The Tooth Tattoo(74)

‘Will you listen to me?’ Ivan said. ‘We’re musicians and we have a performance tomorrow night. The last thing we need is to get involved in speculation about a death in suspicious circumstances.’

‘Too late,’ Cat said. ‘The big detective means to rub our noses in it.’

‘He’ll go away if we ignore him.’

Then Anthony announced, ‘He said he’ll be at the concert tomorrow.’

There was a shocked silence. Ivan chewed at his thumbnail.

‘See what I mean?’ Cat said. ‘Don’t kid yourself he’s coming to listen to Beethoven. He’ll have a pair of handcuffs in his pocket.’

‘We’ve done nothing wrong,’ Mel said.

No one spoke.

‘Have we?’ Mel broke the silence, looking at each of the others.

‘You wish,’ Cat said finally with a peal of laughter. ‘Don’t all speak at once. Now let’s organise our taxis.’


Mel was to share with Ivan and both taxis were slow in coming. Cat climbed into the first with her cello, assisted by Anthony. Before it drove off, she called out of the window, ‘We’re hearing over the intercom that your cab went to the tip instead of the Tippett. He’s stuck in the garden waste queue. Could be another hour.’ Their taxi zoomed away.

‘That woman doesn’t amuse me,’ Ivan said. ‘Never has.’

‘Was she making it up?’

‘Of course she was. Three-quarters of what she tells you is made up. Ours won’t be far behind.’


Mel had spotted a stationary black saloon car parked at the edge of the approach road. Someone was in the driver’s seat. ‘Could that be it?’

‘Where?’

He pointed.

Ivan sniffed. ‘It looks to me like a private car. Probably waiting for some student.’

‘I might go and ask. Stupid if he’s waiting there and we’re standing here only thirty yards away.’

‘As you wish,’ Ivan said. ‘I’ve never known them to park there.’

With his cased viola gripped to his chest, Mel strode towards the parked vehicle. True, he couldn’t see any writing on the side or any sign that it was licensed. Sometimes it was difficult to tell.

He hadn’t gone ten yards when the driver started up, made a screaming U-turn that must have left rubber on the tarmac, and drove off at speed, just missing a student on a bike.

Shaking his head, Mel returned to Ivan’s side. ‘What was that about?’

For once, Ivan had no answer.

‘Bloody dangerous,’ Mel said. ‘Someone could have got killed.’

‘Yes,’ Ivan said. He’d turned pale.

Their transport arrived soon after, a recognisable cab with a Bath Spa Taxis emblem on the roof.

Most of the journey was in silence. The reckless driving of the car seemed to have affected Ivan. Mel tried saying something about the venue for the soirée and got one-word answers. It was like being with Anthony. ‘See you at Corsham tomorrow, then,’ he said when the taxi stopped outside his lodgings. ‘Early as usual to get ready?’

‘Yes,’ Ivan said.


Inside the house, Mel closed the front door as quietly as he could, crept upstairs, let himself into his room and slid the precious Amati viola under the bed. Later, he would practise scales, still getting the measure of this marvellous new outlet for his talent. For now, playtime of a different sort was overdue. He stripped to the waist, washed at the hand-basin in the corner, refreshed the deodorant and the aftershave, put on a fresh shirt and checked his hair in the mirror. Then he reached to the back of his sock drawer for two miniatures of gin and a small can of tonic and left his room to cross the passage to Tippi’s bedroom. She liked her G&T and Mel liked the result. It took the edge off her sarcasm and made her even more randy.

He didn’t knock. They had an understanding. He opened the door and said, ‘Better late than never, huh?’

‘Late for what?’ said a voice he didn’t expect.

Tippi’s mother, with a crocodile smile, was sitting on the bed.

A better man might have thought of some clever excuse. Mel sighed and said, ‘Fair cop.’

This was no bad response, as it turned out, because it avoided an elaborate lie and had a sense of contrition. Mrs. Carlyle must have been expecting some tall story she could lay into. Instead she was thrown off course. Rather than attacking Mel, she started to account for her own behaviour, explaining what she was doing in her daughter’s room. ‘I came up here to put away some of her washing. She leaves it for days on the clothes-rack in the kitchen if I don’t, and she may not mind you seeing her frillies, but I’m old-fashioned enough to think it isn’t quite the thing.’