Dying Fall (25 page)

‘Well, she kept her job, didn't she? And don't tell me there aren't thirty or forty bassoonists who could do it a damned sight better than she does.'

‘Did George know about this?'

‘You were his dearest friend and he didn't tell even you. Of course he knew. He used to spend hours helping her, you know. And people said he used to do all the out-of-town gigs where you might have expected her to sit up because he was too selfish to let her get the experience. He did them because he couldn't trust her to do a halfway decent job, and he cared about the bloody orchestra so much. And the music, of course.'

‘Tony – forgive me, I have to ask this: why didn't you just confront her? Get rid of her?' After all, we are in the twentieth century. Even if the story of the pregnancy were true, men and women do sleep together, and loops do slip. Presumably. It would scarcely have caused a tremor in the orchestra, where the pressures of the job, the touring, the weird hours do cause such liaisons.

‘Because it didn't just involve me. At least I've always assumed not. I mean, her flat …'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘I thought she might – other people …'

I should have picked him up and shaken him. Anyone else I would have. I'd have pointed out that if he'd confronted her, better still gone to the police, all her power over other people would have been weakened. There was something I had to pursue, though, and yelling at him wouldn't help me. ‘George – did she have anything on him? Because I don't think George … I'm sorry …'

‘Would have lain down under it? I don't think so. But I don't know. You see, he did say he'd got to talk to her. That there was something very serious he had to say. We were joking, that Friday morning, Sophie. I haven't said anything before because I thought it might upset you. I'd just been with him to the solicitor's, you see, to witness his will. And he said, “Glad that's all over. I wanted it all tied up. Now I can confront our friend”'.

‘Could it have been any other friend?'

‘Not a man for rows, George, was he? He was in this ongoing battle with Mayou, of course. They were rehearsing
Le Matin
and they couldn't decide on the tempo for the slow movement. And George reckoned that bit in
The Firebird
could do with slowing down.'

‘But you don't kill people because they dislike your tempi. I thought George and Stobbard got on with each other quite well. That's one reason I –' I stopped. Then I got going again. ‘And Jools couldn't have killed him because Mayou saw her going out through the front door. He told the police.'

‘Front door? I thought he'd have swaggered through the admiring crowds outside the stage door!'

‘I thought you liked him.'

‘So did I. He's offered me a job, you know. As his personal manager.'

‘Gofer. Oh, Tony.'

‘Sounded better than that when he said it. More – much more money than I get here.'

‘How does he propose to pay you? Private oil well or something? Damn it, conductors aren't pop stars.'

‘Must have money in the family, I suppose. Certainly spends it like water. And I know how much he's getting from the MSO, and it isn't enough to pay what he's offering. More than a policeman, though, Sophie. You could do a lot worse. He's very concerned you've not been in touch, by the way. I explained about your problems, though. But you must contact him.'

By this time I needed the loo so badly I could think of very little else. But it was Tony who got up first, and headed for the stairs. I looked at my watch: two-thirty. What I'd give for Mrs T's capacity for work without sleep. As soon as he came back, I headed loo-wards. I ought to tell him off for assuming I wanted anyone, policeman or conductor, in my life. But that would divert me from what I needed to say.

‘You realise,' I said, as stern as if he were one of my students, ‘you have to tell the police all this.'

‘I'll go first thing Monday morning. Before we set off for Bedworth.'

‘You ought to go now.'

‘Too pissed.'

‘Tomorrow.'

‘Going to – let's think – Bristol. Colston Hall. Afternoon concert. We leave at nine. Rehearse at eleven.'

‘Tonight. You ought. The fuzz'll drive you, and I'll guard your car with my life.'

‘I want a solicitor with me and you'll be too busy looking after your life to lay it down for a car.'

I found a sleeping bag and covered him with it. Slipped off his shoes, shifted the cushion so he wouldn't get a crick in his neck.

I stood watching him. I ought to rouse Tina, or even phone Chris. But Tony had to do it himself – prove something or other, no doubt. I didn't think I'd sleep, but I must have done. Certainly I never heard him or his car leave. Bristol, was it? No one could accuse him of not being a conscientious boss at least.

