Chapter Twenty One- 2005 Cold Case Guy

"Trott's Tower, Breyards Estate, Peckham- it's flat 823, Guv. Oh, and the lift's not working, so it's eight flights up, take your time." Sally Donovan tried to keep the disappointment out of her tone of voice. Professional, Sals- just keep it professional, she told herself.

"Right then; I'm on my way." Lestrade was calm, cool and collected. As always. Never seen him get annoyed. She cursed inwardly, trying to keep her face as deadpan as possible, while the police constables were looking at her.

It was Sally's first crime scene as Senior Investigating Officer. As a newly promoted Detective Sergeant, she had been waiting for this opportunity to show what she could really do, and then she'd drawn this bloody case. She stifled the sigh and turned to the Forensic Crime Scene Examiner, Don Anderson.

"You're absolutely sure?"

"Of course, I'm sure." He smirked. She didn't like the way his eyes wandered over the front of her white blouse. She was dressing conservatively these days, enjoying the freedom of being out of a uniform, but trying to project an image of maturity. It was so hard being a woman on one of the Murder Investigation Teams in the Met's Homicide and Serious Crime Division. Less than 20% of the officers assigned to the MITs were female. It was a "lad's culture" and she felt that she always had to work twice as hard to prove herself than her male colleagues. Add to that the fact that she wasn't a white, Anglo-Saxon male in his forties, and she had to work three times as hard to win respect.

For that reason alone, she'd been looking forward to this day for months. To ensure that the process was fair, everyone taking the role of SIO for the first time was simply given a date and a number- and had to cope with whatever case came up on that day. This avoided any sense of favouritism- no 'soft touches' or easy cases for someone being fast-tracked.

Once again, she cursed her luck. Why me? Sometimes, she felt there was an evil deity just out to get her. The case had been called in by a neighbour, who complained about the smell coming from the studio flat next door- the one that was supposed to have been condemned and boarded up, after a catastrophic water leak several months before. Council-owned, it would take months before anyone got around to repairs, refurnishing and re-renting it.

The constable had arrived, broken down the door and discovered a naked body in a serious state of decomposition. The detective team had been called in, and it was her bad luck to be the name at the top. The body was lying in a totally empty flat- no furniture, no carpets, no nothing to give a clue. Worse still, the metal front door was not only locked with two different locks, it had three bolts- all of which had been closed. It had taken the constable almost twenty minutes with the ram to break in. The building supervisor had a set of door lock keys- the previous occupants had done a midnight flit, leaving three months of rent arrears and extensive water damage. But the three manual bolts were new. And had been locked from the inside. On the eighth floor of the high rise tower block, there were no balconies, no access from the windows, which had been boarded up after the flood, when the window frames had warped to the point where the windows broke under the strain.

"So, you think it's a suicide then?" She sounded disappointed. She had hoped for a murder enquiry. Statistics showed that when a DS's first OiC assignment was a murder enquiry, their prospects for early promotion improved. Nothing like solving a murder to attract the right kind of attention.

And she wanted to impress her DI, she really did. Lestrade had given her a lot of opportunities, and she was grateful. She wanted to make him proud of her. But this case would not be one to write home about.

Anderson turned to look at the body: moderately obese, white male in his mid- forties, no obvious cause of death, no marks, bruises, wounds, or evidence of a struggle; aid out on his back, with his arms crossed in front of him. "The constable who called us in was a jerk- this is an undertaker's job, not a Murder Investigation Team's work. We'll have to wait for the autopsy to find out the COD, but from the liver temperature and the lividity, rigor and all- not to mention the stench, he's been here for almost a week."

The two PCs on her team had done door-to-door enquiries, no one in the building recognised the guy from the photo they'd taken on their phones to show around. The super was sure he wasn't an estate resident. Great, just a boring a John Doe who topped himself- just what I need.

"No other trace in the flat?" She tried to avoid sounding disappointed. After all, by society's standards, she was sure the neighbours would be relieved that it wasn't a murder.

Anderson just gestured around the flat. "Where? The place is clean as a whistle; washed out by the flood, and there isn't a fibre or hair in the place that isn't on that body."

