CHAPTER 29: GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER?
Sherlock takes Anderson aside and murmurs, "You mean that she is the wife of the jewel thief?"
The forensic officer simply nods, and John comments, "I bet she is quite the talked-about woman down here."
"She was talked-about even before the heist. Her husband is an ex-soldier who fought in Iraq. When he came back home, it is thought that he smuggled some weapons in the country, even though no one has ever investigated the matter. Anyhow, I suppose that it wasn't profitable enough for him," a note of malice envelops Anderson's voice.
"Is there a rumour you don't know about?" John glares at him.
Anderson shrugs dismissively, "Don't look at me like that, it's not my fault if that man has always been in a shady business."
"This gossip is trivial. We are missing the point: why is she in those conditions?" Sherlock cuts them short, making sure to keep out of the woman's hearing range.
"She told you: she is in shock. She has just lost a close friend. I can see now why you are a sociopath," the forensic officer spits out.
The detective glowers at him, "If I hear one more idiotic syllable coming out of your mouth, my synapses will commit suicide."
John pulls him by his arm dragging him a few feet away from the policeman and the woman, "Sherlock, what's going on?"
The detective turns to face him with an annoyed expression on his face and is about to snap back something about how rude and insufferable Anderson can be, but he stops dead. No words leave his mouth as he meets John's eyes. There is something in his friend's gaze that he wasn't expecting: concern. He thought that John would reprimand him for being disrespectful, but that is not the reason behind his question. John knows him: he can see that something's wrong with him, that his scathing insult was a facade, a mask to hide his insecurities. But now that he is staring into the doctor's eyes, he feels naked under his inquisitive look: John is waiting for an honest answer, so Sherlock himself is faced with that question: what's going on, for real?
He sighs finally averting his gaze, "I'm vexed, that's the truth. I have the impression that I'm missing something," his voice barely more than a whisper.
John frowns at his words. Is this creepy little town getting under his skin? But he is not like that. He always declares himself as the stone-cold sociopath detached from the rest of the world.
"What's there to miss? You must admit that every piece of evidence seems to point against Isaac," he tries to reason with him. Even the Great Detective needs a reality check every now and then.
"Alright, but what is his motive? He had no reason to kill his mother."
"Neither did anyone else. Our victim had no known enemies: no one had a motive for this murder," John underlines.
"Exactly. This murder. We are only focusing on it, but what if we are looking at it the wrong way? What if it was connected to the other mysteries, somehow?"
The doctor raises a brow incredulously, "You think that the victim had something to do with the robbery?"
"Actually, I was more inclined to believe the Elisa Therton's killer might be the same as her husband, but on second thought, yours is a rather interesting theory," Sherlock folds his hands under his chin contemplating that idea.
"No, that is usually called a 'conspiracy'. You of all people should know better than to speculate arbitrarily. Why are you acting like this? Did this case seriously hit too close to home?" John tilts his head scrutinising his friend.
Sherlock feels taken off guard and hastens to rebut, "Oh, I see. Just like Anderson, you think that I might be carried away because Isaac is a sociopath like me," he sneers grimacing. "Come on, you know me. I'm Sherlock Holmes: I don't care, I never do, about anything."
John keeps his eyes fixed on him trying to spot the crack in his armour. I do know you and I think that sometimes you are more human than you'd like to admit, he reflects.
"I know that you are the most observant man here, and yet you are overlooking the obvious evidence."
The detective shoots him a defeated look, "I'm glad that everything is so obvious to you. I, on my part, am experiencing some sort of... uncertainty. Needless to say, I loathe this sensation. I don't have enough answers."
John gapes at him: not only this is the first time he hears something like that coming from him, but it is also quite false. "You do have all the answers you need: you have questioned the main suspect, been on the crime scene, deduced the corpse, the house and even the garden. There is truly nothing else to see, at present."
Sherlock freezes as John's words inspire a sudden realisation in him, "At present... You are, in fact, right. What if the key is not in the present but the past? What if nobody has a motive for this murder because the real reason dates way back?"
"What are you talking about?"
