Dedalus Original Fiction in Paperback

Beethoven’s Assassins

Andrew Crumey was born in Glasgow in 1961. He read theoretical physics and mathematics at St Andrews University and Imperial College in London, before doing post-doctoral research at Leeds University on nonlinear dynamics. After six years as the literary editor at Scotland on Sunday he now combines teaching creative writing at Northumbria University with his writing.

He is the author of seven previous novels: Music, in a Foreign Language (1994), Pfitz (1995), D’Alembert’s Principle (1996), Mr Mee (2000, Dedalus edition 2014), Mobius Dick (2004, Dedalus edition 2014) Sputnik Caledonia (2008, Dedalus edition 2015) and The Secret Knowledge (2013) as well as the narrative sequence The Great Chain of Unbeing (2018).

Andrew Crumey’s novels have been translated into fifteen languages.

Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,

24–26, St Judith’s Lane, Sawtry, Cambs, PE28 5XE

info@dedalusbooks.com

www.dedalusbooks.com

ISBN printed book 978 1 912868 23 0

ISBN ebook 978 1 915568 39 7

Dedalus is distributed in the USA & Canada by SCB Distributors,

15608 South New Century Drive, Gardena, CA 90248

info@scbdistributors.com    www.scbdistributors.com

Dedalus is distributed in Australia by Peribo Pty Ltd.

58, Beaumont Road, Mount Kuring-gai, N.S.W. 2080

info@peribo.com.au    www.peribo.com.au

First published by Dedalus in 2023

Beethoven’s Assassins copyright © Andrew Crumey 2023

The right of Andrew Crumey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Elcograf S.p.A.

Typeset by Marie Lane

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A C.I.P. listing for this book is available on request.

One

Therese

By heck he couldn’t half go on. He’d spend hours wandering like a tramp round the estate, come home expecting his dinner, then he’d start lecturing us. Shouting, like, on account of his bad ears. Very convenient, those ears of his, for one who liked talking more than listening, wouldn’t you say? Believe me, you couldn’t get a word in edgeways with old fly-by-night around, except behind his back, though even then he’d notice. Which makes you wonder, don’t it? Exactly how deaf was he?

If you ask me, there’s far too much said about Ludwig and not enough about the rest of the family. Grandfather Beethoven was a very eminent musician in Bonn, so I’m told. As was Ludwig’s father until the — well, not to put too fine a point on it — until drink got the better of him. Which was Ludwig’s vice an’all, though you could never say that of either of his brothers, one of them my own fine husband. They both saw sense early on. Only brass in music’s the sort you blow through. Ludwig did it as a matter of family honour, him being the eldest, but the next one, he went into the civil service, didn’t he? And the youngest, my Johann, he had the best notion, got himself trained in the science of pharmacy, meaning medications and such. Put it this way: how many tunes have you ever bought in your life? And how many pills? Which is how we ended up with our very own country estate when old Ludwig was still renting slums in Vienna.

Lovely place — our pride and joy. And of course it didn’t matter how many times we gave invites to Ludwig to come and spend a summer with us, he always had some sort of excuse, by which we knew him to mean he didn’t want to soil himself with our presence, me being the — ahem — “fallen woman” with a teenage daughter not my husband’s. Oh, right blooming moralist, our Ludwig.

Only time he showed up, turned out to be the last flaming holiday he ever had, didn’t it? Of course he’d pretty much dried up by then, as a composer you understand. Well, he was an old man, past fifty, all he’d been writing lately was some string quartets and who cares about the likes of that? Fit only for the fire, my husband reckoned. Said one of them had this great big fugue (kind of old-fashioned style like what Sebastian Bach wrote), went on for half a blooming hour and sounded like four cats having a fight. My Johann and the rest of the audience were cringing with embarrassment, it was such a hellish noise. Music’s meant to be nice, isn’t it? But the poor fellow was stone deaf — or so he gave everyone to believe — and what else can you expect? Johann had a quiet word with Ludwig afterwards, which is to say wrote it down, suggesting something shorter and simpler would make a better finale, a little more up-to-date. Somewhat less rechêrché, if you please. So that’s what Ludwig was up to when he came and stayed with us, trying to mend his quartet that had gone wrong.

Such a nice room we gave him to work in, my husband got it painted a few years back with views of the countryside round Bonn where he came from and it’s so beautiful, I mean, they go on about Michael Angelo and so forth but you should see the colours and all the details in the trees, can even count the leaves. Now that’s what I call art. You ask some people to draw a tree and it’s a stick with things coming out in all directions, could be anything. But these, you can tell if they’re oak or chestnut or birch or what have you. Same with the flowers and the birds, you could spend a month of Sundays trying to spot them all, cost us a florin or two I can tell you, but if you want the best you’ve got to pay for it, and the best means looking exactly like what nature does, and I don’t know about these fancy modern ideas but if you ask me, that’s what art is all about. Realism.

Oh, Ludwig managed it when he set his mind to it, that lovely symphony of his with the birds singing in it, a cuckoo and a quail and I can’t remember what else, just like the real thing. And the Battle Symphony, even better — that truly is a wonderful piece of work and you can see why it made him so famous, the one big success he had. One minute there’s Wellington’s troops coming over the hill, then it’s the Frenchies firing back at them — we heard the first performance, with real explosions, a bit loud for my taste but it brought the house down. Lovely supper afterwards, though I did have to complain to the waiter, I don’t take potatoes.

Then you get these intellectual types, scruffy young articles like that horrible scrawny Schindler who was always sniffing around. Well, they turn up their noses at the likes of the Battle Symphony, don’t they? They’d rather listen to the sound of chairs scraping as everyone leaves the room with a headache, oh pardon me, it wasn’t chairs, it was the sound of the violins in one of those damn quartets. Because they’re brainy, see? They’re better than us folks what’ve done some honest grafting and made a good living from it and can afford to pay their blooming wages. Never good enough for them to just listen and enjoy, no, they’ve got to be analysing and finding some sort of hidden meaning, like it’s all a great big puzzle. Ha! I’d like to show them our beautiful scenes from Bonn in our very own country house, in the room we gave Ludwig. That’d learn them. Because then they’d see some proper art.

But do you know what he did? Do you know what my brother-in-law went and done in that lovely room he stayed in that cost us more to decorate than he could ever earn from twenty symphonies? With all those beautiful views of his homeland, all those lovely reminders of childhood, all the blades of grass you can count, the hair on a dog’s back looking like you could stroke it? Well?

He wrote on it. The old bugger had the effrontery to scribble on our wall, on our beautiful painted murals, with his dirty great hairy hands and his grubby pencil. Art? I think we can see where we stand on that one, don’t you? By heck I was hopping mad, I was livid, I can tell you, and you don’t want to see me when I’m angry, you really don’t. By God I was spitting blood, I was hitting the ruddy roof when I saw what that stupid deaf lunatic brother-in-law of mine had done on our wall. I screamed: “Johann!!”

And he came running to look. Jaw hit the floor so it did, same as mine had. I mean, you can talk about genius and inspiration and all the rest of it, but how do you account for anyone so blinking gormless as to do that, eh?

And what was it he’d written on the wall of the loveliest room in our house? Some new tune that’d come into his head? Some comment about fate or beauty or the infinite that people might want to put in a book? No.

Three pairs of socks.

That’s what our great composer had chosen to make a note of, so he wouldn’t forget, and he’d put it right there on a patch of blue sky on our mural. I could have bloody murdered him, pardon my language and God rest his soul, but I’m telling you, it still makes me seethe. I’ve even got half a mind to go with a hammer and chisel and put a word or two on that nice tombstone of his, even things up.

How can anyone be so dim-witted? I’ll grant you, a man who’s never had a wife might lack a bit of social polish — but it was on our bloody wall! Three pairs of socks! Had to get a fellow in to paint over it, but you could still see the join, he didn’t have the same shade of blue. Johann said you’d only notice if you looked hard but I could see it staring me in the face every time I walked in there, flipping eyesore, like some sort of miasma thingy, right over a beech tree. How would he have liked it if I’d gone through his desk and pulled out that blooming long Mass he wrote, stuck a ruddy great splodge on his Gloria, begging your pardon? Three pairs of socks, indeed. I’d sock the old fool, so I would.

If he wasn’t scribbling he was off roaming like a vagabond, and it was the death of him, all that tramping round the countryside like he was a blooming peasant, everyone thinking he must be bonkers. What’s there to look at in a ruddy field, when you can sit in the most beautifully painted room, admiring the very finest Italian art that hard-earned money can buy? What was he playing at?

Went and caught pneumonia, didn’t he? All our fault, of course, nowt to do with being fifty-five years of age and not wearing a vest when it’s breezy out, oh no, don’t blame it on being a flipping idiot because it’s all Therese’s fault, she’s the lady of the house and it’s her responsibility to admonish the servants about keeping the fires well lit because what else is there for her to do, blah-de-blah, and her husband ought to chastise her more often for neglecting her duties, what with marriage being a holy sacred vow of obedience and service to a higher cause. And on and flaming on. That’s what you get for giving a genius a bit of hospitality. Thank you very much, mister three pairs of socks.

By the time we all got back to Vienna for the winter he was in a right blooming state, chest like a bag of marbles, should have heard it rattle. And what with his gallivanting round, all he’d managed at our place was another rotten quartet. He wrote on it, “The difficult decision: Must it be?” Shame he didn’t ask me, I’d have told him quick enough, no it must not be, so stop going out in the blooming rain, nobody ever wrote a decent tune that way.

And you can guess who had to take charge of looking after him in that wretched hovel he was renting. Could have been a perfectly decent apartment if only he’d ever got a decorator in. Probably would have lived longer too, if he’d got the walls properly lined. All that damp, went straight to his lungs. Fine and well having your head in the clouds as long as there’s some dogsbody changing your sheets, eh? So yes, I was there with him to the very end — me, the little tart that Johann was too good for, yes, that’s what Ludwig always thought, just because I started out as housekeeper though I’m not ashamed of any of it. I was the one made sure the maid did her job while he lay abed, though as far as Ludwig was concerned I was no better than the maid myself, and got about as much thanks.

I was there beside him when he died. As some would have it, I’m the one who killed him, letting him catch a cold. But all those people, the ones who worship Beethoven like a god, what do they know? A lot of tunes and portraits, that’s all they’ve got. Their Beethoven’s made up. I know what the real one smelled like.

March when he finally kicked the bucket, blooming freezing so it was. Snow on the ground, Ludwig’s apartment like an ice-house, even with all the fires going. What did he say during his last days on earth? I’ve heard so many stories, how he’s meant to have come out with stuff like, “I shall hear in heaven”, or “Applaud, friends, the comedy is over”. Don’t believe what you see in a book — I was there, remember. I wasn’t one of the hero-worshippers who popped in for half an hour so they could dine out on it for the rest of their lives. Towards the end he was asleep mostly, and we waited. Me and the maid, we were up all night with him, keeping watch, the next night too. Sometimes he sort of came to, but he was, you know, delurious, his mind all coming and going. Murmuring to himself, rambling. Expect he was remembering Bonn. I like to think that in his mind he was seeing those trees and birds again, the ones in the murals, and the distant buildings of his home town, only they weren’t paintings any more, they were the real thing. And he wasn’t flipping writing on them, of course.

All that composing, struggling with the muse, as they say, and what good had it done him? Dying in a rented apartment. If he’d stuck to his early style, like his brothers advised, he might at least have made a bit more money. And opera — all he could ever manage was the one, but look at Rossini, made a fortune and retired. They know what side their bread’s buttered, those Italians. Ludwig, of course, he was too good for that. He wrote for his noblemen friends, not the common people, reckoned he could manage well enough from the handouts he took. And see where it got him, gasping in his bed in that horrible damp, airless room, without a wife to hold his hand or children to miss him when he was gone.

Said something about a tavern. Missing it, I imagine. And the name Schindler — I said, do you want me to fetch him for you? Lanky young rascal had been in and out every day like a hare with a dog on its tail, could hardly wait for Ludwig to die so he could start cashing in on all the manuscripts he’d been hoarding while calling himself the composer’s “secretary”, planning to write a biography we guessed, but Ludwig didn’t want to see that sneak, what he came out with next was barely a whisper but I heard it well enough. Arsehole! Had to laugh, pity I couldn’t tell Johann, what with the vulgarity. Then he mumbled something about the desk, and next minute he was unconscious again. Very fond of his desk, was Ludwig. Took the same one with him, round all the places he rented, and there were a good few of them, furniture movers must have made a fortune out of him, but such a hoarder, so he was, never threw out a scrap of paper, which was why Schindler had to make do with thievery. And I knew what Ludwig was about. His final wish. Wanted me to make sure Schindler didn’t get hold of whatever was in the desk. Probably only more quartets, I supposed, or another ruddy symphony, and if you ask my honest opinion I’ll tell you I wouldn’t have minded seeing that desk and all its contents go on a bonfire, for all the good it could do to anyone. But I’m not that sort of a woman, oh no, I was going to make sure his wishes were respected, just as I saw to it that somebody was always there holding his hand, even when all the world was asleep in their beds and the only one doing the holding was this chump here.

He came next morning, snooty Schindler, same as he’d been coming every day for weeks, and my eyes must have looked like a pair of saddle bags after the way I’d been sat there nearly all the night with Ludwig, me and the maid taking turns, and do you know who he’d gone and brought with him? Some ruddy artist, that’s who, wanting to make a picture of the great man on his death-bed, and I was flipping mad, I can tell you, I mean, don’t you think it’s the biggest blooming cheek, portraitising a fellow when he’s out cold and can’t even lift a finger to comb his hair? The thought of it. And for all his dirty clothes and foul habits, old Ludwig knew how to keep up appearances whenever he was getting his picture made. Well, have you ever seen a portrait of Beethoven in a torn shirt with egg all over it? Or one of him with his spectacles on? No, he always took them off, so he did, though he was blind as a ruddy mole. Wasn’t a very good artist come to see him either, not like that lovely signor whatsisname who did our murals, this one was a Viennese like the rest of us, didn’t even have a moustache.

Another friend showed up and sent the artist packing, and by this time the snow was falling again, looked like the sky was never going to run out of the stuff, and I don’t remember us getting much snow in March when I was a girl, there’s something very strange happening with the weather, I heard somebody say it was to do with a volcano in India or punishment for irreligion, I don’t know, but the day went on and another young fellow arrived, the musician Hüttenbrenner. White flakes all over his coat when he walked in, took one look at Ludwig and I thought he was going to faint or throw up, I said to myself, blimey, that’s all we need. And the other men deciding it was time to sort out the funeral, off they went, just me and this drippy Hüttenbrenner left, and the maid coming in and out with damp cloths to put on his forehead. Ludwig’s I mean, not Hüttenbrenner who between you and me looked about as spineless as a yard and a half of pump water.

We sat there, waiting for the end, the only sound the hoarse rattle in Ludwig’s lungs, while outside the sky was like lead. Sometimes the rattle would stop, we’d think here it is at last, he’s gone. Then it’d start again. Those long pauses with nothing happening. Like some of his ruddy music. And the room got darker and darker, though it was not yet evening, the snow still falling, could feel my eyelids sinking too, when all of a sudden, without any warning — flash! Whole room lit up a brilliant blue-white and next moment, like a huge cannon firing — boom! Don’t often get snow and lightning together, but there it was, and Hüttenbrenner, he just about had a heart attack, I swear he took off into the air with fright and landed back in his chair again. I thought, two corpses, that’d be a fine mess for me to deal with. Well, he couldn’t take any more of this, face was ashen, I could see he was thinking this was all a sign from God or something, him all worked up at the thought of being in the same room as the greatest composer in Vienna, so off he scuttled, said he had to get some air.

That’s how I ended up being the only one there with Ludwig when he died. Me of all people. None of your princes and bishops and virtuosos and connoisseurs, oh no. Just a woman he’d always despised. I moved my chair closer and held his hand. I said to him, Ludwig, you old bugger, you remember what you did on our wall? I forgive you. He couldn’t hear, of course, or see — even the thunderclap hadn’t been enough to wake him, though the vibration must have shook those deaf ears of his. I said, remember all the horrible things you ever said about me? I forgive them. You’re still an old bugger, mind, but I forgive you for being an old bugger. And when you get, you know, up there, if you can put in a good word for us, try and see to it that my daughter has a long life and a good husband and many healthy children, because that’s all any mother could wish for. I said to him, I know you’ve always gone on about art and spirit and higher powers but look at you, Ludwig, you’re going out the door same as every other poor sod on this earth, so don’t give me any nonsense about posterity. Just don’t forget us when you’re on a cloud or a star or whatever. That’s what I said to him. And he gave a rattle.

I thought about Ludwig’s desk, in the composing room. I could go there now, before Schindler got back, grab hold of everything, no, not everything, because then the men would know. I could hunt for whatever Ludwig wanted me to keep from him. But if I did that, Ludwig might die alone, and even an old bugger deserves better than that. It was one of those, what you call, moral dilemmas. And I’m not very good with them.

But it was like he read my mind, and I do believe what they say about mesmerism and magnetism and such, that there’s a fluid in the air, ether I think it’s called, and it sends vibrations, which is how you might hear things even if you were deaf as a post in the ordinary sense, because while I held his clammy hand I saw his eyelids flick, he was trying to open them, like trying to heave a great log, so much effort for him, his lips quivering, wanting to speak, and suddenly the strength came to him, he stared up to heaven, his hand gripped mine and he started to say something. This was Beethoven’s last moment, his soul breaking free of that wretched body, and it was given to me to hear his farewell, yes, I heard him whisper to me, in answer to all my doubts about whether I should let myself rifle through that desk of his, unseen by anyone. His final dying words. Everything is allowed.

Beethoven and Philosophy

The 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth fell in the year when corona virus swept the world. One small, predictable event — relatively insignificant yet worthy of celebration — was engulfed by another wholly opposite. Among innumerable concerts, lectures and tie-ins forcibly cancelled was a book I’d been invited to contribute to. The plan was a series of essays by various writers, pundits and public figures, each taking Beethoven as platform for pretty much anything they liked. The editor who emailed me in December 2019 said she’d already been promised a lovely piece by a bishop about the spiritual value of classical radio stations and was eagerly awaiting something on “colour” from an award-winning artist I hadn’t heard of until I googled subsequently. Being less illustrious myself, I couldn’t count on such a totally free rein, instead being offered the theme that must have been the pre-chosen reason for my candidature. Would I like to write about Beethoven and philosophy? Having recently published a bluffer’s guide to Plato and mentioned to a mutual acquaintance at an arts board shindig that I was struggling with the Waldstein Sonata, it seemed to fit.

Re-reading the email, I considered the implausibility of the proposal. Beethoven made no contribution to philosophy — not, at any rate, of a kind that would justify his inclusion in an undergraduate module. Certainly there have been philosopher-composers — Rousseau, Nietzsche and Adorno come quickly to mind — also composers significantly influenced by philosophy, such as Wagner, Ives, Cage. But Beethoven? My initial impulse was to politely decline the impossible brief for which I would be rewarded with a free copy and an invitation to the launch at the Edinburgh Book Festival. No fee was mentioned, only that the publishing company was small, of limited means, and keen to foster intelligent writing in a world awash with garbage. It was this crumb of flattery that won me over — I wrote back saying I’d come up with something.

The conjunction was a hinge I could bend. On one side, Beethoven, on the other, philosophy, to be juxtaposed at an arbitrary angle. Begin with the manifestly foredoomed efforts of a self-taught amateur pianist, not far off retirement age, trying to get his clumsy digits round the flashy arpeggios of the Waldstein, Moonlight and other sonatas that Korean children routinely rattle off on YouTube. How to cope with inevitable failure? Philosophically, of course. I might say something about the Stoics; perhaps quote Walter Benjamin’s remark that hope exists for the benefit of those who have none. Surely no worse than some cleric’s encomium to Classic FM.

I always ask students at their first lecture what they understand philosophy to be. Typically they’ll mention the meaning of life, purpose of existence, whether it’s OK to eat meat, that sort of thing. The literal-minded might offer “love of wisdom”, an analysis of whose terms is as good an entry to the subject as any. No one is likely to offer Deleuze’s “movement of thought” or even Plato’s “preparation for death”, which is fine, since it leaves me something to teach. Would any of those notions of philosophy have a place in the unpaid labour I was contemplating? A half-remembered quotation and some quick web searching brought the hook I sought.

In 1802 Beethoven wrote of having been “forced already in my 28th year to become a philosopher.” He had begun losing his hearing just as his career was starting to blossom. Preparing for deafness meant preparing for death. What Beethoven wrote at the village of Heiligenstadt, near Vienna, was a last will and testament addressed to his two younger brothers, describing the incipient malady he’d been keeping secret. Rather than take his own life he resolved to do as much as he could in whatever time remained. Ten years later he’d finished his Eighth Symphony and Fifth Piano Concerto, could still hear well enough to conduct ordinary conversation, and had another fifteen years to go.

Plato believed souls to be immortal: philosophy was preparation for life beyond. The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein didn’t believe in souls at all, and compared the finiteness of existence to a person’s visual field, elsewhere using the same metaphor to express the limitation of human knowledge. We know there’s an edge to what we can see, but we can never see the edge. Aural deprivation spurred Beethoven’s quest for artistic immortality — though the first sign was tinnitus, a noise in his head. For most of his creative life, he was in anticipatory mourning for a sense he fully lost only at the end.

The thought took me back to Walter Benjamin, who analysed the German genre of “mourning drama” (Trauerspiel). Was that where the hope quote came from? I was sure I had a copy of the book somewhere in my flat, but a tour of disordered shelves failed to yield it. Resorting to the internet again, I found that Benjamin’s line, slightly misremembered, was from something I definitely had and soon located — his celebrated essay on Goethe’s Elective Affinities. But what about the Trauerspiel book? Probably left behind when I moved out of the marital home, likely taken to Oxfam.

Better make note of the exact quotation, I decided, so I could use it in the piece that, we now know, was destined never to be published, thanks to some contemporaneous goings-on in Wuhan. It was a different coincidence that struck me on rereading Benjamin’s essay; the quote in fact comes soon after a comment on Beethoven and the inexpressible enigma of art. “If music encloses genuine mysteries, this world of course remains a mute world, from which music will never ring out.” In my mind, connections were forming, as accidental as a conjuncture of bat-shit and civet cage, though happily of less consequence. A pile of student essays needed marking (“The past does not exist” — Discuss). I reckoned they could wait. The online catalogue of the university library listed plenty of Beethoven books, five of which I reserved and collected a few days later. Something to mull over while spending Christmas and Boxing Day with my parents, a three-hour drive away in Scotland.

To anyone but me, the octogenarian couple I found slowly fussing over sprout-peeling and giblet-boiling would surely have looked frail, even vulnerable; but my eyes had aged in fixed relative distance, and it was the photographs around the ex-council house I grew up in that most starkly reminded me how much had changed. Dad no longer smiled; the bonhomie of his younger days was a social mask that had slipped away, exposing his fundamentally humourless character. My offer to supervise the turkey was refused as soon as he could hear what I was suggesting. Was he really as deaf as he appeared, or did it merely suit him? With Beethoven on my mind, I couldn’t help imagining some sort of parallel.

The port and whisky I’d brought sent him to sleep mid-way through the traditional evening card game. After watching a film with Mum I retreated to my bedroom and books. The earliest full-length biography was by Anton Schindler, an office clerk and dedicated fiddler who got to know Beethoven after attending one of his last piano performances. Appointing himself number-one fan, Schindler saw Beethoven’s life as a drama in three acts. First had been the early years in Bonn, employment as court musician and move to Vienna. Then the decade and a bit culminating in “the most brilliant year of Beethoven’s life”, 1814, when he had his greatest hit with a hurriedly written crowd-pleaser celebrating Wellington’s victory in Spain, complete with mock gunfire and strains of “Rule Britannia”. Its success prompted the concert Schindler attended, where the forty-four-year-old composer premiered the Archduke Trio. Critics ascribed the below-par piano playing to deafness; Schindler thought otherwise. “Beethoven’s hearing was apparently entirely adequate; not so, though, the ability of his fingers.”

The third act was what Schindler witnessed — a time of increasing impairment. Beethoven’s left ear was best — at one of his favourite restaurants he would sit with it turned towards a musical clock whose repertoire included one of his own tunes. Metal ear trumpets were of some help; less useful was a device intended to conduct the sound of his piano, since any mixture of notes or voices was hard to unscramble. In loud public places, Beethoven asked friends to write what they were saying, resulting in one-sided “conversation books”, many of which eventually wound up in Schindler’s possession.

An Englishman visiting in 1815 had no difficulty making himself understood if he spoke into Beethoven’s ear, but by 1818 ordinary conversation was virtually impossible. When Schindler heard Beethoven try piano sonatas he was composing, it was to test playability rather than sound. The Ninth Symphony, Missa Solemnis and final string quartets were all worked out entirely on paper, first as fragmentary sketches, then gradually as full scores. When Beethoven stood on the podium at the first performance of the Ninth Symphony in 1823, it was only to set the opening tempo of each movement. Another conductor held the rest together, and at the end, a singer made Beethoven turn to acknowledge applause he hadn’t noticed.

Not much like my Dad at all, in fact, whom I could hear snoring loudly downstairs in his chair. Lacking any discernible creativity, my father instead possessed what might loosely be termed a scientific mind, having been employed as a factory electrician all his working life. When I was a child I found him funny and clever; and while the wisecracks were only whatever he’d picked up in the works canteen, the cleverness was more genuine. It was not that he was well educated — Dad left school at fourteen and I don’t think he ever read a whole book afterwards, unless we count domestic appliance instruction manuals. Nor would I rate his intelligence as anything but average. What he had in his younger days was a curious mind; a taste for abstraction, a hunger for debate. He was a pseudo-philosopher, unskilled but keen. His speculations were like my piano playing; done with sincerity more than accuracy.

On one of our walks, when I was maybe nine or ten years old, he asked if I thought a fly could stop a lorry. Of course not, I said. Yet imagine the insect and vehicle in head-on collision. First the fly is going in one direction, then suddenly the opposite. At a moment between, it must have been stationary, and likewise the lorry. So the fly had halted it, if only for an instant. It was not until my teens that I recognised this as an unconscious variation on Zeno’s paradox, though by that time I’d grown dubious of Dad’s conundrums. Consider, he would say, that every child has two parents, and each of those another two, back through the ages. Hence the world’s population in the past must have been greater. Even when I explained the obvious fallacy, he still couldn’t get it. Nor, I suppose, will I ever master those piano arpeggios I keep attempting. An amateur need please only himself. This was still Dad’s approach, though by now he was applying it to life in general, existing with little regard for anyone.

As the snoring continued, I read Schindler’s touching description of how Beethoven would start his day, rising at dawn and brewing coffee, sixty beans per cup. Then composing at his desk, perhaps a walk, and a meal made by his housekeeper. A favourite dish was macaroni cheese — though any was likely to evince complaint. Late in the afternoon he would repair to a tavern, “to read the papers” according to Schindler, keen to disavow any suggestion of alcoholism, though he added that Beethoven was very partial to fortified wine, and “often enjoyed a good glass of beer in the evening accompanied by his pipe and his paper.”

Surely allowed to put his feet up, just like Dad. Beethoven wasn’t old, even by the standards of his era, but everyone deserves to retire, and what Beethoven made on the back of his “battle symphony”, Wellington’s Victory, would have been pension enough, if he hadn’t stashed it in shares he refused to touch. Since the death of his youngest brother he’d been fighting for custody of his nephew Karl, and Beethoven intended to leave everything to him, even if it meant living in near squalor. In 1821 he was mistaken for a tramp and arrested. A person encountering him in a shop in 1823 noted his “general untidiness”, describing Beethoven as “a stout, short man with a very red face.” As a composer he was judged past his best — even his loyal admirer Schindler thought so. The Ninth Symphony’s eclectic finale would have been “all the more imposing if it were drawn together into a more concentrated unity.” The last piano sonata was a “mathematical labyrinth” that didn’t add up. The quartets plumbed “the deepest depths of obscurity.” The reason for the decline was simple: Beethoven couldn’t hear what he wrote.

If Schindler misjudged the music so badly, how far could his biography be trusted? The next author on my bedside pile, Alexander Thayer, spent years unpicking Schindler’s erroneous recollections and self-serving falsifications. But after so much pudding, port and cheese — not necessarily in that order — Thayer’s massive Life of Beethoven seemed too weighty even to browse. Unaware that coming months would bring ample time for thorough digestion, I reached for the thinnest of my library books, Beethoven: His Spiritual Development, by J.W.N. Sullivan, whose first chapter reminded me that my primary task was philosophical rather than biographical. It was called “Art and Reality”.

In 1812, Beethoven met Goethe in the fashionable spa town of Teplitz, and while the two men walked together, they saw a royal entourage approach along the path. Goethe stepped aside, removed his hat and made a low bow. Beethoven marched straight through, arms folded. It’s a famous story, and it almost certainly never happened. The sole evidence is a letter from Beethoven to Bettina von Arnim, which she published long after both men had died. Challenged to produce the original, she refused. It was an attention-seeking hoax, or as we nowadays feel compelled to call such things, fake news. Bettina von Arnim was a novelist, good at making things up.

Sullivan’s book started with another of her claims. She said Beethoven once told her, “music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy… the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.” Even if Beethoven never said this, we can imagine it expressing his view, just as we might see the Teplitz myth as reflecting his feelings about the relative value of genius and nobility. The aesthetic view being proposed was a bold one. As Sullivan put it, “Art must rank with science and philosophy as a way of communicating knowledge about reality.” Here was something I could certainly use in my essay.

At the time, I knew little about John William Navin Sullivan — I’ve learned a lot more since. Born in the 1880s, he was primarily a science writer, one of the earliest popularisers of Einstein’s theories. He possibly even met the great physicist himself; though Sullivan, like Schindler and Bettina von Arnim, was something of a self-inventor, guilty of the occasional porky. It was in the years following World War One that Sullivan established himself in London literary life, working alongside Aldous Huxley at J.M. Murry’s Athenaeum magazine. According to the notorious Aleister Crowley (another unreliable narrator), Sullivan harboured a passion for Murry’s beautiful and mortally ill wife, the New Zealand-born short-story writer Katherine Mansfield. They certainly shared an interest in the esoteric teachings of George Gurdjieff, at whose institute Mansfield died in 1923, still only in her thirties. After allegedly trying to pass on his first wife to Crowley, Sullivan went on to marry one of Mansfield’s former schoolfriends, to whom he dedicated Beethoven in 1927. His three novels, all of which I would find myself reading during the pandemic, offer further hints of biography. But that lay in the future, as I lay in bed.

The snoring stopped: Dad must have stirred from lubricated slumber. The next stage would be a familiar groaning of the staircase as he ascended to the bathroom, and at around 4 a.m. I would probably be woken by renewed sounds of heavy footsteps. This had been Mum’s existence for decades — even a saint wouldn’t need that much patience.

Knowing J.W.N. Sullivan’s sympathy for unorthodox ways of thinking — Crowley’s number-magic, Gurdjieff’s mystic dancing — one can see why he might have viewed art as “communicating knowledge about reality”. But given his advanced understanding of theoretical physics, he appreciated the need for clarification. Knowledge can be an inert jarful of objective facts: the diameter of Jupiter, the strength of its gravitational pull. It can also be the subjective experience of knowing. It was this living knowledge that Sullivan supposed art to communicate, and only indirectly. “Beethoven does not communicate to us his perceptions or experiences. He communicates to us the attitude based on them.”

I would later find that Katherine Mansfield said something remarkably similar. “An artist communicates not his vision of the world, but the attitude which results in his vision; not his dream, but his dream-state.” Sullivan might have read those words in the magazine where they were posthumously published, or heard them from Katherine herself. They imply that while advance in science demands accumulation of material evidence, advance in art requires change of attitude. Either must be shaped by thought to become meaningful, making each a kind of philosophy. Science organises fact, art organises experience. Science explains phenomena, art expresses values.

At some point I must have fallen asleep; I woke with Sullivan’s Beethoven open across my chest, the bedside light still on, and Dad’s feet clomping on the landing, inaudible only to himself. Mum had intimated to me that she worried he was becoming forgetful, though this was hard to spot in a man so increasingly withdrawn. His condition seemed to me more like depression than dementia. In the past there’d been a succession of practical hobbies taken up with obsessional devotion — photography, wine making, orchid growing. Those had gradually been replaced by mental fixations — crank theories of ancient aliens, CIA mind control, the European Union as nascent Fourth Reich. Then even those lost their capacity to excite; his conversational horizon these days extended little beyond the most immediate concerns of his fragile body and limited daily routine.

Thinking there could be any sort of analogy between my father and Beethoven was the sort of dot joining that once led Dad to believe Margaret Thatcher was a foreign spy. More fruitful might be to wonder about the impulse behind the effort. My father was the first philosopher I met, and Beethoven the first composer I took a serious interest in. I identified with both, as childhood models of genius and authority. Amateur psychology is as fraught as DIY gas engineering, yet I can’t help perceiving a process of projection. Annoyance at Beethoven for writing music too hard for me to play, and at Dad for my not having seen through him sooner. In other words, annoyance at myself.

Another author on the pile — Theodor Adorno, who spent decades making fragmentary notes for a slim book published posthumously as Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music. Encountering the Waldstein Sonata at the age of thirteen, Adorno thought it portrayed Wallenstein, hero of the Thirty Years War — ancestor, in fact, of the sonata’s eponymous dedicatee. The opening bars — a quiet rhythmic pulse of repeated chords — made the teenage Adorno imagine a galloping knight in a dark forest. The first time I heard the sonata was at a similar age, on a record I’d saved pocket money to buy. When it began, I was startled, thinking the record was jumping. It was unlike anything I’d heard before — a moment of shock that can never be repeated, only remembered. The first false impression, Adorno suggested, may hold the deepest truth.

Adorno was an obvious touchstone for any essay claiming to be about Beethoven and philosophy, though I suspected his dialectical view of Beethoven as exemplar of the unity of the opposites of market and autonomy in bourgeois art might not be to the editor’s taste. Nor, at so late an hour, was I in any fit state to balance the nuclear density of Adorno’s prose with the modest quantity of free fluff being asked of me. I switched off the light and went back to sleep.

Mum was already having breakfast at the living-room dining table when I came downstairs on Boxing Day morning, and was looking cheerful as ever while extracting her first instalment of daily medication from a dispenser whose clear compartments rattled with a rainbow assortment of pills. I had no idea what any were for, and I’m not sure she did either. Her repeat prescriptions had multiplied over the years in tandem with the proliferation of her ailments, and though I’d more than once queried the wisdom of the succession of GP’s responsible for landing her with a dosette box resembling a sweet-shop pick’n’mix display, she was of a generation and class more deferential in attitude. Dad had negotiated his own version of the quandary by avoiding doctors altogether, making his demise within the next few years a merciful near-certainty, while Mum’s sunny disposition would surely take her to a century. My unspoken plan was to relocate back to Scotland, closer to her, whenever the time came.

I ate buttered toast with an overdose of caffeine while she had granola, blueberries and a glass of water. We talked about the garden and the weather, then she spoke again about Dad’s forgetfulness — had I noticed? I hadn’t, and the examples Mum gave sounded no more than manifestations of his general indifference to anything outside his head. Mum called it confusion; I took it to be the aspect of ageing in which a person becomes more obviously and irrevocably what they’ve always really been. I might have voiced greater concern had my sleep been unbroken by his elephantine roaming.

We heard him descend and enter the kitchen, where he embarked on a clatter-inducing culinary operation that eventually culminated in the bowl of cornflakes and chopped banana he brought to the living room. He hadn’t realised we were up, registered surprise with a cocking of his head, wished us good morning and sat down opposite me. His empty mug was where he expected, but there was no pot of tea awaiting him. He turned to Mum. “Did you not make any?”

“I didn’t know when you’d be down.”

“Eh?”

“I didn’t know. When you’d be down.”

“Eh?”

“I didn’t. Know. When…”

They could have taken a lesson from Beethoven and tried the conversation-book approach, though I’m sure Dad would never have accepted a system that implied the fault to lie within himself rather than the poor articulation of his interlocutors. One of his theories was that people nowadays spoke faster and less clearly than in previous decades — a consequence of watching too much American rubbish on television.

“Why did you not make tea?”

“I didn’t know…”

“Eh?”

He’d consented to see an audiologist — a rare submission to NHS persecution — but the wee lassie who’d stuck the stuff in his ear to make a mould had done it wrong and the hearing aid they gave him was nae bloody use at all. I’d heard the story several times the previous day, and also the abandoned hearing aid, whistling from a place I couldn’t locate. I’d tried stalking it, hoping to quell the irritation, but it proved wily as a mosquito. The only hope was to wait for the battery to expire. My hope for Mum was that a similar drainage of energy would end the interrogation she was being subjected to.

“You could have made a pot and left it.”

“But I didn’t…”

“Eh?”

She’d had enough, got up and went to boil the kettle, leaving Dad to focus on his breakfast bowl, which he pondered as if it were a crossword. He took each spoonful slowly, loudly and with deliberation — it was impossible to tell if such protraction indicated pleasure or apathy. Mum re-entered and deposited the controversial teapot, casting me a glance to say she considered the whole thing a joke. Subversive irony was what had long kept her from going mad.

He poured his tea, leaving it to cool, and gazed at me across the table with the unfathomable grey eyes of an aquarium specimen. Anything I might say to him would need repeating, and would not be worth repeating, so I said nothing. Instead he aired the thought that must have been circulating in the dark caverns of his mind.

“These lassies in Lidl. They can’t count.”

A pause for dramatic effect or regrouping of cognitive forces.

“They just push everything through. Can’t see what they’re doing.”

A story emerged at a pace similar to the eradication of his cornflakes. He’d bought two bottles of whisky, but the wee check-out girl — probably a thirty-something bilingual mother with a degree — tried to charge him for three. Mum intervened; a Greek chorus to the unfolding tragedy. “It didn’t have three on the receipt, Joe.”

“Eh?”

“There was brandy as well.”

“Always up to their tricks, these damn supermarkets. Think you won’t check and see they’ve charged for an extra bottle.”

“It was brandy for the pudding.”

“They’ve got some way of automating it. The cashiers don’t notice, too busy nattering like idiots. Maybe in on it.”

Another coincidental parallel. Beethoven, like my father, was paranoid, convinced that people were out to trick him, betray his trust, steal his money. If they’d had Lidl in early nineteenth-century Vienna, Beethoven would have been arguing at the checkout on a regular basis. Instead he wrote copious letters denouncing enemies who in many cases had been erstwhile friends. A significant difference is that no woman was ever foolish enough to marry him. Beethoven proposed in his twenties to a singer who found him “ugly and half-crazy”. He was nearly forty when he made what appears to have been his only other proposal, by letter, to his doctor’s nineteen-year-old niece who barely knew him. She was called Therese Malfatti; a little piano piece he may have written for her turned up decades later and became famous as Für Elise.

“Same with bananas the other day. Said 75p on the shelf, then it’s a pound on the receipt.”

“It was fun size, Joe.”

“Just a rip-off.”

“I told you at the time, it was 75p for the small ones and a pound for full size.”

“If you add it up, a banana every day. Aye, they make a good living, and it’s all a con.”

Dad’s paranoia was a sub-branch of his pseudophilosophy; a theoretical exercise by which he could prove himself superior to his antagonists, who were the whole of humanity. In earlier times the manifestations had been more practical, as for instance when he and Mum first came to stay at the new house Sarah and I had bought in Durham. After satisfying himself that the fuse box and boiler were in non-lethal condition, he’d investigated door and window locks, convinced we might be burgled at any moment. Later he quietly advised Sarah that her jewellery box should be kept in a safer place than her underwear drawer. The fact that he’d discovered the box for himself was proof to him of his value in preserving our security, and to Sarah that he was a bit weird, if not an outright pervert. Cluster A personality, she called it. We never told Mum.

Beethoven’s only documented relationship — discounting impossible longings and brothel visits alluded to in remorseful journal entries — was with an unknown “immortal beloved”, the anonymous addressee of a pencilled letter the composer preserved until his death. Schindler thought she was the dedicatee of the Moonlight Sonata — an idea that Thayer blew out of the water, suggesting instead the dedicatee of a later sonata, Opus 78. In the 1970s Maynard Solomon reviewed numerous candidates and opted for the dedicatee of the Diabelli Variations. As puzzling as her identity is the question whether she ever saw the letter. What’s certain is that it was written at Teplitz in 1812, around the time when Beethoven met Goethe. And he sure as hell wasn’t writing to Goethe.

My parents met at 16 and married at 21, making their publicly recognised romantic experiences as limited as their formal education. Mum had managed to privately extend the latter; whatever she might have done regarding the former is something I don’t need or want to know. From Dad’s perspective, marriage was a jackpot of lottery-odds proportion, though he never seemed to realise how lucky he’d been in finding the one person who could put up with him. By Boxing Day afternoon I couldn’t wait to start the drive home.

“Ring us when you get there,” Mum reminded as she kissed me goodbye.

“I will. Love you, Mum. See you, Dad.”

“Eh?”

In the car I continued the trivial game of parallels. A troubled childhood, short on parental affection, leading to withdrawal and difficulty forming friendships. Adult traits reflecting past trauma — hoarding, miserliness, alcohol dependency. A complicated attitude towards women — the old Madonna-whore thing. But Dad never wrote an opera, of course. Beethoven’s was about a woman disguising herself as a man in order to rescue her imprisoned husband. He never managed another, despite many plans and false starts. A bit like the laminate flooring Dad couldn’t get round to. Or perhaps not. It passed the time until I got home and made the call.

Therese

Right old ding-dong once he’d died, I can tell you. There was Ludwig laid out in the biggest room of the apartment, one where he kept his piano. Callers coming all morning paying their respects, most asking for a lock of hair. Don’t know why they bothered, horrible straggly mane he had, could have done with a few more haircuts when he were alive, at least now he was getting a neat job of it courtesy of yours truly. I did wonder, though, if there’d be enough to go round. At this rate he’d be bald by four o’clock. Thank God for a quiet gap when I could sit alone and have a rest.

Such a racket old Ludwig made when he was alive, I thought, and look at him now. Oh, he was thumping away at that piano often enough in his last years when I doubt he even heard it, though half the flipping neighbourhood did. Still, I’ll grant he did have a fair talent when his ears weren’t so bad. Could send his hands whizzing up and down those keys like he was chopping a yard of rope, and what a performance he’d make of it, swaying and grunting and looking like he was ready to lay an egg. People calling it great art. I’ll tell you what it was, a fellow who wrote on my wall because he didn’t know what real art’s all about.

I saw one of his so-called sketchbooks. Looked like he’d squashed an ants’ nest in there, little black dots and squiggles you couldn’t make head nor tail of. From what I understand, he’d start from nothing, make a few squiggles then wonder what to do next. Try all sorts, get some other little bunch of notes and jumble them around, stick things together, end up with something half a ruddy hour long. Do you call that art? The man who did our murals, lovely fellow, Italian so definitely an expert, such a blooming big moustache he had! Said to us, Signor and Signora wish a byoo-ti-fool land-a-scape — I shall geeve you such a view! Just like that. Oh, I do love the way these Italians talk and next thing you know he’s got it all drawn up on the bare plastered walls in red crayon. Now that’s what I call a sketch. Whole thing planned out, none of this messing around in ants’ nests trying to work out what it’s all meant to be. If our artist, Fiorelli I think his name was or something like that, if he’d come in all worried looking and said, Signora, I don’t know, ee’s so difficult, I not inspired today for to do your murals, well, what do you think? Out on his bloody ear, that’s where he’d have been, and no mistake.

Off my flipping feet, dealing with folk wanting to gawp at Ludwig. Where were they when he was alive? Half of them I’d never even seen before, showing up all of a sudden like they were bosom pals. And maybe they were, once, long ago. Only a few that stuck with him through the years, such as Breuning who I could hear rummaging in the next room with the others while I took a breather. He started saying something, couldn’t make out the words, only deep mumbles reaching me through the wall. They were looking for Ludwig’s legacy, been at it all morning. Put his money in shares then hid the certificates — well that was blinking clever, wasn’t it?

Had to be what Ludwig was telling me, that was what I supposed. With his last breath, as I held his hand. “Everything is allowed.” About to say where he’d stashed the shares, had kept quiet thinking someone might go off with them, only he’d left it too late, hadn’t he? Been barely conscious during those last days, until he’d woken in a final moment of clarity and who should he see next to him? His brother’s whore, as he’d once so nicely put it. The old bugger asking himself that difficult question — must it be? Do I really have to tell this strumpet? And God calling back — yes, you flaming well do, mate. Otherwise young Karl will get damn-all inheritance. And Ludwig thinking, alright then, it must be. Everything is allowed, even this. Tell that fallen woman — I’m not making these insults up, it’s how he’d blooming speak about me — tell that Jezebel where the certificates are stored. And before he could say another word, he snuffed it. Typical isn’t it? His last words — talking to his ruddy self, and nothing that anyone actually wanted to hear.

Would hardly believe they came from the same nest, him and my Johann who was in there now, hunting for those shares. No, you’d never see my husband looking like a damn rag picker. Always well turned out in his velvet coat and white gloves, so handsome and distinguished with that squint in his right eye. From when he fell and cracked his head as a child, apparently. Shame Ludwig didn’t do the same, might have knocked some sense into him.

Entry bell rings, ought to be the maid’s job to answer, but Sali had gone to fetch more water so it was down to yours truly of course. Turns out it’s young Holz — fiddler who had to play that caterwauling great fugue Ludwig wrote. Quite the charmer, that lad. Oh, I’ve been round the houses, I know how laces is tied. Ladies’ man, that’s Holz. He comes in and kisses my hand, offers me sincere condolences on the death of my dear brother-in-law who’s lying there right beside us, but it’s not Ludwig he’s looking at. Almost makes me blush, way he stares, though I’m not the blushing sort. I says to him, you’re the one wants consoling, being as you were more loved by him than I ever was. Not so, he says, it’s only that Beethoven never knew how to get along with women, never felt comfortable with them. Unlike some, I say, and in the next room another bump.

Holz looks towards the sound, can hear the muffled voices. I tell him who’s there: Breuning, Johann, Schindler. His face falls at the last name — how did that rascal get in, he says. Couldn’t exactly stop him, crept in like a bad smell and won’t go away. The very fellow whose snooping Ludwig feared most. Holz curses then apologises. Says he hopes the other two are keeping a careful eye on the wretch. I suggest he goes to join them but he shakes his head. Not yet, he says, glancing at the coffin. So we sit together on two chairs arranged beside it.

I suppose he’d be around thirty, same sort of age as Schindler who’d elbowed in to take Holz’s place as Ludwig’s assistant, or favourite, as some might say. I did wonder about Ludwig. Never marrying, I mean. Not that I’m wise to these things but Holz was right about him not getting on with women. There’s that thing the Greeks did, don’t remember the name for it. Only know that those type often talk in code — and Ludwig was forever making awful puns that half the time made no sense whatever, to me at any rate. What’s a Samothracian, for heaven’s sake? That’s what he’d call Schindler, and if it meant “one of those” I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Not Holz, though — a married man. And the way he looked round from the coffin back at me. Well.

Says to me, are they searching for the bank shares? I ask him how he knows about those. Kept that very quiet, didn’t you, I tell him. He says, I’m a musician, I know about silence. Then takes my hand. Right there in Ludwig’s parlour with the fellow stiff as a board next to us and I ask you, have you ever heard the like? Now really, I tell him, I think you’d better let go of me. But did Beethoven speak of the secret place, he says, and I tell him there’ll be no secretions round here, sir. I pull my hand away as the study door opens — we turn and see Johann at the threshold looking surprised, like he’s sniffed something in the air they don’t have a name for in the science of pharmacy. Holz rises without a word and walks straight past into the room, I follow the two of them and find Breuning huffing, on his knees on the floor, Schindler pulling books from shelves with his gangly spider arms. Stops dead when he sees who’s arrived — Holz could knock Schindler’s block off if he had a mind to, and we’d thank him for it.

Breuning, red-faced and wheezing, gets to his feet, palms raised, ever the diplomat. Gives some speech about how we mustn’t deface the dignity and solemnity of the occasion. Nice way with words he’s got — an official at the war ministry, knows how to talk. Says that in the presence of the unburied Titan of music we should think only of nephew Karl, serving loyally with his regiment, still unaware his protector has gone to heaven — and if the floorboards must now be raised in search of the legacy then so be it.

Holz doesn’t care for this pretty speech but instead strides calmly to the desk and opens a drawer. Schindler sneers, they’ve already looked there. Holz, ignoring him, slides the drawer right out, reaches into the empty space where it sat and rummages until we hear the click of a lever. Blooming heck, a hidden compartment. Takes out a wooden box like he’s a magician and passes it to Breuning who sits down aghast at the desk while the rest of us watch expectantly. Breuning turns the box in his hands, dumbfounded and staring at it as if afraid what he might find inside. Then sets it on the desk and carefully slides off the lid. I see a pair of ladies’ faces — two painted portraits, miniatures in gilt oval frames — lying on a bed of papers.

Johann exclaims, it’s the share certificates, seeing what Breuning starts removing while I’m trying to make out the pictures, quite pretty they are, dressed in their finery. Rest of what’s in there looks like old letters. And I’m thinking, this has to be what Ludwig wanted me to discover, tried to tell me. Would have got there first if only he’d been flipping clearer about it.

The men shake hands like they’re all friends now they’ve found something with a price on it. Breuning takes the letters and puts them in a drawer of the desk with Ludwig’s other scribblings while the certificates and portraits go back in the box he wants to take right away to the lawyer. For safekeeping, he says, leering at Schindler. My husband says he’ll go too, while Holz wants to spend a few more moments with the deceased. Suppose I’ll spend a few more moments with Holz. And that leaves Schindler, who no one seems able to chuck out on his ear, hanging around in the study like a blowfly in a privy. Sali’s returned, so I send her in to keep an eye on him once we’ve seen the others out. Then me and Holz are back with Ludwig.

We sit again beside the coffin and he says to me, I hope my gesture wasn’t misunderstood. Meaning what, I ask him, though I think we both know which way the wind’s blowing. Doesn’t take my hand again, both of us staying quiet and I’m remembering those miniature portraits Ludwig must have been given as keepsakes. Can’t imagine why any woman would ever have fancied him, even when he was younger.

It don’t seem right, I say out loud. Poking into his secrets once he’s gone. Holz shakes his head. Beethoven knew the bank shares had to be found, he says, even if it meant tearing the entire apartment to pieces. Whatever he placed in that box was meant to be seen after his death.

Now I understood what the poor devil must have meant. Everything is allowed, I say under my breath, and Holz catches my words. Stares at me in a way that’s very, well, penetrating. I’m thinking we might be in for some more hand-holding — instead he wants me to explain, and Holz gets agitated, wants to know what else Ludwig said. Quite urgent all of a sudden, this fiddler who not long ago acted like there was something altogether more interesting on his mind than last words. My turn to ask for an explanation, seeing the way he’s gazing ahead, figuring something out. Brainy fellow, that Holz.

He says to me, did Beethoven speak of assassins? I had to laugh — Ludwig was forever seeing plots and insults against him, but I don’t think he ever supposed there might be some rival wanting to bump him off. Don’t be silly, I said, patting Holz’s arm, but he was serious. Told me Beethoven in his younger days associated with “gentlemen of a certain sort”. Ha! Exactly as I thought. Then he wonders if my Johann might have been in on it — the cheek! I says to him, are you making lewd insulations about my husband’s honour?

Of course not, he says, but Johann may have known his brother was a member.

This was all news to me. No idea they actually had a club for that sort of thing.

Holz tells me what Ludwig once blabbed after a few too many glasses. About a prince who wanted an opera written.

Ludwig only ever finished the one, I remind him.

Exactly, he says. And started countless others. One of which was meant for the prince’s lodge. It was going to be called The Assassins, or Everything is Allowed.

At that point I’m flummoxed. If Ludwig never wrote it, why did he waste his last breath remembering it? Or what if he finished it after all? A score too big to fit inside that little box.

Before either of us can say another word, the study door opens and out bustles Schindler with Sali tripping beside him. Hurriedly says his goodbyes with a quick nod and something about a rehearsal he’s late for, then he’s off like a shot. Me and Holz looking at each other and I swear it’s the same thought hits us both like a fork of lightning. The desk!

We go and open the main drawer where Breuning put the letters from the box, such a state in there, impossible to tell if anything’s been taken out. Sali says she kept watch on Schindler the whole time, didn’t so much as blink. I don’t know who I trust least. She goes out, Holz stays, staring at me like I’m a tune he can’t get his fingers round. Shakes his head and says, if that bastard found the opera…

I ask the obvious question. How much would it be worth?

Holz says, more than you could ever imagine.

I try imagining. A second country estate? We could get Signor Moustachio back again. Another carriage for me to ride in. More beautiful clothes and jewels and furniture. No, more than that — more than I could even imagine imagining.

You mustn’t say anything about this to anyone, he says. Not even your husband — and grabs my hand. This is our secret, he declares, then the devil kisses me, right on the lips. Grabs me masterfully by the waist, filthy rascal. Clutches me powerfully to his chest. Cheeky rogue.

Who cares about a flipping opera?

Beethoven and Philosophy

Beethoven was a collector of ornaments and trinkets; Anton Schindler recorded some that were on his worktable when he died. Two bronze Cossacks used as paperweights. A bust of Lucius Brutus. A clock in the form of a pyramid. The psychology of accumulation includes an indifference to individual objects, a perpetual willingness to exchange any item for another, an interchangeability that gives to some collections the combinatorial quality of a pictureless jigsaw. Beethoven said his Quartet in C-sharp minor was “patched together from pieces filched here and there”. So was the journal he began in 1812; a commonplace book of notes and fragments, epigrams and quotations. Remarks on Indian musical scales; extracts from Homer and the Bhagavad-Ghita. A passage from Kant about life on other planets. I would have mentioned it in my book chapter, if the entire project hadn’t fallen victim to the pandemic.

By February 2020 I’d already made my way through several biographies, so that while my renditions of the Waldstein Sonata were still abysmal, I at least felt better acquainted with the composer. Schindler’s inventory of objects provided a rough sketch; the chalked outline of a corpse.

A little bell. Two seals with the composer’s initials. A small landscape fashioned from Beethoven’s own hair — veneration of a body that disgusted him. Colic and diarrhoea caused him as much anguish as deafness. Money and shit, the axes of his mortality; one he could hoard, the other not hold back. Symbolic tokens of anticipatory mourning.

Two spectacle cases, one marked “old”, the other “short distance.” A monocle that for many years Beethoven wore on a black ribbon around his neck. Schindler took as relics all the items he listed, including a plaque with lines Beethoven had copied, framed and kept before him as he worked.

I am that which is. I am all that is, all that was, and all that shall be. No mortal has raised my veil.

He is One, self-existent, and to that One all things owe their existence.

The words were from an Egyptian shrine to Isis, famous in Beethoven’s time as exemplifying ancient knowledge and higher wisdom. Mozart’s masonic opera, The Magic Flute, had two lovers walk through fire as a purifying initiation to the “mysteries of Isis.” Beethoven wrote to an aristocratic female friend (and sometime Immortal Beloved candidate), “We finite beings, who are the embodiment of an infinite spirit, are born to suffer both pain and joy; and one might almost say that the best of us obtain joy through suffering… May God grant you greater strength to enable you to reach your Temple of Isis, where the purified fire may swallow up all your troubles and you may awake like a new phoenix.”

I told Mum about the essay I was planning — she said it sounded very interesting, but didn’t think she and Dad would be able to see me in Edinburgh if I came up for the festival. In weekly phone calls she cited new instances of what she considered his confusion, which I judged to be no more than characteristic self-preoccupation. Covid became a topic of conversation; in early March the first British deaths were headline news, and soon Mum was telling me she was staying indoors as much as possible, despite Dad’s insistence that it was nothing to worry about. By the end of the month we were in national lockdown and Boris Johnson had caught the virus.

The subsequent fate of the anthology to which I’d been asked to contribute can be summarised swiftly. Not content with offering writers no fee, the small press with big ideas made the “unavoidably delayed” Beethoven book a crowdfunding venture, perhaps so they could stretch to the free copies they’d promised. Then they cancelled it altogether, and the last I heard was that they’d gone out of business — assuming they were ever really in it. No longer faced with any deadline, word limit, or the need to come up with something palatable to that non-existent spectre of commercial publishing, the “average reader”, I could let the project progress under its own momentum, in any direction it chose. Going online with my university lecturing gave me more time for research; the only unwelcome constraint was on piano practice, since the neighbours below and on either side were also working from home. An hour each weekday proved a tolerable compromise, not resulting in any disgruntled wall-banging, though I still didn’t get any better.

Death and martyrdom: keynotes of daily news reports, and of Beethoven’s art. His first published composition, when he was twelve, was a set of piano variations on a funeral march. The adagio of his first string quartet was inspired by the tragic climax of Romeo and Juliet. The twelfth piano sonata and Eroica Symphony both contain funeral marches; his incidental music to Goethe’s Egmont ends with a “victory symphony” celebrating the executed hero’s posthumous glory. The cross-dressing heroine of the opera Fidelio escapes with her life, though not the transvestite soldier Leonore Prohaska, celebrated in a tragedy for which Beethoven set the doomed patriot’s lament to the eerie accompaniment of a glass harmonica.

