The Tooth Tattoo

17

After Diamond had said his piece and left, Ivan stated in a few trenchant words that he wanted to get straight back to work on the Beethoven without any more being said about the Japanese woman. Nobody objected. A surge of energy in the second part of the rehearsal reflected the tension among the quartet. They played Opus 59, No. 3 from the beginning. This time when they reached the fugue they attacked it with a pulsating tempo that almost did justice to Beethoven’s impossible metronome mark. The intensity of the task galvanised them all, yet the bowing was crisp and always under control. It was as if they were resolving their own anger through the playing — anger at Diamond, the police and the suspicion hanging over them.

‘I think we’re in shape,’ Cat said after they lifted bows from strings and sat back.

‘It was a better rendition, without question,’ Ivan said in a rare expression of satisfaction. ‘And this new viola of Mel’s has a richness in tone that I, for one, welcome.’

‘You should,’ Cat said. ‘We all should. That’s a Cremona fiddle if ever I heard one. ‘Fess up, Mel. Where did you nick it from?’

Mel had a powerful urge to put the precious instrument out of sight in its case. He had a lingering disquiet about the way it had come into his possession. ‘It’s an Amati, from 1625.’

‘Then it must be the work of the last and greatest of the family, Nicolò Amati,’ Ivan said. ‘About that time there was a famine and plague that killed every other violin maker in the city. May I?’ He held out both hands.

The request to handle the antique viola was understandable. For Mel, the act of passing it across was a wrench. A mother with her newborn child couldn’t have felt more protective. Of course it would be safe in the hands of another musician, he told himself. If you can’t trust the members of your own quartet, you shouldn’t be one of them.

He steeled himself and placed the Amati in Ivan’s hands.

Ivan turned it over and stroked the maple surface, tracing the grain with his fingertips. ‘Exquisite. A thing of wood, hair and gut that can touch the soul and lift the spirit.’ One-handed, he raised it by the neck. ‘Nice weight.’ He tucked it under his chin. ‘Good length.’

‘Watch out, boys,’ Cat said. ‘Our first violin is about to change into a violist.’

Mel decided he had better explain how he came to possess such a treasure. ‘I was approached by a collector who wants it played.’

‘Nothing unusual in that,’ Ivan said. ‘It would be difficult to name a soloist who didn’t at some stage play with an instrument loaned to him.’

‘Or her,’ Cat said.

‘He made me promise not to reveal his name.’

‘The super-rich have their reasons, which is why they stay super-rich. Don’t be so anxious, Mel,’ Cat added. ‘You look like the stick insect who found himself in the middle of a rave-up.’

‘I can’t help it,’ Mel said. ‘Some years back, when I was starting out as a professional musician, taking any work that came my way, I was mugged outside the Royal Festival Hall and had my viola snatched. They were clever. A girl looking like a student, pretty, East Asian, asked me for my autograph. I had my fiddle in its case under my arm and while I was distracted by this girl some guy on a bike pulled the thing from me and rode off with it. I gave chase all the way down to the river and I thought at first he’d slung it in, but there was a speedboat nearby and they may have collected it and got clean away. I never saw my viola again and I’ve never forgotten the feeling of loss.’

‘You’re afraid of someone stealing this?’

He nodded. ‘My old fiddle had sentimental value and I was deeply affected, but as a responsibility it doesn’t compare with this.’

‘A salutary tale,’ Cat said, ‘but you’re safe with us, kiddo.’

Ivan was still holding the Amati. ‘I can’t resist.’ He picked up his bow and played the C string from heel to point, pianissimo, long and slow.

‘You’ve kissed goodbye to it now,’ Cat told Mel. ‘Is anyone else going to get a try? Anthony is practically wetting himself.’

In the end, they all took a turn at handling the Amati, although no one else played on it. Mel was deeply relieved when Cat handed back the object of so much admiration, if not envy. He stowed it in its case. This should have been the cue to leave, but there was unfinished business.

‘So what are we to make of that policeman?’ Cat said before they left their seats.

‘Nothing,’ Ivan said at once. ‘We make nothing of him. He’s a distraction. He has his job to do and we have ours. The fact that the unfortunate young woman was an admirer of ours is a trivial coincidence. Life is full of chance events.’

‘I doubt if Detective Diamond sees it that way, O Wise One,’ Cat said. ‘He struck me as a man without much faith in chance events. We had enough hassle from the Polizei when Harry disappeared. I think we’d better brace ourselves for more. Did he rough you up, sweetie?’ she said to Anthony.

‘No.’

