Atherton shook his head. ‘If I could tell you, I would. You’re quite sure this is the genuine thing?’
‘Oh, quite! There are many features which make it unique. For instance, if you look at the scroll, here –’
‘I’m happy to take your word for it,’ Atherton said hastily.
Watson looked hurt. ‘You can, of course, ask for a second opinion. I could recommend –’
‘I’m sure that isn’t necessary,’ Atherton smiled politely, trying not to overshadow him with his colossal, Viking bulk. ‘Can
you give me an estimate of its value?’
‘With a piece of this importance, it’s always hard to say. It would depend entirely on who was at the auction, and there are
often great surprises when rarities like this come to be sold. Prices can go far beyond expectations. But if you were to ask
me to place it at auction for you, I should recommend that you put it in with a reserve price of at least seven or eight hundred
thousand.’
‘Pounds?’
‘Oh yes. We don’t deal in guineas any more.’ Watson regained his composure as Atherton lost his. ‘You must understand that
this is a very rare and important instrument. And it’s in beautiful condition, I’m glad to say.’ He ran a hand over it with
the affection of a true connoisseur, and then raised his speedwell eyes to Atherton’s face. ‘In fact it could easily fetch
over a million. If you ever do come to sell it, I should feel privileged to handle the sale for you. And if
you ever feel able to divulge its history, I should be extremely grateful.’ Atherton said nothing, and Watson sighed and placed
the violin gently in its case. ‘It’s a shock to see such a beautiful instrument lying in this horrible case – and with these
horrible bows. I hope no-one ever tried to play it with one of them.’
Atherton was interested. ‘You think the bows – incongruous?’ He chose the word with care.
‘I can’t believe any true musician would ever touch this violin with either of them,’ Watson said with simple faith.
‘I didn’t know there were good bows and bad ones.’
‘Oh yes. And good bows are becoming quite an investment these days. I’m not as well up on them as I ought to be, I’m afraid
– they’re a study in themselves. If you wanted to know about bows, you should go and see Mr Saloman of Vincey’s – Vincey’s
the antiquarian’s, a few doors down in Bond Street. Mr Saloman is probably the leading authority in the country on bows. I’m
sure he’d love to see this violin, too.’
‘Thank you, Mr Watson,’ Atherton said, restraining the urge to press his hand lovingly, and took his massive bulk and the
Stradivarius out of Mr Watson’s life.
First he went to find a phone and call the station. Mackay answered from the CID room to say that there was still no reply
from Mrs Gostyn’s telephone or door. Atherton felt a stirring of anxiety.
‘Tell them to keep trying, will you? An old bird like her can’t have gone far. She’s bound to be back some time soon. I’ll
ring in from time to time and see if you’ve got her.’
He was then free to keep his appointment with John Brown, the Orchestra’s personnel manager – a rosy, chubby man in his forties,
with the flat and hostile eyes of the ageing homosexual. He received Atherton impassively, but with a faint air of affront,
like a cat at the vet’s, as of one on whom life heaps ever more undeserved burdens.
‘She hadn’t long been with us. She came from the Birmingham,’ he said, as though thus dissociating himself from the business.
‘Where in Birmingham?’ Atherton asked ingenuously.
Brown looked scornful. ‘It’s an orchestra – the
Birmingham Municipal Orchestra. She’d been there about three years. They could tell you more about her personal life than
I could,’ he added with a sniff.
‘Had she any particular friends in the Orchestra?’
Brown shrugged. ‘She hung around with Joanna Marshall and her lot, but then they shared a desk, so what would you expect?
Most of them stay with their own sections in coffee-breaks and so on. I don’t think she was particularly chummy with anyone.
Not the chummy sort. Out of hours, I couldn’t tell you
what
she got up to.’
‘Did she drink a lot? Take drugs – pot or anything like that? Was she ever in any kind of trouble?’
‘How should I know?’ Brown said, turning his head away.
‘You didn’t like her, did you?’ Atherton asked, woman to woman.
‘I neither liked her nor disliked her,’ Brown said with dignity, refusing the overture. ‘She was a good player, and no less
reliable than the rest of them. That was the only way in which her personality could interest me in the slightest. I’m not
paid to like them, you know.’
