Eighty Days Red

by Vina Jackson

  me all about it.’

  12 A Sketch by Degas

  The moment he closed the front door behind him, Dominik had approached the alarm panel with shaking hands and, with a tremor of excitement, entered the code for the system, after waiting five whole minutes to see if anyone would respond to his repeatedly ringing the doorbell. He had been assured by Summer that there would be no one in for the rest of the day but, housebreaking not being a regular pastime of his, he was nervous and preferred to verify this information for himself.

  The set of keys Summer had made copies of had worked, the locks clicking cleanly into position and the door opening with no resistance. Almost too easy, so far.

  3.3.1.3.R.P.M.

  With each digit entered on the pad the small LCD moved from red to green in total silence until the whole panel was giving him a blissful goahead.

  Dominik smiled. Trust Viggo Franck, a musician of the CD and digital downloading age, to have a password inspired by the speed at which most vinyl records revolved. It was a private joke which would have been lost on many, but at least it was more original than a birthday or a famous date in history, which is what most people used.

  The large house was bathed in silence. Just the muted breath of the air-conditioning soft-shoe shuffling across the emptiness of rooms.

  He made his way to the spiral staircase Summer had described and cautiously crept down the winding steps to the mansion’s underground areas.

  He found the airy gallery, its heart full of sculptures and installation pieces, like a room in a museum with its rows of lights recessed into the white ceiling, every spot artfully directed to illuminate a particular painting, print or structure, to present it to its best advantage, regardless of the angle any onlooker would be gazing from. Clear lines of sight between the sculptures of all sizes and colours, the pictures on the surrounding walls all aligned at the same level, a ballet of colours and compositions. Dominik recognised the Warhol industrial-like prints and some erotic sketches of bulls and unclad nymphs straight from Picasso’s ebullient pen. There were also more classical images: young ballet dancers in the style of Degas, landscapes of flowers à la Van Gogh, abstract geometrical forms whose modernity still lacked art in his eyes, and so much more. It was a gallery of wonders and Dominik could only guess at the value of the works on display.

  He knew he could spend ages here, endlessly admiring the beauty of some of the pieces in Viggo’s collection, but this was neither the time nor the occasion. He moved out of the room and descended a further level into the mansion’s subterranean spaces, finally reaching the lowceilinged swimming pool area Summer had suggested he investigate.

  The emerald-blue shimmer of the water in repose caught his eyes and Dominik, for a moment, couldn’t help but imagine Summer’s pale, naked beauty vigorously cutting through the narrow, curving pool which wound its way like a stream across the room, her legs closing and opening below the thin surface like the pages of a book, her fiery mane floating in her wake, like a stain of colour melting into the water and bringing it alive.

  And, of course, the chiselled perfection of Luba’s body, lounging like a mermaid queen by the artificial waterfall and its mound of slick, wet, grey stones. Ah, the stories this room could no doubt tell …

  Dominik quickly snapped out of his wandering meditation and, peering into the dimmer corner of the room, searched for the glass cabinet where many of Viggo’s musical instruments were allegedly displayed. There it was, beyond a gathering of smaller sculptures, artefacts, wood-carved nymphs and grotesques, a large wall-fixed glass-fronted steel edifice that ran halfway across the room’s narrowest wall. From where Dominik stood he could see inside it, parallel layers of shelves each laden with various instruments crammed together without breathing space, inert, sorrowful at not having been touched, let alone played, in years.

  At one end there was a whole row of electric guitars, some shiny and sleek, attracting the light reflecting from the nearby water, others matt and full-bodied, and yet more standing to attention, lining the cabinet like a parade of soldiers on a stage. Below the assortment of electric guitars, on a lower shelf, were a couple of accordions and next to them various brass instruments, a few trumpets, a trombone and a saxophone, most in poor condition, brass battered and marked in places, like survivors from a shipwreck. Alongside were two shelves with violins.

  Dominik approached the tall glass cabinet, skirting the damp edges of the pool.

