Upright Piano Player (26 page)

Back home, he checked his messages.

“Colin, what’s up man? It’s Geoff—Geoff White. That tanning brochure you sent me a few weeks back with your girl in it—well, I’ve got a job for her. I reckon it could be worth six grand or thereabouts—a calendar number. A bit of travel and all. Call me, okay?”

Colin put the phone down, forgetting all about the darkroom and the open-mouthed girl, thinking only of the pervert in Chelsea who had cost him money.

Crompton and Partners claimed in their literature that they were London’s most contemporary estate agency. Walking into their Chelsea office, Henry could see that it was certainly true of the staff. No one was over thirty and, without exception, they were all good-looking.

Helen, blonde, exquisite, and a “senior negotiator,” guided Henry to her desk. It was uncluttered; nothing on it but the very latest laptop—as slim as a January magazine. She opened it, ready for work.

“I want to sell my house in Brentwood Place.”

“One of my favorite streets—like the country in London. I love it.”

“The thing is, I want to sell it quietly. No advertising, no editorials”—Henry waved a hand at her computer—“no hoopla.”

“Sometimes it’s necessary, but not in this case. We have a waiting list for Brentwood Place.”

She agreed on a time to see the house that afternoon. She said they had sold a property in the street not long ago and the buyer had paid well over the asking price. As they shook
hands, she remained businesslike. He had been expecting a winning smile, but it seemed that was not the contemporary thing to do.

Later, after her inspection of the house, they agreed on an asking price and arranged that viewings would be in the afternoons only. Henry wanted the house immaculate, but preferred that Mrs Abraham, the architect of that perfection, was out of the way.

The house was sold in a week to a Russian businessman who could pay cash. Exchange and completion were guaranteed in four weeks.

“I’ll stay until you go, if that’s all right. You’ll need a hand getting everything ready for the movers.”

“That’s kind of you, Mrs. Abraham. What will you do after—I mean will you look for another job?”

“My afternoon lady wants me to do more hours. She’s always on about it. There’s so much ironing, what with the children, but I never wanted to leave while you were here, not while Mrs. Cage’s things were still about …”

She could not go on and hurried down to the laundry room. He knew that she had been close to Nessa, but it had never occurred to him that she had stayed on after the divorce by choice, that there had been other options. He wondered if she might have preferred spending more time with her afternoon lady in a home with bustle and children. He imagined her coming into his house each day, not even the tick of a clock to welcome her.

That morning as she left, he gave her the promised check. She made a move as if to hug him, but gave him her hand instead. He was surprised by the roughness of her skin.

Later, he played the piano for the first time in weeks—a farewell concert for the house, its gardens, and its memories.

Henry’s bedroom was at the front of the house. He and Nessa had always slept with the window open, the window locks positioned so that he could push the sash up four inches before they came into play.

In ordinary times this allowed for a sufficient airflow, but over the past month the Banksia rose had put on so much growth that the air had to fight its way through a thick screen of foliage. He had agreed with Mark and Marco, the gardeners who came once a week, that they should discuss cutting the rose back with the new owner when he arrived. He remembered the man’s entrancement when he had first seen the green and yellow of the rose in bloom.

“My racing colors,” he had said with satisfaction.

Henry knew from the agent that the man from Moscow planned to update the house and put in air-conditioning. More efficient, Henry conceded, than two raised window locks, but he hated the thought that the house was to be ripped apart. He wished now that he had sold it to a downsizing couple from the country, exiles from Wiltshire or Dorset who now wanted to be near their grandchildren and the London hospitals. They would have moved in and changed nothing.

The night before the moving men were due to arrive for the two days of packing and loading, Henry lay awake in his bed. He regretted his decision not to trim back the rose. The small amount of air that did seep into the room was warm and it made Henry more restless than usual. The talk show on the radio was no help. Once again, they were debating abortion. Pro or con, the callers were all bigots. Prejudices were aired, but minds were never changed. Instead of sheep, he counted the number of times each caller said “you know”—surely the most virulent virus ever to attack the English language? He gave up when Mary from the Isle of Wight managed to say it thirty-eight times in her short, but fractured call.

It was 2:30. He removed his earpiece and propped himself up against his two pillows. Sometimes a change of position would send him to sleep. He looked around the room. Every object reminded him of Nessa. Soon they would all be gone, bundled off to Norfolk—to a house that she had never seen.

He began to take an inventory.

1. The bed, the most comfortable they had ever had. Bought from Heals, it had been too big for the staircase and had been hoisted in through the window.
   
2. The walnut chest, bought together in the Pimlico Road. Nessa had used the two top drawers. They had been empty since the day she had moved out.
   
3. The oil painting of three bathers by Bernard Meninsky. It had been a Christmas present to themselves the year the business had first shown a profit. They had hung it opposite the bed instead of a mirror. “Better bodies,” Nessa had said.
   
4. The Venetian mirror by the door. He had bought it from a dealer in Marylebone, an elderly lady with a heart of flint. Taking it home to Nessa, she had seen immediately that it was not as described on the invoice, but had said it didn’t matter because, fake or not, it was genuinely beautiful.
   
