Jo departed for Chor the next morning. I was up in time to see her leave. Soon after her car drove away I made myself a large mug of coffee and went to my study, feeling purposeful once more. I caught up with several unanswered emails, visited my usual social media sites, checked my bank. All the normal routines of a morning.

At last I opened the document where I had been working on the first draft of my next novel. I had reached page eighty-six, well into it but a long way from the end. I read through recent pages, remembering writing them, of course, but I had trouble recollecting what I had had in mind. Back then, a week ago, pre-Dearth.

I closed the document. I needed time to reflect.

I looked at the small stack of my reference books that Jo had put out for me. I moved them to my desk. Each one had slips of paper marking certain pages. I opened the top one, and immediately found a handwritten note from Jo:

Hey Todd – in case we don’t get a chance to talk about this before I leave:

Here is what I have found for you on the murder case you told me about. It’s not much and everything might be referring to another case entirely. I drew a complete blank on the name Waller Alman, or any variant of that. I tried the other spellings you guessed at. You said it had happened about fifteen years ago. As you know, there haven’t been many murders in the Salay Group, and there was only one in that time frame, but it was in fact on Salay Hames, as you said. I felt it was probably the right one? The victim was called Lew Antterland. Nothing like ‘Waller Alman’. The police thought Antterland had been murdered, but later it was judged by the inquest court to be a suicide case, so the file was closed.

But listen to this! Lew Antterland had a brother who WAS murdered five years later. This happened on Salay Sekonda. His name was Dever Antterland, but he was also known as ‘Willer’. Coincidence, or what? There isn’t much about him in the books, but I’ve marked every mention I could find from the index.

Why not see what Spoder can turn up? He happened to phone while you were away – he said it was not important. Maybe you should call him?

See you back here soon, I hope.

Jo XXX