9Again, the aunt thing is not a big point to the plot. I just had this idea for a little interaction between Jo and Lestrade.
Jo felt guilty for how callously she was taking this, but she and Aunt Jennifer had never gotten along. There had been some sort of tif between Jennifer and Jo's mother when Jo was small, and Jennifer had been hateful toward Jo and her family ever since. Jo hadn't even had a thought of her since just after she left for Afghanistan.
"Tell us about her," Lestrade ordered.
Jo took a breath to start, but was interrupted by a man's voice coming from the doorway. "She's German," the man said smugly. "Rache is German for revenge."
The dark-haired man stood and slammed the door in the skinny man's face.
"Yes, Anderson, thank you for your input."
Lestrade looked between Jo and the dark-haired man. "She's German?" He asked skeptically.
"Of course not," Jo said, at the same time as the dark-haired man. "She's from Cardiff."
The dark-haired man looked down his nose at Jo. "That's right," he said. "At least you're slightly useful and not sniveling like most others would be doing."
Jo blinked, not sure whether to take that as an insult or a compliment. Lestrade's exasperated expression told her it was a common occurrence.
The dark-haired man silently studied the body for another few seconds, rubbing his fingers along the dead woman's coat, poking around in her pockets and studying her hands and face, then flashed an odd grin at Lestrade and Jo.
"All right," he said, eyes flashing at Jo. "Let's see how much I got right.
"The victim is in her late thirties, a professional woman, most likely in the media, judging by her clothes. She lived in Cardiff,like you said earlier, where they've been experiencing heavy rain and winds, reason for the wet clothes and dry umbrella." The man showed Lestrade and Jo the mobile he'd typed a search into. It showed weather patterns around the London area. Indeed, heavy rain and winds in Cardiff over the last few hours.
"She's been married for at least ten years, but not happily. She's had a string of lovers, although know of them knew she was married." Another glance at Jo, who was staring with astonishment. "Correct?"
Jo nodded, impressed. "How did you do that?" She asked. "Everything. You got everything. And frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Jennifer had been cheating on her husband. She did that kind of thing. How do you come by that conclusion?"
"Her jewelry," the man explained, studying Jo with an intense eye. "All of her jewelry has been regularly cleaned, but not her wedding ring. State of her marriage, right there. The ring is ten years old, at least, and the inside is shinier than the outside, so she removes it regularly. The only polishing it gets is when she works it off her finger. It's not for work, look at her fingernails. If she doesn't remove her rings for work, why does she remove them? Not just one lover, she'd never manage to maintain the fiction of bring single that long, so a string of them. Obvious."
Jo huffed admiringly. "Wow," she said. "That's amazing. So you're a detective, then?"
The man nodded, seeming surprised at something. "That's correct. Now, there's a woman lying here dead, let's continue. Now, what's R-A-C-H-E? It's not German, that's for sure, it's-"
"Rachel!" Jo cried excitedly as it clicked. "Rachel was my cousin. Or at least-"
"Was?" The man questioned, interrupting Jo, some sort of manic excitement gleaming in his eye. "She's dead? How, when, and why? Is there a connection? There has to be a connection."
The man had stepped closer to Jo until he was standing right in front of her. Being the soldier Jo was, she didn't flinch or back away at his nearness, but she was surprised at how tall the slender man really was. The top of Jo's head barely hit his shoulder.
"I wouldn't think there's a connection," Jo said, eyeing the man warily, but still standing strong. "Rachel was my aunt's daughter. She was stillborn, about fourteen years ago."
The man frowned and stepped away, muttering to himself. "Continuing on, we know by the size of the victim's suitcase that she was only planning on staying in London one night. This wasn't a suicide, it was a murder, Lestrade. I need the files for the other victims."
"Hold up a minute, Sherlock," the silver-haired detective inspector said, pinching his brow. "What's all this about a suitcase?"
