Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQN9B8CYWR860EF3SPB5RW

They had boarded up the old station with brick and bureaucracy, but the wrong kind of secrets keep time like trains. Harlow Quinn stepped off the service stair into the stale dark of the underground and felt the prickle on her neck she never admitted to anyone. Spring damp had wormed its way into the tile; her breath came back at her in a cold gust. The barrel vault arched overhead in patient soot. On the platform, police tape fluttered between iron columns as if the place were breathing. “Over here,” called DS Malik. His voice flattened against the walls. He was a broad-shouldered blur until her torch pinned him, lenses flashing. She picked her way across the spilled gravel and the yawning edge of the track. Her boot scuffed something that chimed off into the dark. No dead trains today, thank God. TFL had given them an hour window and a man in a hi-vis vest had said, “Don’t touch the live rail,” like he was imparting wisdom of the ages. The body lay near the advertisement for a toothpaste that had not existed in twenty years, the woman’s grin fissured by water damage. Male, thirties, maybe. Jeans and a leather jacket shiny with wear. Dust had sketched his outline before he fell. Now the dust carried his last movements like a poor recorder: a scuffled half-circle, the mark of a knee. He was on his back, head tilted slightly to the right, eyes open in a way Harlow hated, taking too much in. A thin ribbon of blood had run from his nose to the corner of his mouth, dried to a rusty moustache. “You’ve got a railway accident that forgot the train,” Malik said, flipping a glove against his wrist. “Copper thieves had a go, or someone’s set up an illicit lab and cooked themselves.” She crouched. Her knees cracked; her watch strap creaked, leather old as habit. “He was moved,” she said. “From the nose bleed in the dust? Could be he staggered.” She traced the outline where his torso had lain earlier. The dust was wiped in a more generous shape, the way it looked when officers pulled a jacket over a face or someone had gone through pockets. But the drag marks that should have snaked from edge to final position weren’t there. No long smears. Just those tight scuffs: a careful set-down. Her torch slid to his hands. The right was clenched. She nudged fingers open with a thumb, gentle as prayer. A disc tapped out onto her glove: a small round token the color of old bone, drilled and smoothed by thumb. Someone had rubbed it with oil until it was dark and glossy along the rim. Malik made a noise. “Poker chip from a novelty shop.” Harlow turned it over. Etched into the surface, half-worn, was a pattern not quite letters and not quite any geometry she knew. Protective? No, she did not use that word. She slid it into an evidence bag and felt the tug of a memory caught on a jag: a night of rain three years ago, Morris in a doorway with his collar up and his cigarette burning down to the filter as he stared at a chalk mark on a brick wall. He’d said, “Either humanity has invented a new gang sign, Harlow, or we’ve been very sheltered.” She’d laughed because it was what he wanted to hear. She put her hand on the dead man’s forearm. Cold, of course, and a stippling of fine soot that stuck to her palm. Her torch found scorch marks on his jacket sleeve—little crescent moons of black, too thin and precise for a fall against the rail. No brown blistering of electricity. No arc burns. Malik shone his light along the track bed. “We found glass. Vial shards. You can smell it, can’t you? That sweet note? Could be ether, could be solvents, could be any nonsense the kids cook to make a quick quid. I’ve called in SOCO to sweep for residues. Rail maintenance say they’ve had looters down here before.” Harlow inhaled. There was a sweetness, but wrong: not supermarket solvent, not petrol. Beneath it, a twinge like clove and copper. She stood, careful to let the dust fall where it would, and let her torch climb the wall. Old enamel signs: Exit. Way Out. One tile had been scrubbed so recently the white showed through the grey in a dull gleam, and on that tile was the ghost of something drawn and wiped in a hurry. Ash smeared in a curving line, branching—no, not branching. Linked. A loop, a circle, the tail of it cutting toward the platform’s lip. She stepped back, squinted. There around her boots were faint arcs, interruptions in the dust where someone had knelt and laid something round on the floor and then lifted it again. Candle wax pooled and torn away left a translucent rind. On the platform edge itself, above the pit, a shallow dish lay on its side, pewter dulled with age, a ring of soot inside it. “Acid lab,” Malik said. “Or the world’s saddest séance.” Harlow didn’t dignify it. She followed the ash tail to the bricked-up service tunnel at the far end of the platform, where the air pulled colder. The arch had been closed with victorian efficiency: yellowed mortar, clinkers in the mix. Someone had added a strip of modern steel mesh across it, for good measure. Her torch beam snagged along the wire. In places, flecks of something had hardened like sap, another smear of soot. Her mind turned it over. The circle, the dish, the smell, the token. A market she’d only ever heard about in the sorts of reports that got red-penned by duty solicitors. A whisper in case notes. Veil. They’d called it the Veil. “And this,” Malik said, fishing in a bag and holding up a clear evidence envelope. Inside, something small glinted dull green. “From his pocket. A compass. The cheap junk sort.” She took it. The brass case had seen hands and pockets for years; verdigris had crept like moss into the fluting around the edge. Her gloved thumb rubbed at the lid, and the patina came away in a thin smear. When she opened it, a smell like penny coins and old paper lifted. The