The room smelled of blood, which wasn't surprising considering the large quantity of it spread across the floor, spattered with abandon on the walls. The woman had been cut from breastbone to groin, and the result was about as terrible as it sounded. "It's like Jack The Ripper all over again", Sally said, holding her gloved hand over her mouth, trying to sound brash, trying not to puke all over the crime scene.
Anderson grunted, staring at the body from the opposite side of the room. Behind his back, his hands were shaking. Lestrade's voice floated in from the corridor, "… we really need you this time", he was saying. The other investigators had been banished from the house and out into the pouring rain once Lestrade had seen the almighty mess spilling onto the carpet in the living room. Anderson was wearing a bright blue suit over his clothes, taking deep, slow breaths, trying to understand how something like this even happened.
He'd seen the same thing twice in the past two months, always done the same way. The police were looking for a surgeon, the papers were calling them the copy-cat murders and likely something much more colourful in the less reputable papers. Scotland Yard hadn't come up with a snazzy nickname for the killer, because there was nothing funny about any of this. Three women had been found, butchered in their own homes. The cuts were the same, surgical, almost emotionless according to the psychologists who thought they could understand what was happening, and organ theft had occurred in each case. It was more along the lines of Hannibal Lecter's brand of murder. Anderson wondered if he'd end up staring into the eyes of a cannibal as he gave his evidence in court. He shuddered minutely, in the way you learn to when you see dead people on a daily basis.
Arterial blood shone livid in the sunlight, and it had been all they could do to banish the flies bathing in her blood. "Do we have a name yet", Anderson asked eventually.
Sally seemed relieved to have something relatively normal to talk about. She'd spent the last half hour trying not to puke as Anderson told Lestrade which organs had been taken from the body. This sort of thing happened on television, or in America, but not in Britain, not in all her time at Scotland Yard. "Abby Fitzgerald", she said, trying to keep the sadness out of her eyes as she looked down at the body and the pool of rancid blood spread out around it. The woman's face, round and pretty, was daubed with it and her hair was spread in saturated clumps on the carpet.
Everything she was and might have been had been reduced to a crime scene that would fill miles of column lines over the next few days, when someone took a picture on their phone or when Lestrade was forced to describe the nature of her injuries in the most scientific terms possible to the press. They'd unravel it and twist it, and something that should be scrutinised only by the few trying to avenge her would soon be spread beneath headlines as crude as the crime itself; a vile collage to entertain the masses.
"This is terrible", Sally blurted, and Anderson's gaze jerked up to meet hers. He didn't say anything, he just nodded. They both returned to staring anywhere but at the body. Lestrade pulled the door open a moment later and froze for a moment when he saw the body. No matter how many times you see something terrible, it always pulls you up short. Perhaps it was because it was here, in one of the most pleasant areas of London. Through the window you could see a sprawling back garden with a colourful potting shed and a rusty swing-set, wild trees twisting up towards the sky, weeds sprouting with abandon between the patio stones. Its beauty now served only as a vile contrast to the scene they all stood observing with as much distance and professionalism as they could muster.
"Yes", Lestrade said loudly, "Anyway… I've called in an expert to have a look. He'll be a while getting here. In the meantime, Anderson, could you put on another suit and start looking for prints, saliva, semen, residue from the knife, anything?"
Anderson nodded, and then paused, "Wait, what expert?"
Lestrade came very close to wincing, "Yeah", Sally said, "We're the best you've got, if I recall, so who is this 'expert?'"
The D.I. looked between his two most trusted officers and sighed, "His name is Sherlock Holmes. He, erm, calls himself a 'consulting detective'". Anderson and Sally opened their mouths to protest, "Just, wait and see, alright? He's good. I've worked with him before".
"What do you mean 'with' him?" Anderson asked incredulously, "The police don't consult amateur detectives, Greg. You know the rules". The last thing they needed was some idiot traipsing into the crime scene and puking all over the carpet. There was a reason why people were trained to work in homicide.
"Can you two please just trust me?" Lestrade stared at them until they ducked their heads, and then straightened, glancing once more at the body. He had to stop it soon, or the press would start attacking the Yard, and him, and everyone involved in the case, but the killer had left them nothing so far, not a single lead apart from an educated guess that he was probably a surgeon. All they could do was plod around and clean up.
Sally began to walk around the room, examining the walls, "These are new", she said, "Gesturing to the long stripes of blood spattered on the wall. It's like he chased her, and slashed at her", she swallowed hard, "There might be superficial cuts. It could tell us a lot about the killer's build, height…" Sally trailed off, because she really had no idea what she was talking about.
