Dusty Death (6 page)

Agnes was silent, thinking for a moment of the hidden sufferings, of the life that the world might never know about which lay behind this obscure tragedy. ‘It's not the sort of thing that I ever thought a daughter of mine would get involved in.'

But she could not keep the disapproval in her voice as she spoke. She would enjoy telling them when she got to work that her daughter was involved in this case, the latest local sensation.

As if responding to a cue, Lucy Blake's mobile phone shrilled in her bag. She picked it up and looked at the call indicator. Percy. She went into the kitchen and put the instrument carefully to her ear.

‘Where the bloody'ell are you?' said Peach, characteristically benign.

‘I'm on my day off, as you very well know, DCI Peach,' she said firmly.

‘Not in the bath are you?' he said hopefully.

‘No. Not likely to be at just past midday, am I?'

‘I were always an optimist.' He dropped into the broad Lancashire accent he adopted on occasions just for her. ‘I'd be prepared to scrub thee back for thee, lass. Get the coal dust out. And then I'd—'

‘I'm having a conversation with my Mum, actually.' She pushed the kitchen door to with her foot and lowered her voice. ‘The one about babies. She's on about biological clocks.'

‘Bright lass, your mum. And a woman who knows about cricket. There's not many of them about.' He changed back to his normal voice. ‘Something's come in about the Sebastopol Terrace body. I'm planning to do an interview tonight. Thought you might want to be involved.'

‘I'll be there.'

Before my biological clock sounds off its damned alarm.

There were not many empty seats in the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. The Hallé had its main conductor, and the programme was a popular one. You could always pull them in for Beethoven. He was the surest of all the great composers when it came to putting bums on seats.

And of all the piano concertos, the Emperor was the most sure-fire hit. The old sweats among the orchestra players, the second violins and the back-row brass who had seen everything, said cynically that you could even get away with rubbish fingering in the Emperor. Great music could always triumph over crap playing. And concertos didn't come any better than the Emperor.

Yet even the most sceptical among the Hallé players realized that they were in the presence of something special here. Those who had heard the young John Ogdon thirty years earlier felt a stirring of remembrance when they witnessed the extraordinary virtuosity of this young man. It was undemonstrative, but it was undeniably brilliant, that word musicians are always reluctant to allow because it is so overworked.

There was a rapt silence among the audience during the limpid account of the slow movement. Silence is always significant in a concert hall at the end of February, that peak time for coughs and snuffles. The coughing which had preceded this, in the pause at the end of the first movement, had been a release of tension after the excitement of the soloist's electrifying performance and the way the playing of the whole of the Hallé Orchestra had risen to support it. It was as much an acknowledgement of greatness in its own way as the roars would be at the end of the performance.

Now the piano delicately, diffidently, picked out the notes of the great final theme and then, having found it, sounded it out triumphantly, with the full orchestra thundering behind it. A pleasurable tension swept through the listeners, as the hands of the slight young man at the centre of it raced up and down the keyboard. There were ten minutes of this yet, as Beethoven teased and delighted his listeners with what he had never been able to hear perfectly himself, and his accomplice at the Bechstein grand detonated the fireworks he had set up for them.

The fingers sped faster and faster, the crescendo built and rebuilt; the notes glittered clear and individual as icicles, even as the speed seemed impossible. There was no flourish from the slight shoulders or those lightning hands until the very last, triumphant chord. And then there was that tiny, absolute pause which always seems to happen on the greatest musical occasions as a prelude to the audience's salute.

The applause when it came cascaded like a cataract down the tiers of the hall. It flooded round orchestra and pianist, whilst the sweating conductor smiled, mopped his brow, beamed his own delight at his role in the occasion, turned, and motioned to his players. The orchestra rose as one, their instruments set aside or held awkwardly to allow their hands to applaud.

Musicians are a cynical lot, especially where conductors and soloists are involved. They are sometimes asked to rise in acknowledgements of soloists which are more theatrical than genuine, and they usually resent that. But they identify greatness more readily than any other artists, and when they recognize it, they are delighted to be involved in it.

