Delis in Wonderland, Part 1
On a day when warm summer sunshine poured down instead of London's usual gloomy weather, New Scotland Yard was suffering from an untimely, uninvited guest.
"This is a serial murder case!"
Delis Bloomfeld shouted, slamming the June 2, 1997 editions of The Times and The Guardian onto the desk with a sharp thud—
"…And who doesn't know that, Delis? We, who have gathered far more evidence than you, have reached the exact same conclusion."
—the man sitting opposite her murmured in embarrassment, as if in reply. In his eyes as he looked at Delis Bloomfeld, a slight reluctance and pity coexisted.
"Then, Father! Why aren't you making the investigation transparent? You know how much of a help I can be…!"
And indeed, the girl before him was his own daughter, who had been helping him with police investigations ever since she was old enough to understand. The image of her brightly shouting, "Helping Father is what makes me happiest!" was still vividly engraved in his mind.
Moreover, if it had been a mere hobby, it would be one thing, but Delis's advice always possessed an insight that pierced straight to the heart of the truth. Some had even wondered if Sherlock Holmes had been reincarnated just before the turn of the century. He supposed he should be glad she hadn't inherited the detective's eccentric personality as well.
Therefore, his decision to partially dismiss his child's opinion was by no means a disregard for Delis's insight. Since Delis had gone to Oxford on his advice, she had been too busy with her studies to hang around the station as often. But even that would change once she graduated after this summer term. If she wanted, he could easily secure her a respectable title at his workplace. His only real concern was that she would insist on sticking by his side no matter what.
But what couldn't be done, couldn't be done.
"Since you agree, it must be an undeniable fact by now, but the higher-ups have decided to quietly sweep this case under the rug."
"Why? If it's obvious to anyone, there's no reason not to make it public! The Metropolitan Police might not have caught the culprit yet, but if I get involved, it's only a matter of time!"
It was utterly incomprehensible to Delis. Five prominent figures representing the British Empire had been murdered in succession, and they were covering it up? No, could such a thing even be resolved by covering it up in the first place?
Delis saw the bitter expression on her father's face. Her heart softened in spite of herself. Her father's happiness was her own, so she couldn't press him any further. Yet, at least for now, her desire to know the truth of the case was slightly—just a tiny bit—greater.
After a strange standoff that lasted for dozens of seconds, Delis finally managed to extract a white flag from him.
"…Very well. It seems I must show you this for you to accept it. See for yourself."
The white paper surrender flag was lined with text, bearing the mark of a classified document from the Metropolitan Police. Snatching the document immediately, Delis read through it where she sat. Frowning and occasionally letting out low groans, her amber eyes eventually widened as if they might pop out by the time she reached the end of the pages.
"All five victims identified above have been confirmed to have acted as spies under Soviet directives, starting as early as the 1940s and as late as the 1950s."
"What is this...?"
"Exactly what it says. Those people, whom we thought were merely highly respected figures, actually volunteered to act as dogs to spread communism throughout the Empire."
"What on earth..."
Delis had heard the five names written in the document many times before. Though their alma mater was Cambridge, Oxford's rival, hadn't every single one of them worked passionately for the glory of the Empire? To think that such men were red spies recruited by the Soviet Union? It was hard to believe.
Delis Bloomfeld was someone who only trusted what she saw and heard with her own eyes. Regardless of the stamp of Scotland Yard—the Metropolitan Police—she felt she would only be satisfied once she verified it herself.
Regardless of her thoughts, her father beckoned her over with a light wave of his hand. Approaching him as if entranced, she lowered her head, and his hand followed, gently stroking her fine hair as he always did. She almost impulsively sat on his lap as she would at home, but she quickly stopped herself, suddenly remembering that this was his workplace, not their house.
Her father urged her in a gentle tone, as if hoping she would understand now.
"Delis, if it becomes public knowledge that reds have emerged from the very highest echelons of the Empire, more than a few people will find themselves in a precarious position."
"So, while I fully understand your intentions in wanting to take on this case, the higher-ups have decided to keep it strictly confidential."
"Of course, that doesn't mean it will rot in a cabinet forever. They plan to launch a reinvestigation in at least five years."
"I believe that when the time comes, your brilliant talent can be put to much better use. So, for your father's sake, won't you let it go just this once?"
Delis's insight was not limited to criminal investigations. Even as her father offered this half-persuasion, half-plea, Delis's brain was working furiously, drawing its own conclusion—and soon succeeding in finding the correct answer. Tilting her head back slightly, Delis looked up at her father.
"…By 'higher-ups,' you mean 10 Downing Street."
"…."
Silence was her answer. Prime Minister Thatcher's fifth term had not started smoothly. Delis was already vaguely aware of what a mess the rest of the United Kingdom was, excluding their rock-solid strongholds. How well could a government function without even securing a majority of seats? It wouldn't be strange for a lame-duck period to begin immediately, or for the Prime Minister herself to resign, or for a vote of no confidence to be passed. Thus, from the moment this information came to light, the serial murders of the five communists ceased to be a simple violent crime and became a highly political issue.
Delis let out a deep sigh and handed the document back.
"Then do you just want me to keep my mouth shut, Father? What do you, and what do I, get in exchange for our silence?"
He seemed to have been hit where it hurt, hesitating at first. But knowing he couldn't win against Delis's interrogation anyway, his silence did not last long.
"I've been slated for a promotion. It will likely be during the next regular reshuffle."
"…I see."
