Book I : Fantàsticque :: The Estranged Trilogie ::: A Sherlock Fanfiction

IX. Glacial Blue

Francesca folded her slender hands - handcuffed - on the metal table in front of her and crossed her legs. She tossed her black locks out of her face and turned her glacial blue gaze upon the guards in the enclosed room. She sent them a flirtatious wink and a chilling smile. The poor men averted their gazes and muttered feverishly to one another, jumping back to attention when the man with grey hair came in. The door slammed behind him.

Interrogation room.

Lestrade rifled through his papers on his clipboard - papers and reports on recent cases and many, many, file folders under the poor lighting.

"Your officers are too easily affected, Monsieur. It's rather disappointing."

Lestrade sent her a questioning stare and pulled out a crème folder from the stack in his hands - thinner than the rest.

"Miss Arlington." Lestrade sat in the metal chair facing her. "Miss Francesca...Dela-Cruz...Arlington..." He muttered quietly to himself as he looked through the folder frustratedly. It was labeled with 'Eloise Russell'.

Francesca tilted her head thoughtfully and put her cuffed hands flat down onto the cold tabletop.

"Ah yes, my fake name. Did you like it?"

"You have very little information in your file, Arlington. How have you managed to hide from us for so long?"

"It was simply a matter of knowing where the hunter will be treading his next footsteps."

"And how did you accomplish that?"

Francesca shrugged and twiddled her thumbs, humming "Au Clair de la Lune" softly.

Lestrade heaved a sigh and clicked his pen in annoyance.

"You don't seem to be very fazed by the fact that you are sitting in an interrogation room, Miss."

"Well someone's going to get me out soon, I'm presuming." She drew out the last word and bore her pale ice right into Lestrade's dark coffee ones. He clenched his jaw in irritation of her refusal to portray any distress.

"What do you mean get you out soon?"

Francesca shrugged.

"Do you have accomplices? You don't work alone, do you?"

"Oh no, no, lots of accomplices, lots and lots. We call ourselves the Black Ivy Aristocracy." She fluctuated the stresses on her syllables, tone absolutely flooded with sarcasm but expression so sincerely concerned that Lestrade stared at his notepad in vexation for a moment.

At last, he looked back up. "So you consider your group to be a higher power? They're coming here to break you out now?"

She raised an eyebrow and grinned agonizingly, as if in actual twisted pain. "God, Inspector, you really don't understand what jokes are. I don't know about you, but I have a golly sense of humour. You can add that to my pitifully supplied file of information."

Lestrade ignored her.

"So you work alone?"

"Do I? Maybe I do, I don't tend to remember these things."

"Do you, or not!" Lestrade was beginning to think that this female may be even more annoying to interrogate Jim Moriarty. Of course, he would still take Miss Arlington ovet Moriarty any day.

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't."

"For Christ's sake would you-"

"Calm down, Inspector. I work alone, alright? No one frankly so much as ever even knew my name, or my fake name for that matter."

"Are you lying?

"No, I don't lie without making the lie obvious, Inspector. Add that to my file too. I'm feeling generous today."

"Are you now."

Francesca banged her elbows into the metal table and rested her chin on the backs of her hands.

"Inspector, I'm really not the bad guy here. There's another danger out there, I've only been trying to defend against that little bugger this whole time."

Lestrade scoffed a little. "Save your breath."

"I'm not, actually."

A series of rhythmic, but similiar-pitched rings called out and echoed throughout the musty, dank room.

"Damnnit, my phone... hold on a second." Lestrade stood up and turned away from Francesca to pick up the call, who's heart was now gradually beating faster in anticipation - at last, the moment she's suffered so much for.

"What? Here? Now- I'm sorry? Now?! Bloody hell, I'm in the middle of an interro- I know I'm not getting much out of her but I have to try! What do you mean you can, you've only had two unfortunate encounters with her so far, as far as I know. Oh let me guess, you felt a special something like you did with that madman. What are you, straight or gay?! What? Well look where that got you! Two years of bloody seclusion. Hold on- here. Now. Here. You bastard, are you insane- Wait, Sherlock, hello? Hello?!" Lestrade shoved his phone back into his pocket and punted a chair violently.

A muffled argument suddenly arose outside and stopped soon enough before the door to the room finally creaked open.

Francesca's impatient glare met a similiar pair of cold blue eyes.

"Took you long enough, Monsieur."