Just a warning - With finals, work and whole mess of other things, I'm not sure when the next update will be. But please don't lose interest in my story! Write a review and tell me what you think!
Chapter X
"One male, one female. Daniel Veloso and Tanya Service. Found about an hour ago." DI Lestrade recounted as he escorted Sherlock and Ariel to the bodies. Sherlocks air was cold and calculating, taking in every detail.
"By who?" Ariel asked, out of breath at the injectors long, brisk strides.
"Grounds keep." Lestrade said curtly. They walked on in silent foot steps till they reached they bodies. The corpses lay, battered and bruise, completely lifeless. Sherlock gave a sideways glance to Ariel to see her reaction to the dead bodies. He remembered how John had first reacted to the body he'd seen with Sherlock. The look on his face then had been a combination of grief, pain, anger and sadness.
When Sherlock looked at Ariel to see her reaction, what he saw was quiet different from Johns reaction. Her brows were slightly furrowed, her mouth pursed somewhat, deep in thought. Sherlock smiled inwardly as the look on Ariel's face reminded him of his own. Sherlock went back to the corpses in front of him. He moved in to get a closer look.
The girl was Caucasian, 5'4", dyed black hair. Vomit stains covered her clothing, which was generally dirty and ragged, though they were designer names. Sherlock glanced at her hand; no ring, not even a mark where one might have been. Unmarried then. She had no purse, nothing that would be of any value on her. Robbed, probably.
Turning to the male victim, Sherlock noticed that he was in quite the same state. Designer name clothing, though it was filthy and covered in vomit, no valuables on him, but otherwise, he looked intact. He was about 6', of Italian decent. Sherlock noticed both victims were badly bruised and looked liked they had been extremely sick for before being killed. Yes, they had been killed. Poisoned, to be exact.
"Poisoned. Both of them. Dead for about, 6, hours. Higher class, judging by their clothing. A couple maybe? Definitely striped of anything valuable." Sherlock rambled. The Detective Inspector was obviously stunned.
"Poisoned? How? With what?" He asked baffled by Sherlocks quick deduction. Sherlock let out an annoyed sigh. People were just to stupid.
"Yes, poisoned." Sherlock said exasperated. "All the signs are there." Lestrade just nodded, even though he had no idea what Sherlock was talking about. Ariel stood silently, gazing down at the dead bodies with intense interest. Sherlock noticed and called her closer.
"Care to give me your observations?" He asked. She blinked up at him.
"I'm sure you could do better." She said, a hint of sarcasm entering her voice.
"I would like to know what you can observe. Test your skills." Sherlock challenged her. Ariel never said no to a challenge, even when she knew she would fail.
"Ok," she said, crouching down by the bodies. "The man's Italian, the woman looks Russian. Poorly cared for clothes, even though they were expensive, designer. So they were rich, then. Valuables have been striped though, so they were robbed." Ariel breathed in heavily.
"The vomit and bruising suggest poisoning. The man was married; he's got a tan mark where his ring should be on his left hand. The woman wasn't though, so they weren't together. Or, at least, his wife didn't know about it.
He also wore a heavy watch. Removed before the body was dumped. But it was not until recently that he started to wear it, because there is no tan mark where it should be on his right wrist and there is indentations still in his skin. A gift from her, maybe?"
"Excellent. Anything else?" Sherlock asked, genuinely pleased with her level of observation.
"Yes. They were most like poisoned with Ricin. Injection, most likely." Ariel said, standing up and looking at Sherlock.
"How did I do?" She asked, a grin spread across her lips.
"Wonderfully." Sherlock said, a tone of sincere commendation in his voice. "How do you figure they were injected with Ricin?"
"Small hole on each of their left arms, about the same place. Too perfectly round to be anything other then a needle. And Ricin? I've... I've seen these bruising and vomit patterns on victims of Ricin before." Ariel said, faltering in her words a bit near the end. Sherlock noticed that it bothered her to talk about the victims she had seen before, whilst she had no problem talking about the dead bodies in front of them. What had she done in her past?
"How...?" Lestrade's stunned voice came from behind them. Sherlock had almost forgotten the Detective Inspector was there.
"So, they were murdered?" Lestrade said, finding his voice again.
"Yes, obviously." Sherlock and Ariel said simultaneously. Lestrade looked between the two of them as they stared intensely at each other.
"Well... Any ideas who the killer is?" Lestrade asked, breaking the awkward silence. Sherlock blinked at Lestrade. He had no idea who had done it.
"Unfortunately, Ricin is really hard to trace. It's incredibly common as it is derived from the seeds of the castor plant. Hundreds of thousands of people grow it. It's almost impossible to find out where the Ricin came from." Ariel said, sounding slightly defeated.
"It's not impossible!" Sherlock scoffed.
