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dimity_bluePart 2.
"No pressure." Greg resisted the urge to hurl the files at the wall. "No bleeding pressure." He handed a file to Sally. "You read that one, I'll read this one, then we'll swap."
Even after reading the files, Greg felt none the wiser. They looked like suicides - odd, bizarre suicides, with no notes and a poison you couldn't buy over the counter - but...but...
Okay, so birthdays often brought up emotions. Fear of aging, realising your youth was disappearing in the rear view mirror faster than a speeding bullet, with maybe the odd twinge of envy that these youngsters still had trim, slim figures and no double chin and middle-aged spread. Was that enough to commit suicide? Ms. Davenport seemed to think so. Or maybe it was an unhappy love affair, or dissatisfaction with her career, or...
Greg didn't know.
Talking of love affairs, Sir James Patterson, who'd seemed to be enjoying his high profile career along with his very pretty secretary, if Greg was right.
Greg winced at the reminder of adultery and turned his thoughts to the teenager. James Phillimore - went off home to collect an umbrella and went to a sports centre to top himself instead. How did that make sense?
It didn't, that was the problem. No wonder the higher ups didn't like it. Taken individually, you could shrug them off as suicides being unpredictable. Together, three of them, it didn't smell right.
And Greg had a press conference to hold and nothing concrete to tell them.
As soon as the conference was over, Greg mentally face-palmed himself. "Serial suicides," he'd said. "Don't commit suicide." He was going to look a right berk in the papers, he knew it.
Sally came up beside him and gave him a sympathetic look. "Maybe there'll be more information tomorrow."
Greg hoped not. He had a strong suspicion there'd have to be another so-called suicide for them to know more.
By the time he got home, he was tired, hungry, thirsty, and hoping for a little peace. It didn't look as if he'd get it, by the way Mrs. Hudson appeared as soon as he got inside.
"That Sherlock!" she said, sounding more fond than annoyed. "He's got another cat up there!"
Greg sighed. What the hell was Sherlock up to now? He mounted the stairs and opened the door slowly. Sherlock was easily seen; he was stretched out on the sofa as if taking his leisure. Greg pushed the door further open and peered carefully around the edge. There was the other cat - a small grey tabby, sitting bolt upright, its - her? - front paws neatly together, on a large cardboard box.
Greg looked at Sherlock. "You haven't got her pregnant, have you?!" That would be all Greg needed - half a dozen little Sherlock kittens, running around, climbing the curtains, and stealing his dinner.
Sherlock's relaxed attitude disappeared and he rolled over so fast he fell off the sofa. His head slowly came into view over the top of the box Greg was temporarily using as a coffee table, and he gave Greg a hard stare.
The grey tabby seemed similarly affronted and it - he, as Greg soon realised - stood up, turned around, and sat down with his back to Greg, giving proof on the way that whatever else Sherlock had done, getting this cat pregnant wasn't one of them.
Greg clutched the edge of the door in relief. "Sorry." As the tabby cat turned his head and looked at him, Greg apologised to him too. "It's been a bad day," he added.
Sherlock jumped up onto the cardboard box coffee table and gave Greg an interested look.
Greg dumped his laptop case on the sofa and headed into the kitchen. "I've got a new case. Serial suicides, if you can believe it." From the look on Sherlock's face, he didn't. He also didn't move when Greg put cat food out. Greg waited. The tabby cat was looking, a hungry look in his eyes, but made no move towards the bowls. Instead, he kept looking at Sherlock then Greg, as if trying to guess if it was okay to eat.
"Come on." Greg hunkered down and held out his hand to the tabby, wriggling his fingers enticingly. "Come on and eat. Sherlock might act like he doesn't need to but you look hungry."
It took a few moments, but finally the tabby approached, carefully bypassing Greg's hand, as he limped to the food. Greg stood up and backed off slowly, giving the cat room to be comfortable. "Is there something wrong with your leg?" he asked, though he knew the cat wouldn't reply. "Maybe it's just a sprain or a twist. Did Sherlock push you off the sofa?"
Sherlock gave him a disgusted look, then joined the tabby at the food bowl. Greg grinned and put the kettle on. If the tabby could get Sherlock to eat, Greg guessed he could stay.
Once he was armed with a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits, Greg sat down at the coffee table cardboard box and opened up his laptop. Sherlock promptly jumped up onto the box and started poking at the laptop, as if to get it to hurry up. As the laptop made an alarming beep, Greg moved it to one side. "Here, check out the photos."
The tabby jumped back up onto the other cardboard box and craned his neck as if trying to see.
Greg bit back another grin. Now he had two of them at it.
