Disclaimer: The characters of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John H. Watson, Mycroft Holmes, Inspector Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson are the intellectual copyright of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I hold no claim upon them.
A/N: This story, although set in the modern 21st Century, is highly influenced by the structure of the original stories about Sherlock Holmes.
I'm highly enjoying writing this- and I hope anyone who reads it will highly enjoy it too!
Rated T, but this may move up to M as events unfold later on. Enjoy! :)
Sherlock jumped out of the cab and slammed the door shut, John had sensed correctly that he was going to have to move quickly and maneuvered out of the taxi before the door swung shut. They had stopped outside a large building, which at first glance seemed to be several different blocks of offices; but on closer inspection it became apparent that it was an amalgamation of several smaller buildings that all fit together into one institution. The lowest part of the building, where the front door and reception was looked like it was the original part of the building – massive, old stones made up the front walls protruding out onto the street roughly four feet in front of any of the buildings on either side. Then added onto the left side of the building was a granite grey brick extension which had a definite look of the 1960's about it; the last extension was modern – high panels of sheet glass and steel towered high above the original part of the building. It was a monstrosity of a building, rather unsightly and the sight of it made you wonder who would have thought that both of those extensions would make the building look any better; or maybe they just really needed the space. In the time that Sherlock and John had been in the cab on the way to this building, thick grey rain clouds had rolled in and were hanging heavy and low in the sky, and as Sherlock stood for a few moments, the rain began to fall in large drops. Sherlock headed towards the reception of the building, where there was a cordoned off area and several police officers were standing guard; making sure no unauthorised person was admitted to the building. One of these officers held up his hand to stop Sherlock and John from entering the building, Sherlock had ducked under the thick police tape and was completely ignoring the officer that had told him to stop, but at that moment Sergeant Donovan had appeared at the foyer door.
"Oh no, Lestrade didn't come and pick you up freak, did he?" She rolled her eyes, she thought her superior was mad for consulting Sherlock and she wasn't afraid to hide that fact. Sherlock didn't even seem to hear her, he just pushed past; John, however, paused to reply;
"Lestrade came by and asked whether Sherlock would consult on this case. Has he arrived yet?" Sergeant Donovan's brows had knit together with a look of annoyance as Sherlock had proceeded to sweep along the corridor towards a stairwell through a set of glass double doors.
"Third floor, you won't miss him." She answered, but John had already begun to follow Sherlock. Sherlock was not, by any means, slowing down to wait for John; but John caught up with him at the top of the second set of stairs. Not all of John's military fitness and precision had left him, even though he had been invalided out of the army for nearly two years from the present. "So what makes this case interesting?" He asked, as they ascended the last flight of stairs; at the top there was a huddle of people, probably those who worked in the department or those surrounding departments that had heard the news and decided to see what was going on for themselves. They must have been there for quite a while as the third floor had been cordoned off, and no one was permitted to leave until they had been spoken to, and dismissed, by the police.
"Murder John! Murder in a city office, while everyone was at work – even you have to admit that a feat like that takes some nerve and audacity!" He exclaimed rather joyously. "And from the information Lestrade supplied us with; it appears that this man was subject to two attempts on his life at the same time! That doesn't come about by mere coincidence!" Lestrade was standing in the middle of the corridor, one hand propped against his hip and the other was gesticulating animatedly to one young police officer and –
"Anderson…" Sherlock spat at the man standing all in protective white forensic clothing who was in a doorway to an office, presumably where the dead man was. "Oh God I knew it would be you… It's always you." Sherlock stated honestly, his voice ringing with contempt and disgust; Anderson's face was twisted into a sneer of his own, but before he even got the chance to speak Lestrade barked out an order:
"Anderson, I need you and the rest of the forensic team out of that office now." Anderson stared blankly at Detective Inspector Lestrade for an infinitesimal moment, and then seemed to regain himself.
"You can't be serious?" Anderson questioning disbelievingly. "You're going to allow him into a crime scene, again? Before the actual forensic team have finished their primary investigation?"
"Yes Anderson, I am deadly serious." Lestrade replied dryly, "I need you out of there." John couldn't suppress the suspicion that Sherlock was really enjoying this display of dominance and preference by Lestrade, his eyebrows were raised and the corners of his mouth were curved upwards in a smile – Sherlock's distinct features were clearly imprinted with an appearance of triumph over Anderson. Once he saw that antagonistic look on Sherlock's face, John was sure that he was intentionally playing it up trying to anger Anderson even more – but Sherlock's getting at Anderson was a definite improvement from finding situations to annoy John! It was several minutes later that Anderson and the rest of his forensic team had cleared their way out of the office which still had the corpse sat behind his desk.
