The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 9 by Maxim Jakubowski

Author:Maxim Jakubowski
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781780330952
Publisher: Constable Robinson
Published: 2012-02-01T23:00:00+00:00

Carla Bonetti had it all. Blonde hair, flawless skin, perfect memory, sleight of hand. Everything, in fact, that made her a first-rate mind-reading act.

The first time I saw her was in Prague. Our schedule took us there two years ago, during that particularly vicious hot August. I had wandered into St Nicholas’ church to cool down, passing a pleasant hour or two imagining the magnificent baroque paintings that used to adorn the interior, until the late Emperor Josef ordered them to be removed. Silly fool. Anyway, walking back into the square was like stepping into a furnace, in which the entire population seemed to be melting. Except one.

She’d set up a table in the shade of the Town Hall, well aware that each day, hundreds of people flock to see the famous astronomical clock. If you haven’t seen this gigantic masterpiece of engineering and entertainment, allow me to enlighten you. Every hour, on the hour, larger-than-life-size figures of Christ and the apostles march past the upper window, turning to look out over the square as they pass, while the skeleton of death tolls the bell. It is a spectacle admired by princes and peasants alike and the crowds are ferociously large. But what attracted me to Carla, Inspector, wasn’t that while her audience were mopping their foreheads and fanning themselves she remained cool as the proverbial cucumber, in her virgin white dress and blonde hair swept up, as she slid koruna after koruna into her tin. It was that she’d chosen to work the Mystical Card trick right under the great circle of the zodiac that is mounted directly beneath the clock.

Let me clarify. You see these? They are the very pieces she was using that day, and as you can see they are leather. They could just as easily have been parchment or wood, the material’s irrelevant, but you see how she’s painted mystical symbols round the edge of each of these five little sheets? Then inscribed four numbers across and four down in a square in the middle? Once the ink was dry, she’d have scrubbed the leather to make the pieces appear ancient, reinforcing her claim that these little treasures came from a pharaoh’s tomb, an Indian mystic, an Aztec princess, whatever.

I shall dispense with the hocus-pocus for now. The power of the symbols … The channelling of energy … The transference of your thoughts to mine … I shall simply point out what you will have already noticed, namely that the numbers range from one to thirty-one, and now ask you to tap each of the pages on which your birthday appears. Aha. 28 April. A most pleasant time of the year to be celebrating, though I see even you, an experienced police officer, are surprised. Of course, you are right. The numbers are not written randomly at all, and I confess, the date is not mind-reading, but basic arithmetic. Guessing the month, though? Sadly, I am not at liberty to disclose how that’s done. The Magic Circle would have my head in a noose—

Hm.

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