Paganini's Ghost

by Paul Adam

  I stood up from my armchair.

  “Get your things. I’m taking you back to Cremona.”

  He didn’t argue. He knew what had to be done. I was there simply to set the wheels in motion.

  They went into the bedroom to gather up their belongings, and I found a poker by the hearth and knocked out the remains of the wood fire. The handle of the poker was dusted with soot, which came off on my hands, so I went along the hall to the bathroom to wash it off.

  I was drying my hands on a towel when I noticed the handwritten notice stuck to the wall, giving instructions about how to operate the cottage’s hot-water system. The handwriting was familiar. I stared at the notice, studying the shape of the letters, looking for the individual characteristics that make each person’s handwriting distinctive. I realised suddenly where I’d seen it before—in the margins of the book about Elisa Bonaparte that I’d borrowed from Vittorio Castellani’s office.

  I went back out into the hall. Yevgeny and Mirella were emerging from the bedroom in their coats, Mirella clutching a small holdall.

  “It was good of Professor Castellani to let you use his cottage,” I said.

  Mirella looked at me blankly.

  “Professor Castellani?”

  “This is his house, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s Marco’s.”

  “Marco?”

  “He was at the reception, too. Marco Martinelli. He’s an associate lecturer in the music department. This is his family’s cottage. Loads of people use it; Marco doesn’t mind.”

  She eyed me apprehensively.

  “You’re not wanting me to come with you, are you? To see Yevgeny’s mother.”

  “No, I don’t think that would be advisable just yet,” I said. “Perhaps later.”

  I’ve never seen anyone look so relieved.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I’ll leave you to say good-bye to each other,” I said tactfully. “I’ll be waiting in the car, Yevgeny.”

  So it was Marco’s book that I took from Castellani’s office, I thought as I ran through the rain to my car. Why would Marco have had a book about Elisa Baciocchi? And for the second time that day, a surname was bothering me. First Bianchi, now Martinelli. Why did the name Martinelli sound familiar?

  I phoned Ludmilla from the foyer of the Hotel Emanuele, then left Yevgeny in an armchair and went upstairs alone. Ludmilla was waiting for me, standing in the open doorway of her room, her eyes scanning the empty corridor behind me.

  “Yevgeny . . .” she said.

  “We need to talk first,” I said.

  “He is well? Tell me he’s all right.”

  “He’s all right,” I said.

  “Where’s he been? Why hasn’t he come up with you?”

  I closed the door and made her sit down. She perched on the edge of her chair, her hands clutched tightly together, her lips pinched. Her whole body was tense.

  “I want to see him,” she said. “Why isn’t he here? What’s going on?”

  I pulled out another chair and sat facing her.

  “All in good time, signora,” I said.

  “You’ve got bad news, haven’t you?” she said. “What is it? He’s signed with Kousnetzoff, is that it? Tell me. Is he leaving me? I must know.”

  “He is not leaving you,” I said.

  “Then why isn’t he here?”

  “He asked me to speak to you first.”

  “Speak to me? Speak to me about what?”

  “About the future.”

  “The future? What do you mean?”

  I told her where Yevgeny had been, and with whom. And I told her what he’d said to me at the cottage and then later in the car as we drove back to Cremona. She stared at me for a long moment, absorbing everything I’d said; then her eyes flashed angrily.

  “What nonsense is this? He’s going to throw away all these years of struggle for a girl? Has he lost his mind?”

  “He’s throwing nothing away,” I said calmly.

  “Of course he is. Who is she, this Mirella? A student, you said. An opportunist, no doubt. Some pretty little thing with an eye for a meal ticket, latching onto Yevgeny because he’s on his way to the top. Dear God, men! What is the stupid boy playing at? I want to meet this Mirella. Is she downstairs, too?”

  Ludmilla stood up and headed for the door. I cut her off before she could reach the handle.

  “This is none of my business,” I said. “But Yevgeny has asked me to talk to you, and I have not finished yet. Please sit down.”

