The Drowned Detective

by Neil Jordan

  I know very little about it.

  You must like it, he said, to find your way up here.

  Rigoletto, I muttered, and didn’t know how to continue. I will admit to being curious.

  Rigoletto, he said, was set in Mantua. Not in some post-Gorbachev wasteland. It can only cause trouble.

  The balaclavas?

  The whole thing. How do you say? The concept. Is difficult, he said, to play the cello solo with a riot in the auditorium. Enough of metaphor, I say. Just tell the story.

  He took a plastic lighter from his pocket and struck it. I remember it was coloured green. The warm light lit his face from underneath.

  So what is the story? I asked him.

  As absurd as any opera. A hunchback. A daughter. A duke. A secret assignation. A curse.

  He lit the small cigar, finally.

  You should never have been there, he said then.

  You knew, didn’t you?

  Tell me what I know.

  That she was dead.

  No. Not at first. I allowed myself some frisson of jealousy. Before I realised she had to be.

  He blew the cigar smoke through his lips.

  No smoking here, he said. But the place will be empty soon. Musicians make an exit quicker than hares, through the hatch. The minute they hear the bell.

  He flicked the green-coloured lighter again. His face flared in the amber, and he seemed to relish the theatricality of the underlight.

  That was our place, you see. Lovers have to have a place, don’t they? A secret place. And not only in opera librettos. A bare mattress on a floor. A sink. Or a washbasin. If you are blessed, a bath or a shower. And we were blessed, for a while.

  His eyes met mine and I looked away.

  Why do you care? he asked.

  Does it matter?

  Yes. I sense a frisson of jealousy there too. But I have to admit I am puzzled. You act as if you knew her.

  I imagine I do.

  So tell me then. She was pulled from the river? Three or four weeks ago?

  She was.

  I suspected as much.

  Why?

  When things began to happen. My daughter heard music. You have a daughter? Of course. Of course. So maybe she hears it as well. Bach’s cello suites. The D minor was her favourite. I taught her cello, if you must know.

  She played at the orchestra?

  No, he said. She never had that kind of talent. Too much vibrato. But she would have loved to. To sit beside me, as my second cellist, and play the Cortigiani solo. Would have been her dream. And she had many of those.

  He tapped ash into his hand and crumbled it to nothingness.

  I had an affair with my pupil. The worst of clichés, I suppose. In that apartment, where I would see you coming and going. And you want the whole story, of course you do. She would sit on that couch after – what do you call it – the thing, the event – and play her cello while I smoked in the other room. She had too much expressivo, too little restraint. But she had talent, I can’t deny that.

  He placed the cigar between his thin lips and drew once more.

  And you, he said, what’s your excuse? For haunting that place that was ours?

  I was asked to find a girl, I told him, who had gone missing as a child.

  And you tracked her to there? That little apartment? I would love to know how?

  His eyes met mine once more. Small, brown. I would have described them as repellent.

  You must like the damaged ones.

  Pardon me?

  He smiled, wistfully.

  She had that extraordinary need, you see, for contact, that only comes from the damaged ones. And they can be exquisite, the damaged ones.

  I don’t understand, I said.

  But I understood too well. Something broke inside me. It was his tone. The assumption of complicity.

  Have you found that, in your life? No? You are English, of course. You mightn’t know of such things.

  I could have flung him over the balcony, down to the seats below. I imagined the crunch as his head hit the aisle.

  I am good, he said, very good at keeping secrets. So you must have been good too? At searching them out? I met her on that bridge, if you must know. She was playing the cello, busking for coins. She made almost a living from it, from the passers-by, the tourists. It at least paid for that apartment where the lessons began. I would help with the rent there, after a time. And I wonder who pays for it now?

  He looked puzzled for a moment. And I took a breath to calm myself.

  Did she ever talk about her childhood?

  Sometimes about nothing else. But the stories, they often changed. Two Romany musicians who started her playing in the metro. A father, who taught her violin. By ear.

  She was taken, I told him, as a child.

  Taken? By gypsies, like in a fairy tale? Who told you that?

  Her parents. They hired me to find her.

  Who hired you? The mother?

  And the father.

  How strange.

  Why is it strange?

  Because she wasn’t taken. She ran.

  Ran? From whom?

  From him, who else? That village fiddler. So she told me.

  I remembered his feet, rubbing spittle into my office carpet. His hands, like stolid blocks on his knees. And did all of the pieces fall into place then? No, they didn’t. But I understood something, at last.

  But who knows, maybe that memory was as unreliable as her . . . vibrato . . .

  He narrowed his eyes.

  She loved it and hated it. But she couldn’t live without it.

  Without what?

  Music. Have you ever been terrified by music?

  My wife has. Only last night.

  Bach’s cello suites. The serene heart of baroque. Has terrified my daughter. My household. My window broke the other night. Of its own accord. Perhaps I deserved it.

  He raised one gleaming black shoe and stubbed the cigar out on the heel.

  She told me she was pregnant, you see. I assumed it was another fantasy. She asked to meet me where I’d met her first. By that bridge. But I never turned up.

