Fic: Monsters, All of Us 1/4
Title: Monsters, All of Us
Part 1: Family Correspondences and a Death Certificate
Warnings: The Drama Llama is running rampant through this fic. Levity might appear here and there.
Prompt Link: sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/2727.html
Notes: squidwhisk.livejournal.com/1355.html
Length: 3,700 in this part
----
Drugged. Sherlock feels as if his head is stuffed full of cotton, his thoughts slow and sluggish. Definitely drugged. The right side of his face pounds with a steady hot throb that threatens to become an intolerable headache the moment his body can get over the wrongness and become receptive to pain.
Another slap impacts the left side of his face. “Close the door, don’t try anything stupid.”
The voice grates at him. Right, was going to warn John of something. Sherlock tries to stand only to find himself tied very securely to a chair. Shit. He opens his eyes through a supreme force of will. The headache takes that second to fully blossom and for a moment his vision goes white.
John’s would-be murderer stands with a gun pointed at Sherlock’s head. John stands backed against the door of his bedroom his face is grim, his stance balanced, and his hands steady.
Shit.
Predictably, the current situation germinated from a corpse.
---
October 21, 2008,
I can’t believe you volunteered for an additional tour. What the hell are you thinking? When I called you a coward you weren’t supposed to prove me right.HW
---
The body had been decaying in the apartment for a week before the neighbor had noticed something off about the smell. Sherlock thought it was an excellent indication of the stupidity of humanity; that mysterious liquids dripping through the ceiling were not investigated and were not reported even when the upstairs neighbors failed to respond to multiple calls on his door. At least the police had ruled out suicide. In addition to suicidees being predictably polite and thoughtful about leaving a mess, they were also unlikely to shoot themselves in the stomach three times. However, such subtleties had been lost on Scotland Yard in the past and the move to acknowledging the obvious was a welcome and surprising change. Sometimes Sherlock felt like the parent of exceptionally slow children. There was potential there, it was just stubbornly resisted.
The smell was staggering, even for someone who regularly worked on dead bodies and performed impromptu experiments in his refrigerator. There was nothing quite like the smell of a week-old corpse locked in a modern nearly-hermetically-sealed flat. Sherlock wondered how John would have reacted; He would probably do the initial song and dance of revulsion (like his overreaction to the head in the refrigerator) before coming to accept the inevitable and giving in to medical curiosity. Also, putrefaction was hastened in a hot environment so perhaps this reek would be par for the course.
The usual collection of incompetents was grinding through the scene. Luckily Donovan was suffering from a cold; Sherlock cheerfully hoped it would develop into pneumonia and that Anderson would catch it. Perhaps he would then be spared asinine comments sniped at him from the kitchen (and the man’s intolerable breathing.) Sherlock ignored his nonsense and instead walked over to crouch in front of the body.
The decaying corpse lay in the middle of a spotless living room surrounded by a pink-tinged pool of pus. Charming. It had once been a 170 centimetre tall man. After one week, it was merely a bloated husk turning purple-black as boils formed on its surface. Sherlock's attention shifted to the callouses still visible on the body’s hands, the ink peeking out under the white t-shirt and the remains of a poor haircut.
Lestrade shifted at Sherlock’s left, eying both the corpse and the consulting detective with trepidation. He had kept surprisingly quiet as they entered the apartment (unusually grim for him) probably due to the added stress of management suspecting the mishandling of a series of cases. Of course, Sherlock knew the cases had been mismanaged (admittedly, a demented howler monkey could have realized the same). This was the third killing by a serial killer, not a random murder. With Scotland Yard this oblivious it was merely a stroke of brilliant luck that the majority of murderers were even more inept.
“Thirty four (maybe thirty five) career soldier; back for over a year; discharged due to injury; and suffering from severe PTSD. Check with the neighbours for a description of the murderer. He is an American, approximately 190 centimetres tall, who can convincingly pose as a soldier but has not been trained by the military. He is partial to long coats and has a gun holstered at his left hip. Oh yes, and he is a serial killer.”
“Jesus, Sherlock how the hell did you know that?” Lestrade definitely looked tenser than usual. He really should stop taking caffeine pills as a stimulant.
“Three shots. Not a crime of passion but not the work of a professional either. Parallel trajectory. The only couch is across the room and has not been moved. Either the shooter was a midget (unlikely) or fired from his hip (popular in the southern United States). So American.
“The victim is paranoid due a loss of vision; he avoids family and building relationships with neighbours (no one noticed he was dead) but he let a recent acquaintance into his home? Who do soldiers trust? So a fellow officer. Not at an actual soldier, obviously, what soldier shoots like that?”
