The Consulting Hacker

Not Sherlock

Chapter Thirteen

Cate walked through the front door carrying shopping bags full of food. She shuffled through the hallway carefully trying not to trip over the bags. Mrs Hudson shut the front door after her.

"Maybe I should go back to shopping more often, so there's less stuff to carry back each time." Cate said. Mrs Hudson squeezed past Cate in the narrow hallway and proceeded to the door of her apartment.

"I think that would be best, this should just be a one off, do you want me to come with you when you do these smaller trips to the shop?"

"I think I'll be alright Mrs Hudson, where do you want me to put these?"

"Just on the table will be fine." At that moment, Sherlock began to come down the stairs, "Sherlock, come down and help Cate carry some of these bags into here."

"It's fine Mrs Hudson, I'm nearly done soon anyway."

"Exactly Mrs Hudson, she's doing perfectly fine, I don't want to hinder her, or stop her momentum."

"Sherlock, come down now, you can't make the poor girl do this, she came out of the hospital yesterday!" Sherlock openly sighed and stalked his way down the final steps. He tried to wrench the bags out of Cate's left hand. Cate held firmly on.

"Come on, pass it over, I'm busy." He hissed as he tugged once more at the bags to Cate's left, at that moment Cate let go, Sherlock quickly took a step back and recovered from his near fall, "You act like my brother, you're just a lot shorter." Cate smiled sardonically and carried on making her way towards Mrs Hudson. She walked into the kitchen and placed the bags on top of the table, Sherlock followed suit. Then as he placed the final bag down, he turned to Cate and said, "Where did you go to yesterday? After you left John and me." Cate absent-mindedly began to sift through the bags on the table and put the shopping into their designated cupboards.

"I don't believe that it's any of your business Sherlock." Cate stated.

"I'm just curious, why can't I know?"

"Sherlock, stop pestering her, she's got a right to keep her business to herself, she's been minding her own business for the past three years, trying not to disturb you. And as soon as you meet her, you act rudely and nose around her personal life."

"I'm just getting to know my newly-met neighbour that has been living in the floor below my apartment. I'm just curious how I haven't met her in three years. How come I've never seen you in the past three years?"

"She didn't want to interrupt your work, she knew how busy you were and didn't want to inconvenience you. If only people these days had as much consideration as her."

"Quite." He said as he looked at Cate as she continued to try and stuff some carrots into the already full vegetable box in the fridge.

"I thought you said you were busy, Sherlock," Cate called over her shoulder, "Shouldn't you be going now?"

"I will be going now." He turned and left.

--

Sherlock sat in the chair on the other side of Lestrade's desk, examining the files that were just given to him with a muttered 'freak' by Donavon.

"Is this all the information you have on them?" He asked.

"Yeah, there wasn't much to them, just regular citizens. Have you figured out anything yet?"

"I have a few theories."

"Have you found out anything else about Cate?" Sherlock didn't look up but kept examining pictures of the corpses that were in front of him.

"Not yet, shouldn't we be concentrating on this case more Lestrade?"

"Well, you were meant to find out about her two weeks ago, and we still don't have that much information on her. She has no police records and her own file is quite bare. It seems that she dropped out of school after her A-Levels with Bs, Cs and Ds."

"It seems that you've found quite a lot on your own Lestrade, I don't see why you need my help."

"Because you're bloody Sherlock Holmes, you know everybody's' life just by looking at them. What's different about Cate, why can't you do the same? She's the first person that I know of, that you have not been able to tell me their life story and their parent's life stories too." Sherlock began to get up.

"I think that we're done for today, Detective. I will text you."

"Text me when you find out more about Cate." Lestrade said. Sherlock pretended not to hear and carried on out of his office.

--

I AM ON FIRE!

LATERZ!

anonymouse8