S3E4 - Four Elizabeths - Part Four: The Duplicate
Episode number: s03e04 of Series 3: Unfinished Business
Title: Four Elizabeths
Subtitle: The Duplicate
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word count: 2,962
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, abduction, drugging, arson, murder, torture
The Wilder Family Shoppe, London. Anthony Wilder presented a calm and confident demeanor. It wasn't his nature to sit still, but he taught himself composure, as it was a vital asset in his line of work. Convincing someone to purchase a desk lamp for five thousand quid required two things: an incredible knowledge of antiques and a specific kind of poise that radiated confidence. It took work, and some days were harder than others.
Today had been one of those days. He went through his nightly routine, checking the tills and balancing the book. At half past eight, he put on his coat and ducked out the back door, double-checking that it locked behind him.
Before he could turn toward his car, something wrapped around his neck. He yelled, but a rag covered his mouth and nose, muffling him. Panic and fear gave him strength to fight, but the struggle was short-lived. After only a few furious seconds, Anthony blacked out.
Molly Hooper was not a detective. After one day of slogging through countless files of random events supposedly related to The Engineer, she wanted to quit. Her expertise started and ended with the human body, complete or partial, alive or dead, and all the bodies here were documented in photos.
Sherlock occasionally collaged a crime, likely because he thought it was important. One incident in 2010 involved the funds from offshore accounts vanishing, attributed to a hacker called Hacksaw. The money reappeared over the next year, distributed to charitable funds as well as families affected by the dumping of toxic materials by Granite Flight Engineering Corporation, which had skated on legal and civil penalties due to a loophole. In 2008, Colonel Lysander Stark's body was discovered after his disappearance six months before. The autopsy revealed that he died of starvation and suffered continuous torture for the duration of his captivity.
Molly didn't like the contrast. On one hand, The Engineer redistributed illegal funds from a corrupt corporation to those it had harmed; on the other, she had abducted a man and mercilessly tortured him for half a year.
The other events were less extreme. The Engineer's preferred trick was reporting a body with a GPS-enabled mobile. The responding officers would find drugs, weapons, murder victims, and even the occasional missing person, though they never found the caller. In other situations, she mailed incriminating video or audio files to reporters or police. Rarely, a formal witness mentioned "some kid" coming to the rescue, the assumption being that only a teenager or a child would carry a slingshot, which The Engineer favored as a weapon.
Molly shifted to make herself more comfortable and knocked over a small stack of files that John had assembled.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled as she restored them.
"Actually, I'm glad, I need a break. Sherlock put me onto looking up patterns in her identities."
"I imagine. She must have a lot of them."
John nodded and said, "I was looking at her stolen identities, you know like Elena Wilhelm-Glass and Indigo Kendall Berwyn, thinking maybe she had a thing for using three names."
"Don't be idiotic," Sherlock snapped, interrupting. "Stolen identities would not present with a linguistic pattern but an opportunistic one, and had she left any indications for such a thing, my dear brother surely would have found her by now. No, three names would be a foolish choice. Not out of the ordinary entirely but enough so that even you would pick up on it quickly."
"So these stolen names or identities or whatever would be connected by the victims themselves?" John asked.
Sherlock said, "In the dozens of names used, she has yet to make that mistake, which in and of itself is a pattern. Assuming someone else's identity, especially someone still living, is dangerous, yet she does it often. That means, to her at least, the benefits of a living identity outweigh the risk."
"You mean like Indigo Berwyn?" Molly suggested. "She was able to work at the Yard without anyone being the wiser."
"Poor example," Sherlock replied. "An outlier in her general activity. She needn't bother with an identity like Elena Wilhelm-Glass, which she used to assume a position with limited background examination. No, the benefit here is not the validity but the data. A name is one thing, all the things that go with the name are another. Hometown. Mother's maiden name. Parent's jobs. Medical history. Education. Teachers. Childhood friends. Pets. Not to mention all the ridiculous 'Where did you learn that?' or 'How did you know that?' questions."
"Couldn't she just make that up?" Molly asked.
"She would have to remember exactly what she said to everyone she spoke to. Not impossible but tedious and easy to make a mistake. But with an existing identity, all that data is already available. A clever mask. Since there's no need to make choices, she conceals herself completely."
"So I've just been wasting my time?" John asked.