“He can’t see?” Anderson’s voice was like the cool slimy touch of a slug against the back of his neck.
“Well he -is- dead, Anderson. I think what you are poorly trying to articulate is ‘He was blind?’ This, while sufficiently clear, would still be wrong. The blast that scarred his face also impaired his eyesight, but insufficiently for accessibility software (box on the counter) and a large screen television to mitigate it. How -do- you manage the complicated task of getting dressed in the morning…especially with Donovan ill?”
“The neighbours like to pry” Sherlock pointed to the stack of clean dishes and DVDs stacked by the front door awaiting return. “A new visitor would be a notable occurrence. The apartment is military clean. But. There are two cups in the sink. You do not make tea for assailants you will for acquaintances. The sugar is on the coffee table. If his acquaintance visited more than once he would have known how he takes his tea. Obviously. In the future, try not to waste my time with things that are so patently self-evident.”
Lestrade looked mildly mesmerized and the other worker ants had ceased their mindless milling about to stare at Sherlock. “You mentioned that this is a serial killer?”
He eyed his audience and bit his tongue. He probably shouldn’t degrade Lestrade in front of his staff. The man -was- his source of cases. Ugh, his conscience was starting to sound like John. “Two servicemen this month, this is the third. I need to see their bodies.” With a last glance at the corpse, Sherlock swept out of the room peeling the nitrile gloves off as he went. Yes he was being a bit melodramatic, but being clever enough to get away with it was half the fun. Mycroft would not approve. That put a smile on his face.
---
December 25, 2008,
Merry Christmas! Did you get the package I couriered you? It’s a jumper (SURPRISE! LOL!!). Look, I am going to be online for a while, Clara is spending the hols with her mom. So if you’re around call me on Skype so we can test it before we end up in different time zones! BTW, Clara got me a new webcam; Lucky you, you can admire the best looking Watson streaming live and with less pixles. I miss you!!
December 26, 2008,
How very mature of you, haven’t grown up past the slamming a door in my face stage? Clara and I are going to be -fine- unless I decide we won’t be. Also, the only person I can think of that has a problem in this family is a non-committal adrenalin junkie. But Saint John the Martyr wouldn’t know anything about that.
January 1, 2009,
Happy New Years! Thanks for calling me yesterday!! Xxx
---
Sherlock returned to 221b two hours later mildly perplexed. Between the three victims, the murder style and weapons differed significantly. However, all were done by a very strong man, approximately 190 centimetres tall, who favoured his left hand. One victim had his throat slit [1] and the other had his neck broken.
Three ex-servicemen: one served in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, one had served in both. One was a sniper, one an engineer and the last a communications officer. All had seen at least one tour of duty. According to the files, it was unlikely they knew each other. The most obvious similarity were the wounds: one with a bullet wound to left side (skimming his stomach lining without actually rupturing it), one with a burn along the entire right side of his body, and one blinded by a blast that should have taken off his head. However, only one had stayed off duty. Other than the blinded man, all had regained their health at the time of their murder. All had been treated for PTSD within the past three years, but by different psychiatrists.
Speaking of psychiatrists, Sherlock could hear John’s cab pull up in front of the flat (right on schedule.) The sound of John’s footsteps on the stairs (17 of them) confirmed the routine with the exception of unusually heavy footfalls indicating a bad session. John pulled open the door the whole way and surveyed the flat before stepping into it. He spotted Sherlock on the couch, grunted a greeting, and began the process of cleaning the session off his person. He toed off his shoes, meticulously stripped off his leather gloves and threw his jacket onto the hook by the door. His face relaxed by fractions as each piece of outerwear left him and morphed into a not-quite smile as he headed into the kitchen.
“You look chipper.” John called over his shoulder, his voice suggesting that the not-quite smile had moved more firmly into ‘smile’ territory. “How many murdered? Were the bodies arranged to form the Elder sign? The number forty-two?” He threw the kettle onto the stove, his hands moving over the cupboards and cups with military efficiency as he assembled a cuppa. One milk. No sugar.
“Murdered military men, MacKinnon, Brad; Smith, Alexander; Wilson, Jonathan. Do you know any of them?” The sound of tea making stopped as John ran the names through his head.
“Wilson? He was going blind wasn’t he? I know of him. One of the guys at the apartment must have mentioned him.”
“The MOH apartments! Right, John you’re a genius!” Sherlock jumped up from his chair and began throwing on his coat. He snatched up John’s jacket (still warm), leaned into the kitchen and threw it at him. John caught the coat with one hand even as he turned off the stove with the other.
“Dress faster!”
