The Devil's Piper

by Sarah Rayne

  Jude haunting his days as he had haunted his nights all those years ago?

  It was nothing more than tiredness: the flight here, the drive through unfamiliar country. Too much wine the night before. Well, all right, maybe it was a little that he was coming to Jude’s house. But if Jude walked anywhere, he would surely not walk here. This had been his hideaway, his retreat. This had been where he had brought his women.

  He walked round the house, looking into the windows, putting up a hand to block his own reflection, trying to make out the shadowy outlines of furniture. Probably woodworm and death watch beetle had long since made matchwood of the furniture, but so far as he could see, there were at least chairs to sit on and a table to eat off.

  He progressed to the window on the left-hand side of the front door, but before he could make out the contents of that room, there was the sound of another car coming up the rough track behind him, and he turned his back on the house and went down the track to meet the solicitor.

  Edward Mahoney had not seemed very keen to stay, or even to enter Mallow.

  He had handed Isarel a bunch of keys, conscientiously labelled with things like ‘Garden Door’, and ‘Cellar’, and ‘Small Scullery’, and then he had gone. Another appointment, he had said, his eyes sliding away from Isarel, determinedly turning his back on the house. And then his family expecting him for supper – Mr West would no doubt excuse him from giving the guided tour? It was said with the slight quirkiness of the Irish, but for all that, there was a note of genuine anxiety. Mr Edward Mahoney quite clearly did not want to enter Mallow, and so far from wanting to enter it was he, that he did not even want to be in its vicinity for long.

  Haunted after all? Isarel grinned, and picked out the key labelled ‘Main Door’.

  The lock slid open and he stepped inside.

  Edward Mahoney walked up the nice, neat drive of his garden and turned the latch of his own front door. He was very glad indeed to have left the tumbledown Weissman estate behind, and he was extremely relieved that he had so adroitly managed to avoid actually going inside. He would not have entered that house after dark if the Furies had been at his heels. He would prefer not to enter it in full daylight either, really. Not that anyone had ever seen anything, not so far as Edward knew and he did not, of course, believe in such nonsense. But you had to expect that there would be a few stories about a place empty for so long.

  He permitted himself a touch of complacency. The past weeks had been tricky, what with the finicking English solicitor in Lincoln’s Inn making every kind of difficulty, and what with this Mr West’s father – Jude’s son, that was – having changed the family’s name in the Fifties, although that was no more than Edward would have done himself given the scandal.

  Isarel West had been younger than he had been expecting: no more than thirty or so. You tended to think of university lecturers as elderly, of course, and probably West was one of these modem aggressive clever young men you heard about. Edward had no time for them, although he frowned, remembering Isarel West’s disquieting likeness to the photographs of Jude at the height of his fame. Thin-faced and dark-haired. The kind of intense dark eyes that foolish young girls sometimes found attractive. It might be as well to ensure that Moira was not thrust into any kind of contact with Mr West, not that the child would be interested, she did not bother with boys or nonsense about pop groups or film actors.

  He let himself into his house and stood smiling, waiting for his womenfolk to put aside whatever they had been doing, and come running out to welcome him home.

  Chapter Two

  The minute that Isarel stepped over the threshold, he was aware of relief that Edward Mahoney had gone. The scent of age billowed out from the house and folded about him, so strong that for a minute it was like a solid wall and Isarel felt his senses blur.

  But this was not the musty dankness of damp or rot and there was nothing sad or sordid about it. This was age at its best and most evocative: a pot-pourri of old seasoned timbers and long-ago peat fires and a lingering scent of dried lavender. A gentler age when ladies embroidered and wrote letters on hot-pressed notepaper and painted dainty water-colours and practised their music.

  Music . . . The faint stirring came again, rippling the surface of his mind like the puckering of thin silk.

  Follow me, come with me . . . Over the frozen mountaintops, across the glassy lakes . . .