face wasn’t a normal design. Under the scratched glass, rather than cardinal directions, sigils had been etched at each quarter, their lines knotted as if meant to hold something in. The needle did not settle on north. It swung, shook, and pinned itself toward the bricked archway as if pulled there by a thread. Malik peered. “Broken. Or there’s a magnet in the wall. Could be old cable, could be some iron lump behind.” “Mm.” She turned slowly, holding the compass flat. The needle resisted, then snapped back to the same bearing, stubborn. She lined it up again toward the arch and felt that old prickle stir along her scalp. “Where’d we find him?” she asked. “Three meters to your left, near the column, according to the first officers. He was facedown then,” Malik said. “PC Booth rolled him to check breathing. No pulse.” She nodded. “And who found him?” He tapped his notebook. “Rail patrol. Said he thought he saw a flashlight down here, came to tell them to shove off, found this instead. He waited topside for us, didn’t go near.” Harlow crouched again, swept her torch right along the platform. Scuffs multiplied in her beam—boot soles, trainer treads. A stain like spilled tea near the arch, old and brown, not tonight’s. Then something else: a neat set of prints, the kind you get when a shoe lets off a little grit then goes clean. They approached the wall and ended a foot from the brick. No turn. No backtrack. Just stopped. She looked up. The mesh had been reaffixed badly to one corner, the new screws shining. Someone had taken it down and put it back today. “DS Quinn?” A new voice, pitched polite and careful. She straightened and turned. A young woman stood just beyond the tape, hair a tangle of red curls corralled under a beanie, round glasses fogged at the edges. She held her ID open in one hand, a slim badge with the British Museum crest. In the other, a satchel pulled her shoulder down. The leather of the strap had the shiny wear of a bag carried too long and too far. “Eva Kowalski,” she said. “We got a call. Mr. Hind at the Museum said you wanted someone to look at… items. Antiquities, possibly.” Harlow flicked a glance at Malik. He lifted a shoulder. “Control asked for museum advice. He’s got everyone’s numbers.” His tone held the dry amusement of a man who thought this was theatre. “Fine,” Harlow said. “Stay where you are. Don’t touch. What do you know about compasses, Ms. Kowalski?” “Enough to tell if it’s a nineteenth-century sailor’s keepsake or modern garbage.” Eva pushed her glasses up with a knuckle, then tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear with a little flick that had seen practice. Her green eyes had the keen look of a bird on a wire. “May I?” Harlow held out the bag. Eva’s glance ticked to the sigils and away in a heartbeat. “Oh,” she said too lightly. “The Victorians loved to add nonsense to anything. Spiritualist etchings, Masonic this and that. Half of Camden is full of repros.” “You’d know your way around Camden, then,” Harlow said. “Everyone my age does. Street food, music. Not down here.” Another hair tuck. Her fingers were ink-stained near the nail bed, the telltale of someone who spent nights over books. “Where did you find it?” “In the deceased’s pocket.” Harlow watched the way Eva’s eyes moved, the muscles around the mouth. “What’s your call?” “It’s pretty,” Eva said. “It’s also wrong. Those aren’t letters and they’re not for show, either. They’re… protective, in a way. Wards. A bit of a hodgepodge. If you were prone to romanticism, you might call this a charm against getting lost.” Malik made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh. “And does it work? He seems very found at the minute.” Eva’s gaze flicked up to the bricked arch. The little second of a pause was all Harlow needed. “Have you seen one like it,” Harlow asked, “at the Museum? In your restricted archives?” Eva’s cheeks blotched, then cleared. “We get all sorts. People bring in flea market finds and swear they belonged to Gerald Gardner. But this—this looks crafted. Not a mass piece.” She swallowed. “May I see the token?” Harlow considered, then held up the separate bag with the bone disc. In the torchlight, the etched pattern took on depth. Eva’s breath hitched. Tiny, but Harlow heard it. “Novelty,” Harlow said. “Mm.” Eva met her eyes and did not look away. “If you’re asking me to say that to someone with a breathalyser, I will. But you don’t look like you want me to lie.” Malik had drifted to the edge of their circle, out of the little honest line between them. He said, “So what is it?” “An entry,” Harlow said before Eva could fabricate. “A token. You show it to someone and they let you in. Somewhere like this, but not.” She gestured at the square of cleaned tile and the circle traced in nothing. Malik’s mouth quirked. “You’ve been reading ghost stories again.” “Rail patrol said he saw a flashlight. Did he hear anything? Any voices? Any smells, other than this?” She pointed to the scorched dish. Malik flipped through his notes, obedient despite the tone. “He said it smelled like a bonfire and pennies, and he heard—this is nonsense—a sort of singing, or a whistle. Then nothing. And before you ask, yes, it was the full moon last night. Do you want me to call the wolves in?” He grinned to show it was a joke. Harlow let the grin pass her by. Full moon. A market that moved then, if you believed the things she didn’t. The Veil Market. An underground bazaar the city pretended not to bleed into. You needed a bone token to get in, they said. It changed locations every full moon, sliding under the skin of London like a fish. And if you got trapped between when the thing closed and opened somewhere else—if you were half a beat late—you got left in the dead space, the seam. She felt the compass weight in her gloved palm. She turned her back on Malik a fraction and let