Martyrdom is triumph in failure. Apart from his sense of hearing and relations with women, it was opera that offered Beethoven his most heroic misfortunes. The ones he contemplated but never wrote were as numerous as his unrequited love affairs. In 1803 he began Vesta’s Fire, about the virginal guardians of Rome’s sacred flame. Beethoven argued with the librettist and gave up, but the theme of androgynous fidelity — and some of the tunes he’d sketched — stayed with him. He turned to a rescue drama called Leonore, finishing it in a year and a half. The run-up to the premiere was beset by problems. There were Beethoven’s prevarications and last-minute alterations; the theatre management’s insistence on renaming it Fidelio; legal disputes, creative disagreements, petty quarrels — finally French invasion. Vienna’s opera-going class fled the city, and Fidelio ran for just three nights to sparse audiences consisting mostly of officers of the occupying army, plus a handful of unimpressed critics. Drastically shortened on the advice of Beethoven’s patron Prince Karl Lichnowsky, it played again in April 1806 and fared almost as poorly. The manager said receipts would improve when the gallery seats became better filled. “I don’t write for the galleries,” Beethoven angrily declared, and withdrew the opera. He could afford to be temperamental — Lichnowsky was paying him a regular salary. But they fell out, and Beethoven lost his steady income.

The Austrian linguist Joseph von Hammer suggested an “Indian opera”. Beethoven declined, instead sketching then abandoning an adaptation of Macbeth. It seemed his only hope for long-term security would be a permanent court appointment, so in 1808 he agreed to serve the Westphalian puppet-king Jerome Bonaparte. It provoked a counter-offer from three high-ranking Austrians — one of them the Emperor’s twenty-year-old brother, Archduke Rudolph — promising an annuity almost seven times larger than Lichnowsky had paid, as long as Beethoven remained in Vienna. He wouldn’t even need to compose a single note. “Now you can help me hunt for a wife,” Beethoven wrote buoyantly to a friend — an idea that came to nothing. Equally vain was the continuing search for a libretto to redeem Fidelio’s failure.

At the heart of obsession lies an ambiguity refusing to be resolved. The composers Beethoven most admired — Handel, Mozart, Cherubini — were masters of the form that eluded him. Success in opera could bring international acclaim; but like marriage, it also meant collaboration, commitment, compromise. What is unfinished can remain perfect; what is unfulfilled is forever private, its aura inalienable. What is unattainable is rendered comforting by infinite distance. Better to dream of the ideal than settle for flawed reality. Yet Beethoven tried, repeatedly.

In January 1812 he sent a note to his publisher, asking for the scores of several Mozart operas. On the same day he wrote to the playwright August von Kotzebue, suggesting they work together. “I should like best of all some grand subject taken from history and especially from the Dark Ages, for instance, from the time of Attila or the like.” Yet Beethoven got no opera from Kotzebue, and the Viennese premiere of the Emperor Concerto was a further disappointment. According to a leading music journal, “The immense length of the composition robs it of the impact that this product of a gigantic intellect would otherwise exert upon its hearers.” Problems came to a head when a financial crisis devalued Beethoven’s annuity, which is why in the summer of 1812 he went to Teplitz, hoping to persuade his backers to give him a pay rise. The Immortal Beloved and meeting with Goethe were sideshows to an undignified scramble for cash.

Boris Johnson went into intensive care, and a couple of days later, Mum called to say that Dad was in hospital in Glasgow. He’d been complaining of stomach pains, turned out it was a kink in his bowel that had to be mended without delay. Mum was positive and reassuring on the phone, but I could tell she was anxious, tired, bewildered. She’d been permitted to ride in the ambulance with him, then had to take a taxi home, not allowed to enter the hospital. Should I break lockdown rules and drive to Scotland to comfort her? Would it even be breaking the latest rules on either side of a border that had become emblematic of national confusion? Mum wanted to remain alone — worried she might have caught the virus during her journey, and scared of passing it to me, ill-fated possessor of an underlying health condition. Her next-door neighbour had been dropping off groceries and supplies since the start of the pandemic — Mum insisted she’d be fine.

Next morning I got through to the hospital consultant who confirmed that Dad’s condition was life-threatening and needed immediate surgery. He said, “You’ll appreciate that given his age, there’s significant risk involved.”

“Of course.” I was too stunned to wonder how I felt about the possibility that Dad would die far sooner than I’d anticipated. In the event, he survived, though I quickly learned a new term to google in addition to all the others relayed so effortlessly by the hospital staff I spoke with. Dad now had post-operative delirium, a premature fulfilment of Mum’s dementia prognosis. He was agitated, getting out of bed when he shouldn’t, being aggressive towards nurses. It sounded like a dispiritingly natural extension of his ordinary behaviour. Various anti-psychotic drugs, all with long names and even longer Wikipedia articles, tamed the beast, though I did point out to the medics that they were dealing with someone who, at the best of times, was deaf, stubborn, paranoid, and convinced the NHS was being secretly run by American pharmaceutical companies using unsuspecting Brits as guinea pigs. “Thanks for being so patient with him,” I said. “And good luck.” The plan was that once medically fit for discharge, he would be relocated to another hospital for a couple of weeks’ rehabilitation, then returned to Mum. A month or two without him seemed a merciful way for her to spend lockdown, however the pandemic had other ideas. Wards needed to be cleared, space created, awaiting new victims. Dad’s premature release was broken to me in a call from Mum, doing her best to sound upbeat. Again I suggested driving there, a hopelessly rhetorical offer, not unexpectedly declined. He was pretty calm, most of the time, Mum assured me as she adjusted to life with a different husband from the one she’d known. She administered his prescribed medications daily, informing him they were for his bowel, heart, waterworks — anything except the disordered brain that was their true target. I was told he’d acquired a habit of staring for hours at soap operas on TV. Proof enough, if any were needed, of the genuinely mind-altering power of medical science.

Returning to my research, it’ll be recalled that we left Beethoven at a Bohemian spa town in the summer of 1812, pencilling a note to a mysterious, frankly irrelevant woman (did she even exist?), and strolling with Goethe, who was politely grateful for the incidental music to Egmont: ein Trauerspiel, but found the composer “an utterly untamed personality”. Beethoven also found time to respond to a fan letter. “Do not tear away the laurel wreaths of Handel, Haydn and Mozart,” he wrote. “They possess them, but I not yet.” The fan was a little girl who was learning piano, aged no more than ten. Beethoven was really speaking to himself. “A true artist has no pride,” he continued. “Unfortunately he sees that art has no limits; he senses darkly how far he is from the goal; and while he is perhaps admired by others, he mourns [trauert] that he has not yet arrived to the point where his better genius shines as an example like a distant sun.” In the autumn, with his Seventh and Eighth Symphonies almost finished and his financial problems still unresolved, Beethoven went to Linz where he found pharmacist brother Johann co-habiting with housekeeper Therese. Beethoven tried to have her arrested — the couple responded by marrying. Angry, thwarted and humiliated, Beethoven returned to Vienna and began keeping the fragmentary journal that survives only in a partial copy. The first entry strikes the familiar tone of martyrdom. “Submission, deepest submission to your fate, only this can give you the sacrifices for this matter of service. O hard struggle!”

The middle of 2020 brought a temporary lessening of covid cases and relaxation of rules. I ignored the “eat out to help out” entreaty, as of course did my parents, though the general slackening and sunshine optimism led me to suggest visiting them, only for the day, since overnight stays were still banned and in any case contrary to Mum’s rigid precautions. I made the journey, wondering what state my doolally Dad would be in.

He turned out to be remarkably like his usual self, which shouldn’t have been too surprising. They’d given him new hearing aids in the hospital, and he’d managed not to lose them. Anti-depressants suited him, lending a glow of contentment as he sat in his favourite chair, seemingly able to hear all of the conversation passing between Mum and me, even contributing from time to time. The biggest downside was that while previously he’d done all the cooking — Mum’s supposed inability being reward for everything else she suffered — the daily task now fell to her. Consolation was that mealtimes could be dictated by rational decision rather than Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. I said I’d do dinner before driving home, and was of course overruled.

The comforting patina of normality deceived me completely. His dementia was spasmodic, unpredictable. Having over many years made the house he ruled into a kind of miniature autocracy, he had also created the conditions under which a visitor could marvel at how peaceful and orderly it all was, and how happy the uncomplaining inhabitants. Yet in following weeks I began to hear Mum getting worn out. I thought it was pandemic fatigue; really it was helpless awareness of a future that could only bleaken. The dictator was vegetative yet still in command, sometimes sweetly thanking her for pills he didn’t understand, on other occasions insulting her viciously, in a way she’d never heard before. “It’s like living with a toddler,” she said with grim humour, excusing him.

She said she’d begun keeping a diary, like myself and countless others in anomalous confinement; compelled, out of a vague sense of historic moment, to annotate a sudden lack of things worth writing about. Beethoven’s journal — what we have of it — reveals little about his daily life, beyond eternal suspicion that servants were cheating him. Tallies of wine and clothing fall between passages from possible opera librettos. His desire for something historic, symbolic and deadly earnest drew him to Guilt, a four-act Trauerspiel whose theme of fratricide perhaps reflected what he’d have liked to have done to his brother in Linz. Johann van Beethoven’s business was thriving and he had a pretty wife. The only possible explanation was that Johann was a crook and Therese a whore. Guilt dropped from contention and Beethoven perused other plays, such as one about a fifteenth-century “holy prince” who died childless and unmarried, martyr of a war with Muslim Africa. Then in 1814, Beethoven’s fortunes changed with Wellington’s Victory, enabling Fidelio to be successfully revived, and making the wish for a new opera even greater. Beethoven considered The Templars in Cyprus, a turgid drama promisingly full of knightly pontification and mystic mumbo-jumbo.

The play, by Zacharias Werner, was based on the creation myth of eighteenth-century freemasonry — the suppression of the Knights Templar and the escape of a few to Scotland where their rituals endured. Replete with invocations to Isis and allusions to the Illuminati and Rosicrucians, The Templars in Cyprus was the first part of a grandiose duology that could have been a Ring cycle ahead of its time — with even fewer laughs — had Beethoven got round to setting it. In the second part, the hero finally learns that the Templars have been fall-guys in a false-flag operation, martyred instruments of a larger and still more secret society; a Gnostic cult headquartered in an underground cave, led by the enigmatic Old Man of Carmel. To someone as instinctively paranoid as Beethoven, Werner’s arcane conspiracy theory might have seemed perfectly rational; but after copying some passages into his journal, Beethoven lost interest and began jotting Vedic texts instead.

Reading Werner’s play online passed an afternoon I would have spent almost as uselessly but for the pandemic. Former kinds of pseudo-work had been replaced by new ways of converting energy into empty time whose retreating wake created the comforting illusion of progressive motion. It was left to the daily piano hour to remind me that while time was passing, I was getting nowhere, forever making the same mistakes. Phone calls with Mum ought to have impressed more firmly on me a definite and unwelcome advance, not in Dad’s confusion so much as in her weariness. Unwilling to go out, unable to get the social care that was needed, she was under house arrest with a person she no longer recognised, bravely pretending that everything would be alright eventually. The project that consumed my attention was a similar escape from the obvious.

An entry in Beethoven’s journal, written some time in 1816. “Endurance. Resignation. Resignation. Thus we profit even by the deepest misery and make ourselves worthy.” Soon after, a new resolution. “Leave aside operas and everything else; write only in your own manner. And then a cowl to end this unhappy life.” Beethoven’s vow of monastic celibacy was easy to fulfil, less so the promise to stay away from theatrical temptation. In 1817 he told a visitor he was composing an opera called Romulus — it appears he never even began it. Beethoven wanted to be fully himself, and the only way was to be alone, writing solely for himself — a recipe for unhappiness, and for his greatest music. The paradox was noted a century after his death by biographer J.W.N Sullivan, who saw it as the reason why Beethoven’s string quartets were his finest works; “the most sincere form of musical expression, as the opera is the least.”

Web browsing took me to Sullivan’s novel, An Attempt at Life, published in 1917, scanned more recently into Google Books, and featuring a young technician at a London college whose two passions are electromagnetic theory and the music of Beethoven. Clearly Sullivan’s own callow alter-ego, the technician values science more highly than art. A friend disagrees. “Art and science are just the same at bottom. It’s a question of harmony. You scientific people — you’re all artists, really.” The friend has switched from art to science in the interests of a rounded education. “Different from the old days, when Latin and Greek were good enough.”

That passed another afternoon — but I prefer reading books on paper rather than screen, the latter too easily encouraging skimming. Sullivan’s other two novels were available for a few pounds from antiquarian dealers. The arrival of those battered old books, lovingly wrapped, was more exciting than supermarket deliveries or replacement light bulbs. Equally inexpensive was the autobiography of John Middleton Murry, who recalled seeing Sullivan for the first time in 1917, wearing “a khaki great-coat, the relic of a Serbian campaign in which he had been a Red Cross orderly.” The book had been signed and dated by two previous owners; one in 1938, the other in 1951. Murry was one of those literary figures whose reputation is great but brief, burning out like a match, and if he’s remembered at all, it’s as connecting link between other writers of the time. Sullivan gained entry to that network, prompting me to stray further into online bargain hunting as an escape from pandemic tedium.

An edition of Aldous Huxley’s Those Barren Leaves (first in order of lowest total price) was signed, “To John, from Simon, Paris 1974.” Murry’s Reminiscences of D.H. Lawrence came to me with a Dundee Public Library return page showing it had last been checked out in 1963. Sullivan’s Aspects of Science, similarly tatty and correspondingly cheap, had been annotated extensively in pencil by the “R.C. Jones, Northampton” who bought it in 1924.

It used to be standard practice to inscribe books — I did it when young, and still have old novels bearing my proud, schoolboyish scrawl. I can’t think when I lost the habit, but I felt an urge to renew it, given the curious pleasure I derived from vicarious entry into unknown lives by way of a few pen strokes on a nicotine-stained title page. W.J. Turner’s The Duchess of Popocatepetl proved as unmemorable as its title, except for the vestigial meta-biography: “Florence — Forgive me. Brian.” John Cournos’s Babel arrived disappointingly without signature, library stamp or other indication that its near-century of existence had served any purpose except as occupier of space as well as time. So I asserted ownership in blue ballpoint: Robert Coyle, Durham, 2020. Then put the book on my shelf, unread. I’d become a collector — an acquirer of objects for which the only need is psychological.

Dad’s birthday was coming up, and I wondered what to send. Whisky had been the easy default option in the last few years, but hospitalisation had broken his nightly drinking habit, and he seemed to have forgotten whatever pleasure it once gave. Mum said he wasn’t meant to have alcohol anyway, because of his medication. He often complained of feeling cold, though, so perhaps something warm to wear in the house? I gave it much thought, comparing and contrasting a panoply of fleecy dressing gowns modelled by men a third of Dad’s age, all the while wondering which image I preferred, and reflecting on the futility of the exercise. Troubling over it was not an expression of care, but a form of distraction.

The following Sunday, around twelve o’clock, I got a phone call.

“Robert? It’s Hazel, your Mum’s neighbour.”

In the momentary pause before acknowledging, I half understood the impossible meaning, like catching sight of an approaching bullet.

“Robert. Your Mum’s died.”

I thought I was a philosopher — yet death found me unprepared.

Two

Adam

Berwick-upon-Tweed. Sounded like a place for prim ladies, elderly golfers, genteel anglers, though when Adam Crouch alighted from the train and made his way to the concourse he saw none of those; only a foreign-looking girl pensively studying a leaflet, and a surly yellow-vested bloke eating a Greggs pasty. The ticket office was closed, the handful of people who’d got off the train with Adam had already evaporated into the sunshine outside, and neither the road worker nor the tourist looked as if they might be able to tell Adam how to get to the Hyle Centre. Surely the organisers would have sent someone to meet him; where was the dutiful functionary holding a board with Adam Crouch’s name printed on it? Yet when he exited and approached the only taxi parked at the rank he was told the car was booked for Findlay, Mrs Findlay. Not Crouch? No, Findlay, definitely Mrs Findlay arriving from Dunbar, same as every Wednesday.

He’d been good enough to come here at short notice for a writing residency and they couldn’t be bothered to collect him. He’d emailed his travel schedule, given the exact time of his departure and arrival. Now he was wondering if they’d reimburse his train fare. He was the wrong side of fifty and Type 2 diabetic. Did they expect him to walk?

“Do you know anything about the Hyle Centre?” Adam asked the taxi driver who stared up from the lowered window of his grubby saloon.

“Whit?”

Nothing else for it, he’d have to order an Uber, once he could figure out where the devil he was meant to be going. Adam stepped back towards the station entrance and consulted his phone. The centre’s email footer gave an address and postcode; Google pinpointed it. A place called Axtoun House.

“Hey, bud!”

Adam looked up; the driver was shouting to him from his car.

“She’s cancellt,” the driver said as Adam approached. “Ah’m free.”

Grateful for Mrs Findlay’s intervention — stopping over with her daughter after all, apparently — Adam showed his destination, climbed into the back with his case and stretched the seatbelt far enough to retain his stomach while the car accelerated from the station and soon out of the small town into unremarkable countryside. Adam closed his eyes, tired from the morning’s early start and soothed by the vehicle’s motion. It had come out of the blue, the invite. A pleasant surprise for a scriptwriter whose reputation was kept alive these days by radio re-runs, occasional Freeview airings, and fan sites by old farts fondly celebrating the golden age of entertainment. A name to watch, the Yorkshire Post called Adam Crouch at twenty-five. Nearly nominated for Best Audio Drama by thirty. Now not even worth his while pitching, if he had anything to pitch, though somehow the Hyle Centre had spotted him through the fog of neglect. Of course he was under no illusion; the short notice must mean a late cancellation by the person they really wanted, younger and shinier, possibly lured away by a better freebie somewhere else. Adam knew his place on the cultural mountain, and if he couldn’t sip champagne at the summit he was still grateful for some Bovril at base camp.

He opened his eyes and saw green fields of unknown crops slide past, then a string of white-walled houses followed by a stretch of leafy woodland that the road twisted through, the driver barely slowing at each bend. Were they in England or Scotland now? Which side was Axtoun House on? Adam hadn’t bothered to check, not that it could matter anyway. According to the website, the Hyle Centre was a place for “artists, scientists and intellectuals” as well as “social activists, policy makers, innovators”. He didn’t spot past-it scriptwriters, though he supposed if he’d read far enough he might have found gymnasts and chefs included in the generous mix. What he did see was the sort of accommodation on offer: a tastefully furnished room suggestive of a spa hotel. Three weeks of that would be absolutely fine, thank you. Though he did hope he wouldn’t need to stump up for the cost of getting there.

Gradually the scenery became wilder; rounded peaks rising from rough scrub dotted with scraggy sheep. The view diminished when they turned off the main road onto an unsurfaced track leading up through pine forest, past a sign: Private Road — Axtoun House. Cresting the rise they came out of the trees and on the plain ahead Adam could see at last the stately grey mansion and its outbuildings, incongruously neat within the wider moorland.

“Fancy looking place,” the driver muttered, negotiating an elegant bridge over what for a moment Adam thought might be a moat but saw instead to be a turd-hued river. They stopped beside some other cars near the entrance, and once Adam had extricated himself and his luggage, and paid for the pleasure, the driver wished him a good stay and set off. Other than the rumble of the departing car, the breeze against Adam’s face and the strangulated bleat of a distant sheep, the scene was deadly quiet.

The doorway was wedged elegantly open; the narrow lobby inside had a room leading off to the right with something resembling a reception desk, though without anyone in attendance or any obvious means of summoning aid. Adam stepped back into the lobby, hung with gilt-framed pictures and hunting trophies, and wheeled his case further along, passing an empty dining hall, then reaching a panelled wooden door marked Warden. This he knocked, gently at first, and on hearing movement inside, knocked again, more loudly, until finally it opened. A grey-haired, thin-faced woman stood facing him.

“Hello, I’m Adam Crouch.”

She blinked from behind her spectacles, processing the information. “Come in, then.” He followed as she went to resume her place at the desk whose papers must have been more interesting to her than the disturbance she now suffered. Her laptop was open; she tapped it awake, peered at the brightening screen and then at Adam who stood waiting. “You’ve not been before?”

“No.”

She opened a drawer of the desk and extracted a thin brochure she handed to Adam, its cover showing the Hyle Centre as he’d seen it on the website, strangely more attractive than the reality he now stood in.

“Thanks,” he said, stuffing the leaflet in his pocket and still clinging to the chance of establishing some kind of rapport. “And you are…?”

“The warden’s out with the others. This isn’t the usual time to check in. I can give you your keys, though.” They were on the desk beside her laptop; a pair of Yales looped on a fob bearing a digit.

“My room number?” Adam asked.

“Chalet,” she said. “I’ll take you.”

It was a walk of a few minutes, out of the mansion and along a lane made for wheels tougher than the ones on Adam’s case which scraped and bumped behind him. Learning nothing further about his guide except her rank as subwarden, he followed her through a copse to a pinewood hut — modernist, ethnic or merely odd in shape — somewhat resembling an upturned boat. The door faced them at its stern, pierced by a small triangular window of green frosted glass, and while Adam’s dour companion tried both keys in an effort to see which of them, with the right wrist action, would permit entry, he saw that the chalet door, rather than replicating the number on the fob, instead bore a plate beneath its pane engraved with an elegant cursive script, possibly some middle-eastern or oriental language, or just a nice swirly decoration.

The lock yielded, the door was pushed open. “There you are,” she said, handing him the keys and bidding him enter. A compact en-suite designed by someone who knew how to fit all the essentials in the smallest possible container. A desk beneath a window, promising a leafy view. Beside the bed, a diminutive table bearing kettle and biscuits. Perfectly adequate for a solo birdwatcher’s weekend break, and nothing like the pictures he’d seen on the website. She remained stolidly at the threshold while he hesitated within, examining the keys to his sojourn.

“What’s the other one for?” he asked.

“Main door. You’ll find everything in the brochure. If you need anything else come over to the house. I’ll let you settle in.”

He watched her march back towards the comfort of the stately pile, then turned and sealed himself within his timber cocoon. Scandinavian, he guessed, sitting down on the bed, finding it too low, instead opting for the single chair he dragged from its place at the desk. Maybe Japanese. In a while he’d transport his washbag to the shower cubicle if he could find a shelf deep enough to support it. Before that, the kettle offered relief from austerity, though the sachets proved to be decaffeinated, the digestives non-chocolate. Should have known it, really. Such a long time since he’d done any kind of residency. He’d forgotten about the still prevailing and to his mind wholly misguided notion that the creative act required spartan isolation. Thank God for the bottle of malt buried safely in his case. If it was to last him to the end, he’d need to be careful about the measures poured into the white china cup that so far appeared to be the only available receptacle. An excuse to inspect the cubicle, where he found the glass he’d be needing frequently. Surely there would be a bar.

The space for hanging clothes was cleverly combined with the geometry of the toilet, separated by a partition that buckled when Adam prodded it as he stood urinating. Where did the water go when he flushed? Septic tank? And where did the electricity come from, that had made the light go on? A cable running the entire length of the track he’d walked down, a great battery buried under his feet, or perhaps he’d failed to spot a solar panel atop this eco-nightmare that would surely drive him round the bend within days. As long as he could work somewhere in the big house he’d be fine. Had to be a few cosy spots there.

Returning to the bed he kicked off his shoes and lay down to inspect the brochure she’d given him. Here again was the spiel he’d skimmed on the website. A multidisciplinary centre bringing together innovative thinkers from diverse backgrounds. Yes, and stuffing them in rabbit hutches. Reading further and more thoroughly he discovered that the chalets, four in number, were for temporary guests. Visiting fellows, as the brochure called them, were housed in the mansion. If Adam was, as he felt sure, here as a fellow, then perhaps the miserable subwarden had simply made a mistake, or they were waiting for someone to depart from more comfortable accommodation that would become Adam’s. His hopes were lifted, his enthusiasm buoyed. Even his next plain digestive and cup of decaff tasted better. Within an hour of arriving at his cell he felt ready for a stroll, armed with the map on the back of the brochure.

The grounds, he could see from the plan, were extensive. Colour-coded dotted lines suggested routes of varying length and complexity. Fountain Path was wheelchair accessible; Mushroom Walk might be muddy in places. Star Circuit sounded intriguing, even if its focal point was merely “Observatory (site of)”. Leaving the chalet, Adam found a track which soon took him to the flat bank of the river he’d crossed earlier. Its course traced a large arc past the mansion far to Adam’s left while he walked, seeing the occasional spreading ringlet of a rising fish on the sluggish brown water. Eventually the path veered from the stream towards the house, passing the promised observatory where nothing remained except a round area of concrete. Looking towards the house he noticed pale smoke rising from a chimney, and further beyond could see the road that the taxi had brought him down, another vehicle now coming along it. These signs of activity were more interesting than the concrete platform he abandoned without further inspection, instead watching the white minibus approach the house while he walked to the same place, arriving to find a dozen or so passengers disembarking. One of them, a tall fortyish woman with thick black curly hair and large-framed spectacles, came over to speak with him.

“Adam Crouch,” he announced, extending a hand.

“Ah, yes.” She received his grasp. “Glad you could make it. I’m Frieda, the warden.” The accent was possibly Brazilian, the kaftan shapelessly voluminous, and her earrings were big red plastic things, somewhat distracting. “Settled in OK? Good, good. You go on inside with the others, have yourself a coffee. See you later.”

The party Adam followed into the house looked to be wide ranging in age and dress sense. Immediately in front of him as he fell last in line in the lobby were a woman in her twenties wearing dungarees and a man well past seventy in a dated beige suit. Neither noticed Adam, and he couldn’t hear what they were talking about. All were queuing at a room Adam eventually entered, where the sour-faced subwarden was serving coffee from a table.

“Hello again,” he said to her when his turn came at last.

“Milk and sugar?”

He accepted both and went to find an empty chair in what he understood to be the centre’s common room, a place that really did look like its online photograph. He found himself sitting between dungaree woman and a slimly sculpted man with an impeccable suntan.

“Adam Crouch,” he tried again.

“Dan Smit,” the tan acknowledged. An architect with projects in Milan and Copenhagen. The woman was equally impressive; a quilt artist who’d done something official for the Scottish Parliament.

“I’m a writer,” Adam told them both, not feeling it worth mentioning Saveloy, his nineties sitcom set in a chip shop. He drained his coffee then stood and went to fetch another, waiting beside the beige suit that was as worn-out in appearance as its ancient wearer.

“Adam Crouch.”

“Rostov.” The old codger didn’t elaborate.

Adam received his top-up and continued to work the room, gradually making his way towards the most intimidatingly attractive female of the gathering, tall with long dark hair, standing with two men who, like her, looked to be in their mid-thirties and in depressingly good shape.

“Hey Adam,” one of the men said as soon as he approached, having evidently overheard a previous introduction. This was Ryan, a Californian dotcom something; the other was a name Adam immediately forgot. She was Claudia.

“It was very quiet here when I first arrived,” Adam said, aware of a note of self-pity he couldn’t help releasing, while his other end withheld a latent fart.

Ryan grinned broadly. “We were in the town. Bare-wick.”

“Berrick,” said anonymous.

“Great pub lunch, too bad you missed it.”

Claudia said nothing, relishing the banal flutter of conversation as tribute to her presence.

“You spend any time in Bare-wick, Adam?”

“No, I came straight here. I didn’t actually know that everyone…”

“Castle’s interesting. Think they said the town was in Scotland, then England. Scotland again.

“England now,” the nameless one averred. “Has been for over five hundred years.”

“You’re the historian, Graham.”

Reminder of the name and occupation Adam had forgotten as soon as the info had been relayed to him. Still nothing from Claudia.

“Scotch egg,” Ryan said, as if referring to an obscure kind of deviancy. “You ever had that, Adam?”

The pub grub sounded less to be regretted than the free minibus Adam missed. He turned to ask, “What about you, Claudia?” She had to say something now, damn her.

“I did not have Scottish egg.”

This wasn’t what Adam had wanted to find out, and the foreign coolness with which she specified what she hadn’t ordered, in a pub he hadn’t been to, left him snookered. The fart meanwhile bubbled closer to its colonic rubicon.

They were joined by another; a red-haired antipodean jovially greeting Adam as, “Our new arrival!” and slapping him heartily on the shoulder. An engineer: Blue.

“Not his actual name,” Ryan quickly added with a smile. “It’s on account of his hair.”

That made no sense, so Adam let it pass.

“How’s the lovely Claudia?” Blue enquired, to which she responded with the same patient nod she might have given him an hour earlier when he’d probably made similar banter in the pub. She walked silently away, past the drinks table and out of the room.

Blue was involved in intelligent housing, the internet of things, modular society. Adam hadn’t the foggiest, though the housing link prompted him to enquire, “What do you think of the cabins here?”

Blue hadn’t seen them; like the others he was accommodated in the main house.

“I suppose I must rank as a temporary guest,” Adam suggested.

Blue’s ginger eyebrows elevated, creasing his freckled forehead. “Let’s hope not,” he said wryly, provoking an awkward hiatus.

Adam broke it. “What do you mean?”

Graham the historian explained. “We’re assuming you’re the replacement for Robert Coyle.”

This must have been the person originally invited; higher in status, though not sufficiently for Adam ever to have heard of him. “Any idea why he dropped out?”

An exchange of glances. “He dropped alright,” said Ryan.

“And left here feet first,” Blue said bluntly.

Adam was gobsmacked. “Seriously? He…?” Hard to say which was more disturbing; the death of a delegate or the grim irony with which the mishap could be treated. At least Adam’s fart had now exited less dramatically than the late Robert Coyle, expelled by surprise. “How did it happen?” he asked the three men, each of whom answered.

“In the library.”

“With a candlestick…”

“Well, no,” said Blue. “Up a ladder, looking for a book.”

“Heart attack.”

“Stroke.”

“Found dead on the floor.”

So here was the awful truth, the reason why someone else had to be sought at the last moment. Robert Coyle’s last moment, to be precise.

Graham looked down into the coffee cup he tilted for inspection, confirming its emptiness as opportunity to excuse himself. He was, he announced, going upstairs to resume work on his chapter, though without reminding Adam or anyone else what the chapter was about. Ryan also needed to get on with something; the room was emptying at an accelerating pace in what Adam understood to be a daily routine. The deal, he knew, was that in return for full board and lodging the fellows were expected to produce something: an article, art work or event. They were now exiting to resume this labour, or give the impression they were doing it, leaving Adam at a loss. He hadn’t even had lunch, and wouldn’t survive until night on nothing more than a few biscuits. The subwarden was still at the serving table, gathering used cups onto a tray, and Adam went to quiz her.

“Anywhere I can get some food?”

She nodded, put down the cup she held and gestured Adam to follow. While others headed for the staircase she led him along a ground-floor corridor to a panelled room larger than the previous one, more elegantly furnished, hung with oil paintings and offering a view onto an extensive lawn. Most significantly it had a long table along the wall on which was laid an array of sandwiches and cakes under glass domes.

“Help yourself,” she said and left him to it. He filled a plate, poured himself some juice, and chose a leather armchair on which to have his meal and contemplate the strange atmosphere he now understood. He was the substitute for a dead man. Tonight Adam would lie on the bed that had given Robert Coyle his final sleep. Or penultimate sleep, if we include the endless one he’d gone to. In the library. Not with a candlestick. Had the heart attack made Coyle fall from the ladder or been caused by the shock of hitting the floor? How long had he lain there? Adam barely tasted the ham sandwich he chewed, or noticed the rocket salad. A female voice made him turn in his chair to see the warden, Frieda, at the door.

“Adam, there you are, glad you found the buffet.”

“Yesh,” he said with a full mouth, emptied with a gulp. “I was brought here by… what’s her name?”

Frieda didn’t hear; she came and stood beside him, her hands clasped in a way that looked friendly but firm. “The Director’s away at the moment, you’ll be able to meet tomorrow and discuss the schedule of events. In the meantime we could run through some practicalities.”

Having stuffed in another bit of sandwich, Adam swallowed to answer. “That would be good.” A piece of rocket leaf had wedged itself between his teeth. “And I must say, I was very sorry to hear…” He paused respectfully, expecting Frieda to fill the gap while he licked at the stubborn shred in his closed mouth. She didn’t. “About… the incident.”

Frieda cocked an eyebrow, inviting him to elucidate.

“Robert Coyle. I heard he… passed away. Here. I was told.”

“It was his time,” she said; a remark that might have sounded more tasteful in whichever language they spoke in whatever country she came from.

“He was old?” Adam asked, realising that as well as the leaf in his molar there was a strand sticking to his chin which he removed and swiftly consumed.

She shrugged. “It’s good that you’ve been able to join us. You’ve had a chance to look around?”

“Only outside, the river and so on.” He rose from his chair, empty plate in hand, half-full glass upon it. “Site of an observatory. Not much left.”

“Nothing at all,” she agreed. “The house has much history.” She took his plate and went to deposit it where what’s-her-name might later find it. “Let me show you.”

The tour began in the corridor outside where Frieda pointed to a succession of framed photographs. The most recent were of delegates posing in neat groups. “The Centre has been running since 1998,” she said, swiftly moving Adam along to a picture of four young women with hairstyles of the 1950s seated at a table covered with maps and charts. “The MOD were here during the Cold War,” Frieda explained. “Intelligence.”

“Like GCHQ? Bletchley Park?

“I suppose.” She said the military had taken over nearby Axtoun village to accommodate staff, cordoning off the entire area. Adam hadn’t noticed any of that during his taxi ride here, but as Frieda now told him, all trace of the army’s presence had been removed. “They bulldozed the village and returned it to nature.”

“How thoughtful.”

“Though we do hear from time to time of people picking up strange things in the woods.”

This image of picnickers obliviously laying their rug over a rusted nuclear detonator was left to dissolve in the air while they passed further back in time to a portrait of a bearded gentleman seated in a suit of the 1920s or 30s. Adam read the name inscribed underneath. “Arthur Hyle. This is who the centre’s named after?”

“He was a psychiatrist. Ran this place as an asylum.”

“Mental hospital?”

“A therapeutic retreat. Very progressive.”

The end of the picture display saved Adam from sinking any further into a history that didn’t especially concern him. Frieda took him to a small lecture hall, modern in design and with full audio-visual facilities, then past some other rooms less worthy of mental note than the lavatories she discreetly indicated. From what Adam could gather, Axtoun House had been augmented and remodelled in ways that could fill a miniseries on an interior design channel, while preserving enough old furniture and ornaments to satisfy the geriatric audience of Antiques Roadshow. Was it Frieda’s monotonous commentary that made him feel so dispirited? Or the lingering ghosts of Arthur Hyle’s depressed patients? Or simply the thought of spending the next three weeks here with a bunch of sickeningly successful people? Ten minutes wandering round the place and still no bar.

They reached a passage at whose far end was a double door, one half fixed promisingly open, though as they drew near there was no sign beyond of handpumps or wine racks, only a lot of books.

“Here’s the library,” Frieda said, somewhat redundantly.

So this must be where Robert Coyle croaked and Adam’s sentence of incarceration came into being. The room was not particularly large in size, but its windowless walls were filled from floor to ceiling, lit by shaded lamps fixed to some of the shelves. At the centre was a long, modern-looking table with chairs for the benefit of anyone who might want to peruse the volumes laid open in haphazard display. Beyond, providing access to the upper reaches of the library’s ample collection, stood a wheeled stepladder.

“Look at this,” Frieda said, indicating one of the open books; an engraving of a dodo.

Adam was instead looking at the stepladder. “I heard he fell.”

“This place used to be a shabby billiard room until we converted it. An amazing transformation.”

Adam didn’t want to be amazed; he wanted to hear about Coyle’s vertical demise. “Heart attack, was it?”

Again ignoring the remark, Frieda remained fixated on the illustrated book, gently lifting and turning a crisp page to uncover some snooty-faced flamingos. “This is a very rare edition, you know.”

Adam directed his gaze upwards to a high row of dusty volumes. “Maybe should shift those lower.”

Frieda’s attention was caught by a phone message announcing itself with a ping. “Sorry?” she said distractedly to Adam, extracting the device from some part of her marsupial kaftan.

“Health and safety,” Adam suggested, wondering how many other pouches she had on her. She wasn’t listening, transfixed instead by the text she’d received.

“I’m afraid I have to leave you now,” she said, barely looking up from the screen.

“What a pity.”

“I expect you’d like to rest.”

This was perfectly true — he’d had quite enough of her guided tour. Frieda added that pre-dinner drinks would be served in the common room from six, then the meal, to be followed by a music concert. The first two made him prick up his ears — it was the third on which she expanded. “Perhaps you’ve met them already — Claudia and Alphonse. Charming people and such marvellous performers.” She went out, leaving Adam to contemplate the ugly flamingos, cheered by the thought that only a few hours separated him from a glass or two of sherry, followed with any luck by some decent vino.

He glanced over at the fatal stepladder. Perfectly sturdy looking. More modern than most of the mansion’s furnishings elsewhere. Not the sort of thing you’d fall from, unless you were a complete incompetent. How had Frieda put it? His time was up, something like that. A creaky old sod, not too steady on his pegs, that was how Adam imagined the late Robert Coyle while drawing back a chair to sit down at the table and see what else was on it. One book had a date of sixteen hundred and something. Or was it seventeen? Adam was never good with Roman numerals. Hard to tell if these vintage tomes were deliberately arranged or had just been left by a reader too lazy to stick them back where they belonged. Adam would have no time to read — he was here to write. Chance to finally get down to a novel. Though he wondered which he’d choose, out of all the ones he’d planned over the years.

Adam stood, walked to the nearest shelf and slid out a random title. Spode’s Abode, dated 1930-something. Is there anything more dismal than an old book by somebody you’ve never heard of, about something in which you have no interest? All that effort put in, so long ago, of a kind Adam knew only too well. Right now, in the future, Adam’s own novel — the one he’d start here — was being ignored in this very room by someone who couldn’t be arsed to open it. Assuming it would ever get published. Or written. Could almost make a man depressed. At least there was the sherry to look forward to.

He put Spode’s Abode back, circuited the room and drew a few more books that proved hardly less dispiriting. Biography of some woman who went up in a balloon. New way of training dogs. Cookery, first aid, history of the Boer War, chalk streams of Dorset, knot tying, analytic philosophy. And endless bloody novels, ninety per cent of them by complete unknowns. Only thing Adam had that they didn’t was a pulse, at least for now.

Turning again to the table, he pulled another chair intending to park himself on it but first had to remove what had been left there, a battered old book he wouldn’t have given another thought to, except that when he opened it he found what looked to be the author’s signature. Wondered if it might be worth a few notes on eBay. Three Men Discuss Relativity, by J.W.N. Sullivan.

Sullivan

1923

The kippers were as excellent as one would expect. John William Navin Sullivan pushed his plate aside for collection by the somewhat plain young maid who came to remove it, leaving space for him to enjoy a slice of toast with butter and rather a lot of marmalade. His tea was getting cool; would he have to ask the girl, when she returned, to replenish the pot?

He had slept well, irrespective of the stick incident. Some might have attributed it to supernatural force, even seeing it as symbolic or representative of some greater pattern in the scheme of creation. Sullivan remained content to assume otherwise. His room here at Axtoun House was draughty, as doubtless were all in the extensive manor. A walking stick, propped injudiciously against the wall of his chamber, had been easily dislodged by some nocturnal breeze. Who knows, Sullivan thought with a smile — feeling the tang of orange peel at the corner of his mouth — perhaps he had emitted a sleepy sigh, a cough, a snore, and its cumulative atmospheric disruption had been enough to perturb hence topple the metal-handled walking stick, waking him with its abrupt clatter as it hit the wooden floorboard. Momentarily startled, he’d lain awake a short while, thinking of Sylvia, feeling quite glad it was all over with her.

The maid came back informing him that Dr Hyle would be down soon. To this welcome information Sullivan responded by asking for a fresh pot of Darjeeling, also enquiring whether the post and newspapers had yet arrived, to which the reply was however negative. A review was due to appear in today’s Telegraph of his book, Aspects of Science. That it would be laudatory was surely beyond question; Sullivan was merely curious to learn who the reviewer might be. Anyone genuinely able to have mastered the latest developments of human thought could not fail to recognise the accuracy of Sullivan’s treatment, the validity of his insights. One left instead bewildered — the more common situation, Sullivan suspected — would be compelled to praise what he did not comprehend.

Hearing a sound from the corridor outside, heavier and slower than the departed maid’s footsteps, Sullivan expected now to meet for the first time his host. It was however a different figure who entered; one it took some moments for Sullivan to recognise. Fair-haired, broad-framed and with a dormant pipe jutting beneath small unevenly balanced spectacles, this second guest looked to be only in his late twenties — a decade younger than Sullivan — yet with an air of premature senescence, a sluggish shuffling whose cause Sullivan guessed to be a hangover. He didn’t know the chap’s name but had noticed him from time to time at the Café Royal, occasionally loud, invariably drunk.

“Good morning,” Sullivan said politely, wondering if their quondam propinquity should be acknowledged but deciding otherwise. He extended a hand across the table. “John Sullivan.”

“Cecil Gray,” the other grunted in an educated Scotch accent after laying down his pipe and accepting Sullivan’s gesture with damp, cool fingers. Radiating an impression of mournful indolence, he dropped onto a chair perpendicular to Sullivan’s then reached for the toast rack and the further butter dish, his coat-sleeve specked with tobacco flakes.

“I arrived last night,” Sullivan said brightly. “And yourself?”

“Tuesday.” Gray spread his toast clumsily and gave his smeared finger a cleansing lick. The maid coming to attend to his needs, he ordered a soft-boiled egg, adding as she reached the door, “Good and runny, mind.”

She paused at the threshold, not on account of the morose northener but instead giving way to the figure who now entered and could be none but Dr Arthur Hyle, dressed casually in a silk robe and red leather carpet slippers. Sullivan rose while Gray remained seated and silent, at which Hyle appeared unperturbed, joining them at the table with a patient smile. Bearded, ruddy cheeked, and around threescore years in age, he was younger looking than Sullivan had anticipated, with a full head of dark grey hair, and striking blue eyes. Hyle enquired if both guests had slept well; Sullivan told the story of the stick.

“The Colonel, perhaps,” said Hyle. “A former resident.”

“His ghost?”

“I think you may be in the room where he died.” Hyle paused, as if for effect, then laughed. “As a scientist I’m sure you have no fear of such things; though I gather you don’t completely discount their existence.” He turned to his other guest. “Do you believe in ghosts, Cecil?”

“Of course.”

“Splendid!”

The maid brought Gray’s egg, also a tray with Dr Hyle’s breakfast of steaming porridge and several pills he swallowed with a glass of water. He then said to Sullivan, “I understand you’ve newly published a book?”

Sullivan had sent Aspects of Science in advance of his visit; a fact that had somehow become lost, as presumably had the book. “I’m expecting a review of it in today’s Telegraph.”

Gray looked up momentarily from his egg, then down again, and dipped a ragged soldier of thickly buttered toast that made the yolk overflow.

Hyle asked, “How many men in England would you say, Mr Sullivan, can truly fathom the relativity theory? A dozen? Fewer? Yet having so swiftly mastered this new conception of the universe, I believe you’ve embarked upon a biography of Beethoven.”

Sullivan was surprised he knew — who might have told him? “Not exactly a biography.”

“What do you make of that, Cecil?” Hyle spoke to Gray, Sullivan noticed, almost as if to a child.

Gray pondered the question with the same slow deliberation he’d been applying to his breakfast, then asked Sullivan, “Which is harder? Einstein or Beethoven?”

“Certainly the latter,” said Sullivan, to the evident satisfaction of companions excused from ever needing to concern themselves unduly with the former.

“Young Cecil is writing a book on music,” Hyle said warmly. “An assessment of the contemporary situation.”

This was a further surprise, and as Sullivan heard more about the project, he discovered that Gray was an aspiring composer and musical agitator.

“Do you know Walter Turner?” Sullivan asked him, though this attempt to engage Gray on a social level met with the same indifference as every other conversational lead. Must be quite a terrible hangover, Sullivan decided; or else the man was simply an utter boor.

Hyle described for Sullivan the therapeutic regime conducted at Axtoun, which for all its Freudian inspiration and metaphysical aspiration seemed to consist mainly of induced inactivity. The doctor’s account, given between well-spaced spoonfuls of porridge, was essentially an elaboration of what he had already communicated to Sullivan in his preceding correspondence. Given Sullivan’s rising status in literary, artistic and intellectual circles it was hardly unusual to be contacted by a respectable stranger wishing to establish some connection; and since Hyle claimed rarely to visit London, their meeting could only be in a manner such as this. Nevertheless, Sullivan could not escape the feeling that some further purpose lay in mind; some future duty to be performed or favour to be asked. A newspaper article, perhaps, proclaiming the virtue of Hyle’s methods and advertising his services to those who could afford them. Such publicity had its dangers. Look at Gurdjieff, for instance. Not to mention Crowley. Either of those recent associations, Sullivan feared, might yet redound adversely upon him.

Dr Hyle apologised that he would be unavoidably occupied for a while after breakfast, though he could have Sullivan shown round if wished. Sullivan politely declined, feeling no urge to encounter the handful of patients — guests, Hyle called them — presently residing. Sullivan knew well enough what it was like to suffer a crack-up and gradually have one’s senses restored in quiet surroundings, as he had five years ago at Garsington. Frightfully good for broadening one’s contacts, as it had turned out.

Dr Hyle finished his porridge, wiped his mouth with his napkin then said, “Coffee will be served at eleven in the drawing room. Perhaps you might like to read there beforehand, Mr Sullivan. Or play the piano?”

“Actually I might enjoy a walk outside.”

“As you please.”

Hyle rose — Sullivan too, pondering as his host exited whether to spend any further time with the still sedentary Gray who now seemed enthralled by the labour of lighting his pipe. Sullivan gave Gray a leave-taking nod that went unacknowledged, then made his way out to the hallway where he turned the bell-pull, wishing to ask the maid if she thought him suitably attired for a stroll, or if he might need an umbrella or stout boots.

The maid not arriving after a wait that rendered him impatient, Sullivan roamed in hope of finding assistance, and after passing several closed doors paused at one ajar. Seated at a table was a woman he saw in profile, perfectly immobile. She was perhaps around forty years old, wearing a white pinafore that for a moment made Sullivan think she might be a nurse, though he quickly realised this could not be the case. Her black hair was untidily bobbed, her gaze immovable, and when Sullivan stood closer to the open doorway, he found she was staring at a blank wall, or rather into the empty space separating her from it, her palms flat on the table, as though in a trance. She must be one of Hyle’s patients; physically strong in appearance and quite unattractive, reminiscent of those women one saw in newsreels driving tractors in Russia.

Sullivan was startled by a hand on his arm and turned to see a short young man with brilliantined hair, a black frock coat and wing collar, politely beckoning him to move away. As soon as they were beyond earshot the man explained, “Best leave Martha be.” He introduced himself as Horace Littlewood, Dr Hyle’s assistant, adding, “It’s such an honour to meet you, sir. I think your Aspects of Science quite a marvellous book. Quite marvellous. Most good of you to send it.”

This, evidently, was what had happened to the copy meant for Hyle, passed instead to a subordinate for inspection. Littlewood looked to be hardly more than a student, with the bustling manner of someone too easily excited by any deviation from routine.

“I gather, sir, that the essays were originally published individually in the popular press?”

“That’s correct.”

They went together towards the entrance lobby where there remained no sign of the post’s having arrived.

“I was interested, sir, in your remarks on spiritualism.”

“Ah yes,” Sullivan said distractedly, still hoping to see the maid. “The need for truly objective evidence.” He asked Littlewood about walking conditions outdoors.

“Certainly, sir, I should be happy to show you around the estate.”

“I meant if I might need a change of footwear, or if rain were likely.”

“We can go exactly as we are and follow the footpaths, sir. I’d say the sky is pretty settled and no need to worry. And if I may pursue my point, I take it you know of our psychic research with Martha? The evidence in her case is thoroughly compelling.”

Having been on the point of flatly rejecting the young assistant’s solicitude, Sullivan now embraced it, intrigued to hear more. They each took a cane from the elephant-foot stand in the porch before exiting into cool morning sunshine, then at Littlewood’s suggestion pursued a route that would circuit the flattest, most accessible part of the estate. “The Mushroom Walk would likely be muddy,” Littlewood said with earnest regret.

Sullivan’s disappointment was as negligible as his interest in mycology. He wanted to know about the catatonic woman he’d just seen, who he learned could apparently recall past lives.

“Dr Hyle has been applying hypnosis,” Littlewood explained. “We’ve recently taken delivery of a machine to record what she says. Most extraordinary.” Littlewood said he had transcribed some of Martha’s peculiar utterances; Sullivan might see them later if he wished. “If I may ask, sir, do you hold a firm opinion regarding reincarnation?”

“I consider the matter undecided.”

“Perhaps our findings will convince you. You’ve heard of the ‘psychic factor’?”

Sullivan had, and was in fact personally acquainted with the eminent philosopher who had recently proposed it, comparing life to a compound of separable elements. The psychic factor might fly from a deceased person like liberated gas, be absorbed by others and afford them partial memories of an existence not their own.

“I find the theory highly persuasive,” said Littlewood. “Indeed attractive.”

Sullivan was only partly persuaded and not at all attracted. How horrible, surely, that our most precious moments, our darkest secrets, might scatter carelessly for strangers to discover. After every letter is burned, every diary destroyed — uncomfortable truths rising like bones from sodden ground.

Littlewood indicated the next stage of their route. “Why don’t we head this way? I’ll show you what’s left of the observatory.”

All that one would have preferred not to disclose, every inconsistency in the personal history Sullivan had chosen to make public, destined to evaporate at the instant of death and condense upon posterity, a stain obliterating all achievement. How can any man win renown in this world of privilege and prejudice, other than by telling a white lie or two? How can a man find love without inflicting pain? The so-called psychic factor, were it real, would be more terrible than the old superstition of an immortal soul. God forgives, humanity never does.

They reached a small circular building encrusted with ivy; on one side a cracked wooden door that Littlewood pushed open. “Not much to see now, I’m afraid.”

Sullivan peered inside the dark, windowless room where rusted ironwork might once have supported a large telescope. “When was this built?”

Littlewood wasn’t sure, but believed it must have dated from the time of the first Lord Parton, in the middle of the last century. The second Lord gave the house over for use as a military hospital during the war, then sold it to Dr Hyle. “It may be indiscreet of me to mention,” Littlewood said as they resumed walking, “but I believe Martha has some familial connection with the Partons.”

“She came with the house?”

“Not exactly. It was purchased for substantially less than market value; something to do with Lord Parton’s debts, an arrangement over Martha. Though I mustn’t speak out of turn.”

Sullivan was not averse to the young man’s ingratiation. “She was born on the wrong side of the blanket?”

“I don’t know, sir. I believe not. A niece, I think, something like that.”

“You get other people’s lives from her but not her own,” Sullivan said wryly. So much for psychic research.

Continuing their tour, Littlewood indicated some overgrown stone ruins, all that remained from the earliest estate. “Fifteenth, sixteenth century. A castle, I suppose, or fortified house. They say witches were tried here, drowned in the river. All nonsense I expect.” The main house was essentially Georgian with parts added willy-nilly by successive occupants according to their needs and tastes. “The original family was some branch of the Armstrongs, until the last died without heir. Hero of the Napoleonic war, I believe.”

“A colonel?” Sullivan suggested, remembering Hyle’s sardonic remark.

“Something like that.” Littlewood spoke also about his own history; a medical student at Edinburgh, fortunate enough to have been taken on by Hyle. “Axtoun is a superb place to work. Yes, superb. If a little isolated.”

They returned to find a plump, white-haired woman sorting newly arrived mail onto a table in the lobby. Addressing her as Mrs Baxter, Littlewood asked if there were anything for Mr Sullivan, at which the latter interrupted, “Actually it was the newspapers I wished to see.” Sullivan went to pick up The Telegraph and stood leafing through it while Littlewood lifted envelopes from the table and Mrs Baxter huffed at the intrusion on her meticulous work. Where was the review of Sullivan’s book? He’d been assured it was due, yet it was nowhere to be found. Sullivan closed the broadsheet and deposited it indignantly on the table, prompting further restrained disapproval from Mrs Baxter whose mail arrangement it disturbed.

Littlewood asked, “Would you like me now to show you around the house, Mr Sullivan?”

“No, thank you.”

“Very good, sir, very good.”

Sullivan lifted The Times and went up to his room; fatigued from his walk, from having arrived late yesterday evening, and from having been woken in the night by the stick he’d propped back into position, but which he now found to have fallen again. He slid it with his toe to lie against the wall, then sat in the leather armchair beside the window with the newspaper on his lap. A headline about the League of Nations failed to arouse his interest, nor the affairs of the Levantine mandates; it was an inner page that caught his attention, reporting new experimental support for the quantum theory of radiation. Barely had the implications of relativity been grasped, and the human mind was being confronted by a further mystery. Was light particulate or undulatory? The alternatives appeared mutually exclusive yet simultaneously true. Classical logic was as infirm and superannuated as the Ottoman caliphate.

It was a pleasant room of ample proportions in which the unknown Colonel had allegedly expired. A mere legend perhaps, crystallised by repetition and elaboration into assumed fact; yet it amused Sullivan to imagine the red-coated officer falling like the metal-handled cane, invisibly tugged by historical destiny. A century ago, perhaps? The chest of drawers looked to be of that age; likewise the console table where Sullivan had been obliged to deposit his suitcase, having found to his displeasure yesterday that the door of what he supposed to be an adjoining dressing room was locked and without a key. The armchair where Sullivan sat was more modern; but what of the bed he slept in last night — could that be where the Colonel took his last breath? A frequent enough way to go.

Finished with the newspaper, Sullivan moved to the room’s most refined feature, the dark mahogany bureau whose open desk bore correspondence needing to be dealt with and books brought for study. Eddington, Weyl, Thayer, Schindler. Biographies of Beethoven and expositions of general relativity. It would explain Hyle’s comment, if someone had noticed Sullivan’s reading choices and deduced the projects he planned. Though as with the Colonel’s death, it was a question of probabilities. More likely was that Hyle had first heard of Sullivan through some mutual acquaintance who knew of his plans. Murry perhaps — though Sullivan had seen little of Jack in recent weeks, their relations still strained despite an exchange of conciliatory letters, one of which lay unfolded before him.

I had a kind note from Vere. She might type for us at The Adelphi.

The name for the new magazine was Sullivan’s idea, its first issue planned as a tribute to Katherine, a platform for Lawrence.

I think his new book the finest he has ever done, perhaps the greatest he will ever do — incomparably better than Women in Love. If just one of Lawrence’s works continues to be read a hundred years hence, it may well prove to be Fantasia of the Unconscious.

We are always in the midst of history, unable to see where. The Colonel might have sat at this very spot, wholly unaware, on the date already destined to fill the empty space in his biographical bracket. When would Sullivan die; and would he be remembered as anything except the author of some clever articles? His novel might have fared better, had the war not been on. He would try another eventually. But before that, Beethoven. And before Beethoven, relativity; this being after all the field of expertise for which Sullivan was known and valued. Anyone can have an opinion of the Emperor Concerto; harder to form one about the Principle of Equivalence. He slid Jack Murry’s letter to one side and opened Professor Eddington’s book at a marked page. Suppose an observer chooses co-ordinates under the mistaken impression that the geometry is flat.

Since intervals can be compared by experimental methods, he ought soon to discover that his metric cannot be reconciled with observational results, and so realise his mistake. But the mind does not so readily get rid of an obsession.

Sylvia was pretty, from a good family, musically talented. There is however a distinction to be made between rational choice and instinctive impulse. Take that girl at the fair, for instance, whatever her name was. A pick-up on Hampstead Heath not long after Sullivan had started at the War Office. Told her he was on the lookout for the Kaiser’s spies which made her laugh. Riding the merry-go-round together, smelling the perfume on her bare neck.

It is more likely that our observer will continue in his opinion, and attribute the discrepancy of the observations to some influence which is present and affects the behaviour of his test-bodies. He will, so to speak, introduce a supernatural agency which he can blame for the consequences of his mistake.

Some marriages are simply impossible, like squaring the circle with straight edge and compass. So it was with Sylvia. Or look at Murry and Katherine, for heaven’s sake. Her consumptive turn towards the esoteric, prolonged refusal to let Jack join her in France — practical and spatial manifestations of an emotional disengagement that must have long preceded her physical deterioration. Good Lord, thought Sullivan, four months already since she died.

How might he paraphrase Eddington’s notion? Sullivan took up his pen, and in his notebook wrote, Space and time are contributed by the mind itself; they are forms of perception. In that case, what is reality? Staring at the blue ink drying on the page he thought of that girl at the fair, and the picture palace they later went to, where a changing pattern of light and shadow projected from a whirring cinematograph evoked a sequence of events involving the theft of a racing trophy. They were in the shilling seats, he remembered, separated by a curtain from the cheaper area where people could be heard talking, their voices as loud as the clicking of the machine. In the darkness he placed his hand on hers, she asked softly if he was “comfy” and leaned into him. At a moment that felt inevitable she turned her face to meet his lips.

Sullivan wrote, When I speak of “reality” I mean something that remains the same for all observers who are trying to order experience in the same way as myself. How might he state it more succinctly? Every reality is a relative reality.

