Fic: An Age of Silver (6/23)
"An Age of Silver" (6/23)
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5a / Part 5b
By the time they reached the end of the crime database a week later, they had found only one additional victim who could be linked to their killer.
The electronic database only stretched back ten years. Beyond that, they would have had to turn to the written records that were stored in the Yard’s extensive archives. Sherlock didn’t feel as though that was necessary, and Hopkins agreed. Ten years was a long time to operate undetected. Besides, the last victim they found only dated to 2020.
“Andrew Sarkis,” Hopkins said quietly to himself as he pinned the man’s photograph to the wall in the conference room. Sarkis had been murdered in April of 2020, and so he had usurped Daniel Jenkins of his status as first victim. He had been discovered in the unsolved crimes database, and his case had been a cold one until now.
“Six victims,” Sherlock said as he scanned the wall from his vantage point in the back of the room. “Two men, four women. Five names, one unknown.”
“Two names, technically,” Hopkins said. He stepped back and folded his arms, surveying the wall. “The other four were supposed to go unidentified for the rest of time. And they would have, if not for a couple of lucky breaks.”
“So your killer - our killer - started out picking his victims at random. He was doing that from the very beginning. That didn’t change,” Sherlock said. “But the fact that they’re purposely unidentifiable… that’s new.”
“So’s the grey paint,” Hopkins added, tapping the first photograph. The first victim’s left palm was covered in white paint. “But not the paint on the whole. The killer has always employed that, but the shade of paint changed after the first victim. I wonder why that is.”
He passed a hand over his face, thinking.
“First order of business,” he said finally, “is getting the man convicted of the second murder out of prison. This was a horrendous oversight on all our parts, and he paid the price for it.”
“You weren’t the one who sent him away,” Sherlock pointed out calmly, knowing very well that Hopkins would carry the blame for it for as long as someone would let him, even though he hadn’t been personally involved in the case. “Your team never landed that case.”
“I know,” Hopkins said, though Sherlock wasn’t sure if his words had helped. Hopkins went on, “I need to interview him, and the original teams that handled those first two cases. Maybe they can help shed some light on this sorry mess.”
“We can only look backwards until we have something happen in the present that might give us some more evidence,” Sherlock mused to himself. From the stony silence he received, though, he realised that Hopkins didn’t necessarily feel the same way. He thought back on his words for a moment, and then said, “Not… that I am wishing that someone comes to harm so we can get a break in this case.”
“You’d best not be,” Hopkins said gruffly. “Right, I need to get moving on this. Give us a hand with the interviews?”
“With pleasure.”
----
The end of October was upon them before Sherlock had got used to the idea that October had arrived at all, and as the month approached its close there was still no break in the serial killer case.
They had interviewed all the relevant players from the first two murders, including the wrongly-convicted man, and no new details had emerged. Their memories had all been dimmed by the passage of years and blurred with other cases, and what details they did remember sometimes contradicted hard evidence such as case notes and photographs.
But the fact that there was already one ghastly criminal on everyone’s minds didn’t stop all the others from committing crimes. Hopkins’ team had been working on other smaller-but no less important-crimes whilst also dealing with their unnervingly-quiet serial killer, and in the last two weeks of October they were handed two manslaughter cases to handle. Sherlock, who hadn’t had a case since the embezzlement one, was contacted through his website by a man trying to get in touch with his biological family.
“Not your standard fare as far as cases go, but it might keep you occupied for a time,” Hopkins had said sagely during one of their lunches. “I haven’t anything new on my end to report, so it’ll at least give you something new to think about.”
Alice, who came upon Sherlock one afternoon while he was standing on the sofa and pinning all of the documents relevant to his new case to the wall, had a different opinion.
“You really need a hobby,” she said flatly. She was carrying bags of food, having just got back from the shops. She went into the kitchen, where she deposited the shopping and started putting the various foodstuffs away. “Or a pet.”
“Hopkins is allergic,” Sherlock said absently. The silence that followed was lengthy enough to be noticeable, and Sherlock looked up to see Alice peering at him curiously from the kitchen doorway. “Not… that that has any bearing on whether or not I would consider getting an animal.”
“Uh-huh,” Alice said, sounding both smug and unconvinced, and she returned to her work.
Sherlock cursed to himself as he dropped a pin behind the sofa, sighed, and plucked another from the box he had balanced preciously on the back of the sofa. He picked up another newspaper clipping, ignoring the pinpricks of pain in his left hand as he braced it against the wall and pushed the pin in. He managed to hang three more items pertaining to his case before his hand started to throb, and he stood there for some moments flexing his fingers, biting the inside of his cheek in order to keep his winces from visibly showing. The pain usually didn’t linger this long.
“They’ve stopped working, haven’t they?”
Alice was standing by the sofa, arms crossed, trying to look stern - as though it was Sherlock’s fault that his painkillers had ceased functioning effectively.
“It’s a minor inconvenience,” Sherlock said, stepping off the sofa and brushing past her to fetch his laptop. “I can find new painkillers. Different ones.”
“You know, I was reading an article the other day -“
“Don’t, Alice.”
“ - and it said that research showed that the newest prosthetic devices can actually eliminate pain in a damaged limb. See, the doctors go in and not only add on the missing limbs, but they reconstruct the damaged tissue and bone, which eliminates many complications that amputees face.”
“That research has been around for years, I’m familiar with it,” Sherlock said shortly. “It’s just now making it into popular science publications, but it’s always been present in actual journals.”
“Have you considered -”
“Yes,” Sherlock snapped, and she stopped short. “Yes, of course I have. Do you really think the thought never crossed my mind? I want my hand back, of course I do. It’s tempting. But I’ve grown used to the way it is now, and I’d rather not take the time out just yet for the surgery and the resulting physical therapy, and I especially don’t want to deal with the possibility that my body may well reject the prosthesis. It’s not worth it, Alice.”
Alice stared at him for a long moment before putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing lightly.
“I understand wanting to honour him,” she said softly, “but I don’t think that’s worth this pain. Do you?”
“Given what he went through at the end,” Sherlock said, just as quietly, “I think this is the least I can do.”
He was alone later that night and reading a book on Gregor Mendel when the computer interface on the far wall lit up and a message came through. Sighing, Sherlock pushed himself to his feet and strode across the room to read the screen, as his sight wasn’t as sharp as it once had been.
It was a document listing the best surgeons in London, all of whom had specialized in both performing amputations and in applying prosthetics to patients who had suffered grievous wounds.
Sherlock erased the message with an angry jab and then slammed his hand flat against the wall in frustration.
“Stop this, Mycroft,” he snarled to the room at large, furious. “I get it! You monitor my conversations, my movements, my entire life. I know that. Stop flaunting it! And stop interfering.”
For a while, there was nothing but silence. Then, the computer screen came to life again.
Good night, brother.
----
It didn’t take long for the newspapers to give their killer a name.
“The Regent’s Park Killer,” Hopkins read from a headline before slapping the paper into Sherlock’s palm. “Clever.”
“Hardly,” Sherlock said dryly, and set the paper aside on Hopkins’ desk after offering it a cursory glance. “More like inaccurate. Although it’s a sight better than The London Strangler they were testing out last week. You called?”
“Tried to, at least. What the bloody hell happened to your vid system? It kept giving me error messages.”
“We had a disagreement,” Sherlock said darkly. He had spent thirty minutes last night tearing every computer interface in his flat out of the walls and cutting through all the circuitry. He had effectively cut himself off from the rest of London, and it had been invigorating. Knowing Mycroft, the interfaces would be replaced and the circuitry mended by the time Sherlock returned from his errand to the Yard, but it had felt at least momentarily heartening to destroy some of his brother’s surveillance means.
“Right,” Hopkins said, giving him a strange look. Sherlock shrugged.
“I answered my mobile, don’t look at me like that.”
A muscle leaped in Hopkins’ jaw, and his eyes turned to stone.
“Yeah, and it still took you bloody long enough to get here,” he snarled.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Hopkins had summoned him to the Yard earlier that morning and expected a prompt response. He ended up waiting for close to two hours before Sherlock showed up--which Sherlock was completely unapologetic about.