"John, you are the brightest source of inspiration that a great mind could ever ask for. I think you've just pointed me in the right direction. You are a genius! The things are exactly like you hypothesised a minute ago: this murder is linked to the robbery; the jewels were the real motive all along."
Before John can ask him for clarification, a police car pulls over next to the four people assembled by the roadside and a silver-haired man gets out.
"Detective Inspector Lestrade, thank you for blessing us with your presence. Have you locked Isaac up for life yet or you're here to gather some more incriminating evidence against him?" Sherlock sarcastically greets him.
The D.I. ignores his comment. "What's going on?" he nods at the woman propped against the wall, still shaken up.
She realises that she has become the centre of attention and quickly affirms, "I should probably go home now." She stands up and takes a few steps forward walking unsteadily, but she loses her grip on her handbag spilling its content on the ground. She swiftly bends down putting everything back in as John promptly leaps at her to help, but she is already done gathering her possessions so he can only help her stand up again, with a crooked smile on his face.
Sherlock walks closer to his friend; his voice drops to a whisper when he asks, "I wasn't able to get a good look at the inside of her handbag, anything amiss about it? She was incredibly fast to pick everything up, did you notice any vials or syringes, maybe some pills, anything related to drug abuse that could explain her current state?"
John shakes his head. "It looked like any woman's bag. I only caught a glimpse of her wallet, the London Gazzette, a lipstick... I wonder why women's bags are always incredibly heavy," he grumbles.
Lestrade steals a preoccupied glance at the woman, then suggests, "Maybe we could drive you home."
"I could drive you," Sherlock volunteers. Everyone goggles at him.
John whispers, "Sherlock, what are you doing? I'd never object to a considerate act of chivalry, but coming from you? What are you hiding?"
"I want to dig deeper into this, and I need more information. I'm not the police; I don't have the luxury to leave any stone unturned. And right now, Mrs Admiral might be the perfect source for a good story. I just need some alone time with her, away from prying ears," he hints at Anderson.
"I thought you despised trash rumours," John remarks.
"Fiercely. But I have the feeling that some of those rumours might be true."
"And what am I supposed to do?"
"Follow us in a police car, perhaps?" he simpers at him and notices that the woman has been staring confused at him. He walks to her and kindly offers his arm escorting her to Mrs Hudson's red sports car that they used to get to the crime scene.
During the ride, Sherlock glances at the woman. "So, Mrs Admiral..." he attempts at breaking the ice.
"You can call me Martha, we are pretty informal around here."
"I'm not from around here, so tell me: why would a woman, whose husband went to prison for robbery consequently throwing her spouse into a negative light for the rest of her days, befriend another outcast - a widow burdened with a mystery regarding her husband's murder and a son disliked by the whole community?"
"Because I know what it feels like to have everyone's look on the back of your head, to hear your name whispered in every corner. It's called human compassion: ever heard of it?"
"I'm afraid you'd be surprised by how ignorant I can be on the matter. Anyway, was your husband close with Adam Therton - Elisa's deceased husband?"
"Why do you ask?" she snaps back.
"Getting defensive: did I hit a nerve? Just answer, please. Your friend got shot this morning, and I am the most likely person to find out who did it. So, if you want to render her justice, you'd better start talking. I need to get all the pieces of this story."
She sighs heavily, "They were somehow close when they came back home, at first."
He frowns at her, "Back from where?"
"Iraq. My husband fought there and that's where he met Adam Therton; he found out they came from the same area and bonded when they were in the army."
Anderson never mentioned that Mr Therton was a soldier, too; let alone that he had come home together with Mr Admiral. He can't even provide useful gossip, Sherlock thinks before objecting out loud, "I thought that everybody knew everybody in this small town."
"Everybody, except the Thertons. They have always been quite... peculiar," she struggles to find the right, non-insulting word. "You have been to their house: they basically isolated themselves. They never had great people skills."
"But you became friends with them after both men came back home, didn't you?"
"Not exactly. My husband Fred introduced me to them, but that's all it was at first. His friendship with Adam soon faded away and they drifted apart."
"Why?" Sherlock has every intention to get all the details right.
