Oh my GOD that was a loooooong period of writers block. Thank you exams, screw you very much. Anyway, I'm back with a new chapter and I am SORRY I kept you guys waiting for so long, I feel like a horrible person. But now the plot bunnies are amassing again and...well, this kind of happened. Evie needs to be a spy when she grows up. Like Tash Romanov (I'm on a bit of an Avengers jag rn, being currently savanged by the plot bunnies for that, keep your eyes open).

Anyway, without further ado, or apologies, here is your long overdue update. Warning for a lot of artistic licence employed, blood/gory crime scenes , corruption of a 13 year old, and allusions of rape and hate crimes. My mind is twisted like that.

The usual disclaimer, I own nothing but the brilliant Evie. Poor thing.

Just when I thought today couldn't get any worse…

I caught my breath on the landing, chiding myself for being such a coward. The door was still ajar and I caught Sherlock's next words as I stood just outside.

"What's the matter with her?"

"What makes you think I know?"

"You've been 'looking after her' or whatever with Mrs Hudson, surely even you must have noticed something."

John muttered something that sounded like 'Thanks a lot.' There was a soft flump as her settled himself in his armchair.

"There was something actually…when she first read the diary entry, she looked as though she'd seen a ghost. She wouldn't show it to me, just went straight down to the safe and got the phone out."

"Hmm." From my vantage point through the crack in the door, I saw Holmes' hand flip the phone lazily, obviously thinking.

"Percy Trevelyan was a big fish when it came to business and corporations. He had his fingers in everything from accounting to security. It's entirely likely that in these dealings something shady come up."

"And you think this girl's mother might have found something?"

"She's a lawyer, of course she's turned up something, probably unintentionally. If it was intentional she'd have sold it on or been paid for it."

I clenched my fists. Mum's not like that.

"The question is why she would be dealing with Trevelyan at all. Adler and Norton Solicitors are strictly small time, not quite in the same league."

"Maybe…he wanted to go smaller, so he could investigate more easily."

"Thought had occurred. But I can't do anything without more data. What else do you think the girl knows?"

"Sherlock." John's voice took on a more authoritative tone, no doubt a remnant of his army days. "She's a teenager, and she's scared. She's come to you for help. Don't just use her as a pump for information."

"If she knows something…"

"Then she wouldn't be this scared."

"John, there's something about her I can't quite put my finger on." Sherlock sprang off the couch and started to pace. "She deduced your former occupation – "

"Yeah, well she wouldn't be the first," came the muttered, disgruntled response.

"Like me, John, exactly. Then there's the way she's put together her mother's clues. In fact any normal teenager would panic and run to an uncle, or a grandmother, or one of her schoolmates, not to a consulting detective she's never heard of on the advice of her mother. They'd hide and let the grown-ups sort it out. Evelyn's different…but why?"

John said nothing. I slumped against the wall, trying to breathe. Mum had gotten herself wrapped up in something big. Something huge, connected to one of the most powerful corporations in Europe.

Sherlock was right, we needed more data.

The quiet in 221B was broken suddenly by a knock at the door. Sherlock, from inside the living room, groaned.

"Go away Lestrade…I have enough to do for once, rather than solve your stupid 'locked-room murder' cases.

"Sherlock…" said John warningly, but at the moment there were feet on the stairs. I leapt up a few into the shadows of the next landing. The sliver haired man that banged past me and into the living room never noticed.

"Could have called first," said Sherlock rudely.

"Yeah, but I figured I'd call in person since the scene's just around the corner." The man had a strong South London accent that would command the respect of a lesser man. "Young couple found dead, doors locked from the inside, window catches fastened before you ask."

"Anderson around?"

"Sherlock…" said two voices – one a tone of warning, the other of exasperation.

"Give me two minutes. What's the address?"

It was only two streets away. The silver haired man – Lestrade, I assumed – clattered away again. The sounds in the sitting room now were those of the occupants getting ready to go out.