“I was in the middle of an experiment and I had to wait for a cab. If it had been so urgent, you should have sent a car around.”
“I did send a car around,” Hopkins snapped. Sherlock glared at him.
“You sent a driverless car.”
“Because I don’t have the manpower to be sending people out to Baker Street to chauffeur you around,” Hopkins said in exasperation. “Not to mention the fact that it’s not their bloody job.”
“Then it must not have been that urgent if you couldn’t spare someone,” Sherlock pointed out smugly. Hopkins threw up his hands in frustration.
“You know, Sherlock, it was quaint for a time, but your avoidance of technology is really starting to get irritating. There are about five fucking cabs left in London right now thanks to the onset of the driverless public transport system--which is the safest in the world, I might add--and that’s why it takes you bloody forever to get your arse down here. That’s why it takes you bloody forever to get anywhere. What the hell’s the matter with you?”
For the first time that afternoon, Sherlock felt real anger bubble in his chest. Hopkins had no idea what it was like to be constantly monitored; to be conscious of the fact that there was someone out there Sherlock couldn’t outsmart, and who watched his every movement. Mycroft called it concern; Sherlock called it far worse, overbearing and smothering being chief among his many unsavory adjectives.
Fatal where Victor was concerned, but Sherlock didn’t want to think about that right now, and he didn’t have the patience to explain it to Hopkins.
“Well, I’m here now, so what the devil do you want?” he snapped instead. Hopkins drew a deep, bracing breath.
“It looks like your tactic worked--as far as keeping the killer around, that is,” Hopkins said briskly, anger still present in his tone. “We’ve got a another victim. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
Sherlock kicked the office door shut and then stalked over to Hopkins’ desk.
“Listen to me,” he snarled, placing both hands on the desk and leaning down. “I told you at the start I don’t do cases like this, that I can’t do cases like this. You wanted my advice anyway, and I gave it. You were the one who chose to follow it. It was your choice to conduct the press conference in that manner, and your choice to keep certain information from the public. Now pull your head out of your arse and take a look around you. I am not the one who harmed these victims, and neither are you. Misplaced blame will only serve to delay and distract you. Now stop being such a bloody fool and focus on the case.”
Hopkins stood abruptly, and Sherlock straightened. For a moment, he was certain that Hopkins was about to strike him, but then Hopkins appeared to rein himself in. His clouded features cleared, and he carefully schooled his expression into one of detached neutrality.
“Her body was discovered this morning,” Hopkins said stiffly. “She was dumped, naked, in Regent’s. Forensics estimates that she couldn’t have been more than eighteen, twenty years old.”
“But that’s not why you called me down here,” Sherlock said. “You could just as easily have sent the information over to Baker Street, or brought it yourself. No, there’s something else going on here. You have a name already?”
Hopkins shook his head. “No. But we have something that might be even better than a name. It looks as though there was some DNA evidence left behind on the victim. Anderson’s running the tests right now; that’s why I called you down here. We should have something to go on momentarily, and whatever it is, I want you to see it immediately. Come on.”
They moved to the conference room. It seemed as though Hopkins had taken up a permanent residence in there. The table was littered with miscellany that all belonged to him - his half-empty coffee mug; pieces of paper with notes scribbled in his handwriting; his stapler. Sherlock wondered when Hopkins had last seen the inside of his house.
Anderson was already in the conference room, waiting for them, and he was busy arranging his report on the table.
“Daniel,” Hopkins greeted briskly as they stepped through the door. “What’ve you got?”
Anderson looked up, his mouth tight at the corners with apprehension.
“I’m afraid we’re no closer to identifying our killer,” he said regretfully. “And I think we may have complicated the issue.”
Hopkins’ eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
Anderson glanced at Sherlock, and there was clear unease in his eyes. Sherlock steeled himself for news that was undoubtedly going to make Hopkins upset, going by the hesitation that was plain on Anderson’s face.
“We have two people involved in these murders,” Anderson said, dropping the bomb quickly. “I don’t know to what extent the second man plays a role, but the traces of DNA on the victim’s body point to two different men.”
Hopkins’ voice was low and dangerous when he finally spoke. “You’re certain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And how do we know that the second’s man DNA came from an accomplice and not someone she had encountered earlier in the day?”
“We don’t,” Anderson admitted. “Given how thorough our killer is, though, I feel as though it’s unlikely he would have missed that. Frankly, it’s a miracle we got the DNA that we did.”
He looked at Sherlock, and explained, “The fifth victim was able to fight back-or at least, she’s the first one where we’ve found obvious evidence of fighting. Maybe the drugs in her system weren’t strong enough, or she didn’t react the same way as the others. Regardless, she was able to scratch her attacker-or attackers. She was cleaned off, just like the rest of them, but they weren’t able to get all of the skin cells that had been left behind under her fingernails.”
“And you were able to identify two separate kinds of DNA,” Sherlock finished for him. Anderson nodded.
“Although ‘identify’ is too strong of a word,” he said. “I can tell that the DNA belonged to two different human males. Unfortunately, it was too degraded by the time we got to it. I tried running it through our databases, but it was too badly damaged. Even if our killer is in there-which is likely, given that he was probably a city worker at one point-this DNA isn’t enough to identify him.”
The room was quiet for a long while after Anderson finished speaking. Even Sherlock began to feel uncomfortable, though he didn’t dare break the silence. Hopkins’ sour mood worsened as the silence lengthened, and Sherlock could feel fury rolling off of him in waves.
“Right, because this is the first we're hearing of a second man, let's operate under the assumption that we have one killer - one man who is consistently committing all of the crimes," Hopkins said stiffly. "This second source of DNA could be any number of people. Maybe he's someone our victim encountered during the day. More likely, he's an accomplice who aided our killer with the abductions or provided a safe kill site."
"Agreed," Sherlock put in. The crimes were too consistent. It was likely that only one man was committing them, while the other operated more on the periphery.
"That still doesn't explain, Daniel, why didn’t we find this evidence on the other victims," Hopkins said, his words harsh even though he knew perfectly well why it hadn’t been found. He was looking for a fight, and someone was going to give it to him.
“There was simply no evidence to find,” Anderson pointed out, almost gently. “This killer is thorough, sir. He drugs his victims so they’re too weak to fight back, and he cleans their bodies prior to dumping them. This was an unusual victim. Somehow, she managed to fight even through the drugs. He cleaned her pretty thoroughly, but it’s hard to get everything out from under a human fingernail, and DNA is miniscule. What was left behind was barely enough to work with. We’re lucky to get the evidence that we did.”
Even Sherlock winced at Anderson’s choice of words in his last sentence, though he could find no fault with that explanation. The man’s reasoning was sound. Hopkins, however, set his jaw in a hard, angry line.
“This is unacceptable, Daniel,” he growled.
‘This was unpreventable, sir,” Anderson replied calmly. “Any other forensics team would tell you the same.”
“But you aren’t any other team, Anderson--you’re my team. And I expect better. Come back when you have something more useful to report and not a moment before.”
Anderson, before he departed, glanced at Sherlock. They shared a look and a shrug--the most amicable exchange that they had had in years.
Hopkins stormed back into his office. Sherlock followed.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sherlock demanded.
Hopkins, in response, turned and slammed his fist into the wall. The skin broke immediately and his knuckles started to bleed, bright rivulets of blood spilling down the back of his hand.
“She was eighteen,” he growled. “She was fucking eighteen. Damn it!”
He punched the wall again before Sherlock could stop him, and would have done so a third time if Sherlock hadn’t grabbed his wrist.
“Stop this,” Sherlock snapped. “It doesn’t do anyone any good, and will be of no help in solving this case. Stop being a fool and think. It’s the only hope you have of figuring out who’s doing this.”
“Little good it’s done us so far,” Hopkins snarled. He tugged his hand out of Sherlock’s grip and reached for a handkerchief, which he wrapped securely around his bleeding knuckles. Sherlock found that he had to resist the urge to reach out and take the injured hand in his own; instead, he balled his own hands into fists and shoved them into his pockets.
“We will solve this,” Sherlock said vehemently. “I will help you solve this, Stanley.”