Explaining the case took less time than Greg had expected. It took longer to explain - more thinking out loud than anything else - that the deaths couldn't be connected as serial suicides just didn't happen. It had to be a coincidence. Had to be. There was nothing to connect them; they were three random people who chose to kill themselves using the same obscure poison that would take approximately twenty minutes to kill them.
Greg stopped talking, staring at the photos spread out before him. Three deaths. Three random, out of the way locations those people had no reason to be in. One poison.
He looked from one cat to the other. They looked back at him. "It's got to be a coincidence," he said.
~~~
The next day had a waiting feel to it, like the quiet before a storm. Greg hid out in his office and ignored the newspapers - he'd been right about looking like a berk. Donovan didn't seem affected; she was too busy making eyes at Anderson whose wife was away for the week. Greg was starting to think he was surrounded by adultery. Talking of which, Luce texted him to tell him he could pick up his toolbox. Greg made a mental note to call in before he went home and went back to waiting for the other shoe to drop.
By the time he got home, Greg felt tired, irritated, and very much on edge. He put out food for the newly-named John, turned the kettle on, and wandered over to the window. Sherlock was watching him from the coffee table and giving his briefcase pointed looks, but Greg left him to it. The kettle had turned itself off and was undoubtedly cold again before Greg's patience was rewarded by the sight of Donovan in a police car.
She met him at the top of the stairs. "There's been another one." Before Greg could ask which case, she added, "You know how they never leave a note? She left a note."
Greg could have jumped for joy if there hadn't been a dead woman involved. He grabbed his coat and ran down the stairs behind Donovan. "Where?"
"Brixton."
Donovan got into the back of the panda car and Greg yanked open the front door, then stopped as Sherlock zoomed past him and into the back.
"Sherlock, get out!"
Sherlock glared at him and dug all his claws into the seat.
"You can't come with us!"
"Sir?"
Greg looked from Donovan to the young constable in the driver's seat and face-palmed himself. This was going to destroy his reputation.
"Sherlock!" Greg gave up when John shot past him and joined Sherlock on the back seat. "Forget it; let's go."
As the constable started the car, Donovan leaned forward and said, "We can't let cats in a crime scene! And where did the other one come from?"
"He followed him home." Greg twisted in his seat. "And we won't let them into the crime scene."
"We?"
Greg gave Donovan a look and put his seatbelt on. Okay, he would do his best to keep his crime-obsessed cat away from the dead body.
Of course he failed. Donovan had barely opened her door before Sherlock - rapidly followed by John - was out of the car and racing for a house whose front step was adorned by two detective constables. They went left, the cats went right, and by the time Greg climbed three flights of stairs Sherlock was prowling the room like a bloodhound.
"Those are cats!"
One point to Anderson for stating the obvious, Greg thought.
"Sherlock!"
Sherlock cast him a glance and disappeared through the doorway. After a pause, John followed him. Greg ignored the pair of them and got on with processing the crime scene.
The note, such as it was, was a puzzle. The woman who'd left it had spent her dying moments scratching RACHE into the floorboards. Anderson was talking about it being the German for 'revenge', but Greg's mind had leapt to the name Rachel. Had there been a Rachel in the woman's life? Maybe Anderson was right and the so-called suicides were fuelled by revenge.
It was hours later that Greg left the house to find John sitting inside the panda car and Sherlock howling in the darkness.
"He's over there, sir." Donovan pointed to where a dark shadow paced. "I grabbed the other one, but he wouldn't let me near him."
"Sherlock?" Greg took a step towards him, then broke into a run as Sherlock bolted up the alleyway. "I haven't got time for this!"
The shadow turned in the light thrown by a streetlight and yowled at him again.
Greg had already made an arse of himself once, so he really had nothing to lose. He followed along, using his mobile phone for a torch, and was rewarded by the sight of Sherlock scrambling up and into a large dumpster. It didn't take Greg more than a glance to spot the pink suitcase, not with Sherlock's teeth clamped around the string of an attached label as he yanked at it as if he could pull the whole thing free himself.
"Alright. Alright, Sherlock, well done. Let go now." Greg lifted Sherlock out of the way. A pink suitcase and a dead woman dressed all in pink. There was no way this was a coincidence. "Donovan!" he shouted. "Get Anderson."
The suitcase, naturally, was taken straight to Scotland Yard. Sherlock and John, to Sherlock's loud indignation, were taken back to 221b. Greg had to promise him photos of the suitcase and its contents to shut him up.
Back at the Yard, Greg regarded the suitcase with a tinge of sadness. The case contained enough for a weekend away in the city, and instead the woman was lying in the morgue. There'd be no returning home for her. As Anderson pored over the contents, looking for any clue to the woman's identity, Greg idly read the tag Sherlock had been tugging at.
jennie.pink@mephone.org.uk
At least they had a first name now, and maybe her phone would give them some hint as to who she met with.
