by A J Waines
‘You agreed to the concert even though you were totally out of practice?’
She grimaced. ‘To be honest, the request came as a very nasty shock, until Mr Hinds said there would be a fee of £850 each. That put a different slant on it, I can tell you. I’d have learnt to hula hoop in my birthday-suit for that!’
I laughed out loud and Rosie glowed with pride, tucking her hands under her thighs. She seemed emotionally stable, buoyant even, but I couldn’t let her get sidetracked with anecdotes.
‘Right,’ I said, changing tack. ‘Are you ready for some focused memory work?’
She rubbed her hands together. ‘Definitely!’
‘You told me about being in the back of the van with the instruments just before the crash, but what do you remember about earlier that day?’
She slowly guided her specs up her nose. ‘In the morning, we played an early Beethoven and hacked our way through the Elgar, but we had to give up. Richard kept getting lost and Stephanie couldn’t manage the high notes. It was too complex for just a couple of rehearsals and I was struggling to keep up. Max said we should swap it for some early Mozart, much easier – the first violin carries it, so he was in his element.’
‘Then what?’
‘Lunch was weird. Cameron Hinds had put on a big spread and his second wife, Ambrosia, was there and Karl, his son. Cameron was asking us each in turn what we’d done since that first concert fifteen years before. It was a bit embarrassing. We let Max take the floor – he was the only one with anything to boast about – I think the rest of us felt like losers. After he’d bored everyone with his tremendous triumphs, he reminded us all about an incident, two incidents actually, that had happened at that first party in 2001. They’d nearly spoilt everything.’
I picked up my pen.
‘I’d completely forgotten about them,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if they’re important or not, but I’ll tell you anyway.’ When she smiled her lashes brushed her plump cheeks.
‘When we were rehearsing in the drawing room, a bloke – we thought he must have been a friend of the family – turned up. He came in through the French windows and put his finger to his lips, then stood and listened for a while. We found out later from the police that his name was Mick Blain. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, when we’d finished. “I was outside and it sounded like a CD.” We were flattered, so we weren’t about to kick him out.
‘As we packed our gear away, he took an interest in our instruments. Max wouldn’t let him anywhere near his, but Mick said he’d never seen a viola before. I held it up for him so he could get a closer look. “I couldn’t have a little go on it, could I?” he said.
‘Normally, I’m very careful about anyone touching my viola, but Mick was so wide-eyed and fascinated that I let him. Max and Richard had disappeared by then as we only had about an hour to grab something to eat and get changed before the concert. Stephanie stayed in the room for a few minutes, dusting down her strings, then she left me to it.
‘Mick took the viola and started trying to play. He was hopeless, scraping the bow too high over the fingerboard and making a dreadful racket. I reached over to take it back and I’m not sure what happened next. He must have caught his foot on the edge of the rug and staggered forward, almost dropping the instrument. I reached out to make a grab for it and there was a loud crack. I thought at first someone had fired a pistol, it was so loud.’
I made a few notes, mindful however, that she seemed to have gone off on a remote tangent. She was in full flow by then and I didn’t want to cut her off.
‘I thought the neck had snapped, but it wasn’t as bad as that. As I held up the viola, there was a rattling sound inside and the strings had all loosened. “It’s okay,” he said, as if he knew what he was talking about. “Something’s come loose inside and that white bit on the top has fallen down. We can stick it back up again.”
‘I told him it wasn’t as simple as that. With only fifty minutes to go before the performance, I was in real trouble. I told him you needed a special prong to get that bit of wood that was rolling around inside back in place again.’ She did a little air-demonstration for me. ‘It’s a very tricky operation and I’d never done it before.’
She raised her eyebrows and gave a wry smile.
‘My first thought was that Max would know what to do. I laid the viola on a cushion and told Mick, in no uncertain terms, not to touch anything as I flew out of the room. Max was doing yoga in our changing area. I went barging in and told him what had happened. To cut a long story short, Max fixed it. He put the sound-post back up inside and retuned all the strings, just in time. ’
‘And this was during the first visit, in 2001?’ I asked, as I jotted down the sketchy details.
‘Yeah.’ She smiled. ‘I laughed when Max handed it back to me, because he asked, jokingly, if I’d ever had it valued. “There’s a label inside,” he’d said, but he must have been teasing me; I knew it had been made in 1970, in a factory in Borehamwood. “Makers often put labels inside, you know,” he’d told me, “hoping one day they’ll be famous.” Max knew from the sound, just like I did, that it was worth diddly-squat.’
Rosie placed her hands deliberately on her thighs and carried on telling the story as if she was delivering a fairy-tale to a hooked audience. ‘Two hours later Mick was dead.’
My pen came to an abrupt halt. Maybe this was important after all.
‘That second incident – when Mick came to a sticky end – happened soon after, when the concert was underway in the big hall,’ Rosie went on. ‘The Hinds’ residence is massive, all columns and staircases. Everyone was mingling, sipping glasses of champagne and we’d just started the last piece when there was a kerfuffle. A number of guests were pushed aside and chairs toppled over. Several women screamed and a man wearing an anorak, certainly not a guest, ran through the hall and up the stairs. The four of us looked at each other mid-crescendo; we all recognised him as the interfering bloke who’d very nearly wrecked my viola that afternoon. Two policemen charged up the stairs after him. We found out later that Mick was involved in some sort of scam to do with a stolen painting or document or…I don’t know what. He ended up climbing out of a bedroom window, but he fell off the drainpipe and broke his neck.’
