The Adventure of the Civil Partnership Chapter 14 Grave Evidence
Sherlock and John are hunting a kidnapper who has been taking newlywed couples across the Greater London Area and Sherlock has the perfect way to flush him out. Warning: Pre-Slash/Slash of Sherlock/John Work in Progress - Very Slow Updates
Disclaimers: I certainly do not own Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s amazing creation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Hamish Watson. I also do not own Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and the BBC’s adaptations of those works.
Spoiler Warnings: Series 1 and 2 of Sherlock
Ratings: M Warning Pre-Slash/Slash.
Chapter Warnings: Discussions and descriptions of buried bodies.
Beta: Ivory Winter - All mistakes are mine.
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Chapter 14 Grave Evidence
An hour and a half later John stood in Davis Reid’s back garden, a few steps away from Sherlock and Lestrade, half listening to the consulting detective harangue the Detective Inspector with details of the case so far. Anderson and Donovan were hovering, much to John’s relief, several paces behind them, while the five of them watched a large bloodhound named Toby working his way across the grounds towards them and the various graves markers masquerading as flower beds. The red-coated bloodhound was even larger than John had pictured, dwarfing his small female handler, once Sherlock had explained exactly whom the Toby was that John had asked Lestrade to bring. To John’s fascination, Toby had turned out to be one of Britain’s top cadaver dogs who had repeatedly proven his ability to sniff bodies buried up to 4-5 feet deep, even several years after the burial.
John had been glad that Greg was back from his holiday and able to take his call, because John wasn’t sure anyone else would have even listened to, much less believed, the rather confusing bare bones explanation of the case John had given an hour and a half ago. In fact, John was convinced that Greg still wasn’t a hundred per cent sure what they had discovered, or how they had discovered it, but had just chosen to go along with it based on the combination of the words ‘serial killer’, ‘Sherlock’, and ‘Toby’. And of course, now the Detective Inspector simply looked progressively more harassed at Sherlock’s ongoing and detailed lecture which seemed to be undoing whatever stress relieving benefits the DI had gotten from his holidays.
John frowned as they watched Toby begin to move very quickly on his leash, leading his handler directly to the closest dormant rose bed, and lay down silently, looking expectantly at the woman holding his leash. Sherlock’s smile was fierce, practically feral, “Excellent, Lestrade,” he practically crowed, “Toby’s indication that there is a body present should almost be enough by itself to allow you to procure a warrant to excavate the garden, search the house and bring Mr. Reid in for questioning.”
Lestrade was silent for a moment, ignoring the genius, instead watching the handler direct Toby to search again. The bloodhound began scenting the ground again and within moments had moved over to one of the yew bushes and lay down. Greg sighed, turning around to face Donovan and Anderson as he ordered, “Donavon call it in and get me a warrant to search the house and grounds, tell the judge we received a tip on a location that the body of….”
“Pamela Ashdown believed to have been killed 4.5 years ago,” Sherlock supplied at Lestrade’s questioning eyebrow.
Greg nodded continuing, “Pamela Ashdown was in this subdivision and a cadaver dog is confirming one or more bodies buried on the property of Davis Reid. That should be enough for the courts, Toby has an excellent reputation.” The DI pinched the bridge of his nose. “After that Donovan, I want you to personally take a couple of PCs and go bring Mr. Reid in for questioning. Everything by the book, I don’t want any loopholes for his attorney to use to weasel him out of this if Sherlock is right about the number of people this man has killed.”
Sherlock huffed in annoyance at Lestrade’s comment. “I would think by this time, Lestrade, you would realize that I know exactly about what I am talking about.”
John smothered a smirk watching Greg shut his eyes briefly, taking a breath and ignoring the irritated, and irritating, consulting detective. Donovan strode off to complete her assigned tasks, her mobile snapping up to her ear, while Lestrade turned to address the forensic scientist. “Anderson get your team out here and anyone else you need that can safely speed up evidence collection. We are going to have to consider the entire garden and house as a presumptive crime scene.”
