‘Go on, Juraj,’ spoke Lichnova softly, noticing his red cheeks, obviously embarrassed from reading Edgar’s personal artefact. ‘I found his entry regarding the autopsy report, the last entry… I assume you read it, too?’
‘Of course I did, Juraj, I read most of what had been entered recently, why?’ Lichnova paced around the room as she spoke, twisting and turning back and forth, as if unsure of where to walk next.
‘It’s the timing Lichnova, it doesn’t add up. Edgar was in Prague on the Thursday morning and had not even decided himself to leave for Bratislava until late that evening. Yet somehow, even if the autopsy had been performed in the meantime, the report arrived on a Saturday… it is simply too soon. Someone knew where Edgar would show up even before he did. And how do we know the report was even real?’ Juraj stood too, pacing around the room in a large monotonous circle, pulling and snatching at his hair, the frustration and disillusion clearly taking its toll on the young aristocrat.
‘The report was real, Juraj,’ Lichnova stated bluntly, her face stony and resolute now.
‘How can you be sure?’ questioned Juraj in reply.
Lichnova shuffled within her jacket pocket for a moment and revealed a pearl-white parchment letter, passing it to Juraj. ‘That’s how.’
Intrigued with sprightly haste, Juraj looked over the document and quickly protested his apprehension with Lichnova.
‘Anyone could have written this, could they not?’
‘You are not wrong, Juraj,’ Lichnova responded agreeably, ‘but the stamp at the bottom is official—it cannot be replicated or forged so easily.’
Juraj let out a deep sigh and concludes that the inspector was right. The stamp did indeed bear the mark of Prague’s locality correspondence and having been around enough official documentation himself, he was no stranger to its authenticity. Reading through more carefully now, Juraj analysed and absorbed every line of detail of the report. The words seemed so plain and simple: the recording of height, weight, sex, even hair and eye colour. All the features that define Juraj’s brother were listed as if he were a specification or whitepaper for a new product line. The officiality and formality struck Juraj hard for a moment, the sharpness within his chest reminding him how vulnerable he was. The loss twisted further into his being as every step closer to absolution and vindication took him a further two behind, with each move revealing a new set of horror and terror hidden behind the closed door. How many more must he open to be free of the demon, the silent stalker that had taken everything from him thus far?—almost everything.
After calming himself for a moment, his vision restoring from a state of unwelcomed blurredness, he regained his sight and focus and continued to read further through the report. Then suddenly, it struck him, like a hot iron poker thrust into his naked flesh—the words jumped out from the parchment clearly and as resoundingly obvious and imperative as any he’d ever read.
Notably high levels of mercury bichloride recorded in the victim’s blood sample, mercury concentration is 3.62 mg/L. It is the opinion of this medical examiner that the cause of death is poisoning.
Juraj looked up from the document, his face as white as the paper from which he had just read. He had known within his heart that foul play had been involved, but to read it in writing, so formal and absolute, was quite simply a different matter. Someone, somehow, had decided to kill his brother, and he was still no closer to knowing why. Fighting back the tears, anger now seemed to overcome Juraj, replacing the desperate fear and sorrow. The reprisal within him demanded justice, yet the one best to deliver it had faded into the abyss now too.
‘You’ve read this, I take it?’ Juraj spat furiously.
‘Calm down, Juraj. You know full well I have read it. Please, I realise you are upset and angry, but you must understand, no one is to blame here,’ responded Lichnova, clearly sensing the situation on the precipice of escalation. Her training was a sound reminder to remain calm and act quickly, to encourage the soothing of diminishing and apathetic emotions. ‘Whoever killed your brother, I wish for justice as much as you do, but he was killed in Prague, and my power does not stretch that far, Juraj. You must know this. I alone cannot help you. Only the police in Prague can now.’
‘The police in Prague,’ repeated Juraj, shaking his head from side to side, anger still spewing and gushing visibly outward. ‘Do you know how helpful they have been thus far? Absolutely none at all. Why do you think my mother had Edgar sent for in the first place? She demanded Moscow send her their best, lest their secrets be unveiled to the world.’
Lichnova stood still, a powerful and strong woman in her own right, yet the helplessness convicted her into a position of stalemate, the inaction chaining her lack of independence in the matter. ‘I am sorry, Juraj, I truly am. My hand in this game ended when the one who killed Edgar and Milos revealed theirs.’
19.
A blaring gust of steam emitted and a horn sounded as the metal churned and started on its heavy shift into movement, the train parting from Bratislava station and heading on its course towards Prague.
Juraj clutched the autopsy report from Lichnova close to his chest and the diary of Edgar closer still.
Edgar had written in his diary that Anita loved Peter, why?
He needed answers to this burning mystery, and how such a false saga had unfolded into the public domain. What most plagued Juraj’s mind, though, was what he intended to do next. It had not taken him too long to recall the events that had led himself and Edgar to arrive at Bratislava in the first place, in pursuit of
