The Raven's Game

By Bineet Dwivedy

Under the dim glow of London’s streetlights, the rain clung to the asphalt like a veil of secrecy, masking the horrors lurking beneath its surface. The Metropolitan Police had never seen anything like this—a series of gruesome murders with no discernible pattern, no clear motive. The victims, seemingly unrelated, were found in locations scattered across the city, each left with an eerie calling card—a single black feather placed delicately on their chest.

Detective Inspector Robert Jackson had spent years unravelling the minds of killers, but this one was different. The meticulous nature of each crime pointed to an intelligence beyond ordinary comprehension. As he paced inside the incident room at Scotland Yard, the eerie hush of tension settled over his team. He felt it—this wasn’t just murder. It was a game. And the killer was watching.

The first victim was a high-profile banker, found in his Canary Wharf apartment, throat slit with surgical precision. The second, a schoolteacher discovered in the shadows of an abandoned churchyard in Hackney, her eyes wide in eternal horror. The third, a retired detective, his body staged grotesquely in an art gallery in Kensington, positioned like a masterpiece for all to see. The press dubbed the murderer The Raven, a name that only added to the growing hysteria.

Robert hated the media frenzy; it twisted the investigation into a spectacle. But he couldn’t ignore the symbolism. A raven wasn’t just a bird—it was a harbinger of death, an omen. The thought gnawed at his mind as he examined the latest piece of evidence—a surveillance tape from the third crime scene. A shadow moved in the periphery, just beyond the gallery’s entrance. Not a face, not a clear image, but a presence—untraceable, untouchable.

Then came the letter.

Delivered straight to Scotland Yard, addressed to him by name. The ink was deep, almost blood-like, smudged on the edges as if written in haste. You’re close, but not close enough. Let’s see if you can keep up, Detective.

His heart slammed against his ribs as he tightened his grip on the paper. This was personal.

The Metropolitan Police doubled their efforts, combing through surveillance footage across London, cross-referencing every detail, every anomaly. But the killer remained a phantom. No prints. No direct witnesses. Only silence.

Then, a breakthrough—hidden within the bloodied fibres of the latest victim’s coat, a microscopic trace of an unregistered chemical compound used exclusively in military-grade weapons. A connection. A lead. The shadows of London’s forgotten underground whispered their secrets, and Robert knew where he had to go.

The depths of an abandoned Cold War bunker, a place long thought erased from history.

The air was thick with damp decay as Robert moved cautiously through the ruins, his flashlight slicing through the black void. His pulse quickened with every step. Then, the unmistakable click of a gun hammer being pulled back.

“You shouldn’t be here, Detective.”

A voice—low, calm, eerily familiar.

He turned slowly, eyes locking onto the figure before him. A man with sharp eyes that glinted with amusement. Recognition surged through his veins.

It was him. The retired MI6 officer who had vanished years ago.

The pieces fit, twisted together like a grotesque puzzle. The victims weren’t random—they were connected to an old intelligence operation buried under decades of classified files.

And Robert?

He was the last loose end.

The Raven was never working alone.

As the cold steel of handcuffs locked around his wrists, Robert saw his reflection in the interrogation room’s glass.

His own eyes stared back.

And for the first time, the thought burrowed deep into his mind—What if he really was the killer?

By Bineet Dwivedy