‘What are you doing here?’ Sofia asked Peter Serf over the din of the music. The nightclub was at its most raucous, the midnight hour aglow with neon lights that seemed to be amplified by the reflections from the mirrored walls. Loud dance music thumped from the speakers that were dotted around the dance floor.

‘I came here to find you,’ said Serf. He handed Sofia a drink and they sat down next to Saskia.

‘I already bought you a drink.’ Said Saskia.

‘Give it to Dimitar; I’m sure he’ll need one.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I need to speak with this man, Saskia.’ Said Sofia, just loud enough for Saskia alone to hear. ‘Just let me. He may have information about what happened to Georgi.’

Saskia called Dimitar, and he came over from the other side of the bar, Elena trailing in his footsteps as if trying to lay her feet over them like shadowed heartbeats. He offered her the chair and she took it. Dimitar stood at the table.

‘I bought you a drink.’ Said Saskia.

‘Thanks, but you didn’t need to.’

‘Maybe she did,’ said Sofia. ‘Everything should go through the books.’

‘What is wrong with the books?’ asked Dimitar, his face a picture of creases. Elena patted his hand.

‘I’m sure nothing is wrong. Sofia cannot be right about everything. Accountant, poker player, what is she?’

‘More than a dancer,’ said Sofia in direct response. ‘But my brother always liked you. Did he love you? Or maybe you loved him and it was a crime of passion.’

‘I would never harm Georgi!’ said Elena, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. ‘How dare you say such a thing. Why don’t you leave? You were always getting on a plane. Maybe he felt lonely.’

‘But not with you?’ said Sofia, biting her lip so hard it almost bled. If she lost her temper, she would miss out on information. Her poker-playing instincts kicked in. Sometimes staying quiet was the best way of getting as much out of your opponent as possible. Elena felt like her opponent.

‘Do you mind if we go somewhere quieter?’ Serf asked. Sofia mostly read his lips as another deafening dance hit burst into life.

‘Where do you suggest?’ she shouted back.

‘My place?’ he said. There was something in his eye, a hint of secrecy about his question. Sofia was attracted to him. She’d always found an older man who held it all together so much more attractive than a man her own age who seemed to be flying by the seat of his pants. There was something intrinsically calm about Peter Serf. She wondered why that was.

Two minutes later, she was in a taxi bound for his house. She’d told Saskia to stay and enjoy being with Dimitar and Elena. Saskia didn’t look too pleased, but Sofia would make it up to her; she made a mental note to get her hair cut the next day to do as much. She would eat better knowing that she hadn’t let down someone else who was struggling.

Hairdressers made little to no profit, it was just enough for Saskia to survive, but Elena was content to dance her way into Georgi’s affections. Was her brother really so easily led? Sofia wondered what made him so taken with Elena apart from her obvious physical attributes. She thought Georgi went deeper than that, that he would be more inclined to go steady with a girl like Saskia, someone who knew that hard work didn’t always equal instant financial rewards.

The taxi ground to a halt outside Peters Serf’s fashionable city center townhouse. Three stories high and three windows wide, the property was one of several in the center of Sofia that belonged to the city’s elite. A spectacular view of the glittering buildings lit the roads and paths with what seemed an ethereal glow as Sofia accepted Peter’s hand at the door of the cab. She climbed out of the cab, brushing her fingers against his shoulder as she stood, a frisson of electricity darting across her palm.

Peter Serf unlocked his townhouse and ushered Sofia inside. The hallway was dark, but as soon as the door was shut behind him, Peter flicked on the lights and the house was illuminated in a bright glare. He took Sofia’s coat and led her into the drawing room. This was more tastefully lit, soft lamps dotting the room and the smell of musk heavier than it felt in the taxi.

On a writers’ bureau in the far corner, there sat a number of piles of poker chips. ‘This is a beautiful room.’ Sofia said, walking inside. The large room felt more like it belonged to a library than a residential abode. Books lined every wall except the doorway through which Sofia had entered.

Sofia watched Peter Serf close the door, then approach her. There was something safe about Serf, despite his loping gait more similar to that of a predator rather than a hunted man. If he was in any way guilty of anything, he hid it enormously well.

