Chapter 3 — A buzz on the Entryphone —

I needed food and a shower and sleep, so I headed home. With no money and no phone, an hour’s walk. At least my keys had not gone.

Back in the flat I headed first for the coffee percolator, then for the whisky bottle. I needed sleep but I couldn’t sleep before I found a way back onto the trail, and back towards Annabel. But what to do and where to go now? I had no idea, I typed an email to Huang Lee, giving him the whole sorry tale so far. This was indication enough of the state of my existence, I sought solace from a man reading emails on an illicit mobile phone while banged-up for 20 hours a day in a cell in North London. My email ended in despair:

“Lee, I’m exhausted mate, Annabel has stolen my evidence, I’ve got no wallet, no money, no phone, no ideas and I smell like a polecat on heat.”

I stood up from the computer, fetched a cup of hot coffee, added whisky and wandered into the tiny bathroom, staring for a long time at the door of the shower cubicle. A line of black mould marked the joint between the walls and floor. The coffee was reviving, the whisky was comforting, what did it matter who had done this anyway, what did it matter what I smelled like, what did any of it matter? The violin melody that had filled the church came back to me, complete unto itself and as close to God as I would ever get, perhaps that mattered, perhaps that was all that mattered.

Once someone, somewhere, had been paid a large amount of money to come up with six notes on a xylophone that would beguile us back to our electronic devices no matter where our thoughts had wandered. Dum-diddly-dum-dum the laptop called. Good old Lee had replied.

“Robbie, interesting stuff. Early days yet but it looks like the market for musical instruments and quality antiques is a minor channel for laundering drug-money, hence the silly prices. That thing about the “Petrov” Strad, it’s trending in some discussion-rooms, false sales are up on some auction sites, even some related rubbish on e-bay. If you get your hands on one of those violins pinch it, I’m holding an offer on-line of $800,000 for a genuine Strad, any quality, from a geezer in Hong-Kong, payable in bitcoin.”

Lee needed to be reined-in, he surely could have made a good living legitimately but he couldn’t stay on any rails. Like a thoroughbred race-horse his energy needed to be channelled, like the racehorse he had little idea of where he was going or why, but he wanted to get there faster than anyone else.

“As for the orchestra angle I assume you know they are doing a charity concert this afternoon at All Saints, West Dulwich? If you need cash click here. So long for now, I’ll let you know if I get something more concrete on the violin.”

Good old Lee. I looked up the concert on-line, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, it was due to start at 3:30, I had 45 minutes to get there. I clicked on the money link, entered our PIN number and an encoded message flashed up, I had to go to the cash machine at the Nationwide in Crystal Palace, hold down the three buttons on the left of the screen and press the enter key seventeen times, exactly, then I would get £300.

I finished the coffee. My trousers were beginning to stick to my legs and there were creatures nesting in my armpits, but there was no time to change clothes now, I had to get to that concert. I ditched the uniform jacket and put on a salt-and-pepper tweed number, a lucky charm I liked to think, modelled on the one that Steve McQueen wore in the film “Bullit”, perhaps I didn’t have the blue eyes and straw blonde hair of Lieutenant Bullit, , but I aspired to the moral fortitude and the steely gaze.

The entry-phone buzzed and there was a loud banging on the communal door two floors below. I leaned out of the front window and peered down, two dandruff-encrusted heads rotating back and forth atop shabby suit jackets revealed detectives Moore and Michaels of the homicide department. They were on to me; they must have found my fingerprints at George’s flat. They wouldn’t give up easily, I would have to get out the back way and quickly. There was only one stairwell, I took the stairs three at a time, racing around the landings hanging on to the bannisters, I hit the ground floor at speed and off-balance, skidded on the tiles and slid feet-first up to the front door just as Moore and Michaels were buzzed-in by a helpful tenant. My momentum slammed the door in Moore’s face and I rolled over, got up and sprinted for the back door. The garden was one of a row of enclosed spaces separated by 6-foot fences. I knew of a hole in the back corner used by foxes and cats, diving onto my belly I wriggled through, hearing shouts behind me.

Emerging safely from the muddy hole I dashed to the next fence and launched myself at the top, flinging a leg over and sitting up on the fence, I risked a look back. Michaels, the healthier of the two, had scrambled to the top of the first fence and was now balanced there on all fours like an oversized cat. He lacked, though, the cat’s balance and couldn’t stop himself from keeling over slowly then dropping like a stone into the bijou water feature below, narrowly missing the brass heron but breaking his fall on a group of plaster squirrels at the water’s edge. Moore’s more portly shoulders appeared, topped by a panting red face, which broke into a broad grin as he viewed his floundering colleague in the pool below.

Glad to see that team-work and mutual support were still paramount in the detective squad I headed for the final fence and the street. Getting there I noticed that I had ripped my trousers on a nail, a significant area of upper thigh was now on display through the large triangular gash. I proceeded down Crystal Palace High Street slightly stooped with one hand caressing my thigh to hold the flap of fabric closed, the other brushing mud from my jacket. I couldn’t remember Lieutenant Bullit having this kind of trouble.

Following instructions at the Nationwide the money came out alright but then the shop alarm went off and the metal security shutter descended at speed. I headed off quickly for the bus station, ignoring the increasingly loud alarm and some muffled screams behind me. Bloody Lee, why couldn’t he just give me the money without the blasted theatrics.

I arrived at the concert a few minutes before the start, the orchestra and audience were already in their seats, I spotted Gerald Markham the conductor off to one side and rushed up to him. He was dressed as usual in dinner jacket and bow tie, his trousers pressed to a knife-edge crease and patent leather shoes polished to a gleaming black.

