I don't own Sherlock.
This 8000 word story was written in 3 days for one of my uni classes - if you spot any typos feel free to PM me and point them out, I was half asleep when I wrote parts of it.
Ta.
"Up!"
Hands occupied with a mug of tea and a slice of toast, John lifted his foot and prodded Sherlock in the kidneys. Lying supine on the couch and to all appearances fast asleep, the dark-haired genius made no reply beyond a muffled grunt.
"Seriously, Sherlock," John said, half amused and half exasperated, "Get up. Greg just pulled up outside, he's in a marked car and the lights are flashing."
Sherlock was sitting upright so fast John swore he saw the motion blur; when Sherlock's mouth opened, he forestalled the inevitable snide comment on the incompetency of the police force by shoving toast into the younger man's mouth and proffering the mug, "You do know you're not leaving until you've finished that, right? You haven't eaten anything all day, I'm not having you fainting at the crime scene and contaminating the evidence."
Sherlock looked as if he wanted to make a rude gesture; he settled for rolling his eyes and chewing faster.
There came the sound of rapid footsteps on the stairs, and Lestrade appeared at the door.
"John," he nodded in greeting, "Sherlock. You like the weird ones, yeah? You'll love this - sounds right up your alley. It's only just been called in."
Sherlock swallowed impatiently and reached for the mug in John's hand, "Details?"
"You'll have to wait and see," was the wry reply, "I've got next to nothing on it, myself. Just that the dispatcher thought the kids who called it in were on drugs and hallucinating until they convinced him otherwise. And that, uh - " he paused, letting the sentence dangle for a tantalising moment, "apparently the body was glowing."
Over the rim of his mug, Sherlock's eyes narrowed; recognising the look of intrigue, John heaved a mental sigh and reached for their coats. Sherlock drained the last of the tea, slammed the mug down on the coffee table, and rose to his feet, "Glowing?"
"Yeah, glowing. Don't ask me how or why - like I said, it's only just been called in. Will you help?"
John spoke up before Sherlock could say anything too insulting, "We'll help. He's had nothing for over a week now, a case'd be more than welcome. Thanks, Greg."
"No worries," a hint of a smile appear at the edges of Greg's mouth. "It'll be doing us all favour."
"Text me the address," Sherlock cut in, plucking his coat from John's hand and shrugging into it, "We'll be right behind you."
"Right," Greg nodded and made for the stairs, "See you soon."
The address was in Camden, and turned out to be one of a number of semi-detached flats on Provost Road.
"We've got a positive I.D." Greg said as they climbed the stairs to the first floor, "Mavis Pembroke, sixty seven year old Caucasian female. Two of the grandkids found the body just before noon when they came around to visit - bit of a shock for them. We've signed them to a follow-up team, they'll get a full debrief, counselling sessions, the whole hog."
They reached the landing; Greg led the way into the flat and opened the first door on the left, revealing a modest bedroom. Sherlock swept past the Detective Inspector and into the room without a word. John exchanged the familiar eye roll with Greg - yeah, he's always like that - and trailed after his resident genius, taking in the situation with a swift look.
It was a small room, tidy, neither devoid of personality nor overflowing with knick-knacks. The walls were painted in subdued tones of pink and red, and the furniture was minimal - a single bed, writing desk and chair, chest of drawers, and built-in wardrobe. The curtains were closed despite the sunshine, lending dramatic effect to the body lying peacefully on the bed, which was - John took s step closer, staring - yes, actually glowing.
Incredible.
The victim looked like she could have been asleep. She lay on her side, legs curled in a vaguely foetal position, hands relaxed on the pillow beside her face. Her eyes were closed, and her body was literally glowing. White-blue light emitted from beneath her skin, bright enough to throw a faint shadow across the wall. John peered closer, seeing Sherlock withdraw his pocket magnifier in his peripheral vision, and ran his eyes over the body more closely.
"Anything?" The question came from Greg, who was hovering near the doorway so as to stay out of the way.
John glanced at Sherlock, who looked up long enough to quirk an eyebrow and nod before concentrating on the body again.
Having received the imperial go-ahead, John looked back at Greg, "She's been dead around six to eight hours. Cause is something injected into the bloodstream, I'd guess. See how the light is stronger along the major veins and arteries? That indicates that whatever it is is emitting directly from the circulatory system - would also explain how she died, if it has corrupted her blood enough to wipe out the erythrocytes. See how her skin is cyanotic? I'd say cause of death was severe hypoxia."
At the last three sentences, Greg looked blank.
John paused, mentally rewound the conversation, and sighed. "Her blood has been corrupted - something has wiped out the red blood cells, which means there's no oxygen in her bloodstream, thus the blue tinge to her skin. Lack of oxygen then caused respiratory failure."
"Right," Greg nodded, "But why is she glowing?"
"Sherlock?" It was more a gentle prod than a question.
"Mm?" Sherlock tucked away the magnifier and straightened up, turning to look at them, "Yes, respiratory failure caused by severe hypoxia: sound deduction, John. The injection site is in the crook of her elbow, that's predictable, it's one of the easiest places on the human body to locate a major artery. I'll need a blood sample to analyse exactly what is in her blood stream."