---
January 28, 2008,
The webcam was a nice touch. Too bad it went to pot so fast. It was good to see you, Clara says you look good in uniform. I think the haircut makes you look laaaa-ame. Remember when you were ten and dad gave you that awful bowl cut? Remember how I ‘fixed’ it? Yah, you look worse than that. Thanks for refraining from screaming at me this time around. Nice to know you remember how to behave around us ‘civilians.’ Look, don’t volunteer for more dumb shit, okay? You look tired. Wouldn’t want to see my brother go grey before his time.
---
“What a waste of time.”
They had spent three hours trying to find a record of the acquaintance John had vaguely remembered. The man had taken a bullet to the brain a month prior. He had left a suicide note. Of the three dead only Wilson was registered as having stayed in the apartments. “John, think, why would someone want to kill a wounded former soldier?”
“I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t like the war? A pacifist gone wrong? A gang initiation?” John leaned back against the seat in the cab, idly eying the shops on Oxford street as they zipped by.
“A gang initiation? With a wounded soldier? Hardly. it is like putting kittens into a sack and throwing them into the Tames.”
“Uhuh. I will mention this next time I end an altercation involving you. Come to think of it, I think we are overdue for our weekly dose of violence.” John’s was clearly mocking him.
Sherlock stared at John incredulously. John, who was a wounded veteran. Other than the similarities between the victims there was surprisingly little linking the murders; Scotland Yard could almost be excused for having assumed the murders were unrelated. Not that Sherlock would admit to any such sentiment. The overall motive seemed simple enough, the murderer had decided to finish what the war started for each of the men. The similarities in the victims were obviously deliberate and while Sherlock lived with John (and could tell everything from his shoe size to when he last engaged in sexual intercourse just from looking at him) the untidy mess of John’s limited mind was a bit of a mystery. He needed to decipher John to understand why anyone would be targeting wounded veterans.
“No. Whatever it is you are thinking about right now Sherlock. The answer is no.”
Later that evening, once Sherlock heard John leave the flat with the intent of renewing relations with Sarah, he broke into John’s room. His target was kept in a prized location atop John’s dresser. The steel box had seen considerable wear over the previous year: one side was dented from being used as an impromptu hammer; the lid was rusted and stained; the hinges and edging needed repair; and it leaked sand when tilted at certain angles. Since moving to 221B John had opened it only once to remove his gun. He did not need to open it again, the contents showed signs of being often handled. Every detail was likely memorized. Inside he found printouts of one-side of John’s correspondence with Harry Watson, an obituary, a photograph, a broken watch, a death certificate and a bullet.
The correspondence and obituary were vaguely informative; the photograph was pedestrian; the broken watch merited further investigation.
The death certificate was for a young girl, approximate eight with no name given. Collateral damage. Most likely a facility believed to house insurgents had also accommodated a number of civilian families; intelligence was rarely perfect. The facility must have been shelled (and it was a facility, not a house, because houses were rarely made with tension steel; and it was shelled if the shrapnel wounds were any indication). Based on the serious injuries described (broken ribs, broken leg, internal bleeding) and the location where the girl was found (back of the facility; out of direct fire) Sherlock deduced that it was unlikely that someone inside would have survived. The internal bleeding eventually killed her. John had signed off on her death certificate twenty-three hours and fourteen minutes after she had been found. Sherlock could imagine him working to save the child, perhaps he had worn the same look of helpless horror he had shown when Moriarty had strapped a boy to explosives.
Sherlock was suddenly irrationally concerned about the lone bullet.
---
He was annoyed with himself for being irrationally drawn to a case that was both dull and not connected with the pressing work of ferreting out Moriarty. The motive was straightforward, the neighbours had provided an adequate description of the murderer, and only the grunt work remained. What should have been an open and shut case was dragging on because he could not shake the aggravating feeling that if he solved this puzzle he might solve John Watson. With this in mind, he was walking through London Bridge station (having paid the underground network to look for tall Americans in long coats) when he heard the distinctive tapping of high heels as someone chased after him. A manicured hand aggressively caught his left arm.
“You’re Sherlock Holmes!” The woman was in her mid-thirties but could have passed for younger. An expensive suit and heels disguised and thinned a strong short body; even having run after him she was not out-of-breath (athletics must run in the family). Her eyes, although reddened, were sharp and her makeup, which must have cost a few hundred quid, was painstakingly applied to hide any other symptoms of her condition. In short, she looked much like Sherlock had expected. “I saw your picture on John’s blog!”
“Harriett Watson. John’s alcoholic sister, I presume? He didn’t mention that you were a software consultant.” Although she was not wearing a tie, the wear on her Dior jacket gave her away.
