Holmesverse collaboration challenge
rosivan and I made a RP for the collaboration challenge!
Sherlock/John
no warnings
7,685 words
Thumb rolling over the touch pad of his Blackberry, Sherlock watched, bored, as it flickered on and off. Taxi rides that day were tedious. All he had to show for the morning spent crawling through the orchestra pit at the Barbican Centre were patches of dust on the knees of his trousers and a handful of disgruntled symphony members.
Two violinists had been murdered, that was simple enough, but it was the signature left by the murderer that intrigued Sherlock the most - an innocent curl of red string. For the first victim, it had been taut over the tuning knob of her violin's 'E' string, and for the second, tied in a neat little bow over the center of his violin bow. Ironic, the forensic investigator had said with misplaced amusement. Unimportant, Sherlock had replied.
Sherlock tugged the collar of his coat higher and leaned back against the seat of the taxi. He watched John from the corner of his eye and slipped his phone back into his pocket. They were stuck in traffic. Again.
John felt fidgety himself. He was trying to make sense of the bodies he’d recently examined.
They were... they made him just a little uneasy, which was impressive since he’d seen more than one person reduced to black and red splotches in the sand. He swallowed thickly and shifted in his seat.
He wanted to get to their destination. He wanted to reach the girl whose recording had sounded so desperate. She’d called the Yard in the morning, voice shaking slightly but with a strand of determination and confidence despite it all. John, in contrast to Sherlock, grew an instant fondness for her and was damning the slow-moving cab, not for the high fare or for the boring ride, but because he wanted her to greet him with that same strong voice.
When a total of three bicyclists that they had already seen passed them by, John’s leg began to bounce. “Fancy the tube?” he asked the window.
Sherlock's gaze refocused out the space between the seats in front of them and beyond the windshield. The next access to the underground was a little ways beyond the bridge. The cars had slowed to a mere crawl, but the walkway to the side for pedestrians was fairly uncluttered by swarms of people. The weather was brisk - more people were driving, more cars, more traffic. It would take them a few minutes to cover on foot what the taxi would cover in ten.
"Restless, John?" Sherlock checked his phone, quickly accessing a copy of the Underground schedule. The few minutes on foot, the time it would take for John to pay the driver and for them to collect tickets... they could make the next departure. Assuming, of course, the tube was on time.
“A little bit, yeah. Innocent lives at risk and all. You know, that rubbish.” John kept his eyes on the street, watching as the station inched closer and closer, set to the soundtrack tapping of Sherlock’s phone. His knee continued to bounce as he felt adrenaline and impatience wash over him in waves of antsy energy.
He thought of the mottled bodies of the two victims and felt his skin crawl anew. Stab wounds, that’s what they died from, but really it looked like someone had pushed them down a hole filled with razor wire. John started tapping his fingers at the thought of trying to identify the girl using only her dental records.
John's face had that distant look of sympathy that Sherlock found tiresome. It was a plain expression wasted on an otherwise usually exceptional man. He sat forward and moved past John, hand coming down firmly on the doctor's bouncing knee to use as leverage while Sherlock pushed open the taxi door. "Let's clear your head, then," he said, as if something so simple as air could manage such a thing. Sherlock took off between the cars, weaving his way towards the sidewalk. He trusted John would keep up.
“Oh, goddammit,” John mumbled in his usual put-upon manner. He quickly leaned forward to hand a couple notes to their driver. “Here, sorry mate.” Leaving the change for the inconvenience, John flung himself out of the open door to jog after the quickly-moving smear of black that was Sherlock.
John told himself that he wasn’t angry at being left behind simply because he had grown used to it. He ignored how warm his knee felt.
Sherlock turned to avoid a pack of schoolchildren and caught a glimpse of John out of the corner of his eye. Sherlock didn't want to lose track of him that day, especially not with another witness to question who was likely to seek comforting words that no, she was not going to die, don't worry. Sherlock would only offer facts and the results of said facts, even with John's pointed prompting to 'be nice.’
To get rid of the jingle of change in his pockets, Sherlock acquired two tickets for the tube and passed one off to John. "Feel better?" he inquired.
“Yes, but I’m dreading another twenty minutes of sitting.” John put his hands in his pockets along with his ticket so he could let his fingers fidget discreetly. His left hand was shaky from the chemicals rushing from his brain, and he really didn’t like it when Sherlock mentioned it. He took a small breath, remembering that he was a soldier, dammit, and that he needed to calm down or he wouldn’t be any good at all. Getting all hyped up wasn’t going to get them there any faster. “I’ll be much better off once we find out what’s going on. Any theories?” he asked, starting off toward the cars.
"Several," Sherlock said slowly, the last syllable of the word rolling off his tongue as he considered John. "Not quite developed." It was easy enough to draw conclusions from the two previous murders, but with the next so-called victim stepping forward and wanting to speak to them, Sherlock was certain the facts would accumulate differently. He still had the strings to analyze when they went back to the flat later on.
The time spent on the train and the taxi ride after went by mostly in silence, John’s apprehension rising and receding like a tide. Every time he would get antsy, he would reprimand himself, telling himself that he was overreacting and that he was far too seasoned for that kind of behavior.