Anderson nodded as they watched Toby lay down on yet another rose bed. “I need authorization for my crime scene techs to bring along the ground penetrating radar. I can use it to define the areas that we need to excavate more precisely and give us some idea of how deep we need to dig.”
Lestrade waved a hand in dismissal replying, “Fine, go.” After watching his subordinates move off to do their jobs, he finally turned back to Sherlock. “I think I heard you say in that sermon of yours that you found something in the house. Why don’t you show me what you found, while John goes with Toby’s handler to check the other beds in the side garden you mentioned?”
Sherlock raised an eyebrow, surprising John as he silently asked for John’s opinion of this plan, and John gave a short nod to indicate his approval. John quietly showed the handler to the garden on the side of the house where he and Sherlock had found another rose bed and several more yew bushes, he was glad to move from where he could see Donovan and Anderson talking on their mobiles. He was careful to limit his direct interaction in order to decrease the likelihood of him starting a fight, but it was always a near thing since their mere presence was enough to raise his proverbial hackles, and leave him highly irritable if no longer outright wrathful.
Intellectually John knew that the two of them had just been doing their jobs when they had passed their suspicions on to Lestrade and then to the Chief Superintendent when Lestrade had not been convinced. John knew that the consulting criminal had in all likelihood aimed and designed the entire kidnapping of the ambassador’s children specifically at them. It was their job to be suspicious, to question things, and Moriarty, evil bastard that he had been, had used their doubts, fears, and outright hatred of Sherlock to control their actions like a virtuoso conductor of a symphony orchestra.
Despite knowing all this, John didn’t care. Donovan and Anderson had known Sherlock significantly longer than he had, and dislike or not (okay, John admitted that it was closer to loathing) their history should have been enough to slow those doubts down. Not only had they seen Sherlock solve cases, but they also heard him explain, frequently in excruciating detail, the steps within those deductions, which, when broken down, were all completely logical. In fact, the two had had their personal lives, repeatedly and loudly deduced in public, details of their lives that they had to know Sherlock couldn’t have access to other than through his brilliant deductions. John was honest enough to concede that Sherlock often informed them of his deductions in the worst possible way, in order to make Anderson in particular look idiotic, so their loathing had more than reasonable ground, but John still felt that any semi-intelligent adult, particularly those in their line of work, should have been able to look past those prejudices.
John sighed, watching Toby lay down next to yet another rose bed, his thoughts still lost in his consideration of the past. He admitted silently to himself that Donovan and Anderson’s actions before and after Sherlock’s fall probably weren’t enough by themselves to justify his continued ire, but their attitude after Sherlock’s exoneration certainly was. John had initially thought both of them had felt somewhat guilty about Sherlock’s supposed suicide. Neither had attended the funeral (never mind that John would have thrown them out forcibly) but had also avoided John when he came down to the station to give his formal report on both Sherlock’s suicide, and the follow up from the kidnapping case. That guilt might have allowed him to eventually forgive them as he had Lestrade, but after Sherlock’s return neither Donovan nor Anderson had ever offered one word, one look, of apology to either John or Sherlock. John knew that Sherlock couldn’t care less about either of their opinions much less their respect, but John did, or at least he cared that the two apparently lacked the basic courage to admit their mistakes, no matter how well meaning.
John was shaken from his morbid thoughts by Donovan’s voice asking from behind him, “You know, I have known that you were a little off ever since I started reading your blog. I have to say though that even I wouldn’t have predicted that you were crazy enough to marry Sherlock Holmes.”
John didn’t bother to acknowledge this statement, pointedly ignoring her as she continued. “I suppose I should have known something like this was coming when you moved back in so quickly after that bastard returned. Didn’t you learn anything from that? When he faked his death for his own twisted reasons, I saw, we all saw how broken you were and don’t think I don’t know that he didn’t let you in on his little game either. It just shows just how little he really values you, doesn’t it. It also hasn’t escaped my attention that not only did he come out of that smelling like roses, but his fame, or perhaps I should say infamy has noticeably increased. That sociopath you’re calling your husband is a user, and he will use you again and again until he is tired of you, and then he will throw you away. Again.”