Hopkins stared at him for a moment.
“God, I hope so. I know you’ll try your damnedest, at least,” he said quietly. “Why do you think I came to you in the first place? If anyone can solve it, you can. I’ve never doubted you, Sherlock.”
That sentiment was more heartening than it had any right to be, and it took Sherlock slightly by surprise. He had met Hopkins not long after his return from the dead, and only two months after Victor’s death. And even though prior to that Hopkins had only known about him courtesy of the rumour mill at the Met--and from Lestrade’s own stories--he had never wavered in his loyalty to Sherlock, even in the months after Victor’s death when that loyalty was far from deserved.
Hopkins had always trusted him, and Sherlock had never known what he’d done to earn that trust. In anyone else, he would call it foolish.
But Hopkins was far from a fool.
“Here.” Sherlock reached out, tentative, and when he received no resistance he gently cupped Hopkins’ injured hand. He peeled back the handkerchief, spotted already with blood, and inspected the swelling knuckles. “This doesn’t look broken.”
“No,” Hopkins said softly. He flexed his fingers, as though to demonstrate, though Sherlock didn’t miss the wince that passed over his features. “I’m fine.”
Sherlock dabbed at the blood on the back of Hopkins’ hand, which was already starting to harden.
“No, you’re not,” he said quietly. Hopkins bit the inside of his cheek, hard; Sherlock pretended not to have seen and dropped his gaze once again to Hopkins’ hand.
“I hate these cases,” Hopkins said finally, his voice thick. “I hate every goddamn thing about them. Why did I take this job, Sherlock?”
“Because you’re needed,” Sherlock said softly. Hopkins snorted.
“Hardly,” he said bitterly. “What good am I compared to you?”
“And what good am I if you aren’t at my side?”
Hopkins met his gaze sharply, and Sherlock held it for several unwavering seconds. The air between them was thick and heavy with all that went unsaid--with all that Sherlock didn’t know how to voice. And then suddenly he became aware that Hopkins’ hand was still in his own, and that he had been idly sweeping his thumb back and forth across the sharp bone of Hopkins’ wrist. They pulled away from one another, and Hopkins cleared his throat.
“I need to get back to work,” he said softly, rubbing a thumb across his brow, as though he could smooth away the weary lines. “Call me if you think of anything, would you?”
“The same goes for you. I want to know the moment you have a name for her.”
They exchanged a lingering handshake, and Sherlock left without a backward glance.
----
Sherlock thoroughly detested the restaurant that had become Mycroft’s latest haunt, but he knew better than to skip out on lunch with his brother.
They had been meeting on a regular basis for five years now, a routine that Mycroft had insisted on implementing following their mother’s passing. Sherlock, if he didn’t want his relative freedom restricted any more than Mycroft already had-and if he wanted access to the money left behind by their mother-was forced to comply with Mycroft’s wishes.
The restaurant was posh, gleaming, and always busy. It was perfect for Mycroft, who always preferred to hide in the middle of a crowd.
Sherlock just preferred to hide.
“You’re late,” Mycroft announced when Sherlock joined him at their customary table. It was seven minutes after one.
“I know,” Sherlock sighed. “I wasn’t going to come.”
The dining room had a high, vaulted ceiling that magnified the dozens of conversations occurring around them, and his words were almost lost to the din.
“What changed your mind?”
“I couldn’t figure out where you’d placed the fifth man on my security detail and therefore couldn’t elude him,” Sherlock muttered, irritated. A waiter brought over his usual meal; Mycroft was already eating his.
“Ah, that would be Sophia. She’s excellent. You’ll never even know she’s there.”
Sherlock bit back the unexpected Fuck you, Mycroft that tugged at his tongue and decided that perhaps he had been spending too much time around Hopkins after all. He smiled to himself inexplicably at the thought, and hid his expression behind a sip of water from his glass.
“How are Doctor Watson and Inspector Lestrade?”
“Fine.”
“And your work?”
“Good.”
The conversation continued along in that vein for some time, with Mycroft asking meaningless questions and Sherlock giving monosyllabic answers.
“Can we expect you for Christmas?” Mycroft asked finally as the conversation petered out and the meal drew to its conclusion at last. Sherlock shrugged.
“I hadn’t planned on it,” he said, which was the same answer he gave every year. He had not been home for the holidays since before his mother’s death. He spent Christmas nowadays with John and Lestrade, and much preferred it that way.
“Erik has been asking after you.”
Sherlock grimaced at the mention of his stepfather.
“Good for him.”
“Sherlock.” Mycroft shook his head at Sherlock’s petulant reply, but instead of scolding him, said, “You can bring Inspector Hopkins, if you like. There’s always enough food to feed what seems like a small country. It’s far too much for just the three of us.”
That got Sherlock’s attention, and he stared openly at Mycroft.
“Why would I want to bring Hopkins?” he asked, while at the same time shoving away the tiny spark of gratitude that tried to light in his chest. Mycroft stared at him for a long moment.
“No reason,” he said at last, reaching for his card. “No reason at all, little brother. Maybe next year.”
Sherlock was back at Baker Street within an hour, having refused his brother’s car in favour of walking. He rapped sharply on Alice’s door, and when she opened it, said, “I need to borrow your dog. Checkers!”
“Oh, Sherlock, I don’t think -”
She was interrupted by the puppy, who flew out from under the kitchen table and darted between her legs before dashing upstairs. Sherlock gave her a smirk; she rolled her eyes at him.
“No experimenting on him,” she said firmly. “And I mean it this time.”
Checkers settled in his usual spot on the sofa, happily gnawing away on a chew toy he had discovered under Sherlock’s desk.
“There have been seven murders,” Sherlock said to the puppy, who ignored him. “All of the murders have occurred over a period of six years. All of the victims were abducted off the streets, but no one saw them go. No one saw them in transport. They weren’t seen again until their bodies were discovered approximately forty-eight hours later.”
Sherlock picked up a pen off the table and began to twirl it through his fingers, thinking.
“And there is never anything left behind,” Sherlock muttered. “Nothing identifiable, at least.”
Checkers gave a soft bark, and Sherlock gave him an obliging pat on the head.
“Yes, even from the start,” he mused. “There was never anything left behind that could be traced to our killer. Other people took the fall for his crimes. It’s too neat, too perfect. It’s as though -”
He stopped abruptly. Checkers looked up at the lack of sound, and then went back to his chew toy.
“It’s as though he’s been doing this for years,” Sherlock whispered to himself. “Much longer than just six, I mean. He’s got it all worked out. He’s had his practice; he’s worked out his mistakes. He has perfected this. It is neat, it is methodical, it is -”
He cut himself off short of saying elegant, because while the killer’s methods might have been eerily clinical, they were also at the same time incomprehensible.
But the crimes had been going on for much longer than six years, that much was almost certain. No one got anything right on the first try, and especially not murderers. The killer didn’t perfect his methods overnight; he would have had to work at them, and he would have had to learn from his mistakes. He needed practice. But if the murders hadn’t been happening for six years, then for how long?
There was only one way to find out.
Sherlock’s second trip to the Yard that day occurred as the late afternoon faded into early evening.
Hopkins wasn’t in his office, nor was he in the conference room. Sherlock finally managed to track down one of Hopkins’ sergeants, who told him that the Inspector was in the gym.
The Yard had an elaborate gym that occupied the bottommost floor of the building, and Hopkins was a regular fixture there when time allowed. He was an adequate footballer and decent enough at rugby to hold his own in a match, and years spent with Sherlock had allowed him to add fencing and boxing to his repertoire. But Hopkins’ first love was the water, and it had been for as long as Sherlock had known him. He took to water as though he had been born beneath the waves, and even Sherlock envied his abilities.
Hopkins was swimming laps in the pool, and he didn’t hear Sherlock come through the door.
He cut a clean swath through the water, sharp as a knife’s edge. His powerful shoulders came out of the water with every stroke, muscles flexing as his arms propelled him along the surface of the pool. He reached the far end of the pool, turned, and began to swim the rest of his lap.
