Prologue

I look down at the busy street of Rendell.

"Do you still write your diary ?"

The man infront of me is almost unrecognisable with the hat and the mask and the glasses .

After years of working in the millitary if that is the best he can disguise - then our nation's future is in ruin.

But then , a part of me is sure that he is just doing this to humour himself .

I can never understand him.

"Well , last time writing a journal did not go so well ," I admit .

"Don't blame the journal for that ," the man places my old diary before me ,"I am not bragging but it would have taken a lot of time for you to get it back unless you know someone like me ."

"How grateful I am to befriend an esteemed duke ," I pick it up, " Do not tell me , each of you at the department took their time to read this whole thing ."

"How dare we !," he exclaimed with fake horror ," This was a diary of a feeble, sensitive, delicate young maid ."

I roll my eyes," I hope that your mother finds out that you still come to have tea and chitchat with me ."

"Now , do not curse me like that ."

"Why don't you have another friend?"

"Why don't you then come back home ?"

"I shall get going now ," I pick up the useless bundle of papers ,"Thank you for returning something I no longer need ."

"My pleasure," he tells me in a gentle voice ," Now that the investigation has ended , what are you going to do with that ?"

"This ?," I hold up my diary ,the thing that has been one of the concrete evidence for the scandal that has shaken the whole capital three years ago ," Ofcourse, I am going to burn it ."

With it , I hope my memories disappear too - of that year , my days of sweet fourteen,when I plotted my first murder .