"I can get the lab boys to do that now, if you're finished here?" Greg offered.
"No need," Sherlock produced a travel med kit from his capacious pockets and handed it to John, "Why bother with that when we have a registered medical professional right here?"
Greg heaved a long-suffering sigh, but nodded at John and waved a hand when the doctor glanced his way for permission to proceed. "Yeah, yeah - I don't know why I try, honestly. You've got gloves, I suppose?"
Sherlock was already holding out the box of latex gloves, pulled from yet another pocket.
John grinned, plucking two from the box and snapping them on, "I'm a doctor. If there's one thing I always have on me, it's gloves."
In short order, the blood was drawn and sealed away in the carry-case.
"If there's nothing else," Sherlock said, sweeping through the doorway on his way out of the flat, "we'll be off now."
"Actually," Greg broke in, "there is. The murderer left a card."
John stepped hastily to the side as Sherlock swung around, bearing down on Greg with narrowed eyes, "And you didn't think to mention this before?"
"Plain white card with a printed number one on it," Greg said steadily, refusing to back down, "the lab boys have it out at the van, you can have a look on your way out. I'm not having you pinch the evidence again."
"A card with a printed number one on it? But why - oh."
John felt a distinct sense of unease at the angelic smile that crossed Sherlock's face, "What?"
"The killer is a type one."
"A type one - what's that?" asked Greg, looking as flummoxed as John felt.
"There are two types of fans. Type one, catch me before I kill again; type two, my bedroom's just a taxi ride away." He snorted, "People. You're all so utterly obsessed with sex, it's ridiculous. But this - this is a type one. Think about it, just think - what does a number one indicate but that there will follow a number two?"
And grinning like the madman he was, Sherlock made for the stairs.
A quick look at the card on their way out to the street - "It's as Lestrade said, plain white card, black computer ink. Too generic, there's no data there," - and they were in a taxi heading back to Baker Street. John didn't try to make conversation: Sherlock's eyes were glazed as he stared out the window at passing traffic, thoughts obviously whizzing a hundred miles an hour, and truth be told John had more than enough to think about himself.
It was certainly one of the more unusual cases they'd investigated. He'd never seen a glowing body before, and while the cause was likely to be something chemical, it didn't remove the air of pure strangeness from the scene. The why was plaguing him more than the how - why was the old lady killed? Why in such a way? Why would someone go to the trouble of injecting her with something that caused her blood to glow? And why was there a card left at the scene practically announcing the killer's intention of striking again?
He waited until they were back at the flat before raising the subject again. Sherlock immediately settled in front of the microscope at the kitchen table while John got two mugs down from the cupboard and switched the kettle on.
"You think he's going to kill again, then?"
There was a grunt of agreement followed by concentrated silence as Sherlock got the microscope set up , and then, "He or she. I do think that, yes. Why else would the killer leave a card with the number one on it? It's possible it has some other meaning, but on the whole I think not. I've sent Lestrade a text to tell him to be on the alert for any murders called in involving glowing bodies, or murders where there's a numbered card left on the scene."
John would've loved to have seen Greg's reaction to that. "Any reply?"
"An acknowledgement followed by, I quote, thank you for telling me how to do my job, you lanky git; it's not like I've been doing it myself for the last twenty years or anything."
John turned away to the kettle so Sherlock wouldn't see him losing the battle with the smile spreading across his face, "Can't imagine why he'd say that."
Sherlock didn't deign to reply.
Three hours later, after John had checked his emails, read the newspaper, typed up the notes from an old case, made another pot of tea, and cooked macaroni cheese for dinner, Sherlock let out a triumphant "Ha!".
"Found something?" John asked from where he was sitting on the other side of the kitchen table.
Sherlock's grin was positively blinding, "Remember the Baskerville case?"
"How could I forget? We broke into a military base to investigate a glow in the dark rabbit."
Sherlock nodded.
"You don't mean - "
"Oh, it's not the Baskerville people behind it, no, but our killer used the same technique. I've identified the GFP gene found in jellyfish, which explains the unearthly illumination. It's fairly basic science when you get down to it; even you could do it if you weren't bound by such a strict moral code."
"Yeah, I'm not about to go around injecting people with lethal fluorescent chemicals for kicks, Sherlock. I'm a doctor, remember? Hippocratic oath and all that?"
The only reply was a disinterested grunt as Sherlock turned back to the microscope. John sighed and retreated to the lounge, making a mental note to call Sarah and take a few days off work - knowing Sherlock, they'd be on the go eighteen hours a day once the killer struck again, leaving him just enough time to sleep and eat and maybe grab a quick shower if he was lucky, but certainly no time to work eight hours a day at the clinic.
He didn't like just sitting around waiting for someone to die, but as Sherlock had said during their last serial murderer case, "There's not enough data with only one victim. Hunting a serial killer, I need at least two bodies. It helps to establish the killer's pattern, gives me enough data to work with; I can correlate what's important and what's not, what's similar and what's changed between kills, and from that hopefully extrapolate where and when the killer will strike again."
