Brought to you from BIOLOGY 101 Lab.
Sorry for the wait and sorry it's short ! I hope you enjoy this chapter!
(January 31st, 2010.)
She heard the screeches just before the middle of the night, she was walking to work through the city and hearing them she felt proud and content to know that she saw the same primal battlefield Sherlock Holmes saw when walking through urban, developed London.
The screeches were cats, though. Feral because they were scruffy in the dark alleyway, damp with garbage runoff and rainwater. Cats hate water.
Molly paused just outside the space between the two apartment buildings a few blocks away from the hospital, to watch the shadows of the cats under the streetlight. But by the time she arrived the felines had been scared off; one dashing away out the other side of the alley, the other hiding under the dumpster.
It's eyes flashed yellow-green when the headlights of a passing car drove by, behind Molly who stood on the sidewalk.
She bent down and extended her hand towards it.
"Come here." she called to the cat in a high voice, then trying the standard, "Here kitty kitty kitty."
It blinked and so Molly blinked back.
Cautiously, the cat began to approach. One paw after another in squeeze itself out from under the dumpster and crept over to the squatting human woman.
Once directly in front of her, it meowed.
"Hello there." Molly greeted.
But when her extended hand reached down to pet the cat's matted, slightly wet fur, the animal hissed and jerked back.
That was when Molly noticed the collar around the cat's neck. This wasn't a stray or feral cat, this was somebody's pet. Glancing under the cat, she could also see that it was a neutered male, meaning that it had probably been born in captivity. Why was it lost and alone outside? Where were its owners?
Molly stood up and turned to continue her trek to work. Upon glancing back as she did, she noticed that the dirty cat was following her.
She allowed it to the rest of her journey, and then (after checking in all directions to make sure nobody was looking) she opened the back, basement door to St. Bart's and let the cat into the hospital with her. They went quickly down the hall and entered the morgue together, the cat trotting just below the bottom of Molly's white labcoat.
It was polite and patient as Molly pulled her first 'patient' out of the metal refrigerated drawer...but once the dead body was stretched out on the morgue table, covered only by a thin white cloth, the cat hopped up on the cold table and began to nibble at the dead young man (killed in a gang fight).
The body was badly beaten and so Molly let the hungry cat eat awhile before pulling him off and plopping him back down on the floor. (It let her pick him up and disturb him while eating, another sign that it was a domesticated animal.) The tiny bite marks were unnoticeable among the cuts and bruises on the corpse, which had been found hidden in the abandoned warehouse an entire day after death and so was already slightly decomposed (although the weather in January was cold enough to keep it mostly fresh and prevent most bugs).
In her medical examination notes, Molly would write that some small animal (perhaps a cat or dog or a few rats) had gotten to the body before police had found it and EMTs had brought it to her in the morgue.
She wondered if the cat would digest it or just vomit the human meat chunks out later. (The latter option was more likely.)
The dead man's name was Tobias Benson and so Molly decided to name the cat 'Toby' in his 'honor'.
When, the next morning as Molly was finishing and cleaning up after her shift, she saw that the now sleeping in the corner cat named Toby had not thrown up his dinner, she decided to keep him.
(11:30 PM March 27th, 2010.)
"Now, I'll be gone for the next eight hours." Molly informed Rich, the front door of her house already half open and her body already half through it, "Don't go upstairs or back into the basement and don't answer the door to anyone. You can watch TV if you want to, though, or help yourself to whatever is in the fridge but there isn't much. Don't order any takeout to this address. If you're hungry you have to go eat out somewhere, don't bring any food back here."
"Why?" Rich asked, "You trying to stay skinny for Sherlock?"
"Sherlock believes that digestion slows the mental processes in the brain." Molly explained, "He doesn't eat that often and so neither do I."
"And if Sherlock jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" Rich smirked.
"If Sherlock were dead, what would I have to live for?" Molly returned, with a small smile.