“Nice.” Her glossed lips quirked down and she folded her arms over her sizeable chest. “I hear you like to show off, so I’m not going to ask how you knew that.” She managed to both look vaguely like John and look feminine, it was strangely disconcerting. “Well, since you've managed to insult me within a minute of meeting me and get my brother blown up within two months of moving in together, I think it's high time you and I had a nice lil' chat.” Sherlock attributed the corruption of her accent to work-related travel, which John had not mentioned. Then again, John had been discreet about any particulars involving Harriett that went beyond what Sherlock deduced. Seeing as he was making attempts at understanding John better he supposed he could extend the overture to his sibling.
They ended up seated at a Paul’s, Harriett studiously pretending her café latte was more than that and he ignoring the tea and croissant that she had ordered for him. Whereas John was reticent, Harriett was uncomfortably open. She drowned her coffee with sugar, stirred cream with abandon, adjusted her hair with aplomb, and moulded her face into a hundred different facial expressions.
“…not that I am going to begrudge your rude lil' eccentricities, Mr. Holmes. Not a lot I wouldn’t forgive someone willing to live with John. Don’t look at me like that. He's a nightmare to live with. Only reason you two get on is because, according to his blog, you have a lower tolerance for boredom than he does. Good men and women have gone mad trying to live with 'im.” She laughed suddenly. “Maybe that's why you two get on so well!”
“Assuming that, it is equally surprising you and he are not being best mates.” He dug back at her. They bantered while taking nothing personally; a simple task for Sherlock but unusual in others. Perhaps it was a genetic trait of the Watsons. He doubted that this was the result of a supportive family environment that nurtured powerful self confidence in two children. Instead, he deduced that their home life had been hell. Harriett’s alcoholism notwithstanding, John’s aversion to discussions pertaining to Watson familial matters strongly supported the supposition.
The conversation eventually turned to John’s blog, his cases and whether the events chronicled were true ("barely and with heavy dramatization and florid language"). She had the uncanny ability to laugh in all the right places, understand beyond the words spoken and track his hands with her eyes in a manner so -John- that for a moment he forgot he was speaking to a stranger. But only for a moment. As they prepared to part seventy eight minutes later (she having forced him to take down her number “I already have it” and then forcing him to give her his “you can find it on the website”) she sighed dramatically and wrapped a trendy fall coat around her shoulders.
“You’re not half bad. I’m glad he's got someone to help 'im through all his -stuff-" She grimaced at her inability to mention her brother’s diagnosis. “God knows he won’t listen to me, as far as he's concerned I start and end with the bottle.”
“Not for the past two weeks, apparently.” Her loud laugh startled the couple sitting at the neighbouring table. Sherlock had deduced the sobriety from her trembling hands, from an old reminder card tucked in her wallet, her phone (of course), and from the remnants of an AA meeting scattered over her person.
“You let'im know that. He won’t believe me but coming from Sherlock Holmes it'll be gospel. Maybe I'll then get the immense privilege of throwing Saint John a housewarming party.” She fiddled with her purse and pulled out a package of cigarettes, offering one to Sherlock ("No thank you.") and lighting one even as she tried to hail a cab. Her shaking fingers stilled as she drew in a breath. She fought a cough. Addict. In Sherlock's experience, addiction never went away, it just changed media.
Even with a new fixation it wasn't easy but guilt made a fantastic motivator. At that time, the terseness between the Watson siblings was due to John’s hospital stay pursuant to the meeting with Moriarty at the pool. Sherlock had deduced that Harriett had missed the hospital’s call while otherwise disposed and found out about John's injuries from Mrs Hudson when her unanswered calls prompted an unannounced visit to an empty flat.
---
February 29, 2009,
Write back to me or call me or something. I’m worried. Also, let’s just not talk about it anymore. All we do is fight.
March 1,2009,
You know what would be nice? If my knob of a brother actually deemed to get off his fucking high horse and wrote to me to tell me he is fucking alive. Clara has been crying nonstop since you missed calling in and then we find out that a bunch of boys got themselves blown up. Fuck, you are supposed to get off your arse and write me an e-mail, or call me or something. I’ve been on the phone with the dumb bint at the contact office, and she can’t help me. You are the last family I have, call me damn it! Don’t be dead.
<< Previous | Notes | Next >>
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Notes:
October 2, 2010 - Posted story.
October 3, 2010 - Fixed poor English choices.
[1] October 14, 2010 - Fixed cause of death. Went from stabbing to throat slit. So imprecise of me, Sherlock would not approve. Also reordered the deaths and correlated descriptions of the deaths to match order of inquiry in part 2.
October 24, 2010 - Fixed wording as per recommendations from disassembly_rsn, Thank you! Also, now with UK-spelling.
December 12, 2010 - More edits to the wording (including some pretty disastrous choices of language) recommended by disassembly_rsn, thank you again for all of your work in massaging my narrative!!