An hour later he went down to the drawing room. Gray was there, reclining comfortably on a yellow sofa beside an elegantly dressed woman smoking a cigarette in a long amber holder. She stood to introduce herself as Dr Hyle’s wife, Gwendoline. Taller and younger than her husband, slim and angular featured, she shook Sullivan’s hand then poured for him from the silver pot on the coffee table before rejoining Gray who was looking unexpectedly cheerful, clutching a small china plate on which slid a half-eaten biscuit. “Carlo Gesualdo,” he said suddenly to Sullivan.

“I beg your pardon.”

“Prince of Venosa. Ever heard of him?”

Sullivan settled with his coffee cup onto an easy chair. “Can’t say I have.”

Gwendoline interjected. “Nor had I, until Cecil educated me.”

Gray explained that Gesualdo had been a composer with a style far in advance of his era. “Imagine it — a man of the sixteenth century using the harmonies of Wagner.”

“Astonishingly prophetic,” Gwendoline agreed. “Which I suppose is why he’s been forgotten; born out of his time. Though rather a horrid specimen, from what you’ve told me.” She explained to Sullivan, “He murdered his wife, you know.”

“And was unable to go to the stool without being flogged,” Gray reminded her, beaming. It seemed a further indication of the familiarity existing already between them.

“Arthur has dealt with several cases involving masochism,” said Gwendoline. “As a sexual perversion, I mean. Though in sublimated form we might see it as underpinning a good deal of creative activity — wouldn’t you say, Mr Sullivan?”

After taking a sip, Sullivan conceded that the search for inspiration was often a self-inflicted agony, with gratification long delayed.

“Gesualdo’s music was thought shocking, disgusting to the ear,” said Gray. “Now we hear beauty. A union of contraries: thesis and antithesis.”

Sullivan wondered what might have happened to induce such a transformation in the morose individual with whom he had breakfasted only a couple of hours earlier, and who now appeared so animated. Noticing the rosy flush of Cecil Gray’s cheeks, and knowing his liquid predilection, Sullivan suspected that already the young man had imbibed something stronger than coffee.

“Ah Cecil, is it Hegel again?” Gwendoline teased, just as her husband entered.

“God, I hope not,” said Arthur Hyle, helping himself to a biscuit and shedding crumbs while backing onto a chair next to Sullivan’s. “Bit soon in the day for him.” He turned to his neighbour. “How was your walk?”

“Mr Littlewood kindly accompanied me,” said Sullivan, who was about to mention Martha when Gray interjected.

“The coincidence of contraries!” Gray exclaimed. “Yes, I’m with Cusanus and Bruno. Hail, docta ignorantia!” Warming to a theme only his own prematurely lubricated mind could entirely appreciate, Gray elaborated on a paradox more fundamental, he insisted, than that of Diderot’s comédien. “As Anatole France has it, c’est dans les plus grands pécheurs que se trouve l’étoffe des plus grands saints.”

“Should we consider you a saintly sinner or sinful saint?” Gwendoline said, laughing. Rather than slow Gray’s torrent of thought this accelerated it.

“I should have become a criminal had I not chosen art,” Gray continued. “The two vocations are, after all, essentially equivalent. Either type must know which rules to break, which to observe, and to what end. A murderer caught stealing a bicycle is a poor artist…”

“Are we speaking of Gesualdo again?” suggested Dr Hyle, who must have heard Gray’s story of him already.

“Only a man who has experienced the fullest and most extreme range of human emotions could write such music,” said Gray. “Compare him with, let’s say, Elgar. A perfect gentleman, I’m sure — and there’s the problem.”

Sullivan felt obliged to contribute. “Are you saying that only a monster can make art?”

Gray was effervescent. “To the contrary! What we often see is a complete contrast between the artist and the art. Bartok for instance, the sweetest and most generous man you could wish to encounter, perhaps the closest I’ve met to a real saint. Yet when he played the short score of his Mandarin for me in Budapest I thought I was hearing the very devil. Or Delius, our musical Wordsworth. Brigg Fair is wholly charming, though you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of the man who wrote it.”

Sullivan was surprised at how well connected this obscure young man appeared to be. Why had they never met previously? Was it simply because Gray was too often intoxicated? There entered the maid whom Sullivan had seen at breakfast — prettier now, he decided — wishing to know if any replenishment were required. Gwendoline having given instruction, the brief interruption then afforded her an opportunity to displace the conversational centre. To Sullivan she said, “I believe you’ve met Einstein.”

Sullivan had been in the audience during the great physicist’s London lecture two years previously, though rather than elaborate on this contingent detail he described Einstein’s imposing appearance.

“Is that why you wear your own hair so?” Gwendoline japed, remarking on Sullivan’s bushy dark mane through which he was at that moment running his fingers.

He laughed. “This comes from my Irish blood.”

Gray said tartly, “I might have guessed you were a fellow Celt from your name though not your accent.”

Sullivan ignored the remark, speaking instead of how struck he’d been by Einstein’s endearing humility, his modesty and simplicity.

“Nothing modest or simple about his ideas,” said Hyle.

Sullivan disagreed. “It’s the very simplicity and economy of his basic postulates, together with the vast extent of their applicability, that makes the theory so powerful and beautiful.”

Hyle smiled. “You hold an aesthetic view of science.”

“I would call it humanistic.”

“As you please. In any event it would appear that Einstein has been able to vindicate, by means of mathematical analysis, what had already been appreciated through spiritual insight, namely the existence of a fourth dimension.”

Cecil Gray again interrupted. “Have any of you read Gautier’s Club des hachichins? It inspired me to try an experiment.”

“With hashish?” Gwendoline asked.

“No, with time, using hashish as apparatus, together with a mantel clock.” Gray then described how, under the drug’s influence, he had observed the hands of his timepiece halt and go into reverse, displaying to him every moment of his past until he felt himself about to disappear into the primal void. On the very verge of non-being he had willed time to redirect itself, thrusting him forward to the present and then to a future that was blurred and indistinct.

“A pity you couldn’t see any Ascot winners,” Sullivan commented.

Finally, said Gray, he arrived back in normality; wholly convinced that time was a dimension exactly like space, through which one might travel at any speed and in any direction. “The past and future exist as fully right now as the ground beneath us or the sky above. They’re merely beyond our ordinary senses.”

Gwendoline liked this theory but offered her own version, which she said occurred to her when she was nine or ten years old. “Time is like a soiled tablecloth. A spot of jam here, a speck of mustard there — each a moment of history. What we don’t realise is that the cloth is folded in a basket. The French Revolution and Magna Carta could be touching one another.”

“Rock strata,” said Hyle, evidently not wishing to be left out. “Successive geological eras exposed in an eroded cliff face — aeons simultaneously portrayed.”

“Or a layer cake,” Sullivan suggested. “Sponge for the classical period; a bit of Dark-Age jam on top of that; Renaissance whipped cream…”

Gray broke in, asking Hyle, “Have you tried using hashish with your patients?”

“I administer many types of opiate, like any physician,” he replied gravely. “I must disappoint you though, Cecil, if you think we might make here a club of hashish-eaters.”

Gwendoline laughed at her husband’s comment and said to Gray, “Your relatives would be none too pleased to find themselves supporting such a thing.”

This prompted some social pleasantries from which Sullivan gathered that an engineering concern in Edinburgh was the source of Gray’s private income as well as some of Hyle’s funding. Resuming his topic, Hyle said, “It’s quite tiresome, having to deal with record-keeping and form-filling since the new drug regulations came into force. On the other hand, I do think it quite necessary that the public be protected from quack remedies which can do more harm than good. I once treated a manic-delusive and found the cause was bromide he’d been taking for chronic migraine. When I got him off the bromide, he decided the delusions were far more pleasant than the headaches, so he went straight back on it.”

Horace Littlewood appeared at the doorway. “Sir, if I may intrude, I’ve prepared the equipment.”

“Thank you,” said Hyle, and Littlewood departed. “Mr Sullivan, I’d like you to hear something.”

Gray snorted. “Is it about that queer woman again?” He glanced at Gwendoline beside him. “Mad as a hatter if you ask me.”

Hyle gave a cough and stood, inviting Sullivan to follow. Littlewood was waiting for them at the room Sullivan had passed earlier, however Martha was no longer there when they entered. Instead Sullivan saw on the table a pile of shellac discs in paper sleeves, beside a polished wooden-cased phonograph with a long black horn. Littlewood leaned to wind the machine, rapidly at first then more slowly as the tension increased, finally removing the crank handle and inserting it neatly in its holder beside the turntable where a disc was set spinning.

“Mr Littlewood has informed me about your unusual patient,” Sullivan told Hyle.

“And what do you think? Can a person’s previous incarnations be revealed by hypnosis?”

“It would require extraordinary evidence.”

“You are about to hear it.”

Hyle bade Sullivan sit with him at the table. Littlewood moved the stylus onto the disc and stood back. The three waited as the hiss and crackle from the horn became augmented by other sounds; a low murmur, a scrape of furniture, then something recognisable as Hyle’s own voice, raised in pitch by the machine and reduced in natural resonance, yet clearly audible and perfectly intelligible. “Patient M. Session number four.” The first minutes of the recording offered only the calm words of Hyle to his patient, almost as soporific for Sullivan as they must have been to Martha. After this invocation there was silence, apart from the inescapable susurration of the disc and one or two scratches intruding as recurrent clicks. Then a moan. Sullivan shivered at the unearthly reverberation that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than a woman’s throat and lungs. Instead it struck him as infernal. Martha’s voice strengthened, wavered, took on an almost masculine air and began forming itself into what sounded like fragmentary phrases of a foreign language.

“What’s she saying?” asked Sullivan.

“We’ve no idea. Littlewood has been trying to transcribe it.”

It went on for three or four minutes until the side ended and the disc needed turning. Then there was further gibberish.

“You’ve your work cut out for you, Mr Littlewood,” Sullivan observed.

“It’s no language I can recognise.”

“Wait,” said Hyle. “It’s not all like this.”

The second side was nearing its end when Martha’s voice altered, becoming childlike. “The apples and my place of waves and apples of…” The recording broke off; Littlewood prepared to place the next disc on the turntable.

“A pity we always have gaps,” said Hyle. “Though Littlewood has become quite adept at minimising them.”

Sullivan felt there was little to be missed. The resumption offered further meaningless rambling. He was hearing the standard repertoire of every spirit medium or self-styled clairvoyant; a cacophony of whoops and cries, bursts of random chatter, snatches from the ethereal realm. He was almost expecting to hear her ask if anyone present knew someone named Raymond.

Soon it was time once again to turn the record.

“I feel I may have heard enough,” Sullivan said gently.

Hyle appeared discomfited. He instructed Littlewood to go straight to disc number nine, second side, though when it began playing there was nothing to be heard except some extraneous popping. “Wait a few moments,” Hyle assured his guest. No moans now, instead the hypnotised subject burst all at once into a new voice; feminine, rapid and completely coherent. Hyle said, “This is Therese.”

Therese

What a send-off old Ludwig got. Thousands turning out to see the procession, even the schools were closed. Me and Johann walking solemnly behind the coffin, torchbearers either side. Behind us the choir singing, trombones parping. Couldn’t wish for a better show. At the graveside there was praise for his famous tunes — went on a bit. Holz gave me a crafty look. Life is for the living, as they say.

No sign of that opera Ludwig wanted me to fetch. I thought Schindler might have snaffled it but the scrawny wretch was saying nothing. I expected it to turn up when the estate was inventoried — but in the auction catalogue, not a squeak. Plenty of so-called sketchbooks, flogged for a florin or two each. Some gullible nitwit gave more than seventy for a few volumes of music exercises. There were other bits and pieces the publishers and collectors snapped up — but no opera. Holz had said it would be worth more than I could ever imagine. Looked like I’d never get the chance of not being able to imagine it.

At least we managed to get the mural sorted. Couldn’t get the Italian back, but we did find a sign painter able to mix the right shade of blue. So there it was — job done — you’d never know the sky over Bonn was once defiled by three pairs of socks. Johann wondered if we’d done the right thing — he heard of someone who sold a pair of window shutters Ludwig wrote on. I said to him, if you think your brother’s scribbling could add anything to the value of our mansion, you’re an even bigger fool than he was.

We’re sitting together one evening, I’m sewing, he’s reading. Well, got a book under his nose. Something about hedges — seems there’s a lot to be said on that subject. I ask him why and he says he’s thinking of buying more land. But can we afford it? Certainly, he says, and I protest, what about all the household expenses I’m managing, servants and the like? Is there a hidden pile of money I don’t know about? Johann stares straight at me — his bad eye looking past my shoulder — and he says, if anybody is hiding something it’s surely you. I ask what he means and he says, what about your latest tricks with the gardener? Grass stains and the like. I’d been on my knees with the shears, that was all.

Any marriage has to have secrets. Just make sure they balance. If Johann wants to know how my handkerchief ended up where it did, I’ve a right to ask about his financial affairs. Though if we’re going to trade, there’s cheaper things I could let go of. Keep him off the scent with something else that’ll get his attention.

“Did I ever mention the Molnars? Family I worked for when I was about eighteen years old.”

“Before I ever knew you. What about them?”

Molnar was a physician, decent enough fellow, lived with his wife and children in a nice house in one of the better parts of Vienna. His missus was a gloomy stick — had as much spark in her as a wet rag on a bonfire. She didn’t socialise, unlike her husband who often had gentlemen friends round of an evening, I’d hear their chatter through the wall. One night Dr Molnar summons me, I’m supposing he wants some task or errand done, though when I step into the room I see everyone sat around, looking at me expectantly. Damned if I know why.

Take a seat, the master says to me, all pleasant and polite like I’m a guest. There’s a small table with a chair either side, he wants me on one of them, takes the other. A jug of water, two glasses. I sit and gaze at the faces gawping back at me, half a dozen or so, all very respectable looking. I’m wondering what this is about — have I done something wrong? I wait silently while Dr Molnar reaches into his pocket and brings out a little piece of crystal, yellow in colour. Reaches across the table and holds it in front of my face. Tells me to look into it. I ought to be asleep in bed — I’ll be up scrubbing steps in a few short hours — but there I was, staring at this thing glinting in the candlelight as he slowly turned it in his hand. This went on for a while, then he withdrew his arm, put the crystal back in his pocket and declared, you have no legs. Flipping silly, but that’s what he says — you have no legs. Then asks me to stand up. And blow me if he wasn’t right — I couldn’t feel my own two pins! It was like somebody had come and sawn them off when I weren’t looking. There I was, straining to stand up, even trying to push myself from the chair with my hands, and all the men laughing. Dr Molnar did something with his fingers and my legs came alive. I shot up, everyone applauded. Then I was sent off and went to my bed wondering what the devil had gone on.

Johann’s looking interested, wants to hear more.

Some nights later, Dr Molnar calls me in again. Don’t know if it was all the same gentlemen this time — think I recognised one with a long nose and another with a red face. Again, the yellow stone, the trick with my legs — no idea how he could make them disappear, but he did, then brought them back. And something else. Molnar turns to one of the men, tells him to operate the instrument, whatever that meant. I look round and there’s this fellow younger than the others who’s stood at a contraption the like of which I’d never before clapped eyes upon. A long wooden box on four legs with a handle at one end — made the strangest sort of music when it got going, like when you rub your finger on the wet rim of a wine glass. They call it an armonicon.

“Was this during the occupation?” Johann asks.

Indeed it was — Dr Molnar started making quite a regular exhibition of his experiments with yours truly, and sometimes a few Frenchies would show up in his house. I’d be sat there getting my legs taken off, or my arms, nose, hair, and always he’d put them back again after his assistant had made odd noises with the armonicon and I’d been given some green jam to eat. I thought nothing of it, except I was losing hours when I ought to be sleeping — though I did find myself taking short naps while the gentlemen were watching me getting pulled apart and put together. A Russian came, or perhaps he was Livonian, I’d hear talk between all these fellows leering at me, try to work out who and what they were, though my head would be spinning. Dr Molnar instructed them about animal magnetism, said he had the power to make me do anything he wanted. And I’d sit there like a chump while he spooned sweet stuff into my mouth from a little saucer.

“Are you speaking truthfully, Therese?”

“As truthfully as always.”

“And what was the outcome of all this?”

In the summer I’m sweeping floors and suddenly I’m sick as a dog, legs like butter, thought my master might have magicked them away again, but no, nothing removed, instead something had got put in, if you take my drift. I was in a delicate condition and went to stay with my married sister in Linz until little Amalia arrived the following January. Of course, my family wouldn’t believe anything I told them about magnetic fluid, nor let me keep my daughter who was placed in an orphanage while I was sent straight back to the Molnars, the doctor having settled matters financially. Then the seances started again, only this time I was careful not to doze, and I also tried not to sup too much green jam that I was sure had something to do with making babies. But by the autumn of that year it happened again, and although I lost that one, the doctor’s wife put her foot down. He’d better find somebody else for his experiments — I was out on my ear and back to my sister’s. That’s not what I told Johann.

“You see, it was through Dr Molnar that I met Franz.”

“Your first husband attended those seances?”

“No, he came needing treatment for chest pains. Which is how he later died, of course, leaving me struggling to look after Amalia.”

“So you sent her to stay with your sister in Linz, then later joined them.”

“Exactly.”

“Which is how you and I first met.”

But not yet, because Napoleon only went and started another flipping war, didn’t he? There were cannons popping all around the city, horses and wagons pouring in, enemy soldiers taking every scrap of food. Wouldn’t have been so bad if they were Frenchies — them ones knew how to behave, with their fine clothes and nice way of talking. No, these occupying troops were ruddy Swabians, uncouth slobs with horrible accents who were only fighting for Napoleon because they were told to. They’d have served anybody that could promise them sufficient bread and beer. Wurtembergers, mostly. Thousands of them gobbling our food, requisitioning houses and property, helping themselves to whatever they fancied — and you can guess what some of them wanted. What with all the hunger and sickness going round, a bit of fraternising was the only way to survive. A cavalry officer said he could get me work as housekeeper for an unmarried pharmacist, name of Johann van Beethoven. One thing led to another, and by time the enemy moved out of Linz, I’d moved in with Johann. To all the world I was still his housekeeper, but the two of us knew it was something more, and that suited us perfectly. Eventually Amalia was able to join us, and my happiness was complete.

“What’s made you think of your first marriage again after so long, Therese?”

“Oh, I don’t know. But since I’ve let you in on an old secret, why not return the favour?”

“I have no secrets. I’m like an open book.”

A book about hedges, for instance. He wants to carry on reading, and I’m asking myself how much it’ll cost, this bit of land he’s buying. What’s it for? What other business does he get up to behind my back? Makes me steamed up, just thinking about it. Imagine the unfaithful wretch robbing our Amalia of her inheritance! Later in bed I try prying more out of him, but that doesn’t work. Starts on about me and the blooming coachman. As if!

Next evening we’re drinking wine together after dinner. Amalia asleep, the cook away. I’m admiring the decanter, saying what a lovely bit of glass. Stroking it like a cat as it stands on the table between us. He has one eye on my finger, the other aiming somewhere else. Trying to concentrate his mind — or just tipsy.

“I did always wonder how you managed to do so well for yourself during the war, Johann, when half the people were starving.”

“Hard work, my darling. Simple hard work.”

He’d always told me that the pharmacy was pretty rundown when it came up for sale. Looked a bargain, though he still needed a loan to buy it. Hadn’t been running it all that long when I came on the scene, and already by then he was prospering.

“Must have been up to your eyes in debt at the start.”

“You know I sold off surplus stock and fittings.”

Yes, I knew that story. Iron window bars sold for scrap. Old tin medicine jars. Metal prices high on account of the blockade, so if he used earthenware jars instead he could pocket a tidy profit. That’s what he told me and everyone else, and I’d always been content to believe it. The seeds of his fortune. What about the manure?

“A few lumps of metal wouldn’t have paid off the loan,” I say, nudging the decanter towards him.

“It’s long in the past.” Johann refills his glass.

“When those bloody Wurtembergers came, surely they raided the shop?”

“I suppose they chose not to.” He sips and smiles.

I can see I’ve nearly got him. “Of course, there were some smart enough to see an opportunity there. Folk with more brains than me.”

He nods. “Come to an arrangement, you mean? With the enemy?”

“Hardly even that. We were all Germans, weren’t we? Spoke the same language, just about. Different if they’d been French what took the city, that would have been treachery. But Wurtemberg? Flipped sides soon enough and told Napoleon where to go. Way I see it, anyone helping them during the occupation was doing Austria a favour in the long run.” Johann’s looking sleepy so I’d better get on with it. “You struck a deal with them, didn’t you? Clever boy.”

“Hardly matters now.”

I pull back the decanter. “So how did it work?”

He burps then says, “I supplied medicines.”

“Very smart. And look what it brought in the end after selling the business. Who’d have thought we’d have our own carriage to ride in? Really, though, do you need to be buying even more land?”

He tells me it’s an investment. What in, I ask him.

“The future.”

“Whose?”

“Yours and Amalia’s. Nephew Karl.”

He speaks of the inevitable, sounds like he truly means it. Legacy, that’s what’s on his mind. How to make sure the right proportions go to the right people. So all’s well, as long as too much doesn’t go to Karl who’s inherited more than enough from Ludwig.

Another question comes to mind. “Was it only medicines?”

Johann’s lids are dropping. “What?”

“During the occupation. Would have taken an awful lot of pills to clear your debts. Mind like yours, I’m sure you thought of some better schemes.”

He chuckles, drains his glass. There’s red wine on his chin and shirt. Looks disgusting. “Schemes? Oh, yes.” Puts the glass down heavily.

“Go on, then. Tell me.”

Not all the Wurtembergers fought willingly for Napoleon, Johann says. He was approached by one who was part of a band of patriots smuggling goods to England. Could they use the pharmacy as a store? Certainly, says Johann, if he can be recompensed for his efforts, not to mention the risk. Oh, it’ll be worth your while, the officer assures him, and next thing Johann’s getting all these supplies to look after. Cases of fine wines and spirits. Sacks of dried goods. Hidden in his shop for a few weeks at a time, then a nice gratuity whenever they get collected. I don’t believe a word of it, so I ask Johann, who was this so-called patriot, and he tells me his name — Adeling.

I damn near faint. Adeling? Officer in the Wurtemberg light cavalry? The very same fellow who got me the job as Johann’s housekeeper! I don’t let on, and Johann’s too drunk to notice my confusion, which is just as well. I ask him, “Did you make up the scrap metal story to hide the truth?”

He tells me the new earthenware jars he filled his shop with were Adeling’s. Johann opened one once and there was white powder inside, smell nearly took his head off. What the devil was it? I’d have been sure to find out, but Johann never asked and didn’t open any more. I ask him how long he was handling contraband for this Adeling and his secret club. Until Napoleon’s abdication, he says. Doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that Wurtemberg was back on our side by then, meaning Adeling was no freedom fighter, only a crook.

And what about when Ludwig came to Linz in such a rage? First time I ever set eyes on the hairy bugger — wondered how he knew about me and Johann. Maybe he didn’t. I ask Johann, had Ludwig somehow got wind of your racket? At which point my husband has had enough — no more questions!

Still so many, though, lying awake in bed while he snores beside me. Why keep silent about cheating Napoleon? Some folk would have wanted a medal for that. What was Adeling really up to, what became of him? My mind’s in commotion. So to soothe myself I imagine Dr Molnar’s gentle voice. Men seated around me, the strange music of the armonicon. The faces are all of people I know or knew. Ludwig, looking miserable. The gardener and coachman. Adeling, as best I can recall. I ask Adeling if Johann’s story is true, but he won’t say. It’s up to me to choose. Dr Molnar puts two saucers of green jam on the table and says that one will show me the world as it is, the other as it ought to be. A voice behind me says no — one saucer is deadly poison, the other harmless. Someone else says both grant immortality, but only one can bring happiness. And a third says that one kills the wicked, the other only the wise. I taste both, and they’re exactly the same. My legs disappear, then my arms. My belly and breasts dissolve, my head evaporates. Nothing left but a voice.

Three

Coyle

“Robert? It’s Hazel, your Mum’s neighbour.”

I can’t remember exactly how much Hazel told me on the phone, only that Mum had died and I needed to be there. Even now, the precise circumstances of Mum’s death remain unclear. There were two days when, for the most trivial of reasons, I didn’t call, and it was during that period that her heart gave out. Hazel had noticed the house was quiet, without activity, and after a lot of banging on the door and windows, Dad answered and said simply, “Anne’s passed away.” I can imagine him looking dishevelled, speaking without emotion, as if it were the television or cooker that had ceased to function, rather than his wife of more than sixty years.

When I arrived a few hours later, Dad was in the living room with Hazel, both in blue face masks as I was. Two police officers were upstairs in the bedroom where Mum had been found. From what Hazel had seen, and the little she’d gleaned from Dad, it appeared Mum had fallen and been unable to get up. Dad had covered her with some coats, lay down on the bed and slept. When he woke later she was silent and motionless.

We heard footsteps descending — Hazel stayed with Dad while I went to the narrow hallway to speak with the officers. They were called Stuart and Zoe — he was markedly tall, she was slightly built, and even with their faces mostly hidden I could see how young they were. Stuart did all the talking, extending condolences from both of them. Their eyes expressed the humanity I needed.

“Is she upstairs?” I asked, finding it necessary to sit on the staircase. Stuart nodded. I’d rehearsed the scene while driving north, imagining Mum laid serenely on the bed. I’d kiss her, take a lock of hair, spend time quietly. “Can I see her?”

Stuart’s brow furrowed. “If you want. Though I’d think carefully about it.”

The picture I’d made for myself didn’t match the one Stuart gave me when I asked for greater detail. Mum was still lying on the floor where she’d been found, just inside the doorway that her body was partially obstructing. Clothed, decent. But was this really the last image I wanted to have of her, Stuart wondered, then added, “You’re not allowed to touch her. Because of covid regulations.”

I sat pondering this strangest of dilemmas. I’ve heard it said that seeing the body of a loved one is always best, as part of the grieving process. Yet I’ve also heard that grief supposedly evolves in stages, like the growth of a plant, and this was plainly false, since in only a few hours I’d experienced all of them — a dissonant chord with notes of varying strength. Stuart gently told me that he’d been in situations like this before. It was my decision, of course, but he’d advise against.

I don’t know which was right. The problem with counterfactuals — the paths not taken — is that we never get to find out where they would have led. I chose not to go upstairs, not only because of Stuart’s comments, but because at that moment the clearest tone in the emotional spectrum was something like acceptance. Mum had passed from being to non-being. The corpse upstairs wasn’t her.

Stuart said they were waiting for the police undertakers to come. There were no suspicious circumstances, but there was a procedure to be gone through following any sudden death. In coming weeks I was to become familiar with the Scottish Fatalities Investigation Unit and the Procurator Fiscal Service, while trying to give Mum a funeral and Dad some sort of care, amid the pandemic and its complications. The missile that had struck our family was a kind that had hit so many others, in so many ways.

I had calls to make, relatives to tell. I was in the kitchen on my mobile when the undertakers came and I caught a glimpse of a large black object carried out on a stretcher. Stuart and Zoe were going to the mortuary too, but would be back later. I went to the living room where Dad was sitting silently with Hazel, looking as if he didn’t quite know who she was. She’d done so much for both my parents while I’d been more than a hundred miles away, too scared or obedient to risk breaking any rules. I suppose I must have asked at some point if she wanted tea, or maybe she asked me. By now it was very long since she’d raised the alarm — I couldn’t say how long, since time had lost its meaning. I said she should go and rest, thanked her again for everything, and showed her out. Then I returned to Dad, and in the silent room what vibrated most strongly in my head was anger.

“What happened?” I asked, getting no response except a vacant stare. His hearing aids were gone, never to be found. I asked again, more loudly, and when he showed a flicker of understanding, shouted. “What happened?”

Finding sense in the disordered account he gave was like trying to extract meaning from a shredded document. Staying at the house with him over the next three days I was to learn she’d gone upstairs, been sitting on the bed, then slid off. Or perhaps he’d tried to help her off the bed, and she’d tripped. Alternatively she might have slumped backwards on to the bed and he’d attempted to heave her upright — in some versions of the story he mimed the flexing of his weak arms. Somehow she found herself on the floor, and was reaching for furniture. I’d told her many times to keep her mobile phone constantly to hand — on this occasion it might have saved her life, if she’d known what to do with it, though neither of my parents had ever got as far as being able to text, and I’m not sure they understood battery life or credit limit. There was an old corded phone in the bedroom, a relic of the 1970s. Dad only had to push 9 three times, but didn’t. In a moment of clarity he said he’d tried to pass the phone to Mum where she lay, but the cable wasn’t long enough.

The question that haunted me, then and now, was whether she knew she was dying. Did she somehow think she could sleep on the floor until Hazel called in the morning, then everything would be alright? Was there time for her to find some kind of peace, say her mental goodbyes, after so much futile clawing at whatever drawer handles were within reach? Seeing her body would never have answered it, nor the post mortem, delayed for weeks because of covid, which finally would report only the inevitable failure of a weak heart pushed to its limit. The police, GP and other professionals I spoke with during this time disabused me of any assumption acquired from television dramas of forensic omniscience. The moment when a person has died, and the exact manner in which it happened, are matters of history as well as science, so that determining them can be like trying to reconstruct troop movements at Waterloo or the signing of the Magna Carta. There had been two days when I didn’t speak to Mum — it could have been any time then. Hazel said there was a horrible smell when she entered the house — she’d opened all the windows. Was that a clue? How to weigh it against Dad’s blurry insistence that Hazel arrived only a few hours after Mum’s death? Philosophy concerns itself with questions for which there can be no final answer — my academic expertise was as germane as anyone else’s in a case that could be closed but never solved.

I hadn’t realised this yet during my initial interrogation of Dad. My questions tired him; shouting them exhausted me. He rose to go to the toilet and spent a long time upstairs. I eventually found him asleep on the bed. Beside him on the floor where Mum had lain there was a heap of coats and scarves — whatever he’d found to put over her. The only smell from them was of her perfume. I went back down and sat at the dining table, where her address book lay open — it was how Hazel had found my number. In other respects the cluttered table was exactly as it had been before Mum went upstairs. Her medicine box was there, her spectacle case, a nail file. Yet she no longer existed, the person who had brought these objects together.

When Stuart and Zoe came back I felt strangely calm, or perhaps simply numb. Zoe still said nothing; I guessed her to be a rookie on her first death call. Stuart ran through questions on a form he completed on his lap. Dates of birth, addresses, occupations and so on. When I said I was a lecturer he wanted to know what subject, seemed pleasantly surprised when I told him, and asked more about my work. I somehow got on to my book about Plato, and the one about Beethoven that I’d been asked to contribute to. He said he didn’t know much about classical music, though he’d done trumpet lessons as a kid. There was a mutual understanding between the three of us that in other circumstances — an accidental meeting in the fire-lit snug of a country inn, perhaps — we’d all hit it off and enjoy a pleasant hour of convivial chat. But we were in a different kind of situation — a sort that Stuart knew how to handle, Zoe was learning, and I never wanted to be in again.

The formalities having been dealt with, they stood to leave, Stuart apologetically offering a verbal handshake in place of the forbidden actual one. I was sorry to see them go, after all the comfort, reassurance and empathy they had brought, just by being there. On closing the front door I stood in the hallway listening for any snoring or other sign upstairs, and heard nothing. Then to the kitchen again, and the laundry basket beside the washing machine. There were clothes in both — Mum’s and Dad’s in a tangle, midway through mundane routine. What was I meant to do with them? Unable to decide, I turned my mind to food, specifically a supermarket chicken I’d brought with me. It had been in my fridge, needing to be consumed and intended to provide a few peaceful meals, until in the half-hour aftermath of Hazel’s call I’d had the presence of mind to save it from going to waste. I now put it in the oven to roast, started looking for anything else to have with it, and suddenly wondered why I was bothering.

Most of the time between getting the call and starting my car had been spent crying, wailing, pleading aloud in the full knowledge that nothing could be reversed. At the same time I’d thrown clothes in a case, thought of the chicken, remembered my medication and toiletries, even my carpet slippers and bedtime reading, as if I were taking a weekend holiday. In extreme situations we may lose our wits, but not our adherence to trivialities. The novel I’d brought — I have it here with me now — was J.W.N. Sullivan’s But For The Grace of God, at whose pages I sat staring while the bird cooked.

My copy is a first edition, published in 1932 when Sullivan was 46, signed illegibly by a previous owner. The receipt inside reminds me that when I bought the book, there was still hope that my Beethoven chapter would be published. More importantly, it was a time when Mum was alive, Dad’s dementia could be too easily dismissed, and I could unconsciously pretend that nothing would ever change; we would all live until some moment rendered negligible by distance, as when photographers speak of an object a hundred yards away being “at infinity”. On re-reading Sullivan’s fictionalised memoir I’m struck by his thoughts on middle age:

The realisation that one has reached this stage, that one has hardened out of the malleability of youth, seems to take place gradually. In many cases it seems to be attended by a desire, more or less intense, to take stock of one’s life, to make an orderly scheme, as far as may be, of one’s dominant experiences. I suspect that many great philosophical systems have been produced in this way. In our own day, when systematic philosophy is discredited, this desire, amongst those who write, assumes other embodiments. Thus we may have a book on ‘everything’ masquerading as a novel, or as a criticism of Shakespeare, or as a history of music.

I wasn’t taking it in properly while the chicken cooked. Dad came downstairs, with no idea of time or day, his mind floating, his movements laboured and uncertain. He looked surprised to see me; the eyebrow flick of wordless greeting was like a reflex. Dad tottered to his chair and slumped, waiting for whatever was in store for him, then after we’d stared at one another for a while, both unmasked, I said, “Are you hungry?”

“Eh?”

“Food. There’s chicken.”

“Eh?”

I shouted, “Chicken.”

The word coursed like a ball in slow motion, entering and rolling in his brain, gradually creating an impression. “Chicken? Aye, alright.”

We ate at the dining table where Mum’s pill box and other ephemera still lay. I fetched a bottle of wine, drank most of it, and also brought some cheeses that were in the fridge. She would have been expecting to eat those. Now she was a figure of history. I asked again how it happened, eliciting details that were incomplete, inconsistent, spoken without any feeling except puzzlement. After our meal, Dad returned to his chair and I switched on the television, watched the news with him, tried to read my book.

There was so much needing to be done — I don’t remember when I started, or with what, but already by the end of the first day I’d contacted the local undertaker, social services, phone company (there was a bill to pay — Mum had previously done everything by cheque at the bank). I’d googled death, Scottish law (power of attorney, guardianship), covid rules, more Scottish law (Sheriff Court for when there’s no will — or was there?). All the household correspondence I could find went into a cardboard box that had been a container for carrier bags — an abundance of statements, notices, appointments. Frenetic activity made it easier to bear the loss that made it necessary. Dad fell asleep in his chair and was still there next morning when I came down having had little rest.

The social worker I’d spoken to, Michael, arrived around eleven. Dad had cleaned himself up by then, eaten breakfast, and seemed alert, though there were the usual communication difficulties.

“Dad,” I shouted, “this is Michael.”

“Eh?”

“Hello Mr Coyle. Sorry to hear of your loss.”

“Eh?”

“Michael’s from social work.”

Everyone entering the house had been compelled to pull aside their face mask in order to be understood while speaking slowly to Dad. Michael was able to get as far as conveying who he was and why he’d come, but for the sake of his vocal chords and our eardrums he subsequently addressed me at a normal level while Dad looked on.

“How long would you be able to stay to help?” he asked me.

The question had ominous weight. I told Michael I could manage another two days. The truth was that I didn’t know if I could stand even one. It was proposed that Dad go to a nursing home for emergency care while we figured out what to do. Michael made the call; all I needed to do was pack a bag and drive Dad there whenever we were ready. This would have been straightforward if my father had heard, understood and agreed with anything that was being decided about his immediate future. I tried to explain after Michael had left.

“We’d better get your things together.”

“Eh?”

“I’m taking you to a place where you can be looked after for a wee while.”

“My face? What about it?”

Repetition and restatement simplified the message to its elementary constituent.

“Care home?” he exclaimed, eyebrows rising indignantly. “No way.”

From what Mum had told me in phone calls, and Hazel had repeated, and present circumstances appeared to confirm, Dad could not be safely left alone. If I was ever going to see my flat again, I had to get him to Beech House, where a quarantine suite awaited. Persuading him he needed care was like trying to make a fly stop a lorry.

“I know all about they places, Robbie.”

“We have to give it a go.”

“Eh?”

Stirred by a senile vestige of fight-or-flight, he grew unusually alert, following me upstairs where I went looking for clothes to pack.

He asked, “What if I came to Durham with you?”

The nightmare scenario flashed briefly across my mind, the drive alone presenting a logistical headache of Normandy-landing proportions. How far would we get before he needed the loo? Where did public peeing stand in the pandemic regulations?

“We can’t do that, Dad.”

“Eh?”

“I don’t think it’d work.”

“Till I’m sorted.”

Parallel to the confusion of unmatched socks and capacious underpants I was stuffing into a duffle bag, a dark stratagem crystallised. Let him think what he liked — in truth we were going to Beech House. When he began finding tee-shirts to add, I knew the poor sod must have fallen for it, perhaps imagining he’d soon be staying at my former address, which my ex-wife now shared with her latest conjugal victim. I was cheating him through silence, or more properly through his inability to hear anything less than ninety decibels.

How long a stay we were packing for, was as vague as why we were doing it. The filled bag stood like a bomb in the hallway while I made us both lunch, opting for obesity-inducing microwavable ready-meals from the freezer since there was no knowing when or where the next calorie input would arise. Then it was time to trundle him out to the car, though we’d only got half way down the path when he remembered his hat. We went back inside and he pulled it from a peg, the black leather trilby he’d worn for years, seen so many times by me when I’d taken him and Mum on outings. I’d always thought it mildly ridiculous — now it was heartbreaking.

“Come on, Dad.”

He perched it on his head and for the briefest of moments looked young again, almost fooling me, just as Mum had done, masking her suffering. We exited again and I saw Hazel and her husband at their window, gave them a solemn wave, and hoped they wouldn’t step out, asking the plan — for there was none. The duffle bag and hat went in the boot while Dad installed himself comfortably in the front passenger seat, then we drove off, following GPS directions he couldn’t hear. Never having learned to drive — a task he left to Mum — he had perfected the art of non-stop in-car commentary, a habit he now revived to the detriment of my already frayed nerves.

“See those works they’re doing… There’s the new Asda… Remember the school that was there…?”

It was another false rejuvenation; the revival of something so typically infuriating yet painfully endearing, relic of what had been loved, image of irretrievable past. All the time I was wondering how the hell I was going to handle arriving at Beech House. He had no inkling of the unusual route we were taking, and at a convenient point I pulled over, said I was a bit lost, got out. The warden who answered my call was clearly well practised in these situations. Tell him you’re both coming in for a cup of tea, she said. How many frail, elderly parents have fallen prey to that one, I wondered.

Ten minutes later it was time to put the sorry ruse in motion. “I could do with a coffee.”

“Eh?”

“There’s a place we can go.”

Beech House resembled no cafe this side of the Cold War, though it could just about pass for a budget motorway lodge or student hall of residence. At the entrance we were greeted by a young southeast Asian woman who offered us polythene aprons like her own, and a healthy dose of hand gel, then we were led along a corridor to a neat, clinically featureless en-suite bedroom where we were invited to sit, and a blonde nurse asked how he took his tea. Dad had evidently rumbled by this time that we weren’t in Starbucks, though he kept his cool until the other nurse came back with a form to check him in.

“Is this a joke, Robbie?”

“What else can we do?”

“You said we were going to Durham.”

“I didn’t.”

He got up. “We’re leaving.”

“Dad…” I looked pleadingly at the two nurses, but this was a part of the script I had to play alone. My father walked out to the corridor; I went after him. “It’ll only be temporary.”

“Eh?”

A tiny grey-haired lady appeared from nowhere, politely offering assistance, until the Asian nurse gently led her away. The other asked my father to step back inside the room.

“You’ve no right!” he complained, immovable.

I went in, squirming, hoping I could lure Dad back.

“Get out here now Robbie and take me straight home.” It was the old tone of chastisement, refracted through years of deterioration into a cracked imitation of self-righteous authority.

“Please, Mr Coyle,” the nurse said to him, “Go and sit with your son.”

“He’s no son of mine — I disown the swine. Sneaky wee bastard, Robbie, that’s what you are! Come out here and show yourself.”

The harangue continued until I went to rejoin him. Dad by this time was breathless, leaning against the wall of the corridor, panting with impotent fury. I wondered what Mum would have thought.

He spoke to the nurse, me or anyone who’d listen. “You’ve absolutely no right. I’m a responsible citizen of this country. I won’t be made a prisoner.”

The nurse — whose name I’d instantly forgotten when she’d told me it at the start — brought out her phone and called a superior. The quick upshot was that Dad was correct — no one had any power to detain him, except the police if he started smashing the place up, which looked almost possible. Now I was the one facing incarceration — in Dad’s house, where there was no one else to look after him.

“Let’s go,” I commanded, managing to contain my rage until we were both back inside the car and I was trying to steady my hand enough to turn the ignition. “You stupid fucking idiot.”

“Eh?”

“What are we meant to do now?”

“Cup of tea, indeed.”

I pulled out onto the road, narrowly avoiding a passing vehicle. “I hate you.”

“Eh?”

“I fucking hate you, you stupid old bastard.”

He must have heard, as he started humming to himself, in a way that was forced and more than usually tuneless.

“You killed her, Dad. She couldn’t take it. Said it was like living with a toddler. I wish to God it had been you and not her.”

The humming stopped. “I’m done with you.”

“Too right.”

I managed to get us back without crashing, got out to open the boot, and deposited his belongings on the kerb for him to carry inside while I returned to the driving seat. From there I watched him slowly find his key, enter and switch on lights. This was worse than divorce, which was bad enough. At such times, there was one person I always turned to — and she no longer existed.

Time passed. It might have been twenty minutes or an hour of unmeasured fury. If he’d gone in and had a heart attack, that would solve it. There was no question of driving off — apart from anything else, my suitcase was still indoors. I suppose I was testing him, challenging the general assumption that he couldn’t be left alone. Maybe he was, after all, as capable as he thought — in which case why had he put Mum through such anguish?

I calmed myself with thoughts of the bigger picture, the eternal unbeing that envelops us all. The point of philosophy is not achieving happiness, but accepting reality. Right now, the reality was that Mum was gone, Dad was refusing help, and I was getting cold in my car. The rest of the godless universe couldn’t give a monkey’s about any of it. Time to go in and see what the bugger was up to.

There was no risk he’d hear me enter — from the hallway I could assess matters with the assured stealth of an SAS soldier. He was in the kitchen frying something meaty — not his arm, most likely a steak. I padded upstairs to the toilet, then to the room where my case lay ready to be closed and removed. Dad wanted me to go to hell — I could flee and leave him to his own. Instead I waited and heard movement below, Dad completing his solitary task and taking his meal to the living room. I imagined him choking on his food. Or falling, as Mum had. I would watch him struggle on the floor, calling for assistance that I’d refuse. Why leave it to gravity, or to chance? Paracetamols in his whisky would do it.

Adam

T hree Men Discuss Relativity, signed by J.W.N. Sullivan. Some lazy sod had left the book on the library chair instead of sticking it back in its place on the shelves where it could continue being forgotten. Inside the back cover was a folded letter, pressed tight having lain there unnoticed for God only knew how long. Mildly intrigued, Adam sat to read it, noticing first the name of the sender, Mrs E.V. Sullivan, and the header: Paradise Farm, Chobham, Wednesday, October 20, 1937.

Dear Dr Hyle,

From the papers of my late husband, Mr John W.N. Sullivan, I learn of his having visited you fourteen years ago. The full circumstances of John’s stay at Axtoun House, and the exact nature of the curious events that occurred, nevertheless remain somewhat obscure to me. I wonder therefore if you might be so kind as to enlighten me further. In the meantime, in anticipation of your response and as a small token of my late husband’s evident admiration for your distinguished work in psychiatry, I take pleasure in enclosing one of his books.

Since discovering John’s notes on your unusual patient — concerning whom, curiously, he never spoke to me — I’ve begun to wonder if some memory of her might have lain behind his later novel, A Holiday Task. I shall not dare to suggest that that book’s fraudulent mediums and hoax seances were based on anything John actually encountered — rather, I’m intrigued by his conjecture that even one who simulates spiritual force might invoke its power inadvertently.

It is no secret that John dabbled in table-turning following the death of Katherine Mansfield, a tragedy that so deeply touched all who knew her, myself included. That would have been around the time that he was involved in your peculiar case, and was also when plans were being laid for the new Adelphi magazine, to which, as I’m sure you must be aware, John was to make so many outstanding contributions. In fact, this was how I came to know him, as I worked there for a time as Mr Murry’s secretary, to the apparent amusement of Aldous Huxley, whose Point Counter Point grossly distorted the true situation. My place in literature is not as the butt of Mr Huxley’s sarcasm, but as dedicatee of John’s Beethoven, published not long before we married. I suspect he might already have been contemplating that wonderful book when he came to you at Axtoun. Could events there even have influenced it?

More certain is that he would have begun work on Three Men Discuss Relativity, which you, as a man of science, will be able to understand far better than I. John saw in modern physics an overturning of old materialism, and the need for a new and wider vision, perhaps of a kind that artists, theologians and mystics had already discerned, however vaguely. As he told me, energy is never extinguished, only converted into new forms. To myself in widowhood this is a notion that brings hope and comfort.

Adam folded the letter back inside the book and laid it on the table. Hardly worth pinching, really. And with time to kill before sherry, he ought now to justify his first afternoon at the Hyle Centre with some creative wordage.

Arriving back at his flatpack cabin in the woods and opening the suitcase occupying a significant percentage of the minimal floorspace, Adam retrieved his laptop and set it on the desk. Despite the various annoyances he’d suffered, or perhaps because of them, he felt a diffuse kind of inspiration. Now at last he could work on the novel that had been in his head for years, a dormant volcano with still a bit longer to smoulder while his laptop whirred slowly to life. Certainly he was proud of milestones like Saveloy, or his acclaimed episode of Chills (“Dead scary” — oldboxboy.co.uk). But let’s face it, he mainly did those for the money. How many shows will still get re-run once the original audience have finally gone to the great garden centre in the sky? Not that Adam had any delusions of immortality, of course, but at least those musty books he’d thumbed in the library remained physically present, just as his novel would.

First, though, he had to deal with a low-power alert whose urgency made him get up to retrieve the mains unit from his case, followed by some experimental fiddling to get the cable running conveniently between the desk and the socket near the kettle. Jane Austen never had to worry about crap like that.

Settling at last to resume work, Adam viewed the smorgasbord of icons filling his screen, and spotted the folder he hadn’t opened in a while, called NOVEL. Inside, a single file, CHAPTER ONE, which he opened so that he could re-read two words he’d written months ago, above an otherwise empty page.

Chapter One.

Was it a mistake to have erased the opening he previously envisaged? Save your drafts, he’d advised aspiring script-writers in workshop classes — you never know when you might need them. But he also instructed those hopefuls to murder their darlings, which was exactly what Adam had done. Write in comfort was another of his maxims, so he got up to make himself a cup of tea, and wondered if he should have a digestive with it. Would it spoil his appetite? Fifty minutes till sherry, and there’d likely be a load of pre-prandial chit-chat with random arseholes in the common room before sit-down, so no harm in a precautionary nibble. He brought his steaming cup to the desk and placed it to the right of his laptop, and on the left his biscuit plate. He looked again at the screen.

Chapter One.

What was that buzzing noise? The computer or something in the room? He closed the laptop lid, putting it to sleep. Yes, he decided after carefully listening, the room was indeed affected by a constant low hum, irritating now that he was aware of it. The electrics, he assumed. He reached for his case again, this time to retrieve his writing pad and a ballpoint. Random doodling was a good way to get the creative juices flowing. He tore a leaf from the pad, tossed it down beside the biscuit plate and wrote Noise! A one-word prompt — think what comes next. Lifting the page to ponder its narrative question he saw that on the desk where it had lain, there remained a fine indentation made by the pressure of his pen. And when with the other hand he raised his cup, a white ring blemished the wooden surface. Bloody marvellous. He moved cup and page to the little kettle table, then returned to position his writing pad and pen conveniently beside the laptop. He opened it and typed.

Noise!

Not much but it was a start. Adam fetched his tea, cooler now, and placed it on the writing pad. Rather than continue, he decided to rewrite.

There was a strange sound.

Another sip of tea, the cup on this occasion lifted with such abandon that the pen beside it got flicked away onto the carpeted floor. Looking down around his chair, Adam failed to see it. He stooped under the desk, groping, and began crab-crawling across the floor in search of the implement. He could see under the bed; no pen in view, though there did appear to be a small object of some kind lying close to the skirting board. He stood and slid the bed to get access, reaching down and lifting what he found to be a USB stick. Must have been lost by a former resident. Most likely the late Robert Coyle. This was more interesting than the ruddy pen.

Adam turned, plugged the little flash drive into the side of his laptop and sat to see what was on it. A balloon popped up with a ping, requesting patience while assuring Adam that his unfortunate predecessor’s remains were indeed being chewed over by the machine, whose inscrutable analysis eventually resulted in another ping. Errors in volume. Repair? Adam chose Yes, watched the little timer as it circled and was eventually rewarded. The memory stick held a single folder: ASSASSINS. Pretty ironic choice from someone destined to fall off his perch like a tired budgerigar — but what was in it? Adam clicked to open the folder. Password required. Damn him. Why put such security measures on his own files? Financial records, porn — Adam couldn’t think of anything else worth the effort. He pulled out the stick, returned to work and was pretty much into his second sentence when there was a knock at the door. Adam went to answer and found Scotch-egg man.

“Hey, don’t wanna disturb, just thought to swing by. Neat place you got.” Was the Yank expecting to be asked in? He was peering past Adam’s shoulder, assessing the cabin’s interior. “I was taking a walk before dinner. Join if you like.”

This was the friendliest proposal Adam had received since arriving, and a perfect reason to break off from the effort of writing. He could look for his pen again later. Departing with his rescuer, Adam found they were taking a direction different from the one he’d followed before. “I’m Adam, by the way,” Adam reminded his companion.

“Sure, I remember.”

“And you…?”

“Ryan.”

That was it. Dotcom something. Their path took them past a couple more cabins, out of the wooded area to the edge of a small lake at whose far side stood a renovated barn that was apparently an art studio.

Ryan lifted a stone and tossed it at the water. “Too bad you missed Bare-wick.”

“Actually it’s pronounced Berrick.”

“Hell yeah. What did you make of Claudia?”

This came too abruptly for Adam to consider a proper answer. “Not much.”

Another pebble thrown. “She’s seriously crazy. Watch your step, know what I mean?”

Adam didn’t.

“The dude she’s with, Alphonse,” said Ryan. “Very protective. The Russian physicist here, Rostov, damn near got his lights put out.”

“Hold on, now, did you think I was coming on to her? We hardly exchanged a word.”

“I know, I’m not insinuating anything, only saying the guy’s easily ruffled. With Rostov it was some totally innocent comment started it. Blew over and they shook hands. Leaves a mark though. Everybody knows — that’s why I’m mentioning, in case nobody else did.”

“Well, thanks.”

They walked on, around the lake to the tall barn whose painted door Ryan tried, finding it locked. “Too bad,” he said. “Sometimes they let you take a look. Pierre’s got a sculpture thing going on. Guess he’s someplace else.” Ryan looked at his smartwatch. “Got a while if you want the full circuit.”

A track led up to a bare ridge, breezy though still pleasantly sun-warmed. It afforded a clear view of much of the estate; a contoured patchwork of moorland and pine forest widely encircling the house and its carefully crafted grounds.

“Must be worth a fortune,” said Adam.

“Would if it was any place you’d actually want to go to,” Ryan suggested. “Not here in, like, nowhere.”

There was something Adam thought to ask. “Since you’re a tech expert, perhaps you could help me. A friend’s relative passed away and left some documents on a flash drive, password-protected. Is there a way to unlock it?”

“Depends on the encryption. The lowest level is easy, there’s lots of freeware that’ll do it. Any idea what they used?” Adam said no, so Ryan explained how one might diagnose what kind of security was deployed, and Adam listened carefully, wishing he could take notes of all the terms.

“Would my friend find all of this online?”

“Sure. Most folk, they download some app they think is going to keep everything secure and it’s piss easy to break in. Even use the default password. Don’t need to be a hacker to get past dumb-ass stuff like that. Not that I’m saying anything about your friend’s relative, of course. Only a lot of people, especially beyond a certain age, they aren’t too savvy.”

Following the ridge they came to a whitewashed concrete column, waist-high and topped by a smooth plate of weathered brass. “Looks like some sort of triangulation point,” said Adam. “You know, for surveying.” He recalled what Frieda had said about the site’s military use and imagined war games played out on the surrounding hills. Ryan leaned on the column, admiring the scenery, and Adam felt the gastric rumble of a lonely digestive. Almost sherry time. During the last part of their walk, Adam enquired about Robert Coyle. What was his field of interest?

“I don’t know, he didn’t say much.”

“Old?”

“Yeah, well. About your age.”

They reached the house and on entering found people descending the stairs. The red-haired Australian was with a slim bearded man in a black polo neck sweater who smiled thinly at Ryan’s greeting.

“Hey, Pierre, too bad you weren’t at the studio when we passed. You met Adam yet?”

Pierre extended a long-fingered hand bearing a ring of semi-precious appearance.

“Adam Crouch,” said Adam. “I hear you’re a sculptor?”

Pierre consented warily to a categorisation that suddenly sounded too simplistic, and Adam regretted having inherited it so readily from the computer geek beside him. The four men proceeded with the other guests.

Ryan asked the Australian, “What about you, Blue? Been busy?”

“Had a little siesta,” Blue laughed. “Time now for an aperitif.”

In the common room the drinks table bore four large, silver-rimmed cut-glass decanters holding sherries in varying shades of brown and gold, all being served by what’s-her-name who provided Adam with the medium dry he opted to sample. Glass in hand, he drifted away from Ryan, both tacitly acknowledging they’d spent enough time in each other’s company, and he resolved also to avoid Claudia who was at the room’s far side with a man who might be the hot-headed Alphonse. Adam instead stationed himself near a short-haired middle-aged woman and the physicist Rostov who were standing silently together.

“Adam Crouch,” said Adam.

“We met,” Rostov muttered.

“Pleased to meet you, Adam,” the woman said. “I’m Deborah.” She had purple-framed spectacles with large lenses, several conflicting colours in her attire, and was a psychotherapist from London. Adam wondered if she knew about Arthur Hyle’s former nuthouse, though he didn’t put the question in quite those terms.

She shook her head. “Robert knew rather more.”

“Coyle? The one who…?”

“Yes, terribly sad.”

“He was a psychiatrist?”

“Philosopher. Interested in time.”

Rostov joined in gloomily. “He tell me about person who came here and wrote about relativity.”

“I think I saw the book,” said Adam, supposing Coyle might have fallen while retrieving it from a high shelf. “It was on a chair.” Meant for this old duffer here, but picked up and left there instead after the body was removed.

Rostov said nothing. A man gave his life doing a favour for the ungrateful tosser — least he could do would be to show some interest. Instead a handclap made all heads turn. Frieda stood in the doorway and announced that they could take their seats for dinner whenever they were ready.

“Shall we go?” Deborah suggested to Adam. Their sherry glasses were half full; Deborah deposited hers on the table as they made their way out; Adam took a top up. He’d seen the dining room earlier; four neatly laid tables with six places at each, easily enough to accommodate the less than twenty delegates, many of whom were already seated by the time Adam entered. Pierre was scowling beside a plump, balding woman whose white blouse showed dots of sweat. Deborah brought Adam to sit opposite them and introduced the perspiring lady as Jagoda, a Polish chemist.

“I’m Adam,” said Adam, without offering his hand across the polished tabletop.

The two remaining seats at the end became filled by the historian Graham and someone called George, whom Adam took to be trans, non-binary, or something he didn’t have a name for. As long as Adam didn’t refer to George by pronoun he should be alright.

Two bottles of wine — one red, the other a chilled white — stood open beside a jug of iced water on a platter at the table’s centre. While no one reached for either, Adam sipped at his remaining amontillado. The conversation skimmed innocuously over a situation in Belgian politics and a new report on global warming. There were pandemic reminiscences, remarks about Putin, then someone mentioned the asteroid, the latest bloody ball-ache that Adam had already heard more than enough about. Plates of food were served; four completely different menus between the six of them. Adam had gone down the “no special requirements or preferences” track on the online form, and appeared to be in the minority. As soon as his roast beef landed in front of him, he went for the bottle of red.

Beside him, Graham said how much he had enjoyed Jagoda’s lecture that morning on industrial nanoparticles. This was something else Adam had missed by arriving too late, a misfortune to be regretted even less than a Scotch egg in a Wetherspoons. There was a danger that the moist chemist might repeat her analysis of surface area per unit volume for the benefit of those too thick to have comprehended it already; instead Deborah enquired about Pierre’s progress, allowing the omni-dimensional mega-artist to speak of woodland excursions in search of timber. Sounded a lot like sculpture of the regular kind, Adam reckoned.

Second best part of the meal, after the wine, was dessert, which again proved to be a multitude of targeted offerings. Adam’s was rhubarb crumble with custard, still glowing in his stomach when coffee was served. Finally it was time for Frieda to make another announcement: the music recital would begin shortly.

