Dying Fall (29 page)

‘Bloody decent of him! Well, he hasn't. I'll have him called in. Ruffle his dignity a bit.'

‘He may have been trying to get in touch too,' I said quietly. ‘He promised me he would.'

‘I doubt it. He's a devious bastard, your Tony. Deserves a bit of a shake-up.'

‘He might be a foolish man but he's not a bad one.' I wanted to tell him that there was no point in treating Tony as if he were a rival to be bullied. Perhaps I could make a joke about it. ‘Your car's nicer than his,' I said.

He didn't reply. The waitress had slopped over, told us to have ice cream and slopped away with the still-full plates.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. But he might have been referring to the meal as much as his crassness.

The ice cream was covered in shaving-foam cream.

‘So what about Wajid?'

‘You never let go, do you?'

I shook my head.

‘But that's one of the more obvious answers, anyway. If Wajid got into that file he'd have seen her name. And he probably tried to blackmail her. Perhaps didn't get anywhere: after all, we never found any trace of large sums of money. Though that bank he worked at – ICB – it's going bust, they reckon. The Bank of England's expected to stop it trading any moment now. The sad thing is a lot of ethnic-minority traders used it – there'll be heartache in many Asian homes when the news breaks. But that's strictly between you and me and my friend in the Fraud Squad.'

‘OK.' Then I thought again. ‘But people like Aftab – his family are so nice, Chris – shouldn't we warn –'

He shook his head sadly. ‘How can we? Without starting panics and runs on the bank?'

‘There'll be those anyway.'

‘No. No, Sophie, Please!'

‘And you'd be found out, and the force'd have to make you a scapegoat and sacrifice one of its best ever detectives,' I said, with a little irony.

‘You flatter me. Look, it's time we were off. You've got a statement to make. And I've still got some ends to tie up. All those loose ends you've picked up on – don't think the DPP won't find them too. What are you doing for the rest of the day?'

Damn: I'd hoped he wouldn't ask me. I didn't want to rebuff him. I wanted him to realise that it was no go for him without my having to spell it out.

‘There won't be all that much left. But I thought I might stroll into Harborne when your lot have finished with me. Window-shop. And there's a concert at the Music Centre tonight. Tony's got me a free ticket. Not the MSO. A modern-music ensemble. They couldn't sell many tickets, so they're papering the house with comps.'

‘Comps?'

‘Complimentary tickets.'

‘Anything I know?'

‘Never heard of any of it myself. But I know a couple of the players …' And Stobbard was carving. After last night I thought he would expect me to be there, and to go round to the Artistes' Room afterwards. I'd just have time to wash my hair and change into something attractive.

‘Er?'

Poor Chris. But I wished he wouldn't make me do it.

‘I'll probably be going out with some of them afterwards – old friends.' I'd intended to discourage, not snub, but Chris looked hurt.

‘Come on,' I said, probably sounding quite horribly bracing. ‘There's work to be done.'

He smiled wanly. ‘Of course. And I see the sun's trying to come out.'

The sun was shining by the end of the afternoon. There was just time to slip into Harborne. I would celebrate my return to the world with a new suit even the Music Centre clientele wouldn't sneeze at. In the event, I bought two matching blouses, too, and put the lot on my Barclaycard. I'd have a huge bill next month, but sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof.

When it came to it, I didn't want to go to the concert, new suit or no. But I couldn't think of anything else to do. I certainly didn't want to be on my own. I was afraid of what my head would find to fill the silence. I sat on my bed, my hair still wet from the shower, hugging my old teddy bear for comfort. Tony would be with the MSO wherever they were, and he hadn't George's gift for making phone calls when I needed them. Tomorrow he'd have to talk to Chris. But surely he'd be in the clear. He had to be.

In the end, I knew I had to go. It was fine enough to walk down to the bus stop, and, in the absence of Tina, that ought to have been a pleasure in itself. But I saw shapes in the shadows. I hadn't wanted to contradict Chris when he said I didn't need a minder, but I had a nasty fear, at a level I didn't care to explore, that he might have been premature.

