Got My Eye on You Chapter Eighty Five


Pocket Full of Rye (Part Four)


"Behold the most complex integumentary structure found in vertebrates, a perfect example of a complex evolutionary novelty, aiding in flight, insulation, waterproofing and colouration; the epitome of avian communication."

Sherlock held up the black feather. "This one belongs to Turdus merula, the blackbird."

Detective Tolhurst was frowning. "Am I supposed to be impressed by this?"

Lestrade tried to hide a smirk. He'd arrived in the afternoon, after driving from New Scotland Yard where he'd had to attend a morning meeting of all the MIT teams. He'd walked into a stand-off. Sally Donovan had finished working the evidence boxes that he had started on the day before, having driven herself to the docks so she could get to work at the crack of dawn. She was letting the resident detective take the grief. Donna Foreman was watching Sherlock and Tolhurst, her gaze swivelling between the two men as if watching a tennis match.

Sherlock looked tired. Greg wondered what work he had taken back to Baker Street overnight- but he certainly didn't look rested. As if reading his mind, Sherlock answered. "I found the feather in Assadi's post mortem effects, which I examined last night. It had been in his pocket apparently. No worse for wear for having been in the water for so long, but then bird feathers are waterproof."

"And I still say, who gives a flying fig about a bloody feather?" Tolhurst looked seriously out of sorts. The chemistry between the consulting detective and the Tilbury port detective had been tetchy to start with, but after a second day's worth of lab work and grinding through the evidence boxes, their relationship had stretched to the breaking point. Sally was keeping her head down.

The Port's Detective, however, looked like he'd had a good night's sleep. "Who knows why some guy keeps a bird feather? Maybe it's a souvenir to remind him of home. It's irrelevant." Sherlock clearly disagreed and, any minute now, Greg knew that he was going to be told exactly why. Lestrade leaned back against one of the desks, his arms folded, waiting for the fireworks to start. Even Sally, standing alongside him in the briefing room, was holding her breath in anticipation. Greg realised that she just might be welcoming the fact that the target of Sherlock's wrath would not be her this time.

Instead of replying to the barbed comment, Sherlock turned to the white board. This was at the far end of the briefing room- the opposite wall from the evidence board. He opened the cap of the black felt tip marker, wrinkling his nose briefly at the scent, but then started to write.

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?
The king was in his counting house counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!

As soon as Sherlock finished the exclamation mark, Donna recited it softly.

Tolhurst finally exploded, "What the fuck is this? Have you both gone off your rockers?" He shot an angry look at the Met detective pair, as if seeking moral support from his fellow police officers.

Greg just put out both hands in a placatory manner, as if damping down a fire. "Just give him a minute, will you?" Sally looked away, and bit her lip to try to keep the smile off her face. She'd had similar WTF moments of her own with Sherlock, and was certainly not going to give any help to the Port detective.

Silently, Sherlock then opened four different coloured pens and started underlining various words on the poem, drawing out a bubble to the side- in effect, annotating the rhyme with links to evidence. He explained, "The sixpence was in West's pocket. It was planted there, along with the rye. The poem suggests that the coin was used to buy the rye. Logic suggests that the rye sample is most likely to have come off the Odessa Printessa. Not only that, we now believe that this cargo of grain has been contaminated with ergot fungus."

Tolburst was not looking at the board; he was pacing. "So you say. Contaminated, or just a bad harvest, that the Ukrainians didn't catch on the way out? What difference does a little bit of black stuff in the grain make?"

Sherlock stopped his writing and turned to glare over his shoulder at Tolhurst. "Ergot, Claviceps purpurea, is a stage of fungus growth that produces mycotoxins. The species is the original source for LSD, and it has been implicated in causing hallucinations, convulsions and gangrene for the past twelve hundred years. Don't doubt the power of the ergot toxins- they killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle Ages, and some say that if it weren't for the damage it caused in the immune system of the survivors, the bubonic plague would not had had the devastating effect it did."