Dusk had fallen by the time they reached the house and John couldn’t stop the fresh wave of dread at the sight of its dark windows; their client had said she wasn’t going to leave her house that day. John swallowed, feeling his muscles tense and he sent Sherlock a furtive glance, checking his expression.
Sherlock was watching John, openly this time, and quirked an eyebrow at him as they went up the walk. Wordlessly, he let his gaze shift back to the unlit house, taking in the messy draping of the curtains, a spill of gravel by the carpark where a set of car tires spun out. "Carefully, John," Sherlock warned. His voice was hushed and pitched lower as he diverted off the walkway path to circle around back. Windows at ground level, a screen slightly ajar - possible entry point? He pushed forward, seeking the back door.
John was thankful he was able to switch modes so quickly. He detached himself from the situation, clinically and efficiently moving along behind Sherlock. He glanced in each window, trying to see what had happened.
There was evidence of a struggle, rumpled carpets and broken lamps; Sherlock would be able to pick up more, but for now all John needed to know was that someone had gotten there before them and there was a chance that they were still there. Distantly, John was aware of the girl’s probable death, but it wasn’t his chief concern then. His hardened mind kept his eyes on Sherlock’s back and the creeping shadows of the trees. He approached the door, drawing his gun from his trousers and checking to make sure Sherlock was ready.
Sherlock knelt to feel along the potted plants by the door and sifted through the soil with a gloved hand. In the third pot he found the key to the door and Sherlock swiftly unlocked the house and crept inside.
The house was quiet and still, and the thin trickle of a chime sounded when they entered, from the silver bells hung from the back door. The kitchen was untouched by struggle, normal signs of occupancy littering the sink and counters. The outside window with the ajar screen had a stack of tipped books beneath it. A partial mark from a boot on a series of torn pages, meaning someone had stepped down and slipped. The screen couldn't close because the frame was bent - likely the murderer gripping it to prevent himself from falling.
Facts and explanations slotted into place as Sherlock moved through the debris and down the hallway towards the bedroom. Light slipped in from the open window - the murderer escaped and quickly - only to shine impassively over the crumpled woman on the floor. "John," Sherlock said reflexively.
John was immediately by Sherlock’s side, gun at the ready, putting all of his half-formed thoughts and observations to the side. He looked down, saw the girl, and felt his hard mindset slip for a moment before remembering he needed to check the rest of the house. He didn’t look back to the girl, kept his cool as he scoped out the room.
Nothing. He nodded to Sherlock, who he knew would understand the gesture, and quietly slipped back out. The disturbed living room seemed pretty obviously empty, since the furniture was easy to see around, and the kitchen they had walked through was empty as well, so John headed for the stairs.
Sherlock examined the body, noted bruising along her throat and forearms, the latter likely from the struggle. Blood pooled slightly on the carpet where one of her palms was laid flat - one finger was missing, a different one than the other two victims. The cut was clean and fresh, and Sherlock skipped over the detail in favour of picking up her mobile, which was also lying on the floor. Through the streak of blood on the screen, Sherlock scrolled through the call logs before setting the phone back down again. He rose and went to find John to see what his dear blogger had found (or missed).
John crept along the halls, peering into each room with caution before moving to the next. He would look more in-depth later. None of them held anything of interest or out of place - until the last room. Nothing was immediately eye-catching, but as he turned to leave a spark of colour stole his attention. On the bureau rested her hairbrush, around it was tied a red string. John went over to pick it up and as he took a closer look he recognised it as a string for an orchestral instrument. The others were violin strings, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions; he wasn’t versed enough in them to know. Why a string? Why was it placed there? How did it connect to the murder?
At the thought of the girl, John felt his disappointment, guilt and grief creep up on him. If they had gotten there sooner, they could have helped, and she could have helped them solve the case. If John had suggested the tube sooner, maybe -
John stopped that line of thought, knowing from experience that nothing came of it. Sometimes there are just things you can’t help, things you can’t fix. You can only move on. He reeled himself in and moved to rejoin Sherlock.
"What do you have?" Sherlock asked, if only to tear John's attention away from whatever he was pondering internally. He stood in the doorway and waited, his eyes darting around the room and then back to John. He had texted Scotland Yard on his way up the stairs, his very short message reading 3rd violinist dead.
Sherlock paused a moment, thoughts lingering on the message. He glanced up at John, waiting for an answer, and pulled his mobile out again to do a search of the violinist victims.
John had started a bit at Sherlock’s sudden appearance, and he scolded himself for the reaction; it wasn’t like it was a rare occurrence. “A lead, I think,” he said, holding out the brush. “Found another one of these. Know what it’s a string to?”
Red string in the hairbrush - it looked like the ones that they'd found on the previous two bodies. "Not quite," Sherlock said evenly, thinking of the strings back in the flat, waiting to be compared to the third. He offered the string back to John after wrapping it in his handkerchief. "We should find a taxi."