‘Why did you bring me here?’ Sofia asked. ‘I know why I came – I want to know why you were at my father’s house. But you wanted me here.’

‘Isn’t that obvious?’ asked Serf, stepping into the shadow cast by Sofia under the chandelier a foot from the top of her hair. She could smell his scent, the musky heat coming off him. At that moment, it would have been easy to relent from her mission, to cave to easy love and deferred consequences. But her instincts were that Serf was playing her.

‘You don’t want me.’ She said.

‘Sure I do. You’re here, aren’t you?’

‘You think you do, but you don’t.’

‘Because you’re younger than me?’

‘Not at all. I’m attracted to older men.’ She said, her breath nearer his mouth. She watched his lips twitch. ‘I’m attracted to you.’

‘Then it’s mutual.’

‘Something is holding you back. I feel like you know something about my brother.’

‘That’s all you came for.’

‘It’s all I’m living for.’ She said, stepping back a little. Suddenly, the closeness of his body felt different. The look on his face had changed. The shadows that flicked his cheekbones had seemed to darken. From somewhere, Sofia heard a light squeak, like a badly oiled window being opened and closed.

Reek, reek. 

‘We don’t have to do a thing except enjoy each other’s company.’ Serf said, his small teeth peeking from beneath his lips at Sofia. She felt the backs of her legs hit the sofa and realized she’d been walking backward, away from him.

Reek, reek.

The door seemed a long way away. Could she get to it without him stopping her? She was nimble and considerably younger than him. Quicker off the mark, surely. But he was tall, strong, and lithe. There wasn’t a chance.

Reek, reek.

The sound was getting louder, now. Closer. Sofia swallowed, her throat dry, the scratch of air coming through. Breathing intentionally in ragged, short gasps, that she tried to take quietly in order to fool him that she wasn’t scared.

Then the door opened.

The squeaking was coming from the small left-hand wheel of a wheelchair, and it continued to squeak as Peter Serf’s wife entered the room.

‘Peter, it’s gloomy in here. We’re not living in a Noel Coward biography. Put the bloody light on.’

Serf nipped to the wall, flicking the light switch. The room was bathed in bright light that didn’t suit the bookcases or the still-lit lamps. Peter Serf seemed to shrink visibly as if lowering himself from standing on tiptoes.

‘What’s going on?’ Said Sofia, mad at having felt as uncomfortable as she did a few seconds earlier. There was still gooseflesh on her forearms and her throat was dry.

‘The same thing that usually happens when Peter meets someone he likes. He brings them home.’

‘Are you both…?’

‘This is a one-way street,’ said Mrs. Serf, holding up her hands. The Wheelchair was now static and looked out of time, sat as it was in the middle of a carpet whose dark green color and thick depth made the room itself feel like an antique. ‘My husband has the right to attract anyone he likes… once.’

‘My wife slept with your brother, Georgi.’ Said Peter, no longer standing on ceremony. He sat down into one of the armchairs, crumpled and defeated. ‘It was before her accident. The crash.’

‘I lost all feeling below the base of my spine in an automobile accident.’ said Mrs Serf. ‘Perhaps that was a neat punishment for what I did. Swerved to avoid a motorcycle and bit the central reservation. I awoke in the hospital, only to find my lower half still asleep.’

The air inside the room felt stuffy to Sofia. She was breathing easier, the fear had melted away. But she still wanted to get out as soon as she could.

‘I used to visit the nightclub where your brother works,’ Mrs Serf continued. ‘Only a couple of times, and we never met to speak. Then one night I went there late and he spirited me away. It was only supposed to be a drink. We went to a rival bar, looked at how they set up, compared notes. It was wrong and I regret it to this day, but we slept together. It only happened the once. And now it will never happen again.’

Peter and Sofia exchanged a look. The mahogany bookshelves seemed to close in a little.

‘My brother Georgi is dead, Mrs Serf.’ Said Sofia. Mrs. Serf looked around at her husband, who quietly nodded.

‘Was he…?’

‘Murdered?’ Sofia answered, not caring if it was the question. ‘Yes. He was. And Mrs Serf, I intend to find out who did it.’

