Family Deductions

“Oh God.” John groaned when Sherlock explained what was going on and dressed quickly suddenly no longer tired as adrenaline began flowing.

John put his hand supportively on Sherlock's lower back as he showed him the picture on the phone. “two rings, Cartier, necklace, two rings” he muttered quietly to himself and going into the living room fired up his laptop to be ready if Sherlock asked him to look for something on the internet.

All John could find out was that Cartier had two branches in London, one on Bond Street and the other on Sloane Street. Too simple for one of Moriarty games, surely, he thought. But with a maniac who could be sure.

John put the kettle on to boil then in case Sherlock needed a tea or coffee and pulled two clean mugs out of the cupboard. Sherlock would work this out, he knew he could. He was that clever.

Sherlock continued to pace the bedroom for a few minutes, turning over in his mind what little facts they already knew. He noticed that John had gone somewhere and stalked through to the living room to find him already in the kitchen boiling the kettle. Always so resourceful.

"Coffee would be great round about now," he called through as he headed over to the desk. He could see John's laptop already open and sat down to see what he'd been looking at.

"Good John," he remarked. "You know they have another branch inside Selfridges. The one on Oxford Street. And there's one at the airport. Heathrow."

Sherlock stood up from the desk and wandered across to the sofa, flopping down into it dramatically and putting his fingertips together. He closed his eyes and considered the clue and it's potential meaning over and over again before vocalising his thoughts out loud quietly, but loud enough so John could hear.

"Moriarty said 'find the body'. Now did he mean an actual body, as in a dead body, a corpse? Or some other meaning of the word 'body'? We know it's related to Cartier and we know the locations of all the branches in London. Might we find a body there? It seems too simple and obvious for Moriarty but either way there's no way of us knowing that for certain until they open up again at 9am tomorrow morning, by which time we'll have only an hour left to solve it. So, can't really afford to wait...So...sooo..." And with that he slipped back into his daydream, turning the puzzle over in his mind.

"Coffee it is then." John made them both one and put Sherlock's on the coffee table. "God, times must be hard" he pursed his lips, "he gave you a phone the last time."

John smiled at Sherlock's compliment and sipped his coffee thinking "he couldn't have left you a body in a phone box? Some one would find it and ring the police."

Sherlock nodded his thanks as John brought over the coffee, his eyelids half opening again. He sat up quickly and picked up the mug to have a sip, smiling a little at John's joke about the mobile phones.

"Phone boxes, good...that's certainly a possibility," Sherlock agreed, although his frown deepened, something else was bothering him.

"But why specifically that necklace John? It could have been anything. Just the Cartier logo would have led us to the same conclusion we're at now but no...he chose a specific type of necklace."

Sherlock leant forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands pressed together in thought. "What if...what if the body we're supposed to find is a wearer of one of these necklaces...?"

John thought for a while before being able to answer at all. "it is metal, two rings, a chain, the website for Cartier says...." he pulled up the page again.

"A Cartier icon, the Leve collection is both a provocative talisman and a
bold symbol of passionate love. Allow yourself to become one with your
partner, possess or let yourself be possessed… How far would you go?"

"White gold, that one" A thought struck him then and he went pale. "Shit, that is messing with your head."

"If it's a specific body, wearing it, there would be other bodies?" John shook his head and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Identify that one female body?"

"OK so we know statistically this necklace is more likely to be worn by a woman," Sherlock spoke quickly and nearly all in one breath, thinking aloud. "It's Cartier, it's expensive. Therefore the owner has money, or whoever bought it for them has money. So...well off, middle class, female."

He dug into his pocket and took out his mobile phone. "There can't be that many people in posession of one of these. I'll call Hopkins. See if he can get us a customer list from Cartier. Everyone who's bought one from any of the London branches within the last...six months say..."

Sherlock quickly glanced up at John for support before making the call and putting in the request at Scotland Yard, then he stood up and drained the last of his coffee whilst reaching for his coat.

"In the meantime we can go and visit all the different branches. I know they won't be open but we can at least have a nose round the immediate vicinity for anything suspicious. Better than sitting around doing nothing."

“Probably female gender, yeah”. John nodded. “Hopkins is the best shot.” He watched Sherlock making the call and breathed out at last when it seemed all was satisfactory.

He was glad to get his jacket on and do something, anything. He grabbed his laptop on the way out and followed Sherlock downstairs at a run.

