Family Deductions

Sherlock was a joy to see at work and his partner was always pleased to help if he could. He smiled at the dark edged compliment hearing the unspoken 'but' and listened for what was to come.

John stood open mouthed increasingly entranced as Sherlock spoke in his familiar, thrilling, rapid manner.

The doctor peered with great interest at the locket in the detective's palm then to the phone he held aloft.

Without resorting to learning snippets of a foreign language John had long since run out of vocabulary to describe what he was thinking “Amazing.”

The doctor reflexively reached out for the phone skimming through the air toward him. “How?” he asked as he went through the mobile's contents. “Lesbian?” John looked up “Her brother? How can you tell?” he was stunned.

Molly tottered in with coffee mugs and addressed Sherlock “What are you doing with my body, I mean.” she looked down, flustered, and recovered herself “hers, her?”

Sherlock gave a short laugh at his partner's amazement and clapped him on the back fondly. "The phone, John," he explained. "The phone can reveal a lot. First of all, there's this text message from a man named Adam."

He prized the phone from John's hands and pulled up the message which he'd read earlier, showing it to the doctor. "It says 'how's my little sister?' to which our girl Amanda replies 'good thanks, how are you?'. So, Adam is Amanda's sister. And as her surname is Jackson we can assume her brother will also share the same surname. Adam Jackson."

Sherlock cancelled the set of messages between Amanda and her brother, instead moving to another message. "Then there's this one," he continued. "From someone named Lucy. Clearly a girl's name, no Harry's & Harriet's there - " and he afforded himself a brief grin at John, still annoyed by the mistake he made all those years ago. "And she says 'I think Adam's starting to suspect something. He's been acting strange lately. x' Notice the kiss at the end. Amanda replies: 'He's been texting me a lot lately too, which is unusual. I don't know what to do. x' Again, another kiss. And the answer: 'Maybe we should stop seeing each other for a while. x'."

Sherlock snapped the phone back closed and slammed it down on the table a little agressively. "Lucy is Adam's wife. Adam is Amanda's sister. Amanda and Lucy are having an affair. Adam finds out. Adam kills Amanda. They obviously don't get on all that well as brother and sister. She said that him texting her was unusual. Adam had motive and he had the means. He works right here in the hospital, in St Barts. I think I've even met him a few times. Molly will know him for certain..."

He had already noticed the arrival of Molly when he made this last remark and took the coffee from her hands eagerly, smirking at her flustered comments over the body, then cast his eyes back to John, keen for approval of his deductive skills.

((Awards Admin the trophy for “Most beautifully crafted deduction of the Month ))




The clap on the back being appreciated, John, used to being several steps behind Sherlock Holmes physically and intellectually, took it all good-naturedly that he had missed almost everything of importance.

John momentarily forgot that he was holding the dead woman's phone as Sherlock explained it's importance. He nodded as Sherlock pointed out the first pertinent batch of text messages.

As Sherlock mentioned his sister Harry's name John looked up into his eyes and smiled. He could have fallen in love with Sherlock again if that was possible.

“It's always so simple once you've explained it” John responded shaking his head and grinning with unalloyed delight and amazement.

“Sorry, did you just say...he works here?” John exclaimed in a loud whisper. “In Barts, bloody hell!" He was astounded at the idea.

All the Adams and Amandas were making John's head spin though so he was glad to take a cup of coffee from Molly and try do digest what he could remember of what Sherlock had just explained. Even it would be immediately forgiven and not be expected of him to remember details off the top of his head it always filled John with terror that Sherlock would ask him a question he couldn't answer.

((Aww thank you so much!! XD))


Sherlock took a few large sups of his coffee and nodded at John. "Yeah, he works here, doesn't he Molly?" and he turned to the morgue attendant questioningly.

"Sorry, who?" she asked.
"Adam Jackson," Sherlock replied. "You heard of him?"
Molly frowned. "Um...yeah. Yeah I think I have. He works in Pathology, I think."
"Pathology," Sherlock repeated. "Makes sense." He grinned at John, then looked back at Molly. "Who else have you had in tonight?"

She headed over to the lockups and wheeled out another slab with a body on. "There was this guy. He had a heart attack."

"Boring." Sherlock dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "No, wait. Did he have any jewelery or strange tattoos?"

