A Network of Love

A Good Case

Part 1

I wake up with a sour taste in my mouth, my lower lip feels blistered and uneven as if whole chunks were missing. I must have gnawed on it in my sleep again. With a sigh I swing my feet over my bed's edge, touching the rather cold floor with my bare feet. My hands try to rub the sleep out of my face and I blink a few times to make my sight clear. In front of me is the familiar pattern of the wall, that has reminded me so often that I was in the, more or less, safety of Sherlock's flat, my best friend who I solve crimes with together, and not in the middle of the war in Afghanistan, where already lost souls had cried for my help. I stand up and put on my dark blue bathrobe over my pyjamas, the days in London get pretty cold in the winter. After cleaning myself up I make my way to the kitchen, dreaming of the hotness of Mrs Huddson's warm tea, and as I do so I can hear Sherlock's dark voice talking with someone. Probably clients, they come to the flat at every time now and every time my blog got more readers, there seemed to be more crimes to solve. I walk into the living room and see the not-so-tall-as-you'd-think-it-would-be figure of the consulting detective, who doesn't seem to be very helpful right now. The client talks and talks, trying to explain his problem, but Sherlock always interrupts him with a sharp, "Boring!", and then asks a question that is totally irrelevant in every normal mind. But the detective with the funny hat clearly doesn't have a normal mind. So I sit down in my chair, getting a mere nod from Sherlock, pour some tea, which is standing next to me, into a cup and listen to the conversation. It is just a break-in, nothing with what we usually occupy ourselves with. Knowing that Sherlock will know the answer from the conversation only, I don't even bother picking up a pen to take notes. "Your daughter took the jewellery", he states, and the client says astonished and a little outraged, "I didn't even tell you I have a daughter!" He has a funny accent, Scottish maybe and his round face has a hint of red on his cheeks, probably because of the accusation. "You have a sixteen, or maybe seventeen year old daughter, she is going to sell the jewellery, or already has, and I am 84% sure, that she will give out the money to buy cigarettes." Sherlock informs the man rather fast and before he can answer, or even take in the many words this rude man has thrown at him, he continues: "Now, if you could leave, that would be very helpful, you see, we have much to get done with and I believe that you need to have an important talk with Sarah" Sherlock's slim hand points to the door, the client gets up, somewhat paralyzed, and walks slowly outside the flat. As Sherlock closes the door he turns around once more to ask, "How do you know my daughter's name?", but the door slams in his face and the oh-so-consulting detective rubs his hands, smiles at me and wants to know if there is still some tea left. I reach him a cup and demand to know, interested, "How did you know her name?" Sherlock seems confused first, clearly, he has moved on already, but then remembers and shares with me: "He was searching for something in his wallet when he came in. The upper lid was flopped over and upside down, a picture of a teenage girl with the name Sarah under it was in the net. She was too young to be his wife or sister so it had to be his daughter. Apparently I was right." He looks out the window, thinking, and takes another sip of his tea. He always makes so funny faces while drinking. Either he opens his eyes wide and wrinkles his forehead, or he closes them until they are very small so he looks like a suspicious, tea-drinking detective. Suddenly we hear a knock at the door and our heads tilt towards it in unison. Before anyone of us can get up to get it, it opens and Mycroft stands in the doorway. "Hello gentlemen" he greets us with that mocking smile of his, as if not he is the intruder but we are. That, of course, is completely ridiculous. There is the small table full of Sherlock's papers about tobacco ashes and different kinds of wool and my laptop in between. On the wall with the sofa are the two holes where Sherlock shot at it out of boredom, the sofa itself is very sunken in of all the times my best friend flopped himself on it. The kitchen table is full of research cluster, a microscope a jar of... are those thumbs again? They usually belong in the fridge where all the other gross things are kept. So I stare back at the man with the umbrella and the pathetic hair, in contrast to his brother's beautiful curly ones, through which I'd love to run my hands one day, and smile, raising my eyebrows questioning. "I need you to take care of something for me" Mycroft announces in his superior manner. "Of course you do" Sherlock smirks, but in his eyes I see the spark of joy, because no matter how bad the two brothers get along, the arriving of the older one always means one thing; a good case.