by Alexie Aaron
Angie moaned, “Someone has been in here.”
“When was the last time you checked on this building?” I asked.
“I swept the floors the morning before you arrived.”
“So the intruder was here the day or night you were shot.”
“He would need more than a torch to see what he was looking for. He would have to use the electric lights, and we would have seen them from the farmhouse. He must have been here during the day.”
“But why would he shoot you if he already got what he came after?” Noelle asked.
“Maybe he thinks Angie is still a threat,” Paz said interrupting her present occupation of rifling through each file drawer. “Nothing is missing here, papers in files, all looks orderly. Oh wait. Look at this space.”
Noelle walked over and looked. “Angie what were in these files?”
Angie walked over. She looked in the open drawer and pulled out a file here and there before answering. “They’re just some copies of manuscripts that were left behind by some of the students. My father sometimes kept copies to work on. He collaborated with quite a few students, though he never took credit. Most of them gave him credit anyway. They are kept by year. See on the wall the pictures. Each is of the students that attended each summer. And see in here the dates correspond to the pictures. The names of the students are here on the manuscripts.”
Paz and Noelle worked back and forth. Paz crawled up on the cabinets and read off the dates and names and Noelle looked in the files.
“Cin, there’s an Aaron Copland in the first picture.”
“Really, do you think it really is Copland?”
I crawled up to see a young thin man arm and arm with some other students.
“I’m not an expert, but I heard he may have been here. Noelle, what’s in the file under his name?”
“Copland, Aaron – American – presently studying in France. There isn’t any music, but there is a note. It says," Noelle mumbled some unintelligible words. She threw up her hands complaining, "Man, the writing is wretched.”
Angie walked over and looked at the paper.
“It’s my mother’s writing.”. Squinting she read, “Writing final copy. Anna.”
“What does that mean?” Paz asked.
“My mother rewrote the scores for some of the students. In those days they were hand done. She passed her skill on to me. I wonder why it didn’t get filed?”
Angie looked weak. I pulled a chair in from the other room for her to sit on. She sunk down in the chair. I was just about to ask the girls to stop so I could get Angie to the house and to bed when Noelle called out.
“They’re all here.”
“But there is a picture missing,” Paz pointed out.
“Angie, do you know what picture is missing?” I asked gently.
“Noelle dear, are there any years skipped?”
“No.”
“What is the date of the first year?”
“Nineteen twenty.”
“Then it’s the last year. The last year is missing. My Michael is missing,” Angie said as all the life in her seem to drain out. “The last class is where I met the love of my life, Michael. He and his brother came here together. I fell in love with Michael. He was older and Father would have had a fit if he knew. Bobby knew and so did the other chaps, but we kept it from Father.”
“What happened to Michael?” I asked quietly.
“He died in the war. Maurice, his brother, came and told me. After that I didn’t want to live. My parents had to put me in a hospital. I came out of it alright, but I never wanted to have anything to do with music after that.”
“I’m sorry, Angie. I hate to press, but do you know who else was here that summer with Michael and Maurice?”
She thought a moment. Wrinkling her brow she said, “I remember that redheaded American, Donald something, and well the rest is a blur. Bobby would know. Ask Bobby.”
“Donald Williams?”
“Yes, I think so. Ask Bobby.” Angie got up. “Do you think we need to call the Chief Superintendent about the break in?”
“We do need to tell him, but let us work a little while and see if we can sort out what else has been taken. First, though, I’d better take you to the house. Your color doesn’t look too good.”
“Must be the dust. Thank you. I don’t think the girls are in danger, do you?”
“I think he got what he was looking for. I’m more concerned about you being alone. I want one of us to be with you at all times. Girls, let’s go back to the house and get organized.”
Noelle got to her feet and rescued Paz whose arm was stuck in a file drawer.
“Hey Noelle, I guess all of this disproves that old joke”
“What joke?”
“The one about what happens to a composer’s work after he dies? It decomposes.”
Noelle mouthed a very funny to Paz.
“I find all this a bit too creepy at the moment,” I confided. Angie nodded as we left the room. I think it was safe to say that each of us searched every corner with a wary eye as we walked out of there.
~
Angie put in a call to the Chief Superintendent. He said he would be by after lunch. We calculated the hours and figured we would wait until after tea before calling Bobby in Florida. I fixed her a cup of tea, and the girls went up to their room to bring down the computer equipment.
“So many years ago,” I heard Angie say.
I stuck my head in the living room. “Did you say something?”
“I’m sorry, dear, I was thinking aloud. So many years ago it was. I was just in my teens when Michael walked into this house. He weren’t a tall lad, but he was handsome. I didn’t talk to him. I didn’t dare. My mother and my father agreed the male students should be kept from me. Musicians had reputations even in those days. Plus these were older boys. I sometimes helped them copy their handwritten scores. I would go to the performance building where I had a box for them to put the music they wanted me to copy. And when I was finished I would put it in the box beside it so they could pick up the manuscripts. My father thought this was a very efficient way for me to spend my summer without too much contact with the lads. This is how I first talked to Michael. His manuscript was in the box, and the notes he had written were beautiful. I didn’t know why he wanted me to put my hand to it. Then, I saw he had written something between the instrumentation. In between the cello and the bass violin lines he wrote. ‘Hello, you are beautiful as the morning.’
