Sherlock hauled the pink case onto the chair in self-satisfied triumph. Relatively clean, even... considering that it had been in a skip for at least two hours before he'd found it. Fumbling at the zipper- gloves were awkward but necessary- he opened it and surveyed the contents.
Change of clothes, underwear. Toiletries bag (this very large.) Hideous romance novel.
No phone.
"John," he said over his shoulder. "What do you notice-"
He stopped. His voice had met only the emptiness of the flat behind him. Rocking back on his heels, he closed his eyes and remembered that the last time he'd seen John Watson had been at the crime scene. The injured man hadn't been with him when he'd found the case.
He had no idea where John was now.
An odd feeling plucked at his chest... one he so rarely felt that he had to simply stop and use a process of elimination to work out what it was. Not pathological. He wasn't ill. Emotional, then? Why emotional? Nothing had happened to him that night to provoke it.
No, not to him. But the more Sherlock thought about it, the more convinced he was that it had to do with something outside of himself. With John Watson, in fact, who was more than likely stranded on the other side of London on a cold winter night with psychosomatic leg pain and five pounds to his name.
Sherlock covered his mouth thoughtfully and considered for a few seconds. It was unthinkable for him to... say he was sorry. No, well, it wasn't his fault that John couldn't and didn't keep up, why should he be sorry? All the same, perhaps... maybe he should give John something to do. Get him to...
Sherlock glanced at his own mobile phone, sitting innocently on the coffee table.
Get him to send a text. Some nonsense about using his own phone being too dangerous... The ex-army adrenaline junkie would lap that right up, no doubt. He was used to giving orders- and taking them. He'd be unlikely to ask too many questions.
He looked back across at the pink case. Yes, he could definitely get John to text the dead woman's phone... and then an exciting stakeout might make up for being marooned in the same street at Sally Donovan. A dose of unnecessary drama might do wonders for that leg pain of his, too... Sherlock was thinking in reams by this time.
It's nine o'clock.
He's probably hungry.
He's broke... and a man as stubborn as that would prefer to starve than take my money.
Sherlock shut his eyes. Angelo's, where he'd been eating on-the-house for the past six months, had a nice view of 22 Northumberland Street from the front windows.
He picked up the phone. Table for two this time, Angelo.