The Marie Celeste had been brought in to dock, but it didn't mean it was at rest. Sheets of rain had been blowing across London for the past two days, sending shivering ripples from the southern banks of the Thames. Below deck, Sherlock Holmes was prowling around the saloon area and adjacent galley, magnifying slide in hand. Detective Constable Jacob Dyer was leaning against the companionway ladder, watching him but making no ill-advised attempts to interfere with the great detective while he was working.
"Yes, I'll imagine she'll get used to the idea eventually," Sherlock said over his shoulder, breaking the silence.
Dyer raised one eyebrow. "Sorry, what?"
"Your mother. She'll get used to the idea of her eldest son living in sin with his girlfriend eventually."
"Who told you that?"
"Your shirt told me that." Sherlock pointed to it. "Horizontal ironing creases, for the first time. Your mother generally irons your work shirts for you, and the creases in her ironing are vertical, sometimes with a slight left bias that indicates she's left handed. You haven't lived at home in at least three years, so your moving out won't have done it. The fact that your mother's still doing your ironing for you years after moving out tells me you're still very much tied to the apron string, despite your age and profession. The creases are very similar to those in Lestrade's shirts before his divorce. He now alternates between having his work clothes professionally laundered and ironed, and getting Melissa to do it. Melissa doesn't iron like that, and no paid professional would ever have left those creases. So someone's ironing for you - not your mother, not yourself, doubtfully Julie and certainly not Melissa. Someone who learned to iron from Julie - and someone who may well know why your mother is upset with you and be feeling guilty over the matter. Hayley. You've told your mother she's moving in with you. Easy."
"You think I've got to worry about... Greg...?"
"No. I think he's come to accept the fact that his daughter is an adult and can make tolerably good decisions without his input. In any case, he's too busy with his wedding plans to worry about you and Hayley. Though you might want to consider calling him 'sir' and not 'Greg' at work."
Before Dyer could reply, they both heard the distinct sound of John's tread on the deck above, and Dyer moved to one side to let him through as he climbed down the companionway ladder. He hadn't reached the bottom before Sherlock demanded, "Where's Lestrade?"
"Yeah, it's great to see you too," John said.
"I saw you at breakfast this morning," Sherlock said. "And you're not in charge of this investigation. What happened to the arm?"
"I didn't bring it with me in my pocket… calm down, Sherlock, Greg's somewhere up there on his phone, and I got photographs for you." John surrendered his mobile phone. "At every possible focal length, angle and lighting."
"I'm sure you've missed a few," Sherlock said absently, swiping through the photographs with his index finger. "But as always, your data-collecting is well above the level of the average police detective, John."
John gave a light sigh. After all, that passed for 'thank you' with Sherlock Holmes, who now handed the mobile phone on to Dyer.
"What do you make of that?"
Dyer shrugged, though he quickly glanced up from the picture. "It's an arm," he said.
"Yes, thank you for that amazing observation," Sherlock said acidly. "I'm not Lestrade, so I don't care how brave you are looking at pictures of dismembered limbs. What does the arm tell you about the victim?"
"It's Brett Holland," Dyer said immediately. "Lestrade said he had a blue-and-red tattoo of two boxers on his right bicep…"
"So you've positively identified an entire person based only on a tattoo that could have been replicated in a thousand tattoo parlours. Will that hold up in court?"
"Since when do you care if it holds up in court?" Dyer said. "And no, it probably won't. A match on mitochondrial DNA will, though. We've got his mum in up at headquarters giving a mouth swab and blood test right now."
"Good, fine." Sherlock waved his hand absently. "But you've told me the arm belongs to Brett Holland. You haven't told me what you can deduce about Brett Holland."
Dyer looked at him in confused silence, then glanced at John. "I don't understand," he said.
"Oh, of course you don't-"
"Just tell him, Sherlock," John interjected, before this could turn into a squabble.
Sherlock raised one eyebrow.
"Us," John muttered, glancing down at his shoes. "Fine. Tell us."
Sherlock waited for both of their attention before stepping back, as if he were on a stage, and beginning. "Brett Holland is in his late thirties," he said. "He's right handed, a keen golfer, and of a nervous disposition. He plays the acoustic guitar, but badly, and he's an acccomplished seaman."
"… Calluses?" John guessed. Sherlock had many times tried to show him how much calluses could say about a person, but he'd never been able to pick up the finer nuances of them himself.
"This photograph, here." Sherlock zoomed in on it with two fingertips. "Calluses between the thumb and index finger from where he habitually holds a golf club. Fingernails are very short. They're bitten, not cut, which indicates a nervous habit. Fine flakes of skin on the tips of the second and third fingers indicate he's an amateur guitarist - those marks are from where the plectrum's slipped off the strings and his fingertips have got in the way. But we know he's an experienced sailor, because-"
"Dyer!" Lestrade called from somewhere up on the nearby wharf.
Dyer lifted his head slightly, in a way that reminded Sherlock of a spaniel. "Sir?"
"Don't 'sir' me, just come out here when I'm trying to talk to you."
"Uh, yeah, coming, sir." With an exasperated glance at Sherlock, Dyer climbed up the companionway ladder. Both Sherlock and John heard his footsteps across the deck, then a shudder that indicated he'd disembarked.
"I thought I was the idiot," John said after a few moments of silence. "New protegee, then?"
"Call it insurance." Sherlock busied himself with his magnifying glass again. "Lestrade will retire eventually. I don't want him leaving his job to someone stupid."
