The piece came to a plaintive end. She stood and dipped her head as the audience responded. Seated again, and as if to demonstrate that there was another side to Cat Kinsella, she launched into the ‘Ritual Fire Dance’. The audience had its passions well stirred and quite forgot that it was middle class in middle England in midwinter.
‘How about that?’ Ingeborg said over the cheering at the end.
‘Best I’ve heard tonight.’
‘Me too.’
Difficult to follow a turn as gripping as that. Next on was Mel Farran, the new member. He looked even more ill at ease than when he’d made his original entrance with the others. He knocked one of the music stands with his foot and almost tipped it over. Some of the bandage on his hand had come unstuck and he had to press it back into place. Mel clearly wasn’t comfortable in this situation. Before he played the first note he seemed to be scanning the rows as if he expected a gunman out there. Diamond watched, intrigued. All right, chum. The worst you’ll see is a couple of detectives you’ve already met, and they ought to give you confidence. If you’ve done nothing wrong, that is.
Mel played two pieces by Fritz Kreisler. Once under way, he became calmer and so did the audience. Difficult for Diamond to tell whether he was playing well. More out of relief than anything else the audience gave him a generous reception, after which he was joined by Ivan Bogdanov for an arrangement for viola and violin of Handel’s Harpsichord Suite No. 7 in G minor. The two blended well.
While the piece was being played, Diamond’s concentration wasn’t total, or even partial. He’d heard almost as much of this stuff as a man could take in one evening – a man whose musical education hadn’t up to now stretched beyond Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé singing ‘Barcelona’. His attention wandered to the huge painting over the mantelpiece, a particularly gruesome hunting scene. People mostly on horseback were slaughtering wolves and foxes with clubs and spears. Dead and dying animals testified to the success of the day’s sport. A strange backdrop for a musical soirée. How ironic if one of the quartet turned out to be a killer.
All four returned to play the last piece on the programme, Andante Festivo, by Sibelius. At this stage of the evening the term ‘strung out’ summed up Diamond’s condition in more senses than one. But the piece was mercifully over in about five minutes. Then to his despair the audience demanded an encore. They wouldn’t stop clapping.
Ivan led the musicians off.
‘Thank God,’ Diamond said to Ingeborg.
She said, ‘Hang about, guv. They’re coming back.’
Diamond’s buttocks flexed. Amazing any life was left in them.
Ivan stepped forward to speak. ‘We would like to offer you a piece neglected by many ensembles: the Sibelius String Quartet in D minor, Opus 56.’
Huge applause.
The buttocks went into spasm. Another entire quartet.
As if he was a mind-reader, Ivan continued, ‘But it’s late and unfortunately we don’t have time for the entire composition, so with apologies to Sibelius we’ll pick it up at the start of the fifth and final movement. Thank you for being such a splendid audience.’
The quartet knew what they were doing. Whatever it was that made the Sibelius a neglected quartet, its climax was a sure-fire audience-pleaser, the Allegro, dynamic, demanding and impassioned. When the bows were lifted from the instruments a standing ovation followed. Diamond was among the first to rise. He needed no prompting.
‘I’ve become a fan,’ Ingeborg told him. ‘Wasn’t that awesome?’
‘Yes, but don’t overdo the clapping.’
‘Such talent. It’s almost impossible to believe one of them could be …’
‘I can believe it, no problem,’ he said.
20
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Ivan asked.
‘My hand, you mean?’ Mel said. ‘It’s not serious.’
‘Your whole performance. You were pathetic. Timing, intonation. And don’t blame the new instrument. You were perfectly good in rehearsal.’
The quartet were using the gothic library in the West Wing at Corsham Court as a base. Their manager Douglas had joined them. Tired and drained from the performance, they were supposed to be unwinding before travelling home. This wasn’t unwinding; it was winding up.
Cat came to Mel’s defence as if she was shaping a passage with her cello, a stabilising counterpoint. ‘Ivan, that’s way over the top. He wasn’t that bad. He was a damn sight better than most of the so-called violists we’ve played with, and I never heard you slag one of them off.’