Detective Inspector James Harland's office was a dim, smoke-stained box tucked into the far corner of Scotland Yard. The blinds were half-shut, slicing the room into strips of shadow. On his desk lay a battered map of London, scarred with red pins. Each pin marked a death that should have been mundane: an old man in his flat, a businessman in his car, a homeless man under a bridge.
But to Harland, they screamed pattern.
He dragged his finger from Bloomsbury to Soho, tracing a jagged path across the city. "Someone's walking among us, choosing people we'll never question. People we'll dismiss."
His sergeant, a sharp-faced man named Collins, shifted uneasily. "Sir, with respect, the files don't match. No relation, no shared workplaces, not even the same social class. If you put this forward without solid links, the brass will laugh us out of the room."
Harland leaned back, cigarette smoke curling from his lips. His grey eyes were hard, heavy from years of chasing ghosts. "It's not about links. It's about method. You see how clean these scenes are? No struggle, no mess, no motive. Death just... happens. That's the trick. That's the hand we're not supposed to see."
Collins swallowed. "And if you're wrong?"
Harland ground the cigarette into the ashtray. "Then I'll look like a fool. But if I'm right, Collins — then we've got a killer clever enough to walk right through our front door."
Dr. Aisha Khan's lab smelled of disinfectant and steel, sharp and clinical. She stood over Arthur Bennet's toxicology report, her pen scratching furious notes into the margin. She had compared it with two earlier files — one tagged "natural causes," another "suspected overdose."
And there it was again: the faint trace of an obscure compound. Not a street drug. Not a common prescription. Something precise, controlled.
She pulled off her gloves and pressed her hands to her temples. It was the subtlety that chilled her. Whoever had done this wasn't improvising — they were calculating. Adjusting dosages. Learning with every victim.
"Not random," she whispered to the empty room. "This is design."
Her assistant poked his head in. "Another long night?"
Aisha didn't look up. "Call Harland. Tell him we're not chasing coincidence. We're chasing someone who thinks like a surgeon."
Across the city, Michael Rowe's cramped flat looked more like an archive than a home. Newspapers were strewn across the floor, clippings pinned to the peeling wallpaper. His laptop cast a cold light onto his gaunt features as he scrolled through yet another obituary.
Rowe's eyes burned. Seven deaths in three months. Each neat, each unremarkable. A pensioner, a CEO, a man who slept under the arches of Waterloo. Unconnected in every way except the strange silence around their endings.
He typed a headline, fingers shaking with adrenaline:
"London's Angel of Death? A Serial Killer Hiding in Plain Sight."
Then he stopped, staring at the words. Too sensational. Too risky. If he printed this without proof, he'd be crucified by his editor.
But if he was right...
He leaned back, dragging his hands down his face. The city pulsed outside his window — indifferent, oblivious. Somewhere out there, he thought, the Angel was smiling.
At Whitehall, Eleanor Marks was the very picture of composure. Her desk was immaculate, her files stacked with surgical precision. She sat beneath the hum of fluorescent lights, her blonde hair neatly tucked behind one ear. Every movement was deliberate, soft, harmless.
"Eleanor," Nina Clarke chirped, leaning against the partition. "Have you seen the Standard? Some journalist's rambling about a serial killer in London."
Eleanor looked up, her expression arranged into mild amusement. "A serial killer? In this city? People will print anything for attention."
Nina laughed. "Right? It's nonsense. But still, gives you chills, doesn't it?"
Eleanor's smile warmed like sunlight. "We can't let ourselves live in fear, dear. Fear is the real poison."
Nina beamed, reassured. She never noticed the way Eleanor's gaze lingered on her, just a fraction too long.
Inside, Eleanor's thoughts sharpened. She had read the article. She knew the walls were closing in — whispers among detectives, toxicologists, even journalists who should have known better than to poke their noses into her work.
And now there was Nina. So sweet. So trusting. So perfectly placed.
A scapegoat in waiting.
That evening, London was wrapped in mist. Streetlamps glowed like halos over wet cobblestones, and the distant rumble of buses blended with the patter of rain. Eleanor walked with calm grace, her handbag pressed lightly to her side. Inside, a glass vial clinked against a syringe.
She thought of Arthur Bennet's eyes widening as the poison coursed through him, the tremor of his breath before silence fell. She thought of the pulse of power she had felt as she eased his passing with her own hand.
Now the hunters were stirring. Harland with his suspicions. Khan with her science. Rowe with his pen. But Eleanor was not afraid.
She lived for the chase.
Her reflection shimmered in a puddle as she passed. In the wavering water she saw not the angel her colleagues adored, but the shadow beneath. A predator dressed in silk and smiles.
"They'll look in every direction but the right one," she murmured. "And when the time comes... they'll find exactly who I want them to."
She stepped into the fog, her heels clicking against the pavement. Each sound was measured, deliberate, like the beat of a clock counting down.
The Angel of Whitehall was ready for her next move.