Chapter Two: The Crime Scene

Lestrade lead the trio up a circular staircase. He and John were wearing coveralls together with white cotton coverings over their shoes, and latex gloves. Sherlock was putting latex gloves on as they went up the stairs, and Alice only had a small notebook and pen in her hands.

"I can give you two minutes," Lestrade said.

"I believe we might need longer than two minutes," Alice said as she opened to a fresh page. Lestrade gave a look towards Alice that Sherlock usually gave her whenever she interrupted his deductions, which was often.

"Her name's Jennifer Wilson according to her credit cards," He continued, "We're running them now for contact details. Hasn't been here long. Some kids found her."

He lead them into a room two stories above the ground floor. The room was empty of furniture except for a rocking horse in the far corner. Emergency portable lighting had been set up, presumably by the police. Scaffolding poles held up part of the ceiling near where a couple of large holes had been knocked through one of the walls. A woman's body was lying face down on the bare floorboards in the middle of the room. She was wearing a bright pink overcoat and high-heeled pink shoes. Her hands were flat on the floor either side of her head. Sherlock walked a few steps into the room and then stopped, holding one hand out in front of himself as he focused on the corpse. Behind him, John looked at the woman's body and his face filled with pain and sadness. Alice remained calm through the whole thing, even though she was still just a child. The four of them stood there silently for several long seconds, then Sherlock looked across to Lestrade.

"Shut up," Sherlock said to him.

"I didn't say anything," Lestrade said, startled.

"You were thinking. It's annoying." Alice giggled a bit under her breath. "Alice."

"Sorry," Alice said as she strode up to Sherlock. Lestrade and John exchanged a surprised look as Sherlock stepped slowly forward until he reached the side of the corpse. Alice followed, writing down everything she had observed. Their attention was immediately drawn to the fact that scratched into the floorboards by the woman's left hand is the word "Rache". Their eyes looked up to the corpse's fingernails where the index and middle nails were broken and ragged at the ends with the nail polish chipped, in stark comparison to her other nails which were still immaculate. The woman's index finger rested at the bottom of the 'e' as if she was still trying to carve the word into the floor when she died. Sherlock looked back to the word carved into the floorboards and instantly he shook his head in a tiny dismissive movement. Simultaneously, Alice crossed something out in her book. Sherlock looked at the carved word again. He then squatted down beside the body and ran his gloved hand along the back of her coat, then lifted his hand again to look at his fingers. Alice noticed the wetness on them. Sherlock reached into her coat pockets and found a white folding umbrella in one of them. Running his fingers along the folds of the material, he then inspected his glove again. Putting the umbrella back into her pocket, he moved up to the collar of her coat and ran his fingers underneath it before once again looking at his fingers. Sherlock extended his hand towards Alice. She fished a small magnifier from her bag and handed it to him. Sherlock clicked it open and closely inspected the delicate gold bracelet on her left wrist, then the gold earring attached to her left ear and then the gold chain around her neck before moving on to look at the rings on her left ring finger. The wedding ring and engagement ring flagged a different message to them. Sherlock blinked as a rapid succession of conclusions most likely appeared in front of his eyes. Carefully Sherlock worked the wedding ring off the woman's finger and held it up to look at the inside of the ring. As Sherlock lowered the ring, he allowed Alice a glimpse at it. While the outside of the ring was dirty, the inside was clean. Sherlock slid it back onto the woman's finger, he had already reached a conclusion about the ring. Lifting his hands away from the woman, he looked down at her and makes his final deduction about her. The pair smiled slightly in satisfaction.

"Got anything?" asked Lestrade.

"Not much," Sherlock said nonchalantly. Standing up, he took the gloves off and then got his mobile phone from his pocket and began typing on it.

"She's German," Anderson said from where he was standing in the doorway. "'Rache': it's German for 'revenge'. She could be trying to tell us something..." As he had been speaking, Alice walked quickly towards the door and began to close it in Anderson's face.

"Yes, thank you for your opinion. It as a real great help," she said sarcastically, before slamming the door shut. "Idiot." She turned and walked back into the room.

"Thank you, Alice," Sherlock said as he scrolled through his phone.

"So she's German?" Lestrade asked.

"Of course she's not. She's from out of town, though. Intended to stay in London for one night..." He smiled smugly as he apparently found the information he needed. "...before returning home to Cardiff." He pocketed the phone. "So far, so obvious."

"Sorry – obvious?" said John, still confused

"What about the message, though?" Lestrade asked. Sherlock ignored him and looked at John.

"Doctor Watson, what do you think?"

"Of the message?" asked John.

"What do you think of the body? You're a familiar with the medical field, correct?" Alice said as she clicked her pen shut.