"Where's her phone?"
Anderson looked up. "There was no phone."
"There has to be." Greg looked at the tag again. "A smart phone. Maybe it was in her pockets."
Anderson shook his head. "There was nothing in her pockets and there's no phone in her bag or case."
Greg looked at the tag again. "Then who's got her phone?"
~~~
It wasn't until the next day that they managed to identify Jennie as Jennifer Wilson who'd gone to London for the weekend and would never be returning home. There was a Rachel too, a still-born baby from a number of years past. Greg shook his head at the report. While it was only natural Jennie's last thoughts had been of the child she'd lost, Greg couldn't understand why she'd gone to so much effort - and pain - as to scratch her child's name on the floor. Anderson was still talking about the German for 'revenge' but Greg tuned him out. He had a gut feeling Jennie had meant Rachel, and meant it as a message, but who it was for had Greg stumped.
Even the confirmation that Jennie had a smart phone that never left her side didn't help. Greg had rung her number but couldn't get an answer. Finally, he sent a text identifying himself as Detective Inspector Lestrade and asked whoever had the phone to turn it in.
Greg also had a gut feeling that Jennie's weekends away were to meet up with lovers, but he was ignoring that. They couldn't all be committing adultery, after all.
Greg finished putting together his new coffee table and regarded it with satisfaction. He couldn't get anywhere on his latest cases but at least his flat was looking better. One coffee table versus people's lives. Greg fought the urge to bang his head on the coffee table.
It didn't help Greg's mood that Sherlock seemed determined to destroy his laptop and kept on bouncing on it.
"Will you leave that laptop alone!"
Sherlock yowled at him and stalked off to smash something in the kitchen.
Greg pulled his new coffee table towards him and opened up his laptop. Maybe while Sherlock was busy...
John meowed and Sherlock came diving back in to resume his place approximately two centimeters from the laptop.
"Snitch."
As soon as it was up and running, Greg reached for his notebook and started flicking through it. Was there anything he'd missed? Anything that would help? He moved Sherlock off the keyboard, then moved him off again. Then tried to get his notebook out from underneath Sherlock's paw.
Sherlock gave a screech of indignation and dug his claws into the page.
"For God's sake, Sherlock!" Greg checked out the scratch mark just above the 'mephone'. Her phone. Jennie's phone.
Greg stared at the page. It couldn't be that simple, could it? The mephone page was easily found and Greg held his breath as he typed in jennie.pink@mephone.org.uk, clicked in the password box and typed in rachel.
It worked. And Greg would bet the last of his savings that Jennie's phone was with her killer - or had been. Greg kicked himself for sending that text. Maybe the killer still had the phone. Whether they did or not, Greg had to give it to Jennifer Wilson: In the middle of the ordeal that killed her, she'd figured out a way to lead them to her murderer.
"So where are you?" The dial on the page stopped spinning and Greg yanked his jacket on, shoved his keys and wallet into his pocket, grabbed his laptop and ran.
Two streets later, he was gazing at a local restaurant. It couldn't be this easy, it just couldn't. Greg stepped around a parked taxi waiting for a fare and pushed the restaurant door open, then stopped. Sir James Patterson's pretty secretary came to mind, sobbing into a handful of tissues that she'd talked to him, he was just as normal, and she'd told him to catch a cab...
A car door opened behind him.
~~~
Greg opened his eyes and blinked slowly. A familiar-looking coffee table slid into focus then out of it. He'd been at the restaurant. There'd been a cab... A stabbing pain... Greg blinked again. He remembered staggering, shouting out, a calm voice saying he was drunk. "Best to take him home and let him sleep it off."
As the fog started to clear, Greg realised he was home, on his sofa, with an ordinary-looking man calmly sitting on a box opposite him.
The man nodded. "It's nice here. Just moved in, have you?"
Greg blinked some more. "Mrs. Hudson."
"Away. So there's no point in raising your voice. We're all locked in, nice and snug. Just you, me, and your cats."
At least that was a relief. Greg was positive the harmless-looking cabby wouldn't balk at killing Mrs. Hudson.
"You killed Jennifer Wilson."
"Was that her name? The one with the phone?" The cabby shook his head. "She was clever - you've got to hand it to her. Gave me one heck of a shock when you started phoning."
Greg wished the fuzziness in his brain would clear. He suspected he was going to need all his wits about him. "So you know who I am."
"Course I do! I saw you on TV, didn't I? You were advisin' people not to commit suicide!"
"And now I'm going to commit suicide."
The cabby leaned forward, a smug look on his face. "That's irony, that is."
"Bit of a risk though, isn't it? Coming here." Where was Donovan? He hadn't been able to get rid of her the past few days.
