a study in spirals

"Everything moves. Everything revolves." Ayda Abbasi. 37. Chief detective.

[detectiveabbasi]

ꟷ “It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within - not without."

DETECTIVE AYDA ABBASI. 37. Chief detective at Commercial street station.

The case files (biography). The visual aid (pinterest).

[dark-romantics]

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

[hotline-ning]

Loving Vincent (2017) -- Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman

[detectiveabbasi]

Time: early evening Location: the ballroom With: @ofwhatsleft​

As the sea of strangers steadily pours into the ballroom, Ayda searches for a familiar face – selfishly, for her own comfort. It would put her mind at ease, knowing she hasn't been thrown into, what feels like a lion's den, alone. And yet, comfort is a double-edged blade. If Mr. Ashton's intentions are malevolent, the detective would hope her friends, acquaintances, and anyone she might have the pleasure of knowing, are spared.

Her fingers curl around the sword at her hip – a prop, nothing more than an added touch to her costume. It steadies her as her gaze follows a man adorned with flowers, a man whose poetry she admired, who the detective hasn't seen ever since she disappeared from London.

She moves through the crowd, muttering polite excuses and hushed apologies. “Nathan,” she calls out to the poet, “so, you've received an invitation as well.”

The comfort she was searching for is muddled – unease has dulled it, making Ayda wish they had reunited under different circumstances. At the Brittania, discussing Dorothy Zhou's detective, or the nature of muses. He would have asked questions, she would have avoided them. So it would go.

Instead, she leans closer, her voice hushed. “Have you seen anyone you know? Or anyone who might have an idea why they've been invited?”  

[detectiveabbasi]

Time: mid-evening Location: The maze With: @ferihas​

The detective didn't know what she expected when she entered the maze. Perhaps it's silence, even if she can hear the muffled melody of a waltz coming from the manor. It could be solitude – a tantalizing taste of being unknown, of becoming a mystery once again. Or, maybe, it was entertainment, though she could hardly classify wandering between walls of hedges as such.

Whatever Ayda had expected, it was certainly not Feriha Demir, adorned with fairy wings and tulle, far from sober.

Her breath lodges in her lungs. Feriha (that sore spot in her heart), during her dissapearance, had been a rare recipent of Ayda's letters, cryptic, without a return adress. Enigmas in their own right. And Feriha, in her tenacious nature, will not allow them to remain that way. From that, the thread might unravel – to the question of where have you been?

“Feriha,” she calls out, despite this threat, “looking for a way out, are you?”

The detective points to the sword in her hand. “I'd make an opening for us, but this isn't as sharp as it looks.”

[detectiveabbasi]

Time: early evening Location: One of the hallways in Ravensmoor manor With: @theundertakcr​

It seemed like the more Ayda tried to understand the manor, the vaguer it became. Lost as she may be in one of the many corridors, dimly lit and echoing the distant sounds of the ballroom, she begins to suspect it is designed that way – to avoid definition. Still, she persists, each hallway presenting a new opportunity. Perhaps, behind this door, she'll find why they've been gathered here. Or, behind this one, who Mr. Ashton is.

Or, around the corner, she may find a figure dressed in black, as if coated in shadows, and she may recognize them as Rahat Zaman. The detective, relaxing her grip on the prop-sword that completed her costume, breathed a sigh of relief.

“Rahat,” she greets them, as if it was mere hours since she's last seen the undertaker. In reality, it's been days, months – an indefinite amount of time. Taking note of their costume, she tilts her head. “Or Charon, I suppose. Are you looking for anything?” They, like her, seemed to have followed Mr. Ashton's proposition to explore.

“Better yet, have you found anything?”

[luthienne]

Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

[detectiveabbasi]

desiderus​:

closed:@detectiveabbasi​ location: near the maze, early evening.

the detective and the journalist typically entertain a mutually beneficial arrangement. it consists of nasira gaining insight into an active case in order to write about it on the department’s behalf whenever the detective needs to splatter little clues and hints here and there in her articles. it works, and it works well for them, so by all accounts, it’s an arrangement that she ought to keep cultivating.

however, things have gone sideways recently.

that is to say, nasira writes stories that the public wants to eat up and with the trail of the ripper growing colder with each day that passes, she’s now writing about the incompetence of the police department. rather than singing their praises, she has resorted to painting them in an unfavorable light which, she assumes, has done nothing to aid in their investigation. it apparently also doesn’t sit well with the detective, if the look on her face is anything to go by.

her expression straightens into a welcoming, if empty smile, when she spots the woman glancing at her. “so you’ve received an invitation as well! what a pleasure to run into you here.”

her lips lift into a roguish smile. “and what a very clever choice of costume.”

