Dying Fall

by Judith Cutler

  Choir practice tried poor Tina’s patience almost to the limit, and the morning rehearsal, taken by our choirmaster since Stobbard was still swanning round the country doing pre-arranged gigs, drove her still further. Fortunately she turned out to be one of those people who can dissipate bad temper by energetic housework, and she attacked the ravages on my house with a will. I should have been even more grateful had she not compensated for her overindulgence in Orff with a particularly tuneless set of tapes played loudly through my hi-fi. The grate was back in place, thanks to another of Chris’s contacts, and by the end of the afternoon our combined efforts had rendered the house more or less back to normal. Except for the gaps where my china had been. I’d spread out the books to try to fill the shelves, and Chris had tried to cheer me up by offering to take me touring antique shops when the insurance money came through, but I was still melancholy at five when the phone rang.

  Tony Rossiter.

  ‘I’ve been gated for the weekend, Tony, and unless someone takes pity on me I’ve nothing to do but clean my carpets.’ I could say that sort of thing to him. ‘At least I’m back home, though. Got to be thankful for tiny mercies, I suppose.’

  ‘So you can’t go anywhere without protection?’ His voice came shrill over the phone.

  ‘Nope. Well, to be honest, I’m not sure that I even want to. I’ve got to that state of paranoia where I’m convinced whoever’s after me is chasing me when he’s probably safely tucked up in bed. I’m afraid to open the post, damn it all.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, after that letter-bomb business. Poor old you! Tell you what, if you cook me supper, I’ll bring some booze – a lot of booze.’

  ‘But I’ve got a load of booze. The insurance will pay for all the smashed bottles, and I’m damned if I’m going to claim for plonk. I got Ian Dale – the sergeant who fancies himself as a bit of a wine buff – to go to Majestic, so there’s a whole case of Australian and New Zealand in the pantry. Red and white. And some interesting European ones. But, Tony, I’ve got no proper food.’

  ‘Never heard of a takeaway?’

  But a takeaway meant a stranger delivering it to the house. For a moment I couldn’t speak.

  ‘Or shall I bring something in with me and we’ll cook together? Or – tell you what – we’ll order and I’ll go and collect it just to make sure no one shoves any arsenic in it. How’s that?’

  Perhaps, after that bit of intuition, he wouldn’t be surprised by the fervour of my voice when I agreed. Thank God for old friends!

  Tony arrived clutching a couple of Safeway’s carrier bags.

  ‘There,’ he said, delving. ‘I can’t be your taster all the time, Sophie, but you at least see if anyone tampers with these!’

  ‘These’ were ready-mixed drinks – gin and tonics, and so on and a huge variety of miniature liqueurs. At the bottom were two large boxes of individually wrapped chocolates. Tony is not usually the most generous of men, but when he splurges, he is unbeatable. Once or twice in the past when I’ve kissed him he’s become embarrassingly amorous but I risked it tonight – who wouldn’t kiss an out-of-season Santa Claus? His buss on my cheek was refreshingly fraternal. One complication was out of the way, but there were plenty of others to keep us going.

  Tina had tactfully and resolutely declined to eat with us. She really didn’t like all this fancy food, she said, even curries. She phoned through our order, however, and waited while Tony whizzed off in his posh-mobile to get it. When he got back, we shoved everything in the oven while we sank an aperitif.

  ‘I propose,’ he said, reaching a bottle of Ian’s Tio Pepe, ‘to get rather drunk.’ I raised an eyebrow: he was normally the most abstemious of men.

  He responded by picking up a poppadom.

  ‘Tony, I –’

  He sighed. ‘OK, I know we need to talk. In fact, I need your help. But let’s eat first.’

  I wasn’t sure about that. Is it better to eat with a sword of Damocles over you or in you? We opened lager and the smallest of the aromatic foil containers.