"You call that a risk?" He slipped his hands into his cardigan pockets and produced a bottle from each. "This is a risk." He set the bottles down on the coffee table.
"Two bottles." Naturally, Sherlock chose that moment to jump up on the table and start poking at the bottles.
"Two bottles, two pills." The cabby pushed Sherlock away. "There's a good pill and a bad pill. You take the good pill, you live; take the bad pill, you die."
Greg peered at the bottles again. "And you know which is which."
"Course I know!"
"But I don't." Greg thought Sherlock might from the way he was poking at the bottles.
"It wouldn't be a game if you knew. You're the one who chooses."
So that was it. All those people had chosen the wrong pill. "It's chance..." It had to be, didn't it?
"I've played four times. I'm alive. It's not chance, Detective Inspector, it's chess. It's a game of chess, with one move, and one survivor. And this...this is the move." He slid one bottle across the table. "Did I just give you the good pill or the bad pill? You choose."
Sherlock was on the table again and the cabby pushed him down. Greg got the impression the cabby wasn't used to playing chess with cats. He also had the sneaking impression Sherlock would be a better player than Greg.
"Why can't you be like the other one?" the cabby asked, pushing Sherlock off the table again. "He's nice and quiet."
Greg focussed on John who was sitting in the kitchen doorway, his front paws neatly together as he watched.
"What if I don't choose?" Greg asked.
"Then I'll choose for you, and you don't want that."
Greg looked at the cabby again. He seemed like such an ordinary little man in his flat cap and cardigan. "Why are you doing this?"
"Why not?"
"There must be some reason, a motive." There always was, in Greg's experience. "How did you choose your victims?"
The cabby shrugged. "Anyone who didn't know where they were going, 'cause they were drunk or lost or new in town. Anyone I could walk through the wrong door."
"Just anyone..." The cabby's gaze met his and the penny dropped. "You're dying."
A flicker of the eyelids told Greg he was right. "So are you."
Greg stuck to it, something telling him he was on the right track. "You don't have long, though. Am I right?"
The cabby smiled and gave a half-laugh. "Aneurysm." He lifted a hand and tapped the side of his head. "Right in 'ere. Any breath could be my last."
"So that's why. You murdered four people for that."
"I've outlived four people. That's the most fun you can 'ave with an aneurysm." The cabby smiled again. "And now, it's gonna be five."
Sherlock was back on the table again, his paw knocked over the pill bottle closest to the cabby and rolled it towards Greg. Greg fumbled for it as the cabby pushed Sherlock down again.
"That's your choice then?"
Greg managed a shrug. Sherlock seemed to have more of an idea than he did.
The cabby gave another half-laugh and reached for the remaining bottle. "Interesting."
The lid was easy to unscrew and the pill sat in Greg's hand. It was such a small thing, and surprisingly light, given that it most likely carried death in its innards.
"Come on," the cabby urged, anticipation in his tone. "It's time to take our medicine."
Greg raised his hand, seeing no help for it but to hope Sherlock was right. Then the cabby screamed, the pill flying from his hand as he swung to one side with a small, soldierly-looking tabby cat clinging to his face with all claws extended. Even Sherlock seemed impressed with John's anger as John yowled and hissed. Greg thought it sounded terrifying from a distance; only God and the cabby knew how it sounded close up. Greg dropped the pill and staggered to his feet, then promptly fell down as his legs gave way beneath him. The cabby fell too and John leapt to one side. The sudden silence was almost stunning.
Lying there, Greg waited for the cabby to move, to groan, something...but there was nothing. Greg turned his head to look at John, who was, once again, the very model of a well-behaved tabby cat: Quiet, contained, and smacking Sherlock's paw away from the pill Greg had dropped.
Greg reached for his phone and managed to haul it out of his pocket and up to his face. It was time to call in the cavalry.
~~~
It wasn't until the next morning that Greg was released from the hospital. Donovan drove him home and insisted on walking him up the stairs. Her ulterior motive was revealed when she took the time to stroke John, the unexpected hero of the hour after he caused the cabby to drop dead of his aneurysm. Sherlock was too busy sulking on the sofa to even acknowledge Greg's return.
Once Donovan had gone, Greg made himself a cup of tea and took a seat next to Sherlock. "Well then." He opened up his laptop and clicked to open the file on Westlock's death. Just because he was on sick leave for a couple of days didn't mean he couldn't look at some cases. "Sherlock, John..."
John jumped up on the coffee table and Sherlock deigned to raise his head to look.
"What do you think about this mugging gone wrong then?"
The end. Or rather, the beginning!
14th August 2016.
~~~
I hope you like it! Please let me know if you spot any mistakes.
