Hampton Court Park
"Why, Sherlock? Why?", John complained, the back of his head propped up at the seat.
"Because we´ve got some work to do", his friend replied. Sherlock stared through the window into the darkness of the night, as if he could already see the crime scene.
John worked with Sherlock long enough, to know, what "work" meant to him. "Couldn´t we have waited for just one single day, Sherlock?". I have got more important things to do. "The corpses will stay dead anyway". What he said was crap, and he knew it.
Sherlock turned to him, a bit of surprise written on his face. "I didn´t know you were busy today", he said.
John felt like a volcano, just seconds before the big explosion. "Damn it, Sherlock. I was talking about nothing but this date for a week or so " It could have been wonderful. He had reserved a table at one of the noblest restaurants in London for Caroline and himself. It was expensive as hell, but it would have been worth it ten times over. "I mean, you just could have texted before".
Sherlock didn´t seem to understand. "I am sorry, it was an emergency". Sherlock wasn´t that good in apologizing. "And what´s better than ending a day with a good old murder?"
"Oh, I ensure you, I can come up with a lot of things", John growled. "And one of these things sits alone now back in the restaurant, because her date disappeared with his crazy best friend, because dead people are probably more interesting than her".
"I´m not crazy, I am a consulting detective". Sherlock sighed. "This isn´t your first ruined date. And you always found a new one. However you do that". How can a man that clever not spend one thought about what he´s going to say? "Although this one seemed to be pretty nice", he added.
This was enough. "Oh yes, she was", John answered, trying hard to not punch Sherlock in the face.
"What was her name again?", Sherlock asked half-interested. "No, wait…. Susan? Oh no, that was the one with brown hair… Bonnie? Amber?"
"Her name was Caroline". John pressed the name through the gab between his teeth.
Sherlock nodded, as he would remember the name. "And was she…"
"Shut up, Sherlock", John sight. "Or I swear to god I´m gonna kill you"
A grin appeared on his face. "You need to line up at the end of the queue of people wanting to kill me first", he said.
"What did I just said about shutting up?"
It took its time until John had calmed down. Sherlock had started to watch the dark outside the cabbie again.
"Where are we going anyway?", he asked, once his pulse had become normal again.
"Hampton Court Park. They pulled the corpse out of the River Thames", Sherlock answered, without even turning to him.
"How…?"
"Lestrade phoned me", he said, before John could finish the sentence. He took out his iPhone, as if John didn´t know what a mobile was.
Something was unusual about that. "I didn´t know world´s only consulting detective was responsible for these corpses", he said, slightly confused. "There is a bunch of this kind every day".
Although Sherlock´s face was turned to the other side, John didn´t miss the grin "Correct", he said "And what does that tell us?".
Sometimes Sherlock treated him like he wouldn´t get anything. "Because something is different this time and we´ve got a real murder and they need your help".
"Correct again. Very good deduction, Dr. Watson". And I want to hit him again.
"Sherlock!". He wasn´t in the mood for being mocked right now.
When the cab finally arrived at the entrance, the digital clock above the broken taximeter displayed 22:58. John opened the door and was welcomed by the cold night´s air and the smell of the River Thames.
"There's no better time for a murder than the hour before midnight", Sherlock called out with an enthusiasm, only he could get in this type of situation. He smacked the door powerfully. "And I´m pretty sure it´s going to be somewhat interesting this time".
"Do you actually listen to what you are saying?", John asked. And Sherlock ignored it.
"Hey psychopath, you have to pay!", the driver shouted angrily, as they turned to go.
"I always forget about that", Sherlock murmured, turning back to the cabbie "It´s 53,10 Pounds, right?".
The cabbie nodded and John checked, if the taximeter was really broken. It was.
"How?". He didn´t even tried to seem surprised.
"Actually it's pretty easy if you now London and the prices", Sherlock said. "May I borrow the money from you? You should have got left enough".
The whole park had been shut off by the police. Cars were standing everywhere and policemen with grim faces rushed in and out the park, the journalist right behind them shouting questions. "The press always knows first", Sherlock commented, as they tried to find a way through the amount of reporters.
They weren´t the only ones annoyed. "I ALREADY SAID: NO PRESS!", the brawny officer yelled at them, as they tried to enter the park. "HOW LONG DO YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT?".