A few minutes later and John found himself once again in the back seat of a taxi. He sank into the leather, wishing for the unbridled energy he had earlier. Now that he could relax some, he let himself briefly feel sorry for the girl. She hadn’t been a personal acquaintance, but she’d been someone he could have helped. He’d had plenty of experience with that in the war. It was always painful - but short-lived, thankfully. With a shake of his head, he put the feeling aside; another regret to join the others. He turned to Sherlock with his head held up. “So, any theories?”
Sherlock had folded himself against the window of the taxi cab, moodily pondering into the collar of his jacket. He answered, in response to John's question, "Text Lestrade. Tell him we're looking for a male, size ten shoe. And to check the living room window." The pieces of the puzzle were falling together, but the symphony was running out of violinists.
The string, the woman's phone, and more importantly, the last number on the call log. "How long was she dead, do you think?" They'd talked to her that morning, so that narrowed the field.
John curled his finger around his chin as he thought. “Well, I didn’t stop to take too close of a look, but by first glance I’d say rigor mortis hadn’t set in too far, so six hours or less. You looked at her though, you’d probably be able to tell better than me,” he said, before his mind caught up to what Sherlock had said and the standard Holmsian Confusion set in. “Wait, how do you know what size shoe the killer wore? And what about the window?”
"Mud from underneath the window, broken screen, books torn and stepped on inside the house," Sherlock said easily, pondering John's estimated time of death. He ran through one of his many mental maps of London, eyes distant on the window ahead of them. "And yet you found the red string..." Sherlock half shrugged, slouching further into his collar. "An improvement, I suppose."
John chuckled at the half compliment. “Well, I do need to be useful for something,” he said as he pulled his mobile from his pocket. Lestrade, he expected, would want them down to the yard for statements later, but he hoped that he would at least be able to have a cuppa before dashing off.
They’d been out and about for most of the day and John felt he would very much like to have a mere moment of peace. It’d be a nice opportunity to make sure he separated himself enough from any lingering emotions to make clinical evaluations. Lestrade wasn’t always the best with technology, sometimes having to fiddle with his phone for some time before getting it to work, and John distantly hoped it would hold him up for at least an hour. John smiled to himself as their cab eased to a halt in front of their flat.
Sherlock braced himself against the backseat of the cab, slipping the driver a few notes to cover the ride. Normally he wouldn't, since he and John had something of a shared expense in Sherlock's mind, but this time... Well, this time was simply a time for him to do it. It had absolutely nothing to do with the quiet smile or John's distant expression.
Sherlock pushed out of the cab and up towards their flat. Strings. The strings ought to have been ready by now, and he had a third one to analyze.
John pushed the door to the flat open with anticipation, ridding himself of his jacket and shoes before flopping into his chair. Oh, his chair; it was just what he needed. Well, that and tea. “Oh,” he sighed, rubbing his hand over his face, “just an hour. Oh God, just an hour.” He kept that position for a few moments, not yet willing to move, before dragging himself out of the cushions lovely depths to the kitchen. “You want some tea?” he called behind him.
Sherlock was folding his scarf carefully over the coat rack, to be followed by his jacket. "Please," he said lightly, and followed after John. The apparatus on the kitchen table was simmering lightly and Sherlock stooped near by it to look at the beakers and fluids. "The string," he requested of John, and held out his hand for the new one, waiting.
John, who should have been to being ordered around, gave Sherlock his patented you’re joking look. Like every other time, however, he gave in. He fished in his pocket, pulling the string of red out and into the light. It was brilliant, either ruby or crimson, and John ran his fingers across it; he felt it vibrate slightly in his hold. He eventually handed it over and turned back to his whistling kettle.
Sherlock examined the string again, noting similarities with the other two; the frayed edges, the wire centres. It had a residue of some sort, not picked up by its time curled in the hairbrush. From the results with his small experiment and Sherlock's own experience, the strings had faint traces of rosin on them, too dark to be for a violinist, so that ruled out transfer from the victims, and too dark for it to be cello rosin, either. Sherlock smiled to himself, inexplicably pleased.
John turned with their cups in hand and set them both on the table. He left Sherlock’s black while he put milk and honey in his own. He saw Sherlock’s pleased expression and couldn’t help but smile himself; he’d caught the scent of the trail. John lifted his cup to his lips, quietly observing while Sherlock worked. He watched his hands the most, taking in the way they held things with just the right amount of pressure and how the tips of his fingers paled with it.
Feeling content at last, John had his long-desired rendezvous with his seat. He sank into it for what he hoped would be forever. He sipped slowly, thinking of the case with a much calmer mindset. “Any progress in there, Sherlock?”
"In three days," Sherlock promised, sipping lightly from his tea, "we will catch our killer."
“Oh? You going to tell me how this time or do I have to wait with Scotland Yard?” John’s phone chimed in his pocket and he groaned loudly. He didn’t need to check what it said, but he did anyway. Sure enough, Lestrade’s name was on the front LED. He sighed, taking another mouthful of his tea that he was now certain he wouldn’t get to finish, reading the brief text. “Lestrade wants us down there.”
"Dull," Sherlock concluded immediately. He stood, teacup going with him. "Let him puzzle it out. He needs the practice." He breezed into the living room and settled down on the couch, stretching out to fill it like if he didn't the ends would snap up and eat him.
