"We have a body."
Under normal circumstances, Greg's announcement would have led immediately to a swirl of dressing gown and a bustle to get dressed and out the door. John had actually started moving towards the loo to get himself ready when he realized Sherlock hadn't moved.
He turned back to see Sherlock standing very still, hands clasped together in a way John recognized—the way he held them to keep them from shaking.
"What color hair?" Sherlock asked, in a thin, reedy voice.
Greg looked briefly at the photo Donovan had sent to his mobile. "Dark…" he began.
John just had time to grab Sherlock arms as he swayed and his knees gave out. He shoved Sherlock quickly into his chair while Greg moved forward in alarm. John gently pushed Sherlock's head down between his shaking knees, holding pressure on to keep him down. He crouched down beside him while Greg punched a number and spoke quickly to Donovan on his phone.
Greg's relieved face eased the vise around John's heart. Greg crouched down by Sherlock as well and put his hand on one thin shoulder. "It's not her, Lock. It's not. We're pretty sure it's the Aldridge girl, based on the skin tone."
Sherlock gave a shuddering breath and lifted his head just enough to put his face in his hands. He made no move to rise.
John met Greg's eyes over the top of the detective's curly head. "Coffee, yeah? Strong. Lots of sugar in his." Greg rose with a grunt and moved towards the kitchen. "On it," he muttered.
Ten minutes passed, in a tense quiet. Sherlock unwound himself from his knees when presented with the coffee cup, but never raised his eyes. John hovered a bit before he realized he was probably doing more harm than good, and went off to get dressed, giving Greg a "you're in charge" look as he left. Greg looked helplessly after him, aware that he hadn't the faintest idea what to say or do if Sherlock came further unraveled.
Thankfully for all concerned, he didn't. At the five-minute mark, he slowly sat up, ran his hands fretfully through his hair, and rose, going silently into the bedroom to dress. By the time he came out, ten minutes later, it was clear that this was going to be one of those Times of Which We Do Not Speak. He took the toast John handed him without comment and chewed as they all trotted down the stairs.
The crime scene, if you could call it that, was a vacant office suite in a newish building on the outskirts of north London. It was clear even to John that Andrea Aldridge hadn't died in this office. The room was spotless—new, untouched carpeting, walls that still smelled faintly of paint. The body was lying on a plain white bedsheet, the kind often used in nicer hotels; rather posh, in fact.
Andrea didn't look like she was asleep. Death was very obvious—slightly discolored skin here and there, and a grossly distended abdomen that contrasted sharply with the rest of her slender frame. While John crouched carefully, trying to pick up a possible time and cause of death, Sherlock flitted in circles, muttering to himself as he observed.
"She had been restrained before death—tiny scrape marks on her wrists, but not consistent with tying, more like soft medical restraints used in a hospital setting," he began. "She was carefully arranged here, not just thrown down and left. She had been cared for; the body is clean, as is the hair, but there's a slight odor of vomit. That and the obvious distention implies some sort of lethal toxin, but that makes little sense—why poison someone you've already abducted and secured control of? Poison is more often a hidden weapon." All of this came at the speed of a freight train; less Sherlock imparting information than Sherlock thinking aloud. He abruptly turned to John. "What about time of death?"
John stood and backed away from the body a bit. "That's difficult to tell. We know she's only been missing four days, but it doesn't seem likely to me that she's been dead more than a day, if that. The abdominal distention is confusing; it's not possible that it's from decomposition. Maybe whatever toxin killed her?" Sherlock raised his eyebrows, and John nodded. "Yes, I agree with you—most likely a toxin of some kind. I don't see any evidence of physical injury, beyond a number of needle marks on her thighs and a mark where she had an IV cannula, most likely. Maybe the poisoning was accidental? Some sort of medical experiment gone wrong?"
Sherlock looked thoughtful. "That's a possibility. But there's large amounts of money involved somehow. The sheet she is lying on retails for over £100—not the kind of thing you'll find in a back-room clinic or NHS facility, certainly. And what kind of illicit medical experimenter washes the hair of their guinea pigs with sandalwood shampoo that costs at least half that much as well?"
And trust Sherlock to know the cost of sheets—God knows, the ones on his bed made this one look cheap, judging by what John had seen when it was his turn to do the laundry at Baker Street. And to identify expensive shampoo by scent. Of course.
Sherlock turned at last to Lestrade, hovering near the doorway, notebook in hand. "We're done here. Have Molly do the autopsy—I'll follow the body over and sit in. And I'll want to see the fiber evidence on anything your lot picks up, not that I think there will be much. Someone was clearly very careful when they brought the body in. I can't be the only one who noticed there are no CCTV cameras operating on this street."
The autopsy was one of the most uncomfortable John had ever been present for. Someone had obviously told Molly of Sherlock's personal involvement with this case, and she was clearly agonizing over what to say. Sherlock, observing her stammering and deducing the cause, finally told her bluntly to "stop dancing on eggshells and do your job." Then he withdrew into a glowering, brittle silence while Molly flushed and gave John a helpless shrug.
