The Crooked Letter Read Online Free Page A

‘We’re reversed, remember?’

    ‘I remember. I didn’t say I couldn’t tell you apart.’ She raised her glass in salute. ‘I’m very observant. Not much gets by me. Try anything, and you’ll be in trouble.’

    ‘We’ll be on our best behaviour,’ Seth assured her. ‘Honest.’

    ‘I didn’t say that either.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘Let’s not go dismissing too many options here ...’

    * * * *

    ‘Where was it you met Ms Quick?’ asked Lascowicz. ‘Vienna, did you say?’

    ‘That’s right.’ Hadrian was sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring at the crumpled sheets while he recounted better times. The big detective was taking notes with erratic pen strokes, scratching softly when Hadrian faltered. His throat was still sore, and he sipped frequently from a glass of water as he talked. ‘We travelled together for a while.’

    ‘Why? Were you lovers?’

    ‘Not at first.’ The memory was exceedingly tender to the touch.

    ‘Was she using you?’

    He looked up at that. Lascowicz was watching him.

    ‘What do you mean?’

    ‘Did you give her money, pay for her accommodation, buy her food?’

    ‘No. She was never short of cash. We divided everything equally.’

    ‘You said that you and your brother argued. Was it over her?’

    Hadrian’s eyes fell.

    ‘Not so equally, then,’ the detective commented. There was sympathy in his eyes. ‘Please, I am not easily shocked. You must be honest with me if I am to understand the situation.’

    ‘There’s nothing to understand. It has nothing to do with Ellie.’

    ‘She was the one who first noticed that you were being followed. And she was there when you were attacked.’

    ‘But she wasn’t part of it.’ He rallied to Ellis’s defence not just because he felt he ought to but because he knew she was innocent. He had seen the look of horror on her face when Seth had been stabbed. He had experienced her nervousness in Sweden, and earlier. ‘It wasn’t a set-up. The Swede wasn’t her accomplice, and we weren’t being mugged.’

    ‘How do you know that? Have you accounted for your personal effects?’

    ‘I — no.’ Frustration and hurt turned all too easily to anger, as they had in Stockholm. ‘Listen,’ he said, with furious deliberation, ‘I’m tired of this. I want a working phone. I want to know what happened to Seth. I want you to tell me where Ellie is. If you don’t start giving me answers, I’m getting up and leaving right now!’

    The detective eyed him coolly. ‘Your brother,’ he said, ‘is dead.’

    Hadrian froze in the act of getting out of bed. He had seen his brother stabbed. He had woken up in unusual circumstances and known that something terrible had happened, but the words stated so bluntly, finally, still came as a shock.

    He sat back down, feeling as though he weighed more than a dozen men.

    ‘His body was discovered next to yours. The attending officer thought you were both dead, at first, but she found your pulse and called for an ambulance.’

    Lascowicz’s formal, accented voice was no comfort. The words fell on Hadrian like tombstones. All his life he had been a reflection of his older brother, the person who, more than any other, had justified his existence. Now that person was gone. What was he now, with no one to define him?

    Seth was dead.

    He was alone.

    Lascowicz was saying something, but Hadrian’s thoughts had seized up. He felt as though he had been given an anaesthetic. His body ballooned out while the world fell in around him. The centre of him shrank down to a point, vibrating with such intense energy that it might explode at any moment...

    He felt a distant hum rise through him, as though he was standing under a power transformer. Blackness rose with it, deep and impenetrable.

    * * * *

    ‘I said, are you well? Shall I leave you?’

    The detective’s voice seemed to come from the edge of the universe. Hadrian blinked, and suddenly everything was the way it should be.