Orchestrated Death

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Perfectly. What did she say?’

  ‘I thought for a minute she wasn’t going to tell me. I thought she’d tell me to mind my own business. But then she sort of laughed and said olive oil.’

  ‘Olive oil?’ Slider was perplexed. Little wheels were whirring and clicking, but the patterns were making no sense.

  ‘Olive oil, two tins, that’s what she said. Well, she was nuts on cooking, I knew that. She said it was a special sort you couldn’t get in England, and her cousin Mario got it for her to take back.’ He shrugged, distancing himself from the whole mess.

  ‘You say she laughed,’ Slider said. ‘Did she seem happy? Excited?’

  ‘It wasn’t that sort of laugh,’ Thompson said doubtfully. ‘More sort of – as if she was having a secret laugh at me. She wanted to get shot of me, anyway, that was for sure because I said I was going to get some lunch and asked her to come with me, and she said she was going back to the hotel and shot off like a scalded cat.’

  ‘When did you see her next?’

  ‘In the hotel room when I went back to get my fiddle for the seating rehearsal that evening. She was already there in the room when I arrived.’

  ‘Did you see the bag again?’

  ‘Yes, it was there on the end of her bed. I asked her, actually, if her cousin had given it to her, because it seemed rather a nice sort of thing just to be giving away. She didn’t answer right off – looked a bit shifty, you know, as if she was wondering what to say – then she said he’d only lent it to her and that he’d be collecting it from the hall that evening. I’d have followed it up, but she jumped up and said she wasn’t waiting for the Orchestra coach, that she wanted some fresh air so she was going to walk to the hall. And she just went. I think she wanted to get away from me, in case I asked her any more questions.’

  ‘She took the bag with her?’

  ‘Yes, and her fiddle case.’

  ‘So you never got to see inside the bag?’

  ‘No. She had it with her in the rehearsal, under her chair, but she must have passed it to this Mario when rehearsal finished, because she didn’t have it later. But I’ve a fair idea what was in it, all the same, and it wasn’t olive oil.’ He looked at Slider expectantly.

  ‘Not olive oil?’ said Slider obediently.

  ‘No. I’m pretty sure it was another fiddle, and a valuable one at that.’

  Slider jumped, though he showed nothing more than interest on the outside. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because I was sitting behind her in the seating rehearsal and at the conceit, and the fiddle she was playing at the concert wasn’t the same one that she was playing during rehearsal’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive. I knew her usual fiddle, because the varnish was very dark and there was a tiny bit of beading broken off just by the chin-rest which showed up very pale against the dark varnish. But the one she had in the concert was much lighter and when she rested it on her knee I saw it had an unusual sort of grain on the back. But most of all, it sounded different – much, much better. I’d say it was a very valuable one. It might have been a Strad or an Amati or something, in which case it would be worth a fortune.’

  ‘You weren’t able to get a closer look at it, I suppose?’

  ‘No, but I’ll tell you what – she was very close with it during the interval. She never put it down for a moment – she put it back in the case, and then stood holding the case, even while she had a cup of coffee. Now I’ve never seen her do that before. I’ve never seen anyone do that.’

  ‘So you think she collected a valuable violin from this cousin Mario in order to smuggle it to England, swapped it with her own violin, and passed that to him in the carpet bag sometime between the rehearsal and the concert?’

  ‘That’s what I think. That night back at the hotel, when she was in the bathroom, I tried to get a look at it, but her fiddle case was locked and obviously I couldn’t break it open. That was another thing that convinced me, because she didn’t usually lock her case.’

  ‘But surely,’ Slider said slowly, ‘someone would have noticed that she wasn’t playing her usual instrument.’

  Thompson looked puzzled. ‘Well they did – I did. I noticed.’

  ‘What about her desk partner? Surely she would have noticed straight away?’

