Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0434C6E024C304H1QBQ93

The entrance crouched between two shuttered shops on Camden High Street, a rusted service door with fresh tape strung across it. A pair of uniforms guarded it, boots planted on the greasy slabs, breath ghosting the thin winter air. Quinn checked her watch. Leather strap creaked under her thumb. 04:23. She ducked under the tape. “Morning, Detective.” One of the constables shifted his grip on the clipboard. “Bit of a maze down there. Watch your step.” “If I fall, I’ll land on your deskwork.” Her boots took the concrete stairs without pause. The air thickened as she went down. Old dust, old leaks, the dull hum of the city filtered through layers of brick. The stairwell walls carried peeling cream paint and graffiti in three colours, the newer tags splashed over something older, more deliberate, almost like cramped handwriting. Patel waited at the bottom, tie loosened, suit jacket open over a stab vest. He wiped his nose with the back of his wrist. “You picked a nice spot,” she walked past him into the dark passage, light from his torch flaring over her shoulder. “You’re welcome. Thought you’d enjoy a field trip.” His grin barely held. “Abandoned station under Camden. Got a call about a body, no caller ID, no callback. ARV cleared it, then called us. No trains in decades. No power, no CCTV. Spooky as hell.” Quinn ignored the last bit. “Where’s SOCO?” “On platform level. About to wrap, unless you tell them to rip it all up again.” She followed the passage. Concrete underfoot gave way to old tiles, their white glazed faces stained with an ochre film. The ceiling dipped, pipes and cables ran like veins. Ahead, portable floodlights marked the end of the tunnel with a harsh white flare. “At least the rats are on strike,” Patel muttered. “They’re watching,” she answered. He gave a dry snort. The abandoned platform opened out slow, like a curtain dragged aside. Floodlights on tripods bleached colour from everything, cast hard shadows. The arched roof loomed above, its soot-black curve stitched with cables and rusted fixtures. Old posters clung to the walls in torn ribbons—faded faces selling soap, cigarettes, a West End show that closed before Patel’s birth. The middle of the platform carried the body. Uniforms ringed the scene, bored and braced. A SOCO tech knelt nearby with a camera, flash bursting in intervals. Around the corpse lay a scatter of objects: bottles, used candles, some chalk or paint markings on the tiles, the dull glint of metal. Quinn paused at the platform edge. “Walk me in,” her voice cut through the echo. Patel fell in beside her. “Male. Late twenties, early thirties. No ID. Single stab to the chest. Plenty of blood loss but it pooled wrong. ME will love it. Looks like his heart ruptured or something. We found syringes, spoons, baggies. I’m thinking drug meet gone sideways, bit of ritual nonsense for mood lighting.” Quinn watched the body. The victim lay on his back, arms stretched a fraction out from his sides. Head angled toward the tunnel mouth. Eyes open, fixed on the curved ceiling. His T‑shirt stuck to his chest, black now where it met the knife wound. No knife in sight. Around him, a circle ringed the tiles. Thick line, about a metre in radius. Grey, not quite chalk. Symbols interrupted the line: tight curves, slashes, small hooked marks, each placed at equal points around the circumference. The blood seeped across two of them, but the circle remained unbroken, the red meeting the line without crossing it except where someone’s boot had smeared both. “You reckon junkies did that?” she nodded at the circle. Patel shrugged. “You’ve met hipster occult kids. They google a sigil, copy it in chalk, overdose for aesthetic.” “Who told you that phrase.” “Internet. I keep up.” She stepped closer. The tech stiffened. “Mind the line, please,” his voice chafed. “I see it.” Quinn stopped a hair’s breadth from the grey ring. The dust outside it looked undisturbed, pale film that softened tile edges. Inside the circle, apart from the blood and the victim, the floor looked cleaner. As if more feet had moved there, recently. “How many sets of footprints?” she twisted toward the tech. He checked his notes. “Victim’s. Two more distinct adult sizes. Plus ours, obviously.” “Show me where.” He signalled with a gloved hand. Tape markers dotted the platform. Within the circle, footprints overlapped. Outside, only a narrow arc of prints led toward the tunnel and back, where uniforms and forensics had passed. “Whoever met him stayed in the circle,” Quinn murmured. Patel scratched his jaw. “Or the junkies danced round their candle pit. Same thing.” “Any shoe tread impressions going off toward the tracks?” “Nothing clear. Bits near the edge, could be his, could be old. Dust is weird down there, layers. Too mixed.” She crouched, knees protesting. The grey line looked more granular here. Not chalk. Ash? Ground bone? The thought rose uninvited. She dipped a gloved fingertip close, did not touch. A faint metallic smell wound up, under the tang of blood and disinfectant wipes. Not cremation. Something sharper, mixed with wax and something oily. Her gaze moved to the objects around the body. Three glass bottles, unlabelled. One toppled, dregs thick in the bottom. A spoon blackened on one side. Two syringes, one capped, one open, both without visible residue. Candles in small brass holders, wicks cut short, wax runnels frozen down their sides. A few had extinguished