  He blew air between his teeth.

  Would you have? Yes, you probably would.

  I did, I said. Some time later.

  He whistled, for a moment. The first arpeggio.

  And now it terrifies you. Well, he said, finally, perhaps you deserve it too.

  He took an intake of breath through his thin nostrils. They seemed pinched, by invisible fingers.

  Whatever the case, you are welcome to it.

  He bowed his head slightly with odd formality, and seemed to click his heels. He turned towards the door, where he heard it.

  A series of triplets, with one note ascending.

  I thought the orchestra had left.

  The bow now picked out a melody. Like a country dance.

  They have, I told him. Like hares out of the trap.

  Can you hear it?

  I recognised the sixth cello suite.

  Is there someone in the pit?

  I glanced backwards. There was no one in the pit.

  So, you have it on your phone, he said. A ringtone?

  He took two steps down towards me and gripped my lapels, feeling for a phone. But it was silent, in my inside pocket.

  So, he whispered, his face close to mine. She still plays for us. The D major suite. A cool, verdant key.

  I pushed both hands away.

  For us?

  Or should I be jealous? he asked. He rubbed one hand off the other, as if to cleanse them.

  For you.

  And there was only an echo of the sound now.

  Again, too much vibrato. But she is no longer my concern.

  He bowed his head and stepped backwards towards the door.

  She is – how do you say it? – all yours.

  He turned and left the door swinging gently on its hinges. The sound reminded me of something. And as his feet down the steps
retreated into silence and the door creaked on, I remembered.

  The sign outside his house, Musikinstrumente, the slight wind blowing, the wood creaking against the metal.

  43

  The door I had entered was locked, so I climbed the side steps to the stage, over the orchestra pit where she had imagined she would one day play, where she had taken the pearls that had started all the trouble. Or had I imagined that, too? It was easy to imagine things, on that sloping stage with the crimson seats fanning out behind me and the dim gold-trimmed boxes above them. There could have been generations of ghosts here. Operatic ghosts: drowning Rhinemaidens and lost Eurydices and consumptive bohemian girls. I picked my way through the theatrical wreckage, over the plastic Kalashnikovs and the coloured balaclavas, to the wasteworld of ropes and pulleys and old scenic backdrops behind. I found a door there that would have led to a back- or side-street, and pushed the bar on it, prodded it open. The wave of late-summer heat struck me, but I was cold inside it. There was a tobacconist, pulling down the shutters over the window of his narrow little shop. I closed the door behind me and was walking down the metal steps when my phone rang.

  You’re late, Sarah said. She’ll be waiting. And I can’t believe you’d be late for her at a time like this.

  Wasn’t it your turn? I said.

  No, she said, it was yours.

  I shut off the phone and I ran. In a daze, or a panic, across the boulevard.

  There was no one waiting for me on those wide steps when I reached them. A few students walking down them, with their music cases. There was the sound of a loud flute, playing the same phrase repeatedly, like someone’s favourite ringtone. I ran up the steps, through the doors, into the dark interior, and the sweat was running down my hands. There were two broad staircases on either side of the wall, with high churchlike windows. The evening sun was pouring through them, catching dust and wheeling midges in the yellow light. I took the stairs two at a time, and had reached the balcony above before I heard it.

  The series of triplets, with one note ascending. Played on a violin.

  I turned. There was a dim corridor, with doors on the left-hand side. A series of benches. Two young girls sitting on them, their violin cases between their knees.

  The melody then, like a country dance.

  I followed it to an open door.

  Jenny was standing in a dusty room, her small head cocked to one side, playing the sixth cello suite, in the cool verdant key of D major.

  Her teacher turned to me and blinked, her eyes huge behind her glasses.

  You’ve paid for extra lessons?

  I said nothing.

  Money well spent, she said. She has positively—

  She stood then. Took the bow from Jenny’s hand.

  . . . leapt ahead. This new teacher is quite remarkable.

  She opened Jenny’s case, placed the bow inside it.

  It sometimes happens. A pupil makes the old teacher redundant.

  She grimaced slightly. Took off her glasses. Wiped her eyes.

  Stick with the new one, then, I would say.

  She took the violin from Jenny’s chin. Placed it inside and closed the case over.

  It has been a pleasure, thus far. I will leave her in the hands of – what is her name, dear?

  Petra, Jenny said.

  Petra, she repeated. I would have thought the cello suites were too advanced for these tiny hands.

  And she took Jenny’s hands in her own. The veins stood out above the bones.

  But we have heard the evidence. I would have been wrong.

  44

  We took the metro back. It was crowded with the rush hour, so she sat on my knees on one single hard bench.

  Your teacher was impressed, I whispered, into the curled hair around her ear.

  Yes, she said. I’m coming on in leaps and bounds.

  But you can’t stop the lessons, I said.

  Why not? she murmured. I have a better teacher now.

  Jenny, I said, and turned her face towards me. You know none of this is real.

  Isn’t it? she asked.

  I rubbed my finger on her lip.

  It doesn’t matter, she said. What matters is the music.

