‘It’s a match that was played many years ago between two grand masters you won’t have heard of,’ Ivan said.
‘Try me.’
After a beat a different note entered his voice. ‘Do you play?’
‘To a modest level. Care for a game?’
‘I thought you were here for advice.’
‘We could talk as we play.’
‘All right.’ Ivan didn’t need any more persuading. He crossed to a sideboard, picked up a box and another board. Then he reached under the unfinished game and drew out a second table. He opened the board. ‘You can be white.’
‘I’d rather draw for it.’
‘Very well.’ Ivan picked out two pawns, enclosed them in his hands behind his back and allowed Diamond to make the choice.
White.
Red and white rather than the more usual black and white, the pieces were housed in a velvet-lined box.
‘These look special,’ Diamond said as they started setting up.
‘Ivory.’
‘The red as well?’
‘Stained.’
‘It’s a magnificent set.’
‘This is the Staunton design everyone has. I could show you better.’
‘You trade in them, don’t you?’
Ivan shrugged. ‘Only as a sideline.’
‘But they’re not antique.’
‘No,’ Ivan said. ‘Are you going to start?’
Diamond pushed his king’s bishop’s pawn forward two squares.
‘Bold.’ In the offhand manner born of long experience Ivan advanced his king’s pawn two squares.
Diamond made an early pause in the play. ‘You’re safe with me as someone who enjoys the game, but isn’t ivory banned these days?’
‘It’s not elephant. It’s the ethical alternative, mammoth ivory, from northern Siberia.’
Hey ho, Diamond thought, this sounds familiar. ‘Perfectly legal, then.’
‘It’s down to global warming. More and more skeletons are being uncovered each year as the tundra melts.’
‘So you still have contact with the old country?’ Diamond nudged his king’s bishop’s pawn one square forward.
‘You must be bluffing,’ Ivan said.
‘Not at all.’
‘Then I’ve got you checkmate in two.’ He slid his queen on the diagonal as far as it would go. There was no escape. Diamond’s king was trapped. Ivan gave him a glare worthy of the customs hall at Heathrow. ‘Fool’s mate, supposedly, but I believe you’re making a fool of me.’
‘It’s not in my interest to do that.’ Diamond said. ‘Well done. I’d offer you another game, but it wouldn’t last much longer. How much do you charge for these?’
‘The going rate for a Staunton set is ten thousand dollars, something over six thousand pounds sterling.’
‘And you said you have other designs?’
‘Knights on horseback and so on. They cost rather more. But I don’t think you came here to buy.’
‘How does it work? Are the sets carved in Russia?’
‘Why are you so interested?’
‘This is where I need your advice. There may be a connection with the case I’m investigating. An ivory netsuke was found on the victim in Vienna and proved to be mammoth ivory.’
Ivan showed no reaction.
Diamond asked, ‘Do you know anything about the trade in Japanese ornaments?’
‘I don’t deal in them, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Ivan said.
‘I know you don’t,’ Diamond said, ‘and even if you did, I wouldn’t expect you to tell me. I’m still keen to know where these beautiful chess sets are made.’
‘In Archangel, by a master carver. It’s a business arrangement. I buy from him. I travel with the quartet to some of the great cities of the world and I play a lot of chess. From time to time I am asked about the sets and I will sell at a reasonable profit.’
‘Guilt-free ivory.’
Ivan nodded.
Diamond took a photo from his pocket. ‘This is the netsuke that was found. It’s definitely carved from mammoth ivory. As a connoisseur of these things – ’
‘Not of netsuke. I don’t trade in netsuke,’ Ivan interrupted him.
‘That isn’t what I meant. You appreciate Japanese culture.’
He flushed deeply. ‘No more than the next man.’
‘I was told you like to visit the geisha houses when in Japan.’
‘Who told you that?’ Ivan said in a clipped, angry tone.
‘I forget,’ Diamond said. ‘Must have been one of the quartet. It’s the truth, isn’t it?’