"No pressure." Greg resisted the urge to hurl the files at the wall. "No bleeding pressure." He handed a file to Sally. "You read that one, I'll read this one, then we'll swap."
Even after reading the files, Greg felt none the wiser. They looked like suicides - odd, bizarre suicides, with no notes and a poison you couldn't buy over the counter - but...but...
Okay, so birthdays often brought up emotions. Fear of aging, realising your youth was disappearing in the rear view mirror faster than a speeding bullet, with maybe the odd twinge of envy that these youngsters still had trim, slim figures and no double chin and middle-aged spread. Was that enough to commit suicide? Ms. Davenport seemed to think so. Or maybe it was an unhappy love affair, or dissatisfaction with her career, or...
Greg didn't know.
Talking of love affairs, Sir James Patterson, who'd seemed to be enjoying his high profile career along with his very pretty secretary, if Greg was right.
Greg winced at the reminder of adultery and turned his thoughts to the teenager. James Phillimore - went off home to collect an umbrella and went to a sports centre to top himself instead. How did that make sense?
It didn't, that was the problem. No wonder the higher ups didn't like it. Taken individually, you could shrug them off as suicides being unpredictable. Together, three of them, it didn't smell right.
And Greg had a press conference to hold and nothing concrete to tell them.
As soon as the conference was over, Greg mentally face-palmed himself. "Serial suicides," he'd said. "Don't commit suicide." He was going to look a right berk in the papers, he knew it.
Sally came up beside him and gave him a sympathetic look. "Maybe there'll be more information tomorrow."
Greg hoped not. He had a strong suspicion there'd have to be another so-called suicide for them to know more.
By the time he got home, he was tired, hungry, thirsty, and hoping for a little peace. It didn't look as if he'd get it, by the way Mrs. Hudson appeared as soon as he got inside.
"That Sherlock!" she said, sounding more fond than annoyed. "He's got another cat up there!"
Greg sighed. What the hell was Sherlock up to now? He mounted the stairs and opened the door slowly. Sherlock was easily seen; he was stretched out on the sofa as if taking his leisure. Greg pushed the door further open and peered carefully around the edge. There was the other cat - a small grey tabby, sitting bolt upright, its - her? - front paws neatly together, on a large cardboard box.
Greg looked at Sherlock. "You haven't got her pregnant, have you?!" That would be all Greg needed - half a dozen little Sherlock kittens, running around, climbing the curtains, and stealing his dinner.
Sherlock's relaxed attitude disappeared and he rolled over so fast he fell off the sofa. His head slowly came into view over the top of the box Greg was temporarily using as a coffee table, and he gave Greg a hard stare.
The grey tabby seemed similarly affronted and it - he, as Greg soon realised - stood up, turned around, and sat down with his back to Greg, giving proof on the way that whatever else Sherlock had done, getting this cat pregnant wasn't one of them.
Greg clutched the edge of the door in relief. "Sorry." As the tabby cat turned his head and looked at him, Greg apologised to him too. "It's been a bad day," he added.
Sherlock jumped up onto the cardboard box coffee table and gave Greg an interested look.
Greg dumped his laptop case on the sofa and headed into the kitchen. "I've got a new case. Serial suicides, if you can believe it." From the look on Sherlock's face, he didn't. He also didn't move when Greg put cat food out. Greg waited. The tabby cat was looking, a hungry look in his eyes, but made no move towards the bowls. Instead, he kept looking at Sherlock then Greg, as if trying to guess if it was okay to eat.
"Come on." Greg hunkered down and held out his hand to the tabby, wriggling his fingers enticingly. "Come on and eat. Sherlock might act like he doesn't need to but you look hungry."
It took a few moments, but finally the tabby approached, carefully bypassing Greg's hand, as he limped to the food. Greg stood up and backed off slowly, giving the cat room to be comfortable. "Is there something wrong with your leg?" he asked, though he knew the cat wouldn't reply. "Maybe it's just a sprain or a twist. Did Sherlock push you off the sofa?"
Sherlock gave him a disgusted look, then joined the tabby at the food bowl. Greg grinned and put the kettle on. If the tabby could get Sherlock to eat, Greg guessed he could stay.
Once he was armed with a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits, Greg sat down at the coffee table cardboard box and opened up his laptop. Sherlock promptly jumped up onto the box and started poking at the laptop, as if to get it to hurry up. As the laptop made an alarming beep, Greg moved it to one side. "Here, check out the photos."
The tabby jumped back up onto the other cardboard box and craned his neck as if trying to see.
Greg bit back another grin. Now he had two of them at it.
Explaining the case took less time than Greg had expected. It took longer to explain - more thinking out loud than anything else - that the deaths couldn't be connected as serial suicides just didn't happen. It had to be a coincidence. Had to be. There was nothing to connect them; they were three random people who chose to kill themselves using the same obscure poison that would take approximately twenty minutes to kill them.
