Will You Come? (Sherlock Holmes & GregLestrade)

Sherlock collapsed back onto his armchair and allowed the violin and bow to slip out of his hand onto the floor. He was slowly running out of interesting activities to occupy his mind. He'd already done three experiments and then had been playing for nearly two hours now.

He sighed impatiently and jigged his legs around anxiously.. He'd asked John to make him a coffee about 5 hours ago but he still hadn't been brought one.

"Need a case," he muttered under his breath, then shouted, "John! Coffee!"

On the other side of town, Greg Lestrade ducked under the police tape and pulled out his mobile. They had tried to solve the gruesome case on their own, or at least get some semblance of an idea before calling Sherlock Holmes, but had gotten nowhere.

Several body parts had been found in and around a dumpster off Hallam Street, each in their own bag. Two hands, a toe, a forearm, and something that looked awfully like a kneecap.

Speed dial 3 for Sherlock. The dull ringing in his ear as he waited for the world's only consulting detective to pick up.

"John!" Sherlock shouted, almost making himself hoarse. Finally he jumped up out of the armchair with a large groan and trampled upstairs to his blogger's room, barging rudely through the door to find...no one. He frowned and headed back downstairs, realising John must have gone out, God knows when.

He walked through to the kitchen and was just about to start making his own coffee when the phone rang. He removed it from the pocket of his dressing gown, expecting it to be John. He got a pleasant surprise and a quickened thumping of the heart when he saw the name "Lestrade" flashing up on the screen. A case!

"Sherlock Holmes?" he answered expectantly.

Greg wasted no time. "Look, we've got something for you. Hallam Street. Will you come?"

From the corner of his eye, he saw Donovan slashing her hand over her throat, a signal for him to end the call, but he turned away from her. As bloody annoying as Sherlock Holmes could be, he was a brilliant man, and one they needed. He eyed the kneecap as it passed by in the gloved hands of one of the evidence team.

Sherlock sighed, as if it was a great effort for him to come down to a crime scene.

"Well...I suppose I could spare the time. Although things are extremely busy for me at the moment..." He tried to sound casual, but inside his heart was flipping over itself doing somersaults. "I'll be down in ten minutes," he said finally before hanging up.

Sherlock leapt into the air doing a small victory dance before hurriedly grabbing his coat and scarf, and racing off down the steps of 221B Baker Street, instantly hailing a passing cab ordering it to take him to Hallam Street. He sat back and grinned broadly. A case...He hoped it'd be an interesting one, but then, Lestrade wouldn't have called him if it was straight forward.

Within ten minutes the cab arrived and Sherlock got out, instantly spotting the crime scene by the flashing police car lights and tape. He approached Lestrade with a small smile and held out his hand. "Good evening."

"Afternoon. Glad you could make it," Greg gripped Sherlock's hand briefly before leading him under the police tape over to the dumpster.

He pointed to each of the evidence flags in turn. "Five body parts in bags were found in each of these locations. No suspicious behavior in the area lately. We haven't had a chance to run DNA yet, but both hands are right hands, so we're probably dealing with multiple victims."

Greg gave as much information as he had on hand, knowing that Sherlock probably already figured it all out just by glancing at the scene. It made him feel important anyway.

Sherlock listened intently to the information, his eyes lighting up. This was interesting. He removed his magnifier from his pocket and dropped to his knees by the first little flag. Although the bags had since been removed, evidence still remained on the ground. Evidence that the useless Scotland Yarders always seemed to miss. But not Sherlock. With his spare hand he dug into his opposite pocket and brought out a plastic see through evidence bag, then from his inside pocket a pair of tweezers. Staring through his magnifier to guide him, he reached out with the tweezers and picked up a single strand of hair, then he opened up the bag and dropped the hair inside.

"What kind of bags were they?" he asked without looking up, his attention now focused on a small blood stain on in the gravel. He dislodged a piece of it and put it in the evidence bag along with his hair. He could anaylse them both later.

Sherlock swiftly moved on to examine the other locations where the body parts were found. He gleaned no new evidence although a little further along there was a puddle which had clearly been walked through judging by the splash marks. On the other side of it was a rather muddy footprint that he examined carefully and took a photograph of on his phone, before finally standing up again.

"I've got 6 ideas but I need to see the body parts and the bags," he announced. "Can it be arranged?"