‘What if I do?’
‘Nothing to be ashamed of,’ Diamond went on. ‘Traditional Japanese dancing and music and the famous tea ceremony. All highly respectable, isn’t it? Highly expensive, too.’
‘The way I choose to spend my time and money is no concern of yours,’ Ivan said. ‘I have a long-standing interest in the geisha. As a musician, I have studied the shamisen, the three-stringed instrument they play with the plectrum.’
‘So the music is the pull, and not the young ladies?’
If looks could kill, Diamond would have been ashes ready for scattering. ‘Geisha is an aesthetic experience. This isn’t some catchpenny tourist attraction. I go to the genuine okiya in the geisha district in Kyoto.’
‘Don’t get me wrong, Ivan. I’m not accusing you of anything. It’s your advice I came for. The geishas wear traditional dress, I’m told, and this would surely include at least one netsuke on the sash.’
‘I’m not an expert on the costume.’
‘But it’s part of that aesthetic experience you mentioned.’
‘Correct.’
‘I was going to ask what you think of this particular example.’
‘I wouldn’t have a view. Anyway, it’s only a photograph. You can’t tell.’
‘I’ve held it in my hands,’ Diamond said, ‘and it’s a marvellous piece of carving. Would you happen to know where objects like this are created?’
‘In Japan, I should think.’
‘Of Siberian mammoth ivory?’
‘I expect it gets shipped there.’
‘Might there be craftsmen working in Eastern Europe?’
He gave a shrug. ‘Conceivably.’
‘But you wouldn’t know any? The man in Archangel who makes the chess sets doesn’t have a second line in Oriental objects?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘Has anyone ever discussed this with you before?’
Ivan swayed back as if Diamond had thrown a punch. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to.
‘One of the quartet?’ Diamond pressed him.
The conversation had hit the buffers.
‘I’m sure this is difficult for you,’ Diamond said. ‘They’re friends and fellow artists, but I’m investigating two suspicious deaths and I can’t allow your loyalty to obstruct me. They all know about your sideline selling the chess sets and one of them may have taken a particular interest in where they came from.’
‘Douglas Christmas knows more about my business than any of them,’ he said finally. ‘He assists with the finance.’
‘Providing you with the roubles. He told me.’
Ivan tensed. ‘That’s confidential. He had no right.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Diamond said. ‘Tax evasion isn’t my department. Leaving Douglas aside, which of the others has talked to you about the trade?’
‘I really think you should leave now.’
‘One of them saw an opportunity of branching out on his own. It’s Harry, isn’t it?’
Although Ivan didn’t speak a word, his face had turned deathly white.
‘I need to know, Ivan. You’re a frightened man. Anyone can see that. You could be in need of my protection. This isn’t chess, this is life and death.’
Frightened he certainly was. His lips gave an involuntary twitch before he got control. ‘I only learned about this through a mistake. S
even or eight years ago we were performing in Paris and I was stupid enough to invite a potential client to the hotel. There was some kind of mix-up at the desk and they sent him to Harry’s room instead of mine. Of course Harry wanted to know everything. He questioned me repeatedly until I told him the truth about the dealing I did. He was deeply in debt from his gambling.’
‘And saw this as a way out of his troubles?’ Diamond said.
‘Exactly.’
‘Except that he chose to deal in netsuke?’
‘It’s more profitable than chess sets.’
‘The Japanese woman who was found dead in Vienna had a netsuke in her T-shirt. They took it to be a suicide emblem. Convenient.’
Ivan shrugged and didn’t comment. He seemed to feel he’d said enough already.
‘One more thing,’ Diamond said. He took out the photo of Emi Kojima. ‘On the evening of your last concert in Vienna, did you see this woman?’
It was obvious from Ivan’s eyes that he recognised Emi at once. He made a performance of studying the photo to take time to prepare an answer. ‘She was in the audience.’
‘Did she speak to you afterwards?’
Another silence followed. This was being played like the serious chess match they could have had.