And then she was out the door that closed behind her.
(6:00 AM February 1st, 2010.)
After commenting on Sherlock's website 'The Science of Deduction' and his new flatmate Doctor John Watson's blog as 'theimprobableone' (whom they still had not identified as her and probably never would although the name was quite obvious), Molly went upstairs to join her 'friend' Caroline for breakfast after the graveyard shift like she did every morning.
Conversations with the middle-aged and married Caroline consisted of gossip about the others who worked on the nightshift (who was sleeping with whom, who was bringing alcohol to or watching pornography at work, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera) and complaints about the hedge in front of her townhouse that's flowers never bloomed but who's branches and leaves always overgrew forcing Caroline to have to trim them once a week, even in the winters, and her husband, who didn't work, and never came home at night which is why she started working the nightshift anyway so they could spend time together but everyday he was always off drinking with his friends or watching football or cheating on her or something. It really gave Caroline a headache...
...and Molly one, too.
But she smiled and nodded and sympathized.
She wanted to kill Caroline.
(11:57 PM March 27, 2010.)
Instead of dead bodies waiting for her when she arrived downstairs in the cold morgue, Molly found two live bodies (one male and one female) dressed professionally, instead of in white cloths, and eager to talk to her.
"We tried to get in touch with you sooner, immediately after you posted that blog post." the female, Anthea greeted.
"But it seems you were otherwise occupied with a man named 'Jim'." the male, Mycroft, added amusedly because he enjoyed knowing other people's private affairs.
"I thought he worked for you!" Molly explained, embarassedly, glancing down at her shoes, "We talked for a while and by the time I realized he was just some guy...well, it just happened. Sorry." Now they would think that she was naive and romance-driven. The typical emotional woman. Not a threat.
"No need to apologize, Miss Hooper." Mycroft dismissed, "It's not our job to police your sex life. It's not our job to police your life at all. Only to monitor Sherlock Holmes's...and that isn't even a job at all, it's just a hobby."
"So," Anthea returned to the topic of their meeting, "what information do you have about him and his current activities?"
"He's on a new case now." Molly informed, "Hired by a friend from university, Sebastian Wilkes who works at a bank."
"A 'friend'." Mycroft chortled to himself, "Yes, I'm aware of Mr. Wilkes. How did you learn of the case?"
"A Detective Inspector told me." Molly said.
"Gregory Lestrade?" Mycroft asked.
"No...Dimmock, I think." Molly answered.
"Hmm..." Mycroft accepted, "I hadn't heard of him. Did he tell you what the case is about?"
"It's about two 'suicides' that aren't really suicides." Molly recounted, "Someone with extreme athletic and acrobatic abilities snuck into the homes of two men and murdered them. One of the dead men was an employee at Sebastian Wilkes's bank and the bank was also broken into in the same manner. The same killer also murdered a museum employee but didn't have time to make her death look like a suicide since Sherlock was right there."
"Interesting..." Mycroft considered, "How far has Sherlock come in solving it?"
"He figured out that the two male murder victims were part of a Chinese smuggling gang." Molly detailed, "They traveled to China on business and brought back valuable antiques to sell on the black market. The female victim was a Chinese immigrant and a former member of the same gang. The gang is called the Black Lotus Tong and their leader is a woman named General Shan."
"Black Lotus Tong?" Mycroft repeated, raising an eyebrow, "General Shan?"
"Yes." Molly affirmed, "Their code is in a tourist book, Sherlock figured everything out by reading graffiti on a wall. He—I mean it, it was amazing..." she trailed off when she realized Mycroft was no longer listening.
He had turned to and began whispering to Anthea who was typing quickly on the keypad of her smartphone. The names of the gang and its leader seemed to have sparked their interest and sounded familiar.
Molly stood still and quiet watching them.
"Anything else?" she inquired politely when Anthea glanced up at her.
"No, nothing else." Anthea responded, with a fake smile, "Thank you. Your payment had already been deposited into your account."
