Funeral Music (6 page)

Now he was being brusque and efficient. She related, in answer to his questions, what she had done since her arrival at the Pump Room that morning. He quizzed her about the evening before and she went through it all in detail, beginning with her afternoon rehearsal, right up until when she had left the Pump Room, in the rain, at ten thirty. She told him about Matthew Sawyer’s speech.

‘It was disastrous. He was so rude and dismissive, as if he had no idea of what was important to those people. He must have upset them very badly. He certainly embarrassed me.’

‘And you’re saying that more or less the whole audience was annoyed? Did you see anyone who seemed particularly upset?’

‘How could I tell? Anyway, I left just after that.’ She paused. ‘I only saw one person speak to him afterwards. A colleague of his, Olivia Passmore, the deputy director. No, I didn’t hear what was said. I suppose you can find that out from Olivia, can’t you?’

She was damned if she was going to give any more help than that. Olivia would be sure to be on the list of people to be interviewed. Anyway, it was none of her business to speculate on what they might have been talking about. It was their business or, more accurately now, Olivia’s. She felt a sudden, tender pity for poor, clumsy Matthew Sawyer, whom she had never even properly met. Bridger was drawing her back to the finding of the body.
Why? Why go over it again? He is doing this to torment me, the little reptile, she thought. She answered mechanically.

‘As I’ve told you, I was looking round the museum. I was just waiting till George could open up the office where I’d left my belt. I was the first visitor in. I simply walked up to the railing in front of the overflow. I saw the body lying in the water. I realised who it was. The water was running over his face. The mouth was open. His legs and arms seemed all... all over the place. I must have screamed. George grabbed me. That’s all I remember. It was very upsetting.... Matthew Sawyer was like someone else I... I once knew.’

She stopped. She did not think she was going to be able to say any more without crying, but she had to know.

‘How did he die?’ she asked.

Bridger paused. The press would be told in a couple of hours anyway; the statement had already been prepared. He picked up the sheet of paper from the desk. He shouldn’t say anything, but it would be a pleasure to watch her take it.

‘Pending the forensic pathologist’s full report, a preliminary examination suggests that the deceased sustained fatal stab wounds which are not thought to have been selfinflicted,’ read Bridger, running his tongue over his caramelly teeth, well satisfied.

CHAPTER 4

SARA COULD NOT free her mind from the grip of the day’s events. It had started to rain by the time she left the building, refusing offers of help, and drove home, forgetting all her plans, intent only on getting back to the comforting privacy of the cottage’s thick walls. She rang James.

‘So you see, because of all this, I haven’t bought a thing. I’m so sorry. I was going to go to the fish market. I’ve got salad. There’s nothing for pud. It was going to be a treat. Oh, James, I’m really sorry. What about cheese? What are we to do?’ she babbled, transferring her anxious need for the restoration of some sort of order to the state of the larder, where it could at least be acted upon.

James interrupted. ‘Will you stop that? I will tell you what we are going to do. I am going to do some shopping, then I am coming straight over. You are to do nothing until I get there, except perhaps make yourself some tea. Hold on.’

And although he thought it would probably do her good, he reflected that it would not be quite the thing to suggest that she soak in a long, hot bath.

In the lateness of the afternoon the wind rose and it turned cold. Sara gathered some of the fallen peony heads and floated them in a wide glass bowl. She brought in a few logs and lit the fire, and then made tea. Afterwards, she coaxed herself upstairs. In her oversized bathroom, she ran a deep hot bath, pouring in most of the tea tree bath gel, and stepped in, gasping in the intense heat. She groaned and slid under the water, then surfaced, reached for her Floris bath oil and tipped in a decadent quantity, enough to extinguish the scent of tea tree. For a long time she lay absolutely still in the hot, aromatic water and felt some of the day’s taint wash from her. Much later, wrapped in a bathrobe, she rested for a moment in the large cane rocking chair where she sat to dry her feet. She thought of Matthew Sawyer’s widow and children, assuming that he would be married and a father. Her own experience of his death was now effectively over. She had nothing to do now but recover from a momentary shock. For Mrs Sawyer, it was only beginning: the pain, fury and bitterness, followed by loneliness and long, long sorrow. Sara covered her face with her warm and water-wrinkled hands.

James arrived in perfect time to make large kirs for them both. He let himself into the kitchen and by way of announcing his arrival launched into ‘Ma in Espana’, just as Sara was coming downstairs in a cloud of stephanotis, bare-foot and dressed in grey silk Indian trousers and a man’s collarless white shirt. She was pink and extremely shiny and James, thinking that she looked like a very large baby, judged that this was how she might need to be treated. He saw that a damaged look had returned to her beautiful eyes.

‘In da capo mode, I hear,’ she said. ‘Leporello has landed. Don’t you ever get tired to
Don Giovanni
?’