"First off, we know it had to be someone these two people knew. Look at them; there's no sign that they struggled before being injected. Second, we know it had to be someone who could extract the Ricin from the seeds; that in itself narrows down the list of suspects drastically. Third, we know that the poison had to have been made in England because it doesn't keep long."
Ariel raised her eyebrows in amazement at the casual way Sherlock had stated these facts. She had carelessly overlooked them, dismissing these little details. She had been so focused on the negative, that she forgot about the shimmering positive. She looked down at her feet, ashamed.
"I apologize for my negligence, Mr. Holmes." Ariel said. Sherlock stared at her, brows furrowed, wondering what she was apologizing for. Lestrade, too, was staring at her.
"It's fine. One can hardly expect you to have my level of observation." Sherlock said, trying to reassure her. Ariel took what she could get. She knew that was as close to "don't worry, you did good!" as she would ever hear from Sherlock.
Lestrade shook his head. To many weird things had happened today, he couldn't try to solve the mystery of these two.
"So... Where do we start?" He asked. Sherlock turned to face him, a confident grin on his face.
"Lestrade, I need you to find out more about the victims. Family, friends, current residency, and the like." Sherlock said, heading away from the crime scene, Ariel at his heels.
"Oh? And where are you off too?" Lestrade called after him.
"Barton!" Sherlock called over his shoulder.
XXXXXXXX
After what seemed like an eternity of silently sitting in the passengers seat, Ariel was finally able to get out and stretch her legs. She had endured a two hour car journey with a strangely quiet Sherlock to the south coast town of Barton. She breathed in the slightly salty air, and listened to the gulls cry in the distance.
"Care to tell me why we're here?" She asked. Sherlock seemed to notice her for the first time.
"Investigation. What else?" He asked, as if it were obvious. Ariel rolled her eyes as she followed after Sherlock as he walked towards a small bed and breakfast.
It was a beautiful little inn, surrounded by a luscious garden with stone pathways. The older-looking inn stood in the centre of the garden, a two story building with high arch windows and delicate stone work. A small pond was off to the right of the building, a chuckling little waterfall tumbling into it. All of this was not a 15 minute walk from the crashing waves and crying gulls. Ariel felt as if she had stepped into a little piece of paradise.
Sherlock stopped short of the door of the inn and turned to face Ariel. Ariel almost ran into him, stopping just short of crashing into the detective.
"I need you to do the talking. I want to observe." He said, in a hushed and hurried tone. Ariel blink in confusion at him.
"What do you want me to say?" She asked, not 6 inches away from Sherlocks face.
"Book a room. We may need to stay here a few days, to investigate. Chat up the innkeeper, talk about the customers, I don't care, but keep him talking." Sherlock said.
"You... You want me to book us a room?" Ariel stuttered in disbelief. Sherlock let out an exasperated sigh.
"Yes. We may need to stay here a few days. Didn't you here me?" He said, slowly and impatiently. Ariel suddenly snapped out of her disbelief and back to reality.
"Yes, of course I heard you. I was just making sure." She snapped, pushing past Sherlock and into the inn. She put on her best smile as she walked up to the innkeeper. The innkeeper was a stout woman, strong and with a slight look of exasperation on her face at the late hour that it was. When she saw Ariel's smile though, she returned it.
"Hello. Welcome to The Misty Way. What can I do for you on this wonderful night, love?" She said, leaning across the counter.
"You don't happen to have a couple rooms available for me and my friend, do you? We could really use a place to stay." Ariel said, putting on her sweet tones and puppy eyes.
"Well, I've only got one room open tonight. But it's got two beds. Will that be alright for you two?" The innkeeper said pleasantly.
"That would do just fine." Ariel said with a sweet smile. Pay back. Ariel thought to herself.
"And who shall I put it under, love?" The innkeeper asked.
"Sherlock Holmes." Sherlock said, stepping up to the counter and handing over his credit card. The innkeeper smiled and took it.
"There you go, my dears. Here's your keys. Room 4. Up the stairs and to the left." The innkeeper said, handing over the keys. Sherlock grabbed them and stepped back. He tapped Ariel on the back of the leg, reminding her to keep the conversation going.
"You wouldn't happen to know where we could get something to eat? I'm so hungry!" Ariel said, playing up her hunger. The innkeepers grin grew wide.
"Well dearie, let me tell you. Marcus cooks for us here and he makes the finest rack o' lamb you'll ever taste! And if you don't care for lamb, we got quiet the selection for you! Just sit yourselves down anywhere and I'll get Maggie to come over to you dears." The innkeeper said with pride.
"Thank you." Ariel said, blushing a little, to fill her role. Sherlock had been standing behind her and was now headed towards a little table on the far wall. Ariel followed him, although she wasn't sure why. She wanted to kick him so bad. Ariel plopped down in the chair and sighed heavily.
"Happy?" She asked.
"For the most part." Sherlock answered with a smirk.
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