The Last Devil To Die полностью

‘You must also know that dementia points in just one direction. Once you start to descend the slope, and please believe me when I say you have started, there is no return. There may be footholds here and there, there may be ledges on which to rest, and the view may still be beautiful from time to time, but you will not clamber back up.’

‘Stephen, who wrote you this letter?’ Elizabeth asks. Stephen holds up a finger, asking her to be patient a few moments more. Elizabeth’s fury is decreasing. The letter is something she should have written to him herself. This should not have been left to a stranger. Stephen starts again.

‘Perhaps you know all this already, perhaps you are sitting reading this asking, “Why is this blasted fool telling me what I already know?” But I have to write, because what if you don’t know? What if you are already too far down the slope to know the truth of your slide? If these words seem distant, I hope, at least, that they will ring a bell deep within you, that you will recognize the truth of what I am saying. And you know you can trust me.’

‘Trust who?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Does it matter?’ Stephen asks her kindly. ‘I can see in your eyes that it’s true. I mean, I knew it was true, but I’m glad, I suppose, to see you confirm it. Let me carry on – it’s not a long letter.’

‘I have to write this letter now, because, Stephen, if that bell is ringing for you, I need you to do two things. I need you to read this letter aloud to Elizabeth, and I need you to make her promise that she will let you read this letter every day, should you forget it. Which, from what I understand, you will.’

Elizabeth knows now who wrote the letter, of course she does.

‘You wrote the letter to yourself?’ she says to Stephen.

‘It seems I did, yes,’ says Stephen. ‘A year ago to the day.’

It’s the least Elizabeth should have expected. ‘What did you do? Send the envelope to your solicitors, and tell them to post it to you in a year’s time?’

‘I must have done,’ says Stephen. ‘I must have done. But, more to the point, I assume it’s all true?’

‘It’s all true,’ says Elizabeth.

‘And it’s getting worse?’

‘Much worse, Stephen. This is a rare good day. We are clinging on.’

Stephen nods. ‘And what is to be done?’

‘That’s up to you,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That will always be up to you.’

Stephen smiles. ‘What rot. Up to me. It’s up to us, and it sounds like we have rather small windows left open to us. Should I be living here? Is it impossible?’

‘It is difficult,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But not impossible.’

‘Soon it will be impossible.’

‘I don’t care about soon,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I care about now.’

‘Lovely though that thought is, I feel perhaps I don’t have that luxury,’ says Stephen. ‘There are places, I am sure, where I could receive care. Where you would be given some respite? I still have some money, I hope? Haven’t gambled it away?’

‘You do have money,’ says Elizabeth.

‘I sold some books recently,’ says Stephen. ‘Expensive ones.’

Stephen must have seen something cross her eyes.

‘I didn’t sell any books?’

‘You didn’t,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Though you helped to solve a murder by tracking some down.’

‘Did I indeed? I have quite the hinterland.’

‘Do you want to finish the letter?’

‘Yes,’ says Stephen, ‘I would like to.’ He picks up the page again.