  When it came to main courses, we shared. Chicken tikka masala, golden chicken and a rich vegetable curry. We digested, exhausted, for twenty minutes or more. Then the man demanded pudding. So we ended up, giggling, in the kitchen, concocting a dish in which I tossed bananas in orange juice and caramel and flambéed them in one of his miniature liqueurs, topping the lot with scoops of ice cream. It wasn’t until we were finishing our coffee, and a miniature of Amoretti each, that he started to talk. We were both sitting on the floor, but he hunched gnomelike three or four feet from me. I moved into the shadow on the far side of the lamp, trying to merge with the furniture so he could talk freely.

  He took me back through our childhood and school-days. Then his face softened as he talked about playing the violin. Studying music at university, he said, was his first mistake. In the shadow, I nodded. He should have been playing, a practising musician, he continued. But at university his ambition had changed. There was more money, he rapidly saw, in administration. So with his First and an appropriate postgraduate management course, he was off. Regular promotions, stamping on the odd finger as he swarmed up the ladder. Nothing new yet. The job with the Midshires Symphony Orchestra was what he’d always wanted. General manager. Power. Money, too – he gestured ironically in the direction of his car. But …

  This was important. It was the first time he’d ever used the word ‘but’ in connection with his work. So I waited.

  ‘It’s so stupid,’ he said, ‘so bloody stupid. I can’t possibly leave.’

  ‘Leave?’

  ‘I don’t want to go and I don’t want to stay.’

  ‘Go? Go where?’ He mustn’t hear the anxiety in my voice: he’d always been there, part of my life. Now George had gone, I couldn’t bear it if Tony left too. And yet if he needed to leave, maybe I’d have to help push him.

  ‘I’d never even have considered it if it hadn’t been for George’s death. It was me the police asked, Sophie – I don’t know why – to say it was him. Damn it, did they think I’d break down and say I’d killed him? I didn’t. I told you the truth. If I say to you, ‘I’ll bloody kill you,’ you don’t expect me to. Do you?’

  ‘’Course not.’

  ‘I cared for – loved – that man, you know. Like you did. A friend. I trusted him. He was right all the time, too. Mostly, anyway. Sometimes he’d feed me snippets I ought to know. Like not to be too hard on someone because his wife was miscarrying, or it was time to mention moving someone up a desk, or sometimes down.’

  ‘Or out altogether?’

  He was silent again.

  I was desperate for a pee and another drink, in that order. If I got up, would it break his mood?

  ‘Or out altogether,’ he said at last. ‘Jools. You know she’s blackmailing me.’ His tone was flat, prosaic.

  ‘No,’ I said, quiet, bitter, understanding more at last.

  ‘Last three years, I should think. Not money. Never asked me for money. Apart from – oh, Sophie, I’ve been a complete shit. When I started, I didn’t realise you had to keep work and pleasure apart. Until George told me, of course. By then – it’s all so trite, damn it! I mean, we had a few drinks one night, and somehow ended in the sack. You know what a randy bastard I am. She said it didn’t matter – damn it, I wanted to go with her to the Family Planning or whatever for the morning-after pill. But she said she’d got a loop and not to worry. Then I didn’t see her again – OK, well, maybe a couple of times. But she came to me a few weeks later. One Tuesday evening. I was just about to run the conductor to New Street to catch the London train. And she comes to me and says she’s pregnant. Her loop had shifted or something. Did she – didn’t she ever tell you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘So at least she kept her part of the bargain. I paid, of course. No problem. Flowers. Counselling afterwards. I did all I could, Sophie.’

  Then I asked a question I wasn’t specially proud of: ‘Did you actually see the h
ospital bill? Nursing home, or whatever?’

  ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just interested.’ I thought of the flat off Augustus Road, with its expensive furniture, and the David Cox on its beautifully lit wall. ‘But you mentioned blackmail. Blackmail but not money?’

  ‘Well, she kept her job, didn’t she? And don’t tell me there aren’t thirty or forty bassoonists who could do it a damned sight better than she does.’

  ‘Did George know about this?’

  ‘You were his dearest friend and he didn’t tell even you. Of course he knew. He used to spend hours helping her, you know. And people said he used to do all the out-of-town gigs where you might have expected her to sit up because he was too selfish to let her get the experience. He did them because he couldn’t trust her to do a halfway decent job, and he cared about the bloody orchestra so much. And the music, of course.’

