Chord of Evil

by Sarah Rayne

  People were looking round the room, as if trying to see if there might be a back door they could get through before the Schutzstaffel got inside.

  ‘Of course I’m going to open the door,’ said Christa’s father. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, and no one here has done anything wrong, either.’ But his eyes flickered with something that could have been fear.

  The unknown man suddenly said, ‘Herr Klein, should your daughter perhaps leave us for a little while? While we deal with this.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Christa, go up and stay with Stefan, will you? Don’t wake him if you can help it. And don’t worry – you’re quite safe.’

  Christa went out obediently, but instead of going up to Stefan’s bedroom, she sat on the bottom stair, leaning forward, her arms hugging her knees. It was dark on the stairway and it was a bit uncomfortable to sit there, but she could see most of the room through the narrow gap in the door, and she could hear what was being said. If the Schutzstaffel really did come storming into the house she would run upstairs and barricade herself into Stefan’s room. Perhaps it would not be the Schutzstaffel, though.

  But it was, of course. When Father opened it, they were there. Four men. Tall, grim-faced, authoritative in their sharp dark uniforms, the black breeches folded neatly into the tops of the leather boots and the black swastika emblem vivid on the red armbands. The cold night air swirled around them like indigo-coloured smoke.

  Whatever Father felt, he did not appear to be afraid. He said, in an ordinary voice, ‘Yes?’

  ‘You are Felix Klein?’

  ‘Yes.’ Although Father’s back was turned on the room, Christa saw the rigidity of his shoulders.

  ‘You have a concert planned, we understand, for next February. It has come to our attention that you intend to play the music of a composer whose work is banned.’

  Father did not speak, but one of the musicians said, almost involuntarily, ‘Mendelssohn,’ and the Schutzstaffel man seemed almost to snatch the name.

  ‘Yes, Mendelssohn,’ he said. ‘A forbidden composer.’

  Father said, ‘The concert is on the anniversary of Mendelssohn’s birth. The third of February. We’re honouring him, and playing his music in his memory.’

  The man stepped forward, and the light from the streetlamp fell across his face. There was a curious moment – a moment when Father’s whole manner changed. It was as if he had suddenly been faced with something he had never expected to see.

  The officer said, ‘The Third Reich does not permit that composer’s works to be played at all. This is an order not to include that piece in the programme, Herr Klein. You are to play something else.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  Herr Eisler and one or two others caught their breath in dismay and also in surprise, because Felix Klein was the mildest of men, and the very last person to defy the Third Reich like this. Christa dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands, because there was only so far you could push the Schutzstaffel.

  Then the officer said, very softly, ‘Herr Klein, you know the powers we have.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know,’ said Father, but so softly Christa only just heard the words.

  ‘You have a good memory,’ said the officer. He stepped closer, and the light from the room fell across his face. Skewer eyes, thought Christa, shivering. Cold and hard, like bits of steel.

  ‘People have been locked up for smaller transgressions,’ said the man. ‘But you know that also, of course, Herr Klein.’

  He waited, but when Father did not speak, the man said, ‘For your safety, you should heed this warning.’ He clicked his heels slightly, and then he and the other men were marching back across the square.

  Father came slowly back into the room. Inevitably, it was Herr Eisler who said, ‘Well, Felix? It’d be monstrous to give in to that command, but—’

  ‘But the SS are monstrous,’ said somebody.

  ‘That officer was wearing a death’s head ring,’ put in someone else, sounding a bit nervous. ‘Totenkopfring. Did you see it? Horrible thing. But Himmler only hands those out to his distinguished officers, so whoever he was, that officer, he was very high up.’

  Father said, almost to himself. ‘Yes, he is very high up.’ He seemed about to say more, but then he frowned, and sat down.

  ‘You could easily substitute something for the Mendelssohn, couldn’t you?’ That was the stranger. Christa leaned forward to hear better. ‘What about Beethoven? You’d be perfectly safe there. Hitler likes Beethoven.’

