Alighting at the station I realised that without my phone I had no map. Miraculously, asking the way actually worked, after half an hour traipsing through the dreary town I was wandering along a path by a muddy riverbank. The tide was out and the mud was sparkling silver grey in the late afternoon sunshine. On my right the new warehouses of an industrial estate alternated with older buildings linked to the river and its ancient trades, shipwrights, sailmakers, chandlers. East Quay was a dead-end lane running along the riverbank with tumbledown wooden buildings, old boatyards or chandlers stores. One of these was number 26, a small warehouse of blackened warped wood with a sign nailed to the front – “Marcus Jones – Violins and Violas.”

I rang the bell at the side door and it being open, walked in. A large room, perhaps half the size of the building, well-lit by fluorescent lights, four rows of work benches across the middle and more benches around the outside. Violins in various stages of manufacture ware scattered around the work benches, in addition what appeared to be completed instruments were suspended from hooks around three of the walls.

The room was empty save for a medium-sized man in grey overalls bent over a bench diligently painting a small flat sheet of wood. The paint, or varnish perhaps, was held in a metal tub which sat above a gas burner on a low heat. Numerous tins of chemicals were lined-up on the bench, they gave off a heady smell of solvent.

I coughed. He looked up, blinking, he had curly ginger hair and an even curlier ginger moustache “Can I help you?”

“Are you Marcus Jones?”

“I am.”

“Mr Jones I’m sergeant Robert Hudson of the Metropolitan police. I’m assisting with a murder inquiry.” I thought this would get his attention.

“Do you know a George Austin, or a Michael Petrov.” He looked behind him to a door at the back of the room, then he looked at the door where I had entered, then he looked at the ceiling.” Marcus Jones could be read like a book, he had considered running for it, decided against and appealed to heaven for help.

“Mr Jones, I can see that you do know these gentlemen, can you tell me about your dealings with them please.”

“I don’t know Petrov, I have made a couple of Violins for George Austin”

“What type of violins, Mr. Jones, could they have been mistaken, perhaps, as Stradivari.”

He took a deep breath, “Well sergeant, half the violins that I make are Stradivari, I put the Stradivarius label inside, but there is nothing illegal about that, they are violins of the same type that he made during the middle ten years of his life, the golden period. He came up with particular dimensions and a particular shape to the body.  I have very carefully made forms which exactly copy that classic shape and size. They are not forgeries; they are copies. I don’t sell them as the genuine article, I sell them as copies. You can copy any work of art, you can copy a Cezanne, even if it is just as good as a Cezanne, so long as you don’t sell it as a Cezanne, but sell it as your own work, then you have not committed a crime.”

“When did you sell these to George Austin?”

“Well, I’ve made a few for him, over the years.”

I took the broken pieces of Petrov’s violin out of the shopping bag and showed them to him. “Would this have been one of them?”

He took the pieces and looked at them for some time.

“This was the latest one. It was an exact copy, he gave me photographs of an original Strad and asked me to make an exact copy, the shape of the grain, the detailing, the scrolling, exact. It took some doing, it cost him a lot of money.”

At that moment the door at the back of the room opened and Annabel glided in. Dressed today in a long full skirt of burgundy drapery and a frilled blouse, the effect was of a gypsy girl in a Hollywood musical, circa 1955.

“It’s alright Marcus,” she said, “I’ll explain.”

Marcus looked over at her, shrugged with relief and picked up the violin back on which he had been working, examining the grain through its sheen of chemical coating.

Annabel glided to within six inches of my lips, put her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “I’m sorry about what happened at the church Robbie, at that time I didn’t know that George had been killed, when you fainted I saw his papers in your pocket and I was worried that he was in trouble, so I took them along with your phone and wallet and ran. I didn’t have a plan I was just trying to help George. When I found out that he was dead I panicked, I didn’t know what to do, I sent my resignation in to the orchestra because I was afraid for myself and came here to check that Marcus was OK, I was worried that he or I could be next.”

What was she saying?

“So the Stradivarius, the REAL Stradivarius, you had it?” I said.