  Thompson looked disconcerted, and then frowned, evidently upset at having his theory overturned. Then his brow cleared and he looked excited, for a moment almost boyish. ‘I remember now – Joanna wasn’t at the concert! That’s right! She and Anne-Marie went for something to eat after the rehearsal, and Joanna came down with Montezuma’s Revenge, and couldn’t play the concert. Screaming diarrhoea. Normally we would all just have moved up one, but there was already an odd desk at the back because Pete Norris had broken his finger in Naples, so they just put Hilary Tonks up beside Anne-Marie, and of course she wouldn’t know what Anne-Marie normally played.’

  But Anne-Marie couldn’t have relied on Joanna’s being put out of action. Unless she slipped her something during their meal. But was that likely? Slider could hear Atherton’s voice saying, these are deep waters, Watson.

  ‘How easy would it be to smuggle a violin? What happens to them on the plane?’

  ‘The other instruments go in the baskets, which are loaded in the hold, but usually fiddle players carry their violins with them on the plane, for safety. The instruments get listed on a cartel for the customs, but no-one ever checks them, except to see there’s the right number. I mean, if you went out with one and came back with two, someone might notice, but not otherwise.’

  ‘Did Anne-Marie carry hers onto the plane with her on the way home?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I think so. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Not sure?’

  He looked apologetic. ‘It’s like an extra arm, you see. You expect a fiddle player to be carrying a fiddle, so you don’t really notice. I can’t be sure, but I think she did.’

  Slider nodded, thinking. ‘Did you ever tell Anne-Marie what you suspected?’

  ‘No. I thought it was none of my business. In any case, if she’d managed to smuggle a Strad in, good luck to her. We’d all like one.’ He frowned again. ‘But actually, I never saw her play it in England. If she did smuggle one in, I suppose she must have sold it.’

  ‘So it wasn’t over that that you quarrelled?’

  ‘Quarrelled? Oh –’ Surprisingly, he blushed. ‘No – that was – but it wasn’t my fault. There was never meant to be anything between us after the tour – she knew that. Lots of people did it. And at first it was all right. She behaved just as usual. And then suddenly she seemed to change, started hanging round me, trying to get me to go for drinks with her and that sort of thing. She even tried to get her position changed so she could sit next to me. I told her I was happy with my girlfriend and told her to stop pissing me off. And then she turned nasty, and threatened to tell my girlfriend, and said that I’d led her on and promised to marry her and stuff like that.’

  ‘And had you?’

  ‘No!’ His indignation sounded genuine. ‘I don’t know why she said that. I think she must have been going off her trolley. I never said anything about marrying her. You must believe me.’ Slider’s face was neutral. ‘Helen does,’ he added pathetically.

  ‘You told people that she was the person making anonymous phone calls to players’ wives, I believe?’

  He turned a dull red. ‘Well – yes – I suppose so. I was angry – I wanted to get back at her for trying to make trouble. I thought it might stop her.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘Well, something did. She left me alone, anyway.’

  ‘Did it make trouble for her in the Orchestra?’

  He shrugged. ‘If you mean that business with John Brown, he didn’t like her anyway. He doesn’t like women in orchestras.’

  ‘Tell me about the day she died. You must have seen her at the Television Centre?’

  ‘Of course. But she hadn
’t given me any trouble since Christmas. I still tried to avoid her, though, just in case.’

  ‘How did she seem to you?’

  ‘Seem to me?’

  ‘Was she happy, sad, frightened, worried?’

  ‘Nothing really. She was quiet. Didn’t speak much to anyone. That’s how she usually was. I didn’t notice anything different.’

  ‘You’d arranged to go for a drink afterwards?’

  ‘With Phil Redcliffe, yes, but during the second session he told me that Joanna and Anne-Marie were coming too. I think he felt sorry for Anne-Marie. I didn’t argue with him, but when we finished I went to Joanna and told her that if Anne-Marie was coming, I wasn’t going, and she sort of shrugged and said it was up to me – you know the way she is. She’s never got any time for people’s feelings. So I didn’t go.’

  ‘You went where instead?’