The dark-haired man, now identified as Sherlock, frowned and gestured at the dead woman, frustration bleeding through his voice. "Her suitcase. Where's her suitcase? Did she eat it? We know she had one. There are tiny splash marks on her heel and calf, you don't get that splash pattern any other way. So what've you done with her suitcase?"
Lestrade looked confused. "Sherlock," he said, "there was no suitcase."
Sherlock stilled. He bounded across the room and threw open the door. "Has anyone seen a suitcase?" He called over the railing. When no one answered, Sherlock pounded down the stairs.
"Wait a moment!" Lestrade shouted, affronted. "There was no case!"
"But they take the poison themselves!" Sherlock stressed, hands wringing the air. "They chew, swallow the pills themselves. There are clear signs. Even you lot couldn't miss them."
"Right, yeah, thanks," Lestrade growled. "And...?"
"It's murder, all of them," Sherlock said. "I don't know how, but they're not suicides, they're killings – serial killings."
Jo watched with morning interest as Sherlock twitched, holding his hands in front of his face in delight. This man was one of the oddest people she'd ever met, and she'd met plenty of interesting people in Afghanistan.
Sherlock was speaking again, pacing back and forth on the second landing. "We've got ourselves a serial killer." He grinned. "I love those. There's always something to look forward to."
"Why are you saying that?" Lestrade asked, exasperated.
Sherlock looked back up at Lestrade and Jo, who were peering over the railing. "Her case! Come on, where is her case? Did she eat it? Someone else was here, and they took her case. So the killer must have driven her here; forgot the case was in the car."
"She could have checked into a hotel, and left her case there," Jo called.
Sherlock glanced up at her, his silvery eyes piercing hers. "No," he said, shaking his head, "she never got to the hotel. Look at her hair. She colour-coordinates her lipstick and her shoes. She'd never have left any hotel with her hair still looking…."
Jo frowned. "What is it?" She asked.
Sherlock's eyes widened and his face lit up with manic glee, clapping his hands in delight. "Oh! Ah, yes! Yes!"
Lestrade leaned over the railing, knuckles white. "What is it, Sherlock, what?" He asked angrily.
Sherlock grinned, teeth glinting in the low light. "Serial killers are always hard," he muttered."You have to wait for them to make a mistake."
"We can't just wait!" Lestrade cried.
"Oh, we're done waiting!" Sherlock calls, hurrying down the stairs. "Look at her, really look! Houston, we have a mistake. We have to find out why she wrote Rachel!"
Sherlock disappeared from view at the bottom landing.
"Of course, yeah," Lestrade muttered, exasperated. "But what mistake?!"
Sherlock poked his head back into view, staring up at them. "PINK!" He shouted, then disappeared again.
Lestrade, baffled and annoyed, stalked back toward Jo's dead aunt. A team of officers scurried back and forth, taking pictures and gathering evidence.
Jo awkwardly followed Lestrade, not sure if she was cleared to leave yet.
Lestrade was muttering as he carefully studied the body. His eyes flicked to Jo and back to the body.
"This woman is your aunt?" He asked Jo, stopping his pacing to stand in front of her.
Jo nodded. "That's right."
"Was she coming to your flat? Has she contacted you recently?"
"No, to both questions," Jo said, narrowing her eyes to squint at the Detective Inspector. Was he insinuating what she thought he was? "Hold up a minute. Are you suggesting that I murdered my own aunt? I had nothing to do with this! I haven't talked to her in years!"
Lestrade opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the buzz of an incoming text on his mobile. Lestrade sighed and checked the message. "No," he said, sighing and rolling his eyes. "You're free to go. Please give your mobile number to Donovan downstairs, in case we need to contact you later. Thanks for your cooperation. Good day."
With that, Lestrade stalked away, running a hand through his silvery hair.
Jo frowned, wondering who the text had been from, and why it had stopped Lestrade's questions.
She decided that she didn't care as her leg twinged violently.
Jo limped down the stairs, leaning on the rail as her leg reminded her of its constant and painful presence.
