Dad leads us into a room on the ground floor where Lestrade is pulling on a coverall and points to a pile of the same.
"You need to wear one of these," dad says to Doctor Watson as I take off my gloves and replace them with some latex ones.
"Who's this?" Lestrade asks, gesturing towards John.
"He's with me," dad mutters as Doctor Watson pulls off his jacket.
"But who is he?" Dad looks up and meets Lestrades eyes.
"I said he's with me." Looking uncomfortable, Watson picks up a coverall and looks to me and dad.
"Aren't you gonna put one on?" I look at him in disbelief, and he shakes his head at his stupidity. Forensics would have a field trip if we wore one of these, and they interfere with our senses.
"So where are we?" Dad asks Lestrade as he picks up another pair of latex gloves.
"Upstairs," he answers, leading us up a circular staircase. This is the house I found, I'm certain of it. I hid in the nursery, if I remember correctly.
Both Lestrade and Watson are wearing coveralls.
"I can give you two minutes."
"May need longer," dad says casually. We can only find basic information in that time, but the more important stuff takes a little longer.
"Her name's Jennifer Wilson according to her credit cards. We're running them now for contact details. Hasn't been here long. Some kids found her." So they still use this place, then? Even after what happened with me? The room we're being led to is on the second floor, and is desolate apart from an old rocking horse in the far corner. This is my room. Emergency portable lighting is the only thing that lights up this room and scaffolding holds up parts of the ceiling which has started to deteriate. It's looking a lot worse then when I was here last.
The body is situated in the middle of the room, face down on the hard floorboards, and her arms either side of her head. She's wearing an overcoat in an startling shade of pink and matching high-heeled shoes. I walk over to gather more evidence then what I've got already, and dad holds his hand out to establish the room temperature and to clear his mind of everything unimportant. The room is silent, apart from the fast paced thinking of me and dad, and the brains of Watson and Lestrade who are struggling to find one soluiton. It's quite annoying, actually.
"Shut up," dad says, looking across to Lestrade and John, who both look startled.
"I didn't say anything," replies Lestrade.
"you were thinking. It's annoying." Lestrade and Dr Watson exchange shocked looks as dad steps forwards slowly to stand beside me. I concentrate back on the body but my eyes are drawn to an ingraving which is scratched to her left side. Her middle and index nails are chipped and rough compared with all her other nails which are spotless. She's left handed. I look back at the ingraving and see that it spells 'Rache' which is a German noun meaning revenge. Why would she write that in her last moments? It would have caused her pain. Somewhere in the back of my mind remembers the Harry/Harriet conversation earlier, and her index finger lies at the bottom of the 'e', as if she was about to write some more before she died. How could this word be finished? Rachet? It's modern slang for someone who is crazy or nasty, so is her murderer a known psycopath? No, she wouldn't have used the slang word - there is a high chance that nobody would know the word, and she's also at the wrong age to know it. Rachel, then?
Happy with that suggestion, I kneel down beside the body and check over her jewelery - a good way of getting to know her realationship status, as it may help us. I pull out a small magnifier from my coat pocket and examine her delicate gold braclet. It's clean, and has been regualy cleaned since it was given to her. The same can be said for her earings and necklace, but not for her rings. No, her engagment and wedding ring are both dirty. She's married, but unhappily. The scratches on her rings suggest that she's been married for at least ten years, but now she's growing bored of him. I work the wedding ring off of her finger and hold it up for further examination. I can see now the difference on either side of the ring. The inside is as clean as the rest of her jewelry, but the outside of it is in huge contrast to it. Her partner wasn't satisfying her needs, so she had an affair. One affair couldn't have lasted this long, so a string of lovers, then. The only cleaning the ring got was when it was slid off of her finger as she won another man over, probably to get a better promotion.