Part 1: Family Correspondences and a Death Certificate
Warnings: The Drama Llama is running rampant through this fic. Levity might appear here and there.
Prompt Link: sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/2727.html
Notes: squidwhisk.livejournal.com/1355.html
Length: 3,700 in this part
----
Drugged. Sherlock feels as if his head is stuffed full of cotton, his thoughts slow and sluggish. Definitely drugged. The right side of his face pounds with a steady hot throb that threatens to become an intolerable headache the moment his body can get over the wrongness and become receptive to pain.
Another slap impacts the left side of his face. “Close the door, don’t try anything stupid.”
The voice grates at him. Right, was going to warn John of something. Sherlock tries to stand only to find himself tied very securely to a chair. Shit. He opens his eyes through a supreme force of will. The headache takes that second to fully blossom and for a moment his vision goes white.
John’s would-be murderer stands with a gun pointed at Sherlock’s head. John stands backed against the door of his bedroom his face is grim, his stance balanced, and his hands steady.
Shit.
Predictably, the current situation germinated from a corpse.
---
October 21, 2008,
I can’t believe you volunteered for an additional tour. What the hell are you thinking? When I called you a coward you weren’t supposed to prove me right.HW
---
The body had been decaying in the apartment for a week before the neighbor had noticed something off about the smell. Sherlock thought it was an excellent indication of the stupidity of humanity; that mysterious liquids dripping through the ceiling were not investigated and were not reported even when the upstairs neighbors failed to respond to multiple calls on his door. At least the police had ruled out suicide. In addition to suicidees being predictably polite and thoughtful about leaving a mess, they were also unlikely to shoot themselves in the stomach three times. However, such subtleties had been lost on Scotland Yard in the past and the move to acknowledging the obvious was a welcome and surprising change. Sometimes Sherlock felt like the parent of exceptionally slow children. There was potential there, it was just stubbornly resisted.
The smell was staggering, even for someone who regularly worked on dead bodies and performed impromptu experiments in his refrigerator. There was nothing quite like the smell of a week-old corpse locked in a modern nearly-hermetically-sealed flat. Sherlock wondered how John would have reacted; He would probably do the initial song and dance of revulsion (like his overreaction to the head in the refrigerator) before coming to accept the inevitable and giving in to medical curiosity. Also, putrefaction was hastened in a hot environment so perhaps this reek would be par for the course.
The usual collection of incompetents was grinding through the scene. Luckily Donovan was suffering from a cold; Sherlock cheerfully hoped it would develop into pneumonia and that Anderson would catch it. Perhaps he would then be spared asinine comments sniped at him from the kitchen (and the man’s intolerable breathing.) Sherlock ignored his nonsense and instead walked over to crouch in front of the body.
The decaying corpse lay in the middle of a spotless living room surrounded by a pink-tinged pool of pus. Charming. It had once been a 170 centimetre tall man. After one week, it was merely a bloated husk turning purple-black as boils formed on its surface. Sherlock's attention shifted to the callouses still visible on the body’s hands, the ink peeking out under the white t-shirt and the remains of a poor haircut.
Lestrade shifted at Sherlock’s left, eying both the corpse and the consulting detective with trepidation. He had kept surprisingly quiet as they entered the apartment (unusually grim for him) probably due to the added stress of management suspecting the mishandling of a series of cases. Of course, Sherlock knew the cases had been mismanaged (admittedly, a demented howler monkey could have realized the same). This was the third killing by a serial killer, not a random murder. With Scotland Yard this oblivious it was merely a stroke of brilliant luck that the majority of murderers were even more inept.
“Thirty four (maybe thirty five) career soldier; back for over a year; discharged due to injury; and suffering from severe PTSD. Check with the neighbours for a description of the murderer. He is an American, approximately 190 centimetres tall, who can convincingly pose as a soldier but has not been trained by the military. He is partial to long coats and has a gun holstered at his left hip. Oh yes, and he is a serial killer.”
“Jesus, Sherlock how the hell did you know that?” Lestrade definitely looked tenser than usual. He really should stop taking caffeine pills as a stimulant.
“Three shots. Not a crime of passion but not the work of a professional either. Parallel trajectory. The only couch is across the room and has not been moved. Either the shooter was a midget (unlikely) or fired from his hip (popular in the southern United States). So American.
“The victim is paranoid due a loss of vision; he avoids family and building relationships with neighbours (no one noticed he was dead) but he let a recent acquaintance into his home? Who do soldiers trust? So a fellow officer. Not at an actual soldier, obviously, what soldier shoots like that?”
“He can’t see?” Anderson’s voice was like the cool slimy touch of a slug against the back of his neck.