Greg stopped talking, staring at the photos spread out before him. Three deaths. Three random, out of the way locations those people had no reason to be in. One poison.
He looked from one cat to the other. They looked back at him. "It's got to be a coincidence," he said.
~~~
The next day had a waiting feel to it, like the quiet before a storm. Greg hid out in his office and ignored the newspapers - he'd been right about looking like a berk. Donovan didn't seem affected; she was too busy making eyes at Anderson whose wife was away for the week. Greg was starting to think he was surrounded by adultery. Talking of which, Luce texted him to tell him he could pick up his toolbox. Greg made a mental note to call in before he went home and went back to waiting for the other shoe to drop.
By the time he got home, Greg felt tired, irritated, and very much on edge. He put out food for the newly-named John, turned the kettle on, and wandered over to the window. Sherlock was watching him from the coffee table and giving his briefcase pointed looks, but Greg left him to it. The kettle had turned itself off and was undoubtedly cold again before Greg's patience was rewarded by the sight of Donovan in a police car.
She met him at the top of the stairs. "There's been another one." Before Greg could ask which case, she added, "You know how they never leave a note? She left a note."
Greg could have jumped for joy if there hadn't been a dead woman involved. He grabbed his coat and ran down the stairs behind Donovan. "Where?"
"Brixton."
Donovan got into the back of the panda car and Greg yanked open the front door, then stopped as Sherlock zoomed past him and into the back.
"Sherlock, get out!"
Sherlock glared at him and dug all his claws into the seat.
"You can't come with us!"
"Sir?"
Greg looked from Donovan to the young constable in the driver's seat and face-palmed himself. This was going to destroy his reputation.
"Sherlock!" Greg gave up when John shot past him and joined Sherlock on the back seat. "Forget it; let's go."
As the constable started the car, Donovan leaned forward and said, "We can't let cats in a crime scene! And where did the other one come from?"
"He followed him home." Greg twisted in his seat. "And we won't let them into the crime scene."
"We?"
Greg gave Donovan a look and put his seatbelt on. Okay, he would do his best to keep his crime-obsessed cat away from the dead body.
Of course he failed. Donovan had barely opened her door before Sherlock - rapidly followed by John - was out of the car and racing for a house whose front step was adorned by two detective constables. They went left, the cats went right, and by the time Greg climbed three flights of stairs Sherlock was prowling the room like a bloodhound.
"Those are cats!"
One point to Anderson for stating the obvious, Greg thought.
"Sherlock!"
Sherlock cast him a glance and disappeared through the doorway. After a pause, John followed him. Greg ignored the pair of them and got on with processing the crime scene.
The note, such as it was, was a puzzle. The woman who'd left it had spent her dying moments scratching RACHE into the floorboards. Anderson was talking about it being the German for 'revenge', but Greg's mind had leapt to the name Rachel. Had there been a Rachel in the woman's life? Maybe Anderson was right and the so-called suicides were fuelled by revenge.
It was hours later that Greg left the house to find John sitting inside the panda car and Sherlock howling in the darkness.
"He's over there, sir." Donovan pointed to where a dark shadow paced. "I grabbed the other one, but he wouldn't let me near him."
"Sherlock?" Greg took a step towards him, then broke into a run as Sherlock bolted up the alleyway. "I haven't got time for this!"
The shadow turned in the light thrown by a streetlight and yowled at him again.
Greg had already made an arse of himself once, so he really had nothing to lose. He followed along, using his mobile phone for a torch, and was rewarded by the sight of Sherlock scrambling up and into a large dumpster. It didn't take Greg more than a glance to spot the pink suitcase, not with Sherlock's teeth clamped around the string of an attached label as he yanked at it as if he could pull the whole thing free himself.
"Alright. Alright, Sherlock, well done. Let go now." Greg lifted Sherlock out of the way. A pink suitcase and a dead woman dressed all in pink. There was no way this was a coincidence. "Donovan!" he shouted. "Get Anderson."
The suitcase, naturally, was taken straight to Scotland Yard. Sherlock and John, to Sherlock's loud indignation, were taken back to 221b. Greg had to promise him photos of the suitcase and its contents to shut him up.
Back at the Yard, Greg regarded the suitcase with a tinge of sadness. The case contained enough for a weekend away in the city, and instead the woman was lying in the morgue. There'd be no returning home for her. As Anderson pored over the contents, looking for any clue to the woman's identity, Greg idly read the tag Sherlock had been tugging at.
jennie.pink@mephone.org.uk
At least they had a first name now, and maybe her phone would give them some hint as to who she met with.
"Where's her phone?"