‘Did you know about this, Peter?’

When her husband spoke, it was barely above a whisper.

‘I wanted you to feel how I did, betrayed, abandoned, like the world had fallen from beneath my feet. The night you told me about your affair…’

‘It wasn’t an affair!’ Mrs. Serf snapped. ‘It was one night. A night I regret.’

‘One night, then. I was determined to make you feel how I did. But then you were injured and I couldn’t switch off how I felt about you. How I feel. I love you…’

‘And this is how you show me? By bringing home a different girl each week, to make me feel smaller than I already do?’ Mrs. Serf span in her chair and squeaked towards the door. ‘I suggest you help this young lady find out who killed her brother. I never saw him after that night and I’m not exactly upwardly mobile, so if you think it was me, you couldn’t be more wrong. But someone evidently did.’

Peter had risen off the sofa and was playing with the poker chips from the desk in his hand.

‘Leave my poker chips alone.’ Said his wife. Sofia meant to leave, but she saw that Peter wanted to say something.

‘Look, it may be nothing, but I do have a little information about your brother. Well, maybe.’

‘So what is it?’

‘I saw his friend Dimitar and that Elena girl, walking. I spent some weeks waiting for Georgi to leave the nightclub. He didn’t often. Only to your father’s poker game and speaking to him there…’

‘Confronting him, you mean?’ Mrs. Serf said, spinning her wheelchair around to face the door. Peter continued unabated.

‘They left, looking like co-conspirators – speaking in low voices, hurrying away. I followed them, and they went to the mountains on the border of the Iskar River. They walked, they talked. Nothing else happened and they didn’t see me. But it was where Georgi might have been before he died. I read that they found his body near the mountain where I saw Dimitar and Elena.

Sofia thanked Peter and his wife and then left. Her head was spinning with this new information. Did Elena know that Georgi was sleeping with Mrs. Serf? Maybe Georgi’s death was a crime of passion. Could Peter Serf really be believed? Maybe he was responsible for the murder after finding out his wife was sleeping with the younger man. Who fired that gun at the Angelov mansion? Sofia had more questions than answers. She needed to talk to a friend, which meant one thing.

She was going to get her hair cut.

Dead by the River – Chapter 8

The next morning, Sofia arrived at Saskia’s salon feeling like she had stepped from one world into another. The neon of Glitter and the gloom of the Serfs from the night before had been replaced by bright daylight. Sun streamed through the windows into Saskia’s salon. Mercifully, it was empty, so Sofia accepted a cup of tea as Saskia washed her hair while regaling the tale from the previous night.

‘I can’t believe he tried it on with you. And you liked it? I mean, I like an older man, but I never saw you as the type.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Mature, I guess. You’re so young and vital. There’s an energy about you.’

‘There was about him too, and his creepy wife. I can’t imagine she was my brother’s type at all. She was short, brunette, blunt with the way she spoke.’

‘So, what’s your point? Georgi liked a challenge.’

‘He also likes lightweight blondes like that airhead dancer at the club.’

‘Elena? She’s yesterday’s news. He went off her when you were away, told me as much in this chair.’

‘I’m kinda surprised. They seemed hot on each other before I went to Barcelona. I almost thought we might be hearing wedding bells.’

‘With Elena?!’ Saskia asked, a laugh creeping into her voice despite herself. She flicked the red-handled scissors across Sofia’s fringe, neatly trimming her copper-colored locks. The scissors matched her fingernails.

‘I’m so glad you cut my hair, babe. I’m exhausted. I’ve hardly slept at all since Georgi died.’

‘You want some pills? I take them at night if I can’t sleep. You know what it’s like in the city.’

‘Thanks.’

‘That’s OK.’

Saskia disappeared for a minute and came back with the pills. Sofia took them and put them in her handbag. She felt bad about duping her friend into helping her do what she wanted to do, but she’d apologize afterward.

‘Elena and Georgi… they seemed happy,’ said Sofia. ‘The only time they weren’t together was when Georgi was playing poker.’

‘So, every day then?’ Saskia said.

