The Silent Game
A Silent Crime Scene
Sherlock pulled on his gloves, Rose just pocketing her own hands as the pair of them approached Lestrade. They could clearly see the body that had been washed up onto the shore line, carried up further and placed on a sheet of dark material.
"Do you reckon this is connected then, the bomber?" Lestrade asked as they walked over.
"Must be." Sherlock replied, going to work, muttering, "odd though…" as he went.
"What is?" Lestrade asked, looking to Rose, knowing she was more likely to answer him if she knew.
"He hasn't been in touch." She explained.
"Then we must assume that some poor bugger's primed to explode, yeah?" The DI asked her, getting a nod from the younger woman. He looked around, just then noticing the absence of the doctor. "No John?"
Rose just gave Lestrade a warning look, the DI wisely shutting up after that. He didn't quite know why, but Greg Lestrade had found that Rose was just as confident and sure of herself as Sherlock was, just not as arrogant about it. He had also thought that she was a special find; to be able to work so well with Sherlock while not taking any of the madman's crap. This had earned her the DI's respect and if she didn't want him to pry, he certainly would try not to.
"Any ideas?" She asked Sherlock.
"Seven, so far." He replied, still examining everything.
She nodded, knowing he would probably narrow it down before they left again. Lestrade however, was a little surprised at the amount of possibilities that the consulting detective had come up with, having spent so little time on the scene. "Seven?"
Sherlock just ignored the question, taking out his own, modern magnifying glass and looking at the dead man's face, moving around the body, flapping a piece of material and taking off one of the dead man's socks - much to Rose's bewilderment.
When he stood up again, Sherlock looked to Rose, indication to the body slightly as he walked a little to stand on the other side, thinking as he did so.
Rose looked to Lestrade who indicated clearly; go right ahead. She placed the back of her hand of the dead man's arm, feeling the freezing temperature of the body. She nudged him a little and noticed that the body was quite stiff. She pulled a face. "I'm not expert but I'd say he was dead about a day, give or take a few hours." She had picked up a few things from John along the way, having been curious about how he could tell such things. She hadn't learned a lot though, just the basics. "Cause of death?" She asked, looking to Lestrade.
"Asphyxiation, apparently." Responded the DI.
She looked back to the face of the dead man and frowned. "Those are funny bruises." She pointed out. "Around the nose and mouth, but dotted around his face a bit further away as well." She cocked her head to the side, coming to a weird conclusion. "Almost like-"
"Fingertips." Sherlock finished for her, looking up from his phone for a second before going back to it, not looking at either of them.
"Exactly." Rose agreed, taking a deep breath. "I'd say late thirties? Maybe early forties, at a push. And hardly in the best condition."
"He's been in the river a long while, the water's destroyed most of the data." Sherlock stated, looking up to them. "But I'll tell you one thing; that lost Vermeer painting's a fake."
"What?" Lestrade asked, Rose trying to make some form of connection but coming up blank.
Sherlock carried on with his thoughts though. "We need to identify the corpse, find out about his friends and…"
Lestrade knew he had to catch the man there though, or he'd never go back to it. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. What painting? What are you on about?"
"It's all over the place, haven't you seen the posters?" Sherlock asked. "Dutch old master, supposed to have been destroyed centuries ago. Now it's turned up, worth £30 million."
"Okay, so what has that got to do with the stiff?" Lestrade asked. Rose had been quite shocked with his blunt language when she first started working with them man; now she couldn't imagine how else he would speak.
"Everything." Sherlock said, excitement in his tone, eyes wide and shining slightly. Here we go again, she thought. But his next question threw her off that little bit more. "Have you ever heard of the Golem?"
"Golem?" Lestrade asked, the word seeming foreign on his tongue.
She thought back to the films her brothers used to watch. "It's a horror story, isn't it?"
Sherlock looked to her at her slight recognition at the word, even if it was a little distorted. "Jewish folk story, a gigantic man made of clay. It's also the name of an assassin. Real name - Oskar Dzundza. One of the deadliest assassins in the world." He pointed to the face of the dead man. "That is his trademark style."
Something click in Lestrade's mind then. "So this is a hit?"
"Definitely." Sherlock confirmed. "The Golem squeezes the life out of his victims with his bare hands."
"But what has this got to do with that painting? I don't see…" Lestrade asked, frustrated that the difficult man was not explaining things simply. Rose knew that he had phrased his words wrongly, though, anticipating Sherlock's reaction.
"You do see, you just don't observe!" Exclaimed Sherlock getting annoyed at having to explain all that he saw.