Claudia and Alphonse, Adam realised, looking round the room, were absent; fed elsewhere or preparing to perform on empty stomachs. Their own special dietary requirement perhaps: complete abstinence. The event was to take place upstairs in what Frieda referred to as the salon; Adam hadn’t been escorted beyond ground level by her earlier, so here at least was a promise of novelty, albeit at the cost of having to sit silently through a boring concert. The company all rose and made their way behind Frieda to the balconied first floor landing that led off in one direction to guest quarters and at the other opened onto a big posh room with rows of chairs facing a glossy black grand piano stationed near the high bay window. Frieda was first to enter the empty salon and chose a seat in the front row; Adam selected one at the rear, nearest the tall double doorway he’d come through. Others likewise stationed themselves at distances proportional to their respective interest or state of impairment; a momentary burst of electric whistling indicated the use by one delegate of a hearing aid, quickly adjusted. Adam’s neighbour was a young woman he’d spoken to earlier — quilt artist. They exchanged bland pleasantries, both thought to switch off their phones, and as the room fell into expectant quietness Adam looked at the paintings and tapestries decorating the walls, and the mute piano with its lid propped open like a vampire’s coffin. Near it stood a fluted white column supporting a terracotta bust of a bearded man; Arthur Hyle perhaps, or some other illustrious former occupant. People began applauding; Claudia and Alphonse had come in from the doorway behind and were walking past the audience to the piano; Alphonse in a tuxedo, Claudia in a glittery silver-white floor-length gown, her hair elegantly tied up. The couple held hands as they bowed to the assembled company, then Alphonse sat and adjusted the pages on the piano’s music rack, and Claudia positioned herself at the instrument’s bend with statuesque dignity, her palms joined contemplatively. That dress really showed off her figure.

“Ladies and gentlemans,” she said in an accent Adam still could not confidently match with any place on Earth. “I happy for us being together and that we share this vocal selection. We lost recently dear friend and I begin with tribute to memory of Robert Coyle by compose he admire — Peter Warlock.”

Never heard of him. Alphonse played a mournful introduction and Adam imagined Coyle ascending with unstable limbs the fatal stepladder. The rhapsodic thought was quickly interrupted by Claudia’s operatic voice. “Come, sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving lock me in delight a while.” Adam tuned out; this classical bollocks wasn’t for him. Warlock was followed by other equally obscure composers; the worst was a Dutchman, Van-Something, whose weird tune went all over the place, Claudia and Alphonse the only ones likely to appreciate it. As half an hour wore on, Adam glanced at fellow victims seated ahead and noticed watches being checked, necks rubbed, arses shifting. Yet among the blatant fidgeters were others, rigidly attentive or rapturously immersed, clearly musical initiates who knew what to make of the foreign soprano’s facial contortions and expressive swaying. Eventually it was all over, thank God, and the performers gave an extended repeat of their hand-holding bows to sustained applause from onlookers moved by emotion, or just grateful at being released.

Time for more drink, surely; though the guests’ dispersal was in several directions, many retreating to their rooms, some descending to the lobby, a few making to leave the house. One such was Blue; Adam caught up with the ginger Aussie and frankly asked the question uppermost in his mind: was there a bar?

“Course, mate. Out here and around the corner.”

They exited into summer evening light and soon were re-entering by way of a modern-looking extension to a comfortingly shabby space, its decor somewhere between social club and hospital waiting room. Rostov, the only person to have got in faster, was already leaning on the laminate counter with credit card at the ready while a waiter Adam had seen at dinner squeezed whisky from an optic on the wall. The Russian nodded sullenly in response to the two newcomers who in any case were more interested in deciding which of three available beers they should choose. Blue had tried them all, he said, and indicated the middle tap as favourite, so Adam ordered two pints once Rostov had been served.

“Join us?” Adam suggested, but the Russian instead shuffled off through a doorway to the main building.

“Miserable bastard, that one,” Blue snorted as he and Adam took their glasses to a low table by a window. “Mind you, his loaf’s not short of a slice. Think he got a Nobel or was in the running, something like that. Smart fucker. Gave a talk I couldn’t bloody understand, nor anyone else. Cheers, mate.”

Adam sipped the foam of his pint then said, “I heard he got in a fight with the pianist, Alphonse.”

“Rostov? Not that I know about, only saw the pair of them shouting.”

“Ryan told me,” Adam explained, and Blue shrugged, returning his glass to the table.

“You ask me, Ryan’s looking to get inside sister’s knickers.”

Adam was surprised. “Claudia is Alphonse’s sister?”

“So they say. Definitely something weird going on there. Keep it in the family, like. Way things go in wherever the hell they’re meant to be from. Tried googling them yet? Lot of gaps in the CV.”

Adam hadn’t tried, though could appreciate it as an inevitable pastime of residents bored after a week or two of intense proximity. Claustrophobia might also explain why the bar lacked customers. “Not a popular place,” he said, scanning the empty room.

Blue concurred. “Cash bar’s a turn-off. Rest of the year, when the centre’s hired out for conferences and functions, I bet it’s rammed. Met Hines yet?”

“The Director?” Adam knew the name from emails. “Tomorrow, I think.”

“Just don’t ask too much about who else uses this place. You know that billionaire who got rubbed out, the one in the car, went off a bridge? Can’t remember the name. Had his daughter’s birthday bash here. Got some rapper I’d never heard of to perform, Ryan told me. Hundreds of guests. Got to be grateful, it’s how we’re all here.” He raised his glass. “Thank you, Saudi Aramco, the NSA and Christ knows who else launders a bit of petty cash in so-called research centres.”

“I thought that kind of thing got cleaned up.”

“Pull the other.”

Both were soon seeing through the bottoms of their glasses. “My shout,” Blue said cheerfully. “Same again?”

Adam readily agreed; the beer he’d drunk was mixing with the earlier wine and sherry to create a soothing alchemy; the familiar sensation of mild intoxication. While Blue went to the bar, Adam gazed through the window at the twilit grounds outside; and when the next round was deposited on the table and Blue took his seat, Adam said, “I found something in my room. Must have got left behind, not sure what to do with it.”

“Give it to Frieda, I expect. Anything valuable?”

“USB stick. Probably no use to anyone. Though with being Robert Coyle’s, and him being dead…”

Blue frowned. “How d’you know it was his? Name on it?”

“He was the last person in the cabin.”

Now Blue shook his head. “Hold on, Sherlock, they didn’t put you in Robert’s place, he was staying in the main house.”

“Then who was in mine?”

“Damned if I know,” Blue said with a shrug. “I think they gave Robert’s to Claudia so she might have been in yours though I couldn’t say, it’s like musical bloody chairs in this place, ruddy prima donnas whingeing about a hard mattress or the colour of the flaming wallpaper. Now she’s next door to Alphonse, better for their bedtime chats I suppose.”

Possibilities were swelling, bursting and evaporating like the bubbles in Adam’s booze-warmed brain. The flash drive could be Claudia’s, or Alphonse’s, or even that billionaire who went off a bridge. The rapper. The hundred guests. Bloody anybody. Whoever it belonged to, they wanted its contents securely protected.

“Know anything about cracking passwords?” Adam asked the buddy who, in the space of little more than a pint and a half, had become someone he was prepared to trust with his life.

“The memory stick’s got one? Could have a look if you like.”

Adam was about to say more when the entry of two new customers silenced him. Ryan and Deborah smiled hellos at them across the empty room.

“Let’s try tomorrow,” Adam quietly told Blue, bringing the subject to a close as Deborah came to join them and Ryan went to order.

Blue raised his glass. “Evening, Debs.”

“Late to the party as ever,” she said, sitting down and then asking both if they’d enjoyed the concert.

“Not really my kind of thing,” said Blue.

“Nor mine,” Adam agreed.

Deborah however had thought it divine. “It was so touching to include the Warlock.”

Blue conceded it was a nice tribute to the unfortunate Coyle, then added, “We were just talking about him,” to Adam’s dismay.

“Here comes your drink,” Adam interrupted, seeing Ryan’s approach, and when the American had sat down, Adam took the opportunity to steer the conversation safely away. “Ryan and I had a walk earlier.”

“We did, Adam. And by the way, you know when you were asking me about password protection, for your relative…”

“Oh shit!” Beer splashed across the table as Adam knocked his glass. “Sorry, I’ll go and get a towel.” Receiving one at the bar from the patient waiter, he returned to find that the strategic spillage had brought about an effect that was the opposite of what he’d hoped for.

“I’ve been hearing about this flash drive,” said Deborah.

“Your relative’s, right?” added Ryan, only to be swiftly corrected by Blue who explained again where it had been found. “Got it with you?” said Ryan. “Shouldn’t be hard to crack it open.”

The secret having poured out as easily as Adam’s lost beer, it now seemed altogether humbler. “It’s in my cabin.”

“Do get it!” Deborah implored. “I’m curious to know whose it might have been.”

“It can wait till tomorrow. I’m sure it’ll be nothing.”

She was not to be put off. “Password secured, that says something.”

“All I could see was a locked folder called Assassins.”

Blue was intrigued. “Maybe someone did him in.”

“Or he was into gaming,” said Ryan. “You know — Assassin’s Creed?”

Adam could recall his eldest spending hours playing that crap in his bedroom, or claiming to. Didn’t think anyone over the age of fifty would waste time like that, though maybe Coyle had some sort of arrested development. Airing the topic lessened Adam’s curiosity; the next round diluted it to homeopathic level. There might have been a couple more pints after Deborah and Ryan said goodnight and it was only Adam and Blue remaining, but eventually he saw the shutter being pulled down at the bar and decided he could do with a decent kip before his first full day in the funny farm tomorrow.

“I guess you’re right,” said Blue, still supping. “After all, you’ve got that novel to write.”

Adam placed his empty glass on the table and rose to leave.

“You alright getting back, mate? Dark out there. I’ll come and give a hand if you like.”

Adam insisted he was perfectly fine, tottered to the exit and found himself swaying beneath a canopy of dancing stars. It took him a while to find the right path; even longer to reach his boaty gaff and pull the keys from his pocket, only to drop then stoop to find them, tumbling in the process. The struggle of the artist, getting to his feet and finding the door unlocked anyway. Had he left it like that? Inside, turning on the light and seeing everything in place, his case still unpacked, the empty teacup beside his open laptop. There was only one alteration in the scene. The flash drive was gone.

Sullivan

“I think that’s enough,” John Sullivan said as the gramophone needle reached the end of the disc. They had heard only a first brief portion of Martha’s monologue, allegedly the voice of Beethoven’s sister-in-law.

“Quite remarkable, wouldn’t you agree?” said Dr Hyle, seated beside him at the table where the machine continued to whirr until Horace Littlewood moved to halt it.

“Certainly unusual,” Sullivan said after a pause, his scepticism unconcealed.

Hyle instructed his assistant to remove the apparatus; an operation that would necessitate two journeys. Hyle and Sullivan sat silently while Littlewood detached the large horn and placed it gently on the table beside the pile of discs, then lifted the rest of the machine and carried it out, cradled carefully in his arms like a sleeping child.

“You see now why I invited you here to Axtoun House, Mr Sullivan, given your relevant expertise.”

Sullivan sat back, took off his spectacles and wiped them with his handkerchief. Hooking them on again he said, “Therese van Beethoven was a German-speaking Austrian, not someone from wherever Martha’s vulgar colloquialisms originated.”

Hyle agreed that the accent and vocabulary were peculiar, though spirit messages could surely be modified by transmission, adopting the characteristics of the receiver.

“Where was Martha born?” Sullivan asked.

“Professional ethics preclude me from answering.”

Littlewood re-entered to retrieve the horn and discs which he gathered swiftly, giving his superiors a mute, deferential nod before exiting and closing the door.

Hyle said, “I shan’t tire you with further sound recordings, Mr Sullivan; but would you at least do me the favour of reading the transcripts to assess their veracity? Thus far I’ve been able to check only a few details using books I happen to have here.”

“The same sources that Martha could easily have consulted.”

Hyle shook his head. “Her movements are strictly constrained and closely supervised.”

“Then perhaps hypnosis made her recover something she read before becoming your patient.”

“That in itself would be extraordinary,” said Hyle. “But if Martha’s account could be shown to contain verifiable information not previously known, it would surely be empirical proof of a genuine psychic phenomenon.”

Sullivan agreed up to a point. “A single miracle or coincidence furnishes no proof, merely wonder. There would need to be multiple instances, a success rate unattributable to chance.”

“All the more reason,” said Hyle, “why I earnestly hope that you, as something of an expert on Beethoven, will be prepared to give the transcripts your close attention.”

“Of course,” Sullivan conceded, then asked what was actually uppermost in his mind. “How did you happen to know of my particular interest?”

“You were recommended to me,” Hyle said warmly.

“Yes, but by whom? Was it Jack Murry? Alfred Orage?”

“Either of those.”

It was an oddly evasive response. Sullivan pursued the question. “Forgive me, Dr Hyle, but a man is surely entitled to know who shares his gossip.”

Hyle’s aspect acquired a defensive stiffening. “Forgive me also, Mr Sullivan, but I was not given to understand that your work was in any way secret. Whereas mine regarding Martha, quite frankly, is a matter demanding utmost discretion.”

“And you shall certainly have it from me,” Sullivan said with a growing impatience he could barely contain. “Only tell me who gave you my name.”

Hyle glanced towards the closed door, as if anxious of further disturbance, then said gently, “There was, so to speak, a chain of connections that brought me to the one person — yourself — most perfectly suited to my needs. An important link in that chain specifically asked not to be mentioned.”

Sullivan’s puzzlement now approached outrage. “What the devil is all of this about?”

Hyle remained calm. “The chain of which I speak had another element I would have preferred not to name, but shall, at your insistence. It is Mr Aleister Crowley.”

Now Sullivan understood. The social web of that absurdly arrogant, self-styled magician was vast, like his own over-fed girth, but recent scandals surrounding his mystical community in Sicily had caused many former associates to disown him.

“My informant knew of you through Crowley,” Hyle explained, “and it is for exactly this reason that anonymity was insisted upon.”

Could it perchance have been Nina Hamnett, who introduced Sullivan to Crowley in Paris last year? Did Hyle know what transpired subsequently with Sylvia, or indeed with Katherine? “We are agreed then,” Sullivan said delicately, “that our present business should best remain…”

“Entirely confidential between ourselves,” Hyle concluded.

“What about Cecil Gray?”

With a smile, Hyle said, “Cecil has no interest in my work, and I doubt he’ll remember Martha at all, never mind speak of her, when he leaves here and returns to London.”

Sullivan’s concern was different. “I was thinking of your chain of information.” Gray, as a habitué of the Café Royal, surely knew the equally bibulous Nina Hamnett. Might Gray even have been the anonymous informant?

Hyle was not to be drawn. “Let’s say no more about it. I’ve been candid about how I discovered you, Mr Sullivan, and I’m most grateful that you’re willing to help. If Martha’s case is genuine, as I sincerely believe it to be, then you and I might at some stage wish to make it public, in a way that would damage no one’s reputation, and could indeed enhance it. If however I’m mistaken, and you can prove it, then I should naturally prefer the whole thing to be quietly forgotten. In either event I must respectfully ask that you make no external communication about this without my express approval.”

They were interrupted by a tapping at the door; Sullivan expected to see Littlewood, however it was the maid who opened, relaying an enquiry from Mrs Hyle about lunch arrangements. Sullivan’s appetite was dulled by unease, and he had little desire to waste further time in the company of Cecil Gray. He said he had work to do — could he perhaps have a light meal sent up? His request was easily satisfied; Sullivan even thought he saw in Hyle’s face a look of gratitude, and in the maid’s eye, before she departed, a gleam.

When he went upstairs shortly afterwards and entered his room he noticed immediately the walking stick, no longer where he had slid it but instead standing upright once more in its former position. His bed had been made, his shaving bowl removed, the room tidied. On the bureau’s open desk, with his books and papers, lay a sheaf of typed pages: the promised transcripts, inscribed For J.W.N. Sullivan and delivered in his absence before he could even have agreed to look at them. Sullivan’s anger at the insolent intrusion was immediately overtaken by anxiety. He swiftly sat and lifted the new pages from the open book on which they had been deposited — Eddington’s Mathematical Theory of Relativity — itself covering the letter from Murry that Sullivan had returned to its envelope before going downstairs earlier.

The items all looked undisturbed, and Sullivan grew calmer. He had nothing to be ashamed of, only embarrassed if his private affairs should ever chance to be picked over by a stranger. And what use is embarrassment or the fear of it? Be rational, he told himself, tossing aside the transcript he felt no urgency to read. Martha was evidently fraudulent or simply insane.

He nevertheless could not help perceiving a certain irony. Exposing the secrets of a man’s life was after all the task of the Beethoven biographies also lying on the desk. To be deemed worthy of such detailed prying was a mark of greatness, in some perverse way to be yearned for. What if a scholar one hundred years hence should judge Sullivan’s life worth probing? He might discover how Sullivan all but gave his wife to Crowley in France and sped to see the one he truly adored, spouse of his friend. Quite a romantic story, surely — though best judged posthumously.

He returned to relativity, reading about the new mathematical structures thought crucial if electromagnetism were to be joined with gravitation in a unified field theory. It was in the midst of these thoughts that he was disturbed by a voice from the landing outside. It was the maid calling through his door.

“I’ve brought your food, sir, like you asked.”

He stood to answer and found the girl standing with a wooden tray bearing an assortment of cheeses, ham, pickles, bread. Also an open bottle of beer.

“Do come in.”

She entered, paused and looked around the room. “Where shall I put it, sir?”

The desk was crowded, the chest of drawers had his toiletries, and on the console table his open suitcase displayed a tumble of socks and underclothes. Sullivan went and moved the case onto the floor. “Here,” he said. She came to deposit the burden and as she stooped he caught a fragrance of rosewater and sweat. “What’s your name?”

“Jessie,” she said, straightening. She was only a little shorter than Sullivan and looked at him with pale blue eyes devoid of self-consciousness.

“How old are you, Jessie?”

“Twenty.”

“Do you like it here?”

“Well enough.”

He went and closed the door, turned and saw her still standing beside the table, her hands loosely clasped. He asked, “Did you make the bed earlier? Tidy the room?”

“Yes, sir. Is everything alright?”

He pointed towards the bureau. “Were you asked to leave something for me to read?”

She looked puzzled. “No, sir.”

Something about her expression made Sullivan doubtful. “Do you know about Martha?”

She shrugged. “I know who she is.”

“And what she does?”

Jessie said haltingly, “It’s not my place to talk. If there’s nothing else you need…” She approached, moving in the direction of the closed door behind Sullivan, but he raised his hand, gesturing her to wait. It took a moment for him to decide what to do next, which was to reach in his pocket for his wallet. He took out a ten-shilling note and held it towards her like a circus trainer tempting a seal with a piece of fish. “That’s too much for a tip,” she said.

He slid it into her lowered left hand, and as they stood silently he smelled the rosewater again, and the sweat. “Is Martha Dr Hyle’s daughter? A relative? Whatever you tell me goes no further, I promise.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve only been here a couple of months.” She crushed the banknote into the pocket of her apron. “I should go now.”

Sullivan wasn’t ready to dismiss her. He pointed towards the room’s other door, which he’d found locked. “Could you open that for me? I should like to hang my clothes.”

“It’s not a dressing room, sir.”

“Then what?”

“I expect it’s for storage.”

“Open it, then, and I shall store my suitcase there. Or don’t you have a key?”

She looked helpless, rather charming. “I’ll ask Mrs Baxter…”

“Never mind,” said Sullivan, still hoping to detain the girl long enough to see if he might glean any useful intelligence. He nodded at the tray on the table. “Care for some?”

“I’ve work to do.”

“Only a couple of minutes.” Beside the open pint bottle was a single glass; a second was on the chest of drawers. Into each he poured some dark brown beer and offered one to his companion.

“I can’t.”

He raised her hand and closed her fingers round the glass. “I’m not making love to you.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“Nor shall. I simply wish to learn more about this place. Here, let’s sit together.” He indicated the bed, there being no couch for them to share.

“I can’t,” she repeated, clutching her tumbler.

Sullivan perched on the edge and patted where he wanted her to settle beside him. She hesitated then complied. “Cheers,” he said, clinking their glasses and swallowing a welcome mouthful while she took a sip. “Tell me about Horace Littlewood.”

“Why?”

The tremor in her voice made him look and see she was blushing. “What sort of chap is he?”

She sipped again. “Alright, I suppose.”

“Only a little older than yourself, I should guess.”

“Four years.”

“Is that so?”

Her next sip was large and swift. “I need to get on.” She moved to rise; he stayed her with his arm.

“Let’s say you’ve had to help me with something. Who’d complain?”

“Mrs Baxter…”

“We’d tell her about that locked door we both struggled with.” He could see that she remained suspicious. “Don’t have a false impression of me, Jessie. I’m not some swell who thinks he can treat a servant however he pleases. Actually I’m from quite the same world as yourself. I’ve toiled for a living.”

“In service?” she said incredulously.

“Well, no, but pretty menial stuff, believe me. And what I’ve learned is pluck.” He took a hearty gulp of beer. “Have confidence and you can be anything to anyone. Crafty, eh?” She laughed, and Sullivan felt he’d won her over. “How’s Horace? Is he plucky?”

“Horace? I’m not sure… perhaps.”

Sullivan looked towards the desk. “Would he come into a guest’s room without asking leave?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“You and he are courting, aren’t you?”

She seemed startled though not displeased. “Has he spoken of me?”

“I could tell, that’s all.” A lucky bull’s-eye which might prove useful.

Jessie stood. “I’d better go now. You won’t mention it to Dr Hyle, will you?”

Sullivan smiled up at her. “My word is my bond.” He reached out his free hand, and it took a moment for her to register that he wished to receive the half-empty glass she eventually yielded. “Off you go, then, Jessie. And should you happen to learn anything further about Martha, do be sure to inform me.”

“Of course, sir, I’ll do that.”

After she left he ate, sitting in the armchair with the tray on his lap, thinking about Martha’s plainly fraudulent monologue and the Beethoven book he planned. It would not be a biography, any more than the one on relativity was to be a life of Einstein. Rather than equivalent projects they were complementary, like art and science. How, though, should one characterise this complementarity? Chewing and swallowing a piece of bread, Sullivan considered the question.

That the Eroica Symphony and E=mc² are beautiful is mere platitude. If beauty means what is inherently good, as Plato thought, then we have said only that Einstein’s equation is valid, and that Beethoven’s symphony can improve us morally — either of which may or may not really happen to be the case. Opting for the Kantian view that beauty is what stimulates disinterested pleasure, we reduce music and physics to matters of subjective taste, like judging the quality of the cheese Jessie brought. The conclusion, Sullivan decided, is that beauty, if not entirely irrelevant, is certainly of no genuine importance as a means of comparing art and science.

Cecil Gray had asked him which was harder: Beethoven or Einstein. Sullivan had answered glibly, but now thought seriously of the evident mathematical complexity of general relativity in comparison with, say, the great fugue of the Quartet in B-flat that so mystified its first audience. Again, however, such comparison misdirects attention towards personal response. A restaurant menu in Chinese is certainly complicated, but is neither art nor science, though the dishes that arrive might be.

Finishing the last of the beer — and almost regretting that Jessie had been granted some in return for so little — Sullivan attempted to reduce the problem to its most basic terms. What does Einstein’s theory do? It enables verifiable predictions to be made and explains certain observed facts. What does Beethoven’s music do? It neither predicts nor explains — it expresses. What is explained or expressed amounts to a kind of knowledge or meaning that enlarges human understanding. He should ponder this further; however his meal was now finished.

He went to lift the typed pages from his desk, recoiling again at the flagrant impertinence of their having been left in his absence. If not by Jessie or Littlewood, then by whom? Sullivan pensively fanned the sheaf in his hand, assessing the not inconsiderable extent of Martha’s ramblings, and experiencing only mild curiosity to peruse them. Hyle had mentioned the piano; it seemed a good enough way for Sullivan to pass the time until he could summon greater enthusiasm. Rolling the pages into a tube that he stuck in his jacket pocket, he was about to depart, but paused. Previously he had left his door unlocked, with the key on the inner side. Now he withdrew the key for use. As a further measure he removed his personal papers from the bureau and hid them beneath clothes in his suitcase. Finally he re-checked what Jessie had said was a store room, vainly turning its wooden knob and unsuccessfully trying his door key in the lock, confirming what he already knew. He then left to go downstairs, satisfied that any further alien intrusion on his domain here would be not merely rude but positively criminal.

The drawing room was unoccupied, with the grand piano at the far end. He went there, sat at the keyboard, and saw the Moonlight Sonata open on the rack. He didn’t imagine Arthur Hyle to be musical, but supposed Hyle’s wife Gwendoline to have been practising it, and wondered if she had mastered the difficult last movement which had always been somewhat beyond Sullivan’s moderate ability. He played instead the opening, so famous as to verge on cliché, like Wordsworth’s daffodils or the Mona Lisa’s smile, its tragedy muted by some writer’s idle comparison with moonlight on a lake. Such imagery might suit musical appreciation evening classes for tired shop workers, yet could not hope to explain why the sonata was in any way superior to contemporaneous pieces by Cramer, Clementi or countless other gifted composers.

Had Beethoven’s intention genuinely been to depict a nocturnal scene, then the adagio — for all its undoubted beauty — would be only slightly more profound than a hunter’s duck whistle. More than imitation, the music instead suggested meaning. The sonata’s dedication to a young female pupil had transformed it in many minds into a love story. Yet if forlorn hope were all the sonata expressed, it would rank alongside “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”. Sullivan resumed playing.

Every reality is a relative reality. Written in his notebook and pushed beneath some pairs of socks, it could perhaps be the formula he sought. Music expresses a relative reality. No, that was somewhat opaque. How about: music expresses a personal frame of reference. Too cumbersome. Think instead of something similar but simpler, conveying the notion of a personal perspective on the world; a subjectivity that, in the case of a great artist like Beethoven, is not only singular in itself, but also — most crucially — is capable of being expressed by virtue of technical mastery.

He was disturbed by movement at the doorway and turned to see Cecil Gray stumble in, looking tired, dishevelled, inebriated. Lunch must have been good. The slovenly young man’s smouldering pipe jutted askew from the half-smile, half-sneer he threw in Sullivan’s direction. “Very good. Keep playing.”

The air of condescension only added to Sullivan’s displeasure at the unwelcome arrival. Gray was a trained musician, probably a virtuoso, though thankfully too drunk to show Sullivan how the sonata ought to be done. He tottered to a chair near the piano and fell heavily into it. “Moonlight, eh?” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

“Actually I’ve had enough.”

“Not the best of them, is it? I prefer the Hammerklavier.”

“Rather too demanding for me,” Sullivan replied quickly. He waited for Gray to say something more, yet he stayed quiet, his rheumy gaze exploring the room as though seeing it for the first time, like a frog in a jam jar. His earlier mid-morning effervescence had gone wholly flat, but nor had he returned to the moroseness of breakfast-time. Instead he was in some new stage of what must be a daily routine, subject to recurring and competing waves of stupor and sobriety. Sullivan thought to try him out. “You’re sometimes at the Café Royal, aren’t you?”

Gray steered his face to respond. “You go there too? I don’t recall having seen you.”

Sullivan suggested possible common acquaintances and was unsurprised to score with the most flamboyant regulars. Yes, Gray knew Nina Hamnett — his face lit up with recognition. “You’re the numbers man, aren’t you? Nina told me about you. Montparnasse.”

This was ominous news. “What did she say?”

“Described you as hairy.”

“Hairy?”

“Yes. Well you are, aren’t you? Said so yourself. Irish blood.” Gray paused, letting the thread slip from him, then caught it again. “Where were you born?”

“Never mind. Now…”

“Good to be provincial, don’t you think? I quite detest the Scotch, I have to say, though I’m perfectly content to be one myself since it means I can be an Englishman whenever I like.”

It sounded like a line used so often as to have become habitual and automatic, like climbing the stairs after a heavy night out. “What of Paris?” Sullivan urged, though without response. Better be straight with it. “Did Nina speak of Aleister Crowley?”

Gray shifted in his chair, returning from some wine-dream that had diverted his thoughts. He was like a Swiss clock whose moving figures emerge and perform only at intervals, soullessly and mechanically, though in this case propelled by movement of alcohol rather than gears. “Crowley? Haven’t seen him in years.”

“Then you know him?”

“Doesn’t everyone? Good parties. Complete buffoon.”

Hyle’s anonymous informant was neither Gray nor Nina, though likely known by both. Sullivan resumed investigating connections, finding gradually and not too surprisingly that Gray, unlike himself, was one whose contacts arose not through natural sociability, but more from choice of drinking establishment. What the two men appeared to share however was respective friendship with some single widely connected individual. For Sullivan, Jack Murry had been ticket of admission to London’s entire literary world, and he’d made the most of it. The recurring name in Gray’s drowsy orbit was Philip Heseltine.

“Have you met Aldous Huxley?” Sullivan asked. “I believe he knows Heseltine.”

The fact went past Gray’s ear like a barely noticed fly. He sucked on his pipe and said nothing, letting his brown eyes wander again as the comment dissolved into forgetfulness. It was through Huxley that Sullivan had heard of Heseltine: a debauched musician with the foppish air of a bearded Elizabethan poet, an obsession with cats, and a histrionic pseudonym — Peter Warlock.

Might Heseltine know Hyle? Could Aldous be the missing link? Did any of it matter, as long as nothing harmful should come out? Sullivan felt quiet desperation, drumming his fingers against the piano stool he sat upon and watching Gray become increasingly oblivious to the material universe. “Do you know Huxley?” he repeated, prompting a laboured swivelling of Gray’s head, a grunt, nothing further.

Gray looked ready to fall asleep until an abrupt drooping of his pipe brought renewed alertness. The pipe straightened and so did Gray, a sufficient quantity of alcohol having been forced from his brain, enabling him to resume conscious thought. Gray stared back at Sullivan with a masquerade of composure and then, continuing a topic he might at some point have been discussing inwardly with himself, said slurringly, “What do you make of her?”

“Who?”

“The medium woman.”

“Martha?”

Rising to the subject he had initiated, Gray earnestly waved his pipe, gathering whatever partial sobriety the room’s atmosphere could lend him. “Yes, Martha. Believe any of it?”

“Not particularly.”

“No,” said Gray. “Nor I.” With each passing moment he must have been recovering from however many glasses he’d tipped, and would soon require replenishment. “Damn good act she’s got. And Horace Littlewood. I’d say he’s in on it.”

“Why on earth would you say that?”

Gray chuckled, coughed. “Should see what they get up to.”

Sullivan stared at Gray’s fleshy face, waiting for him to continue, but another wave of intoxication submerged him. “They’re lovers? Littlewood and Martha?”

Gray smiled contentedly, then began the process of rising to his feet, leaning on the chair to steady himself. “Where’d you learn this relativity stuff?” he asked, swaying. Sullivan didn’t answer; Gray persisted. “Cambridge?”

It was really none of the man’s business. “No.”

“Ah, Oxford.”

In fact London, where Sullivan had attended evening classes while working for the telegraph company. What did it matter, if Sullivan never went to Eton like Huxley and Heseltine, or to whichever prestigious and expensive school had made Gray into the perfect ass he now was?

“That’s right, Oxford,” Sullivan told him.

Gray nodded, having perhaps forgotten the question. “Time for a nap,” he said, letting go of the chair and tottering serenely towards the door. Having watched him depart, Sullivan swivelled to face once again the keyboard and printed score. He re-began the Moonlight Sonata, taking the familiar arpeggios with little attention and thinking instead of what Gray had said about Littlewood. Did the maid know her suitor was a secret Lothario? Even if Gray were mistaken about that, as seemed perfectly likely, one could not discount the logically independent proposition that Hyle’s meek assistant might be party to Martha’s hoax. It would make sense of the bare-faced manner in which there had been forced upon Sullivan the transcript still protruding from his jacket pocket while he played the adagio to its conclusion.

It remained for him to find the formula he sought for the relative reality Beethoven expresses. An attitude, that was how Katherine put it. Beethoven does not communicate to us his perceptions or experiences. He communicates to us the attitude based on them. That Sullivan’s planned book would not be a biography was consequent upon far more than the superfluity of such an enterprise. Rather it was because a true account of the artist should deal not so much with biographical facts, as with the attitude resulting from those facts, expressed through art, transformed by it, and hence becoming — in however modest a sense — somehow prophetic. Yes, thought Sullivan, prophetic. His book would be about process — Beethoven’s spiritual development. But first relativity. And before even that, he would have to look at the damned transcript.

Coyle

The narrator of J.W.N. Sullivan’s But For the Grace of God leaves school at fourteen, teaches himself advanced mathematics, and discovers the music of Beethoven. He’s called Julian in the novel, but in other respects the details match Sullivan’s own life. During the First World War he’s a volunteer at a Serbian field hospital, then works for a magazine whose young editor has “already acquired a literary reputation as a poet and critic”, clearly John Middleton Murry. At a friend’s soirée, Julian meets a fascinating woman, musically talented and socially superior. “Her features were strongly marked, her nose rather too prominent and her eyes extremely black and brilliant, but, in repose, her face had something of the sadness of a lost and bewildered child.” She’s a cross between Sullivan first wife, Sylvia, and Murry’s wife, Katherine Mansfield.

I was reading the book while trying to deal with Dad in the days immediately after Mum’s death. Following the fiasco at the nursing home, we reached an uneasy truce. Even if I was, in his words, a sneaky wee swine, he still needed me. And much as I was tempted to deploy spiked Scotch as solution to our woes, filial duty prevailed. A GP declared my father mentally able to make decisions, even if they were bad ones. Social work arranged for Dad to be visited three times per day by local authority care staff. Occupational therapists came and looked at the stairs, the bath, and every other feature of my father’s fragile existence, even down to his loose slippers. Two strapping fellows from the fire brigade fitted smoke alarms, and when I pointed out that Dad would never hear them, they said they’d come back with ones that flashed. In the space of a few days I was in close indoor proximity with more people than I’d seen in the last several months, all having to pull aside their masks and shout at the bewildered old soul they were there to assist. “We’re needing to get replacement hearing aids,” I would say wearily on each occasion, though among all the visitors there was never anyone who could help with that.

With the new regime in operation, I drove back to England. I should have been exhausted, instead I felt energised by the atmosphere of perpetual emergency. Online university work gave a reassuringly mundane background to the constant flow of Dadmin, and for further distraction I had a multitude of book purchases prompted by pandemic boredom, from which I learned that Sullivan’s game of turning real events into fiction was common practice among the closely knit literati of the time.

A scene in D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love illustrates this. The setting is a crowded, smoke-filled London restaurant; a large, mirrored room with red plush seats reminiscent of the Café Royal — nowadays a pricey hotel, but in the 1920s a favoured haunt of bohemian artists seeking something stronger than a flat white or pot of Earl Grey. Among the patrons in the novel are Gudrun and Gerald, fictional counterparts of Katherine Mansfield and Middleton Murry, played in the 1969 screen version by Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed. In a different film, the coolly beautiful Jackson could plausibly have played Mansfield herself; but unlike the smouldering Reed, Murry was an aloof intellectual with a distant gaze — the sort of man you could imagine fussing over a large train set in his loft.

At another table sits Julius Halliday — assumed to have been modelled on the composer Peter Warlock — and assorted hangers-on, loudly slagging off Gerald’s absent friend Rupert (Lawrence’s alter-ego — Alan Bates in the film). Halliday (Warlock) starts reading out a letter from Rupert (Lawrence), mocking its earnest intellectual tone. Gudrun (Mansfield) rises in rage and takes the letter from him. The scene isn’t in the film, only the novel — the question is whether anything like it actually happened.

According to Murry, Mansfield was in the Café Royal in 1916, not with him, but with two friends (the painter Mark Gertler and translator Samuel Koteliansky) when they overheard a book of Lawrence’s poetry being ridiculed. Mansfield, like Gudrun (though not Glenda Jackson), went and snatched the copy of Amores which, Murry wrote fifteen years later, he still possessed. But was it Peter Warlock (real name Philip Heseltine) doing the mocking? He, like Mansfield and Lawrence, was no longer alive by the 1930s when Murry told the tale — it was left to Warlock’s friend and biographer Cecil Gray to set the record straight. Gray wrote to Koteliansky, who assured him that Warlock (Heseltine) wasn’t there.

Sullivan similarly twisted fact into fiction. Katherine Mansfield was a music student before she became a writer; Sybil in But For the Grace of God is a composer. Tuberculosis made Katherine flee to the French Riviera with her friend Ida Baker, joined at intervals by Murry. In the novel, it’s Julian (Sullivan) who goes there with Sybil and the prim Miss Phillips. For Mansfield, the end came at George Gurdjieff’s new-age commune near Paris. Sybil dies in the south, in Julian’s (Sullivan’s) arms, deliriously thinking him to be her husband.

The intensity of my interest in these obscure corners of literary history was in proportion to the grief and stress I was managing, though reality could not be avoided. A week after leaving Dad in the hands of social services, I drove back up to check on him. Covid regulations were still in force, with travel between England and Scotland permitted only in exceptional circumstances; but caring for a vulnerable family member, I now realised, was such an exception. Then why hadn’t I gone to help Mum when she needed it? If we hadn’t been so scared of the virus, and adhered so rigidly to rules we didn’t properly understand, she might still be alive.

I let myself in, and found Dad dozing in the living room. It was a while before he woke and saw me on the sofa, my presence causing no surprise, instead only evoking the raised eyebrow that was his standard greeting.

“How have you been, Dad?”

“Eh?”

When he eventually understood, he said he was the same as ever, meaning not very well at all. The room was a mess — the homecare visitors’ job was to prepare food and make sure he was still alive, not do the housework. Over the years Dad had accumulated a mass of useless curios, false bargains and other items thought too precious to throw out, and which Mum had just about managed to hold at bay; but without her restraining influence there was nothing to prevent the clutter from rampaging everywhere. The coffee table was an air-crash diorama; trivial items of ordinary life, fallen in disorder, jumbled in chaos. There were a lot of AA batteries — Dad had a particular obsession with those, as inexplicable as all his other foibles.

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

“Eh?”

I mimed it.

“Aye, alright.”

The kitchen was another scene of disarray. Mum had been dead less than a fortnight, and already the house was becoming a potential TV show — Hoarders from Hell, My Filthy Havel, something like that. This was the place where I grew up — now I could barely bring myself to grasp the sticky handle of the electric kettle. As I filled it, I asked myself a question I’d pondered many times over the years. What was it like, being him? In the past, it had been Dad’s apparently total absence of self-reflection that had made the problem speculatively interesting. Dementia added a new factor. A person without insight into their own emotions could still suffer — in fact might suffer even more than someone able to reason about their plight. Dad’s condition was a modified Cartesianism: “I hurt therefore I am.”

When I came back with his tea he’d already fallen asleep again; a mercy for both of us. After drinking mine, I took my bag upstairs to the room I’d be sleeping in, unchanged since my last visit. Checking next on my father’s room, I found a familiar mess of pointless electrical gadgets and budget tool sets, though no sign that the bed had experienced similar entropy. The duvet was smooth and tidy, except for a couple of sweaters I’d been unable to fit in the bag I’d packed for Dad when we made our abortive visit to Beech House. The anomalous neatness confirmed what I’d already deduced: his living room chair was where he was spending nights as well as days, his sense of time as confused as the space he inhabited.

A sound below signalled the arrival of a homecare visitor. I’d had a key safe installed at the front entrance — a small box with a combination lock — since no amount of door banging was ever likely to stir Dad to respond. I went down to find a plump woman whose mask and luridly dyed hair made age hard to judge, though her local accent pinpointed geography. She was called Emma.

“Has Joseph had his meal?” she asked once I’d introduced myself. Dad had been Joe all his life — now it didn’t matter how many times I told people his name, the one on official documents was all that counted.

“I’ve not been here long. Only made him tea. Think he’s asleep.”

Emma opened the ring binder on the hall table that was encyclopaedia of his existence. “He’s had his breakfast, right enough, but he’s no had anything since.” I followed her to the kitchen and watched her quickly assess the available options. Dad toddled in.

“This is Emma.”

“Eh?”

“Are you wanting some lunch, Joseph? Wee bit toast mibbe?”

“No.”

“I’ll make you some anyway, darling. You go and sit yoursel’ down.”

Dad stayed and watched suspiciously as she found what she needed on a work surface cluttered with empty containers, tom packaging, a swarm of used teaspoons and some small plastic tubes that looked like they’d been in his ears. “Just leave that,” he said, seeing her consider a bar of yellow cheddar sweating in an unlidded Tupperware.

“Do you no fancy cheese on toast, Joseph?”

“Leave it.”

“I’ll make some anyway.”

I guided Dad back to the living room where he hovered at the window, looking out at the garden as if deep in thought, though more likely trying to remember why he was standing there.

“We might need to get someone to look after it,” I suggested.

“Eh?”

“The garden.”

He stared at me and frowned. “I know it’s the garden. Everyone treating me like an idiot. That bitch telling me to sit down.”

“She’s only trying to help.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help.”

He gazed out again, breathing heavily, leaning on the sill for support. Emma came in and put a plate of toast on the dining table.

“There you are, darling.” He swung and saw the offering. “Are you wanting any more tea to go with it?”

Without answering, he moved to the table, sat to eat, and Emma returned to the kitchen where I joined her, ready to apologise for his brusqueness.

“Your father’s lovely,” she said.

This surprised me. “You think so?”

“A bit tired today, but he’s a right sweetie.”

Their relationship was more extended than I’d supposed, and more subtle. Did she speak well of every client as a matter of professional courtesy, or was she seeing something in him that I couldn’t?

“My dad gets pretty impatient at times.”

“It’s understandable.”

She needed to log her visit in the ring binder, and while she did this, I tried to picture what other souls might be on her day’s rota. If Dad was a lovely one, what were the rest like? I was still mulling it over when she said goodbye to my father and I saw her out, then went to sit with him at the table where he ignored me, chewing slowly on his toast with horse-like indifference.

Emma’s view of Dad was perhaps less biased than mine, though I’m not sure either could claim greater accuracy. Nor can it ever be established which fictional version of John Middleton Murry — Sullivan’s or Lawrence’s — lay closest to reality, even if it seems fair to say he wasn’t a right sweetie. Of Sullivan’s portrayal, which he preferred, Murry commented, “Objectively, such a creature appears to me a monster.” Yet when judging character, we’re never objective. To see ourselves as others see us, we first need to decide which others we have in mind.

My assessment of Dad, as he sat chomping, was that he’d killed my mother. I tried to rationalise away the anger. It was like living with a toddler, she’d said. And if it had been a toddler beside her in the bedroom, watching helplessly as she struggled and eventually expired on the floor, no one would condemn, instead want to take him in their arms. He wasn’t a toddler, though, but a smelly, unshaven old man with a gelatinous gob of snot on his sleeve.

A second rationalisation: hate is self-destructive. There was no benefit or utility in feeling the way I did, so why expend energy on negative emotion? Think of him as a stranger — perhaps even see him through the disinterested, compassionate eyes of one such as Emma. She was getting paid, though. Why was I making such an effort?

A third rationalisation: think of him, myself, everything, as fiction. Change the names, rearrange the mental furniture. Play with the pain. Had I been a novelist, like Lawrence or Sullivan, I could have done it here. Instead I can only recall events as they truly happened — fully aware that the perceived flaws of the slime-sleeved toast muncher at the dinner table might actually be enlarged shadows of my own. If anyone let Mum die, it was me. He was incapable, I was neglectful.

An overnight stay was the limit of what I could stomach. The room I slept in had been mine until I left for university — it still bore feeble traces of my far-off teenage years, though most had fossilised beneath a Jurassic sediment of shoe boxes, power tools, raincoats, ancient camera magazines and yet more of those endless bloody batteries. With some effort I could shift an electric heater far enough to see a row of books I’d loved. Pickwick Papers, Don Quixote. Here I was, in what Sullivan called the stock-taking time of life, contemplating a house clearance.

Back in Durham, in a flat where I didn’t risk tripping over a pile of outdated mail-order catalogues, I dug further into Sullivan’s story. In 1920, in Paris with his wife, Sullivan met the occultist Aleister Crowley through a mutual friend, Nina Hamnett, who said, “They got on very well together, as they both were very good chess players and very good mathematicians as well.” According to Crowley, they “talked day and night for a fortnight” about his esoteric Book of the Law and commune in Sicily, and also about Sullivan’s faltering marriage. “Absorbed in his work, he had no taste in common with Sylvia bar music,” Crowley wrote. “He asked me point-blank to take her off his hands for a time… It was agreed that she should return to Cefalu with me, he to join us and work out fully the mathematical theories of The Book of the Law… He then went off to Mentone to bid god-speed to the girl he really loved, a woman writer who was living with one of his editors so long as her lungs would let her.”

Mansfield, we know, was in fact living there with Ida Baker. A caller came asking about Murry and was told he would arrive in a few days with a friend Katherine described to him as:

“A queer fish, a true Bohemian… Sullivan has brains but no intuition, no sensibility. I like him but he sets my teeth on edge. He eats oranges and bananas and aims the peel and skin at the fireplace. When he turns up I always start by liking his society and end by longing for him to go because of his antipathetic habits. I hate myself for this but can’t help it.”

The caller was Sydney Schiff, and his recollection was published posthumously, nearly forty years after the event.

Middleton Murry had come and gone before my next visit to Katherine with whom her husband had left Sullivan, by no means a negligible legacy. He had gone round to a neighbouring tavern for a cup of coffee, accent on the coffee with a drooping of Katherine’s eyes as she explained the reason for his absence.

“And thanks to the Lord for a moment of intercourse with a civilised being. Look at the room!”

I looked and sympathised. One of Katherine’s marked characteristics was her sense of order. It was an element of her atmosphere which exuded a peculiar fragrance. She still exhaled it, but the room was no longer hers.

“I’m sorry I missed Murry.”

“I’m not. He was particularly graceless and argumentative and talked of nothing but money.”

Impossible to judge Schiff’s accuracy about a conversation that had taken place long before, nor about what followed.

Sullivan entered the room, flung his wide brimmed hat on the floor and stared at me through his glasses. Katherine introduced us and Sullivan dropping onto an armchair extended his legs, clasped his hands behind his head, on which a thick mop of black hair hung in a fringe over his brow […] and launched at once into a general disquisition on the difference between English pubs and French auberges in decorative language spiced with pseudo-scientific idioms. Meanwhile Katherine lay back, eyes closed, looking weary beyond utterance.

Ida Baker said of Katherine Mansfield, “She was like a lantern with many sides; not octagonal but centagonal. That was why so many thought they were not just her friend, but her only friend.” Sullivan may have fallen victim to that multi-faceted charm. So did Schiff and his wife, who were wealthy and useful. An entry in Mansfield’s journal: “Lunch with Sydney and Violet. Odious.”

Ida said of Sullivan, “He was kind to me, with a sympathy and gentleness I have always remembered and treasured. He was an interesting talker and a great worker, with a very special interest in Beethoven, with whom he felt he had a close spiritual affinity.” Something Sullivan and Beethoven genuinely had in common, it would seem, was slovenliness. In Beethoven we’re apt to see it as a quirk of genius, the mark of a mind far above worldly concerns. Perhaps Sullivan saw himself that way too. My father had no such excuse. Anyone contemplating the shambles he tolerated, the junk he hoarded, might conclude that he was depressed and isolated, inadequately compensating for some loss or wound suffered long before the death of his wife.

At home in Durham it was hard for me to relax; piano practice had always been the favoured way, but I couldn’t face that now. Instead I’d been losing myself in a chain of literary connections whose diagram might resemble the tangle of charging cables on Dad’s coffee table. Every day there was some aspect of bureaucracy to deal with. When the screen showed an 0800 number I didn’t recognise, I had no idea what I was about to deal with.

“Mr Coyle?” A woman’s voice. “It’s about your father.” She was a doctor at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Dad had been brought in after a homecare visitor found him feverish and unwell. “We did a lateral flow test for covid-19.”

I could feel myself going pale.

“We’ve also done a swab.” She sounded calm and reassuring as she explained the different types of test, their speediness and levels of accuracy. Trying to respond was like being confronted with horse odds in a betting shop, wondering which to back. The conversation, largely one-sided, was interrupted by arrival of a result. “It’s come back as positive.”

Adam

Bollocks. Adam Crouch had most certainly placed two slices of white bread on the conveyor toaster at the breakfast buffet, and had watched both glide smoothly into the machine’s interior. Yet only one had been returned to him, barely browned and possibly requiring another circuit. Where had the other gone? Had it slipped down into some pitiful heap of rejects? Or was it perhaps waiting, jammed at an angle obstructing further movement, its temperature rising slowly towards criticality, combustion, the total destruction of the Hyle Centre and its poncy guests in a mighty and in some ways possibly well-deserved conflagration? Adam didn’t care, really. He only wanted his breakfast; and you can’t have sausage, bacon, scrambled egg, fried egg, mushrooms, beans, hash browns, grilled tomatoes, black pudding and that other thing he couldn’t identify but would damn well eat, without some bloody toast. If the shiny contraption before him was in reality a matter transporter that had now delivered a slice of warm white bread to Neptune or the fifteenth century, this was less important than the incomplete burden on the crammed plate occupying his right hand, while with his left Adam contemptuously dropped another slice on the conveyor and waited. This time nothing came out. He’d buggered the thing. Oh well.

The Axtoun House dining room was sparsely occupied; Adam wasn’t sure if he’d come early or late from his cabin, through drizzly light rain not worth an umbrella but which had left his shirt feeling damp. Claudia and Alphonse sat alone at one table, better not go near that pair of weirdos. No sign of Blue or psycho-whatsit Deborah he’d drunk with last night, the closest thing he had to friends here. Not even gloomy old Rostov or dotcom Ryan. Instead the most familiar faces among the few were three he’d sat with at yesterday’s dinner, assembled again at exactly the same table as if their arses had been super-glued to the mahogany chairs. Boring historian, Belgian sculptor, and the fat Polish woman. The old bird had already clocked Adam, making a face at him that was international sign language for “can’t remember your name either but it would be awkward if you sat alone.” So Adam took his heap of food and placed himself opposite her porridge bowl and beside the lean sculptor’s half-eaten slice of melon and thimbleful of black coffee. The historian had a glass of water. Everyone looked at Adam’s carb mountain like he’d never heard of all those starving children.

“It’s what we call full English,” Adam announced with didactic pride, preparing to give these bastards a masterclass in gluttony.

“Or full Scottish?” the historian suggested limply.

Adam replied with a mouth already full. “Welsh, Irish, whatever.”

“Not full British?” said the Pole, a question left unanswered. Instead the three resumed a conversation about gardening and Adam tackled his meal with meticulous attention to order, frequency, duration. He re-caught his companion’s names — Jagoda, Graham, Pierre — but would not let such superfluous information distract him from carefully managing the emanation of viscous yolk from his fried egg. If only he could have had that second slice of toast contributing to the absorption.

“I deadhead everything,” Jagoda announced cryptically, having apparently just learnt what the term meant, though Adam hadn’t been listening.

“No need,” said Graham, as Adam felt a hand touch his shoulder and turned to see the warden, Frieda, standing at his side, her arm a collection of bangles, bosom a garish ethnic tent, face a mass of curly black hair surrounding a smile that looked automatic.

“I hope you slept well, Adam,” she said with that dodgy accent of hers, still no easier to identify than when he first heard it yesterday.

“Like the proverbial log.”

The others carried on deadheading while Frieda explained that the Director was available whenever Adam finished breakfast, though she was interrupted by a sudden commotion from the buffet where vigorous curlicues of blue-grey smoke were rising from the matter transporter. A white-coated chef came to unplug and remove the still-belching item, carrying it like a nuclear device about to explode, and exiting to the kitchen area where someone might know what to do with it.

“Well, that was exciting,” Adam said mournfully when the mini-drama concluded. The others moved from dead heads to domestic disasters while Frieda returned to the directorial appointment, and Adam contemplated the extent of eating, waiting and crapping still to be done. “How about ten o’clock?”

“I’m afraid the Director will have other business then.” Frieda looked earnestly at her watch, a toy-like thing on a bright red strap, then at Adam’s plate. “Will twenty minutes be alright?”

Clearly this tie-dyed balloon from unknown climes had no conception of the task Adam envisaged. How was he supposed to make room for the pastries and jams, or the prunes and yoghurt he’d contemplated as a strategic finale? “I’ll need to go back to my room first. Will the Director be free in an hour?”

She wasn’t having this. “It really has to be sooner.” The tone was unapologetic; in fact Adam now felt as if he were being summoned to the head teacher’s office. Had his faux pas with the toaster been caught on CCTV? “Twenty minutes?” she repeated, Adam’s table companions all now silent and awaiting his response.

“Yes, fine.”

Frieda departed, her flapping sandals creating a triumphant applause, and Graham cranked the conversation back into rotation by asking Adam if he too had ever suffered some amusing mishap.

“What?”

“You know, like Jagoda’s bike?”

“Oh, right. No, not that I can think of.” Adam’s disasters, those he brought most immediately to mind, were all of the unamusing kind. Professional failure, losing touch with his grown kids, cancer scare. The typical full English.

“Do you eat so much every morning?” Pierre asked, perhaps attempting to be light hearted but failing in a Gallic way. Not even worth replying to the condescending arsehole.

Graham chipped in, emboldened by the sculptor’s gambit and speaking as if the randomly assembled company were all old mates. “Adam’s taking calories for the team.”

Crouch had had enough. Turning to Graham he said slowly, “I’m not in anybody’s sodding team.” That shut the lot of them up, until Graham mumbled an apology and excused himself, soon followed by Pierre who paid his respects to Jagoda before striding off to do something with a chainsaw.

Jagoda remained with her empty bowl while Adam ate the rest of food gone tasteless. Gazing up from his ketchup-smeared plate he saw her looking as sweaty as she’d been at last night’s dinner. She offered him a dimpled smile of pity, an invitation to talk that he declined, so she spoke instead. “These sort of gatherings, they are not, as you’d say, your cup of tea?”

“Could put it like that.”

“Difficult for a latecomer, when social connections and conflicts have already begun to form. I sympathise.”

“That’s very good of you.”

She leaned towards him across the table, to the slight extent that her girth permitted. “Admit it, though,” she said softly. “You’re not a writer, are you?”

He was taken aback, his soul exposed, his deepest insecurity somehow apparent to this person he knew nothing about, except that she liked gardening and had a bike. “Well, you could say I’ve been blocked…”

Her smile hardened momentarily before she sat back. “Your secret’s safe with me. Though I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”

What the blazes was she talking about? Was it really so obvious that he was yesterday’s man, a media has-been, dropped like a discarded fag packet among these international luminaries? Well, yes, it was obvious. “I’d better go for my meeting,” he said sheepishly, feeling the ominous weight of hastily consumed carbohydrate when he stood.

“Make it a good report,” Jagoda said by way of parting shot, an odd remark he continued to chew over while going to look for the office that Frieda had indicated during yesterday’s tour. A plushly carpeted ground-floor corridor lined with small framed pictures took him to an imposingly elegant door whose nameplate bore the helpful if not entirely specific inscription: Director. He knocked, heard nothing and knocked again, whereupon the door was opened by some straw-blonde secretary in glasses and dark grey business suit, late thirties.

“I said come in,” she announced with a tinge of impatience, standing back to reveal an office of which she must be sole occupant.

“The Director wanted to see me.”

“Yes, Adam, welcome to the Hyle Centre.”

Alright, easy mistake, no need to think he was sexist or anything. Bad start, though, not realising this was the Dr Hines who’d invited him here. Crouch entered and inserted himself without gastric incident in the available chair while the Director went to sit behind her desk; a wide and fancy thing of pale polished wood that must have cost a fortune, serving to support a computer, telephone, notepad and bugger all else. The room was a blend of antique posh and hyper-modern chic; the white wall behind the Director’s suited shoulder bore a hideous abstract painting.

“I hope you’ve settled in comfortably, Mr Crouch. You do know that Ms Delgado can help you with any practical issues should you require assistance?”

“The warden showed me round yesterday.”

“Of course.”

Not bad looking, this Director, if a bit up herself. Maybe early forties? Hard to tell. Adam felt himself relaxing and widening in his leather tub chair.

Dr Hines continued, “We’re pleased you were able to take up our offer at short notice.”

“Happy to help,” Adam said generously. “Such a shame about…” He trailed off, waiting for Dr Hines to take the bait. She didn’t.

“We have a funding arrangement that requires us to maintain a constant quota.”

“Accident, was it?”

Her lips tightened. Dr Hines glanced down at the desk, slid her notepad a few inches across the smooth surface as if to draw assistance from it, then looked at Adam again with stolid determination. “There’s something I have to mention. A delicate matter.”

Nice that she was ready to let him in on the details of Robert Coyle’s untimely tumble. “I’m all ears,” Adam assured her.

“It’s not pleasant for me to have to speak about this, but it’s unavoidable in the present circumstances, so I shall have to be blunt.”

“You suspect foul play?”

She frowned in puzzlement. “What? No, we’re not talking about that.”

Then what were they talking about? Adam felt his breakfast rearranging itself in his digestive system.

“There’s been a complaint,” she said.

“About the toaster?”

“No, Mr Crouch. About you.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I have no reason to doubt it. I’m simply acting in accordance with procedure.”

