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Brilliant Minds	By : FairyBean Category: S through Z > Sherlock (BBC) > Sherlock (BBC) Views: 4811 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, I do not Profit from this writing and do not know or own Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson or any of the other characters used in this work. I also do not own Sherlock (BBC) franchise or anything related to it.

Chapter List
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Night.
Wet streets.
Cobbles slick with…blood.
The man hulked over the body, watching the rivets of blood run past his feet, the rain washing it away. Following it’s path from the drain where it was taken his eyes traced back over the cobbles and to the body, rain washed, perfectly drained of all colour and quite obviously dead.
He began to chuckle, quietly at first as his nails dug into his hands and then threw back his head, laughing manically to the skies as the rain continued to pour and the smog started to roll in.
--
221b Baker Street.
The fire was raging in the hearth and Dr. John Watson sat close to it, his leg raised on a rather overly elaborate pouf. It had been given, or borrowed without the knowledge of the owner, Mrs Hudson from downstairs.
“You really don’t think she’s going to notice this?” he inquired with raised brow. The man he directed his question to was poised, one foot on the low windowsill, window open to the elements and holding a cheap violin he had picked up earlier that week.
There was no doubt the man was a natural, when he wanted to play properly of course. He dragged the bow across the strings, letting out a loud, and spine shrinking screech from the instrument.
“Holmes!” Watson protested to the noise, shifting in the chair.
The eyes turned on him then and Watson had to force himself to hold that gaze. Really Sherlock Holmes might have been the brightest academic nail in the box but when it came to anything remotely to do with reality he was a five year old child.
“At least shut the window.”
“But it stifles my creativity!” he protested at once, crossing his arms and then cutting a comical figure as the violin nearly slipped out of the open window and he jolted to catch it. Their eyes met again and Watson made a show of yawning. It was late, too late for tea but he would go and make some. It was the only thing that would stop this incessant need to do something that was resting within his roommate. Before he could get up however Holmes made some grunt or other and pulled the wall length window closed.
He came to the fire, placing his foot up on the sofa now instead and drew the bow across the strings again, Watson was about to protest when Bach came tumbling out of the silence. Concerto No. 4, the rapid violin strokes seemingly something only a master could play. The bow stung back and forth and Watson found himself imagining the higher pitched noises of the flute and the lower pitches of the cello as Holmes’ fingers danced on the neck of the violin. He let out a breath as he knew Sherlock watched him. Knew he was waiting for that anger that built up inside to abate.
Holmes smiled. Music to calm the savage beast. Watson was as apprehensive about this case as he was, maybe even more so since he didn’t possess the great intellect that Holmes himself was blessed with and he knew that John’s favourite was Bach, the Concerto no.4 played allegro. So he played. It didn’t hurt him, his mind was elsewhere. Pondering over those twisted limbs that had lain on the street, the carving in the flesh. Two victims, two cases, two foreign markings but otherwise completely unconnected. One looked like suicide, he had had an interesting time convincing Inspector Lestrade to go with him on that trail of thought. The other….well the poor girl had been almost eviscerated and the foreign marking, by now a commonality that Holmes eyes looked for without his conscious thought, was placed on an untouched piece of flesh below her left breast. It was all vaguely disturbing and there was no common thread.
No that wasn’t it.
He just couldn’t see the thread. Stupid, stupid he berated himself and for two bars the music deviated from Bach into something all the more raw and irritated. John Watson noticed it, smiled to himself and got up. He would make the tea. Holmes liked tea.
He didn’t get as far as the kitchen when Holmes stopped playing abruptly. “Someone’s coming,” he intoned, that dead voice back. He was going to go into a slump and that scared Watson. He had seen it before, one of Sherlock’s slumps was worse than that giddy excited look he got in his eyes at the thought of a murder. Inwardly cursing himself for the thought, and coming to terms again with the fact he would likely go to hell, he hoped the caller was someone who would bring bad news to the apartment, bad news out there was only ever good for Holmes. In this place where his brain worked best.
The door banged back off the wall, not so much as a knock as Lestrade rolled in, out of breath and gasping like a bellows. “Thank god you’re her-”
“Never mind that, what happened?” Holmes asked, the spark back as he grabbed and buttoned his coat. He stared at the policeman’s face as he strode past, his coat flaring out behind him as he went for the door. “Watson do hurry man,” he added but he was well ahead of him by the time Watson pulled on his shoes, grabbed a coat and turned up the collar before stumbling on his bad leg down the stairs and out to the waiting car. Lestrade was already explaining what they had found. A girl, cut up, limbs twisted and deformed and left in the alley behind the bakery. Holmes made the links. Another girl, evisceration and more, marking? Lestrade confirmed it before Holmes had the chance to ask.
“But the rain has washed away most of the evidence. I haven’t let the boys go in there yet, thought you would want a look.”
Holmes gave a perfunctory nod and almost hopped out of the car before it had come to a full stop at the mouth of the alley. There were blue clothed police everywhere, with their little hats and truncheons keeping the rabble away from the crime scene. Holmes smiled.
“Watson, take note. There are no tracks coming this way, so the suspect escaped on foot, most likely out of the other side of the alley, which would mean he most likely headed for the boating lake in the park. It would hide his tracks well in this weather. There isn’t much blood here, but there is some residue in between these cobbles here,” he muttered to himself as he knelt on the wet ground. He was still some distance from the actual body and as always the inspectors around him were slack jawed at his way of working. Watson always felt proud of that, because even though he rarely had the more brilliant moments Holmes seemed to just drop out of his mouth like breath he would quite often be able to follow where the detective was getting his information from.
