A/N: Thanks, Scribblez, I appreciate it!
The photograph shows two people, a man and a woman, lying back to back on an off-white carpet splattered with blood, the man facing an off-white Italian leather sofa. They are bound together by silk scarves. They are positioned so that the tops of their heads are in the same place, although the man is fifteen centimetres taller than the woman. The scarves, which are all blue, bind them at the head, the chest, the waist, and the woman's ankles, which is almost at the knees for the man.
The file indicates that they were moved, although not far, after death, placed liked this once they had each been shot in the head. The bullet wounds have been fairly expertly cleaned so that there is little blood on the scarves binding their heads and chests. Tarik Aswad, thirty, was a real-estate lawyer. His wife, Sara Clayworth, thirty-one, was a set designer for a small, local theatre group. Neither of them have any previous criminal records, nor have they any apparent enemies. Both were well-liked among their friends and active fans of their local music scene. They were reported missing when the Aswad failed to meet a client Saturday morning and could not be reached by phone. The patrol officers who went to their house to check on them found them in their sound-proofed multimedia room in the position shown in the photograph. The medical examiner estimates they died sometime between seven and ten pm Friday night.
The file also indicates no disturbance in the area, and none of the doors or windows have been forced, although the front door was unlocked, but shut when officers arrived. The victims' downstairs neighbour and friend indicated that they did not leave their doors unlocked, even when they were home. No suspicious or unidentified fingerprints were found at the scene. Because both shots were fired from the sound-proofed room, none of the neighbours reported hearing gunfire. The male victim was shot in the multi-media room, the female victim just inside its doorway.
At least he'd been roused at a decent hour, Greg Lestrade thought as he stepped out of his car and flashed his badge to be admitted to the scene. The constable guarding the cordoned off area lifted the tape for him and Lestrade ducked under it, his breath condensing around him in the cold November morning air. The constable looked cold himself, rubbing his gloved hands together, cheeks and nose pink.
Sally Donovan met him on the steps going up to the small flat, her curly dark hair pulled back from her face, her badge glinting from its chain against the black wool of her overcoat. She nodded good morning, although Lestrade privately thought it was not a good morning for some. He eyed the small crowd of people who were watching unhappily or with shock and rage – other tenants, who had probably known the victims.
"What have we got?" he asked, following her into the flat, accepting a pair of latex gloves she passed off to him.
"Tarik Aswad, thirty, and Sara Clayworth, thirty-one, both shot in the head and tied up, sometime last night, looks like. No one heard anything, but not surprising, since they had one of those kitted out sound-proofed multi-media rooms with the flat-screen and surround sound."
"Brilliant," Lestrade sighed and turned back to the street, visible just on the other side of the dark brown door. Slightly fogged glass windows ran along both sides of the door and across the top, letting in weak winter light. "Any cameras in the area that would help us out?"
"We're checking, but don't hold your breath," Donovan said.
"Never do. Anyone report anything unusual?"
"Nope. The tenants here are all young, mid-thirties at best, and there are only seven flats in the building. Most of them were either at work or out, and the two that were home were on the top floor, so wouldn't have heard anyone coming or going."
"Set up a canvas of the neighbourhood."
"Already on it," Donovan said and he nodded his thanks, casting an expert eye at the door, then crouching to check the locks and deadbolt.
"Not forced," he said.
"No, no signs of a break-in anywhere," Donovan said. "Forensics is searching all of the windows in the building, especially the ones accessible from the ground floor or fire escapes, but nothing yet."
Lestrade considered this with another sigh, looking back out at the street, where the police cars with their flashing lights and the yellow crime scene tape made a barrier around them. He felt less like it was keeping people out of his crime scene and more as if it was keeping him trapped in the madness.
"Right, show me where," he said.
She took him up to the second storey and into one of the two flats on that floor. The place was already crawling with forensics, including Anderson, who only nodded at him and Donovan from the middle of a conversation with two of his techs. The curt gesture suggested that once again, he and Donovan were on the outs, and he wished the sergeant would just break it off altogether. She was a very competent officer, but terrible at making personal choices, as far as he was concerned.