‘What do you mean, no less reliable? Less reliable than whom?’
‘Oh, they’re always wanting releases to do outside work. With her it was wanting to go back and play for her old orchestra.
They’re all like that these days – greedy. No loyalty. Never think about how much work it makes for everyone else. She used
to go up there at least once a month, and frankly I’m surprised they wanted her. I mean there must have been plenty of other
extras they could have used, locally. She wasn’t so wonderful no-one else would do.’
Atherton let this sink in, unable yet to make anything of it. ‘Did she have a boyfriend? Someone in the Orchestra, perhaps?’
he asked next.
Brown shrugged again. ‘I imagine so. They all have the morals of alley cats.’
‘What, musicians?’
‘Women,’ he spat, his face darkening. ‘I don’t like females in the Orchestra, I’ll tell you that for nothing. They’re troublemakers.
They go round making factions and setting one against the other, whispering behind people’s backs.
And if you say anything to them, they start crying, and you have to lay off them. Discipline goes to pieces. We never had
any of that kind of trouble before we started taking in females. But of course,’ he sneered, ‘it’s the
law
now. We’re not allowed to keep them out.’
Atherton’s expression was schooled to impassivity. ‘But wasn’t there someone in particular?’ he insisted. ‘Some man in her
section?’
The eyes slid away sideways. ‘I suppose you mean Simon Thompson? They were together on tour, once. You should ask him about
that, not me. It’s not my business.’
‘Thanks, I will.’ Doesn’t like women, Atherton thought. What else? ‘When did you last see Miss Austen?’
‘At the Centre on Monday of course. You know that.’
‘Yes, but exactly when? Did you see her leave, for instance?’
‘I didn’t see her leave the building, if that’s what you mean. I was standing at the door of the studio handing out payslips.
I gave her hers, and that’s the last I saw of her. By the time I’d left the building they’d all gone.’
‘How are they paid? Direct into the bank?’
‘Yes – I just give out the notifications.’
‘How much did she earn? I suppose you’d know that, wouldn’t you?’
‘I have the computer read-out, if you want to look at it. I wouldn’t know offhand. They’re all self-employed, and paid by
the session, so it varies in any case from month to month, depending on how much work there is.’
‘So if it was a quiet month, they’d all be a bit short?’
‘Not necessarily. They all do work outside, for other orchestras. They might get other dates if we have no work.’
Brown brought forth the green striped paper, put it down on the table and flicked through it rapidly and efficiently.
‘Here you are – Austen, A. Last month she grossed £812.33.’
‘Was that about average?’
‘I couldn’t say. We were fairly busy last month, but it wasn’t the best month of the year. There are always gaps around Christmas.’
Atherton calculated. So she was earning between ten and
twelve thousand a year – not enough to have bought a Stradivarius, anyway, not even on the lay-away plan. It looked as though
she must have been into some pretty big shit to have come by it. Over Brown’s shoulder he took down the details of Anne-Marie’s
bank account and, watching his face from the corner of his eye, asked casually, ‘Do you know what sort of violin she played?’
The reaction was one of simple, mild surprise. ‘I’ve no idea. Joanna Marshall would probably know, if it’s important to you.’
Well, if the Strad was the key to all this, Brown didn’t know about it. ‘Okay – so you gave Miss Austen her pay-slip, and
that’s the last time you ever saw her?’
The sulkiness returned. ‘I’ve told you so.’
‘And what did you do afterwards, as a matter of routine?’
‘I went home and went to bed.’
‘Is there anyone who can confirm that? Do you live here alone?’
The sulkiness was replaced by a dull anger – or was it apprehension? ‘I share the flat, as it happens. My flatmate can tell
you what time I got in.’
‘Your flatmate?’
‘Yes.’ He spat the word. ‘Trevor Byers is his name. You might have heard of him – he’s the consultant orthopaedic surgeon
at St Mary’s. Is that respectable enough for you?’
Oho, thought Atherton, writing it down, is that how the milk got into the coconut? ‘Eminently so,’ he said, trying to goad
him a little more. He decided to try the old by-the-way ploy. ‘By the way, wasn’t there some sort of trouble between you and
Miss Austen? A quarrel, or something?’