Sofia frowned. She played poker with Georgi once a week at her father’s house, but other than that, she didn’t know he had the time. The club took up the majority of his existence. Saskia read her friend’s face.

‘He played at the club. Not in the club, but the office. He and Dimitar were running a game for a while, he told me. Strictly big buy-ins. Dimitar was winning a lot and they split the profits. But Georgi told me the game was getting bigger. He said you knew all about it.’

‘You should have told me. He was lying to you. But I wonder why. He loved poker, but Dimitar was levels above him.’

Then it all made sense. The withdrawals, and the deposits being a lot smaller. Georgi was playing poker with Dimitar off the books. Maybe even without anyone knowing other than Dimitar himself. He was putting money to one side, even at the cost of the club, but why?

‘Did Georgi have a reason to want to leave?’ Sofia asked Saskia, who was blow-drying the ends of her hair. She’s taken off the towel and was nearly done.

‘Leave? Georgi? I don’t know why he’d want to do that.’

‘It makes sense. He plays money with Dimitar and some businessmen. Splits the profits, but Dimitar is jealous. Maybe he wants to keep the money for himself. But Georgi is putting it by, bit by bit. He tells his father the club is losing money, but he’s pumping it into the cash game. What for? Surely he was running away.’

‘You think Dimitar could have killed him to make sure he got the other half of the money he’d won?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know. They seemed like good friends. How good did Dimitar look in Georgi’s jacket? I mean, how neat did it look on him? They could have been brothers.’

‘Something about what you say makes sense, but I can’t figure it out.’

‘Me neither, but no-one tells me anything. Not really. I only get half the story of anyone’s life standing here.’ Saskia said, moodily raking a fine-tooth comb through the ends of Sofia’s now-perfect locks.

Sofia looked down as she stood up. Severed strands of her hair littered the tiled floor beneath her feet. She stepped clear of the hair and paid Saskia the money. The room seemed full of mirrors, like a nightclub. It was odd. The same feeling as walking into Glitter when the lights were all switched on, like you were intruding, caught inside a museum after closing time. Sofia felt a chill shoot down her spine.

‘Georgi was sleeping with Mrs. Serf. I don’t trust either her or her husband, but it doesn’t feel like they’re violent people. They’re all talk. A gun went off at that poker game, and I have no idea who fired the shot. But someone must have. I need to go.’

‘Where?’ asked Saskia, starting to sweep up.

‘To see Elena or Dimitar. And my father. He knows more than he’s letting on, and I trust my stepmother about as far as I could throw her.’

Saskia smiled, the lopsided twist on her face a perfect expression of sympathy.

‘I wish I could help, but the salon is open until five.’

‘I know. Just… let me know if you speak to anyone else.’

‘Of course I will.’

They kissed the air between them, and Sofia thanked her friend. At least there was one person left who had her back.

Sofia took a ride to her father’s mansion next. When she got there, it was only Ivan in the house. Silvana was out shopping, and after Sofia had rolled her eyes at that fact (“It’s the weekly shop for food, she’s not spending money on jewelry, Sofia.”) she sat down with her father.

‘I know that you know more about Georgi’s death than you’re letting on, Dad.’

‘Again with this, Sofia? I know as much as you. I’m happy to help you in any way I can, but…’

‘Except with money?’

‘You know where I stand on this, Sofia. I want you both… I want you to stand on your own two feet.’

‘You mean Silvana does?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You don’t need to. So there’s nothing about Georgi’s death that you think is suspicious?’

‘Only the location of his death. He never climbed a mountain in his life. What was he doing there?’

‘He was found in the river, Dad.’

‘Near to the base of the mountain. Maybe he fell.’

‘No marks on him, Dad. The autopsy said that they couldn’t find even an abrasion on his skin. Maybe there was something in his blood, but toxicology will be weeks. All I know it that I saw him on that table. He looked immaculate like he was ready for a night out. Except he was pale.’

‘Georgi was never pale. My son…’

Ivan Angelov dissolved into a bout of tears that Sofia suspected he usually saved for the moments when he was alone. She excused herself to the toilet, allowing him the time to pull himself together. While she was upstairs, she found the rifle that had been fired the other night. She was careful to carry it by the barrel, and on arriving back downstairs, laid it near the front door. They went to the kitchen so that she could pour her father a glass of water.