5. On the mantelpiece, a small wooden box with a sliding lid. On top of the box, he saw the triangle of lettered cards. He knew the words by heart.
   WILL NOT FALL APART
   .
   

He had found the box in one of Nessa’s trunks and brought it back to London, wanting it by his side. She must have bought it from the owner of the cottage, he thought—Nessa would never steal … His eyes felt heavy. I can’t let the movers pack that, it can go in the car with me …

Somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, he became aware of a small rhythmic sound.

It was a back and forth kind of noise, two regular, repeated notes. He went to the window, but the rose blocked his view. The sound was muted but insistent and it was coming from the front garden.

He put on his dressing gown. Halfway down the stairs, he stopped and went back for his baseball bat, fearing an intruder. In the hallway, the noise seemed to have stopped. Probably only a rodent gnawing on a kill, he thought, but he’d check anyway. He opened the door quietly.

The sound was back. Close to, it had more of a rasp to it—hee-haw, hee-haw. He stepped out onto the path. He looked
left, towards the source of the sound. There was a dark, huddled figure at the base of the rose, too big to be a woman.

He caught a glint from the blade of a curved handsaw. Shit, someone was sawing through the trunk of the Banksia.

“What the hell are you doing? That rose is thirty years old, for God’s sake!”

He heard himself with dismay. Even in extremis, he sounded like a park-keeper.

The man turned and got to his feet. Henry recognized him even before he had straightened.

“Not anymore, it isn’t.”

The man was smiling. He took a step towards Henry.

“You’re mad, the police know all about you.”

“What’s the offense, Mr. Cage?”

He moved closer.

“Destruction of a rose bush? What’s that—seven days community service?”

He took another step towards Henry, the saw in his hand.

“And anyhow, I wasn’t here. You never saw me, right?”

Another step. The smile had gone. The words now were hissed out in anger.

Henry stepped back and instinctively widened his stance. He kept his eyes on the saw in Bateman’s hand.

“I hear you dropped off some photographs?”

Bateman moved closer.

“You keep your fucking nose out of my business, you hear?”

He was close enough for Henry to smell the sap on the saw.

“You hear me? Do you?”

Henry saw the handsaw rise and swung the baseball bat, hoping to parry the blow.

He was taller than Colin and the arc of his swing brought the bat down onto Colin’s shoulder, where it ricocheted upwards, smashing into the skull just above the left ear.

Bateman went down, still clutching the saw.

Henry stood for a moment, breathing hard, and then went back into the house.

He made a 999 call, asking for an ambulance and then the police.

He waited for them outside on the path. He did not touch the body. He knew enough to know there was no need.

At 3:15 a.m. a light came on in Mr. Pendry’s bathroom opposite. A call of nature, Henry surmised. A pity it had not called earlier. Even then, Henry knew a witness would have been useful.

Walter Godelee was lying awake in the guest bedroom when the phone rang. His wife, who had shared his bed for thirty-eight years, was asleep in the master bedroom on the floor below. His absence from the marital bed had been prompted not by a rift, but by Walter’s cough, an insistent tickle that had disrupted their sleep for almost a week.

“Better that one of us gets some sleep,” he had murmured an hour earlier, picking up his watch and reading glasses from the bedside table.

His wife had raised her head from the pillow wondering why it had taken him five nights to do the decent thing.

“Oh darling,” she said, “do you have to? Don’t go on my account.”

As the door clicked she sighed and pulled up the covers. She was asleep before he had reached the top landing.

He had lifted the phone on the first ring knowing that predawn calls to solicitors always mean trouble.

Henry had said he was speaking from Chelsea police station and gave Walter a description of his history with Bateman and of the night’s events.

“Have you been arrested?”

“Yes, I’ve been cautioned and told there will be a formal interview. They said I could ring a solicitor. I am so sorry to disturb your sleep.”

“No, I’m sorry you’ve had such a hellish time.”

He reached for his watch and made a quick calculation.

“I’ll be with you in twenty minutes. Try not to worry. I know the arrest is alarming, but it’s not unusual in this situation. When I get there, we’re allowed a private session before we go into the interview room—so sit tight and say nothing.”

In truth, Walter was not as relaxed as he sounded. Why the hell had Henry not called him earlier, immediately after ringing 999? He must have known he would be questioned at the scene. The trouble with law-abiding citizens, he thought, as he bent to pull on his socks, is that they have no fear. They charge into the hidden cannons of the law in the mistaken belief that innocence makes them inviolate.

Despite what he had said to reassure Henry, the arrest was not merely a matter of form. There must have been something in Henry’s initial responses to make the police suspect him of unlawful killing. Walter knew his client. In these circumstances better to have a client full of callow fear than righteous indignation. He had represented Henry throughout his divorce proceedings and knew he was capable of self-defeating anger.

Walter was shown straight into the interview room at the station. Henry seemed calm. He had been allowed to change out of his nightclothes (which had been labeled, bagged, and
taken away) and was wearing a suit, without a tie. A uniformed officer brought Walter a cup of coffee.

“You’ll be needing this,” he said with a straight face, closing the door quietly behind him.

Walter had taken out a legal pad and pen.