The Tooth Tattoo(2)

Spurred by a degree of anger he didn’t know he possessed, Mel kept up the chase. The thief was faster, but one thing was in Mel’s favour: they’d turned left towards the Thames and he couldn’t cycle across.

No use shouting. There wasn’t anyone else in sight. Taking increasingly shallow gasps, Mel sprinted the length of the building as well as he could, resolved to get the thief in sight again. He turned the corner by the main entrance, already in darkness.

The guy was there, up ahead.

Mel’s legs were heavier with each stride and a band of pain was tightening across his chest. He was slowing, for all his strength of will. The buildings were a blur when he started. Now he could see them clearly.

But the thief would have a problem. The riverside walkway was at a higher level and a set of about a dozen steps formed a barrier ahead of him. He’d need to dismount. It wouldn’t be easy carrying both bike and viola up there.

Mel urged himself into another spurt.

He was running in the space between the front of the Festival Hall and the side of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. No one was around to help. It’s me and him, Mel thought. If I keep going I may catch up before he gets up those steps.

The guy’s head turned, checking, Mel guessed, whether he was still in pursuit.

Then he surprised Mel by veering to the right just before the steps, straight towards the QEH. What was he doing? Mel had been assuming the high wall was solid concrete like the rest of the building.

He appeared to cycle straight through and vanish.

Disbelieving, in despair, at the limit of his strength, Mel staggered along the remaining stretch and discovered how it had been done. There was a hidden ramp just before the steps, obviously meant for wheelchair access. The thief must have skimmed up there without breaking a sweat.

Suddenly he was back in view on the walkway, pedalling across Mel’s line of vision as if to mock him. But he stopped just to the right of the gated entrance to the Festival Pier, still astride the bike, with his feet on the ground.

He was up against the railing by the water’s edge. He swung the viola case back to get momentum. Jesus Christ, Mel thought, he’s about to throw it over.

‘No!’ he yelled. ‘For God’s sake, no.’

He was powerless to stop it. The thief couldn’t hear him this far off.

There was a freeze-frame moment as if he was having second thoughts. Then Mel’s precious fiddle was hurled over the edge.

Water is the worst enemy. No stringed instrument will survive immersion. The canvas case wasn’t waterproof. It would fill with filthy water. Whether it floated or got dragged down was immaterial.

To Mel, what had just happened was akin to murder. Anyone who has listened to music, who has heard a violin or a viola sing, must know it has life. It’s a unique individual with the power to speak directly to the soul, to calm, heal, inspire, uplift the spirit in ways beyond man’s capability. Mel would defy anyone not to respond to the purity of legato bowing, the eloquence of the flowing tone. Each instrument has its own voice.

He’d stopped running. His muscles were refusing to function, his brain spinning between disbelief and panic.

Why? What malice drives anyone to such an act?

‘Bastard!’

Already the cyclist was moving off left. And now Mel saw he’d get clean away, under the bridge and past the London Eye. All day there is a queue outside the huge observation wheel. But the place closed at nine-thirty. Nobody would be there to stop him at this hour.

In reality his attention wasn’t on the thief any longer. He could go. Mel wasn’t thinking about justice or revenge. He wanted the impossible: to put the last five minutes into reverse and undo what had happened. Real life isn’t like that.

He’d got the shakes now. The shock was consuming him.

He knew he should mount the steps and look over the edge. It was too late to leap over and recover the poor, damaged thing. The only reason for jumping would be suicide. He was almost of a mind to do it.

He forced himself upwards, stiff-legged, still shaking, right up to the railing, and peered over. It was too far down and too dark to spot anything floating there. All the filth of the river spreads to the banks like scum in a sink. The black water caught some ripples of reflected light from the ornate globe lamp-stand and that was all.

Out in the middle there were lights. A small vessel was chugging past the pier towards Waterloo Bridge. A police launch? No such luck. It was more like a powerboat moving sedately because of the conditions. Too far out to hail.

He heard water slurping against the embankment wall below him. The boat’s backwash had reached there. He stared down and saw nothing.


Hours later, in his flat, he drank coffee and replayed the scene in his mind. He’d recalled it already for the police, given them such descriptions as he could – the Japanese girl with the red scrunch, the guy on the bike, and his poor, benighted instrument. The constable taking the statement hadn’t understood his desolation. He hadn’t even promised to pursue the thieves. ‘Look at it from our point of view,’ he’d said. ‘Where would we start? I don’t suppose they’ll try it with anyone else.’