Which left her with an unidentified body in a locked room, so almost certain to be a suicide. And she couldn't even identify him or give an indication of the cause of death. She'd done all the procedures, all that remained was DI Lestrade's visit to sign off on the disaster that was her first case. She sighed.

oOo

When DI Lestrade crossed the threshold, he had someone in tow. Sally looked at the person with him- smart suit, no tie, longish hair, sort of good looking in an unusual way. She thought she vaguely recognised the young man, but couldn't place him.

Lestrade did not pull on a forensic blue suit; he was relying on Sally Donovan's judgement that this was a suicide. He looked at the body, and then nodded to Sally. "So, give me the low-down."

She frowned. "Who's the civilian, Guv?"

Lestrade looked back at the young man who was staring at the body. "This is Sherlock Holmes. He's the cold case consultant I've been working with for the past couple of months."

"Oh." She was intrigued. Most of the Yard had been agog at Lestrade's new leads on old cases; he'd managed to surprise just about everyone with his clear up rate. So, she took a good look.

"What's he doing on my crime scene, if he's into cold cases?"

"He was with me when your call came through. I thought he might be helpful."

Anderson was watching at the young man. He'd heard the explanation that Lestrade had given Sally, but he was suspicious. The young man looked away from the body and scanned the room, looking at the floor, ceiling, walls, windows and the corridor that led off to the rest of the flat. Even the door he'd just come through into the flat got a glance. Then the young man turned his attention back to the body. Anderson's suspicion flared as the tall brunet reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves which he put on with an ease that spoke of considerable practice. The interloper took two strides and crouched near the head of the dead man.

"Hey! Don't you dare touch that body!" It was a shriek of indignation.

Donovan was giving Lestrade chapter and verse on her procedure, but at Anderson's outburst, his head whipped around to look at the Forensic Examiner.

"Relax, Anderson. Let him have a look."

"He'll compromise the crime scene!"

"Oh, no I won't. You've already done that, officer." This was said quietly, as Sherlock continued unperturbed by the outburst.

"What do you mean, compromised? I'll have you know this crime scene has been processed according to police procedures that you wouldn't even begin to understand, mister."

"Yes, well, if that's true, then the less said about police procedure, the better."

Anderson was outraged. "Lestrade! This is insufferable. Just who is this…git, and what is he doing on my crime scene? My Manager is going to hear about this, and he'll take it right up to the Borough Manager. I'll take it to the bloody Director of Forensic Services, if I have to." His face was livid now.

"Anderson!" Lestrade's voice carried the weight of years of command behind it, and Anderson was stopped midway through a deep breath, just as he was about to continue his tirade. Even Sally blanched. DI Lestrade was not a man who threw his weight around, or bullied his team. For a moment, she glared at Anderson. It was her crime scene, damn it- not his!

Sherlock carried on examining the body, lifting the hands and examining the arms, palms, and fingers, totally ignoring the fire-fight that was going on above him.

Lestrade continued in a calmer voice. "Anderson, just get off your high horse for a minute and listen. You've already pronounced on the scene and closed your work here. Donovan just told me she concurs- this is a case of suicide."

"No, it isn't." This was said quietly by the young man who was now lifting up the dead man's head to look at the back of it.

This got the attention of Lestrade, Anderson and Donovan, all three of whom stared at the brunet, as he stood up and pulled his gloves off. He looked directly at Lestrade, ignoring the Forensics Crime Examiner and the Sergeant.

"It's a homicide. Most likely murder, although manslaughter can't be ruled out until we question the perpetrator." This was delivered with no inflection in tone, as calmly as if reading a weather forecast.

Both Sally and Anderson responded at almost exactly the same time.

"That's preposterous!" "Don't be absurd!"

Sally closed the distance between her and the young man, and looked up at him. "Mr Holmes, is it? I don't care how many cold cases you've looked at; this is my scene and I know a suicide when I see one. I suppose the murderer talked the body into getting up and locking the three bolts behind him when he left?"

Sherlock didn't even acknowledge her presence, but kept his eyes on Lestrade, who lifted his eyebrows, seeking clarification. "Sherlock, it does seem a sort of open and shut case."