  There were only four violins on display and he quickly glanced at each in succession. None was the Bailly. They were all undeniably beautiful, burnished with the patina of time, delicate, the wood of their bodies morphing into rare combinations of brown and orange, some streaked, others uniform, their elemental shapes sculpted into permanence. Dominik didn’t know much about antique violins, beyond the Bailly and the stories that trailed in its wake, but he knew these were evidently rare and works of beauty. There was an undeniable fragility about this set of instruments, as if they were too precious now to even be played, but he knew their sound, in the right hands, would display the utmost warmth and purity.

  He noticed the glass case was not even locked, one of its doors yawning slightly off its hinge. He was tempted to take one of the rare violins into his hands but knew it would be pointless as he couldn’t even play.

  A wave of apprehension raced through his mind. Had he been wrong all along and had Viggo no involvement with the Bailly’s disappearance? He then remembered Summer telling him about the glass case: if the Bailly had been here, she would have recognised it. Yes, the vault. The door Luba had mentioned. Where Viggo pretended to keep his vinyl records. Dominik stepped past the display unit and saw the recessed arch and the steel door it sheltered. Maybe the house’s initial owners, who’d had these underground floors excavated, had thought of it as some form of panic room.

  Dominik half-heartedly gripped the door’s handle and tried to turn it but it wouldn’t budge in either direction. He’d not expected it to.

  From now on, he was on his own.

  There was an electronic number pad on the side of the door.

  He had prepared as best he could for this eventuality. Scoured the internet for information about Viggo Franck’s life. His birthday, that of his parents, his sister’s, the important dates so far reported in his life, his first marriage, the dates his first songs and albums had been released and so on. Dominik typed in Viggo’s birth date but there was no reaction. Again no surprise. Normally, these systems required both a series of letters and figures. Desultorily, he tried Viggo’s initials followed by a numeric sequence starting with 1. Then 2,3,4,5 but there was no familiar click indicating he had hit on the right password.

  He gave the door a hopeless kick but it didn’t even flinch.

  All this way for nothing.

  He then remembered the front door password he had been supplied with by Summer. Again, there was no sign of recognition. Using the same code for two separate doors would indeed have been a bad error of judgment.

  A thought occurred to him.

  The vinyl vault.

  Records.

  The front door had been 3.3.1.3. R.P.M.

  A thin smile spread across Dominik’s lips.

  Viggo the joker …

  He tapped a new code in.

  4.5.R.P.M.

  There was a loud buzz, and Dominik heard the mechanism inside the heavy door click into place. Holding his breath, he wrapped his fingers around the door’s metal handle. There was no resistance this time. The lock was no longer blocking his access.

  Dominik felt a surge of pure adrenalin pulsing through his bloodstream.

  He applied gentle pressure to the door and it opened silently as if carried on a cushion of air.

  It was a small room, shrouded in darkness. Dominik advanced cautiously inside, his hand exploring the wall in vain for a light switch. He couldn’t find any within a safe distance of the door but, suddenly, a dull strip of neon light came to life – probably a
timing system connected to the door opening – and gradually grew in intensity.

  The space was square and windowless, the far wall occupied by shelves, a couple of lowrise display tables situated at its centre while the remainder of the walls displayed a sparse halfdozen paintings and framed prints hung at irregular intervals. For a moment, Dominik wondered why the artwork was in here rather than displayed outside. Was it because it was more valuable? But as his eyes roamed across the room and away from the walls, his attention quickly focused on one of the squat, heavy, glass-topped pieces of furniture on top of which the Bailly was displayed.

  A sigh of profound relief left him.

  He would have recognised it even if it had been concealed out of sight at the heart of a mountainous pile of similar-looking violins. It was unmistakable.

  The sought-after instrument appeared unharmed, its varnish catching the light and radiating warmth across the small room.