She led him through the flat, which was decorated quite minimally, all smooth lines and stark colours, mostly whites, with vivid and shocking splashes of colour here and there – two navy blue throw pillows on the white loveseat in the living room, a painting done in swirls of reds and violets on the wall, a vase filled with red roses in the centre of the glass kitchen table. The flat was quite large, as flats in this area went, and Lestrade was not surprised to see a small home office, the only cluttered room in the whole place, as well as a small spare bedroom, furnished with the same minimalist taste, only a bit more colour, as if everything that was extra had ended up in there, which was probably the case.
The sound-proofed room, which was beside the master bedroom, was even more sparse, with a single, off-white Italian leather sofa resting on thick off-white carpet, a small end table on either side. There was an empty wine glass still on one of the tables, and another knocked almost casually on the floor, but neither glass looked as though it had had anything in it. No red marks at the bottom of the glasses, so white wine, most likely.
The couple was still where they'd died – no, where they'd been placed after they died, Lestrade thought, noting the blood splatter in the corridor opposite the entry to this room. One of them had been shot from inside the room while standing in the doorway. Based on the blood on the walls and carpet, the other had been shot here.
And then tied up, with blue scarves, back-to-back.
He frowned, crouching down beside the woman, who was facing the wall with the mounted flat-screen telly on it.
Something was elbowing at his mind.
He looked at her carefully, then stood, shucking his coat and passing it to Donovan without looking, knowing she'd take it. When he felt the weight transfer to her hands, he crouched down again, undoing the buttons at the wrist of his light blue dress shirt and pushing the sleeve up a bit. Lestrade ran his wrist carefully over the scarf binding the victims' heads and frowned.
Shit, he thought to himself, checking their wounds.
Carefully cleaned. The silk was blood stained, of course, but not as much as it would be otherwise.
"Seen this before?" Donovan asked, surprise in her voice, almost correctly gauging his facial expression.
"No. Heard of it." He pushed himself to his feet, gesturing for his coat again and she passed it back. Lestrade fished out his phone and dug through his extensive list of contacts, reminding himself once again that he'd need to clear it out or organize it in some manner one of these days. When he had some free time.
Finding what he was looking for, he rang the number in Sheffield. A voice picked up after the third ring.
"Collins."
"Jeff? It's Greg Lestrade, down in London."
There was a pause, of surprise, not lack of recognition.
"Greg, hello. What can I do for you?"
"You had a case early this year where two victims were murdered in their home and tied up with scarves, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did. February. Hang on, let me pull up the date. Yeah, the fifteenth February, I remember. Went cold in April, though. We never made any arrests. Why?"
"Heard anything about any others like this?"
There was another pause, this one of calculating realization.
"No, not in Sheffield. You have one in London."
"I think so," Lestrade sighed. "Let me send you a photo. One minute."
He turned on his phone's camera and snapped a picture carefully, then appended it to a text message and sent it to the DI in Sheffield. His then nine-year-old son had very patiently taught him, several years ago, how to do this, and it now seemed like habit. A very useful habit.
He waited, then heard a sigh and a quiet curse.
"Yes, almost exactly the same. Only in ours, the scarf round their heads was green, not blue. What fabric is it?"
"Silk."
"High quality?"
"I can't tell."
"A hundred quid says it is. High thread count and fine stitching. That's what our guy used."
"Blast," Lestrade said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb. "All right, we'll need all your files, of course. And you can have what information we have, as it comes to us."
"Either this guy's taken an extended break between February and he's planning more, or there are dots between here and there."
"I was thinking the same," Lestrade said. "This can't be a coincidence."
"Any signs of forced entry?"
"None."
"Not a coincidence then. Whoever he is, he either knows these people or is a master locksmith."
"Or talked his way in."
"Or talked his way in," Collins agreed.
"Let me run this down," Lestrade said. "I'll be in touch."
"I'll make sure everything gets your way by this afternoon."
Lestrade rung off and met Donovan's gaze. She arched her eyebrows at him.
"Go find out if there's any more that fits this pattern," he said. He had that familiar sinking feeling that came with knowing there was a lot more going on than was immediately apparent, and that a long day was going to be transformed quite quickly into a very long week.
In a way, John was relieved. He knew he shouldn't be, that it was not entirely appropriate, but feeling guilty about it wasn't going to stop murders from happening, wasn't going to bring these two back to life.