"Pretty sure Donovan will be going for Greg's job when he retires," John said, tucking away Sherlock's unintentional compliment to give to Greg later. "Anyway, I wouldn't worry about him retiring. DCI Chambers just put in for his retirement."
Sherlock looked up sharply. "How do you know?"
"Melissa told me - she was over yesterday, something about the hen night."
Sherlock looked stricken for a second. "And if Melissa knows about it," he said, "it's because Lestrade told her. And if he bothered to tell her about it -"
"He's thinking of going for DCI," John finished. "He might not be thinking very seriously about it, though. I hear it's basically a load more paperwork and being bored to death every day in middle management meetings, and he hates that stuff. Still, you never know…" He trailed off as they both heard heavy footsteps on the deck, and then Dyer descended back into view, followed closely by Lestrade.
"Right," Lestrade said as he reached the bottom of the ladder. "Forensics will be here in about three minutes. What have you got, Sherlock?"
"Nothing."
Stunned silence.
"Not the time to be a smart-arse, Sherlock," John finally said.
"I'm not," Sherlock said. He sounded slightly injured, as if it were unfair to suggest he would ever stoop to being a smart-arse in the middle of a case. "I've been over every inch of this boat twice. Oh, do you mean you want to know about the Hollands? I've just been explaining Brett Holland's predilections to Dyer. Sadie Holland is a size ten, in her mid-thirties, has shoulder-length dyed red hair, and is an experienced, fit sailor."
"Go on." John smiled. "How did you know?"
"It's obvious, isn't it? Sadie's clothes are in the hamper over there. Size ten, with bright red dyed hairs clinging to them. Shoulder length. Judging from the style of clothing, she's either slightly conservative or in her mid-thirties. Since she dyes her hair bright red and is married to a man in his late thirties, with at least one very visible tattoo, it's more likely the latter."
"And what about her being an experienced sailor?"
"This yacht is brand new, with luxury add-ons, and it would have cost the Hollands a fortune. Nobody with any common sense spends that sort of money on a yacht unless they're into sailing as a serious hobby and know what they're doing."
"Well, Brett Holland, maybe, but why Sadie?"
"Oh, for God's sake - open your eyes and take a look at the size of this thing. For two people to be able to sail a forty-foot yacht while keeping an eye on their two-year-old, both of them would have to have experience and competency. It's an unscientific piece of stereotyping that women can't drive, whether that be cars or boats, and we know Sadie and the daughter were both on board. Sadie suffers from epilepsy severe enough that she needs daily medication, and Maisie is two years old - no doubt very active and doesn't listen well to instructions."
John neatly converted a snigger to a cough. Over the past three months, poor Sherlock had had plenty of experience living with a one-year-old who was very active and certainly didn't listen well to instructions. Charlie had just then invented a charming new game where she confiscated any little objects that weren't bolted down and "put them away". Her parents were used to keeping things out of her grasp, but so far she'd helpfully put Sherlock's keys away in the toilet and his wallet in the dishwasher. It was now mangled, but very clean.
Sherlock gave him a frosty glance. "There's no way either she or her mother would even be on board except in the full confidence that Sadie could manage things in an emergency," he continued. "Inference: Sadie Holland is an experienced sailor. John, any chance Brett could have had his arm cut off and still be alive?"
John thought for a second, then shook his head. "Not unless the bleeding was stopped immediately and he was in the care of a doctor," he said. "Otherwise he'd go into shock. But anyway, we can safely assume he's dead, 'cause Molly seems to think the arm was cut off after Holland's heart had stopped."
"She'd swear to that?"
"She's a pathologist," John reminded him. "They hardly ever swear to anything. 'Is consistent with' is their favourite expression."
"Yeah," Lestrade said drily. "All right, we assume Brett is dead. Assuming Sadie is alive, is she in danger without her epilepsy medication?"
"Hard to say," was John's infuriating answer. "Depends on the dosage and what triggers a seizure. She could go for days feeling fine, or go into convulsive status pretty much right away."
"Convulsive status?"
"Bad news. Without intervention, the best we can expect is permanent brain damage." John paused. "Find her doctor and talk to them about it. Without ever having seen her, I can't tell you much more."
They stood in grim silence, listening to the creaks and cracks of the fibreglass hull. Finally, from above, they heard a door slam and distant voices, one of which they all recognised as belonging to Gifford, one of the forensic technicians. Lestrade cleared his throat. "Forensics are here," he said unnecessarily. "So you've got about thirty seconds. But you said you had nothing…?"
"Absolutely nothing on how the Hollands and their daughter left this boat," Sherlock said. "There are no signs of force or violence anywhere. No bloodstains, no shreds of fibre or fingernails, no damage to the deck or hull. No evidence they put up any kind of protest at being removed from the yacht."
"So they went voluntarily?"
"Almost certainly not. The life raft hasn't been tampered with. It's possible the Hollands would have left the canary to starve to death, though nothing here indicates they're the sort of people who neglect animals. It's also just possible that they would have left without their clothes and effects. But Sadie Holland would never have left her epilepsy medication behind if she had a choice." He looked down at the bowls on the table, heaped with sticky clumps of stone-cold rice and reeking strongly of coriander and lime. He poked the rice in one bowl with his finger. "There's something not right here," he said.
"What, you mean apart from three people being missing?" Greg glanced at his watch. "Well, anyway, that's us done here. Derrick Rice is back at headquarters for questioning. Can we get off this boat now?"