A Hint Of Femlock - A Study In Pink

The Safety Of A Home

During the seven months back in England, Dr. Joan Watson had acquired three jobs. The first had been a failure; the small countryside town of where she had made acquaintance had not been to her liking, and the frequency of those who entered the clinic could be compared to the amount of ambitious scuba divers looking for a swim in a desert. The second had brought Joan to her home town of London, in her fourth month of residence in England. Dr. Watson had all the qualifications needed to get her almost any medical job within the country, but she just couldn't seem to fit back in with her old life before her enrolment in the army. The nightmares had been extraordinarily graphic and the violence that had forced her back home after twelve long years had had an effect on her everyday life. After her inability to sustain her second job, she had found herself in the centre of the city, full of bustling hoards of people, vehicles and businesses.

There were plenty of flats on offer to rent, but none in the city were at her ability to afford on an army pension. She knew she had to settle on a job. Running around the nation in search of a home that she would never properly adapt to was pointless. And it was at this decision to inhabit 221B Baker Street that the adventures she had hoped for could occur.

The landlady of the flat Dr. Watson had chosen was an older woman with short light brown curls and her name was Mrs Hudson. Her first name was Martha, but she preferred to be called by her second. Perhaps it was of some motherly nature. The room that Mrs Hudson showed Joan was a large living room blanketed in homely, red wallpaper, with a black and white antique looking wall contrasting the rest of the room. There was a large mirror above a fireplace that sat by a pair of comfy armchairs. In fact there were many pairs. Two windows. Two bedrooms.

"I was thinking of maybe letting out the other bedroom. What do you think about a roommate?"

Joan Watson had told her that she didn't mind. If they help pay the rent then why not?

Connected to the welcoming space was an airy kitchen, centred by a dining table and chairs. At the end of this was a short, pale green corridor leading to the bathroom and first bedroom. The second was upstairs.

Two days passed and Joan got hold of a job at the local GP's. The pay wasn't brilliant but whether it was good or not hadn't bothered her as much as she had expected. Two months passed and she found herself yet again questioning her worthless existence. There were patients, and there were other employees to talk to, but nothing exciting like...

This made her think. Was she missing Afghanistan? Was she missing the violence and the bloodshed and the pain? It was a cold January day. Actually, it was nearing the end of January, and Joan was also nearing the end of yet another boring day of work. One man with a sprained ankle, two kids with colds.

Holding her arm out, she called for a taxi. She watched its black shiny outline slow down by the pavement until it came to a stop by her feet. But to her surprise, instead of her hand reaching out for the door handle, she found it hitting concrete slabs. The pain from her shoulder erupted. Even at seven months in, the wound felt like it had just been shot yesterday.

Joan Watson cranked her head up from the ground and caught a glimpse of a woman with dark, wavy hair heaving herself into the taxi, her body covered by a long black coat. Then it sped away.

Back on her feet, and slightly huffed that no one offered to help her up, Joan dusted down her trousers. The sky was darkening but the rush of people heading home had only just begun. That woman must have really wanted to beat the crowd.

The burning in her shoulder had eased down to a warm stinging as she made her way into another taxi. Dr. Watson stared out the vehicle's window as it drove toward her intended destination. The cloudy sky had cast a dark shadow upon the land, only to be brightened by the occasional light of a nightclub or an overly luminous fast food chain. As each minute passed she drew further away from the barrier of youthful excitement and closer to the cosy glow of the lampposts on Baker Street. She paid the driver and stared up at the building. It was terraced and three storeys tall; it's entrance a shiny, deep black door with the characters "221B" plated in gold coloured metal. Beside it was a small cafe that Joan had spent lunch in three times. Unlocking the door, she walked into the corridor and immediately faced a set of stairs. The place smelt of Mrs Hudson's peculiar perfume, but there was something else in the air that day she couldn't determine.

Up the stairs, Joan stepped into her living room. The light was on; not how she left it when Joan had started for work, but Mrs Hudson did say she was going to do some dusting in the morning for some reason she had forgotten.

Dr. Watson had done most of her unpacking, but there was still on box sitting on the table by the window. Nestling into one of the armchairs, Joan noticed something gleaming from behind the box, and before she knew it curiosity took over. With a rather confused expression on her face, Joan found her laptop on, open on a dark blue website she had never seen before in her life, and as inquisitive as she was, had a compulsion to read its contents.

The page displayed a few paragraphs of prose containing what seemed to be a farfetched solution to a murder mystery. If Mrs Hudson wanted to read online, then surely she would have asked. The language was not complex and was easy to understand, written in close to note form, amusing even, but the guesses that the character had made were a little too coincidently correct. The ending read:

"Summary: Keith knew his brother was superstitious. He arranged for a friend to put a ladder there - knowing Jack would walk around it. There was a bottle of Scotch in the house which Keith had sent to Jack - knowing he wasn't much of a drinker. Jack drinks the whisky, gets drunk, goes for a walk, loose gravel, dark night - sees the ladder. Bad luck to walk under the ladder, so walks around it - into the pond where he drowns."

"Obviously." Joan said to herself sardonically.

Joan picked up her laptop and turned to the door to ask Mrs Hudson about her query, however stopped in her path when she saw another oddity in the flat. At first it had been a white blur as she spun her head toward the door, but at further examination she concluded it was anything but. Casually sitting upon the mantelpiece was a human skull.

Baffled by these strange occurrences, Joan Watson heard the steps on the staircase creak.

"Mrs Hudson," She called out to her landlady. "Why is there a skull on the mantelpiece?"

"I put it there."

Joan froze. The voice did not belong to Mrs Hudson.