Brown shoved his fists down onto the table and leaned on them, his red and angry face thrust forward.
‘What are you trying to suggest? I didn’t like her, I make no bones about it. She was a troublemaker. They’re all troublemakers.
There’s no place for women in orchestras -I’ve said that. They’re all trollops, and their minds are never on their jobs.’
‘You disapproved of her relationship with Thompson.’
He controlled himself, straightening up and breathing hard. ‘I’ve told you, that was none of my business. It was she
who caused the trouble, talking about people behind their backs – telling lies -’
‘About you?’
‘No!’ He took a breath. ‘I couldn’t care less about anything she said. And if you think I murdered her you’re barking up the
wrong tree – I wouldn’t soil my hands. As far as her being a troublemaker’s concerned, ask Simon Thompson about it. He’ll
tell you.’
‘This is all purely routine, sir,’ Atherton said soothingly. ‘We have to ask about everything, however unlikely, and check
up on everyone – all simply routine, you know.’
Back in his car he wondered about it. Brown a homosexual – Austen with too much money? Was she blackmailing him, perhaps?
It’s not illegal to be bent, but an eminent surgeon might perhaps not like it to come out. On the other hand— He sighed. Check
everybody, he’d said, and there were a hell of a lot of them to check. Why couldn’t the damned woman be a lighthouse keeper
or something agreeably solitary, instead of a member of a hundred-piece orchestra of irregular habits?
And Bill’s pure and perfect woman was beginning to sound a little tarnished. Making all possible allowance for Brown’s prejudice,
there must have been something unlike-able about Anne-Marie Austen. A faint frown drew down his fair brows. What was going
on with old Bill? First he got a thing about the Austen girl, and now he had stepped right out of character and screwed a
witness – a man who had never been unfaithful to his wife in however many years it was of marriage. It was all very worrying.
Slider drove at first as though he and the car were made of glass, breathing with enormous, drunken care, sometimes even holding
his breath, as if to see whether anything would change, whether Joanna would disappear and he would find himself alone in
his car in a traffic jam in Perivale again. His mind felt hugely, spuriously expanded, like candyfloss, blown out of its normal
dimensions with the effort of encompassing the impossible along with the familiar. The new knowledge of Joanna was laid alongside
his ingrained experience of Irene and the children, both occupying the space one had occupied before – an affront to physics,
as he had learned at school.
He had never felt like this before. The trite words of every love song – but it was literally true. This was not just the
intensification of a previously charted emotion, it was something entirely new, and he hardly knew what to do with it. In
his life there had been one or two tentative teenage fumblings, and then there had been Irene, and he had never felt like
this with Irene.
He didn’t remember ever having felt anything intense about Irene. He had proposed to her as the next, the correct thing to
do: you left school, you got a job, then you got married. He had admired her for his mother’s reasons, as the goal to attain,
and had naturally assumed, since he was going to marry her, that he must love her.
Once married to her, he had behaved well by her because it was the right thing to do, and also, perhaps, because it was in
his nature to sympathise. You’ve made your bed, his mother might have said if she’d ever known about his disappointment, and
now you must lie on it. Well, so he had thought. But now he had to grapple with the possibility, wounding to the self-esteem,
that he had dealt justly with Irene only because he had experienced no temptation to do otherwise.
But no, that was not the whole story. He had been married to Irene for fifteen years, and he had never known her, except in
the sense that he recognised her and could predict pretty well what she would say or do in any situation. Joanna he had only
just met, and he could not in the least predict her, and yet he felt as though he knew her absolutely, right to the bones.
He felt that while anything she might do or say would probably astonish, it would never really surprise him.
The threatened crisis was here. He had deceived his wife. He had been unfaithful to her, slept with another woman, and told
lies to cover up for it. Worse than that, he intended to go on doing it, as long and as often as possible. Broken things might
be mended, but they could never be quite right again, he knew that: thus he had begun something that would change his whole
life. There was peril implicit in it, and unhappiness for Irene and the children, and that peril was minutely perceived and
understood. What he couldn’t understand was why it entirely failed to alarm him; why, knowing that what he was doing was both
wrong and dangerous to all concerned, he could feel only this huge and expanding joy, as though his life were at last unrolling
before him.