*I do not own Sherlock! I only own Sarafina and Liza Holmes.*

Chapter 4

We walk up a spiral looking staircase as Uncle Sherlock puts on his gloves.

"I can give you two minutes." Lestrade says to Uncle Sherlock.

"May need more." Uncle Sherlock says casually.

"Her names Jennifer Wilson according to her credit cards. We're running them now for contact details. Hasn't been here long. Some kids found her." Lestrade fills him in.

We walk into the room where they found her body. The room is basically empty, well, except for the furniture and the body. As we walked in the doorway I immediately knew she loved pink. How? Well, she's basically covered head to toe in pink clothing. It's actually quite disturbing how much pink she has on. Uncle Sherlock walks forward to focus more on the body. We stand there silently for a moment, mainly out of respect, when all of the sudden Uncle Sherlock looks at Lestrade and says,

"Shut up." Lestrade looks startled.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking. It's annoying." Both Lestrade and John look at each other surprisingly as Uncle Sherlock steps forward to examine the body.

I watch as he runs his fingers over her coat. He finds, what looks to be, an umbrella (not pink. Surprising…) in her pocket and inspects it. He does other things to inspect the body and after a few minutes he smiles.

"Got anything?" Lestrade asks.

"Not much." Uncle Sherlock says nonchalantly, even though I knew he had way more than 'Not much'.

Standing up, Uncle Sherlock takes off his gloves, takes out his phone, and starts typing. Suddenly, Anderson says from behind me,

"She's German. 'Rache': it's German for 'revenge'. She could be trying to tell us something."

As he spoke, Uncle Sherlock started towards the door.

"Yes, thank you for your input." He says as he slams the door in Andersons face. I smile at him.

"So she's German?" Lestrade asks.

"Of course she's not. She's from out of town, though. Intended to stay in London for one night…" he pauses and smiles at his phone. "…before returning home to Cardiff."

He then puts his phone back in his pocket and says,

"So far, so obvious."

"Sorry – obvious?" John asks, puzzled.

"What about the message, though?" Lestrade asks. Uncle Sherlock ignores him and turns to John.

"Doctor Watson, what do you think?"

"Of the message?"

"Of the body. You're a medical man.

"Wait, no, we have a whole team right outside." Lestrade interrupts.

"They won't work with me." Uncle Sherlock replies.

"I'm breaking every rule letting you in here."

"Yes… because you need me." Uncle Sherlock replies.

Lestrade stares at him and after a moment, he lowers his eyes.

"Yes, I do. God help me." I smile as Uncle Sherlock says,

"Doctor Watson."

"Hm?" John looks up from the body, looks at Uncle Sherlock, and turns to Lestrade, as if he was asking permission to continue.

"Oh, do as he says. Help yourself." Lestrade sighs.

He turns and walks to the door, opens it, and walks out. I stand there and watch as both Uncle Sherlock and John bend down over the body. Well, Uncle Sherlock bent down and John just sort of… shifted his way down.

"Well?" Uncle Sherlock asks.

John softly asks, "What am I doing here?"

"Helping me make a point."

"I'm supposed to be helping you pay the rent."

"Yeah, well, this is more fun."

"Fun?" John asks. "There's a woman lying dead."

"Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you'd go deeper." Uncle Sherlock says.

Lestrade walks back in and stands in the doorway, watching as John examines the body. After he finishes, John says,

"Yeah… Asphyxiation, probably. Passed out, choked on her own vomit. Can't smell any alcohol on her. It could have been a seizure; probably drugs."

"You know what it was. You've read the papers." Uncle Sherlock says.

"What, she's one of the suicides? The fourth…"

"Sherlock – two minutes, I said. I need anything you've got." Lestrade interrupts.

Uncle Sherlock stands and John tries his best to stand. I go up and help him to his feet as he says a quick 'Thank you'. Meanwhile, Uncle Sherlock starts,

"Victim is in her late thirties. Professional person, going by her clothes; I'm guessing something in the media, going by the frankly alarming shade of pink. Traveled from Cardiff today, intending to stay in London for one night. It's obvious from the size of her suitcase."

"Suitcase?" Lestrade asks as all of us start looking around the room for a suitcase.

"Suitcase, yes. She's been married at least ten years, but not happily. She's had a string of lovers but none of them knew she was married."

"Oh, for God's sake, if you're just making this up…" Lestrade starts. Uncle Sherlock points to the dead woman's left hand.

"Her wedding ring. 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. It's not for work; look at her nails. She doesn't work with her hands, so what or rather who does she remove her rings for? Clearly not one lover; shed never sustain the fiction of being single over that amount of time, so more likely a string of them. Simple." He finishes, as if it's no big deal.

"That's brilliant." John says admiringly. Both Uncle Sherlock and I look at him. "Sorry."

"Cardiff?" Lestrade asks.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Uncle Sherlock asks back.

"It's not obvious to me." John adds.

Uncle Sherlock pauses and looks at me. I shrug my shoulders and he looks back and John and Lestrade.

"Dear God, what's it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring." He says as I giggle. He turns back to the body. "Her coat: it's slightly damp. She's been in heavy rain in the last few hours. No rain anywhere in London in that time. Under her coat collar is damp, too. She's turned it up against the wind. She's got an umbrella in her left-hand pocket but it's dry and unused: not just wind, strong wind – too strong to use her umbrella. We know from her suitcase that she was intending to say overnight, so she must have come a decent distance but she can't have travelled 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?"

