Funeral Music (11 page)

‘Well, good night. Thank you for looking after my finger,’ she said, turning.

Paul took her hand as if to check the bandage, then turned it over gently and kissed it.

‘No fee,’ he said, not letting go.

Sara looked at him, knowing that the powerlessness of her hand in his was signalling to him her willingness to succumb. He gave her fingers the merest, gentlest squeeze and kissed her hand again lightly, this time for much longer.

‘In fact, I think you might benefit from another consultation.’

Sara withdrew her hand.

‘Oh, I’m sure you’d have
much
too long a waiting list,’ she said, rather loudly. ‘Good night, Paul.’

BY THE time she reached home, Sara was feeling not just slight triumph at having withstood Paul, but also a warm self-congratulation that the shock of Matthew Sawyer’s death was ebbing peaceably out of her life. So it was a new shock to discover that the one message on her answering machine was from Tom in Brussels, saying, in a voice at first barely recognisable as his, that he was catching the first flight back in the morning. James had been arrested.

CHAPTER 10

SARA PARKED ATROCIOUSLY in the forecourt and barged into the police station in Manvers Street, ready to be as loud, insistent and abusive as was necessary to get hold of Andrew Poole and put him right about the outrage, the ludicrousness of James’s arrest. The station constable rolled amiably over to the glass partition and gave Sara a smile of such naked pleasantness that she faltered instantly. They must train them to look like jolly uncles, she thought wildly; underneath he’s a corrupt little bastard.

‘Good evening, madam. That your car just now? I believe you’ve left your headlights on. Now, what can I do for you?’ he asked, still smiling. It was no use. Every molecule that went to make up the well-brought-up and socially effective Sara Selkirk understood that if someone is nice to you, you have to be nice back.

‘My friend, I have a friend who’s here, he’s being kept here, there’s some sort of mistake. James Ballantyne. I
must
see him. No, wait, is Chief Inspector Poole here? Can I see him? Andrew Poole? Please, it’s very important. There’s been a mistake.’ Inwardly, another Sara Selkirk, a mentally dislodged fishwife, was screaming,
You bastards, you’ve got my
poor sweet friend here; let him go, give me back my friend who has
done nothing wrong. Oh, how dare you, you idiots, you bastards...

The station constable shimmied off cheerfully, leaving Sara to wait in the faggy wood-panelled lobby. Time passed, punctuated by the occasional exchange of voices in the office behind the partition and the sounds of doors and feet. Then the station constable was back, beaming through the glass.

‘Sorry to have kept you waiting.’

She heard the sound of a door being unlocked from the far side of the lobby and sprang up. So it had been easy after all. Obviously, just a misunderstanding. James was about to step through the door, sheepish, grateful and glad to be going home. Her relieved smile fell when Andrew appeared. Under the strip lighting of the lobby his face had a pitted, buttery pallor and Sara reflected with dismay that she probably looked the same to him.

‘Mr Ballantyne has been told that you are here. He has been informed, however, that you won’t be able to see him this evening. I’m sorry, Sara, there’s no more I can do.’

‘Andrew? What are you
saying
? You’ve got to let him go! Why is he here anyway? You’ve made a mistake! Why don’t you just let him go?’

‘Sara, Mr Ballantyne has been questioned about a serious matter. Yes, to do with the Matthew Sawyer case. No, I can’t tell you what. He is being held overnight and will be questioned further in the morning. His, well, partner – is that what he is? – will be here in the morning and legal representation is being arranged. Mr Ballantyne can’t be allowed to see anyone tonight.’

Sara was stunned. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this.
What’s all this sudden “Mr Ballantyne” claptrap, Andrew? This is James we’re talking about here, Andrew,
James
. My friend. You’ve
met
him. You
know
he hasn’t done anything. Come on, he’s a pianist, a musician, not a murderer. Look, I want to see him. I’m here to take him home.’

Andrew sighed with exasperation. ‘Sara, please try to get this straight. I’m doing you a favour even telling you this much. In ordinary circumstances the officer here would just have been sent to tell you to go home and come back in the morning. But I’m telling you myself. I’m sorry, but you can’t see James tonight.’

‘But why not? I
want
to see him! You’re not
listening
—’

Andrew butted in angrily. ‘Christ, Sara, will
you
just listen! It makes no difference that he’s your friend,
or
a musician. If he’s guilty, I don’t care if he’s Herbert von bloody Karajan. I’m going for a conviction in this case, and I don’t give a damn if your precious friend has to put up with a night in the cells in the process. You may like to know that there is reason to suspect that he has already lied to the police.’

‘My God,’ Sara said, her voice low with venom, ‘I don’t believe this. Can’t you see how wrong you are? You’re just
wrong
! You’re being a fool. An absolute
fool
. And I’d been thinking you really were...something. I was thinking, poor Andrew, wasted like that, all that creativity, all that music, wasted in a job like that. And you understand
nothing
. I’ve been so stupid. You’re just—’

‘Yeah, I’m just a big, nasty old policeman, is that it?’ Andrew said bitterly. ‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Go home, Sara. Go home. I have work to do. Good night.’

