Greg Lestrade could finally switch off his computer. Once he had taken a shower at home and changed into dry clothes, he had returned to his office to write the report on the evidence provided by Sherlock, the assault by the fishmonger and his friends and the arrest that had followed. Mycroft probably had been right. He would be down with a cold within the next twenty-four hours so it was best to write down the information as long as it was fresh and not muddled by the inevitable head cold.
Greg knew he would work more efficiently if he learned to dictate but he had never got a hang of it.
Downing the rest of his now cold tea, he got up and shrugged into his coat. Having added the file with his report to the stack on the DCI's desk, he was about to walk out of the building when Sally Donovan intercepted him.
"We've got a murder near Finsbury Station. Looks like a homeless man stabbed another in the back. Puzzling though he left some sort of a note, scratched into the ground."
"What about Dimmock and his team?" Greg asked.
"Busy with another case. A French tourist has been shot in front of the National Gallery."
"Retirement sounds better by the minute," Greg mumbled,
Sally gave him a lopsided smile, knowing her boss would either have to be forcefully evicted from NSY in another ten to fifteen years or die in the line of duty.
They arrived at the scene half an hour later. Pulling the disposable suit over his clothes, Greg listened to the initial report of the police officer who had arrived first on the scene.
"The bodies of two dead men were discovered about an hour ago. Looks like two homeless men who got into a fight. One was stabbed in the back, cause of death of the other is unknown. The name of the man who had been stabbed is Cyrus Winters, age twenty-two; the other man's name is unknown although an officer of BTP thinks that his name was Carl. He's supposed to have lived in the tunnels for more than a year and had been rather nondescript."
The DI studied the dead bodies that were lying inside a small room. He was fairly certain Cyrus Winters hadn't been killed here. The other dead man, Carl, was lying on his side, a knife with the residue of blood still clutched in his right hand. Interesting were the three large letters that had been etched into the hard floor.
K K K
He was about to call Sherlock when he remembered that his own phone had died an untimely death by drowning and Sherlock's mobile had got lost together with his Belstaff. Although Sherlock hated photos for they never showed him what he really needed to know, Greg moved aside for Anderson to start finding evidence and taking pictures. When the DI stood up he felt slightly dizzy and leaned against the wall. Apparently the head-cold was already well under way to knock him out for a few days. Without the reports from forensics and an autopsy performed both on Cyrus Winters and the man identified as Carl, there wasn't much they could do anyway. And if Carl was the offender, the case would be closed within a few days.
Best he got home and just maybe he would be all right once he had taken some paracetamol and slept for a few hours. He told Sally to take care of the crime scene for now, went outside and hitched a ride home with a patrol car.
Those of you who know the Sherlock Holmes story "The Five Orange Pips" might remember that the letters KKK also played a role in that story.
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