─ excavation of the heart, s.h.

Chapter Six

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Hesitance

[Narrator]

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For hours, he had been sat there, staring at the number. After himself and John had got home last night, Sherlock wrote down the number that he had ran through his head countless times, convincing himself that he was going to use it. But what would I say? That was the problem. He could hardly just phone her up for a chat. No, that would be ridiculous. Hi, you caught my eye at that crime scene yesterday, but I was too up myself to start a proper conversation. In reality, that was true, but it's not like he was going to admit that out loud. As he said, he was too up himself.

Inhaling deeply, Sherlock broke his hard stare from the slip and looked around the room for his partner. "John?" A couple of seconds, and no response. Considering it was ten-thirty in the evening, much to his surprise, he figured that his friend was most likely on another one of his dates. Sherlock didn't know why John bothered anymore. Every single one of his dates had failed, and he wasn't sure how long his flat mate could keep going. It was quite alarming, the rate he was going through women, and soon there would be no single women left that he hadn't dated, within a ten mile radius. But maybe John was unknowingly setting himself up for failure. An army doctor just returned from the war, still craving excitement, not routine nor a dull life. If one of his dates actually turned into a full fledged relationship, could he last that long without something different in his life? Yes, there was the excitement that Sherlock provided him each time his phone rung with a new case, but John would surely go mad if he had to spend the rest of his life committed to one woman. She would have to be an assassin to keep him on his feet.

Slowly standing from his place at the table in the dimly lit front room, Sherlock stretched his arms above his head, moving properly for the first time since around lunch time. His thoughts went back to the case at hand as he ambled over to the 'evidence wall', which was simply lots of sheets and photos stuck to the black and white wallpaper above the leather sofa which rested against the same surface. Even though the case was already practically solved, seen as they already had their murderer, it was the matter of motive which irritated Sherlock. He knew exactly how, where, and when the despicable man had done it, but he craved to know more. What went through his head when he decided to take the life from those innocent people? But his thinking was interrupted by a low buzz from the table. As he picked up the device, the screen projected an unknown number, one which Sherlock did not recognise. Contemplating for a minute, he finally decided to swipe the green button to the right, and held his phone up to his ear. "Sherlock Holmes."

"Ah, thank goodness I got the right number. That would have been awkward," a voice chuckled from the other end of the line. "This is Georgia Brown, from the Museum of London's Archaeology department, I'm not sure if you remember me from-"

"Yes, yes, I know who you are, don't worry. It's hard to forget someone who made such an impression upon first meeting." Sherlock could almost hear Georgia blush through the phone line, which, for reasons unknown to him, made him perk up. In fact, he felt a little impulse to jump around the room in excitement. If she hadn't contacted him, then he probably would have convinced himself to leave it, which he most certainly didn't want to do. This also prompted Sherlock to wonder how Georgia got his phone number in the first place, but just silently thanked whoever gave it to her.

"Right," Georgia felt at a loss of what to say as she sat at her desk, the information from the crime scene analysis spread out in front of her. She knew that she phoned for a reason, that reason being to inform Sherlock about what her team had found, but she found it hard to think of the correct words to come out of her mouth. This man is making me go crazy, "so we got the results back, and it turns out the bodies are far older than the man is claiming, meaning either he's lying about when he killed them, or there are more bodies somewhere else."

"You may be right. I'll phone Lestrade, see if I can talk to him. Do you know how they were killed?" Georgia sighed from the other end of the line.

"It was clearly a brutal death, considering I could work it out from just their bones alone. All of the victims were brutally raped, which is shown from their fractured pelvises, and during or afterwards, they were strangled so tightly their necks snapped." There was a minute of silence on both ends, as both Sherlock and Georgia imagined what it must have been like for the victims. Even Sherlock, who normally wouldn't be phased by such a murder, was slightly shocked at the information.

"I'll let Lestrade know." He said in a quiet voice. Georgia must have caught on, because she jumped in to assure him.

"They wouldn't have been struggling long, so at least it wasn't as bad as it could have been, had he dragged their deaths out. Just remember it could have been so much worse." After a conversation like this, there wasn't really anything that could be said it lighten the mood. "I have to go and sort out the bodies so they can be shown to the families, so I'll leave you to inform Lestrade."

Just as Sherlock was about to lower the phone from his ear, he spoke up at the last minute. "Goodnight, Georgia."

"Goodnight, Sherlock."