"No, identifying a pattern in her false names would be useful," Sherlock replied.
"You just said there weren't any patterns!" John objected.
"Sometimes I wonder if you haven't rather lost your hearing. I said there isn't any pattern in the identities she's stolen, but her false names, the aliases that she creates, those would be a different story."
Sherlock suddenly rushed away, as if an idea summoned him.
"At least he used full sentences," Molly said to John.
"I really wish people like Moran and Moriarty and The Engineer would just go on permanent holiday," John said. "Chasing after regular criminals is one thing. This is just... ridiculous."
"If this really is just one person, she must have support somewhere. If nothing else, she must have some way to get medical aid, emergencies and basic care."
"That's kind of brilliant," John said. "Well done, Molly."
She wasn't listening. She had uncovered the paperwork she'd written for project Dollhouse, and it drew in all her attention.
"Molly?" John asked. "You okay?"
"Yeah, errr, Mycroft gave you a mobile, yeah?"
"A burner," John said as he pulled it from his pocket.
"I'll probably need it for a while."
London. The headlines embellished the escape of Sebastian Moran and four other prisoners, and the Yard received hundreds of calls that reported sightings of the escapees here, there, everywhere. Lestrade didn't think his day could get much worse.
Suddenly, Donovan was in front of his desk.
"Don't you knock?" he blurted.
"Door was open."
"Right, sorry. You have something?"
"According to the coroner's report, both Wendells showed signs of being on ice. Time of death was about twelve hours before they were frozen," Donovan replied.
Lestrade sat back in his seat. "So they could've been killed days before we found them?"
"Apparently. No way to be certain how long they were frozen. I'll admit, I wasn't sold on this being Moran, but keeping the bodies until you can dump them in plain sight? That's a clear message."
"You thought someone else put a hit out on the Wendells?"
"The Wendells had plenty of enemies," Donovan replied. "Not to mention Moran was a Category A inmate with no blood relatives, so - "
Lestrade interrupted, "What about his wife?"
"Wife? No, I went looking when he was in surgery. No marriage license came up, and he never mentioned anything for an emergency contact. He had some lawyer handling everything."
"Dr. Henri Schlessinger," Lestrade read off the screen. "Married to Moran for thirty years in Germany. Never bothered with a license here in England. Looks like she visited him once, two days before the breakout."
"So we still don't have - "
The phone rang.
"Lestrade," he answered. He listened for several minutes before replying, "Right. I'm on my way."
"You've got a lead?"
Lestrade hesitated as he said, "Not on Moran or The Baker."
"So what is it then?"
"Two days ago, a man was abducted from his place of business and held captive. He was found this afternoon."
Donovan asked, "You wanna drop everything to look into a kidnapping? Since when?"
"Since the victim has done nothing but ask for John Watson."
Saint Bart's Hospital. As per the request of the nurses, Lestrade approached Anthony Wilder with caution.
"Mr. Wilder? I'm DI Lestrade."
"No, no, no!" Anthony yelled. "What is wrong with you lot? I need to see John Watson!"
"He is currently in protective custody, so if you don't mind talking to me - "
"I do mind! I need to speak with him! He's in danger!"
"I'm well aware," Lestrade replied. "It's my job to keep him safe."
"Right, well, I've tossed that. See, he came into my shop about a bust someone bought."
"A bust? Did he say why?"
"No, but the people who took me, they were interested in the same bust. They were keen on who else had come asking about it, too. I tried not to say anything, but I was too scared."
Lestrade said, "I understand. Just take your time."
"Right, errr, they told me they had a bust similar to the one I sold and wanted to know where mine came from. I told them it was from Vincent Harold Stanley's estate, but I left out the bit about his two heirs, the Leavitt siblings, wanting to liquidate everything they inherited. And the whole time, they kept referring to my bust as a duplicate, which is wrong, completely wrong. I tried to talk around it, you know? But I wound up telling them about John Watson and his entire visit. They recognized his name. They didn't say as much, but I could tell. And they weren't happy about him being involved."
Lestrade asked, "Did you get a good look at anyone? Maybe a number on how many were involved? Anything you can remember can help."