Sherlock, with even more than his usual high level of energy, hailed a cab while John pulled the front door shut. The doctor dived off the top step to be ready get into the taxi that was already pulling into the kerbside.

Sherlock wrapped his scarf round his neck and threw his coat over his shoulders then, with a quick reassuring smile to John, jogged down the stairs and flew out of the door, his mind entirely focused on winning this game.

Luckily the taxis were behaving themselves again and he managed to hail one almost instantly, yanking open the door and jumping inside, a brief look back to check that John was close behind.

"Cartier on Bond Street please," Sherlock directed to the cab driver before sitting back in his seat and doing up the belt.

He reached for John's hand and gave it a small squeeze. "We'll get him back John," he muttered quietly, but with determination. "Don't worry."

John looked across to Sherlock and took reassurance from his words and the squeeze on his hand. He nodded, the worry etched into every line on his face.

"Yeah, we will, you just concentrate on doing that, don't worry about me, hmm?"

John knew Sherlock loved him and when he was busy on a case, the man focussed on doing the work, he threw his brains at problems and the last thing Sherlock needed was emotions distracting him.

John felt the adrenaline creeping through his veins. "I'm ready." John told Sherlock calmly. He put the detective's hand on his pocket so that he could feel the gun he was carrying.

((Suddenly talking about guns seems really rude!))


Sherlock smirked as he felt John's gun and gave him a small nod before sitting back and relaxing. He felt safe around John, no matter what kind of danger or adventure was ahead of them, he knew his husband could look after them both, would kill for them if. he had to. And as long as John was remaining calm and focused, then he could be too.

The cab arrived at Cartier and pulled up slowly outside the closed up shop. Sherlock leaned forward in the cab and slipped the driver a fifty pound note. The cabbie's eyes widened in surprise as the detective explained, "I've another one of them if you wait for us then take us to a couple more locations."

The driver nodded in agreement and added "no problem," then Sherlock turned back to John and said, "let's go," leaping out of the cab. He strolled up to the shutters of the shop and rattled on them, trying to peer in through a tiny gap.

It had probably only been an hour or so, but Hamish was already starting to cramp up from sitting on the floor and not daring to move a muscle. Alone in the small room now, he'd thought through his options and got nowhere, as he had none of this moment but to co-operate. Right now he was a puppet of Moriarty and this Moran bloke who worked for him. Letting out a slow, shaky exhale, Hamish allowed himself to imagine his parents who were most likely charging around London by now, exchanging an occasional look or squeeze of a shoulder to get them through the next 8 hours. That image brought an odd feeling of guilt- he should have been more careful- for putting them through this. A bleep on the pager almost made him jump, bit he stopped his relfexes just in time. Picking up the pager he saw it instructed him to send a text to Sherlock.

This is no time for jewellery shopping Sherlock, that is if you don't want your little brat sent brought back to you in a box. -JM

As he typed it a new wave of questions pounded through his head. What on earth where they doing at a jewellery shop? But more worryingly; why was Moriarty helping them out?Where they really that far off the trail, or was he simply bluffing them?
Please hurry up, he thought desperately.

John felt better seeing Sherlock nod in mutual understanding and in knowing that he had removed himself from being a distraction.

Sherlock had enough to think about and that was his forte. If it came to staring down an enemy Sherlock could do that too but John's place, he knew, was support and logistics and if necessary the steady marksman. It was a battlefield on which everyone had a place and job.

We are coming for you, Hamish, stay calm, hang in there John thought as he got out of the cab and followed Sherlock to the shop front. John looked around covering Sherlock's back. It all looked and sounded quite normal. “Have a look round the back?”

There was a small gap in the shutters that Sherlock was peering through, but all the lights were off in the shop and he couldn't see anything.

He felt John by his side and nodded in agreement. "Round the back," he remarked and stalked off down the side alley and round towards the back of the shop.

His phone beeped and Sherlock removed it from his pocket opening the text message as he was walking. He stopped when he saw what it was, his tongue darting out over his lips.

"John," he passed the phone to the ex-army doctor already beginning to process the new information.

"It means he's watching us John, but that's hardly surprising. He's giving us a clue. He's given clues before and they've been correct. He likes to watch us running around trying to figure things out. So I guess this means we can rule out the shops."