Sofia asked him what he meant by what he had said about the location.

‘The mountain where he was, or even the river if he went there to kill himself.’

‘I can’t ever believe…’

Ivan Angelov held up a fat palm, accepting Sofia’s point.

‘Even if. What was he doing there? Why not jump from a bridge in the city? Hell, he could have flung himself from the roof of Glitter. But instead, he drives out to a mountain and drowns himself in a foot of water? It makes no sense at all.’

‘What else is around there, Dad?’ Sofia asked.

‘Most people thought I named Georgi after the Iskar Gorge where he was found. Even he used to believe it when he was a small child. It’s true that your mother and I used to go walking there. We climbed the mountain, but we were always careful. It’s almost a kilometer high at its peak. No, I named him after the stadium.’

‘The stadium?’ Sofia enquired, passing her Dad a glass of water from the tap. She opened up her phone and tapped a few buttons, sliding it back into her pocket without him noticing.

‘Yes. They finished their fourth pitch the year he was born – 1989. I went to the first game. They won by a single goal, and there were 700 people in the stands. A year later, there were 12,000. I sponsored them, and they changed the name from the Septemvri Stadium to the Georgi Benkovski stadium. I helped them build modern changing rooms, the press conference hall, even put my name to the coaches benches, put in CCTV outside the entrance. I named my first born after the stadium.’

‘Did Georgi know that?’

‘Eventually, but I never suspected that it meant too much, I met Silvana, and we would sometimes visit. I think she understood that to a large degree, the memories I had there included your mother, but they helped me remember my son was still my first born, even after you both flew the nest.’

‘We didn’t fly far, Dad.’

‘Nor did Georgi, I wonder.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The stadium. It’s only a quarter of a mile from the Iskar Gorge.’

‘Ivan Angelov went to put his water down, but his hand cramped up, and it slipped from his grasp. Sofia neatly ducked to catch the glass before it could smash, but then it was an easy catch. She knew it was going to drop. She guided her Dad to the nearest chair and let him slump into the cushions.’

‘I love you Dad, I’m really sorry I had to do it. They’re only sleeping pills. You’ll wake up in a little while. Maybe I’ll have found out the truth by then.’

Sofia left, and her Uber arrived almost instantly. She took it to the nightclub, and when she arrived at Glitter, she went directly to the backstage area where she knew Elena would be. It was mid-afternoon by now. Sofia thought she’d find her either rehearsing or drinking. But she didn’t.

She found Elena bleeding.

Dead by the River – Chapter 9

‘Elena!’ Sofia cried, dropping to the floor, cradling Elena’s head in her hands. There was blood staining the lower half of Elena’s white crop top. The dark maroon liquid was barely being stemmed by her hand, which was pressed hard to her side. She spoke in a croak that sounded like it hurt to leave her mouth.

‘Sof…ia… ca…call…’ she gasped.

Sofia held Elena delicately as if she was a china doll. In many ways, that was exactly how she looked. Her perfect porcelain-colored skin and fragile, breakable appearance were amplified by the awkward pose like she might snap in two if she attempted to move her limbs. The blood was the only difference; it looked thickest at the front of her shirt.

‘Stab…stabbed… Sofia. Call…’ she tried to say, but the pain was too much, and Elena slumped into Sofia’s arms, passing out. Sofia looked around Elena and saw that her phone lay by her side, the screen still on. Whoever attacked her hadn’t taken her cell or bothered to switch it off. Which could only mean one thing.

They’d been there recently.

Elena lay motionless in Sofia’s grasp. Sofia could still feel her pulse weakly pumping through her wrists. She had to help, but as she wondered what to do, Sophia heard the sound that she both wanted and didn’t want to hear.

A siren.

It could be the police or an ambulance but regardless of what it was, it was getting louder and louder. It was coming in the direction of the nightclub and Sofia. She only had a split second to make the right decision. Who had called emergency services, and which one? No one else could know that Elena was injured other than her would-be assassin. Had the attacker been struck by a conscience, or were they setting Sofia up for murder?

