Chapter 6
"Ask John about her"
McGee waited outside the conference room for Ziva. His mind wandered to the man inside. He seemed nice enough, a normal bloke. It was nice to have someone normal to talk to, because that detective could drive you crazy. He knew that, even without having talked to him. Just standing there at the other side of the glass had given him a good impression already. He smiled when Ziva rounded the corner and handed him the file.
"Hello doctor Watson," McGee said after closing the door of the conference room behind him. "We have some questions we need you to answer."
John nodded and McGee and Ziva sat down.
"Do you recognise this woman?" McGee started.
"Irene Adler. I didn't expect to hear anything about her so soon again. She died a month ago. But don't tell Sherlock, he thinks she's in a witness protection scheme here," John explained, his hand resting on a glass of water in front of him.
"Eh, alright. Did he know her very well?" McGee asked. Ziva hadn't said a word yet, but she wondered how this worked between the two men with who knowing what and what the other knew.
"Well, he knows everyone. Apart from that, he knew her pretty well." He stopped for a moment to drink a little.
"Did he have feelings for her?"
"I believe he still does. He was kind of sad when she was gone. He didn't say a word for days. Only playing that new composition of his. Mrs. Hudson got fed up with him in the end. For him Irene was always 'The Woman'. The one woman that he could not totally read."
"What do you mean, read?" Ziva interrupted him.
"What he did on the crime scene today. Look at someone and reading this person's whole life story from tiny things he notices." McGee did like how that sounded, but the way the detective did it, made it very much showing off and made him very annoying.
"Did you or mister Holmes know she had a boyfriend?" McGee asked. John looked up, a little surprised.
"She? A boyfriend? Not that I know of. She didn't seem the person to have a boyfriend, although Sherlock came close. Who was it?"
"Michael Riddle, our victim. Did, by your knowledge, Sherlock know him?" Ziva asked. This woman started to sound very interesting. Her file said she was in a witness protection scheme, yet both men had said she had died. Ziva had seen Tony interrogating Holmes and the way he talked about her was very mysterious, with the small amount of explanation in between and all the things he claimed he couldn't talk about.
"No, I don't think he did. Irene had all these little schemes going on. If he did know him, he may have seen him as one of them. I hadn't seen him ever before, but that doesn't mean Sherlock hasn't. Although he probably would have said something about it against her or me if he knew."
"Alright, have you ever seen this gun before?" Ziva asked the former army doctor. He seemed relieved when she changed the subject.
"Of course. It saved my life multiple times in Afghanistan. A SIG Sauer P226."
"So you own one?" McGee asked. The image of the uncomfortable friend of a mysterious detective had just changed into a confident soldier.
"Yes, although it is restricted from private use in England, Mycroft made sure I could keep it. I think he hoped I could keep Sherlock a little safer."
"Mycroft?" Ziva asked. Someone else who might be involved.
"Sherlock's brother."
"What does he do?"
"He works for the government. Has a little influence."
"Yeah, we figured," McGee told him. The network this detective had was pretty big. Bigger than he had expected, certainly when he had first seen him on the crime scene.
"So where is your gun now?" Ziva asked.
"I left it at home. It's in a drawer in my room. Since we were traveling by plane, I didn't want to get through all the trouble of legally bringing it. Sherlock would just have put it in his pocket, but I'm happy he didn't."
"Why?"
"One, it would have given us even more trouble at the airport. Two, I'm not sure what he would do with it. He has already shot the wall of our flat, I'm sure he would just as well shoot the wall of a hotel room. That's why."
"Fair enough." Agent McGee didn't seem to believe the whole story, but John didn't mind. After all, it was hard to believe. He wouldn't have, if he hadn't been there. A person like Sherlock was hard to find.
McGee looked at the former soldier again before thanking him and getting up to leave. He saw a man who knew he had an extraordinary friend, and a man who knew he knew a lot about that friend, but not everything by far. Yet he thought highly of the other man, and McGee hoped his thoughts were justified, for his sake.
A/N: Yes, I know, the gabs between chapters are getting larger. But never mind that, here is another chapter for you all who are loving this story. I'd like to thank you all, and my beta-reader: AllThatIWant. Please review, I'd love to hear your opinions!