Chapter One
‘Seven,’ said Nanda, laying a brightly-inked card upon Konrad’s parlour table. She held four more in her hands, close to her face; these she surveyed with a roguish half-smile, and cast a sideways glance at Konrad.
He was not fooled. Nanda’s strategy for card games was to appear as though she was on the point of winning, always, but never to let on how.
‘Hats,’ said Alexander Nuritov, police inspector by day and… well, frequently by night as well, when he wasn’t playing cards at Bakar House. The deep darkness of full night beat against the parlour windows, but inside all was warmth and cheer. A bright fire crackled in the grate, two of Konrad’s favourite people sat around his table, and all of them were rosy on apple brandy.
Konrad himself might be termed somewhat more than
