A Study in Reason

Thursday, November 13th, 2014

Today I headed to Baker Street unbidden. This case was totally different to the first one we had worked on together which had been almost purely academic. We had worked out that for this one, young girls' lives depended on solving it as quickly as possible.

Mrs Hudson opened the door when I knocked. 

"Ah, Clara! Fancy seeing you here!" she said, smiling. I tried to return the gesture but my mind kept flashing back to that last girl getting killed and I couldn't.

"Hi, Mrs Hudson. Are the boys in?" Her smile faltered.

"I think so. Sherlock's in the middle of a tough case though. Nasty business with teenaged girls. And they call him a psychopath!"

"I know, Mrs Hudson, I'm working on it with him. I saw the bodies."
"Well you better come in then," Mrs Hudson replied. I thanked her and headed upstairs. The door to 221B was open. I knocked softly, knowing that Sherlock was prone to violent outbursts when interrupted.
"Shh," Sherlock whispered. He was sitting in his usual chair, eyes closed, deep in though.
"Hi, Sherlock. What's going on with the case. I take it there hasn't been another one?" He shook his head. I took a deep breath in anticipation for a surprise attack. When no such even was forthcoming I stepped further into the flat and decided it was safe to keep talking. "So I was thinking. These girls are connected somehow, aren't they?"
"Not necessarily," Sherlock replied. "They could just have been easy pickings." I grimaced at his choice of words but didn't comment.
"Well how about you work on that basis and I'll look for connections," I suggested. He didn't reply so I took that for an assent and headed to the table by his chair. "Can I use your laptop?" I asked. He nodded slightly. I opened it and called up an internet browser. I typed in the name of the first victim into Google and looked for the one we wanted. Seeing a promising Facebook profile, I clicked on the link to see what I could glean from that. It listed the high school she went to so I opened a new tab and googled the school to see what I could find there. When nothing looked promising, I opened another tab and did the same with the second victim and the third. All three went to separate schools so that wasn't the connection, but I had the feeling there was something I was missing so I continued searching. I noted the year they started school and tried looking for old school friends they might have had. If only just to see what they had to say about them. When finding them proved more difficult than I had anticipated, I changed tack, searching instead for girls who had gone missing at the same time. It came up with a list of seven others - excluding the victims.

Tasha Mckenzie
Alice Freund
Taylor Jackson
Evie Wise
Siobhan Delaney
Harriet Smith
Grace McIntyre
Sophie Street
Michelle Prior
Katherine Bryant

"Hey, Sherlock," I said.
"Busy," he mumbled.
"Come on, I might be onto something!" Sighing, he got out of his chair and went to stand behind me.
"A list of all girls who were reported missing around the same date. Clever," he said. "What do you need me for?"
"We need to narrow down the list. Separate the runaways from the potential victims," I answered. "You're good at that, right?" Sherlock answered by shoving me out of the chair and sitting down in my newly vacated seat. He closed all my tabs except the list, opening each missing persons report on a new tab, excluding the victims'.
Within minutes he'd discarded Tasha Mackenzie as a runaway.
"The rest I don't know about," Sherlock admitted.
"So we find them?" I asked.
"That would take too long."
"Not if we give Scotland Yard a list of suspected victims and they search," I said.
"They won't find them," he said.
"Sherlock, they got their jobs for a reason. You don't give them enough credit. And the ones we can't find we assume are the ones who are where the victims were before they were killed."
We gave Lestrade a list of the potential victims: Alice, Evie, Harriet, Sophie, Michelle and Katherine and he said he'd get a team onto it. I decided that the next best way for us to narrow down the rest would be for us to interview the families of the missing girls.
John came into the living room soon after we reached the decision.
"Hi, Clara. What have you two been doing?"
"Come on, John!" Sherlock said, pulling on his coat and heading for the stairs.
"Where are we going?" He asked as he followed.
"We're going to talk to people, John," I told him with over enthusiasm, knowing it would annoy Sherlock and I was in a weird mood.
We took a taxi to the house of the fist name on the list: Alice Freund. I knocked and waited for an answer. It was three in the afternoon so I figured someone could be home. I was right. A woman in her early forties opened the door. She was tall, with shoulder length white-blonde hair and large purple bruises under her eyes like she hadn't had a proper nights sleep in a while.
"Mrs Freund?" I asked. She nodded. "We're here about Alice. Can we come in?"
Once in the living room we introduced ourselves properly then began asking questions.
"Can you describe your daughter's manner before she disappeared?" Sherlock asked.
"She was normal. Happy!" Mrs Freund said tiredly. "I've told the police this already."
"Yes, well, we're not the police," said John. Pulling out a piece of paper with a copy of our list on it I showed it to her.
"Do you recognise any names on that list, Mrs Freund?" I asked gently. She thought for a moment.
"Yes," she breathed. "Grace McIntyre and Evie Wise were her best friends at primary school." Sherlock, John and I shared a significant look. "What has this got to do with my daughter's disappearance?"
"I'm sorry, Mrs Freund. Grace and Evie were reported missing around the same time as your daughter and Grace has been found dead." I tried to say it as gently as I could but there was no way the news was going to be less hard for the poor woman who started sobbing at my words. "Listen," I said. "Listen. She hasn't been found yet - which given the circumstances is actually a good thing. The other girls' bodies were all found within hours of their deaths which means Alice is still alive."
"The other girls on the list," Mrs Freund sniffed. "Who are they?"
"They all dissapeared at the same time as Alice."
"And are they dead?" She asked heasitantly.
"Three. Grace, Siobhan and Taylor. The rest are unaccounted for like Alice."
"And you think they're still alive?" She asked.
"Yes," replied Sherlock. "Yes we do."