Jo was nearly hopping on one foot by the time she hurried into her bedsit and collapsed onto the mattress. She groaned as she rubbed the area just below her hip. She needed a hot water bottle and her pain medications.
Even though it was only early afternoon, the heavy grey clouds and Jo's exhaustion made it seem much later.
After a quick cup of tea and a slice of toast, she crawled between the bedsheets, unwilling to take the trouble of showering.
She drifted to sleep almost immediately.
And it seemed that almost immediately, she was being awoken again.
Someone was pounding on her door.
Jo was wide awake immediately, silently rolling out of bed, her fingers wrapping around the gun she kept in the box under her bed.
Jo pulled on the jumper she'd dropped on the floor earlier, yanked on a pair of denims, and silently stalked to the door. There was no peephole, but she could see the hall light bleeding through the crack under the door.
Jo opened the door a crack, holding her gun carefully behind her back. A tall figure peered back at her.
Jo was surprised to recognize the detective who had been investigating her aunt's death earlier in the day. Sherlock Holmes. "Good evening, Miss Watson," he said.
"Did you need something?" Jo asked cautiously, still peeking out from behind the door. She tucked her gun in the waistband of her pants, nestling it against the small of her back.
"May I come in?" Holmes asked.
"No," Jo scoffed. "I'm not going to let some strange man into my home. We don't know anything about each other."
"I wouldn't say that's true," Holmes said. Jo could almost hear the smug smirk in his voice. "I know you're an Army doctor and you've very recently been invalided home, from either Afghanistan or Iraq. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp is psychosomatic. Quite correctly, I'm afraid. Also, I know you have trust issues. Had a bad experience with men. Possibly with people in general."
For a moment, Jo stared, open-mouthed, before standing up straight and opening the door further.
"How the hell did you know that?" Jo asked.
Jo could actually see the smirk now.
"I didn't know," Holmes said loftily. "I saw."
"What the hell does that mean?" Jo asked. Holmes shrugged, smiled, and skipped past Jo into her bedsit.
He hurried to the tiny table and set something on it with a thud.
Jo was outraged. How dare he just waltz into her home like he owned the place? Who did he think he was?
Jo marched toward Holmes and was about to grab the upturned collar of his coat and drag him out of her house when she noticed what was sitting on the table.
It was a small, bright pink suitcase.
"Is that… the suitcase you were blabbing about earlier?" Jo asked, cautiously taking the only other chair at the table, across from Holmes. "Aunt Jennifer's case?"
Holmes glanced up at her, raising an eyebrow. "Yes. Mind if I take a glance in here? I'm sure Lestrade is already snooping at my flat."
"Why is Lestrade at your flat?" Jo asked, eyes straying curiously to the suitcase on the table.
"Ah… doesn't matter. He just enjoys snooping."
Holmes ignored her curious look and unzipped the suitcase, folding the top back, and rooting quickly through the contents.
There was nothing extraordinary about the contents, at least, not to Jo's eyes. Just a lot of pink clothes.
But apparently, Sherlock could see something more. He grinned and his piercing eyes met Jo's. He stared at her for a moment, and Jo uncomfortably pulled her jumper's collar higher.
"All right," Holmes said, leaning back, and pointing both index fingers at the case. "Do you see what's missing here?"
"What? How could I?"
"Her phone," Holmes told Jo. "Where's her mobile phone? There was no phone on the body, there's no phone in the case. We know she had one – that's her number there." Holmes pointed to the luggage tag on the case's handle. "And speaking of, I need to borrow yours."
Jo frowned, confused at the sudden change of direction. "Why? You have your own mobile. You used it back at the crime scene. I saw. Is it dead, or something? And how did you know I lived here?"
"No, no," Holmes said flippantly, waving a hand. "Don't want to use mine. Number's on my website. Don't want it to be recognized. And Lestrade texted me your address when I told him I needed to speak with you in person."
"Website?" Jo asked, frustrated at how far behind she seemed to be. "What the hell is it that you actually do?"
