Blood Tyes

The waiting was the worst part. DI Miles Corbin spent the next morning going through the motions, sitting in on briefings and fielding calls from a perpetually stressed DCS Davies, all while a knot of anxiety tightened in his gut. He was running a clandestine investigation parallel to his own, a cardinal sin in any police force, and its success rested entirely on the shoulders of a young, spooked DC working on a public library computer. Every ping of his mobile made him jump.

He met Harris on a bench outside Chelmsford Cathedral, the ancient stone spire looming over them. Harris looked like he hadn't slept, his eyes wide and constantly scanning the people walking by. He clutched a takeaway coffee cup like a lifeline.

"It's a ghost, Guv," Harris said, his voice barely above a whisper. "A complete and utter ghost."

He laid it all out. The company, 'The Veridian Scribe', was registered to a virtual office address in London—a post-forwarding service. The listed directors, a Mr. Ash and a Mr. Birch, were phantoms; their names and addresses were fake, their National Insurance numbers fabrications. The website's domain had been bought with cryptocurrency via an anonymising service in Switzerland, and its servers were a ghost train, routed through proxies in Panama, Ukraine, and Singapore.

"It's a digital fortress, Guv," Harris concluded, his voice trembling slightly. "Whoever built it is a pro. Far beyond a normal criminal. We can't touch them."

The lead that had burned so brightly just a day ago had turned to ash. They had the one, impossible thread connecting all five victims, and that thread led to an impenetrable, empty room. Corbin felt a cold, heavy frustration settle over him. These killers weren't just artists; they were intelligence operatives.

Back in the incident room that night, he stared at his wall of horrors. He was out of his depth. He was a good detective, skilled at chasing burglars and murderers who left tyre tracks and fingerprints. He was not equipped to hunt a cabal of artistic psychopaths who could build ghost companies and vanish into the web. You don't ask a traffic cop to critique a masterpiece. You need a specialist.

He pulled out his personal mobile, scrolling to a name he hadn't contacted in five years. He took a deep breath and made the call.

"Evelyn? It's Miles Corbin. Aye, it's been a while… I need your help. It's… unusual."

The air in the university archive in Cambridge smelled of old paper, leather, and dust. It was a world away from the sterile functionality of a police station. This was the new domain of Dr. Evelyn Reed, a woman whose brilliant career as a Professor of Forensic Anthropology had been spectacularly derailed by her "unorthodox" theories on ritualistic crime and the semiotics of murder.

She was in her late fifties, with sharp, intelligent eyes that missed nothing, her grey hair tied back in a messy bun. She listened without a single interruption as Corbin, standing in the neutral territory of her dusty office, laid out the entire showcase theory. He detailed each killer, their methods, their artistry, their chilling perfectionism.

Finally, he placed a single sheet of paper on her cluttered desk: a print-out of the elegant, minimalist website for 'The Veridian Scribe'.

He expected scepticism. Instead, she leaned forward, a flicker of intense, almost hungry, academic interest in her eyes. She studied the information, her lips pursed in concentration. After a long, unnerving silence, she looked up, her gaze seeming to go right through him.

"An Oculist for perception, an Architect for structure, a Pathfinder for instinct, an Echo for identity, and a Puppeteer for will," she murmured, more to herself than to him. "It's a complete set. A full house."

She finally met his eyes, her own alight with a terrifying clarity.

"Tell me, Inspector," she said, her voice low and serious. "You've been calling this a showcase, a gallery of their talents. Have you considered you've gotten it backwards?"

"What do you mean?" Corbin asked, his throat suddenly dry.

Dr. Reed tapped a long finger on the print-out of the Veridian Scribe website.

"This isn't just a shopfront. A showcase is a display of things that have been acquired. Have you considered what it is they might be building?"