Sherlock hesitated a moment, mesmerized by the sight of the glistening, tanned skin, and the muscles rippling just beneath it. There was a pink scar on Hopkins’ right arm that stood out in sharp contrast with his lighter skin, and droplets raced down the mottled flesh every time Hopkins brought that arm out of the water. Sherlock imagined chasing each one with his tongue, and forcibly beat back that mental image before it had a chance to fester.
But all at once the room was stifling, even though he was clad only in his shirtsleeves. Sherlock’s mouth was too dry and, he realised with a sinking horror, his blood was beginning to stir and run south.
He clamped his eyes shut and forced himself to think of the citric acid cycle--succinate, fumarate, malate--before daring to make his presence known. He went through the cycle three times before his blood had settled and cooled. He had no time for his body’s sudden awakening needs, not right now.
There were more important things to be done.
Hopkins had just started a third lap when Sherlock finally stepped out of the shadows, his footfalls echoing in the cavernous and otherwise-empty room. Hopkins noticed the sound immediately and stopped his routine, treading water while he blinked chlorine out of his eyes and squinted at Sherlock.
“Oh. Hello.” Hopkins swam over to the edge closest to Sherlock and folded his arms on it, bringing his chest half out of the pool. He looked up. “Seeing you twice in one day; that’s never a good sign. What’s happened?”
Sherlock sank into a crouch so that he wasn’t looking down at Hopkins.
“Nothing,” he tried to assure. “I just need access to some old case files.”
Hopkins ran a hand through his hair, causing it to spike and stand on end.
“Cold cases?” he asked warily. He was much more reluctant than Lestrade had been to give those out to Sherlock.
“No. Solved ones, like we were searching through before. But this time I need them dating back approximately twenty-five years, if you could.”
Hopkins frowned at him. “That’s before my time. Before the database’s time, too. For most of those, you’ll have to look at hard copies.”
Sherlock nodded. “I know.”
Hopkins considered him for a moment.
“Sally’s in her office right now. Have her show you where those records are kept. You can make copies of what you need and take them back to Baker Street. But Sherlock,” Hopkins said, stopping him as he’d been about to turn away, “what’s going on?”
Sherlock pushed himself to his feet. Hopkins pulled himself out of the pool and reached for a towel; Sherlock tried not to stare at the taut muscles of his torso.
“As soon as I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”
He was almost to the door when Hopkins called out to him.
“We have a name for the fifth victim.”
Sherlock paused, his hand on the door handle. He glanced back over his shoulder.
“Sarah Burlough,” Hopkins said. His words echoed off the smooth floor around the pool. “I was going to call you about it later tonight. She had no family; no friends. We circulated the picture at some local shops. Her grocer recognised her, and even then he only knew her first name. No one was going to miss her, Sherlock. They didn’t even know her - what is it?”
Sherlock tapped a finger on the door while he stared sightlessly at the concrete floor. This didn’t make any sense.
“We aren’t supposed to know her name,” he said at last, lifting his eyes to look at Hopkins. “The fourth victim-that was a mistake, us discovering her identity. The killer slipped up, and he knew it. He should have acted accordingly. So why did he suddenly become more careless?”
“That’s what you wanted, though, isn’t it?” Hopkins pointed out. “That was the point of the press conference - making him comfortable so he would slip up.”
Sherlock shook his head. “Yes, but having it happen so soon… it’s too easy. It’s as though the killer is getting worse with each subsequent murder. The initial ones were almost perfect. But then victim four gave us a name. So why does victim number five not only give us a name as well, but also DNA evidence?”
Hopkins shrugged, his shoulder muscles rippling under his skin with the movement. Sherlock had to look away for a moment to keep his thoughts from derailing completely.
“Maybe we rattled him,” Hopkins said.
“I suppose it’s possible,” Sherlock conceded. “It’s unlikely, however.”
“So what do you think is going on?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. The phrase tasted bitter on his tongue. “But I have a hunch about something else. You’ll be hearing from me.”
----
It took Sherlock three days to confirm his suspicions about the murders.
It was mind-numbing work that involved sorting through case files that spanned twenty-five years, cross-referencing the data, and searching handwritten and scrawled notes for even the slightest hint of a connection. The problem was that the connection between the murders wouldn’t necessarily have been well-documented, for even a seasoned investigator couldn’t have known that the tiny detail would have proven important later on.
But Hopkins had been correct in assuming that not all of the Regent’s Park Killer’s victims would have been in the unsolved crimes database, given the fact that they had found a victim whose case had been closed by convicting the wrong man. They just hadn’t gone back far enough in the solved crimes records. There were more victims. There had to be more victims, because the simple fact of the matter was that no murderer got it right on his first try.
By end of the week Sherlock had two mentions of earlier cases in which the victims had been found with paint on their hands - cases that far predated the presumed 2020 start date of these crimes. Both of the cases were closed, as two killers had already been arrested, but Sherlock was positive that the arrests had been in error, just as it had been with Daniel Jenkins’ case.
Hopkins was asleep on the sofa in his house when Sherlock broke in late that Friday night. The sight gave Sherlock pause, for even though Hopkins was resting, and therefore unguarded, his face still held its weary lines and restless frown. There was a book open on his chest; he had fallen asleep whilst reading.
“Stanley,” Sherlock said, but he didn’t approach the man, nor touch him. He had a fair idea of how Hopkins reacted to being woken unexpectedly, and thought it best to keep clear of his reach. He had seen Hopkins’ reflexes at work multiple times over the years, and had quickly learned that they were something to be admired - or feared, if you happened to be on the wrong end of one of his blows. “Inspector.”
Hopkins jerked out of sleep with a grunt and stared at him with alarmed eyes, his hand automatically reaching for something under the cushion. Reflex, no doubt--Sherlock wouldn’t be surprised to learn if the man slept with a weapon within reach at night.
“Oh, hell,” Hopkins muttered once he realised where he was--and who was standing in his main room. He passed a hand over his face wearily. “What time is it?”
“Eleven.”
Hopkins sighed.
“Dear Lord,” he muttered, throwing an arm over his eyes again. “Right, then, out with it. And this better be good.”
“I have something,” Sherlock said. Hopkins sat up, the book falling off his chest and landing in his lap. “This killer of yours. We’ve been operating under the assumption that he’s only been killing for the past six years. That was an error, Stanley. He’s been killing for at least twenty.”
Hopkins stared at him.
“No,” he said bluntly. “You can’t be serious.”
“I know I have a poor sense of humour, Stanley, but even I recognise that that would be in poor taste. I am quite serious.”
Sherlock handed over a piece of paper, upon which he’d written down the names of the other two victims. “Amanda Laurens and James Merchant. They were murdered twenty and eighteen years ago, respectively. And they were both found with streaks of white paint on their palms, in addition to the rape and strangulation.”
“Just like Andrew Sarkis.” Hopkins raked a hand through his hair, staring at the names. “How on Earth did you manage to figure this one out?”
“This killer has almost been too good at his crimes. He never leaves evidence behind, and he rarely makes a mistake. That doesn’t just happen, Stanley. He needed to perfect his methods,” Sherlock said. “So I employed the same methods we had been using for the electronic crimes databases, but this time I had to apply them to actual written records. I was looking for cases of victims who, in the past, also disappeared from somewhere in London, only to turn up dead forty-eight hours later."
"And you found them in the solved crimes archives," Hopkins said bitterly. "Meaning that we've got some more wrongly-convicted people in prison."
Sherlock nodded. "But those first two murders were sloppy. The killer left strands of his hair behind both times, but DNA wasn't examined because the hair appeared to match the suspects that the police already had in mind. Between that, the suspects' respective lack of alibis, and their supposed motives, there was no reason for the police to look for a killer who had been a stranger to the victims."
"Let me guess - we can't try to run the hair for DNA anymore."
Sherlock shook his head. "The evidence from both those cases was stored improperly, and it has been misplaced in the intervening years."
“All right, then. Twenty years ago,” Hopkins said. “Whose team would have handled those cases?”
Sherlock didn’t answer right away. Hopkins glanced up at him, and then his eyes widened in realisation.
“Oh,” he said. “Lestrade.”
Sherlock nodded.
“I think,” he said, “it’s time we called in some outside assistance.”
