The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 13 The Forger’s Son Kieran Hartwell was found on the Friday, in a rented room above a chandler’s shop in the estuary town of Dune Cray, forty-three miles from Veldmoor. He had been there for four days, living on sandwiches and the contents of a flask, reading and rereading the … Read more
The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 12 A Name in the Margins Kieran Elias Hartwell was not at the family address, not at his registered apartment in the new quarter, and not responding to his phone. He had last used his bank card three days earlier at a petrol station forty miles east of Veldmoor on … Read more
The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 11 The Broken Seal The name on the prepaid phone account was Hartwell. Not a first name — the account was registered to a trust called Hartwell & Sons Legacy Trust, which had been operating in Veldmoor for generations. The Hartwells were among the founding families of the Inkwell Society: Frederick … Read more
The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 10 Poison & Paper The toxicology report came through on Thursday afternoon. The substance in Edmund Castor’s teacup — and, in smaller concentration, in Sable Harmon’s mug — was aconitine, derived from monkshood: an alkaloid poison rare enough to require specialist knowledge, effective enough in the right dose to kill … Read more
The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 9 The Night Archivist Before the box was opened — before any of that — Nadia needed to understand who had hidden it and why. The note in the ledger said R. has moved the principal document. R. In 1988, the last year of the Society, the Archive’s chief archivist had been … Read more
The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 8 Forty-Four Steps Nadia went back to the Archive. The building, sealed for investigation, had a different quality now — the particular silence of a place that has had secrets revealed in it and is absorbing the aftermath. Hilde Roos, who had taken to arriving at seven-thirty each morning to … Read more
The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 7 The Manuscript Sable Harmon woke on the second day. She woke slowly, the way people do when their body has been somewhere dark and is not entirely certain the light is trustworthy. Nadia was at the hospital when she came around, seated in the corner of the private room, … Read more
The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 6 What Vera Knew K.E. Ramos did not exist — not on any city registry, not in any professional directory, not in any record the bureau could find in twenty-four hours of searching. The name in the Archive’s access log had been given with a false address and a false … Read more
The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 5 The Second Victim Sable Harmon was not difficult to find. She had returned to Veldmoor after her release and was operating a small print-restoration shop in the old warehouse district near the south docks, which was either a demonstration of extraordinary nerve or extraordinary innocence, depending on your disposition. … Read more
The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 4 A Map With No North The Crome Publishing House occupied a Georgian townhouse on Aldiss Street — the name was coincidental, or perhaps not — and Vera Crome received them in a first-floor study lined floor to ceiling with books that had the look of objects acquired not for … Read more
