The holding cell beneath Eldoria Central Police Headquarters was painted in two shades of institutional grey, the lighter shade ending at shoulder height as if hope itself had a ceiling. Helen Garrick sat on the metal bench with her hands folded in her lap, her posture rigid, her expression unreadable. She had been there for three hours, ever since DC Mehta had arrested her at the Scent & Stone boutique in the city centre, where she had been attempting to purchase a bottle of Midnight Garden perfume with a credit card that had been reported stolen six months earlier.
Lyall watched her through the one-way mirror. In the fluorescent light, Helen looked older than her forty-three years. The sharp cheekbones that had once seemed elegant now appeared gaunt. The controlled composure that had struck Lyall as suspicious now seemed more like the brittle shell of a woman holding herself together by sheer force of will.
"Is she talking?" Lyall asked.
DC Mehta shook his head. "Nothing beyond asking for her solicitor. The solicitor arrived twenty minutes ago. A woman named Celia Drummond. Defence attorney, specialises in domestic violence cases. Interesting choice."
"Interesting how?"
"Celia Drummond doesn't represent criminals. She represents victims. Her entire practice is built on defending women who have been abused by partners or failed by the system. If Helen Garrick called her, she's framing herself as a victim, not a perpetrator."
Lyall studied Helen through the glass. "Maybe she is both."
She entered the interview room and took the seat opposite Helen. The solicitor, a sharp-eyed woman in a charcoal suit, sat beside her client with a yellow legal pad already covered in notes.
"Mrs. Garrick," Lyall began, "I want to give you an opportunity to clarify your earlier statements. You told me that your brother Leon had returned to the northern provinces. He hasn't. His car was tracked heading east toward the coast. Can you explain why he would lie about his destination?"
Helen's expression did not change, but her hands tightened in her lap. "My client is not responsible for her brother's travel plans," Celia Drummond said smoothly. "If you have questions about Mr. Ashworth, I suggest you direct them to him."
"We would, if we could find him. But he's not answering his phone, and the address you provided for him in Mirefield doesn't exist. The house number you gave us is a vacant lot. It's been vacant for six years."
A flicker of something—surprise, or perhaps fear—crossed Helen's face before she suppressed it. "Leon gave me that address. I wrote down what he told me."
"You also told me you purchased a bottle of Midnight Garden perfume for Clara Aldridge. We've checked with every Scent & Stone retailer in the city. No one has sold a bottle of that scent in six months. It's a winter release. It wouldn't have been available in June."
Helen said nothing.
"You also told me you barely knew Marta Kessler's name. But we found call records showing seventeen phone conversations between your brother and a prepaid mobile number. That same number was traced to the industrial district where Marta Kessler was living. And forensic analysis of your laptop shows that you searched for Marta Kessler's name six times in the month before the party."
The solicitor leaned forward. "Inspector, is there a question somewhere in this recitation, or are you simply trying to intimidate my client with the volume of your evidence?"
Lyall ignored her. She leaned forward, her eyes fixed on Helen's. "I'm not trying to intimidate anyone. I'm trying to understand how a respected nurse, a mother of two, a woman who has lived on Heatherton Close for eight years, ended up part of a conspiracy that killed seven people. Because that's what this is, Helen. A conspiracy. And right now, you're looking at multiple counts of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and obstruction of justice. Your brother is on the run. Marta Kessler is in the wind. And somewhere out there, the person who calls himself Merlin73 is still posting messages, still celebrating the massacre, still planning the next one."
The silence in the room was absolute. Helen's solicitor glanced at her client, waiting for a signal.
And then Helen spoke.
"I didn't know they were going to kill anyone."
Her voice was barely above a whisper. The solicitor put a warning hand on her arm, but Helen shook it off.
"I thought it was a protest. I thought we were going to embarrass the judge. Humiliate him. Show the world what it felt like to have everything taken away."
"Who is 'we'?" Lyall asked.
Helen looked up, and for the first time, Lyall saw the full depth of her exhaustion. It was not the fatigue of a guilty woman caught in a lie. It was the bone-deep weariness of someone who had been carrying a weight for months and had finally reached the limit of her strength.
"The Glass House," Helen said. "The forum. I found it six months ago, after the judgment was announced. I was searching online for support groups, for legal resources, for anything that could help me fight the alimony termination. Instead I found them. Hundreds of people, men and women, all of them destroyed by the family court system. They understood. They didn't tell me to move on or get over it. They told me I had a right to be angry."
"And Merlin73?"
"He sent me a private message. He said he had been following my posts. He said he knew what I was going through. He said there was a way to make things right."
"Did he tell you his real name?"
"No. He never used real names. That was one of the rules. Anonymity was sacred. But he told me he was a lawyer. He said he had spent twenty years working inside the system before he realised it was rotten. He said the Spousal Maintenance Equality Judgment was the final straw. A law that stripped women of their financial protection while pretending to be about equality. He said it was time for the parasites to face justice."
"And the Feast of Justice?"
Helen's voice broke. "It was supposed to be a demonstration. Someone—I don't know who—suggested targeting Judge Aldridge's party. The idea was to put something in the wine that would make people sick, not kill them. Something to send a message. Merlin73 said he had someone who could provide the right substance. Someone who knew chemistry."
"Marta Kessler."
