AN The challenge begins! Thanks to everyone who has agreed to take part this year. If you're interested in taking part, please do get in touch.

Content warnings for this chapter: Discussions of suicide.

From Winter Winks 221: Locomotive

"It's a gruesome one," Gregson cautioned, as he led doctor and detective past the station master with a nod. "Was the signalman who found him. Well. What's left of him."

The sight was indeed a gruesome one, enough to turn even Doctor Watson's stomach, although the only indication of this was the slight tightening of his jaw. You get used to that kind of thing, Gregson supposed, in the army.

"He was pulled under the wheels?" For once Mr Holmes chose to keep his distance, looking pointedly away from the gore.

"Driver says he jumped out, too quick for him to stop the train. Signalman saw the train stop, went to investigate and, well..." Gregson waved a hand vaguely. "There it is. His name's Thomas Sykes."

"The politician?" Watson, who had, in contrast to Holmes, been examining the body, looked up in surprise."Ex-military?"

Gregson nodded. "Word was he was about to be knighted. Had a wife, children, big house, the lot. So you can see why we're suspicious, Mr Holmes. Perhaps he had a rival, someone who pushed him."

"Watson?"

"He wasn't pushed." Watson said shortly, returning to stand beside Holmes. "I'm afraid your theory is incorrect inspector, and the driver was right in what he saw. Mr Sykes took his own life."

"But the mortician said it was impossible to tell!"

"Hardly impossible," Holmes interrupted calmy. "The angle of the body and where it landed beneath the train suggest much."

"It is much harder to push someone legs first; if he had been pushed you wouldn't been able to identify the body, for his entire top half would have been pulled under."

"There you have it, Inspector." Holmes turned to go, Watson following as he always did. "Perhaps now you can turn your attention to something that needs it."

"Of course there is still a mystery to be solved," Holmes announced later that evening, continuing as he often did, a conversation that anyone else would have thought to have concluded hours previous. "A successful man, a politician, family and wealth. Why did he do it?"

Watson set aside his book. "There is the question of why he did it, yes. But I find myself wondering more why he chose to do it in the way he did. He was ex-army; surely he had a firearm of some sort?"

"It sounds almost as though you've thought it through."

Watson raised a sardonic eyebrow. "There are no published statistics on such things, but I can assure you that suicide rates among former soldiers are high."

"My apologies, Watson," Holmes murmured, duly chastised. "And I suppose in answer to your question, he had a family. Perhaps he did not wish for one of them to find him."

"Perhaps." Watson hesitated. "Holmes, your black moods-"

"Not as black as all that, I assure you Watson."

"But if they were-"

"Then you would be the first to know, I assure you."

Watson watched Holmes silently from across the room, surveying him with a keen eye. "Alright then." He took up his book again, and lapsed back into a peaceful silence.

He entirely missed the fond grin Holmes directed at him before he, too, returned to the experiment he had abandoned in favour of their fleeting conversation.