Musgrave Blaze

Chapter One

Sherlock tried to ignore the vibration of his phone in his jacket pocket. He was in the middle of a tricky, if somewhat messy job, and needed to concentrate. The overwhelming stench of decomposition in the morgue was hard enough to deal with for someone whose sense of smell was hypersensitive. Occupational hazard; I can tolerate it for the sake of science. He kept telling himself that; it was a little mantra to wave in front of all those noxious fumes. But, add an unanswered phone to that mixture and his irritation became palpable. He took a shallow breath and then wielded the scalpel to take a wafer-thin slice of lung tissue, which he transferred onto the waiting slide. Then he used the pipette to inject the stain, placing the cover slip on it to get a good seal. He needed ten more slides to complete the set of twenty. Behind him, he could hear Molly Hooper continuing with the autopsy.

He had to finish his sampling while the body was still being worked on, so the lungs could be re-united with the cadaver at the end of the procedure. Otherwise, families fussed at the delay, funeral directors complained, and he had promised not to slow Molly's work rate because of his investigations. His phone buzzed again. He ignored it.

"How much time do I have left?"

"About thirty minutes- more, if you need it. I can take a break and get us a cup of coffee, if you'd like?"

"No, that will be fine."

She sighed as she turned back to the bloated cadaver. White, female, moderately obese, but now blown up grotesquely by the lengthy period she had spent in the water. A body found in the Thames just upstream of Greenwich- she was the latest in a long line of river victims that had brought Sherlock to the mortuary on a regular basis for the past five months. In each case, he wanted to be there when the organs were removed, so he could take tissue samples from the lungs. She'd asked why, and been treated to a lecture.

"Do you realise that most drownings in the London area occur in people's own homes? The bathtub is a lethal weapon, but at least in those cases, the cause of death and location are known. Rivers are more challenging- time, tides, currents, river boat traffic and temperature all play a part in deciding where the bodies are eventually found and in what condition. Of course, it's not just drownings. Every week somewhere along the 215 mile length of the Thames, a body washes up after having been dumped there. In those cases, river water also penetrates the lung tissue unless their mouths and noses are taped shut."

She'd asked how the tissue samples would help.

"I am trying to develop a protocol for identifying the entry points for bodies that are dumped and those who drown in the Thames. Biochemical analysis of the lung tissue is crucial, as the debris content varies enormously from one stretch to another. I've already constructed the database, using Thames Water sampling information; now I need to identify the different contaminants in cadaver tissue before the biochemical elements start to decay from exposure to the air when the lungs are removed during the autopsy."

Molly could hear the phone vibrating again in Sherlock's pocket. It made a sort of faint 'mooing' noise.

"Do you want me to get that?" she asked a little timidly.

Sherlock looked up in annoyance. "If I answer it, I will have to change my gloves to avoid contaminating the tissue."

She decided to be helpful. "Stand up then and let me get to it; I don't mind taking a break anyway. She's a little smelly, and I could do with the fresh air."

He nodded brusquely and stood up. She tried not to blush as she reached into his jacket's inside left pocket. Very gingerly she pulled the phone out whilst trying to avoid touching him. She knew he didn't like to be touched.

"It's John. He's sent you three texts."

"Read them out." He returned to the lung and prepared the next slide.

"At 11.18, the first one says- 'We have a new client. ETA Baker Street 20 mins'. The next one was at 11.40; he says, ' New client- VERY', Sherlock, he's capitalised the very, 'interesting. Get back soon."

"And the last one?"

She giggled. "He sounds annoyed. '12.01, I'm getting tired of busking; you're the maestro- get your butt back here ASAP.'

Sherlock frowned. In the competition between a new case or an experiment, he knew which one would win. Still, he was reluctant to abandon the work done this morning. "If I only do ten rather than the twenty, it will reduce the statistical validity."

Molly said brightly, "Look, show me what to do, and I'll complete the set for you. No one will know. She's so smelly that no one will dare come down here for a while. So, you can go. Don't keep John waiting with this mystery client."

He stripped off his gloves, explained exactly what had to be done, then snatched the phone from her hands, and was struggling into his coat as he was half-way out the door. "Molly, even your pathology skills are good enough to do this." She smiled. I think that was a compliment, Sherlock, even though you probably didn't mean it to be one.