“George gave it to me a few days after he swapped it for the fake one.” Marcus Jones scowled. “The copy” she corrected. “George switched the copy with Petrov’s real one. The poor boy never realised, if he’d been a more skilful player he would have noticed of course…. George gave the real Strad to me because he was worried, he thought he was being followed, he thought someone knew the value of it and was after him, to steal it or…. Or worse.”

She turned away wiping tears from her eyes. Then, facing me again.

“I was playing the real one this morning in the church, you heard it’s magic.”

“Where is it now?”

“It’s here, in the back room. Robbie, why was George killed? How is even a Stradivarius worth a man’s life?”

“Kids knife each other every day for much less, but there are other motives, jealousy, anger, revenge.”

I looked at her closely as I listed the motives, but she was giving nothing away. She knew more than she was telling me, that was clear, but how much more?

I looked closely at Marcus, “If the violin was motive for the murder then you are now in danger, you should lock your front door at least.”

“I could go away,” he said, “I’ll put my best pieces in the van and head for the hills, I have friends in Wales that I can visit.”

Wales again, the Welsh connection.

“What about you?” I looked over to Annabel who was standing with her hands clasped in front of her face, hiding herself and thinking.

“I will have to go back to town, but I’m afraid to go home, Robbie, could I stay with you?”

It was difficult to think straight with my shoulders still burning from those hands kneading my flesh, I took a step towards her, wanting to take her in my arms but she recoiled from me, losing her balance she flung out a hand which knocked over a gallon tin of solvent, the chemical spurted over the gas burner and exploded into a sheet of flame. The varnish in the metal tub caught fire too sending a tower of flame up into the roof, the other tins were soon alight and the small pieces of varnished wood on the benches provided tinder for the fire.

Marcus jumped backwards with a loud curse, one of his sleeves was on fire and he fell to the ground beating the floor to kill the flames. Annabel ran to the back of the building where she had entered, “Fire Extinguishers?” I shouted.

Marcus gave me a venomous look from his place on the floor and shrugged, his sleeve now charred but extinguished. Annabel came back with a bucket of water and flung it towards the advancing flames. I ran towards the door at the back, there was a kitchen area with the tap running, I grabbed a bowl and filled it, but back in the warehouse the fire was now raging fiercely, our bowls and buckets of water were useless. Marcus was up now and grabbing the violins from the wall, taking them out through the front entrance.

Soon the heat was too fierce for Annabel and me to continue with the useless water-splashing and we retreated into the kitchen and out of the back door, Annabel retrieved two violins and a case from a corner of the back room. Getting around to the front we found Marcus had finished loading his violins into the back of a van. Without looking at us he jumped in, started the engine and drove off. We were left in the night-time gloom of the deserted riverbank lit by the flames now licking out of the windows with a deafening roar.

“The police will be here soon,” I shouted, “I’d rather not have to explain all this. There’s nothing we can do, let’s go.”

She gave me a look that combined scepticism with relief. We turned away from the flames that had now reached the roof and were searing up into the night sky and found our way along the footpath by the river. She handed one of the violins to me to carry, putting hers in its case. The river was filling as the tide came in and the muddy water was glowing deep orange in the light of the fire. We made our way along the towpath with the orange heat and roar of the fire behind us, heading for the station.

We travelled back to London Bridge on the train, the normality of the filling train carriage seemed surreal after the terror of the flames that we had escaped. She returned my wallet and phone with renewed apologies, we talked about her time with the orchestra, what she knew about George. She gave me excerpts from her life-story. Discovering her talent at an early age, studying, beginning to play professionally but never making it to the topflight, disillusion, failure, loneliness. Then beginning to play for fun in the amateur orchestra with others of like mind and falling in love with music all over again. I wondered if she was ready to fall in love with a desk sergeant.

She repeated her request about somewhere to stay for the night.

“I live in two rooms. I only have a studio flat.” I looked deep into those brown-black eyes, trying to spot any signs. She gave one of her slow-motion blinks, violins played, Stradivari, probably.

“But I suppose there is space on the floor.”