‘Probably not as tired as everyone else does. Come here, honeybun.’ James kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms round her. ‘Poor baby. You know you shouldn’t really leave the door unlocked like that,’ he said, rocking her gently.

‘This is the country,’ Sara retorted. ‘Don’t be so
Londony
.’ She gave a shuddering sigh. ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she muttered into his chest. After a moment’s silence she drew away and said, ‘You saw him last night, didn’t you? At the dinner, in the Pump Room. He did look a bit like Matteo, didn’t he?’

‘A bit. Only a bit. Come on, here’s a drink. Do you want ice in that?’

He wanted only to make her feel better after her horrible experience and like all unconsciously charming people he did not realise how much this was accomplished merely by his presence. He stationed her at the table with her glass and a bowl of olives while he worked happily in the big high kitchen. He enjoyed moving around in its generous space, reaching for the spoons and herbs hanging from butcher’s hooks, putting things he had finished with out of his way. Sara watched, recognising the same impeccable, technical ease that he brought to the keyboard. His movements were simple. There was none of the impassioned throwing around that so many musicians went in for, believing the audience expected it. He directed his energy straight into what he was doing, and focused only on that. Consequently, whatever it was, whether a piece of music, a story he was telling or even, as now, a salad, it contained no jarring element or empty gesture but had a kind of honest life that arose from the deep concentration he gave it. He used his hands perfectly. He seemed to establish a harmony with the things he touched; he got out chopping boards without banging them about, he did not drop and then tread on peeled cloves of garlic and he did not rip the skins off onions as if he were tearing brown paper off a parcel. As he started on the potatoes, Sara thought he was the only person she could happily watch using a knife. The kirs went down quickly and James made more. Partly from the wine, partly from James camping things up and partly from a need to relieve the day’s tension, they got a bit giggly. They took in trays of food to the drawing room and ate off the low table round the fire, while the cat lay on the hearth, stoned on Whiskas.

‘Want mustard? It’s got beer in it,’ James said, helping himself. ‘I say, isn’t this frightfully Famous Five? Look, heaps of lettuce,
pommes savoyarde
, wild boar sausages, some olives and yummy French bread, lashings of Cabernet Sauvignon. Not to mention a murder. Rather a gruesome puzzle, what? Of course it’s not funny,’ he added, answering Sara’s look, ‘but I wonder what it’s all about? The speech got anything to do with it?’

Sara snorted that Sawyer had certainly upset people very badly, but nobody could be driven to
murder
because of it.

‘Ah, but,’ James intoned portentously, ‘it
seems
impossible, but all kinds of things
seem
impossible, don’t they? Ancient echoes. What about those curses that people used to throw into the bath? Chuck us the guidebook.’

He leafed through it.

‘Listen to this. “May the person who has stolen from me become as liquid as water.” No,
listen
. “May my enemy sink like lead.” “May the goddess Sulis afflict him with maximum death.” See?’

Sara stared with mocking goggle-eyes and went, ‘Ooohoooh!’

‘No, listen, it’s all very powerful stuff. It
is
. Don’t you think there could be a link?’

‘Well, Watson, there could be, but I’m not sure Bath CID will go for it,’ Sara said.

She regaled him with a scurrilous account of Detective Sergeant Bridger, and James, suddenly an expert on police procedure, said, ‘Oh, but he’s very junior. He certainly won’t be in charge. They’ll have to interview all the museum staff, at the Assembly Rooms as well as the Pump Room, and the caterers, as well as everyone who was at the do last night. That’s well over five hundred people, for a start.’

‘But why?’ asked Sara. Suddenly it seemed serious again. ‘Surely they’ll find whoever broke in without going through all that? They must have surveillance cameras. Or someone may have seen him get in, or heard him. He would probably be drunk, about to trash the place. I bet it was just some drunken yob with one of those combat knives.’

‘Think so? I mean, you arrived first thing and George was opening up as usual. He obviously hadn’t come across a break-in or any malicious damage. He must have found everything just as he expected it.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so. Including the alarms,’ Sara said. ‘The alarm is set every night by the person locking up. George, or whoever’s opening up, switches it off. If it hadn’t been set, he would have been in a bit of a state this morning. But he was perfectly relaxed.’

‘Well, who
was
locking up last night?’ James asked. ‘Because if they locked up in the usual way and set the alarm, whoever it was either left Matthew Sawyer, or Matthew Sawyer’s body, inside.’

‘But it was Matthew Sawyer who was meant to do the locking up,’ Sara said. ‘Olivia mentioned it when she was saying good night. So what then? Who actually
did
lock up? The murderer must have done it.’

‘That’s if the alarm was set. Suppose George was behaving as usual because he wasn’t surprised to find the alarm switched off? Because
he’d
done the murder? Oh, but wait, no, because if he’d done the murder and left the alarm
off
, so that the police would think the murder was done by someone who
didn’t
know how to set the alarm, then part of that trick would be acting all surprised when he “discovered” the alarm off in the morning. So he couldn’t have done it. Could he?’