the lid slit to make the needle visible. It had not changed. She could have drawn a string from its tip to the mesh and tied a knot. “You’ve seen this before,” Eva said softly, only for her. “Not this compass—God knows who makes them now—but you’ve seen what it points to.” Harlow’s jaw tightened. The sharpness of it could cut, the way her colleagues said it would someday. “We’ll need your notes,” she said deliberately. “On similar items. Provenance. Anything that passes through your restricted archives that looks like this. Names, too.” Eva’s face opened in quick alarm, then shut in thought. She thrust her hand into her satchel and rummaged. Books knocked together; paper rasped. She drew out nitrile gloves of her own. Harlow almost smiled. “Let me at least trace the markings,” Eva said. “We can compare.” “Trace,” Harlow conceded. “From the bag. No direct contact.” It was easier to manage Eva with a task. The girl—no, the woman—would wander toward the wrong secrets if left unmoored. SOCO arrived then, white suits glimmering in the dark like ghosts in training. Doors thumped somewhere up the stairs; the drone of a generator came alive. The stink of coffee drifted down. Harlow stepped back into the shadow of an iron column and let the scene breathe. Small details arranged themselves as they always did if you stood still long enough. The dead man’s earrings were tiny brass hoops, rubbed bright where his fingers had fretted them. Under his jacket, a shirt printed with a logo from a coffee shop on Drummond Street. His left heel carried a dark smear that did not match anything here; soil? No, resin. She looked at the bricked arch and saw again the way the mesh had been refixed in haste. A screw dropped, then fumbled, then driven the wrong angle. Whoever had done it had not wanted the lookouts topside to notice a change. “Call for a K9,” she said to Malik without looking at him. “I want a scent track from him to the stair, see if he came in alone or with company. And get a rail map—old. I want the service tunnels, the ventilation shafts. Anything that would give someone a way in here that isn’t the obvious staircase.” Malik’s eyebrows rose. “You think they didn’t come the way we did?” “I think if there was a door in that wall, it’s gone now, and we won’t find a hinge.” She turned the compass so the needle quivered again. “But the world leaves a mess where you least expect it.” He followed her gaze to the arch and for once didn’t make the joke. He rubbed at his jaw instead. “You do realize if you write ‘portal’ in your report, the DCI will frame it.” “I’ll write ‘unlawful entry’ and ‘point of egress unknown’ and let him choke on that.” She checked her watch out of habit. The leather had molded to her wrist over years; the face had a fine crack she refused to replace. 03:17. She crouched once more beside the body. His left palm had a deep slice across it, the kind you make gripping a blade that slides. Blood had pooled in his lifeline and dried to a brown lacquer. A matching smear of it, almost fingerprint-clear, lay on the polished edge of the bone token where his grip had slipped. She held the bag up to the light. The etched pattern—no, the not-letters—in the disc caught and threw back the beam as if it were not only carved but inlaid with some resin, translucent as old honey. “We’ll find you a name,” she told him under her breath. Morris had spoken to his dead once, on nights like this, not because he believed in anything, but because he was kind. “And we’ll find your market.” A train passed somewhere far above, a thunder that shook grit from the vaulted ceiling. Dust rained down in a soft hiss. The compass needle vibrated with it, then steadied on its impossible north. Eva stood within the tape, bent over, tracing methodically, the cap of her pen gripped between her teeth. She tucks her hair back again when it slipped, a small, nervous, human motion in all the strangeness. Harlow took one last look at the bricked arch and then around at the platform. The pieces did not add up the way they should in a world governed solely by failing men and physics. There was too much ceremony for a drug lab, too much order in the chaos. Decorative sigils on tools meant for function. Tokens that opened something more than a clubhouse door. Footprints that went nowhere. She closed the compass, sealed it, signed the bag, and passed it to SOCO. She kept the feeling of it in her palm anyway, a weight turned by belief. The city made promise and menace both in its bones. She knew only one way to hear it. Observe. Listen. Do not flinch when the familiar explanation failed. “Malik,” she said, “when this gets written up, keep the Museum and Ms. Kowalski off the name line. If anyone asks, we called for general consultation on metalwork, nothing of substance.” He looked at her as if she’d admitted to magic. Then he nodded. “All right.” She met Eva’s eyes across the tape and saw, for an instant, a flash of something like pity there. It startled her. The young sparrow had teeth. Harlow turned back to the dead man. He was still staring at the tile ceiling like he expected to read messages there. Maybe he had, once. Maybe he’d known the timetable that moved markets like trains. She had to catch up. She had to get there first, outrun the rest of them, make the pattern make sense. She allowed herself one indulgence, a touch of forefinger to her left wrist where the watch sat, a tap against time to shape it, and began to give orders until the scene bent to her will. Only then did she let herself picture a rainy night and a partner who had followed a pulling needle into dark and not come out. Only then did she make herself breathe into the prickle until it softened. The wall would stay a wall tonight. But walls were prizes men made to convince themselves the world had limits. She went to find where this one had failed.