Welcome to Baker Street

7. Last words

As Sherlock hails a cab, he receives a text from D.I. Lestrade with an address. He opens an image attachment to discover a missing person report. He studies it attentively.

NAME (last/first): Baaral Cathy

SEX: F
EYES: Brown.
HAIR: Black.
BLOOD TYPE: A-plus
FINGERPRINTS AVAILABLE? Yes.

At the top right corner of the report, there is a photo—a freeze-frame from security footage. The resolution of the image is not very clear, and he zooms in to study a woman's face. That's all. Just a form full of blank spaces and incomplete information. No details about her date or place of birth, nothing about her race or nationality. Sherlock takes a moment to analyse those scarce data, then phones the inspector.

"Where are you?" the same raspy voice asks abruptly.

He steals a look out the window.

"On my way. Lestrade, listen, where is the sensitive information? Her age, hometown, employment?"

There is a pause on the other side of the line.

"We don't have it. That's all we know about her," Greg Lestrade replies as his tone gives off the impression of dishonourable defeat.

Sherlock frowns at the screen of his phone.

"What does it mean? You are the police. You must have additional sources."

Most of the time, Scotland Yard is his most difficult client to put up with, and they are supposed to be the very ones in charge.

"Of course we have. And I checked everywhere. I swear there is nothing else. She's like a ghost. Well, she was."

"So, how on earth can you know her blood type?" His voice booms through the line.

"It was on a medical report from a hospital where she had a check-up two years ago. That's all we managed to dig up."

"What about her disappearance? Who reported her missing?" Sherlock submerges his interlocutor in a barrage of questions.

"No idea. Confidentiality policy: we cannot trace the calls," the inspector replies in a weary voice.

Sherlock loses his temper.

"Why the freeze-frame at the top of the report? Were the police monitoring her?"

"Erm, not directly, but I'd prefer not to discuss it on the phone," the D.I.'s hesitates, and his voice drops to a whisper.

"There will be no need for that." Sherlock hangs up precisely when the cab stops in front of a tall building.

A tall man with grizzled hair waves at him from the doorstep of the building and points at the entrance.

"This way," he says briskly, in the same hoarse voice from the phone call. Holmes follows him inside, and they climb to the first floor, while the inspector leads the way.

"Have you touched anything?" Sherlock inquires, walking into a tiny flat. He looks around and processes every detail. At the centre of the room, the corpse of a young woman lies on a carpet. Sherlock glances at her and immediately recognises the face he has just seen in the freeze-frame attached to the text.

"Nothing at all. My men preserved the scene exactly the way it was when we found the corpse early this morning."

Holmes whips around, gaping.

"Morning? It's five o'clock in the afternoon now. Why didn't you call me earlier?"

"It didn't seem necessary." Greg shrugs. Sherlock raises his eyebrows with his air of superiority, forcing the policeman to add in a mocking tone, "It looked like a common suicide, no need for great experts."

Sherlock narrows his eyes at him. "What changed, then?"

"We got lab results. Quite shocking." Lestrade scratches his chin, pensively.

"Why? Was she an addict, a haemophiliac?" Sherlock presses him, but before the inspector can open his mouth to reply, he raises a hand in front of his face.

"No, don't answer. I need to concentrate."

He takes some steps forward, trying to reconstruct the victim's last moments.

"So, she rushed into her home. She didn't just open the front door: she thrust it aside. The door slammed into the wall, and the frame that was hanging here broke into a thousand pieces, causing the painting to fall on the floor." While speaking, he squats down by a bunch of shards of glass and carefully pulls out a sheet, spreading it in front of him. It's a poster representing an entrenched beach, several warships, and an air fleet. The word D-Day stands out in bold characters.

He lets it glide down to the floor again and continues his lucid stream of consciousness.

"She ignored the mess; she was running out of time. She knew she had to die. Right then, just a few moments before swallowing the poison that would eventually kill her, she left a message."

"A message?" Lestrade gives him a bewildered look.

"A note, to be precise. Now the question is: where are her last words?"

"Sherlock, what are you talking about? There wasn't a note. We found nothing of the sort," the inspector objects, looking around the place.

"But she must have written something. We can easily deduce that she did. There are traces of ink on the fingers of her right hand; only a fountain pen would leave those marks. And what a coincidence!" he exclaims ironically. "There is a fountain pen in the furthest corner of the room. It must have been easy to throw it there while standing in the middle of the living room." He stands by the lying woman and simulates the scene to get Lestrade on board with his reasoning process.

"Now look at the desk." He points to the right side of the room. "The organiser is open at a ripped page. Why is that? Probably because a whole sheet would be too big for her purposes. We can assume that she wrote a few words on a scrap of paper since she needed to leave some piece of information, but not publicly. Conclusion: she hid a small note. The only question left unanswered now is: where is it?"

"It could be anywhere," the D.I. says, massaging his temples to relieve the stress of that dreadful investigation.

"Wrong. Not anywhere. She was staying in this exact spot and never moved from here. It's on the body," Sherlock logically concludes, crouching down next to the body.

The grey-haired man follows his movements with a horrified look.

"You're not planning on searching a corpse before the medical examiner can conduct the autopsy, are you?"

"No need for a random search, Detective Inspector. One of her shoes is unlaced," Holmes points out in a plain tone as if every clue were as clear as day.

"It untied in the rush, perhaps?" Greg theorises.

Sherlock shoots an embittered look at his speculation.

"Untied? Look at the other foot: she used to knot laces twice. She undid it," he states and gently slips her shoe off.

"Why did she do it?" Lestrade asks, confused.

"To hide her message." Sherlock delicately draws out a note stashed under her heel. He spreads the creased paper on the inside of his palm and reads it out loud.

My dear,

Please, forgive me for all the trouble and pain that this is going to cause you.

I wish we had had a normal life, a normal relationship, like everyone else on the face of the Earth.But we were meant for something bigger, and this project that kept us so close is going to draw us apart forever.

Best of luck, my love.

I'll be waiting for you on the other side. Take your time.

xx