"Thank you." Moly responded, with a fake smile, "Have a nice evening."
Anthea and Mycroft nodded and then hurried past Molly out of the room and down the hall.
Once they were gone, Molly went to the refrigerated drawer to pull up her next corpse for autospy.
Her name was Shoo Lin Yao.
(11:02 AM, February 1st 2010.)
Molly, with Toby curled up ontop of her and the blanket between them, was attempting to get a good day's sleep after work in her heavily curtained bedroom when she heard the knocking downstairs, presumably on her front door. Waking from dreams of Sherlock, she rose (disturbing Toby) from bed and then descended the stairs to open the assaulted door.
In front of her stood the always-overdressed-for-the-occasion Caroline in a different dress than the one she had worn the work the night before and fake pearl necklace.
"Sorry to bother you." she began, "I found you address in the system and decided to pay you a visit. I hope I didn't come at a bad time."
"I was sleeping but it's alright." Molly allowed, "Come in."
She stepped aside to that Caroline could enter and she could shut the door behind her guest. Door closed, they stood in front of it awkwardly, Caroline glancing around the house.
"Such a big place for a single woman." she commented, "My house isn't nearly as big but my husband and I manage. Thankfully we haven't got any kids or else we'd have to move to a place like this. We could afford one, of course, but why waste the money when we don't need to? What do you do with all this room all by yourself?"
"I dunno." Molly shrugged, "I've lived in this house my whole life, it's been in my family. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else."
"Oh, I see." Caroline accepted, "Well, anyway you must be wondering why I'm here. You think I don't listen to you, but I do. I do listen and when you told me you had a cat I knew I had to come by and say hello."
"Oh." Molly blinked, taken aback, "Okay."
"I brought a can of tuna for it." Caroline smiled. She was wearing the same red lipstick Molly sometimes wore (when Sherlock was stopping by the hospital). She reached into her oversize purse and pulled out the sealed can. Once again, she glanced around, "So, where is it?" then, after not seeing the newly-obtained pet, attempting the standard "Here kitty, kitty, kitty!" bending down to extend the unopened can of tuna.
"I'm not sure where he is now, sorry." Molly apologized, "I found him outdoors so I let him roam the neighborhood. He's probably outside now."
"It's alright." Caroline forgave, "So what did you name it?"
"Sherlock." Molly declared.
"Hmm..." Caroline considered, taken aback and raising an eyebrow, "What a strange name. I've never heard it before."(Although Molly had incessantly spoke of Sherlock Holmes, genius detective, in their breakfast conversations each morning (and Caroline claimed to listen to her.)) "I could help you think of a better name, if you'd like...something cute and pretty, good for a kitty."
'Sherlock' a 'strange name'?! Caroline had 'never heard it before'?!
"Sure." Molly smiled, sweetly and falsely, "Would you like some tea while we sit and chat?"
(January to March 2010.)
Dead bodies of Chinese immigrants appearing periodically, about once or twice a month, in the morgue; in their stomachs burst packets of heroin and opium. It wasn't a 'brilliant deduction' to realize that the dead were smuggling drugs.
All bodies had the same tattoo on their feet. Sometimes there were other symbols too, scrawled on papers on their pockets that matched graffiti on walls.
When 'family members' came to collect the bodies, Molly saw exactly who was in charge of the smuggling ring. She got the members info (well the info of their IDs for living in the UK) from the paperwork and anonymously contacted them.
First it was just blackmail, to prove she was a criminal like them and not a police officer, but then she told them how to smuggle drugs better. They said they were antique smugglers and only branched out. when it went bad, they had planned to stop but now they could continue.
When the investigation happened, they told her about the bank and Sherlock Holmes. Molly encouraged their leader to come to the country so she could be killed for ordering them to kill Sherlock.Molly bought them plane tickets and paid a bribe to a Chinese official to let them out of the country. They planned to come as tourists but Molly told them to come as circus workers knowing that would get Sherlock's attention.