"And it doesn't bother you that one more person will be dead?" John had asked.
Sherlock had held his gaze for a long moment, looking like he was mentally changing his response, and then said, "If it gets the killer caught and stops more murders? No."
It was a better reply than the one he'd received during the Great Game case - John still cringed when he thought about that. Maybe he was having a good influence on Sherlock after all.
None of this helped him now, of course: Sherlock had been right, all they could do was wait for the killer to strike again, to give them another body and more data to work with. John sighed and sank into his armchair.
He hated waiting.
The text came at one forty in the afternoon two days later.
+St. Pancras Hospital, Camden. Victim's name is Robert Lee. Card has a number three on it. See you soon? GL+
+We're on our way. JW+
"You're sure it's a number three on the card?" Sherlock demanded as soon as they came within talking distance of Greg.
The Detective Inspector gestured them through a set of double doors into the next corridor, "Yeah, definitely a number three. We've left the card where it was, haven't even dusted for fingerprints yet. Called you as soon as we found it."
"You've left the room as it was?"
"Yeah, genius," Greg exchanged a long-suffering look with John, "Knew we'd be calling you in, didn't we, and you go apoplectic if anyone lays a finger on the evidence before you get a chance to sniff it."
"Good. Who's on Forensics? And please for the love of uncontaminated evidence tell me it isn't Anderson."
"It isn't, actually," said Greg, steering them down yet another corridor and coming to a halt outside a door crossed with police tape, "He's off sick. Bowman's taken over."
"Excellent," Sherlock muttered, adjusting his gloves and opening the door, "Someone competent."
The first thing John noticed was the unmitigated smell of pollen emanating from the bright vase of sunflowers perched somewhat precariously on the bedside table. The second was the body of the forty-something year old man in the bed. His skin was red and swollen, eyes bulging, mouth gaping. One hand was resting against his throat, fingers clawed as if he'd been grabbing at the area prior to death; the numbered card was lying on the bedside table.
Beside him, Sherlock make a deprecating noise, "Obvious."
"Anaphylaxis," John nodded, "Pollen allergies are fairly common, though they're not usually this severe. But why would he make it this obvious?"
"He or she," Sherlock corrected automatically, "And I don't think our killer cares about making it obvious or subtle: they've made some effort at covering this up by disguising a murder as a gift gone wrong - superficially there would be an alibi, anyone can claim they didn't know that the flowers would trigger a severe attack - but overall I think the murderer is more interested in the method of murder."
"Well, number one was the old woman," Greg said, "that was an injection; this is number three, allergies… what's number two, do you think?"
Sherlock was silent, gazing with narrowed eyes at the far wall.
Greg moved his glance to John, who shrugged. "Don't know. We've missed one, but it's anyone's guess how they were killed or where the body is. Are you sure there've been no suspicious deaths reported in the last couple of days?"
"None," the Detective Inspector shook his head, "And now that we've got another victim we'll have to widen our search parameters - the killer isn't just using the light injection to commit homicide, he isn't only targeting old women who live alone, and he doesn't appear to be working on a set schedule so far."
There was a distinct pause where John and Greg looked over at Sherlock, who was still uncharacteristically silent. This was the point in the discussion where Sherlock would usually make some acerbic remark before launching into a monologue of deductions which would prove every single hypothesis so far utterly wrong; said monologue, however, was conspicuous in its absence.
"Right, well," John said after a moment, "We'll let you know if we come up with anything. Sherlock, are you done here?"
There was no verbal response: Sherlock lifted his head to look at John, the glazed look of deep thought clearing slightly from his eyes, and made a movement that could have been a very slight nod. John exchanged a puzzled glance with Greg. It was most unlike Sherlock to retreat this far into his head at the scene of the crime: he usually waited until they were back at the flat.
"Okaaay. Sherlock," John stepped forward and laid a guiding hand on the taller man's shoulder, "We're going home now, alright? I'll get us a taxi. If you don't want to leave yet, speak now or forever hold your peace."
No reaction.
"Taxi it is."
Greg followed them out and watched as Sherlock ducked into the backseat, still moving on autopilot. He caught John's eye, flicked his glance toward Sherlock for a moment, and mimed sending a text. John nodded, trying not to let the full force of his worry show on his face, and slid into the taxi.
Back to Baker St, up the stairs to 221B, and Sherlock immediately dropped into his armchair, hands coming up to steeple at his lips and eyes focusing somewhere in the middle distance. John watched him for a moment before deciding that he'd be fine, and went to make a pot of tea.
It was a full forty minutes later when Sherlock said, voice soft, "John."
John raised his eyes from his laptop to find his resident genius frowning at him, eyes clear and alert and slightly puzzled.
"We're back at the flat?"
John blinked, "For nearly an hour now, yeah. You hadn't realised?"
He fished out his mobile and sent a quick text to Greg.