“Well he -is- dead, Anderson. I think what you are poorly trying to articulate is ‘He was blind?’ This, while sufficiently clear, would still be wrong. The blast that scarred his face also impaired his eyesight, but insufficiently for accessibility software (box on the counter) and a large screen television to mitigate it. How -do- you manage the complicated task of getting dressed in the morning…especially with Donovan ill?”
“The neighbours like to pry” Sherlock pointed to the stack of clean dishes and DVDs stacked by the front door awaiting return. “A new visitor would be a notable occurrence. The apartment is military clean. But. There are two cups in the sink. You do not make tea for assailants you will for acquaintances. The sugar is on the coffee table. If his acquaintance visited more than once he would have known how he takes his tea. Obviously. In the future, try not to waste my time with things that are so patently self-evident.”
Lestrade looked mildly mesmerized and the other worker ants had ceased their mindless milling about to stare at Sherlock. “You mentioned that this is a serial killer?”
He eyed his audience and bit his tongue. He probably shouldn’t degrade Lestrade in front of his staff. The man -was- his source of cases. Ugh, his conscience was starting to sound like John. “Two servicemen this month, this is the third. I need to see their bodies.” With a last glance at the corpse, Sherlock swept out of the room peeling the nitrile gloves off as he went. Yes he was being a bit melodramatic, but being clever enough to get away with it was half the fun. Mycroft would not approve. That put a smile on his face.
---
December 25, 2008,
Merry Christmas! Did you get the package I couriered you? It’s a jumper (SURPRISE! LOL!!). Look, I am going to be online for a while, Clara is spending the hols with her mom. So if you’re around call me on Skype so we can test it before we end up in different time zones! BTW, Clara got me a new webcam; Lucky you, you can admire the best looking Watson streaming live and with less pixles. I miss you!!
December 26, 2008,
How very mature of you, haven’t grown up past the slamming a door in my face stage? Clara and I are going to be -fine- unless I decide we won’t be. Also, the only person I can think of that has a problem in this family is a non-committal adrenalin junkie. But Saint John the Martyr wouldn’t know anything about that.
January 1, 2009,
Happy New Years! Thanks for calling me yesterday!! Xxx
---
Sherlock returned to 221b two hours later mildly perplexed. Between the three victims, the murder style and weapons differed significantly. However, all were done by a very strong man, approximately 190 centimetres tall, who favoured his left hand. One victim had his throat slit [1] and the other had his neck broken.
Three ex-servicemen: one served in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, one had served in both. One was a sniper, one an engineer and the last a communications officer. All had seen at least one tour of duty. According to the files, it was unlikely they knew each other. The most obvious similarity were the wounds: one with a bullet wound to left side (skimming his stomach lining without actually rupturing it), one with a burn along the entire right side of his body, and one blinded by a blast that should have taken off his head. However, only one had stayed off duty. Other than the blinded man, all had regained their health at the time of their murder. All had been treated for PTSD within the past three years, but by different psychiatrists.
Speaking of psychiatrists, Sherlock could hear John’s cab pull up in front of the flat (right on schedule.) The sound of John’s footsteps on the stairs (17 of them) confirmed the routine with the exception of unusually heavy footfalls indicating a bad session. John pulled open the door the whole way and surveyed the flat before stepping into it. He spotted Sherlock on the couch, grunted a greeting, and began the process of cleaning the session off his person. He toed off his shoes, meticulously stripped off his leather gloves and threw his jacket onto the hook by the door. His face relaxed by fractions as each piece of outerwear left him and morphed into a not-quite smile as he headed into the kitchen.
“You look chipper.” John called over his shoulder, his voice suggesting that the not-quite smile had moved more firmly into ‘smile’ territory. “How many murdered? Were the bodies arranged to form the Elder sign? The number forty-two?” He threw the kettle onto the stove, his hands moving over the cupboards and cups with military efficiency as he assembled a cuppa. One milk. No sugar.
“Murdered military men, MacKinnon, Brad; Smith, Alexander; Wilson, Jonathan. Do you know any of them?” The sound of tea making stopped as John ran the names through his head.
“Wilson? He was going blind wasn’t he? I know of him. One of the guys at the apartment must have mentioned him.”
“The MOH apartments! Right, John you’re a genius!” Sherlock jumped up from his chair and began throwing on his coat. He snatched up John’s jacket (still warm), leaned into the kitchen and threw it at him. John caught the coat with one hand even as he turned off the stove with the other.
“Dress faster!”