John blinked at his tea, making sure he’d just heard right. “You - you’re just going to let Lestrade handle it?” He got up, setting his cup aside, to go stand next to Sherlock’s prone figure. “What about the new string? The girl? Your three days theory?” He had his hands on his hips and prepared himself to give another lecture on why Sherlock should bother to care more about whether or not lives were at risk in his games.
"If Lestrade goes in 'guns blazing'," Sherlock explained impatiently, his finger running the smooth path around the rim of his cup, "he'll scare our killer away. Better to wait the three days and watch the fourth violinist and any bassist that goes near her in the mean time."
“Bassist? You think a bassist would be the killer?” John decided to settle onto the coffee table, after all it handled Sherlock stomping on it all the time, it could handle a few moments of being sat on.
Sherlock flicked a disappointed look in John's direction and set his teacup on John's knee. He needed his hands to explain things. "Of course it's a bassist, John. Three victims, each killed and each missing a different finger. Each finger corresponds with a string on a violin. Each string is two notes apart, hence each victim is killed with two days between them."
Sherlock waved his hands, fingers rolling in example of how he would hold his violin that was on the other side of the room. ...Or perhaps under his bed. He couldn't remember. "The string, covered in rosin residue, but not the sort violinists use. Too dark. Bassists use a certain type of rosin, John. Then, of course, the phone log."
“From the girl’s phone?” John readjusted Sherlock’s cup on his knee, balancing it better. He had to resist the urge to drink from it out of habit. He could just go get his own, but he was comfortable now and Sherlock had already started and he didn’t want to interrupt. A small voice said he should take a sip just because it was Sherlock’s, but he pushed it aside and told himself he didn’t like the way Sherlock took his anyway.
Sherlock glanced at John's face and flapped his hand at the teacup. He was done drinking it anyway. "You estimated she had been dead six hours before we arrived and we'd been at the concert hall all morning. She received two calls from the hall - one late last night, telling her to arrive for full orchestra so we could speak with everyone. Another call was this morning, not forty minutes before her death, and why? She was the only member of the orchestra, other deceased violinists aside, to be absent in attendance. The killer didn't want her to talk to us because she knew in advance that she would be next, but the killer didn't want her to tell us how she knew, and didn't want to be suspiciously absent either."
Sherlock stopped for a breath, his fingers drumming on his stomach. "The killer called to tell her that she need not come to rehearsal. It had to be someone she knew well, because if it were someone unfamiliar or out of place, she would have been suspicious. You found the string in her hairbrush. The killer had been here before. There would be plenty of time between our chat with the sectionals and our observation of the orchestra to drive to her flat and back without our notice. Rosin, familiarity, clues in the strings. Bassist."
“But if the killer was familiar with her, why would he need to break in through the window? Did they, I don’t know, not want her to know who they were? It couldn’t have been for stealth, it would have made too much noise.” John took a swig and tried not to feel embarrassed about it. There was no reason to be, they were flatmates, friends and colleagues, and he’d shared water with fellow soldiers before. John tried to not look at the drop of tea that was left from where Sherlock’s lips had been; there were other things to worry about.
John's question drew Sherlock to a stop, just short of him tipping into a spiral of observations. He let his hands press together and rest light over his mouth as he thought. The window. An excellent point. The side of his mouth that John couldn't see curled in a pleased smile. Well done, John. "He parked out front, entered through the front door. After the struggle, the flat was a mess, and he slipped on the books by the window, reached out to break his fall and bent the frame. The window was open when he arrived," Sherlock concluded.
“Alright, makes sense. But why is he doing this? His victims are members of his own orchestra, possibly even friends. He plays a different instrument, so their deaths wouldn’t get him a better part. Maybe,” John paused, swilling the tea in his mug as if it held the answers, “they weren’t friends? A personal thing?” John went to take a drink, but stopped himself short. “And why wouldn’t ‘going in with guns blazing’ work? We know who he is and we could find where he is, why lure him out?”
"I know it's a bassist, John." Sherlock shifted on the couch, staring down at his socked feet on the arm rest. He sighed, tired with the idea of motivations once again, "It doesn't matter why. If we want to lure him out, we only need to watch the last violinist."
John stood, finished with Sherlock’s cup and a little disappointed in the conversation. “Huh, thought you of all people would want to know every motivation possible. But I guess you’re right about just watching.” John walked to the kitchen to rinse out the cup, leaving his own for now. With the tap running, he mumbled to himself, “I just don’t want to be too late again.”
Sherlock glared at his toes and crossed his arms over his chest as he turned into the couch. "Text Lestrade," he yelled over his shoulder. "Tell him." It would be worth the small annoyance of a pack of police officers if John would stop making that face at him. Sherlock disliked that expression.
John smiled into the sink. Sherlock was - he was being nice. He was being considerate of him. It wasn’t like Sherlock was a complete ass all the time, or that he never thought about John, it just was rare of him to act on it. John took his phone out and typed out as brief a summary as he could for Lestrade. He felt - what he called brotherly - affection make a quick circuit around his chest. He dimly registered that he had been feeling that way more and more often. Brotherly affection, camaraderie. Right. John nodded firmly to himself before returning to the living room.