"I suppose that it was more of comradeship in times of war. After all, Adam was a bit of a weirdo himself. My husband told me about his quirks: he didn't trust banks or government institutions, and he used to roam into the woods alone at night, just for fun. Bad habit; the woods are dangerous."
"So that's why earlier you said that you and Elisa Therton had become close only recently," he infers.
"We became actual friends when Elisa lost her husband. I know what it means to be in the spotlight and I wanted to help."
"What did you have to gain?" Sherlock takes his gaze off the road for one second to point it on her.
She raises a brow, "Do you really think greed is what makes the world go round?"
"Pretty much, yes. But I'd like to know what moved you. When you were rambling, you said that you wanted her house..." he prompts her to speak.
"I'm not going to deny that I'd like to live in that quaint cottage, and I've just got a baby: we do need more space. However, I was willing to buy it for a much higher price than its actual worth. I wanted to lend a helping hand to a poor widow," she explains signalling him that they have reached her house.
He pulls over and fixes his gaze into her eyes, smirking, "I believe you forgot to specify: a widow who was sitting on half a million-worth of jewels."
"You mean the heist? Elisa never had anything to do with it," she quickly understands his reference. Sherlock's mind reluctantly draws a conclusion, Anderson was surprisingly right about one thing: ten years later, people still remember the crimes that made the headlines.
"Maybe not, but her husband certainly did. I'm fairly sure that Adam Therton was your husband's accomplice during the robbery, the one that left him behind and got away. This brings me to two logical conclusions: first, your husband murdered his old, traitorous partner six years ago; second, he killed Elisa Therton, too, just this morning. But let me paint the whole picture both for you and the police," he pronounces getting out of the car.
At almost the same time, a police car stops in front of the house, and Lestrade, Anderson and John step out of it throwing questioning looks at Sherlock.
"Now that we are all here, let me tell you a story. Spoiler: it doesn't end well," Sherlock theatrically begins. "As all of you should know by now, this woman's husband, Mr Admiral, went to jail for a jewel heist ten years ago."
"Sherlock, what are you doing? I don't need an open-and-shut case from the last decade. We are here to solve a murder," Lestrade cuts him short.
"Indeed, Detective Inspector. And I could cut to the chase and bring the culprit to justice straight away, but if you want to understand the motive behind this homicide, you'd better pay attention. Now, just a quick summary: Adam Therton, our victim's deceased husband, and Fred Admiral were army comrades. They met in Iraq and came home together only to find our country sunk in a nasty financial crisis. Soon enough, the two fellows were both broke. They weren't that close anymore, but desperate times call for old bedfellows, so we can assume that they planned and executed the robbery together. You know the story: Mr Admiral was caught and his accomplice was never found, neither were the jewels. Just because the police never retrieved the loot, though, it doesn't mean that Fred wasn't still determined to put his hands on it. After waiting for years, when he got out of prison, he went straight to Adam. His partner must have been taken off guard when he got out early for good behaviour. Fred knew him well and knew he used to go into the woods at night, so we can easily imagine that one night he followed and confronted him asking for his part. I don't know what happened exactly, but I can presume that Adam didn't want to give up the jewels. Fred must have threatened him, and in the end, he killed him; his rage and thirst for vengeance had built up over four years, after all. I'm not judging, I'm just analysing facts."
"These are not facts, these are mad speculations!" Martha Admiral fiercely protests, horrified.
"Be patient, I'm getting to the interesting part. Eventually, Fred disposed of the body so as it was never to be found. It was late at night, and nobody was around, so he thought he could easily get away with murder and let people think that Adam had been killed by a wild beast, perhaps. There's just one thing he never knew: he had a witness."
"There was never a witness, Holmes," Anderson corrects him.
"But you listened to the interrogation: Isaac has had troubles sleeping since he was a child, and I'm willing to bet that he was awake that night. What is more, we know he was for he saw a man coming out of the woods; you heard his words. He simply absorbed that memory into his dreams and always thought he had only dreamed of it."
"Wait, Sherlock, I perfectly remember that Isaac claimed that he never saw the man's face. Even assuming he wasn't dreaming and imagining it all, how can you say with certainty that it was Fred Admiral?" Lestrade asks him doubtfully. He has the impression that Sherlock is building castles in the air.