  Dominik approached the table, passed his fingers across the violin’s strings, finding them taut and responsive, echoes of a thousand melodies played for him by Summer flooding back, and the circumstances under which he had heard each and every one of them.

  He sighed.

  The Angelique.

  A mere instrument, with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. Carved out of wood and strung with gut, glued together, hourglass in shape, just like a woman whose voluptuous curves ceaselessly evoke primal forms of desire.

  But an instrument that now held so much significance in his life. It had brought him and Summer together in the first place, had seen them meet, fall apart and drift. It had witnessed their joy and their sadness, their passion and their sorrow.

  A violin with its own history. Had Dominik and Summer merely been just another chapter in its unfolding story? Who might follow in their footsteps, be next on the scene?

  But Dominik knew this particular chapter had not yet reached a proper ending.

  The stolen violin was here. But where was its bow? It hadn’t been left with the instrument on the display unit. He didn’t even know if the bow actually belonged to the Bailly, if it had been made at the same time, well over a century ago, and had accompanied the violin in its topsyturvy adventures down the years.

  His eyes darted once more across the room.

  Some of the paintings and prints hung on the wall closest to the door seemed familiar, as if he had seen them a hundred times in the pages of art books or exhibition catalogues, but he couldn’t put a name to any of them. Moving along to the shelves and their bric-a-brac of small stones, vintage toy cars and porcelain dolls, he finally noticed the bow sitting forlornly in one corner. He stepped over to grab it.

  Just as he did so, he heard a soft hiss, like air being expelled by a powerful pair of lungs. Dominik turned, trying to locate where the sound was coming from. It was the door to the room. Closing. As he realised what was happening, he rushed forward, dropping the bow, his arms flying forward in an attempt to get hold of the door before the shrinking gap between it and the visibly reinforced frame was bridged.

  He missed by a fraction of a second.

  ‘Fuck!’

  He frantically tried to turn the handle. It wouldn’t budge.

  He was locked in.

  ‘Damn, damn, damn.’ Swearing under his breath out of sheer anger at his own stupidity. He should have held the door open with something, kept it jammed. How stupid of him.

  He was a bloody amateur, that’s what he was.

  There was no alarm pad on this side of the door in which he could type in the code, or attempt to conjure up another combination that would work in reverse.

  His mind was racing, clutching at straws in a rushed attempt at thinking straight, but it was all a mad, desperate jumble and there was just no obvious solution to his predicament. He tried his mobile phone but, as he expected, buried in the depths of the mansion and behind the heavy metal door, there was no signal. Even as he calmed down and became more rational, he realised there was no miracle outcome in sight that he could possibly engineer. He would just have to sit here patiently and wait for the next visitor to the basement of the mansion. Viggo, in all likelihood. It would be embarrassing and he would probably end up getting himself arrested. Dominik could see the headlines already. On a back page, of course, the pettiness of it all would never deserve a single line on a front page. ‘Has-been writer caught red-handed robbing rock star’s house’, ‘Prof turns thief’. Whichever way it was worded would be profoundly humiliating.

  The only positive thing he could think of was that he might be able to inform Summer where her violin was. As long as he got access to her, he reasoned, but then surely Viggo would have the instrument promptly removed to another, safer location. What an awful mess!

  Dominik was still juggling random, fuzzy thoughts when he noticed the room’s neon light beginning to dim, its power fading with every passing second. He swore. The timer was connected to the door opening and closing. Very quickly, he would be plunged into darkness.

  As this realisation dawned on him, a further seed of fear took hold of him. What about the air in the room, the oxygen? Would that also disappear? He had seen no obvious evidence of ventilation or air-conditioning when the light had still been on.

  This was becoming so much more serious than he had initially thought.

  How long would the air supply last?

