MARIA - A Sherlock Fanfic

Mycroft's Case

“And just who is Maria?” Sherlock asked Mycroft.
Mycroft gave a small tolerant smile. “We don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Sherlock asked, amused.
“No.” Mycroft said, his voice full of annoyance.
“Ah. I see why you need me.”
“I don’t think you do. You see, this ‘Maria’ person is everywhere. Her name has been found in several crime scenes the world over.”
“How do you know it isn’t an organisation?”
“The font is the same. And it’s always written the same way.”
Sherlock’s eyebrow raised. “How, exactly?”
Mycroft passed over a few photos. Each contained a mirror with the word ‘Maria’ scrawled in red lipstick. “We’ve run tests,” Mycroft said, as Sherlock flicked through, “It’s the same lipstick each time. Same handwriting too.”
“Hmm.” Sherlock paused. “Why now?”
“Pardon?”
“Why bring this to my attention now?”
“We have,” Mycroft sighed. “Reason to believe that Maria will be moving here next, if she isn’t here already.”
“Why?”
Mycroft passed him another set of pictures. Sherlock frowned.
There were three photos. One of Mycroft and one of a criminal Sherlock knew very well. If these weren’t enough to make Sherlock pause, the last one was. It was of him. Sherlock frowned. Each photo had been written over in scrawling letters. MARIA.
He looked at the actual image of him, and deduced the night that it had been taken was less than a week ago – Mrs Hudson had moved the table slightly just recently.
“The other two were taken within the last week too,” Mycroft informed him.
Sherlock looked back at him. “Are we her targets?”
Mycroft shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. This woman has proved to be completely unpredictable – if it even is a woman. We have nothing on her.”
“Nothing?” Sherlock was impressed. Mycroft had files on everyone. For this girl to commit such complex crimes, and get away scot free was impressive in itself, but to leave nothing for Mycroft? Very impressive. He tilted his head. “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. Yet. We’ll have to wait for her to make the next move.”
Sherlock frowned. “What about him?” he asked, nodding to the third picture.
“Well, I see no reason to inform him.” Mycroft replied.
Sherlock nodded. He had no wish to seek out the third ‘target’. Sherlock smiled as he departed. Hopefully, this one would prove to be a worthy adversary. But if her pick of targets were any indication, she would be. It took skill to photograph the Consulting Detective, not to mention the British Intelligence. And it was harder still to take a picture of the Consulting Criminal. For the last picture was of none other than Jim Moriarty.