"They are no press, Simon", the calm voice of a woman said, before the both of them could even react. John recognized the sergeant. Sally Donovan appeared out of the shades of the trees, a gloomy expression written on her face. "The inspector called for them. Let them pass".
Simon looked at them suspiciously, shrugged his shoulders and stepped aside.
"Thank you very much, sir", Sherlock said mockingly, without wasting one glance at the officer. He walked over to Donovan. "I didn´t know you were employing bouncers as well", he continued.
John heard the bouncer´s whispered 'Fuck off' quite good and hurried up to catch up to his partner.
The sergeant wasn´t in a good mood either. "Listen freak, this is not the time nor the place to make your little jokes", she told them, as they approached. Then she turned around and hasted toward the shore of the Thames. They followed.
Sherlock had never liked to obey such orders. "Why?", he asked, still grinning "I didn´t think of you as a humourless person. So why shouldn´t we talk? Just because this little murder ended your obviously erotic evening with Anderson?"
Donovan kept quiet for a second, and John knew Sherlock was right again.
She needed a moment to find the words. "I told you: Not the place, nor the time".
They were walking behind her, so John couldn´t see Donovan´s face became red, but he was pretty sure it was. Sherlock`s grin reached from ear to ear.
"Why aren`t we allowed to joke at a crime scene?", he continued "Just because of that one dead body?". Sherlock didn`t know when to stop. "Am I forbidden to joke at a graveyard as well? There are tons of dead people".
"Sherlock", John said slightly annoyed "actually, you´re not allowed to joke at a graveyard".
"Oh, am I?"
"NOT THE PLACE, NOT THE TIME!"
Inspector Lestrade was waiting for them. He seemed to be in the exactly same mood as his sergeant.
"The freaks you asked for", Donovan said.
Lestrade ignored her. "Thank you for coming, Sherlock", he said, shaking his hand. Then he saw John. "And your too, of course". John nodded.
Sherlock wasn`t interested in talking. "Shouldn`t we start?", he asked, rubbing his hands. "Where`s the poor child?"
John forgot to breathe for a moment. "A child?", he stuttered shocked. Sherlock and Lestrade nodded at the same time.
"A child… oh my… a dead child…" The words didn´t pass his lips. He felt sick. I need to sit down. He took a deep breath. "Sherlock… Why didn´t you tell me?"
"Lestrade didn´t tell me either", he said. He turned to the inspector again. "So, where is it?"
"Over there" Lestrade pointed behind him, where the Thames was.
"Well, we should start, shouldn`t we?"
The officer cleared his throat. "Yes, we should. Anderson will be waiting for us".
They found Anderson and his team beneath one of the old, tall oaks at the shore, just footsteps from the river. The grass was still wet; it had been raining the whole last night and morning. The moon had disappeared, and so the only lights were the flashlights of the cameras. The whole scene smelled of mud and decay.
"Holmes. Watson", the forensic welcomed them gravely. His face looked just as shocked as the ones of his co-workers. A part of the team was leaning at one of the oaks, whispering, and on their faces John could see the expression of the sickness he felt as well. He never realized that even forensics could be shocked that much by a dead child, although they had to work on corpses every day. Of course they are, he suddenly thought. I´m a doctor and a soldier, and I´m shocked as well. 'Shocked' isn´t even a word to describe it.
"What do we know?", Sherlock asked, and suddenly he whispered too. Even he is shocked.
Anderson bit his own lips. "A junkie found the corpse in the water, at 9.30 pm", he reported "Wanted to meet the dealer. He wasn´t there" He cleared his throat. "The girl was probably 12 years old, only reaching puberty. Black hair, wearing a white nightgown. A cheap one". John felt sick again. "Seems like she was in water for maybe ten hours".
Sherlock nodded slowly. "Drowned?", he asked.
Anderson didn`t answer. He just stepped beside, and pointed at the corpse. John hadn´t seen it lying there before. And he wished he never had.
The body, that had been a little girl once, was bloated and covered in mud and blood. The face was unrecognizable, run over by blood, with expressionless eyes. The torn nightie stuck at the skin, old and dirty.
