Daily Casefile · Profile
Smoke and Splinters at Tidal Reach
≈ 6 min
Just before midnight on Tuesday 21 July 2026, the cooperative's overnight kiln monitor, Dora Lim, noticed the gauge on Kiln Two had dropped sharply and found the burner assembly in disarray. A firing that had been running for fourteen hours was ruined. The cooperative's coordinator has asked investigators to determine who interfered with the kiln and how they went about it. Your task is not to name a suspect — it is to profile the offender's behaviour from the scene, the evidence, and the witness accounts.
The scene
Tidal Reach Potters' Cooperative — A small artisan cooperative occupying a converted lock keeper's yard on the Fenward Navigation canal. The yard contains a main workshop, a covered drying shed, a kiln house holding two gas-fired kilns, and a narrow towpath gate. The cooperative shares the site with the derelict lock keeper's cottage, now used for storage.
In the file
- Dora Lim — Overnight kiln monitor, Tidal Reach Cooperative
- Priya Suresh — Cooperative coordinator
- Yusuf Brennan — Member potter, owner of the pieces being fired
- Reuben Okafor — Lock keeper, Fenward Navigation — works adjacent to the yard
- Margot Finch — Cooperative member, was in the main workshop until 21:15
Play today’s Profile.
This case first aired on July 22, 2026. A fresh profile runs every morning — same rules, five minutes, one solution.