First off, I think I should describe this house we were in. It was like one of those houses you saw in ghost films with the rickety old staircases that spiraled upwards for what seemed like an eternity, peeling paint on the walls and ceiling, ancient broken furniture everywhere, cobwebs and dust settled over every inch of the place, mold and mildew leaking through the walls and floors. Clearly this house had been around for a while. It gave me the shivers just walking through it and the eerie light cast from the florescent lights set up by the police didn't help much.
"I can give you two minutes," Lestrade told Shirley as she led us up the spiraling staircase.
"Might need longer," Shirley said.
"Her name is Jenny Wilson according to her credit cards," Lestrade explained, "We're running them now for contact details. She hasn't been here for very long. Some kids found her."
We continued up the stairs for several flights until the inspector finally led us into a room on like the third floor. Inside, in the center of the room, was a woman lying face down on the floor. I stared at her, not really sure what to think. I was staring at a dead woman. I had seen dead people before, lots of times in fact. But somehow, looking at the woman on the floor in that room struck me differently than all the other times before.
Shirley was eyeing the mass of pink lying in the middle of the room, then she suddenly turned to Lestrade, frowning. "Shut up."
Lestrade was caught off guard. "I didn't say anything," she protested.
"You were thinking and it's annoying," Shirley said.
Lestrade glanced at me, but I had no comment or really any sort of reaction for her. Clearly, Shirley was not one for subtly when it came to her annoyance with others. And it didn't help that she was a rather blunt person.
Lestrade and I looked back at Shirley and saw that she was staring at the pink-garbed body in deep concentration. She took a step closer and stared at the woman's hand which laid sprawled next to a word scratched into the wooden floor "RACHE". Shirley stared at the word briefly, then crouched down next to the body. She delicately swiped two of her fingers over the woman's coat and then studied her fingers for a moment before then running them under the dead woman's coat collar and studying her finger tips again. She reached into the woman's coat pocket and pulled out a small white umbrella and swiped her fingers over that as well.
She then reached into her own coat pocket and pulled out, what looked like, a small magnifying glass. She began inspecting the woman's jewelry, piece by piece. I could not imagine what she could possibly determine by looking at them, but she carried on. She was especially interested in the woman's ring which she removed and turned over in her fingers a few times before replacing. Finally, she gave a small smile.
"Do you have something?" Lestrade asked.
Shirley stood up and started to remove the spandex gloves she was wearing, still smiling. "Not much," she replied.
"She's German," came a voice from behind.
Anderson stood in the doorway. ""Rache"," he continued, "It's German for "revenge". She could be trying to-"
But Shirley promptly walked over and shut the door in his face whilst fiddling with her phone. "Yes, thank you for your input," she said blandly.
"So she's German?" Lestrade asked.
"Of course she's not, but she is from out of town," Shirley said, still fiddling on her phone, "She intended to stay in London for one night before returning home to Cardiff. So far, so obvious."
Umm, what? So far, so lost. "Sorry, obvious?" I asked.
"Dr. Watson, what do you think?" Shirley asked.
"About the message?" I wondered.
"About the body. You're a medical woman," Shirley said.
"Wait, we have a whole team right outside," Lestrade protested.
"They won't work with me," Shirley stated simply.
"I'm breaking every rule letting you in here," Lestrade said.
"Yes, because you need me."
Lestrade stared at Shirley for a moment, sourly. Then sighed. "Yes, I do. Heaven help."
Shirley turned back to me at the side, where I had been standing awkwardly during the whole of their argument. "Dr. Watson," Shirley said, gesturing to the pink woman.
I didn't want to do anything unofficially, so I glanced at Lestrade for permission.
"Oh, just do as she says. Help yourself," Lestrade said, rolling her eyes.
She turned and left the room, ordering everyone to stay out of the room for a couple minutes. Meanwhile, I moved forward and crouched down next to the body, setting my cane aside. Shirley joined me.
"Well?" Shirley asked.
For the last time, I did not see any point in my presence whatsoever and tried to bring it up again. "What am I doing here?"
"Helping me make a point," Shirley responded, keeping her voice low.
"I'm supposed to be helping you pay the rent," I pointed out.
"But this is more fun," Shirley said.
Well, she certainly had a funny definition of fun. "Fun?" I repeated, "There's a woman lying dead."
Shirley nodded. "Yes. That is a perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you'd go a bit deeper."
Well, since I was here, I decided there was no harm in helping. As I began my own inspection, Inspector Lestrade reentered the room. I checked for the obvious signs, smelling, checking her skin tone, and so on.
My analysis did not last long, only a few seconds, and I soon straightened up again. "It was probably asphyxiation," I informed the two live women in the room, "Passed out, choked on her own vomit. I can't smell any alcohol on her though, so it could have been a seizure or possibly drugs..."
Shirley was staring intently at me. "You know what it was. You've read the papers."
I thought back the the article I had read earlier. "She's one of the suicides? The fourth?" I asked, hesitantly.
"Shirley, I said two minutes," Lestrade interrupted us, "Give me anything you've got."
