Breaking Christmas 17: The Landlady and the Detective Sergeant
Inspired by the Seasonal Fucking Cheer Ficathon 2016. Set in my Breakable universe but can also stand alone.
For the prompts: How Mrs. Hudson spends New Year’s Eve and I barely know you, but holiday circumstances have forced us to spend a lot of concentrated time together
Of course Sally had to work on New Year's Eve. Of course she did. Greg had invited her to the party he was hosting, but that was before he made up the schedule for the week. He'd apologized a couple of times when she came in for her shift today, saying he needed someone reliable on duty while most of the department was getting drunk and kissing each other at midnight, then he'd knocked off early to get his house ready for the party.
Anyway, it was a quiet night. Plenty of petty crime but nothing serious enough to warrant Sally's attention. After a couple of hours of sitting around she decided to pass the time by taking another look at the Hendrickson case—it had been pushed to the back-burner but something about the brother-in-law's alibi had never sat right with her. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and thumbed through the tabs on the file folders until she found the right one. It was thinner than she remembered, though, and when she pulled it out and opened it up she discovered why. All of the photos of the crime scene and half of the interview notes were gone, replaced by a yellow sticky note. Timeline is off. Will return pics when solved. Probably Tuesday. SH. He needn't have left his initials—she recognized his handwriting and who else would've stolen her case file right out of her desk drawer?
She sighed and pushed the drawer closed with her foot. She had no intention of sitting around and waiting for Sherlock to solve her case for her. Not that she wasn't glad he was back to helping out the Yard again—their number of cases solved had dropped precipitously last spring, when John had first been hurt and Sherlock had been too preoccupied to do anything but worry about him—but he could've just asked for a copy of the file instead of stealing it.
She stood up and grabbed her coat from the rack. "I'm running out for a half-hour or so. Wilson, you're in charge. Call me if anything happens, though I doubt there'll be anything more than drunken fistfights and cars sliding off the road tonight."
Wilson raised his hand in acknowledgement without taking his eyes off the game of solitaire he was playing on his computer. Sally shook her head and left for Baker Street.
She knew Sherlock wouldn't be home—he and John would be at Greg's party, the gits. Their landlady answered the buzzer when she rang it, though. Sally was slightly disappointed that she didn't get to pick the lock, as retaliation for him stealing her file.
"Oh, Sergeant Donovan. The boys aren't in right now, they went to a party."
"Yeah, I know. Greg's party. Everyone's there except they left me to do all the work. And Sherlock stole the case file I need. Can you let me in?"
Mrs. Hudson was more than happy to oblige, stepping aside to let Sally into the foyer and then motioning toward the lift on the right instead of the stairs. Sally had been here a handful of times since the lift had been installed, but this was the first time she'd been in it. It seemed a bit like an invasion of John's private space, given that she didn't need to use it herself, but Mrs. Hudson seemed quite comfortable with the idea, chattering away as they were carried upstairs. "It's been a godsend for my hip, you know. Never would've thought to install such a thing on my own, but every building should have one. I know it cost Sherlock a fortune, but he wouldn't let me help out at all. Said his family had plenty of money, which I guess explains how he's always had such nice suits. Hmm, here we are now."
The lift dinged and the doors folded open. The dog, Stonewall or whatever his name was, was waiting for them as they stepped out into the flat, but once he realized they didn't have treats or a leash he seemed to lose interest in them. Honestly if she'd ever imagined Sherlock and John with a pet it would've been something a lot more ferocious than an overweight bulldog.
Mrs. Hudson kept talking as Sally headed for the desk that seemed the most likely place for Sherlock to have left her file. "This is the first time the boys have gone out on New Year's Eve in all the years they've lived here, you know. I don't blame them really, I think they both deserve to celebrate after surviving this past year. Sherlock as much as John, maybe even more so. I was really worried about him for a while, there, wasn't sure what he might do. John's always been more level-headed, so I knew he'd be all right. It was such a relief when they got married, and such a beautiful ceremony. I mean, it was simple, really, just a few of us there for witnesses but the two of them—"
Sally tried to keep listening, nodding and agreeing in the right places, but she was starting to understand Sherlock a bit more. If Mrs. Hudson talked this much all the time, no wonder he'd developed his habit of tuning out most of what people said. She shifted a pile of paper from one side of the desk to the other, wondering if she should bother trying not to make it any more of a disaster than it already was.
"Do you need some help finding your papers? Sherlock's got it such a mess in here again. You should've seen how nice it looked in the spring, right when John first came home. Spotless, it was, not a speck of dirt after all the workmen left. Didn't last long, of course, though at least Sherlock doesn't clutter up the floor like he used to. Neither of them ever dusts, though. And the dog hair!" Mrs. Hudson threw up her hands and then pointed over to a stack of papers and books in front of one of the windows. "Maybe in that pile over there."
Sally stepped around the desk to the pile at the window. She would've sworn none of this clutter had been here two weeks ago when she'd been here for the Christmas party, although her eggnog consumption that night had been high enough to make it all a bit of a blur. She moved a large psychology textbook off the top of the stack and saw the missing pictures from her case. "This is it," she said, picking them up. The folder beneath them looked familiar, too. "And here's another file—he must've gone through my whole drawer, the sneaky bastard."
"Oh, he means well, dear," Mrs. Hudson. "He just likes to keep himself entertained, especially when John's at work. Stealing your files is a lot better than most of the alternatives. Come back downstairs with me and have a cuppa?"
Sally shook her head. "Thank you, but I really need to get back to work."
Mrs. Hudson nodded. "I have to get ready myself. I've got a date to ring in the new year with Mr. Chatterjee. We're going dancing!"
Sally smiled and nodded and tried not to picture that at all as Mrs. Hudson kept talking. "It's the first time in years he's spending the evening with me instead of one of his wives. They're both younger than I am but let me tell you, I could still show them a thing or two on the dance floor. Back in my day I— Oh, don't look so scandalized, dear. I'm not the first woman to date a married man."
Sally looked down at the floor, but felt she had to reply so Mrs. Hudson would know her expression had been less disapproval and more simple surprise. "No, you're certainly not. Sometimes it makes things easier, even, doesn't it?"
"Oh, yes. You understand. After my husband Frank got the death sentence I vowed never to get tangled up like that again—the legal problems! As if I had anything to do with those murders or all the drugs. They wanted to take all my money away! I'm lucky Sherlock was there to help out."
Sally resolutely pushed every question out of her mind. It was none of her business, and if she started asking questions Mrs. Hudson would doubtless talk even more and she'd never get back to work. She thanked Mrs. Hudson and wished her well on her date, then left the flat, resolving that as soon as she got back to the office she was going to put in her vacation request for next year, to make sure that she wouldn't be the only person stuck having no fun on New Year's Eve.
-Read all the ficlets here: Breaking Christmas
