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Needing a quiet place to think and a bit of caffeine, Lestrade ducked into Ratiocination fifteen minutes before its closing time, expecting to have the place to himself. He was mistaken on both counts.
"Nescafé? Nescafé?" Sherlock was shouting, berating some poor sod. "Have you seriously stepped into my establishment and ordered what is laughably referred to as instant coffee yet again?"
The customer in question was an elderly gentleman, perhaps somewhere between seventy and eighty if Lestrade had to guess, and wearing threadbare trousers, a rather overly large mackintosh and had a pair of spectacles perched on his head. With a loud sigh, Lestrade walked over and prepared himself to intercede on the man's behalf. "Sherlock," he began, only to have his interruption waved away by Sherlock.
"As I have told you before, Mr. Higginbottom, brown, granular gravy-water is not, and never should be, considered coffee." He looked at Lestrade briefly before continuing, his tone oddly kind, "However, I do concede that perhaps some people enjoy a more bitter and watery brew so I shall endeavour to prepare such a drink for you."
Lestrade raised his eyebrows, surprised at the response; it was one that could practically be considered polite, which was not something he had expected from his previous association with Sherlock. Slightly alarmed, but no longer worried this Mr. Higginbottom would get upset and drop dead of a heart attack in front of him, Lestrade stuck his hands in his pockets and waited quietly for Sherlock to finish whatever it was he was preparing and waited his turn.
"Here you go," Sherlock said a few moments later, handing over a large cup. "Your usual. Good night, Mr. Higginbottom."
"Thank you, Wilfred." Mr. Higginbottom's hands shook ever so slightly as he took a long sip. "Such a nice boy," he murmured as he turned and headed out of the café.
"That was," Lestrade paused, trying to find the right word, "nice," he decided on, managing to say it without any sarcasm or reproach. It was probably the first compliment he'd given Sherlock that wasn't coffee related.
"Mr. Higginbottom is a regular. I labour under the false hope that one day I can alter his opinion as to what is a proper coffee. Until then," Sherlock shrugged. "I shall continue to serve him an approximation of what he needs and therefore desires, a caffè lungo."
"What's a caffè lungo?" Lestrade had never heard of it before.
"A caffè lungo, lungo being Italian for long, of course, " Sherlock began to explain as he turned around and busied himself making Lestrade's drink. "Is prepared by using double the amount of water to make an espresso. The pull is usually a full minute— that extra length of time is how the drink acquired its name— but by having the additional hot water pass through the ground coffee it extracts components that would normally remain undissolved and the resulting drink is less strong and more bitter."
Deciding that was much more information than he had a hope of processing this late at night, Lestrade chose to ignore it all and instead, since Sherlock was already preparing a drink for him, ask, "So, Sherlock, what do I need tonight?"
"What you need is to catch the pickpocketing priest that has been working near Melcombe Street these past three months."
"Pickpocketing what? Yeah, I'll give you that there have been a slightly higher number of purse-snatchings and reported incidents of pickpocketing in that area than average lately, but a priest? Where did you get such an idea?"
"Quite simply, I pay attention. I read the newspapers. I listen to the gossip people bring into my shop. Really, Lestrade, how you expect to ever move up from Detective Sergeant to Detective Inspector is beyond me; you see but you do not observe."
"Well, it's a good thing I've you for that then, isn't it, Sherlock?"
"It is indeed," Sherlock responded, turning to face Lestrade and holding out a large cup. "Hazelnut mocha. And don't give me that look-"
"What look?"
"That look. It's the most sensible drink for you, given your current situation. You've been up since four this morning and only had a packet of crisps since working that mugging at the Baker Street tube station early this afternoon. Considering you need to leave within the next," he checked his watch, "six minutes to catch the pickpocketing priest in the act, there is no time for me to make you a panini or something similar of its ilk, but you are in need of the calories and caffeine a hazelnut mocha will provide."
"Six minutes?"
Sherlock nodded. "If he follows his pattern, yes."
"Making an arrest like that would be the feather in my cap." Lestrade slugged down a large gulp of the mocha, grimacing at the taste and hurried to the door. "Thanks, Sherlock," he called over his shoulder as he took off running in the direction of Melcombe Street, "for the drink and for the information!"
"Yes, it would indeed," Sherlock said to himself as he started to clean the counter. "And exactly what you needed, just like I knew it would be."