Either way, Sofia reasoned, flight was better. She knew the police, but if she was found at the scene, she would be damned before she had a chance to defend herself. Caught at the scene, covered in Elena’s blood, the girlfriend of Dimitar, a man who may have killed her brother? She would be forced to try to figure out who had killed Georgi from a prison cell.

Carefully and quietly, Sofia lay Elena down and put her in the recovery position. Her wound was still causing her to lose blood, but not so rapidly. Sofia ran out the back door to the trunk of her car. She covered her hand in a shawl from the back seat and grabbed the rifle. She took it into the kitchen and laid it beside Elena’s prone form.

Then she left. She jumped into the car and pulled away, looping around the one-way system to the other side of the road. She pulled up and watched the nightclub from a safe distance.

It was only a minute later that an ambulance approached the slip road and took the turn off. It wound around to the nightclub and pulled up outside the back door. Clearly, someone had called the authorities to report that Elena was injured. A minute later, two police cars pulled up. That was Sofia’s cue to leave, and she drove away. Had she been reported? If so, then she needed to lose the car.

Once a safe distance from the nightclub, she turned East and drove the car out of the city. She needed to head home, but it might be being watched. If she had been reported in Elena’s attack, that’s exactly where the killer would want her to go, so she carried on heading East. She drove past the football stadium that had given Georgi his name, heading past it hastily. She slowed down, taking a look out of the window. There was a monastery on the left-hand side of the stadium, and Sofia pulled into the gravel drive. Deep within her long-term memory, she could remember her father driving here when she was a child. Dark brown brick walls were eight feet high around the grounds. Sofia got out of her car and approached the gates. She looked down at her top, at the blood down her front and on her hands.

She rang the bell on the box to the right of the steel gates. She thought she could hear police sirens again, but it could have been her imagination. It was as if she was falling down a well without a bottom, the walls closing in on her as the sky got smaller. Moody clouds gathered in the twilight skies above. The tears that fell from her cheeks were lost in the drizzle.

The box buzzed into life next to her face, and Sofia jumped in fright.

‘Can we help you?’

‘Can I come in? I need somebody to help me.’

The box was silent. No voice came through.

‘I’m Ivan Angelov’s daughter, Sofia.’

The box didn’t make another sound, but the gates in front of her opened with a click and an electric whirr as Sofia darted to her car door. She drove the car through the gates. Once inside, she was surrounded by half a dozen monks. It was an odd sight, and they guided her to the rear of the building. She drove around and parked at the back. A set of double doors opened, and one of the monks at the front of the building greeted her with open arms.

‘Are you OK, Miss Angelov?’

‘I’ve… been in an accident.’

‘For every problem, a solution. This is a house of peace, and you are most welcome. Let’s get you a change of clothes, for a start.’

The monk looked at her hands, and she held them up to the sky. Rivulets of water from the rain were washing them clean. Blood ran from her palms, falling into the deepening puddles on the ground.

Sofia went inside and, over the next hour, washed, changed, and was sat at a dining table in the main hall. Whatever beekeeping or mead-making the monks did in their sacred corridors lay under wraps. The building might as well have been a conference center.

Sitting in the main dining room, she was brought her belongings, minus her clothes. The distant smell of burning told her all she needed to know about what happened to them.

Her mobile phone rang almost as soon as it was set down in front of her. She answered.

‘Dad?’

‘Sofia? Are you all right?’

‘I’m so glad you called. I was in the city, and…’

‘Don’t say another word, not on the phone. I’m coming to pick you up.’

With that, Ivan cut the call. The monk smiled indulgently and brought Sofia some honey toast and a glass of mead. It was strong, and Sofia needed every bit of it, allowing it to warm her throat and calm her nerves. Where were the police?

Ten minutes later, she was in her father’s car, doing ninety back to the city.

‘I couldn’t let you speak on the phone, but you need to tell me what happened, Sofia. The car is safe here. They’ll make sure it’s thoroughly cleaned.

‘Do they owe you or something?’

‘In a manner of speaking. I spent a lot of time at the football stadium and, after an early game, brought Georgi here on the way when he felt sick once. Do you remember – he had his appendix removed.’