Holmes studied her, curious amusement playing across his angular features. "What is it you think I do?" He asked.
Jo shook her head. "I don't know! If I had to guess, I'd say detective, but as you aren't in uniform, and you're avoiding the Detective Inspector, I'd say you aren't official. Private detective, maybe?" Jo shrugged. "I've never heard of the police consulting private detectives, though."
Holmes scoffed. "I'm not a private detective. I'm a consulting detective. Only one in the world. I invented the job."
"What does that mean?" Jo asked.
"It means when the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me."
Jo smirked. "The police don't consult amateurs."
Holmes threw her a look.
"When you answered the door earlier, you looked surprised at what I told you. You also seemed surprised by my deductions about your aunt at the crime scene."
"Yes," Jo nodded. "How did you know those things?"
Holmes grinned. "I told you, I didn't know, I saw. Your haircut, rather short and stiff for woman your age, suggesting it was recently a buzz cut, along with the way you hold yourself, says military.
"The way you behaved at the crime scene, the fact that you were a first responder, and your rather extensive first-aid kit, says doctor, or nurse, at least. So army medic. Obvious. Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists. You've been abroad, but not sunbathing. You limp when you walk but you don't favor your left leg when you stand, like you've forgotten about it, and you didn't have your cane-" he pointed to the hated object leaning against the wall, "-at the crime scene, so it's at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic. Wounded in action, then. Wounded in action, suntan – Afghanistan or Iraq."
"You said I had a therapist."
"You've got a psychosomatic limp – of course you've got a therapist. Now, may I borrow your phone?"
Jo, now more shocked than angry, slapped her mobile into Holmes's outstretched hand.
Holmes gave it a seemingly instinctive inspection. "Oh, now this is interesting," Holmes murmured. "Your phone is expensive, e-mail enabled, MP3 player, but look where you're living – you wouldn't waste money on this. It's a gift, then."
Holmes flipped the phone between his hands, examining it in the low light. "Scratches, many over time," he said. "It's been in the same pocket as keys and coins. The woman sitting across from me wouldn't treat his one luxury item like this, so it's had a previous owner. Next bit's easy. You know it already."
Jo, excitement bubbling in her stomach, nodded. "The engraving."
Holmes nodded as well, grinning again. "Harry Watson: clearly a family member who's given you his old phone. Not your father, this is a young man's gadget. Could be a cousin, but you're a war hero who can't find a place to live. Unlikely you've got an extended family, certainly not one you're close to, so brother it is. Now, Clara. Who's Clara? Three kisses says it's a romantic attachment. The expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. She must have given it to him recently – this model's only six months old. Marriage in trouble then – six months on he's just given it away. If she'd left him, he would have kept it. People do – sentiment. But no, he wanted rid of it. He left her. He gave the phone to you: that says he wants you to stay in touch. You're obviously strapped for cash, but you're not going to your brother for help: that says you've got problems with him. Maybe you liked his wife; maybe you don't like his drinking."
Jo shook her head. "All right, how can you possibly know about the drinking?"
Holmes's grin widened. "That was a shot in the dark. Good one, though. Power connection: tiny little scuff marks around the edge of it. Every night he goes to plug it in to charge but his hands are shaking. You never see those marks on a sober man's phone; never see a drunk's without them.
Holmes gestured to Jo. "There you go, Miss Watson, you see – you were right."
Jo frowned. "Right about what?"
"The police don't consult amateurs."
There was a second where Jo could say nothing, and Holmes seemed nervous.
"That ... was amazing."
Holmes seemed surprised. It took him four seconds to answer. "Do you think so?"
"Yeah, it was extraordinary!" Jo smiled.
Holmes still seemed surprised. "That's not what people normally say. Normally they say something more along the lines of 'piss off.'"
Jo burst into laughter, leaning her forehead against the table.
Holmes laughed as well, although his laughter seemed a bit less hysterical.
It took Jo a full thirty seconds to regain control of herself.
