John

After an awkward silence Sherlock said, "I think I'll take these samples to the lab straight away. Do you want to come?"

"No, thanks, I'll just go home. Is that alright?"

"Sure."

I took a cab back to Baker Street alone.

Just as I had closed the door to 221B my mobile rung, "Hello?" I answered it as I crossed the room to sit in a chair which gave me a view of the people-infested streets of central London.

"Hi, John," said the person on the other end of the line; I hadn't noticed their caller ID, "It's Bill, Bill Murray."

"Bill! Hi!" I replied, I always feel embarrassed when speaking to Bill because he was the one who carried me, bleeding, screaming and slipping in and out of consciousness to safety after I'd been shot in Afghanistan but he was also one of my oldest friends who had still wanted to know about me when I'd gone loony, "How are you?"

"I'm great thanks. Listen… I'm in London now, do you fancy a coffee?"

I didn't but "What the Hell, sure." Is what I said.

We organised a rendez vous at a café a few streets away and decided to meet there in half an hour. I text Sherlock to tell him.

The café was part of a chain, all chrome and leather and groups of stay at home mothers and their grizzling children. I spotted Bill in the far corner, waving frantically in my direction, an enthusiastic smile plastered all over his face. I weaved my way through the tables of ladies doing lunch towards him. When I reached him we shook hands uncomfortably before he pulled me into a bear hug which nearly knocked all the air out of my lungs.

"How's the shoulder?" he asked my neck.

"Oh, you know, fine. Still hurts a bit sometimes. Could've been a lot worse." I told the wall over his shoulder.

"And the…um… leg?"

"Oh," I felt myself reddening, "Fine. Better. Gone, actually."

"Glad to hear it."

This hug was going on for a little too long so I began the routine of tactfully extracting myself from it when Bill sighed gently, "I heard about Harry."

I froze. Staring at the navy fibres of Bill's fleece and feeling them tickle my face.

"Your parents phoned me" Bill continued, "I think they're worried about you."

I cleared my throat to try and unlodge the lump that had settled itself there, "Right. Shall we sit down?"

"Good thinking."

We sat and ordered two lattes and a slice of carrot cake to share and continued our conversation.

"I hear she was murdered." Bill said.

"Probably. Sherlock's on it; he'll work it out."

"I'm sure he will."

"Really?"

"Yeah!" I received what I assume was supposed to be a chummy slap on the thigh under the table, "Despite what some people say, I think your mate knows what he's talking about. I read your blog you know."

"Yeah," I said, feeling more than a tad awkward.

"Seriously though John, your parents really are very worried about you. They were ashamed to contact you themselves, I think, so they asked me to. How are you bearing up?"

I felt the pain and the emptiness surrounding me and filling me up and eating me from the inside out; I sidestepped the question, "How are they bearing up?"

Bill ran a hand through his thick dark hair and sighed melodramatically, "They didn't sound too good to be honest. Your mother kept bursting into tears and your father couldn't bring himself to say her name."

"Right." I was struggling to stop my own eyes welling up at the thought of my poor old parents seeing shadows of Harry in every room of their house, struggling to cope with their devastation. Suddenly I wondered what I was doing sitting in a café with a man I only mildly liked, who had saved my life once but who was now making it significantly more awkward, embarrassing and boring, waiting for carrot cake which would do nothing to fill the vast void which had opened inside me when I could be with the person who made everything okay, who would sort it all out.

"Sorry," I said, pushing back my chair, "It's been great and we must catch up again sometime but I really must be going."

I passed our carrot cake on my way out.

Sherlock

I don't know when John arrived at the lab, all I know is that he wasn't there when I asked him to pass me my phone an two hours and thirteen minutes after I had begun my examination of the evidence I'd collected from the bomb site but he was when I finished my inspection, three hours and forty six minutes after I had commenced it.

"Anything?" John asked as we stepped out of St. Bart's onto the bitter evening street.

