What Kind of Man || Jim Moriarty

Fourteen

Katherine had heard voices downstairs for a further 10 minutes before the front door to the house had slammed shut and heavy footsteps had ascended the stairs. There was a slight pull in her gut which hoped it would be Moriarty, for the plain reason of wanting some familiarity in her life and he was the closest thing to it right now. But she already knew it wasn't, and it was confirmed when that man appeared in the doorway. Sebastian Moron she recalled.

"You're removing the body?" Katherine spoke it as a question as she looked up to him, tearing her eyes from the bag full of products she was currently digging through while figuring out where to start.

"Shouldn't you have started already?" Not only had he failed to answer her question but he had talked down to her...again!

"Well, I think I need the body removed first." There was nothing holding her back, she was needed here. She wasn't stupid and knew that to be a fact and this...guy was no more important to the job today than she was. Head man or no head man to whoever. "I'm not wasting products cleaning something you're just going to mess up again." The guy stood, not moving an inch, but stared down at her hard. "I need you out of the way." Katherine put in the final dig before turning back to the bag, pulling out some rubber gloves and putting them on.

"Are you aware you're talking to your boss?" That made her stop, the violently yellow plastic squeaking in her hand. But Katherine suddenly felt the urge to laugh when she remembered their conversation from the car.

"Obviously not, since you refused to introduce yourself in the car." Their eyes met, Katherine quirking an eyebrow seriously up at him as he scoffed and rolled his eyes away from her.

"Geez...no wonder he..." She managed to catch the first few words until they fell into an inaudible muttering under the man's breath.

"Excuse me?"

"Sebastian Moran. Head of Staff." Good change of topic. She'd half expected him to snap at her or worse due to her harsh bite at him, a result of keeping everything in for a week. The loneliness, the fear, the anger, the impatience. But he didn't, the introduction being presented as he crosses the room to her.

"Head of staff? For..." Katherine made a gesture to downstairs.

"Yeah." Sebastian nodded. "Therefore you're secondary boss." There was a small pause as she looked over him and it looked as though a million thoughts were spinning through her head.

"Nice to meet you Mr Moran...Katherine Reine." She spoke finally, hesitating only at that one point where her true name almost slipped out ahead of the new.

"Funny. I got told Lucy Scott." There was a smirk on Sebastian's lips as he peered down at her. "But you'll get used to it." She really did hope so. Surprisingly however, she found herself liking it. Katherine. It was...fitting to the dress. In the way that it sounded elegant and fashionable and better. Lucy was nice, but plain and made her sound like a seven year old girl. It wouldn't be a chore to accept the change.

As Katherine's attention turned back to the variety of bleaches, wipes, sanitisers and scents, Sebastian finally began his own work. He stepped around the large pools of blood and stared at the body for a few seconds, then went to his own bag sitting out in the hall way still. An indescribably loud rustling of harsh plastic sounded a couple of seconds later as he laid out a large sheet of covering, like the sort those stupid Ikea bags were made out of.

"What are you going to do with the body?" Katherine asked quietly, standing with a bottle of bleach in one hand and a heavy duty cloth in the other.

"Nothing of you're concern." Nothing else needed to be said to shut her up, but with a sulk she stepped over the body and took the first step to covering up someone else's mistake by wiping down the splattered walls.