John breathed heavily. Worse than Afghanistan.
"Shot", Sherlock determined. Something in his voice told John, that he didn`t feel too good either.
Anderson nodded. "Yes, she was". He squatted beside the girl, grabbing her at the shoulder and turned her around.
John immediately felt like he was going to vomit. Shocked he closed his eyes. The bullets had hit the girl`s back three times. The wounds reached deep into her body, so the organs and bones were pretty visible. Mud had mixed itself up with the blood.
Sherlock kept quiet for some time. At last he squatted as well. "May I have a closer look?", he asked firmly. Anderson didn`t answer. He just stood up and walked away.
"Gruesome, isn`t it?", the voice was saying. Inspector Lestrade stood beside John, as he opened his eyes again. "Yes, it surely is", he answered, trying hard to not look at the girl again.
"Sometimes you`re thinking you`ve seen everything", the inspector muttered embittered "And then something like this happens" He cleared his throat "I`ve seen three dead children in my entire career, and I never wanted to see something like this again. But… there`s the fourth one. And it`s worse than the ones before". John had never heard the inspector as frustrated as he was now. Somewhere an owl was crying. It shouldn`t be long to midnight. "This wasn`t a victim of a murderer. It was the victim of a monster".
John couldn`t imagine that it was easy to shock the inspector like that. "Where are we gonna start?", he asked.
His lips formed a sad smile. "If I`d knew that, you and Sherlock wouldn`t be here"
"What about this junkie`s dealer?" He had thought about that "If he wasn`t here to the right time, could…?"
"No", Lestrade said. "Police caught him two days ago. I already checked. But maybe we`ve got a chance to find hints at the lab. Anderson`s responsible for that".
John knew this was a desperate try. "After the corpse has stayed in water for ten hours?"
Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. "We need all the knowledge we can get".
"And here they`re coming", Sherlock interrupted them rude. "The girl is probably Northern-African, and has been raised there as well. She could speak English but not very well. She wasn`t supposed to learn the language, but somehow she did" Sherlock was in his element "She was killed fleeing of somebody. Pretty obvious, `cause she was hit in the back only. The wounds, did you see them?" Unfortunately. "Too heavy for a good weapon. This was a normal gun, nothing you chose for a planned murder. The girl saw something she wasn`t supposed to see. The murderer was in rage, grabbed the gun and -BANG-". Sherlock pointed his fingers like a pistol.
John could feel the stares of the policemen at his neck. Not the time, not the place, Sally Donovan`s voice echoed in his head. It`s a dead child lying there, Sherlock.
He risked a glance at the bystanders. Lestrade looked much older than he did a minute ago. His breath was going heavily, and his lips trembled. His sergeant was standing beside him, her face wrinkled.
"Do we know more about her?", she asked.
Donovan worked long enough with Sherlock to see he hadn`t finished yet. "No, there`s nothing to know about her family, because she has none", Sherlock continued. "Although it`s full of mud and dirt, she wears that nightie for much longer. The seams are frayed, more than they would be after ten hours in water. A lot more. She wore it for like a month. And what does that tell us?". Sherlock paused for a moment, waiting for guesses. Please, god, let him say something different than what I´m thinking. "Forced child prostitution. The very bad one". Could you please, please just listen sometimes?
John felt that awful dry feeling in his throat. Lestrade gasped. The inspector turned away for a moment, his breath went heavily. A despaired whisper left his mouth. Donovan was able to control her emotions better, but even in her eyes there was an expression, John had never seen there before.
This one time Sherlock behaved like he was supposed to be; he stayed quiet and waited.
Only now John realized that the whole scene had become even more silent than before. They have heard it. All of them. He tried to capture the facial expressions of the officers around him, but they were all hidden in the dark beneath the trees.
"Anything else, Sherlock?", Lestrade asked finally. He sounded croaky.
"Traces of lashes". Sherlock cleared his throat. "At her back. Hardly visible because of the blood, but they are there. She has been whipped. So we are not looking for a pedophile but for a sadistic pedophile" Great combination.
"So, we´ve got psychopath? I hoped we´d seen enough of them in the last time", Lestrade concluded.