John growled softly to himself, allowing this small expression of anger in a desperate attempt to stop himself from pounding her into the ground. He had managed to avoid an argument with either one of them for the last fifteen months. John certainly wasn’t going to lose control now and embarrass himself and Sherlock while on a case. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t heard worse constantly while his friend was gone, heck he heard worse from his own sister when he called her about the marriage.
Taking a deep breath to slow his heart rate and control his anger, John turned to face the Sergeant. “You know Donovan, I always thought Sherlock was being his typical dramatic self when he said you were useless at even basic observation. It is utterly amazing to me that you can’t see by now that Sherlock is loyal to his friends and that the choices he makes, while unusual and difficult to understand for some, catch more criminals than you ever will. I find it hard to comprehend that even your brain missed the fact that Sherlock’s fall allowed him to completely destroy Moriarty’s criminal empire, something the Yard wasn’t even aware existed. I suppose that if you can’t even recognize that basic fact, why would I ever imagine that you could identify such simple truths as loyalty and friendship even when they are right under your nose. I should have realized that to you these are foreign concepts.”
Donovan gave a snort as she replied, “Friendship, yeah right, I’m sure that’s why the freak decided to marry you, bastard probably just wants to ensure that he has a permanently captive audience. Well, at least until you finally wise up and realize that Sherlock Holmes only does things that benefit Sherlock Holmes.”
“Donovan. I seem to remember having a conversation with you about interfering with my relationship with Sherlock shortly after we met. I will tell you this once more, just because you seem to have a poor memory. My relationship with Sherlock, and our marriage is absolutely none of your business,” John barked, his tone and body language falling effortlessly back into his military days as a Captain dispensing lifesaving medical orders in the field. “Now, I am sure I heard Lestrade tell you to go arrest Davis Reid. You know I think that would be a good idea, particularly since Toby has just lain down next to that rose bush over there. I think that means we have four separate rose bushes and four separate yew bushes acting as grave markers. That might just be a little more important than your useless vitriol,” John finished with a snap, leaving a slightly open mouthed Donovan behind as he stalked off, deciding to take a walk around the house to cool off and get out of the way of the small army of police officers and forensic technicians that were slowly starting to arrive and spread out chaotically around the grounds.
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Forty minutes later found him significantly calmer, (having completely enjoyed discovering a valid reason to call Sally out), leaning against the back wall of the house while he watched Sherlock and Anderson having a ‘discussion’ about the order in which they should excavate the graves. Sherlock was demanding that they start with the yew bushes since the ground penetrating radar indicated only one body below each, and Anderson wanted to start with the rose beds because each bed had been discovered to contain not one, but two bodies. John wasn’t sure it would matter in the end considering that it was rapidly becoming obvious that the sheer number of bodies meant that forensics was going to be here for several days. Lestrade wandered over to lean next to him on the wall, and after a quiet moment said in a soft voice, “I suppose I should take this chance to give you my congratulations on your marriage while Sherlock’s too busy to yell at me for interrupting the case with trivia.”
John chuckled slightly in response to Lestrade’s words while he wondered if Sherlock would consider the case closed enough to the conclusion to tell at least Greg the truth, but quickly decided he didn’t need the blistering abuse he would receive if he somehow risked Sherlock’s case by breaking their cover too early. “Thanks Greg,” he answered before pointing his chin at the arguing pair. “You going to go back over there and break that up before it gets any louder?”
Greg rolled his eyes in fond exasperation while he answered, “As lead detective in this case, I am afraid that I have more important things to do at this particular juncture than determine which burial site to examine first.”
John gave a small laugh. “Coward.”
Greg raised an eyebrow at him. “I beg to differ, I prefer to consider it an intelligent tactical retreat. Besides, given the number of bodies Toby and the ground penetrating radar have discovered, the Yard is sending over two more forensic teams to assist in the process of uncovering the remains. I’m sure that will give Anderson more than enough people and equipment to start opening multiple graves, which makes the whole fight moot.” Greg frowned, and it was clear to John that the reality of the sheer number of graves they were about to open was troubling his friend. After a moment the DI shook his head before addressing John again. “Anyway as I started to say, congratulations. I had no less than fifteen different texts last week on my holiday, telling me I had to read your blog or miss the story of the century.”
