherlock. But moments before she had entered, he had let out a noisy breath in possible relaxation. As she continued to watch him, he began to clench and unclench his left fist.
"What are you doing?" John asked. Judging by the bewildered look on Emily's face, she had no idea either.
"Nicotine patch." He responded, lifting his left arm slightly. "Helps me think."
"I believe the word you're looking for is patches." Emily mumbled to herself as she counted not one, but three patches on the mans arm. Surely that was unhealthy?
"Impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days. Bad news for brain work."
"It's good news for breathing." John stated, still standing in the doorway.
"Oh, breathing. Breathing's boring."
"Is that because it requires no thinking power?" Emily asked, only slightly curious as John now made his way towards Sherlock and the settee. Sherlock didn't provide her with an answer, but sent her a look that asked if that was actually a serious question.
"Is that three patches?" John inquired, causing the conversation between Emily and the Consulting Detective to stop before it even had a chance to begin.
"It's a three-patch problem." He answered, pressing his hands together as if in prayer underneath his chin. Finally taking his eyes away from Emily who had started to look around the room for the TV remote. John too, looked around the room.
"Well." He broke the silence. Only Emily looked up at him. The two shared a look of annoyance when Sherlock didn't respond. "You asked us to come. I'm assuming it's important." It took a couple of seconds, but Sherlock snapped his eyes open and didn't bother to look at either of them.
"Oh, yeah, of course. Can I borrow your phone?"
"My phone?" Emily had gone back to searching. Lifting up the cushions on the chairs, she even knelt on the floor to look underneath the leather chair. But to no avail.
"Don't wanna use mine. Always a chance that the number will be recognised. It's on the website." Emily was beginning to wonder if a remote even existed for this TV.
"Mrs Hudson's got a phone."
"Yeah, she's downstairs. I tried shouting but she didn't hear." Emily rolled her eyes at the laziness she was hearing about. Perhaps the remote was hidden in amongst the books. It was a long shot, but if you didn't look, you would never know.
"We were on the other side of London." John started to get angry.
"There was no hurry." Sherlock spoke mildly.
"But you made it sound important." Emily added with her back to them.
"Well of course it's important. Now can I borrow your phone?" He continued to stare at the ceiling as John took his phone from his pocket.
"Here." Sherlock held his hand out, palm up, waiting for the item to be handed to him.
Once it was safely in his palms, he once more went back to the prayer position.
"So what's this about- the case?"
"Her case." Sherlock spoke softly that Emily very nearly didn't hear him.
"Her case?"
"Her suitcase, yes, obviously. The murderer took her suitcase. First big mistake."
"Well, so what if he took her case?" Emily asked as she perched on the arm of the leather chair.
"It's no use, there's no other way. We'll have to risk it."
"Am I invisible or something?" Emily raised her voice a little , now thoroughly fed up of being ignored.
"Emily." Sherlock started, still not looking at either of them.
"Apparently I'm not." She mumbled causing a faint smile to cross John's lips.
"On my desk there's a number. I want you to send a text." It wasn't a question. It was clearly a statement as he held out the phone for her. Emily shut her eyes in disbelief.
"I'm sorry."
"No need to apologise." Sherlock mumbled but she ignored him.
"But you bought us here to borrow one of our phones, and have the other one send a text from it?"
"Text, yes. The number on my desk." He replied completely oblivious to her rising anger. She continued to glower at him while he continued to hold the phone out to her.
After a moment of thinking that the phone in his hand would somehow be Evidence A at her court hearing of a murder charge, she stomped across the room, snatched the device from his hand and made her way over to the table. Sherlock had, again, closed his eyes and taken up the prayer position.
But instead of searching for the number, she glanced out of the window. It seemed that John had the same idea as her when she felt him standing next to her doing the exact same thing.
"What's wrong?"
"Just met a friend of yours." John answered.
"A friend?" Emily snapped her head round to look at the man lying on the settee. His tone had been full of confusion.
"An enemy." She noticed Sherlock's shoulders visibly relax as if having an enemy was the norm.
"Oh. Which one?" Emily simply rolled her eyes ad turned her focus onto the desk to search for the number.
"Your arch- enemy, according to him. Do people have arch- enemies?"
"Did he offer the two of you money to spy on me?" Sherlock asked looking, as best as he could, towards them,
"Yes." They replied in unison.
"Did you take it?"
"No." John answered.
"Emily?"
"No." She shook her head as she found the number. But the name seemed familiar.
"Pity. We could have split the fee. Think it through next time." Emily chuckled a little causing the corners of Sherlock's mouth to twitch.
"Who is he?" It appeared that John would not let he subject go.