----
Part 7
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5a / Part 5b
By the time they reached the end of the crime database a week later, they had found only one additional victim who could be linked to their killer.
The electronic database only stretched back ten years. Beyond that, they would have had to turn to the written records that were stored in the Yard’s extensive archives. Sherlock didn’t feel as though that was necessary, and Hopkins agreed. Ten years was a long time to operate undetected. Besides, the last victim they found only dated to 2020.
“Andrew Sarkis,” Hopkins said quietly to himself as he pinned the man’s photograph to the wall in the conference room. Sarkis had been murdered in April of 2020, and so he had usurped Daniel Jenkins of his status as first victim. He had been discovered in the unsolved crimes database, and his case had been a cold one until now.
“Six victims,” Sherlock said as he scanned the wall from his vantage point in the back of the room. “Two men, four women. Five names, one unknown.”
“Two names, technically,” Hopkins said. He stepped back and folded his arms, surveying the wall. “The other four were supposed to go unidentified for the rest of time. And they would have, if not for a couple of lucky breaks.”
“So your killer - our killer - started out picking his victims at random. He was doing that from the very beginning. That didn’t change,” Sherlock said. “But the fact that they’re purposely unidentifiable… that’s new.”
“So’s the grey paint,” Hopkins added, tapping the first photograph. The first victim’s left palm was covered in white paint. “But not the paint on the whole. The killer has always employed that, but the shade of paint changed after the first victim. I wonder why that is.”
He passed a hand over his face, thinking.
“First order of business,” he said finally, “is getting the man convicted of the second murder out of prison. This was a horrendous oversight on all our parts, and he paid the price for it.”
“You weren’t the one who sent him away,” Sherlock pointed out calmly, knowing very well that Hopkins would carry the blame for it for as long as someone would let him, even though he hadn’t been personally involved in the case. “Your team never landed that case.”
“I know,” Hopkins said, though Sherlock wasn’t sure if his words had helped. Hopkins went on, “I need to interview him, and the original teams that handled those first two cases. Maybe they can help shed some light on this sorry mess.”
“We can only look backwards until we have something happen in the present that might give us some more evidence,” Sherlock mused to himself. From the stony silence he received, though, he realised that Hopkins didn’t necessarily feel the same way. He thought back on his words for a moment, and then said, “Not… that I am wishing that someone comes to harm so we can get a break in this case.”
“You’d best not be,” Hopkins said gruffly. “Right, I need to get moving on this. Give us a hand with the interviews?”
“With pleasure.”
----
The end of October was upon them before Sherlock had got used to the idea that October had arrived at all, and as the month approached its close there was still no break in the serial killer case.
They had interviewed all the relevant players from the first two murders, including the wrongly-convicted man, and no new details had emerged. Their memories had all been dimmed by the passage of years and blurred with other cases, and what details they did remember sometimes contradicted hard evidence such as case notes and photographs.
But the fact that there was already one ghastly criminal on everyone’s minds didn’t stop all the others from committing crimes. Hopkins’ team had been working on other smaller-but no less important-crimes whilst also dealing with their unnervingly-quiet serial killer, and in the last two weeks of October they were handed two manslaughter cases to handle. Sherlock, who hadn’t had a case since the embezzlement one, was contacted through his website by a man trying to get in touch with his biological family.
“Not your standard fare as far as cases go, but it might keep you occupied for a time,” Hopkins had said sagely during one of their lunches. “I haven’t anything new on my end to report, so it’ll at least give you something new to think about.”
Alice, who came upon Sherlock one afternoon while he was standing on the sofa and pinning all of the documents relevant to his new case to the wall, had a different opinion.
“You really need a hobby,” she said flatly. She was carrying bags of food, having just got back from the shops. She went into the kitchen, where she deposited the shopping and started putting the various foodstuffs away. “Or a pet.”
“Hopkins is allergic,” Sherlock said absently. The silence that followed was lengthy enough to be noticeable, and Sherlock looked up to see Alice peering at him curiously from the kitchen doorway. “Not… that that has any bearing on whether or not I would consider getting an animal.”
“Uh-huh,” Alice said, sounding both smug and unconvinced, and she returned to her work.
Sherlock cursed to himself as he dropped a pin behind the sofa, sighed, and plucked another from the box he had balanced preciously on the back of the sofa. He picked up another newspaper clipping, ignoring the pinpricks of pain in his left hand as he braced it against the wall and pushed the pin in. He managed to hang three more items pertaining to his case before his hand started to throb, and he stood there for some moments flexing his fingers, biting the inside of his cheek in order to keep his winces from visibly showing. The pain usually didn’t linger this long.
“They’ve stopped working, haven’t they?”
Alice was standing by the sofa, arms crossed, trying to look stern - as though it was Sherlock’s fault that his painkillers had ceased functioning effectively.
“It’s a minor inconvenience,” Sherlock said, stepping off the sofa and brushing past her to fetch his laptop. “I can find new painkillers. Different ones.”
“You know, I was reading an article the other day -“
“Don’t, Alice.”
“ - and it said that research showed that the newest prosthetic devices can actually eliminate pain in a damaged limb. See, the doctors go in and not only add on the missing limbs, but they reconstruct the damaged tissue and bone, which eliminates many complications that amputees face.”
“That research has been around for years, I’m familiar with it,” Sherlock said shortly. “It’s just now making it into popular science publications, but it’s always been present in actual journals.”
“Have you considered -”
“Yes,” Sherlock snapped, and she stopped short. “Yes, of course I have. Do you really think the thought never crossed my mind? I want my hand back, of course I do. It’s tempting. But I’ve grown used to the way it is now, and I’d rather not take the time out just yet for the surgery and the resulting physical therapy, and I especially don’t want to deal with the possibility that my body may well reject the prosthesis. It’s not worth it, Alice.”
Alice stared at him for a long moment before putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing lightly.
“I understand wanting to honour him,” she said softly, “but I don’t think that’s worth this pain. Do you?”
“Given what he went through at the end,” Sherlock said, just as quietly, “I think this is the least I can do.”
He was alone later that night and reading a book on Gregor Mendel when the computer interface on the far wall lit up and a message came through. Sighing, Sherlock pushed himself to his feet and strode across the room to read the screen, as his sight wasn’t as sharp as it once had been.
It was a document listing the best surgeons in London, all of whom had specialized in both performing amputations and in applying prosthetics to patients who had suffered grievous wounds.
Sherlock erased the message with an angry jab and then slammed his hand flat against the wall in frustration.
“Stop this, Mycroft,” he snarled to the room at large, furious. “I get it! You monitor my conversations, my movements, my entire life. I know that. Stop flaunting it! And stop interfering.”
For a while, there was nothing but silence. Then, the computer screen came to life again.
Good night, brother.
----
It didn’t take long for the newspapers to give their killer a name.
“The Regent’s Park Killer,” Hopkins read from a headline before slapping the paper into Sherlock’s palm. “Clever.”
“Hardly,” Sherlock said dryly, and set the paper aside on Hopkins’ desk after offering it a cursory glance. “More like inaccurate. Although it’s a sight better than The London Strangler they were testing out last week. You called?”
“Tried to, at least. What the bloody hell happened to your vid system? It kept giving me error messages.”
“We had a disagreement,” Sherlock said darkly. He had spent thirty minutes last night tearing every computer interface in his flat out of the walls and cutting through all the circuitry. He had effectively cut himself off from the rest of London, and it had been invigorating. Knowing Mycroft, the interfaces would be replaced and the circuitry mended by the time Sherlock returned from his errand to the Yard, but it had felt at least momentarily heartening to destroy some of his brother’s surveillance means.
“Right,” Hopkins said, giving him a strange look. Sherlock shrugged.
“I answered my mobile, don’t look at me like that.”
A muscle leaped in Hopkins’ jaw, and his eyes turned to stone.
“Yeah, and it still took you bloody long enough to get here,” he snarled.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Hopkins had summoned him to the Yard earlier that morning and expected a prompt response. He ended up waiting for close to two hours before Sherlock showed up--which Sherlock was completely unapologetic about.
