A/N: It's still amusing me, so I carry on. Vague details like the town's name and the tea room's name are kept deliberately blank (in the tradition of the original stories, narrated as taking place "in the year of 18" or with "our friend S"). Details are unimportant anyway, as I'm not creating John's autobiography, nor a travel guide. -csf


Second/Four.

'Some landmarks, as you expect, will still be the same. You keep a vivid memory of them, and even if you find an old town hall or market looking more run down, it's still essentially there... Other things, like shops and new houses, that's a change you expect, you brace yourself for it in a way... Trees are odd things.'

'Trees?' Sherlock repeats quietly, hands in his pockets as we walk the town's high street side by side.

'Really old trees, you can hardly tell a difference. They've grown, yeah, but they are still a blurry green blob. Young shrubs, now turned mighty trees completely transform the way you see the street or park. You estrange them as if they were unbeknown obstacles. You add them to your landmark points and wonder if you'll recognise them the next time you see them, should enough time pass...'

'Your reconnaissance skills are a legacy from more arid landscapes', Sherlock comments. 'Hence vegetation growth throws you off.'

I shrug. He's entitled to his opinion. 'Then there's people.'

'People you knew.'

'People in general. There's a collective sense to a place. How the locals act, their accent and whatnot. It evolves over time, as it's only natural, but a part of you keeps finding it odd. It is odd, because the town is made up of its people, their rituals and culture, more than the buildings, the traffic, the new billboard signs.'

'People', Sherlock repeats.

'Which leads me to the old familiar faces of those I've forgotten their names or quirks. I keep expecting to find familiar faces, but they all look like strangers to me now.'

'Some have moved out too. Or lost a lot of weight, dyed their hair, or died. Who were you hoping to see again, John?'

I glance up at Sherlock as we wait on a set of traffic lights to cross a busy road. He looks quietly down to me.

'I'm not sure, Sherlock. But this was the last place where I lived before I joined the army.' I look on ahead. 'I guess I hoped to see what took me to the army, to war, to being shot and very nearly "good night, Vienna".'

'Second thoughts, John?' the detective's voice is emotionless and modulated to a casual query. I don't buy it.

'No second thoughts', I answer quietly. The light turns green, Sherlock doesn't seem to notice, too focused on me. 'I like where I am now. My choices brought me to a good life.'

He hums, and follows my lead as I start crossing the street, never really more than a step away from me.

.

The Tea Rooms are located uptown, near the fashion shops and tourist havens whose public they also serve typically. An old establishment, dated a century old, relying on tradition and type of at least two hundred years ago. No one seems to notice that detail. Old is old, in a generic way, and two centuries old sells better than the emerging roaring twenties, I suppose.

Once the officer on beat keeping an eye on the crime scene allowed us in – I really should check whose badge Sherlock flashed him just now – it was easy to find the exact locked room where the murder had taken place, in a dark stormy night. Big large windows separate us from the world outside.

There are comfortable padded seats in a large room, equipped with a few ceiling to waist high mirrors and waist to floor carved wood panels. Fresh cotton linen on each dainty little round table, with silver plated salt and pepper shakers, shinny sugar bowls and crystal flower jars with ornamental silk flowers. The whole place reeks of sophisticated, sterile, antiquated elegance, as if we had just slipped into a golden age crime novel setting, but that would be to ignore the vivid rusty brown, dried blood puddle on the perfectly waxed floorboards. That focusses my attention at once. One door into the room, another leading to the toilets. All glass pane windows firmly shut and virtually inoperable (unless by means of smashing the glass to allow passage, which has not happened unless a very handy glass windows fitter was on call). The ceiling is a funny assembly of square wooden panels, at each intersection drops a modern light globe. Along the far edge of the room, crammed with tables to its maximum capacity and revenue generating potential, a long leather sofa, cornered by three aligned tables for party groups. Nearby the maître d's small desk, where the manager supervised the guests and employees. Close by the toilets. Sherlock's already headed that way for inspection. As I follow I see him come out of the ladies room, shaking his head. 'Vents or a small window high up. Nowhere by which an intruder come pass through.'