Uncle Sherlock takes his phone back out of his pocket and finds a webpage that displays the weather report for southern Britain.

"Cardiff." He finishes, holding out his phone.

"That's fantastic!" John exclaims. Uncle Sherlock turns to him and speaks in a low voice.

"D'you know you do that out loud?"

"Sorry. Ill shut up."

"No, its… fine."

"Why d'you keeps saying suitcase?" Lestrade asks.

Uncle Sherlock spins around in a circle, looking around the room. It kind of reminded me of a dog chasing its tail.

"Yes, where is it? She must have had a phone or an organizer. Find out who Rachel is."

"She was writing 'Rachel'?" Lestrade asks.

"No, she was leaving an angry not in German!" Uncle Sherlock said sarcastically. "Of course she was writing Rachel; no other word it can be. Question is: why did she wait until she was dying to write it?"

"How d'you know she had a suitcase?"

Uncle Sherlock points down to the body.

"Back of the right leg: tiny splash marks on the heel and calf, not present on the left. She was dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. Don't get that splash pattern any other way. Smallish case, going by the spread. Case that size, woman this clothes-conscious: could only be an overnight bag, so we know she was staying one night." He kneels down by the woman's body and looks more closely at her legs. "Now, where is it? What have you done with it?"

"There wasn't a case." Lestrade says.

Uncle Sherlock looks up and frowns at Lestrade.

"Say that again."

"There wasn't a case. There was never any suitcase." Lestrade seemed frustrated.

Uncle Sherlock immediately stands up and walks out the door.

"Suitcase! Did anyone find a suitcase? Was there a suitcase in this house?" Uncle Sherlock yelled to the others as he was running downstairs.

"Sherlock, there was no case!" Lestrade yells after him.

John, Lestrade, and I stop and look down from the landing. Uncle Sherlock slows down but keeps heading down the stairs.

"But they take the poison themselves; they chew, swallow the pills themselves. There are clear signs, even you lot couldn't miss them."

"Right, yeah, thanks! And…?" Lestrade asks.

"Its murder, all of them. I don't know how, but they're not suicides, they're killings – Serial killings." He holds his hands up to his face, delightedly, if that's even a word. "We've got ourselves a serial killer. I love those. There's always something to look forward to."

"Why are you saying that?"

Uncle Sherlock starts calling out to the others.

"Her case! Come on where is her case? Did she eat it?! Someone else was here, and they took her case." He starts talking to himself. "So the killer must have driven her here; forgot the case was in the car."

"She could have checked into a hotel, left her case there?" John added. Uncle Sherlock looks up at us.

"No, she never got to the hotel Look at her hair. She colour-coordinates her lipstick and her shoes. She'd never have left any hotel with her hair still looking…" He pauses. "Oh." I see his eyes widen and his face light up. "Oh!"

"Sherlock?" John asks. Lestrade leans over the railings.

"What is it, what?"

"Serial killers are always hard. You have to wait for them to make a mistake." Uncle Sherlock says to himself, smiling.

"We can't just wait!"

"Oh we're done waiting." He starts running down the stairs again. "Look at her, really look! Houston, we have a mistake. Get on to Cardiff: find out who Jennifer Wilson's family and friends were. Find Rachel!"

At that, he disappears from view. Lestrade calls after him.

"Of course, yeah – but what mistake?!"

Uncle Sherlock comes back into view and yells,

"PINK!"

And yet again, Uncle Sherlock disappears. This time for good.

'Great…' I think to myself.

Lestrade turns and walks back into the room. Anderson follows him in with his team.

"Let's get on with it."

"Nice…" I mumble to myself.

I start heading down the stairs as John slowly follows. We go down, remove our coveralls, and head back outside. We walk towards the police take to leave.

"Does he always do this?" John asks me.

"Sometimes. Well, most of the time, actually. Sometimes he forgets me." John looks sideways at me. "Not often, though." He nods his head and we keep walking.

Eventually, we get to the border, only to find Donovan standing there. She turns around and looks at John.

"He's gone."

"Who, Sherlock Holmes?"

'No, the muffin man…' I think to myself.

"Yeah, he just took off. He does that. Right, Liza?" I look crossly at her and she smirks.

"Is he coming back?"

"Didn't look like it."

"Right." He looks around. "Right… yes. Sorry, where am I?" He asks Donovan.

"Brixton."

"Right. Er, d'you know where I could get a cab? It's just, er… well…" He looks down. "…my leg."

"Er…" She says as she steps over the tape to lift it for him. "…try the main road."

John and I duck under the tape.

"Thanks." John says.

"But you're not his friend."

John turns to Donovan and I keep walking. I can feel my IQ going down by the second. After a while, I could still hear Donovan talking to John, so I stop and turn around.

"C'mon then!" I call back to John.

He turns to look at me then back to watch Donovan as she leaves. He turns back and starts walking towards me.

"Yeah I'm coming." I giggle and he smiles.

We start walking again. All of the sudden, a phone in a telephone box starts to ring.

'Not again…' I think to myself as I keep walking.

John stops to look at it, but eventually just shakes his head and keeps walking.

Ooo cliffhanger! Well, not really. For those of you who've seen the show, you know exactly what happens next. Sorry this chapter took so long. Oh and a little preview for the next chapter, John gets to know Liza a little better. I'm also working on a different story, more focused on Liza and her love interest. O.O Remember, I Love Reviews!