It was 7:30 in the morning.
The rain was falling heavily on the streets of London, tapping rhythmically on the windows, as if trying to break into ancient buildings.
Inside a small office on a busy side street, Eleanor Crawford sat behind her shabby desk, surrounded by piles of paper files that carried the scent of the past.
Eleanor was a woman who radiated presence even in the quietest of times.
Her thick black hair fell in simple waves, contrasting with her pale skin, tanned by long, sleepless nights.
She wore an elegant black dress that revealed her slender shoulders.
Among her neck were multiple silver chains from which hung small, dark stones,
as if she held buried secrets.
Her sharp gray eyes sparkled with a majestic intelligence, and her red lips exuded a mysterious confidence and allure.
She lit her first cigarette of the day, her eyes watching the smoke dance in the air. Her office, though simple, reflected her personality: chaotic but filled with details that bore witness to years of bizarre investigations. On the wall behind her were stacked boards and cartoons depicting the strangest cases she'd solved.
Eleanor sat quietly, looking at the new file that her assistant, the thin young Robert, had placed on top of the pile of old files. "Can't you just give me one more file?" she said in her quiet voice, which held a hint of sarcasm. "I feel like you want to bury me in these cases."
Robert smiled weakly. "That's your job, isn't it? Anyway, this collection just came from Inspector MacGregor. Suicide cases. Nothing special... mostly."
She took the file, opened it slowly, and began flicking through the pages. Most of the cases were routine: the suicides of desperate businessmen, hopeless teenagers, and recurring stories of mental breakdowns. But she knew only too well that appearances could hide something deeper.
She stopped at a page with a strange title: "The Suicide of Artist David Collins." She raised an eyebrow as she read the details:
David Collins, 35, a well-known visual artist.
He was found hanged in his apartment after receiving repeated visits from a psychiatrist.
The body disappeared six hours after its discovery, with no sign of a break-in.
The room was filled with strange paintings, most of them unfinished.
The description caught her attention, but she continued reading. She began to notice a common pattern between this case and others like it: all the victims were artists or people associated with art. They painted pictures depicting strange and incomprehensible scenes before committing suicide.
She raised her head and stared into space for a moment. There was something eerily familiar about these details. She turned the page to find a picture of one of the paintings included in the file: a dark forest scene looming overhead, lined with distorted human silhouettes, with a barren tree in the center with a red jewel hanging from it.
Eleanor closed her eyes for a moment, old memories rushing back like an uncontrollable flood. She remembered her mother, her screams that would punctuate the night before she painted for hours, then collapsed exhausted before mysterious paintings. A week before she committed suicide in the same way, her mother had insisted that she had "seen" the things she had painted.
"Eleanor?"
Robert's voice interrupted her reverie. She looked at him and said in a cold voice, "Leave me alone, Robert. I'm going to need some time with these files."
After he left, she closed the office door and turned to the wall where the only photo of her and her mother hung. She looked into her mother's eyes, filled with sadness and secrets, before returning to the file.
This case was different. She felt something connect her to it in a way she couldn't explain. Without realizing it, she found herself searching the pages for additional details, as if trying to unravel a mystery she hadn't had the chance to understand as a child.
Before she knew it, day had turned to evening, and the rain wouldn't stop knocking on the window, as if London itself was trying to warn her not to dive deeper into this swamp.