‘Offered you plastic surgery and a safe house in Outer Mongolia?’

‘No.’

‘Then how did he wear you down?

‘Kept asking questions.’

‘Well, he’s a smart guy if he got an answer. I’ve known you six or seven years and most times I can’t get two words out of you.’

‘Will you listen to me?’ Ivan said. ‘We’re musicians and we have a performance tomorrow night. The last thing we need is to get involved in speculation about a death in suspicious circumstances.’

‘Too late,’ Cat said. ‘The big detective means to rub our noses in it.’

‘He’ll go away if we ignore him.’

Then Anthony announced, ‘He said he’ll be at the concert tomorrow.’

There was a shocked silence. Ivan chewed at his thumbnail.

‘See what I mean?’ Cat said. ‘Don’t kid yourself he’s coming to listen to Beethoven. He’ll have a pair of handcuffs in his pocket.’

‘We’ve done nothing wrong,’ Mel said.

No one spoke.

‘Have we?’ Mel broke the silence, looking at each of the others.

‘You wish,’ Cat said finally with a peal of laughter. ‘Don’t all speak at once. Now let’s organise our taxis.’

Mel was to share with Ivan and both taxis were slow in coming. Cat climbed into the first with her cello, assisted by Anthony. Before it drove off, she called out of the window, ‘We’re hearing over the intercom that your cab went to the tip instead of the Tippett. He’s stuck in the garden waste queue. Could be another hour.’ Their taxi zoomed away.

‘That woman doesn’t amuse me,’ Ivan said. ‘Never has.’

‘Was she making it up?’

‘Of course she was. Three-quarters of what she tells you is made up. Ours won’t be far behind.’

Mel had spotted a stationary black saloon car parked at the edge of the approach road. Someone was in the driver’s seat. ‘Could that be it?’

‘Where?’

He pointed.

Ivan sniffed. ‘It looks to me like a private car. Probably waiting for some student.’

‘I might go and ask. Stupid if he’s waiting there and we’re standing here only thirty yards away.’

‘As you wish,’ Ivan said. ‘I’ve never known them to park there.’

With his cased viola gripped to his chest, Mel strode towards the parked vehicle. True, he couldn’t see any writing on the side or any sign that it was licensed. Sometimes it was difficult to tell.

He hadn’t gone ten yards when the driver started up, made a screaming U-turn that must have left rubber on the tarmac, and drove off at speed, just missing a student on a bike.

Shaking his head, Mel returned to Ivan’s side. ‘What was that about?’

For once, Ivan had no answer.

‘Bloody dangerous,’ Mel said. ‘Someone could have got killed.’

‘Yes,’ Ivan said. He’d turned pale.

Their transport arrived soon after, a recognisable cab with a Bath Spa Taxis emblem on the roof.

Most of the journey was in silence. The reckless driving of the car seemed to have affected Ivan. Mel tried saying something about the venue for the soirée and got one-word answers. It was like being with Anthony. ‘See you at Corsham tomorrow, then,’ he said when the taxi stopped outside his lodgings. ‘Early as usual to get ready?’

‘Yes,’ Ivan said.

Inside the house, Mel closed the front door as quietly as he could, crept upstairs, let himself into his room and slid the precious Amati viola under the bed. Later, he would practise scales, still getting the measure of this marvellous new outlet for his talent. For now, playtime of a different sort was overdue. He stripped to the waist, washed at the hand-basin in the corner, refreshed the deodorant and the aftershave, put on a fresh shirt and checked his hair in the mirror. Then he reached to the back of his sock drawer for two miniatures of gin and a small can of tonic and left his room to cross the passage to Tippi’s bedroom. She liked her G&T and Mel liked the result. It took the edge off her sarcasm and made her even more randy.

He didn’t knock. They had an understanding. He opened the door and said, ‘Better late than never, huh?’

‘Late for what?’ said a voice he didn’t expect.

Tippi’s mother, with a crocodile smile, was sitting on the bed.

A better man might have thought of some clever excuse. Mel sighed and said, ‘Fair cop.’

This was no bad response, as it turned out, because it avoided an elaborate lie and had a sense of contrition. Mrs. Carlyle must have been expecting some tall story she could lay into. Instead she was thrown off course. Rather than attacking Mel, she started to account for her own behaviour, explaining what she was doing in her daughter’s room. ‘I came up here to put away some of her washing. She leaves it for days on the clothes-rack in the kitchen if I don’t, and she may not mind you seeing her frillies, but I’m old-fashioned enough to think it isn’t quite the thing.’

Mel nodded as if he approved every word.

