Lorenzo Holmes | Sherlock BBC

Chapter Eight: Suitcase 

The brothers stood up, while John struggled to get to his feet, "Victim is in her late thirties. Professional person, going by her clothes; I'm guessing something in the media, going by the frankly alarming shade of pink. Traveled from Cardiff today, intending to stay in London for one night. It's obvious from the size of her suitcase." Sherlock explained.

"Suitcase?" The inspector asked confused.

John looked around the room but couldn't see a suitcase anywhere.

The dark-haired boy sighed annoyed, "Suitcase, yes. She's been married at least ten years, but not happily. She's had a string of lovers but none of them knew she was married." He said.

Lestrade groaned, "Oh, for God's sake, if you two are just making this up..." he started.

"It's clearly there." Lorenzo interrupted pointing down at the woman's left hand, "Her wedding ring. Ten years old at least. The rest of her jewelry has been regularly cleaned, but not her wedding ring. State of her marriage right there."

Sherlock continued, "The inside of the ring is shinier than the outside - that means it's regularly removed. The only polishing it gets is when she works it off her finger. It's not for work; look at her nails. She doesn't work with her hands, so what or rather who does she removes her rings for? Clearly not one lover; she'd never sustained the fiction of being single over that amount of time, so more likely a string of them. Simple."

"That's brilliant." John breathed admiring them, Sherlock looked around him, "Sorry."

"Cardiff?" Greg asked about it.

The curly haired man turned at him, "It's obvious, isn't it?" he asked.

John shook his head, "It's not obvious to me."

Sherlock paused as he looked at them, "Dear God, what is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring."

"Her coat." Lorenzo said, "It's slightly damp. She's been in heavy rain in the last few hours. No rain anywhere in London in that time. Under her coat collar is damp, too. She's turned it up against the wind. She's got an umbrella in her left-hand pocket but it's dry and unused: not just wind, strong wind - too strong to use her umbrella. We know from her suitcase that she was intending to stay overnight, so she must have come from a decent distance but she can't have traveled more than two or three hours because her coat still hasn't dried. So, where has there been heavy rain and strong wind within the radius of that travel time?" he asked looking at Sherlock.

"Cardiff." Sherlock answered.

John blinked fascinated, "That's fantastic."

Lorenzo looked away from Sherlock and turned his attention towards John, "Do you know you do that out loud?" he asked.

"Sorry. I'll shut up." John apologised.

The teenager cleared his throat, "No, it's ... fine."

Greg aswell cleared his throat, "Why do you two keep saying suitcase?"

Sherlock's eyes widened and looked around the room, "Yes, where is it? She must have had a phone or an organizer. Find out who Rachel is." he asked.

"She was writing 'Rachel'?" Greg asked.

Lorenzo answered sarcastically, "No, she was leaving an angry note in German. Of course, she was writing Rachel; no other word it can be. Question is: why did she wait until she was dying to write it?"

"How do you know she had a suitcase?" Greg questioned the brothers.

Sherlock then pointed down to the body, where her tights had small black splotches on the lower part of her right leg, "Back of the right leg: tiny splash marks on the heel and calf, not present on the left. She was dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. Don't get that splash pattern any other way. A smallish case, going by the spread. A case that size, a woman this clothes-conscious: could only be an overnight bag, so we know she was staying one night." He explained to the inspector.

Lorenzo kneeled down by the woman's body and examined the backs of her legs closely, "Now, where is it? What have you done with it?" he turned quickly ignoring the other two men, "What do you have?" he asked Lorenzo, "what's the profile?"

"He has a rather analytical personality, probably a genius not on our level but enough to outsmart his victims and be unnoticed by specialists. He is killing for his children... and there is a planner, but is not using him, they have a deal. The planner gives the children the money in exchange for the enforcer to "kill" the victims that's why he is not just shooting them in the head... like I said before he is a genius... the suicides are the way he can show his intellectual superiority to the people because he doesn't appear to be a genius when you see him." Lorenzo profiled the killer looking at the body, "Oh, there it is..."

"What?" Sherlock asked.

Lorenzo smirked, "He is a dead man walking and look he already made a mistake; just look at the room." He said waving his hand around.

Sherlock nodded, "Yes," and turned to look at Greg, "Where is the suitcase?" He asked yet again.

Lestrade answered confused by what just happened, who they were talking about?, "There wasn't a case."

Slowly, Sherlock raised his head and frowned up at Lestrade, "Say that again."

Lestrade frowned, "There wasn't a case. There was never any suitcase." he said.

Immediately, The brothers straightened up and headed for the door, calling out to all the police officers in the house as they began to hurry down the stairs, "Suitcase. Did anyone find a suitcase? Was there a suitcase in this house?" Lorenzo asked.

"Right, yeah, thanks. And ...?" Lestrade asked still confused about what they was on about.

"Dear lord. Lorenzo and I, we just told you the answer." Sherlock shouted back, "We've got ourselves a serial killer. I love those. There's always something to look forward to." he lifted his hand in delight.

"Why are you saying that?" Lestrade questioned again getting even more confused.

Lorenzo stopped and called up to the others, "Her case. Come on, where is her case? Did she eat it? Someone else was here, and they took her case." This time he started to mutter, "So the killer must have driven her here; forgot the case was in the car." He said mostly talking to Sherlock.

"She could have checked into a hotel, left her case there." John offered.

The brothers both looked up, "No, she never got to the hotel. Look at her hair. She color-coordinates her lipstick and her shoes. He made a mistake. Serial killers are always hard and you have to wait for them to make a mistake but he did. Lorenzo told us."

Before anyone could question them, the brothers disappeared from the house, leaving John to find his own way home.

_________________________________