ꟷ

Here is a simple fact: the detective needed the journalist and the journalist needed the detective. Their relationship is built on transactions. On clues and insight, on articles printed on the front page of the newspaper. Ayda could appreciate what Nasira does – writing to provide the public with information, spinning it into stories.

But stories, she learned, are malleable. They can be molded as one pleases.

It was logical, on Nasira's part, to write what the public wants to read, dragging the investigation through the mud in the process. It was profitable. It wasn't unjustified. And yet the detective has grown tired of it, the constant reminders of how far they are from catching the Ripper, of her failures. She's severe enough with herself as it is ( if only your mind was sharper, if only you were capable enough ).

It's nothing personal, she knows. Still, she scowls when she spots the woman near the maze when all she wanted was a moment of reprieve. Nasira, observant as ever, spots her.

“Likewise,” Ayda nods. She offers a polite smile at her words, teasing as they very well may be, casting a glance at the intricate embroidery adorning the journalist's costume.

“Tell me, what will your columns say about this evening?” she tilts her head, “will it be a thing of envy or a waste of everyone's time?”

[detectiveabbasi]

mvsquerade​:

closed to : @detectiveabbasi​ location : the library time : mid-evening

The library, like the rest of the mansion, exudes opulence. The wood gleams and the gold shines, and as Zoya runs her fingers over books’ spines, she wonders, who must you be to be this rich? The collection itself is nothing to be scoffed at, either, anything from recently published novels to old tomes dating back centuries lining the shelves. It speaks not only of someone who values knowledge, but someone with the world at their fingertips—not just anyone would have what seems to be an original publication of Dante’s Divina Commedia. 

As she starts to pull a random book off the shelf, someone’s footsteps interrupt her thoughts, and Zoya looks up to see none other than Ayda Abbasi, looking stunning in white. A sheer strip of cloth covers her eyes, and Zoya recalls a statue she’s seen once on a postcard. Ah, Lady Justice. She smiles. How fitting. 

“I suppose you couldn’t turn down an invitation like this. It’s a mystery begging to be solved,” she says, as if the last time she’s seen Ayda was yesterday rather than months ago. “What do you think, detective? Was our host born into wealth, generations and generations of it, or is he self-made?”

Euler's Institutiones calculi differentialis. Between books whose spines were unbroken and those which had woven themselves into the literary canon, the textbook is an unexpected find she cradles between her hands. Ayda had wanted it – she had looked for it in her disappearance, only to come up short, only to find it hidden away, a pearl inside a clam. Mr. Ashton wasn't exaggerating when he had called his collection unrivaled.

( But why accumulate such a collection – is it a display of wealth or knowledge? Is it a display of both or neither at all?)

She parts from Euler with a heavy heart. The library is vast with much to see ( and how rude it would be, to steal a book from your host. ) As she descends further, Ayda finds a familiar figure. Zoya Fox. Striking, whoever she might be. The detective would have expected her to pluck a character from one of the Shakespearian plays. 

( But with expecting, she commits a fallacy – Zoya Fox is never predictable. )

“I couldn't have put it better myself, ” so begins the game anew, with Ayda expecting to be questioned about her disappearance, with Zoya subverting. “Whether his wealth is generational or self-made, he enjoys displaying it. That I'm sure of.”

She looks to the bookcases, towering and imposing. “What I'm wondering – and you might be a better judge than I in this matter,” she starts, “is why he would choose to dress like a Venetian gentleman?”

[metamorphesque]

― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

[text ID: Fill your mind with knowledge—it’s the only kind of power no one can take away from you.]

[soracities]

Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind (trans. A. F. Wills)

[Text ID: “Duty towards the human being as such–that alone is eternal.”]