‘I remember that – it was a little while after Mum died.’

‘That’s right. The monks took Georgi in and looked after him until we could safely move him to hospital. He went up in the helicopter. It flew over the Iskar Gorge.’

‘He used to tell me about that. How it looked, the way it drew him in. Maybe there was a sense on some level about the importance of it in his life?’

‘Destiny or design?’ asked Ivan. He asked Sofia exactly what happened at the nightclub. She told him, her hands shaking until he took them in his own. Smiling slightly to ease her nerves, he told her to relax.

‘Dimitar has gone missing. He’s not at the nightclub, and money is missing from the safe.’

‘I don’t think he’s stolen anything, Dad.’ Sofia protested. ‘He won that money playing Georgi at poker. He’s been saving up the money, hoping to run away, I think with Elena.’

‘So you don’t think he did this to her?’

‘No.’

‘Well then, the question is, who did? Was anyone else motivated to harm Elena? Were they trying to kill her or frame you?’

‘I don’t know, but if they wanted to get rid of me, killing everyone I love wouldn’t be the way. Georgi and Elena were together. They were in love. I think they wanted to run away together.’

‘OK, I can see why you’d think that from the money, even their relationship… but why? Weren’t they happy here?’

‘Look, Dad, you know I want you to be happy, but ever since Mum died and Silvana came into your life, I’ve never been totally sure of her.’

‘But I am. We’ll talk to her now. Let’s go home. You can stay with us for a while. I’m exhausted, and I had a nap before you called.’

Sofia thought it prudent not to tell her father exactly why he was feeling so tired.

‘If Silvana is trying to kill me too, you could be putting me in danger.’

‘Rubbish. You’ll see this nonsense with Silvana has no basis in fact. We’ll go back home now and sort this out once and for all.’

Sofia allowed Ivan to drive them away from the monastery. He spoke to the monks before they left and told them to keep Sofia’s car safe, that it was to be ‘cleaned’. Sofia tried not to think of the methods they’d use to ensure that her car had no trace of Elena’s blood. She hadn’t harmed Elena, but if Dimitar and the money were gone, who else could it be?

When they arrived at the Angelov mansion, Silvana was at the door, her silhouette casting a shadow against the backlit warmth of the inside of the mansion. Only when they got close did they realize that she was wearing handcuffs.

A policeman followed her from the door, gently insisting that she should follow him and his colleague to the police car which was parked discreetly out of view from the main road. It sat, no lights flashing, at the side of the ornate mansion like a cockroach next to a Fabergé egg.

‘I didn’t kill Georgi, Ivan!’ Silvana almost screamed from the steps. Her husband went to go to her, but a flat palm from the policeman stopped him in his tracks.

‘Sir, your wife has been arrested for murder.’

‘On what basis?’ Ivan asked.

‘They found my nail polish on the rifle!’ Silvana yelled before she was shut inside the back of the car.

‘She’s been read her rights, sir. I would advise you to contact your lawyer immediately.’

Ivan Angelov stood, stunned with shock at the sight of his wife being arrested for the murder of his eldest son.

As the policemen opened the driver and passenger doors to drive her away, both Ivan and Sofia could hear Silvana again.

‘… DNA on the rifle… you must…’ was all they caught before both doors slammed and she was driven off. They stood at the bottom of the steps to the mansion.

‘What do we do now?’ Ivan asked, flabbergasted at the turn of events.

‘There’s one thing we need to check,’ said Sofia.

‘What’s that? Ivan asked, wringing his hands.

‘The contents of your will.’

‘I told you. Both you and Georgi are still the only beneficiaries.’

‘When did you last check that?’

Ivan shut the great heavy doors with a bang. He locked them and turned to Sofia. At that moment, both of their cell phones pinged into life with the same chime sounding loudly in the echoey reception of the mansion.

Sofia got to her phone first and gasped. Ivan produced his own cell and looked at the same on-screen message.

Georgi Angelov

Invites you to play Six-Max

POKER TOURNAMENT

Starting SOON.

If you win I’ll tell you

Who

Killed

Me

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About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

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Edited by Maury Orton and Shawn A.