Counterfeit at its Finest

Hi!

And the award for 'Latest-Chapter-Ever' goes to... me. Sorry about that. :(

Thank you EVERYONE for reviewing so far! You guys made my day. :)

This scene contains a hefty amount of blood. Just, er, warning you now. :) It's a bit gorey... apparently. If anyone reckons the rating needs to change, just say so! (otherwise, K+ is still cool?)

Chapter Four: Staring evidence in the face.

The look of shock and horror that crossed Andersons' face the moment he saw Sherlock Holmes leap out of the customary taxi was quickly replaced by anger when he saw John Watson unable to resist a smile.

"Lestrade, what is the meaning of this?" he demanded, meeting his boss angrily in the doorway. "What is that man doing here?"

"I expect John Watson invited him." Lestrade said quietly.

"I've said it time and time again, that weirdo is not allowed on crime scene premises! Why do you insist on inviting him?"

"I said Watson did, not I." Lestrade responded, sharply, "I only asked for Watson to join us."

"But he doesn't even need to do that! We can conduct interviews later, away from this place."

"Why bother? We're interviewing everyone else here." Lestrade said, moving away, but Anderson was quick to speak again.

"You know what our higher-ups said. If they catch a civilian helping us, again, you are going to be in some serious trouble. I don't need to explain it to you..." he stopped watching Lestrade's face darken, a clear sign he knew all too well, "I'm not saying this because I hate him, I'm saying this because our lives are on the line. We can't let that weirdo strut around here and solve our crimes for us."

"No..." Lestrade said, "but... of course... he's near impossible to turn away once he arrives."

"Lestrade-!"

"No, Anderson, I'm not causing a scene here." Lestrade explained, sharply, "he's here now. Maybe he'll not do anything. Either way, I'll make sure he keeps his distance from you."

"So you can interviene when it suits you?" Anderson asked, accusingly.

"Yes, I can." Lestrade replied, firmly, "Anderson, I'm taking a big risk letting him in here. Please don't fight with me."

"I'm not trying to fight you, I'm trying to watch out for you." Anderson said, but noticing Sherlock nearing, he hurried up back the stairs.

Sherlock stepped into the house to look around. The house itself was tiny, immediately though the front door were narrow stairs leading to the second floor. On the immediately left of the staircase was the door to the living and dining room, further down the hall was the kitchen, which also had a washroom. Up the stairs were three rooms, the bathroom immediately in front, the main bedroom on the left and a much smaller bedroom at the front of the house, a linin closet between them.

The carpet was the same throughout the whole house, a cheap brown mat. Stiff, harsh on clothing, stains hard to get out. The walls looked like they needed painting over again, the corners of the walls dusty and peeling. House generally uncared for. There were no pictures on the walls. University student not affording to decorate... still unlikely. No artifacts or gifts from any relatives or friends. He followed the stairs up, eyes catching every scrape against the wall, every streak mark, every drop of blood, every creak of the steps. Have been under significent pressure just recently.

John followed him into the bedroom. The bed was a single bed, the sheets torn and twisted into an unrecognisable heap. And there was blood. Lots of blood. Drenching the pillows, smeared across the walls, the ripped mattress, stained a bright and shiny red.

"Good Lord..." John whispered. John has seen a lot from his time in the military, no doubt about that, but it had been in the military, and this, whilst still unpleasant, wasn't exactly unlikely. For a scene as gruesome as this... to be within someones home and not a battle field... well, this told a tale not unlike the events at a battle field. It was one of the benefits of hanging around Sherlock; you found the battle fields.

Sherlock was already tracing the clues. Mattress ripped in all corners. Sheets shoved to the left side of the bed, away from the door. So the attacker came through the door. He checked the other side of the bed, escape unlikely. He followed the blood trail back out the room and back down the stairs, using his hand to slightly brush against the banister. He paused at the bottom, looking up and down them.

"There wasn't a body, was there?" Sherlock asked. "You didn't find anything."

"No." Lestrade said, "we think the murderer hid the body. But we're not quite sure how. We took photographs of the scene, we checked all the knives in the kitchen, they're all clean. So we have no body, no known murder weapon, no suspect."

"How do you think the body was moved?" Sherlock asked.

Lestrade scratched his nose, "it's with bin bags, usually."

"Right. And we can see from the droplets on the staircase that the murder walked backwards down the stairs- oh really, the blood is on the inside of the steps. If the murderer carried the body down first, the blood would have only hit the outer edges of the stairs."

"That's not neccessarily true," Lestrade said, "the blood dripped a lot, so it-!"