"Could've been two blokes, but they were putting on voices so I can't be sure. I didn't get a good look because they had masks on, but if I had a guess of it, I'd say they were siblings. Just the way they spoke to each other. Oh, and, they knew antiques, more than able to talk about the inventory at my shop. They also did this thing where they called each other the same name. Thought it was a confusion tactic or something."
"What name was it?" Lestrade asked.
"Aaron," Anthony replied.
"You've been very helpful," Lestrade said. "Don't worry about John Watson, he's safe, and if he were here, he'd be a doctor and tell you to rest up and get well. All right?"
Anthony smiled weakly and said, "Thank you."
As Lestrade walked through the hospital and out to his car, he remembered something about a case Sherlock closed not long before he died. He called Donovoan.
"Lestrade, you all right?" she answered.
"I need you to look into something for me. I just spoke with the man who was kidnapped, and his abductors wanted to know about some bust, which John had - "
"A bust?" Donovan interrupted. "Listen, I know he's your friend and you're worried, but I don't think John's in any danger over a bust. A hundred other things maybe, but not a bust."
"Ten quid says you're wrong."
"I'll take those odds."
"Good, I need you to check the status for a prisoner, Erin Burnsider."
"Aaron Burnsider escaped," Donovan replied.
"Yeah, I'm talking about the other one, Erin with an E, his sister," Lestrade said. "Twins that trafficked in illegal and stolen goods."
"You think that both Burnsiders escaped custody?"
"That's what I need you to call about."
"All this over a bust?" Donovan asked.
"It's one thing for Aaron to use Moran's escape to make a break for it, but if the sister's loose, too, then it's likely they're working with Moran, which makes this more than a bust," Lestrade replied. "Oh, and the Burnsiders were both put away by - "
"Sherlock and John," Donovan interrupted. "Right, I'll text you as soon as I've got something."
Sherlock Holmes was prone to obsession; at least, that was what normal people called it. To him, the concentration, the absolute focus that people dubbed 'obsession,' was merely the work of a superior mind identifying patterns and ideas that would otherwise be missed.
After nearly two days in the facility, he had established a timeline and discarded cases that were obviously misfiled. He identified several key events and turning points in the career of The Engineer. His progress was obvious, yet part of him knew that he had the answers he wanted already.
Sherlock retained slivers of a conversation that he had with the woman before she stuffed him inside a wall. He remembered her little story about the fireflies and bats or whatever childhood nonsense she had said at the end, but before that, he could only recall a few words. The entire situation was maddening.
It was hour forty-one when something else finally bubbled up.
"You're not a spy or investigator. Someone with your skills could be anyone. Yet, you have chosen to be no one," he had said.
She replied, "You think I chose to be nobody? To have no name, no record, no trace?"
Sherlock closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears, willing himself to recall more, but her voice became a whisper as his mind exploded with data, like his memory palace was leaking.
"Sherlock?"
He opened his eyes to see Molly Hooper very close to him, a stack of files clutched to her chest. For some reason, his heart rate increased.
"I've been telling you all day, leave me alone!"
"Sherlock, I just got here."
"What? No, you've been here with me all day, blithering on and interrupting me."
"That was John."
"She's right. That was me," John said.
"Never mind. You need to see these," she said.
Sherlock nearly roared when Molly covered up some of his timeline with old crime scene photos, but when he saw it, the first picture completely transfixed him. He recognized it.
But that was impossible.
"Give me those, you're doing them in the wrong order!" Sherlock barked as he snatched them from her hands.
"This was how they were in the file," Molly said.
In a matter of minutes, Sherlock assembled Molly's newly acquired photos along the board in the order he experience them: child's bedroom, upstairs hallway, kitchen, living room, dining room, even the bodies.
"This is exactly how I remember it," Sherlock said.
John asked, "What did I miss?"
"Where did these come from?" Sherlock demanded adamantly. "These are forensic photographs. Old. The ware says they were developed at least fifteen years ago."
"Twenty-eight years ago, at least according to the file, dated nineteen eighty-four," Molly replied.
"File? What file?"
"Project Pileus, Mycroft only got it to me an hour ago," she replied as she handed it off.
Sherlock riffled through the pages like a young child at Christmas.
"Sorry, what's going on?" John asked Molly.
She replied, "Project Dollhouse. It got me thinking, what if The Engineer replicated a crime that had been broken up and classified like Dollhouse had been?"
