25
The man in Mrs. Carlyle’s front room was instantly familiar to Mel from posters of the Staccati, the sort of well-proportioned, rugged face that attracted women and put men at ease, yet now looking creased with fatigue or strain. He couldn’t have shaved for days. He was in some kind of padded jacket with the hood turned down. Far from threatening, he was obviously ill at ease.
‘Hope you don’t mind me calling. I really do need to meet you. I’m Harry Cornell.’
The educated voice did not match the unkempt appearance. It was all so disarming that Mel reached for the hand that was offered. ‘Mel Farran.’
‘Can we talk here without being overheard?’
Mel thought about the Carlyle women and their interest in everything he did. ‘Probably not. We can go out if you want.’
‘I’d rather not. How about your room?’
They went upstairs. Mel sat on the bed and allowed Harry to use the chair.
‘I hate this cloak and dagger stuff,’ Harry said, ‘but I can’t take chances. What I have to say is for you alone.’
‘Okay. Want to take your coat off?’
He shook his head. He kept his hands buried in the pockets. ‘First, I want to say how sorry I am for knocking you down the other day.’
‘That was you in the Megane?’ Mel said more as a statement than a question, confirming what he had already worked out for himself.
‘You weren’t seriously injured?’
‘More shocked than hurt.’
‘I know you played in a concert that evening. It was unforgivable of me. I’m truly sorry. I panicked when it was obvious you were coming towards the car to speak. I wasn’t ready to meet you then. All I could think was I had to get the hell out of there.’
‘Why were you there at all?’
‘Making sure.’
‘Of what?’
‘Where you lived. I’d already followed a taxi as far as the street, but I didn’t see where you went in. If nothing else, I got that confirmed.’
‘What exactly do you want?’
‘You’re a fine musician,’ Harry said. ‘I heard you playing today. You bring out the best in the others.’
‘Thanks, but – ’
‘What’s your instrument?’
‘I thought you knew.’
‘The maker, I mean.’
‘Nicolò Amati.’
Harry’s eyes widened. ‘I thought it sounded out of this world. May I see it?’
A firm line was needed here. The man’s behaviour had done nothing to engender confidence. ‘Sorry, but no.’
‘You don’t think I’d damage it?’
‘It doesn’t belong to me.’
‘Ah.’ A short silence from Harry. ‘This is something I wanted to ask you about.’
No, no, no, a voice screamed in Mel’s head. ‘I can’t say any more.’
‘A very rich man owns your viola and wants it played to a high standard. Am I right?’
‘Shall we talk about something else?’
‘Soon after I joined the Staccati, I was given a Maggini to play,’ Harry said, smoothly overriding Mel’s request. ‘From 1610. Any of us would go through fire to own a fiddle like that. Extraordinary workmanship and a wonderful tone. You must have heard it on one of our recordings.’
‘I have,’ Mel said, ‘and I know exactly what you mean.’
‘None of us in the quartet owned our instruments,’ Harry said. ‘We were all indebted to the super-rich, but that’s the way things have been for as long as music has been played. Fat cats buying antique instruments as investments.’
‘I know.’
‘And then they’re horrified to discover the damn things need to be played to preserve their sound quality. Paganini presented his own Guarnerius to his native city of Genoa and they kept it in a glass case in the municipal palace and buggered the tone. To be fair, my patron may have been a fat cat, but he actually knew a lot about fiddles. He had an amazing collection from what I could gather. I don’t know if he owned an Amati.’
Mel didn’t rise to the bait.
‘A Japanese guy who didn’t speak much English,’ Harry went on. ‘I never discovered how he made his millions. You don’t like to ask, do you? Anyway, I was offered the little beauty on indefinite loan and I played it all the years I was in the quartet. I didn’t even get a chance to kiss goodbye to it.’
‘You had to return it?’
‘It was collected.’ His look was so bleak that he could have been saying a knife had been thrust into his gut.
Mel didn’t like the way this was heading. ‘So what do you play now?’