[detectiveabbasi]

profcss​:

starter for: @detectiveabbasi​ location: one of the many rooms in the manor time: mid-evening

As far as he recalls, Mr. Ashton had yet to establish any ground rules as to which wings of the manor are barred from his visitors. Gilly takes that as an implicit permission to move around the manor as much as possible—for a place as large as this one, owned by a person just as enigmatic, demands to be searched. 

This time, he isn’t motivated purely by intellectual curiosity. There are no obvious connections to the slate of visitors just yet, nor exactly what binds them together, though he is certain it is no mere random invitation. A part of him expects that his little tour of the manor may shed some clarity, but, as has been characteristic of his endeavors lately, Gilly comes up short. 

He’s lost count how many doors he’s opened only to land on a fairly nondescript room, bearing few furniture and even fewer identifiable information. Still, the night is early yet, and there are many more rooms to explore. Pushing through, Gilly twists the doorknob open to a room at the end of the hallway, only to find— 

Ayda. 

“Detective,” he begins, his throat already beginning to tighten. Gilly could very well just close the door now, mouth a quick apology at the intrusion, say he’d just gotten lost. Yet his legs cannot move, seemingly paralyzed in surprise and fear and very much like regret. 

He doesn’t issue a paltry excuse, not this time. “I suppose you’ve had the same idea as me,” he begins, stepping inside the room, his first attempt at extending an olive branch after their return to London. “Have you found anything of interest just yet?”

At the end of the hallway, behind a door leading to a study, Ayda examines a chessboard. It is made from stone, marbled, and illuminated in dim light. It tells her everything and nothing about Mr. Ashton – he might, like many men of his status, have a desire to display his wealth through such a detail. He might genuinely enjoy the game. Both may be true. Both might be false assumptions. 

Her mind settles on an obvious fact – Mr. Ashton is an enigma, a puzzle waiting to be solved. A home is usually revealing of its inhabitants, but Ravensmoor Manor seems to be designed to confuse, to conceal ( to unsettle ). 

She picks up the white queen piece, turning it carefully. It is cold, heavy in her hands. She wonders if it has ever been protected, lost, or pinched between two fingers to execute a check-mate. Before the detective can ponder any further, the door opens behind her. A footman, surely. She turns around, ready to face – 

Gilly. 

“Professor,” she returns. Her fingers curl around the piece, warming the stone, and pressing it into her skin. Ayda observes him, frozen where she stands, awaiting his next move. She half-expects him to leave. He doesn't.

“So it would seem,” he has a penchant for finding her, even if unintentionally. Even when she has disappeared completely. She shuts away memories threatening to resurface, casting her gaze to the piece in her hands. “Well, our host might like chess. Or expensive chess boards. Who's to say,” gently, she lowers the queen back to her spot.

“And you? Have you had better luck?”

[detectiveabbasi]

pollysheedy​:

Closed Starter for: @detectiveabbasi​ Location: The Grand Ballroom, Ravensmoor Manor

There is undoubtedly an air of mystery about the evening, but beyond being a bit intrigued, Polly doesn’t care. They have never been to anything like this before - a grand ball, full of well-dressed people, of which Polly themself as one. They’d pinched their own arm to make sure all of this was real, and was still partially waiting for the moment it all faded away, revealed as a figment of Polly’s imagination. 

But that hadn’t happened. They were here, and this was actually happening. Unfortunately, they seemed to have lost everybody that they knew who was in attendance. Polly elbows their way through the crowd, examining face after face, looking for somebody whose name they know. They were coming up empty handed, until, finally, they stumble across a face both familiar and unexpected, one they had not seen since the events of last autumn. 

“Detective!” they exclaim. If they knew her a little better, they would have thrown their arms around her, but they manage to refrain, rocking on their toes. “I didn’t expect to see you here - it’s been ages and ages! But oh, you look so pretty!”

The evening is a mystery, one that spins her thoughts into spirals. They begin with the invitation that arrives at her doorstep ( how did Mr. Ashton know her address? ), with the ornate carriage that takes the detective to Ravensmoor manor ( why must she travel alone? ). They have no end – no answers. Ayda, lost in a sea of impeccably dressed strangers, feels a knot forming in her stomach. Something is off.