Gerald, being a conductor, was something of a specialist at the withering gaze. He looked me up and down, by which I mean: starting with my hair, unkempt: scorning my jacket, mud stained: taking in my boots, scuffed: proceeding back up to my thighs, white, hairy and triangularly revealed: wrinkling his nose at all of me, fox-perfumed: ending with my eyes, bloodshot: he disdained me. I gave him back my best Lieutenant Bullit steel, straight between the bifocals.

“Where is Annabel?” In spite of the intended metal, my voice quavered.

“Annabel, you may well ask where Annabel is, Annabel has deserted us, she has sent in her resignation by text.”

“Oh”

“Oh, yes indeed oh. She’s left us in a complete pickle, I’ve re-assigned the parts for her and George, but now the whole Orchestra is up in arms about who takes over as leader. One faction supports Mary, the cellist, the other half supports Michael Petrov, the new head of the violins.”

“Petrov”

“Yes, a talented enough lad, but too young to be a leader, he has ideas above his station, he thinks he owns a genuine Stradivarius and that makes him a genius, but he’s no more than competent really. Still he has supporters among the younger element, they think Mary’s boring. There was a huge argument during rehearsals this afternoon, lots of bad feeling now, I’m dreading the performance. Still, the show must go on.” He jerked his head backwards, stood up proud and stalked towards the podium.

Petrov. The Petrov Stradivarius.

Gerald tapped his music stand, looked significantly at the young man in the first violin’s chair, neatly curling jet-black hair, a pointed nose, a weak chin. This must be Petrov. Gerald scanned the rest of the players, squared his shoulders with a deep intake of breath and raised the baton. A fanfare of brass instruments blasted our ears, horns then trumpets then trombones competed to deafen the audience.

It was the lead trombone that started it. Under cover of reaching a low note in the first fanfare he jammed his slide into the back of the head of the viola player in front of him. The bass drum saw this and whacked the trombone about the ear with his drumstick. The viola, unable to reach backwards to the trombonist, decided to spear her neighbouring cello player with her bow in the course of the first string passage, this was a signal for the members of the string sections to open battle, every time they had a part members of the two warring factions would take surreptitious jabs at each other with elbows or bows, under cover of making expansive gestures as they played. The bass drum and the timpani were whacking each other and the trombone player in rhythm, on the off-beats. The clarinets and oboes were waving themselves around like snake charmers on speed and the horns were releasing spittle from their pipework down the necks of their enemies.

The music continued but in an increasingly erratic manner, things finally fell into chaos after a wild swing from a clarinet knocked over a horn’s music stand and the horn, unable to come up with a musical gesture in reply simply stood up and kicked his opponent in the shins. Gerald continued conducting and a few non-partisan players kept bravely on among the increasing chaos, but small fist-fights and shoving matches were now breaking out all over. Gerald eventually gave up, his shoulders sagged and he sank to his knees, dropping his baton and hiding his head in his hands.

Mary, the lead cello player, marched across the stage to where Petrov was remonstrating with a gaggle of musicians surrounding him, she barged through and could be heard above the others.

“Look what you’ve done now. You should learn to play your instrument properly before you take on airs. You jumped-up little Putin, you third-rate upstart, you deluded scraping and squealing idiot, you are an embarrassment you little fool!”

“Fool perhaps I am, but some of us are fed up playing this old-fashioned rubbish, you ossified old battle-axe”

He seemed to have struck a nerve there, she jabbed him low down with the cello bow, hitting the bullseye and he doubled over in pain, after a couple of deep breaths he could be seen rising red-faced to his full height. In defence of damaged Russian manhood he whacked her over the head with his violin. She dropped to the floor instantly. The violin broke into three pieces. Silence descended for 30 pregnant seconds.

“Call an ambulance someone”

The hubbub started again as people now rushed around tending to the injured cellist.

I quickly went to Petrov and pulled him away from the crowd, partly to defend him from retributions and partly to pump him for info. I guided him around the prone cellist lying serenely full-length on the church floor next to her instrument, the two of them like a carved couple on a medieval gravestone. There was something about the strings on the cello, something troubled me, but there was no time to look more closely, the crowd was surging around and I needed to get at Petrov. We reached the back row of the bemused audience, some of whom were filing out, show over. He sat down and cried, tears rolling down his cheeks,

“My violin, the only thing I ever loved.”

“Your Stradivarius”

He sat there, bent over, elbows on knees, starting to examine the pieces of the broken instrument, his head hanging down, squinting at the wood.

“Look at this, not even a real Stradivarius, a copy, not even an old copy” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a silver flask, he took a long pull and handed it to me.

“Drink.” He ordered, as only a Russian can, “It was a fraud; I am a fraud. How will I ever get over this? How will I live it down? I am a fool, a stupid, proud, prating fool.”

I took a slug of the vodka.

“Comes to us all” I said, handing it back.

He tipped the flask up to his mouth and kept drinking until he had finished it, throwing it down to clatter and skid across the floor.

“I wish I was dead; I wish the earth would open up and swallow me.” He keeled over sideways and fell into the foetal position on the floor.

I picked up the broken violin and turned over the pieces in my hands, on the inside of the back, invisible unless the instrument was broken open, was a label.

“Marcus Jones, master instrument maker, violins and violas, 26 East Wharf, Faversham, Kent.” Petrov wouldn’t be needing the violin for a while; I took the pieces with me.

Trains for Faversham left from London Bridge, but first to look at that cello. The crowd around the supine Mary had now thinned a little, the cello had been pushed to the periphery. I lifted it onto a nearby seat and had a look at the strings, one of them had a distinct brown stain along six inches of it’s length. I undid the spindle at the top end and pulled the string free, I couldn’t work out how to free it at the base so just gave a sharp tug and it broke free. I rolled it up and put it in my pocket and headed for the door, and the 133 for London Bridge.