"I never met her. Leon handled all of that. He knew Marta from years ago, when he was working on a case against her. He said she was brilliant but unstable. He said she had been looking for a way to strike back at the system that ruined her career."
Lyall leaned back in her chair. The pieces were falling into place, but the picture they formed was more disturbing than she had imagined. A network of damaged people, radicalised in the anonymous dark of the internet, weaponised by a charismatic figure who gave their grievances a name and a target.
"Who else was involved? Liberator88? MousyWife?"
"Liberator88 is Arthur Vance. Mira Weston's ex-husband. He was one of the loudest voices on the forum, always ranting about how the family courts had destroyed him. But he wasn't part of the plan. He just cheered from the sidelines. MousyWife..." Helen hesitated.
"Who is MousyWife?"
"I don't know. We never met in person. But I think—I think MousyWife was someone on the street. Someone who knew the Aldridges personally. The posts had details about the house, the garden, the party logistics. Things only a neighbour would know."
Lyall's mind raced through the residents of Heatherton Close. Mira Weston, the grieving divorcee. Vernon Creech, the obsessive watcher. The Ramirezes, who had left early. The Watsons, who had been standing at the back of the garden.
"There's something else," Helen said. "Something Merlin73 told me. He said the Feast of Justice was only the beginning. He said there were cells in other cities, other neighbourhoods, all waiting for the signal. He said the Glass House wasn't just a forum. It was a movement."
"Did he tell you where these other cells were?"
"No. But I know he was in contact with someone in the northern provinces. Someone who had access to more of the toxin. He called it 'the serpent's venom.' He said it was beautiful, the way it worked. Silent and unstoppable."
The solicitor cleared her throat. "Inspector, my client is providing substantial cooperation. I would ask that you take her full statement and consider her circumstances when determining charges."
Lyall stood. "I'll need everything, Helen. Every message, every phone call, every meeting. Names, dates, locations. If there are other cells planning other attacks, we need to find them before they act."
Helen nodded, her face wet with tears. "There's one more thing. Merlin73 had an obsession. A particular target he talked about constantly. Someone he blamed more than anyone else for the injustice of the family court system."
"Judge Aldridge."
"No. Someone above him. Someone Merlin73 believed was the real architect of the Spousal Maintenance Equality Judgment. He called him 'the Puppet Master.' He said the judge was just a mouthpiece for a more powerful figure, someone who had been shaping family law for decades behind the scenes."
"Who?"
"I don't know his name. But Merlin73 said he lived in a house by the sea. A white house with a red roof. And he said that after the Aldridge party, the Puppet Master would be next."
Lyall left the interview room with her heart pounding. A white house with a red roof by the sea. It was a description that matched the holiday cottage Marcus Aldridge had purchased under his wife's maiden name. The cottage in Eastmere, where Leon Ashworth's car had been tracked heading.
She grabbed her phone and dialled the tactical unit.
"Have you reached Eastmere yet?"
"We're fifteen minutes out, ma'am. The cottage is at the end of a private road. We're approaching with caution."
"Listen to me carefully. There may be a secondary target at that location. Someone connected to the Aldridge case. Someone Merlin73 has been planning to kill. You need to secure the property and find out who's inside."
"And if we encounter Leon Ashworth?"
"Do not let him leave. Do not let him near anyone. And do not, under any circumstances, let him have access to any food or drink. The toxin is fast-acting, and we don't know how much of it he has."
She ended the call and stood in the corridor, staring at the fluorescent lights that buzzed overhead. The case was spiralling outward, the conspiracy growing larger with every revelation. Helen Garrick was a pawn, a bitter woman manipulated by a master strategist. Leon Ashworth was a facilitator, a pharmaceutical expert who had provided the means. Marta Kessler was the weapon, the chemist who had brewed the poison. And Merlin73 was the architect, the unseen hand that had set it all in motion.
But who was the Puppet Master? And why was he the real target?
Lyall walked back to the incident room, where DC Mehta was waiting with a new stack of printouts.
"We've been going through Helen Garrick's private messages on the Glass House forum," he said. "There are hundreds of them. Most are with Merlin73, but there's also a thread between her and another user. Someone named ScalesOfFate."
"What do they say?"
"ScalesOfFate was the one who provided the detailed information about the Aldridge house. The garden layout, the security camera placements, the seating arrangement for the party. That level of detail could only come from someone who had been inside the house."
"A neighbour."
"It gets stranger. The messages from ScalesOfFate stop three days before the party. And then, this morning, a new message appeared on the forum. From ScalesOfFate. It said: 'The Puppet Master will face the serpent by sunset. The scales will finally balance.'"
Lyall felt a chill run down her spine. "The Puppet Master is in Eastmere. Leon Ashworth is on his way there, or he's already arrived. And ScalesOfFate—whoever that is—knows about it."
"Could ScalesOfFate be the Puppet Master?"
"Or the person who's been hunting him. Either way, we're running out of time."
She looked at the map of Eldoria pinned to the wall, at the red pin marking the cottage in Eastmere, at the blue pins marking Heatherton Close, at the web of connections that stretched between them like a nervous system. Somewhere in that web, a man called the Puppet Master was living in a white house with a red roof, unaware that a serpent was slithering toward him through the coastal fog.
And somewhere in the digital darkness, Merlin73 was watching it all unfold, patient and precise, waiting for the moment when the scales would finally tip.
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