"You observe, but you do not see, Lestrade." He turned now to Anderson, as if noticing him for the first time. "Your Crime Scene Examiner didn't use an ALS, obviously. If he had, before half the Met walked in here, we might have seen something interesting. Even now, it could help."

Anderson exploded. "An ALS, what the hell would we need a UV light for? This is a suicide. What do you not understand about boarded up windows and three manual bolts closed from the inside? I can assure you, there is no murder here, just a dead body on the floor of a man who topped himself. We'll let the medical examiner determine cause of death, but I think it's likely to be a drug overdose."

Sherlock turned back to Lestrade. "If you have an ALS torch, I will show you what I mean."

Sally was furious. Just when she was supposed to be impressing her boss, this amateur was annoying everyone. More important, he was ignoring her, as if she wasn't even in the room. She decided to exert her authority. "Anderson, just get a flipping torch, will you? Let's get this done with so we can all head back to the station and get the paperwork started."

Anderson glared at her. "It's NOT a murder; it's a SUICIDE!"

"Then let's both enjoy proving it and showing the Guv just what an idiot the cold case guy is then. Go get the light."

Anderson stormed out to the corridor where the forensic kit box was.

The tall brunet was talking to Lestrade again. "Look at the way the body is laid out. A suicide's arms would not be crossed like that. It was done post mortem, before rigor set in. The murder didn't take place here in the room; the body was brought here. The ALS would show drag marks of some sort, if he'd used it before obliterating the evidence by stupidity. It should, if we are lucky, still show some signs of an unaccounted-for person, the murderer. More important than all of this- just where are his clothes!? Didn't anybody wonder how a naked man could come up eight flights of stairs, let himself into the room, and then kill himself? If he was a suicide, there'd be a bottle of pills or some tell-tale sign, as well as a pile of his clothes. There is no injection mark on him in any obvious place he could reach- and no syringe either. So, unless this naked obese man was able to drug himself and run up eight flights of stairs before it took effect, then this...is...a...murder."

Sally thought through what he said. "So, what if a friend helped him out- came up here with him, took his clothes and his drugs or whatever he used to kill himself, and then left, leaving the guy to lock everything up?"

Sherlock frowned. "What kind of person would do that? More likely to be a murderer than a 'friend', wouldn't you agree, Detective Inspector? In any case, the ALS will show us, if that Forensic Officer ever gets in here." His annoyance was clear.

Anderson strolled in, carrying an ASTRA torch light kit with three pairs of glasses, which he handed around, purposefully not giving one to Sherlock. Lestrade told the PCs to leave the room and Anderson reached for the spray from the kit. Sherlock just snorted. "You won't need that; for God's sake, the floorboards are already soaked from the flood; if anything, it should show a negative where the pressure of footprints pressed moisture out of the floor."

Anderson looked a bit embarrassed, and then snarled at the PC by the door, "Kill the lights then."

The torch went on, and he shined it onto the floor around the body. There were literally dozens of footprints, different sizes and shapes. Lestrade took his forensic glasses off and handed them to Sherlock, who scanned the rest of the room.

"Well, what more proof do you need?" Sherlock's snide tone was clear.

Anderson scowled. "There are too many footprints this late into the crime scene processing- at least eight people have been in here. There is no way to say that one of these is a murderer's prints."

Sherlock just laughed. "You really don't see, do you?" He looked around incredulously at Lestrade and then Sally.

She crossed her arms. "I see the same thing that Anderson sees- a total mess, which is why the ALS wasn't used."

"Detective Sergeant, what you see are a lot of shoe prints. Do you see anywhere in this flat a foot print, that is, the mark made by the bare foot of that naked man who is lying on the floor? Unless he flew in here and killed himself without touching the floor, then one would presumably have found a footprint that belonged to him."

Oh, shit. He has a point. And he's just made me look like a complete idiot in front of Lestrade. She decided to deflect some of the anger she was feeling. "So, Anderson, what do you say to that?"

