-Millie-
~~~~~~
"I don't think you can smoke in here, Sherlock."
"We're in America. Land of the free," he replies, inhaling deeply and breathing out whorls of smoke, eyes closed.
"That doesn't apply to smoking in a café. Especially a café with a sign."
"I live to tempt fate."
Our conversation is interrupted by the soft sound of somebody clearing their throat. We turn, Sherlock hastily stubbing out his cigarette on the side of my coffee mug, and find ourselves facing Jamie Moriarty, standing in his checked shirt and dark jeans, clutching a sealed plastic envelope.
When no-one speaks, Jamie looks down at the empty seat beside me and gestures, shyly.
"Can I...?"
"Of course."
He pulls out the chair and sits down, careful not to jolt the beverages on the table. In reality, this man does not deserve the unshakeable suspicion in the pit of my stomach; he's reserved, softly-spoken, prone to licking his lips when he's nervous – and the polar opposite of his antimatter equivalent.
And yet I can't, for all the blatant evidence in front of me, disassociate Jamie Moriarty from his brother.
"I brought the pictures," he says, when another uncomfortable silence ensues. He opens the envelope and flips it over, tapping the contents out onto the table.
There's a clipping from a newspaper, worn and faded with age, with a headline reading House Fire: Arson or Accident? and a small, grainy photograph. The latter depicts a country manor in the late stages of neglect; it’s certainly impressive, with its wooden beams and turreted roof, but the paint is peeling and the windows, for all their latticed grandeur, are missing panes of glass in places.
More unsettlingly, however, is the family standing in front of the house.
It is clearly an official photo, taken by a professional and possessing all the characteristics of a wealthy family bordering on aristocracy. At the centre of the group is a man who looks the very personification of enticement, with hair the colour of ash-flecked earth and a strong jaw, attired in a high-collared hunting jacket. Beside him is a woman who reminds me of a bare tree decked in excessive ornaments. She was, I'm sure, beautiful, and there are remnants of her beauty in this photograph – her pointed chin, dark eyes, thin, curved eyebrows and broad forehead hint at a previous prepossession, and one that the man currently sitting next to me bears striking resemblance to. She stands stiffly, her expression pinched, and in spite of her green-trimmed dress and priceless jewellery, she looks miserable; unfocused and unsteady on her feet.
Sitting either side of this woman are two alarmingly similar children. If I were to guess, I'd assume they were both five or six years of age, dressed identically in crisp shirts and black, sleeveless pullovers, with knee-high socks and expensive shoes.
It is not difficult to tell them apart.
Where one sits restless with childish energy, his hands balled into nervous fists in his lap, the other displays a dead-eyed indifference, sitting straight-backed and unsmiling in his chair. The former shows the natural signs of youthful irregularity; his tie is not straight, one of his socks is beginning to crease at his shin and there is a single strand of hair falling across his forehead, broken free from the harsh comb of slicked-back formality. The other is unnervingly polished, from the perfect set of his little, thin shoulders to the alignment of the laces in his shoes. He looks hollow, as if a man four times his age has been trapped in this child's body.

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Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}
Fanfiction"What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done" ~Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet. Emily Schott wants nothing more than satiation; a lust for destruction, for carnality and...