And it did.
It brought Sherlock down to the morgue and even into the hospital cafeteria to see Molly.
...but Sherlock also got the attention of the Black Lotus gang and they attempted to kill him.
Molly did not forgive those who tried to kill Sherlock Holmes.
And so she informed Sherlock's brother, who also did not forgive those who tried to kill Sherlock Holmes, about this and waited for Mycroft Holmes and the British Government to punish General Shan's transgression.
It took one day.
And the very next day Molly was doing the autopsy of the Chinese circus conductor who was shot by the 'Chinese' government for 'escaping' the People's Republic and 'betraying state secrets to a NATO member'. Another tragedy of the evils of Communism.
Molly, ironically, had been chatting online with General Shan when she happened to get killed. They had only ever communicated online as she had never seen Molly in person and had no idea who she was.
'M' could have been anyone.
(12:00 AM February 2nd, 2010.)
Molly had found the lost cat posters for 'Lucky' periodically on telephone poles, phoneboxes, busstops, and streetlamps. Toby's true owners were searching for him.
Molly snapped a photo with her phone of one of these posters one morning after work and put it on her blog along with a description of her new cat, what Meena had said (every single woman should have gay best friend or a pet cat) and how Caroline had come over. The picture advertised that she had possession of somebody else's cat. (That is, if anyone actually read her blog—except for Anthea checking on behalf of Mycroft if Molly had any information on Sherlock).
Molly's nightshift actually began in the morning. 12:00 AM every 'night' (morning), Molly arrived at the morgue to begin work until 8:00 AM later that morning.
Tonight (this morning) she arrived at the morgue to begin autopsying the new corpse of the evening (morning).
Caroline.
Molly smiled as she cut the t-shaped opening in the woman's chest. This was her handywork. Not just the autospy, but the death itself. (Of course, nobody would ever know...Molly could protect herself by ruling the death accidental, but by protecting herself she also prevented herself from getting the credit.)
This wasn't the first time Molly had killed a coworker. After she'd first met Sherlock, she'd killed the old man who worked the nightshift at the morgue so she could get his shift.
...Ironically, of course, Sherlock had come in the next day—in the day time, before the scheduling had even been changed, to experiment on the body of the dead old man who'd donated his body to science. She hadn't even seen Sherlock at night since that first time she'd stayed late after her dayshift to help the old man (who was nice, after all, just in her way).
Molly had poisoned Caroline's tea.
The medical report reported no signs of strange chemicals in the body. It stated the cause of death as a heart attack. Not uncommon in women Caroline's age (early fifties) with high cholesterol. Completely believable.
Caroline's husband had ordered the autopsy. Not exactly grieving the loss, he wanted to prove that he hadn't poisoned her so that he could collect the insurance payment.
Other employees of St. Bartholomew's somehow knew that Molly had eaten breakfast at 6:00 AM with Caroline every morning for the past few years (Caroline must have gossiped about that to them) and so they asked Molly if she wanted a few days off and not to do the autopsy herself since she had been 'close' to the unlucky woman.
Molly politely declined. They all thought she was brave for doing an autopsy of her dead friend.
(12:13 PM March 28, 2010.)
Molly had eagerly texted Sherlock to inform him that another person with the Black Lotus Tong tattoo on their foot had appeared dead in the basement morgue of St. Bart's.
He didn't text back.
...but soon Sherlock had come to the morgue to visit General Shan. (Molly was just sort of there.)
"Good morning, Sherlock." Molly greeted, hoping he would appreciate the correct time label, "How are you?"
"Show me the one with the tattoo." Sherlock ordered, getting straight 'down to business'. He was not wearing his usual coat or scarf and usually Molly would wonder why. But tonight (this morning) she didn't wonder. She knew.
"There." Molly pointed to the covered body on the morgue table, its feet and tattoo exposed.