---
January 28, 2008,
The webcam was a nice touch. Too bad it went to pot so fast. It was good to see you, Clara says you look good in uniform. I think the haircut makes you look laaaa-ame. Remember when you were ten and dad gave you that awful bowl cut? Remember how I ‘fixed’ it? Yah, you look worse than that. Thanks for refraining from screaming at me this time around. Nice to know you remember how to behave around us ‘civilians.’ Look, don’t volunteer for more dumb shit, okay? You look tired. Wouldn’t want to see my brother go grey before his time.
---
“What a waste of time.”
They had spent three hours trying to find a record of the acquaintance John had vaguely remembered. The man had taken a bullet to the brain a month prior. He had left a suicide note. Of the three dead only Wilson was registered as having stayed in the apartments. “John, think, why would someone want to kill a wounded former soldier?”
“I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t like the war? A pacifist gone wrong? A gang initiation?” John leaned back against the seat in the cab, idly eying the shops on Oxford street as they zipped by.
“A gang initiation? With a wounded soldier? Hardly. it is like putting kittens into a sack and throwing them into the Tames.”
“Uhuh. I will mention this next time I end an altercation involving you. Come to think of it, I think we are overdue for our weekly dose of violence.” John’s was clearly mocking him.
Sherlock stared at John incredulously. John, who was a wounded veteran. Other than the similarities between the victims there was surprisingly little linking the murders; Scotland Yard could almost be excused for having assumed the murders were unrelated. Not that Sherlock would admit to any such sentiment. The overall motive seemed simple enough, the murderer had decided to finish what the war started for each of the men. The similarities in the victims were obviously deliberate and while Sherlock lived with John (and could tell everything from his shoe size to when he last engaged in sexual intercourse just from looking at him) the untidy mess of John’s limited mind was a bit of a mystery. He needed to decipher John to understand why anyone would be targeting wounded veterans.
“No. Whatever it is you are thinking about right now Sherlock. The answer is no.”
Later that evening, once Sherlock heard John leave the flat with the intent of renewing relations with Sarah, he broke into John’s room. His target was kept in a prized location atop John’s dresser. The steel box had seen considerable wear over the previous year: one side was dented from being used as an impromptu hammer; the lid was rusted and stained; the hinges and edging needed repair; and it leaked sand when tilted at certain angles. Since moving to 221B John had opened it only once to remove his gun. He did not need to open it again, the contents showed signs of being often handled. Every detail was likely memorized. Inside he found printouts of one-side of John’s correspondence with Harry Watson, an obituary, a photograph, a broken watch, a death certificate and a bullet.
The correspondence and obituary were vaguely informative; the photograph was pedestrian; the broken watch merited further investigation.
The death certificate was for a young girl, approximate eight with no name given. Collateral damage. Most likely a facility believed to house insurgents had also accommodated a number of civilian families; intelligence was rarely perfect. The facility must have been shelled (and it was a facility, not a house, because houses were rarely made with tension steel; and it was shelled if the shrapnel wounds were any indication). Based on the serious injuries described (broken ribs, broken leg, internal bleeding) and the location where the girl was found (back of the facility; out of direct fire) Sherlock deduced that it was unlikely that someone inside would have survived. The internal bleeding eventually killed her. John had signed off on her death certificate twenty-three hours and fourteen minutes after she had been found. Sherlock could imagine him working to save the child, perhaps he had worn the same look of helpless horror he had shown when Moriarty had strapped a boy to explosives.
Sherlock was suddenly irrationally concerned about the lone bullet.
---
He was annoyed with himself for being irrationally drawn to a case that was both dull and not connected with the pressing work of ferreting out Moriarty. The motive was straightforward, the neighbours had provided an adequate description of the murderer, and only the grunt work remained. What should have been an open and shut case was dragging on because he could not shake the aggravating feeling that if he solved this puzzle he might solve John Watson. With this in mind, he was walking through London Bridge station (having paid the underground network to look for tall Americans in long coats) when he heard the distinctive tapping of high heels as someone chased after him. A manicured hand aggressively caught his left arm.
“You’re Sherlock Holmes!” The woman was in her mid-thirties but could have passed for younger. An expensive suit and heels disguised and thinned a strong short body; even having run after him she was not out-of-breath (athletics must run in the family). Her eyes, although reddened, were sharp and her makeup, which must have cost a few hundred quid, was painstakingly applied to hide any other symptoms of her condition. In short, she looked much like Sherlock had expected. “I saw your picture on John’s blog!”
“Harriett Watson. John’s alcoholic sister, I presume? He didn’t mention that you were a software consultant.” Although she was not wearing a tie, the wear on her Dior jacket gave her away.