"Wait, no, we have a whole team right outside," Lestrade said, pointing towards the door.

"They won't work with either of us," Sherlock pointed out.

"I'm breaking every rule letting you two in here."

"Yes...because you need us." Lestrade stared at him for a moment, then lowered his eyes helplessly.

"Yes, I do. God help me."

"Doctor Watson."

"Hm?" John hummed. He looked up from the body to Sherlock and Alice, then turned his head towards Lestrade, silently seeking his permission.

"Oh, do as he says. Help yourself," Lestrade said as he turned and opened the door, going outside. "Anderson, keep everyone out for a couple of minute." Sherlock, Alice and John walked over to the body. Sherlock squatted down on one side of it and John painfully lowered himself to one knee on the other side, leaning heavily on his cane to support himself. Alice kneeled beside John.

"Well?" asked Sherlock.

"What am I doing here?" John whispered.

"Helping me make a point." Sherlock whispered back.

"I'm supposed to be helping you pay the rent."

"Yeah, well, this is more fun," Alice whispered. John gave her a funny look.

"Fun? There's a woman lying dead, and you're no more than nine years old."

"My age is ten years, Dr. Watson."

"I've made my point, either way."

"That is a perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you'd go deeper," Sherlock said, completely ignoring the argument over Alice's age. As Lestrade came back into the room and stood just inside the doorway, John dragged his other leg down into a kneeling position and then leaned forward to look more closely at the woman's body. He put his head close to hers and sniffed, then straightened a little before lifting her right hand and looking at the skin. He knelt up and looked across to Sherlock.

"Yeah..." John said after his observation, "Asphyxiation, probably. Passed out, choked on her own vomit. Can't smell any alcohol on her. It could have been a seizure; possibly drugs."

"You should clearly know what it was that killed her. I'm sure that you have read the papers," said Alice as she stood.

"What, she's one of the suicides? The fourth...?"

"I believe that's what I said back at the flat..."

"Sherlock – two minutes, I said." Lestrade said, a little angry, "I need anything you've got." Sherlock stood up as Alice helped a struggling John to his feet. Alice tossed her notebook to him. Sherlock caught it and read what she wrote. Nodding, he handed it back to her.

"Victim is in her late thirties." Sherlock said. John looked over at Alice's notebook. She had written down every observation that was made. Alice closed the book before John could read anymore. She glared and him before sliding it in her coat's pocket.

"Professional person, going by her clothes; I'm guessing something in the media, going by the frankly alarming shade of pink. Travelled from Cardiff today, intending to stay in London for one night. It's obvious from the size of her suitcase." Sherlock continued.

"Suitcase?" asked a confused Lestrade. John looked around the room, searching for the object in question.

"Yes, a suitcase, Lestrade." Alice said as she walked over to the detective inspector. She stared at him in the eyes for a brief moment before walking over to Sherlock's side. "She also had been married at least ten years, but not very happily. She had a string of lovers, but I assume that none of them knew she was married."

"Alice. Stop that."

"Sorry."

"Oh, for God's sake, if you're just making this up..." Lestrade said to the pair. Sherlock pointed down to her left hand.

"Her wedding ring. Ten years old at least. The rest of her jewelry has been regularly cleaned, but not her wedding ring. State of her marriage right there. The inside of the ring is shinier than the outside – that means it's regularly removed. The only polishing it gets is when she works it off her finger. It's not for work; look at her nails. She doesn't work with her hands, so what or rather who does she remove her rings for? Clearly not one lover; she'd never sustain the fiction of being single over that amount of time, so more likely a string of them. Simple."

"That's brilliant." John said admirably. Sherlock looked round at him. "Sorry."

"Cardiff?" Lestrade asked.

"Well, it is quite obvious, isn't it?" Alice said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"It's not obvious to me." John said. Sherlock paused as he looked at the other two males.

"Dear God, what is it like in your funny little brains?" He said to them, "It must be so boring. The only one who understands other than myself is a ten year old girl." He turned back to the body. "Her coat: it's slightly damp. She's been in heavy rain in the last few hours. No rain anywhere in London in that time. Under her coat collar is damp, too. She's turned it up against the wind. She's got an umbrella in her left-hand pocket but it's dry and unused: not just wind, strong wind – too strong to use her umbrella. We know from her suitcase that she was intending to stay overnight, so she must have come a decent distance but she can't have travelled more than two or three hours because her coat still hasn't dried. So, where has there been heavy rain and strong wind within the radius of that travel time?" He got his phone from his pocket and showed to the other two the webpage he was looking at earlier, displaying the day's weather for the southern part of Britain. "Cardiff."

"That's fantastic!" exclaimed John in disbelief.

"Did you know you did that out loud?" Alice said with her voice lower.

