"Her wedding ring. Ten years old at least. The rest of her jewelry has been regularly cleaned, but not her wedding ring. State of her marriage right there. The inside of the ring is shinier than the outside – that means it's regularly removed. The only polishing it gets is when she works it off her finger. "
The words swam round and round in Greg's head while he lay in bed. It had been two weeks since Sherlock had solved that case, and still Greg couldn't get the thought to leave his head.
A single gold ring lay in a drawer. In a drawer in a little jewelry box. In a little jewelry box on a dresser. On a dresser in the bedroom of one DI Greg Lestrade.
His wife normally wore her wedding ring. In fact, he had never seen her without it. But tonight she was visiting a friend. The friend had just lost her husband and Greg's wife had gone over to make her dinner, leaving her ring.
"I don't want to lose it!" She'd laughed when he asked her why she was taking it off. "And it's unsanitary to cook with rings on, surely you know that Greg. Especially when you're cooking for someone who isn't family." Then she'd put it in her jewelry box, kissed him goodbye, and left. He tried not to dwell on it. She was right after all – they didn't want to lose her wedding ring.
He tried harder to banish Sherlock's words from his mind.
"The rest of her jewelry has been regularly cleaned."
Well, this much was true of his wife, at least. People had commented on more than one occasion that her jewelry sparkled "almost as bright as her eyes." Greg had to agree with them. His wife kept her valuables quite clean. And oh, God, did those eyes sparkle. That had been the very first thing Greg had fallen in love with, on their very first date.
But there was no way she'd let her wedding ring get dirty. She took good care of her jewelry.
Still, it couldn't hurt to check… He sat up and swung his legs out of the bed.
Gregory, what are you doing? his mind hissed. You trust her. She's your wife. She loves you. After all, you love her. How could she not feel the same way?
It won't hurt to check, Greg told himself firmly. After all, she'd been a little distant lately. She was never home, and they rarely talked anymore. He pushed himself up off the bed and retrieved the ring. He held it up next to one of her gold necklaces to be sure.
It was dirty.
That doesn't mean anything. She's a busy woman, constantly using her hands. She wore her wedding ring more than anything else, too. It would get dirty faster than her other jewelry. He rolled it between his fingers for a moment, then turned it sideways so he could see the inside.
It gleamed.
The gold metal shone brightly, clean as anything. Regularly removed. His wife regularly removed her wedding ring.
His brain frantically tried to rationalize, to make excuses, anything but accept what his sinking heart already knew. His wife was cheating on him.
"Damn that bastard," he hissed, sitting heavily down on his bed. His face sunk into his hands, and he sat in that position all night.
He waited for his wife to come home.