"So you asked Mycroft for every super-secret project?"
They continued to talk, but their voices became like tiny bugs flying around his head as his mind zeroed in on the task at hand.
His eyes lingered over the photos, which showed the house in its entirety. That meant that the fire was set as part of the classification, to keep the investigation secret, not to hide the crime. The five victims were nearly identical in terms of location and staging, including the scorched body. Clearly it wasn't a forensic countermeasure, or at least not an effective one.
John put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder, drawing his attention. He asked, "What do you reckon?"
"That's it," Sherlock whispered.
John replied, "No, I just said it wasn't. I spent all day on this, and there's no pattern to her false names."
"Which is strange, isn't it?" Molly asked. "People usually use tricks for fake names. Like I might say my name was Molly Mason or Molly Workman, you know, something similar to my last name. Definitely keep my first name."
"Shut up, shut up!" Sherlock said, trying to quell the cacophony of distraction. "She couldn't do what you're describing."
John asked sarcastically, "Why's that? You saying she hasn't got her own name or doesn't know it?"
"That's exactly it."
Several minutes of confused silence followed, allowing Sherlock's mind to lock into place.
The burned body. It had eluded him, confused him, but now it finally made sense. It was a forensic countermeasure but not from the murderer. After the house fire, the previously burned corpse would be mostly ash and bone fragments, an adequate cover for the only surviving member of a slaughtered family.
As the idea dawned on him, his memory came back, cascading around him like a dam had burst in his head.
"You're not a spy or investigator. Someone with your skills could be anyone. Yet, you have chosen to be no one."
The Engineer had replied, "You think I chose to be nobody, to have no name, no record, no trace? Some people do that, I guess. They sacrifice their names to nations, their lives to causes, their legacy to dreams. They give things up to go undercover or to live off the grid. But some of us? Some of us have those things taken from us. Ripped from our hands, salted, and burned. The case is closed with no doubt in anybody's mind that the facts within are the insoluble truth. One of those truths is that I am dead and have been since I was three years old. I didn't choose to be a ghost; someone murdered me."
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Part Five: Wounds
Primary Post: Four Elizabeths - Series 3, Episode 4
Primary Post: Unfinished Business, or Series 3 (s03ff)
Title: Four Elizabeths
Subtitle: The Duplicate
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word count: 2,962
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, abduction, drugging, arson, murder, torture
The Wilder Family Shoppe, London. Anthony Wilder presented a calm and confident demeanor. It wasn't his nature to sit still, but he taught himself composure, as it was a vital asset in his line of work. Convincing someone to purchase a desk lamp for five thousand quid required two things: an incredible knowledge of antiques and a specific kind of poise that radiated confidence. It took work, and some days were harder than others.
Today had been one of those days. He went through his nightly routine, checking the tills and balancing the book. At half past eight, he put on his coat and ducked out the back door, double-checking that it locked behind him.
Before he could turn toward his car, something wrapped around his neck. He yelled, but a rag covered his mouth and nose, muffling him. Panic and fear gave him strength to fight, but the struggle was short-lived. After only a few furious seconds, Anthony blacked out.
Molly Hooper was not a detective. After one day of slogging through countless files of random events supposedly related to The Engineer, she wanted to quit. Her expertise started and ended with the human body, complete or partial, alive or dead, and all the bodies here were documented in photos.
Sherlock occasionally collaged a crime, likely because he thought it was important. One incident in 2010 involved the funds from offshore accounts vanishing, attributed to a hacker called Hacksaw. The money reappeared over the next year, distributed to charitable funds as well as families affected by the dumping of toxic materials by Granite Flight Engineering Corporation, which had skated on legal and civil penalties due to a loophole. In 2008, Colonel Lysander Stark's body was discovered after his disappearance six months before. The autopsy revealed that he died of starvation and suffered continuous torture for the duration of his captivity.
Molly didn't like the contrast. On one hand, The Engineer redistributed illegal funds from a corrupt corporation to those it had harmed; on the other, she had abducted a man and mercilessly tortured him for half a year.
The other events were less extreme. The Engineer's preferred trick was reporting a body with a GPS-enabled mobile. The responding officers would find drugs, weapons, murder victims, and even the occasional missing person, though they never found the caller. In other situations, she mailed incriminating video or audio files to reporters or police. Rarely, a formal witness mentioned "some kid" coming to the rescue, the assumption being that only a teenager or a child would carry a slingshot, which The Engineer favored as a weapon.
