The Crooked Letter (4 page)

Seth, Hadrian and Ellis shared a tour, taking the tentative step from drinking together to friendship with all due caution. It went well enough. Hadrian enjoyed Ellis’s company; she was an amusing travelling companion, intelligent and quick thinking — deserving of her name. A student of politics in Melbourne, she had a sharp, cynical view of the world that contrasted with many of the other backpackers they had encountered.

‘What were you two studying at uni?’ she asked, leaning against a bus window so the sunlight gave her hair a hard, almost metallic sheen. ‘I presume you took the same subjects.’

‘Law and Arts,’ Hadrian replied.

She pulled a face. ‘Two of the most dreary courses in history.’

‘I wouldn’t argue with that.’ Hadrian knew he’d coasted through on the back of Seth’s effort. He was interested in the sciences, but there had been no way to fit them in.

‘What did you major in. Arts-wise? There’s a chance to redeem yourself here, Hadrian. Don’t screw it up.’

‘Medieval English.’

‘Jesus.’ Her head went back in mock-horror and she laughed uproariously. An elderly tourist in the seat in front glanced back at them reprovingly.

‘Well, it had its moments.’ He cast his mind back to a tutorial on translating Fifteenth Century song lyrics.

‘My sovereign lady, comfort and care,

Always in my heart, most on my mind,

The source of all my wealth and welfare,

Gentle true-love, special and kind.’

‘I rest my case.’ Her lips couldn’t hide a revealing twitch. ‘Although I don’t mind the thought at all of being someone’s sovereign.’

Her eyes smiled, too, and Hadrian felt a rush of warmth. He had never recited poetry to a woman before, even as a joke.

‘I bet you don’t,’ said a voice from beside him.

I say of women: for all their good looks,

Trust them too much and you’ll regret it.

They bat their eyes but at heart they’re crooks.

They promise to be true and soon forget it.’

‘Hey!’ Ellis reached past Hadrian to slap Seth on the forehead. ‘There’s only room for one poet laureate at a time. You’ll have to wait your turn.’

‘Ask Hade who helped him with the translation.’

‘I don’t care. We are most displeased with your behaviour. Off with his head!’

A play fight erupted that made the tourist in front testily ask them to be quiet. Hadrian’s stifled laugh felt pure and uncompromised. He couldn’t remember the last time he and his brother had felt so comfortable with each other; not since they were kids, perhaps. And when the bus had arrived at its destination, they had been less tourists of scenery than tourists of each other. Hadrian saw only a few of the sights they were supposed to visit that day; Ellis’s digital camera filled up with pictures of the three of them, not what they were supposed to be admiring. On the drive back to the hostel, they had slept on each others’ shoulders, a sprawling, multi-limbed mass twitching in its sleep like a puppy.

When the time had come to hop cities, seeking new sights, they’d agreed to hop together. It seemed like a good idea. While the fun lasted, what reason was there to stop? They discussed the pros and cons with all the maturity of children playing at tea parties, deadly earnest but all the while aware that it was a game.

If the three of them shared accommodation, they could afford better digs. Some of the hostels they had stayed in had been okay, but most had been decidedly unappealing. The communal kitchens were the worst: cursory cleaning, with maybe a single cheap saucepan and a hard crust of salt in a shaker that someone had left behind. They all smelled the same, no matter which country they were in. A single species of mould had conquered the world.

So they pooled resources and ended up in Prague, where they ate take-away on a wintry street corner, cheeks pinched red from the cold. United by a common lack of interest in religion, they felt hemmed in by monasteries, cathedrals, crucifixes. Hand in hand in hand, the three of them took a brisk stroll through the gloomy streets of the city, crossing bridges and admiring empty office buildings, and wishing the trees weren’t bare. The night’s sounds lacked something without leaves to give the wind texture. Cold lights glared down on them, keeping the stars at bay.

‘I think we’re being followed,’ Ellis whispered.

The comment was so far removed from Hadrian’s mood that at first it didn’t register.