I knew Sherlock was a 'consulting detective' (whatever the hell one of those was) since he'd mentioned it himself not two minutes ago. I didn't realise he consulted with the police. Which made no sense – the police didn't go to amateurs…But clearly they do go to this one. I realised Holmes must be more intelligent than I'd given him credit for. Either that or the Detective Inspector was calling in favours. He had been a junkie after all.

Intrigued nonetheless, I poked my head through the still open door and tried not to make it too obvious that I'd been listening in. "Where are you two going?"

"Crime scene. There's been a double murder." Holmes now sported a ridiculously long trench-coat and a scarf. John was fumbling with the inside-out sleeves of his more sensible black jacket. He threw his flatmate a look.

"We shouldn't be long," he said. "I think Mrs Hudson is still in if you want some company."

My next words surprised even me. "I want to come with you."

Holmes just gave a derisive snort. John looked a little more sympathetic. "Look, Evie, you're 13. This isn't something you want to see."

But I did want to see. This man – Holmes – was my father. I wanted to know more about what he did and whether he could really help me find Mum. Anything was better than sitting around waiting for something to happen anyway.

Hold on Evelyn, you're asking to go and look at a real-life crime scene.

"I'm sharp," I said, "Maybe I could…I dunno…help?" Even as I said it, I knew it wasn't going to work.

"One companion is enough. Lestrade wouldn't let you anywhere near it anyway." Holmes' eyes were cold. "We shouldn't be more than an hour. Put the telly on, or whatever it is you teenagers do these days." With that, he swirled out of the flat in a rush of coat. John shot me an apologetic look and strode after him.

The flat was too quiet once they'd gone. I was starting to hate the quiet of an empty house. First my own, now this…strange place that I already felt comfortable in. Maybe it was the décor.

Mrs Hudson wasn't in – she'd left a note for me on the kitchen fridge saying shed gone to the shops. It reminded me with a pang of all the little letters Mum left – gone to get groceries, will be working late, Godfrey coming round for supper, please take the chicken out of the oven when the timer goes. And so on.

Then I recalled the address of the crime scene – just around the corner if my rather rudimentary mental map was accurate. Pulling on my jacket, I left the flat, only recalling after the door was shut that I didn't have a key. Then again, if I played it right, I'd be coming home with the boys.

The front of the house was criss-crossed with police tape and there were two squad cars sitting outside. It was terraced, like so many were in the city centre, so there were no side alleys, but the street was fairly quiet so it was entirely possible that somebody had climbed up the side. He'd have to be a monkey but there was a drainpipe right next the window of the bedroom, where the couple had been found – I knew this because I recognised the silhouettes moving behind the net curtains. Sherlock's lanky profile stood out, as did the silver haired man. Loud noises were coming from it – I assumed they were arguing over something, also that it wasn't exactly a rare occurrence.

And yet, Lestrade had said the latches were fastened from the inside…

Every problem has a solution. Evaluate.

Inwardly I grinned to myself. Evelyn Adler, 13 years old, aspiring crime fighter. Three days ago, I would have laughed, long. And hard. But I had an itch now. And I knew I just had to get a closer look at that window hatch.

Mindful of the squaddies, plus the hordes of people I figured would be lurking inside, I skipped over the next-door neighbour's low wall, then climbed the fence separating the two.

I risked a glance over the small box hedge at the policemen in the cars. They appeared to be too absorbed in their conversation to be playing a lot of attention. But I had to freeze as a sudden movement heralded the exit of a couple of forensic officers who headed straight to their van with a few clear plastic evidence bags. They returned a few moments later, only to be succeeded by a couple more officers.

It seemed there was almost a constant flow of traffic around the house. No way in through the front door.

Evaluate, Evie. My palms were starting to sweat. I felt like a burglar and for a split second wondered what I was doing. I glanced upwards, towards the window. No way in through the front door…but the way the murderer must have taken is still open.

There were small scuff marks in the ground around the base of the drainpipe, and I could see that some of the supports had been almost pulled away from the wall. I was right then – he had entered this way. A man, judging by the weight those screws seemed to have been under.