Sherlock continued, however, "Don't bother trying to answer, Anderson, because you don't know what you should be looking for, clearly. May I?" He reached out to take the torch from Anderson, who was so shell shocked by the tall brunet that he let it be pulled out of his grip. Sherlock shone the light down the corridor, where there were two different sets of footprints, both shoes rather than bare feet, both going down the corridor to the loo. But there was only one set coming back again. "I presume one set belongs to a PC who checked the bathroom, and the other set probably belongs to the murderer, so I suggest we follow the evidence, shall we?" Sherlock went down the hall and into the bathroom. This room was tiny- a toilet, shower stall, basin and small boarded up window. He pointed to a black scuff mark on the toilet.

"The killer stood here on the toilet." He shined the light up on the ceiling tiles, where there was a set of finger marks on four tiles above the loo. He continued, "You're looking for someone who is about 5 foot seven inches, and weighs less than 70 kilos- quite possibly a woman, given the narrowness of the shoe print."

Lestrade gestured to Sally, who reluctantly by stepping onto the toilet seat and popped open the same four ceiling tiles, being careful to avoid the fingerprints. She stepped up onto the toilet cistern and poked her head into the ceiling space.

"Bloody hell...Guv, you'd better send a PC or two to the flat upstairs- there'll be loose floorboards in their loo- and that's where the murderer escaped!"

As she clambered down, Sherlock carried on talking to Lestrade. "The tread is from a shoe used by medical personnel- probably a nurse or a doctor. Tell the coroner to investigate death by insulin; the victim is clearly a diabetic, given the needle pricks on his finger tips to test his blood sugar levels on a daily basis. It's actually quite clever; in theory, the cause of death could be hidden. Diabetics who want to kill themselves generally do it by a lethal overdose. Trouble is, they don't just sit there unmoving' they sweat like hell and thrash about, so the nurse got it wrong to put the arms like that. The mistake makes it more likely that perpetrator is a nurse; a doctor would probably know the actual effects of an insulin overdose. But the position of the arms shows some semblance of respect for the deceased, so not likely to be a crime of passion or hate, more likely to be a relationship of some sort, possibly familial." This was all delivered at a pace that left Sally reeling. Anderson was standing in the corridor with his mouth agape.

Lestrade just smiled. "OK, Donovan, I suggest you join the PCs upstairs, now that you know you are looking for a medical professional. This is your murder investigation now, so get on with it."

She paused for a moment, looking back at the tall brunet. Thanks for making me look like a prat, cold case guy. I won't forget this.

oOo

Sally took less than two days to wrap up the case, winning praise for her efficiency. The upstairs flat was occupied by a bed-ridden octogenarian, who had a daily nurse service. Two weeks ago, the visiting nurse had said the toilet was leaking and she'd call a plumber. The repair obviously involved cutting the floorboards to get access to the empty flat below.

The nurse was arrested and confronted by the evidence. The victim was her brother, from whom she'd been estranged for years. He suffered from diabetes, and she was the principal beneficiary of his will, despite their quarrel. When the nurse's boyfriend threatened to leave her if she didn't stump up half of the deposit on a new flat, she'd decided to do her brother in to collect the inheritance. Her boyfriend had helped carry the body in, and she'd done the bolts. She'd stone-walled at first in the interview, claiming that it must have been a suicide. Sally pointed out the mistakes she had made by not leaving his clothes or the syringe; it was the final straw that made her break down and confess to the crime.

Lestrade congratulated her on closing the case, but Sally took little comfort in that. It still rankled that she had not spotted how wrong a suicide verdict was. While pleased to close the case, she apologised.

"I'm sorry, Guv. Just didn't see past the locked room scenario. I won't make the same mistake twice, I assure you, whatever your cold case guy thinks."

The Detective Inspector just laughed kindly. "Relax, Sergeant Donovan; he has that effect on a lot of people. Believe it or not, my very first case as Senior Investigating Officer was ten years ago, and a sixteen year old kid named Sherlock Holmes embarrassed the hell out of me by proving that my original call of a homicide was simply an accident. He sees things that even the best of us can't see. Don't let it bug you."

But it did. It always did. And Sally never, ever forgave him for it.

Author's Note: If you want to know how Sherlock got from Rehab to starting out as a "Consulting Detective", read the Ex Files- Exterior coming up tomorrow! If you are following this story, think about following ExFiles because I will be switching back and forth a bit over the next few weeks.