His Empty Chair

Chapter 1

25th August 2017

Sherlock had been pacing up down the flat for over twenty minutes' now thinking out loud. "So why are you coming to me now after 5 years?"

Sherlock looked down at the very petite woman, she had obviously been under a lot of stress lately considering the bags under her eyes and how her clothes hadn't been washed in days.

"It's been five years I don't understand why you're worried he's dead and long gone now. Considering the state of your clothing he didn't lose all that much. Why didn't you contact me then?" John simply stared at Sherlock his eyes flickered over to John and they made eye contact.

"What John?" Sherlock didn't understand what the problem was he was just taking note of what was before him. Was it his timing?

"Seriously? Sorry about him, but why didn't you contact us, I mean it has been 5 years?" The small woman in the chair burst out into sobs and shook her head slightly. He then understood, sentiment.

Through her muffled wheezes and sobs she muttered "I know! But he was murdered and there was an investigation carried out but it went nowhere. The police gave up and my brother was never given any justice. Hayden wasn't the most honourable of men he didn't keep in the good books of the police but he was good to me. He'd always had a habit of disappearing and I wouldn't hear a word from him in months but..." she trailed off for a few seconds and took a great hiccoughing breath before continuing. "He was really close with my other brother, they kept in touch. It was him who found Hayden in the first place." Sherlock sighed rolled his eyes rather dramatically and kept pacing the room. John kept talking even though Sherlock was no longer listening. Why would she come to him now after so long and she had obviously been stressed for a long time but why wait so long. She didn't seem the type to get into the nasty business that her brother did, she did however smoke. Something wasn't adding up, her very dramatic sobs, the way her clothes were crumpled and dirty but almost intentionally. It was almost as if she was intentionally trying to grasp their attention. More importantly John's. But he casted his worries away in an attempt to concentrate. He could focus on that later.

Her brother by her description of him seemed to delight himself in all sorts of drugs, this affair with drugs most likely is what lead to his death. "Your brother is dead most likely either unable to pay his debts, so he was murdered by a rival of some sort. Boring NEXT." With that Sherlock strode from the room and went into the kitchen. The poor lady was left sat in her chair looking quite shocked and affronted by Sherlock's outburst and quite right in John's mind.

"I'm so sorry but you better leave..."

Interrupting, their client pushed her view, "But he was just found dead in his office, a bullet to the head the last thing I heard from him was that he was going to see his consultant,"

"And, he was probably trying to sort his debts," Sherlock waved his hand in the air in dismissal,

"Let me finish, he never had any legal affairs even though he was a lawyer and he was always going on about how great his consultant was and how he was going to fix everything." Sherlock halted his steps into the kitchen and spun around.

"Do you know his name?" Sherlock now walked towards her from the kitchen and stood very close and very still next to his client.

"His name was James..." at that moment there was a great bang from downstairs and heavy foot falls on the steps.

"Lestrade what is it?" John stood up quickly at the sight of Lestrade.

"We need you," Sherlock gestured wildly with his arms as if Lestrade couldn't be any broader on the subject "Well we're a bit stumped there's been a murder at the British museum." Sherlock rolled his eyes at this, his opinion was widely known for the polices' reputation.