+SH back with us. No doubt epiphany will follow. JW+
"Extraneous data," Sherlock waved a hand, "I had more important things to think about."
"More important than the fact you completely zoned out and had no idea that anything was happening outside your own mind?"
"Knew you and Lestrade wouldn't let anything happen to me," and without giving that singularly astounding piece of information a chance to sink in to John's brain, he was continuing, "I'm connected some dots; not nearly enough to solve the case, I need to do some research, but more than enough to be getting on with. Text Lestrade, tell him to pull up all deaths in the area of Camden in the last… oh, let's say the last week."
John did so with alacrity.
"We've gone about this in completely the wrong way," Sherlock went on, "That's the unfortunate truth. In reality there was nothing else we could have done, but it's infuriating nonetheless. We've effectively lost two days, which means that the killer is two days ahead of us, and I believe his or her schedule is as near one kill a day as possible."
"That's fairly frantic, isn't it?"
"Mmm, yes. They must have their reasons - hence the urgent need for research."
John's phone beeped, announcing a text message.
+SH a nutter. Will do - I can bring them around after my shift finishes at six. Also dinner. GL+
Before John could get too confused at the seeming non-sequitur, it was followed by:
+Thai for us, the files for the nutter. GL+
John replied without bothering to consult Sherlock.
+Brilliant. See you then.+
"Done," he confirmed at Sherlock's inquiring look, "He's bringing the files around after six."
"That gives us three hours, then," muttered Sherlock, and sprang up from his armchair.
The intervening time passed in a whirl of localised action. Sherlock was at his laptop one moment, fingers tapping impatiently, and at the far wall the next, scrawling information on pieces of paper and sticking them to the wall until he had the beginnings of a messy case-related matrix. MAVIS PEMBROKE was on the left hand side, followed by a gap for the presumed second victim, and then ROBERT LEE. Beneath the name of each victim was a photo of their body, cause and location of death, and other pertinent information gathered from the database at Scotland Yard, such as remaining family, workplace, and where they lived.
At ten past five, as John was steeping their second lot of tea, Sherlock let out of grunt of frustration and bent to his paper, adding a note that said LIGHT below Mavis Pembroke, and FLOWERS below Robert Lee.
"It's bound to be important," he explained after a glance at John's raised eyebrow. "The killer could have chosen any method of killing them, any method at all, but they chose one method that is utterly unique so far as we know, and one method that is so glaringly obvious it couldn't be mistaken as an accident by anyone except Anderson. That has to mean something, it has to. And I'll bet my share of next month's rent that the second victim died of yet another glaringly obvious cause - nothing so predictable as a gunshot, of course. Snake poison, perhaps."
His finances were safe enough after a week straight of working at the surgery, John thought, and said calmly, "I'll take that bet."
Sherlock's eyes gleamed.
By half past six John and Greg were ensconced in armchairs, plates piled high with lamb curry and pad thai.
"Three in the last week?" John asked, nodding toward the couch at the far end of the room where Sherlock was pouring over the files that Greg had brought with him.
"Yeah," said Greg, studying the matrix on the wall above Sherlock's head, "Only one in the last two days, though."
"Oh?"
"Skydiving accident. A couple of friends were trying out that new tandem skydive place at Highgate and the harness on the front slipped."
John grimaced in sympathy, "Ouch."
"The girl with him was distraught; from the sounds of it, it had been her late birthday present or some such thing, and then that happened. The guy who died was her best friend, they'd been right through school together and everything. Bit of a tragic accident, you know."
"Mmm," John hummed in agreement. "You don't think it's related, then?"
Greg shrugged, "Don't know, to be honest. We're Homicide and Serious Crimes - accidents aren't our division. All the information's in the file, though, so if there's anything there Sherlock should find it."
John nodded and ate a forkful of noodles.
Shortly after Sherlock turned to the third file, a satisfied smile spread across his face, and the other two files were unceremoniously dumped on the floor beside the coffee table. Soon after that a third name was added to the wall in the second victim's slot, and a photo was stuck beneath the name NATHAN GORACKE. The rest of the information flowed from there, and within twenty minutes the first three slots of the matrix were fully filled.
Sherlock shoved the coffee table back against the desk, making enough legroom so that the three men could perch on it and examine the makeshift data matrix.
John frowned as he ran his eyes over the names at the top and the word directly under each name: Mavis Pembroke - Light, Nathan Goracke - Sky, and Robert Lee - Flowers. On one side of him, Sherlock was gazing abstractly into space; on the other, Greg swore loudly and said, "Are you serious?"
"What?" John asked.
"Give me a second, this is ringing some fairly dusty bells. Sherlock, you've got a bible on that enviable bookshelf of yours?"
"Of course."
Said bible was produced. Greg turned to Genesis, skimmed through a couple of pages, and swore again. "That's it."
Sherlock raised an unimpressed eyebrow, "You think the killer is basing these murders on the myth of creation as told in Genesis?"
"Reckon so. It fits, doesn't it?"
"I wouldn't know," was the cool answer, "I deleted the information because it was outdated vacuous rubbish made up by a deluded people desperate for something other than themselves to believe in."