“I put two slices in. One came out…”

Her expression briefly shaded with incomprehension before the mask of indifference reasserted itself. “It’s an allegation of sexual harassment.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“You’re the alleged perpetrator.”

Bollocks indeed. Adam mentally reconstructed the scene at the toaster. Had he accidentally brushed against some passing female member of staff while absorbed in the mystery of the disappearing slice? Adam asked Dr Hines what exactly he was supposed to have done.

“I can’t say,” she told him.

“Who’s complained?”

“I can’t say that either.” She looked deadly serious.

“So you can’t tell me anything, except that I’m accused of something I swear I can’t possibly have done?” Now he could feel a sweat breaking out, a commotion in his gut. This sort of thing could end a man’s career, assuming he had one.

Dr Hines fiddled with her notepad again. It was bloody annoying.

“I take no sides in this, Mr Crouch. Inevitably, given the confined and in some respects artificial environment of the Hyle Centre, certain interactions of an intimate nature may occur from time to time between delegates. And as long as those are consensual and suitably discrete then no objection need be raised.”

Had he tried it on last night with Psycho-Deb in the bar? Put his hand on her knee? Surely not; he’d been nowhere near drunk enough. “This must be a mistake, Dr Hines.”

“I’m truly sorry to have had to raise it at our very first meeting. I trust we won’t have any further unpleasant incidents.”

“I certainly hope so.”

The ensuing pause was long enough to make Adam realise that for all her protestations of impartiality, the Director had already found him guilty of whatever whoever had said whenever. “You could at least tell me who she is,” he said.

“You shouldn’t assume the complainant is female.”

This was sodding ridiculous. “Some bloke reckons I fancy him? Come off it.”

“We’ve discussed the matter sufficiently for now.”

Since his arrival yesterday Adam hadn’t been aware of a more than usual occurrence of mildly homophobic thoughts and couldn’t recall any remark that might have given offence. Someone had it in for him. Or was simply off his head. Eureka. “It’s Alphonse, isn’t it?”

“I have to follow procedure.”

“But you can’t possibly believe him. From what I hear, he’s a total fruitcake.”

She stared icily at him. “I beg your pardon?”

Oh shit — discriminatory language to add to the charge sheet. “Mentally disturbed. Let me guess, he’s saying I made a pass at Claudia.”

The Director’s silence was eloquent. Adam continued.

“I looked at her, could hardly miss her. Sat through her ruddy concert. That makes me a pervert? I’m sorry Dr Hines but I’m disappointed. Yes, disappointed.” Having cleared himself of all charges laid by the vexatious idiot who’d lacked the guts to confront him personally, Adam felt buoyed by righteous indignation. “I’m disappointed in this organisation. In how it does things. Most of all, Dr Hines, I’m disappointed in you.”

Her only movement was a nod so slight it could have been a mere muscular spasm. “I’m sorry to hear that. You wish to leave?”

Adam shrugged. “If our meeting’s finished…”

“I mean, would you prefer to terminate your stay?”

“Of course not.” His woodland chalet was a shoebox and he had to share oxygen with mountain-sized egos but in other respects this place was not at all bad. And he had nothing better to do, except sit at home watching Bargain Hunt while trying to come up with a pitch for Radio 4 that would never get commissioned. “I’d like to make a complaint, though.”

“A complaint about the complaint?” she said with a half-smile that was probably the nearest she could ever get to something resembling humour. “Or about the complaints procedure?”

There was something else on Adam’s mind. “Somebody’s been in my room.”

Dr Hines was unperturbed. “Housekeeping. Use the Do not disturb sign if you prefer.”

“An item has gone missing.” Now he had her attention, though he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted it; the disappearing flash drive was simply the first legitimate grievance he could think of.

“What have you lost?” she asked, lifting the glossy black pen that lay on her notepad and preparing to write something she’d no doubt toss in the bin as soon as he left.

“I’d rather not say.”

“Then how can I report it?” The pen hovered like a luxurious weapon.

“I’m not complaining about what I’ve lost, Dr Hines. I’m complaining that I lost it. No, that’s not right. I’m complaining that it got stolen.”

“Are you perfectly sure about that? You haven’t simply mislaid the… item? When did you last have it?”

He could see how her fiendish mind was working, imagining reasons why he should be so secretive about what she so tartly referred to as the item. No, it wasn’t some sex toy or bondage gear. “It’s a USB stick, Dr Hines. It was on my desk.”

Behind her moisturised impassivity, malicious cogs still turned. “Those are easily mislaid. And worth nothing, except for whatever’s stored in them. Why would anyone want to steal your memory stick?”

Since he had no idea whose it really was, or what was on it, Adam was flummoxed. “Does it matter? Surely the important thing is that it was stolen.”

“We don’t know that.”

Christ, this was difficult. “Oh, never mind.”

“You don’t wish to make a complaint?” She laid down the pen, pushed the notepad aside, and looked witheringly at him. He felt humbled. And needed a substantial toilet visit.

“Can we just forget all about this complaint business?” he said. The biggest right now being the one coming from his lower abdomen.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mr Crouch. We do have to follow procedure. I suggest you check your room thoroughly and if you’re still sure that something has been taken, do have a word with Ms Delgado. Now it only remains for me to wish you a very pleasant and productive stay here at Axtoun House.” She stood and extended her hand across the desk, and it took a moment for Adam to realise he was meant to shake rather than kiss or prostrate himself before it. Getting out of his tub chair was harder than settling into it had been; he must have expanded a bit, so that as he got up he brought its back legs slightly off the floor, then felt the whole thing slide off him. A lizard shedding its skin, that’s what he was like. A lizard needing to go and hide under a stone before anyone trod on him. He put out his hand to meet Dr Hines’ in a pressureless, momentary grasp. Then he turned and as he reached her door let out a stentorious eruption of flatulence, still not fully terminated when he was closing the door behind himself.

“Well, sod that,” he muttered, arse-quacking his way to the first loo he could find, where he obtained instant and much needed relief. Emerging afterwards he made for the lobby, intending to return to his cabin, and found Blue standing in the hallway looking pensively at something happening outside.

“Seen what’s going on?” Blue said with a nod towards the open doorway, beyond which a black pickup stood parked in light rain. “Two blokes got out, white jumpsuits.”

“Where are they now?”

“Dunno. Weren’t your average plumbers or decorators.” Blue turned to Adam and grinned. “Not another bloody virus, I hope.”

“As long as the bar doesn’t run dry, I think we can handle it.”

“Too right, mate!” Blue gave Adam a chummy pat on the shoulder. “Writing that novel today?”

“What novel?”

“One you were talking about last night.”

“Was I?”

“In the bar.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose so.”

“Good luck with it, then.”

Adam exited into drizzle, wishing he’d brought his umbrella, and trying to recall which of his pipedreams he’d described last night for his drinking buddy. The sweeping saga about three generations of mine-workers? The modern-day Macbeth? Or the one he started yesterday, only to find himself struggling with the first sentence? So many ideas, so little energy. Jagoda knew a no-hoper when she saw one; and Blue a fellow alcoholic. Transparent as a bloody windowpane. Going quickly in the damp he saw coming round the side of the building the men Blue mentioned. Two of them, in white protective suits, visors raised, chatting together as if there was nothing out of the ordinary in looking like spacemen. Should Adam say something, ask what they were up to? They were out of range and heading back to their vehicle, one of them carrying a box, lab equipment perhaps. Last thing Adam needed was a dose of bubonic plague or nerve agent. He carried on down the path to his pinewood prefab, turned the key in the lock and entered.

His laptop lay undisturbed on his desk. The flash drive had been beside it yesterday, then when he got back last night it was gone. How could that stuck-up bird possibly have doubted his word? Adam sat on his bed, pulled off his shoes and noticed his pill dispenser on the side shelf. Today’s slot was still closed, he’d forgotten to take his meds. That’s what a change of scenery can do, totally screw up your routine. He reached and popped open the day’s lid, pincered a statin as habitual starter and realised he didn’t have a glass of water to hand, would need to go to the micro-bathroom and fetch one. Stood and dropped the statin on the sodding floor. Blast it — why did he ever bother getting up this morning? He returned the pill box to its shelf, got down on his knees, couldn’t for the life of him see the blasted pill, so creaked back up and fetched his reading glasses. Tried again, still couldn’t spot that bleeding, buggering little statin. Didn’t matter if he missed a day anyway, that or any of the other pills he had to take. He’d croak soon enough, one way or another.

No sign of it on the smooth floor, must have bounced away into a corner. Eventually he spotted it under the desk. Oh, and there was the USB stick as well. Fancy that. Someone broke in last night and put it there. Or he’d knocked it off and forgotten. Adam retrieved the pill, stuck it in his mouth and tasted a piece of fluff or dust, microscopic but felt like a gobful. Hadn’t fetched that glass of water, of course, so sat there swallowing whatever detritus the statin had attracted, grabbed the little memory stick and put it on the desk after clambering stiffly back to his feet. He then dispensed the rest of the day’s pill selection onto his palm and went to the en-suite broom cupboard to down the lot with a cleansing swig. Hooray for medical science, keeping sods like him alive. Now all he needed was to start that bloody novel.

Back at his desk he stabbed the button of his laptop and watched it grind into inactivity, downloading some update or other. Gave him more time to think, he thought, deciding to make a cup of tea while the computer sorted itself out. The filling and boiling of the kettle, not to mention the choice of teabags in the gratifyingly replenished hospitality tray, enabled a few more minutes to elapse before the inevitable moment when Adam could sit to confront the document he’d stared at the previous day.

Chapter One.

Shouldn’t really worry so much, he reminded himself. Simply type any old thing that came into his head. Yet nothing was arriving — obstructed by the intricate plot, fleshed-out characters and grand themes so fully formed in his mind. TV and radio scripts had always come easily to him, when he had collaborators to bounce ideas off. Trouble with novels, there’s no bounce — only a wall to bang your head against.

He shoved the memory stick into the side of his laptop, went to pour his tea while the computer tried to figure out what the hell to do with it, and came back to find the folder called Assassins whose security had previously defeated him. The required password was seven characters long, so he started with the obvious: 1234567. No luck: Coyle wasn’t that stupid. Drank his tea and tried a few random, time-filling options, satisfied at what was surely in its own way a creatively stimulating activity, perhaps even inspirational, and a pleasing counterpoint to darker thoughts of the Director in SS uniform inspecting a naked and shivering Adam. Dr Hines was seven letters, though no permutation of upper and lower case could satisfy software as coldly indifferent and hellishly frustrating as the woman herself. Then there were the ones who must have denounced him: Alphonse and Claudia. The first too long to fit, the second…

Bloody hell and hallelujah — the soprano’s name was the password.

For a moment it seemed the luckiest break in Adam’s entire life, like winning the lottery. In statistical terms it was about as likely. The reward, though, was only a long list of filenames when the folder opened, and the realisation that an unsolved mystery is often so much more interesting than its solution. At least there were some video clips, chance of a bit of porn, so he clicked the first and waited to see the extent of the dead man’s erotic imagination. Turned out to be a flaming documentary, actors dressed as ancient soldiers while a voice-over set the opening scene.

The Assassins. A shadowy order of fanatical warriors wreaking havoc in the Holy Land, striking terror in the hearts of their Crusader opponents. The stuff of myth and legend. But have we got the Assassins all wrong? Were they really bloodthirsty killers — or might they actually have been a force for good?

Ryan’s guess sounded right, then. Coyle wasn’t a spy or hitman, only the sort of anorak who gets a kick from TV history shows. Adam went to make a second cup of tea while the title sequence rolled, came back and saw some bint with glasses — caption called her professor something — sitting in what might have been her university office or a studio storeroom.

“The sect originated during the Shi’ite Fatimid Caliphate, from a dispute in the 1090s over who should succeed as spiritual leader. After a claimant named Nizar failed and lost his life, his followers created a community at Alamut in Persia. Other Nizari strongholds were established, especially in Syria which is where Europeans first encountered them.”

Skipping forward, Adam reached a different talking head: a guy in a fancy shirt with an American accent.

“The Old Man of the Mountain made a sort of theme-park heaven. Young men were drugged and left to wake up there, thinking they were in Paradise, then hauled back to reality and offered a return trip as long as they obeyed the Old Man’s every command — going on missions to take out his personal enemies. Is there any truth in the legend? Who knows, but Marco Polo believed it, and he was no fool.”

Then back to the bint. “Their enemies called them Hashishin, assumed to stem from ‘hashish’.”

And the shirt again. “So we picture the Old Man getting kids stoned on weapons-grade pot, they wake up in the arms of some gorgeous beauty, and just as the fun’s about to start, the poor schmucks are back on Earth with a whacking headache and an attack of the munchies. The Old Man sends them on a suicide mission and they’re only too happy to obey, so they can get back to those chicks in Paradise.”

The professor woman was moderately attractive, the American utterly annoying.

Woman: “Hashish in Arabic can also mean dry grass or cattle fodder, so calling them ‘grass eaters’ may simply have been a reflection on their austere lifestyle. In 1164 they proclaimed that qiyamah — the Muslim apocalypse — had arrived, and sharia law was suspended. The facts remain obscure but the episode gave rise to lurid rumours about the sect indulging in every possible sin.”

Shirt: “The Assassins did some pretty nasty things, but in those days, who didn’t? You’ve also got the Crusaders rolling in, and those boys were no angels. And as well as the Shi’ite caliphate the Assassins split from, there was the empire of the Sunni Seljuks that the Crusaders were mainly fighting. It’s like, total warfare, with factions and alliances and double-crosses all over the place.”

Adam clicked forward. More actors in costumes. Maps. Some guy in a straw hat and linen suit beside a ruined castle. That woman again.

“One of the earliest western references is by the twelfth-century Byzantine princess Anna Comnena, who referred to hired killers from Persia, renowned for using deception and disguise to get close to their target. She called them Hasi, a word that could simply have come from the sect’s founder, Hassan. Nothing to do with hashish, then. And since virtually any political killing could easily be blamed on them, it’s easy to see why the word ‘assassin’ caught on generally.”

Was that a nipple showing through her striped blouse? Hard to tell.

“The modern image of the Assassins was shaped by an Austrian orientalist named Joseph von Hammer, who published a book in 1818 comparing them to the Knights Templar.”

Shirt: “Both groups wore white uniforms with red insignia, both had a grandmaster at the head of a military-style hierarchy. Basically they were all freemasons.”

Woman: “Hammer was heavily influenced by the politics of his time. The Austria he’d grown up in during the late eighteenth century was politically progressive, with masonic societies being officially tolerated, even encouraged. The Napoleonic wars changed that, and Austria had become a repressive state where autonomous organisations of any kind were considered a threat. Hammer’s pseudo-history of the Assassins and Templars was meant as a warning against covert groups or subversive ideologies that could threaten the social order.”

Adam wasn’t taking in any of this, having decided it wasn’t a nipple after all, and wondering whether to have a biscuit with his tea. The re-stocked hospitality tray was more exciting than the documentary.

“The Nizari communes in Persia and Syria were places of scholarship and worship with extensive libraries, even astronomical observatories. Their philosophy blended Pythagoreanism and Neoplatonism with Islam; the qiyamah marked a new cycle of history when higher truths would be revealed, making symbolic rituals no longer necessary. Hence the breaking of the Ramadan fast which so outraged fellow Muslims and helped cement the infamous reputation of these so-called Assassins, most of whom probably never swung a blade in anger.”

He opted for a shortbread finger, not at all hungry yet in need of a satisfactory substitute for the breakfast pastries he’d missed. When Adam returned with it to his desk he saw that the video had finished. Either it was a very short documentary or else, more likely, Coyle had saved only part of it. There were other video files on the stick but Adam had seen enough and felt no urge now to explore the numerous text documents. This was merely the archive of an obscure research project by a bloke whose most interesting achievement was to have dropped dead off a ladder. Enough of this time-wasting: Adam had a book to write. But first some web surfing.

Forty minutes later he’d ordered a shower curtain, checked the weather forecast and investigated package deals to Croatia. It was time now for a stroll while he thought about his novel. Looked like it might still be spitting outside, though, so after closing his laptop and slipping on his shoes he decided that a walk to the house would be the best way to stretch his legs. Could even see if the bar was open. Adam emerged into the moist air, glanced up between the trees to the overcast sky and conceded that he was probably going to get bugger all done during his stay here, so may as well try to enjoy it.

On his way to the mansion he saw one or two distant figures pacing the grounds, thought he recognised Jagoda and swerved to avoid encountering the spheroidal bat. Found himself soon afterwards outside the modern wing, though when he entered and reached the saloon he discovered it empty, the bar shutter lowered and secured, the place looking even scabbier in the sober light of day. No need for antiques and oil paintings here — the only people who came to this bit of the Hyle Centre were pissheads like himself. The surroundings changed once he took the passageway into the main house, passing the open doorway of the common room where the boring historian was droning at someone over coffee. Apart from that pair, and quilt girl who nodded hello before hurrying off, Adam saw no one. All too busy working, he supposed. Library, perhaps? Adam went there and was surprised to find it closed to visitors, sealed by two long strips of “no entry” tape forming an ominous cross that he guessed must have been placed there by the guys in hazard suits.

“Flipping heck,” he muttered to himself, wondering how much toxic stuff he might have ingested while wasting time there previously.

A voice came from behind. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Adam turned to see Jagoda. Had the witch been following him?

“There’s no need for pretence,” she said. “We both know the situation. What’s the Director going to do about it?”

A penny dropped. “It was you who spoke to her?” The thought of his ever trying anything on with this sweaty Zeppelin was even more outrageous than her notion that he had. “Why?”

“At least tell me your real name, mister so-called Adam Crouch.”

She was totally mad. Should have known it from the start. “There’s obviously been some sort of misunderstanding.”

“I googled Adam Crouch and he looks totally different. Slimmer, more hair, better dressed…”

Did she really have to describe to him the twenty-year-old publicity shot that was the only professionally done photograph available for his website? What had he done to deserve being stalked by this Slavic bunny-boiler? “Jagoda…”

“So if you aren’t a writer then who are you? Who do you work for? What do you know about the incident?” Her glance past Adam’s ear to the taped library door behind him showed she wasn’t talking about alleged harassment.

“Hang on, you didn’t complain about me to the Director?”

“My only complaint is the ridiculous secrecy. They tell us he had a heart attack, then suddenly there’s a spy among us. Do you honestly think one of us would have harmed him?”

Adam’s previously dropped penny had by now been picked up, rubbed and rolled in search of a different slot. He was no longer Adam Crouch, semi-retired script writer, but Agent X, on a mission from God knows who. He leaned towards her and said earnestly, “How well did you know Robert Coyle?”

The change of tone did the trick: she looked instantly humbled. “I hardly spoke to him. He seemed quite close to the singer.”

“And her brother?”

“You mean cousin?”

They were interrupted by a figure coming slowly round the bend of the corridor. It was old Rostov, wearing a baggy sweater of indeterminate colour, and checked slacks equally vague in age but suggestive of the 1970s. And to think Jagoda had had the cheek to imply Adam was poorly dressed? The physicist — tall, thin and bent from decades of hard sums — was like a perambulating scarecrow, approaching with a book dangling at the end of his arm.

Adam nodded down at the battered green hardback, at least as ancient as its bearer. “Won’t be able to return it. Library’s off-limits.”

Rostov mumbled inscrutably while Jagoda — feigning nonchalance — took her leave of them both. The Russian then stood staring glumly at the taped door while Adam stared patiently at the Russian, waiting for him to say something suitably soulful. Eventually Adam had to fill the void himself.

“Any idea what this is about?”

Rostov shrugged. “Must have been those inspectors who were here before. Someone claimed to have heard them use Geiger counter.”

“Blimey.”

Rostov smiled. “I don’t believe. If they suspected radio-activity they would more likely have used digital meter, not clicking one.”

Rather than making deadly radiation less likely, Rostov’s comment seemed to lend it plausibility. Adam said, “Is that why Coyle died?”

Again Rostov shrugged. “Might be how, would not tell why.” He looked down at the book in his hand, as if wondering what to do now that his morning plan had been thrown into disarray by the small matter of a nuclear incident. Then he looked at Adam. “I think I should like to drink. You join me?”

Adam was surprised on several levels. “The bar’s closed.”

“To you, perhaps. To me, never.” With his free hand the professor drew from his trouser pocket a key that gleamed with promise. The two then went to the saloon where Rostov gave the key to Adam, explaining that he found the shutter heavy to raise.

“Is this a perk for Nobel laureates?” Adam asked, having opened the bar. Rostov instructed him to fetch a bottle of Glenfiddich and two glasses, and went to wait for him at the nearest of the small low tables, on which he placed his book.

“I never win Nobel Prize,” Rostov said when Adam joined him, tossed down the key and poured generous shots for them both.

“Cheers,” said Adam, sitting to raise his glass.

Rostov augmented his own before lifting it. “To win there must be experimental proof. My work remain theoretical.”

Adam didn’t fancy a physics lecture. He pointed to the book on the table. “Any good?”

“You’ve seen.” Rostov turned it to show the title embossed in gilded letters worn with age. Three Men Discuss Relativity. Rostov had fetched the book after Adam mentioned finding it. “This Sullivan understood mathematical formalism well enough, though dialogue very dry.” He took a long sip.

“I wonder how Robert Coyle came across it,” said Adam.

“He mainly follow Eddington.”

It took a moment for Adam to appreciate that Rostov had to be talking about Sullivan, not suggesting that some guy called Eddington was implicated in Coyle’s demise. “There was a letter in it.”

“Is so?” Rostov said idly as Adam tilted open the cover in search of it.

“From Sullivan’s wife.” Flicking to the title page he saw again the author’s faded signature. The letter was gone.

“Probably I drop somewhere.”

Well, it had only been lying there undisturbed for about a hundred years and would hardly be missed if it was now on its way in a bin lorry. “Sullivan visited here,” said Adam. “His wife sent the book after he died…” He trailed off, seeing that Rostov clearly had no interest whatsoever in this little soap opera, or indeed anything that didn’t contain equations or alcohol or perhaps both.

“You take back for me to library?” Rostov asked. “Whenever open?”

“Of course.” It seemed a reasonable offer, coming from someone too infirm to raise a bar shutter. Though it wasn’t as if the book was especially heavy. Rostov maybe knew more about the radioactivity issue than he was letting on.

“Could Coyle have been poisoned?” Adam asked.

“Is possible,” Rostov said calmly. “Also possible that all air in this room will suddenly condense to liquid. Or that asteroid destroy our planet. Question not of possibility, but probability. Most likely, he die of natural cause.”

“Doesn’t explain why two spacemen cordoned off the library.”

“Must there be connection?” After another plentiful sip the Russian said, “They might have found small contamination from military research done here long time ago. I know for example about work on advanced potential at microwave frequency, perhaps also effort with gamma ray, though would certainly not have worked. Could never have generated sufficient energy to propagate signal backward in time.”

Adam had swallowed enough Glenfiddich to speak with complete candour. “I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.”

This appeared to please the geriatric genius who must have spent his whole long life baffling people, and would have been mortally disappointed to find anyone with an intellect matching his own. “Reverse causality. Event determine by future condition rather than past.” The lecture Adam had hoped to avoid began with square roots, real or imaginary, that were somehow like waves of light, which aren’t square at all, nor have roots, but send ripples one way or another, in reality or imagination. The upshot of this free and unasked-for bit of education, presented by someone dressed exactly like the retro geeks Adam never used to watch on late-night Open University broadcasts, was the slim chance that Coyle died because of something yet to happen. Not exactly a revolutionary idea, more your typical murder scenario. Insurance payout, perhaps?

Blue peered in at the window, visoring with his hand to confirm what he saw, and soon entered to join them. “Well, well, you boys have started early.” He came and sat with them but declined to drink. “Heard about the autopsy?” According to whoever told Blue, something toxic had been discovered in Coyle’s body.

“Are you sure?” asked Adam.

“It’s the talk going round.”

Then through the passage from the main house there arrived the tribal swirl of Frieda Delgado, who must have seen or heard or smelled what was afoot and looked predictably displeased. She came to where they sat, lifted the whisky bottle, and with the air of a reproving head matron said, “You know you shouldn’t be doing this.”

Adam wasn’t sure who “you” included, but since it was Rostov who seemed the main recipient he felt it wise to push the bar key more definitely towards the physicist’s side of the table.

Frieda lifted that too. “It’s time for your medicine, professor.”

“It is?” Rostov said, blinking. “Already?” He got gradually to his feet like a time-lapsed fern, looking strangely dazed as if woken suddenly from deep sleep, and slowly began leaving.

“He’s not supposed to have this,” Frieda told them, stuffing the key into some inconspicuous aperture of her voluminous garment. “We’ve had enough mishaps already.”

Blue said, “How about if you tell us what’s in the bloody library?”

“The Director will make an announcement before lunch,” she replied. “There’s no cause for alarm.” She angled the bottle in her hand, assessing its contents.

“Better charge the professor,” said Adam. “His idea, not mine.” Rostov was disappearing by now, a shadow at the doorway, and Frieda went briskly after him.

“Miserable bag,” Blue muttered, then considered the bar that remained open. “Fancy a beer?”

“Might as well.” It would nicely fill the time till lunch. All in all, a good morning’s work. By twelve they were both well oiled and ready to hear whatever the Director had to say, though neither of them cared too much about it, having consumed enough to make the world seem wholly benevolent and devoid of threat. Rostov had neglected to take his book, so Adam brought Three Men Discuss Relativity to the dining room intending to give it back, but the physicist didn’t arrive. Probably asleep in his room, Adam thought. Poor sod, first a bollocking, then misses his nosh.

Jagoda, seated alone at her usual table, beckoned Adam with her eyes towards her neighbouring chair. No harm joining the old girl now she thought more highly of him. Soon it was the same crowd as breakfast, and if anyone tried taking the piss again about Adam’s appetite he’d sort the fucker out with a beer-scented belch. First however was the announcement. Director Hines clicked smartly to the end of the room, gave a cough and began her spiel.

“Delegates, I’m aware there have been some rumours that have caused a degree of anxiety. Please let me assure you they are perfectly groundless. We had a routine health and safety inspection which appeared to indicate the possible presence of asbestos that may have been inadvertently left behind during renovation work some time ago. Naturally this had to be followed up in accordance with statutory regulations, during which certain portions of the centre were temporarily placed out of bounds. This was purely routine, and it has been verified that there is absolutely no cause for concern. I trust this sets everyone’s mind at ease. Bon appétit.”

As she marched back out, Jagoda leaned towards Adam and whispered, “Do you suppose anyone believes her?” He didn’t respond, instead watching the white-coated catering staff who now came to serve them. Lunch turned out to be what someone claimed could be called Caesar salad, though it would have suited a rabbit more than an emperor. The stemmed goblet at each place setting was not for white wine as Adam hoped, but for the jug of iced water plonked down by a sniffy waiter who seemed to read Adam’s disappointed mind, or perhaps caught a whisky-tinged whiff of perspiration.

That bloody Graham kicked off a conversation about some part of the world Adam had never heard of. The crunch of lettuce in his own head was more compelling than the ensuing exchange that must have been prompted by some news item, holiday, or plain terror at the prospect of civilised silence. Adam welcomed the chance to iguore these gobshites with whom he happened to be troughing, though his peaceful repast was intruded upon by Jagoda’s ample lipids leaning into him again, her words evidently a contribution to the ongoing bilge, yet delivered with a piquant nudge at Adam. “We all have our secrets,” she said, making him look up to see the faces smirking at him.

“That’s right,” said Adam. “I’m actually an undercover agent for Mossad.”

The smiles remained frozen, each assessing the ratio of irony to sarcasm, no one offering an answer until sculptor Pierre said, “Then you might know about my friend in Gaza who was shot recently.”

It was like when the English teacher once caught Adam drawing a big cock on a page of Oliver Twist. And the worst was that Adam really liked that book — just hated the teacher.

“Shouldn’t joke about these things,” Graham said smugly, making it clear where he wanted to plant his moral flag.

Jagoda was conciliatory. “I like the English humour. Though Adam, you struck me as more likely FSB.”

“Not CIA?” Graham suggested, suddenly a defector to the comedy side of international politics.

The illusory status Adam had enjoyed earlier with Jagoda had somehow been flushed down the pan by his own indifference to it. Story of his life, really. He mopped up a last smear of brown balsamic vegetation while the others got on with their mundane verbal grooming. He’d quite forgotten about Rostov’s book, having put it on the floor beside his chair at the start of the meal, until he shifted, encountered the obstruction, and wondered what he should do with the thing. Leave it there as someone else’s task would be the obvious solution, though a fit of benevolence made him stoop to retrieve then open the book, pretending to read it. Everyone interpreted the gesture correctly: rather than ask him if it was any good, the bastards left him alone.

Fruit was served, and if that was the best the centre could offer as pudding then Adam might as well scarper. He rose, grunted a “see you” to the dismal gang and made his way to the lobby then out of the house along the path to where his boutique shed promised an oasis of chat-less, crap-free solitude.

Time once inside to get back to his novel, though he soon found himself instead reading a web article about prostate cancer, and when that lost its appeal he decided to have another gander at the files on Coyle’s memory stick. Adam guessed the videos must all be clips from whatever boring documentaries the corpse had pirated, so his attention fell instead on a bunch of PDFs with meaningless numerical names. Bank statements, perhaps. Most likely nothing, but worth a try. The first three proved to be scanned documents, typewritten pages faded with age and all displayed upside-down on the screen. He couldn’t be arsed turning any of them until he opened the fourth and saw at the bottom a blue-pencilled squiggle.

“Well bugger me, the plot thickens,” he said to himself, reaching for a chocolate-chip cookie and rotating the document. That bloody man again. Now at the top, in old-fashioned handwriting, was the inscription: For J.W.N. Sullivan. Typed below it, some ranting bullocks that made sod-all sense.

By heck he couldn’t half go on…

Sullivan

Nonsense, surely, this garrulous monologue by a hypnotised hysteric — yet also in a way remarkable, since buried within Martha-Therese’s vulgar ramblings one could not help sensing a hint of authenticity. Reading the alleged spectral testimony of Beethoven’s sister-in-law, in the drawing room where he sat alone on a sofa near the piano, John Sullivan recognised numerous factual details; undoubtedly ones that any fraudulent medium — or her accomplice — could easily pull from published sources. Yet there were also plentiful amounts of what might charitably be termed poetic licence; inventions of varying plausibility that transported the performance beyond typical seance charade towards something approaching historical fiction, albeit of a crude and unliterary kind. What if they were not inventions at all?

A lost opera by Beethoven, commissioned by freemasons; this was the spirit-voice’s most significant claim. A work reminiscent of Mozart’s Magic Flute, though altogether darker: The Assassins, or Everything is Allowed. Certainly, Beethoven’s connection with freemasonry was beyond doubt, regardless of whether or not he was ever one himself. As Sullivan knew only too well, anyone seeking to raise himself in life could not rely solely on talent, nor even — in Beethoven’s case — genius. No, there must be social connections; one must befriend the right people, the men with access.

Sullivan glanced up from the typed pages he held, alerted by a sound at the doorway. A face peered in: Horace Littlewood.

“Pardon my disturbing you, sir.”

“Do join me,” Sullivan said before the assistant could scamper back to his burrow. Sullivan needed to probe him.

Littlewood came and stood by the sofa, hands clasped like a waiting butler.

“Sit with me,” Sullivan instructed.

“I really mustn’t detain you, sir.”

“From reading?” Sullivan waved the sheets. “I’ve already got through most. You did well, transcribing the discs.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And a surprisingly swift delivery.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Leaving them on my desk.”

Littlewood looked bewildered. “Not I, sir.”

“Then who?”

“Why, I wouldn’t know. Dr Hyle…”

“Was with me, and had no time to reach my room before I did.”

Littlewood straightened. “Sir, I do apologise…”

“Then it was you?”

The fool was blushing. “No, sir, I assure you.”

“Then why apologise?”

“Simply for the inconvenience…”

Littlewood’s young cheeks were almost feminine in rosy bloom. If the interrogation were to continue he might even cry like a girl.

“You swear, do you, that you didn’t enter my room?”

“Why yes, sir, of course. And I’m very sorry about this. Most regretful, truly. I shall look into it…”

“No need,” said Sullivan, cutting him off. His demeanour and complexion could be those of a man caught in a lie, or of one distraught at wrongful accusation. There was simply no way to tell, and no point grilling him further.

“I should go, sir.”

“Yes.”

Littlewood, crumpled with shame, left hurriedly, and Sullivan resumed his perusal. One should proceed, he decided, from two distinct hypotheses, seeing where each would lead. First, suppose that Martha had genuinely received the psychic imprint of Therese van Beethoven. In that case there would need to be an entire revision of one’s view of physical reality. Since modern physics was already necessitating such a revision, this might not be so great a challenge — but a challenge nonetheless. Leave that to one side, then, and consider the other possibility, that it was all a clever deception. Then, in the manner of a detective investigating a crime, one should assess the question of motive. What did Martha stand to gain from her performance? Nothing, it would seem, except attention, and surely there were easier ways to receive that. There would have to be some greater purpose — money being most typical.

The opera. Create a libretto, a forged text, perhaps even musical sketches on old paper, looking passably like Beethoven’s terrible handwriting. Hide it somewhere, announce its existence clairvoyantly, let it be discovered. Worth a substantial amount to gullible auction bidders. Yet none would go directly to Martha; only to whoever found the manuscript. Her accomplice.

Soon a further sound disturbed him; Sullivan looked up expecting to see Littlewood returning sorrowfully. Instead it was Gwendoline Hyle who entered, waving her long cigarette holder as though bringing to attention an orchestra. “Ah, here you are, John.” He began rising. “No, don’t.” She came and sat beside him. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said, seeing the pages on his lap.

“Not at all.”

She looked towards the piano. “Were you practising before? I thought I heard.”

“I happened to notice the Moonlight Sonata on the rack. Do you play? Or your husband?”

She took a puff of her cigarette. “Arthur hasn’t a melodious bone in his body, poor thing. I’m the musician of the household.”

“And a Beethoven lover, evidently.”

Gwendoline looked at him in a way that Sullivan thought curious. “Of course,” she said innocently.

He knew he must examine her most discreetly. “I always have trouble with the last movement. Of the Moonlight, I mean.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “The tempo marking is quite forbidding, and makes it all seem a lot more difficult than really it is. My teacher insisted on slow practice and correct fingering, then it comes quite naturally. The important thing is not to rush. One must take one’s time.”

“That’s very wise,” said Sullivan. “I shall remember that. Why don’t you show me?”

She laughed. “You want me to play now?”

“I’d love to hear it.”

“Oh, but my fingers are too cool and stiff. And to be perfectly honest, you embarrass me.” She giggled childishly.

“What do you mean?”

She fleetingly patted his arm; a gesture that explained nothing. “Tell me, are you comfortable here? Has Littlewood shown you around?”

“Briefly,” said Sullivan, describing their earlier walk. “What’s your opinion of Littlewood?”

Gwendoline shrugged. “An able enough clinical assistant, I believe.”

Only a short while ago, Sullivan had learned that Littlewood and Martha were in a sexual relation. And before that, the young maid Jessie confessed to being in love with Littlewood. They were theories to be tested, along with the conjecture presently in mind, that Gwendoline might be complicit. He tried an experiment. “Littlewood left these papers in my unattended room and now denies it.”

“Really?” She looked genuinely surprised. “A misunderstanding, perhaps? I’m sure my husband has always found him perfectly trustworthy.”

Sullivan nodded, pretending thoughtfulness. “I may have been too swift to chastise him.”

“Oh dear. I hope…” she broke off, her hope unspecified.

“You do appreciate, don’t you, what a delicate business all of this is? With Martha, I mean. Reputations are at stake. The case could bring fame or ridicule.”

Gwendoline replied it was all frankly beyond her, though she was certain her husband must be handling everything properly, and if Sullivan had misgivings then it was to Arthur that he should speak. She stood and went to the piano, closed the book of music on the rack and sat down, laying her cigarette on top of the instrument. She then began playing the Moonlight Sonata’s last movement, looking up towards a far corner of the room while her left hand struck a firm tempo and her right swept cleanly through arpeggios that Sullivan had never mastered. Suddenly she halted; her memory had slipped. She tried again, once more came to a stop. “Oh blast,” she declared.

“It sounded wonderful.”

“I’m out of practice.” She stared disappointedly at her hands as if at disobedient children.

“Do you think Martha’s genuine?” Sullivan asked, determined not to let the subject slip.

Gwendoline’s gaze remained lowered while she considered the question for what seemed too long a moment. “I’ve no idea,” she said eventually, then looked at him. “What do you think?”

Time to test another theory. “From what I can gather, Martha is a person of no better than average intelligence who has lived here for some years, largely in isolation, without access to any materials that might improve whatever basic education she once received. A woman, in other words, wholly unequipped to invent what has apparently come out of her. Even an accomplished scholar might struggle to assemble the historical information, though might at least be able to frame it more elegantly. The sheer coarseness of expression only lends further weight…”

“Then you believe it’s real?”

“My mind is open,” he said calmly. “Since ancient times it’s been supposed that consciousness need not always require a bodily medium. Thought could exist in some detached form — as spirit, ethereal vibration, a warping of the continuum. But why would the thoughts of Beethoven’s sister-in-law arrive in the head of a mental patient?” He paused, allowing the question to hang.

“Why indeed?” said Gwendoline, bidding him furnish the answer himself.

He watched her face as he spoke. “Obviously there’s an intermediate connection between composer and patient. Namely yourself.”

“Me? Why…?”

“You play Beethoven.”

“Never for Martha.”

“Please, Mrs Hyle, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not for one moment suggesting any direct association between the two of you. Only think what music is. A thought in sound. And sound is a vibration that takes many forms.” He then described for her a quaint picture: Caruso sings into a horn, a needle trembles, a line is traced on wax. After the great tenor dies, the disc is spun and his reborn voice shakes a diaphragm in a microphone, creating a varying electric current that flows to a wireless transmitter, becoming electromagnetic waves that travel at the speed of light to a receiver where the process is reversed, and a person in an armchair hears the voice of Caruso. “Telepathy could be an analogous process.”

She looked pensive. “I see.”

There were so many flaws in the theory, so many inconsistencies, though Sullivan had no urge to raise them, nor did Gwendoline seem aware. “You were only a stage of transmission,” he said. “Like a wire or microphone.”

“And Martha is nothing but a receiver.”

“Exactly. Have you ever played with a crystal set? It’s such fun, tweaking the cat’s whisker until a spot is reached, the circuit is tuned and a signal received. If it’s too faint, you hook the set to a bedstead or a water pipe, and suddenly its increased.”

Gwendoline was unmoved by his enthusiasm for a hobby she clearly didn’t share. “A wireless signal can be picked up by anyone,” she said, “yet Martha is unique. What if she’s recalling a past life?”

“Entirely possible,” Sullivan agreed. “In fact we’re both saying essentially the same thing. Therese van Beethoven’s consciousness left a psychic imprint on the fabric of reality, and it has remoulded itself in Martha. I still believe, though, that there had to be a stimulus for transmission.”

“My playing?”

“Quite so. Otherwise don’t you think it would all be a strange coincidence, this Beethovenian prevalence?”

She lifted her cigarette from the piano and gave an insouciant toss of her head. “Well, yes, Mr Sullivan. This whole affair really is very peculiar indeed, isn’t it?”

He stood, rolling the pages into a tube. “I should go and continue my work.”

“I wish you the best of luck,” she said behind him as he went to the doorway, and on reaching the stairs he heard her play again, a different melody whose low booming continued while he ascended. Chopin now, still faintly recognisable when he arrived at his door, brought the key from his pocket and let himself in, relieved to find the room undisturbed. His books and papers were as before; the Colonel’s walking stick still stood to attention. Should he now begin the tedious process of comparing Martha’s mimicry with the writings of Beethoven’s biographers? He would certainly fail to discover in Schindler or Thayer any mention of intoxicating green jam or disappearing limbs.

The latter author’s book had at least the benefit of an index; Sullivan lifted it from the writing bureau and quickly found that Martha-Therese’s Dr Molnar and cavalry officer Adeling were, as expected, unlisted. More appealing for the time being was the book Sullivan had been studying earlier, Eddington’s Mathematical Theory of Relativity, which lay open at the page he’d been perusing. He sat to resume, and saw again the phrase he’d read before: the mind does not so readily get rid of an obsession. A statement about coordinate systems — the stubborn assumption of regularity in a universe inescapably warped — and also about the invariance of human desire. Could a dead person’s thoughts ripple across the continuum and stir the mind of one still living? Sullivan couldn’t help wishing to believe it.

Those sessions at Warwick Gardens last year, with Katherine and others, hearing Ouspensky discuss the shape of time. Was it only a straight line, and every life a segment? Relativity, Sullivan read now, allowed for something different; a region of the universe where new rules might apply. Space here reduces to two dimensions, but there does not appear to be any barrier. The conditions on the far side, where time becomes two-dimensional, defy imagination. Eddington couldn’t conceive of time as area rather than length, yet Ouspensky had already dared go further. Time, the Russian scholar said solemnly in his lecture, was three dimensional, like space. Our journey through it is a spiral whose curve we might perceive, if only we could be aware of temporal volume as well as duration. Katherine wasn’t much interested in the mathematical details when Sullivan tried to explain them over dinner afterwards. What mattered to her was the possibility of an existence larger than what she’d known, closer to the cosmic whole. It wasn’t the sober Ouspensky who could offer this, but rather his master, Gurdjieff.

The distant music downstairs faded from notice while Sullivan read. The external events which we see appear to fall into our own local time-succession; but in reality it is not the events themselves, but the sense-impressions to which they indirectly give rise, which take place in the time-succession of our consciousness. Sullivan had said something like that to Katherine, and when she asked him to be more specific, he gave as example her own reflection in a mirror, which, because of the finite speed of light, was always the image of a very recent past. A far enough mirror could even reflect a time prior to one’s birth. She’d looked at him perplexedly, sadly, and asked, what about seeing beyond one’s death? Gurdjieff’s institute wouldn’t cure her, she knew that before deciding to go there. It was simply the right kind of mirror.

An insistent rhythm made Sullivan look up and listen with renewed attention to the piano, played more loudly now. It was no longer Chopin, instead more like ragtime, being thudded out with mechanical repetitiveness. He stood, went out to the landing and could hear more clearly the puerile hammering, of a kind that would suit a pub sing-along. Why should a person of Gwendoline Hyle’s ability create such a parody — and if not her, then who?

Slowly descending the stairs, Sullivan began to realise that more than two hands were at work, not perfectly in time. The drawing room door was closed; he waited at it, trying to picture whatever private amusement was taking place inside, aware how ill mannered it would be to intrude. He heard a false note greeted by a man’s low growl, quickly followed by a shrill peal of female laughter that Sullivan supposed must be Gwendoline’s, though strangely it also reminded him of Martha’s feral shriek on the gramophone disc. Was Martha at the keyboard? Could he be sure that the silent woman he’d briefly seen was indeed the one whose recorded voice he’d heard? Could he be certain of anything at all?

He turned, saw the housekeeper Mrs Baxter marching along the carpeted passage, and felt momentarily embarrassed, as though caught prying. He said as she neared him, “Do you know who’s playing?”

She appeared puzzled by what she may have considered a pointless question, devoid of practical importance. “I expect it’s Mrs Hyle, sir.”

“But there are two of them in there.”

“Then I should imagine she’s with Mr Gray.” Her matter-of-fact tone indicated there was nothing unusual or irregular about the dipsomaniacal young Scotchman spending time alone with the lady of the house. There followed a pause that Mrs Baxter broke by asking, “Is there anything else, sir?”

Sullivan told her no, feeling disconcerted and increasingly irritated by the unending flow of frivolous jangling that continued while he made his way back upstairs where the sound was diminished to a staccato beat of muffled chords. Re-entering his room, he saw the writing bureau, felt a shiver of surprise and let out a cry.

“What the blazes… ?”

Someone had entered in his absence; the evidence was there on the writing desk, beside his open book — a key he lifted. It took a moment for him to realise that it must be for the adjoining dressing room; Jessie had said she would bring it, though he hadn’t expected her to come in so brazenly, especially given her denials when challenged about the earlier intrusion. He gripped it so tightly it almost hurt.

“Damn these people and their insolence!”

Angrily throwing the key to the floor, he turned on his heels and hurried back down to the drawing room whose door he jerked open without a moment’s hesitation. Facing him from where they sat together at the keyboard were Gwendoline and Gray, the latter cherubic and remarkably composed, given that he had earlier appeared close to alcoholic collapse. He was nodding vigorously to the vapid dance tune whose written notes he followed, his pipe twitching in time with the syncopated pulse, while Mrs Hyle, playing flawlessly beside him, looked serene, almost beautiful, as though doing nothing more complicated than arranging a vase of flowers. She glanced towards Sullivan, smiled without speaking, and an entire picture formed itself in his mind. Everyone here knew the truth about Martha. Everyone except Sullivan, their dupe.

“Where’s your husband?” he called over the music, maintaining his composure as best he could.

Gwendoline stopped playing; it took a bar or two longer for Gray to register the halt. “He’ll be attending to his patients,” she said calmly. “What’s the matter?”

“I need to speak with him.”

“Right away?”

Gray stood up, swaying slightly. “I know where he’ll be — I can take you.”

The invitation was unwelcome. “I’m sure a servant can help me, thank you.”

Gray was not to be dissuaded; he came over to Sullivan at the doorway and touched his shoulder in a manner that felt condescending, almost threatening. He smelled of whisky.

“Do go with Cecil, Mr Sullivan,” Gwendoline said coolly. “I’m sure whatever’s the matter will easily be sorted out.”

“Come on,” said Gray, grabbing Sullivan chummily by the arm and leading him out. Sullivan quickly eased free of Gray’s inebriated grip but consented to being escorted some distance to a part of the house he hadn’t yet seen, which Gray brightly described as Hyle’s looney bin. They ascended a staircase hardly less plush than the one Sullivan knew in the private wing, encountering no one until Gray made him stop at the wide entrance of a large, high-ceilinged room where five people sat silently on well-spaced easy chairs. One was reading, another knitting, the rest seemed to be doing nothing at all. No one turned to inspect or acknowledge the visitors. They varied in age but Sullivan guessed all to be affluent, idle, depressed. Martha was not among them.

Gray urged Sullivan onwards; they rounded a landing, passed a few closed doors — patients’ rooms, apparently — and reached another that Gray knocked, receiving no response. He knocked again and called for Hyle by name, still without answer. “He was here before,” Gray muttered, turning the handle. The room was unlocked and unlit.

“What place is this?” Sullivan asked, peering into the windowless void, discerning little.

“Old library. More like a junk shop.”

Gray stepped into the gloom and Sullivan followed, his eyes adjusting to the dim light cast from the entrance. Gray struck a match, ignited a gas jet on the wall and closed the door. Sullivan could then see that around each side of the modestly proportioned room were tall, glazed book cabinets, hard to inspect should anyone wish to, since much of the floor area was taken by wooden crates arranged haphazardly. Gray soon began rummaging in one that was unlidded, and pulled out a small, dark object he turned in his hand. Sullivan recognised it as a fly reel. “All sorts of rubbish here,” Gray said with an air of contentment, as if he were in his true element. He held the thing towards Sullivan. “Do you fish?”

“No, I don’t. And we’re looking for Dr Hyle,” Sullivan reminded him.

“He was trying to find something for me. Golf?”

“Pardon?”

“Bound to be clubs somewhere.”

“I’m no sportsman.”

“You won’t need this, then,” said Gray, extracting an incomplete shotgun whose barrel he blew along, sending dust flying.

“Let’s go.”

“Not interested in antiques?” Gray dropped the broken weapon back on the heap. “How about stamp collecting? Something for every taste here.” He resumed rooting — a young man with the manner of a geriatric, bent like an old woman at a vegetable market. “Fossils? Train set?”

“What’s your drift?”

“Only other pastimes I can think of are wine and women, and you don’t strike me as particularly serious about either.”

No use being annoyed with this stupid sot, Sullivan decided. Might even gain some further information from him. “How do you know Dr Hyle?”

Gray straightened. “Long story.”

“A synopsis, then?”

It turned out — as Sullivan should have guessed — to have been through Philip Heseltine. That pretentious musician and self-styled warlock had been at Eton with Hyle’s son.

“Only child they had,” said Gray. “Blown to bits in some big push or other. I never knew him, of course.” Another item had attracted Gray’s indiscriminate attention; a paperweight in the form of a curling stone, briefly fondled then returned to where it would have lain untouched for decades. This must have been a fine library once; now it resembled the poorest pawnshop. Sullivan could see a broken set of antlers, a threadbare rug, enough old coats hanging at the end of the room to clothe an army of tramps.

“What was Hyle trying to find for you?” Sullivan asked, but the question went past Gray’s ear without evoking any response. The idiot was bent in search again, over another wooden crate. Sullivan changed tack. “Did you truly mean what you said about Martha and Horace Littlewood?”

“Fucking?” Gray said without looking up.

“In on it together. You suggested earlier.”

“Did I?”

“You came in while I was playing the piano.”

“Oh yes.” Gray lifted a small brass mechanism. “What the devil was this for?”

“Could Littlewood have written Martha’s script?”

“Damned if I know. Or care, frankly.” Gray tossed away the gadget, dug further and drew out a blue and white jug.

“It would have to be someone with access to historical information. Musical knowledge. What about Gwendoline?”

“No one’s fucking her.”

“I mean as Martha’s accomplice.”

Gray stared, looking hazy, baffled, as though the alcoholic tide that had previously ebbed to his sluggish limbs were now flowing back to his brain. “Gwen? She’s a good egg.”

“A bereaved mother, though. Spiritualist, perhaps?”

“How the devil should I know?”

“Or could Hyle be tricking us?”

Gray scowled. “Us? I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss about this Martha nonsense.”

“And what about you, Gray? Is this all some sort of game — a joke at my expense? Are you part of it?”

This was too much. In the pallid light, Gray appeared suddenly sober, perfectly in control. “Go to hell, Sullivan — you and your suspicions and theories. Get out and leave me to find what I’m looking for, which by the way is none of your damned business.”

Stunned by this eruption, Sullivan stood briefly in a silence broken only by the low rush of the gas jet, then spun to exit the ramshackle library whose door he contemptuously left hanging ajar. Swiftly retracing his steps he again came past the open entrance of the day room where the inert residents had now been joined by Dr Hyle, who was holding a seated elderly woman’s wrist as if taking her pulse. Noticing Sullivan, he smiled and raised a finger, beckoning him to wait; a useful pause that permitted some of Sullivan’s rage to dissipate, before the doctor completed his task and strode towards him.

“My good man, you’ve found me. Shall I introduce you?” Dr Hyle waved back at his motionless charges who remained oblivious to Sullivan’s presence.

“Might we talk?”

“Certainly.”

Sullivan glanced beyond Hyle at the patients. “Somewhere more private?”

Hyle suggested his office; the way took them back past the library whose door was now closed. Sullivan decided not to mention having been there, and Hyle likewise omitted commenting on the sealed room, despite describing other features along their route. They arrived at a neatly furnished consulting room that would have suited any of London’s more superior physicians, with a dressing screen and treatment couch, and an imposing desk behind which Dr Hyle seated himself, inviting Sullivan to take a chair. Opening a cigar box, Hyle took one and offered to Sullivan who instead preferred a cigarette, accepting the flame of Hyle’s ornate lighter.

Sullivan got quickly to the point. “Grateful as I am for your generosity, I’m afraid I have to leave prematurely.”

“Called away? I’m sorry to hear it, and do hope you’ll manage to return soon to help me understand Martha’s case.”

There was no need to conceal suspicion. “Dr Hyle, I have to ask you, is there any chance this is a hoax?”

“I was hoping you might answer that for me.”

“I mean, can you solemnly swear to me…” Sullivan stopped, seeing the suddenly indignant look on the doctor’s face. “Please don’t be offended. We’re men of science and the question must be put.”

Hyle digested the remark, and at length nodded in agreement. “I appreciate that, of course. And yes, I give you my word that the evidence has been presented to you exactly as I discovered it myself.”

“Others in this house, could they have interfered, even conspired?”

The doctor breathed smoke and shook his head. “Littlewood? Impossible.”

Sullivan almost wished he were already on the train home, never having to deal with these people again. “Martha’s outpourings suggest knowledge of history, music.”

“Or psychic revelation.”

“I’m thinking of people such as Cecil Gray. Your wife.” He could see Hyle’s face darkening again. “The question must be put.”

“A most impertinent one.” Hyle rested his cigar on the crystal ashtray at his elbow. “Though since, as a scientist, you have the effrontery to mention Gwendoline, I can happily assure you of her probity.”

This line of questioning was futile; Sullivan had to try another. “I’m told you lost a son. That must have been very hard for you both.”

“And always will be.”

“In grief we seek hope. Rational judgment can give way to comforting illusion.”

“This has nothing to do with Charles.”

“Did his friend Heseltine ever come here? A musician and scholar — and from what I hear, something of a trickster.”

Hyle’s demeanour shifted; his curiosity was piqued. “You think Philip Heseltine may be mixed up in this?”

“With Gray, perhaps. Hungry for fame, wherever they can find it.”

“How would Martha bring them that?”

Sullivan had no answers, only an abundance of questions he could be content to leave unresolved — except for one. “Who recommended me to you? Was it Heseltine?”

“No,” Hyle said firmly. “I explained already that it was a delicate matter.” Hyle left the comment hanging, as if in hope that it might be sufficient answer, though both men knew by now that there could be no more delicacy in their proceedings. “As I told you, Mr Sullivan, there was — somewhat distastefully — a connection to Aleister Crowley, who has been so much in the papers lately with his debauched antics. Specifically, a person known both to him and to you, is also acquainted with a friend of Gwendoline’s. I was at pains to conceal the identity of this individual, not so much for her sake, as for yours.”

“If you wish any further help at all, you must tell me now.”

“I’m speaking of your wife.”

“Sylvia!”

“Or I believe I should say, former wife.”

Here was Hyle’s hidden weapon, unsheathed at last. He knew about France, everything. Sullivan could barely gather his thoughts. “She’s mentally unbalanced. Our child is in the care of a relative. Nothing Sylvia says is to be believed.”

Hyle waved his hand in a gesture indicative of minor victory. “I was simply looking for a Beethoven expert with an even-handed opinion of psychic phenomena, and was led to you. I still consider you the best man for the task, and hope that once your business elsewhere is completed, you’ll come back to continue the investigation.”

Sullivan felt crushed. Could all of this be Sylvia’s doing; an enormous scheme to discredit and ridicule him? It felt as if the entire cosmos was against him, the very stars acting in concert, exerting a crushing force. Why did he ever come to this accursed place?

Hyle noted his despondency. “Is your departure truly necessary?”

This latest conversation had decided it. “I’d like to catch the sleeper from Berwick tonight.”

“I’ll have Littlewood drive you to the station.”

Sullivan politely took his leave and made his way back to the family wing; a lengthy and circuitous route since Hyle, or some predecessor, had created a deceptive architecture of partitioning walls and infuriating dead ends. Sylvia, of all people! Yet her connection with Hyle was indirect; if she wanted revenge for having been thrown over, there were simpler ways than a clandestine operation using people she didn’t know. Surely all she’d done was raise his name. By the time Sullivan reached his room, her peripheral involvement seemed almost touching. Despite all the arguments and pain, she apparently still spoke of him to acquaintances in respectful terms.

His belongings looked untouched, though something had changed: the walking stick no longer stood upright, instead lying prostrate on the floor. Pushed by the ghost of a man alleged to have died here, or by a current of air, a mouse, a maid. It no longer mattered — enough of this pantomime. Sullivan began packing.

Near his slippers on the floor he noticed the key he threw down. Too late now to hang his clothes, but he wondered what the dressing room looked like, and when he tried the key in the lock he found it turned easily, the door opened smoothly, revealing a dense array of coats. Jessie had warned him the space was used as a store. He pushed a clear gap to discover what lay behind, sensed the dark interior to be much larger than expected, and when he felt his way in through the curtain of clothing his realisation was complete.

“I should have bloody well guessed!”

It was the old library. Stumbling to the gas jet and reigniting it, Sullivan saw again the crates of unwanted relics and partly-filled wall cases. Here was a direct route to his room, known to anyone but himself. No wonder Gray was so damn keen on the place — but what had the bastard been hoping to find? The unanswerable question made Sullivan examine his surroundings with slightly greater interest, though rather than waste time over discarded ornaments and utensils, he soon found himself distracted by the book cabinets. Four volumes of a nineteenth-century Britannica stood wrongly ordered among books in French; some from the set were on a neighbouring shelf, while the rest were missing or distributed randomly around the room. Several cases were devoid of books altogether, instead housing items that, for whatever reason, had failed to be deposited in any crate. A coloured earthenware jar caught Sullivan’s eye; he opened the glazed door it stood behind, lifted the lid and was greeted with a strange odour he suspected might be rat poison. Quickly returning it and continuing along the shelves, he spotted many books in German, some he recognised as classics. There were a few large folios he took to be atlases, piled flat and difficult to reach, obstructed by a crate that refused to be slid. Sullivan pulled away the wooden lid and found a mass of straw inside; he guessed the buried contents to be delicate — fine porcelain, perhaps — though when he removed a few handfuls he instead discovered glass. Further excavation revealed a curious contraption he initially thought might be an early device for creating electrical sparks. It was only once he’d uncovered it more completely that he realised what it actually was: not a scientific instrument but a musical one, consisting of a horizontal row of nested bowls on a rotating spindle, fixed within a mahogany case. When set spinning, a wet finger could bring a musical note from each bowl’s rim.