The players were genuine in their applause for the young virtuoso. Most of them had begun their lives by playing the piano as children before they progressed to other instruments, and many of them had attained a fair degree of expertise at the keyboard. That was what enabled them to estimate the prowess of this man. And they had no doubt that they were in the presence of a huge talent.

Once he had left his instrument, the pianist looked ill at ease in the tailed evening suit which he had worn so little; he was embarrassed now as the applause built to a tumult, and he was called back for repeated bows. His career was still in bud; it took time to establish an international reputation. But his fellow musicians had no doubt that this slight, gauche young man would be a household name within the next generation.

Outside the main concert hall, in the deserted corridors leading to the dressing rooms, two figures were challenged, for the third time since they had entered the building. It was over a decade now since the IRA had devastated the centre of Manchester, but new terrorist threats had appeared since then, and security in public places remained very tight. The man here had his orders, and even policemen could not be allowed to penetrate the inner sanctum he patrolled.

When the Chief Inspector produced his warrant card, the official examined it carefully and shook his head sadly. ‘It's in order, but you can't come past here. Not during the concert.'

DCI Peach surveyed the man, who was fiftyish, overweight, swelling pompously with the burden of his authority. DS Lucy Blake felt suddenly quite sorry for him.

Peach said with ominous clarity, ‘We can, sir. You'll find that you've done the right thing, letting us through. Dressing rooms down here, are they?' He peered past the formidable figure, who seemed to be trying to enlarge himself like an animated drawing to block the width of the ten-foot-wide corridor.

‘This area is reserved for the major artistes.'

‘Good. That's why we're here.'

‘You don't understand.' The self-appointed security man listened to the applause in the distance, bursting towards a fortissimo as a door opened from the auditorium, and felt the beginnings of panic. The great men would be here soon, with these obstinate policemen still waiting to upset them. He said as patiently as he could, ‘These are the rooms where the major performers relax after a performance. Wind down, you see. Receive their privileged visitors.'

Peach smiled the smile which any Brunton copper could have told the man was very dangerous. ‘That's us, sunshine. Privileged visitors. We have things to discuss with Matty Hayward.'

‘Matthew.' The portly man could not keep the outrage at this lese-majesty out of his voice. ‘It's Matthew Hayward. It's usual to afford the major soloists their full titles, you know.'

‘I'll afford you a boot up the backside if you don't get out of the way,' said Peach calmly.

There was no malice in his delivery, but that made it somehow more frightening to a man who had not been threatened like that in thirty years. It sounded like a simple statement of fact. He eyed Percy Peach's brightly polished shoe apprehensively. ‘This is most irregular.'

It was a sign of weakness, and Peach was past him like an eager whippet, with his Sergeant slipping easily into his considerable wake. ‘Just what it is, sunshine. Most irregular. I wouldn't be working at this time, wouldn't be swanning around Manchester like this, if it wasn't irregular. Just show us young Matty's dressing room, and then you can be on your way. It's private this, as you might imagine. So don't you go telling other people that young Matty is involved with the fuzz, will you?' He passed rapidly down the corridor, inspecting the doors as he went.

Three yards behind him, the man's voice became a wail of protest. ‘This is the dressing room reserved for this evening's soloist, but I really must protest in the strongest terms—'

‘That's the idea, sir. Protest away. And in the strongest terms, as you suggest. I'll give you the full names and titles of my senior officers, if you require them. On the way out, that will be. When DS Blake and I have finished with young Matty Hayward. In the meantime, if you have his interests at heart, you'll make sure we're not disturbed.'

Peach had somehow managed to secure the position of advantage with his back to the door, which he now opened behind him. He surveyed the empty room with the chair in front of the mirror and the other seats around the wall, and apparently found it satisfactory. He ushered Lucy Blake into the room and said, ‘I should get back to your post now, sir. There might be unauthorized persons trying to get into these rooms. And we wouldn't want that, would we?'

