The Bonehill Curse

by Jon Mayhew

  ‘Sorry?’ chuckled Grimhurst. ‘What . . . for?’

  ‘She found us with the gold and she’s taken it,’ Josie said, frowning. ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘She’s tried to . . . kill me . . . before . . . Several times.’ The cadaver shook with mirth. Alfie lifted up his head to listen. ‘I wanted . . . her dead too. I kept a . . . bottle . . . of port . . . laced . . . with arsenic . . . ready.’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ Alfie murmured. ‘The one on the bottom row . . .’

  ‘I carried the . . . letter to you . . . in my . . . pocket . . . just in case . . . she got to me first.’ Grimhurst gave a rattling laugh. ‘You . . . moved the poisoned bottle . . . up to the top. She’ll be enjoying . . . her bedtime glass . . . just . . . about . . . now . . .’

  Josie and Alfie stared at each other in horror.

  ‘How I’m looking forward to . . . seeing her again . . . very soon.’ Horace Grimhurst gave a final gargling snigger and fell back, the breath sighing from his mouth.

  Also by Jon Mayhew

  Mortlock

  The Demon Collector

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney

  First published in Great Britain in May 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP

  This electronic edition published in April 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  The Bonehill Curse text copyright © Jon Mayhew 2012

  Mr Grimhurst’s Treasure text copyright © Jon Mayhew 2011

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Epigraphs: traditional folk ballads, traditional proverbs,

  proverbs from the Old Testament Book of Proverbs,

  and based on The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night

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  may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781408826492

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  www.jonmayhew.co.uk

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