Orchestrated Death

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Hmm?’ she enquired gently, her eyes still closed.

  ‘Hmm,’ he replied, running his hands over her shoulders and sides. She uncurled like a flower, and he seemed to flow into her effortlessly. This time they took time over it, seeking out pleasure softly, kissing and touching a great deal, and it was unbelievably good, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He was happy and amazed.

  ‘I love you,’ he said afterwards, and then got up on his elbows and looked at her to see her reaction.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s a little early to be saying that?’ she asked, amused.

  ‘Is it? I don’t know. I’ve nothing to compare it with. I’ve never done this before, you know.’

  ‘In that case, I’m very flattered.’

  ‘I wish I’d met you years ago,’ he said, as people will at such a moment.

  ‘You wouldn’t have liked me,’ she said consolingly.

  ‘Of course I would. You must have –’ The green, luminous read-out of her bedside clock-radio caught his eye. He turned his head slightly and went cold with shock. ‘Christ, it’s twenty to seven!’

  ‘Is it?’ She didn’t seem perturbed by the news.

  ‘It can’t be! We can’t have slept the whole night through!’

  ‘Not so much of a whole night,’ she murmured, and then, seeing he really was upset, ‘What’s the matter?’ But he was off her, rolling to the side of the bed, swinging his legs out, groping on the floor for clothes. She knew what was wrong, and her mouth turned down sourly.

  ‘Christ,’ he was muttering, ‘that’s done it. What the hell do I do now? Jesus.’

  She propped herself up to look at him. ‘You can’t go home now,’ she said reasonably. ‘You’ve been out all night, and that’s that. Come back to bed for a bit. Seven o’clock is early enough to start making excuses.’

  But it was no good: the world had rolled onto him like a stone. All the clean simplicity had been delusion, his omnipotence had fled. There was going to be a row at home, and he was going to have to think of lies to tell. Probably Irene would not believe him, and he was going to feel bad about it whether she did or she didn’t.

  ‘Christ,’ he muttered. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Take it easy,’ she said protestingly.

  He shook his head, hunching his shoulders away from her. ‘I’ll have to make some phone calls,’ he said miserably. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She looked at him a moment longer, and then got quietly out of bed on the other side, and drew a cotton wrap over her glowing nakedness. ‘Phone’s beside you. I’ll go and make some tea.’

  She padded away, and he understood that she didn’t want to hear him lying, and that was nearly the worst thing of all. He reached for the phone.

  Atherton was a long time answering. ‘I was in the shower. What’s tip? You’re up early.’

  ‘Actually, I haven’t been to bed yet.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not my own bed. I’ve been out all night.’

  There was a short and horrible silence. Then, ‘I’m not hearing straight. Please tell me you don’t mean what I think you mean.’

  Slider could tell from his tone of voice that he really didn’t think that’s what it was, and the knowledge depressed him even further.

  ‘I’ve been with Joanna Marshall. I’m at her place now.’

  Another, slightly worse silence. ‘Christ, guv, you don’t mean –’

  ‘I took her out for supper last night, and then –’ No possible way of ending that sentence. Slider grew irritable with guilt. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, I don’t have to draw you pictures, do I? You can use your imagination. You’ve done it yourself often enough.’

  ‘Yes, but I –’

  ‘The thing is, I’ve got to tell Irene something. Can I tell her I was with you?’

  ‘Oh great.’ Atherton’s voice hardened. ‘She’ll love me after that.’

  ‘I don’t think she likes you much anyway. It can’t make any difference. Please. I’ll ring her up and say we were working late at your house, and we had a few drinks, and it got too late to come home.’

  ‘Why didn’t you phone her from my place?’

  ‘Oh God – it got too late, I thought she’d have gone to bed and I didn’t want to wake her.’

  ‘Jesus, is that the best you can do?’

  ‘What the hell else can I say? Come on, for God’s sake, back me up.’

  ‘All right,’ Atherton said shortly. ‘But I don’t like it. It’s not like you, either. What’s got into you?’

  ‘Every dog has its day,’ Slider said weakly.