Sherlock hovered at the foot of the autopsy table like an overlarge bat, his coat still wrapped protectively around him. Periodically Molly would pull off fluid or tissue specimens, which Sherlock would snatch and take to the microscope himself, muttering as he worked. A larger group of samples would take longer, in-depth processing; these she handed to John, who carried them down the hall to the waiting technicians.
Molly finally stepped away from the body, covered it carefully with a waiting sheet, and snapped off her gloves. "Well," she said, her body language clearly reluctant. "I'm afraid this one will require the lab work to confirm." Sherlock, still standing behind the microscope, was listening intently. When she didn't continue, he raised his eyebrows expectantly.
"I know, I know," she said. "I know what I found, the things that killed her, or at least helped kill her. Without the full blood and tissue scans, though, I don't know what they mean—I've never seen a death quite like this." She flipped open her charts and began working through the results.
"To begin with, no evidence of any physical injury. No sexual assault or evidence of activity, though I do see what looks like speculum scrapes. Body cavity distended with fluid—ascites, though no evidence of cancer anywhere. Minimal decomposition—I'd say she's been dead no more than 12 hours. Extensive fluid in the lungs, though not enough to kill her. Blood abnormally thick, and kidneys clearly damaged—I suspect she was in full kidney failure, though her health records from her parents show no evidence of past disease. And oddest of all, a full ovarian rupture with extensive bleeding, though again, not enough to kill her." She stopped and swallowed. "She would have been in a great deal of pain."
"So this was a poisoning of some kind?" John asked, not having missed Sherlock's almost imperceptible flinch at that last statement.
"Not one I've ever seen," Molly answered. "At this point all we can do is wait for the toxicology and tissue results. I've told the lab this is top priority—it should only be a couple of hours, for everything but the items they have to culture." She hesitated, then looked earnestly at Sherlock. 'I'm so sorry. I hope you find her."
John could see Sherlock struggle not to lash out, his normal reaction to emotional upheaval. But this was Molly, who held a special place in Sherlock's life. And for Molly, Sherlock made an effort not to, well, be himself, more often than not. He finally lowered his head, muttered "thank you" under his breath, and stalked out of the morgue without looking back. And John, of course, sighed, thanked Molly as well, and followed.
It was not a good day. Rather than Baker Street, they returned to the Yard to await the lab results, apparently because Sherlock needed a wider pool of people to insult. He stalked from Lestrade's office to the conference room (where a larger version of Sherlock's evidence wall had been established) annihilating anyone unlucky enough to cross his path. After the second time Sherlock cornered someone and verbally stripped them of their skin, for no greater sin than not having any additional, useful information, Greg hauled him bodily back into the conference room and ordered him to stay, or be removed from the building. Sherlock stalked over to the windows and gave both Greg and John his back, arms wrapped tightly around his torso. John met Greg's eyes and shared a commiserating look, and they left him alone while John went to secure more bad coffee.
By the time Molly showed up (and John, later, thanked her profusely for coming in person), John and Greg were both eying Sherlock like an unexploded bomb. He had begun pacing again, arms behind his back and fingers twitching restlessly. He pounced on Molly like a predator as she walked in. "What do you have?" he snapped.
Molly had recovered a bit of her spine in the last few hours, though, and was having none of this. "Sit down and I'll tell you," she said, and waited through his reflexive glare before he finally, reluctantly, flounced to a chair, waving his hands for her to continue.
"It's still very strange," she began. "I told you earlier I thought her kidneys had failed—they had, and that probably figured heavily in her death. But she also had all kinds of anomalies in her blood—hormone levels were off the charts, and just…wrong. She actually had a low level of HCG—the pregnancy hormone- in her blood, but was definitely not pregnant. In the end, the thickened blood apparently caused a small clot in her brain, so she'd had a stroke. That, combined with the kidney failure…her heart just gave out."
Sherlock was looking at the papers she'd slid across the table, reading the disastrous cascade of ills that had killed a perfectly healthy young girl in a matter of days. He was still reading, intense focus clear on his face, when a PC came into the room and handed Greg Lestrade a folder. Sherlock didn't react, but John, seeing Greg's face, did. "What now?" he asked, as Sherlock's head came up at his tone.
"It's another one," Greg said soberly.
Ten minutes later the newest victim's photo and information had been added to the evidence wall. Daisy Owyeo was 18, the youngest victim yet. First-year student at the Royal Academy of Music, and already a force to be reckoned with on the international piano competition stage. Like the others, a striking girl, with cafe au lait skin and unexpected blue eyes. Father a diplomat from Ghana, mother an Irish translator employed by the Diplomatic Service. She'd gotten a call yesterday evening from someone at the school, moving her standard practice slot to a different room and time. She never came home.