  “Who are you to tell me what to do? He’s my son. I will sort this mess out with him.”

  “Signora, please sit down.”

  I held her eyes. She stared back at me belligerently. I was blocking her exit, and she knew I wasn’t going to step aside without a fight. She glared at me for a few seconds longer, then swirled round and strode back across the room.

  “So finish what you have to say,” she snapped. “Then I’ll deal with Yevgeny and this . . . this gold-digging girl.”

  “I cannot talk to you while you are in this state,” I said.

  “ ‘This state’?”

  “You are angry.”

  “I have a right to be angry, don’t you think? He has disappeared for a week. No note, no phone call. I have been to the police; they have been searching for him. And now he comes back and expects everything to be all fine and rosy.”

  “I understand why you’re angry,” I said. “He has behaved very badly, caused a lot of trouble and pain. He knows that. But getting angry with him isn’t going to help.”

  “Isn’t it? He needs to have some sense knocked into him. He needs to see just how foolish he’s been, how this girl is using him. He should get rid of her now and concentrate on his career again. He has concerts coming up. Since the Premio, the offers have been pouring in. He cannot afford to waste the opportunities he is being offered. It’s what he’s always dreamt of. What we’ve both dreamt of.”

  “Maybe Yevgeny has other dreams, too,” I said.

  “Nothing is as important as his career.”

  “To him, or to you?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that he can have a successful career and other things, too. A social life, friends. Don’t paint him into a corner. Don’t make him choose between you and Mirella.”

  “Mirella? A girl he has known for just a few days? I am his mother. We have been together for twenty-three years. You think that counts for nothing?”

  “It counts for so much that you shouldn’t put it at risk,” I said. “He’s not a child. Twenty-three-year-old men need more than their mothers. Listen to me, Ludmilla. All he wants to do is to make a few changes, to do things a little differently. He’s not abandoning his career, or you. Don’t overreact. He has a girlfriend, that’s all. That’s normal for a boy his age. Mirella might last a month, or she might last a lifetime. There’s no point in guessing which now. Just let things take their course. Give Yevgeny the freedom to make his own choices, and his own mistakes. Because if you don’t, he will break away from you now and never come back.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. I resisted the temptation to fill it. I’d said what I had to say, what Yevgeny had asked me to say. It was up to Ludmilla now to take the initiative. To take it, or to reject it.

  “Why didn’t Yevgeny talk to me about this?” Ludmilla said eventually. “Why did he send you?”

  “You want the honest answer? Because he’s scared of you.”

  She flinched.

  “Scared of me? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “He said he’d tried to discuss it with you, but you would never listen.”

  Ludmilla looked away pensively. Her forehead creased. I tried to interpret her feelings from the pattern of wrinkles and saw hurt and puzzlement and disbelief.

  “He actually said that? That he was scared of me?” she asked, turning back to me.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  We fell silent
again.

  “Will you ask him to come up?” Ludmilla said softly.

  “You’re ready?”

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  I went to the phone and spoke to the receptionist in the foyer. Then I opened the door and waited for Yevgeny. He came slowly along the corridor, his gaze fixed on my face, searching for some kind of signal—a signal I couldn’t give him, for I didn’t know what Ludmilla was going to do. Just before the threshold, he paused, unsure whether to enter the room. Then he steeled himself and came on. He regarded his mother warily, bracing himself for a confrontation.

  Ludmilla said something in Russian. I didn’t understand the words, but she didn’t sound angry. Yevgeny replied in the same language. They looked at each other uncertainly. I knew it was time for me to go. I gave Yevgeny a quick smile of encouragement and headed for the door.

  I was at the far end of the corridor, about to go down the stairs, when I suddenly remembered why I knew the name Bianchi.

  Eighteen

  Antonia Bianchi—there it was on page seventy-four of one of my biographies of Paganini. And alongside it was a portrait of Antonia that bore an uncanny resemblance to the photograph of Nicoletta Ferrara, née Bianchi, I’d seen at Stresa. They had the same mouth and nose, the same look of stubbornness in the eyes—so many similarities, in fact, that even without the clue of their surnames, I would have suspected that they were related.

