Full Fathom Five, or, the Torment. Chapter Five.

[ghislainem70]

Title: Full Fathom Five, or, the Torment. Chapter Five.
Author: ghislainem70
Word count: 948
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Graphic depictions of violence (entire work), explicit sex (entire work)
Summary: Sherlock and John are called to solve the mysterious disappearances from a Scottish lighthouse.
Note:  This fic was inspired by a tweet from Mark Gatiss, noting his love for the film "I Know Where I'm Going!", also a fave of the author's.
Full Fathom Five, or, the Torment. Chapter Five.
Sherlock dashed back down the circular stair, leaping them two at a time, Lestrade and John at his heels. He threw open the door of the lighthouse and started to pick his way swiftly along the rocky base of the lighthouse.

"Sherlock, stop!" John shouted above the wind, pulling at his coat sleeve. "Remember the time! It’s nearly three hours gone by, and the tide will be up, we’ll miss the bridge crossing!"

But of course Sherlock was rushing ahead, heedless, and John refused to yank at him like a fractious child, so he let go and followed, with Lestrade cursing loudly close behind him. A few times John slipped on wet rock, and felt Lestrade’s hand steady him.

In a moment Sherlock had climbed up around the rocks along the side of the lighthouse, the opposite side to the front door. It was raining, but here the rocks were relatively dry in the shelter of a tall rocky protuberance.

From this higher prominence, they could look down upon the churning waves that thundered ceaselessly against the rocky crag. The rhythmic sound was both deafening and hypnotic.

The large stain was clearly coagulated blood, sticky and darkened, but not fully dried due to the ever-present damp. And on the tip of the rocky crag that formed a sort of wall here, were traces of blood and a few stands of hair and tissue as well.

There was enough blood that none of them needed to state the obvious, that this had been a fatality. No one could have survived the loss of so much blood.

Sherlock knelt down, measuring, rubbing a bit of the blood between his fingertips, carefully taking samples of the blood and hair and giving these to Lestrade.

"The stain is whole. Do you see? The body struck the rock wall first, here, then landed here. No drag marks. No smears. The edges of the stain are intact. We are in a relatively sheltered position here," Sherlock indicated the higher rocky crag while intensely circling the stain. "We are fortunate! McMann’s diary says that sometime on Monday, the day before the men disappeared, the storm had ended. There is no mention of the storm coming again. The last entry is at 11:30 p.m.

"And the day before, on Sunday, McMann noted that the wind had shifted to west by north, and again, no note of any change by Monday at 11:30 p.m. Again, these notes are all consistent with what I have read in the official keeper’s log."

"So, what does this mean?" John asked.

"It means that any rain has been pushed by the wind away from this spot since the body fell. This spot was sheltered by the walls of the lighthouse and these rocks."

"So where’s the body?" Asked Lestrade. He was poking around the rocks to see if he could find any other trace evidence. There was nothing.

"So," John interjected, "one of the men is pushed or thrown over the railing of the lighthouse. His body lands, here, leaving this stain. It must have lain there for some time. This is a lot of blood. It had time to spread." John had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of bloodstains from catastrophic wounds, an education painfully gleaned from war.

"Indeed," Sherlock agreed. "Given the quantity of blood, and the dimensions of the stain, and the probable size of the body, the body lay here for at least half an hour to an hour before it was moved. The question is, why was the body permitted to lie there for any length of time?"

Sherlock was silent, looking up at the lighthouse tower. John reminded him again of the time.

"And when the body was moved," Sherlock announced, "it was picked up by someone able to do it without dragging it by the feet or shoulders. Only explanation: two men together lifted the body from this rock, one at the shoulders and the other at the feet, and did not drag it through the blood.

"So, three keepers, alone in the lighthouse. Some disturbances have troubled them. Maybe . . . one climbs up to the tower to look from above, to see what the knocking was? Then something happens . . . something that makes him decide to jump."

"Suicide?" exclaimed Lestrade, "why would the men hide the body if it was a suicide? And how do you know he wasn’t pushed?"

"The smeared rust residue on the rail, where the man climbed. The outlines of the smears are very regular, smooth and intact ---  No smudging as would occur in any kind of struggle, where the person is resisting being thrown over. None of that here . . . Two clear, fresh footsteps on the railing, and this stain on the rock directly below. No, he jumped. But why? Why jump? What was disturbing the men so?"

"And which of them do you think it was?" John put in.

"Always dangerous to theorize before facts, but the balance of the probabilities based upon the known data is that the dead man is Robinson."

"The one that is said in the diary to be ‘crying’?"

"Precisely. His mental state was deteriorating, if McMann’s diary is to be believed. Something strange was happening on Dubh Ardath."

Sherlock straightened up. "Probably they cast the body into the sea. It may wash up, but likely not. I need to go Scarba," he announced.

Without waiting, Sherlock was now moving along the rocks, back toward the rock bridge which was now being lapped by the high tide. But Lestrade called out, "John, look, there’s -"

When John turned to Lestrade, nothing was there. Lestrade had vanished.

To be continued. . . .

Listen to Mourning Air, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJBTW46jJM0

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