Colors of the Heart

The Worst Monday Ever

  The top-secret meeting behind closed doors at New Scotland Yard flowed into the hall in the form of droning speech, the arguments so predictable that Inspector Lestrade kept slipping in and out of consciousness. For the umpteenth time, he snapped awake, only to become privy to a heated argument about the British law system.

  So he was rather surprised when this interruption from a much-needed power nap wasn't angry bickering,  but silence. Many of the minor officials gathered at the long oak table stood up as a man in a flawless black suit swinging an umbrella entered the confrence room. Lestrade hastily got to his feet. He wasn't sure why, but something about this man seemed to emenate power and demand respect. He seemed oddly familiar, but only vaguely,  like the feeling you get when you see the same stranger at the store twice.

The feeling stayed with Lestrade as this late arrival calmly surveyed the room, wrinkling his nose in displeasure when he saw the Prime Minister idly spinning a coffee cup at the far end of the massive table. The stranger took the seat at the head of the table, scanning the line of attendees as he did so. His pale eyes roved down the columns of immaculately dressed men and women as if they were mildy intriguing pieces in a sculpture garden and he was gauging the workmanship of the artist.

Lestrade felt a slight prick on the back of his neck as the man met his eyes with an expressionless gaze. They made eye contact for barely a heartbeat, but the D.I felt as if that was all the time the man needed to stick his life under a microscope. Lestrade shook his head, fighting to keep awake, as the assembly sunk back into the leather chairs sporadically grouped around the table and the umbrella-wielding man began to speak.

The man's voice was a soothing deep purr that seemed too liquid to belong to a human, and wasn't the kind of voice you'd be eager to disobey. Despite his original misgivings about the late arrival, Lestrade found him intriguing, enough so to prevent him from falling asleep as the meeting turned back to politics. Many names he recognized were thrown about in their secret circles: Mr. Holmes should have added surveillance,  Smith really wasn't an efficient buisnessman, and whatever are we going to do about the Watson death? After all, we can't have the people revolt at such a stressful time with Jack the Ripper pranks going rampant.

But it wasn't the conversation that Lestrade was paying attention to. The feeling of deja vu was going to bother him for the rest of this obnoxiously long meeting if he didn't attempt to do something about it. He sighed and leaned back in the chair, absently staring in the umbrella man's general direction. He closed his eyes, feeling the wave of desperately needed sleep crash over him, swallowing him like a fish.

Fish.
A shark swimming overhead in blackness. A gunshot. The sound of crying. A dark stain on the floor. All the people...so many people. The opressive finality of death. Eyes as pale as water catching his for a moment, then turning away.  A frail woman who seemed unfazed by murder. Something about a merchant. The tap of an umbrella against the glass walls of an aquarium.

The murder of Mary Watson.

Lestrade awoke from the light doze to find that several politicians, including the man from the aquarium, were glaring at him. He shook his head to clear away the memories, and adressed the group apologetically. "Sorry, didn't hear the last thing you said. Work's been bloody awful after the whole Culverton Smith fiasco. Was it-"

The man with the umbrella sighed dramatically, causing a small piece of paper from one of those accursed medical pads to float to the ground like a man with a parachute, landing on the Detective Inspector's shoe. "As I was saying, Inspector, obviously the paperwork for the Mary Watson murder case must be properly doctored to remove all traces of government affairs due to sensitive points regarding the populace." The man finished icily, as if reciting a speech he had written a week in advance.