  So he was suffering from delirium tremens now. So it was something that a good many people had long since predicted. He turned back to the house.

  A staircase wound up from the hall to the upper floors: the stairs were uncarpeted and at some time the boards had been polished until they resembled new-run honey with the sun on it. There were elaborately carved newel posts and a small half landing where the evening light filtered through.

  On the right of the hall, a door was partly open into a long shrouded room. The evening light was in here as well: great pouring swathes of purple dusk softening the neglect. The once-lovely wallpaper was peeling from the walls, and the plaster mouldings on the ceiling had fallen to the floor in a shower of tiny dry crumbs and the curtains, which might have been any colour at all, had faded to indeterminate grey. But there was a deep window seat covered in the same faded velvet as the curtains, and if you sat on it you would be able to look through the jutting bow window over a small orchard. There were several deep armchairs and a small rosewood desk, and although the fireplace was probably choked with starlings’ nests, it was square and substantial-looking and chimneys could be swept. So far so good. He would far rather have this elegant dereliction than fifty of Liz’s symmetrical lounges.

  The kitchen gave him pause: cooking facilities there were, but they were provided by a huge black range. Isarel, accustomed to electric cookers where you turned a switch, or microwave ovens where you set a dial, eyed it doubtfully. Alongside it was an immense dresser, probably built into the house – probably its main king post for heaven’s sake! – and at the centre was a scrubbed-top table. A thick layer of dust covered everything, but Isarel had the uncomfortable feeling that if he put out a hand he would find that the range was still faintly warm, and that he had only just missed hearing the sound of the kettle singing on the hob. He shivered and went back through the wood-scented hall into the cascading twilight. He would cope with the practicalities first and then he would think about the delusions.

  The scented dusk had given way to night proper as he unloaded the cartons of food and the whiskey. He unpacked the candles first, lighting several and standing them on window ledges and tables. It took longer than he thought to carry everything in and store it all away. Just off the kitchen was a massive stone-floored larder with an old-fashioned mesh-fronted meat safe, and a marble slab for cheese and butter. There were plates and cups and cutlery in a drawer and when he tried the water in the deep square sink, although it ran rusty to start with – bodies in the sewerage? don’t be ridiculous! – after a time it came clear and pure. He rinsed the dust from plates and cups and set them on the dresser to dry. He would make himself a sandwich and pour a tumbler of whiskey before exploring further.

  If he was going to suffer from DTs he might as well do the thing properly.

  It was remarkable what food and drink did for you. Isarel rinsed the plates and knives, re-filled the tumbler with whiskey, lit several more candles and walked across the hall to explore the rest of his domain. The leaping candle flame sent his own shadow dancing across the ceiling, and there was a moment – heart-stopping – when he thought that a second shadow walked with him. A creature wearing a deep hood that concealed its face, a creature that dragged itself painfully along, deep-sleeved arms outstretched and then lifted, ready to snatch up a victim . . .

  The candle burned up and the illusion vanished, and Isarel pushed open the door to the room on the other side of the hall.

  The same drifting scent of age, the same neglect. A darker room this, probably once papered in something vaguely William Morris. He mad
e out the ghosts of huge cabbage roses and twining vines on the wall. Lovely. It was faded and there were damp patches here and there, but it beat emulsioned woodchip any day.

  At the far end, positioned beneath the window that looked out over the tangle of Mallow’s garden, was a low gleaming shape. Satinwood and ebony, and the pale shimmer of ivory teeth.

  Jude’s piano.

  The shadows were quiescent as he drew the piano stool with the faded velvet seat forward, but he again had the impression that he was not alone, and that something crouched in the shadows, near to the window. Something that was huddled into one of the pools of darkness, the cowl of its robe shadowing its face, but that lifted its head and turned towards him as he touched the keys . . .

  Isarel swore and lit another candle from the stub of the first and the shadows receded again. Damn Edward Mahoney and his alacrity to beat a retreat and damn M B Temple in London with his stories about ancient Orders of Monks and Abbeys of incalculable age.