"No, no psychopath", Sherlock responded. "No psychopath would kill a kid like that. And even if he did, he wouldn`t throw it in the Thames, for everyone to find". Silence for a moment. "Tell Anderson to look for sperm at… the usual places. End of deduction", he finished.
Sherlock turned around for leaving. Lestrade´s eyes followed him with an expression of confusion. "But how will we continue?", he shouted after him.
"I´ve got an appointment with Alec Darvovic tomorrow. 10 o´clock", Sherlock answered unflustered, without even looking back at him.
"How… When did you arrange that?"
"I didn´t. You will. I expect to meet you there. Be on time", he shouted. "And if he refuses, remember him that my brother works for the government. Although I´m pretty sure he enjoys jail", he added. Then he disappeared in the dark.
John exchanged one last glance with the confused Lestarde, before he followed his friend, leaving the police and that dead child behind.
"Yes, like I said:", Sherlock told him, when John caught up with the detective "it is going to be interesting".
"Interesting indeed", John answered "at least if you think it´s interesting that there`s a bloody dead child".
"And that`s why it is that interesting", Sherlock said stubborn.
John took a deep breath. "How can you be that sure it isn`t a psychopath?", he asked "Moriarty killed a child, and he was a psychopath for sure" Sherlock shook his head, and John was confused. "But why do you know than, that it was no psychopath?"
"Because every psychopath has limits as well", he explained calm.
"And what makes you that sure?"
Sherlock turned his head to him. "People call me psychopath. Don`t you think I´ve got limits too?" This time John wasn`t that sure if his friend was serious or not. "So no, it`s no psychopath. Probably the murderer is totally insane", he said, looking forward again "or… something much more dangerous".
"Which would be?"
A grim grin appeared on Sherlock`s face. "A businessman"
John thought it would be the best, if he didn`t say anything at all.
"Moriarty is both insane and a businessman, and he`s got his hands in anything criminal happening in England, but – I´ve got a feeling that he isn`t involved in this murder", Sherlock thought loud. Then he was quiet, lost somewhere in his mind.
They almost reached the entrance, when John opened his mouth again. "Sherlock, how did you know the girl where North-African?" He had thought about it, since Sherlock had deducted it. "She didn`t looked African that much"
"Yes, I thought about that too. But there was one thing that made me sure", Sherlock answered "Genital mutilation".
John couldn`t believe it. "SHERLOCK!", he shouted.
Sherlock ignored him once more.
The press was gone by now; Simon was the only one standing there.
Sherlock couldn`t resist to say goodbye with a "Good night, big guy", as they passed him. John felt the stares again at his neck.
They left the park behind, and John just realized where they were heading, when Sherlock already stood before the homeless man.
He looked terrible. His trousers and his jacket were old and torn, and he wore a too large brownish hat. His face was hardly visible beneath the beard and the matted gray hair.
"It`s cold this night, isn`t it", the old man asked. He smelled like he had never had a shower before.
"Yes. There`s a cold east wind coming", Sherlock answered. "I heard money does burn good". He held 100 pounds in his hands.
"Well, at least it keeps you warm", the man responded, taking the money with a greedy expression in his eyes.
"I also heard there are some warm places at the Thames. Seven miles upstream", Sherlock told him, like other people are talking about the weather.
"I´m gonna take a look at that", he grinned.
Sherlock nodded. "Good. Oh, and by the way…" He took a smartphone out of his pocket "I think you lost that". He gave it to the grinning old man, walked away, and John followed him, confused as he never had been before.
"Do you want to explain me what just happened?", he asked.
"Later, I´m busy thinking" was the answer.
That was not what he wanted to hear. "Who the hell was that? And where do that smartphone and that money come from. And if you`ve got that much money with you, why don`t you just pay the cabbie?"
"It´s for emergency", Sherlock told him "And that was one". He stopped at the next street, and gave signal to the next cab that came around the corner.
John sighed. "Ok, well, time to go home", he said tired "There`s a girl I have to phone to explain the situation".
"You might do that, but later", Sherlock said "There`s something we got to do".
John didn`t believe what he was hearing. Would he study his own corpse if I kill him? "And what do we have to do?"
Sherlock grinned again. "Visiting a good friend". The cab stopped in front of them. "Do you have money left? Because I don`t".