  Viggo took off his leather jacket and swung it around my shoulders, and led me out of the gallery room and into the bar that had been set up to supply the VIP exhibition guests with refreshments. It was quiet inside, as most people were picking up their drinks and taking them back into the viewing room. A man in a business suit who looked as though he’d come straight from work was standing alone at the bar, drinking something clear out of a short glass with a small straw, probably a gin and tonic. He gave us a curious glance, perhaps recognising Viggo, or just wondering why I looked so upset, and then went back to his drink. A pair of women wearing cocktail dresses were standing next to a tall table in a corner sneaking glances at the man in the suit, perhaps wondering if he was single, and whether they should approach him to find out. One was in pink and the other in yellow, and they stood out like a pair of brightly coloured birds, shifting their weight from one foot to the other to counter the pain of their high heels.

  Viggo swept me onto a booth seat in the darkest corner of the room and headed to the bar, returning a few moments later with two short whisky glasses half full with amber liquid and a cup full of ice.

  ‘Sip this,’ he said, ‘it’ll calm you down.’

  I took a mouthful, and nearly spat it out. The liquor burned my throat and the aftertaste was like a mouthful of lighter fluid, but within a couple of seconds my limbs began to feel pleasantly warm, and away from the crowd in the gallery and the presence of the photographs, I relaxed. Viggo leaned forward and ran his thumb gently under one eye and then the other, catching the remainder of my tears.

  As he did so, I caught a glimpse of his watch. More than an hour had passed since we arrived, and I still hadn’t heard from Dominik. He had promised to send me a text message when he’d completed, or abandoned, the mission so I would know that he was safe, and hadn’t set all the alarms off or been arrested. Viggo didn’t have any guard dogs, and Dominik was going in through the front door, so he didn’t have any dangerous walls to scale or windows to climb through, and I had no cause to be concerned for his safety.

  Nonetheless, a pit of fear began to boil inside my stomach, one type of upset turning into another until I began shaking again. I’d turned into a right mess of nerves, so unlike my usual self.

  Viggo leaned forward and took my hand. His hands were large and his palms rough, his fingernails bitten down to the quick. He never demonstrated a modicum of stress or nerves besides his habit of chewing his fingernails.

  ‘Tell me what’s wrong. I know it’s not the pictures. You haven’t been yourself since the tour. Is it that man you met?’

  ‘Dominik?’
My eyes widened in surprise and fright. ‘How did you know about him?’ I asked, my own fear of discovery turning my tone of voice into an accusation.

  ‘You don’t need to be coy, darling. There’s three of us sharing the one bed as it is so you didn’t exactly strike me as a one-man kind of girl. I don’t imagine that Luba keeps to herself when she goes on tour either. She’s out there right now seducing your photographer. If this other guy of yours has hurt you in any way though …’

  ‘No, nothing like that. We’ve had our moments, certainly, but it’s never been one-sided. Nobody’s perfect, are they, certainly not me.’

  Viggo laughed. ‘If we spent our lives waiting for the perfect man or woman, we’d be waiting for ever. In fact, that’s why I like to have more than one. You get some things from one person, other things from another. It works. For me, at least. And Luba. And you, maybe too.’

  ‘That’s a very mature way to look at it. But human emotions don’t always add up so easily, do they – love especially so.’

  He shrugged. ‘Everything is about compromise. And love is the biggest compromise of all.’

  ‘I didn’t think rock stars needed to compromise anything,’ I replied, morosely.

  ‘I guess I do have an advantage over the average person. There’s not much I want that I don’t get.’

  He was smiling wickedly, and his voice, as ever, held a touch of humour. But his words were like a bucket of cold water over my head. He had my Bailly, the gift that Dominik had given me that I had treasured so much, the instrument that I communicated all of my emotions through. Playing without it hadn’t been the same, and I wanted it back.

  ‘You had my violin stolen, didn’t you?’ I kept my tone even, neutral. It was a statement of fact, not an accusation.

  He looked taken aback, but not upset. The total absence of either denial or confusion cemented my certainty that the Bailly was in his possession. Not so much as a flicker of disbelief or surprise crossed his face.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ he replied smoothly, his face now a blank slate, a picture of innocence.