The Upright Piano Player

by David Abbott

  That morning as she left, he gave her the promised check. She made a move as if to hug him, but gave him her hand instead. He was surprised by the roughness of her skin.

  Later, he played the piano for the first time in weeks—a farewell concert for the house, its gardens, and its memories.

  43

  Henry’s bedroom was at the front of the house. He and Nessa had always slept with the window open, the window locks positioned so that he could push the sash up four inches before they came into play.

  In ordinary times this allowed for a sufficient airflow, but over the past month the Banksia rose had put on so much growth that the air had to fight its way through a thick screen of foliage. He had agreed with Mark and Marco, the gardeners who came once a week, that they should discuss cutting the rose back with the new owner when he arrived. He remembered the man’s entrancement when he had first seen the green and yellow of the rose in bloom.

  “My racing colors,” he had said with satisfaction.

  Henry knew from the agent that the man from Moscow planned to update the house and put in air-conditioning. More efficient, Henry conceded, than two raised window locks, but he hated the thought that the house was to be ripped apart. He wished now that he had sold it to a downsizing couple from the country, exiles from Wiltshire or Dorset who now wanted to be near their grandchildren and the London hospitals. They would have moved in and changed nothing.

  The night before the moving men were due to arrive for the two days of packing and loading, Henry lay awake in his bed. He regretted his decision not to trim back the rose. The small amount of air that did seep into the room was warm and it made Henry more restless than usual. The talk show on the radio was no help. Once again, they were debating abortion. Pro or con, the callers were all bigots. Prejudices were aired, but minds were never changed. Instead of sheep, he counted the number of times each caller said “you know”—surely the most virulent virus ever to attack the English language? He gave up when Mary from the Isle of Wight managed to say it thirty-eight times in her short, but fractured call.

  It was 2:30. He removed his earpiece and propped himself up against his two pillows. Sometimes a change of position would send him to sleep. He looked around the room. Every object reminded him of Nessa. Soon they would all be gone, bundled off to Norfolk—to a house that she had never seen.

  He began to take an inventory.

  The bed, the most comfortable they had ever had. Bought from Heals, it had been too big for the staircase and had been hoisted in through the window.

  The walnut chest, bought together in the Pimlico Road. Nessa had used the two top drawers. They had been empty since the day she had moved out.

  The oil painting of three bathers by Bernard Meninsky. It had been a Christmas present to themselves the year the business had first shown a profit. They had hung it opposite the bed instead of a mirror. “Better bodies,” Nessa had said.

  The Venetian mirror by the door. He had bought it from a dealer in Marylebone, an elderly lady with a heart of flint. Taking it home to Nessa, she had seen immediately that it was not as described on the invoice, but had said it didn’t matter because, fake or not, it was genuinely beautiful.

  On the mantelpiece, a small wooden box with a sliding lid. On top of the box, he saw the triangle of lettered cards. He knew the words by heart. WILL NOT FALL APART.

  He had found the box in one of Nessa’s trunks and brought it back to London, wanting it by his side. She must have bought it from the owner of the cottage, he thought—Nessa would never steal … His eyes felt heavy. I can’t let the movers pack that, it can go in the car with me …

  Somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, he became aware of a small rhythmic sound.

  It was a back and forth kind of noise, two regular, repeated notes. He went to the window, but the rose blocked his view. The sound was muted but insistent and it was coming from the front garden.

  He put on his dressing gown. Halfway down the stairs, he stopped and went back for his baseball bat, fearing an intruder. In the hallway, the noise seemed to have stopped. Probably only a rodent gnawing on a kill, he thought, but he’d check anyway. He opened the door quietly.

  The sound was back. Close to, it had more of a rasp to it—hee-haw, hee-haw. He stepped out onto the path. He looked left, towards the source of the sound. There was a dark, huddled figure at the base of the rose, too big to be a woman.

  He caught a glint from the blade of a curved handsaw. Shit, someone was sawing through the trunk of the Banksia.

  “What the hell are you doing? That rose is thirty years old, for God’s sake!”

  He heard himself with dismay. Even in extremis, he sounded like a park-keeper.

  The man turned and got to his feet. Henry recognized him even before he had straightened.

  “Not anymore, it isn’t.”

  The man was smiling. He took a step towards Henry.

  “You’re mad, the police know all about you.”

  “What’s the offense, Mr. Cage?”

  He moved closer.

  “Destruction of a rose bush? What’s that—seven days community service?”

  He took another step towards Henry, the saw in his hand.

  “And anyhow, I wasn’t here. You never saw me, right?”

  Another step. The smile had gone. The words now were hissed out in anger.

  Henry stepped back and instinctively widened his stance. He kept his eyes on the saw in Bateman’s hand.

  “I hear you dropped off some photographs?”

  Bateman moved closer.

  “You keep your fucking nose out of my business, you hear?”

  He was close enough for Henry to smell the sap on the saw.

  “You hear me? Do you?”

  Henry saw the handsaw rise and swung the baseball bat, hoping to parry the blow.