  Under the piano was an elaborate brass box, probably used for music sheets. Isarel stared at it, and felt his heart give a great bound, and then resume a painful, too-rapid beating. Jude’s music. It might be empty, of course. Or whatever was in it might have been long since destroyed. Mildew, damp, mice. Vandals. Would vandals bother to steal music? Moving as if through a dream now, he dragged the box from under the piano, where the candlelight fell across the tarnished surface. Not brass after all, thought Isarel. Silver? And supposing it’s locked? If it’s locked I’ll break it open.

  The box was not locked but the lid was sealed with the accreted dust of years. Isarel tore several layers of skin from his hands prising it up, but at length, with a groan that rasped against his already-raw nerves, the lid came slowly up, with a faint breath of dry air being exhaled. As if something was sighing with regret. As if it had lain buried here for a long time and did not want to be woken. Isarel’s hand was shaking as he reached inside.

  A thick pile of yellowing music paper: score sheets, some professionally printed, some not. Brahms, Mozart, Liszt. Beethoven piano concertos. Jude’s extravagant, elaborate writing sprawled in the margins of almost every one. The edges were crumbling and flaking with age, and Isarel lifted them out with extreme care.

  And there, under them all, the ink faded to pale brown, was the one he had wanted to find and perversely hoped not to.

  Jude Weissman’s original score for the infamous music he had written over half a century earlier and played in Eisenach Castle.

  The Devil’s Piper.

  Edward Mahoney’s evening had not gone quite as he had expected.

  He was accustomed to his supper being ready for him as soon as he arrived, and surely to goodness it was not unreasonable for a man to expect his supper to be on the table at the correct time of an evening. He felt obliged to administer a gentle rebuke.

  Supper was a family event: he insisted on it. He had no patience with nonsense about the girls wanting to be off with harum-scarum friends or pleas to attend youth clubs or school orchestra practices. A good Catholic family ate the evening meal together.

  It was annoying that the delay and Mary’s nervous apology should mar the time of the day that Edward liked best: entering his own house and seeing his womenfolk come running to greet him, vying for his attention. But after all, it was not wholly spoiled. The twins, Rosa and Angela, came running as soon as they heard his key in the lock, just as they always did, clattering down the stair, leaving their schoolwork behind, and calling out that Father was home, here was Father and they had such a lot to tell him! Edward expanded with red-faced pleasure, and looked up the stairs, expectantly. He liked seeing the twins, of course, noisy scrambling pair that they were, but it was Moira, his lovely precious Moira that he really wanted to see.

  She came slowly down to him, with the slight halting step that so distressed them all. She was wearing one of her thin cotton shirts tonight; Edward could see the outline of her breasts quite clearly. He drew in his breath sharply, and bent over to kiss her, anticipating it, savouring the closeness. There was nothing wrong in a fond paternal kiss.

  Club foot, they had called Moira’s disability at the hospital; not a very severe case fortunately, and there was no reason why the child, so pretty and intelligent, could not lead an almost normal life. No games unfortunately, although swimming might be possible. But other than that a perfectly normal and fulfilled life.

  Edward had not paid such absurdities any attention; he had been courteous but firm, and although Moira had perforce to attend St Asaph’s from the age of five on, he had seen to it that Mary fetched and took her every day. There would be no walking home with a giggling group of giddy schoolgirls at four o’clock every afternoon, very likely eyeing boys and all manner of nonsense! Edward had seen the behaviour of some of St Asaph’s girls from his office window in the village square, and very bold it was.

  Later, he had resisted the representations of the nuns to allow Moira to try for a university place, perhaps even to read law so that she could come into the firm with her father, wouldn’t that be a fine thing? they had said. Edward had been surprised that the nuns should consider such a thing, because of course a child with Moira’s disability could not cope with life in Dublin, the very idea! Moira would stay at home where her daddy could keep her safe. He thought, but did not say, that having her with him all the time was precisely what he had always wanted; in any case, he was certainly not going to permit her to go stravaging off to a university, where she would be ogled by lusty-eyed boys who would want to stroke her breasts and take her clothes off to satisfy their hot, thrusting bodies. Unthinkable in connection with his precious girl.