Next, I move onto her clothes to see where she comes from. From running my gloved hand down the back of her coat, I can see that it's wet. It was obviously raining where she came from, and hasn't dried - we haven't had rain in London today. Digging into her pocket, I find an umbrella, but even from here I can see it hasn't been used - too windy, then. Finally, I run my fingers along the collor of her coat. Again, it's wet, but it also confirms my deduction on it being too windy for an umbrella. I pull out my phone and start to search through the recent weather forcasts for the last three hours - I need a time radius that would mean her clothes wouldn't have time to dry from the rain. Cardiff! She's from out of town, then, so she would have needed a suitcase. I scan down her legs to look for a splash pattern to show me what size bag she would of had. It's small, the splatters going up her right leg, but not above the calf, and not present at all on the right leg, which suggests that she was wheeling a smallish case behind her. She seems quite fashion consious, so she would only have used a bag like that for an overnight trip. She never reached the hotel, as we can see from the fact that her hair is still tangled from the strong wind in Cardiff. So where's her case?
"Got anything?" Lestrade asks, obviously trying to push our conclusion out of us so that they can get off their butts and actually do something. I must say, I'm rather pleased with my deductions today; they're getting better.
"Not much," dad answers indifferently, and turns to me, "Sophia, what did you get?" I smile and answer.
"Only a few things here and there, but I believe I've covered the basics." He nods and stands up, peeling the gloves off of his hands so that he can start typing, maybe trying to work out where she came from, or something else which I've missed. This room makes me feel a little insecure, and I can feel the shadows of the numerous murders that have happened here play through my mind, so I shake it away dissmissively.
"She's German," says Anderson from his place in the doorway. "'Rache': it's German for 'revenge'. She could be trying to tell us something …" Dad walks quickly over to him and slams the door into his face before he lowers our IQ any more then his presence has already inflicted upon us.
"Yes, thank you for your input," dad says sarcastically before turning and walking back into the room. He taps a few things on his screen as we stand in silence.
"So she's German?" Lestrade confirms incorrectly.
"Of course she's not," dad scoffs. "She's from out of town, though. Intended to stay in London for one night ... " he smiles smugly, and it's evident that he's finally found the weather forcast for Cardiff. " ... before returning home to Cardiff." He finishes as he pockets his phone.
"So far, so obvious."
"Sorry – obvious?" Doctor Watson asks, looking lost.
"What about the message, though?" Lestrade asks, but dad ignores him.
"Doctor Watson, what do you think?"
"Of the message?" He asks.
"Of the body. You're a medical man."
"Wait, no, we have a whole team right outside," Lestrade intervenes, and I roll my eyes. I thought rule one was 'do whatever Sophia and Sherlock tell you to do' which means just go with it. This is how the arguments usually start between other senior members of the police force.
"They won't work with me."
"I'm breaking every rule letting you two in here."
"Yes ... because you need us," dad says and Lestrade stares at him for a few second before he drops them again, helplessly.
"Yes, I do. God help me."
"Doctor Watson," dad says, and the doctor lifts up his head from where he was looking at the body.
"Hm?" Doctor Watson looks towards Lestrade, seeking permission from the detective inspector.
"Oh, do as he says. Help yourself," Lestrade replies, rather tetchily as he turns around to open the door.
"Anderson, keep everyone out for a couple of minutes," he yells, and dissapears for a few seconds. We walk over to the body and dad and I squat down on the left side of the body as Doctor Watson lowers himself onto his knee on the otherside. In his mind, his leg is hurting, so he uses his cane to support himself.
"Well?" Dad asks quietly, looking for Doctor Watsons opinion on the cause of death.
"What am I doing here?" Watson asks softly.
"Helping us make a point."
"I'm supposed to be helping you pay the rent."
"Yeah, well, this is more fun." Oh god, wrong time for this conversation.
"Fun? There's a woman lying dead."
"Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you'd go deeper." Lestrade enters the room once more and John drags his other knee into a kneel so that he can look closer at the body. He puts his head next to hers and sniffs for any signs of alcohol before drawing back up and checking her skin. Finally, he kneels back up and looks across the body to us.
"Yeah ... Asphyxiation, probably. Passed out, choked on her own vomit. Can't smell any alcohol on her. It could have been a seizure; possibly drugs."
"You know what it was. You've read the papers," dad says.
"What, she's one of the suicides? The fourth ...?"
"Sherlock – two minutes, I said. I need anything you've got." We stand up to address him as Doctor Watson struggles to his feet.