As the orchestra invites the guests to a waltz, she considers searching for a familiar face. Knowing who was in attendance might shed light on the event itself. Or its host. It was a logical move.

( It was a move made out of desperation – she's grown to dislike crowds, or being known.)

A figure moving towards her catches her attention – clad in white, adorned with flowers. Ayda recognizes them. Polly Sheedy. She fears they might avoid her, considering the circumstances of their last meeting. To her relief, they move closer. The detective greets them with a smile. »Polly, it's good to see you.«

Their words color her cheeks. Compliments, they always flustered her. »Ah, thank you,« she mumbles, before admiring their costume again. »But look at you – you look lovely, Polly. Your dress is simply marvelous! Tell me, what is your costume? Or shall I try to guess?«

[detectiveabbasi]

ꟷ AYDA ABBASI as JUSTITIA.

Fiat justitia, ruat caelum. (Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall.)

[detectiveabbasi]

ferihas​:

“It’s a nice office,” returns Feriha, a small smile drifting to her lips at Ayda’s attempt at levity. She’d liked the detective from the beginning ( how could she not, when Ayda had let her go, for some reason or another, with a pair of a nicked gloves from London’s premiere department store? ), and had come to like her even more when she’d come to help her brother with something Feriha didn’t care about. She does, however, recall pestering Ayda about the nature of her work, somehow never running out of things to ask. Ayda never answered her questions fully, claiming case confidentiality, but she let Feriha stick around. This alone was enough to endear the detective to her.

Her eyes roam about the room, and on any other occasion, she might’ve been rattling off similar questions about this sheet or that photograph, or exactly what case lay in the file on Ayda’s desk. ( The answer to the last one is already clear. It’s why she’s here, after all. ) But the girl who never seems to stop talking finally has, fidgeting with the reticule in her lap. 

Ayda’s words offer a balm, and Feriha relaxes slightly, slouching back into her chair. “It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have been out there. Maybe he wouldn’t have seen me then.” In this muttered admittance lies another break of character—anyone who knows her can attest to her carelessness, the consequences of her actions often going ignored and shoved aside in favor of the next wayward idea forming in her mind. Receiving the letter has caused a rift in the world she’s created for herself, one filled with light and laughter. One where if she pretends she’s not hurt, she isn’t. 

“Ayda,” she starts, bringing her gaze sharply up to meet the other woman’s. Detective Abbasi is probably what she should call her, but Feriha has never been one for formalities. Somehow, she thinks Ayda won’t mind, anyway. “Do you know how he would’ve found out where we live?” 

The Ripper’s little gift had terrified her, the shock sending her reeling. His words had chilled her, guilt knotting in her stomach. But as she’d sat in the precinct, the silence stretching as she waited for Ayda to see her and Daya, she could only dwell on how he’d seen her, and found her. 

Her office was subject to change, bending to the whims of the detective. Her predecessor had insisted on keeping it a blank slate, a space devoid of humanity. Once he had handed her the keys, Ayda had begun its gradual transition ꟷ in springtime, it smelled like the wildflowers that decorated her desk. During summer, the red curtains she had insisted on installing kept the sun from heating the room. At all times, the detective prepared a pitcher of water, in case those visiting her might need it. 

A habit that might prove useful, considering Feriha’s behavior. Ayda notes the fidgeting of her hands, the wandering gaze that never seemed to settle at a single point. It was her silence, above all else, that betrayed her distress. It was unusual to see Feriha so silent, retreating into herself, though in given circumstances, Ayda supposes she would be more concerned if the woman remained unaffected.

Still, her burden of a heart sinks at her tone, small and defeated.

“You joined in the search effort then?” she asks, searching for confirmation, or perhaps, hoping for a rebuttal. The hunt for the Ripper was the worst course of action they could have taken, one which still weighed heavily on the detective. Often, she found herself following the trail of what if. What if the night had transpired differently? What if whey depended on their rationale, rather than the rush of adrenaline?

( What if she could have been smarter? Sharper? Better? It was her fault, no matter what Feriha might think. It feels like her fault. )

Her name catches her off guard. These days, she was referred to, nearly exclusively, as detective Abbasi. And when Feriha’s gaze finally settles, on her of all spots, Ayda feels as though she is calling out to her. “I have to be honest with you,” she sighs, leaning her elbows on the table, “anything I say now would be blind speculation.” And how she loathed forming theories with a lack of concrete facts.