Molly shifted to make herself more comfortable and knocked over a small stack of files that John had assembled.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled as she restored them.
"Actually, I'm glad, I need a break. Sherlock put me onto looking up patterns in her identities."
"I imagine. She must have a lot of them."
John nodded and said, "I was looking at her stolen identities, you know like Elena Wilhelm-Glass and Indigo Kendall Berwyn, thinking maybe she had a thing for using three names."
"Don't be idiotic," Sherlock snapped, interrupting. "Stolen identities would not present with a linguistic pattern but an opportunistic one, and had she left any indications for such a thing, my dear brother surely would have found her by now. No, three names would be a foolish choice. Not out of the ordinary entirely but enough so that even you would pick up on it quickly."
"So these stolen names or identities or whatever would be connected by the victims themselves?" John asked.
Sherlock said, "In the dozens of names used, she has yet to make that mistake, which in and of itself is a pattern. Assuming someone else's identity, especially someone still living, is dangerous, yet she does it often. That means, to her at least, the benefits of a living identity outweigh the risk."
"You mean like Indigo Berwyn?" Molly suggested. "She was able to work at the Yard without anyone being the wiser."
"Poor example," Sherlock replied. "An outlier in her general activity. She needn't bother with an identity like Elena Wilhelm-Glass, which she used to assume a position with limited background examination. No, the benefit here is not the validity but the data. A name is one thing, all the things that go with the name are another. Hometown. Mother's maiden name. Parent's jobs. Medical history. Education. Teachers. Childhood friends. Pets. Not to mention all the ridiculous 'Where did you learn that?' or 'How did you know that?' questions."
"Couldn't she just make that up?" Molly asked.
"She would have to remember exactly what she said to everyone she spoke to. Not impossible but tedious and easy to make a mistake. But with an existing identity, all that data is already available. A clever mask. Since there's no need to make choices, she conceals herself completely."
"So I've just been wasting my time?" John asked.
"No, identifying a pattern in her false names would be useful," Sherlock replied.
"You just said there weren't any patterns!" John objected.
"Sometimes I wonder if you haven't rather lost your hearing. I said there isn't any pattern in the identities she's stolen, but her false names, the aliases that she creates, those would be a different story."
Sherlock suddenly rushed away, as if an idea summoned him.
"At least he used full sentences," Molly said to John.
"I really wish people like Moran and Moriarty and The Engineer would just go on permanent holiday," John said. "Chasing after regular criminals is one thing. This is just... ridiculous."
"If this really is just one person, she must have support somewhere. If nothing else, she must have some way to get medical aid, emergencies and basic care."
"That's kind of brilliant," John said. "Well done, Molly."
She wasn't listening. She had uncovered the paperwork she'd written for project Dollhouse, and it drew in all her attention.
"Molly?" John asked. "You okay?"
"Yeah, errr, Mycroft gave you a mobile, yeah?"
"A burner," John said as he pulled it from his pocket.
"I'll probably need it for a while."
London. The headlines embellished the escape of Sebastian Moran and four other prisoners, and the Yard received hundreds of calls that reported sightings of the escapees here, there, everywhere. Lestrade didn't think his day could get much worse.
Suddenly, Donovan was in front of his desk.
"Don't you knock?" he blurted.
"Door was open."
"Right, sorry. You have something?"
"According to the coroner's report, both Wendells showed signs of being on ice. Time of death was about twelve hours before they were frozen," Donovan replied.
Lestrade sat back in his seat. "So they could've been killed days before we found them?"
"Apparently. No way to be certain how long they were frozen. I'll admit, I wasn't sold on this being Moran, but keeping the bodies until you can dump them in plain sight? That's a clear message."
"You thought someone else put a hit out on the Wendells?"
"The Wendells had plenty of enemies," Donovan replied. "Not to mention Moran was a Category A inmate with no blood relatives, so - "
Lestrade interrupted, "What about his wife?"
"Wife? No, I went looking when he was in surgery. No marriage license came up, and he never mentioned anything for an emergency contact. He had some lawyer handling everything."