This was the armonicon mentioned by Martha-Therese; the glass harmonica whose eerie tones supposedly mesmerised her, made her limbs disappear, rendered her passive and vulnerable. Therese, though, was a fiction — it was Martha who was hypnotised, as Hyle freely admitted. In that lulled state she could have been made to say anything, do anything. Sullivan knelt, moistened his forefinger with saliva and rubbed it against a bowl edge hoping to bring forth a note, and when none came, without thinking, he again licked his finger, tasted something ancient and foul, spat and almost retched. He stood, disgusted not only by what had entered his mouth, but by the wretched scheme becoming clear to him. The glass harmonica was what Gray must have been looking for; and if it was Hyle who told Gray about it, then Hyle was architect of the plan, and had lied to Sullivan.

He returned to his room to resume preparing for departure, and was placing toiletries in his Gladstone bag when a sound made him look towards the bottom of the door where a folded piece of paper was being slid through. Immediately he shot to open and see who was there. It was Littlewood.

“What’s this about?” Sullivan asked crossly, stooping to lift the note.

“Begging your pardon, sir, I didn’t wish to disturb.”

Sullivan quickly read the neatly penned letter in which Littlewood affirmed availability to drive him to the station whenever required, couched in terms of abject humility and renewed apology for whatever inconvenience he might have caused earlier.

“Come inside,” Sullivan ordered, closing the door once Littlewood had entered and was standing with hunched shoulders and lowered head like a child expecting to be thrashed. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”

Littlewood raised his eyes. “Going on, sir?”

“Martha and you. Gray, Hyle, the whole damn story.”

“I don’t understand.”

Sullivan roared, “Tell me, man!”

Littlewood’s chin quivered. “Honestly, I… please…”

Sullivan grabbed his arm and all but dragged Littlewood to the other door, still open, through the parted coats and into the library he’d left lit. “Well?”

Littlewood gazed around as if at another world. “Remarkable!”

“Don’t tell me you never knew.”

“That you could enter from both sides? No sir, I had no idea. Nor even had cause to come in at all — it’s only for family belongings, to my knowledge, and not my place to meddle.”

Sullivan was sceptical. “You didn’t sneak through here into my room?”

“Certainly not, sir, upon my word.”

Sullivan led him to the glass harmonica lying exposed in its bed of straw. “Recognise that?”

Littlewood stared and shook his head. “Is it important, sir?”

Here was the very man who’d transcribed all that nonsense about its alleged use — was Littlewood feigning ignorance or genuinely stupid? All the evidence pointed towards the latter. “You’ve honestly never been in this room?”

“Honestly, sir, never.”

“I believe that either you or Dr Hyle is a liar. Which is it?”

Littlewood quaked. “Sir, I’m no liar. And nor is Dr Hyle, I can be sure of that.”

“Really? How sure, exactly?”

Littlewood’s mouth dropped open. He said nothing. Sullivan stepped away from him and looked around the disordered bookcases and crates, content to have come as close as he could wish to a solution. The simplest hypothesis had proved correct: fraud exists, and the fraudster had to be Hyle. Sullivan’s gaze rose to the ceiling where he could see the faded remains of painted decoration, pale blossoms and tangled stems. He turned to see that Littlewood was tentatively investigating the library’s contents. Not his place to meddle, he’d said. Perhaps he’d grown some liver at last. “Let’s see if we can find anything else,” Sullivan suggested.

“Pardon, sir?”

“A clue, anything.” Sullivan explained what he considered a likely conjecture, that Hyle had implanted Martha’s script using hypnosis, and that some kind of material evidence was meant to emerge, apparently supporting her claims. “I’m thinking there might be a fake score or libretto for the opera she spoke of.”

Littlewood’s slow nod showed how little he’d followed of what Sullivan had told him. He’d obviously transcribed Martha’s performance without properly reading or comprehending any of it.

“Beethoven’s opera, The Assassins. I expect there’s a forged manuscript here somewhere.”

“Ah, yes.” Littlewood embarked on a search that was bound to be fruitless, but would keep him harmlessly occupied. At least Sullivan could feel sure of eliminating him as a suspect, and could also dismiss Gray’s claims that Littlewood had interfered with Martha. The virginally timid assistant had probably never even managed to get as far with his friend the maid as Sullivan almost did earlier.

Sullivan left Littlewood aimlessly rifling and went back to his room, where only his books and correspondence remained to be put safely away. The letter from Jack Murry was one of the last items dropped into the Gladstone bag. Was it Murry, not Sylvia, who was Gwendoline’s friend; the one who had got Sullivan into this whole sorry affair? No use asking him, he’d only deny it.

“Mr Sullivan, sir!” It was Littlewood calling through. “I may have found something.”

Sullivan hurried back to the library where Littlewood had taken a book from a cabinet whose door hung open.

“Give me it.”

Sullivan opened the book and saw it was published in Germany in 1818 by a writer he’d never heard of, Joseph von Hammer. It was the title that made him smile. Die Geschichte der Assassinen — the history of the Assassins.

“Well done, Littlewood. Not exactly the final piece of the jigsaw, but a useful one.”

“Shall I put it back for you, sir?”

Sullivan shook his head and tucked the book under his arm. “Souvenir. Ready to drive?”

“Of course, as soon as you’ve had time to take your leave.”

“Of Hyle? I’ll let you say the goodbyes for me afterwards, Littlewood. I’ve had quite enough of this place and its tricksters.”

Coyle

The chain of arbitrary literary connections and impulse eBay purchases brought me full circle, back to Beethoven; though only after more anguish over Dad. The call from the hospital came as a shock — taken there with covid, surely a death sentence. Well, no, actually. Whether it was the dexamethasone they gave him, or his low BMI, or plain luck (good or bad — take your pick), he survived, with only a life-threatening bout of pneumonia for afters. Hospital visits were banned, of course, so rather than drive to Glasgow I had to settle for phone conversations with staff who, once they’d sorted out the major physiological stuff, got to know my father’s mental side. In following weeks they came to find the stubbornly deaf, implacably obtuse old bugger “just lovely”.

My response to the initial news — when I thought he was about to die — was to cry, which puzzled me. It might have been the shock, nothing more. I’d left him not long before in the capable hands of homecare visitors, and suddenly everything had changed. Surprise was one element of what I felt, a larger one was fear — but why be afraid of the release I’d wished for? Tempting to call it an indication I loved him after all; instead I concluded that the hollow sickness in my stomach and lump in the throat were infantile reflexes; a reactivation of childhood dependency. I was on the verge of becoming an orphan — and on sober reflection realised that to do so at my age would be no hardship, more a welcome relief.

Any impartial observer would surely consider the swift death of a sick, depressed, recently widowed, entirely friendless and increasingly confused octogenarian to be for the best. His unexpected survival was, so to speak, sub-optimal, though entirely characteristic. It also brought some new terminology to my vocabulary, already unpleasantly extended by the bureaucracy surrounding Mum’s death. The hospital declared Dad to be an “adult with incapacity”, unable to make decisions for himself. I would acquire that responsibility once the Scottish court granted me the necessary power — a process that in normal times can take six months to crawl its way through the legal system, while in a pandemic you could multiply that by some unknown factor determined by people’s broadband connections, furloughed spouses and screaming kids. Expert medical opinion was that Dad needed to be in a care home as soon as he was well enough to move. My opinion, based on recent experience, was that they’d need to put him in a straitjacket to get him there. The local council had an opinion of their own, based on what cognoscenti know as Section 13ZA of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. Dad was in a legal loophole, and as a result would end up languishing in hospital for four months, with little except antipsychotic drugs to help him pass the time.

No use trying to get word to him that the post mortem result had come through, redundantly confirming that Mum’s heart stopped beating, and revealing nothing further about the preceding minutes or hours which were of greater concern to me. At least I could finally give her a funeral. In the brief, densely filled period between her death and Dad’s hospitalisation, he’d insisted the affair should be as simple and inexpensive as possible; I didn’t need to be there, he said, and nor did anyone else, really. I made a mental note that his own would take exactly that form whenever it came around; meanwhile Mum’s could hardly be other than remote, viewed on video link by myself and scattered relatives, mostly elderly, who wouldn’t have been allowed to go to Maryhill Crematorium even if they’d felt willing to take the risk. I remember seeing a place resembling a small Gothic chapel, viewed from a fixed camera angle while doleful organ music played. A curtain rose and there was a coffin beyond. A woman said something and the curtain came down again. The link lasted thirty days — I didn’t click on it again. Dad never saw it, though eventually he’d pay for it, whenever I could unlock his account.

This almost takes us back to Beethoven, though not entirely. In my initial perusal of biographies I’d been struck by Beethoven’s miserliness; his insistence on holding onto savings, in the form of bank shares, that would ultimately pass to his nephew. In the curious game of parallels I found myself playing, I speculated on my father’s hoarding of money, which Freud might have ascribed to harsh toilet training, and I just saw as another illustration of how crap Dad was at finance. Some years ago he inherited the estate of his sister, who died childless and unmarried. She wasn’t rich, but owned a flat, so left a sizeable amount which Dad stashed away, spending barely a penny of it. I suppose he told himself it was my inheritance — this was how Mum explained it, when I asked why they didn’t go on a cruise, renovate the house, and do all the other things she would have liked and certainly should have done. More importantly, they could have used a fraction to pay for her hip operation, saving months of pain when simply sitting down next to her on the sofa could make her wince then smile with stoical determination. Going private, though, meant jumping the queue as far as my father was concerned; and while old age had moved his political views somewhere to the right of Oswald Mosley, a vestige of utopian socialism remained. Mum suffered in solidarity with the proletariat, and more importantly, with him.

Following her death and his mental collapse I still had no idea how much cash he’d sat on, other than from whatever bank statements I could find in the midden left behind. What I did learn, though, was the rule on care home fees, which were his to pay — at around £1000 per week — until his assets were drained and the council would take over. Given his ability to come through surgery, covid and pneumonia unscathed, it looked a safe bet that he had enough years in him to burn through everything he and Mum could have enjoyed. Were he to understand any of this, I expect he would say it was right that he had done his civic duty and saved the council a lot of money. He might even have a point, were he able to make it. One for my moral philosophy students to ponder, perhaps.

Returning to when I first learned he’d been taken to hospital, there could have been another component to my sudden fear. Had I caught the virus from him? It was a little over a fortnight since I’d last seen him in his poorly ventilated house where everyone had to pull aside their mask to shout. I certainly felt run down and unwell, though that was hardly surprising, barely a month since Mum had died, and with so much stress on top of grief. I was contacted by Test and Trace, asked if I had cough, fever, loss of smell (no to all three), and was told I didn’t need to self-isolate. I’d spent most of the pandemic in isolation already, so the advice brought little cheer. I was also told I didn’t qualify for a test, not having the required symptoms, but should notify my GP, should any appear. None did; instead during the following days I became so weak that I could barely walk to the kitchen to boil an egg. It could have been anything — covid, flu, exhaustion — and lasted three or four weeks. At least I could still read.

Somerset Maugham’s The Magician was on my pile, published in 1908, discarded from Birmingham City Library around 1970, bought online for £5.99. Maugham was one of the most successful and admired English writers of the first half of the twentieth century, then suffered the typical posthumous eclipse when fashions change, though a couple of his novels are still widely remembered, if not much read. The Magician isn’t among them. It was one of his earliest books, and came to my notice as yet another example of the “real people as fictional characters” technique. My list had started with D.H. Lawrence and J.W.N. Sullivan, branched into Aldous Huxley, then to numerous other examples from the same milieu, with writers such as Hilda Doolittle, Richard Aldington, John Cournos; all of whom turned life into art with fiercely score-settling energy, perhaps because the truth of their passions was greater than any that could be invented, or maybe they just lacked the confidence to make things up.

It would be easy to assume that all these writers were intimately connected with each other, hobnobbing on equal terms in some fancy salon or bohemian watering hole. My impression is that literary life at the time — like social life in any context and period — was a Venn diagram of overlapping ellipses. D.H. Lawrence was at the intersection of many of them — one of the bubbles included Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury group, which in turn overlapped Ottoline Morrell’s Garsington set. Another of Lawrence’s ovals is where we would find Hilda Doolittle, who was his neighbour in Cornwall, as well as her lover Cecil Gray, and his friend Peter Warlock, who in turn intersected with Huxley, who knew Sullivan — though I don’t think Sullivan knew Warlock, or ever met Lawrence. But Sullivan did know Aleister Crowley (another major intersection), who knew Somerset Maugham, who portrayed Crowley as the character Oliver Haddo in The Magician. Haddo’s “huge bulk” is the clearest giveaway, leaving aside the occult claptrap he comes out with.

And that just about brings us back to Beethoven, though we get there via Mozart, and before even that, via something Haddo says in the novel about an eighteenth-century attempt to create homunculi — little people spontaneously generated from fermenting fluid. “They were made in five weeks, by the Count von Küffstein and an Italian mystic and Rosicrucian, the Abbé Geloni. The bottles were closed with ox-bladders… buried under two cartloads of manure, and the pile daily sprinkled with a certain liquor…” The resulting homunculi were seen “by Count Max Lamberg, by Count Franz-Josef von Thun, and by many others.” The lengthy description of this in the novel by the “monstrously obese” Haddo enraged Aleister Crowley, who accused Maugham not of body shaming, but plagiarism. Haddo’s account came, almost word for word, from a book by a German occultist well known to Crowley.

More interesting to me than a spat between long-dead writers was whether any of the people mentioned ever existed. Küffstein and Geloni may not have, but Thun and Lamberg were perfectly real. Both knew Mozart — Thun’s highly musical wife was particularly close. Lamberg was also a friend of Giacomo Casanova — long speculated as an inspiration for Don Giovanni — while Thun was a devotee of mesmerism and magnetic healing, parodied in Così Fan Tutte. The connections form a diagram even more complicated than that of D.H. Lawrence and co. One of Count Thun’s daughters married Prince Karl Lichnowsky — Beethoven’s first patron in Vienna. Another married the Russian ambassador, Count Razumovsky — dedicatee of Beethoven’s Opus 59 string quartets. With a bit of web crawling and a large sheet of paper I established that Thun’s wife’s first cousin was Prince Lobkowitz, patron of Haydn and Beethoven, while Thun’s sister-in-law’s brother-in-law was father of Count Waldstein, whose eponymous sonata I hadn’t attempted in weeks. As with the English literati, we can’t assume the sprawling Austro-Hungarian nobility were all on the closest of terms with each other; but just as the working-class D.H. Lawrence could burrow his way into the conveniently interlocking salons of the cultural elite, Beethoven was able to place himself at the junction of powerful circles of influence.

This aimless research helped take my mind away from other things, though mostly had to wait until I felt well enough. I’d already videoed my lectures for online delivery before falling ill, thank God, so the university and world in general were barely troubled while I stayed largely bed- or couch-bound in my flat. The course was a first-year humanities module on the history of ideas, and one of the ideas was history itself. We like to divide the past into successive periods; the Middle Ages, Renaissance and so on. History could then be seen as a developing process — Hegel and Marx thought it driven by a general principle of spiritual or material conditions. The problem is to explain why things can go into reverse. How can there be a Holocaust? Perhaps each stage has the potential for its own negation; Adorno and Horkheimer saw capitalism’s underlying contradictions as the reason, and Beethoven as a cultural representative of the resulting tension. In plain terms, Beethoven wanted to pursue absolute art and also make a living — a union of opposites.

There’s another view of history, where neat periods are considered handy for school textbooks yet fundamentally deceptive. At every time what we find, rather than hidden contradiction, is manifest mixture. A so-called age of reason is simultaneously an age of unreason. The Encyclopédie — monument of Enlightenment rationalism — spawned a rash of alternative encyclopaedias. The aforementioned mesmerist Franz Joseph Thun created one consisting of two thousand unbound pages without any title or specific order. It takes us randomly to another part of the Venn diagram, thanks to a passage in the memoirs of the Prince de Ligne.

About the year 1784 Casanova went to Paris for the last time. My nephew, Waldstein, took a fancy to him at the Venetian ambassador’s, where they met at dinner. As Waldstein makes a pretence of believing and practising magic, he happened to mention the collar-bones of Samson and Agrippa, and all that sort of thing, which comes very easily to him. “To whom are you telling it? cried Casanova. “O, che bella cosa! Cospetto! I am familiar with it all.” “Well, then,” said Waldstein,” come to Bohemia with me. I start to-morrow.”

The Waldstein mentioned here is not Beethoven’s friend, but his older brother, an enthusiastic occultist whose castle had a large library in need of attention — hence the invitation to the ageing Casanova.

Casanova, at the end of his money, his travels, and his adventures, agreed; and thus it was that he became the librarian of a descendant of the great Wallenstein. As such he passed the last fourteen years of his life at the castle of Dux, near Teplitz.

There Casanova penned the story of his libidinous life and a good deal else, including a science-fiction novel, mathematical calculations, voluminous correspondence, and satires on human folly in encyclopaedic form. Thun’s encyclopaedia was more serious in intent, but what he and Casanova shared, along with Waldstein, was an interest in magic; and since the Thun family seat was a mere twenty miles or so northeast of Teplitz, the three men could easily have had regular contact.

Thun’s involvement with spiritualism — in particular his communication with a spirit named Gablidone — became public knowledge in the 1780s after Thun told the physiognomist Lavater about it. Lavater told Goethe, and it helped stimulate him to renew work on Faust. When Goethe’s gargantuan drama was finally completed, decades later, its characters included a talking homunculus, though I doubt this had anything to do with the creatures Thun almost certainly never saw. It did move me further along the diagram, though, into other private encyclopaedias.

Friedrich von Hardenberg, who wrote under the pen-name Novalis, began compiling one in 1798. His friend Johann Ritter did the same. Both were influenced by Goethe’s scientific studies, seeking to unify rather than isolate phenomena. That vision of wholeness underpins Novalis’s novel, The Novices at Saïs.

The paths of man are many-fold. Whoever follows and compares them will see remarkable figures emerge; figures seeming to belong to that great cipher written everywhere — in wings, eggshells, clouds and snow; in crystals and in rock formations; on frozen waters, the surfaces and interiors of mountains, plants, beasts, men; in the lights of heaven; on glass disks rubbed and polished with pitch; in iron filings round a magnet, and strange conjunctures arising by chance.

Seeing connections everywhere is a hallmark of madness as well as German Romanticism, though in my case it was displacement from what genuinely risked sending me round the bend. At least, for the time being, Dad was safely locked up and looked after in Glasgow Royal Infirmary, where I learned it was possible to see him by video. A very cheerful nurse took an iPad to his bed where there lay, propped against his pillow, a drooling, emaciated wraith I barely recognised. Nor apparently did Dad recognise himself — the nurse kept pointing to the part of the screen he ought to be looking at, rather than the grey slack-jawed face staring back at him. Conversation was impossible — he couldn’t hear me or the nurse, and didn’t seem interested anyway. This was my one attempt at direct communication with him during all the time he was in hospital. It made me wonder — as so often — what Mum would have thought if she could have seen how things had turned out; and as always, I felt glad she couldn’t.

There were his household bills to deal with. Since he, or more precisely Mum, had managed everything in the pre-computerised style of the 1970s, and since the only way to discover what was owed was to drive up and push my way past a pile of mail behind the front door, and moreover since I was totally knackered and sick of the whole thing, I did nothing except resume piano practice, to the undoubted disappointment of neighbours who’d been experiencing the quiet upside of personal disaster. The Waldstein Sonata wasn’t on the playlist — I stuck to Bach and Mozart — but I did learn more about Beethoven’s friend, Ferdinand Ernst Waldstein, and his family.

Ferdinand was the youngest of four brothers, the eldest being Casanova’s employer. One of the middle brothers was inducted as a Knight of Malta and fought the North African Ottomans. Ferdinand also went briefly to Malta, then returned and joined a different chivalric order, the Teutonic Knights. Their castle was at Mergentheim in southern Germany; however their grandmaster, the Elector of Cologne, held court nearly two hundred miles away in Bonn, so this was where Waldstein went in 1788. There he met a family closely connected with the Teutonic Order, the Breunings, and befriended their regular house guest, the teenage Beethoven, rising star of the court orchestra. In 1791 Beethoven composed a “knights’ ballet” that Waldstein could pass off as his own, and the grateful knight returned the favour the following year, facilitating Beethoven’s move to Vienna as protégé of Waldstein’s relative, Prince Lichnowsky. Waldstein left Bonn and raised a contingent of German soldiers that served as a British regiment in the West Indies during the Haitian slave rebellion; he and Beethoven lost touch completely — making it a mystery why, over a decade later, Beethoven decided to dedicate a piano sonata to him. The only subsequent appearance of Waldstein in Beethoven’s life is a conversation book entry in 1819, when someone scribbled a warning to the by-then very deaf composer about the danger of speaking loudly in public places, saying Count Waldstein was nearby. That, of course, could equally have referred to another Waldstein.

Displacement was all very well, but at some point I had to go to Scotland to check on Dad’s house. Covid was no longer an excuse for delay; the regulations had eased, and there was nothing to prevent me going, other than the loathing I felt about seeing whatever state the house was in. Eventually I marked a weekend on the kitchen calendar, swore I’d go, and texted Dad’s neighbour Hazel to tell her; partly so she wouldn’t think there was a burglar, mainly to make sure I’d committed myself.

Arriving at the empty house and bringing out my key, I felt uneasy. This was a place that ought to be safe and familiar, but instead was strange and disturbing. I had no idea what awaited. On opening the door and stepping over the mass of mail, what struck me in the hallway was how warm the air was. The central heating had been turned high when the paramedics came and took him away two months earlier, and had been burning non-stop since.

The living room provided the strongest impression of the squalid scene the ambulance people encountered. Biscuit fragments on the laminate flooring crunched beneath my feet. Dad’s armchair was piled with cushions, pullovers and a dressing gown. He’d been sleeping there. The dining table still bore the last vase of flowers Mum had put there, long dried and wilted. Also her pill dispenser, nail file and other objects left when she went upstairs, fell on the bedroom floor and never got up. Dad had contributed further artefacts; there were scraps of paper bearing crabbed memoranda: milk, bread, pork pie. Bank cards were strewn from a small, very old leather wallet. One of them was Mum’s, and on the back he’d taped a shakily inscribed label, Ane. In his lonely confusion, straining to maintain whatever order he could, he’d forgotten how to spell her name. A plastic ketchup bottle lay on the rug beneath the table; the top had come off, contents had spilled. I thought to wipe up the mess, but found that the ketchup had gone tacky, almost solid, darkened like old blood, impossible to remove unless with an appropriate solvent. I wanted to throw away everything, make the house an empty shell. But I couldn’t. It was still his house, his property, and in every atom of the enormous chaos I sensed his gravity.

I’d thought to spend the night there and drive back to England next day, but couldn’t face it. More than the mess that would take a week to sort out, it was the intangible atmosphere of despair that made me determined to get out as soon as I’d done only the most essential tasks. Heating off, meter reading taken, mail gathered. In the fridge, some old milk gone foul, but not much else that was disgusting, only a lot of expired sauces and preserves needing to be thrown out. The kitchen cupboard was a different story when I opened and was rewarded by an exaltation of tiny flies that swirled towards the ceiling then window where they roosted, delighted at daylight they’d never seen. Their nursery in the cupboard had been a plate of bananas, shrivelled to utter blackness and now resembling grandiose vanilla pods or the unwrapped fingers of a mummy. A half-eaten loaf of bread was in there too, a coral reef of greens and yellows.

The situation upstairs was hardly altered. The bathroom appeared useable without any major health risk — I was aware that he’d taken to peeing in the sink since he found it easier, and had seen him flagrantly doing so with the door left open, but any residual smell had faded over time into the background atmosphere of neglect. The bedroom that had been his and Mum’s showed signs of drawer-rummaging but no sleep. On the floor, still heaped, were the coats and other items he’d covered her with, when she told him she was feeling cold. I’d seen them tangled at the foot of the wardrobe after her body was taken away, and they hadn’t been moved since then.

One was a shawl I’d bought her years ago as a birthday present. At the time of her death I’d lifted it and smelled her perfume. That had faded now. There was a small rug whose stained underside I’d quickly noticed on first seeing it, and I’d wondered about those stains — had she soiled herself while struggling there? Whatever the cause, the rug was no Turin Shroud. The only person left to venerate Mum was me, now that Dad had all but forgotten her, and I could honour her memory however I chose.

I brought a large cardboard box from the spare room that Dad, over time, had patiently turned into an unmanageable repository for items even more useless than the tools and gadgets littered elsewhere. Mum’s last coverings went in the box, and the box went on the bed. At some point those would have to go to the recycling centre, along with so much else, whenever I could stomach it.

My removal of items from the floor revealed a small white plastic bag on the carpet between the wardrobe and a bedside cabinet, sealed with an elastic band. Inside the bag when I lifted it I could feel another, smaller bag, holding something that felt granular, powdery. I imagined the police officers, Stuart and Zoe, entering the room with difficulty, stepping over Mum’s body, finding what Hazel had only glimpsed; pulling aside coats, shawl, the soiled rug. A mess on the floor, picked up with whatever was to hand, the way you would a dog’s — then forgotten. This was the picture the little bag presented to me as I squeezed its dry contents. More likely it was seeds from a plant in the garden — Dad habitually saved them from dispersing naturally, preserving them for some hypothetical horticultural project that never materialised. The little bag went in the rubbish bin, unopened.

There was another job for me to do — collect my mother’s ashes from the local undertaker at a small industrial estate on the edge of town. I signed a form there and was handed something resembling a gift bag, purple with string handles, like you might get in a perfume store. The ashes were apparently in a box, hidden beneath the envelope I could see through the open top, which had all the paperwork. I returned to my car and cried a bit, having held myself in while dealing with formalities, then drove back and took the purple bag upstairs to the cluttered spare room where I made space to deposit it, not yet ready to investigate further. I resumed mindlessly rearranging and discarding household items, cooked a ready meal from the freezer, and decided to depart before I grew tired. Mum’s ashes could stay where they were until I figured out what to do with them.

It was a few days later when a new thought occurred to me; another picture of what might have happened in her last moments. Flailing on the bedroom floor, reaching for anything that might help her rise, Mum gave up, accepted defeat and prepared for death, like the true philosopher she was. She told Joe to cover her, then asked for something else — her mother’s ashes. I was sure she’d scattered them all — though perhaps she hadn’t, and chose to hold them at the end.

Hers were safe enough, but the little white bag had gone to a landfill site somewhere. The thought chilled me briefly, until I reassured myself that whatever it contained — dry excrement or vomit, incinerated bone or garden seeds — made no difference except in imagination. The possibilities were variously disgusting, sentimental, sacred. Emblems of life, death, rebirth. What use are emblems? Had I preserved the little bag, whatever it was, I would have been like Dad, investing objects with a power beyond myself. He kept things, not because he wanted to, but because he felt he had to, afraid of what might happen if he let them go. It suddenly became clear to me, how much my life too had been steered by anxious compulsion — a sense of duty. And how easy it is to throw off that duty, like tossing away trash. Then everything is allowed.

Adam

Third day in this madhouse and still not a sodding thing to show for it. Taunted by the hum of his open laptop, Adam stared at the document he’d yet again rendered blank apart from the heading.

Chapter One.

It wasn’t like this for Jack Nicholson in The Shining, at least he managed to rattle out something on his typewriter before going ape-shit with an axe. And he had an excuse — alone with a whingeing wife and weird kid in a haunted house. All Adam could complain about in this luxury hotel for overrated tossers was that he hadn’t been given one of the posh rooms inside. They had, though, overrated him. Got to give them that. Nearly as much as he’d overrated himself by assuming that some creative pamper time here would enable him to produce a masterpiece.

Someone at the door — just when he was getting into the swing of not doing anything. Adam went to respond, surprised when he opened to see quilt girl, name forgotten, with the sheepish demeanour of a neighbour you’ve never spoken to whose brought that Amazon delivery you ordered and weren’t in for.

“Sorry to bother you. There’s a fire alarm.”

The surrounding vegetation was smokeless. “Fire alarm?” Adam echoed with bewildered up-swing.

“In the house. We’ve all had to assemble outside.”

She was a refugee seeking shelter in his cabin. No, that couldn’t be right. She saw his confusion and reminded him. “It’s Anna.” He still couldn’t work out what the hell was going on. “And you’re Adam, right?”

“Yes. Adam Crouch. Do you want to come in?” As soon as he made the reflex offer, it sounded like the come-on it wasn’t meant to be.

“No,” she said with a laugh and head-shake tinged with embarrassment. “The thing is, we have to assemble. They want everyone to take part in the drill.”

“Everyone? Even me?” He was two hundred yards away from a non-existent conflagration — hardly an emergency in anyone’s book.

“When Frieda did the headcount she saw there must be one missing. Then somebody thought of you.”

That was considerate. “Who thought of me? Blue?”

“Graham Vinyer.”

The boring historian. Maybe not such a perfect cunt after all. “Well, here I am,” Adam said cheerfully, making a hand-broadening gesture that sort-of emphasised his hereness but was actually telling quilt girl to piss off and let him continue not starting his novel.

“You need to come and assemble,” she said, apologetically but firmly. She was a foot shorter than Adam and thirty kilos lighter but right now she was one hundred per cent in charge.

“Can’t you go and tell them I’m not inside the house not getting burned by the pretend fire?”

She shook her head. “Sorry. Tough, eh? It’s thrown my morning’s work too.”

Comrades in adversity, trench-mates against the jobsworth mentality of Frieda Delgado and the dictatorship of jack-booted Director Hines. Vive la révolution. Tell them to go to hell. Fight the system and stuff the fire alarm. Or maybe not.

“I’ll put my shoes on,” Adam said resignedly, and having done that as well as send his laptop to sleep he followed Anna who’d already gone some way ahead. At least there was no rain to embellish the futile exercise. Approaching the parking area beside the house, Adam saw the delegates grouped and clustered according to friendship, tolerance or random assortment, with one or two taking the chance to smoke or vape. Heads turned accusingly.

“Here he comes,” Graham guffawed, pointing. A cunt after all.

Frieda, clipboard in hand, re-did the count, confirmed that everyone had evacuated safely, and declared it time to go back inside. Adam came up to the multi-coloured nuisance and asked her, “Was this really necessary?”

“The fire drill? Of course.”

“I meant, making me come and stand here.”

“Regulations,” she jangled, waving the clipboard in vague justification. Adam could see a list of names he didn’t recognise.

“Who’s Peter Warlock?”

Frieda looked at Adam, then at the clipboard, and again at Adam, as if finding no difference of IQ between a former name-to-watch and a piece of wood. “It’s the room beside the warden’s,” she said cryptically, holding the damn thing steadily enough for him to see what was printed on it. Right column: names of delegates. Jagoda Borko-unpronounceable. Pierre Le-whatsit. Professor Rostov. Left column: assorted monikers in no comprehensible order. “The rooms are named after people associated in some way with Axtoun House.”

“And what’s mine called?”

“Chalet Number 3,” Frieda reminded him, displaying to Adam his inevitable absence from the list of initiates granted a whiff of history on their doorplate. The Huxley room was occupied by Claudia Bren-Klauer; Alphonse was in Orage. Were they adjoining? Adam didn’t bother asking; he could see that this room-naming game was only another bit of pretentious fluff with no significance whatsoever. The rest had now gone inside, even the time-wasters who’d been smoking.

“Can I go now?” said Adam.

“I think you should.”

He turned and began making his way back to Chalet Number 3, but this whole non-fire business had worked him up sufficiently that what he really needed was a long walk and a good loud shout against the iniquity of the human race, or at least the portion of it filling rooms with names like Cedric Parton or Gwendoline sodding Hyle. He recalled trudging up a hill with Data Yank on his first afternoon here, so thought to try that amble again. Chance to think about Chapter One while waiting for lunch. Adam followed the path he recognised and soon came past the converted barn that he’d been told was an art studio. Looking through the window he expected to see whatever abstract abortion Pierre Le Poloneck had been wasting time on. Instead he made out a suspended expanse of colourful fabric that he reckoned had to be a quilt; a theory confirmed when a voice behind him said, “Hello again.” It was Anna, not at all sheepish now she was on the threshold of her own domain. “Like a look inside?”

Who did they name the barn after, Adam wondered, while Anna twisted a small combination padlock on the door, selecting what he plainly could see as the combination 123. Not as if any of this art stuff was ever worth pinching. They went in and it all looked quite pleasant and airy with white walls, big skylights, a hell of a lot more thoughtfully designed than Chalet Number 3.

“This your quilt?” he asked redundantly, pointing at something whose value — artistic, cultural or economic — he was in no position to guess.

“Like it?”

“Beautiful. Didn’t you say you did one for the Scottish Parliament?”

“Yes. This one isn’t a commission though. I have an exhibition in Prague next year.”

She couldn’t be much older than his daughter. Must be nice, thought Adam, getting all that attention. Quilts never go out of fashion. Not like scriptwriters. If high-end went belly-up she could always sell bedcovers at craft fairs.

“How’s your writing coming along?”

“Fine.” He was about to reach out and stroke a pretty spiral, then stopped himself, remembering this was art, not something in a shop.

“Getting inspiration?”

“Oh, certainly. You?”

“Of course. The colours here. The landscape.”

“What about the people?” he asked her. “Inspiration or irritation?”

Anna chuckled. “There are always a few egos on residencies like these.”

Pierre was in Adam’s mind; he thought the snooty Belgian worked here too but couldn’t see any of his conceptual bollocks, unless perhaps the wall radiators and exposed plumbing were headed for Tate Modern. Adam asked Anna about it; she told him Pierre was carrying out forest work.

“Chopping trees?”

“Not exactly.”

“He’s pretty sure of himself, don’t you think?”

Adam’s attempt at camaraderie met with a politely noncommittal response. Anna was already an old hand at this residency lark, diplomatically rubbing along with geeky particle physicists or lecherous rock musicians while quietly doing the odd bit of stitching to earn her keep. Could still try plying her for gossip though. “What about that pianist guy, Alphonse? Got in a fight, apparently.”

She shook her head. “Don’t know about that. I’ve always found him pleasant. Are you going to his performance?”

Adam hadn’t heard; there was to be a recital later. Didn’t even need to think of an excuse for missing out on forty minutes of Alf at the ivories, though when Anna mentioned pre-concert drinks, Adam decided he might show up for that stage of the ordeal. He nodded at the spirally design hanging nearby. “How much do they go for?”

Anna smiled. “I’ll give you a trade price if you’re interested.”

“Just curious.” The thing he was looking at was probably a couple of grand, though he couldn’t see what made it so different from something he’d find for fifty quid. She might have spent a year making it, but it always pissed Adam off when these art people reckoned they could charge for labour as if they were electricians or window cleaners. How many hours had Adam spent trying to write Chapter Bloody One? Try billing that to anyone, plus expenses. Lot of tea, biscuits, lecky and bog roll to get a novel done. And this girl wants thousands for a sodding blanket.

“Better let you get on, I suppose,” he said.

Rather than immediately going to hold the door for him, she seemed as much in need of time-spilling avoidance strategies as he was. “Seriously, how’s it going? Your work, I mean.”

“Oh, it’ll come.”

“Always does, eventually.”

Both standing with arms folded, eyes wandering in mutual appreciation of the essentially solitary nature of artistic production, and the value of occasionally having a natter with anyone who might drift within range. For Adam it was usually the postman or the checkout assistants at Asda. Small-talk with Anna needed to be about more than the weather. He asked, “Did you believe what Hines said about the reason for the library being closed?”

“The asbestos? Sure.”

“Not something to do with the incident there?”

She looked puzzled. “What incident?”

“You know. Robert Coyle.” She still didn’t get his drift. He’d clocked her as being a bit out of the loop but had she even failed to notice a corpse being carried out? “He died there, in the library.”

A bulb appeared to light. “Not that library.”

“There’s another?”

“Robert was in the old one upstairs. Not really a library any more, just a sort of store room.”

“What was he doing there?”

“I don’t know, I believe it’s full of old junk. Artists sometimes find items they can use, though I was told I’d need to sign anything off with health and safety. Risk assessment and all that. Didn’t seem worth the effort.”

Robert Coyle took the risk and it did his health no good at all. “I was told he fell off a ladder.”

“I expect there’s one in there.”

Their conversation was reaching a natural if somewhat downbeat close.

“Well, can’t keep you from quilting.”

“And you’ve a book to get back to. Nice chatting.”

“Yes.”

A slightly awkward gap during which Adam wondered if he should shake her hand, pat her on the head, offer to buy that stupid blanket. He initiated a bodily movement that inwardly meant goodbye but outwardly resembled an involuntarily spasm, turned and exited.

Rather than go back to his cabin and ruddy novel, he wandered further, drawn by the distant intermittent whine of a motorbike, small boat or most likely chainsaw, to woodland where, between close-ranked pines, he followed a narrow, needle-strewn path, the mild shady air smelling strikingly like loo freshener. Flies soon cottoned on to the rare interloper on their patch and buzzed round him with an excitement he couldn’t share. No use swatting the damn pests, just had to give in to their flaming tickle on his ears, even sometimes flying inside and almost drowning out the ever-loudening noise that definitely had to be tree-cutting. Couldn’t possibly live in a place like this, lighting camp fires and shitting in the woods. Perhaps a weekend though. Get back to his animal spirit and all that. Must be what Pierre was up to — Adam caught sight of him ahead, the source of the mechanical disturbance, bare chested and artistically devoid of protective gear. Even scrawnier than when dressed, though managing the power tool well enough. Big orange thing. Bosch? No, they’re green. Kärcher are yellow — or are they? Adam approached with deepening curiosity; Pierre couldn’t avoid noticing him but acted like he hadn’t. Invisible Adam — fire drill all over again. He stood watching Pierre shave the head-high remains of what could have been a perfectly good set of mid-price floorboards or a chest of drawers but was instead becoming more like a giant cock.

“Nice,” Adam shouted above the din, his word and volume chosen carefully and in any case ignored in favour of arboreal swordplay. What was the battery life on those things? Pierre paused momentarily to re-aim, and Adam partly saw the brand name on the blade. Swedish, he guessed. He’d never used a chainsaw and didn’t expect Le Tarzan here would give him a shot, or even perceive he’d been joined by anything more sentient than a gnat swarm. Dust and shavings were spewing from the poor stump being massacred — who’d ever come and look at the thing except the odd badger, fox or whatever the hell lives in a pine forest apart from flies?

Eventually Pierre ran out of puff, let the saw whirr down and stood back, admiring the penile monstrosity.

“Nice,” Adam called again, feeling it not worth the effort of coming up with an alternative way of describing something so bloody awful.

Pierre at last appeared to notice he had company other than the applauding cocktail crowd in his head, and looked over at Adam, wiping his brow with his skinny forearm. “Why are you here?” he asked in seemingly genuine puzzlement.

“Taking a walk.”

“Here?”

“Why not?”

This was far less comfortable than chatting with quilt girl. Pierre was half-naked and carrying a potentially lethal weapon, even on low battery. But what the hell, thought Adam, talk to the guy and just try not to wind him up. He pointed at the murdered tree. “What’s it…” he was almost going to say “meant to be” then swerved in time to avoid that thing you never say to the kind of artist who wants it to mean anything to anyone who’ll pay. “… Called?”

This was hardly better. Pierre struggled with the deep question, alternating his concentration between Adam, stump and chainsaw — the entire brand name now clearly legible on the blade. “I haven’t decided.”

Could always try Husqvarna, thought Adam, wondering if he’d pronounced it correctly in his head and guessing there might be copyright issues. Just for the sake of it he asked where the inspiration came from, a query that Pierre lapped up like a cat at a saucer. Some crap about energy and climate change and God knows what else. Soon wished he’d never asked.

“And mushrooms,” Pierre added.

This was novel: something actually tangible. Could even eat them. “Mushrooms?” Adam prompted.

“Yes. We’re on the Mushroom Walk.”

“Are we?”

“It’s what it’s called.”

Adam hadn’t seen any apart from the carved phallus that did after all look like a mutant toadstool if you wanted it to. “Where are all the mushrooms, then? Real ones, I mean.”

“Not the season, perhaps. Or you weren’t looking.”

This put-down seemed like a good place to end what had come surprisingly close to being a civilised conversation. Here they were in a forest, one of them with no shirt, talking about art and fungi. Exactly what the Hyle Centre was supposed to encourage and stimulate. Could have had a photo of the two of them for the website. Creative ideas in peaceful surroundings. A pity Adam had to go back to Chalet Number 3 and write Chapter One. Couldn’t put it off forever.

“Be seeing you, Pierre.”

The saw was already churning before he took his first onward step. Its moaning continued behind him, changing pitch and rhythm as new bits of tree encountered misfortune. Think how many insects were losing their home. An owl would fly in tonight and wonder what the hell had happened. He did manage to spot some mushrooms eventually. Ugly little brown things that would most likely kill you. Nearly threw up just looking at them, slimy and putrid, serving as fast-food fly-through for equally horrid creatures, beetles with scaly wings. Definitely no longer than a weekend if he ever went down the survivalist route for improved mental health and general well-being. He wondered how many of those wholefood cavemen types ended up poisoning themselves. Quite a few, most likely.

When he got back to the mansion it was near enough time for lunch — the usual dismal affair — scheduled to be followed by a round-table discussion of the morning lecture he’d missed. With no sign of any parallel symposium in the bar, Adam knew he could no longer delay retreating to his hut. Once there, instead of waking his laptop, he opted to join it in slumber, which proved a pleasant way to fill a couple of hours when he wouldn’t have written anything anyway. And then it was time for pre-concert drinks.

Arriving back at the house he found the familiar crowd downing sherry in the common room, served as ever by what’s-her-name behind the drinks table showing mournful apathy and not the slightest hint of recognition or acknowledgment when she poured for Adam, who was surely her best customer whenever the Harveys came out. He carried his first thimbleful not far from its source, knowing he’d need a top-up more than he could possibly benefit from forced conversation with the scattered odd-bods who’d arrived before him. His splendid isolation near the door was soon interrupted when Deborah came in and asked how he’d spent the day. She sounded genuinely interested to know, though Adam knew fake empathy to be very much a psychotherapist’s stock in trade. Or did he mean psychopath? He told her about Anna’s quilt, Pierre’s sculpture, his walk. Mushrooms. The more he talked, the more satisfied he almost became with a day he knew to have been utterly wasted. Deborah imbibed his micro-drivel like an extract from Homer, then moved on to interrogate someone else. How’s her own day been, Adam wondered. Did she spend the entire time keeping mum about herself, analysing others without them noticing?

Next to pester him was Jagoda, who came in looking sweatier than ever, after what must have been a particularly strenuous bout of nanoparticle calculation.

“Figured it out yet?” he asked open-endedly so she could run any way she chose with it — preferably as far away as possible.

She leaned uncomfortably close towards him. “I should ask you the same question.”

“And I’d probably answer the same way.”

“Aha.” She went to evaporate next to the window, and as Adam turned for a refill he saw Frieda come in, filling the room with excess personality and a bead-clattering clap of her hands.

“Friends, it was actually intended that we gather upstairs for wine.” Frieda glared at what’s-her-name who couldn’t have read the spreadsheet properly, and Adam felt heartened by the prospect of better booze. He trooped up with the rest and placed himself at the head of the queue in the concert room where a waiter was offering posh-looking red and white. Adam couldn’t decide, so went for both, knowing that by now nobody could give a toss if he took a two-handed approach. Such blatant piss-artistry had the added benefit of ensuring that nobody tried to talk to him.

The room was exactly as Adam had seen it before, when Claudia had exercised her tonsils to the accompaniment of the instrument that stood at the far end with its bonnet open. No sign of Alphonse who’d be rattling it; Adam was ready to make his escape as soon as there was any sign of imminent music. The chairs were arranged as previously, and while the other punters stood nattering he went for one in the back row, enabling him to use the floor for the red he’d opted to have as main course after his white starter.

Sipping the tepid alcohol he stared at the piano, wondering if classical musos like Alphonse got nervous before a gig. Perhaps he was getting smashed in whatever cupboard served as green room here. Maybe he was shagging Claudia. At least he only had to come and bash out some tunes for a partially intoxicated and largely sympathetic audience. Reaching down for the red, Adam became aware of an approaching figure and looked up to see Blue take the neighbouring chair.

“Good idea, mate. Spread your bets before the bar closes.”

“Didn’t think you were a music lover, Blue.”

“About as much as you, Adam.”

Blue had taken part in the round-table discussion and began summarising for Adam what he’d missed, which wasn’t much. Adam described his excursion to the quilt factory and cock carving.

“Expect he’ll give a presentation when it’s finished,” said Blue. “Anna gave a talk a few days ago.”

Adam mentioned what she’d said about Coyle. “Did you know he was in a different library?”

“Didn’t even know there was one.”

Frieda called everyone to attention. She was standing beside the piano with some sheets of paper in her hand, and invited people to sit for whatever announcement was going to interrupt Adam’s next rendezvous with the sommelier.

“Friends, a word about what we shall shortly have the pleasure of listening to.”

Oh God, thought Adam, please not a lecture. Frieda put on the spectacles strung round her neck and began to read.

“Beethoven’s Sonata in C major, Opus 53, has long been one of his most popular and admired piano compositions, known to all as the Waldstein Sonata.”

To all except Adam who’d never heard of it.

“What is far less well known is the story of Count Ferdinand Waldstein.”

Everyone was by now seated and fully engaged with an ordeal that suddenly became even worse, as Alphonse strode past the audience and sat down at the piano behind Frieda who carried on speaking without interruption. It was a bloody hijack, nothing more than a sly way of making sure the drinkers were trapped to hear Frieda’s introduction and the ensuing keyboard antics. Adam rose in his chair, Blue touched his arm and indicated with a head-turn that the wine waiter had gone off duty, the doors had been closed. There was no escape.

Frieda’s script was a long and detailed distraction from Adam’s glass of red. He tried to ignore it, but as with the flies earlier, it was impossible to avoid an occasional buzz of intrusive verbiage. Teutonic knights. Casanova. Homunculi. Ducks. Enough of this ball-ache. The one thing Adam knew about classical concerts was that coughing was verboten, so this would be his exit strategy. While Frieda droned, Adam began working himself into a steadily strengthening bout of fake throat-clearing that quickly went from simulated tickle to entirely genuine paroxysm. He got to his feet, struggling past Blue and the rest of the back row who pulled in their knees and chests, recoiling from the hacking phlegm-gargler stumbling over them and onward, thank God, to the door that Adam pushed open feeling like Nelson Mandela. Free at bloody last. Shutting it behind him he could hear Frieda continuing as if nothing had happened.

Along a side passage he could see a table where wine bottles stood enticingly abandoned. Going to investigate, he found them all to be disappointingly empty, but an incongruously secure-looking metal door beside the table held irresistible attraction, if he could figure out the combination for the padlock sealing it. His first attempt, the obvious 123, confirmed what he already knew about the basic intelligence of Hines, Frieda, what’s-her-name and the rest of the Axtoun shit-shower. The padlock clicked loose, Adam pushed open the door and peered into a dim, windowless space. Stepping inside and feeling along the wall he located a switch, and as soon as he could see the place properly he knew what it must be. This was the old library, the room where Coyle snuffed it. Maybe about twenty foot across, no more than that. Big enough to keep hundreds of bottles, though he couldn’t see any; only dusty crates and upturned furniture stacked chaotically like unwanted items from a house-clearing. Glass-paned wooden cabinets ran right round the room on two levels, the upper with a narrow parapet just above head height, reached by a fixed wooden ladder. The one that Robert Coyle must have fallen from.

Muddied applause signalled the end of Frieda’s monologue and the start of Alphie’s finger exercises — Adam heard the low rhythmic thump of the old joanna and felt assured that as long as everyone stayed captive he could undertake a decent vino hunt, though he’d first have to negotiate the clutter of boxes and assorted refuse littering the room. At the far end was another door, wooden, where he headed to see if that might be the answer to his prayer, though before reaching it he was surprised by a new noise that wasn’t from the concert; a weird, uncanny sound that for a moment seemed like an alarm triggered by his approach. He stood listening, trying to figure it out. Like when you rub your finger round the rim of a wine glass. Treading to the door he confirmed that the flutey notes were coming from the other side. There was a keyhole, but when he stooped and put his eye to it he found the thing blocked.

With no prospect of explanation he focused instead on the various crates ranged willy-nilly round the floor, quietly opening whatever he could, discovering stuff that might prompt bartering at a car-boot sale but would more rightly go on a skip. Stacks of china, heaps of cutlery, torn paintings in broken frames. Golf balls, cotton reels, a mass interment of contorted dolls — and all the while, the Dr Who sound effects continued, not a proper tune, only shimmering tones that set his teeth on edge. Adam widened the search, realising that as well as books, the surrounding cabinets housed other items — pottery figures, marble busts, vases, jars — and on one shelf, gleaming in electric light like a beacon of hope, a glass decanter, partly filled with straw-coloured liquid. He went at once to investigate, opening the door and retrieving the treasure whose stopper he swiftly removed, releasing a bouquet that was luxuriously complex though hard to identify. His first sniff made him think whisky, a deeper breath suggested brandy — or could it even be rum? He put the rim to his lip, tilted slowly and took a sip that warmed his palate yet left the question unresolved. The viscous, woody liquor had an agreeably medicinal quality, intensified when a second, larger sip launched volatile tendrils through Adam’s synapses. So fine a product ought to be served appropriately, but rather than try to locate a goblet or tumbler untainted by mouse shit and spider legs, Adam carried on sipping from the decanter and soon grew pleasantly dizzy. The sound from the other room seemed louder, sweeter, and he felt an urge to move towards it — but his legs were solid, he couldn’t take a step. His feet began to disappear like melting ice, his knees vanished, torso dissolved. The decanter fell from a hand no longer there.

Four

1823

Dusk was falling when Marion reached Axtoun after travelling for most of the day. One of the horses had grown lame and needed to be changed, then during the final stage the coach had rocked laboriously along poor roads rendered muddy by recent rain. Alone inside the post-chaise, Marion had spent the time revisiting her doubts, missing the home she had left and her father at whose insistence she was now to serve in Colonel Wilson’s household. It was with an unsettling combination of relief and apprehension that she caught through the carriage window her first glimpse of the manor, sombre and aloof at the head of a long drive, then finally growing with the inescapable reality of arrival into the grey disconsolate edifice at which the coachman drew up, climbing down to open her door and unfold the step. She was in no haste to alight.

Two brisk figures approached from the house, a lean woman and a red-haired boy. For a moment Marion wondered if the latter were the child she had come to supervise; however these were both servants, the boy’s task being to help the driver with the luggage, while the stern-faced woman announced herself as Mrs Struther, the Colonel’s housekeeper.

“Come, Miss,” she curtly instructed as Marion climbed out and followed through a side entrance to a small, stone-floored parlour, low ceilinged and weakly illuminated by a log flickering in the hearth. Around a rough wooden table stood several unmatched dining chairs, probably cast-offs from the better rooms, like the ancient dresser with its chipped china. At the far end a door stood open on an unlit passageway promising further gloom. “You’ll be presented to the master tomorrow,” Mrs Struther announced, then turned to the lad heaving Marion’s trunk behind them on the uneven flagstones. “Don’t drag the thing!” she snapped. He raised it as best he could in order to take it past them, into the shadows of the corridor that quickly swallowed him with all of Marion’s belongings.

“The Colonel will expect to see you properly attired and prepared.”

“Of course. And for the lesson…”

“There’s nothing to prepare but yourself. Sit down,” Mrs Struther said, gesturing towards one of the sturdier looking chairs, then asked, “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Have you much experience?”

“None. I’ve never been… away…” She broke off.

Mrs Struther’s tone softened. “You must be hungry.” From a wall cupboard she produced bread, cheese, milk; and though Marion had no appetite she tried to force a little into her unsettled stomach while Mrs Struther stood watching. Neither spoke, the only sounds the slow crackle of the settling log and the stately measure of a longcase clock propped obliquely on the uneven floor, until the boy hurried back and threw himself down heavily opposite Marion, immediately reaching for the bread.

“Manners, Willie.”

“Maw!”

“Let Miss eat first.”

“Ah’m starved, maw.”

“Wait your turn.”

“Have some, Willie,” Marion offered, tearing the loaf in half.

Mrs Struther handed the boy a pewter plate from the dresser and said to Marion, “I expect your mother’ll be missing you.”

“Yes.”

“Are you not so hungry after all?”

“Not really.”

“You could take some to your room. In case you want it later.”

Marion nodded. “That might be a good idea.” Tears were welling in her eyes, she felt that if she concentrated only on practicalities she might be able to keep from sobbing. “Where’s Thomas?”

“You’ll see him tomorrow.”

Willie, his mouth full of bread, gave a snicker.

“Stop that, Willie.”

Marion couldn’t tell if Mrs Struther’s objection was to his laughter, or to his doing it with a full mouth. “Is he nice?” she asked Willie, who only rolled his eyes and carried on chewing.

“Master Thomas is a fine lad,” Mrs Struther declared, though with an air of defensiveness. “He’s going to be a soldier when he grows up, like his father was.”

“And a scholar?” Marion asked, to which Willie responded by chuckling harder than before, his face reddening with amusement.

“Maybe not a scholar. I don’t think he’s that way inclined.”

Marion stared at Willie, who, with his bread-crammed mouth and quaking shoulders, looked as though he might choke on his own mirth. “What’s so funny?”

“That’s enough, Willie,” Mrs Struther interjected. “Master Thomas deserves our respect as much as his father does, and don’t you forget it. He’s an unusual boy, Miss, that’s all, but with a good heart.”

“Who else lives here?”

“Barbara who cooks, her husband the groundsman, and their daughter who cleans.”

“I meant the Colonel’s family.”

“It’s only himself and his ward.”

“The Colonel has no wife?” It was a detail Marion’s father had somehow neglected to mention while conducting the prior negotiations.

“Never had one, Miss. He gives all his love to Master Thomas, God bless them both.”

Marion hadn’t realised she was being sent to so small a household. “They have visitors, I take it?”

“Of course. The Baron has been here before you, all the way from Germany.”

“When did he leave?”

“Around two months ago.”

The full extent of her ordeal was becoming clear. She was to be the employee of a recluse, attendant upon a boy whose unusual qualities, whatever they were, surely resulted from enforced isolation.

Willie was still hacking at the cheese when his mother reached to remove it.

“Maw!”

“You’ve had your fill.”

She took away the boy’s plate and from the box beside the fireplace lifted two thin tallow candles she urged to burn on the hearth before fixing them, feebly sputtering, on a pair of short brass holders. “Willie, show Miss to her room so she can retire.” It was not yet eight o’clock and already the evening was over; in Edinburgh it would only be beginning. Marion rose with Willie, and Mrs Struther reminded her to take her uneaten food. “Good night, Miss.”

Marion accompanied Willie out along the corridor, trying not to let the bread and hard cheese fall from the plate she carried in her right hand while attempting to guide herself with the weak light in her left. The house felt cold and damp; her flame illuminated pale wallpaper stained and torn in places. At one point she even thought she saw something written on it in pencil, but was unable to stop and look further, since Willie was striding confidently ahead. He led her to the far end of the ground floor where he stopped and pushed open the door of a narrow bedchamber, saying nothing, only depositing her trunk there as sufficient explanation. She wished him good night and entered to inspect her quarters while Willie’s quick tread retreated behind her. A dressing table provided a surface with which to free her hands. The bed looked firm enough; there was also a chest of drawers with a jug and bowl, and propped against the wall a long mirror with a damaged frame. Standing before it she burst into tears.

She was woken early next morning by a knock instructing her to rise while dawn seeped weakly through gaps in the window shutters. Rising in near darkness, Marion hurriedly dressed then went to the parlour where Willie was sitting expectantly at the table while Mrs Struther cut him a thick slice of bread. A large, toothless, cheerful-looking woman came from outside with a bucket of water. This, Marion learned, was Barbara, who soon set about cooking eggs for everyone in an iron pan. Her husband John appeared, dressed in rough work-clothes, his face hardened by years of wind and rain, and sat down next to Marion without a word of greeting, as if the sight of a stranger were something so rare as to leave him confused. Of Mrs Struther’s own husband there was no mention. Whether she’d been widowed, deserted or forced through circumstance to live apart from him was a matter for quiet speculation, not a question Marion felt able to ask. All she could guess was that the housekeeper and her son were not of the same local stock as Barbara and John, who spoke in the region’s broad dialect, as did the last person to arrive, their daughter Lizzie. Probably only a year or two younger than Marion, Lizzie was dark-haired and rosy-cheeked, with an impish gleam in her eyes. She immediately pumped Marion about Edinburgh: what did the people wear, what did they eat, what did the streets look like? It sounded gey bonny, she said. Willie glanced at her and laughed as though she were an idiot; her father still said nothing.

Lizzie’s liveliness, and the breakfast they ate together, helped lift Marion’s mood; but it was not long before Mrs Struther called order. Sitting at the head of the table, she sternly reminded Lizzie to show some proper respect to their new household member, whom Lizzie should consider her superior. It made Marion realise why the others had been so diffident towards her. “Please,” she said, “I don’t want you all to think…”

“It’s not what we think that matters,” Mrs Struther interrupted. “You’ll see the master and then we’ll know what’s to be.”

