Mrs Hudson climbed into the taxi, then slumped down against the seat, exhausted. She had been up all night cleaning and sorting rent arrangements with the middle age man downstairs. The tenant was annoyed at her husband for boosting the prices yet again... he even charged Sophie ridiculous amounts!!
Charles was barely ever in these days and couldn't be bothered to have any sort of reasonable discussion with their tenants, so she was always left to clear up the aftermath. God, that man annoyed her.
Her relationship with Charles was odd - she loved him, obviously, but sometimes she felt like he didn't love her in return. He was never in, he barely spoke to her -
Stop! she thought, mentally scolding herself. Sophie is in hospital and all you can think about is your relationship...
She had been so worried when Sherlock had turned up at her front doorstep with her poor niece in his arms. It had felt like her lungs had squeezed shut and she would never breathe again.
The cab finally arrived at the hospital. She paid the driver, got out of the taxi and set off at a brisk pace towards the hospital doors. The doors slid open automatically, peeling back to reveal the hospital foyer.
She strode through the crowd of people waiting for their appointments up to the empty visitor's desk. She rung the tiny bell urgently and a small man with spectacles appeared.
"Hello," he said. "Who are you here to visit?"
"My niece, Sophie Thompson," Mrs Hudson replied.
The man's face paled until he looked almost transparent. A jade green vein started to throb on his forehead, and he gulped before replying.
"Oh," he said. "We were just about to contact you."
"Why?" Mrs Hudson demanded. "What's happened to her?"
"Her and this other kid suddenly needed to leave. When they were told they couldn't, Sophie smashed a bottle of wine of the attending nurse's head," the receptionist explained. "Look, do you have any idea where they could have gone?"
"No," Mrs Hudson said. "But I intend to find out."
She stormed off into the hospital until she reached Dolphin Ward. Sure enough, an annoyed looking doctor was cleaning a pool of wine from the floor. As she rushed past, she heard him mutter something about "healing people not to clean booze off the damn floor".
Sophie's bed was empty, and some of her belongings had disappeared. It was then she noticed a ripped out notebook page on the floor by the chest of drawers. Upon further inspection, Mrs Hudson discovered a that there were several letters and numbers in handwriting that was definitely Sophie's scrawled all over the page. At the bottom of the page, however, were three words that actually made sense.
One Alfred Place
Shoving the page in her handbag, she ran out the ward and out of the hospital, out onto the street.
Hailing a cab, she climbed in as quickly as she could.
"Where to?" the driver asked.
"1 Alfred Place," she replied.
YOU ARE READING
Young Sherlock | School of Deduction (Book One)
Mystery / Thriller- COMPLETED - (To be edited.) Sherlock Holmes is far from your ordinary human being, and now he's moved to London he's realised that either he is exceptionally intelligent or that everybody else is exceptionally stupid. Maybe even both. But when h...