I look on back to the room. It's easy to spot the door to the room that the manager locked after herself, with the guest's consent. A good, modern, sturdy lock, the type that would take Sherlock more than two seconds to beat, and the regular guy a whole night.

'I suppose the manager could have been in on it', I comment, as Sherlock crawls over the floorboards, searching for suspicious loose joints.

'Hardly makes a selling point, John; Come have tea where a murder was committed.'

I cross my arms in front of me. 'You never know, there's always an audience for the macabre.' Oh, the irony here.

'I checked the establishment finances, they are in a good place.'

'You did?'

The detective corrects. 'Technically Lestrade's people did. The lower ranks, I would imagine.'

'Yeah, about that. How come Lestrade got this case when we're not in his London jurisdiction anymore?'

'Oh, he liked the victim's books.'

'She was a food critic. So, cook books?'

'Oh, no, John', says my friend, extending me a hand so I pull him up. 'She was once a crime novelist. Didn't I tell you? She used to write locked room mysteries.'

.

Sherlock had clearly failed to mention he victim's identity. Her bibliography was short lived, but carried her into fame in only the way the most imaginative, implausible, overwrought and gory crime novels can take someone. It had all hit the bookshops much around the time I had left to join the army, actually. Thumbing an old copy of her best selling novel A Crime Has Been Committed I actually wonder if I've not read it back in the day. Long before London and Sherlock Holmes, before internet blogs and body parts being kept refrigerated in the vegetable drawer.

Back in another lifetime altogether. Little did I imagine the potential of what was yet to be in my life.

'John?'

'Hmm?' I retort, distractedly.

'It's a fiver if you wanna buy it', says the man at the till. We've just found a copy of A Crime Has Been Committed in a second-hand store.

I flip the pages from back to start, almost as if I could flip time the same way. On the front page I find the ball-pen marked initials JHW.

'Yes. Yes, I'm taking it', I decide.

There's a past I need to revisit.

.

Tired, achy, sleepy, I dump my travel bag on the bed covers of a modest hotel. I unzip the bag with cold fingers – I always get cold fingers when I'm tired. I sneak a hand inside the bag and halt at once. What the heck—

I open the zip wide and stare at a starched collar shirt and my best suit. Right, the genius packed for me. I fell right into that trap. What are we supposed to do, deliver Sherlock's deductions on a ball room? And why not some pyjamas, a toothbrush, a shaving razor? At least I find some clean underwear as a small grace I'm happy to take. I guess I'll have to go shopping tomorrow.

Rubbing my face tiredly I walk on over to the mirror hanging by the door. I look as tired as I feel. Sometimes I find comfort in my own consistency.

I lock the bedroom door, turn around and drag my feet the short distance to the bed, where I slump tiredly. Clothes be damned.

'Thought you'd still be awake, John!'

I jump at the cheerful declaration of an energetic consulting detective.

'What the—'

He ignores my tirade. 'Come on, John, you know I can pick a lock.'

'And you know I locked that door!'

'Yes, you don't want to be disturbed.'

'Precisely!'

'I'll make sure of that for you, it's no trouble at all, John.'

I try to focus directly on Sherlock's eyes for the important message: 'I need to sleep.'

'By all means, I just need someone to listen', he says, twirling a hand in the air, 'you don't need to be... awake.'

'That makes no sense!'

'I think better when you are around, John, and you sleep better in a foreign location if I'm in the vicinity.'

'How would you even know that?'

'Statistically—' he starts, but I interrupt with a sigh of defeat.

'Be my guest', I grunt, tiredly.

He nods and grabs my complimentary piece of chocolate.

Well, I suppose it's alright if he's eating...

I bite back a yawn and lay back on the too soft pillow. Sherlock is standing tall and proud in the small space between the bed, a minimalist desk and a convenient wardrobe, looking in the distance, following fleeting ideas and mental patterns with his eyes. It's oddly hypnotic to watch his sleek elegance and fluid lines. As he starts drawing diagrams in the air my eyelids drop and I inevitably doze off.

.

TBC