Tolhurst's face screwed up in disbelief. "LSD? Was that newspaper right about you being on drugs? What does something that happened in the Middle Ages have to do with our four bodies?"

Greg heard Sally's intake of breath. Sherlock's shoulders tensed. He re-capped the pen and turned fully to face the big man. "The latest mass outbreak took place in France in 1951. Ergotism kills, Detective. It's just as potent a form of murder as a gun or knife, even if its presence is harder to detect than either of those two weapons."

Donna Foreman spoke up. "Bill, just calm down. That's why we test every load of grain from a non-EU port of origin. It's not as easy as some of the other mycotoxin tests, but the EU has stepped up its ergot regulations. That's what I don't understand. The grain off of the Odessa Printessa was tested, and the results documented as clean."

Sherlock just shrugged. "The pocketful of rye says otherwise. I analysed four samples independently, subjecting each to the six chemical tests needed to detect the presence of Ergot- and each one came up as more than ten times the legal limits for contamination. This would have been enough to poison a lot of people."

"So, you're saying that the records of the grain tests were falsified."

Sherlock nodded. He turned back to the board and tapped the line the queen is in the parlour eating bread and honey. "It's possible that this line refers to that fact. Rye is used in baking bread. Doctor Foreman, do we know what happened to the grain offloaded?"

She nodded. "Yes- got the confirmation an hour ago. It went into the grain container lorries on the night before last. I've tracked each and every one of them to their point of delivery and put out a seizure notice. Mostly bakeries, a couple of breweries and a half dozen Scottish distilleries. We'll be able to test a sample from each in a couple of days when they get around to posting us one."

"Good, that's a sensible approach. In the meantime, it also makes sense to assume that it is poisoned, but has been passed by the port authorities as clean." He smiled.

Tolhurst just growled, "This is nonsense. If there is contamination going on here, why would anyone be murdering people just to reveal that fact? Even if I were to accept your crazy premise, if PC West was killed because he discovered it, then surely they'd have checked his pockets and removed the stuff. You've got it all back to front. Either that, or you are implying that he was a bent copper taking bribes to cover it all up- and that makes no sense either, because he wouldn't be caught carrying the evidence of his own culpability. And who the hell would kill him for doing that?"

Sherlock stood up straighter, as if affronted by the man's comments. "You are assuming that the constable put the rye in his pocket. It is much more likely that it was planted in his pocket, along with the other evidence."

Now Greg was confused. He really wanted Sherlock to be right, but it was getting hard to see what the connection was. "Why would someone do that? All that does is plant suspicions that the murderer would not want anyone to draw."

"Who said anything about a murderer planting the evidence? It is quite possible that someone else planted the props, in order to raise suspicions."

A red flush was beginning to creep up Tolhurst's neck. He barked out, "This is just outrageous. You're making this stuff up. Four unrelated murders, and you're turning them into some grand conspiracy, and then, as if that's not enough, inventing another conspiracy that's determined to expose the first one by leaving ridiculous clues related to some stupid nursery rhyme. If anyone actually had evidence that connected these murders, they could knock on the front door of this station and tell us what they found. This elaborate game of rhymes and planting evidence? It's just a figment of your hyperactive imagination, Holmes."

"Is it? Then consider the other evidence, Detective. Ergotism begins some two to eight weeks after ingesting the infected rye- usually eaten in the form of rye bread. Look at the Lumad woman's left ankle."

"Oh!" Donna's eyes went wide. "You mean the fact that her foot was turned at such a peculiar angle. I just thought that was due to her being squashed into the box. But, you're suggesting that's the effect of convulsive spasm?"

Sherlock whirled around to face her again. "What do you think the odds are of a co-incidence that the same grain is responsible for the death of the third victim?" He once again rewarded the Health Authority manager with a brief smile.

Greg was trying to follow. "But…your autopsy didn't show any signs of poisoning."

She gave a rueful shrug. "Didn't check for obscure alkaloid poisoning; why would I? Cause of death was clear. She bled out from the cut to her throat."