“I first thought these words were lyrics, but they didn’t go with the music. I clipped a note to the music asking if he wanted the lyrics included in the manuscript and put it in the box. The next day his manuscript was back in my box. A note clipped to the top said simply. ‘You are the flute, and I am the cello.’
“I looked down at the writing under the cello and sure enough there was the first message followed by: ‘My heart sings loudly, do you not hear?’ I followed the measures upward and wrote between the flute and oboe lines: ‘How can I hear above the beating of mine?’
“We communicated like this for days before he asked for a meeting. I told him where and when and we met. His brown eyes melted me. I could barely stammer a reply to his greeting. So we just walked together. When we came to the Two-way river..."
"Two-way river?" I interrupted her.
"Amazing little river; it runs north sometimes and south the other times. It’s a short walk from here. I’ll have to show you it. It was there I broke my silence and told him my heart. He returned the favor.
“I continued to copy his manuscript and to meet him when I could. By the end of the summer he had promised to talk to my father at the university. We had planned to meet during the term, but the war broke out. I never saw him again.”
“That’s a beautiful and sad story. And now someone has stolen his manuscript.”
“I still have his original manuscript. If there was anything of Michael’s in there it would have been the copy I ma
de.” Angie got up and signaled me to follow her. We climbed the stairs, and she invited me into her bedroom. “I keep it in my hope chest.” She withdrew the key ring she kept on her and fumbled till she found a small key that fit into the chest at the foot of her bed. The hinges groaned as she opened it. She carefully pulled the contents out placing them on the floor beside her. She found Michael’s manuscript between her mother’s wedding dress and her father’s World War One uniform.
It was wrapped in waxed paper. I carefully opened it up. I looked for the notes and sure enough they hadn’t faded in time. I looked for his name, M. Sherborn. Then I looked at the music. I looked back at the name. The music. I sung out the tune. I knew that tune. Where? It wasn’t the one that lulled me to sleep. This was powerful. I just couldn’t place it.
“Did he publish this?”
“There wasn’t time.”
“Are you sure?”
Angie was sure.
I was quiet because I wasn’t certain, but down in my core I knew I had heard of M. Sherborn and this tune before. I knew if anyone knew this tune it would be Bobby. I entered the information into my mental notebook and closed the manuscript.
“Angie, I think we need to copy this. I’m also going to insist that you need to keep it somewhere, hidden, somewhere safe.”
“Why?”
“I can’t quite pull all of this together, but this manuscript may be what the intruder has been looking for.”
“Oh my.”
“Yes, oh my. But why?”
We looked at each other. Our silence created a warm blanket that tried to comfort us as we looked for the answers that had escaped our memory. Answers that were presently locked somewhere in time.
Chapter Ten
The manuscript was too large to run through the scanner, so with Noelle and Paz’s help I used the digital camera and painstakingly took a photo of each page. Running it to a local copy store wasn’t an option out here in Cornwall. Plus, I wanted to email it to Alex so he could get it printed and take a readable copy to Bobby Bathgate. Noelle set up the computer on the dining room table, and we worked right up to lunch loading the camera photos. Noelle downloaded the information to disk, and we made two copies.
The girls were going to Penzance and would stop in at the Internet café and email Alex from there. Hopefully he would get to Bobby before I called him the day after tomorrow. Paz was humming the tune off the first page, and I stopped her.
“I’m afraid if the wrong person hears that you may be in danger.”
“Then half of London is at death’s door.”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“The tune. It plays on the BBC all the time. Some news show or something. I know it, because they have used the same dry old thing since I was in nappies.”
“Well, that makes sense because I know I have heard it before. I just can’t pinpoint it.”
“I could ask one of me blokes to look it up,” Paz offered.
“Please. Let me know of any costs involved, and I will reimburse you.”
“Put your wallet away, Cin. Me blokes would do anything for me without charging for it.”
“Fine. Good, now please be careful.”
We talked about other subjects during lunch. It seemed to be a good time to ask Angie if she could tell me how to get to the address on the envelope that Brian’s wife had given me. She looked at the name and smiled.
“Mary Brown lives at the airport just over the hill west of here. Why would your friend send you to see Mary?”
“Friend isn’t quite right, more of an acquaintance from the community band I play in.”
“Mary is a nice enough sort, but there are rumors.”
“Rumors?” Noelle’s voice piped in.
“She may be a practicing pagan. A witch or a priestess.”
“Mom, you are not going to see a witch,” Noelle said simply.
“I said I would run this errand.”
“Honestly, when will you learn to say no.”
“Noelle, you’d realize how difficult that would’ve been if you knew the circumstances.”
“So spill it.”
