Free Certain Death by Tanya Landman Page A

correct, we know it didn’t hit anyone – and no one found it. So it can’t have come down into the audience.”
    “Might it have landed in the ring?”
    “It’s possible.”
    “In which case Yuri would have pocketed it by now.” I looked up at the roof. “Do you think it could have gone through the canvas?”
    “It might have done,” said Graham. “In which case there should be a hole.”
    We scoured the big top until we’d both given ourselves neck ache but we couldn’t see a single hole that shouldn’t have been there.
    “There’s only one option left,” considered Graham. “It might have hit one of the timber poles. I suggest we check those.”
    We began with the one closest to where we’d been sitting and worked our way around the ring. We were almost back where we’d started when we spotted it – high above our heads, the paint was nicked and the wood splintered.
    “There!” Graham crooned, his face glowing with satisfaction. “It must be embedded in the wood.”
    “Brilliant!” I exclaimed. “Let’s give Inspector Humphries a call once we get out of here. Then we’d better run home quick.”
    But before we could escape, we heard a voice. We both froze. We were dead.
    “Run?” said the voice, rolling the R around as if it was edible. “There is nowhere to run. You will say goodbye to each other. Then – how you say? – it is curtains for the pair of you.”
    “Yuri,” I said faintly to Graham. “Help!”
    We turned to face our killer. But when he stepped out of the shadows, we both gawped in amazed silence. Because the man pointing two lethal-looking weapons in our direction wasn’t Yuri.
    It was the Dashing Blade.

brothers in arms
    The Dashing Blade had a very long, very sharp, very shiny knife in each hand – and they were both pointing at me and Graham. For a second I was tempted to laugh, because I remembered how bad his aim had been during his act. He’d had to practically push the knives in around Ruby like drawing-pins. I thought that if we made a run for it, he’d miss us both and we’d escape. Then I noticed that despite the absence of his thick glasses, he wasn’t having any problems fixing us with a cold, murderous glare. He looked like he’d lost loads of weight, too. Either that, or he’d removed the pillow he kept stuffed up his shirt.
    “You were acting,” I said, my heart sinking. “You’ve been acting the whole time. You’re not short-sighted at all, are you? And you’re certainly not overweight.”
    He laughed. A hard, barking sound that could have chipped flint. “You have seen through my disguise,” he smiled. “So now you must die.”
    “Are you from Stolijna too?” I asked desperately, playing for time.
    The mention of the town caused a whiff of sentiment to soften the Dashing Blade’s features. “Yes,” he replied. “Stolijna is my home.”
    “So.” I tried to piece things together. “You and Yuri are friends, are you?”
    “Yuri is my brother.”
    “Your brother? Were you in the army together? Did you take part in the massacre too?” A wave of cold fury washed over me. “How could you? Those people were your neighbours!”
    “They were Bosniaks,” he spat, his lip curled in disgust. “Muslims. They did not belong there. Our homeland needed to be cleansed. To be made pure. They had to die.”
    “So we were right,” said Graham. “Yuri
did
kill all those people.”
    The Dashing Blade laughed again and spat into the sawdust. “Not Yuri. He is weak! He had not the stomach for the task. When he saw Ana Kotromanik weeping and pleading for the lives of her sons, he fled like a baby. Deserted. He should have been shot for his cowardice, but when the war ended it was I who was called a criminal. I had to flee my country, so I came to find my little brother. I knew he would help me. What better place to hide than a circus? Who would look for me here?”
    “Then Ana Kotromanik turned up.”
    “Yes. Many years have passed, yet Yuri