I was early. I had a drink, and ordered another for the interval, in case there was a rush for the bar. But when I reached the auditorium I knew there wouldn't be.

My lovely new clothes were all wrong. This was not the sort of music yuppies would go for. It was Serious and Modern and attracted students who looked like latter-day hippies. There was a proliferation of corduroy among the older element, and a tendency among the women to aggressively flat shoes and overlong skirts. You'd have thought them more at home at Dartington. In my Marella suit, a rich petunia pink, I stuck out like a sore thumb. Apart, that is, from a group in the centre block of the most expensive seats. From their general gloss and excess of teeth, I deduced – correctly, as it transpired – that they were American. The music was – but I don't want to prove that I am as much a philistine as people who denigrated Beethoven as a tuneless impostor. No, there was no obvious melody, but I wasn't so naive as to expect that. But I couldn't detect rhythm or form either. George had no time for music you couldn't sing in the bath. He wouldn't have enjoyed this. We'd started with a minute's silence for Jools. Then they played the Barber
Adagio for Strings
in memory of her. I pretended it was for George.

I'm not sure how seriously Stobbard took the rest of the concert. I wondered if there was something exaggerated about his beat, something rather studied in the way he brought in players. I was too far back to be sure, but I thought he ghosted a smile at me. Maybe he even winked after a piece which we were assured by the programme note sounded exactly the same backwards as forwards. The noise levels were phenomenal. All in all it was a pretty taxing evening, and I wished I'd been to an honest pop concert, or at home with my radio and my teddy bear. But then, of course, I wouldn't have been able to spend any time with Stobbard. My interval wine – I knew better than to bother him before the end of the concert – made me feel sick. And the tam-tam chorus of the last piece – so loud it made my breastbone resonate – brought on the sort of headache you get when you've marked all your end-of-year exams.

Or watched them take what was left of a friend to the morgue. On impulse I found a phone. Dean: how was he? The hospital was reticent: ‘critical but stable'. I tried Ian Dale. He was more detailed – Dean was on a life-support system, he said, in intensive care. But the brain scan had been what they called encouraging. And, he said, a big healthy lad like Dean would surely have more of a fighting chance than most. It was the ‘surely' that worried me.

If I'd had any sense, I'd have crawled off home there and then. As it was, I pushed my way through the earnest young men telling an exhausted-looking bunch of musicians how meaningful the evening had been, and headed for the Artistes' Room. Since it wasn't a Midshires Symphony Orchestra gig there was no Tony to admit me when I knocked. In fact, the raised voices inside might well have meant no one heard anyway. For a moment, I felt so dismal I wanted merely to turn tail and escape. But then I thought of Stobbard and, deciding that a good bonk was as good a way as any of pushing my misery to the back of my mind, edged my way in.

He was hugging and kissing his way round the sleek group I'd noticed in the auditorium. I thought he hesitated marginally when he saw me – perhaps he was so knackered by the day's work (don't forget he'd spent the afternoon rehearsing the ensemble) that he could scarcely place me, particularly as I was nearly as well-dressed as the other women. But he broke away and thrust his way to me, scooping me into his arms and kissing me, rather hard, on the mouth.

‘Now, folks, this is the young lady I've been telling you all about: she's the one who's made life bearable in this goddamned hole.' Stobbard kept his arm possessively around my shoulder. He nuzzled my hair. I was glad it was clean and smelt nice. He didn't, to be honest. He was wet with sweat, and smelt as if he'd run a marathon.

As if he could read my mind, he pushed me away from him, towards his friends. ‘God, I shouldn't be anywhere near you civilised people. Guess I smell like the men's restroom. Give me just five minutes, will you?'

He disappeared into the inner room. Suddenly he dodged back out again, and picked up his baton. He disappeared again. Luckily it didn't fall to me to remark on it. A lovely middle-aged lady, with the scars of a face-lift just visible under her hairline, screamed with laughter. ‘Did you ever see the like? Fancy taking your baton to the goddamn john!'

‘Perhaps he's superstitious about losing it,' I said mildly. ‘Some conductors are, aren't they?'