She smiled.

“Why did you go to see Marcus, really?” I got serious all of a sudden, trying to jolt her. She looked at the floor and then out of the window, then back at me.

“We had a sort of business, the three of us, George, Marcus and me. George would find customers who wanted a real Stradivarius violin, rich enthusiasts, amateur players, people he met while researching for the real Strads. He would tell them that he had a good copy, one made in the eighteenth century, in Cremona. There were lots of makers there then, they copied the violins that Stradivarius had made 40, 50 years before, some of the copies were really good, they used the same woods, the same techniques as the originals, so they fetch big prices. Well, George would sell a violin made by Marcus as one of those older copies. The copies that Marcus makes they are brilliant, he uses all the right materials, the special varnish, putting it on hot like you saw tonight, that’s one of the tricks, him and George discovered many little techniques like that, the violins really are first class, but he can’t get the prices that the older ones get, so they came up with this plan.”

“Where did you come in?”

“They needed someone who could play well, I demonstrated the instruments, made them sing, it was a sales job.”

“OK, but why the panic now?”

“George finally found the real thing, the Petrov Strad. But Petrov wouldn’t sell it, so George came up with the idea of making a perfect copy and swapping it. It wouldn’t have worked with a good violinist, but dear Petrov, he was sweet passionate boy, but no musician. George had a buyer for the instrument, big money, over a million, he had the proof you see, the provenance, the documented proof, the Petrov connection.”

“What is the Petrov connection?”

“He’s a direct descendant of the Russian general who was given the Strad by the Tsar. He was left it in a will. I think that’s the reason he wanted to be a violinist.”

“But once George had swapped the copy the original was stolen goods, he couldn’t prove provenance while Petrov thought he had the original.”

“That’s the thing, this buyer didn’t care about the legality, he wasn’t entirely legit himself. That’s how George put it, ‘he’s not entirely legit’.”

“But he had over a million quid to throw at a violin?”

“That’s what worried me, but George wouldn’t say any more, it was all clandestine, hush-hush, I wasn’t needed for this sale, he was handling it all himself. Then he gets killed. Well, if it was because of the violin, I had it.” She hugged the violin case to her, “I was scared.”

We were approaching the station and I wanted to get one more thing out of the way before forgetting about the whole business for the evening.

“What about Mary?” I asked, “The cello player, she seems a fiery person, and one of the strings on her cello had what could be bloodstains on it, I’m getting it analysed, what do you know about her?”

“Mary?” it was as if she had been winded, the excitement of the earlier discussion suddenly disappeared, she was crestfallen. She looked at me with deep concern in those big brown almond eyes. She spoke very quietly, robotically “I really couldn’t say, I don’t know much about Mary”

A squeal of brakes and the acrid smell of dust from the brake pads announced the end of the line. We crowded out of the full carriage and joined the Saturday night crowds, going out or going home. We were heading for the tube and getting swept along in the bustle. She was right behind me as we hurried down the escalator, hitting the bottom like droplets in a waterfall, splashing into the underground caves, I took the sharp left onto the platform going south, looked up to check the time of the next train.

“Two minutes.” I said looking around. She was gone. People everywhere, no Annabel. I fought my way back against the tide of the crowd, calling her name. Nowhere, she was gone, then I spotted her near the top of the up escalator, climbing quickly in the stream of fit people marching on the left, rushing upwards. I was left in the underworld, pursuit was pointless, I stood there paralysed with the crowds swirling past.

I allowed the crowd to push me onto the train, allowed the train, the bus, to carry me, allowed my feet to walk me home. Home, so called. I walked in like a stranger sneaking into another’s room. I discovered a threadbare sofa, a dumb stereo, scattered books, discarded clothing. I had imagined a place animated by the presence of another, with music to play, books to discuss, the news to swear at. Together.

The hell with that, I needed a shower, I needed a roast beef sandwich, I needed a big whisky and a good night’s sleep. In my hand was the violin which I had been carrying for her, I peered inside at the mouldering label, just able to make out the famous makers name, but was it a real one or a fake?