Sara drove miserably to Camden Crescent, her head exploding with the discovery of Andrew’s brainless, mistaken unreasonableness and his I Am a Hofficer of the Law attitude. She parked outside the flat. The whole of Number 11 was in darkness. For no very sound reason this infuriated her further. She wondered how long James had been in police custody. He must have been allowed to make the telephone call to Tom sometime this evening, presumably quite late, if Tom had not been contacted in time to catch the last flight. He was an hour ahead in Brussels anyway, of course, which did not help. It was now half past twelve. The whole night lay ahead and she could do nothing for James until the morning. She drove home.

TOM KISSED Sara drily on both cheeks and led her to a bench in the lobby of the police station. Outside it was a golden morning but the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling had not been switched off and still emitted a sick blue film of light that was so perturbing it was almost a noise.

‘I got here at seven,’ he said to Sara. ‘James didn’t even ring me till yesterday evening. They’d questioned him all yesterday afternoon with the duty solicitor there. I’ve got hold of someone from Thrings and Long who’ll be here at nine. Their main criminal cases chap. They can’t question him any more before then. But they won’t let me see him, even briefly.’

‘But why have they got him here in the first place?’ Sara demanded. ‘I just don’t see why he’s here at all. What’s he supposed to have done?’

Tom gave a slow sigh. ‘It’s his own fault. I still don’t really know why, but he gave a false alibi for Friday the thirteenth. He told the police I rang him at about half past eleven and that we chatted for nearly half an hour.’

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t. And if he’d stopped to think about it even for a second he’d have realised how stupid it was to say I had. The police rang me to verify it. And I’ve made a statement.’ He gestured helplessly. ‘I’m a lawyer, for God’s sake. I can’t possibly,
possibly
give false information to the police, in any circumstances. Even these,’ he said, before adding hopelessly, ‘I don’t think James quite understands that, even now.’

‘What a crazy thing for him to do. I mean, even if you had lied for him, they could easily check to see if the call had been made, couldn’t they? I don’t get it at all.’

‘Of course they could. No, I don’t get it either. And nor do the police, obviously. When they pressed him about it, he came up with some other story about looking in on a friend after he left the Pump Room. Wouldn’t elaborate. He can be so stubborn. And then later on he backtracked again and now says he went straight home and was there alone from eleven thirty onwards. Perhaps we’ll find out more when the lawyer gets here. But I don’t understand any of it – it’s a mess.’

‘What can I do? Is there anything?’

Tom looked at her despondently. ‘You are so sweet. But no, apart from magicking an alibi out of the air, no, not really. There’s nothing. You were sweet to come, but look, you go now. I’ll ring you later.’

Sara left the police station, crossed the road and wandered hopelessly along Henry Street with nowhere to go. She found herself outside Marks and Spencer, went in and picked up a basket, not sure what she was doing there but dimly aware that if she was going to do some unnecessary shopping then the food department was a better place than many in which to do it. In fact she was quite hungry, not having bothered with breakfast, and a big, reliable egga and bacon sandwich might help her to think.

CHAPTER 11

THE POSSIBILITY DID not occur to her until a little later, and of course it couldn’t have been the sandwich that did it. But driving out of town up over the top of Lansdown to avoid the Monday traffic, she had seen it and remembered. Graham Xavier’s memorial service at St Michael’s. And as she waited for the lights to change, she also remembered how, at the end of that evening at the Pump Room, she had left James drinking mournfully on his own. In truth, she had been unwilling to see how upset he was. Perhaps now, she thought, pulling over to park, she could be of some use to him.

She looked up towards the church. It stood on the very top of Lansdown Hill, at the fork where Lansdown Road led off on the left towards an undeclared little Vatican of private schools, tennis clubs and depressing houses in prosperous taste, and where Richmond Road on the right rose towards Charlcombe, almost as well-to-do but, by virtue of its muddy lanes and airy views, rather less stupefyingly nice. The church façade was stained a deep Victorian black from the cars and buses which coughed up the hill before dropping a gear, almost at the foot of the church steps, and burning off to the left or right, but above the door the stone paled and the high pointing spire was light against the clean sky.

Inside the door, almost a third of the nave had been sectioned off and carpeted in bright blue and looked, at first glance, like an underfunded kindergarten. Floor mats, probably useful for prayer and meditation as well as for the Mothers’ Union yoga, were stacked in a corner. Three trestle tables of papier-mâché models and children’s paintings, in which bearded men and rainbows featured prominently, lined one side. On the other, posters depicting the smiling beneficiaries of various Third World ‘projects’ spoke of outreach and global community. Everywhere, display boards bawled about the relevance and dynamism of the Church today and invited everyone, but everyone, to get to know their vicar and the pastoral team, whose scrupulously informal portrait photographs grinned out in a collective rictus of quite terrifying Christian welcome.