Sherlock grabbed back the phone out of John's hand and searched through the phone book. "Until Hopkins gets back to us with the Cartier sales there's not much we can do. But we can give a ring to Molly, see if there's been anyone brought in possession of a fancy piece of jewellery."

John pulled up short when Sherlock's phone beeped and he abruptly stopped. He took the phone and read the message, gaping, with dry lips.

“He's either got a man posted or he's covering us on CCTV,” John agreed. He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth to wet it.

“He's not making us dance Sherlock, you are forcing him to give you info” he replied when Sherlock announced his next move. It was putting a positive spin on it, he knew, but that's how the blasted man worked, bending your thoughts, and he refused to see it like that or let his partner feel like that.

He let the phone fly back out of his palm to it's owner. “White gold, two rings” John thought out loud “but yeah it could be any fancy bit” he said ruefully wishing his brain was even half as good as the detectives.

Sherlock ignored John's remarks for now, not out of rudeness as most people would interpret it, but because his mind was too busy thinking to waste time conversing.

The phone line clicked and Molly picked up on the other end. "Molly it's me," Sherlock sproke abruptly, not really giving her time to answer. "We're coming to Barts. I need to see every stiff you've had admitted in the past 48 hours."

Then he hung up and brushed past John, out of the alley way and back round to the front where their taxi was still waiting. He jumped in the back, leaving the door open for his partner and leant forward to the driver. "St Barts hospital please."

John made a check of the figures on Bond Street to see if he might be able to spot anyone following them. He wanted to know how many agents Moriarty had at his disposal if possible. He pocketed his torch and climbed into the taxi pulling the door closed as Sherlock ordered the driver to take them to Barts.

The cab set off down the one way system of Old Bond Street. John didn't like his partner referring to dead people as stiffs or him being so imperious with Molly but he let it be. Anyone who knew him knew Sherlock didn't waste time on trivial niceties at a time like this.

Sherlock seared through red tape like a hot knife through butter and John followed in his wake smoothing out the wrinkled egos. In some ways they were chalk and cheese but it was two complimentary opposites that worked.

As the cab snaked it's way past Piccadilly circus and up the A401 to Shaftesbury Avenue to get onto the A40 John recalled a past case “You know the smugglers hauling for the Tong, could it not be a necklace but a tattoo?” John asked Sherlock nervously hoping he wasn't disturbing a train of his thought.

Sherlock sat back in his seat and stared out of the window at the busy London streets, his mind racing at a hundred miles an hour.

He was suddenly aware of John talking and he had to backtrack his own thoughts like a videotape to replay what his ears had picked up and his brain had processed even though he hadn't been paying attention. It took him a moment to answer.

"You're quite right, John," Sherlock agreed. "It's a possibility and one which we have to entertain. We'll check the bodies for tattoos too."

The cab snaked its way past Smithfields Market and round the corner to St Barts. "Just here is fine," Sherlock muttered to the driver as he pulled up near the side entrance. He often used the side door, much less conspicious than the main reception. "Wait here for us," he instructed and climbed out the cab.

John hadn't really expected a reply. He was relieved though to find he hadn't interrupted Sherlock's thinking but went back to being quiet.

The cabbie began to reply to Sherlock's instruction to wait, “Will..” and was left looking at Sherlock's back “...do” he sounded crestfallen but not surprised. So many customers were rude. The improbably tall man with the long, dramatically billowing coat was by no means the worst offender.
“Thanks.” John leaned across smiling. The cabbie perked up a bit.

Having loitered John had to trot quickly to catch up to Sherlock as he strode purposefully into Bart's. John glanced at his watch as they traversed the corridors to the morgue.

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((Sherlock, Molly and a body on slab pic to follow if required XD)

((Haha yes that would be awesome. I nearly always reply on my phone so it's difficult for me to include pictures))


Sherlock was aware of John's footsteps coming up behind him and looked round briefly just to check everything was all right, then burst through the double doors and into the morgue, where Molly Hooper was busy at work making some notes standing over a body.

"Evening Molly," Sherlock called as cheerily as he could muster, striding over to the slab where she was working. "Argument with Adam last night I see."

Molly blushed. Adam was her husband, of nearly 12 years now. She'd finally managed to settle down not long after John and Sherlock did, perhaps at long last giving up any hope of ever having a chance of love with the detective.

"Yes," Sherlock said brusquely, peering at the body.
"Yes what?" Molly asked hesitantly.
"Yes I'll have a coffee."
"Oh. Er...right. Do you want anything John?" She asked with a smile.

