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Notes: Britpicked! :D
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Chapter 3
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"There are many conflicting factors in this investigation, John," Sherlock stated a few hours later before a tea.
"Really?" John yawned. He had slept little, and would have gladly stayed in bed, but Sherlock's morning violin hadn't given him that luxury. He stretched his shoulders, chasing numbness in his muscles.
"Really," Sherlock confirmed. "Come and look at this."
John rose painfully from his armchair and leaned over the shoulder of his friend.
"What am I supposed to be seeing?" he asked.
"Everything. Nothing is consistent. Suicide apparent but her lock was picked, a message on the answering machine at a time when the victim was supposed to be alive… And then there's this."
Sherlock displayed a new file on the computer screen and turned to John.
"Tell me what you see."
It was the analysis of the victim's fingerprints on the weapon. The photos showed the fingerprint powder making them stand out starkly white against the dark metal. They were photographed from different angles. The comparison had permitted a 100% match.
"Obviously, it was her holding the gun," John concludes, "How is it an element that doesn't match?"
Sherlock immediately looked up at the sky. John soon realized that he had missed a parameter.
"Come on, John, a former military with a wide experience of firearms, you can't be that stupid."
So the problem didn't reside in the origin of the fingerprints. He focused again on the pictures and, as taken by a sudden inspiration, mimed spontaneously holding a gun in his hand. A smile split his face in two when he understood where the anomaly came from.
"The arrangement of fingerprints is illogical," he deduced.
"Exactly. The gun wasn't held properly."
John leaned back on the computer. Now it was brought to light, the mistake was indeed obvious.
"It doesn't make any sense," he said. "If she had really held it this way, the weapon should have been forced out of her hands by the shot."
"But she had it in her hands when the police arrived on the scene."
John bit his cheek.
"The ballistic analysis?" he asked.
"Positive. The bullet that killed her came from this weapon."
John straightened.
"Okay, let's summarize: the victim had money problems, big money problems. Enough to receive letters from the bank and loan offices, besides selling her furniture. The bullet that killed her came from a weapon she was holding when her body was discovered. That calls for suicide. She was in debt and wanted to escape."
"Except that" Sherlock continued, "Her lock was obviously picked by a stranger. The arrangement of her fingerprints on the weapon is completely erratic. Her answering machine has a message dating from a time when the gunfire hasn't yet sounded."
"If she was murdered," John suggested, "Maybe she was already with her murderer and she couldn't answer?"
Sherlock raised his forefinger to emphasize his theory.
"It's an idea," he tempered, "Except that there's more."
He opened a new file.
"The first conclusions of the forensics" he announced. "Look at the time of death."
John leaned forward, and immediately raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"It's impossible," he stammered. "They must have been mistaken."
"Despite my scepticism towards their skills, I doubt they are that stupid."
John reread the file to be sure that he'd read the words correctly.
"9:30 PM – 10:00 PM? But it's almost two hours before the shot! It can't be possible."
"I'm afraid it is."
"Then the witness lied?"
Sherlock pouted.
"The file doesn't mention the verbal evidence of other residents of the floor, but I think we can assume that if the shot was heard, the weapon wouldn't have a silencer. Therefore, it had to be heard by many people. If all the evidences points to the same time, either they are all lying, or something is missing."
John straightened.
"Or," he suggested, "The time estimated by forensics is correct. She was already dead at the time of recording the message on her answering machine."
"This is my conclusion. But in that case, why this scene? And on top of that, what has killed her in the first place if it's not the gun? This is especially the way the lock was picked indicates that the stranger who introduced himself into the flat is experienced. Would an experienced killer take the risk of letting his gun wake the whole neighbourhood? He would have put a silencer."
"You know the criminals better than me, Sherlock."
John then turned and sat down in his armchair with a sigh, putting his computer on his lap and logging onto his blog. Sherlock was already immersed in the intricacies of the case, quickly typing on his keyboard.