Anderson looked up. "There was no phone."
"There has to be." Greg looked at the tag again. "A smart phone. Maybe it was in her pockets."
Anderson shook his head. "There was nothing in her pockets and there's no phone in her bag or case."
Greg looked at the tag again. "Then who's got her phone?"
~~~
It wasn't until the next day that they managed to identify Jennie as Jennifer Wilson who'd gone to London for the weekend and would never be returning home. There was a Rachel too, a still-born baby from a number of years past. Greg shook his head at the report. While it was only natural Jennie's last thoughts had been of the child she'd lost, Greg couldn't understand why she'd gone to so much effort - and pain - as to scratch her child's name on the floor. Anderson was still talking about the German for 'revenge' but Greg tuned him out. He had a gut feeling Jennie had meant Rachel, and meant it as a message, but who it was for had Greg stumped.
Even the confirmation that Jennie had a smart phone that never left her side didn't help. Greg had rung her number but couldn't get an answer. Finally, he sent a text identifying himself as Detective Inspector Lestrade and asked whoever had the phone to turn it in.
Greg also had a gut feeling that Jennie's weekends away were to meet up with lovers, but he was ignoring that. They couldn't all be committing adultery, after all.
Greg finished putting together his new coffee table and regarded it with satisfaction. He couldn't get anywhere on his latest cases but at least his flat was looking better. One coffee table versus people's lives. Greg fought the urge to bang his head on the coffee table.
It didn't help Greg's mood that Sherlock seemed determined to destroy his laptop and kept on bouncing on it.
"Will you leave that laptop alone!"
Sherlock yowled at him and stalked off to smash something in the kitchen.
Greg pulled his new coffee table towards him and opened up his laptop. Maybe while Sherlock was busy...
John meowed and Sherlock came diving back in to resume his place approximately two centimeters from the laptop.
"Snitch."
As soon as it was up and running, Greg reached for his notebook and started flicking through it. Was there anything he'd missed? Anything that would help? He moved Sherlock off the keyboard, then moved him off again. Then tried to get his notebook out from underneath Sherlock's paw.
Sherlock gave a screech of indignation and dug his claws into the page.
"For God's sake, Sherlock!" Greg checked out the scratch mark just above the 'mephone'. Her phone. Jennie's phone.
Greg stared at the page. It couldn't be that simple, could it? The mephone page was easily found and Greg held his breath as he typed in jennie.pink@mephone.org.uk, clicked in the password box and typed in rachel.
It worked. And Greg would bet the last of his savings that Jennie's phone was with her killer - or had been. Greg kicked himself for sending that text. Maybe the killer still had the phone. Whether they did or not, Greg had to give it to Jennifer Wilson: In the middle of the ordeal that killed her, she'd figured out a way to lead them to her murderer.
"So where are you?" The dial on the page stopped spinning and Greg yanked his jacket on, shoved his keys and wallet into his pocket, grabbed his laptop and ran.
Two streets later, he was gazing at a local restaurant. It couldn't be this easy, it just couldn't. Greg stepped around a parked taxi waiting for a fare and pushed the restaurant door open, then stopped. Sir James Patterson's pretty secretary came to mind, sobbing into a handful of tissues that she'd talked to him, he was just as normal, and she'd told him to catch a cab...
A car door opened behind him.
~~~
Greg opened his eyes and blinked slowly. A familiar-looking coffee table slid into focus then out of it. He'd been at the restaurant. There'd been a cab... A stabbing pain... Greg blinked again. He remembered staggering, shouting out, a calm voice saying he was drunk. "Best to take him home and let him sleep it off."
As the fog started to clear, Greg realised he was home, on his sofa, with an ordinary-looking man calmly sitting on a box opposite him.
The man nodded. "It's nice here. Just moved in, have you?"
Greg blinked some more. "Mrs. Hudson."
"Away. So there's no point in raising your voice. We're all locked in, nice and snug. Just you, me, and your cats."
At least that was a relief. Greg was positive the harmless-looking cabby wouldn't balk at killing Mrs. Hudson.
"You killed Jennifer Wilson."
"Was that her name? The one with the phone?" The cabby shook his head. "She was clever - you've got to hand it to her. Gave me one heck of a shock when you started phoning."
Greg wished the fuzziness in his brain would clear. He suspected he was going to need all his wits about him. "So you know who I am."
"Course I do! I saw you on TV, didn't I? You were advisin' people not to commit suicide!"
"And now I'm going to commit suicide."
The cabby leaned forward, a smug look on his face. "That's irony, that is."
"Bit of a risk though, isn't it? Coming here." Where was Donovan? He hadn't been able to get rid of her the past few days.
