A wholock story

Chapter 5

It was the next day before Sherlock and John could do anything about their unanswered questions. They had been sat over breakfast when Sherlock received a text from the detective inspector with the last known address of the most recent victim.
20 minutes later and the two were buttoning up their coats in a race to get out of the door.
Like always, Sherlock successfully hailed a cab and within 2 minuets of leaving their flat, they were sat in a comfortably warm cab on their way to this mysterious destination.

When they finally arrived, they stepped out the cab to see an ordinary looking house staring back at them.
The outside walls were painted an off white colour, the windows looked clean and the garden looked nicely pruned.
Nothing was out of the ordinary.

The boys walked up to the front door and were pleasantly surprised to find it unlocked. Carefully pushing the door open, Sherlock entered into the hall of the house. Contrary to the exterior of the building, the inside could only be described as a tip. It looked as though absolutely everything was everywhere. There were hundreds of books that had clearly been in neat piles until they were knocked all over the floor, in the living room nothing was standing upright; it was either on its side or smashed to pieces on the floor.

"Looks like someone's already been here." John remarked, peering into an open cupboard that was hanging precariously off the wall at an odd angle.

"Humm, no" Sherlock replied, turning a book over on the floor with the toe of his shoe, reading the title and then moving on.

"No?"

"No. If this place had been searched then they must have been here for at least 2 days to create this much mess. But it's too rash, to hurried. Look at it, the place has been torn to shreds but it could have only happened in a matter of minutes. No, no ones broken in, but someone may have broken out." Sherlock deduced, poking his head through a smashed window before turning to the side and positioning his fist at different angles, trying to work out which direction it was hit from.

"Ok. So someone's got out. Like a prisoner or something?" John theorised aloud, trying to prompt the detective to tell him more.

"Maybe. But actually, i think it looks more like a struggle, like someone's been chased round the house, trying to get away from something..."

The detective trailed off as he entered the next room, leaving John in the living room rolling his eyes before going after him. He found the sleuth in the adjoining kitchen surrounded in a sea of pots and pans and broken dishes. He was stood still almost in the centre of the room, staring downwards at the floor. John walked up to him with the intent of asking him why he had stopped but the answer was obvious as soon as he drew level with his friend.

At the feet of the two men was a patch of floor. Nothing out of the ordinary but it was completely clean. Spotless in fact. Absolutely none of the chaos that surrounded them had touched this patch which was no more than 0.5 meter square. Sherlock crouched down, whipping his magnifying glass from his coat as he pored over the floor.
He stood up again not a minute later, moved over to another area, cleared a patch of floor and repeated his search. This behaviour continued for a good 5 minuets until there were at least 10 much smaller areas of clean floor around them.

"Well?" John asked.

"Nothing." Sherlock growled, his coat swishing as he turned quickly and made his way towards the stair case in the hallway, "Every single patch is exactly the same. Same flooring, same cleaning product. All of it, as clean as if it had only just been laid."

"The only difference being the lack of mess on that particular patch." John finished.

Sherlock hummed in agreement as he reached the stairs and began to climb.
When they reached the top, Sherlock turned right into a small bedroom. By the looks of things, the struggle had only ensued downstairs. Everything was neat and well kept, as though it had never been touched. John raised his eyebrows at the apparent expense of the room before entering after Sherlock, however he didn't have time to admire the collection of riches in the room before Sherlock piped up again.

"John, I need you to go back downstairs and cover up those patches I made with the things on the floor but don't cover up the main patch."

"What?" John scoffed, "you never care how you leave a crime scene!"

"Yes I know, it was a clever lie to get you out the room while I was thinking. Now go and make it look like we were never here. Please." Sherlock snapped, softening his voice a little at the look on John's face.
Reluctantly the ex-soldier turned and thundered his way back downstairs and into the kitchen. Muttering explicit remarks about his friend under his breath, he kicked and tossed the stuff all over the floor back into place, being careful not to touch 'Sherlock's special spot'.

The job took him no more than 15 minutes and before long he was trudging his way back upstairs in a slightly better mood for having taken his anger out on the various pots and pans.
Peering into the bedroom where he had left his friend, he quickly noticed that he was no longer there and so moved onto the next room. This room just so happened to be another bedroom, but this time it seemed to be a lot more grand.
There was a large bed with perfectly polished accessories and decorations lining the walls. There was also a balcony overlooking what looked like the back garden.

Breathing deeply to inhale the smell of cleaning products with a slight hint of dust, John wandered through the room and out onto the painted white balcony.
Just as he expected, it overlooked another perfectly trimmed and well kept garden, with flowers lining the border and freshly cut grass. In the corner there was a small pond that could be crossed using the stepping stones which lead to a beautiful ornate statue surrounded with flowers and bushes. John smiled at the sudden but welcome tranquility of the place and closed his eyes as he breathed in the fresh air.

When he reopened his eyes a few seconds later, it was to see that Sherlock had somehow managed to creep up on him and was stood next to him on the balcony.

"Find anything?" John asked.

"Nothing much. The owner of the house seems to have left in quite a hurry. There was defiantly some sort of struggle judging by the mess downstairs and there's still that clean patch..." Sherlock pondered.

"Seriously? That's all you've got? A man was late for work and only had time to clean a tiny part of his kitchen?!" John humoured, knowing Sherlock was in a good enough mood to do so.

The detective looked over at his friend with a mock annoyed face, "If you want to call it that then yes, I suppose so." Sherlock played along, hoping that if he participated then it would be over soon.

"Come on then, let's go back to Baker Street and start again." John said, turning back to walk through the bedroom while Sherlock continued to look into the garden.
John had just reached the door when Sherlock suddenly called out in panic "John!"

"Yes Sherlock?" He said, turning round in the doorway to see the detective still looking over the edge of the balcony.

"The statue's moved." Sherlock said plainly, still craning his upper body over the railing of the balcony to look closer at the statue in the corner of the garden.

"Ha! I'm sorry what?" John laughed, not quite believing his ears.

"I notice everything John. That statue has moved." Sherlock replied, turning round to face his friend but still pointing at the stone sculpture.

"Yeah ok fine, it's moved. Fun prank. Now, can we get back to Baker Street and solve these disappearances?" John said, turning out the room and making his way downstairs.
The detective followed quickly behind him and soo enough they were stepping out the front door and onto the pathway leading them away from the house.

Just a few steps onto the pathway, Sherlock stopped dead in his tracks.

"What now Sherlock?" John asked, clearly fed up.

"There's something in that bush." Sherlock replied, keeping his voice at just above a whisper and pointing to a nearby bush that to John, looked completely normal.

"Are you joking?! Sherlock it's probably just a rabbit. Or do you think it's one of you're moving statues!?" John teased, stoping next to Sherlock before deeming it pointless and walking on towards the gate at the end of the pathway.

"John I notice everything, absolutely nothing gets past me- unless it's Mycroft- and both that statue and that bush moved." The detective argued, scurrying after John while still pointing back at the bush.

"Umm hummm. Look, when was the last time you went to sleep?"