-
Sherlock/John
no warnings
7,685 words
Thumb rolling over the touch pad of his Blackberry, Sherlock watched, bored, as it flickered on and off. Taxi rides that day were tedious. All he had to show for the morning spent crawling through the orchestra pit at the Barbican Centre were patches of dust on the knees of his trousers and a handful of disgruntled symphony members.
Two violinists had been murdered, that was simple enough, but it was the signature left by the murderer that intrigued Sherlock the most - an innocent curl of red string. For the first victim, it had been taut over the tuning knob of her violin's 'E' string, and for the second, tied in a neat little bow over the center of his violin bow. Ironic, the forensic investigator had said with misplaced amusement. Unimportant, Sherlock had replied.
Sherlock tugged the collar of his coat higher and leaned back against the seat of the taxi. He watched John from the corner of his eye and slipped his phone back into his pocket. They were stuck in traffic. Again.
John felt fidgety himself. He was trying to make sense of the bodies he’d recently examined.
They were... they made him just a little uneasy, which was impressive since he’d seen more than one person reduced to black and red splotches in the sand. He swallowed thickly and shifted in his seat.
He wanted to get to their destination. He wanted to reach the girl whose recording had sounded so desperate. She’d called the Yard in the morning, voice shaking slightly but with a strand of determination and confidence despite it all. John, in contrast to Sherlock, grew an instant fondness for her and was damning the slow-moving cab, not for the high fare or for the boring ride, but because he wanted her to greet him with that same strong voice.
When a total of three bicyclists that they had already seen passed them by, John’s leg began to bounce. “Fancy the tube?” he asked the window.
Sherlock's gaze refocused out the space between the seats in front of them and beyond the windshield. The next access to the underground was a little ways beyond the bridge. The cars had slowed to a mere crawl, but the walkway to the side for pedestrians was fairly uncluttered by swarms of people. The weather was brisk - more people were driving, more cars, more traffic. It would take them a few minutes to cover on foot what the taxi would cover in ten.
"Restless, John?" Sherlock checked his phone, quickly accessing a copy of the Underground schedule. The few minutes on foot, the time it would take for John to pay the driver and for them to collect tickets... they could make the next departure. Assuming, of course, the tube was on time.
“A little bit, yeah. Innocent lives at risk and all. You know, that rubbish.” John kept his eyes on the street, watching as the station inched closer and closer, set to the soundtrack tapping of Sherlock’s phone. His knee continued to bounce as he felt adrenaline and impatience wash over him in waves of antsy energy.
He thought of the mottled bodies of the two victims and felt his skin crawl anew. Stab wounds, that’s what they died from, but really it looked like someone had pushed them down a hole filled with razor wire. John started tapping his fingers at the thought of trying to identify the girl using only her dental records.
John's face had that distant look of sympathy that Sherlock found tiresome. It was a plain expression wasted on an otherwise usually exceptional man. He sat forward and moved past John, hand coming down firmly on the doctor's bouncing knee to use as leverage while Sherlock pushed open the taxi door. "Let's clear your head, then," he said, as if something so simple as air could manage such a thing. Sherlock took off between the cars, weaving his way towards the sidewalk. He trusted John would keep up.
“Oh, goddammit,” John mumbled in his usual put-upon manner. He quickly leaned forward to hand a couple notes to their driver. “Here, sorry mate.” Leaving the change for the inconvenience, John flung himself out of the open door to jog after the quickly-moving smear of black that was Sherlock.
John told himself that he wasn’t angry at being left behind simply because he had grown used to it. He ignored how warm his knee felt.
Sherlock turned to avoid a pack of schoolchildren and caught a glimpse of John out of the corner of his eye. Sherlock didn't want to lose track of him that day, especially not with another witness to question who was likely to seek comforting words that no, she was not going to die, don't worry. Sherlock would only offer facts and the results of said facts, even with John's pointed prompting to 'be nice.’
To get rid of the jingle of change in his pockets, Sherlock acquired two tickets for the tube and passed one off to John. "Feel better?" he inquired.
“Yes, but I’m dreading another twenty minutes of sitting.” John put his hands in his pockets along with his ticket so he could let his fingers fidget discreetly. His left hand was shaky from the chemicals rushing from his brain, and he really didn’t like it when Sherlock mentioned it. He took a small breath, remembering that he was a soldier, dammit, and that he needed to calm down or he wouldn’t be any good at all. Getting all hyped up wasn’t going to get them there any faster. “I’ll be much better off once we find out what’s going on. Any theories?” he asked, starting off toward the cars.
"Several," Sherlock said slowly, the last syllable of the word rolling off his tongue as he considered John. "Not quite developed." It was easy enough to draw conclusions from the two previous murders, but with the next so-called victim stepping forward and wanting to speak to them, Sherlock was certain the facts would accumulate differently. He still had the strings to analyze when they went back to the flat later on.
The time spent on the train and the taxi ride after went by mostly in silence, John’s apprehension rising and receding like a tide. Every time he would get antsy, he would reprimand himself, telling himself that he was overreacting and that he was far too seasoned for that kind of behavior.