Lestrade looked as though he was about to snap back at the taller man, but Rose stepped in with a firm voice. "Yes, alright, alright, girls! Calm down." Lestrade just looked to the corpse again while Sherlock gave her a playful glare. She turned to him. "Sherlock, either accept that we don't have a clue what you're going on about, or educate us on your theory." Sherlock raised an eyebrow at her, which she stubbornly returned. After a second though, he backed down, knowing she wouldn't do so. She just pulled out a cigarette, lighting up.
Sherlock sighed before starting his fast explanation, walking them through his thoughts, bit by bit. "What do we know about his corpse? The killer's not left us with much, just the shirt and the trousers. There're pretty formal, maybe he was going out for the night. But the trousers are heavy duty. Polyester, nasty, same as the shirt, cheap. They're both too big for him. So some kind of standard-issue uniform. Dressed for work, then. What kind of work?" He pointed to the middle of the dead body. "There's a hook on his belt…for a walkie-talkie."
"Tube driver?" Lestrade thought aloud.
Sherlock looked to him, then to Rose, raising an eyebrow for her idea. She thought a moment before giving her own thoughts. "Security guard?"
"More likely." Sherlock agreed, dismissing Lestrade's idea. "That'll be borne out by his backside."
Lestrade got really confused now though. "Backside?"
"Flabby." Sherlock elaborated. "You'd think he led a sedentary life."
"But..." Rose encouraged, knowing there was more.
"The soles of his feet and the nascent varicose veins in his legs show otherwise. So, a lot of walking and a lot of sitting around. Security guard's looking good." Rose let a small smile of self pride grace her features as she took a puff on her cigarette. "The watch helps too. The alarm shows he did regular night shifts."
"Why regular? Maybe he set his alarm like that the night before he died." Lestrade asked, wanting to be sure, not seeing how he came to such a specific conclusion.
"No, no, no. The buttons are stiff, hardly touched. He set his alarm like that a long time ago, his routine never varied. But there's something else. The killer must have been interrupted, otherwise he would have stripped the corpse completely. There was some kind of badge or insignia on the shirt front that he tore off, suggesting the dead man works somewhere recognisable, some kind of institution." He pulled something out of his pocket, holding it up for them to see. "Found this inside his trouser pockets. Sodden by the river but still recognisably…?"
Rose took a closer look at it. "Tickets."
"Ticket stubs." He corrected. "He worked in a museum or gallery. Did a quick check. The Hickman Gallery has reported one of it's attendants as missing, Alex Woodbridge." He said, turning back to the body and indicating to it. "Tonight, they unveil the rediscovered masterpiece."
Rose started to nod, seeing where he was going with this and finding it made sense. "And why would anyone want to pay the Golem to suffocate a perfectly ordinary gallery attendant, right?"
"Yes." Sherlock said with finality, sure of his theory, now he had said it aloud. "The dead man knew something about it, something that would stop the owner getting paid £30 million. The picture's a fake."
There was a moment of silence between the three.
"Remind me never to play any games with you, Sherlock." Rose said in amazement. "That was fantastic!"
"Meretricious." Sherlock replied, shrugging slightly.
"And a Happy New Year." Lestrade said. Rose just furrowed her eyebrows, both her and Sherlock blinking a few times, giving Lestrade a confused look.
She looked back to the body, voicing her thoughts. "Poor sod."
After another second of contemplative silence, Lestrade spoke again. "Well, I'd better get my feelers out for this Golem character."
"Pointless, you'll never find him, but I know a man who can." Offered Sherlock, getting a raised eyebrow from Rose as she raised the white stick to her lips again.
"Who?" Asked Lestrade, taking the bait.
"Me." Answered Sherlock simply, turning away form the scene and walking back up to the road.
Rose just looked to Lestrade, giving him a smirk. "Egoistical git, isn't he?" She asked, not waiting for a reply before running to catch up to the man.
"I heard that." Sherlock said as she walked beside him.
"Deny it?" She asked, smirk still in place.
"Of course not, though I do have a question for you." He replied.
"Ask away." She told him, knowing he would. She had told him not long ago that if he wanted something that he should just ask; if she didn't want to do something, she wouldn't.
"Why wouldn't you play a game with me?" He asked, sounding both curious and a little hurt; she would play games with Mycroft and practically everyone else. Why not him?
She just laughed slightly. "Sherlock, I didn't mean to offend you-"
"Didn't offend me." He interrupted, trying to hide his childish ways a little. She saw them anyway and threw him a smirk, which he, in turn, ignored.
"Either way, I just meant that you really don't like to loose, that was all." She said, tone going a little more serious at the end.
Sherlock went quiet at her words. She was right after all; he didn't like to lose, and would do his damnedest to make sure it didn't happen again.