‘I’m serious,’ she said, squeezing her mittened hands around theirs when both of them ignored her. ‘Behind us — don’t look now, Seth, you idiot — there’s a guy with a black coat and furry hat. We passed him on the other side of the river. Now he’s following us.’

Hadrian risked a furtive glance. Sure enough, a man matching her brief description was keeping pace with them.

‘So?’ Seth asked. ‘There are probably hundreds of men like that around here.’

‘I’ve got a good memory for faces,’ she insisted. ‘It’s the same one. I saw him yesterday, too, in Hradãany.’

‘Now I know you’re crazy, El Nino.’ Seth pulled the collar of his windbreaker tight around his throat. ‘That or just trying to freak us out.’

Hadrian was willing to be intrigued. He was in Europe, after all, the land of spy novels. It was easy to be caught up in the mystique of it all.

‘Three against one,’ he said. ‘Not good odds for a robbery. We’ve done nothing wrong, so he can’t be a policeman. I think he’s mistaken us for someone else. This could be disastrous.’

‘He does have a sinister air,’ Ellis agreed. ‘Maybe he thinks we have something he wants.’

‘Or we know too much.’

‘We’ll wake up with our throats slit for sure.’

They giggled with delicious dread.

‘You’re both crazy,’ said Seth.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Ellis, ‘there’s always a sceptic. If you keep this up, it’ll be your job to avenge our wrongful deaths.’

‘The more certain you are that it’s a joke,’ Hadrian added, ‘the more horrible it’ll be when the truth is revealed.’

With a mock-exasperated snort, Seth pulled away and strode back toward the dark-clad stranger. Hadrian’s good mood turned instantly to alarm.

‘Are you following us?’ Seth demanded of the man. ‘Are you going to murder us in our sleep?’

Seth wasn’t intending anything by it. Hadrian knew that. He was just taking the joke to an extreme, turning it back on them to expose the ridiculousness of their game, but involving a complete stranger was pushing it too far.

Hadrian let go of Ellis and followed his brother, hoping to forestall a scene. ‘Seth, don’t.’

‘Are you?’ Seth asked the stranger, ignoring Hadrian. Seth and the stranger had come to a halt, standing face to face on the cobbled roadside. The stranger’s expression was not one of surprise but intense curiosity. He was long-featured and older than he had looked at a distance. His hair, poking out around the brim of his hat, was pure white; eyes as grey as the stones beneath their feet stared back at Seth, then at Hadrian. His skin stretched smooth and waxy over broad, angular bones.

‘Tiden är inte inne ännu.’

The man’s voice was high pitched and hoarse, perhaps from the cold. The words didn’t sound like…

‘What the hell are you going on about, foreign lout?’ which is what Hadrian thought his brother deserved. They were patiently and pleasantly delivered, as though saying, ‘I’m very well, thank you. And you?’

‘Well, that’s good.’ Seth’s bluster deflated in the face of the man’s even-tempered response. ‘Just make sure we don’t catch you at it again.’

‘Den kommer.’

The man touched his hat, bowed slightly, and walked around Seth and Hadrian to continue on his way. ‘Goodnight!’ Hadrian called after him, assuming that he had been wished the same in the local tongue. As the old man passed Ellis, he dipped his head again, a courteous gentleman out for an evening stroll.

‘You idiot,’ Hadrian hissed to Seth.

‘What? Me?’ His brother rounded on him, a wounded expression on his face. ‘You two morons started it.’

‘Whatever.’ Ellis rolled her eyes and shivered. ‘Maybe we should get back. It’s late to be out walking.’

‘Not too late for him,’ said Seth, jerking his head at the old man’s receding back.

‘He’s dressed for it, obviously,’ said Ellis, taking both their arms and tugging them down the street, back the way they’d come. ‘Hat, coat and gloves. A good idea in weather like this.’

‘He wasn’t wearing gloves.’

‘He was,’ she insisted. ‘White ones. It struck me as old fashioned.’

‘How could you know that? We didn’t see his hands. They were in his pockets.’

‘He touched his hat, remember? You must have seen them. You were practically standing on top of him.’

‘I didn’t notice,’ said Hadrian, quite truthfully.