Delis was not so naive as to believe the world was a bed of roses; her brilliant mind was highly adept at capturing the absurdities of reality. Therefore, the fact that her father had been promised a promotion in exchange for his silence did not bother her much. Inwardly, she believed it was only natural for her father's devotion to the Empire to be rewarded, and seeing him rise through the ranks was her own happiness.
However—
'Once I start digging into a case, I have to see it through to the end…!'
Though calling herself one was a bit embarrassing, it was, in a way, an occupational hazard of being a detective. Thus, Delis made a demand of her father.
"Then at least give me the investigation files. So I can review them slowly at home later."
"I will do that. Releasing the files shouldn't be much of a problem."
If she could get her hands on the complete investigation files from the Metropolitan Police, she would be able to uncover every single truth hidden behind the case. The five years her father had spoken of was by no means a short time. While her mind wouldn't grow dull by then, she had no desire to dig through five-year-old files later; it was better to wrap up her deductions definitively right now. Her father readily agreed to this. After all, a blade thrust with all its conclusions already drawn from start to finish was always the sharpest.
Who knew? If, in the future, Delis and her father were the only ones who knew the truth of the case, that fact alone could become an asset. Perhaps it would take even less than five years. Where was the guarantee that the victims would stop at five? If a sixth victim appeared, the culprit's identity might be revealed much sooner than expected.
Now that the Metropolitan Police had practically abandoned the investigation, she was virtually the only one holding the sole clue. If so, the spotlight of solving the case would belong entirely to her and her father. Weighing whether to share the investigation files or not, if she decided it was better to make them public, Delis was already prepared to present her deductions to the world at a moment's notice. In that case, her father, Chief Superintendent Arthur Bloomfeld, might secure an even more influential position than he held now. This, too, was her happiness.
When would that day of reversal arrive? Three months? Or three years?
Surprisingly.
"Why...?"
It was only three days later. The moment the situation overturned in a direction Delis had never anticipated.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Her father was hit by a car on his way home from work. He died instantly, and opiates were detected in the driver's blood.
Amidst the rapidly passing procedures, Delis could not even find her bearings, merely swept along by the current of events. The parish priest and those who had been close to her father in life comforted her, and when her father's urn was buried next to her mother's, they even wept together as if it were their own tragedy. Yet, throughout all these moments, the person who felt most like an outsider was, paradoxically, herself—the one closest to her father.
She had to take sole charge of the funeral and death registration procedures. Without even the luxury to properly read the text, she signed the documents as instructed, and as a result, British society classified her father as officially deceased.
"Why...?"
Delis found this entire situation hard to accept. No, it would be more accurate to say she did not want to accept it. Now, she had to fight off relatives who approached her eyeing the inheritance, and stand against piranha-like reporters trying to turn the suspicious circumstances surrounding her father's death into newspaper sales.
Even so, Delis would overcome. Her still-unfaded intellect would easily crush all those malice-ridden schemes.
But she did not. In a similar vein, it would be more accurate to say she could not.
Her titles as an Oxford law prodigy and the premier consulting detective of the Metropolitan Police were swept away in an instant before the death of her only blood relative. Plunged into despair, Delis Bloomfeld was nothing more than a helpless human being facing an irresistible disaster.
In the study, traces of her father still remained in heaps. The thickness of the dust piling up, untouched, was proportional to the magnitude of despair accumulating layer by layer in Delis's heart. Perhaps she would never be able to clear that dust for the rest of her life. Though she was the only surviving family member who could clean that place, she felt that if she did, she would completely break down.
The emotion most heavily mixed with her regret was, without a doubt, self-reproach. That document, where the paper was pure white and the letters pitch black, but the content was stained redder than anything else. She was not so foolish as to not realize that her viewing of that document was deeply connected to her father's death. Rather, the bigger problem was that she thought of nothing else all day long.
Several times a day, she would burst into tears, overwhelmed by her emotions. The culprit, that opiate-addicted red, was merely a proxy. In the end, she was the one who had killed him. She, who loved her father more than anyone, had strangled him to death.
"Uuugh..."
Patricide was an even more unforgivable crime, so several times a day she contemplated ending her own miserable life to follow her father. Did they say those who commit suicide cannot go to heaven? It didn't matter. She had never once believed a sinner like herself could go to heaven anyway.
Yet, the reason she held onto her will to live until the very end was out of a final sense of duty. To gather all the evidence against the culprit who was screaming that she was next, blocking all their escape routes so they couldn't possibly refute it, and cornering them all at once. Once she successfully tied up this loose end, Delis intended to put a period on her own life.
She gathered information frantically. From personal correspondence, newspapers, and official documents of the Metropolitan Police. Although piecing the information together was quite difficult, if she couldn't paint the big picture just because a piece or two of the puzzle was missing, she would never have earned the title of prodigy or detective.
Her lifeless amber eyes gazed upon the finally completed big picture.
"Why isn't this bastard coming outside at all?"
"We must assume she is trembling in fear. She can't possibly be unaware that she is the next target."
"Hmm... That's troublesome. There are too many eyes watching for us to break in first."
At the same time, a girl buried in the darkness hummed through her nose, tapping on a mahogany table.
"Then how about we lure her over to our side instead? Since we've arranged for the bodies to be found far from the monastery, we can still use the Southend monastery a few more times."
"Yes, let's do that. We need to show her a hope she absolutely cannot ignore."
Following the girl's instructions, several letters were sent from Greenwich toward a single location, their senders and recipients repeatedly swapped. The final recipient was Delis Bloomfeld.