She brushed an errant curl away from her eyelashes.
‘“The police never did work out who he was working with, did they?” Max had said during the lunch.’
She stared ahead, looking as confused by the story as I was. ‘Nothing untoward was found on his body when the police got to him, so it was all a bit odd. But apparently Mick Blain had had an accomplice.’
She paused, waiting for me to say something.
‘And this incident with Mick was fifteen years ago?’ I asked, unable to hide my scepticism. Was it seriously likely to have had anything to do with the accident in the van so many years later?
Rosie twirled a loose strand of hair around her finger and gave a puzzled shrug. ‘The Hinds’ didn’t have much luck hiring us for their parties, did they? A man fell to his death at the first one, then when we all show up again, there’s the awful crash.’
She gave a half-laugh. I waited to see if her expression dropped, but she looked up expectantly, waiting for me to speak again.
‘So, on the day of the crash,’ I said, ‘you can remember the lunch, the afternoon – everything up until the van was in the water?’
Rosie looked at the floor for a moment, thinking. ‘No…there are definitely gaps when we were on the road before the crash…and bits when we were underwater…it goes a bit sketchy after I passed out on the bank, too.’
‘We’ll work on trying to fill those in,’ I assured her.
‘Actually, something else strange happened at the lunch now I think about it. Max was entertaining everyone over raspberry pavlova with more drab little yarns, and I remember Karl Hinds looking fidgety, in a world of his own. It was almost as though Max had reminded him of something and Karl was back at the
original party.’ She fiddled with a button. ‘Karl said something then, but I can’t remember what it was. It probably doesn’t mean anything. That’s all really. After lunch, we had another crappy rehearsal and called it a day.’
‘And what about the day you drove up to the Lake District? Any memory lapses there, do you think?’
‘Yeah, absolutely. I remember getting to the B&B, but scraps are missing here and there. I don’t know if any of that is important.’ She stared at me as if I should know. ‘I want to find out why the van crashed, but what I want more than anything is to get my viola back,’ she said, her voice unsteady.
The desperation in Rosie’s screwed-up eyes said it all, and given the way she’d been shunted from one home to another, taking scant belongings with her each time, I could see why the viola would be so important. It was probably about as close to ‘family’ as anything she’d ever had – or anyone she’d ever known.
‘I don’t like to think of it being lost out there, all alone,’ she added, fiddling with her lip. ‘It’s probably ruined by the water, but I don’t care. I want it back.’
Once she’d left, I leant against the edge of my desk mulling over everything Rosie had told me. I’d looked up the incident online on the North West news site shortly after our first session and I’d been keeping an eye on it every few days, in case there were any further developments. One thing certainly seemed odd to me. After nearly a month, coats, shoes, music and rucksacks had come to the surface, but none of the three bodies had been recovered. Nor had any of the instruments or wallets. Not one.
Chapter 8
Sam
It was my first afternoon off in ages, but when I got home from the hospital my flat was crying out for a tidy up. Last week’s newspapers were spread out on the table, covered in dirty tea-towels and unwashed mugs. Furthermore, a tower of ironing was about to topple off the sofa. I wasn’t in the habit of letting it get to this state, but it seemed as if a tide had swept over all my belongings when my back was turned, leaving a trail of random detritus behind it. I needed to pull my finger out.
I purged every room, stuffing dishes into the sink, clothes into drawers, junk mail into the bin, until the surfaces were clear. From coat pockets in the hall, I emptied old shopping lists and sweet wrappers, picked up the crusty rind of a clementine from the ledge by the front door, but left the spare set of keys where they were. I’d been meaning to do a key swap with Mrs Willow for at least a week – ever since she slipped over in her bathroom and no one could get into her flat to help her.
I should have got the vacuum out to begin the real work after that, but apathy got the better of me. Instead, in a moment of ultra-decadence, I rang my favourite spa in Chelsea. Twenty minutes later, I was on my way over for a steam and massage.
The package was pricey, but just what I needed. In the last few months I’d buried myself in my job at St Luke’s and I’d had virtually no quality time to myself. Miranda might have a point – maybe it was making me worn out and grumpy.
I got off the Tube at Sloane Square and started walking along the King’s Road. I love London’s incessant barrage of sounds: car horns, bicycle bells, people hailing taxis and selling newspapers. The soundtrack of this hot-blooded city at full throttle.
Leaves had already begun peeling away from the trees and were catching on the bottom of my shoes. I didn’t want autumn to take hold. I hadn’t made the most of summer, still hankering after the chance of an evening sitting on the warm grass with a dazzling new guy, watching the sky slowly dissolve into darkness.
In the midst of my daydream, I walked straight into a man carrying three buckets of roses. The collision sent water all over his jeans.
‘Watch where you’re going, you stupid bitch,’ he yelled, shoving past me.