"You call that a risk?" He slipped his hands into his cardigan pockets and produced a bottle from each. "This is a risk." He set the bottles down on the coffee table.
"Two bottles." Naturally, Sherlock chose that moment to jump up on the table and start poking at the bottles.
"Two bottles, two pills." The cabby pushed Sherlock away. "There's a good pill and a bad pill. You take the good pill, you live; take the bad pill, you die."
Greg peered at the bottles again. "And you know which is which."
"Course I know!"
"But I don't." Greg thought Sherlock might from the way he was poking at the bottles.
"It wouldn't be a game if you knew. You're the one who chooses."
So that was it. All those people had chosen the wrong pill. "It's chance..." It had to be, didn't it?
"I've played four times. I'm alive. It's not chance, Detective Inspector, it's chess. It's a game of chess, with one move, and one survivor. And this...this is the move." He slid one bottle across the table. "Did I just give you the good pill or the bad pill? You choose."
Sherlock was on the table again and the cabby pushed him down. Greg got the impression the cabby wasn't used to playing chess with cats. He also had the sneaking impression Sherlock would be a better player than Greg.
"Why can't you be like the other one?" the cabby asked, pushing Sherlock off the table again. "He's nice and quiet."
Greg focussed on John who was sitting in the kitchen doorway, his front paws neatly together as he watched.
"What if I don't choose?" Greg asked.
"Then I'll choose for you, and you don't want that."
Greg looked at the cabby again. He seemed like such an ordinary little man in his flat cap and cardigan. "Why are you doing this?"
"Why not?"
"There must be some reason, a motive." There always was, in Greg's experience. "How did you choose your victims?"
The cabby shrugged. "Anyone who didn't know where they were going, 'cause they were drunk or lost or new in town. Anyone I could walk through the wrong door."
"Just anyone..." The cabby's gaze met his and the penny dropped. "You're dying."
A flicker of the eyelids told Greg he was right. "So are you."
Greg stuck to it, something telling him he was on the right track. "You don't have long, though. Am I right?"
The cabby smiled and gave a half-laugh. "Aneurysm." He lifted a hand and tapped the side of his head. "Right in 'ere. Any breath could be my last."
"So that's why. You murdered four people for that."
"I've outlived four people. That's the most fun you can 'ave with an aneurysm." The cabby smiled again. "And now, it's gonna be five."
Sherlock was back on the table again, his paw knocked over the pill bottle closest to the cabby and rolled it towards Greg. Greg fumbled for it as the cabby pushed Sherlock down again.
"That's your choice then?"
Greg managed a shrug. Sherlock seemed to have more of an idea than he did.
The cabby gave another half-laugh and reached for the remaining bottle. "Interesting."
The lid was easy to unscrew and the pill sat in Greg's hand. It was such a small thing, and surprisingly light, given that it most likely carried death in its innards.
"Come on," the cabby urged, anticipation in his tone. "It's time to take our medicine."
Greg raised his hand, seeing no help for it but to hope Sherlock was right. Then the cabby screamed, the pill flying from his hand as he swung to one side with a small, soldierly-looking tabby cat clinging to his face with all claws extended. Even Sherlock seemed impressed with John's anger as John yowled and hissed. Greg thought it sounded terrifying from a distance; only God and the cabby knew how it sounded close up. Greg dropped the pill and staggered to his feet, then promptly fell down as his legs gave way beneath him. The cabby fell too and John leapt to one side. The sudden silence was almost stunning.
Lying there, Greg waited for the cabby to move, to groan, something...but there was nothing. Greg turned his head to look at John, who was, once again, the very model of a well-behaved tabby cat: Quiet, contained, and smacking Sherlock's paw away from the pill Greg had dropped.
Greg reached for his phone and managed to haul it out of his pocket and up to his face. It was time to call in the cavalry.
~~~
It wasn't until the next morning that Greg was released from the hospital. Donovan drove him home and insisted on walking him up the stairs. Her ulterior motive was revealed when she took the time to stroke John, the unexpected hero of the hour after he caused the cabby to drop dead of his aneurysm. Sherlock was too busy sulking on the sofa to even acknowledge Greg's return.
Once Donovan had gone, Greg made himself a cup of tea and took a seat next to Sherlock. "Well then." He opened up his laptop and clicked to open the file on Westlock's death. Just because he was on sick leave for a couple of days didn't mean he couldn't look at some cases. "Sherlock, John..."
John jumped up on the coffee table and Sherlock deigned to raise his head to look.
"What do you think about this mugging gone wrong then?"
The end. Or rather, the beginning!
14th August 2016.
~~~
I hope you like it! Please let me know if you spot any mistakes.
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Date: 2016-08-15 12:53 pm (UTC)And thank you so much for making the transcript available. It made writing the cabby scene so much easier.