John looked at the picture, realizing what had been tickling at the back of his brain since he first saw it. "She looks like Andrea," he said slowly.
Greg looked at him questioningly. "Yeah?" he said.
"Well, it's just a bit unlikely, isn't it?" John continued. "I mean, how many girls with that genetic mix are there? The darker skin tone with the very light eyes? It's really a pretty rare combination. Dark eyes are usually dominant, genetically speaking."
Sherlock suddenly stopped all movement and stared as well. "There's another component here that we have all missed," he said suddenly. "We've been working all this time to establish commonality, and have come up empty, beyond the obvious—uni students, female. But clearly we do recognize it—how stupid of me not to have realized it before!" He spun on Greg, eyes intent. "How many missing girls are reported in the greater London area in the course of any given week? Ten? Twenty?" Greg nodded, not sure where he was going with this. "Yet earlier this week, Donovan came in with a folder and immediately announced that we 'had another one'—and the same thing happened today, just now. So my question, Inspector—how did they know?"
And Greg opened his mouth, and closed it, and blinked. Because of course, Sherlock was right, and it had been right there all along, with none of them seeing it.
John said it aloud, since someone needed to. "They're all exceptional in some way. Noticeably so—physically attractive, all very young and healthy, and each with some sort of world-class talent. Maths, dance, art, music. Almost like someone is shopping for the best, for lack of a better term. And this new girl, being so similar to Andrea—they're shopping for something very specific. Like she's a replacement for Andrea."
Sherlock abruptly stood, rocketing off into pacing again while searching furiously on his phone. "Shopping, shopping, shopping." And suddenly he stopped and looked over at Molly, still hovering in the corner. "Molly. Tell me what conditions could cause hormonal disruptions like the ones you found in Ms. Aldridge."
Molly blinked but complied, thinking as she spoke. "Well…some autoimmune disorders, none of which she had. Polycystic ovarian syndrome, but again, no. Perhaps a pituitary issue." She paused, then continued slowly. "And, I guess it's not really relevant here, but if she'd been undergoing some sort of fertility treatment…"
"Oh!" Sherlock suddenly gasped. He whipped out his phone, punched one speed-dial button, and waited impatiently. When an indistinct voice answered, he immediately began rattling off his requests. "Mycroft. We need to find records of extensive purchases consistent with the establishment of a commercial-class embryology laboratory. No NHS facilities, private only. It will be in the larger London area, almost certainly in an upper-echelon physical facility. Purchases made within the last six months, most likely, though we can go further back if we come up empty. There will also be purchases for the furnishing of the medical facility itself, and very high-end ones at that, but those are less critical and could be more easily concealed, so let's start with what we know they must have, given the limited number of suppliers for that kind of equipment. Check import licenses as well—chances are not all of the equipment would have been manufactured in this country." More undecipherable speech on the other end of the line, and Sherlock hung up without a goodbye.
He put away his phone, to be met with the stares of the other people in the room. "Oh, honestly," he breathed. "It's obvious now, isn't it?" He looked from one to the other as they shook their heads.
Finally, he nodded and began. "In retrospect it's clear what's happening. The girls are all in perfect health, and at the peak of their fertility. They are all exceptional—smart, pretty and talented. And they would, presumably, produce similarly-gifted children. What more could a prospective parent ask for? In this case, very, very wealthy prospective parents, who are unwilling or unable to secure a child through conventional fertility treatments and physicians."
"So they're, what, surrogates?" asked John.
Sherlock shook his head. "Highly unlikely. For one thing, there's not enough money in it—each girl would be only available for one child at a time, and the 'waiting period' is almost a year. Eggs, though—a woman has millions of potential eggs at birth, and under the right circumstances can produce dozens of them for potential parents every month. And given the selectivity of the abductors, I suspect that our culprits are willing to provide specific eggs that approximate physical characteristics requested by their clients."
He stopped and held up his phone, opened to a website on fertility treatments. "But the drugs used to force the body into readying large numbers of eggs are not without their hazards. And very rarely, some women will develop life-threatening complications, which must be addressed quickly and decisively. In this case, perhaps inexperience, or just plain greed, made them delay treatment for Ms. Aldridge. And when it was clear she was dying, they were afraid to take her to a real hospital for fear of exposure."
"That's just…horrible," said John.
Sherlock grimaced. "Hardly more horrible than kidnapping the girls in the first place." He paused and looked momentarily distressed before composing his face once more. "Under the circumstances, it's clear they would never be able to release any of the girls. It also explains why no ransom notes were received." He looked over at Greg. "But there is good news here. This kind of thing requires very specific, and very expensive, technology, and that equipment evolves at a very rapid pace. An operation like this would want the newest and best, if only so they could show it off to their potential clients. And purchases of that kind of leave a trail, a trail we can follow." And for the first time in days, his eyes glowed with excitement. "We can find them."