My little reverie was gone.
I got changed at the spa and left my gear in a locker, taking just my towel with me. Aqua Dulcis is a small place and there was no one else in the steam room for the ‘women-only’ session. Blissful solitude. I laid out my towel on the slatted bench and stretched out. The soft hiss of water droplets turning to steam acted like a potion from a magic lamp, letting my body float away into relaxation. As I luxuriated in the inertia, the heat eased my pores wide and cleansed me from the inside. My arms and legs flopped as I closed my eyes, feeling weightless.
My mind, however, wasn’t playing the game. I wanted to drift away onto a tropical beach somewhere and have pina coladas in tall glasses brought to me by tanned hunks in floral shorts. Instead, my thoughts were straying to places I didn’t want to go. Places that were dark and tragic. I might have been able to send my muscles to paradise, but my brain was pulling me in the opposite direction.
An altogether different scene was playing inside my head. A video loop without a stop button. It was all so abhorrently clear: the dressing gown on the back of the door, the door creaking as I pushed it wide, the cat oblivious to everything still curled up on the pillow.
Last Christmas.
Was it Rosie – child-like, innocent and eager to please – who had brought it all back? Did she remind me of Joanne?
No, I couldn’t blame Rosie. The shadow had never gone away.
Miranda was the only person I’d told about it and even that had never been my intention. The night it happened I’d gone back to my flat in a terrible state and she’d turned up unexpectedly to return a pile of cookery books. She’d prodded and pummelled me until I opened up, then kept telling me it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t believe her.
I quickly scrabbled around inside my head for something else to focus on and Con’s face floated into my mind. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. Although we hadn’t spoken in a long while, I’d heard Con was doing well. He’d had good reviews for his part in a British film and was auditioning for a meaty role as a ship’s captain in a potential Hollywood blockbuster. He’d sent a postcard to tell me about it. I only got cards when he wanted to brag; perhaps it was his way of reminding me how foolish I’d been to let him go.
As the steam enveloped me, I found myself finally drifting off to a sweet and dreamy place. But not for long. Lost in my reverie, I began to hear Rosie’s voice breaking through, telling me about the crash. I found myself picturing the van before it went off the road and hit the water. The pompous Max with Stephanie beside him and Richard behind the wheel.
I saw the three of them in my imagination clawing at the door handles. I thought about how they must have fought to get the seat belts off, ripped their nails to shreds as they clawed at the windows, launched their shoulders at the doors. At least Rosie, in the back, didn’t have a seat belt to worry about. She was the only one with a way out. The picture brought up a question about the windows I hadn’t thought to ask before. Were the winders manual or electric? If they were electric, would they work underwater? Had the others ever stood a chance?
I didn’t want to think what they must have gone through as they knew they were running out of breath, about to drown.
As I laid still, safe in the spa, the steamy water hissing under me as my skin got hotter and hotter, I couldn’t help wondering whether there was any realistic chance Max, Richard or Stephanie could have survived.
Rosie’s voice was clear now, almost in my ear.
‘…seeing you here…’ she said.
I opened my eyes.
‘I said, fancy seeing you here?!’ she repeated gleefully.
I sat bolt upright, rubbing my eyes, half in and half out of my daydream. This was the real Rosie, no doubt about it – she was right there beside me. She had a yellow towel tightly coiled around her fleshy body revealing only a tiny chink of cleavage. All nicely covered up – unlike me.
I gave her a weak smile. ‘Yeah, fancy that?’
I was lying in front of her completely naked. As slowly as I could, not wanting to seem prudish, I edged the towel out from under me and innocently used it to dab my face allowing it to fall across my body. Rosie seemed oblivious to my awkwardness and sat
on the bench in the far corner, her hands over her belly, thrusting her feet out.
‘Oh – I so need this,’ she said. ‘Afternoon off from the music store. It’s on Charing Cross Road, did I tell you? CDs, DVDs, sheet music, we even sell—’
‘Rosie, it’s…nice to see you, but we shouldn’t chat. We have a specific therapeutic relationship and chatting together confuses that.’
‘Oh…does it?’ She looked perplexed.
We were quiet for a while. I closed my eyes, but I had no hope of relaxing now. I felt overheated, sweaty, irritable. I was tempted to get up and leave, but I wasn’t sure how she might interpret my sudden exit. Besides, I hadn’t had my full thirty minutes; I wasn’t going to let her impromptu appearance cut short my precious treatment.
‘I wasn’t going to see anyone, you know, after the crash,’ she said, ignoring my earlier comment. ‘But I’m glad I did.’
‘Right…’ I opened one eye. She was lying flat on her back now, her eyes closed.
‘You’re very good at your job,’ she added. ‘I think I’m going to get a lot out of our sessions.’
I made a noise that came out like a little yelp and cleared my throat.
She opened her eyes and held up her little finger; the one she’d told me had been damaged by the garage door. ‘I was quite good on the viola once, you know.’ She winced. ‘It’s been bothering me again in the last few days. I had such early promise and it all came to nothing.’ She sniffed. ‘Playing the viola was the focus of everything. I don’t have any other gifts. Without that I’m nobody…’