"Look at the pattern," Sherlock said, pointing it out, "there are several drops on the inside, which means the murder slowly lowered themselves down the stairs, backwards. On the flat hallway, the blood drops evenly again. Yet, you can see from the fresh, rather ground in dirt, that someone walked up these stairs on the outer edge..."

Lestrades phone went off, and he answered it with an alarmed: "Donovan?" and excused himself from the house to take the call outside.

Sherlock spoke immediately, "John, how strong do you think you would have to be to carry a nine stone body down a flight of creaking stairs with one hand?"

"One hand?"

"The banister, there are slight rub marks on it which correspond to the blood trail. However, there are streaks against the wall made by clothing."

"These stairs are really narrow, though, Sherlock."

"Yes, but, also very creaky. The carpet along the wall is more worn down than the centre of the carpet, where everyone has been walking. This means Phillips walked up the inside of the stairs where it's stronger and where it doesn't creak."

"... I don't get it."

"It just raises a few questions. For example, Phillips knew the quietest way up the stairs was to use to side where it's stronger. You said she was jumpy, so perhaps she disliked loud noises. It looks like she was attacked in the bedroom. So, why didn't she hear her attacker climb the stairs if she was restless and the attacker was noisy?"

"How do you know she didn't?"

"The duvet."

"Oh, well, I don't know, Sherlock." He then paused, adding: "Fear does strange things to people."

Sherlock, as careless as ever, carried on, "yes, but surely curiousity would cause a person to investigate the noise? In which case, Phillips would have exited the bed on the side closest to the door."

A different voice, bitter and angry, spoke next, "not everyone gets a sick kick out of crime, Holmes."

"Oh, Anderson, you've stopped hiding in the toilet then?" Sherlock asked, "I was wondering when you would come out to greet us. I was also sort of hoping you wouldn't, of course..."

"I don't think you appriciate the circumstances here." Anderson snapped, "or do you think it would be fine if someone broke into your house solely to murder you? Would you find it curious, then?"

John couldn't help but think Anderson had a point. Sherlock was tackless, sometimes.

"I think I have had, and solved, much tougher crime mysteries. This one won't take long." Sherlock said, confidently, "if I left you to it, however, I don't think you'd ever leave this house."

"What is that suppose to mean?" Anderson demanded.

"I mean, as a detective, you're imcompetant." Sherlock explained, casually. Within seconds, Anderson had made a lunge for Sherlock who swiftly stepped back. A fight was going to break out between them within minutes if John didn't do something.

"What the-!" John roared, "stop this now!"

Well, it worked in the army.

Sherlock moved out of the way once more to avoid Anderson from grabbing his collar, and then swiftly grabbed the back of Andersons coat, hissing, "Tell me, Anderson, is the fresh mud on the stairs yours?" Anderson pulled back, snarling, and was just about to throw a punch-

Lestrade reentered the room, demanding, "stop what now?"

"Nothing." Sherlock replied innocently, and Anderson moved away from him, cursing under his breath. "So, have you conducted any interviews as of yet?"

"I have a man questioning the neighbours, he'll be finished within the next two hours. Donovan has just been inspecting the university Miss Phillips attended, we can get statements later. Well, as you're here, anything worthwhile to contribute, or am I breaking police laws for the hell of it?"

"I, however, am very curious as to why 27 year old Katherine Phillips attended university, had a job, and yet has a barely decorated home." Sherlock said, talking over Lestrade as if he had barely heard him.

"Maybe she wasn't staying here for a long time? Just until finishing uni, this is a very inexpensive house."

"Yes, but she has absolutely no belongings other than the furniture that came with the house. I suspect she was saving money, yes, but also had no friends or family, or at least no friends aware of how she lived."

John was quiet for a moment before speaking up, "when I came back from Afganistan I had nothing either. I see where you're coming from, though, Katherine lived here for three years."

"Is it important?" Lestrade asked.

"Could be." Sherlock replied.

Lestrade met him with an equally patronising gaze, "If I am to request permission to go looking through a girls bank account details, I need a damn good reason why."

"Well, the trouble is it could be important, but you won't know until you have her bank details. Or at least the wage she had for her job and the cost of living here in retrospect to that."

Lestrade frowned, "... it's sounding a lot like you suspect an illegal immigrant."

"I am very curious to hear about her history, you've guessed. It's taking quite a while to dig up, isn't it?"

John, however, was not convinced. His records at the surgery said she was British, and an orphan. Lestrade asked him to check during the interview, held in the spare, unbloodied bedroom. All the records were highly secure and accurate, including the empty space where 'next of kin' should have been written. Basically, everything was in order, apart from the odd details, but as Lestrade muttered, it wasn't enough to conclude that Phillips was an illegal immigrant.