Sherlock had become worse as the week had gone on, paradoxically because his head injury was getting better. John had seen this sort of thing plenty of times before, in Afghanistan. Concussions could be minor, but their effects could be persistent, and he'd had to deal with his fair share of young men and women who felt grouchy and disoriented long after their headaches had abated. At least soldiers could be placed on light duty to occupy their time, though. There was no such thing as light duty for Sherlock. It was either full on Sherlock, or utter boredom.
Though, admittedly, Sherlock was much better than he had been when John at first knowing him at dealing with boredom, by launching himself into experiments or going up to the lab to mess about with a corpse, if Amanda had something for him, or even resorting to harassing someone who wasn't John for attention. Since Sherlock didn't get bored with Josephine, and Tricia enjoyed having company and someone else to entertain her daughter, Sherlock now often turned to that when desperate. It concerned John vaguely that Josephine might grow up to be very strange, but there seemed to be nothing he could to do stop it, and Tricia and Henry didn't appear to worry about it.
But still, there was nothing better than a case for Sherlock, particularly since his attention span had been about the same as Josephine's this week and he couldn't focus on something long enough to snap himself out of the boredom. John understood that, too; concussions were finicky things when it came to effects on both mood and concentration.
The case seemed to work.
Sherlock was letting him examine the bodies first, but practically vibrating with excitement, like a humming bird. John crouched down, trying to ignore this, feeling somewhat constrained by the blue forensics suit that he wore. Sherlock had brushed off any suggestion to do the same, of course, and John was certain this was entirely so he could start a row with Anderson. Even with a case in front of him, he couldn't resist.
They had both been shot, but the killer had taken the time to clean the wounds, which John found strange. He checked their pupils and the whites of their eyes, their hands, particularly their fingernails, which were now going blue, of course, and sniffed them carefully, especially the hair and near the mouth. He could smell the faint trace of alcohol, but given the wine glasses in the room, that wasn't surprising.
"I'd say they've been dead about twelve, maybe fifteen hours," John said, straightening back up, but remaining in his crouched position. "I don't think they were drunk when they died – not enough smell of alcohol. Not much of a stretch to say it was the shots that killed them."
Lestrade arched his eyebrows at that. John pushed himself fully to his feet and let Sherlock take over.
"Where are the other cases, Lestrade?" he asked, grinning as he crouched down next to the bodies, balancing himself easily. John glanced at him, then at Lestrade, who mirrored his surprise.
"We only know of one so far, in Sheffield. From February. Same MO, a couple shot in the head and bound with scarves," Lestrade replied.
"This can't have been his first murder, not by a long ways," Sherlock said. "It's too well organized; he wasn't rushed. The wounds were cleaned – you'll find towels missing, I'm sure, but probably dumped out back, because he wouldn't want to take them very far and probably doesn't care if they're found. The whole point is that they be found, of course. Otherwise, why go to all this trouble? This kind of staging – he was trying to send a message."
"What message?" Lestrade sighed.
"Don't know," Sherlock said shortly. "Personal? Professional? I'll need details of the other case to make sure, to find the connection between the victims. But look at this, the way they're bound. There's no twisting in the scarves except at the knots; everything is smooth, folded, perfect. He was taking his time because he knew he had time. He knew what he was doing, he had a means of getting out easily should he be interrupted, but he wasn't worried about that, I think. And he wasn't concerned about cleaning up anything but them, so it's not a crime he wants to cover up. It's something he wants us to see."
Sherlock glanced around the room quickly and John made a mental note when the detective caught his balance with the tips of the fingers. That was another dizzy spell, one that no one else would notice, and which Sherlock would be irritated that John had recognized. But Sherlock was too steady on his feet to need to catch himself like that, and John had seen him doing it most of the week: a hand on the wall, usually, but also passing behind his armchair, or on the banister going up the stairs to the flat, or lingering on a door knob. It cleared fairly quickly and his eyes never lost their sharpness, which was a good sign.
"He had to have broken in, somehow," Sherlock continued after the almost imperceptible moment had passed. "Look at the patterns of the shots," he indicated the blood splatter in the white sound-proofed room, then in the corridor, pushing himself to his feet – John kept a sharp eye on that, but there was no unsteadiness – and stepped back, angling himself slightly with a frown on his face.