John softly chuckled again. “Well, I am sorry they bothered you on your holidays, but I am glad to hear that my readership at the Yard is still high.”
Lestrade gave a half smile, before looking back over at the rose beds where Anderson had turned to stalk off towards the other forensics teams at the front of the house, with a smug-looking Sherlock sauntering along behind him. “I’d apologize for having you work on a case on what should be your honeymoon period, but you brought the case to me and Sherlock’s obviously thrilled with his puzzle. I have to admit that I was surprised when I read your blog post. I never would have expected Sherlock to be emotional aware enough to realize your importance in his life. In fact for all the speculation and betting around the Yard, I always maintained that you two were just good friends. It never occurred to me that you were a couple, much less considering marriage. In fact I think I might be a little hurt that you didn’t bother to tell me,” Lestrade said, pretending to be offended, “although knowing Sherlock, he probably assumed that I should be able to deduce it. I guess I am as unobservant as your husband always claims.”
“Not unobservant, Lestrade. What I said in the blog was true, it took me a while to come to terms with the relationship, so Sherlock agreed to keep things quiet until I was comfortable.”
Lestrade turned to look closer at John, raising a questioning eyebrow. “Really. I have to admit that I find the timing slightly convenient. You two get a civil partnership and the mad genius suddenly gets involved with a case where a serial killer is killing couples who happen to have civil partnerships.”
John jumped in surprise and then tried to hide his reaction to Greg’s comment. Sherlock needed to give Lestrade more credit; the man really was good at this job. It was astonishing to John but Greg was so far the only person besides Mycroft who appeared to have even slight suspicions about the nature of their marriage. John opened and closed his mouth a few times, unsure how to handle Greg’s concerns, when he felt a comforting hand land on the nape of his neck and a rumbling voice practically purr in reply, “In fact Lestrade, I did find it highly convenient. How do you think I ever convinced John to accept my proposal? He considered it entirely too early in our relationship to contemplate such a major step.” Sherlock informed Lestrade as his thumb rubbed soothing and highly addictive circles on the back of John’s neck. “So yes this case worked entirely in my favor.”
John fought down a blush at the possessiveness and closeness implied in the physical contact and Sherlock’s words. Lestrade’s eyebrow seemed to climb even higher at both of their behavior as he commented, “Well, in that case Sherlock, congratulations on having the intelligence to realize just how important John is to you.”
Sherlock simply nodded in acceptance of Lestrade’s words without removing the thumb that was continuing to move in that wonderfully addictive manner from John’s neck. Lestrade looked slightly uncomfortable for a moment, before clearly deciding to change the subject. “I still don’t understand how you connected all these cases. Not only are they spread out all over the London metropolitan area, they happen at irregular intervals.”
Sherlock chuckled slightly. “Ahh… Lestrade, I am afraid that you have my husband to blame. I am certain you remember a few months ago when John forced me to trawl through the cold case files, or he was going to destroy several of my experiments. In deference to our new relationship, I agreed. I must admit that John was correct and that I did manage to stave off boredom for a time by solving those three moderately interesting open murder cases. At the time I noticed several of the open missing person cases, but failed to make the connection until Mr. Williams brought me his daughter and son-in-law’s case.”
Lestrade shook his head. “Christ Sherlock, the things you absorb and remember. Now if you two newlyweds will excuse me, I believe I have a forensic technician to calm down.”
John sighed and lowered his head as the DI turned and walked off after Anderson. John turned his head slightly to look at Sherlock while he muttered softly, “You know you really should have gone into acting, you would have made a fortune. You convinced Lestrade with hardly any effort at all.”
“Nonsense John, while there is some slight diversion to be found in using my skills to forward a case, a career as an actor would be incredibly boring. How can you be unaware of the basic fact that most actors spend their days waiting around for camera, lighting, and set design? And then when they do get to act, they run the same scene repeatedly until the director can obtain their perfect shot and acquire the necessary coverage of all the angles,” Sherlock said mockingly, while faking a slight shudder, even while the detective’s hand gave John’s neck a gentle squeeze. “Can you really see me tolerating such a ridiculous and mind numbing situation?”