"Um...no..." Molly frowned, confused.
"OK, next."

John caught Sherlock grinning and responded in kind with a dry 'who's so clever face' and folded his arms pretending not to be impressed. Fooling no-one least of all his partner.

“One um jumped off a bridge, girl in her twenties, no tattoos, a silver bracelet. One of yours, John?” Molly looked hesitantly at the doctor.

“My colleagues attended on her, by car, not mine, no.” John's face went sombre “anyone with jewellery that's Cartier, or like that, maybe with two rings on it?” he drank some of his coffee to get away from possibly having a conversation about his work.

"You knew about this?" Sherlock questioned John, his eyebrows raising slightly. "Something vaguely interesting happened at work and you didn't tell me?"

"Well, I'm not exactly an expert in jewellery," Molly warned, "but someone did come in who might fit. They had an unusual necklace at least."

And she walked over to one of the other compartments and wheeled it out. "This one's a bit more up your street, Sherlock. Found by the Thames. Strangled by the looks of things."

Sherlock headed straight over to the body, that of a woman in her early thirties. He took a quick glance before turning to John excitedly, his eyes gleaming, obviously having spotted something of interest immediately.

John, now more visibly upset, hesitated before looking up again and tried to keep his emotions under control but without a great deal of success.

“Sherlock, A&E don't go out on an emergency call out unless the patient is alive. It was after dusk so the helicopter was grounded, Fletcher went in the car and dumped his diabetic on me. I was a bit busy with an overdose at the time ...can we talk about my work later, please?..” John's voice had risen an octave by the end.

The doctor gained a bit of composure back after looking away and taking a deep breath “I went off shift. I didn't know the girl had died.”
The two men exchanged looks that put things right for the moment without a word having to be said.

The safety of Hamish was uppermost in John's mind and immediately hopeful when Molly said she had a body that might fit their criteria he followed her and Sherlock to the cold storage. He could see Sherlock was almost vibrating, “What have you found?”

Sherlock could hear the agitation and pain in his partner's voice and knew not to push the matter further. Instead he gave a small nod to show that all was understood and moved on, throwing his attention at the new body that lay before them and had captured his imagination.

"This is really quite amazing, John," he said in an excited hushed whisper, grabbing him by the arm and bringing him closer.

"I should imagine that a normal person such as yourself, and you know what I mean by that, might not observe the finer details of this wonderful specimen," he grinned at John, feeling adrenalin coursing through him, the sense that they were getting close to something.

"They don't look all that similar, but this girl is very clearly the other girl's sister - Amanda Jackson's sister. She's obviously been cruelly murderered but in quite a different fashion to her sibling. This wasn't pre-meditated, this was a crime of passion."

Sherlock's eyes glimmered as he brought out the magnifier, running it all over the body, taking in every detail.

The doctor glanced across to Molly for her go ahead to examine the body that she had brought out for Sherlock as the consulting detective, his face energetic and excited, pulled him nearer to the 'wonderful specimen'. Molly was standing back looking mystified.

“Yeah, I know average.” John smiled referring to himself. He and Sherlock shared their own private language.

Molly tutted thinking that John was such a wimp.

It was, as Sherlock said, however, there was nothing remarkable about the woman's body that helped John to draw any conclusions. He was astounded when Sherlock had seemingly already got information that he was unable to pick up.

“Amanda Jackson's sister? Ok, I'm really not getting this, Sherlock” John shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. This really would be interesting he thought as he watched Sherlock make his minute observations.

"It's the ears John!" Sherlock exclaimed, becoming quite animated. "The ear is like a fingerprint. Unique with no two ears alike. But in families, certain shapes, patterns etc are inherited. And look...their ears are almost identical. Identical John! It's obvious they're sisters."

He ran over to the other corpse and looked again at her ears, just for extra confirmation of his theory, then, satisfied, rejoined Molly and John. "Now then Molly. Show me this jewelery you were talking about."

Molly nodded and took out the bag with the girls possessions, emptying the jewelery out onto the table. Sherlock sifted through it and within seconds pulled out the Cartier bracelet from the photograph.