Dusk had fallen by the time they reached the house and John couldn’t stop the fresh wave of dread at the sight of its dark windows; their client had said she wasn’t going to leave her house that day. John swallowed, feeling his muscles tense and he sent Sherlock a furtive glance, checking his expression.
Sherlock was watching John, openly this time, and quirked an eyebrow at him as they went up the walk. Wordlessly, he let his gaze shift back to the unlit house, taking in the messy draping of the curtains, a spill of gravel by the carpark where a set of car tires spun out. "Carefully, John," Sherlock warned. His voice was hushed and pitched lower as he diverted off the walkway path to circle around back. Windows at ground level, a screen slightly ajar - possible entry point? He pushed forward, seeking the back door.
John was thankful he was able to switch modes so quickly. He detached himself from the situation, clinically and efficiently moving along behind Sherlock. He glanced in each window, trying to see what had happened.
There was evidence of a struggle, rumpled carpets and broken lamps; Sherlock would be able to pick up more, but for now all John needed to know was that someone had gotten there before them and there was a chance that they were still there. Distantly, John was aware of the girl’s probable death, but it wasn’t his chief concern then. His hardened mind kept his eyes on Sherlock’s back and the creeping shadows of the trees. He approached the door, drawing his gun from his trousers and checking to make sure Sherlock was ready.
Sherlock knelt to feel along the potted plants by the door and sifted through the soil with a gloved hand. In the third pot he found the key to the door and Sherlock swiftly unlocked the house and crept inside.
The house was quiet and still, and the thin trickle of a chime sounded when they entered, from the silver bells hung from the back door. The kitchen was untouched by struggle, normal signs of occupancy littering the sink and counters. The outside window with the ajar screen had a stack of tipped books beneath it. A partial mark from a boot on a series of torn pages, meaning someone had stepped down and slipped. The screen couldn't close because the frame was bent - likely the murderer gripping it to prevent himself from falling.
Facts and explanations slotted into place as Sherlock moved through the debris and down the hallway towards the bedroom. Light slipped in from the open window - the murderer escaped and quickly - only to shine impassively over the crumpled woman on the floor. "John," Sherlock said reflexively.
John was immediately by Sherlock’s side, gun at the ready, putting all of his half-formed thoughts and observations to the side. He looked down, saw the girl, and felt his hard mindset slip for a moment before remembering he needed to check the rest of the house. He didn’t look back to the girl, kept his cool as he scoped out the room.
Nothing. He nodded to Sherlock, who he knew would understand the gesture, and quietly slipped back out. The disturbed living room seemed pretty obviously empty, since the furniture was easy to see around, and the kitchen they had walked through was empty as well, so John headed for the stairs.
Sherlock examined the body, noted bruising along her throat and forearms, the latter likely from the struggle. Blood pooled slightly on the carpet where one of her palms was laid flat - one finger was missing, a different one than the other two victims. The cut was clean and fresh, and Sherlock skipped over the detail in favour of picking up her mobile, which was also lying on the floor. Through the streak of blood on the screen, Sherlock scrolled through the call logs before setting the phone back down again. He rose and went to find John to see what his dear blogger had found (or missed).
John crept along the halls, peering into each room with caution before moving to the next. He would look more in-depth later. None of them held anything of interest or out of place - until the last room. Nothing was immediately eye-catching, but as he turned to leave a spark of colour stole his attention. On the bureau rested her hairbrush, around it was tied a red string. John went over to pick it up and as he took a closer look he recognised it as a string for an orchestral instrument. The others were violin strings, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions; he wasn’t versed enough in them to know. Why a string? Why was it placed there? How did it connect to the murder?
At the thought of the girl, John felt his disappointment, guilt and grief creep up on him. If they had gotten there sooner, they could have helped, and she could have helped them solve the case. If John had suggested the tube sooner, maybe -
John stopped that line of thought, knowing from experience that nothing came of it. Sometimes there are just things you can’t help, things you can’t fix. You can only move on. He reeled himself in and moved to rejoin Sherlock.
"What do you have?" Sherlock asked, if only to tear John's attention away from whatever he was pondering internally. He stood in the doorway and waited, his eyes darting around the room and then back to John. He had texted Scotland Yard on his way up the stairs, his very short message reading 3rd violinist dead.
Sherlock paused a moment, thoughts lingering on the message. He glanced up at John, waiting for an answer, and pulled his mobile out again to do a search of the violinist victims.
John had started a bit at Sherlock’s sudden appearance, and he scolded himself for the reaction; it wasn’t like it was a rare occurrence. “A lead, I think,” he said, holding out the brush. “Found another one of these. Know what it’s a string to?”
Red string in the hairbrush - it looked like the ones that they'd found on the previous two bodies. "Not quite," Sherlock said evenly, thinking of the strings back in the flat, waiting to be compared to the third. He offered the string back to John after wrapping it in his handkerchief. "We should find a taxi."