‘Don’t. You’re getting me all confused,’ Sara said, sniggering. ‘Anyway, I think it’s all horrible. When I think of the last people going off home, never thinking of what they were leaving him to. You stayed till the end, didn’t you? Looked like you were enjoying yourself, anyway.’

‘You know me. Hate to leave before the party’s over.’ James raised his glass to her archly before drinking from it. ‘I’m still wondering
why
he was killed. Not burglary, by the look of it, or vandalism. Must have had enemies.’

‘One enemy at least,’ Sara said firmly, ‘although I can never understand how people’s feelings run so high. I mean, in the
real
world—’

‘Ha! You mean in your sheltered little world, don’t you?’ James said, more abruptly than he intended. ‘You don’t know what goes on, you don’t really. People aren’t always what they seem, you know.’

Sara gave him a look of pitying sarcasm. ‘Oh, right. I get it, we’re back in gay paranoia land, are we? No, wait, perhaps Matthew Sawyer was an underground drugs baron. Or a pimp. Both. Christ, James—’

‘Cow. You
don’t
know what goes on. It’s not paranoia, there’s a lot of real homophobia out there and it’s not all yobs gay-bashing on a Saturday night in the provinces. There’s a lot of it under the surface.’

‘So you think Matthew Sawyer was gay, do you?’

‘I’m not saying he was gay, am I? Not that being gay and homophobic don’t often go together.’

‘Oh, don’t get started on that. Anyway, I think we should leave it to the police.’

James said mischievously, ‘You mean you’re going to ask the splendid Andrew what he thinks. He might even be conducting the case.’

Sara shot James a look. ‘There’s no need to be nasty about him, just because he’s a policeman.’

‘The world’s first cello-playing policeman,’ James said slyly. ‘And I’m not being nasty about him. I just question his motives for pestering you, and getting you to teach him the cello, that’s all.’

‘There’s nothing to question. How would you feel if you’d been stopped from learning the piano just when it was getting interesting? Because your parents thought it was time to get proper qualifications and a proper job? Andrew was just made to give it all up and he’s regretted it all his life. He could have played professionally, only he wasn’t encouraged. It’s a criminal waste of talent.’

‘He fancies you.’

Sara scowled.

‘And what about your motives for taking him on? Is it really his talent that’s so interesting? He’s very good-looking, of course, but don’t tell him
I
said so – he’d be horrified.’

‘Anyway, Andrew’s not a policeman, he’s a detective,’ Sara said, ‘as you perfectly well know. Detective Chief Inspector.’ She added, as an afterthought, ‘You’re just jealous, because you fancy him yourself.’

‘I do not intend to dignify such a scurrilous suggestion with a reply,’ James sniffed. ‘And as usual you’re missing the important bit, which is that you, the world-class concert artist, are actually
giving lessons
to PC Gorgeous. And don’t get me wrong; he may well be worth teaching, but whether or not you should be spending
your
time doing it, instead of thinking about getting back to playing a concert or two, is open to question. In my view.’

There was a silence.

‘And there’s his little wifey to consider, isn’t there?’

Sara sighed. She knew that after Andrew Poole had lost the battle over his music studies and joined the police, he had been easy game for Valerie. They had married when they were both twenty-three and henceforth Andrew’s life had shrunk to a preoccupation with the mortgage, parent-craft classes, police exams, his in-laws at every other Sunday lunch, forays to Mothercare, instalments on the furniture, the microwave and camcorder, and regular spats with Valerie on all of these topics. Most of this he explained the first time he had come to see Sara. He had not told her until he knew her better that it had been after one especially bad row that he had gone out and spent their holiday fund on a cello, having the previous Christmas sold his old one, under pressure, so that they could buy the kids a computer. Valerie was still giving him grief about it but he had reached a point when he just had to play again, and Valerie was going to have to lump it.

‘His little wifey is his business,’ she now told James.

‘Okay, okay,’ James said. ‘Maybe your motives are entirely pure. But Poole did kind of manipulate you into teaching him, didn’t he?’

James could be so irritating. She wasn’t going to explain it all again, how Andrew had simply needed lessons, and when he had read in the
Bath Chronicle
, which had run a feature on her, that she had come to live near Bath, he had written her a sort of fan letter. He had introduced himself, told her that he had all her recordings and said that he did not suppose for a moment she would consider teaching him. She had written back acknowledging the first part of the letter, failing to state categorically that she did not take pupils. Then he had simply rung up and asked when he could come and meet her and get her advice. She had not been surprised to find that the attractively gentle voice was attached to a strongly built, fair-haired, brown-eyed man a year or two older than she was. But she had been surprised at how musically he had played despite many years’ rust on his technique, and how very strongly he had resisted the idea of approaching any of the other people she suggested about lessons. ‘But I don’t take pupils,’ she had protested.