  He was taller than Colin and the arc of his swing brought the bat down onto Colin’s shoulder, where it ricocheted upwards, smashing into the skull just above the left ear.

  Bateman went down, still clutching the saw.

  Henry stood for a moment, breathing hard, and then went back into the house.

  He made a 999 call, asking for an ambulance and then the police.

  He waited for them outside on the path. He did not touch the body. He knew enough to know there was no need.

  At 3:15 a.m. a light came on in Mr. Pendry’s bathroom opposite. A call of nature, Henry surmised. A pity it had not called earlier. Even then, Henry knew a witness would have been useful.

  44

  Walter Godelee was lying awake in the guest bedroom when the phone rang. His wife, who had shared his bed for thirty-eight years, was asleep in the master bedroom on the floor below. His absence from the marital bed had been prompted not by a rift, but by Walter’s cough, an insistent tickle that had disrupted their sleep for almost a week.

  “Better that one of us gets some sleep,” he had murmured an hour earlier, picking up his watch and reading glasses from the bedside table.

  His wife had raised her head from the pillow wondering why it had taken him five nights to do the decent thing.

  “Oh darling,” she said, “do you have to? Don’t go on my account.”

  As the door clicked she sighed and pulled up the covers. She was asleep before he had reached the top landing.

  He had lifted the phone on the first ring knowing that predawn calls to solicitors always mean trouble.

  Henry had said he was speaking from Chelsea police station and gave Walter a description of his history with Bateman and of the night’s events.

  “Have you been arrested?”

  “Yes, I’ve been cautioned and told there will be a formal interview. They said I could ring a solicitor. I am so sorry to disturb your sleep.”

  “No, I’m sorry you’ve had such a hellish time.”

  He reached for his watch and made a quick calculation.

  “I’ll be with you in twenty minutes. Try not to worry. I know the
arrest is alarming, but it’s not unusual in this situation. When I get there, we’re allowed a private session before we go into the interview room—so sit tight and say nothing.”

  In truth, Walter was not as relaxed as he sounded. Why the hell had Henry not called him earlier, immediately after ringing 999? He must have known he would be questioned at the scene. The trouble with law-abiding citizens, he thought, as he bent to pull on his socks, is that they have no fear. They charge into the hidden cannons of the law in the mistaken belief that innocence makes them inviolate.

  Despite what he had said to reassure Henry, the arrest was not merely a matter of form. There must have been something in Henry’s initial responses to make the police suspect him of unlawful killing. Walter knew his client. In these circumstances better to have a client full of callow fear than righteous indignation. He had represented Henry throughout his divorce proceedings and knew he was capable of self-defeating anger.

  Walter was shown straight into the interview room at the station. Henry seemed calm. He had been allowed to change out of his nightclothes (which had been labeled, bagged, and taken away) and was wearing a suit, without a tie. A uniformed officer brought Walter a cup of coffee.

  “You’ll be needing this,” he said with a straight face, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Walter had taken out a legal pad and pen.

  “Let me tell you what the situation is. The police can hold you here for twenty-four hours—then they must either charge you or release you. If they want to make further inquiries, or to consult the Crown Prosecution Service, they can release you on police bail on condition that you return at a set date.”

  Henry nodded, but did not ask a question. Walter continued, deliberately impersonal and matter of fact. He wanted Henry to be aware that he was now in the land of due process—that every utterance had a consequence—that no question would be casual and no answer should be unguarded.

  “In my opinion, in the light of your previous encounters with Bateman, release on bail pending further inquiries is possible, but we’ll see.”

  Henry looked up. “It was self-defense.”

  “Yes, I have no doubt that it was.” Walter’s tone was warmer. They were entering the crucial stage of their session.

  “However, it isn’t straightforward and before we go in for the interview, I want you to understand what in law justifies a plea of self-defense. I mean, really understand, for there is only one justification and if you stray from it, we have no case.”

  Walter paused to let the words sink in.

  “Your only defense is that you perceived a threat to yourself and then took reasonable steps to defend yourself.”

  “Well, I was threatened. He had the saw in his hand.”

  “Yes … but there will be a question of whether he intended to use it.”

  “What was I meant to do—wait until my throat had been cut, just to be certain?”

  Walter was patient. “This is where the concept of reasonable behavior applies—the law would agree that it would be unreasonable for your swing of the bat to be posthumous.”

  “I took the same view.”

  “Nevertheless, I want you to be prepared for the kind of questions you’ll get. Some of them will sound hostile, but they will not be inappropriate. The police will be interested in your state of mind when you swung the bat. If they believe you acted in anger, or with a sense of revenge, they will probably charge you.”

  “What should I say?”

  “Tell them the truth. I’m not coaching you—I’m just pointing out that it’s no defense in law to be angry or vengeful, but it is a defense to feel threatened and fearful.”

  Henry looked troubled. “What if there are mixed feelings?”

  “There often are, but there’s always a predominant one. Would you have hit him if he had dropped the saw?”

  “No.”

