The archive / 3 case files

Forensics

A stylised dried Enjuin-type ningyo with small pointed teeth, both hands raised beside its face and a curled fish body in a shadowed storage box; an editorial interpretation of a manufactured artefact, with sculpted rib-like folds rather than an exposed human skeleton

Mystery of the Enjuin Mermaid

A Japanese temple’s mermaid mummy was said to have been caught in the eighteenth century, until scientific tests exposed the secret behind its uncanny body.

Open case file

A closed red holdall with a prominent padlock lies inside a stark bath, an editorial interpretation of the discovery with no visible body or invented killer.

Case file 036Crime & Mystery

The Spy in the Bag

Gareth Williams was found dead inside a padlocked sports bag, leaving a coroner and police divided over how an intelligence worker died.

Open case file

Near-monochrome illustration of an unidentified woman lying beside a parlour fire with a small red blood patch, an interpretation of Julia Wallace’s discovery rather than the actual crime-scene photograph

Case file 033Crime & Mystery

An Appointment with Nobody

An invitation to a nonexistent Liverpool address left Julia Wallace’s husband with a disputed alibi for one of Britain’s most baffling murders.

Open case file

Forensics

Mystery of the Enjuin Mermaid

The Spy in the Bag

An Appointment with Nobody

The truth is in here

The reading room