The next place we went to was the house of the next name on our list: Harriet Smith. The door was opened almost immediately when we knocked.
"Harry?" A voice said hopefully. Footsteps were heard behind the door. When it was wrenched open the man's face fell and he glared at us as if it was our fault his daughter hadn't come home yet. "Who are you?" He demanded. Surprisingly, Sherlock put his hand forward first and quirked a small smile.
"Sherlock Holmes, Mr Smith. This is Dr John Watson and Clara Lane. May we come in?" The man's mouth fell open and he wordlessly lead us inside.
"Are you working on my daughter's case?" Mr Smith asked. Sherlock nodded.
"Yes. We would like to ask a few questions." Mr Smith indicated for him to continue so he did. "How was your daughter acting last time you saw her?"
"The thing you have to understand, Mr Holmes, is that Harriet took the loss of her mother very hard. Those two were a lot closer than I was with Harry and when she died... She retreated from the world. Sometimes she wouldn't talk for days at a time and she had trouble sleeping which made her very temperamental. The week before she dissapeared, she was worse than usual but she was prone to bad days. You don't think... She didn't... She wasn't that sort of depressed! She wouldn't just leave without telling me! We weren't close but we had an understanding."
"Mr Smith, do you recognise any of these names?" I asked, handing him the paper with the list on it. He studied it for a moment before shaking his head.
"Who are they?"
"They're a list of girls that went missing at around the same time as your daughter."
"I don't know any of them. Sorry."
"That's fine," I said, standing and shouldering my bag. "Thank you for your time."
When we were outside again, we discussed our next move.
"What so you think, Sherlock?" I asked. He frowned.
"I'll tell you once we know more," he said. We decided on one more visit before heading back to the flat.
The last house we visited was the home of Sophie Street. It was five pm by the time we knocked and both her parents were home when we rang the door bell. We were lead into the living room and sat down on the sofa. Both Mr and Mrs Street were looking tired and wan. Mrs Street stood when we entered the room. She was tall, thin and tan with short dyed blonde hair and a large glass of brandy in one hand.
"Carol? This is Sherlock Holmes, Clara Lane and Dr John Watson. They're here about Sophie," Mr Street told his wife.
"I've already talked to the police," she told us.
"We're not the police," Sherlock said.
"No, of course not," Mrs Street agreed listlessly.
"Nevertheless," I said, watching her with pity. "We'd like to ask you some questions."
"Of course."
"Can you describe the way your daughter was acting before she disappeared?"
"She was happy. Stressed because of exams, but happy. She loves her schoolwork. She's so focussed on getting good grades. She's such a high achiever." I frowned.
"Do either of you recognise any of these names?" I asked the two sad people in front if me, showing them the list.
They didn't take long to answer.
"Yes. Siobhan and Michelle are Sophie's best friends and Evie... She was a friend of Sophie's in her second year of high school," Mr Street confirmed.
"Why not anymore?" I asked.
"She uhh... She moved schools, apparently. Had a bit of a row with the school and left. She's another high achiever is Evie. She just doesn't suit the system. What's this got to do with Sophie?"
"All these girls went missing at the same time. Are you sure to don't know any others?" Both parents shook their heads. "Then I think we should leave you to it. Just know we're trying our very best to find them." John and I stood up.
"If you find anything else, just call Scotland Yard and they'll get in touch with us," he said. Mr and Mrs Street nodded numbly. We left the house and headed our separate ways, me to my hotel room and the boys to Baker Street for another long night of puzzling over the case.

Katherine came back. She was so happy she wept with relief. She was beaten and bruised but alive and, after a while, talking. We asked her what happened to her but she just whimpered and hugged closer to her. She spent a long time comforting Katherine, trying not to notice the fresh scars on her arms or the cuts on her face or the fact that her spine could now be felt through the black dress she had returned wearing. After what felt like hours she managed to get out of her what happened to the ones that didn't come back and she choked on a sob of her own. Siobhan had been a close friend until recently. They had just drifted apart after she moved schools again and her loss felt like a physical blow. She cried silently for the sweet girl for a long time after that and wondered how much Michelle and Sophie knew. Sophie would take the news even worse that she was: the two girls had been best friends since primary school. Katherine took more time to tell her about Grace and Taylor. She had held her and picked up the pieces both girls had left her in when they stabbed her in the back and obviously hadn't known how she would take it. The loss hurt, but she had been estranged from both girls for years. For the first time in days, the faceless girls spoke to each other, and she learned who she was sharing this dirty, cold basement with. Michelle and Sophie were both heart broken at the news of Siobhan's death - no. Murder. Alice was silent at the news of Grace's, like she'd already known. She probably had, because she was the only other girl to come back alive so far. Nobody else knew Taylor so she wasn't mourned like the other two. Then the girls started asking why Katherine had survived her ordeal when the others hadn't. She had to tell them all to shut up. Katherine wasn't going to relay her ordeal until she was ready - if ever. All she had gotten out of Katherine was that the other girls fought and that's why they died. If you don't fight, you don't die, he'd told her. You get to go back to the others. If you don't fight you make it better for them. I'd be more gentle if none of you fight. So what could she do? That night, when he came down, he seemed less angry than the previous days. The girls huddled by the walls, trying not to be noticed. When he picked Sophie up by the hair and dragged her to up the stairs, she had gone without a fight. The news of Siobhan had seemed to have numbed her. It was only when the door had closed behind them and they had relaxed slightly, that they heard her screams.