Mrs. Carlyle said, ‘Is that gin and tonic you’re holding, Mel?’

‘Would you like some?’ he said, pleased to find anything to say that wouldn’t land him deeper in trouble.

‘I wouldn’t mind, but not here. We don’t want Tippi walking in and finding us.’

‘True.’

‘Heaven knows what she’d think mummy was up to. Bring it across to my room.’

Mel had alarming doubts of his own about what mummy was up to, but he’d offered the drink and he couldn’t easily refuse. ‘Is she about?’

‘Carry the booze across and I’ll tell you.’

He felt he had no option.

‘Last door on the left,’ Mrs. Carlyle said. ‘Don’t be surprised how bijou it is. When I took a lodger I switched rooms.’

He pushed open her bedroom door. Certainly it was small, and dominated by a double bed that was a nest of pink, with ruched satin along the headboard and sides. The walls, too, were pink, with a design of ribbon and roses.

‘Don’t stand on ceremony,’ Mrs. Carlyle said. ‘Make yourself comfortable on the bed. I don’t have room for a chair, as you see. I have to perch on the edge of the mattress when I’m using my dressing table.’

Uneasily he lowered himself into the softness of goose down and foam rubber. He was facing the window, which was mostly covered by pink velvet draped in two deep curves held by tiebacks. He couldn’t help thinking it was the shape of a pair of enormous buttocks.

‘There isn’t much choice over seating arrangements, is there?’ Mrs. Carlyle said. She took her place beside him and they both sank a few inches deeper. ‘Yours is the master bedroom, which is right and proper for a masterful man.’

‘I wouldn’t say I’m masterful.’

‘We’ll find out presently. I’m ready for that snifter now,’

He felt the warmth of her hip against his. In this new predicament he’d almost forgotten he was still holding the miniatures. ‘Do you have a glass?’

‘Not here. Let’s be depraved and drink the gin straight from the bottle and chase it with the tonic.’

‘All right.’ He handed her one of the gins.

She unscrewed it and tipped the contents straight down her throat.

He handed her the tonic and she took a gulp of that.

‘Nice,’ she said. ‘Next time, we can do it properly with my Waterford glasses and ice and lemon, but you made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Seize the moment, I say. Do you believe in seizing the moment?’

‘I like a drink, if that’s what you mean.’

‘How old are you, Mel, if you don’t mind me asking? And don’t say old enough to sit on a lady’s bed and sink gin. That’s self-evident.’

‘Twenty-nine.’

‘Are you sure? Not an itsy-witsy bit over thirty?’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘You just appear more mature than that. Far be it from me to complain. The reason I asked is that I was lying here on the bed a couple of nights ago thinking about you — in a totally innocent way, I must add — and it struck me that you must be quite a bit older than Tippi.’

‘Tippi?’ Mel said as if he hadn’t heard of her. ‘I’ve no idea. How old is she?’

‘Eighteen last August twentieth. Not quite a Virgo.’

Mel couldn’t follow that, so he looked steadily ahead.

‘And I had her when I was twenty-one, so I’m thirty-nine, only ten years older than you. Do you realise what that means?’

‘Not really.’

‘You’re closer in age to me than you are to Tippi.’

‘Is that a fact?’ he said with all the enthusiasm of a man told that a pit-bull terrier wanted stroking.

‘And I was reading in the Daily Mail that it’s become very fashionable for men to be attracted to women older than they are. It’s all about sophistication and experience, on the part of the women, I must add. I’m not saying men aren’t sophisticated and experienced about certain things we won’t go into — not after only one G&T — but when a knowledgeable woman takes the initiative it enriches the man’s enjoyment, and I can understand why.’

Was this a try for more gin? It could be a way of escape if he could leave the room and find some reason not to return. A sudden emergency? A blackout? A coronary?

‘The shame of it is that there’s this wealth of experience in my generation that men aren’t aware of,’ Mrs. Carlyle continued while Mel was weighing the options. ‘They get distracted by young things who know nothing at all. Surface impressions are so misleading, Mel. A pretty face with a figure to match and they think that’s all there is in life. What fools they are. And the biggest fools are the old fools, middle-aged men who chase after girls scarcely out of school.’

Mel wouldn’t mind betting Tippi had left school two years ago, at sixteen, the earliest possible opportunity. She wasn’t the brightest. But he’d got an opening here. He could take a strong line and get out of this unscathed. ‘Are you talking about me, Mrs. Carlyle?’

‘Cyn,’ she said.

‘I don’t follow you,’ he said, already undermined.