John laughed slightly in shock at both the almost flirtatious teasing and Sherlock’s knowledge of acting. “I don’t suppose you will ever tell me how you know so much about acting?”
“Perhaps, someday. The case ended up being rather trite, but it had a few items of interest. Now John, momentarily they will begin to excavate the first body from underneath the far yew bush. We will need to prevent Anderson’s team from destroying too much evidence,” Sherlock finished, his thumb rubbing lightly over his neck one more time before it dropped away and Sherlock wandered towards the flower beds, John following in his wake, the phantom feel of those fingertips still on his neck.
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The next several hours taxed John’s patience to the limit and pushed Sherlock over his. One of the biggest blows came when Donovan called Lestrade to report that Davis Reid had escaped. In fact, the man had left his workplace an hour before Donovan arrived with three PCs in tow. Unfortunately Sherlock had overheard the phone conversation, resulting in a fifteen minute diatribe about Sally and the Yard’s incompetence. John had only managed to distract him by reminding the rampaging genius that Anderson and his forensics techs were excavating the grave under the yew bush and one of the rose bushes, completely unsupervised. Sherlock had given John a highly irritated stare at this comment, clearly aware that John was manipulating him, but the consulting detective did stalk back over the graves with a barely audible growl, forcing John to muffle a chuckle at his husband’s petulant behavior.
When Donovan had arrived back at the Reid’s place a few hours later, she looked both frustrated and saddened. John and Lestrade watched her arrival from where they were standing between the two open graves. One grave contained a busy Sherlock, his coat off - hung over a convenient bush, with his sleeves rolled up as he ‘assisted’ the tech in gently brushing the dirt off the remains. Anderson was in the other grave doing the same, although he was wearing appropriate protective gear. As she got closer, John noticed she was holding a plastic evidence bag containing a sheet of paper and a photograph. Donovan was subdued when she spoke to Lestrade, handing over the evidence bag and photo to him. “Reid knew we were coming. His co-workers said he left suddenly, claiming he wasn’t feeling well. Both of his work laptops were gone. Check out the photo, that’s how we found his workstation.”
Greg took the photo, his eyebrows furrowing in concentration as he examined it, apparently trying to determine what Donovan wanted him to notice. Eventually he looked away from the photo to examine the single sheet of paper in the evidence bag. Whatever was on the sheet made his eyebrows climb in surprise, causing John to wonder exactly what Donovan had discovered. The DI slowly turned the photo so that John and Sherlock, who had crawled out of the grave, could see it. It showed a generic office desk that was completely clear except for a single sheet of paper held in place by a single thumb tack in the center of the desk. Hanging off from the tack was a key chain, but instead of having a key attached there was a flash drive. John frowned in confusion, not understanding the significance of what he was seeing when Lestrade finally turned the evidence bag so that Sherlock and John could read the paper. John felt his jaw start to drop in disbelief, and he asked without thinking, “His arrest warrant? Why would he leave that on his desk?”
“John really, don’t be dull, that reason is readily apparent. Reid is taunting the police. The more interesting question is how?” Sherlock replied offhandedly as he reached out to pull the evidence bag from Lestrade’s fingers and examine the paper.
Donovan shook her head. “The techs don’t have a clue, sir. It would help if we had at least one of his computers, but it appears he has all three of those with him. We also have been unable to access the flash drive at this point, it’s password protected.”
“It’s obvious from the warrant that he has hacked your system,” Sherlock answered without looking up from the evidence bag. “The more interesting information lies in the subtle details of what the intrepid Mr. Reid has accomplished.”