A few minutes later and John found himself once again in the back seat of a taxi. He sank into the leather, wishing for the unbridled energy he had earlier. Now that he could relax some, he let himself briefly feel sorry for the girl. She hadn’t been a personal acquaintance, but she’d been someone he could have helped. He’d had plenty of experience with that in the war. It was always painful - but short-lived, thankfully. With a shake of his head, he put the feeling aside; another regret to join the others. He turned to Sherlock with his head held up. “So, any theories?”
Sherlock had folded himself against the window of the taxi cab, moodily pondering into the collar of his jacket. He answered, in response to John's question, "Text Lestrade. Tell him we're looking for a male, size ten shoe. And to check the living room window." The pieces of the puzzle were falling together, but the symphony was running out of violinists.
The string, the woman's phone, and more importantly, the last number on the call log. "How long was she dead, do you think?" They'd talked to her that morning, so that narrowed the field.
John curled his finger around his chin as he thought. “Well, I didn’t stop to take too close of a look, but by first glance I’d say rigor mortis hadn’t set in too far, so six hours or less. You looked at her though, you’d probably be able to tell better than me,” he said, before his mind caught up to what Sherlock had said and the standard Holmsian Confusion set in. “Wait, how do you know what size shoe the killer wore? And what about the window?”
"Mud from underneath the window, broken screen, books torn and stepped on inside the house," Sherlock said easily, pondering John's estimated time of death. He ran through one of his many mental maps of London, eyes distant on the window ahead of them. "And yet you found the red string..." Sherlock half shrugged, slouching further into his collar. "An improvement, I suppose."
John chuckled at the half compliment. “Well, I do need to be useful for something,” he said as he pulled his mobile from his pocket. Lestrade, he expected, would want them down to the yard for statements later, but he hoped that he would at least be able to have a cuppa before dashing off.
They’d been out and about for most of the day and John felt he would very much like to have a mere moment of peace. It’d be a nice opportunity to make sure he separated himself enough from any lingering emotions to make clinical evaluations. Lestrade wasn’t always the best with technology, sometimes having to fiddle with his phone for some time before getting it to work, and John distantly hoped it would hold him up for at least an hour. John smiled to himself as their cab eased to a halt in front of their flat.
Sherlock braced himself against the backseat of the cab, slipping the driver a few notes to cover the ride. Normally he wouldn't, since he and John had something of a shared expense in Sherlock's mind, but this time... Well, this time was simply a time for him to do it. It had absolutely nothing to do with the quiet smile or John's distant expression.
Sherlock pushed out of the cab and up towards their flat. Strings. The strings ought to have been ready by now, and he had a third one to analyze.
John pushed the door to the flat open with anticipation, ridding himself of his jacket and shoes before flopping into his chair. Oh, his chair; it was just what he needed. Well, that and tea. “Oh,” he sighed, rubbing his hand over his face, “just an hour. Oh God, just an hour.” He kept that position for a few moments, not yet willing to move, before dragging himself out of the cushions lovely depths to the kitchen. “You want some tea?” he called behind him.
Sherlock was folding his scarf carefully over the coat rack, to be followed by his jacket. "Please," he said lightly, and followed after John. The apparatus on the kitchen table was simmering lightly and Sherlock stooped near by it to look at the beakers and fluids. "The string," he requested of John, and held out his hand for the new one, waiting.
John, who should have been to being ordered around, gave Sherlock his patented you’re joking look. Like every other time, however, he gave in. He fished in his pocket, pulling the string of red out and into the light. It was brilliant, either ruby or crimson, and John ran his fingers across it; he felt it vibrate slightly in his hold. He eventually handed it over and turned back to his whistling kettle.
Sherlock examined the string again, noting similarities with the other two; the frayed edges, the wire centres. It had a residue of some sort, not picked up by its time curled in the hairbrush. From the results with his small experiment and Sherlock's own experience, the strings had faint traces of rosin on them, too dark to be for a violinist, so that ruled out transfer from the victims, and too dark for it to be cello rosin, either. Sherlock smiled to himself, inexplicably pleased.
John turned with their cups in hand and set them both on the table. He left Sherlock’s black while he put milk and honey in his own. He saw Sherlock’s pleased expression and couldn’t help but smile himself; he’d caught the scent of the trail. John lifted his cup to his lips, quietly observing while Sherlock worked. He watched his hands the most, taking in the way they held things with just the right amount of pressure and how the tips of his fingers paled with it.
Feeling content at last, John had his long-desired rendezvous with his seat. He sank into it for what he hoped would be forever. He sipped slowly, thinking of the case with a much calmer mindset. “Any progress in there, Sherlock?”
"In three days," Sherlock promised, sipping lightly from his tea, "we will catch our killer."
“Oh? You going to tell me how this time or do I have to wait with Scotland Yard?” John’s phone chimed in his pocket and he groaned loudly. He didn’t need to check what it said, but he did anyway. Sure enough, Lestrade’s name was on the front LED. He sighed, taking another mouthful of his tea that he was now certain he wouldn’t get to finish, reading the brief text. “Lestrade wants us down there.”
"Dull," Sherlock concluded immediately. He stood, teacup going with him. "Let him puzzle it out. He needs the practice." He breezed into the living room and settled down on the couch, stretching out to fill it like if he didn't the ends would snap up and eat him.
