25 Days of Christmas
Chapter 16
16 December, 2013
Finally, John was out of the flat.
Which meant Sherlock had some time to himself. He waited for ten minutes - curled up on one end of the couch - after he had heard John close the front door, and proceeded immediately to ring Lestrade.
"Lestrade," he hissed into the receiver.
"I thought you preferred to text," Greg greeted with a yawn.
"This is faster."
"True enough," he agreed. "What do you want? You okay? You still sound ill."
"Fine," Sherlock snapped, stifling a cough. "I'm calling about the case."
Lestrade hesitated. "Does John know about this?"
"No," Sherlock said. He wasn't even going to try to lie. It wasn't worth it in the end, and really, he didn't care. "What's going on?"
"Really it seems simple," he started with a sigh. "But it's been giving us a lot of trouble as of late."
"What is it?"
"Maybe a four?"
"Murder?"
"Yeah."
"Where do you want me?"
"So there's been two so far," Lestrade started, "stabbed to death. All conveniently in CCTV blindspots."
"So Mycroft wasn't of any help," Sherlock remarked with a grin.
"Oh, he was a lot of help actually," Anderson said from a corner.
"More help than you," Sally Donovan added, arms crossed.
Sherlock sneered. "How much help?"
"He narrowed down the suspects to two people, a weapon, and the circumstances," Lestrade answered, a mild note of admiration in his eyes.
"Only thing missing is a motive, really. Then it should be easy to determine just who it is," Sally interjected.
If Sherlock had rolled his eyes any harder, they would have popped out of his head. "Serial murderer?"
"Obviously."
"Text me when there's another one," he said flippantly and sauntered away, looking every bit like he normally did. But to himself, his limbs seemed heavy and clumsy, and it took an actual effort to hold his spine straight and his head imperiously high. He would immediately change out of his street clothes and collapse on the sofa as soon as he set foot in his flat.
...
"Did he seem a bit... off to you?" Anderson whispered to Sally as soon as the freak was out of earshot.
"Who cares?" she said, hands in her pockets. "As long as he doesn't get anybody ill."
"Oi!" Lestrade called across the room.