I do not own any part of Sherlock Holmes, or the BBC show Sherlock.
Takes place post episode three of the second series (The Reichenbach Fall), so please be aware of spoilers.
Eyes behind masks
by Kaiyo no Hime
Chapter Seven
"It's time for bed, Susan darling," the woman smiled, turning off the television.
Her daughter, sprawled out on the carpet in her insanely cheerful pink pajamas, covered only in the most overwrought ballet designs imaginable, groaned and make puppy dog eyes at her mother. It was a fight they had every evening, and it made the woman laugh and remember having such pleading arguments with her own mother at such a young age.
"But Mom, just another hour please," Susan wheedled, "All the other kids get to stay up until nine!"
"Well I'm not the other children's mother, I'm your mother," she smiled, "And your bedtime is eight. Now, come on, you have school in the morning. Did you remember to brush your teeth?"
Susan nodded her head glumly and started walking slowly up the stairs, still pouting. Her mother rolled her eyes but allowed her the tiny bit of petulance. She knew that, in a few years time, Susan would be running up the stairs and slamming the door while screaming at her mother for ruining her life for some little thing or another.
"Goodnight Susan," her mother called up, "I love you."
"Love you too mommy," Susan called back, and then shut her bedroom door behind her.
Susan waited a few minutes, listening to see if her mother was going to come up and tuck her in. It didn't happen often anymore, she was a big girl that didn't need tucking in and was against it, but sometimes her mother was just too silly not to. Quiet, and the sound of the television being clicked on. Susan smiled widely, and quietly opened the closet door and retrieved a battered flashlight and a copy of 'The Hobbit' from beneath her dirty clothes.
Her mother had said she had to go to bed, she never said anything about having to sleep.
Susan pulled the covers up over her head, leaving a gap where fresh air could get in, and quickly turned the pages to where she had been last in the exciting adventure. Biblo and the dwarves had just been saved, and she couldn't wait to read what happened next. She was getting near to the part with the dragon, she loved dragons, and she was desperate to see how the great fire breathing lizard was written.
As Susan quickly lost herself in the exciting world of Middle Earth, she didn't notice the shadow that passed over the blanket. She didn't hear the soft footsteps whispering quietly over the soft carpet next to her bed, and she didn't see the fingers at the edge of the blanket.
Suddenly the blanket was torn up over her head, light streaming out from the flashlight, and Susan froze as she stared up at the stranger. As she was taking in a breath to scream, a hand grabbed her, and a knife slid gracefully across her throat. Grasping at the injury, Susan was dead in moments, blood smeared angrily across her book.
The stranger sighed quietly, opening up a fine leather bag that had been hidden under the bed, and began to get to work.
Early the next morning, just as the sun was barely beginning to rise above the rooftops of neighboring buildings, the yawning, dark haired woman knocked gently on her daughter's bedroom door.
"Susan, it's time to get up for school," she muttered, thinking that she really should have gotten to bed earlier herself.
There was silence from within the bedroom.
"Susan," she sighed, opening the door with another yawn, "No time to play games, it's really time to..."
Her voice cut off as she stared at the scene delicately lay out before her. Her Susan, her precious, ballet obsessed Susan, was dressed up in a gorgeous blue empire dress, her hair spun up in a trailing bun, hair spilling out across tiny pearls and flowers. She was laying there so peacefully on the gorgeous white and gold canopy bed that had most definitely not been there the previous evening that she wouldn't have even guessed that her daughter had been dead if it hadn't been for the sewn closed eyes and red smile slashed across her young throat.
The woman dropped to the ground, screaming.
John sighed, rubbing at his shoulder as he stood outside the house, in the rain, watching Lestrade chain smoke through his third cigarette. Lestrade rolled his eyes as John glared at him, and, with a massive inhale, finished the third cigarette hastily and rubbed the embers out on the bottom of his shoe.
"Don't give me that," he growled, "Donovan's been on me already."
"Good," John glared, "What happened to the patches?"
"Nine year old girl inside is what happened to the patches," Lestrade growled, opening the door and leading John out of the rain.
"Bad?"
"Sure it won't be the worst. Her heart's missing."
"What," John turned and asked, shocked, "You mean?"
"Yeah, I mean it's gone. Anything not covered by the dress is skinned. The good Doctor turned out a nasty piece of work with her."
John sighed, climbing the stairs and passing other officers slowly. He almost wished he wasn't involved with the New Scotland Yarn anymore. Seeing these things, these sights, was doing nothing for his sleep or his nightmares. Of course, it could be argued, that his mind alone was the cause of everything, and it was these murders that were keeping his head above water. But he dismissed that out of hand. He was in mourning over a friend, his best friend, he wasn't some love sick fourteen year old girl that was going to off himself in an instant just because he was gone. No matter what one Mycroft Holmes thought.
"Jesus," John breathed, looking at the scene.
"New bed, not her clothes, and five dolls. He's getting better at this," Anderson commented from the side, studying one of the dolls without touching her.
"Her poor mother," John sighed, "The body already gone?"
"Yeah, the mother's staying with a sister, but she didn't hear a thing. He's quick and he's quiet," Lestrade sighed, "No other parts left here. He might be saving up for something big."
"I feel sorry for whoever he's really after," John sighed, looking at the bed closely, "Whoever he is, he's not poor. These are expensive sheets. And to buy a new bed just for a single scene. Jack the Ripper's elusive apprentice."
"Jack the Ripper went after whores," Lestrade reminded him, "And he didn't play with his toys."
"No," John paused, "He didn't."
The rest of the evening was spent silently studying, analyzing, and then looking over a smiling, heartless corpse in the morgue. John was sad to say that it was, by far, the most interesting and exciting night out he had had in a while. He didn't even complain when Mycroft's car, sans one British politician, picked him up and chauffeured him home. That was almost a part of the ritual of investigating a crime scene now, and it certainly saved on his pocket book.
"An eyelash," John snorted, "An eyelash is hardly anything to by. Hell, until you get more you might as well assume he planted it himself."
John nodded, listening to Lestrade over his battered old cell phone, smiling happily. They had managed, after two days of combing over the latest scene with magnifying glasses and a fine tooth comb, to find an unidentified eyelash. Certainly a boon, it could open up entire leads of investigation. Or it could be a plant from another scene, or a careless tech. But at least it was more than nothing.
"Yes, yes," John nodded, fighting with his keys in the lock.
The downside to a cheap apartment in a bad part of town was that something was forever working just enough not right that it was aggravating. Today, it would seem, his keys were deciding to be a bit stingy with the lock. With a grunt and a sigh, the ex army medic managed to force the door open, and then stare slack jawed at the scene in his living room.
"Lestrade, I need you to get over here," he whispered, his bad leg beginning to quiver ever so slightly, "And I think it might be best if you bring a gun."
AN: Updates might be slowing down some from here on out, or, at least, for a few days. I've managed to pick up a nasty bug and it's playing with my mind in fairly unpleasant ways. It doesn't help I'm managing to sleep sixteen hours without noticing either. The story isn't close to ending, but it may just be slowing down.