Watson answered all of Lestrades questions truthfully but in the end, Lestrade didn't seem pleased with the evidence. Phillips was jumpy, nervous, pale and sleep deprived. Had she expected this to happen? And if so, why hadn't she said anything, or called the police about it? And had, once again, Watson really not suspected anything? John was getting pretty fed up of that being asked. No, he said, no I didn't.

Sherlock was currently looking through drawers downstairs for more evidence to the girls existance. Papers for the house, records of achievements or anything that would suggest there was once life inside this house. He could find no pictures, no letters... but he did find several old used batteries Phillips had forgotten to throw away, seemingly blank CDs without cases, an old MP3 player, post-it notes with nonsense scribbled all over them...

He was reminded all of a sudden about his old life. Completely separated from the world, it was him and his mess, him and his belongings which held a considerable amount more value that he really knew. His own CD's full of orchestral music and violin solos would just lie scattered anywhere, and his post it notes were always forgotten about.

But Sherlock just kept looking through for house documents or university letters. He found none.

The house did look lived in, tuna stained microwaves and a fridge with cheap frozen meals still inside, old cutlery still washed and broken scissors repaired with sellotape. So why couldn't he find any of the important legal documents?

On the table was a large plastic box labeled 'EVIDENCE' full of plastic bags of items that the detectives had collected. Sherlock had a quick peek inside, ruffling through until he found a passport. He opened it to look at it properly, and found the same photograph at the back as the one that the news had shown. It said she was born in a hospital all the way in Devon, twenty seven years ago. So maybe she wasn't an immigrant, or by the look of this passport, at least not illegally. Quietly he tucked it inside his coat pocket. Phillips had already been identified, the police didn't need this as of yet. He expected them to come after him once they noticed it missing, but by then Sherlock wouldn't need it anymore.

One thing he did wonder consider... the mattress wasn't just ripped down the middles, the corners had been torn apart and covered in blood. His own mattress had been opened at the corners to hide some incrimidating documents about himself and he's sown it back together afterwards, but that was because he had things to hide. Did Phillips have things worth hiding?

Yet, he had to admit, he'd had much more thrilling cases. These paled in comparison.

John met him downstairs, at which point Sherlock explained his lack of finding anything of value.

"No documents about the house or her university application. Not even a CV."

"What does that mean?"

"Probably nothing." Sherlock shrugged, "a woman on the run? Maybe from family or a jealous partner. Doesn't strike me as a criminal."

Lestrade came in at that point. "Even so, she was murdered and brutally."

"Think about it," Sherlock said, "a nine stone body at least, pretty much bled dry if the sheer amount of blood is anything to go by, but no other remains, carried away in bin bags you say-" he stopped mid sentence, causing Lestrade and John to lean in... until John had a thought.

"You're kidding me." John said, and he led the chase outside to the garden, throwing open the big black bin at the end of the pathway. Empty... and clean. Sherlock cursed as John put his face in his hands and groaned.

Lestrade looked between them. "You don't honestly think..."

"No," Sherlock said, "that's not it. But there could have been crucial evidence in there, official papers about Phillips, since there's none in the house."

"What makes you say that?" John asked. "I mean, you're implying that she, or someone else, got rid of them for a reason."

"Well, there's got to be a reason. Maybe someone else was in them, and so destroying them would clear there name..." Sherlock scratched his cheek, "yes, that makes sense. Perhaps Phillips owned this house with someone else, who wasn't paying, so rather than have to pay up, the someone else removed of her and the forms that would get him a jail sentense. Some little domestric issue like that I imagine."

John stared at his companion, bewildered. The moment Sherlock thinks he's solved it, it becomes the most boring thing in the world.

"So, Lestrade, I bet you could wrap this one up by researching into the second copy of the documents that the estate agents owned, including those the university has about Phillips. Find anyone who knew her and interview them excessively. Look for the generally smart ones that timed this attack to coincide with bin day." He smiled a little, but it was lacking in any comfort, "Perhaps you were right after all, you don't need me for this case."

But he kept the passport in hidden safely in his pocket.

A.N- Hahaha! You can probably tell I'm not a detective. My clues are awful. Anyway, decided to speed it up a little. I'll try not to do too many chapters. :) I'm posting this now, but will probably go back to it later if I get any CC. I tend to do that.
Advice and CC is ALWAYs appriciated. Thank you ever so much for all your reviews and comments so far!

Thanks for Reading!