Lestrade looked at her and tried to smile, "Yeah, that's good. That might help". He didn't sound sincere, but Sally hadn't been asking for him to pretend that he was. She just wanted the words, to comfort herself that they were doing something this time, getting somewhere.
They'd been on the case for weeks, visiting crime scene after crime scene, hours and hours of overtime building up to nothing at all, apart from more and more bodies. Sally couldn't help but be slightly in awe of Molly Hooper, who had thus far dealt with every victim they'd sent to the morgue, facing each new murder staunchly. She didn't seem like much, but no waif would have worked her way into Lestrade's favour the way Molly had. Beneath the girlish giggling, the meek gaze, that girl had some iron in her.
As Anderson came back into the room wearing a clean baby-blue suit, with his forensics face on now, completely impassive, Sally decided that it was time to leave, maybe get a cup of tea or be violently sick into someone's compost bin. Still, she lingered for a few minutes, watching, appalled at her own strange fascinating with the sloping patterns of blood on the walls. There was something about them she couldn't quite see, but it was obvious, glaringly so. Anderson glanced up at her, "What is it?" he asked, seeing her eyes moving speculatively up and down the walls.
Sally looked at him, "I… don't know."
He looked back to the victim, where his fingers were poised over her gaping mouth, probing gently at her lips, checking for tissue on her teeth, any indication that she'd bitten her attacker. As usual, there was nothing. Sally ducked her head, swayed a little, and Anderson couldn't help but note the warning signs, "You should get some air," he advised.
Sally nodded, and turned unsteadily to leave. Before she stepped outside she looked back, "You alright?"
Anderson raised his eyebrows, "Of course," he tried a smile, "This is, unfortunately, all in a day's work."
Sally shook her head, "Perhaps we should reconsider our life choices."
"Bit late for that," Anderson said. Yes it was, much too late. It seemed strange to admit it, but murder is sort of addictive. Not enjoyable, but that drive, that fire, a burning urge to catch the killer, wasn't something you could give up. Anderson returned to his examination and Sally sagged, thankful that he couldn't see her. Not enjoyable at all, this business.
The walls of the hallways had been sloppily painted what Sally assumed was meant to be a zesty shade of green, but it only reminded her of the last victim, who'd spent two days in a car boot before being found. Seriously fighting the urge to puke now, she groped for the door handle.
It was pushed open before she found the latch and someone, probably an EMT wondering if they could clear off and come back later, shoved it open. She stepped aside reluctantly to allow a man to step inside. Sally held up her hand, "Excuse me, who's this?" She tried to insert some authority into her voice while fighting the urge to vomit onto his shoes. The man who stepped inside seemed almost excessively tall, and thin to match. He wore a long black coat with the collar up around his thin face, accentuating a rather fine set of cheekbones, not that Sally was in any mood to admire facial features.
The officer who had let him in shrugged, "The detective inspector said to let him in", he said darkly, mirroring her disgust that a stranger should be allowed into a restricted crime scene when all but the most qualified (her and Anderson) had been banished. Sally glanced down the hall and saw Lestrade standing in the doorway, looking nervous – odd.
Oh, so this is Sherlock Holmes, Sally glared at him, and he looked impassively over her, down the hall to where the crime scene lay bathed in cheery autumn light. Her stomach twisted and she shut her eyes, fighting down the bile that rose in her throat. Come on Sally, you're a professional, she urged, but it was no use. She pushed past him and puked on the doorstep. The officers on the street stared, caught between amazement that something had actually gotten to her and morbid curiosity at what that thing might be.
"Well done Sherlock," Lestrade congratulated as the tall stranger turned to stare at her, "This is worse than the officer you made cry last week."
Sally coughed, "I really don't appreciate you turning this into a joke," she said.
Anderson appeared in the hall, "What's wrong?" he demanded before catching sight of Sally's face. Concern creased his features and Sherlock looked significantly between the two of them, uttering a satisfied, "ah" under his breath. Lestrade waved him back along the corridor as Anderson tried to move around him, "Sorry but I need you in there, Anderson. You can, erm, fill Sherlock in on everything."
"That won't be necessary," Sherlock scoffed, moving past Anderson. He swung open the door and Anderson looked almost triumphant for a moment, waiting for the 'detective' to sprint back out of the room, onto the street, and far away.
However, instead of an exclamation of shock, Sherlock said something that made Lestrade sigh in defeat.
"Fascinating!"