“I was in the middle of an experiment and I had to wait for a cab. If it had been so urgent, you should have sent a car around.”
“I did send a car around,” Hopkins snapped. Sherlock glared at him.
“You sent a driverless car.”
“Because I don’t have the manpower to be sending people out to Baker Street to chauffeur you around,” Hopkins said in exasperation. “Not to mention the fact that it’s not their bloody job.”
“Then it must not have been that urgent if you couldn’t spare someone,” Sherlock pointed out smugly. Hopkins threw up his hands in frustration.
“You know, Sherlock, it was quaint for a time, but your avoidance of technology is really starting to get irritating. There are about five fucking cabs left in London right now thanks to the onset of the driverless public transport system--which is the safest in the world, I might add--and that’s why it takes you bloody forever to get your arse down here. That’s why it takes you bloody forever to get anywhere. What the hell’s the matter with you?”
For the first time that afternoon, Sherlock felt real anger bubble in his chest. Hopkins had no idea what it was like to be constantly monitored; to be conscious of the fact that there was someone out there Sherlock couldn’t outsmart, and who watched his every movement. Mycroft called it concern; Sherlock called it far worse, overbearing and smothering being chief among his many unsavory adjectives.
Fatal where Victor was concerned, but Sherlock didn’t want to think about that right now, and he didn’t have the patience to explain it to Hopkins.
“Well, I’m here now, so what the devil do you want?” he snapped instead. Hopkins drew a deep, bracing breath.
“It looks like your tactic worked--as far as keeping the killer around, that is,” Hopkins said briskly, anger still present in his tone. “We’ve got a another victim. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
Sherlock kicked the office door shut and then stalked over to Hopkins’ desk.
“Listen to me,” he snarled, placing both hands on the desk and leaning down. “I told you at the start I don’t do cases like this, that I can’t do cases like this. You wanted my advice anyway, and I gave it. You were the one who chose to follow it. It was your choice to conduct the press conference in that manner, and your choice to keep certain information from the public. Now pull your head out of your arse and take a look around you. I am not the one who harmed these victims, and neither are you. Misplaced blame will only serve to delay and distract you. Now stop being such a bloody fool and focus on the case.”
Hopkins stood abruptly, and Sherlock straightened. For a moment, he was certain that Hopkins was about to strike him, but then Hopkins appeared to rein himself in. His clouded features cleared, and he carefully schooled his expression into one of detached neutrality.
“Her body was discovered this morning,” Hopkins said stiffly. “She was dumped, naked, in Regent’s. Forensics estimates that she couldn’t have been more than eighteen, twenty years old.”
“But that’s not why you called me down here,” Sherlock said. “You could just as easily have sent the information over to Baker Street, or brought it yourself. No, there’s something else going on here. You have a name already?”
Hopkins shook his head. “No. But we have something that might be even better than a name. It looks as though there was some DNA evidence left behind on the victim. Anderson’s running the tests right now; that’s why I called you down here. We should have something to go on momentarily, and whatever it is, I want you to see it immediately. Come on.”
They moved to the conference room. It seemed as though Hopkins had taken up a permanent residence in there. The table was littered with miscellany that all belonged to him - his half-empty coffee mug; pieces of paper with notes scribbled in his handwriting; his stapler. Sherlock wondered when Hopkins had last seen the inside of his house.
Anderson was already in the conference room, waiting for them, and he was busy arranging his report on the table.
“Daniel,” Hopkins greeted briskly as they stepped through the door. “What’ve you got?”
Anderson looked up, his mouth tight at the corners with apprehension.
“I’m afraid we’re no closer to identifying our killer,” he said regretfully. “And I think we may have complicated the issue.”
Hopkins’ eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
Anderson glanced at Sherlock, and there was clear unease in his eyes. Sherlock steeled himself for news that was undoubtedly going to make Hopkins upset, going by the hesitation that was plain on Anderson’s face.
“We have two people involved in these murders,” Anderson said, dropping the bomb quickly. “I don’t know to what extent the second man plays a role, but the traces of DNA on the victim’s body point to two different men.”
Hopkins’ voice was low and dangerous when he finally spoke. “You’re certain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And how do we know that the second’s man DNA came from an accomplice and not someone she had encountered earlier in the day?”
“We don’t,” Anderson admitted. “Given how thorough our killer is, though, I feel as though it’s unlikely he would have missed that. Frankly, it’s a miracle we got the DNA that we did.”
He looked at Sherlock, and explained, “The fifth victim was able to fight back-or at least, she’s the first one where we’ve found obvious evidence of fighting. Maybe the drugs in her system weren’t strong enough, or she didn’t react the same way as the others. Regardless, she was able to scratch her attacker-or attackers. She was cleaned off, just like the rest of them, but they weren’t able to get all of the skin cells that had been left behind under her fingernails.”
“And you were able to identify two separate kinds of DNA,” Sherlock finished for him. Anderson nodded.
“Although ‘identify’ is too strong of a word,” he said. “I can tell that the DNA belonged to two different human males. Unfortunately, it was too degraded by the time we got to it. I tried running it through our databases, but it was too badly damaged. Even if our killer is in there-which is likely, given that he was probably a city worker at one point-this DNA isn’t enough to identify him.”
The room was quiet for a long while after Anderson finished speaking. Even Sherlock began to feel uncomfortable, though he didn’t dare break the silence. Hopkins’ sour mood worsened as the silence lengthened, and Sherlock could feel fury rolling off of him in waves.
“Right, because this is the first we're hearing of a second man, let's operate under the assumption that we have one killer - one man who is consistently committing all of the crimes," Hopkins said stiffly. "This second source of DNA could be any number of people. Maybe he's someone our victim encountered during the day. More likely, he's an accomplice who aided our killer with the abductions or provided a safe kill site."
"Agreed," Sherlock put in. The crimes were too consistent. It was likely that only one man was committing them, while the other operated more on the periphery.
"That still doesn't explain, Daniel, why didn’t we find this evidence on the other victims," Hopkins said, his words harsh even though he knew perfectly well why it hadn’t been found. He was looking for a fight, and someone was going to give it to him.
“There was simply no evidence to find,” Anderson pointed out, almost gently. “This killer is thorough, sir. He drugs his victims so they’re too weak to fight back, and he cleans their bodies prior to dumping them. This was an unusual victim. Somehow, she managed to fight even through the drugs. He cleaned her pretty thoroughly, but it’s hard to get everything out from under a human fingernail, and DNA is miniscule. What was left behind was barely enough to work with. We’re lucky to get the evidence that we did.”
Even Sherlock winced at Anderson’s choice of words in his last sentence, though he could find no fault with that explanation. The man’s reasoning was sound. Hopkins, however, set his jaw in a hard, angry line.
“This is unacceptable, Daniel,” he growled.
‘This was unpreventable, sir,” Anderson replied calmly. “Any other forensics team would tell you the same.”
“But you aren’t any other team, Anderson--you’re my team. And I expect better. Come back when you have something more useful to report and not a moment before.”
Anderson, before he departed, glanced at Sherlock. They shared a look and a shrug--the most amicable exchange that they had had in years.
Hopkins stormed back into his office. Sherlock followed.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sherlock demanded.
Hopkins, in response, turned and slammed his fist into the wall. The skin broke immediately and his knuckles started to bleed, bright rivulets of blood spilling down the back of his hand.
“She was eighteen,” he growled. “She was fucking eighteen. Damn it!”
He punched the wall again before Sherlock could stop him, and would have done so a third time if Sherlock hadn’t grabbed his wrist.
“Stop this,” Sherlock snapped. “It doesn’t do anyone any good, and will be of no help in solving this case. Stop being a fool and think. It’s the only hope you have of figuring out who’s doing this.”
“Little good it’s done us so far,” Hopkins snarled. He tugged his hand out of Sherlock’s grip and reached for a handkerchief, which he wrapped securely around his bleeding knuckles. Sherlock found that he had to resist the urge to reach out and take the injured hand in his own; instead, he balled his own hands into fists and shoved them into his pockets.
“We will solve this,” Sherlock said vehemently. “I will help you solve this, Stanley.”
Hopkins stared at him for a moment.
