Scarlet Butterflies

She saw the world differently. Ever since that night, her reality fractured like stained glass. The once-promising defence attorney retreated into teaching her strong passion, Art. Her brushes untouched, until a compulsion began to pull at her fingers-an image she couldn't escape, a butterfly torn and misshapen.

What began as a return to painting along with her students, spiralled into obsession. Colours didn't hold the weight she needed-only blood did. She had completed it-the painting. Hung now in a wing of London's most esteemed gallery, its crimson wings and warped symmetry pulled crowds in silence. Critics called it genius. Students stood before it for hours, murmuring about madness and beauty, about pain made sacred.

No one questioned the scent. No one but him.

To most, the faint metallic scent clinging to the frame was nothing-just old varnish. But to the detective, it was something else entirely. Something soured, like rotting blood disguised in oil and red pigment. Familiar, in the worst possible way.
It was then-staring into that butterfly's distorted form-that he remembered a box gathering dust in evidence storage. A series of bodies. A stain no one could trace. The so-called Oxford Murders.

And now, he wasn't looking at art.
He was looking at a confession.