Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTY591ZA5HCYPCBN4ZJBBK0

The abandoned Piccadilly line platform stretched into darkness, its tiles cracked and stained with decades of neglect. Detective Harlow Quinn ducked under the police tape, her footsteps echoing off the curved walls. The beam from her torch cut through the musty air, revealing scattered debris and what looked like vendor stalls hastily abandoned. "Body's over here." Sergeant Mills gestured toward a alcove near the tracks. "Male, mid-thirties. No identification." Quinn approached the corpse. The man lay sprawled on his back, arms outstretched, fingers curled as if grasping at something invisible. His eyes remained open, pupils dilated to black circles. No visible wounds, no blood. Just that expression of absolute terror frozen on his face. "Natural causes?" Mills ventured. "Heart attack, maybe? This place would give anyone a fright." Quinn crouched beside the body, pulling on latex gloves. The victim wore expensive clothes—tailored wool coat, Italian leather shoes. Not your typical urban explorer or rough sleeper. She checked his pockets. Empty. Too empty. No wallet, keys, phone. Nothing. "Since when do heart attack victims strip themselves of identification?" She examined the man's hands. Clean, manicured nails. No defensive wounds. "And look at his coat. Not a speck of dust on it." Mills shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe he was robbed after?" "In this place?" Quinn swept her torch across the platform. Makeshift stalls lined the walls—tables fashioned from planks and crates, fabric partitions creating narrow corridors. Symbols chalked on the tiles. Candle wax pooled on the ground. "What is all this?" "Homeless camp, probably. Found it like this when we arrived." Quinn stood, studying the layout. Too organised for a squat. The stalls formed deliberate pathways, almost like... a market. She noticed burn marks on several tables, perfectly circular. Her torch beam caught something glinting near one of the stalls. A small brass compass lay abandoned on a crate. Quinn picked it up, noting the intricate etchings on its face. The needle spun wildly, never settling on magnetic north. Green patina covered the casing except where fingers had worn it smooth. "Evidence bag," she called to Mills. "For a broken compass?" "Just bag it." She pocketed the compass instead, feeling its weight against her hip. Something about those symbols on the face nagged at her. Where had she seen them before? Near the body, she spotted more oddities. A scatter of small bones arranged in a pattern. Wax residue in a perfect circle around the corpse. The air felt colder here, her breath misting despite the season. "Time of death?" she asked the coroner's assistant who'd just arrived. "Based on body temperature and rigor, I'd say between midnight and 3 a.m." The young man seemed eager to pack up and leave. "Can we move him?" "Not yet." Quinn returned to the stalls, examining each one methodically. Empty glass vials with residue. Leather pouches that smelled of herbs and something else—sulphur? One table held scales, the kind used for precious metals, but the weights were carved from what looked like bone. Mills followed her, notebook out. "I'm thinking drug operation. Designer stuff. That would explain the secrecy, the weird setup." "Drug dealers don't arrange bones in geometric patterns." Quinn photographed the symbols on the walls. "Or draw these." "So what, some kind of cult?" She ignored the question, focused on a partition made from heavy black fabric. Behind it, shelves had been carved directly into the station wall. Empty now, but the dust patterns suggested recent activity. Items removed in haste. The compass in her pocket grew warm. "Ma'am?" Mills pointed to the far end of the platform. "There's another entrance down there. Boarded up, but the boards have been pried loose." Quinn made her way over, noting fresh scratches on the wood. Someone had fled this way. Recently. She squeezed through the gap, emerging into a service tunnel. Her torch illuminated more symbols painted on the walls. These looked older, layered over each other like graffiti from different eras. "Should we call backup?" Mills's voice echoed behind her. "For what? An empty tunnel?" But even as she said it, Quinn felt that familiar prickle at the base of her skull. The same sensation from three years ago, the night Morris died. The night she'd written off as exhaustion and trauma, burying the inconsistencies in her report. The tunnel branched. She chose left on instinct, following scratches in the grime. Someone running, stumbling, desperate to escape. The marks led to a metal door, slightly ajar. Beyond it, stairs leading up. "This connects to the Camden underground." Mills checked his phone's GPS. "We're directly below the Lock." Quinn pushed through the door. The stairs opened into a basement, empty except for rat droppings and broken furniture. Another door led to street level. She emerged behind a pub, early morning traffic already building on the main road. Back at the platform, she found the forensics team photographing the scene. Dr. Sarah Chen, the chief medical examiner, had arrived. "Interesting case," Chen said without preamble. "No obvious cause of death. No trauma, no toxins in the initial blood work. But look at this." She lifted the victim's eyelid with a gloved finger. "See the hemorrhaging in the sclera? Microscopic, but distinctive. I've only seen this pattern once before." Quinn leaned closer. Tiny red spirals in the white of the eye, like miniature galaxies. "When?" "Three years ago. Your partner's case." The compass burned against Quinn's hip. She pulled it out, watching the needle spin frantically. Chen's eyes widened. "Where did you find that?" "Crime scene. Why?" Chen glanced at Mills, who was busy directing the forensics team. She lowered her voice. "Because I saw one exactly like it the night DS Morris died. He was holding it when they brought him in." Quinn's jaw tightened. "That wasn't in your report." "Your captain told me to leave it out. Said it would complicate things." Chen straightened. "But I kept it. It's in my office safe. The needle hasn't stopped spinning since." Mills approached, phone in hand. "Ma'am, just got word from dispatch. Anonymous tip about suspicious activity at this location last night. Caller mentioned some kind of gathering, said people were buying and selling 'unusual items.' Wouldn't give specifics." Quinn studied the abandoned market with new eyes. Not drugs. Not a cult. Something else entirely. Something that connected to Morris, to that night she'd spent three years trying to forget. "Get statements from every business above ground in a three-block radius," she ordered. "Someone saw something. And Mills? Pull the file on Detective Sergeant Morris. Everything." "That case is closed, ma'am." "Pull it anyway." As the body was finally loaded onto a stretcher, Quinn noticed something else. A single white feather caught in the dead man's collar. She plucked it free, holding it up to the light. It shimmered with an oily iridescence, colors that shouldn't exist on any bird she knew. She bagged it separately, then walked the platform one more time. Whatever happened here, it wasn't random. The victim had come looking for something specific. Found it, perhaps. Or it found him. The compass needle finally stopped spinning, pointing toward the tunnel she'd explored. Quinn pocketed it again and made a decision. "Mills, I want this scene held for seventy-two hours. No one in or out without my authorisation." "Ma'am, that's—" "Non-negotiable." She headed for the exit. "I have someone I need to talk to."