‘She spoke to us all,’ Ivan said. ‘You might as well know.’
‘And did she end the evening in Harry’s company?’
A nod. ‘We saw them in the hotel bar together.’
‘When you say “we” …’
‘Anthony, Cat, Douglas and me. After a time they walked to the elevator. The bar was on the ground floor. They could only have been going up to Harry’s room.’
Diamond gave a voice to the conclusion he’s been heading towards for days. ‘And now Harry is alive and here in Bath secretly watching you all.’
25
The man in Mrs. Carlyle’s front room was instantly familiar to Mel from posters of the Staccati, the sort of well-proportioned, rugged face that attracted women and put men at ease, yet now looking creased with fatigue or strain. He couldn’t have shaved for days. He was in some kind of padded jacket with the hood turned down. Far from threatening, he was obviously ill at ease.
‘Hope you don’t mind me calling. I really do need to meet you. I’m Harry Cornell.’
The educated voice did not match the unkempt appearance. It was all so disarming that Mel reached for the hand that was offered. ‘Mel Farran.’
‘Can we talk here without being overheard?’
Mel thought about the Carlyle women and their interest in everything he did. ‘Probably not. We can go out if you want.’
‘I’d rather not. How about your room?’
They went upstairs. Mel sat on the bed and allowed Harry to use the chair.
‘I hate this cloak and dagger stuff,’ Harry said, ‘but I can’t take chances. What I have to say is for you alone.’
‘Okay. Want to take your coat off?’
He shook his head. He kept his hands buried in the pockets. ‘First, I want to say how sorry I am for knocking you down the other day.’
‘That was you in the Megane?’ Mel said more as a statement than a question, confirming what he had already worked out for himself.
‘You weren’t seriously injured?’
‘More shocked than hurt.’
‘I know you played in a concert that evening. It was unforgivable of me. I’m truly sorry. I panicked when it was obvious you were coming towards the car to speak. I wasn’t ready to meet you then. All I could think was I had to get the hell out of there.’
‘Why were you there at all?’
‘Making sure.’
‘Of what?’
‘Where you lived. I’d already followed a taxi as far as the street, but I didn’t see where you went in. If nothing else, I got that confirmed.’
‘What exactly do you want?’
‘You’re a fine musician,’ Harry said. ‘I heard you playing today. You bring out the best in the others.’
‘Thanks, but – ’
‘What’s your instrument?’
‘I thought you knew.’
‘The maker, I mean.’
‘Nicolò Amati.’
Harry’s eyes widened. ‘I thought it sounded out of this world. May I see it?’
A firm line was needed here. The man’s behaviour had done nothing to engender confidence. ‘Sorry, but no.’
‘You don’t think I’d damage it?’
‘It doesn’t belong to me.’
‘Ah.’ A short silence from Harry. ‘This is something I wanted to ask you about.’
No, no, no, a voice screamed in Mel’s head. ‘I can’t say any more.’
‘A very rich man owns your viola and wants it played to a high standard. Am I right?’
‘Shall we talk about something else?’
‘Soon after I joined the Staccati, I was given a Maggini to play,’ Harry said, smoothly overriding Mel’s request. ‘From 1610. Any of us would go through fire to own a fiddle like that. Extraordinary workmanship and a wonderful tone. You must have heard it on one of our recordings.’
‘I have,’ Mel said, ‘and I know exactly what you mean.’
‘None of us in the quartet owned our instruments,’ Harry said. ‘We were all indebted to the super-rich, but that’s the way things have been for as long as music has been played. Fat cats buying antique instruments as investments.’
‘I know.’
‘And then they’re horrified to discover the damn things need to be played to preserve their sound quality. Paganini presented his own Guarnerius to his native city of Genoa and they kept it in a glass case in the municipal palace and buggered the tone. To be fair, my patron may have been a fat cat, but he actually knew a lot about fiddles. He had an amazing collection from what I could gather. I don’t know if he owned an Amati.’