  The image of Moira in the bed of some lout was something he dwelled on quite often. Moira, naked on a bed, her red hair tumbling down her white shoulders . . . The image slid insidiously into his consciousness now, as Moira accepted her evening kiss and smiled at him, and said supper would not be long.

  He left them to see to the serving of his food, and went out to take a turn in the garden. It was cool and autumnal and a tiny wind was soughing in the trees over towards Mallow. Edward stood at the end of the garden, looking across to the forest and there, in front of the blurred silhouette of the trees, was the denser shape that was the house. A ramshackle place it was although Edward dared say something might be made of it, always supposing that West had the money to do it, which was unlikely. Everyone in Curran Glen knew that Jude Weissman’s money had long since vanished, and the amount passed to the heir had been scandalously small. Edward, dealing importantly with the London solicitors, knew how much Isarel West had inherited to the penny.

  The wind was oddly resonant tonight. Edward could have almost thought it was bearing thin silvery music on the air. He looked back at Mallow, a crouching bulk in front of the forest, and a prickle of unease brushed his scalp. And then he remembered that Isarel West was a musician like Jude.

  There was absolutely no reason why the thin silvery music drifting on the night air should produce a feeling of unease.

  Isarel was fathoms deep in Jude’s music, the mist-wreathed purple-shadowed eeriness of the Devil’s Piper pouring from the piano almost of its own volition. The Bluthner was painfully out of tune and if there was such a thing as a good tuner out here he would have to be called in, because although some things would have to be economised on, Jude’s piano was not going to be one of them.

  Isarel’s father had hidden Jude’s musical scores in the attic of their house, but Isarel had found them when he was eight, and the crumbling yellowed sheets had fascinated him. He had copied Jude’s marvellous work carefully on to fresh notation paper, working by the light of a torch in his bedroom when he was supposed to be asleep, and then stealing into the study at the back of the house where the jangly upright piano was kept. For some reason he had never understood, he had never played Jude’s music when his parents were in the house; despite that, by the time he was eleven, he knew all of his grandfather’s compositions ab
solutely by heart.

  But he had never found the score to the Devil’s Piper.

  Jude had written the instructions: allegro maestoso, for the first movement, meaning fast but stately, but to Isarel, the entrance of the Piper, the enigmatic myth-shrouded creature, was soaked in menace. Could you instruct that a piece of music was played menacingly? What about con malicia. With malice . . .

  Excitement gripped him as the music poured into the dark room, like a torrent of crimson and gold, streaked here and there with dark malevolence. He had been unable to feel strongly about anything since he found Liz in bed with her Sales Director, and since he discovered the Faculty Heads fiddling the Departmental allowance and cursed them all for a set of tone-deaf provincials on the last memorable day. Even the violent drinking bouts that had ended in several unknown beds had failed to move him.

  But the emotions were all fiercely there again: violent feeling tearing through his mind. It beat the faceless bodies in crumpled beds any day. It was like a mental orgasm. Was it how Jude had felt when he was creating this? How near to him was Jude now?

  Isarel’s mind was alight and alive with soaring joy, as if huge spotlights were illuminating it, and the patterns tumbled out through his hands on to the out-of-tune piano. There was a grisliness in the music: an element of fee-fi-fo-fum – seven-league boots and a tread that would shake the ground as it came . . . A feeling of something beckoning with a long crooked finger . . . It was a little like Wagner at his most menacing or even Mahler at his darkest. Menacing . . . Malicious . . . That word again. Something sleeping inside the music – almost as if somebody had hidden it there! – something was awakening . . . Something ancient and dark, but so irresistible that you would follow it anywhere . . .