“God, I hope so. I know you’ll try your damnedest, at least,” he said quietly. “Why do you think I came to you in the first place? If anyone can solve it, you can. I’ve never doubted you, Sherlock.”
That sentiment was more heartening than it had any right to be, and it took Sherlock slightly by surprise. He had met Hopkins not long after his return from the dead, and only two months after Victor’s death. And even though prior to that Hopkins had only known about him courtesy of the rumour mill at the Met--and from Lestrade’s own stories--he had never wavered in his loyalty to Sherlock, even in the months after Victor’s death when that loyalty was far from deserved.
Hopkins had always trusted him, and Sherlock had never known what he’d done to earn that trust. In anyone else, he would call it foolish.
But Hopkins was far from a fool.
“Here.” Sherlock reached out, tentative, and when he received no resistance he gently cupped Hopkins’ injured hand. He peeled back the handkerchief, spotted already with blood, and inspected the swelling knuckles. “This doesn’t look broken.”
“No,” Hopkins said softly. He flexed his fingers, as though to demonstrate, though Sherlock didn’t miss the wince that passed over his features. “I’m fine.”
Sherlock dabbed at the blood on the back of Hopkins’ hand, which was already starting to harden.
“No, you’re not,” he said quietly. Hopkins bit the inside of his cheek, hard; Sherlock pretended not to have seen and dropped his gaze once again to Hopkins’ hand.
“I hate these cases,” Hopkins said finally, his voice thick. “I hate every goddamn thing about them. Why did I take this job, Sherlock?”
“Because you’re needed,” Sherlock said softly. Hopkins snorted.
“Hardly,” he said bitterly. “What good am I compared to you?”
“And what good am I if you aren’t at my side?”
Hopkins met his gaze sharply, and Sherlock held it for several unwavering seconds. The air between them was thick and heavy with all that went unsaid--with all that Sherlock didn’t know how to voice. And then suddenly he became aware that Hopkins’ hand was still in his own, and that he had been idly sweeping his thumb back and forth across the sharp bone of Hopkins’ wrist. They pulled away from one another, and Hopkins cleared his throat.
“I need to get back to work,” he said softly, rubbing a thumb across his brow, as though he could smooth away the weary lines. “Call me if you think of anything, would you?”
“The same goes for you. I want to know the moment you have a name for her.”
They exchanged a lingering handshake, and Sherlock left without a backward glance.
----
Sherlock thoroughly detested the restaurant that had become Mycroft’s latest haunt, but he knew better than to skip out on lunch with his brother.
They had been meeting on a regular basis for five years now, a routine that Mycroft had insisted on implementing following their mother’s passing. Sherlock, if he didn’t want his relative freedom restricted any more than Mycroft already had-and if he wanted access to the money left behind by their mother-was forced to comply with Mycroft’s wishes.
The restaurant was posh, gleaming, and always busy. It was perfect for Mycroft, who always preferred to hide in the middle of a crowd.
Sherlock just preferred to hide.
“You’re late,” Mycroft announced when Sherlock joined him at their customary table. It was seven minutes after one.
“I know,” Sherlock sighed. “I wasn’t going to come.”
The dining room had a high, vaulted ceiling that magnified the dozens of conversations occurring around them, and his words were almost lost to the din.
“What changed your mind?”
“I couldn’t figure out where you’d placed the fifth man on my security detail and therefore couldn’t elude him,” Sherlock muttered, irritated. A waiter brought over his usual meal; Mycroft was already eating his.
“Ah, that would be Sophia. She’s excellent. You’ll never even know she’s there.”
Sherlock bit back the unexpected Fuck you, Mycroft that tugged at his tongue and decided that perhaps he had been spending too much time around Hopkins after all. He smiled to himself inexplicably at the thought, and hid his expression behind a sip of water from his glass.
“How are Doctor Watson and Inspector Lestrade?”
“Fine.”
“And your work?”
“Good.”
The conversation continued along in that vein for some time, with Mycroft asking meaningless questions and Sherlock giving monosyllabic answers.
“Can we expect you for Christmas?” Mycroft asked finally as the conversation petered out and the meal drew to its conclusion at last. Sherlock shrugged.
“I hadn’t planned on it,” he said, which was the same answer he gave every year. He had not been home for the holidays since before his mother’s death. He spent Christmas nowadays with John and Lestrade, and much preferred it that way.
“Erik has been asking after you.”
Sherlock grimaced at the mention of his stepfather.
“Good for him.”
“Sherlock.” Mycroft shook his head at Sherlock’s petulant reply, but instead of scolding him, said, “You can bring Inspector Hopkins, if you like. There’s always enough food to feed what seems like a small country. It’s far too much for just the three of us.”
That got Sherlock’s attention, and he stared openly at Mycroft.
“Why would I want to bring Hopkins?” he asked, while at the same time shoving away the tiny spark of gratitude that tried to light in his chest. Mycroft stared at him for a long moment.
“No reason,” he said at last, reaching for his card. “No reason at all, little brother. Maybe next year.”
Sherlock was back at Baker Street within an hour, having refused his brother’s car in favour of walking. He rapped sharply on Alice’s door, and when she opened it, said, “I need to borrow your dog. Checkers!”
“Oh, Sherlock, I don’t think -”
She was interrupted by the puppy, who flew out from under the kitchen table and darted between her legs before dashing upstairs. Sherlock gave her a smirk; she rolled her eyes at him.
“No experimenting on him,” she said firmly. “And I mean it this time.”
Checkers settled in his usual spot on the sofa, happily gnawing away on a chew toy he had discovered under Sherlock’s desk.
“There have been seven murders,” Sherlock said to the puppy, who ignored him. “All of the murders have occurred over a period of six years. All of the victims were abducted off the streets, but no one saw them go. No one saw them in transport. They weren’t seen again until their bodies were discovered approximately forty-eight hours later.”
Sherlock picked up a pen off the table and began to twirl it through his fingers, thinking.
“And there is never anything left behind,” Sherlock muttered. “Nothing identifiable, at least.”
Checkers gave a soft bark, and Sherlock gave him an obliging pat on the head.
“Yes, even from the start,” he mused. “There was never anything left behind that could be traced to our killer. Other people took the fall for his crimes. It’s too neat, too perfect. It’s as though -”
He stopped abruptly. Checkers looked up at the lack of sound, and then went back to his chew toy.
“It’s as though he’s been doing this for years,” Sherlock whispered to himself. “Much longer than just six, I mean. He’s got it all worked out. He’s had his practice; he’s worked out his mistakes. He has perfected this. It is neat, it is methodical, it is -”
He cut himself off short of saying elegant, because while the killer’s methods might have been eerily clinical, they were also at the same time incomprehensible.
But the crimes had been going on for much longer than six years, that much was almost certain. No one got anything right on the first try, and especially not murderers. The killer didn’t perfect his methods overnight; he would have had to work at them, and he would have had to learn from his mistakes. He needed practice. But if the murders hadn’t been happening for six years, then for how long?
There was only one way to find out.
Sherlock’s second trip to the Yard that day occurred as the late afternoon faded into early evening.
Hopkins wasn’t in his office, nor was he in the conference room. Sherlock finally managed to track down one of Hopkins’ sergeants, who told him that the Inspector was in the gym.
The Yard had an elaborate gym that occupied the bottommost floor of the building, and Hopkins was a regular fixture there when time allowed. He was an adequate footballer and decent enough at rugby to hold his own in a match, and years spent with Sherlock had allowed him to add fencing and boxing to his repertoire. But Hopkins’ first love was the water, and it had been for as long as Sherlock had known him. He took to water as though he had been born beneath the waves, and even Sherlock envied his abilities.
Hopkins was swimming laps in the pool, and he didn’t hear Sherlock come through the door.
He cut a clean swath through the water, sharp as a knife’s edge. His powerful shoulders came out of the water with every stroke, muscles flexing as his arms propelled him along the surface of the pool. He reached the far end of the pool, turned, and began to swim the rest of his lap.