  ‘Hitler likes Wagner as well, but if you think we can stage the Ride of the Valkyries in that hall and with our small orchestra—’

  ‘Beethoven’s a good idea, though,’ put in a man who was a violinist. ‘We could do one of his violin concertos,’ he added, hopefully. ‘Well, we could do the Romances, at least. We all know them, and the length would fit.’

  ‘Personally, I’d favour one of Haydn’s cello concertos,’ said a cellist.

  ‘But why have they banned Mendelssohn?’ demanded the violinist. ‘There’s no logic to that. Didn’t Mendelssohn practise Christianity for most of his life?’

  ‘It wouldn’t matter if he practised satanism or tupped entire flocks of sheep,’ said Herr Eisler. ‘Mendelssohn’s grandfather was a famous Jewish philosopher and scholar. And songs from his great oratorio, Elijah, are sung in Ashkenazi synagogues every Saturday. He’s regarded by the Nazis as a thoroughbred Jew.’

  ‘And Hitler is terrified of Jews,’ murmured the cellist.

  ‘They tore down Mendelssohn’s statue from outside the Leipzig Gewandhaus,’ put in the violinist. ‘And used it for scrap metal. I heard about it from someone who watched it happen.’

  From his seat at the piano, Eisler said, ‘We’re gradually being isolated. Everything we do or create – work, music, books – is being suppressed and destroyed. And let’s not forget the ghettoes they’ve set up for people like us in Poland and in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.’

  Christa knew that by ‘people like us’ Herr Eisler meant people who were Jewish. It was not often that any of Father’s friends said it, but they all knew it was becoming dangerous to be Jewish.

  There was an uncomfortable silence, then Father looked round the room. ‘If I include Mendelssohn, will any of you abandon me?’ he said.

  ‘No, of course not—’

  ‘How could you think it—’

  The stranger leaned forward. ‘I think we don’t need to be especially worried, Herr Klein,’ he said. ‘You’re a group of musicians, planning a concert. You’re not a subversive organization plotting against the Führer’s life, or a nest of assassins.’ The stranger smiled as if the idea was absurd, and some of the tension went from the room. ‘It was a show of authority, nothing more. They’ll be going around the whole square – all the shops and houses. All the streets leading off. They do that quite often. They take a section of the town in turn, and make their presence known to all the residents. It’s to make sure people toe the line.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I listen. I take note. But it’s all right,’ he said, with a sudden smile. ‘I’m on the side of the angels.’

  Father nodded, but there was still a slight frown on his face. Then he said, ‘I refuse to recognize any ban that outlaws music. Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony will be the centrepiece of our concert.’

  Later, in the small flurry surrounding the leave-takings, the stranger took Christa’s father aside. Christa, who had come back into the room to clear away the glasses and plates, heard him say, ‘Herr Klein, you’ve made the right decision about the Mendelssohn symphony. I’m very glad.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was a brave decision, though.’ He looked thoughtfully round the room, and his eyes met Christa’s. Lowering his voice, he said, ‘Will your daughter be at the concert?’

  ‘Yes, certainly. She always helps me on concert nights. Her mother always did so, too,’ said Father, and Christa heard the catch in his voice that wa
s always there when he spoke of her mother. ‘Why?’

  ‘No particular reason,’ said the stranger, but his voice was suddenly warm and pleased.

  Taking the glasses out to the kitchen, Christa realized she was smiling. She almost forgot about the Schutzstaffel in wondering what she would wear for the concert.

  TWENTY

  Phin fell in love with Lindschoen at first sight. He thought it was the kind of place where, if you went along a particular street and took a particular turning, you might find you had fallen into its medieval past. He was entranced by the cobbled squares and stone buildings with their windows criss-crossed with lead, and the lime trees that threw their soft outlines across the old stones.

  ‘Linden,’ said Toby, when Phin pointed these out. ‘Aren’t there folk songs about the lime trees here?’

  ‘Schubert,’ said Phin. ‘Der Lindenbaum.’

  ‘See?’ said Toby, grinning. ‘I don’t only know rude rugby songs.’

  Most of all, Phin liked the thought that the mysterious Giselle had lived here. Silke’s letter had confirmed that, which meant Giselle must have walked along these streets, and looked into the shop windows, and stopped to talk to people in the little squares. How about Christa? Had his villainess or spy-heroine also walked these streets?