  ‘I mean, messing around with a witness –’

  ‘She’s not a material witness. For God’s sake, what does it matter? It’s going to be bad enough facing Irene – don’t you give me a hard time as well.’

  ‘All right, all right, don’t bite me! I’ll say whatever you want. I’m just worried for you, that’s all.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Take it easy.’ The concern was naked in his voice. ‘You going to phone Irene now? You going home?’

  The idea made Slider shudder. ‘I think it’s best not to. I’ll go down and talk to the next of kin – the aunt in the Cotswolds. Will you do the paperwork for me? You got my messages last night?’

  ‘Yeah. Okay. I’ll get old Mother Gostyn in this morning, and check out John Brown. And I thought I’d take the violin down to Sotheby’s.’

  ‘Good. And you might see if you can get hold of Anne-Marie’s ex-boyfriend, this Simon Thompson type.’

  ‘Okay. Will I see you later?’

  ‘Depends what comes up. I’ll phone you, anyway.’

  ‘Right.’ A pause. ‘Are you taking her with you?’

  The idea flooded Slider’s brain with its bright originality. ‘Well, I – yes, I thought I might.’

  He heard Atherton sigh. ‘Well – be careful, won’t you, guv?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said stiffly, and put the phone down. Joanna came in with a mug of tea.

  ‘Finished?’

  ‘That was Atherton, my sergeant. He said he’ll – back me up. You know.’

  ‘Oh.’ She turned her head away.

  ‘But now I’ve got to –’

  ‘I’ll go and run my bath,’ she said abruptly and left him again, her face expressionless. And that was the easy part, he thought, dialling his own number.

  Irene picked it up at the second ring. ‘Bill?’

  ‘Hullo. Did I wake you up?’

  ‘Where are you? What’s happened? I’ve been worried sick!’

  ‘I’ve been with Atherton, at his flat. Didn’t Nicholls phone you?’

  ‘He phoned yesterday evening to say you’d be late, that’s all. He didn’t say you wouldn’t be home at all. How late can you be, interviewing witnesses? What were they, night workers?’

  Her anger was at least easier to deal with than hurt or worry. He felt guiltily grateful.

  ‘They were musicians and they were giving a concert and we had to wait until they’d finished. Then Atherton and I went over some of the statements. We had a couple of drinks and – well, I didn’t think I’d better drive.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you phone? I didn’t know what had happened to you. You might have been dead.’

  ‘Oh, darling – it got late, and we hadn’t noticed the time. I thought you’d have gone to bed. I didn’t want to wake you up –’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep. How do you think I could sleep, not knowing where you were? I don’t care what time it was, you should have phoned!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to disturb you. I’ll know another time,’ Slider said unhappily.

  ‘You’re a selfish bastard, you know that? Anything might have happened to you, with your job. I just sit at home wondering if I’m ever going to see you again, if some madman hasn’t gone for you with a knife –’

  ‘They’d have got in touch with you if anything had happened to me.’

  ‘Don’t joke
about it, you bastard!’ He said nothing. After a moment she went on in a lower voice, ‘I know what it was – you and that bloody Atherton got drunk, didn’t you?’

  ‘We just had a couple of scotches –’ He tried not to let the relief show in his voice as the danger disappeared up a side track. Let her go on thinking that was it!

  ‘Don’t tell me! I hate that man – he’s always trying to set you against me. I know how you two go on when you’re together – telling smutty stories and giggling like stupid little boys. You don’t realise how he’s holding you back. If it wasn’t for him, you’d have been promoted long ago.’

  ‘Oh come on, darling –’

  ‘Don’t darling me,’ she said, but he could hear that the heat was going out of her voice. The new, sharp-edged grievance had been put aside for the old, dulled one. ‘You should be a chief inspector by now – everyone knows that. Your precious bloody Atherton knows that. He’s jealous of you – that’s why he tries to hold you back.’

  Slider ignored that. He made his voice as sensible and man-to-man as he could. ‘Look, darling, I’m sorry you were worried, and I promise I’ll phone if it ever happens again. But I’ll have to go now – I’ve got a hell of a lot to do today.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming home to change?’