"Sorry. I'll shut up."

"No, it's...fine." Sherlock said before Alice could even respond.

"Why d'you keep saying suitcase?" Lestrade asked. Sherlock spun around in a circle to look around the room.

"Yes, where is it? She must have had a phone or an organiser. Find out who Rachel is."

"She was writing 'Rachel'?"

"No, she was leaving an angry note in German!" Alice said sarcastically as she walked over to Lestrade. "Of course she was writing Rachel! There's no other word it could be. The only question is that why did she wait until she was dying to write it?"

"Alice." The girl sighed.

"Sorry."

"How d'you know she had a suitcase?" Lestrade asked once more. Sherlock pointed down to the body, where her tights had small black splotches on the lower part of her right leg.

"Back of the right leg: tiny splash marks on the heel and calf, not present on the left." He explained, "She was dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. Don't get that splash pattern any other way. Smallish case, going by the spread. Case that size, woman this clothes-conscious: could only be an overnight bag, so we know she was staying one night." Sherlock squatted down by the woman's body and examined the backs of her legs more closely. "Now, where is it? What have you done with it?"

"There wasn't a case." Slowly Sherlock raised his head and frowned up at Lestrade. Alice gave him a blank stare.

"I don't think I heard you right, Lestrade," asked Alice. "Could you say that again?"

"There wasn't a case." Lestrade repeated. "There was never any suitcase." Alice's dark eyes and Sherlock's light ones locked as the same idea entered their brains. Immediately, Sherlock straightened up and both of them headed for the door, with Sherlock calling out to all the police officers in the house as they began to hurry down the stairs.

"Suitcase! Did anyone find a suitcase? Was there a suitcase in this house?" Sherlock asked the officers. Lestrade and John followed him out and stopped on the landing.

"Sherlock, there was no case!" Lestrade called down towards the pair. Sherlock and Alice began slowing down, but still making their way down the stairs.

"But they all took the poison themselves; they chew, swallow the pills themselves. Each and every one of them." Alice recited quickly. "There are very clear signs, all of them are quite clear. I'm sure that even you lot couldn't miss them."

"Right, yeah, thanks! And...?"

"It's murder, all of them. Neither of us know how, but they're not suicides, they're killings – serial killings." Sherlock held his hands up in front of his face in delight as Alice grinned brightly. "We've got ourselves a serial killer."

"Oh, I absolutely love those!" Alice said with delight. "They always give me something to look forward to. Everything else is just so boring!"

"Why are you saying that?!" Lestrade said in shock, "Sherlock, what did you do to this girl?" Sherlock stopped.

"Her case! Come on, where is her case? Did she eat it?" He called up to them. "Someone else was here, and they took her case. And I did nothing to Alice, she's just like that." Sherlock lowered his voice so only his assistant could hear him. "So the killer must have driven her here; forgot the case was in the car." Alice nodded in agreement.

"She could have checked into a hotel, left her case there." suggested John. Sherlock looked up the stairs again.

"No, she never got to the hotel. Look at her hair. She colour-coordinates her lipstick and her shoes. She'd never have left any hotel with her hair still looking..." He stopped talking as realised something.

"Oh." His eyes widened and his face lit up. "Oh!" He clapped his hands over Alice's in delight.

"Sherlock!" called out John.

"What is it, what?" Lestrade said, confused by the two's actions. Sherlock smiled cheerfully to himself "Serial killers are always hard, aren't they Alice? You have to wait for them to make a mistake."

"We can't just wait!"

"We are finished waiting!" Alice called up as the duo started to hurry down the stairs again.

"Look at her, really look! Houston, we have a mistake." Sherlock said excitedly. "Get on to Cardiff: find out who Jennifer Wilson's family and friends were. Find Rachel!" They reached the bottom of the stairs and disappeared from view.

"Of course, yeah – but what mistake?!" Sherlock came back into view and ran up a couple of stairs so that he can be seen before he yells up to Lestrade.

"PINK!" He yelled before running after his shadow.

"So, where to now?" Alice asked as she and Sherlock exited the crime scene excitedly.

"Give it to me, Alice." said Sherlock with his hand extended. Alice sighed and took Lestrade's badge from her pocket. She slapped it in Sherlock's hand before he pocketed it himself.

"Old habits die hard, eh?"

"You'll be heading back to Baker Street." answered Sherlock ignoring what Alice had just said and answering her earlier question, "I need to find that case. Can you do that without disobeying me?"

"Yes but..." Alice shuddered at the thought of the memory. Sherlock turned to her.

"That was five years ago. I doubt that they're still looking for you."

"Yeah, but...what if they are?"

"You'll be fine." Alice and Sherlock split up there, with Alice heading for home.