  Antonia Bianchi was a singer who became Paganini’s companion for a few years in the 1820s, and the mother of his only child, Achille. She was twenty when she met the violinist. Paganini was forty-one. They were together for four turbulent years but never married. Paganini, of course, was not an easy man to live with, but Antonia seems to have been almost unhinged in her fits of temper and jealousy, attacking her partner in public and attempting more than once to smash his precious Guarneri del Gesù to bits. The son she produced was the only thing that kept Paganini and her together for those few years. Without Achille, on whom he doted, Paganini would have walked out on Antonia long before he actually did. When the acrimonious split finally came, Paganini gave Antonia two thousand scudi to relinquish any claim over Achille, and from then on father and son were inseparable.

  Two thousand scudi? I wondered about that sum as I read through the relevant pages of the book. It wasn’t a large amount, particularly when compared with the phenomenal fees Paganini was charging for his concerts. Antonia doesn’t appear to have had any great maternal urges and may well have been glad to get rid of her son. But given her violent, vindictive nature, it was perhaps a little surprising that she should have let Paganini off so lightly. Or had she?

  The money was clearly not the only thing she took with her. Paganini must also have given her the gold box that Henri le Bley Lavelle had made for Elisa Baciocchi. How else did it come to be in Nicoletta Ferrara’s house? By the time of the split, it was several years since Paganini had paid his gambling debt to Barbaia with the jewelled violin. The gold box would have been no use to him, so parting with it would probably have been no great sacrifice. The Bergonzi violin, too? Had that also been Paganini’s, and had he included it in the financial settlement with Antonia? Paganini had a reputation for being a miser, but he could be extremely generous when he chose. He gave innumerable benefit concerts for charity and a large gift to the struggling Hector Berlioz. In his will, he left an annuity to Antonia, showing he had not forgotten her, though many years had passed since their parting. They had not been happy together, but she was the mother of his son and he made sure that she was properly provided for.

  Did he give her anything else? Or did Antonia take anything else with her when they separated? I pondered on those questions as I got ready for bed; then they slipped from my mind as sleep overtook me. I had a bad night, waking regularly every couple of hours, tormented by nightmares about Vladimir Kousnetzoff and Olivier Delacourt. It was a relief when morning came and I could retreat to my workshop and lose myself in my work.

  Nearing lunchtime, I heard footsteps on the terrace and looked up from my bench, to see Guastafeste outside. We went into the house and I made us both a cheese sandwich and a green salad.

  Guastafeste waited until I’d poured two glasses of red wine and was seated at the table before he said, “Are you all right, Gianni?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be all right?”

  “Yesterday—that can’t have been easy for you. There was Paris, too. Finding Alain Robillet’s body, then Vladimir Kousnetzoff’s. We have people we can call on, you know. Trained counsellors who are used to treating trauma. Do you want to talk to one of them?”

  “I don’t need a counsellor, Antonio. I have you to talk to, though to be frank, I don’t really want to talk. Not about the bodies anyway. I’m more interested in what happened after I left Castenaso.”

  “Delacourt confessed,” Guastafeste said. “He admitted killing Kousnetzoff and Robillet. A falling-out among thieves, it would seem. He thought they’d double-crossed him, tried to cut him out of his share of the jewelled violin.”

  “They were all in this together?”

  Guastafeste nodded, taking a bite of his sandwich, then wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

  “Delacourt had a long-standing business relationship with Villeneuve and Robillet—buying and selling stolen jewellery. It was Delacourt who first got the scent of the jewelled violin. He came upon the entries in Henri le Bley Lavelle’s records by chance and mentioned it to Villeneuve and Robillet. They had a contact in Saint Petersburg—Vladimir Kousnetzoff—who was also interested in the violin. Kousnetzoff wasn’t just a musical agent. He had another business on the side—smuggling stolen fine art and antiques out of Rus sia and using Robillet and Villeneuve to find wealthy buyers in the West. Kousnetzoff knew all about Jeremiah Posier and the jewelled violin he’d made for Catherine the Great. He’d recently acquired some of Posier’s private papers, including a letter dated 1848 from the estate manager at Castenaso, enquiring about the provenance of the violin.”

