Chapter Seven

John was cold. Let's rephrase that. John was freezing. That was the thing about abandoned factories, they didn't do heating. It was the middle of November, it was cold! Why hadn't he considered the fact that he'd be standing in arctic conditions for the best part of two hours when he pulled on just a coat this morning. Two hours. Sherlock had better buy him a warm drink on the way home for this. On the plus side, due to the cold the body didn't smell like it would've done in summer (and even years of work with Sherlock would not get him used to that smell) and Anderson and Donovan were making less snide comments than usual because they wanted to get home as soon as possible. John had originally thought that they were going to investigate the neighbour today but no, Sherlock wanted to find more clues. Or more specifically, why the victim's hands were chained together and why she'd been left in the factory, because, while the victim's shoes were covered in dirt and mud matching the samples outside the factory, they were not covered in the brick dust outside.

Sherlock scanned the body again. He was missing something. He hated knowing that he was missing something. He just wasn't sure what yet. Obviously the killer knew these people. That was one thing linking them together, but then, why wasn't the killers mum dead? Or His father? The new victim was older than Olivia too. So age wasn't a factor. They were both female. Was gender something to be taken into consideration? And then, there were the places they'd been left, both completely different, but, for some reason Sherlock couldn't bring himself to believe that, that wasn't important. Finally there were the ways they'd been killed. Both used suffocation as a means to kill, but there was a big difference between the two. The first death had been a warm up; the killer only had to be there long enough to push the victim off the boat with the weight tied to her ankle. The second death required the killer to feel what he was doing. The pulse rate slowing. The panicked and shallow breaths becoming more and more panicked until they stop. Until everything stops. Sherlock gave a slight shudder, and then the handcuffs. They'd be symbolic, like the flowers. But what for? Handcuffs could mean any number of things, the most obvious crime and punishment, war, BDSM? Sherlock had no clue about the flowers either. There was the language of flowers, spring, and the female reproductive system. All perfectly viable yet almost as irrelevant as the last idea. He was missing something!

"Sherlock, you've been pacing in silence, take a break." John's soothing voice cut into Sherlock's thoughts and stopped them racing, "Got anything new?"

"Nothing at all." Sherlock muttered.

"It's fine. Stop stressing, we should do something tonight. I think your brother mentioned having spare tickets for an amateur production of Romeo and Juliette which we could steal from him if you'd like? Or-"

"Say that again."

"Say what again."

"The play what was it."

"Romeo and Juliette."

"That's thingy."

"What do you mean 'that's thingy'?"

"Marlowe!"

"Shakespeare Sherlock. Not Marlowe, he did Doctor Faustus."

"Oh him, he's not nearly as interesting." Sherlock shooed John away. "Oh that's genius."

"What is?"

"Ophelia!" Sherlock shouted, dashing off in search of a taxi.

"And there he goes." John rolled his eyes and turned to Lestrade, "I should run after him. See you later."

"Don't forget to tell him the first victim's name was Olivia." Lestrade called after John.

"I won't!" He laughed, "See you later."