The Mozart Conspiracy

Chapter Sixty-Four

The Bahamas

A few weeks later

Chris Anderson sipped on his martini and looked out across the white sand. A warm breeze ruffled the palm fronds over his head as the Isolde bobbed slowly on the shimmering water. There was sand between his toes. He reached out from the sunbed and picked up the newspaper.

The copy of The Times was three days old, dated the nineteenth of January. Yesterday’s news, but he liked to catch up on what was happening at home, and what could happen in three days? He rustled through the pages. Foreign news. More assassinations in the Middle East. Storms lashing the UK. Same shit as always. Chris stretched and shot another glance at his yacht on the calm blue water, then grinned to himself.

He flipped randomly through a few more pages.

A small headline caught his eye. He did a double-take.

‘I knew it,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘That bitch. Lying bitch.’

OPERA STAR WEDS.

He read it three times. It wasn’t a long article. There was a small photo to go with it. The wedding had taken place a week ago in Venice, where the bride Miss Leigh Llewellyn was in rehearsals for the celebrated new production of The Magic Flute. Chris stared long and hard at the face of the groom in grainy black and white. He looked down at the name in the article, then back up to the photo. ‘Bastard,’ he muttered. Just as he’d thought. It was Major Benedict Hope.

Chris rumpled the paper up in disgust, tossed it away and took another swig of his drink. Then he hurled the glass away too.

The Gran Teatro Fenice Opera House, Venice, Italy

Everything in the box was red velvet. Ben’s seat was upholstered with it, the wall behind him and the partitions either side of him were draped in it. He loosened his collar, leaned back in the seat. He was as casually dressed as he could get away with in this place, just a dark suit and a plain navy tie. Most of the men in the audience were in tuxes, but dressing in a tux twice in the space of five weeks was a little too much for Ben.

Perched up in the private box, he had a great view of the Gran Teatro Fenice. The Phoenix, the legendary opera house. Aptly named. He’d read in the programme that someone kept burning the place down. The last time had been in ’96. In 2003, the programme said, it had been restored to its former grandeur.

Grandeur was the right word. He looked around him. He’d seen some sumptuous décor in his life, but this was going a stage and a half further. The ornamentation of the place was beyond belief. It was like a cathedral built in the name of music.

He sighed. So here he was. Venice. His first opera. Leigh was an old hand here-half the audience were here especially to see her. The Queen of the Night was the big diva role. The media were all over her, and all over her new husband by extension.

He’d got used to being a very private man, and his first encounters with the hordes of journalists and paparazzi had been a bit disquieting. He might have been a little surly with them. Especially the overinsistent camera hound he’d threatened to ditch in the Grand Canal.

This was all something he’d have to adjust to. He wondered if he’d ever get to like opera. Maybe one day. For now, all he wanted was to see her on the stage. He’d never heard her sing live. He couldn’t wait to see her in her element.

Down below, the orchestra was tuning up and the audience was animated, the theatre filled with the hum of chatter. Ben sprawled in his seat and drank it all in. It was a heady feeling. He could begin to understand the appeal for the performers who devoted their lives to this moment.

Then the conversation began to die down and the audience started applauding loudly. The conductor was coming up through the orchestra pit. He was a tall man in a black tuxedo, white tie, a thick mane of black hair swept up from his high forehead. His expression was severe, focused. He bowed to the stage, turned and bowed to the audience and the musicians, then took to the podium. Dead silence fell over the theatre for a moment before the overture began.

A huge orchestral chord sounded, the instruments all coming in together. Then a pause for four beats, and another two big chords. Another pause, followed by two more stabs. It was the composer’s way of grabbing the audience’s attention by force, and it worked perfectly. The theatre was suddenly filled with sound as the whole orchestra chimed into the main theme.

The overture over, the audience applauded again and the house lights dimmed. This was it. The heavy curtains glided apart across the stage, and Ben settled back.

The set was breathtaking. It was a wilderness strewn with ruined buildings, broken-down temples, bushes and huge rocks. It looked completely real and the lighting effects were as good as any movie he’d ever seen. He could see the Masonic influence in the Egyptian look of the ruins, a pyramid in the background. He stifled the memories they brought up. That was all over now.

A man emerged from stage left and ran across the set, chased by a giant snake, then stumbled and lay still at the foot of the giant pyramid. While he was unconscious, three women in strange costumes came out and killed the snake with silver spears. Ben watched. It all seemed very odd to him. He was taken aback by the volume of the singing. No microphones. He checked the libretto on his knee and tried to follow the storyline, but quickly lost the thread. He wasn’t that interested. He only wanted to see Leigh, and she wouldn’t appear until some way into the first act.

Until then, he drifted and let the spectacle wash over him. It was huge and impressive and fantastically staged, but it didn’t captivate him.

However, the Queen of the Night’s entrance did, completely.

She was wearing a long silvery-black robe and a wild crown, both covered in glittering stars. He could feel the impact she had on the audience the moment she stepped out onto the set. The lights followed her centre-stage. She looked totally at ease, in command of the whole theatre. Someone threw a red rose from a box across the opposite side. It sailed over the orchestra pit and landed on the stage.

Then she started to sing. The power and depth of her voice blew him away. He watched her. It was hard to believe it was the Leigh he knew. It was as if the music wasn’t coming from her, it was coming through her from some other source. She filled the room with an awesome kind of beauty he’d never experienced before.

So this was what it was about. Now he suddenly knew who Leigh really was, what she lived for. It was something you had to understand. Nobody could explain it to you, and if you couldn’t feel it you were soulless, dead inside. It gave him goose pimples.

Her aria was over far too quickly. He was left stunned by it. There were cries of ‘Bravo!’ as she exited. More flowers landed on the stage. Another scene started.

Ben knew from the libretto that she wouldn’t be on again for a while. He had plenty of time to get down to the bar and grab himself a drink before her next appearance. He quietly left his box and started down the red-carpeted passageway.

That was about the same moment that the latecomer wandered into the lobby. He looked around him. He avoided the ticket office. That wasn’t what he was here for. He kept his head low and walked fast. He aimed for a side door. The sign read PRIVATE. He pushed through it and walked on.