‘My first name is Cynthia, but I prefer Cyn if we’re getting on closer terms, and you don’t need to state the obvious. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times.’

‘Well... Cyn... I didn’t like the drift of what you were saying. I’m not a middle aged predator.’

‘Lord love us, Mel, it wasn’t you I was talking about. It was the man who parks his car across the street and sits there waiting for her.’

Another surprise. She was full of them. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Don’t ask me. I don’t know anything about him except he’s no spring chicken. Anyone can see that.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Quite good-looking, dark-haired going grey at the sides. I’ve been watching him through the binoculars I use when I’m watching the birds on my feeders. He’s forty if he’s a day.’

‘When did he first appear?’

‘A couple of days ago.’

‘Is he there now?’ Mel started to get up.

Mrs. Carlyle grabbed his arm and pulled him down again. ‘He’ll see you. It’s better to look through the lace curtains downstairs.’

‘Shall we go down, then?’

‘He won’t be there now. Tippi went out for a manicure and he’ll know that. He’s probably parked outside the shop.’

‘Are you sure it’s Tippi he’s interested in?’

She giggled a little. ‘What are you suggesting, Mel — that I’m the star attraction?’

This wasn’t what Mel was thinking. It was far more likely some crook had got a sniff of the Amati. ‘As the man of the house, I’d better go downstairs and check. Where do you keep your binoculars?’

‘They’ll be where I left them, on the sill in the front room. I’ll come with you.’

‘No need.’

‘I insist.’

Any excuse to be out of here, he thought — and the man in the street interested him as well. He took the stairs fast, with Cyn Carlyle not far behind. He grabbed the binoculars. ‘Which direction?’

‘A little to your right if he’s still there. Oh, I say. That’s him, our stalker.’

Mel adjusted the focus and felt his blood run cold. He was looking at a black car, a Megane, and he was pretty sure it was the same car that had raced out of the forecourt of the Michael Tippett Centre.

There was definitely someone in the driver’s seat, but in shadow.

‘I think it’s me he’s tailing,’ he said, handing the binoculars to Mrs. Carlyle. ‘I’ve seen him before. I’m going out to have a word with him. Shut the door after me.’

‘Is that wise?’ she said.

Mel was already though the door and crossing the street. He headed straight for the car at a fast step, but the driver was faster. Two massive roars from the engine and the vehicle was in motion.

Mel was about to cross in front of it, to the driver’s side. When the car powered away from the kerb, he jerked to a stop and took a step back. Even so, it caught his right leg below the knee, tipped him off balance and threw him onto the road. It was a good thing he wasn’t any closer or he would have ended up dead. As it was, his left hand and arm took most of his weight. His shoulder crunched against the tarmac and his head followed.

The driver must have known he’d caused an accident, but he didn’t stop. Mel watched the car race to the far end of the street and over the crossroads without a flicker of the brake-lights.

Crazy. It had to be the same fool who’d been at the Tippett Centre. The pity of it was that Mel still hadn’t got a sighting of him.

Shaken and angry, he heaved himself into a sitting position. His hand was smarting. There was grazing from the smallest finger to the heel of his palm. Blood was starting to ooze from the flesh. And this was the hand he used for fingering. He didn’t think anything was broken, but it could so easily have been. He got to his feet, checked that nothing else was coming up the street, and returned to the house.

The door was opened by Mrs. Carlyle. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Just about.’

‘You’re not. You’re bleeding.’

He looked at the hand again. ‘It’s not serious. I’d better run some water over it.’

‘That was masterful,’ she said.

‘Idiotic, in my opinion.’

‘You, not him,’ she said. ‘He could have killed you. He wasn’t going to stop. It’s a disgrace. I’ll call the police right away.’

‘Don’t do that. I don’t want all the hassle.’

‘I think I should.’

‘It’s more trouble than it’s worth. I didn’t get the number. Didn’t even get a proper look at the driver.’

‘He shouldn’t get away with it, whoever he is.’

‘Can I use the tap in the kitchen?’

She followed him along the passage and ran the water for him. ‘Look at your hand, you poor dear. Is it painful?’

‘It’s numb. It just needs cleaning.’

‘I’ll get some paper tissue. I was so impressed by you, Mel, dashing out there to deal with the stalker. He panicked at the sight of you bearing down on him.’

‘Did you get a look at him?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘My eyes were on you alone. You’re shaking.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘I’m all of a quiver myself. What we both need is a socking great G&T. Shall we go to the master bedroom and see if the master has any more supplies?’

‘My legs wouldn’t carry me up there,’ Mel said. ‘Right now all I want is a strong black coffee.’