AN: Hello! How's everyone?

In this chapter we have a case, it's a rather silly case (and I find it incredibly hard to write about cases and such stuff, seriously), but I hope it does make sense at least... and if it doesn't, well, ooops. :)

Enjoy!

As soon as they went out of the university, John noticed that the older man was waiting for them, standing in front of a police car.

"Are they going to interrogate you again? What have you done?", a student shouted out loud, addressed to Sherlock.

John looked at Sherlock Holmes, who seemed totally unimpressed by the remark and was instead looking at the grey haired man. He was a policeman, then. Why would a policeman ask for a student? Twice in less than a week, even. Three times if he counted the running at the park. He turned instinctively to the young man.

"Are…" he whispered, shaky voice "they going to arrest you?"

Holmes turned to him and gave him a puzzled, and nevertheless annoyed, glance.

"Don't be so predictable. It's boring. Obviously they aren't going to arrest me. Had that been the case, he would've handcuffed me in your office."

Right. Right. Then why there was a policeman asking for him?

"Maybe he was being polite?", John questioned.

But the young man didn't answer this time and spoke to the other man instead.

"I'll hail a taxi."

"Don't be silly! There's a car here, ready to take us there."

"Taxi, or I won't come."

The policeman said nothing but gave Sherlock Holmes an angry look, before entering the car, slamming the door and driving away. Three seconds later they were on a taxi. The student's phone buzzed, he read something on it and gave an address to the cabby. John came back to reason in that precise moment. What was he doing? Half of the university, colleagues included, had obviously seen him jump into a taxi behind a student. Which, he had to admit, was highly inappropriate. Professors didn't just follow their students around. Especially after having met them only one week before. Especially since the student he was following was the mysterious Sherlock Holmes. The mysterious part made all his doubts vanish. He desperately wanted to know where they were going, he desperately wanted to know what that student was hiding. Why he wanted that, he didn't know. Yet: in for a penny, in for a pound.

The young man stayed silent, while looking outside the window. It was John who broke the silence.

"Ahem.", he cleared his throat "Where are we going?"

"I thought it was obvious."

"Not obvious to me."

Holmes turned his head to him, still giving him an annoyed look.

"Southwark.", he answered in a huff.

"I think I got that."

"You asked."

Was Sherlock Holmes making a fool of him?

"I meant…", he snorted "where are we going in Southwark? Why have the police called you?"

"Oh, that.", replied the young man, pretending to be surprised at the question "You'll see."

And grinned slyly.

John Watson let out a sigh in despair. That man was the most annoying, impossible, disrespectful, maddening person he had ever met. Yet he was the most interesting one at the same time. The world could really be rather absurd sometimes. He turned away to the window, knowing that the conversation had ended. London was rolling in front of his eyes. Cars, workers, tourists. A perpetual flow in the streets which contributed to its appeal. As they approached to Southwark, clouds had gathered in the sky and it began to rain one more time. Little drops hit the windows of the taxi, creating a rather interesting scenery of the world outside. The outline of the buildings disappeared and everything turned to be a watercolour painting made by the red back lights of the car, mixed with the greyness of the sky and the colourful mix of people's clothes. A painting that wouldn't have made a bad impression in a modern gallery of art.

Minutes later the taxi stopped. He didn't even have the time to get off it, that Holmes had already paid the ride and was walking towards the other man (whose name was still unknown to John).

"Here.", he yelled at Holmes.

"I really hope it is worth my time. You know I don't move if it isn't at least a seven."

"Yeah. Yeah."

Then the policeman turned to John.

"Who's he?"

"He's with me.", and he turned to John too "Doctor John Watson, this is the Detective Inspector Lestrade."

The two of them looked at each other inquiringly, then shook their hands, not without a slight embarrassment. So he was the DI Lestrade, a police officer. Nice. Still he had no idea why they (Holmes, actually) had been summoned there. He stared at the other man looking for answers, but he noticed that the policeman was reciprocating with the same questioning air. He turned again to Sherlock Holmes, still expecting an explanation, which, again, didn't come.

"Where are we?", he asked, while entering a house.

"Guess.", the student teased.

"I really have no idea.", John admitted, disconsolate.

"You're no fun at all."

"What?"

Holmes sighed in annoyance.

"I'll give you some hints. Police. I'm not under arrest. A house in Southwark. What does it tell you?"

"I really don't know. I wish I knew, but…god, this is so confusing."

"Crime scene.", huffed the student "It's a crime scene."

"A…what?"

"Crime scene. I think I have already told you to not make me repeat the obvious."

"Why the hell are we on a crime scene?", John gawked, completely astonished.

