A Consulting Detective, Ex Army Doctor, and Child Mercenary Walk Into A Room

Chapter 4: The Reichenbach Fall

The boys' room was very similar to the girls'. Four beds but three of them were stripped and the fourth was unslept. A bunch of clothes, some boys's fiction, and a cricket bat with a bottle of linseed oil. Other than that, everything was utterly neat and orderly. John had just come into the room as well. "No sign of a struggle," John noticed. Sherlock let out a little smile of admiration when John noticed it. "Think that's odd, John?" Sherlock asked. The doctor shrugged. "Ten-year-old boy. Why didn't he just cry out?" Donovan and Lestrade came in with Donovan giving Sherlock nasty looks. I nearly growled at her if John didn't put his hand on my shoulder, holding me back. "If the intruder was armed ... A professional," Donovan stated. Lestrade tapped his shoe. "We're assuming it's politically motivated. Not just some lone mutt." Sherlock examines the dormitory door. It's an old wooden door with a frosted glass panel. He opens it and studies the light outside. John and I watch the light cast the shadow of Sherlock's hand onto the glass.

"Boy sleeps in that bed every night," Sherlock mutters. "Gazing at the only light source, out in the corridor. He would know every shape, every outline - the silhouette of everyone who stood outside his room." "Ok. So ...?" Donovan said while picking at some blankets. Even though none of us could see Sherlock through the window, I just knew he was rolling his eyes. There was an exasperated sigh coming from Sherlock. "Lune, care to explain?" I smiled gleefully and walked around the room. "So someone approaches his door - someone whose shape he doesn't recognize. An intruder." I turned back quickly and pointed a finger at Sherlock's silhouette. "What would he do? He'd only have a few precious seconds before they came into the room." I run towards one of the beds and throw myself on one of them as Sherlock enters the room. The bed groans under my weight. "How would he use them?" I continued. "If not to cry out?" "You think maybe he left us some sort of clue?" John asks.

I sat up in the small bed and smiled at John kindly. "Bingo, John." Sherlock steps in and offers his hand. I gladly took it and Sherlock pulled me up. "Good job, Lune," Sherlock said. "I'll take it from here." Sherlock knelt down by the bookshelf and peered at the books. "John, he knows what his father does to earn a crust. He knows that his dad is a key political appointment. He'd have been warned about this - expected it, even." I was by John's side swaying side to side. Something about this case seemed weird. A little off. "Lune?" Sherlock asked. "What about these books?" I was woken up from my train of thought. My eyes shifted over to the bookshelf. "Mmm, just teenage spy fiction." "Yes but books like these aren't just for fun, they're for preparation." And then I realized something. While Sherlock falls to his knees and starts scrambling around on the floor, like a dog after a buried bone, I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what I needed to remember. Sherlock picks up a cricket bat and sniffs it but it doesn't smell. He then finds a bottle of linseed and shakes it. "Half this bottle's gone. What's he done with it all?" Sherlock sniffs the air and wall intensely. "John," I called out. "Why were there breadcrumbs on your hands?" John reaches into his jacket. "Um, well, Lune-" Sherlock's eyes widened as he realized what happened. "Get forensics in here!" Sherlock shouts to Lestrade.

...

Sherlock, John, and I walk into the room, now with ultra-violet lights on stands. Forensics were pulling all the curtains closed, taping blackout material across the skylights. At the center of it all was Anderson barking out orders. "You hate Anderson," I whispered to Sherlock. "Well I certainly don't have the equipment to do all this," he retorted. "I could always get them for you," I offered. Sherlock and John raised their eyebrows. They knew by 'get' I meant stole from the police. Sherlock kissed the top of my forehead. "Well that'd certainly be a good Christmas or birthday present." "Don't encourage, Lune," John scolded. Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Besides, Lune. This is a good way Anderson can finally be useful," Sherlock pointed out. "I can hear you!" Anderson shouted. I gave him the middle finger behind his back.