They walked briskly back to the hostel, the chill air thickening around them. The night was otherwise uneventful, except for one tiny incident.

As they passed through the hostel’s common room and headed up to their room, Hadrian tested his local knowledge on the man at reception.

‘Den kommer,’ he said.

A puzzled reply of ‘What’s coming?’ followed them up the stairs.

* * * *

‘If you’ve found Ellie,’ Hadrian said to the detective, ‘you should look at her camera. There’s a photo of one of the Swede’s goons in the memory stick. She caught him following us, later. We didn’t believe her at the time. The picture’s blurry, but it might help you track them down.’

Lascowicz made a note on his pad. His face didn’t give anything away. ‘How did you know he was Swedish?’

‘It was Ellie who worked it out. In Copenhagen.’

(‘He was a Swede,’ she announced.

‘Who was?’ Hadrian listened, lying half-asleep on his back while she and his brother finished off a chilly picnic lunch.

‘The old guy in Prague. The one with the gloves.’

‘So what?’ Seth didn’t bother hiding his boredom with the subject.

‘How did you find out?’ asked Hadrian, stirring.

‘I heard someone speaking like he did, and I asked them where they were from. They said

Sweden.’ She shrugged. ‘I know it might mean nothing, but it’s still interesting.’

‘Why?’ asked Seth.

‘Well, what was a Swede doing following three innocent tourists in Prague?’

‘You’re the detective, Elderberry. You tell us.’

She threw a crust of bread at him. ‘In your dreams, Castillo. Until you show some interest, my lips are sealed.’

‘Makes a change,’ Seth said with a grin.)

Lascowicz nodded. ‘Did she see him again?’

‘If she did, she didn’t tell us.’

‘Would you recognise him again, if you saw him?’

‘Oh, yes.’ The pale, waxy features rarely left his thoughts for long; neither did those nail-less fingers. ‘Do you know who he is?’

‘He matches the description of someone called Locyta. He’s caused trouble before.’

Trouble,
echoed Hadrian sourly to himself. Was murder just trouble to the detective? A minor inconvenience?

‘I assume you’re looking for him, then, this Low-kiter guy.’

‘We will be, now we have heard your version of events.’

‘My version —?’ A cold, hard thought stopped him dead. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’

‘At this point in my investigation, Hadrian, I have not made up my mind. It seems unlikely to me that you would stab your brother, dispose of the murder weapon, then knock yourself out. And you are clearly injured yourself.’ The detective indicated Hadrian’s throat and nose. ‘I have seen much in my work, and I cannot rule anything out. I will pursue every possible course to determine the truth and to bring those responsible to justice. Of that I assure you.’

Lascowicz got up from his chair and slapped the notebook at his side.

‘I must go now,’ he said. ‘I or one of my staff will be back soon.’

Hadrian felt bruised, mentally as well as physically. ‘Do I have to stay here?’

‘For the moment, yes. You’re perfectly safe.’

‘Are you telling me that because I have something to be afraid of?’

The detective almost smiled. ‘No, Hadrian. Rest, for now. Inga nyheter är goda nyheter, as they say here.’

‘And that means?’

‘No news is good news.’

They shook hands. The jagged tattoo grinned at him like the teeth of a shark.

You’re perfectly safe.

Somehow, as the detective took his leave, Hadrian didn’t believe it was all going to be so simple.

* * * *

‘A wild creature is defined by its nature. Make

something wild, and who’s to say it will want to

be changed back?’

THE BOOK OF
TOWERS
, EXEGESIS 4:7

he telephones remained dead all day. Hadrian got up twice to try a pay phone in the hallway, dressed in a flimsy hospital gown that wouldn’t close. The nurses were polite but reserved. The sight of a uniformed policeman at the far end of the hall made him feel both nervous and reassured at the same time. The orderly called Bechard kept the curtains around his bed closed, and he wasn’t unhappy with that. There were five other men in the ward, and they all seemed much older than him. One had a broken leg and complained constantly of pain. Two of them spoke Swedish only. After Lascowicz left, Hadrian went to the toilet and they looked at him warily.