Painting Murders - (A Sherlock fanfic)

Terrorise my house

St Paul's tube station was surprisingly empty save for a few business men in suits. There weren't many non-official looking people wandering around and there were no tourists to obstruct me as I passed through the barrier, swiping the Oyster card nervously just invade there was no credit on it. The barrier opened easily though and I passed through, following the markings for the Central line.

The train wasn't busy but at my interchange onto the Bakerloo line there were suddenly more people.

Paddington station was busy but I didn't have a problem getting out and into the fresh, open air.

I walked down the roads, past early morning joggers and people going to work. There was minimal traffic on the back roads which was nice and I didn't have to move out of the way of vicious pedestrians. Even the few cyclists I came across didn't try to run me down. Life was nice at this time in the morning. It was a shame it was such a uncivilised hour.

I was contemplating Sherlock's discovery of the kind of paint used when I turned into my street and stopped dead.

The street was normal, in fact it was eerily quiet since everybody was either still in bed or had already left to go to work.

What wasn't normal were the two back cars parked outside my house: big, shiny new Range Rovers. There were the four men in suits stood by them and then behind the Range Rovers, just tucked nicely out of my line of sight was a black Jaguar that looked all too familiar.

I tried to fight the urge to just walk away, run and call Sherlock. But then I realised that there was precious little that he'd be able to do and running wouldn't help matters. Plus my Dad was home and probably needed me there.

I walked determinedly down the street, trying my hardest to will myself into being invisible. As I got closer one of the men in a suit spotted me and said something to the man next to him. The second man nodded then radioed something using a walkie-talkie that he took from his belt.

I flexed my hands then shoved them into my pockets to stop them from shaking.

"Morning, Gents." I said as I got within earshot of them. The middle man, who was also the tallest, nodded to me then gestured to my front door.

"In there, miss." He ordered. I frowned.

I didn't like being ordered around - and I especially didn't like being directed to enter my own house as if it were my cell I had to get back to.

I complied though, disinterested in causing a fuss.

Pushing my front door open, I wasn't really surprised to find another man in a suit stood in the hallway like some kind of body guard. I rolled my eyes before chucking my coat at him.

"Thanks, Butler." I said bitterly, "Just hang it there." I gestured to the coat peg next to me before wandering into the house to finding Dad stood in the kitchen carefully stirring coffee mug.

Sat at our kitchen table like he owned the household was Mycroft Holmes.

He fixed his sharp, watery eyes on me and offered a far from friendly smile, "Ah! Good morning, Miss Sapphire." He said. He reminded me of a shark eyeing up its dinner.

I couldn't help but snarl slightly and looked over to my Dad who didn't turn around. Obviously this was a meeting between me and Mycroft that dad wasn't to be involved in but was instructed to stay in the kitchen anyway.

I pulled out a chair, scraping it noisily, and sat down, not breaking eye contact as I did so.

"Mr Holmes." I said trying not to sound overly bitter.