The Sociopath Society

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

A murder? It’s an early birthday present!

“Don’t want to go to school,” Sherlock complained as he stuffed his clothes into a small suitcase. “Don’t want to.”

“Neither do I, Sher, but we have to. So shut up!” Sherlock smirked, glancing at John as he spoke. He looked cute in his uniform. It really suited him. Sherlock hated ties but on John they looked good.

“Why does my brother, of all people, have to take us?!” Sherlock ranted, slamming the suitcase lid shut. It was infuriating. The last thing he wanted was a two hour journey with his brother and John. Mycroft was just so... ugh.

“Because my parents can’t take us and Mycroft offered,” John replied with an air of joy. It was going to be a torturous ride. “Come on, he’ll undoubtedly be waiting.” John pulled his suitcase out the door, rolling it down the stairs. Sherlock followed. After pulling on his coat and new scarf, of course. The latter still smelled of John. As suspected Mycroft’s fancy black car was waiting outside. The man himself was in the front passenger seat (obviously not wanting to sit in the back with John and Sherlock). The driver had gotten out to take their bags and John was already in the car. Sherlock got in next to him.

“Hello Sherlock, John,” Mycroft turned around briefly to look at them.

“Mycroft,” Sherlock replied curtly as John just smiled with a slight nod. “The diet not working out for you again?” He smirked as Mycroft stiffened.

“I heard that you’re doing well with your recovery from smoking. How are the nicotine patches?” Was that all Mycroft could think of as a comeback? Pathetic.

“They’re very good, actually,” Sherlock glanced at John with a ‘kill me now’ look. He hated when his brother tried to make polite conversation. He preferred the silence in this case. When it was with people other than Mycroft Sherlock liked to be the one talking while they listened. It was a perfect combination.

Apart from when it was John.

But John was just the exception. Was always the exception. It frustrated Sherlock. The unstoppable feelings his traitor brain was conjuring. He thought he had learned to stop emotions. Go about unfeeling. But John had changed all that. Ruined it you could say.

Then again one of those emotions had never been love. If that was what he felt. He still wasn’t sure.

He noticed John glancing at him with arched eyebrows and gave a forced smile. John smiled back slightly, one of his hands going over to cover Sherlock’s own. Sherlock felt a warm tingly feeling surge through his body at that. He wasn’t quite sure what it was. But it was nice. Coming from something as little as physical contact.

A sudden beeping interrupted the silence. Mycroft swiftly pulled out his mobile and put it to his ear.

“Mycroft Holmes speaking.” Sherlock rolled his eyes, looking out the window. Ignoring his brother’s annoying voice. Couldn’t be anything important. After all he wouldn’t be taking the call in the presence of Sherlock and John if it was.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft seemed to have put the call on hold to speak to Sherlock. Interesting. Time to pay attention. Sort of. “A boy was found dead in the school about an hour ago.”

“A murder?” Excitement flashed through Sherlock’s eyes. This was what he waited for! Hopefully it would be an interesting case. “Brilliant! Have they moved the body?”

“No, I don’t-“

“Great, make sure they don’t until I get there!”

“Sherlock it is highly unlikely that they will allow you onto the crime scene.”

“Please, Mycroft. For me?” Sherlock rarely used the word please but he knew when it was necessary to get what he wanted.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Mycroft sighed, preparing to continue the phone call.

“Oh, and who was the victim?”

“Tom August,” Sherlock replied before speaking into his mobile. Tom August? His name was on the list. He had had an item stolen! So the plot was thickening...

“Only five minutes,” the police officer growled at Sherlock as he, John and Mycroft reached the classroom where the body was located.

“I won’t need any more time,” Sherlock replied stiffly as he took the gloves handed to him. John did the same. “Come, John. Let’s see what happened.” Sherlock tried not to smile as he entered the room. It was the biology classroom where the stolen good had been hidden. Interesting. The body was lying face down in the centre of the room. A sixteen year old boy, middle class. Average grades with not much of interest about him really. He had a younger sibling. Gender unknown.

Now the cause of death. John bent down to investigate the body, pulling out the magnifier he had gotten for his birthday. It had been a gunshot. Obvious. Obvious.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, moving around the room. A bit off he found a mobile phone under a desk, half hidden. A new message had been started, the words ‘I’m here’ written. It had never been sent. All the most recent texts were to and from the same person.

JM.

Sherlock quickly typed the mobile number into his own phone. Then he looked up. Scratched into the wall were more numbers. All in pairs.

1,3          3,5          5,2          7,2          2,5          4,1          6,7          8,1

9,8          16,10      12,10      10,8        14,6        11,6        15,7        9,1

Sherlock quickly memorised them before heading back over to the door. John was still looking at the body. He quickly headed over to Sherlock when he saw that the other boy was leaving.

“What did you get?” Sherlock questioned.

“He was shot then the body was moved, as it’s not very likely that he fell like that.”

“Good, we’ll make a detective of you yet,” Sherlock smiled before turning to the police officer that appeared to be in charge. “Officer, this whole thing is so painfully obvious. The murdered was almost definitely Sebastian Moran. Let me give you the fact. The victim was shot, from quite a distance. This is easy to tell by looking at the wound. Sebastian is the best marksman in the school. It was a school kid because there is no other reason for the murder. Check the bullet type against one of those in Sebastian’s rifles and you’ll see it is true. But he was not working alone, was rather the assassin. Tom was being threatened. His phone contained only messages to and from JM recently who is obviously the mastermind behind all this. Now the body was moved. Why? So it would look like the phone had been dropped before the victim was shot. You should be trying to find out who JM is, not who the murderer is. I suggest you question Sebastian, James Brook and Irene Adler.” With a slight nod to the shocked officer and handing over the victim’s phone, Sherlock grabbed his suitcase and headed for his room. Thoroughly pleased with himself.