"The victim is in her late thirties," Shirley stated, "Professional person judging by her clothes. Probably something in the media going by the rather alarming shade of pink. She travelled from Cardiff today, intended to stay in London for one night, which is obvious from the size of her suitcase."
Lestrade looked around confused. "Suitcase?"
"Yes," Shirley carried on, "She's been married for at least ten years, but not happily. She's had a string of lovers, but none of them knew she was married."
Lestrade (as well as I) stared at her in disbelief. "For goodness sake! If you're just making this up-" Lestrade warned.
"Her wedding ring is at least ten years old," Shirley explained, "The rest of her jewelry's been regularly cleaned, but not her wedding ring. That tells you the 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. She doesn't take it off for work, look at her nails. She doesn't work with her hands, so what, or rather who does she remove her rings for? Obviously not one lover, she would never be able to sustain the fiction of being single over that amount of time, so more likely a string of them. Simple."
For the umpteenth time that day, I was completely dumbfounded. "That's brilliant," I said, without really thinking.
Shirley paused and looked at me, surprised.
"Sorry," I said.
"Cardiff?" Lestrade raised the question that I also had.
"Well, isn't it obvious?" Shirley asked.
"It's not obvious to me," I said.
Shirley wrinkled her brow. "Dear, what is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring," she mumbled, "Her coat, it's slightly damp. She's been in heavy rain in last few hours. There's been no rain anywhere in London in that time. It's damp under her coat collar as well. She's turned it up against the wind. She's got an umbrella in her left-hand pocket, but it's dry and unused. So, 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 couldn't have come 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?"
She pulled out her phone and displayed her research to us. "Cardiff," she stated.
Well, I was impressed. "That's fantastic," I said.
"Do you know you do that out loud?" Shirley muttered to me.
I was suddenly slightly embarrassed by my lack of control over my mouth. "Sorry, I'll shut up."
"No... it's fine."
"So, why do you keep saying suitcase?" Lestrade asked from behind us.
Shirley turned away from me and began looking around the room, searching for something. "Yes, where is it? She must've had a phone or an organizer or something. Find out who Rachel is."
"She was writing "Rachel"?" Lestrade wondered.
"No, she was leaving a random angry note in German," Shirley said sarcastically, "Of course she was writing "Rachel"! The question is, why did she wait until she was dying to write it?"
Lestrade had crossed her arms after Shirley's sarcastic remark and frowned slightly. "How do you know she had a suitcase?" she asked.
"The back of her right leg," Shirley said, pointing to the dead woman's calf, "Tiny splash marks on the heel and calf, none on the left. She was dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. You don't get that splash pattern any other way. I'd say it was a smallish case, going by the spread. A case this size, woman this clothes-conscious, it could only be an overnight bag. So we know she was only staying one night. Now where is it? What have you done with it?"
"There wasn't a case," Lestrade said.
Shirley, who had bent down and started inspecting the dead woman's pink shoe slowly looked up at the inspector. "Say that again," she said.
"I said there wasn't a case," Lestrade repeated, "There was never any suitcase."
Shirley leapt to her feet and rushed out the door. "Did anybody find a suitcase!" she called, "A suitcase! Was there a suitcase anywhere in this house!"
Lestrade followed after her with me close behind. "Shirley! I'm telling you, there wasn't any case!"
Shirley turned to look at us. "They take the poison themselves! They chew and swallow the pills themselves!" she said quickly, "There are clear signs that even you lot couldn't miss!"
She began quickly making her way down the spiral staircase. "Right. Thank you very much," Lestrade mumbled sarcastically, "And!"
"It's murder," Shirley said, stopping on the stairs and looking up at us, "All of them. I don't know how. But they're not suicides, they're killings. Serial killings."
She grinned and clapped her hands together repeatedly. "We've got ourselves a serial killer. I love those. There's always something to look forward to."
"Why do you say that?" Lestrade wondered as Shirley began hurrying down the stairs again.
Shirley stopped again. "Her case! Come on, where is her case? Did she eat it or something? Someone else was here and took her case!" Shirley began mumbling to herself, but was still audible to us above, "So the killer must've driven her here... and then forgotten the case was in the car."
"She could have checked into her hotel and then left her case there," I suggested.
"Nope. She never got to the hotel," Shirley said, "I mean, just look at her hair. She color coordinates her lipstick and her shoes, she never would have left any hotel with her hair still looking..."
She suddenly stopped mid-sentence and stared ahead, eyes wide. "Oh..." she whispered. Then her entire face lit up as she suddenly realized something. "Oh!" she cried, clapping her hands together again.
"Shirley?" I asked.
"What? What is it?" Lestrade asked, leaning over the banister.
"Serial killers are always hard," Shirley said, "You have to wait for them to make a mistake."
"But we can't just wait!" Lestrade cried.
"We're all done waiting!" Shirley said, "Really look at her! Houston, we have a mistake!"
She started running down the stairs once more, all the while shouting instructions up at Lestrade. "Get on to Cardiff! Find out who Jenny Wilson's family and friends are. And find Rachel!"
"Right, of course. But what mistake!" Lestrade called after her as she disappeared.
Shirley reappeared momentarily. "PINK!" she hollered.
Then she disappeared once more.