"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. Travelled from Cardiff today, intending to stay in London for one night. It's obvious from the size of her suitcase."
"Suitcase?" Lestrade questions looking around. I spin around, but I can't see any sign of the case. Forensics must have taken it for evidence.
"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." Lestrade raises his eyebrows.
"Oh, for God's sake, if you're just making this up ..." Dad squats down to point at her ring as I continue to search for the missing case.
"Her wedding ring. Ten years old at least. The rest of her jewellery has been regularly cleaned, but not 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?" He says, standing back up, and moving towards Lestrade, his analysis speeding up as he reaches his conclusion. "Clearly not one lover; she'd never sustain the fiction of being single over that amount of time, so more likely a string of them. Simple."
"That's brilliant," Doctor Watson says admiringly and dad looks round at him. "Sorry," he apologises, his eyes flicking towards Lestrade. There is defenatley not a case in this room.
"Cardiff?" Asks Lestrade, folding his arms.
"It's obvious, isn't it?"
"It's not obvious to me," says John slowly. Dad pauses as he looks at the other two.
"Dear God, what is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring."
"Sherlock!" I hiss, and he turns to the body to explain. They can't help not being geniuses like us.
"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 stay 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," he explains, fairly slowly, and reaches into his pocket for his phone. "So, where has there been heavy rain and strong wind within the radius of that travel time?" He shows them his phone, and what I can assume is the weather page for Cardiff that I brought up earlier. "Cardiff."
"That's fantastic!" Doctor Watson repeats loudly and dad turns to him, lowering his voice.
"D'you know you do that out loud?"
"Sorry. I'll shut up." Dad shakes his head slightly.
"No, it's ... fine."
"Why d'you keep saying suitcase?" Lestrade asks, bringing us back on topic. Dad spins around in a circle to get a look a proper look at the room.
"Yes, where is it? It's not in here, Sophia would have found it by now. She must have had a phone or an organiser. Find out who Rachel is."
"She was writing 'Rachel'?" Lestrade asks in disbelief.
"No," dad answers sarcastically,"she was leaving an angry note in German! 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?" Lestrade asks, and dad points down at her tights where the small black splotches are.
"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." Dad squats down by her legs so that he can look at them more closely. "Now, where is it? What have you done with it?"
"There wasn't a case." Lestrade says shrugging. I look up at him to meet his eyes. If he's correct, then the murderer has made his first mistake.
"Say that again," dad demands slowly, clarifing that he heard right.
"There wasn't a case. There was never any suitcase." I bolt for the door, and start checking all the rooms.
"Suitcase! Did anyone find a suitcase? Was there a suitcase in this house?" Dad calls out to the police a he hurrys down the stairs. There isn't a reply.
"Sherlock, there was no case!" Lestrade calls from the landing. Dad starts to slow down, but keeps moving.
"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!" Lestrade yells sarcastically as I join dad. "And...?"
"It's murder, all of them. I don't know how, but they're not suicides, they're killings – serial killings." Dad claps his hands in delight.
"We've got ourselves a serial killer. I love those. There's always something to look forward to."
"Why are you saying that?" We stop in between levels.
"Her case! Come on, where is her case? Did she eat it?!" Dad yells sarcastiacally. "Someone else was here, and they took her case." He drops his voice, now talking to himself and me. "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." Doctor Watson suggests and I shake my head. Dad looks back upstairs to them.
"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 stops talking as the idea clicks.
"Oh," he says, his eyes widening and his face lighting up."Oh!" He claps his hands in delight.
"Sherlock?" John yells, sounding concerned for his colleuges sanity.
"What is it, what?" Lestrade asks, leaning over the rail. Dad smiles to himself with joy.
"Serial killers are always hard. You have to wait for them to make a mistake."
"We can't just wait!" Lestrade yells down to us, annoyed.
"Oh, we're done waiting!" Dad shouts as we start moving 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!" We reach the bottom of the stairs, and Lestrade and Doctor Watson dissapears from our view.
"Of course, yeah – but what mistake?!" Lestrade calls after us, and dad backtracks, climbing a few stairs.
"PINK!" Dad yells before hurrying off again, me in tow.