"Dr. Henri Schlessinger," Lestrade read off the screen. "Married to Moran for thirty years in Germany. Never bothered with a license here in England. Looks like she visited him once, two days before the breakout."
"So we still don't have - "
The phone rang.
"Lestrade," he answered. He listened for several minutes before replying, "Right. I'm on my way."
"You've got a lead?"
Lestrade hesitated as he said, "Not on Moran or The Baker."
"So what is it then?"
"Two days ago, a man was abducted from his place of business and held captive. He was found this afternoon."
Donovan asked, "You wanna drop everything to look into a kidnapping? Since when?"
"Since the victim has done nothing but ask for John Watson."
Saint Bart's Hospital. As per the request of the nurses, Lestrade approached Anthony Wilder with caution.
"Mr. Wilder? I'm DI Lestrade."
"No, no, no!" Anthony yelled. "What is wrong with you lot? I need to see John Watson!"
"He is currently in protective custody, so if you don't mind talking to me - "
"I do mind! I need to speak with him! He's in danger!"
"I'm well aware," Lestrade replied. "It's my job to keep him safe."
"Right, well, I've tossed that. See, he came into my shop about a bust someone bought."
"A bust? Did he say why?"
"No, but the people who took me, they were interested in the same bust. They were keen on who else had come asking about it, too. I tried not to say anything, but I was too scared."
Lestrade said, "I understand. Just take your time."
"Right, errr, they told me they had a bust similar to the one I sold and wanted to know where mine came from. I told them it was from Vincent Harold Stanley's estate, but I left out the bit about his two heirs, the Leavitt siblings, wanting to liquidate everything they inherited. And the whole time, they kept referring to my bust as a duplicate, which is wrong, completely wrong. I tried to talk around it, you know? But I wound up telling them about John Watson and his entire visit. They recognized his name. They didn't say as much, but I could tell. And they weren't happy about him being involved."
Lestrade asked, "Did you get a good look at anyone? Maybe a number on how many were involved? Anything you can remember can help."
"Could've been two blokes, but they were putting on voices so I can't be sure. I didn't get a good look because they had masks on, but if I had a guess of it, I'd say they were siblings. Just the way they spoke to each other. Oh, and, they knew antiques, more than able to talk about the inventory at my shop. They also did this thing where they called each other the same name. Thought it was a confusion tactic or something."
"What name was it?" Lestrade asked.
"Aaron," Anthony replied.
"You've been very helpful," Lestrade said. "Don't worry about John Watson, he's safe, and if he were here, he'd be a doctor and tell you to rest up and get well. All right?"
Anthony smiled weakly and said, "Thank you."
As Lestrade walked through the hospital and out to his car, he remembered something about a case Sherlock closed not long before he died. He called Donovoan.
"Lestrade, you all right?" she answered.
"I need you to look into something for me. I just spoke with the man who was kidnapped, and his abductors wanted to know about some bust, which John had - "
"A bust?" Donovan interrupted. "Listen, I know he's your friend and you're worried, but I don't think John's in any danger over a bust. A hundred other things maybe, but not a bust."
"Ten quid says you're wrong."
"I'll take those odds."
"Good, I need you to check the status for a prisoner, Erin Burnsider."
"Aaron Burnsider escaped," Donovan replied.
"Yeah, I'm talking about the other one, Erin with an E, his sister," Lestrade said. "Twins that trafficked in illegal and stolen goods."
"You think that both Burnsiders escaped custody?"
"That's what I need you to call about."
"All this over a bust?" Donovan asked.
"It's one thing for Aaron to use Moran's escape to make a break for it, but if the sister's loose, too, then it's likely they're working with Moran, which makes this more than a bust," Lestrade replied. "Oh, and the Burnsiders were both put away by - "
"Sherlock and John," Donovan interrupted. "Right, I'll text you as soon as I've got something."
Sherlock Holmes was prone to obsession; at least, that was what normal people called it. To him, the concentration, the absolute focus that people dubbed 'obsession,' was merely the work of a superior mind identifying patterns and ideas that would otherwise be missed.
After nearly two days in the facility, he had established a timeline and discarded cases that were obviously misfiled. He identified several key events and turning points in the career of The Engineer. His progress was obvious, yet part of him knew that he had the answers he wanted already.
