Sherlock stepped into the lab to stand beside Lestrade, well aware of the presence of John and Mycroft behind him. His eyes met Mycroft, who nodded and drew a protesting John aside as Sherlock carefully but firmly shut the doors to the lab.
"I haven't moved from this spot," Lestrade said by way of greeting, "and never have I been happier to see your sorry face." Warm blue green eyes flicked over to meet chocolate brown, a fleeting smile tracing across his lips, then he turned his attention fully to the destruction and those unique eyes froze.
Sherlock stepped forward into the maelstrom remains of the lab, pausing for a moment to bring forward the image of the pristine lab to his mind. A surge of anger erupted and he fought it down, in this now, caring was very much a disadvantage. Taking a deep breath, he bent to inspect the broken remains of beakers and flasks lay shattered on the floor amongst a variety of tools and implements. In amongst the chaos of tools, droplets of blood speckled the floor and one wall behind a microscope. At the sight of the blood, anger threatened to boil back to the surface, something he'd wrestled with since he'd first seen Moriarty's laughing face on the telly.
"Any ideas?" Lestrade asked as Sherlock ran his fingers lightly across the counter where a stool lay overturned at his feet.
Sherlock paused, having completed his initial survey of the lab. As clear as a watching a film, his brain began to play the plausible theories, "Several," he growled, glancing around. His mind supplied the image of a male attacker carrying Molly away and he ruthlessly dismissed it. No, he thought, had he caught her swiftly, there would be less damage or a body. The destruction appeared to be in two distinct zones, the bulk of the lab and then a small contained area near his favourite microscope.
"How long between when you saw Moriarty's little surprise and your arrival at the morgue?" he asked Lestrade while he turned his attention back to the bulk of the destruction.
"Five minutes, no more than ten."
'He was already here when the surprise hit the telly'. In the bulk of the room, gurneys were toppled, stools thrown, implements scattered and shattered. 'She ran', he thought, 'good girl. He shifted in attention to the far side of the counter, noting a streak of blood that splashed out from left to right about 180 centimeters from the front. 'She fought back,' he thought and fought back a shiver of fright. 'Not arterial but definitely painful'. In amongst the dropped saws, scalpels and shield, the tray that normally held them was severely dented, a smear of blood on the far left corner of the tray and a strand of what looked to be ash blond hair smeared with blood. "Two ideas," he pronounced, as he carefully picked up the tools so important to her trade, his eyes flickering over them before stating, "there's a scalpel missing."
D.I. Lestrade studied the carnage before him, before asking, "How can you tell?"
Sherlock straightened, stepping past the dented tray to one of the storage counters. 'No blood here, despite the wealth of tools pooled on the floor around it'. He smiled then, glancing back at the Detective Inspector, "Molly Hooper is many things, precise is one of them. It's one of the reasons I'm insistent that I work with her. She's very meticulous about her tools, always a specific order, always a certain number of scalpels and one is missing."
Turquoise eyes gazed at the sea of police milling behind the doors of the pathology lab, "You're going to want to send your lot through the building. Don't expect significant blood trail but there should be spattering, I would expect he's expectorating blood in his need to breath. I wouldn't expect he's gotten far, given that she's damaged his larynx, he will be of average height, about 180cm tall, ash blond hair."
"The blood's not hers," Lestrade said with relief.
"No," Sherlock agreed, "it isn't, the blood droplets come from a taller person and if that slash of blood were hers, it wouldn't be at that height or angle. He may have been the attacker but he didn't expect our Molly to fight back or to win. That tray on the floor shows trauma and none of it is hers. Look around you, Lestrade," He gestured around him, "Sometimes it's about what's missing, sometimes it's about what's present that shouldn't be." With his toe, he moved what looked like a specialty blender, "This shouldn't be here. It's very rarely used." Turning to the cupboard, he grasped the doors and opening them abruptly to step back and reveal a clearly unconscious Molly Hooper clutching a bloody scalpel to her chest.