Chapter Seventeen
That night, when Lestrade finally stumbled in from work, he found a parcel on the kitchen table from Mycroft. He glared at the innocent brown paper package and debated throwing it away right then and there. Against his better judgement, he opened it. Black tie celebration amongst a few acquaintences and collegues for the safe return of the List. It would please me greatly if you attended. -MH There was also an address written on the bottom of the note. Inside the parcel was a smart suit for the occassion.
Lestrade scowled. Black tie event? With Mycroft? Um, ...no. He crumpled the note in his hands and tossed it into the garbage bin. He trotted around inside the kitchen for a while, fixing himself a microwave dinner before planting himself on the living room sofa with his food.
He took a few bites of the microwave pasta and grimaced a little, if he had to be honest, Mycroft's food was definitely better, but he ate it nontheless. He watched TV for a whole of five minutes before his gaze began wandering off toward the parcel on the kitchen counter. He shook his head with a growl. "Stupid, pompous, apathic, ... manipulative-..." Lestrade was beginning to run out of adjectives. "...Git!"
He turned his TV off and grabbed his coat, snatching up his flat keys on his way outside. He needed some fresh air.
It wasn't long before he found himself strolling through the green in Regent's Park, hands dug deep into his pockets, absently jingling his flat keys as he brooded. "Detective Inspector Lestrade? Is that you?" Lestrade looked up to see Mrs. Hudson walking the path up ahead of him.
"Mrs. Hudson." he greeted with a nod. "Lovely night, isn't it?"
Mrs. Hudson smiled at him brightly. "It's very lovely, indeed." she replied. "I've always loved parks, my husband used to always take me on long walks before-..." she rambled, staring off in the distance.
"Sounds like a decent enough chap." Lestrade smiled kindly at her.
"What, may I ask, are you doing out here at this time of night?" Mrs. Hudson asked, swiftly changing the subject.
"Uh," Lestrade scratched the back of his neck. "just taking a walk. Need to cool off my head." He rolled his eyes. "It's all those reports. There is literally no end to them!"
Mrs. Hudson chuckled at his distressed look. "Well, I've got just the thing for bad days, Detective Inspector." She smiled mysteriously.
"And what might that be?" Lestrade asked with a smile.
"The good old 'tea and sympathy'." Mrs. Hudson chuckled. "You look like you could use a friend."
Lestrade blinked, realizing just how deprived he was of being on the recieving end of natural human kindness, John's medical concerns aside. God, he'd known the Holmeses for far too long. He smiled. "You, Mrs. Hudson, are a true Brit, through and through." Mrs. Hudson giggled coyly at the sudden praise. "Tea sounds lovely."
He offered the elderly lady his arm and the two set off toward Baker Street.
Lestrade really had no idea how he had managed to convert having tea and a nice, peaceful conversation with Mrs. Hudson downstairs, to having tea and an exasperated conversation with John in the flat upstairs while Sherlock flitted around them proudly showing off his acidic compound.
Oh, right. It started with Sherlock setting fire to the upstairs floor using said acidic compound.
"You should probably seriously consider lining the walls and floor with metal." Lestrade murmured wryly as he and John distractedly watched another wayward drop of the dangerous acid drip off the kitchen table onto the floor with a hiss, from the doorway.
"You know, that's not such a bad idea." John responded after a thoughtful moment, with that resigned look of his.
"Have you wrapped up the case with my brother?" Sherlock interjected suddenly from the living room.
"What? Yeah!" Lestrade called back. "Finished my part, the rest is up to Mycroft."
"And the last time you said that, you got stabbed." John reminded him.
"I only said it to explain why Mycroft's men were no longer trailing on my heels." Lestrade defended himself.
"I can't believe Mycroft let you play bait." John sighed, shaking his head.
"I can't believe I agreed." Lestrade nodded. "Well, it's all over now." he added darkly.
"Falling out already?" Sherlock scoffed. "See, John? That is why they can't have nice things."
"Sherlock..." John sighed reprimandingly.
Lestrade just stood back and watched the two flatmates bicker for a while, sipping his tea. It felt strange, Lestrade thought, just standing in the flat drinking tea without bringing a case. He was almost waiting for Mycroft to throw open the door and waltz in, umbrella twirling and looking his most imperious like he had the day Lestrade got caught up in the case.
"You?" he remembered Sherlock scoffing at him. "Not come to me for help? Impossible! You would've never found out about the alibi tricks alone." Lestrade chuckled a bit at the memory. It seemed so long ago, yet felt like yesterday.
"The alibi tricks..." Lestrade breathed, suddenly paling.
"What was that?" John asked, distracted from his verbal fight against Sherlock's experiments. "Lestrade, are you alright? You've gone a bit pale."
"It's likely that PC Carter didn't know about the List and was being manipulated by someone else." Mycroft had said. "The people who were manipulating James Rylie knew, for a fact, that the Scotland Yard didn't bag the List. That's why they thought you might've had it and simply hadn't entered it into the list of evidence. James Rylie wasn't working on that case, there was no way he could've known that." Lestrade's mind positively purred with activity, images and words spinning around in his brain.
"Simple psychology, you thought the murderer was the same person as the thief." How right Sherlock was when he said that!
"Lestrade?" Lestrade blinked, startled when he found John concernedly waving a hand in front of his face. "You alright, mate?"
"I was wrong." Lestrade murmured. "I was wrong about the case. It's not finished yet!" He put his cup down and rushed for the door. "Goodnight, Sherlock, John!" He called over his shoulder before slamming the door hazardly after himself on his way out.
"Is he alright?" John asked when the DI was gone.
"Oh, let him have his moment of eureka." Sherlock waved him off. "From my knowledge, they come few and far between."
Lestrade pulled out his phone from his pocket and dialed Mycroft's phone as he jogged along the street looking for a cab. He groaned when his call was redirected to voicemail. Mycroft told him once that he sometimes turned his phone off when he was in the presence of very, very important dignitaries. Just who were the 'collegues' Mycroft referred to in his note?
Speaking of the note, didn't it have an address written on it?
Lestrade found a cab and drove back to his flat.