“It gives us a point to work from, though ꟷ he knows your address, or at least, had the resources necessary to find it,” she wishes to reassure Feriha, to calm her nerves. As the sentence leaves her lips, Ayda realizes it might do the opposite. “However he found it, whatever you were doing that night,” she tries again, her tone clear, “this provocation is not your fault.”

[shirazade]

Golshifteh Farahani photographed by Olivier Metzger

[detectiveabbasi]

profcss​:

That familiar cigarette smell wafts through the air. He loathes to think how fitting of a metaphor it is of their friendship now: how even though the cigarette has been put out, the smoke lingers, only indication it was once alive. Just the same, it is the very heaviness in his heart that reminds him of their time together. 

A lump forms in his throat the moment Ayda calls him Professor. he had been the one to set the stage for the formalities, but it undoes him all the same. Gilly is not as quick to conceal his discontentment, a slight “Oh,” slipping past his lips before he can put a stop to it. A momentary lapse, a brush with honesty. 

It remains just that: a lapse. However easily his armor falters, it recovers just as quickly, and Gilly forces himself to swallow the lump in his throat before proceeding to answer the detective’s questions. “A week ago sounds about right,” he nods in confirmation, before complying with her request and sitting down across the table. On different circumstances, this is where he’d tell her about his day, perhaps already midway through a rant about a student who had the gall to sleep in his class, speaking in between chews of his packed lunch. 

But that was before the letter, before the Whitechapel murders, before Rose’s death. He casts a glance at her desk, frowning as he catches sight of the letters rather like his own. “You can have it. I’ve got it memorized by now,” he licks his lips, “You possess a book in your collection that I want. I can’t tell you which one - the whole job will be rumbled…”

“…well, I suppose you could read the rest.” Gilly remarks, before taking out the letter from the pockets of his trousers. Briefly he outstretches his hand, as if to meet her own, only for him to hesitate and instead place the letter hastily on top of her current pile. Together, the letters make for an unassuming display, though perhaps that had been the intention, for something so sinister to be hidden in between those lines of text. “I’ll answer any and all questions you may have,” he says, his tone impressively clipped. “I’d be glad to help.”

( “It is advised you remain impartial, detective.” )

Scotland yard had embraced her with the very notion, like hands that sink their fingers into flesh and mold her until she is a mind, sharp as the sword of Lady Justice. Detective Abbasi should always be nothing more than a mind. One that dissects minuscule details, that strings together clues and suspects. One that is unburdened with the weight of a heart, the organ that sinks at the professor’s discontent.

Oh. The detective averts her gaze, finding interest in the ashtray beside her. Oh. There was a time when formalities between them would have felt artificial. They would have been used between friendly banter, only to be replaced with the comfortable ease of their first names. Now, they stand as a testament to the frost that has covered their friendship.

( Oh. It wasn’t the first time her words had wounded him. “You’re listening to grief, Gilly, not reason. You’re being irrational.”)

“Right,” she reaches for her notebook and a pen, noting the detail, with his name, afterward. It was not an outlier in that sense, then, being sent out along with the rest of them. What interested her more than the date was its contents. The professor spares her the torment of anticipation, reciting the beginning of his letter like he might one of his lectures. 

She grips her notebook tighter if only to resist the urge to reach for the letter in his hands. Only once he places it on top of her modest collection ( there have to be more. There have to be) does Ayda reach for the piece of paper. What greets her is the familiar red ink, imprinted with the recognizable stroke of a right hand. Then, an anomaly ꟷ “Dear Boss?” Ayda questions, confusion knitting her brow as she notes down the detail, “and he wants...a book? Which one he can’t tell us. That would be far too convenient.”

She turns her chin upwards, to the man that the detective, had she been just a mind, would view as a mere puzzle piece. “Thank you,” there is genuine gratitude in her tone, diluted as it may have been by the present circumstances, “I could ask you the obvious ꟷ what book do you suppose he wants? From your collection specifically.” 

( Why wait a week before coming to be? )