  ‘Tony – forgive me, I have to ask this: why didn’t you just confront her? Get rid of her?’ After all, we are in the twentieth century. Even if the story of the pregnancy were true, men and women do sleep together, and loops do slip. Presumably. It would scarcely have caused a tremor in the orchestra, where the pressures of the job, the touring, the weird hours do cause such liaisons.

  ‘Because it didn’t just involve me. At least I’ve always assumed not. I mean, her flat …’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I thought she might – other people …’

  I should have picked him up and shaken him. Anyone else I would have. I’d have pointed out that if he’d confronted her, better still gone to the police, all her power over other people would have been weakened. There was something I had to pursue, though, and yelling at him wouldn’t help me. ‘George – did she have anything on him? Because I don’t think George … I’m sorry …’

  ‘Would have lain down under it? I don’t think so. But I don’t know. You see, he did say he’d got to talk to her. That there was something very serious he had to say. We were joking, that Friday morning, Sophie. I haven’t said anything before because I thought it might upset you. I’d just been with him to the solicitor’s, you see, to witness his will. And he said, “Glad that’s all over. I wanted it all tied up. Now I can confront our friend”’.

  ‘Could it have been any other friend?’

  ‘Not a man for rows, George, was he? He was in this ongoing battle with Mayou, of course. They were rehearsing Le Matin and they couldn’t decide on the tempo for the slow movement. And George reckoned that bit in The Firebird could do with slowing down.’

  ‘But you don’t kill people because they dislike your tempi. I thought George and Stobbard got on with each other quite well. That’s one reason I –’ I stopped. Then I got going again. ‘And Jools couldn’t have killed him because Mayou saw her going out through the front door. He told the police.’

  ‘Front door? I thought he’d have swaggered through the admiring crowds outside the stage door!’

  ‘I thought you liked him.’

  ‘So did I. He’s offered me a job, you know. As his personal manager.’

  ‘Gofer. Oh, Tony.’

  ‘Sounded better than that when he said it. More – much more money than I get here.’

  ‘How does he propose to pay you? Private oil well or something? Damn it, conductors aren’t pop stars.’

  ‘Must have money in the family, I suppose. Certainly spends it like water. And I know how much he’s getting from the MSO, and it isn’t enough to pay what he’s offering. More than a policeman, though, Sophie. You could do a lot worse. He’s very concerned you’ve not been in touch, by the way. I explained about your problems, though. But you must contact him.’

  By this time I needed the loo so badly I could think of very little else. But it was Tony who got up first, and headed for the stairs. I looked at my watch: two-thirty. What I’d give for Mrs T’s capacity for work without sleep. As soon as he came back, I headed loo-wards. I ought to tell him off for assuming I wanted anyone, policeman or conductor, in my life. But that would divert me from what I needed to say.

  ‘You realise,’ I said, as stern as if he were one of my students, ‘you have to tell the police all this.’

  ‘I’ll go first thing Monday morning. Before we set off for Bedworth.’

  ‘You ought to go now.’

  ‘Too pissed.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Going to – let’s think – Bristol. Colston Hall. Afternoon concert. We leave at nine. Rehearse at eleven.’

  ‘Tonight. You ought. The fuzz’ll drive you, and I’ll guard your car with my life.’

  ‘I want a solicitor with me and you’ll be too busy looking after your life to lay it down for a car.’

  I found a sleeping bag and covered him with it. Slipped off his shoes, shifted the cushion so he wouldn’t get a crick in his neck.