"Because the boy affirmed that the man he saw was wearing a grey coverall. It's pretty obvious now, isn't it?"
Everybody looks at him with wide eyes and a confused expression on their faces. The detective stares into their vacant looks and sighs, "Do you ever hear an echo in the deserted void that are your minds?"
He fishes his phone out of his pocket and makes a call. When someone picks up, he quickly states, "Hello, Sergeant Donovan. I need to speak to Isaac. Put him on the phone, please." He puts it on speaker, and everyone can clearly hear Donovan hissing, "I'm not your assistant," before a male voice replaces hers, "Hello?"
"Hi, Isaac, this is Sherlock Holmes. I just need to ask you a few things. I noticed that you're quite an observant person: can you remember how I was dressed when I interrogated you, this morning?"
"Yes."
"And do you recall the shirt I was wearing?"
"I do."
Five pairs of ears are listening to the conversation but only one knows where this is going.
"What colour was it?"
"Lilac. It was a lilac shirt," the boy affirms confidently.
Everyone frowns at that statement as they are all staring at the light blue shirt Sherlock is wearing: it's the same he had at New Scotland Yard.
"Are you sure, Isaac?"
"Yes, I am. Truth be told, I found it weird, but I have no taste in fashion so I can't really be the judge of that."
"Thank you. That'd be all," and with that, Sherlock ends the call.
"What does it mean?" Anderson inquires, puzzled.
"It means that you don't pay attention to details. When we went to Isaac's room, you questioned his football faith while looking at the Arsenal crest coloured in green and lilac. What you didn't realise, though, is that Isaac isn't an inattentive fan; he is colourblind. Deuteranope, to be exact. People with Deuteranopia are likely to confuse mid-reds with mid-greens, or light blues with lilac (as it was the case both for the Arsenal drawing and my shirt). But they can also confuse blue with grey, which means that the man with a grey coverall he saw coming out the woods was actually wearing blue clothes. And I think we all know what a plumber's uniform looks like," he concludes gesturing towards the entrance of the house, where Fred Admiral has just appeared on the threshold wearing his blue coverall.
"Honey, what is going on? Why are the cops here?" Fred asks his wife.
"This deranged detective is trying to blame you for murder," she whines alarmed.
"What does it mean? I got nothing to do with what happened to Elisa," he protests.
"I hadn't gone that far yet but I was getting there," Sherlock conceitedly replies before going back to his story. "Before I had to explain to your basic minds how colourblindness works, I was saying that Mr Admiral was after the jewels knowing that his old accomplice hadn't sold and spent the whole plunder; it's not like he bought a big mansion or a Ferrari. He clearly wasn't living a lavish life: he was flying under the radar to ensure that the jewels, slowly sold separately on the black market, would yield him a lifetime revenue. We have one more detail: thanks to all the gossip and chitchat and thanks to what Mrs Admiral confirmed to me mere minutes ago, we know that Adam Therton didn't trust banks and never confided money to those institutions. Logical conclusion: he must have kept the loot close, hidden in his own house."
He looks around to make sure that everyone is following or at least attempting at it. "Next step was easy: after killing Adam, Fred had to search the cottage. That's where you, Mrs Admiral, came in. Your husband used you as a pawn and encouraged you to become close friends with Elisa so as to worm the secret stash out of her. Unfortunately for you, Adam had kept his own wife completely in the dark. The more you spoke with her and spent time at her place, the more you realised that not only she didn't have a clue about the robbery and the jewels, but those weren't even in the house: her husband must have buried them in the garden. Whereas a little breaking and entering would have been easy to perform (especially for a former thief), Fred certainly couldn't hope to dig out an entire garden while going unnoticed. I'm quite sure that once again, he resorted to his wife who exploited the Thertons' economic problems to try to lure Elisa into selling her house, but to no avail. The widow wouldn't have left for all the gold in the world: that was her home, the last remaining memories of her husband."