One thing was certain. If I told Chris any or all of what Tony had said, he'd be hauled in, for the simple reason it would justify Chris grilling someone. Chris wouldn't see the big snag I saw: hating Jools was no reason for killing George. Jools had a motive for killing George, but she had not struck me as a woman who had killed someone the night she came into the pub. The emotion I associated with her was fear. Even the memory of George's death had made her blanch. I had to talk to her again. Of course, she'd be well on her way to Bristol now. I left a message for her to call me urgently. My voice may have sounded rather grim. I left another message too. Couldn't think why I hadn't done so before. Thirteen roses deserved acknowledgement, and it was sheer bad manners to ignore his messages. And it might have seemed to him that I blamed him for being impotent, that night. Crass and ugly, that was how I felt now. Bloody hell, it should have been me sending him flowers with messages telling him not to worry and inviting him to a return match at my home. In private. Except it couldn't be. Sounds of Madonna percolating down the stairs reminded me that Tina was irrepressibly here, and any moment now I'd be subjected to a barrage of heavy witticisms about my sex life. Should I leave the sleeping bag lying apologetically where Tony had left it, or should I remove it and smooth the hollow from the cushion? Which would irritate Chris more?

The living room was pristine when she crawled down.

But I used the telephone extension upstairs to phone the Mondiale. There must be an art in dictating loving messages to complete strangers. What did I want to say? That I'd been too knackered and knocked about to think about him? I tried – amazing how useful it can be – the simple truth.

‘Tell Mr Mayou,' I said to a genteel-voiced clerk, ‘that I was in a bad car crash, and that burglars wrecked my house. I had to spend a couple of nights away. But I'm back home now and would very much welcome a call.'

The call I actually got was from Dean. I didn't recognise his voice at first. And he was slurring his consonants as if he were drunk. But that is a state I'd never associate with Dean. He said he'd got the information I'd wanted. But –'

‘I'm not a woman for buts.'

‘But I don't know whether I ought to tell you.' Then I thought he said; ‘Safer if you didn't know.'

‘I beg your pardon?' Hell, I didn't mean to sound like a schoolmarm.

‘Safer. For you, Sophie. Because if you don't know you won't get done over, see.'

‘Done over?' My voice shot up an octave. ‘What the hell –?'

‘Found a place. Two places. Sophie: isn't safe, you know.'

‘Not safe? Dean, love, you sound all funny and what you're saying doesn't sound like you either.'

‘Not surprising. Lost a tooth, got two black eyes, a few bruised ribs.'

‘Bloody hell! What can I say? I never meant –'

‘No, it's OK.'

‘We need to talk. The police –'

‘Don't want no filth.'

‘But, Dean, it's –'

‘I said no filth. Got a record, Soph. Remember? GBH. Wouldn't believe me.'

I bit back all the things I wanted to say. Who was I to argue? In any case, I might be able to work something, face to face.

‘And I don't know I ought to see you,' he said. ‘I might lead them to you.'

‘I've got a police minder at the moment, I'm in so deep.' I gave him a brief résumé of my recent activities. ‘But perhaps you shouldn't be seen coming here. Couldn't I just casually drop by at the Fitness Centre? Nothing odd in that.'

‘Could talk in the sauna, maybe.'

‘Only if you turn the thermostat right down!'

‘Come on, Sophie. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the sauna!'

They decided it should be Seb who'd accompany me, much to my surprise. I'd laid down some ground rules, first. My informant and I would talk in private. I would not be party to any of Seb's neat little transmitters. I'd do my utmost to persuade my informant to talk to them, or even let me pass on the information. In return I had to promise not to organise a one-woman raiding party on the premises he fingered. I wasn't quite convinced they'd keep their part of the bargain.