"The most dangerous man you've ever met, and not my problem right now." He almost whispered, but spoke louder with his next words. "Emily, on my desk, the number."
"Yeah, I have it. But her name, it's familiar." John stood next to her and read the details over her shoulder.
"Jennifer Wilson. That was... Hang on. Wasn't that the dead woman?"
"Yes. That's not important. Just enter the number." Emily sighed and did as she was told.
"Are you doing it?"
"Yes."
"Have you done it?"
"Will you give me one bloody minute." She told him, not taking her gaze from the phone.
"These words exactly: 'What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out. Twenty-two Northumberland Street. Please come.'"
"You blacked out?" John asked as he watched Emily type away on his phone.
"What? No. No!" He answered as he flipped his legs around and stood up, walking over the coffee table to get to the kitchen. "Type and send it quickly." Emily only slowed down in the hopes of annoying him.
"Have you sent it?" He asked her as he came up beside her and grabbed a dining room chair from underneath the table. She got a brief waft of him. He didn't smell as pleasant as he had earlier in the taxi.
"Twenty-two Northumberland Street wasn't it?" She asked wanting to be sure.
"Yes. Now hurry up!"
She hit send and turned round to look at what Sherlock was doing, only to find he was observing a now open suitcase as if it would tell him the answers to the universe if he studied it long enough.
"That's... that's the pink lady's case. That's Jennifer Wilson's case." John stated as Emily noted the clothing and underwear, all in various shades of pink, a book and a wash bag.
"Yes, obviously." The two in front of him didn't bother to hide their curious stares. "Oh, perhaps I should mention, I didn't kill her." He enlightened them sarcastically.
"We never said you did." John said as Emily handed him back his phone and moved over towards the case to kneel down in front of Sherlock.
"Why not? Given the text I just had Emily send and the fact that I have the case, it's a perfectly logical assumption." His gaze landed on Emily who was now kneeling in in front of him, the back of her head only centimetres away. He briefly wondered what had made her sit that closely to him. Not many people did that by choice.
"Do people usually assume you're the murderer?"
"Now and then, yes." He turned to John with a smirk. With that, he placed his hands onto the arms either side of him and lifted his feet up, careful not to knock Emily's head, in order for him to perch on his chair with his backside braced against the backrest, clasping his hands under his chin again when he was comfortable.
"Okay..." John mumbled more to himself than anyone else, He eyed the chair opposite Sherlock and limped towards it.. Emily was too busy rummaging through the case, careful not too touch any of the underwear. "How did you get this?"
"By looking."
"Where?" Emily looked over her shoulder at Sherlock to listen to his answer.
"The killer must have driven her to Lauriston Gardens. He could only keep her case by accident if it was in the car. Nobody could be seen with this case without drawing attention to themselves – particularly a man, which is statistically more likely – so obviously he'd feel compelled to get rid of it the moment he noticed he still had it. Wouldn't have taken him more than five minutes to realise his mistake. I checked every back street wide enough for a car five minutes from Lauriston Gardens ...and anywhere you could dispose of a bulky object without being observed. Took me less than an hour to find the right skip."
"So that's what the smell is." Emily murmured to herself without thinking. Luckily neither of the men appeared to hear her.
"Pink. You got all that because you realised the case would be pink?"
"Well, it had to be pink, obviously."
"Why didn't we think of that?" John asked Emily.
"Because you're both idiots." The two sent him a startled look at his words. Was he like that with everyone? Sherlock made a placatory gesture with one hand. "No, no, no, don't look like that. Practically everyone is." He pointed to the case before them. "Now, look. Do you see what's missing?"
"From the case? How could I?"
"Her phone?" Emily asked turning slightly so her neck would stop hurting from looking over her shoulder at the detective.
"Exactly." Sherlock sent her the briefest of smiles. One that she felt was actually a real one. "Her phone. Where's her mobile phone? There was no phone on the body, there's no phone in the case. We know she had one- that's her number there; you just texted it."
"Maybe she left it at home." John supplied. Sherlock raised himself again, this time planting his feet on the floor to sit properly in the chair. Emily was once again practically sitting between his legs.
"She has a string of lovers and she's careful about it, She never leaves her phone at home." He told them as he reached his arms over Emily's shoulders and slipped the card back into the luggage label attached to the case, his chest almost touching the back of Emily's head.
"Er..." John started but turned to look at his phone. "Why did Emily just send that text?"
"Well, the question is: where is her phone now?"
"She could have lost it."
"Yes, or...?" He let the question hang hoping one or preferably both of them would pick up what he was trying to convey. John got there first.
"The murderer... You think the murdered has her phone?" He asked slowly.
"Maybe she left it when she left her case. Maybe he took it from her for some reason. Either way, the balance of probability is the murderer has her phone."