Someone took up the theme: a Japanese conductor who insisted on having his favourite baton in the room when he meditated, an English oboist rumoured to take his instrument to bed with him (in its case, of course), a pianist who carted his own Bechstein around the world with him. We were quite old friends by the time we had worked out all the variations. The face-lift lady was delighted he'd met with a nice English girl: she wanted to hear all about my connection with music, the orchestra, the choir, my work. She introduced some of the entourage, and I found myself apologising to a man of about my own age, with a fine-boned, intelligent face, for not understanding the evening's fare.

‘I'm not a musician, you see,' I said, expecting him to play – oh, a melancholy profile like that ought to play the viola. But when I looked at the fingers of his left hand, the nails were long, and there were none of the blackened grooves in the tips you expect on a string player.

‘Oh, me neither. No, I just came over to see Stob with this bunch of alumni. We've been friends ever since our freshman year.'

‘So what –' I groped for the term –‘did you major in?'

‘Math.'

That didn't surprise me. Our university orchestra had been packed out with medics and mathematicians: the latter reckoned they had an affinity with music stretching back to the Greeks. ‘Stob was always top of our group,' the young man continued. ‘And it seemed to come so easy, too. His music. His drama. He played Hamlet, you know. Had all the girls weeping over him. Before Mel Gibson's time, that'd be! Stob – he's one of those disgusting people,' he said laughing, ‘who are good at everything they touch.'

‘Renaissance man,' I agreed, my head pounding so hard I was afraid someone would notice.

‘Right! He can fix anything the experts can't touch. The electronics on my car, my hi-fi: anything like that. Always asks, when he comes to visit with me, ‘Anything to repair, Lew?' That's Stob for you.'

‘So what do you do?' I asked, at last remembering party etiquette.

‘Bit of this, bit of that.' He laughed again. ‘I like to be on the move. Upwards, preferably!'

‘He's so modest,' said Face-lift.

I looked as alert as I could: any moment now I'd literally have to hold my eyes open.

‘He's just become the youngest president they've ever had at –'

‘Now, Mrs Mayou –'

She was his mother!

‘You all right, honey?' She was peering at me anxiously.

‘Bit of a headache,' I said.

She laughed. ‘You English folk and your understatement. Migraine?'

I nodded; wished I hadn't.

‘Stobbard must run you home, sweetheart.'

‘No. No, please. I'll get a taxi.'

‘But –'

‘I don't want to spoil the party. Please. Just explain. And tell him I'm sorry.'

She put her hands lightly on my arms. ‘Sure. And I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of each other real soon. Fancy Stobbard finding a real little English rose. Don't worry, Sophie: I'll send him your love. Hey! Sophie! Did anyone ever tell you you look just like –? Lew, who's she like?'

But the door slipped shut behind me, and I was able to ignore her.

One of the Centre's security staff called me a cab, and let me sit down at his desk till it arrived. He was a sufferer, he said, and his wife and daughter. He'd tried everything the doctor could throw at him and acupuncture and homoeopathy and damned if he wasn't going to try a faith healer he'd heard of. He'd let me know if it worked. Nice man. Took my arm to help me through the door. Wouldn't take the fiver I tried to push at him. Told the driver I was a friend of the Chief Inspector. Perhaps he wasn't a security guard.

It wasn't a bad migraine. Not the sort that lays you out for days. In any case, unlike my fellow sufferer, I did have some very effective tablets, and I could still see enough, when I got home, to tear a couple out of their foil jackets and drop them in a tumbler of water. I overfilled it: drops spattered out on the working surface. I ought to mop up. But I left them. All I could manage now was to crawl up to bed.

I didn't feel too bad in the morning. I'd already showered and was thinking about breakfast when the phone rang. It was Sean, the head of English, to ask me if I'd mind taking an extra class in the afternoon. Shahida: it looked as if she might lose her baby. But she'd cared enough about her class to ring him from hospital. Crying for her wouldn't do any good. Taking her class and sparing her worry might.

I picked up my phone pad to write down the details. The top sheet was green. I had to press quite hard to get the biro to work. I tore it off, and went into the kitchen. I put the paper on the working surface while I filled the kettle. It was green. It should have been the last vermilion one.