Sherlock leaped over to stand at the corpse's feet and Molly scurried to stand next to him. He bent down so he was eye-level with the tattoo. Then he stood straight upright again, dwarfing the women (one of them dead and laying down) in the room and peering down at the dead body's face (clean bullet hole in the middle of the forehead).
"That is General Shan." Sherlock identified, humming first to himself, "She was the leader of the Black Lotus Tong."
"Really?" Molly said in 'surprise', "A woman in charge of a criminal organization?"
"Why does that sound strange to you?" Sherlock questioned, raising an eyebrow, "Women are just as capable of crime as men, although traditionally they have different methods. You are proof that women can succeed in the male-dominated medical field, so why not extrapolate your success to the criminal field? That sort of logical conclusion should come naturally to you, Molly..."
...hmm...
Sherlock's words sounded strange to Molly. Not completely out of character, but a little too female and Molly focused than Molly was ever used to hearing from Sherlock.
...could that mean he was finally on to her? Did he hint that he knew she was also a criminal? Was he finally accepting her as an equal (albeit an enemy)? As someone worth his time and attention?
"You're right." Molly agreed, "I just meant that it's surprising that in Chinese culture a woman leader was accepted-"
"There have been many female leaders in China throughout their long history." Sherlock interrupted and corrected, "The powerful Dowager Empress Cixi of the Qing Dynasty is one of the more famous examples."
"Oh, right." Molly accepted. She had never been very good at History, especially foreign history. "...so, Sherlock, what have you been up to tonight? Got a new case yet? she smiled.
Sherlock moved away from her and the corpse.
"The flat across the street blew up." he told her, matter-of-factly (and slightly annoyedly).
"Are you alright?!" Molly exclaimed in 'alarm' (although she was not at all shocked to hear what had happened).
"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" Sherlock returned, rolling his eyes.
"Yes, yes you are. " Molly nodded, then giggling embarrassed, "Sorry. So anyway, what happened?"
"I tried to investigate the matter but the 'authorities' kicked me out." Sherlock complained, then adding non-sequitorly, "...I wonder who killed General Shan...perhaps her own people in some kind of coup since she mishandled the antique smuggling, lost expensive merchandise and attracted so much attention to the gang with the murder investigation."
"What kind of 'expensive merchandise' was lost?" Molly inquired.
"A hairpin." Sherlock answered, "It's the reason the three previous victims were killed and the Black Lotus tried to kill John and me."
"All that over hairpin?" Molly gasped.
"Yes." Sherlock confirmed, with a nod, "A hairpin worth 90 million."
Molly's eyes widened in shock, "Are you going to look for it?"
"Why bother?" Sherlock dismissed, "I don't pin my hair. Besides, I know where it is. It's with the girlfriend of one of the dead English members of the Chinese gang. He gave it to her as a present, not knowing its value. She'll most likely sell it and retire."
"Not keep it to remember him by?" Molly checked.
"People aren't so sentimental when it comes to money." Sherlock scoffed, "But the very act of giving gifts or money to prove affection is laughable."
"Then how should people prove affection?" Molly asked.
"They shouldn't." Sherlock declared, "And they shouldn't feel it."
And at that, Sherlock had turned and dramatically strode away from Molly and the corpse of General Shan, out the door of the morgue room.
It would have looked far more dramatic had he been wearing his coat. But he had left his coat in his flat after rushing across the street in the direction of the explosion and then come straight from there to the hospital once Molly had texted him.
Molly knew this all, of course, because she had been the one to put the bomb there.
(8:21 AM March 28, 2010.)
Later that morning, Molly returned home to find Richard Brook asleep on her couch with Toby curled up on his chest.
By the way, in my 'head canon' it was always Mycroft who had General Shan shot. In my hc it was also him talking to her, "gratitude is meaningless" sounds just like him but for the sake of this AU story 'M' stands for Molly.
Hope you liked this chapter! Please review!