  “The estate manager?”

  “Lorenzo Costa.”

  “The one who was killed by Austrian soldiers when they were billeted at the villa after Isabella Colbran’s death.”

  “Yes,” Guastafeste said. “And who decided to hide the violin from the soldiers by getting the local blacksmith to weld it into the ironwork of the summer house. The blacksmith who was also killed by the Austrians.”

  “Taking the secret with him to the grave,” I said. “How did Delacourt know where to look?”

  “He didn’t. He and Kousnetzoff knew the violin had been at Castenaso. They went there a few weeks ago but, like us, found only ruins. Then the gold box surfaced and that distracted them temporarily, gave them another lead to follow. It was only a couple of days ago that they remembered the summer house and went back to Castenaso for a second look, taking with them a hacksaw.”

  “We should have guessed in Paris,” I said. “We asked Delacourt if he’d heard of Posier and he lied, said no. Any jeweller worth his salt would have known who Posier was.”

  I took a sip of my wine.

  “What happens to the violin now?”

  “It will have to go to a jewellery expert, someone who can clean off all the tar and restore the violin to its original condition.”

  “And then?”

  “Who knows? It will probably end up in a museum—on display in a glass case.”

  Guastafeste ran his hands through his thick black hair.

  “You have to wonder at human greed, don’t you?” he said. “What people will do for a piece of metal adorned with a few mineral crystals. To kill two people for that—it doesn’t make any kind of sense.”

  “Two? Aren’t you forgetting François Villeneuve?”

  “There’s a complication,” Guastafeste said. “Delacourt denies killing Villeneuve. He says he wasn’t even in Cremona when it happened.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I’d like to say no. That would make
everything so much simpler. Delacourt killed them all, Villeneuve, Robillet, and Kousnetzoff. Case closed. But I think he’s telling the truth. He’s admitted two murders. Why not admit the third—if he did it?”

  “But then who . . .” I began.

  “Kousnetzoff’s a possibility. Unfortunately, we can’t ask him.”

  “Why would Kousnetzoff kill Villeneuve?”

  “To get his hands on the gold box, perhaps. Lodrino sold it to both of them, after all.”

  “But the box was in the hotel safe, and only Villeneuve had access to it. Killing him wouldn’t have got Kousnetzoff the box.”

  Guastafeste shrugged.

  “I don’t know, Gianni. Maybe we’ll never know for sure.”

  “What did Delacourt have to say about it? Did you ask him?”

  “Yes, we asked him. He said he didn’t know. It wasn’t him—he was adamant about that. More than that, he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—say.”

  “So Villeneuve’s case is still open?”

  “I’m afraid so. We’re going to have to go back to the beginning, look again at all the evidence. Examine Villeneuve’s movements from the time he first arrived in Cremona; where he went, who he met. Check the forensics, see if we can pick up a lead.”

  “Lodrino?”

  “He has a watertight alibi for the time Villeneuve was killed.”

  “Serafin?”

  “His alibi stood up—unfortunately. It’s not just his mistress, either. Several other people can vouch for his being in Milan all that Sunday morning. No, I have a feeling the killer is someone we haven’t thought of yet. Someone who’s been out of the frame so far. Someone who knew Villeneuve, or met him during his stay and was also interested in the gold box. Interested enough to kill for it . . . Gianni?”

  He was gazing at me curiously.

  “Are you okay?”

  “What?” I said.

  “You seemed to shut off just then. Your eyes went blank.”

  “Martinelli,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Martinelli. I’ve just remembered. Felice Baciocchi’s cousin’s daughter married Ignazio Martinelli.”