Sherlock looked up briefly and then rolled his eyes in obvious exasperation at the blank expressions around him. “Honestly the conclusion here is really quite simple if one would only consider what the timing of this paperwork signifies. Reid was at work, presumably interacting and thus being observed by numerous people. Therefore he couldn’t have been trawling through the Yard’s database monitoring for an arrest warrant. That would have not only been time consuming but highly risky in an office setting where someone could easily see his computer screen. No, he must have planted a computer virus in the system that automatically alerted him when the warrant was issued. In fact, given how timely his response was, he was intelligent enough not to tie the virus’s search protocols to just his name, which could theoretically result in a lot of false alarms, but probably had it monitoring his driver’s license number and passport number. In fact, Reid undoubtedly has his National Insurance number and his National Identity Card number flagged as well,” Sherlock said, his finger stabbing at the respective information on the warrant. “It would be a simple way to cut down on false alarms, and the virus could send the information directly to his cell phone. He knew the instant you applied for the warrant. Brilliant.”
Lestrade rolled his eyes at this comment but didn’t bother to scold Sherlock, just continued the conversation. “Donovan, did the computer techs indicate if they thought they could find the leak and plug it before this man gets more of our information?”
“No.”
It was easy for John to see that this answer wasn’t what Lestrade was hoping to hear. The Detective Inspector was grinding his teeth slightly as he apparently considered his options. “Alright then,” Lestrade said with a nod, obviously coming to a decision, “Anderson?”
The forensic tech turned to look at Lestrade, raising an eyebrow as the DI continued. “We’re going to have to go old school with the record keeping. I want you to have everyone who works on this case pull out the old triplicate carbon papers for record keeping. I am sure someone in the records department has some stashed somewhere, they never throw anything away. No one is to enter any data onto the Yard’s network without my express permission. Also have the computer techs get us a laptop with every possible wireless or internet access point removed. The only thing it’s going to be able to connect to is a printer which will be hard wired in, not wireless. I want the computer to be so off the grid, there’s not a chance that this maniac can hack it. We can use it as a backup for the paper records until we are sure that Reid can’t get back into our system. I won’t have the case compromised again.”
John was startled by Greg’s demands; not that it seemed like a bad idea to him, just that he was surprised that the man had thought of it. Apparently Greg was a lot more computer savvy than John. Sherlock gave a short nod of approval, but Anderson was shaking his head. “I’m not sure that’s possible. All of our lab equipment, including the mass spectrometer and the blood chemistry analyzers are hardwired into the network. The data is dumped directly into the case file electronically before I ever see a print out. It’s set up that way to help prevent accusations of tampering from attorneys.”
Lestrade practically growled in frustration. “Well get on the phone with tech support and figure it out. There has to be a way to keep the information off the network and protected. I am sure some tech geek will consider it a challenge. And don’t worry about the prosecutors, I will contact them myself and inform them of the situation so that they know how we are handling it. Now Sherlock, you want to fill me in on what you and Anderson have found in the graves?”
Sherlock nodded, dropping into the grave under where the first of the yew bushes had been planted. The consulting detective immediately knelt down next to body and John had to suppress a sigh of fond exasperation when he saw his husband reach out and snitch the small brush out of the tech’s hand and proceed to continue the cleaning himself while he started sharing his deductions. “Much of the data has been compromised by Reid’s method of burial, none of the three bodies we have uncovered…”
“Three bodies?” Sally interjected, “do you have another grave open on the side of the house?”
“Donovan. Do pay attention. There is one body in this grave and Anderson is uncovering two in his. One plus two equals three,” Sherlock replied, obviously irritated by her interruption.”
“Sherlock,” John said sotto voice, attempting to stop a full blow up.
Sherlock glared at him but then obviously decided to continue, skipping his usual diatribe. “As I was saying before the incompetent interrupted me, most of the data about cause of death has been destroyed. Reid buried the bodies not only without coffins, but unwrapped. Lack of any sort of protection has caused the decomposition to proceed at a rapid rate. All three sets of remains have little to no remaining soft tissue which means we will need a forensic anthropologist to examine the bones to see if there is enough remaining data to accurately determine cause of death. However based on clothing, most of which has not yet significantly degraded due to the high content of synthetic fibers, the grave under the yew bush contains a man, and the rose bush contained a woman and a man. Width of the pelvic girdles confirms that information.”
“Why bury these two together and this one by himself?” John asked, his brows furrowed in concentration. “Did he keep the wife of whoever this is alive for longer in that prison cell of his?”