  They had booked into a hotel a few miles from Lindschoen itself – Phin thought it was the German equivalent of a Travelodge, and, as Toby said, it was perfectly acceptable as their base. There was a coffee place on the ground floor and a fast-food shop, and there were tea- and coffee-making facilities in each room.

  Before leaving London, Phin had wondered, a bit guiltily, whether he might find himself regretting having Toby with him, but he had not. Toby was so genuinely interested in everything; he clearly regarded the expedition as a kind of quest, midway between a Boys’ Own adventure and a James Bond romp, and Phin thought he could not have had a better companion. The memory of the redhaired Canadian editor flipped rather annoyingly through his mind. She would certainly have jumped at the chance to join him on this trip – always providing her crowded schedule would have allowed it – and she would have been efficient and knowledgeable. It was disloyal to think she might have been just very slightly patronizing about a small set-up like the Lindschoen Orchestra, and also to think that she might have been a tad dominating, wanting Phin to explore avenues he instinctively knew were dead ends, and taking charge of the travel arrangements.

  What was even more disloyal – in fact it was wildly absurd – was the thought that Arabella Tallis would have been exactly right as a companion; she would have bounced delightedly through the cobbled streets, eagerly discussing what they should do next, laughing if they got lost, wanting to celebrate if they found a useful clue. Phin dismissed these speculations, because Arabella would have been maddening and distracting, and he was not going to think about her again.

  The day before they left for the airport, he looked at the Siegreich music for a very long time. He still felt its darkness strongly, and if the legend could be believed, this was music that had been created out of pain and fear – it had been forged in the grim darkness of World War Two at the command of the Nazis. But its composer – whoever that composer had been – did not deserve to have his work destroyed eighty-odd years later. Phin was by no means sure he wanted to actually hear the Siegreich played; what he did think was that he owed it to that long-ago composer as well as to Stefan Cain, who was the music’s apparent owner, to make sure it was preserved.

  Rather than risk damaging it in a photocopier or a scanner, he took several very careful photos of each page, which he uploaded on to his computer and printed. That dealt with, he swathed the original in several layers of bubble wrap, enclosed them in a large, padded envelope, and took it to his bank, with a request that it be stowed in a safety deposit box. He had never used this service, which he vaguely associated with jewel thieves stashing away filched diamonds, or espionage plots involving stolen government papers, or the plans for a new atomic warhead, but the procedure turned out to be simple and the bank’s charge was modest.

  ‘What about Christa?’ demanded Toby, when Phin reported having done all this. ‘I don’t think we should leave her at Greymarsh, do you? Stefan’s going to be transferred to that convalescent home for a week or so, which means the house will be empty. We’re looking after the music for him – at least, your bank is – but there’s still the portrait, and in view of the fact that somebody’s already tried to break in to Greymarsh—’

  ‘We can’t leave Christa at Greymarsh,’ said Phin. ‘Could we leave her at my flat?’

  ‘That ought to be safe enough. There’s the security keypad on the street door. Oh, and you could ask The Pringle to look in every morning. Say it’s to check your post. She isn’t very likely to do it for me, but I bet she’d do it for you like a shot. She thinks you’re a very nice gentleman – she told me so – and she can’t imagine why you haven’t been snapped up by some attractive girl years ago.’ He sent Phin the mischievous grin. ‘I didn’t tell her about your redhead,’ he said. ‘Or about Arabella.’

  ‘I wish you’d remember that I’ve never met Arabella, and that Arabella’s only met me by looking through the window of your flat,’ said Phin.

  ‘It’s the stuff of romance,’ said Toby, promptly. ‘Instant love through a glass darkly.’

  ‘It’s the stuff of nonsense,’ said Phin, but he agreed that enlisting Miss Pringle was a good idea.

  Miss Pringle expressed herself as delighted to help Mr Fox in any way she could, and was charmed to think her services were required for checking his post.