He handed it to John without a word, still looking through the other items, before he straightened up again and with a sigh said, "we're halfway there John, and we're getting closer, but this isn't the girl we're looking for. This necklace can't have been hers. We just need to work out whose it was, and why she had it."

“Brilliant, what a shame they don't teach about ears down to that degree at med school, well not when I was here.” John went to examine the ears and began making notes in the pocket book in which he wrote case notes.

John put down his notebook to look at the bracelet. His notebook fell on the floor “Um we could check all the items for any initials or inscriptions” he suggested picking his book up. He looked over to Sherlock and wondered where Hopkins had got with his blasted list of Cartier purchasers although it might have a lot of men buying for loved ones on it.

“Given away after a relationship fall out, not kept for sentimental reasons?” John suggested as that was how he had acquired a far more expensive phone than he would have ever bought for himself.

"Hm, doesn't surprise me," Sherlock replied, "I suppose they think ears aren't important." He admired John's enthusiasm and watched him making notes on the ears with a smile, his chest bursting with pride.

Sherlock had already managed to check the jewelery for marks and inscriptions, but at John's suggestion he did it again, just to make sure. "Nothing," he remarked finally, putting all the items back.

"Thank you Molly."
"Not a problem," she smiled back.
"We need to take this one though," and he grabbed the Cartier necklace.
Molly bit her lip, knowing it wasn't really allowed, but she's made exceptions for Sherlock many times in the past, and she was sure he had good reason. In the end she said nothing, and made no attempt to stop him.

Sherlock turned to John and dangled the necklace in front of his face. "Exactly right," he smiled. "This is far too expensive when compared to the rest of her jewelery. She couldn't have been able to afford it."

He took John's hands in his own and pushed the necklace into it. "Look after this," he ordered, before spinning back to the body and studying the strangulation marks on her neck with his magnifier. "And she wasn't wearing it when she was killed, which is significant. Where was it? In her pocket?" And he glanced up at Molly, who checked the notes then nodded. "Inside pocket of her coat."

Sherlock stepped back and snapped away the magnifier, giving John a gentle push towards the body. "How long would you say she's been dead? Was she killed before or after her sister?"

John finished his note-taking and looked up to find the shiny necklace suspended before his eyes. He blushed deeply wanting to protest that he hadn't figured anything out, it had been intuition and simply fortunate that it fitted the circumstances.

The doctor slid the necklace inside a resealable plastic bag from the desk and dropped it into his zipped inner pocket.

At his partner's insistence John stepped up to the table, made a brief visual check of the body in front of him and looked at the notes. His lips jutted out pensively as he looked from the first body back to the second body.

“It's impossible for me to calculate the two without knowing both of the atmospheric temperatures and time found and the temperatures taken later.” John ran through the variables pushing his fingers through his hair “Her body temperature will have declined rapidly on the Thames foreshore. I'd say this woman probably died after her sister.”

Sherlock listened attentively to John's opinion, trusting his judgement and training implicitly. Of all the years they'd lived and worked together he'd rarely been wrong.

"Thank you John," he nodded, pleased to hear the facts supporting his own theories. "We need to see if we can talk to this Adam Jackson. Let's go."

Sherlock marched off without a word of thanks or goodbye to Molly, and burst throught the doors into the corridor, heading towards the Pathology department, expecting John to keep up.

John was pleased to see by Sherlock's reaction to his opinion that there was apparently some agreement in the order of the demise of the two sisters. It had been a very tricky question to answer with any certainty. It was not based strictly on mathematical calculation but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

The doctor hesitated apologetically for a moment to thank Molly for her very valuable help and forbearance before trotting to catch up with Sherlock.

“Any time.” Molly replied being a little ironic, although she clearly appreciated the acknowledgement of her time. She breathed a sigh of relief as the doors stopped reverberating noisily and peace descended on her domain again.

“He's going to be very happy to see you.” John remarked with a smirk to Sherlock as they swung through the door into the corridor to Pathology.

Sherlock looked to his right, happy to see John by his side once again and smirked at his remark, before turning another corner and heading through a set of double doors with a large sign "Pathology Department" above them.

"We need to speak to Adam Jackson," Sherlock spoke authoratitively as he approached the reception desk, debating in his mind whether to flash one of his stolen police IDs or not, his fingers fumbling at the edges of it in his pocket. In the end he kept it where it was, and opted for a different approach. "I'm his brother. It's a...private family matter."