"Yes." I replied, "Lots."

We walked on in silence for eleven seconds and then John said, "Would you care to elaborate?"

"When we get home." I hissed as we climbed into a taxi, not wishing to shout my deliberations where just anyone could hear them, "Anyway, where have you been?"

"I met a friend of mine, Bill, from the army."

"Ah, yes, the one who saved you."

"yes." Through gritted teeth.

"He knew about Harry?"

"Yes."

"He spent an abnormally long time hugging you?"

"Also true."

"He told you how worried your parents were?"

"Yes, look, how do you know all this?"

I always feel a spark of exhilaration when anyone asks me to show off my observation skills, "Well," I began, "There is a faint sweat mark on your trousers that is too big to have been made by your hand, someone else, then, and people don't touch other people's thighs unless they're perverts or married or trying to comfort people. You're not married, you weren't wearing your date shoes, and it is unlikely you met a pervert so the person must have been trying to comfort you, the most obvious reason for you needing comfort is your recent bereavement. There re navy fibres from someone's jacket stuck in the zip of your coat and your shirt is creased, therefore a hug, a long one to allow the fibres to stick; you don't like hugs at the best of times so I imagine it would have been uncomfortable for you. You have been keeping your hand in your phone pocket all the time I have been speaking to you, you want to phone somebody but you're nervous, who could it be? Only your parents and you wouldn't want to call them unless something had changed since the last phone call you made to them so somebody must have told you they were worried about you. Simple."

"Simple." John echoed weakly, sounding unsurprisingly unconvinced. It must be so boring to have such a non-stimulated mind.

This exchange had taken us to Baker Street so I paid the cabbie and jumped out followed, as always, by John.

"So what did you find out at the lab?" John burst out as soon as we crossed the threshold of our flat.

"Well I'm sorry to have to say that the body is definitely that of your sister. I cross matched the blood sample I sent off for yesterday which her GP had and the blood I managed to scrounge off that piece of flesh you found at the crime scene. There was some mud on the stairs which could in theory have been from any police officer's shoe but I happened to notice that Harry was wearing vans and the treads matched the pattern of mud found, the mud was acidic but most of the UK contains only alkaline soils. I know that the nearest place to here with acidic soil is either Wimbledon Park or Richmond Park I need to visit both those places and look at CCTV to see if there's any record of her. Either way, both the parks were a bit out of her way and she didn't walk on any soil after she visited the park. Her step on the stairs obviously also implies that she was killed in the building and not before so maybe she met her murderer at the park, maybe not, like I say we'll look at CCTV. There were some fingerprints on her shirt so I've sent that to Lestrade to look at to see if he can nail a fake criminal. I could find no trace of drugs of any sort in her system."

"Right..." John flopped down onto a convenient armchair and ruffled up the front of his hair with a shaking hand, "That's…that's a lot. That's good news. Isn't it?"

"Yes." I said, attempting to introduce a note of reassurance into my voice to which I was unaccustomed.

"Great. So when can we start looking at the CCTV?"

"It's almost half past seven so I think we'd better leave it until tomorrow morning. The CCTV isn't going anywhere." I paused, which I don't normally do so ploughed on and spoke my thoughts "Are you going to phone your parents or not?"

John phoned his parents and they seemed to have made things up. John used his mobile and stood at the back of the house round by the dustbins but Mrs Hudson was tactfully leaf sweeping on the other side of the garden and she reported back to me that John had been speaking very animatedly, crying a little but stopping by the end of the phone call and repeatedly saying "I love you" to his parents on the other end of the line. He was certainly considerably happier when he entered the flat after the when call than when he had exited it beforehand. I couldn't tell you how I knew he was happy, it was nothing to do with science or deduction but there was something in the way he held himself, something in his step as he wandered around the rooms. He wasn't as happy as he had been before he'd discovered the fact of Harry's death, understandably but he was less sad than he had been lately and that knowledge made me happier.