  ‘I’ll make do as I am. The shirt I’ve got on isn’t too bad, and I’ll get a shave at the station.’

  The domestic details seemed to soothe her. ‘I suppose it’s no use asking you what time you’ll be home tonight?’

  ‘I’ll try not to be late, but I can’t promise. You know what it’s like.’

  ‘Yes, I know what it’s like,’ she said ironically, but she had accepted it. She had accepted it all. The boat had righted itself again. He rang off, and found himself sweating, despite the cold air of January.

  He felt rather sick. So this was what it was like. He thought of the thousands of men there must be to whom such lying and dissembling were part of normal, everyday life, and wondered how they ever got used to it. And yet he had just coped, hadn’t he? Coped well. Lied like an expert, and got away with it, and felt relief when she’d swallowed it. Self-disgust reached its peak. Perhaps all men were born with the ability, he thought. Well, he knew what they knew now.

  The peak passed. He listened and heard water splashing somewhere, and thought of Joanna, and at once the distress of the phone calls dropped off him cleanly, leaving no mark. He thought of making love to her, and heat ran under his skin. We can spend the whole day together, if she’s not working. Oh pray she’s not working! A whole day with her –!

  That was the other half of it, wasn’t it? And it was the fact that they could exist in complete isolation from each other that made the whole thing possible. What absolute shits we are, he thought, but it was without any real conviction. Oh pray she’s not working today! And that she’s got a razor in her bathroom with a half-way decent blade. He got up and padded in the direction of the splashing.

  The man from Sotheby’s, Andrew Watson, apart from being tall, slim, blond, and impeccably suited, was also possessed of that unmistakably upper-class beauty that stems from generations of protein diet and modern sanitation. It gave him the air of possessing youth and wisdom in equal, incompatible proportions. Actually, he couldn’t possibly be as young as he looked, and be as senior as he was. Atherton’s upbringing in Weybridge and his grammar-school education were weighing heavily on him. He felt, by comparison, as huge and ungainly as a behemoth. He saw himself looming dangerously over the other man as if he might crush him underfoot like a butterfly. And Andrew Watson’s aftershave was so expensively subtle that for some time Atherton put it down to imagination.

  All that apart, however, he was quite endearingly excited by the violin, the more endearingly because Atherton guessed he wanted to display only a calm, professional interest. After a long and careful examination, prolonged conference with a colleague, and reference to a book as thick as an eighteenth-century Bible, Watson seemed prepared to go over every inch of the fiddle again with a magnifying glass, and Atherton stirred restively. He had other things to do. And he wanted to be around when Mrs Gostyn was brought in. There had been no reply from her telephone that morning, so Atherton had arranged for one of the uniformed men to go round and fetch her.

  At last Watson came back to him. ‘May I ask where you obtained this instrument, sir?’

  ‘You may ask, but I’m not at liberty to tell you,’ Atherton replied. It was catching, that sort of thing. ‘Is it, in fact, a Stradivarius?’

  ‘It is indeed, and a valuable one – a very valuable one. My colleague agrees with me that this is a piece made by Antonio Stradivari in Cremona in 1707, which has always been known by the name of La Donna – The Lady,’ he translated kindly. Atherton nodded gravely.

  ‘There is, as you see, a particular grain to the wood forming the back of the instrument, which is very unusual and distinctive,’ Watson went on, turning it over to demonstrate. Atherton looked, saw nothing very distinguishable, and nodded again. Watson resumed. ‘The piece was very well known, and its history is well documented right up to the Second World War, when it disappeared, as so many treasures did, during the Nazi occupation of Italy. Since then there’s been a great deal of speculation as to its fate, naturally. It would be of great interest –’ his voice took on an urgency ‘– not just to me personally, but to the world, to know how it has come to light again.’

  Atherton shook his head. ‘If I could tell you, I would. You’re quite sure this is the genuine thing?’