John, having had several in-depth pub talks with Greg on the subject, was unsurprised when Sherlock received a decent slug in the arm for the comment. "Oi. Show some respect, you git. Just because you only believe in what your eyes can see doesn't mean everyone else does."
Sherlock frowned, "Are you saying you believe that the biblical account of creation is the right one?"
Greg looked away uncomfortably and shrugged, "I don't know for sure, but I think it has some merit, yeah. I know that's an unpopular position these days, but I've never been one for mindlessly following what the masses believe - which is what you're doing, by the way."
Sherlock bristled, and was opening his mouth to issue a blistering retort when John interrupted, "Alright, girls, that's enough. You can discuss ideological differences later: for the moment, we have a murderer to catch. Greg, mind taking us through it?"
Greg exhaled and nodded, "Sure. In short: in the beginning there was nothing except God. Creation took seven days - technically six, really, but that will be explained. On the first day, God said 'Let there be light', and there was light. On the second day, he said 'Let there be a vault to separate the waters above and the waters below', and the vault was called 'sky'. Third day was dry land, ocean, and vegetation of all sorts - trees, shrubs, plants, flowers, and so on - "
"Shrubbery," John muttered, grinning.
"Shrubbery," Greg repeated, mirroring the grin, "Indeed. Fourth day was the sun, moon, and stars. Fifth day was creatures of the sea and air, so that's birds, fish, sea-going mammals, etcetera. Sixth day was creatures of the land, including humans. And on the seventh day, God rested."
"Fascinating," said Sherlock, sounding as if it was anything but. "However, that is only one possible explanation of some of the facts - referring to the murder, not to the creation of the world, though now that I think about it, the latter applies too."
Greg rolled his eyes good-naturedly, "Yeah, yeah. So what do we do now, wait for the perp to kill number five?"
Sherlock snorted, "Hardly. I don't mind what you and John do, but I have research to be getting on with. Your idea of the creation myth is one of the more likely ideas I considered, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's based on the Christian story - it could be any religion or culture."
Research. The dreaded word. It inevitably meant that not only Sherlock but John and Greg as well would be up until all hours. John scrubbed a weary hand over his face and sighed, "Right."
Sure enough, midnight found him knee deep in the story of creation as told by the New Zealand Maori.
At the beginning only Io (the supreme God, Root-cause, Creator, Ground of Being) existed and was surrounded by chaos, emptiness, nothingness and the realm of potential being. Before Io, nothing existed and consequently Io is absolute and parentless…
At the time of the Maori creation, there was only Ranginui, the Father Sky, and his wife Papatuanuku, the Earth Goddess. They were so much in love that they were in a constant fast embrace, and refused to let go of each other. Thus the sky and the earth were joined solidly together - there was no light on the earth as Rangi's consuming embrace prevented it.
Rangi and Papa gave birth to several children: Tangaroa, god of the sea, Tane, god of the forests, and Tawhiri, god of the winds. They were all trapped between their parents and struggled in vain to escape. Each one tried to squeeze himself out. Finally, Tane, god of the forests, succeeded in pushing his parents apart with his feet against the earth and his head against the sky. He pushed for years and years and years. Eventually Rangi the Sky and Papa the Earth were separated and became the sky above and the earth below as we know them today. Light came into the world; plants and trees started growing and the earth became a green and lush place.
The children escaped and set about creating the world. Tane created the Sun and Moon and set them in their places, and decorated the sky with stars. Tane then created the first woman, Hine, and married her. Their children became the first of the Maori peoples.
John copied down the relevant passages, noting LIGHT, SKY, PLANTS, SUN/MOON/STARS, and HUMANS beside them as he did so, and then moved on the next story: creation as told by the Aboriginals of Australia.
2am came and went, by which time Greg was asleep in the couch under an ubiquitous orange shock blanket. At 3am, when the text on his laptop screen was consistently turning into a blurry mess and his eyes felt like sandpaper, John finally gave up and dragged himself off to bed, leaving Sherlock looking as alert as ever.
He was woken at 7am by the sound of the violin, followed shortly after by a muffled thump as Greg fell off the couch. Groaning, John rolled out of bed and made his way to the bathroom, hoping a shower would wake him up.
It started the process, and once he was downstairs a strong coffee from the drip machine did the rest. Greg was sitting on the couch in his work trousers, rumpled shirt, and bare feet, clutching his own mug of coffee and staring blearily at Sherlock. Said resident genius, John reflected as he dropped into his armchair, was looking so infuriatingly awake despite not having slept at all that John was seriously tempted to upend his mug over the man's head. But then again, that would be a waste of perfectly good coffee - better to just drink it.
John did so slowly, sipping at the dark brew and savouring the flavour. After ten minutes of surprisingly good violin playing from the lanky silhouette at the window, John threw a pen at him and said, "Alright Sherlock, what have you got for us?"
Sherlock drew the piece to a close before setting the violin on its stand and perching on the back of his armchair with his feet on the seat. "Awake now, are we?"
