The Tooth Tattoo(131)

Diamond had asked Halliwell to sit in with him. Most of the others would be on the other side of the one-way observation window. ‘It’s about what you’ve been up to, and why,’ Diamond said.

‘Recording the Grosse Fuge,’ she said with gusto, ‘and you were there to be blown away by it, lucky man.’

‘It would have blown anyone away. But I want to ask you about Vienna in 2008. Your quartet was equally brilliant then, but with a slightly different combination.’

‘Harry on viola.’

‘Before he went missing.’

‘Before he was kidnapped, poor lamb.’

‘You know about the kidnapping, then? That’s a good start.’

‘Mel filled us in this morning. Harry called at his house yesterday evening. What a horror story it was, too.’

‘You were the originals, you, Harry and Ivan.’

Cat remarked to her solicitor, ‘He wants us to know he’s done his homework.’

‘You’ve always been the mainstay of the Staccati,’ Diamond said. ‘Be they alcoholic, autistic or exiles, you mother them all.’

‘Is that what they told you?’

‘It’s what you repeatedly tell everyone. The first time we spoke at any length, you told me you keep your boys in order.’

She said to the solicitor, ‘He doesn’t miss a trick.’

‘I’m sure they appreciate it,’ Diamond said. ‘In their different ways, they all need mothering, don’t they? They’re your family. You told me how, after Harry went missing, you wandered the streets of Budapest searching for him.’

‘Where are you going with this?’ Cat’s long fingers beat an impatient rhythm on the table.

‘I’m thinking a single woman like yourself found an ideal outlet for her strong maternal instincts.’

‘I thought you were a policeman, not a shrink.’ Her tone was less playful now.

‘We have to understand people’s motives,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk about the music, then. You’re one of the best cellists in the world, I’m told. You could have a solo career, but you prefer playing in the quartet.’

‘There’s nothing criminal in that. I’m a team player, an ensemble person through and through.’

‘You’ve said it for me,’ Diamond said. ‘You keep the Staccati going. It’s your personal mission, creative and fulfilling.’

‘I won’t argue with that.’

‘But if anyone threatens its existence, you see red. I was told you’re like a tigress then.’

‘Who said that?’

‘If it’s true, does it matter? There was that evening in Vienna when you were having a drink after the concert in your hotel bar with the others.’

‘Most concerts end like that.’

‘This one was different because Harry wasn’t drinking with you. He was in another part of the bar with a Japanese woman you’d all met.’

‘Harry was like that. Never known to refuse an offer.’

‘You were all discussing the two of them and Douglas remarked that this woman – who knew a lot about music – could be out to persuade Harry to join another quartet.’

‘Douglas said that?’

‘He tells me he did.’

She arched her eyebrows in a show of surprise. ‘I have no recollection at all.’

‘Harry took the woman, whose name was Emi Kojima, to his hotel room.’

‘Tell us something new, sunshine. Stuff like this has been going on since Adam and Eve.’

‘But you were deeply suspicious of her motives. You considered Emi a serious threat to your beloved quartet and, let’s face it, your personal and professional life. You waited on the same hotel floor for her to leave. She was alone and you followed her along the river bank towards the Danube canal. I’m guessing now, but I reckon at some point you caught up with her and challenged her to say what her intentions were. She was terrified of you. She tried to get away, but she was small, no match for you. You may have simply pushed her, or you may have put your hands around her throat. Either way, she ended up dead in the canal. She wouldn’t be found for some weeks. You returned to the hotel shaken by what you’d done, but thinking you’d stopped her from poaching Harry. The tour continued, but unfortunately in the very next city, Budapest, Harry went missing.’

‘The last part is correct,’ Cat said to her solicitor.

The solicitor said, ‘I’m advising you not to comment.’

‘I’m only agreeing that we lost Harry. Of course we did. The rest, about me attacking the woman, is up there with UFOs and little green men.’