"You have ten minutes at the very most, understood?" Lestrade informed John and Sherlock.
"As if I'd need ten minutes!" Sherlock muttered loudly as he ducked under a line of tape at the door of the office with John following him. "I'll need your medical opinion John." Sherlock stated, standing right in the middle of the office facing away from the dead man; seemingly surveying the surroundings with a casual, uncaring air about him. John moved slowly around behind the desk; the figure behind the desk was slumped heavily to the right side, one elbow leaning on the arm of his computer chair – the lids of his eyes were half open, but the gaze coming out from the eyes underneath them was glassy.
"Do we have a name for him?" John requested of Sherlock, who was still facing the opposite way – which in itself was most irregular; Sherlock was not at all the squeamish kind, on the contrary this was usually the kind of thing that interested him most.
"Clearly obtuse!" He commented abruptly, waving his hand towards a frame upon the wall – John scowled at this reaction and moved towards the frame. It was a mounted certificate of qualification; which bore the name: Terrence Milner, BA (Hons) Social Work. So there was the answer to John's, seemingly, impertinent question. John turned his attention back to the dead man and the dead man's position; Sherlock remained with his back to the desk and the corpse for a very long time. John, in the time intervening, careful not to displace anything or cause the body to be moved greatly (not wishing to be reprimanded by the police, or by Sherlock himself) touched the man's unsleeved arm – it was still warm, and had a clammy feel to the touch. As his eyes travelled upwards he noted the glassy and unfocused stare, and knew that this would be accounted as coming about after the death of Mr. Terrence Milner, but still could not quite suppress the suspicion that if he had been drugged or poisoned then this unclear gaze could have come about premortem. Then in moving round the back of the man he started, and had to take a closer look – the man was wearing two hearing aids, both linked to an odd looking coil that seemed affixed to the man's head under his hair. Very tentatively John pulled at the coil on the man's head, and discovered that it was held in place by a strong magnetic pull – as it took some force to remove it, and then it snapped back into its place when held around the same area.
"Sherlock…" John started, feeling that this development might just be worthy enough to interest his friend; Sherlock made a disgruntled noise in being interrupted while thinking. "I think this might be of some interest to you, this man has two cochlear implants." At first Sherlock didn't react, and John wondered whether this fact might not be of any interest at all.
"Well I knew that he had a hearing impairment of some kind." Sherlock answered lazily, finally turning around to face John and the dead man. His face was pale, and his actions appeared that of a man who did not have any interest, but John noted the fire that seemed to have kindled in his friend's eyes since they had arrived on the scene. Before John could endeavour to inquire as to how Sherlock had known this even though he had hardly spared the corpse a glance since they had entered the room, Sherlock had begun to explain; "He has a text phone… that's not a piece of equipment that you would usually expect to find in an office; it's specialist equipment, probably bought by himself, but he also has a cable attached to the back of the phone – one with an attachment that looks like it would plug in directly to some kind of hearing aid." John looked at the desk – Sherlock's explanation was, of course, clearly proven by the phone upon the desk, which had a panel for the text to be read upon and a long cable with looked similar to a set of headphones, but had an unusual head attachment where the ear pieces would normally be. Sherlock suddenly seemed to spring to life, he moved swiftly around the back of the desk, stood right next to where John was and began to examine the current situation intently. The rain was hammering harshly against the window behind the two of them, but apart from that there was no other noise in the room. Sherlock's eyes darted from the man's body – which he carefully examined without once touching it – to the desk and the objects placed upon it in a very neat, meticulous order. This was a common occurrence, that his eyes seemed to drink in the surroundings, as though he was committing every tiny detail to his memory – so that he would be readily able to recall it, if need be.
The effects on the desk did show around which time the man had died, there was a half empty mug of tea balanced on the very edge of the desk; a plastic box with an apple, a chocolate biscuit and a sandwich with a bite out of it lying on top of its plastic wrapping. At the time of his death Terrence had been having his lunch. Sherlock hovered over the desk in the fashion that there was something he was looking for, but couldn't quite place it.
"Something is missing – something's wrong." He muttered in frustration, "He was eating his lunch using his left hand – there are crumbs predominantly down the left hand side of his trousers and his left sleeve. He is right handed, but eating with his left because he was writing with his right. His pen is by the side of his keyboard – but where is the paper that he was writing upon? The gap there on the desk is where the notepad sat, but it doesn't look like he's moved it."
"Has someone else removed it?" John asked.
"Someone?" Sherlock repeated.