"Sorry, what are we doing? Has Emily just texted a murderer?! What good will that do?" Emily sat up a little straighter at the thought of texting a murderer, not being able to help the small feeling of panic that had over taken her at that thought.
As if the phone had been waiting to him to ask these questions, it began ringing before he could even finish speaking.
"A few hours after his last victim, and now he receives a text that can only be from her. If somebody had just found that phone they'd ignore a text like that, but the murderer..." As if the phone had been expecting him to stop there, it too, stopped ringing. "...would panic." He reached around Emily and flipped the lid of the suitcase shut, before carefully climbing over the girl to retrieve his jacket.
"Have you talked to the police?" Emily had followed the taller man with her eyes since he had appeared in her line of sight while John had continued to stare at the case, attempting to take all this information in.
"Four people are dead. There isn't time to talk to the police."
"So, then, why are you talking to us?" Emily asked as she undid her coat.
"Mrs Hudson took my skull." Emily noted the hint of sadness in his tone as she whipped her head round to look at the mantle piece. Sure enough, there was a rather pathetic looking space where hours before, there had been a skull.
"So we're basically filling in for your skull?" John sounded slightly insulted as Sherlock started putting his coat in.
"Relax, you're both doing fine." Emily rolled her eyes. "Well?"
"Well what?" John asked.
"Well, you could just sit there and watch telly." The last two words were spoken with a suggestion of disgust.
"Ooh, yes please." Emily perked up at the notion and started to look around her from her spot on the floor for the remote.
"What, you want me to come with you?" John didn't want to drag Emily around if she didn't want to go.
"I like company when I go out, and I think better when I talk aloud. The skull just attracts attention, so..." Emily smirked at the thought of Sherlock carrying a skull around with him. "Problem?" Emily assumed he was talking to John.
"Yeah, Sergeant Donovan." The detective looked away from the pair in exasperation.
"What about her?"
"She said... you get off on this. You enjoy it."
Sherlock spoke his next words nonchalantly. "And I said 'dangerous', and here you are." Having felt like he had proved his point, he instantly turned and waked out the door. John sat there for a few moments.
"The remotes on the table Em." He mumbled to her as he mulled over the words Sherlock had just spoken.
"Oh, thanks." She sent him a beaming smile and headed towards the table. Sure enough there it was. Hiding in plain sight.
"Damn it!" She heard John mutter angrily and turned round just in time to see him walk back through the doorway they had entered not long ago.
"See you later John." She called out to him, but got no response. She made sure the TV was actually on before she slipped her coat off, settled herself on the settee and directed the remote at the telly. She pushed the button, but nothing happened.
John was a little surprised to find Sherlock still standing in the hallway and was even more surprised when he still didn't move as he took up the spot next to him.
"What are we waiting for?" John asked just as Sherlock made his way back upstairs again. He sighed, knowing this probably wasn't going to end well.
It hadn't taken long for Emily to remove the back of the remote to find that there were no batteries in the bloody thing. She had only just started her search for those when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs again. She turned, a moment later, to find Sherlock. But stepped back in shock at just how close he was to her.
"Problem?" He repeated his earlier question to John.
"Yeah. Where are the batteries?"
"What batteries?" He asked.
"The batteries for the bloody remote." An idea crept into her head. "You've taken them out haven't you?" She asked as she poked the remote into his chest.
He directed what he hoped was an innocent smile at her. It was anything but. "I don't know what you mean." She issued him an accusatory glare before she went on the search for batteries again. "But, seeing as you have nothing else to do..." He didn't finish his sentence, but instead snatched the remote from her hands, threw it onto the settee and grabbed onto her wrist. He made sure to pick up her coat as he dragged her to the door, down the stairs and into the hallway. John sent her an apologetic look that only went ignored as she wrenched her wrist from the detectives grip along with her coat.
She saw no way out of it. But instead of complaining, she followed Sherlock out the front door. She could have made a run for it back upstairs, but it wasn't her flat. And she had no idea where she would find any batteries, not in that mess at least.
It was only when she set foot on the pavement, that she noticed one of her shoelaces had come undone. She lifted her foot and simply tucked the lace in, after all, she didn't want to be on the receiving end of am impatient Sherlock.
If it wasn't for the arm she grabbed hold of, she would surely have toppled.
She looked up when she had finished, expecting John to be the one she had a hold of. But instead found that it was Sherlock. "Thank you." She said and got a nod in return. However, when she tried to let go of Sherlock's arm, she found that he would not allow her to. His arm squeezed her hand closer to him, but he didn't meet her confused gaze. Only started walking to wherever it was he was taking them.
Believe In Sherlock
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