He was sure that his brain had stopped working properly. He, doctor John H. Watson, had just left the university, followed a student and reached a crime scene with him. He had no idea why they were there and the more he knew about Sherlock Holmes, the more he wasn't completely sure that he wanted to know him. There was something terribly wrong in that. Yet he was thrilled. As thrilled as he hadn't been in ages.

"You'll see", was again the quiet answer of the student.

The DI led them to a room upstairs. A rather young man with black hair was staring at them as they stepped up.

"Here it comes our favourite psychopath!", he shouted in disgust.

"Shut up, Anderson. Your voice is irritating enough even when you don't speak, so stop it already."

The man called Anderson, the forensic, as John remembered, set up to speak again, but obtained an askance look from the DI Lestrade and said nothing more.

They reached an empty room, which probably used to be a bedroom. The house was being subjected to some renewal and it was completely empty. It smelt of mould and rotten wood, of dust and of old. In the middle of it there was the body of a woman, eyes fixed on the ceiling, dead. So it was really a crime scene. For the whole time, John had almost thought it was a joke of some sort. Maybe Sherlock Holmes wanted to make a fool of him in front of the whole university. Maybe it was his idea of amusement. But the dead body on the floor persuaded him that everything the student had told him was the truth. Still he couldn't understand why they were there.

The young man approached to the body. He started to touch the clothes, the hands, the hair. He seemed to analyse every single centimetre of the body. He moved from one side to another, kneeling down, touching, as if he was reading the corpse, as if the dead had a story to tell him.

"Here, doctor Watson.", he said, still kneeling on the floor "Tell me what do you see."

John glanced at the DI hesitantly, but the man nodded and he reached his student. His more than mysterious student. He knelt down too and looked at the body.

"Slight blue skin.", he started to note "Turgidity of the tongue; fine, white froth at the mouth and at the nose."

Then put his hands on the chest of the woman and pressed hard, some water came out of her mouth. John blinked, astonished.

"She has drowned.", he couldn't almost believe his words as he pronounced them.

Sherlock Holmes was tapping on his phone, evidently looking for something.

"Anyway it's barely worth my time.", the young man said to the DI.

The police officer gawked.

"Sorry, what? She has drowned. Do you see any water source around?"

"Maybe she was brought there after being drowned to death.", answered the voice of Anderson at the door.

"Brilliant, Anderson. You're are wrong as always. She died here, in this right place. Yes, drowned to death."

"How?", muttered John, unable to make his brain function.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"It's not. Not at all.", he managed to answer.

Holmes let out the umpteenth annoyed sigh and started to speak.

"See that white circle on the floor? There was a bucket there. See the mould spots at the centre of it? The rooftop must be cracked and raindrops started to fall right there, so someone has put a bucket in that place to avoid a further tarnishing of the floor. It has rained a lot lately, so the bucket was probably full. Bucket has disappeared, she has drowned. She was drowned in the bucket. Murderer took the bucket away."

"Is it a homicide, then?"

"Yes. It was her step-brother."

Both John and the DI stared at the young man agape.

"Oh god, your brains are so placid…", he frowned "Single woman. She isn't married and she hasn't been married before. There's no sign of a ring on her ring finger. She was rich, very rich. The clothes she's wearing. They are very expensive, but old. So she can't buy new expensive clothes anymore. See her nails?"

And he pointed at the red painted nails.

"Badly painted, she does them, but she isn't an expert. She's still learning. She probably didn't need to do it before. She had a manicure. Now she doesn't anymore. This means she has lost her fortune. Or she was robbed of her heirloom, more probably. Who did that? Her brother. Step-brother."

"How do you even know she has got a step-brother? How do you even know her name?", the DI inquired.

"This house told me.", the young man calmly answered.

"This house?", the DI asked once more.

"Are you really so vacant?"

"We haven't got your brain. Spare me the embarrassment of it and go on, Sherlock."

"This house is being subjected to some renewal. It's an old house, uninhabited for quite a long time. I looked for it on internet and found that his old owner's name is George Roberts. He sold it three months ago. Looked for him on the net too. He's a very well-known lawyer. Some of his old photos show him with a young girl, namely Mary Wilson. Could've been his wife, but he's unmarried. So a relative. Checked the previous owner of this house: her name was Sarah Wilson, Mary Wilson's mother. She owned the place and she was the widow of Frank Roberts, George's father. So they are brother and sister. Mary's mother had remarried after her first husband's, Tom Wilson, death. When she died, she divided the heirloom equally between the two, even if George wasn't her natural son. But it wasn't enough for him. See?"

And he showed something on the mobile to the DI.

