The Soldier, The Messiah & the Pariah

Chapter 11

Later, the police had been called and a photographer was taking pictures of Van Coon's body lying on the bed. A forensics officer was dusting for fingerprints on the nearby mirror, and distant voices suggested that other forensics officers were elsewhere in the flat.

Sherlock had taken off his coat and was in the bedroom putting on a pair of latex gloves. John and Lex stood beside him.

"D'you think he'd lost a lot of money? I mean, suicide is pretty common among City boys" he asked.

Sherlock shook his head. "We don't know that it was suicide"

"Come on. The door was locked from the inside; you had to climb down the balcony"

"Which is the point, John," Lex said, making him turn to her who was looking around but stood firm. "If we managed to enter through the balcony, someone else could have done the same. There are many ways to kill somebody, the balcony most convenient if you have the skills"

The two men looked at each other, impressed by her knowledge which sounded slightly more coming from experience than general knowledge. They, however, stayed silent and Sherlock continued his inspection.

He had squatted down by a suitcase on the floor near the bed, had opened the lid and was looking at the contents. "Been away three days, judging by the laundry" he saw that there's a deep indentation in the clothing inside the case, then straightened up and looked at the duo. "Look at the case. There was something tightly packed inside it"

"Thanks. I'll take your word for it" John said.

"Problem?"

"Yeah, I'm not desperate to root around some bloke's dirty underwear"

Lex shook her head and bent one knee to be by Sherlock's height. He pointed out what he had seen and wh3 leaned closer, taking a look. Indeed, it seemed that something had been placed there or better say, had been hidden. Most likely taken away in a hurry since no one fixed the indentation.

Sherlock left as she stood up and watched him walk to the foot of the bed. "Those symbols at the bank – the graffiti. Why were they put there?"

"What, some sort of code?"

"Obviously" Having looked closely at Van Coon's legs, he moved up and carefully opened the man's jacket to look at his inside pockets. "Why were they painted? If you want to communicate, why not use e-mail?"

"Well, maybe he wasn't answering"

"Oh good. You follow"

"No"

Sherlock threw him a look and then turned to Lex. "He was avoiding answering"

He gave a nod at her and then moved on to examine Van Coon's hands. "What kind of message would everyone try to avoid?" John frowned in confusion.

"What about this morning – those letters you were looking at?"

"Bills" the short man replied.

"Check his mouth" Lex pointed out. Sherlock gave a nod and gently praised open Van Coon's mouth, only to pull out a small black origami flower from inside. "He was being threatened" she concluded as she looked at the origami flower.

"Bag this up, will you ..." a man's voice was heard from outside the bedroom.

John looked closely at the paper flower as Sherlock lifted an evidence bag to put the flower into it "Not by the gas board"

" ... and see if you can get prints off this glass," the same voice said and the owner of it walked into the room.

He was a plain-clothed police officer who looked too young in Lex's mind. He walked into the bedroom and Sherlock quickly walked towards him in return.