  ‘I went home. Well, I went and had a drink first …’ He slowed nervously. ‘I had a drink at a pub near home –’

  ‘You may as well tell me the truth,’ Slider said kindly. ‘We know you didn’t go to Steptoes that evening. We know that you did go to St Thomas’s. We know that you had someone in your car that night, and that someone wasn’t Miss Morris.’ Thompson paled sentence by sentence, and Slider added the last one almost tenderly. ‘Someone with long, dark hair – hair about the same length and colour as Anne-Marie Austen’s. We found some of her hairs on your car upholstery, you see.’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Thompson whispered. For a moment Slider thought he was going to be sick, or faint. ‘I know what you’re thinking. I know what Sergeant Atherton thinks, but I swear –’

  ‘Tell me what you did when you left the Television Centre.’

  He swallowed a few times, and then said, ‘I did go to the hospital.’

  ‘Yes, I know. What for?’

  ‘I went to meet someone. One of the nurses. Not Helen. She’s – it’s someone I’ve been seeing a bit recently. Helen doesn’t know, you see. She wouldn’t understand.’

  I bet she wouldn’t, Slider thought. ‘All right, give me her name and address, and we’ll check it out. I suppose she’ll be able to confirm that she was with you – until when?’

  ‘After midnight,’ Thompson said quickly. Slider wondered why he picked on that hour. ‘We went back to my flat and had a drink and – and, well, I drove her home in the early hours. I don’t know exactly when, but it was certainly after midnight.’

  ‘Her name and address.’

  He licked his lips. ‘I can’t. I can’t tell you. She’s married, you see. Her husband – she said she was doing overtime because they were short-staffed. If he found out –’

  ‘Mr Thompson, don’t you realise that this young lady, whoever she is, is your alibi? I promise you that we’ll be as discreet as possible when we interview her, but you must give me her name.’ Thompson shook his head unhappily. ‘You realise that if you refuse, we’re bound to wonder about your story? There are certain pieces of evidence which suggest –’

  ‘Oh Christ, you still think I killed her! I swear I didn’t! Why should I? She was nothing to me!’ Slider said nothing, and Thompson dropped his gaze, concentrating on pushing his beer mug round and round by the handle. ‘Look,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll speak to her. Ask her what she thinks. If she says it’s all right, I’ll ring you. Or get her to ring you.’ He looked up desperately. ‘It’s the best I can do. I can’t give her away, just to save myself.’

  Well, there’s a turn up, Slider thought. Chivalry from this little shit. Of course, it was possible that he wanted time to speak to the nurse in order to coordinate stories, but Slider didn’t think so. Whatever Atherton thought, Slider didn’t believe that Thompson was the murderer.

  They left the pub together. Outside Slider said, ‘Have you got transport, or can I give you a lift somewhere?’

  ‘My car’s over there.’ He gestured towards the Alfa Spyder parked on the corner. ‘How did you find the hairs in it? Or was that a trick?’ he asked suddenly.

  Slider shook his head. ‘That day when you came in to the station to make a statement, we took it round the back and went over it.’

  ‘Are you allowed to do that?’ Thompson demanded with a little return of vitality.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Slider said gently. Thompson sagged again, and turned away to trail miserably over to his car. Slider watched him go, but his attention was not all for Thompson. Some sixth sense was nagging at him, pulling him towards the alley on the other side of the pub. Something had moved there in the shadows. He walked slowly back, making a bit of business with straightening his raincoat belt, so that he could glance down the alley under his raised arm.

  There was nothing. And yet something had disturbed him. It was an animal sense of danger that policemen develop, an instinct about being watched: a sort of subliminal awareness of more incoming stimuli than can be accounted for. He walked back to his car, more certain than ever that the tree up which Atherton was barking contained only a mare’s nest full of red herrings.

  O’Flaherty looked up. ‘Did you get him?’

  ‘Yes. Did you ring Irene?’

  ‘I did. I told her you’d not be home till late.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said nothing.’ He regarded his friend massively, mournfully. ‘I’m askin’ you to be careful, darlin’. Now that’s all. I’m asking you that, for this isn’t a bit like you.’

  Slider tried to smile, and found it a surprising effort. ‘What a lot of interest you and Atherton are taking in my welfare these days. I can’t meet either of you without getting spoonfuls of advice.’