He makes a dramatic pause to catch his breath. "Eventually, Fred couldn't take it anymore, he couldn't wait any longer; four years in prison, six more spent searching, sneaking his way into that house had already been enough. Fast forward to this morning, then: he snapped and killed Elisa. I wouldn't call it a premeditated murder, though. I think he only went to her house to threaten her at gunpoint to convince her to sell the house. But things went down a bit differently; judging by the signs at the crime scene, I can confidently affirm that they struggled a bit before he finally pulled the trigger. Anyway, now that the stubborn woman is dead, the house will most definitely be put up for auction, and I am ready to bet that Mr and Mrs Admiral will be the highest bidders."
"You are out of your mind..." Fred starts to protest coming menacingly near that insolent know-it-all, but Lestrade lifts his police badge to stop him in his tracks and intervenes, "Sherlock, your story is engaging, I'll give you that, but you haven't proven anything. If Adam Therton was really the second thief, where are the jewels, then? We have searched both the house and the garden; you can't seriously suggest we should dig up the whole property."
"Had he tried to sell those precious gems around here, don't you think that local police would have got wind of it? And even in the event that he decided to keep the jewels, don't you believe we would have found those at the crime scene by now?" Anderson interjects scornfully.
Sherlock grimaces at him, "Are those rhetorical questions?"
Lestrade interrupts their banter, "You are basing an accusation for a murder that took place over six years ago on Isaac's memory (who was nine back then). Just a few hours ago you defined that very recollection of his as a 'figment of his imagination'," the inspector quotes the same words Sherlock had pronounced inside the interrogation room.
"We can't exactly put an expiration date on murders, can we?" Sherlock jeers at him.
"But we have to stick to the limits of jurisdiction, and that cold case is definitely out of my hands. As for the case at issue - which, for the record, is the sole reason why you are here and the only homicide that we should be investigating, I'll play along: Mr Admiral can you provide us with your whereabouts between 9 and 10 this morning?" Lestrade asks him with weariness in his voice.
"I was working," he replies curtly.
"Is there anyone that could vouch for you?"
"All my coworkers. But if it's really necessary, I'll give you the surveillance tapes from security cameras on the main entrance of our Plumbers' Company: there's just one way to get in and out of the building. The tapes will show the time I went into work early this morning until I finally came back home half an hour ago."
"That'd be helpful, thank you," Lestrade nods at him.
"That's it? You won't test his clothes and skin for gunshot residue? First thing you did with Isaac was swapping his hands and clothes to take him down for murder. A few hours have already passed since the shooting: this is your last time window to check him too," the consulting detective complains. He is losing his temper: why doesn't Lestrade arrest him, already? He has just assessed the facts. Did he go too fast for his comprehension skills?
Greg sighs and addresses Anderson, "Would you mind?"
The forensic officer grimaces but doesn't protest; he quickly opens the police car's boot and takes a briefcase. He wears gloves and professionally pulls out some dabs and swaps.
"Mr Admiral, I have no intention to force you to undergo a gunshot residue test, so if you don't..." Lestrade gets interrupted mid-sentence by the deep voice of the plumber, "I'll do it. I got nothing to hide," and he outstretches his hands towards the forensic scientist.
Anderson wipes down his hands and clothes, then goes back to the briefcase and adds some chemical reagents. While waiting for the colour change to happen in order to verify the presence of heavy metals and components associated with gunpowder residue (GSR), he clarifies haughtily, "I'm simply running a quick preliminary colourimetric test. When I'm back to the labs in Scotland Yard, I will perform the complete procedure using a Scanning Electron Microscope, but this will give us a head start."
They all intently observe as the samples slowly change colours.
Anderson smirks, "Negative results to gunshot residue: he's clean."
A frown sets on Sherlock's face. How is it possible? This can't be. Every piece of the puzzle seemed to fall into place. He was so sure...
"We're done here. Mr and Mrs Admiral, thank you for your time and apologies for the inconvenience," the D.I. states flatly as the woman runs into her house and slams the front door, outraged.
"Lestrade, what are you doing? You're letting him get away with murder," the consultant detective fervently protests.
"I'm being sensible, Sherlock; someone here has to be. That man has an ironclad alibi, and the gunpowder test results came out negative: you don't have a shred of evidence against him. I regret to say that apparently this time you got it all wrong."