She breathed heavily as she levered herself up, chuckling again at the Holmes's face, which was bright red.
Taking her phone from Holmes's grasp, Jo examined it, amazed that something so simple as a few scratches could say so much.
"So was the only reason you wanted to see my phone was to show how amazing you are?" Jo asked.
Holmes snapped out of his surprised daze. "Of course not," he said. "I need you to send a text. These words exactly: What happened last night? I must have blacked out. 22 Northumberland Street. Please come. -Jenny Wilson."
Jo paused in the middle of typing the text. "You… want to text my dead aunt's phone?" Jo stared at Holmes. "Why?"
"It's not here, is it?" Holmes asked, gesturing widely at the pink suitcase on the table. "So where is it?"
Jo shrugged. "Maybe she left it at home."
Holmes huffed. "She has a string of lovers and she's careful about it. She never leaves her phone at home. Have you sent it?"
Jo shook herself. "Ah… what number?"
Holmes read a string of numbers off to Jo and then closed his eyes, pressing his palms together under his chin.
Jo sent the text, set the phone on the table, and then stared at the odd man in front of her.
"So why did I just send that text?" Jo asked.
Holmes took a long, deep breath as he opened his eyes. "Well, the question is: where is her phone now?"
"She could have lost it," Jo theorized.
Holmes nodded, closing his eyes again. "Yes, or…?"
Jo blinked. "The murderer…" Jo murmured. "You think the murderer has the phone?"
Holmes shrugged, slouching lower in his chair. "Maybe she left it when she left her case. Maybe he took it from her for some reason. Either way, the balance of probability says the murderer has her phone."
Jo threw her hands in the air. "Right! So I just texted a murderer! What good will that do?"
Jo startled as her mobile buzzed loudly against the tabletop. "It says 'withheld calling.'"
Holmes grinned. "A few hours after his last victim, and now he receives a text that can only be from her. If somebody had just found that phone they'd ignore a text like that, but the murderer… would panic."
Jo swallowed as the phone stopped ringing, staring down at the mobile as though it was possessed.
Jo glanced up at Holmes as he flipped the suitcase lid closed and stood. "Have you talked to the police?"
"Four people are dead," Holmes said. "There isn't time to talk to the police."
"So why are you talking to me?" Jo asked.
"You're closer than Victor Trevor at my flat," Holmes said, shrugging and glancing around at Jo's bedsit. She wondered if he was seeing other details of her life in the things lying about.
"Who's Victor Trevor?" Jo asked. "Is he your work partner or boyfriend or something?"
Holmes wrinkled his nose. "Oh, no, people, not really my area. Victor Trevor is my skull."
Jo blinked. "A skull. All right." She paused for a moment. "Wait, are you saying that you talk to a skull? And that I'm basically filling in for that skull?"
Holmes nodded. "Relax, you're doing fine." Holmes stalked toward the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. Jo just stared.
"Well?" Holmes asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well what?" Jo asked slowly.
"Well, you could just sit there and do nothing," Holmes said.
Jo cocked her head, staring at Holmes. "What, you want me to come with you?"
"I like company when I go out," Holmes explained, "and I think better when I talk aloud. The skull just attracts attention." Holmes paused for a beat. "Could be dangerous."
Jo shook her head. Holmes was such a conundrum. So interesting… different… exciting. "You enjoy this, don't you?" Jo asked.
Holmes shrugged nonchalantly. "And you enjoy danger."
With that he turned and walked out, leaving the door to Jo's bedsit hanging open.
Jo sat for a moment, still as a statue. Her hands were perfectly steady, resting on the tabletop. She could feel her heartbeat, strong and steady, pounding in her chest.
With a loud curse, Jo pushed herself out of her chair, grabbed her cane, and followed Holmes out the door.
Thanks for reading! Please take a minute to review. I love them.
If you have any suggestions, comments, or suggestions, please tell me. This is self-beta-ed, so if there are any mistakes, please point them out and I will try to fix them.
Peace out. -Indigene Syke