Steeling myself – I had never climbed anything more imaginative than a tree or two in Hyde Park – I gripped the black piping and began to haul myself up it. My Converse gripped the gravelly wall with difficulty, and I was grateful that the supports provided the footholds at very wide intervals.

I could hear voices below, telling me to 'Get down you stupid girl, don't you know this is a crime scene, what are you playing at!' but ignored them. I had to. If I looked down I'd lose my nerve – or equally as bad, my balance.

I reached the window. I could hear Sherlock's voice inside, saying something loudly about coming in through the door and having spare keys made and whatnot. I glanced at the sill – there it was, on the outside. Small scratches. I had to peer to see them, indicating that a knife had potentially been dragged along it. I was theorising wildly by this point, but this house, as with many houses in the area, still had the old fashioned window latches that twisted, as opposed to the modern PVC handles. Willing my balance to hold, I leaned precariously closer to the latch – there! Tiny scrapings of white paint on the sill inside from the knife. Smallish blade – must have been, to be out of the way while the drainpipe was scaled.

At that second there was a bang on the window. I looked up, startled, and nearly slipped off the bloody piping, which had become sweaty beneath the death grip my palms had on it – but it was only Lestrade, looking decidedly pissed off.

I knew I was about to 'get a new one torn', as someone in a film had once said (I think). The window scraped open.

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing?" he almost snarled. I got the impression of a silver wolf.

"Evie?" Behind him floated John, looking less cross and more confused. I couldn't see Sherlock.

"Stand back a sec…" I took a deep breath, and stepped off the drainpipe and onto the outer windowsill. Before I could overbalance I grabbed the edge of the window and swung – with difficulty – inside, trying not to dislodge the paint shavings as I went. Only then, when I was back on solid ground, did I breathe out and relax. "That's how he got in."

I turned around and saw Sherlock, standing by the nightstand. He was watching me with an expression that can only be described as curious as well as calculating.

"How can you tell?"

"There are marks on the outside of the windowsill where it's been scratched, probably by a knife. The window has a latch that can be opened from the outside using a knife."

"Look, kid, I don't know how old you are, but you can't just barge into a crime scene like this, and you're too young to know anything about-" the tall DI spluttered.

"For your information, I watch television, I''ve got a pretty good idea how these things can work. And I'm 13, thanks for asking nicely," I snapped back. I turned again to Sherlock. "You think he came in through the door and hid under the bed, right? Wrong. Look at the outside of the sill, he got in that way. He may have made a spare key and exited through the door, but he got in originally through the window."

John and the DI just stared at me in disbelief. Sherlock's expression did not change – he simply walked over to the window and whipped out a small, collapsible magnifying glass. Silence reigned as he examined the windowsill.

It was then that the stench of blood, disturbed by the breeze coming through the open window, hit my nose. Don't turn around, Evelyn. Don't turn around…

The magnifying glass snapped shut. "She's right," said Sherlock shortly, before sweeping out of the room in a dignified manner. I could tell he was pissed. The flash of triumph and surprise (to be honest, I hadn't expected to be completely right) was dulled a little by the coppery smell assaulting my nose.

The two men left in the room were quiet for a second. "Well that got up his nose," said John after a second, looking at me queerly. I could tell he was piecing it all together, slowly but surely.

I turned away. Big mistake.

Lestrade started talking about the changes this made to the case – the killer's height, weight, agility, MO, relation to victims, but I'd stopped listening. I'd noticed the bodies.

They were young. Two young women. One's throat was slashed raggedly across her jugular. She lay bathed in a pool of mostly her own blood, but some of her partner's too. Her hands were tied. She was lying prone, at right angles to the other, her dark hair matted, a knife still sticking obscenely up and out of her chest. My traitorously sharp eyes registered the position of her body – legs spread, arms flung up by her head, bruises on her thighs where her nightdress had rucked up and more on her wrists. Raped while her lover watched.