Seb, as a potential new member, insisted on looking everywhere, including the sauna, before he paid. He might well have planted a bug. And when we cycled side by side – I wanted to keep the muscles ticking over – he wore a Walkman. So did half the people working out, actually: it's probably only the younger ones who enjoy the canned pop music. Maybe it's there to stimulate us to greater efforts, maybe to drown the grunts of the Multi-Gym males. But after Tina and her Radio Whatever, I would have done much to have had a Walkman tinkling out some particular jolly Telemann.

At last, having cycled and rowed and birthing-chaired with such dedication as must have convinced any casual bystander that I was a genuine fitness freak, I left for the changing area, emerging with a towel wrapped sarong-wise around me. Dean was already there. As I entered, he passed me a notice to hang outside:
SORRY OUT OF ORDER
.

Dean's skin, normally a rich purple-brown, had faded to a patchy grey. His face was swollen, but not as badly as I'd feared. His usually elegant movements were cramped. He'd done what I should have done: used the phone. His contacts had come up with a couple of names, but recommended extreme caution.

‘Where?' I prompted.

His answer stunned me. But on reflection it shouldn't have done. Not sleazy back-street gyms, where poor black kids were encouraged to make money damaging other kids' brains, but an extremely couth city-centre Health and Beauty Club used by anyone who was anyone, a video shop and, of all things, a health-food shop. Then he'd had a brilliant idea. He'd follow Jools. I thought that must have been a long shot, to say the least, but he'd had some luck, he said. She said she'd got to cut short her session because she'd got to do some shopping. And something in the way she said it made him think it was something she shouldn't be buying. Normally he finished every conversation telling her not to be an idiot. This time he tailed her. To the video shop. She left with a carrier bag. Just an ordinary carrier bag, as if she'd been borrowing
Rambo
or whatever. He went in and asked – this was where he made the mistake, he said – for what they'd just lent to Jools.

And they'd offered him cocaine.

‘Gobsmacked, I was, Soph. Bloody gobsmacked. So I said, no, I wanted the steroids, see. And they sold me them. Easy-peasy. But just as I was about to pick up my bus home, these two heavies invited me to have a conversation with them. Told them I don't talk to no strangers. When they tried it on –' he touched his face –‘and I grounded them both, blow me if this third chap didn't come up and slosh me. Sock full of sand, I reckon. Went out like a bloody light.'

‘I know it's a daft question, but if there were three of them and you were unconscious, how come you got away with … with your life, Dean?'

‘Bit of luck. There was this woman at the bus stop when I came round. Said a funny-looking woman had stopped them. Just like that. And they'd all scarpered. Just like that. Christ, Soph, I'm bloody scared. And so should you be.'

‘Got to be the fuzz, Dean. Got to be.'

‘You promised – you said you wouldn't fucking call them!'

‘You don't call this lot. You ask permission to go out. I can't go to the bloody bog without them knowing. And I'm not bugged. Wouldn't let them, because I'd promised you, right. But I want you to tell them. One of them. He'll believe you if I do.'

‘That stringy chap you came with the other day? Thought you looked kind of good together.'

‘Gee, thanks. As a person – well, sometimes he's OK, others he's a total pain in the arse. But I think he's a decent cop, honest enough.'

Dean evidently thought that was an oxymoron, even if he didn't know the term.

‘I don't know. I really don't, Soph.'

‘But –'

‘I mean – Christ, there may be no one to stop them next time. Never been so fucking scared.'

‘Police protection?' Not that I could recommend it with wholehearted enthusiasm. But at least Dean liked pop music.

‘How long for? Even when they're in the nick, these guys can still get at you. Have you thought of that?'

I hadn't. I ought to have done. I'd have that to live with, wouldn't I?

He took my hand. ‘Sorry. Didn't mean to upset you, Soph. But it's right, isn't it?'

I nodded. ‘But we've both got a marginally better chance with them on our side. No one'll notice a couple of unrelated deaths unless someone knows who the corpses are. At least we might get avenged.' I can't say that reassured him.

‘Tell you what: I'll sleep on it. I've got me mate to pick me up tonight. I'll shake down on his floor. And I'll call you, let you know what I decide. Right?'