“You mean whether I’m retained?”

“I mean whether you dine with us, or else upstairs.”

“Like the ither ane,” said Lizzie, causing Willie to snigger.

Mrs Struther silenced both. She told Marion, “I’ll take you to the schoolroom in an hour’s time. The rest of us have plenty to do before then.” Willie was sent out to chop firewood, Lizzie to milk the cow, and Marion returned to her room, anxious at what lay ahead.

It was her understanding that she was to offer young Thomas some lessons as demonstration of her suitability for employment. She had prepared one on arithmetic, another on spelling and handwriting; but reviewing her carefully made notes in her room, she felt hopelessly inadequate to the task. Failure would mean release, yet also shame. She was determined to succeed.

The time arriving, her door was abruptly opened by Mrs Struther who escorted Marion to a broad, dusty staircase that took them up to a landing at whose end they reached the open entrance of a high ceilinged hall. Standing silently at the threshold, Marion took in what might in more prosperous times have been a ballroom. The great space was mostly empty, the floor in need of sweeping. Some items of furniture stood carelessly near one wall as if discarded there, lacking any better spot on which to be forgotten. Education appeared served by items arranged at the far end, beneath tall windows shedding the grey morning’s slowly strengthening light. A blackboard on an easel; some charts and pictures hanging askew; a couple of desks. On one of the chairs sat a large doll.

“I’ll leave you,” Mrs Struther declared, withdrawing as Marion made her way to the teacher’s table beside a case of shelves holding a handful of books, a greater number of rocks and shells, and some jars with what looked like dead frogs and fish inside, suspended in yellowish fluid. More striking than any of these was the doll, or rather mannequin; a lifesize boy with glossy black hair, red jacket, and a painted wooden face that was somewhat pale though not inexpressive, bearing an exaggerated grin. Having stroked and prodded the curious effigy, Marion sat at her table and contemplated the stare returned to her by what she guessed to be Thomas’s only friend and playmate. She wondered what the child would look like when he arrived, how he might behave, whether he should prove troublesome. With the passing of some minutes these thoughts enlarged and developed, became more detailed and elaborate, until they bloomed into a colourful picture she could fashion as she pleased; yet still, as further time elapsed, no living presence came to confirm or contradict her speculations. Where on earth was he?

It must by now have been at least a quarter of an hour since Mrs Struther went to fetch him — though did she actually say this was her purpose? Repeating the scene in her mind, Marion recalled no clear statement. And so it came to her, the truth of her situation. This dummy before her was Thomas. Here was the cause of Willie’s sly mockery, of Mrs Struther’s evasiveness, indeed of the vaguely mysterious air that had surrounded preparations for Marion’s employment. The master’s ward was a doll, smirking at Marion from the chair where he sat, ready to be taught.

“Well then,” she said softly to herself, “let them all be fools if they wish.” She stood and went to the blackboard, lifted a piece of chalk and turned to her pupil. “We shall begin with arithmetic.” On the board she started scratching the nine-times table, saying over her shoulder, “The multiples are easy to remember.” Having reached 108 she stood clear so her charge might see the list with his painted eyes, memorise it in his wooden brain, and lend justification to the charade it was Marion’s duty to perform. “Repeat,” she commanded.

Fine white gloves were his hands, and at the ends of his stuffed trouser legs a pair of polished black shoes dangled almost to the floor. He offered no response to Marion’s command, which was something of a relief to her, though clearly a flagrant breach of discipline.

“I have given you a task, young man,” she insisted. “I will not tolerate disobedience.” Raising herself almost to the point of anger, Marion nevertheless relented. It was, after all, her own patience that was being tested, not the mannequin’s intelligence.

“We shall simply have to try a little harder, won’t we?” she said. “You don’t want to talk to me, and I understand that, but the nine-times table is a most important thing.” She paced away from the board, gathering her thoughts. “I’m sure that Julius Caesar must have known his nine-times table, otherwise how would he ever have defeated Pompey? And how might Michelangelo have painted the Sistine Chapel without it?”

Consoling herself with such absurdities, Marion soon brought to mind further illustrations. “Nine is so special – three times three. No other number in the world has that distinctive honour. Granted, there is a number that is two by two, and another that’s the square of four, but they’re mere commoners alongside the number nine.”

Really, she thought, widening her route around the schoolroom and raising her voice accordingly, the topic was far more interesting than ever she’d appreciated. “Such a finely formed digit. Turn her upside-down and you get another quantity entirely, which is unusual if not unique – though we wouldn’t be so rude as to upset the lovely number nine, would we? No, we have to be very kind to her, and treat her with due consideration.” Treading softly behind her seated pupil, she lowered her voice. “Don’t tell anyone, but it even took your wooden mother nine months to make you.” She looked at the blackboard again where she had mated plump, rounded numerals to form their correct products. “I suppose I left something out,” she said to herself, going to the board and finding enough space at the top to write and announce the true first line of the table: “Nought times nine yields nought.”

A voice called from the far end of the room. “He’s gone.” Marion turned and saw Mrs Struther enter, adding as she approached, “John’s gone looking for him.”

“Looking for whom?”

Mrs Struther seemed bemused. “Who? Master Thomas, of course.” She stopped, glanced at the dummy then again at Marion, and burst into incredulous laughter. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you didn’t think…?” Rather than allow Marion to share the joke, Mrs Struther quickly regained her composure. “We’d better go and see the Colonel.”

The route they took silently to his study downstairs showed Marion parts of Axtoun House little different from what she had seen previously. The discoloured walls, ragged floor-rugs and battered paintings spoke of sustained and indiscriminate neglect. At the end of a corridor they reached the open door of an unoccupied room, octagonal in shape with a bay window where rain was beginning to spatter, and before it a walnut writing bureau laden with papers. This desk was the finest thing Marion had yet encountered here; the sole suggestion of grandeur. The cracked leather chair positioned there was a reminder of the more general tone that prevailed.

Marion stood looking at it, and beyond through the streaked window, at the clouded sky, while Mrs Struther went to see if the missing child could be found. Marion’s hands were clasped before her, and she anxiously rolled the ring that had been her grandmother’s, until she heard heavy, irregular footsteps and turned to see arriving the person she knew must be Colonel Wilson. She’d imagined he would be older, and had even formed the idea that he would be in uniform, or wigged like a geriatric; yet the dark-haired Colonel was dressed like any ordinary gentleman, in a black coat and high-collared shirt with a neatly pinned cravat, leaning on a metal-handled cane as he paced towards her. What was however unusual about his appearance — in fact alarming — was the long scar running diagonally across Colonel Wilson’s face; a thin livid crease she assumed to be a relic of past heroism.

“Good morning,” he said stiffly as he entered and stood at some distance from her, as if about to inspect a platoon. Marion was determined not to stare at the scar, though when her gaze fell to his right hand on the stick she saw that it too bore disfigurement, perhaps even the loss of some fingers.

“Please sit down,” he said, waving with his undamaged left hand towards the chair beside the writing desk. Marion was unsure if this was an offer made out of generosity or an order enabling the Colonel to see better what was happening outside; for when she complied, he went past to peer out through the window. “He often does this,” Colonel Wilson muttered, and without turning asked, “You’ve been fully apprised of how matters stand?”

“Not really, sir.”

He hesitated. “Well, you’ll find out everything soon enough.” He came back past her, limping slightly as he moved towards a bookshelf where he paused, inspecting the spine of a volume. “Your father makes clocks, I understand?”

“That’s correct.”

“A marvellous profession. And what did he tell you about me?”

“He spoke of your gallant service. At Waterloo, I believe.”

The Colonel looked at her and shook his head. “I was attached to a Wurtemberg regiment in another area of the campaign. We engaged the French near Strasbourg.” In a way that sounded almost sorrowful, he added, “It was a long time ago.”

“Eight years, sir.”

He smiled. “I’m glad to see your father was not mistaken about your arithmetical ability.” Then he asked, “Does my injury disturb you?”

“Why, of course not.”

“I’m sure you’re curious, though, as to how I acquired my mark of honour?”

“Only if you wish to speak of it.”

Moving the stick to his left hand, the Colonel raised his right before his nose, showing Marion an exact correspondence of wounds. Half his fingers had been cleanly severed, evidently by the same single blow that should have taken his right eye too, had it penetrated deeper into his face. Colonel Wilson turned his damaged hand, displaying the stitch-marks of repair, then lowered it contemptuously. “It makes writing quite difficult.”

“I’m sure it must.”

“I’ve learned to use my left, though not neatly.” He came closer. “You were told your duties would include the taking of dictation?”

“I was, sir.”

“And perhaps that I lost my hand to Napoleon?”

“My father never said anything about that.”

The Colonel appeared sceptical. “Well, it was no French blade that cut me, instead an Ottoman scimitar.” He reached towards the writing desk and slid a sheet of note paper. “Let’s test your penmanship. I desire you to take a letter for me.”

“Certainly, sir”. There was a quill and inkwell for her to use, and once these were made ready the Colonel began.

“To the editor of the Caledonian Mercury. Sir — In the recent obituary of Zacharias Werner, the list of his dramatic works was incomplete…”

Marion had been told that the Colonel was a man of considerable erudition; she had never heard of the writer he was describing.

“Some twenty years ago there flowed from his illustrious pen a grand tragedy, Die Söhne des Thals, set in the time of the Crusades and depicting the Knights Templar. The theme may seem antiquarian, yet it touches upon urgent matters of current international relations.”

Coming to see what she had written, Colonel Wilson directed his mutilated hand at Marion’s attempt to spell the foreign title. “You don’t know German?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not.”

“I consider it an advantage.” With his left he took the pen from her and laboriously scrawled the name of Werner’s play. “You’ll make a fair copy later. Do you know French?”

“I do, sir. Will you wish me to teach it…?”

“If we need to converse privately before the servants we shall use French. Let us continue.”

She took up the pen once more while he paced behind her.

“Since the end of Napoleon’s mad rampage, the great powers have sought, through a succession of congresses, to maintain harmony throughout Europe. Yet what we have seen is growing strife. Last year’s gathering at Verona was intended to discuss the Greek uprising against Turkish rule; instead the topic was brushed aside. Spain’s corrupt monarch having been deposed by his own people, French delegates appealed for his restoration. We have seen in recent weeks the outcome of that unfortunate interference.

“What has this to do with the mediaeval knights of Werner’s play? The answer comes from reports now circulating about proceedings at the congress. Let us not forget that as well as the Templars there were other orders, principally the Teutonic Knights and the Hospitallers, likewise obliged to flee the Holy Land as it fell to the Saracens. The Templars were suppressed as heretics, surviving only secretly within freemasonry, but the Hospitallers — having inherited the Templars’ confiscated treasure — thrived and spread, eventually choosing Malta as base for their extensive operations. Expelled when Bonaparte captured the island in 1798, some found refuge in Sicily, others in France, while many fled to Russia whose Tsar proclaimed himself grandmaster of a new branch. Despite such fragmentation, the deracinated knights have continued to judge themselves a sovereign power deserving their own territory, and it was this spurious claim that brought to Verona their French representative, his agitation provoking the intervention in Spain. One might wonder if the knights, having failed despite strenuous effort at previous congresses to regain Malta, now had an eye to Minorca.”

He came again to check Marion’s spelling, expressed satisfaction, then walked over to a bookcase as he continued dictating.

“Such intrigues bring to mind another episode from distant history, described recently by the Austrian scholar Joseph von Hammer in his book, Die Geschichte der Assassinen.”

Marion, turning to ask how she should write this fearsome-sounding title, saw Colonel Wilson pull from the case what transpired to be, when he brought it to her, the book itself, which he laid open for her on the desk.

“A gift from a friend of mine,” he said, standing close behind her. “Baron Adeling. He came recently.”

“I heard so,” she said, struggling to read the foreign lettering on the title page, printed in jagged Gothic type.

“He’ll be back again quite soon, once he’s completed business elsewhere. Do you need help with that?” He leaned over, almost touching her with his outstretched right arm while naming each printed character he indicated with his incomplete forefinger. She studied his hand with as much attention as the letters, also noticing a woody odour she could not identify but found not unpleasant. Colonel Wilson gave her the full German title to copy, then told her what it meant: The History of the Assassins from Oriental Sources. “You’ve heard of the Assassins?”

“Which assassins do you mean, sir?”

“Then you haven’t. And nor might readers of the Caledonian Mercury. So let us carry on.” He straightened and went back to the middle of the room, taking with him the scent that Marion thought suggested forestry or hunting. “Where had we reached?” he asked.

“Der… Assassinen,” she said as best she could.

“Yes, indeed. The Assassins were a Moslem sect whose name became synonymous with calculated murder.”

“Do I copy this?”

“What? Yes, of course. So where are we now?”

After writing his words she repeated, “Calculated murder.”

“That’s right, it’s in the book.” He must have read it carefully; Marion could see strips of paper protruding where someone had marked particular parts. “Assassins would dress and speak like their opponents, walk among them, then when the moment came, they would strike whomever it was their mission to destroy.”

“Sir, I can’t tell now if you’re dictating the letter or explaining it to me.”

“Really?” he said, coming to see how far she had written. She showed him she had got to murder. “Is it not clear enough when I dictate?”

“Perfectly clear, sir, if this is truly where you had reached.”

“It was. Now let’s resume. In his book, Councillor Hammer has shown the Assassins to have been a chivalric order equal in design to the Templars, supposedly differing in religion, though practically equivalent there also; for while the Templars secretly worshipped a pagan idol, the hidden doctrine of the Assassins was absolute atheism.” He leaned against the writing desk and lifted the book, finding a marked page and beginning to read from it a passage in German that would doubtless make no further sense to the editor of the Caledonian Mercury than it did now to Marion.

“Sir, please may I see it to copy?”

“What? Oh, never mind, I shall translate. At what point are we?”

“Absolute atheism.”

“Loyal Assassins gave their lives in expectation of Paradise while their leader, the Old Man of the Mountain, followed the wicked dictum: nothing is true and everything is allowed.”

“This is the translation?”

“Only the last part.”

“Shall I write all of it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid you’d best repeat…”

“It’ll suffice if you put down Councillor Hammer’s phrase. Nothing is true and everything is allowed.”

She did as he requested, then said, “Sir, will you wish me to send this to the newspaper once I’ve made a fair copy?”

“Of course.”

“It’s only that I wonder if we might have strayed somewhat. You did after all begin by referring to the obituary of… let me see…”

“A fair rhetorical point, I like that. We must commence the peroration. Councillor Hammer — yes, do take this down now — saw the Templars and Assassins as manifestations of a single tendency, the imperium in imperio, or state within the state; and our deceased dramatist Zacharias Werner reasoned likewise in the final part of his play, portraying the Templars as unwitting instruments of a larger cult led from an underground cavern in Paris, neither Christian nor Moslem, but closer instead to the mystical lore of Asia.

“Is it merely fanciful to see in today’s meddlesome knights something similar? This year, their French agent in Greece — a Monsieur Jourdain — sought a pact with leaders of the revolt there, offering immense monetary aid in return for stewardship of the island of Rhodes. The plot failed when exposed by honest supporters of the Greek cause in London, yet we are left wondering how so small and apparently insignificant an organisation as the Knights of Malta can claim such wealth and influence. Surely they are mere pawns; in which case we must ask by whose hidden hand they are moved, and to what purpose? They say they seek an island — their masters surely want more, and to that end disrupt, confuse, and provoke conflict among European nations, directing affairs from some unseen location. Let them remain in their cave — and let us all be on our guard. I am yours, et cetera, Robert Wilson Esquire, officer of the army, retired.”

Marion finished writing in a state of perplexity. The Colonel had warned of dangers hitherto completely unknown to her; a mysterious army of knights, assassins, atheists. A dead German playwright. Greeks. It was all terribly confusing, though at least it was only happening in Europe rather than England.

“You shall make a fair copy and address it appropriately.”

“Of course, sir.” She powdered the ink and blew it dry. Turning, she saw that Mrs Struther was already waiting silently at the open doorway, having arrived at some point without wishing to interrupt.

“We found Master Thomas, sir. Rolling in the mud like a pig, so he was. He’s had a good wash now, and I’ve set him in the schoolroom.”

“Very good, Nan,” the Colonel said with a note of weary familiarity. Then to Marion, “Go with Mrs Struther. Give her the letter to send as soon as it’s ready.”

They left the Colonel turning the pages of the book on his writing table, and once they were away Mrs Struther said to Marion in a low voice, “Was it about Greece again?”

“Something to that effect.”

“Never the same since he came back last year.”

Arriving at the schoolroom Marion saw that the dummy near the far window had been joined by a figure of equal size at the neighbouring desk. Dark haired, eight or nine years old, he remained quite motionless, not turning or reacting to the women’s footsteps as they entered.

“Keep him occupied,” said Mrs Struther, leaving Marion to meet her charge whom she approached cautiously from behind, unnerved by his immobility. Might he be no more than a second mannequin, more perfectly crafted than the first? She reached him and saw his pale face. He was staring impassively towards the blackboard with its nine-times table.

“Hello, Thomas.”

He said nothing, and when Marion looked more closely at his posture and clothing she realised he was tied to his seat with leather straps buckled round his chest. Punishment for truancy or safeguard against repetition.

“My name is Miss Balfour,” she said, then pointed to the dummy. “Who is this?”

The child turned his head to look, but said nothing.

“Does your doll have a name?”

Thomas remained silent, and when Marion touched one of the buckles that held him, he flinched.

“If I loosen these, will you stay in your seat?”

After a moment he slowly nodded.

“You solemnly promise?”

A longer pause, then another nod.

She unfastened the tight straps and he slouched with a relieved sigh as his chest was freed. Marion waited in case he tried to run, unsure if she would be able to stop him, but he stayed seated.

“Do you know your tables?” she asked, pointing to the blackboard.

He stared quietly, then eventually in a voice that was slurred and indistinct, said something like, “Hammer.”

Had the Colonel been telling Thomas too, about the Austrian historian? Hardly appropriate, though already Marion felt there was little that could surprise her further about this strange household. The boy having added nothing to his remark, she asked, “What’s three times nine?”

It was written in chalk before his eyes, yet he appeared unable to respond. She stooped beside him, put a hand on his arm and pointed at the board. “Do you see?”

“Hammer.”

“No, there,” she said patiently. On the blackboard. Can you read?”

His silence told Marion that no, he could not read. The lessons she had planned would not be useful. Her real task here was simply to maintain watch and keep the poor child from harm.

“What sort of things do you like?” she asked softly.

“Hammer.”

“A tool you play with?”

He nodded, so she stood and went to the shelves, guessing the toy might be there, though none was to be seen among the rocks and jars. “Is it kept somewhere?” Receiving no answer, and suspecting she may not have been understood, she asked again. “Where is the hammer?”

Thomas got out of his chair, looking even smaller once his feet were on the floor. For a moment Marion feared he was about to flee, yet he stood firm, turned and pointed over towards the entrance left open by Mrs Struther, and lowered his arm.

“The hammer’s in another room? Let’s go, then.” Marion came to take him by the hand, though when she extended her palm for Thomas to grasp he seemed not to know what to do with it; his arms remained stiffly by his side until Marion bent to take hold of fingers that were cold and dry, though soft in her grip.

They went out to the landing and when they reached the entrance to a narrow servant’s staircase Marion saw he wanted to descend. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“Hammer’s in the cage.”

It was the most he’d said to her so far. At the lowest part of the house they came near an open kitchen door; pans could be heard clattering inside but whoever was using them remained out of sight while Marion proceeded further, guided by Thomas whose pace quickened towards another door, painted dark green and with an iron bolt, too high for a child to reach, that Marion drew, revealing a cramped storeroom lit only through cracks. Two skinned rabbits and a pheasant hung limply; knives and cleavers were ranged on one wall; crates of vegetables were stacked beside sacks of flour or grain.

“Where’s the cage?” Marion whispered. She imagined something a songbird might live in, though nothing of the kind could be seen. She drew the door as fully closed as she could — for there was no handle or latch inside — and rummaged in near darkness while Thomas stooped to the floor, quickly seizing what he sought; an ordinary hammer, as well as a block of wood the size of a house-brick, bristling like a hedgehog with iron nails driven part way into it. His regular pastime, it would seem. “But where’s the cage?” she asked again.

Thomas gestured in no particular direction, and Marion realised that the cage was where they stood. “Do you play here?”

“Naughty bastar.”

He could only enter if put here by an adult, and wouldn’t be able to let himself out. She asked softly, “Are you naughty often?” Thomas kept his eyes lowered, toying with the precious block of wood. “Let’s go back,” she suggested.

He shook his head, still not looking at her. He was clutching the hammer and wood to his chest, firmly but tenderly, as though afraid they might fly away.

“We can take them with us. You can play with them upstairs. I’m allowing it.” She put his arm round him and they went quietly out, then back to the schoolroom whose door she closed for privacy.

Marion decided she ought at least to make it look as if she were conducting a lesson. Having wiped the board clean she wrote hammer and drew a diagram of the instrument, needing several attempts to get it right, while Thomas sat at his desk beside his lifeless companion, pulling out nails with the claw end of the tool and tapping them back in again with methodical dexterity.

She went to the window and looked out at the sky which remained overcast though the rain had now ceased. Behind her, the rhythmic beating continued, growing louder with every stroke. Soon she could almost feel the walls of the room vibrate with the metallic clatter’s harsh echo, the sound of a workshop instead of a schoolroom. She turned and soothingly asked him to be quieter; perhaps someone would hear the noise and they would both get into trouble. He complied, briefly, but then the sound rose again, the whole of his spirit contained in that strident rapping. She returned to the blackboard, took the chalk in her hand, and wrote, Hammer (noun). Tool for striking. But that was too vague; she expanded it. Tool with head and handle, used for striking nails, etc. This was still inadequate; she thought of the numerous varieties, from tackhammers to sledgehammers, even the hammers of a piano. It pleased her to think the blackboard wasn’t big enough to contain all the meanings she might think of, and countless others she couldn’t imagine.

Suddenly the door flew open and Mrs Struther strode in. “What’s he doing with that?” She stared accusingly at the woodblock.

Marion calmly explained, “It’s a lesson.”

“In what? Creating a racket?” Mrs Struther squinted at the blackboard. “He can’t read, you know.”

“We were moving on to arithmetic. We were going to count nails…”

“You stupid girl! Don’t you know he shouldn’t be banging away at that in here?”

Marion was humbled. “It’s his only pleasure.”

“I’ve a mind to lock up the pair of you. What’ll the master say when he hears about this?”

Now Marion was defiant. “Does he know how you treat the child?”

“Does he know?” Mrs Struther said mockingly. “It’s the Colonel who orders it, for the lad’s own good, since he doesn’t know any better.”

Thomas’s head was bowed, his grip on the hammer looking tighter. “In that case,” said Marion, “Colonel Wilson is a cruel and heartless man.”

Mrs Struther’s jaw fell open. “You impudent, ungrateful…”

“Lock me up as well, if you like. At least Thomas will have some company.”

The housekeeper stared scornfully. “Quite a temper you’ve got, eh? I suppose you can’t be blamed for not understanding how we do things here, being a spoiled city girl. Lord knows what the master sees in you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“He’s given me orders that you be treated as a houseguest.”

“And is this how you treat guests?”

“No, young lady, because the master may be fooled by a pretty face but not I. And if anyone’s going to be leaving this house in the near future then it won’t be me.” Before Marion could make any response, Mrs Struther added flatly, “I came for the boy. He always has his rest at this time.” She called to Thomas who came dutifully. “You can put those things down,” she told him.

Marion intervened, “Surely he can take them…”

“No,” Mrs Struther said firmly. “You don’t know what’s right.” He went to her, and there was a glow of triumph on her face as she placed a protective hand on his shoulder. Marion looked at the two of them and felt she could only agree; she had no idea what was right or wrong here. “He’s going to get some sleep,” Mrs Struther declared.

“At this hour of the day?”

“He doesn’t rest like normal people,” she said with an authoritative air. “He stays awake most of the night, then in the day he’s exhausted. It’s the moon makes him do it.”

This sounded nonsense, but Marion could see the sleepy look on Thomas’s face. “You’d best take him, then.”

“I shall. And you’d better take yourself to your room and make ready.”

“For what?”

Mrs Struther’s chest rose at the thought of another small victory. “The master wishes to see you outside.”

“Why?”

“I should think that’s his business, Miss, and yours only if he chooses to make it so.”

“Then where am I to meet him?”

“By the river. Take the path from the back of the house and you’ll find your way easily enough. Better watch that nice skirt of yours, though. There’s boots in the porch.”

Marion hurried downstairs to fetch her coat from her room, then to the back porch where the only walking shoes she could find were old, cracked and too large. It was in those that she stepped heavily out and along the path, which took her through a gate and past a vegetable garden. After that she encountered an open workshed where the cook’s husband John sat hunched repairing a basket, the top of his bare head a thinning straggle of matted strands. He didn’t look up or seem to notice as she walked by, her route next crossing a yard where a few scrawny fowl clucked and waddled. Beyond stood a barn, and as she came near she caught a sound from inside that she at first took to be animal, though when repeated it was more human, almost a moan. The door stood ajar; going there, Marion peered inside and saw only piles of hay. Had it been a trick of the wind or her imagination. Even a ghost? Such things happen, after all. Then it started again; a low, intermittent whimpering, punctuated by silence, returning with increased strength. A woman in pain.

“Are you alright?” Marion called, and the sound stopped at once. She entered, made her way cautiously to where she thought the source had been, and said gently, “Is something wrong?” Suddenly there was an eruption of straw and dust — a figure leaping out. Marion screamed seeing a man fly towards then past her, bounding out of the barn and leaving her panting in bewilderment, a picture of his fair hair and green jacket vividly imprinted in her mind as she stared at the doorway he’d pushed through. She turned to where he’d emerged and saw another figure, John’s daughter Lizzie, awkwardly stepping clear of the hay, brushing stalks from her disordered clothes.

“What happened?” Marion asked her.

“Ye’ll no tell, will ye?” Lizzie pleaded, buttoning her bodice.

“Tell what?”

“He’s no meant tae be here. We was playin’, that’s a’.”

Whatever they’d been doing wasn’t Marion’s concern; she was only annoyed at having been momentarily frightened by the boy’s hasty exit. “I’m looking for the Colonel,” she said.

“He’ll be fishin’.”

“But where?”

Lizzie described how to find the stretch of water where he would likely be found. “It’ll be clairty tho’.” Marion pulled her hem aside to show what she was wearing, and Lizzie laughed. “There’s smaller anes ye could hae took.”

Marion agreed they looked ridiculous, and even risked tripping her.

“I’ll tak’ ye there,” Lizzie offered.

Marion was about to agree when a voice interrupted gruffly from the doorway.

“Why are ye here, lass?” John was staring harshly at both of them.

“Lizzie’s assisting me,” said Marion.

“Is she now? And was that Alec Laidlaw I saw loupin’ o’er the wa’?”

“I don’t know who you saw, but Lizzie and I have seen no wall while we’ve been in here, nor anyone jumping it.”

John scratched the wiry stubble on his cheek and glared suspiciously. “What’s up wi’ yer smock, Lizzie, all crimpelt there?”

She smoothed herself. “I fell.”

“Fell?” He leered at Marion and growled, “It’s nae place for yous here, there’s things could hurt. Don’t want another accident, do we?”

Lizzie said, “I’m takin’ her tae see where the maister is.”

“No ye’re not, girl, ye’re comin’ wi’ me. Colonel’s easy enough tae fin’.” He stood aside so both could pass, then shut the door after them and trod silently with his daughter back along the way Marion had come, while she proceeded onwards following Lizzie’s directions. The path took her to a low iron gate opening onto rough moorland where sickly-looking ewes grazed dolefully, then after a short while she came to the steep, peaty river bank from where she could see Colonel Wilson some distance downstream, knee-deep in a wide pool and waving a long rod, with Willie in attendance at the edge. Both had their backs to her, studying the water, and didn’t notice while she gradually approached.

When she drew near, she called to them, “Hello!” Willie turned and scowled; the Colonel slowly swung his scarred face with equal disdain, briefly propping himself with a staff tied to his waist. She realised she had to remain quiet. “Begging your pardon,” she said, too softly for anyone except herself to hear, then wondered how she was supposed to descend the rough slope to join them. Seeing a possible route, and with her skirt held clear of her uncomfortable boots, she began to come down in short, careful steps, only glancing up from her feet when the Colonel suddenly flicked his rod, whipping the air and distracting Marion so that she lost her footing, skidded and fell on her rump, breath popping from her mouth in a startled gasp.

Master and servant stared witheringly at her; Willie laughed.

“Help her,” the Colonel ordered with a sigh, displeased by the interruption, and raising his rod to retrieve his wasted cast. “Are you hurt?”

“No, sir.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. A young lady needs to be careful in a place like this.”

“I came at your request.” Taking the hand Willie offered she righted herself and came to the water’s edge where she discreetly tried to inspect the rear of her clothing for stains or damage. The Colonel tilted his rod at Willie, ordering the boy to tie on a new fly, then asked Marion if Thomas was resting.

“He’s in Mrs Struther’s care, sir.” She could see Willie opening a box of feathered hooks, examining them intently.

“Mallard,” Colonel Wilson instructed, and the boy drew out a colourful object that might have made a pretty hair adornment were it not so fiercely barbed. To Marion the Colonel said, “You understand now what you’re dealing with, don’t you?”

“I believe I do, sir.”

She watched Willie hold the lure between his lips, running the braided fishing line through his hands to reach its thin tip.

“How would you describe him?” the Colonel asked her.

“Master Thomas? Lively.”

“A frequent nuisance.”

“Somewhat in need.”

“Of wits, yes.”

“That was not what I meant.”

The hook secured, Colonel Wilson paid out a stretch of line onto the water and then, with a sudden jerk of his rod, he straightened the floating silk so the lure would be carried downstream by the current. “Shall I tell you my greatest regret?” he said to Marion.

“What is that, sir?” She guessed it might be the fathering of his so-called ward, though would not expect such an admission in the presence of Willie who watched intently beside them.

“It’s that I raised my right hand against that damned Albanian.”

“The one who…?”

“Yes, took my fingers off. I’ve spent the last fifteen months since then, trying to learn how to make a proper cast with my left. Easy enough to dictate a letter, but angling’s another matter. Writing is work, fishing is art. Is that not so, Willie?”

“Aye, sir.”

Marion could see the lure’s bright feathers stirring a wake on the river’s smooth surface as the cord arced slowly past reeds at the far side.

“A rise there!” Willie exclaimed in an excited whisper.

“I saw,” the Colonel said calmly, but the line had already floated beyond, and he began gently retrieving. Marion watched him coil the silk around his damaged right hand, winding back until the lure bobbed idly near their feet. He then slowly raised the rod and with a deft twitch began a new cast.

“A good’n, sir,” Willie said softly.

“It’ll come by.”

He must spend every day like this, Marion thought, while that poor child suffers alone inside the house. All the Colonel cared about was steering a feathered hook correctly through the water so that it would arrive at the place where an innocent fish hid peacefully, unaware of what was about to befall it.

Suddenly the water exploded with a splash. “A take!” Willie cried with savage pleasure while the line shot taut like a guitar string and the Colonel’s rod bent in his straining arm. There was no sign of the fish, which had plunged to save itself.

“He’s not coming without a fight!” The Colonel stepped back to gain a firmer foothold while the unseen creature’s course was traced out by the cord that trapped it. In what followed it was as if the Colonel were playing with his catch, like a cat with a sparrow. He would pull enough line with his free hand to bring the fish closer, then release it again, letting the animal think for a blissful moment that it was free, so that it would speed off until it felt the limit of its liberty in the Colonel’s renewed tugging.

Marion could see no point in this repeated teasing, which lasted several minutes. She expressed her puzzlement to Willie who explained that the fish had to have its strength sapped, otherwise it would break the line. From the bag he carried he brought out a wooden-handled iron hook.

“Nearly done,” the Colonel said with satisfaction. She could see the fish by now, long and sleek, being dragged closer, its silvery flank bucking intermittently just beneath the surface. Lifting his rod high above his shoulder, the Colonel brought the barely submerged creature’s head into plain view as it languished on its side like a prize fighter stunned by an impossible blow; a pike as big as a grown man’s arm, with the bright little lure stuck firmly in its jaw.

Willie, gaff in hand, waded in and stood shin-deep beside the gasping fish. “Not yet,” the Colonel warned, an unearthly tenderness in his voice, as if the pair of them were midwives to a precarious birth. The pike’s energy was spent, its spirit defeated, yet the Colonel refused to accept any but an unconditional surrender. For some moments he held his prey immobile, watching the pleading flare of its gills and the startled gaze of its eye before finally giving the order. “Take it, lad.” The boy reached out and with a precise aim sent the iron hook deep through the fish’s side. Marion could hardly look. Despite its exhaustion, the beaten creature gave a thrash of its tail that sent water spraying high over the three of them, then Willie hauled it straight onto the bank where it lay writhing.

“A fine catch, sir.”

“He fought well.”

Marion could see the pike’s mobile eye trying to fathom the strange and terrible world it had found itself in; a realm that had only been a fin’s width away, yet never before considered or suspected. And she saw Willie draw another implement from the bag; a hammer not unlike the one Thomas played with, but larger, heavier. She shut her eyes, heard the great crack of the fish’s skull, then looked to see it still trembling though dead.

“I think we may call it a successful session,” the Colonel said with satisfaction. He noticed Marion’s face. “You’re upset?”

She composed herself. “No, sir.”

Willie sneered at her. “It’s just a fish.” He raised it by the tail; there was a bloody hole in its side where the gaff had penetrated. “Don’t greet for it.”

“Leave us,” the Colonel ordered crisply.

Willie realised he had spoken out of turn. “Aye, sir.” Gathering up the catch and bag, and taking the Colonel’s rod, he scrambled away up the bank.

To Marion, the Colonel was apologetic. “Perhaps I should not have let you witness that. Fishing is a noble sport, though so is war, and there are some things your sex shouldn’t see.”

“If more of us saw, the world might have hope of becoming a gentler place.”

Colonel Wilson chuckled. “You’re not afraid to voice your opinions, are you? I like that.” He took her hand; she was startled for a moment, then understood that he wanted firmer help than his wading staff. When they reached the top they saw Willie’s diminishing figure, on his way to the house; but the Colonel instead directed her to walk with him further along the riverside so that she could have a fuller tour of the grounds. Following its wide bend they reached a small wooden structure overlooking the water; a bower with a bench inside, giving a fine southerly view past the river towards open landscape. “Let’s sit a while,” he said, making the instruction sound like an impromptu suggestion. The bench was small, with little room between them, and the proximity made Marion feel awkward.

“Colonel, I doubt I can be of much help to young Thomas.”

“Whatever his limitations, he must receive some form of instruction.”

“He needs love, sir.”

“Can you not give him that too?”

“I’m not the one he needs it from.”

The Colonel stiffened. “Are you presuming to lecture me?”

“Of course not.”

“I brought him here, an orphan, to be cared for as if he were my own flesh and blood. He suffered a misfortune that left him as you’ve now seen, an imbecile, for which I might have placed him in an asylum, or given him over to tenants on my estate…”

“Your kindness is very much to be praised.”

“Kindness has nothing to do with it, nor love. I shall not speak of matters beyond your ken. I only wish you to know that it will suffice if you can occupy Thomas somehow for an hour or two each day. For the rest you shall be my assistant — and my guest.”

It felt as if the outer fabric of her dress might have made contact with the end of his coat. She edged away, to the extent that the small space allowed. “My father gave me to suppose that my role was principally as governess.”

“Your father is a fine man, from what I’ve heard.” This was no answer to what Marion had said. The Colonel then asked, “Did he mention the fold?”

She was puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“Never mind, then.” He fell silent, leaving Marion to wonder which fold he meant, and whether her father had had greater prior knowledge of Colonel Wilson than he had admitted. “I should like you to dine with me tonight.”

“Yes… thank you.”

He rose. “I must inspect a fence that requires mending. I’ve asked Mrs Struther to make sure you’re looked after.” Then with the aid of his staff the Colonel limped away along the riverbank.

Marion returned to the house where she found Mrs Struther waiting with her shoes. “Come and leave the boots there,” she instructed with forced civility. “I’ll have Lizzie clean them.”

“Is Thomas still asleep?”

“I’ve laid tea if you’ll kindly follow me.”

Mrs Struther took Marion upstairs to a room more comfortably appointed than any she had seen hitherto, warmed by a large fire, and with tall leaded windows. A walnut-cased square piano gave the room an unexpected air of refinement. Persian floor-rugs and a cabinet of Chinese porcelain intimated discreet taste. On a serving table a silver teapot stood open and unfilled beside an array of small cakes. Mrs Struther went to the fire where a water can hung boiling, and brought it with a rag round its handle to pour over the leaves in the pot. Marion sat down in readiness, intrigued to be waited upon with such formality. “How did Thomas first come to be here?” she asked.

“I couldn’t rightly say.” Mrs Struther didn’t look up from the items she was arranging beside Marion’s chair.

“The Colonel left him to go to war?”

Mrs Struther straightened. “My, you do ask so many questions. Perhaps best address them to the master himself.”

“But his injury…”

“Fighting the Turk.”

“Lately in Greece?”

Mrs Struther tutted — here at least was a topic on which she had something to say. “I really don’t see why those people can’t look after themselves. If they can make temples they could surely raise an army and not have to rely on brave people like Colonel Wilson getting hurt on their behalf.” She gave the pot a swirl and set it back in place.

“Who was governess before me?”

Mrs Struther hesitated. “That was Miss Lucy. Came before the Colonel went to volunteer and it would have been far better had he stayed, but no, he was determined to fight and look how it finished. I’ll leave you to pour once you’re ready.” She made to leave.

“What became of her?”

“Asleep in Jesus.”

“She died here?”

Mrs Struther was in no mood to favour Marion with further information. “Just mind and wrap up well when you’re out.” The housekeeper turned and departed, stirring a draft from the door she closed behind her. This alone made Marion shiver. Mrs Struther’s attempt to alarm her had aroused only curiosity.

Marion found the tea weak, the cakes stale. Taking nourishment from necessity rather than desire, she went afterwards to the piano. It was very like the instrument she would often play at home, though when she pressed the keys on this she found it poorly tuned and guessed it hadn’t been touched in a while. She sat and tried a quadrille she knew, briefly cheered by its liveliness and the freshness of her memory, though when she paused and raised her hands, hearing only the sound of the fire, she felt even emptier than before. She couldn’t imagine staying in this place for a week, yet might not leave for a year.

Printed music was stored beneath the piano in a canterbury that Marion bent to inspect. In the loosely filled sections she found an album of opera arrangements, a collection of glees. She could hardly imagine singers here. Next a sonata by Clementi, marked in pencil by whoever had been practising it. The unfortunate Lucy, perhaps? Not the Colonel, surely; even without his injury, Marion could not imagine him ever having cared for any art unless of a killing sort. She put the music on the piano rack and began playing slowly; it was a difficult piece and would take long to learn, which might be a way to make use of her time, if today’s lonely afternoon were to prove typical. Yet after a page or two she found the piece unattractive, gave up and leaned to examine other items in the box. Among the airs and dances was a sonata whose title interested her: Les Adieux, l’Absence et le Retour. There was pencil here too, not the same hand as before but a florid signature at the corner; a name beginning with A, which she eventually realised to be Adeling, the German nobleman who had visited and perhaps brought the music as a gift. She put it up to play and found the opening easy enough, a plaintive motif suggestive of a horn call signalling farewell. The Colonel going to war, perhaps, saying goodbye to the fair Lucy.

What followed the slow opening was more taxing for Marion; the wide stretches seemed meant for larger hands. She turned instead to the next part, “Absence”, also awkward at first, until she saw how she might divide the parts between left and right. As she began to make progress she heard it as a depiction of anxious waiting, slow solitude, the consolation of memory and hope. A picture formed in her mind of Lucy, in an elegant gown of blue silk, pensively sitting in this room holding a miniature portrait of Colonel Wilson, praying that he not be slain in the far land of Artemis whence he had voyaged. Until one day, playing these very notes with her fine, delicate fingers, her pale neck bent over the keyboard, she would hear the door open behind her, turn with joy — and weep at his disfigurement.

Marion swung round. The door was closed, nothing was disturbed, yet she truly felt as if there had been a momentary presence, a half-heard whisper or fleeting glimmer at the rim of vision. She resumed with a determination not to be distracted, and when she reached the end of “Absence”, went back to the beginning to do it again more carefully. Lucy was most likely some wizened old maid, Marion told herself. A dull stick with grey hair to match the chalk dust on her black crape. Yet as Marion played she couldn’t obliterate the more beautiful portrait that the music suggested to her, until with the steady tread of notes, and the poignant blending of their harmony, the image became compellingly vivid. Present in this room, she felt, was a spirit as invisible, intangible and as real as the sound that filled the air.

She played other pieces, gladly distracted from her lonely surroundings and the slipping away of empty time, until eventually she grew tired and retreated downstairs to her room where she wrote a letter to her father, telling him how happy and grateful she was, then afterwards confided the truth to her journal. As the hour for dinner approached, she unhurriedly made herself presentable, and when at last the gong rang she came out to find a more than usually sombre-looking Mrs Struther who silently inspected her and then, having given tacit approval, directed her to a panelled room whose table had settings at each end. At one of the room’s long sides a fire smouldered; on the opposite wall two low candles flickered upon metal brackets, backed by small, soot-marked mirrors. Marion stood wondering what she ought to do, until Mrs Struther came in behind her, walked past to the far end of the table, nearest the shuttered window, and drew back a chair with a nod. Marion having taken her place there, the housekeeper withdrew. The room was overheated, the sense of ceremony stifling.

Barbara and Willie came in to deposit a soup tureen and vegetable dishes that they left cooling on the table while Marion waited alone for Colonel Wilson to arrive. The first indication was the slow approach of his footsteps, then she saw him enter in military dress of a most unusual kind. His jacket was completely black — even the buttons and braiding — as if worn in mourning. His hat, which he carried under his arm, was of the same sombre hue; and when he placed it at his end of the table she saw that its badge, the only part of his attire that gleamed, was a silver skull and cross-bones.

He must have noticed her startled reaction, for having sat down he explained. “This is what I wore in Epirus, fighting the Turk as an officer of the Regiment Baleste.”

“It’s a Greek uniform?”

“German.”

Mrs Struther came in with her nose tilted high over a great steaming platter she proudly deposited. It bore the pike caught earlier, baked crisp and laid with its curled tail towards the Colonel, its pummelled skull not far from Marion who found its once bright eye, now cooked white as egg, staring blankly at her. Next came Willie with straw-coloured wine he poured while the fish was dismembered and served.

“Where does Master Thomas dine?” Marion asked the Colonel.

“With them,” he said, indicating the departing servants.

“Is that a proper example for him?”

Colonel Wilson frowned. “I encourage my guests to express their views, not question how I run my affairs.” He softened. “The servants are good people, you’ve seen that. And Thomas doesn’t need to learn how to hold a fork in polite company because he’s never going to have any.”

Marion looked at her portion of fish and saw it to be riddled with bones that appeared too slight for a creature of such strength. Her stomach heaved with simultaneous hunger and disgust. Colonel Wilson clearly felt no such distaste, mopping his lips with satisfaction after the first mouthful. “There’s no finer food than a wild animal taken fairly.” He looked earnestly at Marion. “Or do you perhaps feel a misplaced pity?”

Sliding her plate aside she instead sipped the thick, salty broth. “Must it be misplaced?”

Colonel Wilson seemed amused. “Are you of the Pythagorean persuasion? You know they refused meat?”

“Yes, I knew that. It’s only that my stomach is a little upset.”

He took another mouthful then said, “It might well be that the living fish carried a soul that has since transmigrated elsewhere. In which case I may have done it a great service. Having dwelt in a muddy river, it could at this moment be enjoying reincarnated existence as a bird.”

“Let’s hope not game, then.”

He watched her thoughtfully. “You find me unpleasant.”

“Not at all.”

“You judge me harsh and cruel. Perhaps you’re right. I try to live honestly, that’s all. Here in the wild countryside I can feel close to that authentic spirit our civilised society is in danger of neglecting; the cycle of birth and death, the law of generation and growth. How often, in a filthy city, does a person milk a cow, or see its calf being born? These are what I study here, as much as my books. And what I read in everything is unity, harmony.”

“Are you a musician?”

“My art is war.”

“I noticed several scores at the pianoforte. Did Lucy play?”

He stared at her from the other end of the table. “No, she did not play,” he said, raising his glass.

“I was told she died.”

“Unfortunately that is correct.”

“Of what cause?”

Colonel Wilson slowly tasted his wine, then said, “She went out in foul weather and it did her no good. A pity.”

There followed a silent pause, eventually broken by Marion. “How was she?”

“What do you mean?”

“Her character, appearance.”

The Colonel shrugged with impatience or indifference. “Modest and of good character. She ably supervised Thomas, to the limited extent required.”

“Was she also your guest?”

He put down his glass. “I will not be interrogated.”

Marion apologised and thought it best to return to the gentler topic of music. She described her earlier effort at the keyboard, and the Colonel’s displeasure abated. He explained that many of the scores had been brought by his friend Adeling. “A fine player, as I’m sure you’ll discover.”

When Marion finished her soup, he said she should try the fish. Reluctant to refuse, she put a small piece of the grey, earthy flesh into her mouth and thought she might choke on it, until a sip of the sweet wine disguised it enough for her to swallow. “It’s most fine.”

“Hooked specially in your honour, so that I may now enjoy the pleasure of seeing you eat it. Unless, of course, your stomach is still too sensitive.”

She would not give way to his taunting. “I feel better now,” she said, forcing herself to consume the poor creature she’d seen killed, eating her portion as swiftly as she could manage, in order to have done with it. Willie and Barbara entered to remove plates and refill glasses, then Mrs Struther brought a custard pudding smelling strongly of cinnamon, not well made, though the best food Marion had been offered since arriving the previous evening, and sufficient to remove from her mind and nose the dead fish whose pungent remains were carried away for the servants to pick over; and after them, perhaps, Thomas.

Left alone again, the two diners sat quietly until Marion asked, “Did you grow up in this house?”

“It passed to me on the death of an uncle.”

“And Master Thomas…?”

Colonel Wilson gently raised his damaged hand, gesturing her to cease. “I suppose you were accustomed to table-gossip at home. Here it must be different.” He cast his eye towards the open doorway, as if ensuring there was no eavesdropper beyond, then said in French, “The servants are good people, but they are simple and easily led. And though my ward is an idiot, I assume him not incapable of parroting words overheard. Understand that if I demand you keep in check your feminine curiosity, it is only for your own benefit.”

The meal over, he declared it time for them to withdraw; he to his study, she to do as she pleased. Marion took a light from the fire and made her way out towards her chamber. In the damp passageways she could still smell the baked pike, and thought of the living creature stranded and upturned, its crazed eye staring. Passing the stairs she caught a distant noise, stopped and listened, and soon recognised the dull, unending rhythm. It was Thomas, alone somewhere, hammering nails into his block of wood.

Next day she waited in the schoolroom, staring sadly at the straw-filled, wooden-headed dummy until Mrs Struther entered holding Thomas firmly by the hand and led him to his seat. As soon as they were alone, Marion quizzed him about Lucy. What was she like? What did they do together? Thomas said nothing, his gaze uncomprehending, his soul unfathomable. Marion conducted a lesson in geography, reciting names of countries and cities, writing some on the blackboard. None of it was of any use or interest to herself or Thomas. They were both no better than the stuffed mannequin, each of them serving pointlessly at Colonel Wilson’s behest.

“Do you think Lucy ever visited Paris?” Marion asked without expectation of reply. “Or Rome?” On the board she chalked a long-haired female face, and Thomas maintained his indifference. They moved to arithmetic, equally futile. Marion in her frustration decided to write incorrect answers, nonsensical symbols, then gave up altogether. She turned from the board to look at the silent child, so underfed and sorrowful in appearance, then went to him and held out her hand. After a moment he understood, gave his outstretched fingers for her to grasp, and stood from his chair, waiting for whatever was intended. “Let’s dance,” she said, and seeing no response, began humming, swaying his arm to the rhythm. His face immediately changed, a hint of a smile. Leading him clear of the sparse furniture she took both his hands, began singing a lively tune she’d learned yesterday at the piano, and prompted him to twirl with her, slowly at first, gradually more swiftly. His movements were leaden and clumsy — he almost tripped. Marion brought the awkward dance to a halt.

“Did Lucy never do this with you?”

Still not a word from him; it was only while they moved together that Marion felt any kind of communication, so she tried again, this time putting her arms around his shoulders, circling closely with him while softly humming a gentler melody she’d learned, a kind of lullaby that had charmed and soothed her yesterday when she played it. Even now, robbed of chords and harmony, the tune struck her as wistful, magical. She pressed Thomas against her until she could almost sense his heartbeat — then felt him suddenly stiffen and recoil. He pulled back and let out a piercing scream.

“No, Thomas!”

She stooped to try and grasp him, but he ran from her to the far side of the room, shrieking as forcefully as his undernourished frame allowed; a shrill piping like the cry of a snared rabbit. Marion hurried over to the corner where he cowered, face averted, moaning to himself. She knelt but feared to touch him, reaching out then withdrawing her fingers, wondering what she’d done to upset him so greatly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice quavering. “Please look at me.”

Instead he stayed huddled against the wall, ignoring her, sobbing gently. A sound at the entrance made Marion turn to see Mrs Struther standing with folded arms, looking cross.

“I don’t know what happened,” Marion pleaded. “He…”

“The Master wants to see you,” Mrs Struther cut in.

“But Thomas…”

“Never mind about that. You’ve to join him in the study.”

Marion hesitated, seeing Thomas still crouched like a wounded animal, trembling. Mrs Struther came over and clamped her hand firmly on his shoulder.

“Go,” she said to Marion. “I’m holding him.”

His quaking lessened; he looked rigid beneath Mrs Struther’s grip. Marion got to her feet and went out, still distressed and confused, trying to put the scene from her mind while making her way down to the octagonal room where the Colonel stood at a bookcase perusing a volume he closed and returned to its place when he saw her. She was to take a letter, he said, gesturing her to sit. She anticipated another recondite missive to the Caledonian Mercury; instead it was to the Colonel’s factor at Axtoun village about arrangements for an annual event soon to take place, when the settlement’s ancient boundary was symbolically reaffirmed by men on horseback.

“Our celebration is different from most others in these parts,” the Colonel said when she finished writing.

“I’ve never seen any.”

He instructed her to seal the letter, then rang for Mrs Struther who soon arrived. “Have your lad take this,” the Colonel told her. “And I shall need light upstairs.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Marion said, “Is he all right?” The others both stared in silence. “Thomas? Has he recovered from his fit?”

Mrs Struther looked towards the Colonel as though wondering whether to speak. He did it for her.

“There’s no cause for alarm. Is the boy in his room, Nan?”

“Quite secure, sir.”

“Wait for us upstairs, then.” Having dismissed Mrs Struther, he told Marion, “I should like to show you my library.”

“May I first see Thomas?”

“You’ll have opportunity later. Now the library.”

Slowly and without further conversation he accompanied her to the first floor where, by the time they arrived at the library’s closed door, Mrs Struther already stood waiting, holding a lighted candle she passed to Marion, then immediately left them. The Colonel brought out a key and they entered a dark, airless, oppressive space where Marion made out a writing desk and chair in the middle, two armchairs beside, cabinets all around. “Light the wall lanterns,” he said, showing where they both hung, then he closed the door and invited her to sit at the table where paper and implements lay neatly arranged.

“Your collection is impressive,” she said, gazing around at the books which rose to an upper level with a narrow gallery. At the opposite end of the room was a second door. He guessed her question.

“My private chamber is beyond. I can read here without being troubled by anyone. I find it most tranquil. Look at the ceiling.”

Lifting her eyes she dimly discerned a mural of painted blooms and intricate foliage. “How beautiful.”

“I find you to be a most sensible young woman,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“I feel confident you would show due discretion in future about discussing your time here with outsiders.”

She looked at the Colonel’s impassive face, shadowed in flickering lamplight. “Of course.”

“Here at Axtoun, you may see or hear things which common sense and good manners indicate should remain private.”

“I understand perfectly.”

“Whatever passes in this particular room is of still higher order. Everything here is sub rosa. Do you know what that means?”

She answered hesitantly. “I think so.”

“This is a place of complete secrecy.” His look of determination was unnerving.

“I swear…”

“There is no need. Know only that nothing heard here is to be repeated. Names are to be forgotten. No one enters this library without my supervision. The doors are thick and secure; our conversation cannot be overheard. This room is my fortress. Its integrity is to be respected.”

His portentousness bemused her. “I promise,” she assured him.

“I should like you to take another letter.”

She supposed it to be more private than the one done previously. He indicated which of the two ink pots she should use.

“To Mr Gordon Talisker at Ivy House, Berwick.”

Once she’d written this in neat black script, he instructed her to use a fresh sheet, the second pot and a new quill for what he next dictated.

“Dear Brother in the Fold… Those are capitalised, Marion.” He paused while she accustomed herself to new ink that was brown and thin. “While general attack does not appear imminent, it is imperative that each of us remain alert. I shall be sending to you a brace of carabines and three fowling pieces, with rammers, wadding, shot and so forth, that you and your party may be adequately prepared.”

As she finished copying down his unsettling message, she heard him open a cabinet, and looking up saw him approach with very slow deliberation and without his stick, both hands being taken by a coloured earthenware jar whose lid he raised when he was beside her, revealing pale granules that gave a powerful odour.

“Place the letter inside,” he ordered, shutting the lid once she had obeyed. He went heavily to replace the jar and recover his cane, then turned and saw her troubled demeanour. “What’s wrong?”

“Is there to be another war?”

“There is always war. What changes is its location and intensity.”

“But here?”

He came back to the desk. “We are in dangerous times, which is why secrecy is essential. The enemy must not know of our preparedness, nor can the populace be made aware, only warned in general terms. Your father knows more than most. He holds high office in an Edinburgh lodge.”

“A freemason? I had no idea.”

“Of course not,” said the Colonel. “We all of us are unaware of most things regarding our parents.”

“His lodge is the Fold?”

Colonel Wilson shook his head. “Don’t try to speculate, you’ll only be mistaken. The Fold is entirely separate.”

She waited for him to elaborate; instead he shifted to a separate topic. “You remember, don’t you, the awful events last year concerning the Marquess of Londonderry?”

“Certainly.” She had read it in the newspapers, like everyone else. The unfortunate Foreign Secretary had slit his own throat in a state of insanity.

The Colonel asked her, “Do you believe it mere chance that so powerful a man should have met so squalid a fate?”

She had no reason to doubt it. “Was there not an inquest?”

“A hurried and inadequate one,” he said dismissively. “In the dead man’s home, the day after the atrocity, as he lay in another room.” Colonel Wilson stopped himself. “Forgive my indelicacy, but these are affairs of great substance. Consider the result, had he not died. He would then have represented the British government at Verona, insisting it no nation’s business to manage the internal affairs of others. The French intervention in Spain would not have taken place. Many would live today who instead lie buried like the Marquess.”

It was the crisis the Colonel had addressed previously; a situation almost too large for Marion to comprehend. “Then do you think…?”

He halted her. “I remind you not to speculate. Only weigh the likelihoods that the Foreign Secretary’s death was an insane act of self-destruction or else murder. The coroner’s hasty conclusion was the former. The Marquess had been acting strangely for days or weeks, suffering from headaches, complaining of some conspiracy laid against him. Did you read the account of his last moments?”

“I’m afraid I did.”

“Then you know that a physician sent to the Marquess’s home found him staggering from his dressing room holding a small penknife, while from his neck… Well, you know the details. He died within minutes. Quite remarkable, don’t you think, that any person should be able to make such a precise and fatal incision using the humblest of implements?”

“He was murdered?”

“There is no other plausible explanation. Why, though, the rush to conclude otherwise? Why no inquiry that could have disclosed the truth? Is it mere coincidence that the sole witness to the Marquess’s death was personal physician to the man sent to Verona in his stead?”

Marion raised an objection. “Were there not other witnesses to his mental disorder?”

“Indeed there were,” the Colonel said with evident satisfaction. “The fact only bolsters my case. The Marquess feared he might be going mad — a sure sign that he was perfectly sane.” Emphatically raising his damaged forefinger as if towards truth itself, he explained. “For suicide to be convincingly staged there must be an apparent reason for its committal. The Marquess of Londonderry was a man of many flaws, yet none that would explain self-murder. He first had to be driven to distraction, put under the spell of some malign influence — and I know from whence it came.”

Marion guessed. “Those knights you spoke of yesterday?”

Instead of replying he turned and went back to the cabinet and the jar there whose lid he lifted. He brought the page she had written, laid it before her on the desk, and she saw that it was now completely blank.

“An invisible ink?” she said in wonderment. “I have heard of such a thing but thought it fantasy.”

“Write in black on this side: Dear Sir, Crosbie will settle the account. Respectfully yours, Wilson. Then fold it inside the one you addressed.”

Carrying out what he required, she asked, “Is this, then, the meaning of the Fold?”

He chuckled. “The name is purely figurative. Think not of bending but of protection: a sheepfold or pen.”

Did he think her no wiser than his flock of dumb animals? She sealed the letter clumsily with frustration. “Please, Colonel, what precisely is this threat you speak of?”