"Yeah, no thanks to you," Greg muttered, stifling a yawn, "Cough up."
"And speaking of coughing up," John broke in, stirring his sluggish brain cells in some sort of action, "I won the bet. You're paying the entirety of the rent next month."
Sherlock acknowledged the point with a wave of his hand, "Fine. Regarding the research - I don't know how much you two remember from last night - "
"Our memories are as intact as ever. Get on with it."
Those leans hands came up to steeple under Sherlock's chin, "Having examined a copious number of creation myths, up to and including those of the Aleut, Manyika, Karamojong, Chorotega, Tzeltal, Sami, Komi, and Rapanui, I have concluded that there are distinct trends running through most of them. Said trends are of light and dark, a movement of nothing to something, and the work of a god or gods in creating or shaping the world. By process of elimination I have narrowed the list down to those that follow a rough path correlating to our killer's methods - for the first three steps these are light, sky, and vegetation. They have to be in that order specifically because the murderer numbered his kills - why else would he leave the cards at each scene?"
"Makes sense," murmured Greg, "So?"
"So," Sherlock grimaced slightly, "Much as I hate to say it, I do believe you were right, Lestrade. The Abrahamic myth - story - matches up exactly with the key elements thus far."
"Good to have that confirmed," said the Detective Inspector, grinning at this minor victory.
John drained the last of his coffee and asked, "But what happens now? It doesn't really help us stop the murderer."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Sherlock corrected, "We know his area of operation - Camden, obviously; we know the next element he will use in his murder - the sun, moon, and/or stars; we know that so far he has been operating in the morning - the first victim was killed around ten forty, the second around eleven o'clock, and the third died between eight, when the flowers were brought into the room, and one thirty, when the body was discovered. The second murder was on the same day as the first, thus breaking the hypothesised pattern of one kill per day - but I still postulate that the murderer is aiming for that number. Victim Two is an anomaly in more ways than one.
"What we don't know," he went on, "is why. The methods used would indicate that he's killing for the sheer thrill of it, but the second victim doesn't fit into that theory - what does a skydiving accident have to do with two seemingly unrelated murders in the same area?"
"Unless it wasn't an accident," John interjected.
Sherlock's gaze swung around to focus on him abruptly, "Unless it - what? Oh. Oh of course. The killer needed a sky-related incident to fit the pattern of the days of creation, so he engineered a situation where the harness would fail; easy enough to cut partway through a crucial strap so that it frays when enough pressure is put on it. The murder is thus disguised as an accident, far more subtly than the third victim - allergies, honestly - and the perpetrator can move on to planning the next kill. I need to see that harness, Lestrade."
Greg nodded, "Come into the Yard later on and I'll see what I can do. For now, I should be off - some of us have proper day jobs, you know."
There was a wordless hum in reply as Sherlock turned back to his laptop. John met Greg's eyes and grinned apologetically, "Thanks for your help, Greg. We'll be in later on - say around three?"
"That'll do," said Greg, slipping on his socks and shoes, "Excellent. See you then."
With a glance at the clock, he was grabbing his jacket and slipping out the door and down the stairs to the street.
"You know, one of these days you could actually thank him," John suggested dryly once he heard the front door slam.
Sherlock flashed an innocent grin, "Why would I do that when I know you'll do it for me?"
John snorted, unable to stop the smile tugging at his lips, and crossed to the desk to check his emails.
By lunchtime, Sherlock had a map of Camden and surrounding boroughs taped up beside the matrix with pins inserted into every pertinent location - black for the place of death, blue for where the victim lived, red for where family or close friends lived. There was visible concentration of pins in the area around Provost Street, where the first victim had lived - and died. The third victim had lived around the corner on Eton College Road, and the second victim flatted with his best friend two streets away on Steele's Road. It was less than two miles from the second victim's house to the scene of the skydiving murder, and about the same distance in the opposite direction from the house of the third victim to St. Pancras Hospital.
John was having trouble seeing how the pieces all fitted together, but from the focused look on Sherlock's face, his resident genius was coping just fine.
Three o'clock found them walking into New Scotland Yard and up to Greg's office. Three fifteen found them trekking the corridors once more on the way to the evidence lockers. Three thirty found Sherlock frowning ferociously over the tangled mess that was the tandem skydiving harness, muttering to himself as John and Greg watched cautiously.
Four o'clock found them racing to the carpark in response to the urgent call that had just come in to the ambulance depot from a birthday party on Eton Road in, yes, Camden. The woman who had called it in was sobbing, screaming something about his face, it's burning his face!
Sherlock, for once, made no protest at going in a police car - though perhaps, John thought, that was because they were in Greg's unmarked BMW rather than a marked patrol car. The latter always seemed to stir up dark memories for Sherlock.
When they pulled up outside the address, John made sure to grab his spare medkit from the boot of the car - just in case.
The distraught mother met them at the door and showed them through the house. John saw wide eyes peering around an ajar door before they were swept into the back garden. It was decorated with the requisite cheerful balloons and streamers along with the not-so-cheerful and far-from-requisite body of a seven year old boy.
