It didn't work, John!

Chapter 2

John was grateful for the mobile phone ringing, because it gave him time to think about this matter.
"It's Greg! It's a new case, he needs my support! A dead woman in King's Park! Come on, John, we gotta go!"
And just as he was speaking, Sherlock had thrown his coat over his shoulders.
"Oh, and John, let's discuss what we were talking about later, shall we? It's important."
John nodded. But he was fine with the delay.

They stormed out of the flat and, as usual, Sherlock had found a cab within minutes.
But as they drove along, they were silent. They were both preoccupied.

Greg was in a bad mood.
"You've hardly left when the call came," he growled. He would actually have had today off and would have preferred to spend the day with his husband and, well, certain pleasant activities. An obviously murdered corpse was not what he had wanted for afternoon tea.

"What have we got?" asked Sherlock.
Anderson wanted to answer, but Sherlock raised his index finger in his direction.
"Ah ah," he growled, "if I want a case of incompetence, I'll talk to a butcher about veganism!"
Anderson made an angry sound, but kept his mouth shut.
John, however, pushed Sherlock to the side and hissed softly, "Behave yourself."
Sherlock smiled and whispered back:
"Well, Anderson's just annoying me with his silliness, it's just off the top of my head, I can't help it. And besides, I've got to give you a reason..."
John sighed.
The man drove him crazy again.

Greg took a breath and explained:
"Elisabeth Snow, 25, accountant. She was found by some joggers out here. Obviously strangled; you can clearly see the marks on her neck. Wearing an antique dress, some kind of costume. And a belt around the waist which is pulled extremely tight. But this was done after death. No other clues."
John had already knelt down to the body and begun to examine it.
"Strangled, no doubt," he said.
"Quite unpleasant. She put up quite a struggle. She has normal clothes under her dress, and that's more than badly put over... I'll bet the killer did that. After she died."
Sherlock looked at the hair of the dead woman. Something about it caught his eye.
"It's dyed," he said.
"Sure," Greg growled. "You can see that. There's nothing natural about that black."
Sherlock nodded.
"But look: here the paint has run down the base of the forehead and has tainted a bit of skin..."
He brushed the hair of the dead woman to one side.
John looked at him questioningly.
"Well," he continued, "the lady did not do it herself. No lady would settle for such a sloppy result, otherwise extremely vain like her."
He showed her hands.
"Here, the manicure - the finest. I would like to claim the nail salon of Madame Jeannette. I recognize her work. Madame is good and expensive."
He lifted the dress.
"Fine designer jeans. Expensive shoes, properly maintained."
He bent down to the young woman and sniffed.
"La coeur de la ville, a rather new and fine fragrance. Also expensive."
He looked up at Greg.
"The messy dyed hair doesn't go with the overall picture. I'm convinced whoever killed her also did this. After she died, because otherwise she would have fought back."

There was a flash of thought in John. Too short to catch it. Something about this scenario reminded him of something. But he coldn't hold on to the thought.
All right, then. Maybe later. Sometimes things come to mind when you stop thinking about them.
"All right," Greg said, "we'll preserve the evidence and remove the body. If you think of anything else, Sherlock, let me know."
Sherlock nodded, then took John's hand and walked away from the scene with him.

They went back to Baker Street.
The tea they had earlier was cold, of course.
Sherlock immediately agreed to make some more and John gratefully accepted. He felt he'd been drained by the day's blasted activity.
"I'm sure Greg will let us know if he finds out anything," Sherlock said.
For a moment he wondered if it would be worth his while to speak to the relatives of the dead. Well, maybe later. Now he thought it would make more sense to retreat to his thought palace and try to somehow relate the strange presentation of the body.
But before he did that, he turned to John.
"John, I'm going to start thinking about this dead woman. But later I'd like to discuss our problem further, okay?"
John nodded resignedly.
If Sherlock had got something into his head, he couldn't help it in the end anyway.

He took another sip of tea and bit into a piece of tea cake.
He sighed.
Yeah, it wasn't easy being with Sherlock. That was obvious.
But, it was also nice with him, and he was particularly fascinated by the fact that Sherlock seriously tried to submit to the rules of coexistence that "ordinary" and "boring" people followed. He would not succeed in understanding them. Because, in his eyes, they were often not logical. But he tried to follow them anyway, because he knew that he, John, was happy about it.

Greg had bet five pounds that he, John, would be in charge in their relationship.
And yes, he did.
Well, Sherlock was brilliant, he was special, he was headstrong. But when it came down to it, in the end, John would have the final say.
Precisely because Sherlock himself was incapable of reacting in a socially acceptable way on the interpersonal level.
So Sherlock submitted to John's judgment without hesitation.

John did not like the fact that he had now also discovered the system of punishment and behavioral correction for himself as, in his opinion, an effective way of learning these things. But on the other hand, he knew that once Sherlock had set his mind on something, it was hard to dissuade him.
So he would have no choice but to think about it.
He sighed again.