"What are you going to call this one?" He wanted to know.
"I haven't thought about it yet. 'The Double Death ', maybe."
Sherlock didn't answer, but John didn't need to look up to guess the half-smile of his friend. Sherlock had never hidden his scepticism about his choice of titles, the same for his propensity for romance.
'Late at night, the information reached us that a strange death had taken place in Greenwich. When we arrived the crime scene presented us with the strange picture of a familiar scene but some elements we couldn't have predicted. This case, and we didn't know it yet, had a few mysteries in store for us…'
For convenience, John never mentioned in his articles how their investigations 'reached ' them, much less how they were 'arriving' to the crime scene. Besides the fact that it protected them from the police, they avoided the occurrence of fans claiming to act like them.
John looked at his draft critically. 'The Double Death ' finally seemed like an accurate title.
John sank further into his armchair, thinking about the last crime scene they had fled. He felt a fist in his chest when the image of Lieutenant Dimmock arriving on the scene floated in his memory. What would have happened if he had seen them? John abandoned the keyboard, resting his arms on the armrests, hundreds of scenarios scrolling through his head, making his stomach contract with anxiety. He hated this feeling that he desperately couldn't get used to. Increasingly, their new situation weighed on him. Increasingly, he felt a flush of nostalgia to remember what their lives were before. Where was the time when they arrived on crime scenes as on conquered territory, with the blessing of Lestrade and the antipathy of Sally and Anderson? Where was the time where their deductions were more valuable than the results of an entire team of investigators? Where was the time when they were the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. John Watson?
Unfortunately, this time had long fled.
After Moriarty's fall at Barts, John and Sherlock were fully aware of the existence of a whole network behind him. Determined to bring down that network, they had decided to disappear. Molly had helped, she had provided the bodies and falsified reports while Sherlock and John had faked their deaths, one by jumping from the hospital roof, the other using his own gun in the living room at Baker Street. Released from any liability and any official existence, with new identities, they had had free reign to destroy Moriarty's accomplices wherever they were in the world. The task was daunting; it had tested them many times. They had been homesick. They both stayed in luxury hotels in Abu Dhabi as well as under bridges in Mexico. Their target sometimes disappeared to return elsewhere, but they always ended up achieving their goals. It took them two years, they had returned exhausted, but they had reached their goal.
But their return at the face of the public hadn't been pleasant. Nobody had forgiven them their little sleight of hand. John and Sherlock were aware of having left behind many people in distress, but dying provided the best solution to allow them to disappear. Nobody had understood. Nobody had wanted to understand. Considering themselves betrayed, all the people they knew had disowned them. Harry, Stamford, even Lestrade, to the great satisfaction of Sally and Anderson. Even Molly, who accused them of keeping her out despite the help she had given them. And Mrs. Hudson, although she had consented to let them reoccupy the flat, didn't show herself to them anymore. They heard from her time to time at home, they slipped the rent under the door but they hadn't seen her since. As to Mycroft, he never had any contact with them. They had become strangers, outcasts; Sherlock had no more requests to take on cases, and John no more patients. It was as if the people they loved had got used to their absence and they wanted to keep things that way.
Since then, John and Sherlock scraped a living as best as they could, hacking The Yard's files and infiltrating crime scenes. Sherlock then sent his findings to Lestrade who was free to do what he wanted with them, while John blogged the new turn of their adventures. This didn't allow them to live, but they managed. Because that was what they were made for.
While John was focused on his blog, Sherlock had left the matter on hold and took from the fridge a tupperware containing a mold culture. The body parts had become a less common commodity since he no longer had access to the morgue at Barts and Molly's favours. The few he had managed to have, currently a string of toes, he had got hold of by stealing. And when he had no chance to get anything human he fell back on molds, ashes, perfume compositions, anything that could fall under the eye of his microscope and enrich the records of his website. Occasionally, a specimen exploded, putting a little life into the now, formless, flat.
That was what their new life was in 221B Baker Street.
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