As the three of us walked to the center of the room, the room gradually got darker and darker. We pass deeper into the shadows, and finally blackness. John was quite confused as well. Well more confused than me, of course. He knew that Sherlock despised Anderson, so why call forensics? "There was no sign of blood," John thought out loud. "Why the ultra-violet." "All human secretions leave detectable traces," I explained. "Not just blood. Also sweat and saliva. They can be picked up on ultra-violet. Like the bottle of half used linseed oil over there." "How do you know that?" I pointed at myself. "Well, duh. Child mercenary over here. We had to cover our tracks all the time. We usually had a small UV light in our packs here or there." The door slammed shut and then we were in total blackout. Click. The room is illuminated with ultraviolet light.

HELP US

It was a message left by ten-year-old Max Bruhl. "Doesn't tell us anything we didn't know," John stated. "I think the splashes on the floor are rather eloquent," Sherlock pointed out. We looked down on the floor and there it was, UV footprints. Max had poured a pool of oil on the ground so that the intruder would trod in it. And there were his footprints, plain as day. Alongside those of the footprints of the two kidnapped children. Sherlock smiled. "Black out this whole building," Sherlock said. Now we were getting somewhere. Quickly, forensics blacked out the corridor and it was illuminated in ultra-violet. A forensics officer was snapping photos with his special night vision camera. I was already ahead of Sherlock and John. At the end of the lit up footprints. John, Sherlock, and Lestrade were stumbling in the dark following me and the footprints tell quite a grim story. Sherlock tilted his head to the side. "The boy was made to walk ahead of him." John examined Max's footprints. "On tip-toe? No heels?"

"Indicates anxiety," I shout down the halls. I could remember the thuds of each footstep back in the Annex. Each whimper of the frightened kidnapees. When the seniors would show us how we would do the exact same thing to the poor fools. Silent tiptoes would follow the smell of anxiety induced sweating. "Probably with the gun to the boy's head. The sister was held beside him," I sighed. "Almost dragged sideways. Probably means the brother had his left arm cradled around her neck." The corridor was very long. After a while, Sherlock and John notice the footprints getting fainter and fainter. They turn the corner - reach me - and there are no more. Lestrade scratched the back of his head. "That's the end of it," he said. "We don't know where they went from here." "Tells us nothing after all," John complained. "Right, John," Sherlock says pityingly. John whirls on Sherlock. Oh he noticed that tons. "Well then spill the beans then, asshole!" Sherlock tutted. "Except that we can tell the kidnapper's shoe size, height, gait, and walking pace. The fact that he didn't run. Calm, under pressure," Sherlock concluded. "I mean Lune's got it right, darling?" I diligently nodded my head. Sherlock tisked. "I'm getting slow, oh dear." "Don't worry Sherlock," I said. "You're still smarter." I walked around John who was getting quite tired but looked at me forlornly. Lune is getting smarter, John thought. That's nice. With all this and that going on. The lights turn on. "Got an image now?" I asked John.

Sherlock kneels down on the floor and gets out his little kit from his coat pocket. He takes a petri dish and starts to scrape the surface of the parquet. "So..." Lestrade dawdles. He takes out a cigarette and lighter. "How are you doing, Lune? Sherlock giving you any trouble?" I watched John peer over Sherlock's shoulder telling him to hurry up. Sherlock stood up. And then I looked over at Mr. Lestrade and noticed the concern and tension near his shoulders. "Come on Lune," Sherlock said. "Let's go." I turned towards Lestrade. "No trouble at all, Inspector. But we'll be heading in." I smiled brightly at John and Sherlock who were waiting for me at the gates. I ran off towards them, waving goodbye to Lestrade. "See you soon sir!" Lestrade smiles lopsidedly. "Hopefully not too soon Ms. Moriarty." Maybe he had nothing to worry about then. He breathe out the smoke out into the cold air.