Sherlock..........Who?

A Study In Pink Part Two

Lestrade leads the trio up a circular staircase. He and John are wearing coveralls together with white cotton coverings over their shoes, and latex gloves. Sherlock and Jenny is putting on latex gloves as they go up the stairs.

LESTRADE: I can give you two minutes
.
SHERLOCK (casually): May need longer.

LESTRADE: Her name's Jennifer Wilson according to her credit cards. We're running them now for contact details. Hasn't been here long. Some kids found her.

(He leads them into a room two storeys above the ground floor. The room is empty of furniture except for a rocking horse in the far corner. Emergency portable lighting has been set up, presumably by the police. Scaffolding poles hold up part of the ceiling near where a couple of large holes have been knocked through one of the walls. A woman's body is lying face down on the bare floorboards in the middle of the room. She is wearing a bright pink overcoat and high-heeled pink shoes. Her hands are flat on the floor either side of her head. Sherlock walks a few steps into the room and then stops, holding one hand out in front of himself as he focuses on the corpse. Behind him, John and Jenny looks at the woman's body and their faces fills with pain and sadness. The three of them stand there silently for several long seconds, then Sherlock looks across to Lestrade.)

SHERLOCK: Shut up.

JENNY: Sherlock

LESTRADE (startled): I didn't say anything.

SHERLOCK: You were thinking. It's annoying.

(Lestrade and John exchange a surprised look, Jenny just rolls her eyes as Sherlock steps slowly forward until he reaches the side of the corpse. His attention is immediately drawn to the fact that scratched into the floorboards near the woman's left hand is the word "Rache". His eyes flick to her fingernails where the index and middle nails are broken and ragged at the ends, the pink nail polish chipped in stark comparison to her other nails which are still immaculate. The woman's index finger rests at the bottom of the 'e' as if she was still trying to carve into the floor when she died. Sherlock makes an instant deduction:

left handed

He looks back to the word carved into the floorboards and an immediate suggestion springs into his mind:

RACHE
German (n.) revenge

Instantly he shakes his head in a tiny dismissive movement and the suggestion disappears. He looks at the carved word again and overlays the five letters with a clearer type. Next to the 'e' a rapid progression of letters appear and disappear as he tries to complete the word, then the correct letter settles into place to form the word:

Rachel

He squats down beside the body and runs his gloved hand along the back of her coat, then lifts his hand again to look at his fingers:

wet

He reaches into her coat pockets and finds a white folding umbrella in one of them. Running his fingers along the folds of the material, he then inspects his glove again:

dry

Putting the umbrella back into her pocket, he moves up to the collar of her coat and runs his fingers underneath it before again looking at his fingers:

wet

Reaching into his pocket he takes out a small magnifier, clicks it open and closely inspects the delicate gold bracelet on her left wrist ...

clean

... then the gold earring attached to her right ear ...

clean