“Unknown,” Sherlock answered, not looking up from where he was excavating dirt around the skeleton’s hip region. “Determining whom is in each grave and their approximate time of death may allow that question to be answered. Wait…” Sherlock finished, his voice trailing off as he started digging rapidly.
John knelt down next to the grave, trying to get a closer look at what Sherlock found, absently noticing that Lestrade, Donovan and Anderson were doing the same. The consulting detective was practically vibrating with excitement as he dug two fingers into the remains of the back pocket of the skeleton’s trousers, and with a gleeful cry extracted a mostly intact wallet.
Anderson stuttered in surprise at Sherlock’s find, “Why would he make identification so simple?”
Sherlock gave an evil grin. “Simple. He never expected anyone to find these graves. Anderson, do try to do something useful and check the other two bodies.”
Anderson growled and muttered under his breath as he dropped back into the other grave. “Bollocks. Holmes is right. I have a wallet on the male body and….” Anderson’s commentary paused as he rummaged around the other body, eventually pulling out an entire purse. “…her purse. Driver’s license says these two are Derek and Pamela Ashdown.”
“And this would be PC Davidson,” Sherlock supplied. “The wallet has his driver’s license and his badge.”
Lestrade ran a hand over his face, looking grim. “Sherlock, you might have mentioned that one of the bodies might be a police officer.”
“Extraneous information. His job was mostly irrelevant to Reid. Likely the only reason he would have cared about his job is that it would have given him an additional slight thrill to take one of you own. However he wouldn’t have taken Davidson and his wife if they did not meet his other criteria,” Sherlock answered unconcernedly. John noticed that both Donovan and Anderson’s jaws clenched at Sherlock’s dismissal of the PC as unimportant.
“Much more important than his job is that Reid buried the Davidsons separately and the Ashdowns together,” the genius continued. “We know that Reid was obsessed with Pamela Ashdown, so why bury her with her husband under rose bushes and bury the Davidsons under two separate yew bushes?” Sherlock asked aloud, musing to himself as he waved a hand, indicating the other yew bush across the garden.
“What?” John asked, startled. “How can you be sure of that?”
Sherlock gave his patented oh-how-can-you-miss-something-so-obvious smirk as he replied, “Simple process of elimination, John. All the rose bushes cover graves containing two bodies, and the yew bushes one body. This rose bush covered a married couple, so given most serial killers’ obsessive need to follow ritualistic patterns, it would be logical to presume until proven otherwise that all of the rose bushes cover married couples. Therefore since this yew bush covers Mr. Davidson, it is a simple deduction that the killer buried Mrs. Davidson under the other yew bush. The more interesting question is what ritualistic need did he fill by burying some of the couples together under rose bushes, universal symbols of love and devotion, and other couples under different yew bushes, symbols of sorrow and loss?”
John absently wondered how Sherlock knew so much about the meaning of plants, deciding to ask him later in private while he watched Sherlock hauled himself back up out of the grave, handing Davidson’s wallet to Lestrade as he did so, giving the group around him an excited grin as he started rolling down his sleeves, and announcing, “Lestrade, John and I need to get back to the Yard immediately. I suspect Mr. Reid has left the answer to that question on the flash drive he so kindly provided.”
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FanFiction Writer Notes: I hope all of my wonderful readers find this worth the wait. My muse was giving me a very hard time. I want to thank all everyone who took the time to review. You all encourage me to do better and improve myself. I also want to thank all my reviewers for not leaving huge spoilers in the reviews. It is very kind of you.
I also need to announce FanWorks for this story. First up thanks to the amazing Dragonhawkerz who created a lovely art of the nightclub scene from Chapter 5. See it Here on Tumblr
Also Sunshine Thru the Storm wrote a lovely drabble to this line from Chapter 9:
"I left her the skull in the laptop’s place, she will figure it out," Sherlock responded, indicating the empty spot on the mantel next to their wedding photo.’ Read it Here on FanFiction
Once again thanks to my wonderful Beta Ivory Winter, who was very patient as I forced this chapter out one painful paragraph at a time.
Thanks,
Rairakku
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