  ‘Oh, quite! There are many features which make it unique. For instance, if you look at the scroll, here –’

  ‘I’m happy to take your word for it,’ Atherton said hastily.

  Watson looked hurt. ‘You can, of course, ask for a second opinion. I could recommend –’

  ‘I’m sure that isn’t necessary,’ Atherton smiled politely, trying not to overshadow him with his colossal, Viking bulk. ‘Can you give me an estimate of its value?’

  ‘With a piece of this importance, it’s always hard to say. It would depend entirely on who was at the auction, and there are often great surprises when rarities like this come to be sold. Prices can go far beyond expectations. But if you were to ask me to place it at auction for you, I should recommend that you put it in with a reserve price of at least seven or eight hundred thousand.’

  ‘Pounds?’

  ‘Oh yes. We don’t deal in guineas any more.’ Watson regained his composure as Atherton lost his. ‘You must understand that this is a very rare and important instrument. And it’s in beautiful condition, I’m glad to say.’ He ran a hand over it with the affection of a true connoisseur, and then raised his speedwell eyes to Atherton’s face. ‘In fact it could easily fetch over a million. If you ever do come to sell it, I should feel privileged to handle the sale for you. And if you ever feel able to divulge its history, I should be extremely grateful.’ Atherton said nothing, and Watson sighed and placed the violin gently in its case. ‘It’s a shock to see such a beautiful instrument lying in this horrible case – and with these horrible bows. I hope no-one ever tried to play it with one of them.’

  Atherton was interested. ‘You think the bows – incongruous?’ He chose the word with care.

  ‘I can’t believe any true musician would ever touch this violin with either of them,’ Watson said with simple faith.

  ‘I didn’t know there were good bows and bad ones.’

  ‘Oh yes. And good bows are becoming quite an investment these days. I’m not as well up on them as I ought to be, I’m afraid – they’re a study in themselves. If you wanted to know about bows, you should go and see Mr Saloman of Vincey’s – Vincey’s the antiquarian’s, a few doors down in Bond Street. Mr Saloman is probably the leading authority in the country on bows. I’m sure he’d love to see this violin, too.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Watson,’ Atherton said, restraining the urge to press his hand lovingly, and took his massive bulk and the Stradivarius
out of Mr Watson’s life.

  First he went to find a phone and call the station. Mackay answered from the CID room to say that there was still no reply from Mrs Gostyn’s telephone or door. Atherton felt a stirring of anxiety.

  ‘Tell them to keep trying, will you? An old bird like her can’t have gone far. She’s bound to be back some time soon. I’ll ring in from time to time and see if you’ve got her.’

  He was then free to keep his appointment with John Brown, the Orchestra’s personnel manager – a rosy, chubby man in his forties, with the flat and hostile eyes of the ageing homosexual. He received Atherton impassively, but with a faint air of affront, like a cat at the vet’s, as of one on whom life heaps ever more undeserved burdens.

  ‘She hadn’t long been with us. She came from the Birmingham,’ he said, as though thus dissociating himself from the business.

  ‘Where in Birmingham?’ Atherton asked ingenuously.

  Brown looked scornful. ‘It’s an orchestra – the Birmingham Municipal Orchestra. She’d been there about three years. They could tell you more about her personal life than I could,’ he added with a sniff.

  ‘Had she any particular friends in the Orchestra?’

  Brown shrugged. ‘She hung around with Joanna Marshall and her lot, but then they shared a desk, so what would you expect? Most of them stay with their own sections in coffee-breaks and so on. I don’t think she was particularly chummy with anyone. Not the chummy sort. Out of hours, I couldn’t tell you what she got up to.’

  ‘Did she drink a lot? Take drugs – pot or anything like that? Was she ever in any kind of trouble?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Brown said, turning his head away.

  ‘You didn’t like her, did you?’ Atherton asked, woman to woman.

  ‘I neither liked her nor disliked her,’ Brown said with dignity, refusing the overture. ‘She was a good player, and no less reliable than the rest of them. That was the only way in which her personality could interest me in the slightest. I’m not paid to like them, you know.’