The stench of burning flesh hit his nostrils, and John tried not to gag as he knelt beside the small form. The boy's face had been painted to resemble the night sky, with a crescent moon curving across his left temple and white stars dotted amongst the whirls of black and blue and purple that covered the rest of his face. His chest was rising and falling slowly, but he was obviously unconscious. The paint had eaten away at his face, leaving gouged lines and pitted flesh in its wake, twisting and deforming the features into an unrecognisable mess.
"The ambulance is on its way," he dimly heard Greg say. "Doctor Watson is fully qualified, and any information you can give us would be helpful. Can you tell us what happened?"
"It was his birthday party," the woman, who had introduced herself as Jenny Smithers, said shakily. "Jason loves to get his face painted, but he has a form of eczema which means he can't usually come into contact with the paints. The girl who does it lives nearby, she said she had a special set of paint just for kids like Jason, and it wouldn't - it wouldn't make his condition flare up at all."
Her breath caught on a sob as John opened up the medkit and bent to see if there was anything he could do for the unconscious boy.
"Um - maybe twenty minutes ago, he started complaining that his skin was itchy, that it hurt. We thought it was just the usual itchiness from face paint, you know, but - but it kept going, getting more and more painful, and he was crying, and then he started screaming, saying that it was burning him, the paint was burning his face. I called the ambulance and got the other kids inside, and Jason was just lying there, screaming, and I - I couldn't think what to do, I didn't know - "
"It's okay," Greg murmured, professional mask firmly in place, "The ambulance is two minutes away, they'll do everything they can to help him. I'm sure there was nothing you could have done."
Busy fighting mental images of the acid-scarred women he'd seen in Afghanistan, John refrained from dispensing invaluable medical advice along the lines of do you not have burn cream in your medical cabinet? and is it so hard to bath the burn in cold water?
Behind him, Sherlock moved close enough to brush against his leg. The warm presence of the so-called sociopath steadied John's thoughts, drawing him away from the light and heat of Afghanistan and back to the present. Judging from the brief touch of fingertips on his shoulder, he was obviously thinking too loud about his time in the army: Sherlock's ability to measure his mental state bordered on telepathic at times.
As the ambulance and squad cars arrived outside, sirens blaring and lights flashing, John drew back to stand at Sherlock's side, acutely aware that he was trembling slightly.
Greg's hand came up to rest unobtrusively on his back as he murmured, "Alright there, mate?"
John drew a breath, paused, and let it out slowly, "No, not really."
"Home?" was the low question from Sherlock.
John swallowed, "Yeah. Please."
They left Greg to handle the crime scene and threaded their way through the incoming crowd and out to the street, where they managed to hail a taxi. John blinked and found himself in his armchair at Baker Street, a shock blanket draped across his shoulders and his hands curled around a steaming mug of tea.
"Better?" Sherlock murmured from his perch on the chair opposite.
Most would have heard the question as brusque: John saw the faint lines between the dark brows, the slight downturn at the corner of his mouth, and decided Sherlock was actually genuinely concerned about him. "A bit better. Thanks."
"It shocked you."
"Yeah. Kids always hit worse, y'know? They're so young. And the acid…" John shuddered, causing the blanket to slip off one shoulder, "I've seen that before in Afghanistan. Girls get forced into marrying sixty year old men and then supposedly misbehave or whatever, and they get acid thrown on them as a punishment. Our squad bumped into a group of them once. I asked them to take their scarves off in case I could treat any of the damage… the scarring was horrific."
Sherlock's eyes were narrowing, his face hardening into a mask of concentration as his brows drew together. Abruptly he stood up, crossed the room to roughly tug the blanket back up onto John's shoulder, and said, "I'm going out."
John blinked, "We only just got back."
"I need to investigate a lead," said Sherlock bluntly. "Our killer miscalculated and left the victim alive; I'm going to interview the face painter, she may provide some crucial information. No, don't get up. You may as well stay here, get some sleep to make up for last night. I won't be back 'til late."
And before John could protest, Sherlock was sweeping out the door and down the stairs.
John sighed. Much as he would have liked to go with Sherlock, the fourth victim had shaken him more that he'd first thought. Burn victims always reminded him of having to treat the survivors of IEDs in Afghanistan; any case involving acid brought back memories of the scarred women and the paralysing helplessness he'd felt when he could nothing to help them; and the fact that this victim was a child compounded the effect. It would have almost been a mercy if the kid had died, John thought soberly; from what he'd seen of the damage, the boy would lose his sight in both eyes, and would suffer heavy scarring over the whole surface of his face.
He suddenly remembered Sherlock's presence warm at his back at the crime scene, the sudden appearance of the shock blanket and the mug of tea once they were back, the way the genius' eyes had scanned him from head to toe, frowning slightly in concern. Several things clicked in his mind, and John thought suddenly: Oh. He's worried about me, worried about the effects of the case on me. That's why he's dashing off to hunt for information, he wants it closed as quickly as possible. Oh.