Greg watched as Sherlock got right down to business, hoping to glean a bit of his own information from what the consulting detective was looking at.

"Not your standard plastic bags," he said. "Ones like they use in hospitals for transporting organs." Greg answered, moving out of the way a bit to let Sherlock have full reign over the crime scene and answering a couple of questions asked him by his subordinates.

His attention turned back to Sherlock when he heard the man speak. "Yeah, they've been put in a cooler, but they're still here."

Greg led Sherlock over to the two coolers that had been brought for the body parts and opened one (hands, toe, kneecap), then the other (detached forearm).

Sherlock's eyes sparkled a little at the latest news on the plastic bags. That eliminated two of his ideas but made two more of them seem more likely. He would however, need to see the body parts before any of the theories could be explored further.

He eagerly followed Greg over to the coolers and crouched down to look inside. The parts had been carefully preserved in ice, ready to be transported to St Barts. He turned his attention to the first box - containing two hands, a toe and...Sherlock put on a rubber glove and picked it up carefully.

"A kneecap," he commented aloud. "Curious."

Peering into the other box he saw the detached forearm. He took hold of it and turned it over in his hands, nodding slowly to himself before putting it back and standing up, removing the rubber glove with a satisfying snap.

"Yep, just as I thought," he announced confidently.

Greg watched Sherlock carefully as he handled each part. He swore he could almost hear the cogs clicking about in Sherlock's head. He always wondered how on earth the man did it.

Greg was sometimes a spot jealous, but never enough to make him bitter towards Sherlock. Now Donovan, on the other hand... The woman was obviously ridiculously jealous and generally hateful to begin with. Anderson? Greg decided not to make any sort of judgement in the hopes of being professional.

He snapped out of his thoughts when Sherlock spoke and waited a minute or so for him to explain before prompting, "Care to share?"

Sherlock smiled to himself, realising Greg and the rest of the Scotland Yard team hadn't picked up on the same signs and clues that he had. He cleared his throat and began to speak rather quickly, explaining all his deductions. God he loved this part, perfect opportunity to show off.

He pulled out the bag from his pocket with the evidence he had collected from the paving stone and pointed at the strand of hair. "You're looking for a man in his late 50s, 5 foot 10, dark brown hair but greying around the ears and sideburns. You're looking for a medical man, possibly a surgeon, certainly someone with a great deal of procedural knowledge and easy access to equipment."

Sherlock crouched down to the cooler boxes and pointed at the body parts. "See these cuts. They're clean. Too clean for an ordinary knife, these were done with a surgical knife, a scalpel, extremely sharp." He pointed at the hands. "Both right hands so two different victims then, but this forearm belongs to this hand." He picked them both up and matched them together. "See? So this is your first victim. A woman in her early thirties, married, blonde hair, secretary by trade, smoker of menthol cigarettes, recent holiday in South Africa, correction, working holiday in South Africa. Question is why? Why would a secretary go to South Africa on business? Curious. Anyway, your next victim..." and he indicated the other right hand, "Is a man in his late 40s, black hair, Italian origin, businessman."

Next he pointed at the toe and knee cap. "The skin around this knee cap. You see? The same tone as this hand. So the kneecap belonged to the Italian man. The toe on the other hand, clearly belonged to the woman. The shape and colour of the toe nail is almost identical to those of her fingernails. Simple." Sherlock stood up sighing. "That's all I've got, for now. I'll need to analyse this blood sample in the lab," and he indicated the scraping he'd made from the pavement.

Greg listened intently to Sherlock's machine gun fast speech, trying to remember as much as possible. Once Sherlock was finished, he resisted the urge to applaud, reminding himself that he was dealing with a professional and a couple of murders, not a side show.

Greg turned away and began giving orders. "We're looking for a middle aged man, 5'10, and most likely a medical professional. I also want to see if there are any missing persons reports on a blonde secretary in her thirties and an Italian businessman in his forties. I also want these parts taken back to St. Bart's." Greg paused and turned to Sherlock. "Do you need anything else?"

Sherlock smiled to himself feeling rather smug as he listened to Greg give orders to the rest of the police team based on his information. He was pleased with how the case was going so far, and was keen to find out the results of the tests.

"Not at the moment thank you," Sherlock replied with a small nod of thanks. "I'll head over to Barts. Let me know as soon as you hear anything new."

He stalked off from the crime scene and hailed a taxi, ordering it to take him to the hospital.