There is something so terrifying about looking at a real dead body. Some deep seated instinct that makes you want to run and hide from the awful truth. Something deeply unsettling about the sight of the vessel, vital spark flown. To see them arranged like this, to know what was done to them before death was dealt, like a release, is a thousand times worse.

"Hate crime," I whispered, appalled.

"We think so, yes," murmured John. I hadn't heard him come up behind me.

"Come on," he said gently as I stood frozen, as if speaking to a new recruit faced with the possibility of death for the first time, "Let's go back and let Sherlock get over his sulk."

I nodded numbly and let him steer me towards the stairs. Processing the deeper truth. This is what your dad does for a living Evie. With a smile upon his face, just so many corpses. Is he used to this? How do you get used to this?

Also that me and my life had both changed irrevocably now.

Hell of a day this turned out to be.

Inspector Gregson of Cambridge PD wasn't used to being shown up, least of all by a scruffy 18 year old first year student who had appeared out of nowhere at midnight at a murder scene in definitely one of the less well-off areas of Cambridge town.

He'd appeared out of nowhere, a lanky youth with a head of scruffy curls and a long coat that looked as though it had spent more than one night in a skip. It was difficult to see in the dark but he looked slightly high.

"You won't find your answers on the ground," he'd said in a musical voice. Then he pointed up towards the fire escape. "There are still bits of fabric attached to the railings where he went over. You're looking for a large, strong man with martial arts training to be able to combat a black belt in Jiu Jitsu like that."

Gregson had just stared at him. "How did you know that?"

The boy smiled. "I observed. Her gym bag has the logo of her group on it. Plus, judging by the keys gripped in her right hand, she was taking the back way into her apartment. He probably followed her home from training. You want answers, start at the fire escape. Work back to her gym."

Gregson lost the ability to talk for a moment. The best he came up with was, "Who are you?"

The boy turned to leave. "I'm Sherlock Holmes. I'm the boy who just solved your case."

And he had. The security cameras at the woman's gym had picked up the man peeling away from a pillar and following her out of the parking lot. It was simply a matter of showing the footage of the man to the receptionist, who identified him immediately. He was once a member of the martial arts group and in custody before the end of the next day.

And it wasn't a one off thing. More than once the Inspector would spy the boy at the edges of one crime or another, but only the most interesting cases. Sometimes he would only stay for a minute or so before moving away. Other times he would approach and give his opinion. Where the boy got his mobile number from, Gregson never found out, but on occasion he would even receive a text with a location on it, where he would find Sherlock, out of breath and often bruised, with a semi-unconscious perpetrator at his feet. He was rarely wrong, and always annoyed when he was. "There's always something," he would mutter, before swishing away.

It was aggravating, but Gregson almost didn't mind. He learned much from watching how the teen observed a crime scene objectively. Of course he had no protocols to follow, no 'accepted way of doing things' that any deviation from required a lengthy period of justification followed by a reprimand.

In helping him and his collegues - or as he would term in, setting them straight - Sherlock found a break from crippling boredom, but interesting cases rarely came along with any degree of regularity. Thus he came to rely more and more on the cocaine as a distraction.

It wasn't any surprise that Gregson found him, lying in a dirty alleyway after a bad hit. It wasn't his fault that Sherlock had had to find a different dealer since his usual had been caught about two weeks prior. In fact, he was lucky the inspector had been there.

But Sherlock always blamed him. For the call to his parents out of the country, as usual), for the summoning of Mycroft, for the months spent in rehabilitation under his eagle gaze.

However, he was also grateful. He had seen first hand the red tape the police were tied up in. He had experience of going around it, of acting outside the force to catch the criminal. He had spent years honing and practicing his own highly effective methods and he intended to use them, though not working for the police. Working with them, perhaps, but never for them.

'Consulting detective,' he though, as he stared at the walls of his university room. 'That has a nice ring. Sherlock Holmes – the world first and only Consulting Detective.'

I know next to nothing about grading in jiu jitsu, or any martial art come to that, or anything about how crime scenes are run. Like I said, artistic licence has been employed, don't flame pleeeeeease. However, reviews are most appreciated =D Peace out peeps xx