  Do me a favour then, I asked. Give the music a break, for just one night.

  Why?

  Because. Sometimes it’s good to take a break.

  And it upsets Mummy, she said.

  Are you reading my mind?

  Maybe, she said. And maybe Petra is as well.

  The train swayed and a woman with an armful of onions pressed into me.

  Try to forget about Petra.

  I can’t, she said. Can you?

  But she left the violin in its case that night, which was some kind of relief. I cooked for all three of us and the chopping of onions and the grinding of pepper took my mind off cellos and operas. I tucked Jenny in her bed and read another chapter about the disogred giant with the tender heart.

  We have to leave, I said to Sarah, when I came back into the kitchen. She was sitting by the old wood table with a glass of wine and another cigarette.

  Whyever, she asked, when it’s so peaceful here?

  Do I have to count the reasons?

  Riots, she said, at my dig. A child who talks to dead people. Are there more?

  I’ve one case to settle, then I can close the office down.

  Does it involve a drowned girl?

  A funeral, I told her, that I have to attend.

  Why?

  I can’t tell you why, Sarah.

  Jonathan, who can’t tell me why.

  I was hired to find a girl. She’s being buried tomorrow.

  You’re burying a girl. I’m exhuming one. Maybe we both should stop.

  We will.

  Tell me it will be better in London.

  It will be, I promise.

  Myrtle Drive. Wimbledon. You remember it?

  Where your mother lives. Monkey-puzzle trees.

  Maybe we can settle in Richmond.

  Staines.

  Clapham.

  Blackheath.

  Hackney.

  Why are we reciting names?

  Because it’s fun, I said.

  But I was remembering the pink-tracksuited madam, and her place-name recitals. Anya, with her track marks.

  Do they still exist, she asked, those places?

  Maybe not, I said. Maybe it’s just us.

  I could live with that, she said, and curled her hand around mine. Just us.

  She drank too much wine that night and I had to help her to the bedroom. I held her steady by the French windows and took her clothes off, piece by piece. Her blouse first, with barely noticeable sweat stains under the arms. She turned, swaying, and I unclasped the bra, which she cupped, for a moment, in her elbows, like a bad schoolgirl. I unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor and had to hold her hand while she stepped beyond it. I lifted her then and carried her to the bed.

  Do you remember, she asked me, how much fun it used to be?

  Yes, I told her. I remember very well.

  45

  The train followed the river out of the city into the dull, parched countryside. I sat with Istvan in an empty carriage and tried to read the headlines of the newspaper he held in front of him.

  You want news? he asked. Minister for State Security has resigned.

  Why?

  Because there is none. No state, no security. Riots all over. And because he was found with a rubber-suited woman above a tyre shop.

  Vulcanizace, I pronounced, quite proudly.

  Circus tricks, he said. Maybe onetime colleague Frank took the picture.

  Maybe.

  We should tout for business, he said, closing the paper. We should expand – how you say?

  Our horizons, I ventured.

  Yes, horizons. Soon there will be bodies all over. Security in high demand.

  You do it, I said. I’ll be leaving soon.

  Wise, maybe.

&nb
sp; You think?

  You leave Istvan to expand horizons. Take your family back where?

  London.

  Wise. Very wise. So tell me why we travel to the arse end of nowhere to observe the funeral of the girl we were hired to find? We found her. Case closed.

  Because her mother thanked me once.

  For what?

  For believing.

  Are you religious, Jonathan?

  Not particularly.

  Superstitious. You believe in psychiki.

  Only under duress.

  Duress, he repeated. It was a new word to him.

  And we never found out why.

  Why what?

  Why she left. All those years ago.

  46

  There was a small, beautifully sad station by a high grassy berm which hid the river. The train deposited us and moved off along those tracks which made two straight lines below the irregular blur of the berm and led deep into the steppes to a point beyond infinity.

  It was a fortification, Istvan told me. Something to do with tank movements in the Second World War.

  We walked, then. Through the station, where a set of broken eaves pointed towards a village beyond.

  It was one of those circular medieval keeps, with some odd monastic history, with a dry moat running the circumference and a tributary of the river flowing behind. Scattered breezeblock bungalows lay on either side of the broken roadway and lent a melancholy modernist contrast to the pale, off-white limestone of the high walls, the dark, sloping roofs inside them.

  There was a bell ringing, a mournful toll as we walked down the cracked pathway of dried mud, cigarette ends and scattered beer cans. For some reason, I thought of the road to Emmaus.

  We are either early or late, Istvan said sagely.

  We crossed a mound of earth that could have once been a drawbridge, through an old stone archway without gates.

  Once, said Istvan, there were villages like this all over. Can you imagine?

  I could. The ancient walls with the cracked limestone, the tiny ripples of something like streets, with misshapen doorways and small shuttered windows. I could imagine a young girl running down them, kicking back her heels.

  There was a cone or a pyramid rising above the perimeter wall with an off-centre iron cross. That was the church, and there was a shuffle of people moving from it, hardly a procession, towards the archway opposite and the graveyard beyond.