Prologue

My father's cries draw me into the living room. I find him knelt beside my mum, her head on his lap as he buries his head in her soft black hair, matted with dried blood. Her eyes are open, but the glimmer that always seemed to be there is gone. A small hole on her chest stains her white blouse and creates a little puddle around her body on the floor. I blink curiously at the scene, not understanding what's going on. Why's daddy crying? Why's mummy sleeping on the floor with her eyes open? I want to wake her up, but I can't so I start crying too. Why isn't mummy waking up?

I lurch upright in a cold sweat. Clinging to the sides of the bed, I attempt to stop the panting by convincing myself that it was just a nightmare. Nothing more than a reoccuring nightmare of an event long past. I shiver against the cold of the night and the adreneline which has now ensued.

I fall back onto my pillow and brush the tight black curls from my eyes. My breathing steadies slightly, but the trauma of seeing the lifeless body of my mum again after so long keeps me from relaxing. Each time I close my eyes, I'm haunted by images of her body flashing before me.

Tears threaten to fall and I bury my face in my pillow in an attempt to muffle my cries from my dad. He's probably up already, and worried about me waking up again.

I thought detaching myself from the world would help like it did for dad, but it hasn't. I can manage for most of the time, but when I'm alone, and it's dark, emotion breaks it down and logic fails.

Why I'm still getting these dreams is one mystery I doubt I'll ever solve. It all happened so long ago. Even her murderer was caught in the end so it's not as though we didn't get closure.

I am Sophia Elizabeth Holmes, daughter of the only Consulting Detective, Sherlock Holmes, and the late Irene Adler. But we don't talk about her any more. People used to say I take after my mother for looks, but I have the high cheekbones, cold grey eyes and bouncy black curls of my father as well as a cool, calculating mind. I used to be a lot like mother, but after her death I became closed off, focusing my mind on the more important things in life from an early age.

Realising I won't get any more sleep tonight, I sit back up and switch on the lamp beside me. The shadows dancing around my room fade away, for the moment. It's still fairly dark outside, but by the position of the sun and the light intensity, I would say its 5:32 am. A quick glance at my alarm confirms my theory. My head is buzzing with a thousand different thoughts flying through, refusing to stay still. I'm bored, and we all know where that leads.

"You've got toothpaste around your mouth," dad mutters as I emerge from the bathroom we share. As usual, he's poised in front of his laptop, typing fast, but he stops suddenly and turns to face me. "Your nightmares are back, aren't they," I nod, and he smiles sadly. "It'll get better, I promise." He turns back to the laptop and begins tapping away again. As I head back towards the bathroom to wash off the toothpaste mentioned, I catch a glimpse of the morning's newspaper on the table.

"Nothing interesting?" I ask, referring to the paper, but he doesn't reply. He had set an empty bowel on the side for my cereal, but I'm not hungry. I need something stronger, somthing to keep me awake. As I make my coffee, I let my mind sift through all the facts I've collected this week to see if anything fits in with the case.

"Sophie, I need your opinion on this." I peer over the counter to dad's laptop on the table. A newspaper heading read out: 'SIR JEFFREY PATTERSON DEAD. SUICIDE OR MURDER?' Underneath, a picture of the business man accompanies the text.

"It's hard to say by looking at the picture. Fairly old image judging by the picture quality which could mean that there were obvious signs in the later photos which would point to it being a suicide. The absence of these images suggest that the police are under the impression that it was murder." I pause to take a breath of air and to evaluate the portrait further. "Successful man - even mildly famous in the world of business - but why would his suicide, or as the papers suggest, his murder be front page unless something is going on behind the scenes?" Dad nods in agreement. "Has this got you interested?" I ask, a smile creeping up on my face. He looks like a boy on Christmas morning.

"Let's go dig our noses in, shall we?"