Sherlocked (BBC Fanfiction)

Chapter 19 - Corpse de Ballet

“Sherlock, she hasn’t been dead for over eight hours,” I spoke urgently and through chattering teeth to my phone, the conical view of Sherlock’s somnolent expression projected in a grainy image on the screen.  I stood out in a field of grass out in the moor, the five a.m. overcast dulling the sun.  Looking up, stars besieged the sky and only a slight hint of morning light touched the sky, the stars beginning to obscure.  The insinuation of tangy above was nothing now but a doodle, and vanishing hastily.  The thin tendrils of white and milky blue clouds looked as if they’d been splattered onto the sky, their opus.  The sky was like a glass of milk after dunking too many Oreos into it; creamy and milky.  Soggy water-color clouds wandered apathetically across the firmaments.  They stood out on their backdrop, an opaque, pastel midnight blue canvas.  Ashen splotches of light from the ever-hidden stars remained veiled behind the twists of clouds.  This February morning was a crisp and clear morning, the air stingingly cold.

A mutilated dead body of a used-to-be prima ballerina remained hunched in the small pond, dirty, stagnant water settled in a thin, cloudy film over her eyeballs, her eyelids forever pried open.  I shivered once more and hugged my sweater to myself once more, my numbed fingers clutching my phone, the front side pointing to my face.  “Sherlock, I’m telling you –”

I crouched down and pulled a pen from my coat pocket.  I prodded inside her mouth, checking tooth decay.  Her teeth were still perfectly intact.  “–she’s only been dead a couple of hours.”  I pointed the camera of my phone to her mouth as I used my pen to keep her lips and gum out of the way, revealing the bottom row of her teeth.

“No!  I’m telling you she’s been dead for a month!”  Sherlock’s agitated voice emanated from the speakers on my phone.  Still mildly irritated that he sent me out here with Scotland Yard to investigate a mutilated ballerina while he stayed cocooned inside his burrito of blankets inside the warm flat, I sighed and stood up.

“He’s wrong, you know,” I heard Anderson’s voice from behind me.  I turned around and found his fitting rubber gloves onto his hands, his boots clambering through the mush, a camera hanging around his neck.  As being a part of the Forensics Department, he was required to photograph the crime scene

“I can hear you, Anderson,” Sherlock mumbled from my phone and I pointed it toward the woman again.  Her name was Florence Simone – a French ballerina on tour in England we learned after she had been reported missing two days ago.  Which doesn’t explain how long she’s been dead.  By my presumption and scrupulous appraisal, she hasn’t been deceased for more eight hours.  The decaying process hasn’t even begun yet.  She was found by an older couple who had gone for an early morning walk.  She had still been wearing her ensemble when she was discovered; leotard, tutu, and Pointe shoes.  Half her hair was pinned up into a bun, the other half floated delicately in the murky pond water.  “Jordyn, okay, look passed the progression of decay for now.  Look at what you’re seeing.  Tell me.”

I sighed in annoyance and rubbed my tired eyes, removing my glasses for a moment.  I hadn’t even bothered about make-up.  I ran a hand through my damp, still curly hair and my shoulders wilted.  “Well,” I began, hesitation clear in my voice.  “The epidermis of her skin looks a bit too pale.  Transparent almost.  And…and she looks sort of blue.  As if she froze.”

“Yes!  Okay, what else?”

I stifled a growl in the back of my throat.  “I-I…Sherlock, I don’t have magical deductive powers like you do!  I access a situation and react quickly, that’s it!  And also memorize every tinsy little detail, but that’s beside the point!  I can’t deduce a dead body!”