Sherlock took a stride towards the woman, his eyes lighting up. "But, don't you see? The ergotism could have been the motive for her being killed. Someone could have seen the effects, realised what it meant and killed her to stop anyone from thinking she was afflicted."

Donna's hands were in motion coming up to her mouth in shock. "Oh my God! What if she was delusional? She could have killed herself. I just assumed that the slash of the blade was consistent with someone doing it standing behind her. But, she could have done it herself." She demonstrated the slashing movement across her own neck.

"That is quite possible; the hallucinations that afflicted victims in the Middle Ages were horrible. It could well lead a person to consider suicide. Or, her rantings could be misunderstood by her captors."

"Captors? Who said anything about the jane doe being kidnapped? All we know is that her body arrived here in a box from Italy." Tolhurst was just shaking his head in disbelief.

Sherlock ignored him and looked straight at Lestrade and Sally. "A Lumad woman would not leave her home voluntarily. She was probably taken as just one more victim of human trafficking. The evidence from the box that she was found in was consistent with the other cargo stored in the warehouse, but there is no evidence suggesting that she was put in there in Italy. A forklift operator would have noticed the reduction in weight and rigidity of a carton carrying a body instead of a fridge, and checked the contents. Who wants to pay the fine for trying to pass off an empty box as valid cargo? No, logic says she was placed in the box here in the UK- which means in that warehouse."

He turned back to the ME. "I presume the body is still in a morgue somewhere?"

She nodded. "Yes, no one's claimed her and, because she was murdered, I sent her to Basildon University Hospital to be held until we closed the case. I will contact them to see if they can test for ergotism."

Sherlock was now sharing her smile. "Get them to test as well for vascular constriction in the lower limbs and fingers, or any incipient gangrene."

"Yes, yes- even if the fungus has deteriorated by now because of decomposition, the evidence will still be there. That's brilliant."

Lestrade realised that this was the most animated that he had seen Sherlock in days- no, actually, since the man had returned. However badly things were going between him and the Tilbury detective, the opposite was happening with Donna Foreman. Their give and take was absolutely fizzing with energy. And Greg was pleased to see it. When he'd investigated the East End skeleton, Lestrade kept feeling that Sherlock was very conscious of the absence of John Watson- even to the extent of talking to John as if he were still there. But now some of the passion was returning to the consulting detective's manner- and Greg figured that Donna Foreman was helping to bring out the best in Sherlock.

Whatever positive thoughts he had on that subject were shoved aside by another scathing comment from Tolhurst. "Well, now that you two have gotten off together on the subject of a dead body, can I point out that all of this is just guesswork? There is no evidence at all that the four deaths are actually connected. This idea that it's somehow linked to a kiddie's song is just…well, it's preposterous! Where's the bloody proof?" He stalked off from the board and came face-to-face with Lestrade, trying to intimidate him physically. "Lestrade, If the Met's pet can't come up with something more plausible than this joke, then I'm off to Schaeffer. He'll pull your team off this tomorrow."

Sherlock just turned his back on the port detective, and returned to underlining key words in different colours. He carried on as if Tolhurst had not had his outburst, or threatened the investigation.

"The feather was in Assadi's clothing. We don't know to whom the blackbirds applies, nor its meaning yet. But, I think we will find it, once we deduce the rest. This is a complicated puzzle, Detective Tolhurst, and if it were easy to prove, then even you would have solved it months ago."

That's my boy! Greg's wait for the sarcasm and insult was finally over.

The Port detective didn't even break stride. "You are gone by tomorrow- the whole lot of you."

Tolhurst's stubborn refusal to go along with Sherlock's idea had finally provoked some returning fire from the consulting detective. For years, Greg assumed that the barbed comments and irritating insults were just a cross to be borne when dealing with Sherlock. But now, watching him grapple with this case without John, Greg realised that it was more than that. When the man's intellect was firing on all cylinders, when his interest was fully engaged and the data was starting to come together, it was almost as if Sherlock needed an obstacle or two to sharpen his argument, to draw out the very best in him. John's innocent questions often provoked that insight in a way that worked best, but before John, it had been the cut and thrust of sceptical crime scene examiners and, yes, even Sally Donovan's acerbic sniping, before the full power of deductive insight was unleashed.