Sara escaped swiftly through the glazed partition doors into the proper gloomy church where at least she could feel unworthy in peace. But it was not empty; she made out a dark, rather solid female figure near the altar, deadheading the flower arrangement next to the pulpit steps. The grey-haired woman half turned round from the flowers, gave a faint nod and smile in Sara’s direction, and turned back. Sara hoped the woman would carry on ignoring her, because although she wasn’t at all sure exactly what she was looking for here, she knew it wasn’t one of the parish flower team.

‘I’m, er...just looking,’ Sara said, moving towards one of the stained-glass windows.

The woman was concentrating on the flowers. ‘What? Oh, yes, do. You carry on.’

After a moment she asked, without turning round, ‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’

‘Well, I was wondering,’ Sara replied. ‘I mean, it’s nothing
particular
. I think there was a memorial service here ten days ago, for Graham Xavier.’

‘Oh, yes, I remember,’ the woman said. She stepped back from the altar step and studied the arrangement. ‘How does that look to you? Have I gone and made it all uneven on the left?’

‘No, it’s fine. They’re lovely. Do you, er...do all the flowers?’

The woman burst out laughing and came towards Sara, holding out her hand. ‘No, I just get told off for fiddling with them. I’m the vicar. Maggie. How do you do? I took Graham’s service.
Were you there?’

‘No, I didn’t know him. But a friend of mine did, and this friend, well, he couldn’t make it to the service and, I’m not sure, I think he may have come here later on, on the same night. And I need to know if he did. Actually’ – Sara looked hard at Maggie, unable to predict the effect of her next words – ‘he’s sort of in trouble. It’s the police who need to know.’

Maggie raised her eyebrows and nodded. ‘Really? Well, if you’re not in a hurry, come on over to the vicarage, and I’ll see if I can help.’

BOTH MAGGIE’s instant coffee and study were hideous, but within ten minutes Sara was so dazed with gratitude that she had no spare capacity to notice either.

‘No, I didn’t really
see
anyone in the church that night.’

They were sitting in shabby chairs in a slightly damp room so stuffed with papers and books that there was hardly enough room for their feet.

‘But I heard someone. It was my turn to lock up. I was a bit late going over, nearly quarter past midnight. I always go in through the vestry and through the church, and lock the front door from inside. That way I can see if anyone’s kipped down in the front.’

‘But could you tell who it was? I mean, was it someone’s voice? What did you hear?’

Maggie shook her head and laughed. ‘Some people would have freaked out. I had just got to the outside door leading into the vestry when I heard the piano. The one at the back of the church. It’s a grand, terribly out of tune though.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Well, my first reaction was to barge in and stop it, thinking it was kids or something bashing about on it. Then I realised it was being played properly, so I slipped into the vestry very quietly, because then I thought, you see, that it must be our organist practising something for Sunday, and I didn’t want to disturb him. And then I realised it couldn’t be our organist, not in a million years.’

‘Why not?’ Sara sipped some of her acrid coffee from the thick stoneware mug with IONA etched on it in lumpy letters.

‘Well, I’m no musician, but the playing was just too
good
. Our Rodger could never play like that, bless him. And it was
what
was being played. Rodger’s a traditionalist, you see, even Lord of the Dance raises his blood pressure. And this, well, this was just about every song from
Cabaret
.’

‘You’re sure? What did you do?’

‘Oh, I’m quite sure, I saw the film four times. Anyway, I opened the door from the vestry into the church, really quietly. There were lights on, but you can’t see the piano from there. And then I’m very glad to say that something stopped me from barging in. I just listened for a bit and then I remembered something from the service. One of Graham’s friends had talked about how he’d always been crazy about Liza Minnelli.’

Sara hardly dared breathe.

Maggie went on, her voice very quiet. ‘Then that really sad one started, and it was almost like she was there. And I remembered the words:
All the odds are right in my favour,
something’s bound to begin, Maybe this time, maybe this time,
maybe this time I’ll win
. Remember?’

Sara nodded and Maggie looked up.

‘I’m no musician, but I could feel the words, it was almost like the piano speaking. And I reckoned that whoever it was, it was someone who had something to say, something for Graham. There was such longing in it. I didn’t want to interrupt, so I just waited. Then when it stopped there was a little pause, and then I heard footsteps going back down the aisle to the front door. So I stepped into the church and I saw the back view of a man. Dark hair, with prominent ears. Not tall, and in a white jacket and black trousers. He didn’t see me.’

‘Maggie,
thank
you. I can’t tell you, you’re a saviour.
Will you come and tell this to the police?’

‘Well, I will, of course,’ Maggie said, rising with a sigh. She beamed at Sara. ‘But
I’m
not the saviour, actually. I do hope you’ll come again.
We’re open on Sundays.’