"Expensive cars, watches, clothes. Expensive habits. His part of the heirloom wasn't enough to maintain his lifestyle, so he prosecuted his step-sister. There are some articles on the matter. He won and she lost everything. No photos of them together anymore since the last year. She probably discovered that he had cheated during the trial, that he had set up some fake proofs. She asked for a meeting in their old house, this, which she hadn't agreed to sell. She was sentimentally attached to it. A lot of photos of the old happy days in this house on her Facebook profile. They met. She menaced to reveal everything, if he didn't give her back her heirloom. He panicked. He tried to strangle her. See the digits on the neck?"

John looked at the neck. True, he had missed those red fingerprints. Sherlock Holmes hadn't.

"He didn't manage to. But he saw the bucket. He hit her and drowned her in it."

"How do you know he's been here?"

"Footprints.", and he pointed at some damp spots in the corridor "Perfectly matching with the shoes he's wearing…", and he showed the phone to the DI again "in this photo. So step-brother. As I said, barely worth my time."

John was amazed, fascinated, intrigued. He didn't even know if there existed a word in the English vocabulary that could have described how he was feeling at the moment. He just stared, mouth ajar, at Sherlock Holmes, second year student of chemistry, arrogant, disrespectful and…the most brilliant man he had ever met.

"Well, I guess I have to thank you as always, Sherlock.", the DI said, exhaling like he had held his breath until that moment.

Holmes barely mumbled something in response and started to walk away. John followed. As they exited the door, John looked at the man beside him.

"Fantastic. Just…fantastic."

"What?", he replied, distracted.

"The whole…thing. You've been fantastic."

The young man smiled, evidently flattered by the compliment.

"So, professor Watson, you now know what distracts me."

John gathered his thoughts for a second, then asked again:

"Who are you?"

"Sherlock Holmes.", teased the young man.

"You know what I meant…"

"What do you think?"

"No idea. Really not the slightest idea. I'd say…private detective, but it's impossible."

Holmes looked curiously at him.

"You may call me a 'police friend'. I'm a sort of consultant. When the police are out of their depths, which is always, they consult me. I entitled myself 'consulting detective', the only one in the world. I might have just invented the job.", he smiled, but in a serious way.

"So… is this your job?"

"A hobby."

"And that's the reason why you don't attend the lessons?"

"Most of the times yes. When I'm on a case I can't be bothered with anything else. Lessons are boring. This is more interesting, don't you think?"

John would have loved to answer yes, but he remembered he was a professor, a person who was supposed to educate his students, not to go along with their inopportune behaviour. So he found himself saying a totally different thing from the one he had in mind.

"No, Mr. Holmes. You should put your studies before everything else. This is not interesting and you shouldn't…"

"I thought you had said it had been fantastic."

"Yes, but…", he tried to say.

"So you enjoyed it too."

Mind-reading bastard.

"I have to admit that…"

"Don't bother. I thought that you were different from your colleagues. I was wrong. You are boring like every other professor. I'm sorry to have wasted your time, professor Watson." , a disappointed expression on his face.

John was about to answer something, but Sherlock had speeded up and had already got into a taxi. The cab drove away and John Watson was left alone in the street.

He had to hail another taxi, since he had no idea about which bus to take, and thus went back to university, where he had left all his belongings: his jacket and his briefcase with everything in it. Luckily enough he had his wallet in the back pocket of his trousers. He thanked himself for having put it there that morning when he had taken it from the kitchen table. He went straight to his office and took everything. To be sincerely honest he had still some work to do there, but he knew that after what has happened that morning, he wouldn't have been able to focus on anything.

As he left his office, he stumbled upon professor Collins, who looked at him weirdly. Probably the rumour of him with Sherlock Holmes had already spread and he really didn't want to discover what his colleagues were thinking of him. He grunted a greet to her, and stormed out.

He was furious. With the young man, who had just somehow taken advantage of him, who had just proven to be the cleverest and most arrogant person he had ever had the disgrace to meet, who had behaved like a child and made a fool of him. Mainly he was furious with himself for he thought he had just lost an occasion to paint in colours his grey life.

The corpse, the quick autopsy, the mystery had thrilled him like nothing else in his life. They remembered him of his night watches in Afghanistan. The sight of the body, Holmes solving the crime, Holmes playing with him had imbued him with adrenaline, which was still running through his blood right to his head.

By the time he reached his flat, he had already cursed himself a thousand times for having said that sentence.

You should put your studies before everything else. This is not interesting and you shouldn't…

Not interesting? Who was he trying to fool? Not only it had been interesting, it had been fantastic. He had said that and then he had eaten his words back. He grunted in the emptiness of the room.

That night he didn't manage to sleep a single minute, images of what he had probably lost drifting in front of his eyes. He rolled in bed until the morning came.