"The killer?" John suggested, looking up at Sherlock, whose keen eyes were still flitting from object to object on the desk; Sherlock gave his reply as a rather indistinct noise. Sherlock had suddenly bent over the desk and taken a hearty sniff over the mug of tea, then his forehead creased for a moment, then unwrinkled.
"I think we have another interesting object to give Lestrade and his team." Sherlock stated, drawing up to his full height and motioning to John that he was finished in the room. John could not quite see how Sherlock had consumed all the information that the room could present in such a short amount of time, especially as most of his time in the room with his back to the dead man; but John knew that it was not fitting to argue with Sherlock when he was so vastly superior in observing and recognising every little detail, therefore followed him out without protesting.
Detective Inspector Lestrade started and goggled in amazement as the two companions marched out of the room after having been in there for just a little over five minutes.
"Are you done?" He asked incredulously.
"Of course." Sherlock snapped quickly.
"And…?" Lestrade started tentatively a few moments of silence.
"You told us that there had been two attempts on this man's life today, even with that small detail you are sorely incorrect. There has been no less than three in the short space of one work morning." Sherlock answered superciliously, both Lestrade and John seemed transfixed by this statement which had been casually thrown out by Sherlock. "There is no doubt that someone wanted this man dead, so much so that they have left no possible option for death to be escaped. There is more than one person involved, one of them will undoubtedly have medical or, at least, chemical knowledge – three different types of poison have been administered.
"How can you –" Lestrade started, but Sherlock was still speaking, oblivious to Lestrade and John who were struggling to comprehend how Sherlock could have deduced this.
"It would be well for you to find out who made his tea – if there is an assigned person who has that job, and if there is, whether they were alone when they made today's lunchtime tea. Otherwise someone else has tampered with Mr. Milner's mug. Not even peppermint tea can mask the smell of cyanide within that cup. I'm surprised that he didn't notice it himself!" Sherlock's eyebrows knit together for an instant, John could have laughed at his friends' lack of accounting for other people's under developed knowledge of chemicals or poisons. "I'm guessing that was one of the attempts that your boys picked up on; the other that I'm sure they noticed was the puncture wound in Mr. Milner's back – the fact that his shirt has a round patch of blood surrounding the area in which he was stabbed with the syringe. I cannot confirm definitively, but I place my highest bets on morphine, or some other opium being the content of that syringe. There are a few characteristic symptoms of an opium overdose present in the man – and I highly doubt that he was a drug addict. He was too much of an introvert for anything like that – he doesn't even drink." Sherlock's last comment seemed as though it could be quite irrelevant, but still John fathomed to understand where that piece of information had been drawn from. "I suspect that you have already put out a request for all the offices to be searched for a discharged syringe, so I won't waste my time on impressing that you won't find it."
"But, the third?" Lestrade questioned, a mixture of confusion and amazement in his deep voice.
"Get your forensic team to search every single one of Mr. Milner's filling cabinet – in one of them, most likely the one closest the right wall, they will find a gas canister which will, now, be completely empty – but will probably have some kind of timed release. Mr. Milner always worked with his door closed, so the gas could be released inside his office and would have dissipated long before anyone disturbed him. Whoever placed it in his filling cabinet would probably expect that they would be able to retrieve the canister before he was found dead, but I don't think that has gone their way… Mr. Milner was found very shortly after his death; therefore they never got the chance to remove it…"
"You are certain about this?" Lestrade asked, Sherlock answered this question with the annoyance that always accompanied when his well explained deductions were brought into question.
"Extremely certain." He growled. "There is something deeper going on here, this man was wanted dead because he knows something… I haven't been able to ascertain as to what that he knows could be of such importance, but it could be to do with this scandal that is going on at the moment. Items have been removed from Mr. Milner's room – the most telling of which being a notebook or pad of paper, maybe with something that whoever killed him didn't want to be found out, possibly incriminating a person, or people. That is what I'd be placing my effort into evaluating." Sherlock finished.
"Right… well, thank you." Lestrade said graciously, but Sherlock was already making movements as to leaving. "John, speak to the work colleagues – find out as much as you can about Mr. Milner and his life in here. I expect that will be fine with you, Lestrade? You never know what small clue might lead to the unraveling of all of these events!"
"It's not a problem." Lestrade had replied, as Sherlock had turned on his heels and was marching off down the corridor.
"Where are you going?" John called after him, slightly disgruntled that he was being left to do the work of the normal police force.
"Research!" Came Sherlock's reply.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed that- I certainly loved writing it! I'd be grateful at receiving any advice or constructive criticism for how I can make it better- so if you have any, drop me a message or a review! Thanks :)