“Nice.” Her glossed lips quirked down and she folded her arms over her sizeable chest. “I hear you like to show off, so I’m not going to ask how you knew that.” She managed to both look vaguely like John and look feminine, it was strangely disconcerting. “Well, since you've managed to insult me within a minute of meeting me and get my brother blown up within two months of moving in together, I think it's high time you and I had a nice lil' chat.” Sherlock attributed the corruption of her accent to work-related travel, which John had not mentioned. Then again, John had been discreet about any particulars involving Harriett that went beyond what Sherlock deduced. Seeing as he was making attempts at understanding John better he supposed he could extend the overture to his sibling.
They ended up seated at a Paul’s, Harriett studiously pretending her café latte was more than that and he ignoring the tea and croissant that she had ordered for him. Whereas John was reticent, Harriett was uncomfortably open. She drowned her coffee with sugar, stirred cream with abandon, adjusted her hair with aplomb, and moulded her face into a hundred different facial expressions.
“…not that I am going to begrudge your rude lil' eccentricities, Mr. Holmes. Not a lot I wouldn’t forgive someone willing to live with John. Don’t look at me like that. He's a nightmare to live with. Only reason you two get on is because, according to his blog, you have a lower tolerance for boredom than he does. Good men and women have gone mad trying to live with 'im.” She laughed suddenly. “Maybe that's why you two get on so well!”
“Assuming that, it is equally surprising you and he are not being best mates.” He dug back at her. They bantered while taking nothing personally; a simple task for Sherlock but unusual in others. Perhaps it was a genetic trait of the Watsons. He doubted that this was the result of a supportive family environment that nurtured powerful self confidence in two children. Instead, he deduced that their home life had been hell. Harriett’s alcoholism notwithstanding, John’s aversion to discussions pertaining to Watson familial matters strongly supported the supposition.
The conversation eventually turned to John’s blog, his cases and whether the events chronicled were true ("barely and with heavy dramatization and florid language"). She had the uncanny ability to laugh in all the right places, understand beyond the words spoken and track his hands with her eyes in a manner so -John- that for a moment he forgot he was speaking to a stranger. But only for a moment. As they prepared to part seventy eight minutes later (she having forced him to take down her number “I already have it” and then forcing him to give her his “you can find it on the website”) she sighed dramatically and wrapped a trendy fall coat around her shoulders.
“You’re not half bad. I’m glad he's got someone to help 'im through all his -stuff-" She grimaced at her inability to mention her brother’s diagnosis. “God knows he won’t listen to me, as far as he's concerned I start and end with the bottle.”
“Not for the past two weeks, apparently.” Her loud laugh startled the couple sitting at the neighbouring table. Sherlock had deduced the sobriety from her trembling hands, from an old reminder card tucked in her wallet, her phone (of course), and from the remnants of an AA meeting scattered over her person.
“You let'im know that. He won’t believe me but coming from Sherlock Holmes it'll be gospel. Maybe I'll then get the immense privilege of throwing Saint John a housewarming party.” She fiddled with her purse and pulled out a package of cigarettes, offering one to Sherlock ("No thank you.") and lighting one even as she tried to hail a cab. Her shaking fingers stilled as she drew in a breath. She fought a cough. Addict. In Sherlock's experience, addiction never went away, it just changed media.
Even with a new fixation it wasn't easy but guilt made a fantastic motivator. At that time, the terseness between the Watson siblings was due to John’s hospital stay pursuant to the meeting with Moriarty at the pool. Sherlock had deduced that Harriett had missed the hospital’s call while otherwise disposed and found out about John's injuries from Mrs Hudson when her unanswered calls prompted an unannounced visit to an empty flat.
---
February 29, 2009,
Write back to me or call me or something. I’m worried. Also, let’s just not talk about it anymore. All we do is fight.
March 1,2009,
You know what would be nice? If my knob of a brother actually deemed to get off his fucking high horse and wrote to me to tell me he is fucking alive. Clara has been crying nonstop since you missed calling in and then we find out that a bunch of boys got themselves blown up. Fuck, you are supposed to get off your arse and write me an e-mail, or call me or something. I’ve been on the phone with the dumb bint at the contact office, and she can’t help me. You are the last family I have, call me damn it! Don’t be dead.
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Notes:
October 2, 2010 - Posted story.
October 3, 2010 - Fixed poor English choices.
[1] October 14, 2010 - Fixed cause of death. Went from stabbing to throat slit. So imprecise of me, Sherlock would not approve. Also reordered the deaths and correlated descriptions of the deaths to match order of inquiry in part 2.
October 24, 2010 - Fixed wording as per recommendations from disassembly_rsn, Thank you! Also, now with UK-spelling.
December 12, 2010 - More edits to the wording (including some pretty disastrous choices of language) recommended by disassembly_rsn, thank you again for all of your work in massaging my narrative!!