Sherlock retained slivers of a conversation that he had with the woman before she stuffed him inside a wall. He remembered her little story about the fireflies and bats or whatever childhood nonsense she had said at the end, but before that, he could only recall a few words. The entire situation was maddening.
It was hour forty-one when something else finally bubbled up.
"You're not a spy or investigator. Someone with your skills could be anyone. Yet, you have chosen to be no one," he had said.
She replied, "You think I chose to be nobody? To have no name, no record, no trace?"
Sherlock closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears, willing himself to recall more, but her voice became a whisper as his mind exploded with data, like his memory palace was leaking.
"Sherlock?"
He opened his eyes to see Molly Hooper very close to him, a stack of files clutched to her chest. For some reason, his heart rate increased.
"I've been telling you all day, leave me alone!"
"Sherlock, I just got here."
"What? No, you've been here with me all day, blithering on and interrupting me."
"That was John."
"She's right. That was me," John said.
"Never mind. You need to see these," she said.
Sherlock nearly roared when Molly covered up some of his timeline with old crime scene photos, but when he saw it, the first picture completely transfixed him. He recognized it.
But that was impossible.
"Give me those, you're doing them in the wrong order!" Sherlock barked as he snatched them from her hands.
"This was how they were in the file," Molly said.
In a matter of minutes, Sherlock assembled Molly's newly acquired photos along the board in the order he experience them: child's bedroom, upstairs hallway, kitchen, living room, dining room, even the bodies.
"This is exactly how I remember it," Sherlock said.
John asked, "What did I miss?"
"Where did these come from?" Sherlock demanded adamantly. "These are forensic photographs. Old. The ware says they were developed at least fifteen years ago."
"Twenty-eight years ago, at least according to the file, dated nineteen eighty-four," Molly replied.
"File? What file?"
"Project Pileus, Mycroft only got it to me an hour ago," she replied as she handed it off.
Sherlock riffled through the pages like a young child at Christmas.
"Sorry, what's going on?" John asked Molly.
She replied, "Project Dollhouse. It got me thinking, what if The Engineer replicated a crime that had been broken up and classified like Dollhouse had been?"
"So you asked Mycroft for every super-secret project?"
They continued to talk, but their voices became like tiny bugs flying around his head as his mind zeroed in on the task at hand.
His eyes lingered over the photos, which showed the house in its entirety. That meant that the fire was set as part of the classification, to keep the investigation secret, not to hide the crime. The five victims were nearly identical in terms of location and staging, including the scorched body. Clearly it wasn't a forensic countermeasure, or at least not an effective one.
John put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder, drawing his attention. He asked, "What do you reckon?"
"That's it," Sherlock whispered.
John replied, "No, I just said it wasn't. I spent all day on this, and there's no pattern to her false names."
"Which is strange, isn't it?" Molly asked. "People usually use tricks for fake names. Like I might say my name was Molly Mason or Molly Workman, you know, something similar to my last name. Definitely keep my first name."
"Shut up, shut up!" Sherlock said, trying to quell the cacophony of distraction. "She couldn't do what you're describing."
John asked sarcastically, "Why's that? You saying she hasn't got her own name or doesn't know it?"
"That's exactly it."
Several minutes of confused silence followed, allowing Sherlock's mind to lock into place.
The burned body. It had eluded him, confused him, but now it finally made sense. It was a forensic countermeasure but not from the murderer. After the house fire, the previously burned corpse would be mostly ash and bone fragments, an adequate cover for the only surviving member of a slaughtered family.
As the idea dawned on him, his memory came back, cascading around him like a dam had burst in his head.
"You're not a spy or investigator. Someone with your skills could be anyone. Yet, you have chosen to be no one."
The Engineer had replied, "You think I chose to be nobody, to have no name, no record, no trace? Some people do that, I guess. They sacrifice their names to nations, their lives to causes, their legacy to dreams. They give things up to go undercover or to live off the grid. But some of us? Some of us have those things taken from us. Ripped from our hands, salted, and burned. The case is closed with no doubt in anybody's mind that the facts within are the insoluble truth. One of those truths is that I am dead and have been since I was three years old. I didn't choose to be a ghost; someone murdered me."
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Primary Post: Four Elizabeths - Series 3, Episode 4
Primary Post: Unfinished Business, or Series 3 (s03ff)