  ‘And I’ll nip up in the evening as well, shall I, and switch on a few lights and draw the curtains. You can’t be too careful, and if you’re both going to be away at the same time … You must take some photographs of your jaunt and let me see them when you get back.’

  As Toby said later, it was clear that Miss Pringle was visualizing, with fascination, the two of them yomping across Europe in a kind of modern version of the Grand Tour that Regency bucks had once taken.

  ‘You’ll have to take some photos for her; in fact you could even keep a diary like those colourful Victorian travellers did, and let her read it when we get back. By the way, I’m bringing my notes about our bawdy songs collection. I’ll bet there’re a few good ballads to be found in Germany.’

  Christa’s safety ensured, the Siegreich’s security dealt with, and Toby’s travelling entertainment provided for, Phin booked flights to Berlin and arranged for the hire of the smallest and most inexpensive car that could be found at the other end. He did not dare check his bank balance to see how well it was standing up to this unexpected fiscal strain.

  Phin had said, and Toby had agreed, that the first thing to find in Lindschoen had to be the place mentioned in Silke’s letter.

  ‘The house in the square that had a beautiful and appropriate name, and old lamps on the door.’

  ‘It’s probably a Lidl supermarket now.’

  ‘It’s a starting point, though.’

  They spent the first day wandering around the various streets, but they did not find any buildings that seemed to fit Silke’s description.

  ‘Never say die, we’re only at the start,’ said Toby, as they stopped for lunch at a Konditorei smelling deliciously of fresh coffee and pastries. Over a wedge of plum cake, he said, ‘Supposing we’re approaching this from the wrong angle. Is there a library or something where we could find out about local concert halls? Because we want to find the orchestra as well, don’t we?’

  Phin managed to ask their waitress if there was a local library where they could get lists of old buildings, and was pleased that she understood him sufficiently to direct them not to a library exactly, for Lindschoen had no Bibliothek, sad to say. But there was a Buchgeschäft – a shop that dealt in reference books and also music, and had many papers of the past. That would be helpful, perhaps?

  ‘Very helpful. Thank you very much,’ said
Phin, writing down the waitress’s directions. ‘Vielen dank.’

  The waitress indicated that she would be interested to hear how their research progressed. They offered coffee and very nice pastries in the afternoon, and there would shortly be a delivery of Spritzkuchen. They would come back for those and tell her how their search was progressing?

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Phin, who could not remember the German word for this.

  In that case, the waitress would make sure to keep some of the Spritzkuchen. It would be very good if they returned. It was difficult to know if this suggestion was directed at Phin or at Toby, or at them both equally.

  ‘It was directed at you,’ said Toby. ‘I think you’ve clicked there.’

  Phin said he was not in a mood to be clicking with anyone at the moment, not with the Siegreich and the orchestra taking up all his time and mental energy.

  ‘We might go back for Spritzkuchen, anyway; in fact it would be rude not to,’ said Toby, hopefully. ‘What is Spritzkuchen?’

  ‘Deep-fried doughnuts, I think. Is that glint in your eye for the waitress or the doughnuts?’

  ‘The doughnuts sound good,’ said Toby, ‘but the waitress was very nice, too. And we ought to have at least one romantic anecdote to take back to Miss Pringle.’

  ‘We could go back after we’ve been to the bookshop,’ said Phin.

  ‘We could couldn’t we? We’ll probably need reviving, anyway.’

  ‘We’ll probably need more than doughnuts,’ said Phin. ‘I shouldn’t think the Buchgeschäft will provide any leads.’

  But it did. And it stood in an old square with traces of old cobblestones, and old-fashioned lamps.

  ‘And look at the sign,’ said Phin, pointing. ‘Kerzenlicht Square. Candlelight Square. If that doesn’t square with what Silke said in her letter about old-fashioned lamps, and a beautiful and appropriate name— I’ll bet those streetlamps are pre-electricity, and maybe even pre-gaslight.’

  ‘Let’s go in.’

  Phin was aware of a curious mix of anticipation and apprehension. Was this really the house Silke remembered as the magical, lamplit place of her childhood? Giselle’s house, he thought. And if Silke’s letter can be trusted, Giselle was murdered by Christa.