Sherlock picked up the notes Molly had been making on the body and scanned through them.

John smiled cheerfully as he could at Molly and stood a little way back watching her bending over her latest charge on the table and Sherlock deducing the life out of Molly. Some things never changed.



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John coughed and muttered "Sherlock" and from that distance noted that the corpse was female. "Um, yes, please, Molly, a coffee, if it's not too much trouble."

"Hm?" Sherlock glanced at John questioningly as Molly trotted off to make the coffee.

"Right then. We'll start with this one seeing as she's already out," he read off the notes. "Female. Obviously. 35 years old. Autopsy reports inconclusive apparently. Well. Let's see if we can do anything about that."

Sherlock put down the notes and snapped open his magnifier, whipping back the sheet that covered the dignity of the dead woman and began to lean over examining every detail under the lens.

"Too late now" John muttered and watched Sherlock pull the sheet of the corpse and get to work with his magnifying glass. Give him a few minutes and he'd have the woman's life history nearly. It was remarkable just how much Sherlock could deduce from so very few little details.

An inconclusive autopsy report, meaning no obvious or multiple potential causes of death, could indicate, John thought, one of the rarer poisons that the tox scan didn't routinely include. He leant against the next slab, a finger and thumb playing at his bottom lip, to wait and see if Sherlock asked for his opinion, as usual.

"It's clearly a murder," Sherlock announced confidently, holding up the woman's hand and staring at her fingers, having already noticed the small pin prick on her neck, indicitave of a needle of some kind. There was a polythene bag on the table with her jewelery inside. He grabbed it and fumbled through the contents, bringing out a simple gold ring.

"Wedding ring," he mumbled, giving a small gasp of satisfaction as he successfully managed to push it onto her wedding finger. It fell easily into the already indented skin. "Married 14 years," he added, looking at a silver locket that was with the other items. It had a small engraving on the outside with the date of their wedding on, and inside a tiny picture of the dead girl and her husband.

Next he removed the woman's mobile phone from the bag and scanned through the text messages and last calls list. So much information could be gleaned from a mobile phone, and Sherlock smiled as the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place.

"John," he looked up at the army doctor and gave him an encouraging smile. "Tell me what you see."

John knew what would probably happen, he would give his medical opinion and he would not see something that Sherlock, with his amazing faculties, had spotted and fed into the supercomputer brain of his. He uncrossed his legs, shoved himself off from leaning against the table, went to the desk and pulled on a pair of disposable medical gloves.

The doctor bent over the dead woman looking for multiple options for a COD.
“Mid thirties, 35 would be right. No sign of strangulation but probable asphyxia, she's a bit blue, possibly a secondary COD. There's a clean injection site on her neck. Could inject air which would stem normal blood flow, but... um if the COD was due to intravenous injection it's more likely one of the rarer poisons that would not have been included in the initial tox scan, selenium, botulinum, take your pick.”

John stood up and looked at Sherlock for his reaction.

Sherlock took a small step back to give John space to work, genuinely interested to hear what he had to say, wondering whether he would spot the same things he had. His eyes brightened in delight when he realised John had noticed the tiny needle mark on her neck.

"Good John!" he exclaimed, interjecting half way through his comments, then cocking his head carefully to hear the rest.

Sherlock paused once the doctor had finished, giving him a small smile. "That's good John. Not bad at all," he remarked, mostly genuine with only a casual hint of sarcasm. "You're certainly along the right lines with poison, that was exactly what I was thinking. You did however, miss rather a few details of importance..."

He cleared his throat, unable to help enjoying himself, he just loved to show off. "What do we know already? The facts. She's 35, her name's Amanda Jackson, it says so here in these notes, it was on her driving licence. Found in the car park of the hospital, somebody clearly drove up and dumped the body there. But why the hospital? She was already dead when she arrived, not like they were trying to help her?"

Sherlock picked up the locket and showed it to John. "Here you see, the initials A.J., that's obviously her. And the other initials B.M. that's her husband, whose name is Bobby. How do I know that? There's only one B in her phone book," he held up the mobile. "Simple."

"So, married for nearly 15 unhappy years. Why unhappy? Because she was actually a lesbian and she was having an affair with her brother's wife. And that's who murdered her. Her brother." He tossed John the phone, dramatically, smirking to himself knowing his friend wouldn't have the faintest idea what he was talking about.