mid-drip, forming thin spikes. “User kit, no gear,” she rose. Patel frowned. “You’ve got syringes. Bagged powder in his pocket. That’s gear.” “They’re clean,” Quinn pointed at the syringes. “One capped, one uncapped, neither used. No blood, no tie‑off marks on his arms. Any track marks?” Tech shook his head. “None. ME confirmed initial.” “So he came to a drug deal with unused syringes, then got stabbed before he managed to shoot up? And his dealer packed up and left everything.” Quinn’s tone stayed flat. Patel pursed his lips. “Panic. Knife comes out, everyone runs. Seen it.” “Then where’s the knife. Where are the footprints beyond the circle.” Her eyes tracked the arc again. “And why set up the candles in a perfect ring, burn them down to match lengths, then bail before the fun starts.” “You think they made the circle after he died?” Patel lifted his shoulders. “Dress the scene, scare the pigs. Play at Satan.” Quinn looked at the symbols again. Each mark had a confidence to it. No hesitation, no retries ground into the dust. Whoever drew them knew the pattern. “Check the baggies,” she turned to the tech. “Composition?” “Prelim gave us sugar cut with caffeine. No proper product yet. Waiting on lab.” “Fake drugs.” Patel’s voice carried more interest. “So he got scammed, took issue, buyer pulls a knife—” “He doesn’t look like he moved.” Quinn nodded at the body’s limbs, the set of his torso. “No defensive wounds?” “None obvious,” the tech glanced down. “Hands clean except—” Quinn stepped round to the right hand. The fingers curled in a loose claw, thumb angled in. Dark smear crept along the side of his index and middle fingers, up toward the nail beds. Not blood. A thin soot line, almost in the shape of something he’d gripped. “Except that,” she completed it. “Like he held a burning object.” “Candle?” Patel edged closer. She glanced at the holders. All sat untouched, centered inside the circle, their wax neat except the drip patterns. The closest to his hand stood a full handspan away, upright. No scorch on the tiles where a candle might have toppled. “He held something. They took it.” She straightened. Patel flipped his notebook. “We’ve got a working theory. This place—” he gestured at the platform “—is a rumour in CID. Blokes call it a ghost market. Word on some encrypted channels about off‑grid swap meets down here. Guns, pills, knock‑off antiques, that sort of thing. Our mystery caller tonight? Might’ve been a rival crew dropping a dime.” Quinn ran a thumb over her watch strap. The leather felt dry. “Anything on those channels about circles and candles.” “Just general ‘don’t mess with the weirdos under Camden.’ You know how kids talk.” She let that sit. Her gaze swept the platform again. The far end carried evidence of more recent use than the rest. Stalls of rough timber and scaffold poles, half dismantled, leaned against the damp wall. A row of trestle tables carried scuffs and scratches, but no goods. A few discarded crates sat empty, their labels peeled away. One metal-framed structure jutted from the wall, a makeshift stall front, its tarpaulin cover rolled up and tied. She walked toward them, boots ticking over the tiles. “None of this was here last survey,” Patel trailed behind. “British Transport Police logs have this place marked as sealed and cleared. Ten, twelve years quiet.” “Someone built a market down here and moved out fast.” Quinn’s fingers skimmed a crate edge. “Any prints?” “Smears, gloves, the works. They wiped their tracks or used magic fairy dust.” Her gaze settled on a small object in a plastic evidence bag, clipped to a board on one of the trestles. A constable moved aside to let her view it. The item looked like a coin at first glance. Off‑white, the size of a two‑pound piece, with rough edges and a hole bored neat through its centre. Small symbols etched around the hole, shallow but crisp. Bone, not plastic. She could almost feel it under her teeth. “Found near the stairs,” the constable offered. “Bagged as a pendant or carved button.” Quinn took the board. The etchings around the central hole curled and hooked, not English letters, not runes she recognised. Worn smooth at the top, where a cord might have threaded through. The underside carried faint scratches, as if it had knocked against other hard surfaces for years. “You ever see that script?” she angled it at Patel. “Looks like something off a metal band logo.” She looked longer. The style of the symbols echoed the marks in the grey circle, the same tight curves and sharp hooks, scaled small. “Get that prioritised at the lab,” she passed the board back. “Material, age, tool marks. And I want a decent photograph of every one of those carvings.” Patel squinted at her. “You think our vic came down with a membership token.” “He ended up inside a private event. They don’t sell groceries down here.” She moved along the trestle. Another bag lay clipped to the same board, half hidden by form sheets. Rectangular, brass. She flipped the paperwork up. Inside, on a square of lint‑free padding, sat a small brass compass. Not standard issue for hikers. Its case carried a soft green bloom in spots, verdigris clinging in pits and seams. The glass face showed an off‑white dial, not marked with cardinal letters. Instead, the edge bore tiny protective sigils, similar again to the circle’s script. The needle inside did not rest on a fixed point. It drifted, nosed this way and that as if it scented something. She tapped the glass through the bag. The needle