Mel didn’t rise to the bait.
‘A Japanese guy who didn’t speak much English,’ Harry went on. ‘I never discovered how he made his millions. You don’t like to ask, do you? Anyway, I was offered the little beauty on indefinite loan and I played it all the years I was in the quartet. I didn’t even get a chance to kiss goodbye to it.’
‘You had to return it?’
‘It was collected.’ His look was so bleak that he could have been saying a knife had been thrust into his gut.
Mel didn’t like the way this was heading. ‘So what do you play now?’
‘I don’t play at all.’
Difficult to believe. ‘Why? Did you take against it, or something?’
‘Long story,’ Harry said. ‘I don’t know how much the others told you.’
‘They don’t know anything. They thought you were dead.’
‘I might as well be.’
Mel didn’t comment. How can you follow a remark like that?
‘I’m constantly on the run,’ Harry said. ‘I sleep in the back of my car, never in the same place twice. That’s okay. I’ve lived on the streets and survived, but I can’t feel safe anywhere.’
This was all so alien to Mel’s idea of the life of a top musician that the best he could do was try to appear sympathetic.
‘Do they ever talk about me?’ Harry asked.
‘The quartet? Occasionally.’
‘What do they say?’
‘They have good memories of you.’
‘All of them?’
‘In their different ways, yes. They still have huge respect for your playing – and your company.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘After you went missing, they were devastated. Cat roamed the streets of Budapest looking for you. Anthony went all to pieces. They had to find work for him with the Hallé.’
‘And Ivan?’
‘He’s more philosophical, as you’d expect. He seems to think women were your problem. He saw me eyeing up some students in short skirts the other day and gave me quite a lecture about it.’
‘Using me as an example?’
/> ‘Actually, yes.’
It was difficult to tell whether the twitch of Harry’s lips was a smile or a grimace. ‘But they think I’m dead?’
Mel avoided the direct answer. ‘As time went on …’
‘The other day,’ Harry said, fixing Mel with a steady, questing look, ‘out at the Michael Tippett Centre, I wasn’t sure, but I thought Ivan looked at the car and recognised me.’
This was a minefield. ‘I wouldn’t know. We’re all a bit jumpy now. Was that you in Sydney Gardens running away along the canal?’
A nod.
The conversation seemed to have ground to a halt. Mel felt more comfortable when Harry was talking. ‘What is the story?’
‘All right, I’ll tell you,’ Harry said after a pause. ‘Some of this you’ll have heard already. I used to play poker. Fancied I was a red-hot player. Whichever city we fetched up in, I’d seek out the casino, or, better still, a private game without the house edge. But most serious players these days use casinos. We earned good money on tour so I could play big games. It turned out I wasn’t the wiz I thought I was. I was too much of a bloody optimist. Wouldn’t fold when I should have. I won a few times and then lost big. Started stacking up debts. In the end, it got silly. You must have heard some of this from Cat or Ivan.’
‘Hardly anything.’
‘I never borrowed from the others. Sometimes I’d ask Doug for a bit on spec.’
‘They weren’t sure if it was poker or women taking up your time.’
He smiled. ‘There were a few one-night stands, I admit. You know how they come onto you after a concert? Sometimes you’re in the right mood. But no, I wouldn’t say women are my weakness. Anthony is the one for that. Even before we’d check in at the hotel he’d ask the bellman where the red light district was. How’s the old goat doing these days?’
‘All right, I think.’
‘I like Anthony. Terrific fiddler. Better than Ivan, which is saying a lot. I was telling you about my poker debts. They got worse than serious. I was blacklisted in several of the major casinos. They’re syndicated, you see. They wouldn’t let me play, but they still chased me for what I owed, and some of the debts are collected by gentlemen who call themselves family.’
‘The mafia?’
‘You don’t mess with those guys. I needed another source of income – and fast. You may not know this, but Ivan, the crafty old bugger, has a nice little earner in hand-carved chess sets.’
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