“Dorothy Harrison is a woman in her fifties, and she’s married to Brian, a trumpet player in my band. Anyway, Brian, and perhaps Dorothy too, are members of a coven called Celtic Iron. She is very well off, and Brian, an obvious choice for gigolo of the century…Anyway, she asked me to buy a necklace from Mary. An old necklace that’s supposed to protect the wearer from harm. In her case, she’s hoping it will stop her from aging.”
The girls burst out in laughter. Angie couldn’t help but join in. I smiled weakly.
“Come on, it isn’t that I believe in the thing but Dorothy does. Oh hell, besides I never met a real witch before.”
“Well, if you want to go see this witch then go.”
“I don’t have to ask your permission.”
“I’ll tell Alex.”
“Noelle, honestly, who is the mom here?”
Angie and Paz watched the ping pong game that was our conversation with amusement.
“I’ll take you over after we speak to the Chief Superintendent. I’ve never met a witch before either.” Angie sniffed.
Our joint efforts once again made quick work out of washing the dishes. The girls headed out to Penzance, and Angie and I took a cup of tea out on the porch while we waited for the Chief Superintendent.
“This really is a beautiful place, Angie.”
“I know, but it’s too lonely for me. I had two friends from Sancreed I used to pass time with, but they are gone now.”
“Dead?”
“Heavens no, Florida. Not too far from Bobby. I would like to hang on to my flat in London and buy a place in Florida for the winter.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
“Here comes Robert now.” Angie got to her feet and waved at the Chief Superintendent as he got out of his car. Cayne wasn’t with him.
“Angie and Ms. Fin-Lathen. You both look better than the last time I saw you. Must be the air out here.” He took in a deep breath, his massive chest expanded, and as he exhaled his eyes danced. “So you had a break-in. Let’s go and see.”
Angie led him directly to the back building. We huffed a bit walking straight up that hill, but us over forty-somethings managed to keep up with her.
Robert, as I was directed to call the CSP, looked the file room over. He took a lot of time comparing the drawers and the wall where the picture was missing.
“Angie, I think you had two break-ins here. The missing files have been missing so long that dust has crept in and draped the back of this file drawer. I see where your daughter has moved things around, but I’m sure this last group of manuscripts has been missing for a long time.”
Before I could take in this information, he shifted his attention to the wall. “Now this happened the same time the other cabinets were pried open. Yesterday, or even last night. See the plaster chip is not weathered where the nail has been pried. Was it the same person that shot you? And was this the same person that clobbered you after the fire? I think so, but that’s just a guess on my part.”
I looked at the CSP and added, “I’m worried that since the attacks are just directed at Bobby and Angie that this person is trying to eliminate them. He or she thinks that they have locked in their memories some information that may be a problem for him if it comes to light. Somehow it may hurt or expose him? The question that we keep coming back to is why this is happening now.”
“Why indeed?” Robert stroked his chin.
Angie just shook her head. “I just can’t think of anything besides the estate person calling me.”
“Estate person?” Robert asked.
Angie recounted her story to Robert, and he asked for the estate person’s card. Angie left to find it, and Robert and I walked back. We took the less taxing yet longer route.
“Could this estate person be connected with the intruder?”
“Don’t know, but
I will find out. I don’t want Angie alone. If you can’t be here call Cayne or one of the Comstock men to come over. I just don’t like the feel of this. Nasty, very nasty. Now let’s talk happily, here comes Angie.”
I couldn’t help smiling at the CSP. He was from another time. He cared.
After he left, Angie told me to get my envelope and lock the door after me. We would be back to the farm before the girls, and if not they were young and could cool their heels on the porch. I grabbed my things while she drove the lorry up from the barn.
She gave me a quick tour of the area. It was a beautiful afternoon. I figured it was maybe sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit and the cloud-dotted sky was breathtaking. The clouds looked like puffy white ships sailing along the countryside. We took the A30 to Mary’s house, but Angie slowed down and showed me the gravel road that would be a quicker route if I wanted to return there by foot.
I hoped we would have some free days to wander around the countryside. I wanted to see Sancreed Holy Well where people had visions - maybe due to the high level of radiation, but still, visions they were.
Mary lived in a stone house at the edge of a grass strip runway in a cluster of three other homes. A clothesline full of children’s clothes made a colorful barrier between Mary’s house and the neighbors behind her. I wondered where the children were. Were they in school or playing hooky down by the beach that was just a whisper away?
Angie pulled her truck up alongside the road, and we walked across the yard together. As we approached I saw an open-air hanger that shaded a small plane just a few yards away from the house. I did a double take when I read the name painted on the outside of the plane: Broom. I pointed this out to Angie who just shook her head and continued walking towards the house.
“Blessed be, two travelers,” a woman’s voice greeted us from the open doorway. “Come on in. I have my hands full of bread dough at the moment.”
We walked into a narrow hallway that led into a brightly lit kitchen. A tall flame-red-haired woman stood kneading bread on a marble slab. “Pot’s on the burner if you want some tea.” She gestured with her head.