John blinked at his tea, making sure he’d just heard right. “You - you’re just going to let Lestrade handle it?” He got up, setting his cup aside, to go stand next to Sherlock’s prone figure. “What about the new string? The girl? Your three days theory?” He had his hands on his hips and prepared himself to give another lecture on why Sherlock should bother to care more about whether or not lives were at risk in his games.
"If Lestrade goes in 'guns blazing'," Sherlock explained impatiently, his finger running the smooth path around the rim of his cup, "he'll scare our killer away. Better to wait the three days and watch the fourth violinist and any bassist that goes near her in the mean time."
“Bassist? You think a bassist would be the killer?” John decided to settle onto the coffee table, after all it handled Sherlock stomping on it all the time, it could handle a few moments of being sat on.
Sherlock flicked a disappointed look in John's direction and set his teacup on John's knee. He needed his hands to explain things. "Of course it's a bassist, John. Three victims, each killed and each missing a different finger. Each finger corresponds with a string on a violin. Each string is two notes apart, hence each victim is killed with two days between them."
Sherlock waved his hands, fingers rolling in example of how he would hold his violin that was on the other side of the room. ...Or perhaps under his bed. He couldn't remember. "The string, covered in rosin residue, but not the sort violinists use. Too dark. Bassists use a certain type of rosin, John. Then, of course, the phone log."
“From the girl’s phone?” John readjusted Sherlock’s cup on his knee, balancing it better. He had to resist the urge to drink from it out of habit. He could just go get his own, but he was comfortable now and Sherlock had already started and he didn’t want to interrupt. A small voice said he should take a sip just because it was Sherlock’s, but he pushed it aside and told himself he didn’t like the way Sherlock took his anyway.
Sherlock glanced at John's face and flapped his hand at the teacup. He was done drinking it anyway. "You estimated she had been dead six hours before we arrived and we'd been at the concert hall all morning. She received two calls from the hall - one late last night, telling her to arrive for full orchestra so we could speak with everyone. Another call was this morning, not forty minutes before her death, and why? She was the only member of the orchestra, other deceased violinists aside, to be absent in attendance. The killer didn't want her to talk to us because she knew in advance that she would be next, but the killer didn't want her to tell us how she knew, and didn't want to be suspiciously absent either."
Sherlock stopped for a breath, his fingers drumming on his stomach. "The killer called to tell her that she need not come to rehearsal. It had to be someone she knew well, because if it were someone unfamiliar or out of place, she would have been suspicious. You found the string in her hairbrush. The killer had been here before. There would be plenty of time between our chat with the sectionals and our observation of the orchestra to drive to her flat and back without our notice. Rosin, familiarity, clues in the strings. Bassist."
“But if the killer was familiar with her, why would he need to break in through the window? Did they, I don’t know, not want her to know who they were? It couldn’t have been for stealth, it would have made too much noise.” John took a swig and tried not to feel embarrassed about it. There was no reason to be, they were flatmates, friends and colleagues, and he’d shared water with fellow soldiers before. John tried to not look at the drop of tea that was left from where Sherlock’s lips had been; there were other things to worry about.
John's question drew Sherlock to a stop, just short of him tipping into a spiral of observations. He let his hands press together and rest light over his mouth as he thought. The window. An excellent point. The side of his mouth that John couldn't see curled in a pleased smile. Well done, John. "He parked out front, entered through the front door. After the struggle, the flat was a mess, and he slipped on the books by the window, reached out to break his fall and bent the frame. The window was open when he arrived," Sherlock concluded.
“Alright, makes sense. But why is he doing this? His victims are members of his own orchestra, possibly even friends. He plays a different instrument, so their deaths wouldn’t get him a better part. Maybe,” John paused, swilling the tea in his mug as if it held the answers, “they weren’t friends? A personal thing?” John went to take a drink, but stopped himself short. “And why wouldn’t ‘going in with guns blazing’ work? We know who he is and we could find where he is, why lure him out?”
"I know it's a bassist, John." Sherlock shifted on the couch, staring down at his socked feet on the arm rest. He sighed, tired with the idea of motivations once again, "It doesn't matter why. If we want to lure him out, we only need to watch the last violinist."
John stood, finished with Sherlock’s cup and a little disappointed in the conversation. “Huh, thought you of all people would want to know every motivation possible. But I guess you’re right about just watching.” John walked to the kitchen to rinse out the cup, leaving his own for now. With the tap running, he mumbled to himself, “I just don’t want to be too late again.”
Sherlock glared at his toes and crossed his arms over his chest as he turned into the couch. "Text Lestrade," he yelled over his shoulder. "Tell him." It would be worth the small annoyance of a pack of police officers if John would stop making that face at him. Sherlock disliked that expression.
John smiled into the sink. Sherlock was - he was being nice. He was being considerate of him. It wasn’t like Sherlock was a complete ass all the time, or that he never thought about John, it just was rare of him to act on it. John took his phone out and typed out as brief a summary as he could for Lestrade. He felt - what he called brotherly - affection make a quick circuit around his chest. He dimly registered that he had been feeling that way more and more often. Brotherly affection, camaraderie. Right. John nodded firmly to himself before returning to the living room.
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