"And who's this?" The receptionist asked, nodding at John.
"He's my husband," Sherlock replied truthfully and quite proudly. He briefly remembered the early days when John was still a little nervous of admitting their relationship in public. Sherlock used to relish in announcing it to people just to see the look on John's, and their's, faces. He took a moment to squeeze John's hand, as if attempting to prove their relationship status.

"I'll be right back," the receptionist replied, not attempting to argue. Moments later, Adam Jackson came walking through to the reception from a small office further up the corridor, obviously expecting to see his brother standing there. He frowned in confusion when he saw Sherlock and John.

"Brother dear," Sherlock greeted him with his biggest fake grin, striding over and clapping an arm round his back. "Great to see you!"

"I don't - " Adam stammered, still in a state of shock. Sherlock quickly led him back into the room he'd originally emerged from, closing the door behind the three of them.

The two men went to the reception desk in the Pathology Department and Sherlock made his confident request to see Adam Jackson. His requests frequently sounded like demands that should not, or could not, be refused. John's admittance was less well nailed on, he was quite used to the 'and who's this' treatment, although 'Doctor' often got him through closed doors and he could still whip out his army ID card in certain situations if that failed.

John held his hand up showing his wedding ring to the receptionist “Nearly 20 years” he replied unnecessarily in a rare moment of flaunting his pride in the longevity of their relationship.

There had been gasps of amazement when their relationship became rather public knowledge. Even John's sister had expressed nervous doubts about how long it would last. The truth was that the working facet of Sherlock was all that most people ever saw and it was that which he was judged on.

It still filled John with tremendous awe in being the only person in the world who knew sides of Sherlock that nobody else had been granted the privilege to see.

He wasn't expecting Adam Jackson to present trouble but John nevertheless unconsciously put his hand to his gun pocket as Sherlock closed the door behind the three of them.

As soon as the door was closed Adam's confusion turned to anger and annoyance. "What the hell is all this about?" he demanded. "And why are you posing as my brother?"

"We need to ask you a few questions about the murder of your sister, Mr Jackson," Sherlock replied with a brief but polite smile.
"The death was inconclusive. They don't know if it was murder," the man replied immediately.
"Fine then. We need to ask you a few questions about the inconclusive death of your sister, Mr Jackson," Sherlock corrected his original sentence with a slightly taunting tone.

Adam glared at the detective and went to sit down at his desk, picking up his pen and fiddling around with it, slightly agitated.
"What about it?" he snapped. "And who the hell are you anyway? I've already spoken to the police!"

"Sherlock Holmes. Consulting detective." Sherlock took out his business card and pushed it along the desk. "This is my partner and assistant Doctor John Watson. We've been hired by your brother to investigate his wife's death." The last part was of course, a lie, but he knew it would lend more weight to their reason's for questioning him.

"He never mentioned anything," Adam replied, sounding a little hurt.
"Why would he?" Sherlock gave a small shrug, then glanced at John. "John, if you would be so good as to make a few notes I would be eternally grateful."

John nodded politely to the rankled Mr Adam Jackson who had finished blustering and replied "Of course" to Sherlock's request for notes taking. He pulled a chair out so that he could take shorthand notes without them being seen.

He produced his notebook and pen, smiled pleasantly at Mr Jackson and sat down. Turning to a new page in the book John glanced at is watch to note the start time of the interview, put pen to paper and then gave Sherlock a small nod to indicate he was ready to continue.

Sherlock paused till John was ready, the wait undoubtedly making Adam Jackson even more nervous about the questions that were to follow. His mannerisms, the way he was fiddling with his pen and the items on the desk, all clear examples of displacement activity. It was obvious to Sherlock the man had something to hide.

"You were the one who found the body," Sherlock announced suddenly and quite loudly, causing Adam to jump.
"My sister," he corrected, obviously annoyed at the detective having referred to her as a 'body'.
"Your sister, yes," Sherlock continued. "You were the one who found her."

Adam sighed and rubbed his temples. "Yes," he muttered. "The killer dumped her body in the car park, near the back entrance."
"Now why would he do a thing like that?" Sherlock frowned, as if utterly confused.
"I don't know!" Adam snapped, his voice raising slightly. "You're the detective! Why don't you find him and bloody ask him?!"
"I am."