swung, slow, then locked with intent toward the far wall, away from the tunnels. The direction avoided the stairs, the entrance, the scattered market stalls. It pointed at a section of soot‑black tiles about halfway down the curved wall, where someone had sprayed a crude skull over an older patch of discoloured stone. Patel noticed. “We got a magic compass now?” “Where did you find it.” “One of the ARV lads picked it up near the tracks. Thought it was junk, nearly pocketed it until I glared.” He shifted, uneasy now. “It kept pointing at him till they bagged it. Or so he swears.” Quinn walked toward the point in the wall while she watched the compass. The needle held steady. As she neared, details formed in the stained surface that she had missed from a distance. The brickwork under the tiles bulged in a shallow, bricked-up arch. The mortar at its edges looked newer than the surrounding masonry by a decade, maybe more. A faint, almost imperceptible outline of an older doorway lurked there, under the soot, under the graffiti. Something had been sealed. “BTP records mention any redundant access points on this level.” Her voice carried across to Patel. He consulted his notes, flipped pages. “We’ve got two maintenance tunnels, both mapped. No third arch.” “There was one.” She touched the cool tile with the back of her wrist. “Someone bricked it, then someone else tried to hide the fact. You see this skull tag?” “Yeah. Charming.” The skull’s white curve sat off‑centre, its eyes sprayed over the arch’s highest point. Around it, messy stars and letters covered the mortar lines. Under one of the starred shapes, a trace of that same grey powder clung in the crack, caught out of reach of the cleaner sweeps. “You think your ghost market had a side door.” Patel came to her shoulder. “I think the slightly odd compass is more honest than whoever drafted the station plan.” She watched the needle. It still pointed at the arch, unwavering. Patel exhaled through his teeth. “Alright. So we’ve got a secret door that doesn’t officially exist, a weird token, a magic Boy Scout trinket, and a dead bloke in a circle. Could still be a drug meet.” “Drug meets don’t usually come with keyholes you need bone for.” Quinn nodded toward the token board. “And I don’t like anonymous callers who know where to send us, but not their name.” “Maybe one of the crowd grew a conscience.” She turned back to the body. “Get telecoms to pull every call into Camden control between midnight and four. Landline, mobile, VoIP, all of it. Cross‑check against any devices that hit masts around here then went dark.” “That’s a big net.” “Cast it. We don’t close this as a junkie stabbing.” Patel shifted his weight. “Super will want a direction by briefing.” “He’ll get one.” She walked back into the circle’s perimeter, eyes flicking from symbol to symbol. “Our victim entered a space built for something else. Whoever met him wanted whatever he brought—” her gaze flicked to the smear on his fingers “—and took it. They staged drugs, they left a mess of half‑truths, and they made a neat call to us once they cleared out.” Patel gnawed at his pen. “You keep saying ‘they’.” “He didn’t stab himself in the chest at that angle.” She gestured at the wound. The entry point sat just left of centre, angled downward. Whoever drove the blade had stood close and above him. No torn clothing, no hesitation nicks. “Maybe he knelt,” Patel ventured. “Then where are the bruises on his knees.” Her eyes narrowed at the intact denim. “Why no trace around the tracks. No blood spatter there, no cast-off. Every drop radiates from here. He died inside their circle, in their time.” The tech looked between them, uneasy. “Anything else on him.” Quinn addressed him. “Wallet. Empty of cash, but cards still there. Phone, dead. No damage. One slip of paper.” The tech dug into his folder and held up a smaller evidence bag. Inside lay a torn scrap with a name and number in blue ink. The pen had left a small blot in the loop of the second letter. Quinn recognised the surname at once. Kowalski. “Read the full line,” she did not reach for it. He lifted it. “Eva Kowalski. Then a mobile. No other writing.” Patel whistled. “You know her.” “Research assistant at the British Museum. Restricted archives.” Her jaw tightened. “We picked up her name on a different case.” “The clique?” Patel’s brows climbed. Quinn did not respond. She looked once more at the grey ring, the bone token, the compass that refused to point north, the bricked arch hidden under graffiti and soot. Other eyes had looked at this station tonight and seen a dead buyer, bad batch, typical chaos. Her gaze caught the pattern under the clutter, the line that ran straight through: a closed door, a circle that kept its shape, tools made for a purpose that didn’t fit any drug map. She turned to Patel. “Get SOCO back on their knees. Full trace on the circle compound, candle wax, everything around that doorway. And I want a team from BTP who know more than their paperwork. Whoever drew that arch out of the plans either works with them or took their pen.” He tapped his notebook. “And Eva Kowalski.” “I’ll take her,” Quinn answered. Her fingers brushed the plastic of the compass bag as she passed, watched the needle shiver then settle once more on the sealed arch, as if it tried to press through the glass. “We’ve been looking in the wrong place,” she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. Then she stepped out of the circle and into the work that waited.