Holmes got to the body, eyes alighting on the mark, carved into the cheek. But what did that mean? He still didn’t know the relevance of the thing, of this symbol of death. He touched a finger to it, felt its rough edges. “Same implement,” he breathed “But this time after she was dead, there is no blood. It is a clean cut.”
“There are no footprints this side Sherlock,” Watson muttered, leaning down on the pretence of looking over the body. His eyes looked over the pale limbs without really seeing them, waiting for Holmes to knock him down, point out some oh so obvious thing that told of the departure of the killer. He didn’t disappoint, but he did snort and merely point over at a pile of rubbish, some scattered newspaper, stuck to the cobbles and ripped up the middle of a page.
John Watson’s wheels were turning, eyes roving the rest of the alley and spotting the offending ripped paper piece a few feet further up the alley. Aah, so that was it. He nodded and then his jaw dropped.
“Holmes,” he breathed, almost wanting to jump up and down. He had noticed something. Something the great Sherlock hadn’t gotten yet but there was a reason why not. It was too mundane for his brain to consider when he was so focussed on the uncommon. “She’s been shot.”
Holmes blinked, as if the sentence didn’t compute. “Shot,” he said dully and Watson watched his eyes roving over the body looking for the wound. Watson knelt next to him.
“Here,” he said quietly, pointing to a small indent two fingers width into her hair. “What’s wrong?”
He was worried, Holmes didn’t miss things when he was looking for them. Let alone something as easy to see as a bullet hole. Holmes touched a finger to the girl’s hair. A breath slowly hissing through his teeth.
“Another unconnected string,” he muttered and stood, walking off after the criminal trajectory only he could see.
It had been a long trail to nowhere, following the footprints, so washed by rain that they could have been anyone’s. The police in tow behind and getting more and more irritated by the bad weather and this seeming wild goose chase.
Then Holmes had found it, where the killer had pushed off into the water. The signs of a boat hard to hide even in this weather, and he had been excited, John knew and tried to hide it, as he always tried to hide it. Sherlock got excited over killings and that wasn’t how it should be. Especially in this civilised age.
But they were back now. 221B Baker Street, London, England. The home, however temporarily of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John H. Watson. Watson was making tea as Sherlock paced the living room muttering to himself, well, to the skull on the mantle but it amounted to the same thing. It was a sounding board for his high-functioning conscious to work. Or so Watson liked to tell himself. The other option was that Holmes was a nutcase, and while that brought a slight hitch to the corner of the doctors lips, it was hardly a possibility he wanted to consider.
Watson set the tea on the little table, setting the tiny strainer over the china cup as he poured from the teapot. Homes was particular about the strangest things. He always had to have a china tea cup. Preferably one with a floral or blue water pattern on it. It had only been two months since Watson had teamed up with this unique man but already he knew what was going to tip him over the wrong side of his brilliance. It was like walking a blade every day, and that was why Watson couldn’t stay away. As much as his mind told him not to follow along with this obviously sociopathic man, he merely couldn’t help himself. “It’s getting late,” he noted as he stirred three sugars into the cup and poured a drop of milk into the still swirling liquid. “The street lights are on.”
Of course, the lamps in here had been on for the past half an hour, the shutters and drapes closed over the windows and the fire stoked up so high that the heat would have been stifling if the pair hadn’t gotten used to such conditions lately. Sherlock stopped pacing a moment to stare, that open eyed innocent look that he used when he truly didn’t understand the relevance of a comment. John sighed and waved his hand. “Come have some tea, it will help you to think.”
“Think?” Sherlock asked, almost incredulous with the assumption that he needed help with thinking. “My dear man whatever would tea do for me that my own mind cannot accomplish.”
That was his arrogance, though rightly earned it was a tad annoying to Watson, but he merely sighed and indicated the cup. “It will go cold if you don’t drink it,” he said more pragmatically. That even a child would understand and sure enough Holmes nodded and took his seat in the armchair near the fire and the little table upon which stood a half played game of chess. It was something Watson had gone to clean up when he had been informed that Sherlock was playing some duke of wherever through the sending of email and the use of the grid references on the board itself. John didn’t see the point playing someone hundreds of miles away when he would have happily sat down and had a game with the detective but he had not asked, nor touched the board again after that.
Holmes had just taken his first sip of tea when there was an insistent knocking on the door downstairs. John knew Holmes stiffened but it was imperceptible. Even so they both listened as Mrs Hudson tottered down the hall to answer it, and then her exclamation of surprise followed by the tramp of footsteps that could only really belong to a member of the government.
Sherlock looked towards the door, waiting to see what would happen, what news Lestrade would likely bring him this time. His eyes were wide, but widened further still when a woman walked through the door. It was nice to see Sherlock surprised but he recovered it quickly and stood smoothly. The woman hadn’t moved from the doorway. She swept off her hat, revealing blonde hair tied tightly in a bun. John held out a hand in greeting, knowing Holmes was already analysing every part of her from the way there wasn’t one hair out of place to the fact that she wore a heeled shoe. She didn’t take his hand.
“Please come with me,” she said primly.
Holmes took a step towards the kitchen. She raised a hand to stop him as John Watson stepped in the way, between her and his housemate.
“What is this?” he asked, protecting Holmes as always. The woman smiled, condescending, knowing. She held up her hand, a small disc between her fingers.
“This, Doctor. This ties Sherlock Holmes to the murder of Annabel Heath.”

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Just wanted to say, thanks for reading to here if you did. I hope you enjoyed it :)
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Brilliant Minds