I am not lonely [Mystrade]

CHAPTER 193 :In the night

As Greg was dreaming of the next well-deserved holidays he would like  to take and of a hundred and one way of spending them, he was suddenly  awoken by the strident ringtone of his mobile phone on the bedside  table. Grunting he rolled on himself and fumbled until he had his hand  on the device.

"Lestrade." he picked up the call in a hoarse voice.

"Sergeant Hassani from Fulham's police station." a woman's voice answered him. "I'm  calling because two of my constables ave found something they believe  to be a body part matching the description you gave in your warning  note."

"Send me the address and tell them not to let anyone near the scene. I'm coming straight away." the policeman retorted, instantly awoken and alert.

"What is happening ?" Mycroft wondered in a sleepy voice as he remarked that his partner was not in the bed anymore.

"I've got a call from work. Apparently they might have found a part of the morbid puzzle I'm dealing with at the moment." the detective explained, jumping into a pair of jeans.

"You are going to New Scotland Yard ?" the half-asleep official questioned, having a quick look at the alarm clock on his bedside table that was reading 02:34 AM.

"No, I'm going on scene on Epple Road. I'll let you know how things unfold." the man replied as he was finishing to dress up.

"Take care and call me later darling." the elder Holmes nodded already starting to fell back to sleep.

The  inspector quickly pecked his husband's forehead before hurtling  downstairs and sprinting to his car. Luckily enough the London traffic  was quite alright at that time of the day and it took the policeman less  than ten minutes to arrive at the scene. A security cordon had already  been installed and the two policeman who had made the sinister discovery  had been joined by two back up cars.

Greg parked his car in the  middle of the closed up street and took a first look around him. Fulham  was not the neighbourhood he was the most accustomed too but the street  was looking quite residential and the small houses around him seemed to  confirm the working-class and industrial past of the borough.

The  constables' discovery was located in one of these small concrete  courtyard before each house. The white house to which the yard belong  was vacant and a large red poster was indicating that an agency was  trying to rent the place.

The  courtyard was empty if it was for the naked human tronk right in the  centre. A powerful floodlight had been brought to the scene,  enlightening the bloody body part and making it even grimmest. The skin  colour and body shape seemed to match the one from the man seen on the  video and the foot already received, convincing Greg that apparently,  the game wasn't yet over.

As he took a better look at the torso  he remarked that it had been cut precisely, probably with a sharp blade.  The perpetrator had let the shoulders and a part of the neck attached  to the torso but half of the tummy seemed to be missing as well as most  of the organs inside. TO the detective, that murder case was beyond  understanding, and God knew he had seen terrible things in his career.

The  policeman was just starting to analyse the surrounding for any trace of  a clue on what had brought the body there when he was joined by Donovan  who had been awoken just like him by Fulham's sergeant.

"I've awoken Rowan and Lawrence, so they can interview the constables." the woman informed her superior as she took a look for herself at the human tronk on the pavement. "And the coroner is en route with his team."

"Brilliant." the inspector smiled as he stuck his face against the living room's window. "Have you got a torchlight ?"

The  woman grabbed her phone and tried to enlighten the inside of the room  as she herself stuck her face to the window. The inside of the room was  fully furnished and an important layer of dust seemed to shine on all  the surfaces.