"Yes, from here, he could make one shot," he aimed a pointed finger and cocked thumb at the leather sofa, "And then a second," he aimed at the doorway, "Without moving. Look at the expression on Aswad's face, he was caught by surprise. So he got in, came in here, shot him, and she heard the shot and came running from the bedroom."
"How do you know he didn't force her to let him in?" Anderson snapped, showing up in the doorway. John fought the urge to roll his eyes and wondered if animosity could be like a magnetic attraction. The two of them could not seem to stay away from antagonizing one another whenever possible.
"He would have had to let her go to step in here and Aswad only looks surprised, not frightened or angry. She, on the other hand, does look frightened and angry."
"How do you know she's come from the bedroom?" Lestrade asked.
"Look at her shirt. She's wearing thin cotton trousers, but a fitted blouse. Half changed from a day at work, whereas he hadn't bothered to change, so he was waiting in here, although they must have had the wine before she decided to change. So she was relaxed, done with her workday, and had already begun to wind down from it. All the buttons are done up in the front, except the one right at her neck, which women never do up anyway, but the buttons are her wrist are undone, so she was about to take the shirt off, and she was very careful with her clothing." He paused, frowning. "Even if it isn't that high of quality."
John repressed a snort. Like Sherlock's intellect, his taste in clothing was keen and honed, and he viewed the way others dressed in much the same way as he viewed their intellectual capabilities, as clearly inferior to him. Although he often had comments about John's lack of deductive capabilities, he never complained about the way John dressed. John often felt that Sherlock had created a small mental blind spot when it came to John, in which he could fairly safely exist and not be the subject of too much scorn.
"Have you found their personal effects, wallets, phones, laptops?"
Lestrade cast a look at Anderson, who nodded, still glowering.
"Nothing looks like it's been disturbed," the forensics officer said.
"John, come with me," Sherlock said, breezing out of the room, past Anderson, John in reluctant tow. The consulting detective made a tour of the flat, getting in the way of some of the forensics techs and other officers but not others. John noticed that this was because some of them got out of Sherlock's path and others remained obstinately where they were – it was almost as though there were invisible battle lines drawn here. Between whom? Anderson and Sherlock? Anderson and Donovan? When she and Anderson were on the outs, she was always much more tolerable to Sherlock.
"Well," Sherlock said, coming back into the media room. "I won't soon forget this day."
"Why?" Anderson scowled at him.
"Nothing's been disturbed: you were right. But I suppose there is a first time for everything." Anderson opened his mouth to retort but Sherlock kept speaking as thought he hadn't noticed, which John knew full well he had. "So this wasn't about something they had the killer wanted, it was about wanting them dead. But why?"
"Good question," Lestrade said. "As far as we can tell, they didn't have any enemies."
"Everyone has enemies," Sherlock mused, looking down at the bodies. "Although most people do not have enemies who are willing or able to murder them. And it's quite clear these two had at least one enemy, or else we'd not be here."
John repressed a sigh; Sherlock was right, but years worth of trying to educate him about tact had been wasted. He never saw the point, especially when it came to murder victims. He'd argued with John on more than one occasion that the dead were dead and couldn't possibly care what he, or anyone else, thought of them by that point. John supposed this was true, although a bit harsh.
"The real question is what enemy did these two share with the couple in Sheffield?" Sherlock said, half to himself, contemplating the corpses again. "I'll need everything you have on that, as well. And the scarves themselves, from their evidence impound."
"Why are they important?" Lestrade asked.
"Absolutely no idea," Sherlock replied. "Perhaps he just likes scarves. Any word on the possibility of other murders like this one?"
"I've been talking to you almost this whole time –" Lestrade started, but was interrupted by Sally Donovan returning, poking her head into the room, pointedly ignoring Anderson.
"Yes," she said, and John knew things must be bad between her and Anderson, because she didn't even so much as give Sherlock a cursory glare. "Two more in the intervening time. One in Codnor on June twentieth and another in Bicester on September ninth."
At this, amidst Lestrade's frown and Anderson's pinched expression and the sinking feeling in John's stomach, Sherlock grinned.