There was a pause.
"W-what are you trying to imply Mr Holmes?"
But before Sherlock could answer, his phone began to ring. He rolled his eyes and took it out of his pocket, looked at the caller ID.

"It's Hopkins," he said, passing the phone to John. "Get down the details of the Cartier reciepts and give him the serial number on the back of that necklace. Let's see who bought it." Sherlock noticed Adam's shoulders tensing slightly, but said nothing, just continued to stare at him coolly.

John had little opportunity to look up from his notebook and taking everything down verbatim. Mr Jackson looked very unsettled but faced with Sherlock Holmes for the first time, the detective pinning them to the spot with his piercing gaze, most people reacted that way.

The doctor looked up when Sherlock's phone rang. His mouth went dry and his heart leaped into his mouth at the thought that it might be Hamish again. He breathed a long sigh of relief when Sherlock announced it was Hopkins and took the phone.

“Great, yeah, could you check a serial number please....Thanks, hang on a second” John took the necklace from the plastic bag and jotted the serial number down on the adjacent page and then read it out to Hopkins.

There was a pause and then John wrote down exactly what Hopkins told him “Thank you, I'll pass you back to Sherlock now.”

John got up, passed the phone back to the detective and showed him what he had written down in longhand.

During the short phone conversation Sherlock kept his eyes locked with Adam Jackson's, the persistent staring making the other man feel increasingly uncomfortable, until he broke the gaze himself and stared at the papers on his desk, shifting his weight, nervous.

Sherlock whipped the piece of paper out of John's hand and read the name that Hopkins had given him. Carole Waugh. He spun the paper round and held it dramatically in front of Adam Jackson's face. "Mean anything to you?"

Adam shrunk back in his seat, as if recoiling at the sight of the name, his eyes widening, all his body language giving away the fact that he clearly knew something. Sherlock gave a smug smile and glanced at John. "I thought so." He took the necklace from John's hand and passed it over the desk to Adam. "And how about this?" The man gulped and nodded.

John wasn't following the events very well being unable to make the connections that Sherlock managed to do so easily. He caught Sherlock's eye and raised questioning eyebrows.

“A little more information Mr Jackson?” the doctor asked in a mild tone “about the necklace and Miss Waugh?” he relaxed his posture to avoid appearing threatening.

"She's my sister," Adam replied with a sigh. Sherlock's eyes flickered slightly. He hadn't known exactly what to expect, despite knowing there was obviously some kind of connection, so the revelation that the woman who bought the Cartier necklace was Adam's sister was certainly quite exciting.

Sherlock's thoughts instantly fell to the washed up unknown girl on the banks of the Thames, the one he had just identified as Adam and Amanda's sister based on the shape and pattern of her ears, and he wondered if this was Carole. "I need you to come to the morgue with me Mr Jackson," Sherlock frowned, never one to beat about the bush.

The look of horror and fear on Adam's face suggested he knew nothing of his sister's murder, despite his apparent involvement in the murder of his other sister Amanda, which Sherlock still strongly suspected him of.

"What's happened to her?" Adam stammered, standing up from the desk and walking round to the front, holding onto the edge of the furniture for support. "This is about the buyer isn't it? The buyer she was going to see about the necklace? Something's gone wrong, I just know it I told her not to go alone. I told her to go with Sylvia and Eddie."

Sherlock's frown deepened, he had no idea what Adam was talking about, the name's Sylvia and Eddie were new to him.

John thought it best that Mr Jackson help in identifying the body and that if he didn't prepare him for the news that and his reaction to Amanda's would be telling for Sherlock.

“Do you know who the buyer was, if it was a man or woman, or where they were going to meet?” the doctor asked gently, his face open and encouraging, although knowingly taking full advantage of the man's tongue being loosened at the moment.

The doctor frowned slightly as he also had another question. Although he wasn't sure if it was relevant to the enquiry he asked it anyway “Sylvia and Eddie, are they married, friends of yours, or Carole's.”

John folded his notebook, and taking the necklace back from Sherlock with a fairly neutral expression, stowed it safely away in his pocket, preparing to escort Mr Jackson to the morgue with Sherlock.