"Wait. Just think it through." Sherlock's comment made the Port detective turn in the doorway.

Sherlock used the red pen to underscore the phrase counting house. "This is most likely to refer to the Customs House at the Port. And the implication is that there is some form of corruption going on. Perhaps someone there is on the take, willing to turn a blind eye to ships loaded with dodgy grain."

Tolhurst just threw up his hands in disgust. "Play your games with someone else, Mister Celebrity Detective. I'm done here." He stormed out of the briefing room, slamming the glass door behind him.

Greg stood up. "Okay, I'll admit that was fun watching you make mincemeat of him. But pissing him off is not good, Sherlock. We are guests here, and if he carries through with his threat, then Schaeffer will tell us to pack up and leave; he'd be well within his rights. So, you need to come up with some real evidence tonight, rather than conjecture."

Sherlock sighed, but then settled his shoulders. "Shall we continue?"

Donna stepped a little closer to Sherlock, almost as if to give him some comfort. "Of course we should continue. Who needs an idiot like him?" She turned back to the board. "But what are your ideas about the first and second victims? What links a Somali –no, wait, you said he was from Yemen and the Indonesian ship crew member to this rhyme?"

Sally spoke up. "And, what about the missing bits- Who is the maid?" Who do you think the blackbirds are?

"That, Sergeant Donovan, is the question. The most important one. And I have no idea. Not yet, anyway. The only thing that the two crew men seem to share is that both were non-Western European Muslims. Assadi was killed by being beaten, and then drowned; Tahyadi was also beaten, but with a tyre iron."

Donna rubbed the back of her neck, looking down for a moment. She'd obviously been working all day alongside the Consulting Detective and was starting to feel exhausted. Greg felt for her- trying to keep up with Sherlock was not easy. Molly Hooper and John Watson had found a way over the years, but they both knew Sherlock well.

She pursed her lips a bit. "Unfortunately, I can't test either for ergotism- at least not without an exhumation order. The bodies were claimed by their ships crew members, and in accordance with Muslim tradition, they had to be buried as fast as possible. Luckily, the country's largest Muslim cemetery is not even twenty miles away, at Ilford in Essex. But we would need more than this fishy business to justify a judge granting an exhumation order."

Sherlock shook his head. "I don't think they are connected to the ergot or the rye. It's more likely that they have something to do with the black birds, given the placement of the feather in his effects." He was pacing, and began to mutter. "Missing something…something important…that's staring at us... right in the eye…..eye? Hmmm."

He ended one length and then turned on his heel and returned, coming right up to where Donna was standing, nearly colliding with her. He looked startled to see her in his path; she looked slightly alarmed. "What is it?"

"Fishy business." A broad smile erupted on his face. "The fish that was in West's pocket. It's the bit that doesn't fit the rhyme."

Lestrade leaned forward. "You said it was a sardine."

"So, I did. The other name for a sardine is a pilchard. And there is a particular Cornish dish called Stargazy Pie, in which the whole fish is baked in the pie, but its head and tail stick up out of the pastry. A bit like the one staring out of the pocket of the murdered constable."

"Pie?" Donna drew a line on the white board with a green pen, from the words baked in a pie and added a bubble, then wrote in the word Pilchard. Then she drew a line of question marks to the part of the rhyme that mentioned blackbirds, frowning. "But no fish are landed here at the port. That sort of stuff is handled at New Billingsgate."

Sherlock had gone over to one of the computer terminals and was clicking through something.

"Not pilchard. Stargazer, that's the clue. We just need to find the right ship."

Lestrade and Sally exchanged glances. Donna Foreman was standing at the board watching Sherlock with a knowing sort of smile, almost as if she'd gotten there before the consulting detective, and was glad to see him taking up the scent of the trail.