  “The rose would still have been destroyed? There would still have been the months of persecution? You would have still been angry?”

  “Yes, but …”

  “But you wouldn’t have felt under threat.”

  “I see.”

  “They will also be interested in whether your degree of self-protection was reasonable. A baseball bat is classed as an offensive weapon and they will make a judgment on whether its use was excessive.”

  “Jesus, I’m the victim here. He attacked me.”

  “A man is dead, Henry. There have to be questions.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “It would also be helpful to have on record your regret at the outcome of the evening, that is, if you feel it. Which I am sure you do.”

  “I wanted him gone, not dead. I hit him on the shoulder. I didn’t aim for his head.”

  For the first time, Henry looked upset. The adrenaline rush had subsided and he hung his head to hide his tears. He had killed a man, not intentionally, but it had happened.

  Walter talked on, repeating some of his earlier points, giving Henry time to recover.

  Two detectives conducted the interview. Cautions were issued and the session was recorded. Henry had seen the scene so often on television that he found it hard to take the proceedings seriously.

  The leading questioner was Detective Inspector Harkness, a young man with a Birmingham accent and gelled hair, cut just too long to be spiky. He was soft-spoken and insistent. Henry assumed that he had entered the police force as a graduate and spent very little time in a helmet. He was wearing a black suit and was buttoned up in more ways than one.

  “Mr. Cage, could you tell us again what actual damage the victim had done to your property before you challenged him earlier this morning?”

  “He had destroyed a rose at the front of my house.”

  “A rose bush?”

  “Strictly speaking, it’s a climber, not a bush.”

  “But it is just a plant, is it not? Not particularly uncommon or valuable?”

  “No.”

  “Do you consider that arming yourself with a baseball bat and wielding it with fatal consequences was a reasonable response to the loss of a rose?” He paused. “Be it bush or climber …?”

  “I didn’t strike him because of the rose. I hit him because he was about to attack me with the saw.”

  “Quite. How high had Bateman lifted the saw when you hit him?”

  “I don’t know. I saw the movement and reacted. As I said, I thought he was going to strike me.”

  Unexpectedly, Harkness stood up, pushing back his chair.

  “How would he have done that with a nine-inch blade? Lifted it high and brought it down on you, like a saber?”

  He mimed the action.

  “I don’t think so, do you? Not much momentum—not with a nine-inch blade—and he would have to have been very, very close to you to cause any damage. More likely, if he had intended you harm, he would have thrust the saw at you as with a dagger—like so.”

  He pushed his arm forward in a series of fast, jabbing movements before sitting down.

  He was out of breath and waited a few moments before continuing.

  “You might have been in danger from a forward movement of his arm but there was no forward movement, was there? You say he only raised his arm, is that correct?”

  “I saw his arm move upwards. I didn’t know whether it was a prelude to a thrust or a slash. I was alarmed and swung the bat.”

  Walter was pleased. Henry was staying on strategy.

  Harkness picked up a file and began turning the pages. The silence was stagy, an obvious attempt to ratchet up the tension.

  “I see you have quite a history with Bateman, Mr. Cage. Undoubtedly, an unpleasant man who has been persecuting you for many months. From the records it seems, sadly, we have not been able to give you the protection you deserved. You must have felt frustrated about that?”

  “At times, yes. But I accept that the police need proof before they can act.”

  “It must have made you angry?”

&n
bsp; “I was angry with Bateman, not the police.”

  “And were you still angry in the garden this morning? You said in your earlier statement that you were angry that he had killed a rose that you and your ex-wife”—he looked down at the paper to get the name right—“Nessa had planted thirty years ago. I understand that she has recently passed away. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  He closed the file.

  “So how did you feel when you saw what he had done to something that obviously meant a lot to you—had meant a lot to both of you?”

  The ploy was obvious—a cheap attempt to unsettle him, to play on his emotions—and Henry knew the appropriate response.

  “Upset” was the word he should use; a passive, reasonable, woolly-cardigan kind of a word, but it did not describe what Henry had felt. Even anger did not do justice to his feelings; he had felt rage—a searing, vindictive rage. The destruction of the rose had seemed like an attack on Nessa, on their history together.

  “I was very angry.”

  “Were you still angry when you struck him?”

  “I thought he was going to attack me with the saw.”

  “Were you still angry when you swung the bat into his head?”

  “I didn’t swing the bat at his head. I hit his shoulder, the bat bounced up and hit his head.”

  “You have not answered my question, Mr. Cage. Were you still angry when you hit him?”

  Henry hesitated. He was one word away from safety, but to say it would have been an oversimplification. He had to be accurate.

  “I wasn’t particularly self-aware at the time. It was not a moment for introspection.”

  Henry had not quite kept the sneer out of his voice.

  “I repeat the question, Mr. Cage. Were you angry when you hit him? All I need is a yes or no.”

  “It’s not that black and white. Of course, I was angry, but I wouldn’t have swung the bat if he had not raised the saw. I thought he was going to attack me. I knew he was a violent man.”