Chapter 7- Case notes
A/n: I'm going to try and keep this note brief- thank you to everyone who reviewed Monday. Hope everyone likes it so far. Enjoy this chapter xxx
SH
When John went left to go to bed, leaving me alone in the darkened room, the first thing that my mind raced to was the current situation. The window and the fingerprints and the DNA test that I had sent Lestrade to do. If it was Moran's DNA, then it was perfect.
To be honest, and I had to admit it really, Moran was pretty clever to choose the flat opposite. It was a place that we were less likely to look at. He had made it look abandoned, with the grime and the closed curtains, and only using the back window. Hopefully, it was Moran, and not just my mind looking for the clever answer again. I grimaced slightly, remembering Moriarty's game.
No, it had to be Moran. And if it was, I made the whole thing so much easier.
I wasn't tired. I never was whilst working on a case, so this was completely, and refreshingly normal for me. Perhaps I could do something constructive with my time…
I sat up on the sofa, and gazed around the empty room. The wall, which was now completely full of bullet holes, looked very bare, and absolutely screaming out to be covered in the case notes. My lips twitched. I could certainly comply with that. It would be a good distraction anyway.
I scrambled off the sofa, and went over to the cupboard in the corner. John thought I didn't know, but of course, I observe everything. Even an idiot could have seen that John had fished out the letters from the bin and hid them in this cupboard. I looked at them all, crinkled from when I had balled them up, but still, the writing was legible.
I suppose I should thank John for saving them. Perhaps I could try and deduce more from them. Though I wasn't sure what I would find if I did.
I found a ball of blue tack, from the kitchen and rolled it gently in my hand for a while, wondering how to put them up so that they made sense, and then finally stuck them all to the wall, arranging them neatly in order of the appearance. That felt so much better! Seeing them laid out like this.
Well, it always helped before, and I was hoping it could help now. I stood back and observed them all together. Perfect.
Now for the other, if not rather fragmented clues.
The ones that I had managed to collect from what we has so far.
I first turned to the body or bodies actually.
I collected them all from the kitchen table.
I stuck up the first pictures, the one of John Evans, along with Lestrade's and my own case notes. There were also close ups of the words on his arm, the bullet hole in his heart and the bullet itself, that had been dug out of the wall afterwards. I studied it closely. John would know from sight what gun that had come from.
Good.
I picked up a pen and scrawled a quick note, victim from Kensington, killed in Hyde Park, close. I tacked it up, and put that, along with the picture, in its place on the large map of London I had.
I switched on my laptop; it welcomed me with a cheerful tune, and I emailed Lestrade, asking for the pictures and notes from the recent, second murder, which he had mentioned earlier. I scrawled another note on the back of a receipt while I waited; second murder came in a smaller interval. Suggests time limit? Or count down? And tacked that up too, underneath the letters.
A ping and Lestrade had come back, with the attached pictures. I immediately printed them off and studied each one carefully.
Yes, the writing was carved into his arm again, the same words, obviously. There was a bullet hole in his heart, in the same place as the one before. Lestrade had been right, the murders were identical. I glanced at the case notes, scanning for the important things amongst the ridiculous twaddle that Anderson and co thought was useful.
The man's name was John Smith, and he was from Waterloo.
Interesting.
I wrote this down and stuck the picture in its place on the map too. Then, with a sudden burst of inspiration, I found my favourite ball of white cord, and connected the pictures, sticking it in place with some drawing pins from the kitchen. Then I did a quick measurement. 2.1 miles between them.
That's all I had so far...
No, wait.
I stepped back and frowned thoughtfully. The letters...
The paper for each one was different. I hadn't noticed before. Huh, good job John had saved them then.
After a moment, I deduced that the paper from the first letter had been made in mass production, somewhere in Surrey, I couldn't pinpoint where exactly. The second one was from Waterloo, the third from Euston, and the forth from Battersea. I connected these together with individual pieces of string. And, after a moment's hesitation, I connected everything so far to the flat opposite. There was no pattern so far, but I was hoping, as more clues were uncovered, that one would be found soon. Of course, if my hunch about the flat was wrong, I could immediately correct it. But I was almost certain about it, even if the others didn't have as much faith in me.
And then, there was his handwriting.
I had done a study on the meaning of handwriting once, a while back, and no one had thought it was important. But now, well, this could help me. This could help me quite a lot. I leant close to the first letter.
Written in pencil, quite a fine tip. I frowned- HB? Interesting.
Right slant on the writing- indicates confidence. He knows how to mess with us. The scruffy joints, sometimes very disjointed. Not a very patient man -then can't be bothered with being neat.
Or he had been in a hurry.
I turned my attention to the second note. The writing was very similar.
But...
I squinted. It was slightly different. Only just. But this was formed a lot more neatly. Anyone less astute would never notice it. But I did. And I could draw only on conclusion.
It had been written by a different person.
I pursed my lips in a tight line.
Why would he write the first note, and then get someone else to write the second? It just didn't make sense to me.
I scanned the third and fourth letter. Both had similar but slightly different writing to the others. Some were more slanted, others had sharper points. Different.
Different.
Why would he choose people to write the letters just to get different writing? So I couldn't pinpoint him?
He was clever, dammit.
"What are you...? What are you doing?" John's voice came from behind me, and I turned towards him. He looked tired, and confused. I frowned. John shouldn't be up yet. Maybe he heard me messing around.
"It's my case notes," I said, as though it should be obvious. He scowled.
"Right, or was it just to cover up the bullet holes you decorated it with yesterday," John muttered under his breath.
"As I recall," I retorted stonily, "you actually let me use the gun for a while,"
John sighed, and crossed his arms, "so what had you found out?" he asked instead.
"Why don't you go back to sleep,"
He shrugged, "can't sleep, need a distraction," he mumbled.
I grinned, willing to let the argument drop.
"Well," I spread my arm out wide, hand lightly skimming each picture, each letter.
"Look John, look at the bullet holes! You can recognise guns and their bullets, yes?"
"Yeah..." He sounded a little apprehensive.
"What gun made these wounds?"
"Umm," John cleared his throat, as he did when he wanted to do something important or impressive, and he came to stand by me. I pointed first to the close up of the bullet that killed the first victim, "that one,"
"Umm ok," he studied it closely, "that was made by a Barrett .50 calibre, I think, it's a very famous sniper rifle," he glanced up at me, "That sounds like Moran to me,"
"Indeed it does," I flashed him a grin. He looked pleased with himself. I swept over to the table, where my laptop sat waiting. I typed in the gun name quickly, and the picture came up.
Yes, it was definitely Moran's gun, I remembered it well.
"Thank you John," I said quietly, printing off the picture, and pinning that up too, "is it the same for the other one too?" I tapped the corresponding picture quickly.
He leaned in again, "yes,"
"Well, it looks like Moran does the shooting himself," I said, frowning, "but why does he get other people to write the notes?"
John yawned.
"On that note, I'm going back to bed- night,"
I rolled my eyes. Trust John for being so human when I needed him the most.
For the rest of the night, I stared at all the case notes I had collected, trying to make sense of it all. For I was very close now. I just needed the last few facts…
A/n: I hope you enjoyed this chapter, have a great Christmas, and a review or two would be lovely xxx