  I stood watching him. I ought to rouse Tina, or even phone Chris. But Tony had to do it himself – prove something or other, no doubt. I didn’t think I’d sleep, but I must have done. Certainly I never heard him or his car leave. Bristol, was it? No one could accuse him of not being a conscientious boss at least.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  One thing was certain. If I told Chris any or all of what Tony had said, he’d be hauled in, for the simple reason it would justify Chris grilling someone. Chris wouldn’t see the big snag I saw: hating Jools was no reason for killing George. Jools had a motive for killing George, but she had not struck me as a woman who had killed someone the night she came into the pub. The emotion I associated with her was fear. Even the memory of George’s death had made her blanch. I had to talk to her again. Of course, she’d be well on her way to Bristol now. I left a message for her to call me urgently. My voice may have sounded rather grim. I left another message too. Couldn’t think why I hadn’t done so before. Thirteen roses deserved acknowledgement, and it was sheer bad manners to ignore his messages. And it might have seemed to him that I blamed him for being impotent, that night. Crass and ugly, that was how I felt now. Bloody hell, it should have been me sending him flowers with messages telling him not to worry and inviting him to a return match at my home. In private. Except it couldn’t be. Sounds of Madonna percolating down the stairs reminded me that Tina was irrepressibly here, and any moment now I’d be subjected to a barrage of heavy witticisms about my sex life. Should I leave the sleeping bag lying apologetically where Tony had left it, or should I remove it and smooth the hollow from the cushion? Which would irritate Chris more?

  The living room was pristine when she crawled down.

  But I used the telephone extension upstairs to phone the Mondiale. There must be an art in dictating loving messages to complete strangers. What did I want to say? That I’d been too knackered and knocked about to think about him? I tried – amazing how useful it can be – the simple truth.

  ‘Tell Mr Mayou,’ I said to a genteel-voiced clerk, ‘that I was in a bad car crash, and that burglars wrecked my house. I had to spend a couple of nights away. But I’m back home now and would very much welcome a call.’

  The call I actually got was from Dean. I didn’t recognise his voice at first. And he was slurring his consonants as if he were drunk. But that is a state I’d never associate with Dean. He said he’d got the information I’d wanted. But –’

  ‘I’m not a woman for buts.’

  ‘But I don’t know whether I ought to tell you.’ Then I thought he said; ‘Safer if you didn’t know.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Hell, I didn’t mean to sound like a schoolmarm.

  ‘Safer. For you, Sophie. Because if you don’t know you won’t get done over, see.’

  ‘Done over?’ My voice shot up an octave. ‘What the hell –?’

  ‘Found a place. Two places. Sophie: isn’t safe, you know.’

  ‘Not safe? Dean, love, you sound all funny and what you’re saying doesn’t sound like you either.’

  ‘Not surprising. Lost a tooth, got two black eyes, a few bruised ribs.�
��

  ‘Bloody hell! What can I say? I never meant –’

  ‘No, it’s OK.’

  ‘We need to talk. The police –’

  ‘Don’t want no filth.’

  ‘But, Dean, it’s –’

  ‘I said no filth. Got a record, Soph. Remember? GBH. Wouldn’t believe me.’

  I bit back all the things I wanted to say. Who was I to argue? In any case, I might be able to work something, face to face.

  ‘And I don’t know I ought to see you,’ he said. ‘I might lead them to you.’

  ‘I’ve got a police minder at the moment, I’m in so deep.’ I gave him a brief résumé of my recent activities. ‘But perhaps you shouldn’t be seen coming here. Couldn’t I just casually drop by at the Fitness Centre? Nothing odd in that.’

  ‘Could talk in the sauna, maybe.’

  ‘Only if you turn the thermostat right down!’

  ‘Come on, Sophie. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the sauna!’

  They decided it should be Seb who’d accompany me, much to my surprise. I’d laid down some ground rules, first. My informant and I would talk in private. I would not be party to any of Seb’s neat little transmitters. I’d do my utmost to persuade my informant to talk to them, or even let me pass on the information. In return I had to promise not to organise a one-woman raiding party on the premises he fingered. I wasn’t quite convinced they’d keep their part of the bargain.

  Seb, as a potential new member, insisted on looking everywhere, including the sauna, before he paid. He might well have planted a bug. And when we cycled side by side – I wanted to keep the muscles ticking over – he wore a Walkman. So did half the people working out, actually: it’s probably only the younger ones who enjoy the canned pop music. Maybe it’s there to stimulate us to greater efforts, maybe to drown the grunts of the Multi-Gym males. But after Tina and her Radio Whatever, I would have done much to have had a Walkman tinkling out some particular jolly Telemann.