Sherlock hesitated a moment, mesmerized by the sight of the glistening, tanned skin, and the muscles rippling just beneath it. There was a pink scar on Hopkins’ right arm that stood out in sharp contrast with his lighter skin, and droplets raced down the mottled flesh every time Hopkins brought that arm out of the water. Sherlock imagined chasing each one with his tongue, and forcibly beat back that mental image before it had a chance to fester.
But all at once the room was stifling, even though he was clad only in his shirtsleeves. Sherlock’s mouth was too dry and, he realised with a sinking horror, his blood was beginning to stir and run south.
He clamped his eyes shut and forced himself to think of the citric acid cycle--succinate, fumarate, malate--before daring to make his presence known. He went through the cycle three times before his blood had settled and cooled. He had no time for his body’s sudden awakening needs, not right now.
There were more important things to be done.
Hopkins had just started a third lap when Sherlock finally stepped out of the shadows, his footfalls echoing in the cavernous and otherwise-empty room. Hopkins noticed the sound immediately and stopped his routine, treading water while he blinked chlorine out of his eyes and squinted at Sherlock.
“Oh. Hello.” Hopkins swam over to the edge closest to Sherlock and folded his arms on it, bringing his chest half out of the pool. He looked up. “Seeing you twice in one day; that’s never a good sign. What’s happened?”
Sherlock sank into a crouch so that he wasn’t looking down at Hopkins.
“Nothing,” he tried to assure. “I just need access to some old case files.”
Hopkins ran a hand through his hair, causing it to spike and stand on end.
“Cold cases?” he asked warily. He was much more reluctant than Lestrade had been to give those out to Sherlock.
“No. Solved ones, like we were searching through before. But this time I need them dating back approximately twenty-five years, if you could.”
Hopkins frowned at him. “That’s before my time. Before the database’s time, too. For most of those, you’ll have to look at hard copies.”
Sherlock nodded. “I know.”
Hopkins considered him for a moment.
“Sally’s in her office right now. Have her show you where those records are kept. You can make copies of what you need and take them back to Baker Street. But Sherlock,” Hopkins said, stopping him as he’d been about to turn away, “what’s going on?”
Sherlock pushed himself to his feet. Hopkins pulled himself out of the pool and reached for a towel; Sherlock tried not to stare at the taut muscles of his torso.
“As soon as I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”
He was almost to the door when Hopkins called out to him.
“We have a name for the fifth victim.”
Sherlock paused, his hand on the door handle. He glanced back over his shoulder.
“Sarah Burlough,” Hopkins said. His words echoed off the smooth floor around the pool. “I was going to call you about it later tonight. She had no family; no friends. We circulated the picture at some local shops. Her grocer recognised her, and even then he only knew her first name. No one was going to miss her, Sherlock. They didn’t even know her - what is it?”
Sherlock tapped a finger on the door while he stared sightlessly at the concrete floor. This didn’t make any sense.
“We aren’t supposed to know her name,” he said at last, lifting his eyes to look at Hopkins. “The fourth victim-that was a mistake, us discovering her identity. The killer slipped up, and he knew it. He should have acted accordingly. So why did he suddenly become more careless?”
“That’s what you wanted, though, isn’t it?” Hopkins pointed out. “That was the point of the press conference - making him comfortable so he would slip up.”
Sherlock shook his head. “Yes, but having it happen so soon… it’s too easy. It’s as though the killer is getting worse with each subsequent murder. The initial ones were almost perfect. But then victim four gave us a name. So why does victim number five not only give us a name as well, but also DNA evidence?”
Hopkins shrugged, his shoulder muscles rippling under his skin with the movement. Sherlock had to look away for a moment to keep his thoughts from derailing completely.
“Maybe we rattled him,” Hopkins said.
“I suppose it’s possible,” Sherlock conceded. “It’s unlikely, however.”
“So what do you think is going on?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. The phrase tasted bitter on his tongue. “But I have a hunch about something else. You’ll be hearing from me.”
----
It took Sherlock three days to confirm his suspicions about the murders.
It was mind-numbing work that involved sorting through case files that spanned twenty-five years, cross-referencing the data, and searching handwritten and scrawled notes for even the slightest hint of a connection. The problem was that the connection between the murders wouldn’t necessarily have been well-documented, for even a seasoned investigator couldn’t have known that the tiny detail would have proven important later on.
But Hopkins had been correct in assuming that not all of the Regent’s Park Killer’s victims would have been in the unsolved crimes database, given the fact that they had found a victim whose case had been closed by convicting the wrong man. They just hadn’t gone back far enough in the solved crimes records. There were more victims. There had to be more victims, because the simple fact of the matter was that no murderer got it right on his first try.
By end of the week Sherlock had two mentions of earlier cases in which the victims had been found with paint on their hands - cases that far predated the presumed 2020 start date of these crimes. Both of the cases were closed, as two killers had already been arrested, but Sherlock was positive that the arrests had been in error, just as it had been with Daniel Jenkins’ case.
Hopkins was asleep on the sofa in his house when Sherlock broke in late that Friday night. The sight gave Sherlock pause, for even though Hopkins was resting, and therefore unguarded, his face still held its weary lines and restless frown. There was a book open on his chest; he had fallen asleep whilst reading.
“Stanley,” Sherlock said, but he didn’t approach the man, nor touch him. He had a fair idea of how Hopkins reacted to being woken unexpectedly, and thought it best to keep clear of his reach. He had seen Hopkins’ reflexes at work multiple times over the years, and had quickly learned that they were something to be admired - or feared, if you happened to be on the wrong end of one of his blows. “Inspector.”
Hopkins jerked out of sleep with a grunt and stared at him with alarmed eyes, his hand automatically reaching for something under the cushion. Reflex, no doubt--Sherlock wouldn’t be surprised to learn if the man slept with a weapon within reach at night.
“Oh, hell,” Hopkins muttered once he realised where he was--and who was standing in his main room. He passed a hand over his face wearily. “What time is it?”
“Eleven.”
Hopkins sighed.
“Dear Lord,” he muttered, throwing an arm over his eyes again. “Right, then, out with it. And this better be good.”
“I have something,” Sherlock said. Hopkins sat up, the book falling off his chest and landing in his lap. “This killer of yours. We’ve been operating under the assumption that he’s only been killing for the past six years. That was an error, Stanley. He’s been killing for at least twenty.”
Hopkins stared at him.
“No,” he said bluntly. “You can’t be serious.”
“I know I have a poor sense of humour, Stanley, but even I recognise that that would be in poor taste. I am quite serious.”
Sherlock handed over a piece of paper, upon which he’d written down the names of the other two victims. “Amanda Laurens and James Merchant. They were murdered twenty and eighteen years ago, respectively. And they were both found with streaks of white paint on their palms, in addition to the rape and strangulation.”
“Just like Andrew Sarkis.” Hopkins raked a hand through his hair, staring at the names. “How on Earth did you manage to figure this one out?”
“This killer has almost been too good at his crimes. He never leaves evidence behind, and he rarely makes a mistake. That doesn’t just happen, Stanley. He needed to perfect his methods,” Sherlock said. “So I employed the same methods we had been using for the electronic crimes databases, but this time I had to apply them to actual written records. I was looking for cases of victims who, in the past, also disappeared from somewhere in London, only to turn up dead forty-eight hours later."
"And you found them in the solved crimes archives," Hopkins said bitterly. "Meaning that we've got some more wrongly-convicted people in prison."
Sherlock nodded. "But those first two murders were sloppy. The killer left strands of his hair behind both times, but DNA wasn't examined because the hair appeared to match the suspects that the police already had in mind. Between that, the suspects' respective lack of alibis, and their supposed motives, there was no reason for the police to look for a killer who had been a stranger to the victims."
"Let me guess - we can't try to run the hair for DNA anymore."
Sherlock shook his head. "The evidence from both those cases was stored improperly, and it has been misplaced in the intervening years."
“All right, then. Twenty years ago,” Hopkins said. “Whose team would have handled those cases?”
Sherlock didn’t answer right away. Hopkins glanced up at him, and then his eyes widened in realisation.
“Oh,” he said. “Lestrade.”
Sherlock nodded.
“I think,” he said, “it’s time we called in some outside assistance.”
----
Part 7