The man said through the door which was slowly closing upon him, ‘It's my job, you see. I have to—'

‘For the next twenty minutes or so, your job is to see that we're not disturbed with Matty, see?'

This formidable guardian could hardly believe it. He found himself saying to the closed door, ‘I'll make sure you aren't disturbed, Chief Inspector.'

The man knew he was dying.

In a hospice, most people knew. They went there to spend their last days with people who were experts in death, and they went tranquilly into that long good night. It was a triumph of the hospice movement that the humble, industrious experts who worked in places like this had restored the dignity to death. They had also taken a lot of the fear away from it for most of the people who spent their final days and nights in hospices.

A lot of the fear, but not all. This man, despite the drugs which had dulled the pain, was not going quietly into the great unknown. He held hard to the hand of the woman who sat at his bedside and said in a voice which had declined now to a croak, ‘Why me?'

‘None of us knows why, Gerry. There's no rhyme or reason in it, and it's no use us even asking why.' She stroked the brown skin on the back of the hand which was little more than bones now, whilst the seconds stretched out in the silent room. There was never any hurry here, even when most of the people in the beds and the chairs had so little time left. ‘Perhaps it will make more sense to us in the next life. Perhaps we shall see things more clearly then.'

The lips twisted briefly in scorn; she was glad to see that tiny burst of energy in what might otherwise have been a cadaver. ‘It's always “perhaps”, with you people. You call it faith, but I call it stupidity.' She carried on holding his hand, feeling the fingers tighten a little in response. At least a minute later, when she thought he had drifted off again, he said, ‘It's all right for you, sister. You have beliefs. Some of us know there's nothing after this.'

She was surprised that he had remembered she was a nun. They didn't wear uniforms in here, and religious trappings least of all. It was one of the rules that no one preached at these people in their last days. If they wanted a clergyman or last religious rites, they would ask for them, and it would be arranged.

She was amazed once again at the odd things which stuck in minds that were mortally sick, when more obvious things disappeared. But perhaps he thought she was a hospital sister, a nurse in charge of his treatment, not a religious one. It mattered little, so long as she could ease his suffering. She eased the sheets gently away from the emaciated body. He was lying on his back, and she took the opportunity to smooth a little cream on to the bedsores she was trying to control on each of the hips. The skin felt as thin and smooth as cling-film; it seemed impossible that it did not split and peel away from the bone beneath it.

She reached over and eased off the earphones from ears delicate as paper, catching the applause from the Hallé broadcast at the end of the concerto. He'd asked to listen to the concert earlier; but she wondered how much of it he had heard through the haze of drugs and pain. As if he registered her thought, he said without opening his eyes, ‘Tremendous performance. He's going to be one of the greats, that chap. Pity I won't be around to see it.'

She smiled, smoothing down the sparse white hair, wondering if she could get him to take a drink. ‘It was the Hallé, wasn't it? I haven't heard them for a long time. Not since they used to play in the Free Trade Hall.'

‘Barbirolli.' The dry, thin lips beneath her enunciated the syllables as clearly as if they had been fulfilling an elocution exercise. ‘Sir John Barbirolli was the conductor of the Hallé when I used to go. Those were the great days. His wife was Evelyn Rothwell. Played the oboe in the orchestra. I used to live near them in those days. In Fallowfield, in Manchester.' It had been a long speech for a dying man. The bloodless lips managed a thin, exhausted smile, and she hoped his mind was back reliving those blissful days.

She wasn't at all surprised by the detail. Fifty years ago was often much more vivid than yesterday, as you approached the end. She said, ‘Everyone says the Barbirolli days were the best for the Hallé. “Glorious John” they called him, didn't they?'

But he had gone from her now, drifting off into some peaceful oblivion. She felt suddenly weary, realized for the first time that she had been working for over twelve hours, with minimal breaks for food and drink. When people needed you, you gave, and you scarcely noticed fatigue creeping up on you, because you were needed. It was at moments like this, when the work was suddenly switched off, that you found that the weariness seemed to have crept into your very bones.