The rain didn't fall, but it hung in the air... as if the sky hadn't yet made up its mind.
Ella sat in the corner of a small café near the lake, holding the notebook in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. An old piece of paper was between her fingers, which she held up to the light and tried to read between the lines. What was written wasn't so much cryptic as it was silently sad.
"I don't write to anyone anymore. Even I've stopped reading to myself."
On the next page, a simple drawing:
An open fig, inside a bullet.
She felt something cold run down her neck. These weren't just scribbles, but a muffled will, another unspoken language.
That evening, she returned home and opened the old closet she hadn't touched since her retirement. Inside was an archive of worn papers and old case files. She searched until she found a file with a blue marker, written in her own handwriting:
"Case: Victor Lamb – Literary Assassination / 1999"
She opened the file.
She found old correspondence between her and Leonard. Critical comments, forensic reports, and even a letter in Leonard's handwriting:
"Sometimes, murder isn't done with bullets, but with the right phrase at the most critical time. I alone spoke the truth. The rest chose silence."
She remembered the case well. A young author had taken his own life after Leonard wrote a fiery essay titled:
"No One Reads Silence."
It was the first incident in which taste was blamed.
But what did figs have to do with all this? And why a severed ear?
In a moment of silence, an image of art came to her. Yes...
Van Gogh.
That painter who cut off his ear... Why?
For a woman? For his brother? Or for a voice that wouldn't let go?
Could Leonard—in his final moments—have wanted to convey an artistic message more than a crime?
In the middle of the night, on a small table by the window, Ella placed the figs she had saved from her travels.
She cut them slowly and looked inside...
Red, sticky, filled with seeds... something between blood and memory.
She said to herself:
"If this was the last thing he wanted to taste... then the crime isn't just in his death... but in the reason for his last taste."
She put the notebook aside and took a deep breath.
The time was drawing near... To fully understand the message, she had to delve into the entire past, not just decipher its codes.
ns216.73.216.59da2