There was an involuntary smile spreading slowly across his face.
Sherlock reappeared shortly after breakfast the next morning, Greg trailing behind him.
"Julia Kensington," was the first thing out of his mouth as he discarded his coat and dropped into his armchair.
John frowned, "She was Nathan Goracke's best friend, wasn't she? From the skydiving incident?"
"She's also our murderer," said Greg, pulling out a chair from the table and settling into it.
"She's - wait, what? You've caught the killer already?"
Only Sherlock, John thought, could smile grimly and look smugly pleased at the same time, "Oh yes. She led us a merry chase, but we got there in the end, and just in time, too - she was just finished spraying the fish-feeder's wetsuit with blood."
John connected the dots and felt vaguely ill, "So that was her plan for the fifth victim."
"Mmm. As I said, we got there just in time to catch her in the act. Lestrade arrested her."
John thought about this for a minute before giving up, "Okay. Explain. How did you know it was her?"
The corner of Sherlock's mouth quirked, "If you insist. The face painter girl was friends with Julia; she said Julia offered to buy the special paints needed for the birthday party as a favour. We know that the paints were contaminated - they'd been blended with a very strong acid - and Julia was in charge of procuring those particular face paints. The mother of the fourth victim, Jenny Smithers, said there had been a pamphlet dropped in her letterbox two days ago, advertising the face painting service and featuring several pictures of astronomy themed paint jobs. Jason Smithers, by the way, is apparently very well know throughout the neighbourhood for being a keen amateur astronomer. So far so good.
"So it appeared that Julia Kensington set up the face painting as a way for Jason Smithers to receive a astronomy-themed paint job, and thus die in a way involving the key element of moon and stars - which fits our serial killer's modus operandi. Upon further investigation, I found that she is a med student working at St Pancras Hospital, thus she had access to the third victim, Robert Lee, and knew that he was allergic to certain kinds of pollen. She lives two streets away from the first victim, Mavis Pembroke, and has the scientific know-how and the equipment to inject the GFP gene directly into the bloodstream
"The skydiving incident was the easiest. She was directly involved there, of course: easy enough to secure the rear position on a tandem harness and then unclip the front while in mid-air, thus causing Nathan Goracke to fall to his death. The only problem with that was that she was out at Highgate during the time that Mavis Pembroke was murdered - you remember Pembroke was killed at ten forty and Goracke at eleven o'clock?"
Leaning forward intently, John nodded, "Yeah, I remember."
"And then I realised - you know how we thought the third victim was only the second victim until we found the card that stated he was the third? What if Kensington had done something similar in the first place? We took those cards as concrete fact, but what if they were lying? Working with the new hypothesis, everything fell into place. Goracke was the first victim and Pembroke the second: Goracke died earlier than Kensington reported, say ten past ten, which left Kensington enough time to jog to Pembroke's house, inject her, jog back to the scene of Goracke's death, and limp to the skydiving building by eleven o'clock, using the shock and grief as a cover for the symptoms of raised adrenaline levels. Kensington then had nearly a full day to plan the next murder, during which time she came up with the idea of using the seven days of creation to throw the investigators off the scent. And then, of course, the cards threw us off the scent yet again."
"But she'd already killed Mavis Pembroke using the element of light," John interjected.
Sherlock waved a hand, "Coincidence, would you believe it. She'd had the vial lying around for weeks, she was just waiting for a chance to use it. Pembroke provided the opportunity once Kensington realised she had to switch the order of the deaths - quick thinking, actually, she came up with that with ten minutes of impulsively killing her cheating best friend."
That was too much for John to take in, "Cheating? What do you mean - Nathan was cheating on Julia? But they were just friends, weren't they?"
Sherlock made a deprecating noise, "Nathan and Julia were just friends, yes. Nathan and Julia's husband, however…"
John's mouth dropped, "Really?"
"Mmm. People are so very predictable - murder generally comes down to money or sex. This was the latter."
"So Julia Kensington found out that her husband - "
"Andrew."
" - Her husband Andrew was cheating on her with her best friend Nathan. Julia killed Nathan in revenge - why not kill the husband?"
Sherlock shrugged, "It takes two to tango: you can't blame an affair entirely on person or the other. Sentiment? Given a choice, most people would choose their significant other over their best friend."
"I suppose," agreed John, "So the whole point of the creation murders was to cover up the real circumstances of Nathan's death?"
"Mmm."
"But by making it look like an accident among a spate of murders, she ended up drawing attention to it anyway. If she'd just left it alone no-one would've been any the wiser."
"Exactly," Sherlock said, grinning, "Isn't the irony delicious?"
"Amazing. Simply amazing," John breathed, and then sobered, "It doesn't change the fact that three people are dead and one permanently scarred, though."
"No," Sherlock said thoughtfully, "But it does mean that there are three more people who won't be dying this week. That's worth something, isn't it?"
John met Greg's eyes, seeing the thought floating on the surface - that behind Sherlock's great brain there was finally growing a great heart to match it - and grinned, "It is. You're right, it really is."