  ‘It’s because we love you,’ O’Flaherty said with a con man’s sincerity.

  ‘It’s because you’ve nothing better to think about.’

  ‘Well, sure, you could be right. And how was your Thompson type?’

  ‘Scared stiff. And look, Pat, there was something else. When I came out of the pub, I had that old, old feeling. Someone was watching us.’

  O’Flaherty’s face pricked up as visibly as a dog’s ears. ‘Ah, Jaysus, I knew there was something else! Did you get sight of him?’

  ‘I saw nothing. Why?’

  ‘There was a feller hanging round the station when I came in tonight, and there was something about him that rang a bell, but I just couldn’t place him in me memory.’

  ‘What sort of man?’

  ‘Professional lounger. Little runt of a man like a bookie’s tout. A real little shit, you know, and Billy, I may be bad at names, but I never forget faeces. I seen him before on the watch, but for the life of me I can’t pin him down.’

  ‘I see. Well, I’ll be careful. Keep trying to think where you’ve seen him before, and if you see him again, grab him.’

  ‘I will. Sure and he may be nothin’ to do with it at all, but –’

  ‘Yes, but,’ Slider agreed, and went to his room to write his report. When he had finished he sat for a while with his face in his hands, rubbing and rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands in a way which would make an oculist feel faint. His neck ached and he felt tired and depressed, and he wondered if he were sickening for a cold, and knew he wasn’t really. It was just his mind trying to escape from things it didn’t want to face up to.

  Like going home. He tried to think seriously about going home, and found himself instead remembering Joanna sitting up on her knees, naked in the firelight. He wished he could have drawn her as she was just then. He imagined himself a great artist, and Joanna his famous model/mistress. He saw an attic room in Paris, plain white walls bathed in sunshine, Joanna lounging naked on a crimson velvet divan. Then he changed the studio into a self-catering studio flat in a holiday apartment block in Crete. A fortnight’s holiday with Joanna after this case was cleared up – to recuperate because he’d had a breakdown through working too hard. And what would Freddie Cameron say about a man who ran away from reality as hard as that?

  He smiled at himself and reached for the phone. A man mus
t face reality, deal with his responsibilities, perform his duties, without sparing himself.

  He dialled the number, and Joanna answered at the first ring.

  ‘Were you crouched over it?’

  ‘It was beside me. Are you all right? Do you want to come over?’

  ‘It’s late. It isn’t really fair to put upon you like that.’

  ‘Oh nuts. Who do you think you’re talking to?’

  ‘I need you,’ he said with difficulty.

  ‘I need you too.’ As easy as that. ‘Will you stop wasting time?’

  He drove by a roundabout route, checking frequently in his rear-view mirror, and when he got to Turnham Green he parked around the corner from Joanna’s and walked the rest, eyes and ears stretched, passing her door and pausing beyond the streetlamp to test the air. Nothing. He returned to her house and knocked softly on the door and she let him in at once and said nothing until she had closed the door behind him.

  ‘What was all that about? What were you doing?’

  ‘Making sure I wasn’t being followed.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Are you in danger? Or is Irene on to you already?’

  He didn’t answer. He took her in his arms and buried his face in her hair and then her beck, revelling in the feeling and the smell and the accessible warmth of her. ‘That last evening in Florence,’ he said, muffled. ‘You didn’t tell me you went for a meal with Anne-Marie.’

  ‘There was nothing unusual in that. We often ate together.’

  ‘Tell me about it. Where did you go?’

  She pulled her face back from him, considering. ‘Actually, I’d already eaten before the rehearsal, but she said she was hungry and wanted me to come with her, for the company. I didn’t mind – you have to do something. We went to a restaurant nearby –’

  ‘Who chose it? You or her?’

  ‘She did. I wasn’t eating – I just watched while she ate.’

  ‘You didn’t have anything at all? Nothing to eat or drink?’

  ‘Well, she tried to persuade me to have a glass of wine to keep her company, but I don’t like to drink before a concert. So I had a cup of coffee.’