“It would be best…”

“…if you told me now. Or do you think my vow of silence worthless, in which case perhaps I can be of no further service?”

He looked taken aback, then almost amused. Taking the letter and placing it in a pocket of his coat, he invited her to move to one of the reading chairs while he settled on the other. “You’ve heard of the Congress of Vienna?”

“When all the nations met following Napoleon’s defeat?”

“I acted as a translator for the British legation.” He described how for many months the city was given over to diplomatic negotiations, glittering balls, public spectacles. Former foes became allies, old friends fell out, and in the coffee houses and salons of the Austrian capital, new brotherhoods arose with varying degrees of official sanction. “One was called die Kette, the Chain. It had noble aims, but made the mistake of openly publishing them. That was not to be the downfall of the Fold, into which I was invited by a German friend.”

“The one who’s been here?”

The Colonel’s face showed disapproval. “We are not to speak of particular persons. It is enough for you to know that the Fold was born from a desire to maintain universal peace, and continues to play that role. It acts secretly because the greatest enemy is an alliance more secret still; not so much an order as a disease whose infected multitudes include the Knights of Malta. My letter to the newspaper was only to highlight a single symptom of a far larger contagion; one whose full form and monstrous extent we can scarcely guess. We do not even know the name of this league of chaos, this dastardly propagator of confusion and disarray.”

“Then how can you be so sure of its existence?”

“By its shadows and footprints,” he said earnestly. “Ex unguibus canem.”

She didn’t recognise the quotation but thought that rather than allow the Colonel to propose further metaphors she should constrain him to his first. “Shadows can be greater than whatever casts them.”

He nodded in agreement. “That is why we must be judicious in evaluating evidence and disseminating information.” He waved a hand towards one side of the room, where numberless books stood obscurely behind glazed doors. “See the changing light there; a moving pattern with no discernible regularity. Study it with sufficient attention and we might deduce the source to be a flame at a definite location, behind a lantern glass of calculable proportions.”

Had he forgotten that in this library there were not one but two lamps, and a candle, all contributing to the glow? Marion leaned back into her chair and glanced towards the ceiling where now, with better accustomed vision, she could see quite clearly the painted roses’ stems and thorns.

“We know whence the malign force emanates,” he said grandly, and she looked back at him while he explained. “In Vienna, during the congress, Tsar Alexander gave a magnificent ball at the palace of his ambassador. After everyone had left there was a fire, the building was almost destroyed. It was declared to have been an accident; I heard otherwise. The ambassador, Count Razumovsky, had learned of the hidden sect corrupting the Russian court and threatened to expose it.”

“Was there no easier way to silence him?”

“Not if it were to appear simple bad luck. The Count alone knew the truth, and remained quietly ruined but alive, his political influence terminated. That is how our enemy operates, exerting power in ways seemingly attributable to chance.”

“Then how can you distinguish their acts from mere misfortune?”

“We can’t,” he said. “There lies the evil beauty of their tactic. On some occasions, certainly, they are more explicit — though only so as further to confound those who stand against them. A few years ago, some German students staged a book-burning ceremony. Onto the pyre went the statutes of the Chain, works by leading writers such as Werner and Kotzebue, and other publications condemned by the protestors. Not so long after, Kotzebue was stabbed to death in his own home, accused of being a Russian spy and enemy of the Fatherland. It’s beyond question that Kotzebue championed Russian interests — also most likely that his death warrant issued from that country.”

“The Tsar eliminated his own supporter?”

Colonel Wilson smiled and shook his head. “Your confusion is exactly what the perpetrators surely intended. Alexander’s predecessor, Tsar Paul, was himself assassinated, having created the Russian counterpart of the Knights of Malta. Kotzebue yearned to be admitted to that order, and paid dearly for it. Now Alexander is directed by fraudulent mystics claiming divine authority.”

“So the Tsar…”

“Then of course there’s the Prime Minister.”

She could hardly keep up. “Lord Liverpool is involved?”

“I mean his predecessor, Mr Perceval. Shot in the House of Commons lobby. A hideous crime that, like the more recent death of the Foreign Secretary, is by the very certitude of its supposed explanation rendered all the more mysterious.”

Marion was only about nine years old at the time, but had since learned that the murder was committed by a disgruntled merchant acting entirely alone.

Colonel Wilson said, “The assassin Bellingham was hanged a week after the offence, following a trial of one day, taking with him a story of which even he may have known but little. What is certain is that he worked for a time as a trading agent in Russia, was imprisoned there, and after his release and return to England unsuccessfully petitioned the government for compensation.”

Here at least was a Russian connection more firm than others the Colonel had proposed; and now he went further. “At his trial, Bellingham insisted he was perfectly sane, which may in itself be enough to convince us he was deranged. Yet consider an alternative: that he acted under mesmeric influence.”

“Magnetised?” Marion exclaimed. “I thought such an effect could last only briefly.”

“That is usually so; but what if our enemy possessed the means to induce a delayed condition of somnambulism? For example, there might be some sound or image that, whenever the patient is exposed to it, will prompt a certain action.”

“Like shooting the Prime Minister?”

“Or stabbing the Foreign Secretary then immediately forgetting it, believing him to have stabbed himself. You see what a terrible weapon that would be — and how vital it is that we defend ourselves against it?”

Finishing his bizarre discourse, he got up from his chair, signalled her to do likewise, and announced he was retiring to his chamber. “Cast these matters from your mind,” he said. “Go now and pass the day as you please, unless I should happen to call for you.”

“And Thomas?”

“What about him?”

“May I see him now?”

“Ask Mrs Struther, she’ll know better than I.”

Marion emerged from the Colonel’s dimly lit den with a feeling of relief, and went straight down to find the housekeeper. No, Mrs Struther told her, she may not see the boy.

“But why?”

“He’s had his lesson, hasn’t he? Nothing left for you to do with him.”

“It ended so abruptly.”

“You’ll get to know his ways. Only causes problems when people think to treat him as normal.”

“Is that what Lucy did?”

“And look what came of it.”

Marion wanted to enquire further, but the housekeeper’s face said otherwise — instead Mrs Struther wanted to know when Marion wished tea to be laid. Having been well enough fed at breakfast, Marion hardly cared. “Whenever is most convenient,” she suggested. “Now I should like to take some air.”

Today she knew better than to wear the ridiculous boots that had made her tumble; her normal shoes were fit enough for the dry paths around the house. After making a full circle she spotted Lizzie carrying a heavy-looking pail, called to her to wait, and went to speak with her. The girl seemed anxious at first, then lightened when Marion offered a harmless comment about the weather, as though yesterday’s incident in the barn had never happened. With a glance to make sure they weren’t observed, Lizzie lowered her burden to the ground.

“What do you think of the Colonel?” Marion asked after a moment.

She looked perplexed. “A guid maister.”

“Impaired, though.”

“Aye…”

“I don’t only mean the loss of some fingers. You take my meaning?” It was inconceivable that the Colonel’s eccentricities, obsessions, perhaps even derangement were unapparent to his servants. Lizzie nodded cautiously, and Marion asked, “Does it trouble you?”

“It’s no for me tae judge.”

“A problem, though?”

“I dinna ken aboot that.”

“Has he always behaved properly?”

She reached down for her pail. “I maun gae…”

“With Lucy, for instance.” Lizzie straightened, left the bucket standing, and Marion could see the girl had more to say, if the right questions were asked. “What was Lucy like?”

“Gey bonny, Miss.”

“Young, beautiful?”

“Aye, sair pity.”

“What happened to her?”

Another glance, then Lizzie told how Lucy had left the house in panic, apparently in search of Thomas who had run away, and got lost herself. “They fand her i’ the forest, deid o’ cauld.”

“And Thomas? Where was he found?”

“Hame the hale time.”

He’d been hiding somewhere in the house. No one but Lucy would have noticed his absence. “How long before they discovered her?”

“Twa days,” she said, then snatched at the bucket handle, alerted by something beyond Marion’s shoulder. Marion glimpsed round to see Lizzie’s father heaving firewood, thanked her for the intelligence and began to move on.

“Dinna tell I said ocht.”

“I won’t,” Marion promised, wondering as she proceeded why anyone should fear speaking of what everyone must know. Continuing round the house, she was struck by a further question. If Lucy raised the alarm before running out, why did no one go with her? Or if Lucy said nothing, how was it known what she needlessly sought?

It was not until the next day that she saw Colonel Wilson again, when he summoned her to the study in the afternoon to take a business letter. Thomas’s lesson had gone peacefully enough, Marion having resolved to say nothing that might upset him, but with the Colonel she found it harder to suppress what was uppermost in her mind.

“Is the country around suitable for walking?” she asked as she sat sealing the letter.

“Walking?” the Colonel said sceptically, standing behind her. “Hardly worth the effort.”

“I suppose there must be paths to the village, though.”

“Dismally maintained, like the folk themselves.”

She rose from the desk and turned to face him. “I was wondering if I might take Thomas, as part of his education.”

The Colonel frowned. “So that he can learn idleness and dishonesty from those who cheat me?”

“Or if not the village, perhaps the forest. He shows an interest in birds.”

“They fly past his window — why drag him to the woods?”

Angered, she stared down, wondering how to continue, and when she looked up again said calmly, “If Thomas were my own child, I should certainly take him there. She paused, then added, “Unless of course there were any danger.”

“I imagine a multitude,” the Colonel said at once. “He might pick and eat something unwholesome, be cut by thorns, lose himself.”

“Has he ever been there before?”

“It has never been suggested.”

“Not even by Lucy?”

He grew impatient. “Why keep asking about that woman?”

“I only want to make sure that Thomas’s education continues in the smoothest manner.”

The Colonel puffed in frustration. “You know perfectly well that he cannot be educated. Your task is to control him.”

“Then tell me how Lucy managed. Did he ever bite or hit her? Throw things at her?”

“I expect he tried, and Lucy knew how to deal with it.”

“Was she old? Had she borne children of her own?”

“No, young and unmarried like yourself — in fact I wonder if you both may be too much alike.” He broke off.

“How long was Thomas without a governess until I came?” Marion could see suspicion in his look. “I need to know what sort of gap there must have been.”

“She died eight months ago,” the Colonel told her.

“I see. A long time for Thomas to be without proper care. Do you think he remembers her?”

“I very much doubt it, though surely you would be the better judge.” His eyes narrowed. “You’ve asked him, haven’t you?”

She couldn’t lie. “I tried.”

He paced slowly to one side of her while she maintained her gaze ahead. She feared he might shout or even strike her; instead he said quietly, “Lucy went into the forest and became lost. Hunger drove her to eat whatever she could find, and she was poisoned. The servants will have stories of their own, but those are the facts, and now that you have them, I hope we can agree there will be no further discussion of this matter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now please take the letter to Mrs Struther who’ll see that it gets delivered.”

From the Colonel there was nothing more to be learned, and in the following days Marion found no opportunity to speak privately with Lizzie, who always seemed to have some more urgent task to deal with. Attending church on the first Sunday after her arrival, it felt to Marion as though a month had passed already. The second came more quickly — on neither occasion was the Colonel present. Marion wondered if Lucy’s headstone were somewhere among the weathered slabs standing crooked in the small kirkyard. She saw none bearing the dead woman’s name.

Not only was there a festival to come, but also the latest visit of Baron Adeling, all of which sent the household into mounting commotion as plans were made, altered, abandoned, remade. Marion kept away from the clamour, spending her mornings helping Thomas to hold a pencil, slowly guiding him to form letters, then after he had been taken away to sleep she would walk outside and see from a distance the tents and banners being put up in preparation. After dinner — taken sometimes with the Colonel but more often alone — she would practise at the piano, progressing as slowly with Beethoven’s Les Adieux as her pupil did with his own name. At night she would hear Thomas’s distant hammering, percussive and repetitive, and be comforted by it, as he was.

The first she knew of the Baron’s arrival was when she caught the rare sight from the schoolroom window of a carriage approaching through light rain before halting out of view at the house, where raised but indistinct voices signalled a reception warmer than Marion had received a fortnight earlier. Colonel Wilson did not call for her that day or the next, too busy with his guest whose presence she was aware of only from the agitation of the servants, none of whom could offer more detailed information than that the two men “aye spake foreign”. With the best rooms all being used for entertaining, she was now unable to amuse herself at the piano, but on the second night heard its plangent tone through the door she discreetly stood outside, and supposed it must be the Baron who played — not as well as the Colonel had led her to expect, but instead quite badly, fumbling through a poorly harmonised waltz.

It was not until the day of the festival that she was to see Baron Adeling. Thomas was to have no lesson that morning, Marion instead being called to the Colonel’s study where she found him standing alone. There was no writing to be done; he only wished to speak of plans for the event.

“The riding is to be done differently this year,” he said. “More as a race. And there will be other contests.” He coughed. “A sporting fair. My friend’s idea.” The Colonel paused again, then said, “I’ve preferred not to introduce you to him yet. I felt it not to be right. But today you will watch with us. I hope it won’t bore you.”

“I’m sure not.”

“I don’t particularly relish the thought myself, but as the Baron’s host I feel obliged.”

“Of course.”

“Don’t be alone with him.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I need to be present whenever you’re together.”

She was confused by his abrupt command. “Of course.”

“Now let us both make ourselves ready, and I shall see you later outside.”

The weather was favourable, with light cloud and a pleasant breeze, when Marion went to the field where villagers had already gathered. There were four chairs beneath a canopy for the dignitaries, of whom she was first to arrive. Second was Mr Moultrie, the estate manager, to whom she had penned various instructions from the Colonel. Moultrie was squat, snub-nosed, bald, and smelled strongly of tobacco. He was quite unlike the refined picture she had imagined while writing to him, and after exchanging perfunctory greetings they sat at either end of the row of chairs, leaving the middle two empty.

Some women began dancing to the enthusiastic scraping of a fiddle. Marion was unsure if it was rehearsal or performance, but it held her attention closely enough for her to miss the approach of host and guest. Moultrie rose, prompting Marion to do the same, and the men took their places between them without a word. She sat down again, the Colonel now beside her, having barely had a chance to see the Baron, though her immediate impression was of a man fashionably dressed, similar in age to Colonel Wilson, finer looking and in better health. Only by turning her head would she be able to make a fuller assessment, and this she did not do.

The dance continued, ignored by the two men who spoke together in German. The conversation sounded light-hearted; Baron Adeling laughed often, the Colonel occasionally. It was the Baron who spoke most frequently, and from the corner of her eye Marion saw him point from time to time at whatever chanced to interest him.

Still expecting some announcement to open proceedings, she gradually realised they had already begun. The dancers having received sparse applause from their peers, a cart was wheeled into position bearing boulders and logs, and there followed a competition in lifting and throwing between four brawny young men. Was one of them the fair-haired lad who had startled her at the barn? The more she stared, the surer she felt. Colonel Wilson must have noticed how rapt she was.

“It pleases you?” he asked.

“Who are these fellows?”

“Labourers from the village, I suppose. One of them has just cost me half a guinea.”

Colonel Wilson and his guest were betting on the contests; and as the challenges continued, it was the Baron who appeared most satisfied with the outcomes. The labourers competed until one was declared overall champion and came to be rewarded, bowing low before the Colonel and receiving a shilling for his efforts. Mr Moultrie then got up to take charge, ordering the men of the village to one end of the field, women to the other.

“Go there with them,” Colonel Wilson told Marion.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“Baron Adeling wishes to see a display of boxing.”

She needed no further inducement to rise and make her way, though with nothing planned for the women to do, Marion stood awkwardly apart from them until she spotted Lizzie and waved her to come over.

“I have a question about Lucy.”

The girl flinched. “I shouldna speak mair o’ her.”

“We’re not overheard.”

Lizzie looked round to check that no one was too close.

“You said she died of cold. Colonel Wilson told me it was something she ate.”

“There’s nane ken the hale truth o’ it.”

“Why would he think she was poisoned?”

Again Lizzie made furtive glances before speaking. “My Alec was the ane that fand her.”

“Your friend I saw competing? I need to speak with him.”

“He’s o’er at the fight.”

“Fetch him.”

“I canna go there, Miss,” Lizzie protested.

“Then I shall go myself.”

Marion couldn’t see what the men were gathered round, only their backs as she approached. On reaching the throng she began pushing in, found her way quickly cleared by startled spectators, and by craning to glimpse past onlookers caught sight of Mr Moultrie trying to make himself heard at the centre. Alec was not to be spotted, however, even after she reached the front of the crowd and saw standing some distance to her right Colonel Wilson and Baron Adeling, the latter too engrossed to notice, while the Colonel frowned in disapproval. Mr Moultrie was to act as referee between contestants waiting either side of him; one red haired and powerfully built, the other stockier, bald, fierce-looking. As the adversaries rolled up the sleeves of their loose white shirts in readiness, Marion discerned on Baron Adeling’s face a look of transcendent pleasure such as might be induced by refined music; an ecstatic joy that could be mistaken for appreciation of beauty. There really was, in the ox-like redhead, something of the sublime wildness of nature, but surely this was not what brought such excitement to the Baron’s features, or what made him grin and bare his teeth as he raised in his hand a small purse of coins.

In a voice as strong as he could manage, Moultrie reminded the pugilists that there was to be no kicking or butting, no grasping or striking below the waist, no hitting a downed man. He then stood back and the men squared off, knuckles raised, each of them barefoot in breeches that left their shins exposed. The redhead made the first move; a lunge the other dodged, provoking whistles and hoots. The bald one then made an attack of his own, charging at his opponent and locking him in an embrace. Onlookers cheered, but even amid their cries Marion could hear the sickening impact of fist on flesh as the redhead pummelled his assailant and then, still joined as if in a demented dance, lifted the smaller man clear of the ground. An illegal kick made the redhead drop his flailing antagonist, and falling upon him he began landing blows on the fellow’s crumpled face. Marion heard herself shout for it to stop, but all was lost in the tumult of delight.

The redhead was pulled aside by his own second who calmed him while Moultrie gave count. It was not until fifteen that the stricken man even attempted to rise, eye hideously gashed, a crimson slick smearing itself across his bare scalp when on bended knee he wiped the wound with his arm. At twenty he was coaxed and cajoled by spectators who possibly didn’t care which fighter won as long as there was a fair and bloody contest, and by twenty eight he was finally upright, ready to receive a blow so loud and hard it must have hurt the aggressor’s own hand as it landed full on the dazed man’s flat face, sending a new stream of blood bursting from his nose. He went down on his haunches, shaking his head as though the recipient of some sudden and unexpected news, then collapsed onto his side with a look of pitiful resignation that brought to mind the pike Marion had seen slaughtered. This time, thankfully, Mr Moultrie reached thirty and declared a knockout. The loser was helped up, led aside and given towels around his battered head while the winner bowed to receive his paltry reward. It had all ended too quickly, Marion heard some say; but next would be the main event of the day, and a trumpet blast soon confirmed it.

Male and female, young and old, swarmed to where two horses were being led by those about to race them. Marion wondered which would be the Colonel’s choice, which the Baron’s, but could see neither of the gamblers while the crowd surged excitedly around her. Instead she picked out Alec, went at once to detain him, and explained why.

He bristled. “Lang syne and best forgot.”

“Less than a year since you found her. You must remember it well.”

He moved away, following the drift of people jostling to see the jockeys mount. Marion pursued.

“I’m told she was poisoned.”

He looked surprised. “Wha tellt ye that? Is Lizzie prattlin’?”

“Come, Alec.” She drew him clear of the huddle and told him what the Colonel had said. “How would he know she ate something harmful? Was it in her mouth?”

Alec shook his head, looked around to make sure no one was near, and said, “Her tongue was stuck oot black. Lips tae. An unco sicht.”

“Show me where. Take me.”

“I canna dae that.”

“I’ll pay you.”

“It’s cursit. Ony body gaes there mocht dee lik’ she did.”

“You were not harmed, though. Who carried her from there?”

“Mysel’ and Lizzie’s faither.”

“And neither of you poisoned.”

Alec was more concerned about the race; Marion turned and saw the riders steadying their restless beasts, one man wearing a green ribbon round his arm, the other yellow. They rode slowly to what looked to be the starting line where Mr Moultrie was waiting to perform his latest task. She couldn’t hear whatever he was shouting; Alec told her there would be two circuits of the field, then a ride out to the crossroads and back again for a final circuit.

“Children might be trampled,” she said, seeing some run freely.

“They maun tak ware then.”

Moultrie raised his arm and a sudden hush of anticipation fell upon the spectators while he held the pose for what seemed a strangely long moment, as if savouring the power he held. Then with a decisive chop he sent the rivals speeding and Marion joined in the roar, feeling her heart and the ground itself tremble as the horses threw clods of turf behind their drumming hooves. Enthralled, she watched the green rider quickly move in front, his black horse larger and more muscular than the yellow man’s chestnut mount.

Alec yelled, “Haud steady, Jock, ye’ve a lang way!”

All around, there were cries of encouragement for both men, creating a confused noise that hurt Marion’s ears. She leaned towards Alec. “If you won’t take me, then tell me how to find the place and I’ll go myself.”

Without taking his eyes from the race, he shook his head and gruffly said, “Lea’ aff wi’t, will ye?”

“And what if I were to speak of you and Lizzie…?”

He swung and stared accusingly at her. “There’s nocht tae say tae ony body aboot that.” Then he paused, clearly aware she could say anything she pleased. “I’ll tak ye near eneuch, nae mair.”

“When?”

“Efter the riddin.”

The black horse completed a full circuit of the field well ahead of the other. Alec was worried, muttering to himself. “Jock’s rinnin her tae hard — she’s haiglin.” Jock must have known well enough that he couldn’t maintain such speed for long, for in the second circuit he allowed the other horse to draw level, then together they cantered down to the road and headed away on the major part of the race, quickly disappearing from view.

“How long till they return?” Marion asked.

“Mibbe a guid hauf oor.”

For some moments the crowd milled aimlessly, then there were signs that a further diversion had been arranged. Men were re-assembling at the place where the fight had taken place — it appeared there was to be another. Alec went to join; and while they clustered for whatever was to come, Marion saw new figures coming along the path from the house — Mrs Struther leading Willie and Thomas. Surely they wouldn’t be made to watch the awful spectacle? She rushed to meet them.

“Out the way, please,” Mrs Struther said sternly. She was holding Thomas by the shoulder while Willie walked beside her.

“What’s this about?”

“Master’s orders.”

Marion looked down at Thomas to offer a comforting smile, but his gaze was fixed, his expression vacant. The four of them reached the gathering where men stepped aside to let them through, and there at the centre stood Mr Moultrie, whose face told Marion everything, even before he cleared his throat to announce it.

“They can’t make the boys fight!” Marion pleaded, taking hold of Thomas.

“Try telling the master,” Mrs Struther said.

“But your own son?”

“Willie knows what to do.”

Marion couldn’t see the Colonel, nor Baron Adeling. “I won’t allow it,” she said, clutching Thomas who showed no sign of reciprocating her embrace, while Willie was equally passive in a different way, smirking quietly.

Mr Moultrie came over. “Let’s start,” he said determinedly, and Willie stepped forth. “That lad too,” he told Marion, pointing.

“Anyone wishing to hurt him will have to strike me first.”

There were grunts and low voices all around, but none of the men made plain whatever opinion they held.

“Don’t make a scene,” Moultrie said quietly to Marion, reaching for Thomas. “Come along now.” Before he could get hold of the boy’s arm, Thomas shook free of Marion and ran after Willie, into the centre of the ring. Men whooped and laughed — Marion’s shouts were lost in the sudden din.

Mrs Struther held Marion back. “You see? He wants to fight. It’s what every boy wants — even one like Thomas. Best thing for him.”

Moultrie tried bringing the contestants together to instruct them on the rules they were to follow, but Thomas showed no interest or comprehension, his attention caught instead by something overhead. A bird, Marion saw; a small speck turning in the empty sky. When she looked down again she saw Willie make the first blow, his fist glancing the other’s cheek. More cheers and laughter, though with less certainty and conviction, as Thomas raised fingers to his face with a look of surprise and indignation. Then he charged, his head a battering ram meeting Willie’s stomach with such force that it knocked him to the ground where Thomas fell upon him, beating Willie’s head with all his strength, urged on by a crowd now absolved of all guilt by the equality of violence. Moultrie heaved the boys apart; Marion thought he must be ending it, but it was only to discharge his duty as referee, and when the fighters were on their feet he waved them to continue. Both appeared to understand — experts already — and came together in a hideous whirl of swinging arms, to the delight of the audience.

“They’re killing each other,” Marion sobbed.

A bystander heard her. “Ye ca’ this fechtin? They’re lik’ a pair o’ lassies.”

The slaps and punches slowed; the boys were quickly tiring. As if by tacit agreement they moved apart, Willie stationing himself with fists raised, Thomas wandering aimlessly, perhaps feeling faint or simply bored. The men grew restless, some whistled or called out. Then Thomas regained his strength and fury, flew at Willie and in an instant had the boy’s right arm in his teeth. Willie screamed, flailed desperately to free himself, but the bite was firm, and for a sickening moment it seemed no amount of punching would end the torture.

“He’ll hae the wean’s airm aff!”

Mr Moultrie ran to intervene, but even he was powerless at first to end the mauling.

“Beff the wee scunner!”

A scything blow from Moultrie sent Thomas tumbling to the grass where he lay on his back laughing and kicking while Marion stared in horror. Willie’s arm was streaked with blood, badly gashed.

“Fight’s o’er,” Moultrie panted.

Mrs Struther hurried to her son who cried and raged at her until two men offered assistance.

“That airm wants wuppit,” said one.

“I’ll fesh some claith.”

The men led Willie away, tearful and shaking, and the crowd dispersed. Thomas did not rise, but stayed writhing on the ground, guarded by Marion. Mrs Struther came over, furious.

“No better than an animal!”

“Since he’s treated as one.”

Thomas was grinning with delight, staring up at the sky, oblivious to everything below. He showed no response when trumpet notes cracked across the field, signalling the riders’ return.

“We need to get him back to the house,” said Marion.

Mrs Struther bridled. “I’ll do that when he’s done with his nonsense.”

Marion reached for Thomas’s hand but was unable to clasp it. “I expect you’ll be locking him up as punishment.”

“Never mind what I’ll do. You think you can tame him? You know nothing.” Mrs Struther looked down at Thomas and in a voice without emotion told him dolly was crying, they should go and see. Mrs Struther continued to inform him about the doll’s misfortune until Thomas stopped squirming, grew calm and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. “See?” she said triumphantly to Marion, holding him by the forearm, and they departed together, leaving Marion dumbfounded.

All she could do now was make her way to where everyone was waiting eagerly for the race to end. Mr Moultrie was there, puffing and perspiring, and when he saw Marion he said to her, “A pure horror, that boy.”

“It wasn’t Thomas’s behaviour that horrified me.”

“I suppose you’re accustomed to it.”

She said, “I don’t see Colonel Wilson anywhere, nor his guest.”

“I imagine they have their own important affairs to deal with.”

Marion asked Mr Moultrie what he knew of Baron Adeling. Had he encountered him before?

“Only briefly, on a previous occasion he was here,” said Moultrie. “There was meant to be a celebration in his honour but it had to be called off, on account of that awful thing that happened with the young lady. I assume you’ve heard about it?”

Marion nodded. “Found dead in the forest.”

“Terribly sad.”

He moved away to deal with villagers wandering too close to the race route, and Marion looked back to see Mrs Struther heading briskly towards the house, still holding Thomas, almost dragging him. She then caught sight of Alec and went to remind him of their plan. “As soon as it’s over, you’ll take me.”

“I wantit tae tell Lizzie. Have ye seen her?”

“Not for a while. Probably needed at the house.”

Before any more could be said, his face lit. “Here comes Jock!” He hurried off to get a better view of the riders who were now coming back along the road.

Marion, walking slowly behind, watched the horses reach the field to perform their final circuit, the chestnut slightly ahead to begin with, though Jock’s larger black was able to reaffirm its superiority that had been evident from the start. His ribbon had gone from his arm, fallen somewhere along the way, but colours no longer mattered, Marion thought, nor anything else about the pointless contest whose instigators weren’t even present. When the winner crossed the line and a great roar went up, Marion felt hollow inside.

It was Mr Moultrie who handed over the prize money after Jock dismounted to the acclaim of his friends. Marion wondered if she would have to pull Alec away from the celebration, but he came dutifully to her and said they should get it over with.

“Is it far?” she asked.

“No lang, there’s a cut we can gang by.”

They should first take the road, he said, from where a track ran uphill through trees. Marion was concerned their departure would be noticed, but looking around saw none who might cause difficulty except perhaps Mr Moultrie, and he seemed entirely preoccupied. So she went with Alec as directed, neither of them saying a further word until they began rising into the forest.

“Is it much further?”

“A wee bit mair.”

Shortly afterwards he stopped. “Gang up tae the flat and ye’ll see the stane we put whaur we fand her.”

It had taken barely ten minutes to come as far as this. Hard to believe that Lucy could have been lost. Marion took the final part on her own, the track levelling to skirt the wooded hillside, and saw ahead a small slab laid against the mossy edge. When she came to it she found the grey stone unmarked; not a memorial, only a reminder to anyone who knew what it represented. The spot was quiet and peaceful, and even in foul weather would not suffer the harshest wind and rain. But what did Lucy eat that killed her? Marion had guessed already while ascending the hillside, and the bank here proved it, plentifully arrayed with small toadstools. Anyone should know not to touch those, especially the bright red ones — and Lucy could not have been wandering for days, cold and desperately hungry. There was only one explanation — she killed herself. Perfectly understandable why few wished to speak of her, or how she died.

Marion turned and made her way back to Alec.

“Ye seen it?”

Marion said she had, and asked why he was so reluctant to go. Surely the mushrooms weren’t dangerous if left untouched?

“It’s no them that keillt her,” said Alec, telling her he knew of no kind that would blacken a person’s mouth. As far as he was concerned, the place was cursed and best avoided.

“She must have brought the poison with her,” Marion said, more to herself than to Alec who was barely listening. He said they should return.

They got back to find the field clearing — festivities were to continue in the village, and Alec left to go there. Marion walked to the house, entering at the back through the servants’ area where she saw Lizzie stooped over a wash tub, up to her elbows in pungent steaming water.

“Alec took me to where he found her.”

Lizzie didn’t look up. “That’s guid.”

She raised a wet arm to wipe her forehead, straightening for a moment, and Marion caught sight of her face. “Is that a bruise?” There was a dark patch under Lizzie’s eye. “What happened?”

“I fell.”

Lizzie bent to continue working, and before Marion could question further they were interrupted by Mrs Struther who said to her, “Oh, there you are. The master’s been asking for you.”

“How’s Willie?”

“He’s well enough. Now get yourself to the study and see what’s wanted.”

When Marion passed into the main house she went first to Thomas’s room, a place that Mrs Struther considered her own preserve and would never let others enter, but through whose locked door Marion was accustomed to listen. Pressing her ear against the wooden panel she heard no sound. He must be exhausted, she thought. Asleep on a bed of straw, or on the floor, or wherever he was bound — for she was certain this was how Mrs Struther treated him, and why no one else was allowed to see.

Marion then went to the study where Colonel Wilson stood deep in thought. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

“A letter,” he said brusquely. She sat and wrote the note he dictated, thanking Mr Moultrie for his assistance, and giving him various instructions about the estate. When this was finished and the letter was sealed, the Colonel grew silent.

“Is there anything else?” Marion asked, turning to look up at him.

He bit his lip then said, “Do you think it wrong for boys to fight?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if a nation is attacked, should it surrender or resist?”

“That’s different.”

“I think not. Soldiers are made as children.”

“I can’t imagine Thomas in uniform.”

“Can you picture him reading books and counting coins? He learned a better lesson today than any you’ve given.”

She said nothing, allowing Colonel Wilson to continue.

“People laugh at him, and thus at me, behind my back. Today they saw his strength.”

“I trust your guest enjoyed it?” Marion knew neither of them had watched Thomas fight.

“Everything was to my friend’s satisfaction. He’s resting now. Tell me, have you spent any time with him? Apart from when we were all together?”

“None at all.”

“You may go now.”

She was to have no further sight of Baron Adeling that day, aware of his presence only in the evening when she heard the heavy thumping of the piano, less welcome to her ear than the rhythm of Thomas’s hammer. In the schoolroom next morning he bore no mark of injury and Marion made no mention of the fight, preferring to resume her effort teaching him to write his name. The lesson was brought to an early end, however, when Mrs Struther came with the Colonel’s latest command.

“He’s in his study already?” Marion asked, having come to know his routine well enough.

“You’ve to go to his other place,” Mrs Struther said haughtily.

“The library?” Marion guessed the Colonel’s windowless room was as forbidden to Mrs Struther as Thomas’s bedroom was to Marion. “Will you stay here?”

“As long as he behaves.”

Marion went to where she’d been taken before, knocked the door, and when the Colonel let her in, he indicated the desk in the centre, where paper and quills lay ready. It was to be another secret letter, she realised, seating herself in readiness and noticing a new item of furniture; for between the two claw-footed armchairs she’d seen previously, there now stood an unusual kind of table. It had an open shelf below with various mundane items — a pair of small goblets, a bowl of water — but what caught her attention was the mechanism fixed into the top, delicate and complicated in appearance, made of glass. He noticed her staring.

“The instrument? A gift from Baron Adeling. He’ll join us shortly.” Colonel Wilson gave no further explanation, and Marion was unwilling to enquire. The curious apparatus reminded her of something she once saw at a public demonstration of galvanism, where the lecturer produced enormous sparks, set frogs’ legs twitching, and made a boy’s hair stand upright.

“Use the black ink first,” Colonel Wilson instructed, and when she was ready, dictated, “To be delivered to Mr Gordon Talisker in the event of my death.” There was nothing solemn about the way he said it. As she wrote, Marion supposed he had thought of some item to bequeath, or other expression of friendship, for whenever the time came.

“Now the brown,” he told her, meaning the remarkable ink she’d used before that could be rendered invisible. She took a fresh sheet and a new quill, and he began.

“The ancient priests of Kadmus venerated an idol in the form of a human head. Through it they sought the lapis philosophorum and elixir vitae, preserving their wisdom in hieroglyphs on tablets of gold kept in a tabernacle of yellow glass. The guardians were always eight in number: when one died another would be initiated.”

Marion knew the Colonel often liked to begin his epistles with something erudite and irrelevant.

“Their temple was attacked, fought over, repeatedly captured, lost and recaptured by Jews, Christians, Moslems, none of whom could fathom the hieroglyphs, though all appreciated the value — both monetary and spiritual — of a treasure that no one dared move, despoil or disperse, such was its awful power. The rule of eight had to be maintained, else the world itself might end.”

Eventually the Colonel would arrive at whatever small token he wished Mr Talisker to inherit. In the meanwhile she transcribed absent-mindedly, wondering if Thomas was still at this moment being allowed to make his own writing efforts.

“Successive custodians attempted to distil the elixir of the first priests, the most skilful being Moslem alchemists who produced two miraculous liquors that they would offer as a challenge, presented in identical vials. One, they said, gave immortality, the other instant death. In fact, one would slay the wicked and spare only the good; while the other left fools unharmed but killed the wise. To be a good fool was the surest way to survive — and marked the participant as an easy target for subjugation or slaughter.”

Marion glanced up and saw the serious expression on the Colonel’s scarred face. He clearly believed every word.

“Disregarding all warning, a reckless Crusader plundered the entire hoard and had it taken to Jerusalem where it stayed until that city fell to the Saracens — a disaster caused, some say, by the ill-judged theft — though the marauders failed to recover the treasure of which they had been prior possessors. It was instead removed to Cyprus, then Rhodes and finally Malta, buried during the Turkish invasion, all trace and record of it lost.”

Here, thought Marion, was the predictable return of the Colonel’s hackneyed theme and tired hobby-horse — the Maltese Knights. But how was any of this known? Why weary an old friend with it? The first was quickly answered.

“The story came to light two hundred years later in Vienna where a mage began receiving spirit-messages in numerical code from a ghost named Gablidone. If another seven receivers could be found with the same interpretive ability, then the hoard’s location, power and wisdom would be revealed. The mage was visited by the scholar Lavater, who published an abbreviated version of Gablidone’s prophecies but was forbidden to include the most important and sensitive part. The complete protocol was written out by Count Thun and deposited at Dux Castle.

“Rumours reached Emperor Francis of vast riches buried somewhere on Malta, unknown even to the Order of Saint John whose knights ruled the island. Seeking to secure Austrian dominance there, Francis plotted with the knights’ ambassador in Vienna, Hompesch, and contrived to have him elected grandmaster in 1797. The scheme could not evade detection by spies acting for the wily French foreign minister, Talleyrand, who also had designs on the treasure. Since an attack on Egypt was already planned, it would be a mere detour to take Malta en passant. Even easier, in fact, since the duplicitous Hompesch struck a deal with Talleyrand, promising not to resist invasion of his island, in return for a share of whatever could be found. Thus, only a year after becoming grandmaster, Hompesch signed over Malta to France, the knights were deported, and Talleyrand’s agents launched a search one assumes to have been a failure. Nor can it be supposed that any English adventurers chanced upon the hoard after the French were expelled in 1800. Its very reality could even be doubted, were it not for the magical force that compels its existence, and the conviction of those who covet it. In the following decade, while open warfare raged all over Europe, leaders of opposing nations bargained secretly, making promises quite contrary to the treaties their emissaries agreed, and the wider world was left to puzzle why the little island of Malta should figure so prominently in international relations.”

He paused to cough, and Marion looked again at his face, so solemn and troubled. Then he resumed his dictation.

“My dear Talisker, you have so far been acquainted with only a very few of these details. I learned the fuller story while attending the Congress of Vienna nine years ago. Whoever acquires the hoard and can decipher the gold tablets will have power to control the world — a fact known to Talleyrand, Metternich, Tsar Alexander and others who led negotiations. Their sinister alliance recognises no national boundaries, suffers no moral restraint. It was in order to resist them that the Fold was created, into which I was inducted at Vienna, and you later.

“Every soldier knows that fire must be met by fire. In the same way, magic must be met by magic. Experiments in that art have cost me dearly. Others too have suffered. For some of what I have done — honestly and with good intention, though with catastrophic result — I feel deepest sorrow and regret. I shall answer for those deeds in the proper place. For the present, I am about to undertake an experiment that may cost me my life. If that be the case, then I wish you, dear friend, to assume the position I vacate, and this letter explains what you should know in advance of that promotion. Above all, be aware that whoever learns and carelessly reveals our secrets must pay most heavily for their indiscretion.”

He fell silent and Marion finished writing his words in the thin brown ink, chilled as she grasped the sense of his last sentence. She looked up and saw him opening the cabinet where the transformative powder was stored. “Bring the letter here to me,” he ordered. When she went to hand it over, she realised she was trembling. He saw too. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, taking the pages from her and sealing them inside the earthenware jar.

“Colonel, I swear never to repeat what you said. I barely comprehended it.”

“You have nothing to fear,” he said quietly, and pointed his left hand towards the painted ceiling. “It is all sub rosa.”

She wondered about Lucy — might she have divulged something? And what about the instrument, as he’d called it, whose glass apparatus gleamed softly at the other side of the room? Was it part of those experiments he said had been so disastrous?

There was a knock at the door, and the muffled voice of Mrs Struther calling through. She wasn’t attending to Thomas after all. “His Excellency, sir.”

“Go and open,” Colonel Wilson told Marion, who was confronted there by Baron Adeling’s tall figure, shadowed against the brighter light beyond. He was holding a small, beautifully inlaid wooden box, and so captivating was his appearance that for a brief moment Marion absurdly imagined herself the intended recipient, until she quickly gathered her wits and stepped aside, bowing as the Baron entered. Without acknowledging her he came in and handed the precious item to Colonel Wilson, speaking to him in German while Marion waited near the still-open door. A glance from the Colonel and a wave of his cane instructed her to close it, then the men spoke further, earnestly and at times almost heatedly, the Colonel all the while cradling the small box awkwardly against his chest with his incomplete hand, eventually nodding solemnly at whatever the Baron was saying. Then Colonel Wilson turned, slowly went to the door at the other end, and retreated to his chamber. He had insisted more than once that Marion and Baron Adeling not be alone together, yet now they were.

“Sit, please.” The Baron spoke warmly but firmly, with only a slight foreign accent, indicating that she should occupy the nearest armchair while he took the other. Between them was the mysterious apparatus, at whose glass mechanism Marion stared intently.

“You are wondering what this is?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It is a kind of musical instrument called an armonicon. I believe you play the pianoforte?”

“Not as well as you, I’m sure.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You are well informed about me?”

She answered hurriedly. “Only what Colonel Wilson has said… about your skill.”

“I see. How generous of him.” He paused, and from the adjoining room could be heard the intermittent tap of the Colonel’s stick upon the floor as he moved about. The Baron asked, “What else has he said?”

Now there was less warmth; Marion guessed what he might mean. “Said, sir?” she answered innocently.

The Baron looked upwards. “Sub rosa.” Then he stared at Marion, waiting for her to respond.

“I’ve written out letters for him. That’s all.”

“In vanishing ink?”

“Sometimes.”

The Baron smiled. “And do you believe anything you’ve heard?”

She hesitated. “It’s not my place…”

He leaned forward in his chair, lowering his voice though there was no possibility of being overheard. “Colonel Wilson suffered an injury.”

“I’m aware of that, sir.”

“What have you been told?”

She explained about Greece, the Turkish sword. Or was it Albanian?

“He was never there,” the Baron said. “He imagines things. Invents them. His mind is more damaged than his body.”

It was what Marion had suspected already. “He asked me to write to his friend, a Mr Talisker.”

Baron Adeling’s brow furrowed as he pondered the name. “Talisker? The Colonel has few friends — I’m sure I must know all of them. I’ve never heard of this Talisker. What was the letter about?”

Marion thought of her vow of secrecy. Even if made to someone mentally unsound, she still ought to respect it. “I only copied the words. They made little sense.”

“Knights of Malta, perhaps?”

The Colonel’s thoughts on those were already printed for all to see in the Caledonian Mercury. “Yes.”

“The Fold?”

This was more difficult. “Sir?”

“No need for evasion. I know all about that story of his — I’ve heard it often enough. I expect he made you swear an oath, sign a contract or something, exactly as he made me, in this very room. And I agreed, because I love and care for him, even in his infirmity. Please promise me not to admit to him what you now know. If he should spin for us some latest impossible tale of his, we must listen patiently and not challenge it. We cannot cure the disease that has taken hold of his mind, we can only try to let him live comfortably with his affliction.”

“Does Mrs Struther know?”

“Everyone knows — no one speaks. Truth in this house is whatever the master decides.”

Baron Adeling ceased at the cracking open of the chamber door. Marion rose at once and watched the Colonel emerge looking somehow older and frailer, now that she certainly knew him to be demented. Previously she had despised him — now she felt pity. Bringing with him a small brown flagon that she guessed contained some kind of liqueur, Colonel Wilson told Marion to move to the writing chair, then placed himself heavily onto the one she vacated, and deposited the bottle on the lower shelf of the armonicon beside the drinking glasses there already. The men resumed conversing in German while Marion sat at the desk, wondering if she would shortly be called upon to transcribe another fantasy, though soon it was as if they had forgotten her completely, debating vociferously between themselves. Their gesticulations traced a polemical outline without filling in the content; Marion could only speculate upon Baron Adeling’s tactic of persuasion, rebuttal and well-meant dissuasion from whatever yarn his host was ravelling. At one point she feared they were close to blows, but the Colonel instead slapped his thigh and hung his head dejectedly, perhaps over no more than the prospect of losing yet another trivial wager. Marion’s attention strayed and she pondered Thomas’s bleak fate, having a madman as guardian, but was brought back by a word she was sure had flashed suddenly within the torrent of syllables. One of them had said Lucy’s name — or had it only been a German word that coincidentally sounded similar?

The discussion reached a conclusion only its participants understood, and Colonel Wilson rose, looking fixedly at Marion. “Everything is allowed,” he said gravely, then once more began making his way to his chamber. She had no idea what he’d intended to convey by the ominous statement, which merely reinforced what she now knew about him.

Baron Adeling beckoned her back to the armchair as soon as the Colonel’s door was closed, reached down for the bottle on the armonicon’s shelf and poured dark liquid into the two glasses. He took one, offered the other to Marion, and proposed a toast to the Colonel’s health. She sipped, found it strong and bitter, and had to cough. The Baron laughed, saying it was a restorative tincture highly prized in his native Wurtemberg, and she must be sure to drink all of it. She did, feeling its heat penetrate her chest and head. The glasses were returned and the Baron asked if she had understood anything he and the Colonel had been saying to one another previously.

“Not a word, sir.”

With a smile of what seemed almost like apology, the Baron explained that the Colonel had expressed regret at having burdened her with dangerous intelligence.

“He knows I would never tell,” she protested.

“Of course not,” the Baron said calmly. “But the Colonel is a troubled man, as we realise.”

“Then what’s to be done?” Marion felt uneasy; she had to trust the Baron to protect her.

He laid his hand on the armonicon. “Colonel Wilson asked me to procure this for him because he believes its tones can affect a person’s mind. Has he said anything to you about mesmerism?”

She recalled the Colonel’s worries about delayed somnambulism, magnetised assassins. “I’m not sure he did.”

“He wants me to purge your memory.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I know — so you have nothing to fear. You’ll only need to pretend to have forgotten. If we should ask you, for instance, about the Fold, or the mask of Maffon, you would simply say they meant nothing to you.”

The mask genuinely meant nothing — she didn’t recall the Colonel ever having referred to it.

“Or the Xanthic trove,” he continued. “The radiance…”

“He’s never mentioned any of those.”

The Baron scrutinised her closely. “Are you sure of that? They feature largely whenever he speaks to me of his castles in the air.”

“Not with me, I assure you.”

“Perhaps you’ve forgotten already, without even needing to pretend. Or perhaps you’re pretending. No matter, as long as we can convince Colonel Wilson that his command has been executed and his wish fulfilled.”

Baron Adeling got up and stood at the armonicon, looking down at Marion seated beside it. “Shall we begin?” he said, turning a handle that set the glass array spinning freely. He dipped his fingers in the bowl underneath then touched the moving rims to produce three notes simultaneously, unchanging in pitch but growing in intensity, a chord in a minor key, with a sonority stranger and more magical than anything she had ever heard.

“Do you like the sound, Marion?”

“Yes,” she said, surprised that he used her name.

“Sit back in your chair and look up at the ceiling. Can you see the roses?”

“Yes.”

“Choose one and look carefully at it. Count the petals. Do it aloud, slowly.”

“One… two… three…” She reached four, and a note changed — again at five. Her counting was creating a melody. The rose was if made of resonating glass, or the glass made of music — or everything combined in celestial harmony. When she reached ten, he told her to stop, then count backwards, even more slowly than before. The melody became different — she couldn’t tell if the tune was reversed, but she had a feeling of being turned around, like an image in a mirror. It was most restful.

“Did he make you write with the brown ink?”

“Yes.” The rose was beginning to move.

“And did you see him put it in the jar?”

“Yes.” It was rotating very gradually, like a toothed wheel in one of her father’s clocks.

“Keep still,” he said. “Count the petals again, silently.”

The music ceased — she could hear the bowls still whirring, but he must have withdrawn his fingers. Then something further off — the opening of a cabinet he may have gone to. Numbering the petals in her mind, she perceived the Baron at the margin of her view, returning with the earthenware jar.

“Keep counting,” he said.

The petals were growing in number — it was hard to keep pace. They were altering in shape. She felt something press against her breast, the jar and his fingers around it, she glimpsed and saw the lid removed, something putrid inside and heat rushing through her body — everything brightening in a flash, then darkness.

She was somewhere else. Still in a chair, looking at the ceiling, but unable to move. It was no longer the armonicon that was playing, instead something like small bells, operated by a figure somewhere to her right. Footsteps around her, more vigorous than the Colonel’s, as though on stone rather than wood. Warm, humid air that was almost stifling.

A man’s voice. “Have you seen it?” She somehow knew this to be the private secretary, Mr Coleridge, enquiring about objects at the cave.

“I have not.” Her own voice had become different — she could speak without moving her lips.

“Are you certain?”

The ceiling a pattern of stars through which she passed, finding herself at the end of a long passageway whose sweating walls swarmed with winged insects. Thomas, hooded, was walking ahead of her, so she followed until he stopped at the door to his room, where the sound of bells was replaced by dry rattling. Then inside, seeing the pen they kept him in, the chain that held him there, and a second mannequin, black-lipped female counterpart to the one in the schoolroom.

Marion woke feeling something damp on her forehead, opened her eyes and found herself lying in bed with someone pressing a cloth to her brow. It was Mrs Struther, sorrowful and silent. After she went, the next face staring down was Baron Adeling’s.

Marion’s body ached. “What happened?”

“What do you recall?”

Nothing, she told him, except a smell that overpowered her.

“In your dreams, where were you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You spoke — it made no sense.”

She remembered none of it. “What was in the jar you brought to me?”

He looked puzzled, and after she described how he’d held it near her, said, “That’s not what happened at all. I played the armonicon exactly as Colonel Wilson requested, without interruption, when suddenly I began to feel dizzy.” He said he saw Marion lose consciousness and knew they must be in danger — but before he could act, he too grew faint and fell to the floor.

“Because of the music?”

The Baron shook his head. “While we were doing our pantomime, Colonel Wilson was mixing chemical ingredients in his room. Gas was released. Hallucination was the least of its effects.”

“Where is the Colonel? How is he?”

The expression on the Baron’s face told her everything. “It’s a tragedy,” he said. “I only wish I could have stopped him.”

Marion felt her senses spinning.

“You must rest,” Baron Adeling insisted. “This is terrible, I know.” He laid a hand on her shoulder — she could feel a finger against her bare neck. “In a day or two you’ll be well enough to leave, and your brief time here can be forgotten. I shall have an amount sent to your father to cover the full period you would have been employed. I can also arrange for some letters of recommendation.”

“What of Thomas?”

“He’ll be taken care of.”

“How? By whom?”

“It’s not your concern.” She then heard Baron Adeling step away to the door that Mrs Struther must have left open, and which now he slid shut before coming back to her bedside where he leaned closely into view and spoke quietly. “You are of course never to speak of the Colonel’s folly — or, let us be frank, his insanity. He suffered a fatal apoplexy. This is what all the servants here will tell you.”

“They know the truth?”

His expression hardened. “Colonel Wilson must be honoured as the hero he was. Any rumour to the contrary will bring shame only to whoever dares utter it. Am I clear?”

She promised to say nothing, but begged leave to ask a final question. “What became of Lucy?”

Baron Adeling smiled as if in sudden recognition of an old friend. “Lucy? She drank too much.” He stroked Marion’s ear. “Don’t you feel lucky to have suffered no more than a headache?” Then he stooped and kissed her cheek — a sensation at once loathsome and familiar. He straightened, bade her farewell and went out.

A little later Mrs Struther returned, her sorrow now understandable, though neither woman mentioned the Colonel. She’d brought a bowl of broth, and gently helped Marion sit up so she could feed her with a spoon. Had grief made the housekeeper more kindly? Marion quickly discovered otherwise.

“If we can get you on your feet tonight, you’ll be fit to go in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

“Pity you ever came. At such a time.”

“I know.”

“And you taking a turn like that — raving without end. His Excellency asked me if you knew German and I said I didn’t believe so, but you do, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Well, you did when you were asleep, so it seems, and other tongues besides, which only goes to show I was right about you all along. Dirty liar.”

Marion almost spat the food from her mouth, managed to swallow but was unable to protest or interrupt.

“Talking away, quite the thing. Oh yes, I think we’ve got the measure of you, whoever you are. One name when you’re awake and I don’t know how many others when you’re in a mad tum. I’ll be perfectly honest, we’ll all be happy to see the back of you, Miss Marion. Or should I call you Claudia?”

Five

Coyle

After more than two years I’m returning to “Beethoven and Philosophy”, and have been glancing at what I wrote before Dad’s death and the easing of the pandemic freed me to move on to other things. Circumstances here at Axtoun House prompt a revival.

The invitation was unexpected and welcome. I’d never heard of the curiously named Hyle Centre or the eponymous doctor whose memory the place honours. The director who emailed me — and whom I’ve yet to meet — politely praised not only my bluffers’ guide to Plato, but also curiously my appearance as talking head on a documentary about the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Scottish origins, as if that were my main specialism. I replied that I’d be happy to use the fellowship as opportunity to continue current work on Bergson. Then on arriving last night I learned of a pianist in residence giving performances of Beethoven, saw potential for exactly the kind of cross-disciplinary interaction that is the Hyle Centre’s avowed raison d’être, and decided that while Bergsonian philosophy should remain my official research theme, the older project would be worth resuscitating as a sideline.

Characteristic of philosophical writing is that it must reconsider at every turn the question of representation. Juxtaposing Beethoven against my father, as I did, was an absurdity excusable by anguished conditions of the time; but even if there was no meaningful comparison to be made between the deaf, paranoid, slovenly, miserly, irritable old men they each became, might my earlier autobiographical approach still be of use as methodological strategy? It worked for Descartes, after all; though unlike his accommodation, mine — a suite named, for some arbitrary historico-sentimental reason, Herschel — is well ventilated, perhaps a little too comfortable, possibly unconducive to reflection. Still, there’s a hole in my earlier narrative I ought to fill, so let’s try — once I’ve made myself more coffee.

It was a couple of days after Mum died. I was at the house in Kenzie, trying to work out what to do with Dad. We’d had our abortive trip to the care home and nothing else was planned. I suppose I made him dinner; then, feeling exhausted, went to the kitchen cupboard where behind multiple jars and tins I found an unopened twelve-year-old malt he must have bought before his mind cracked. Returning to the living room with the whisky bottle in one hand and two small glasses scissored in the other, I saw his eyes gleam in recognition of an old friend.

“Like some, Dad?”

“Aye.”

I poured generously. Afraid to kill him with an overdose of prescription drugs, I wasn’t averse to letting him finish himself with the older kind. We probably toasted each other; though to be honest, the mental picture is indistinct. What I remember most clearly is not so much how Dad looked, sitting in his armchair with the glass I handed him, but what he told me, once the cocktail of alcohol and anti-depressants kicked in. I’d raised the usual questions — why she’d fallen, why he hadn’t done more to help — and gradually my repeated shouts became unnecessary as he launched into a soliloquy I can only paraphrase.

“I tried passing it to her but the cable wasnae long enough. I was never good with the phone. Now she’s gone. My wife. The woman I loved. Who’s going to look after me?”

The bathos and self-pity were indications of love as linguistic placeholder rather than felt emotion. He’d had a marital duty to protect her, failed, and now was traumatised. The monologue continued, its scope widening with each ample sip.

“If it wasnae for that bastard Ian White.”

Coming from nowhere except his whisky tumbler, the comment resuscitated a dormant moment when, as a boy, I’d overheard from the top of the stairs a fragment of parental conversation in the kitchen below, briefly raised and unmistakably angry. What about you making a fool of me with Ian White? The suddenly introduced neighbour, hitherto innocuous, was like a lamp-post I’d walked into. Now, decades later, the occasion had finally arisen for Dad to unburden himself of a maudlin, long-harboured tale of cuckoldry. The whole street knew, apparently. Cuddling on the bus. He even caught them in bed together — though how they managed to find an afternoon when Dad wasn’t at work and I was at school, I’ve no idea. Most implausible of all was Dad’s description of how he coped with the grief.

“I wrote in a wee book. All the heartbreak. A diary. Hid it away. Must still be in the house somewhere.”

The thought of my father penning anything more than a shopping list was itself beyond credibility. Most significant feature of the fantasy was the moment he’d chosen to spew it out. As if he hated both of us. After hearing his story I went upstairs to bed, more convinced than ever that he was an utter cunt. If there was any truth to the alleged affair then I’m glad — my mother deserved some fun. More likely is that she fancied the neighbour, flirted a bit, and it went no further except in Dad’s head, where jealousy festered behind the wallpaper of his crumbling reality. Unwilling to mention it in what I wrote not very long after being told, it now suggests a further point of comparison with Beethoven: a shared capacity for self-delusion.

Deprived of parental love, slighted and scolded rather than nurtured, a neglected child might resort to daydreams where the despised father is replaced by another, the mother then seen as having been unfaithful. Freud called this false inner narrative Familienroman, literally “family novel”; a psychological disturbance my father carried within his ample stock. When young I heard him speak several times of a man he’d spotted in Glasgow — supposedly his own near-double — whom he suspected to be a half-brother from a maternal affair, born secretly and put up for adoption. Beethoven exhibited something similar. In his thirties a rumour circulated that he was bastard offspring of Prussian royalty. Beethoven probably didn’t instigate but refused to deny it, despite friends’ entreaties.

Of particular importance in Dad’s Familienroman was a cold winter’s day when his mother warmed his infant hands in hers, saying it was “like they do in Canada”. The much-repeated memory proved to him that she had gone abroad to hide her illegitimate pregnancy. I know virtually nothing about Dad’s mother, who died when he was seven. What we know of Beethoven’s comes mainly from reminiscences of neighbours in Bonn, one of whom recalled her as “always serious”, another as “a quiet, suffering woman”. In Alexander Thayer’s biography, open on my laptop screen, I see her overheard comment that once while travelling with young Ludwig she had to hold his feet in her lap to prevent them being frostbitten. Superimposed images of coldness and affection foreshadowing later anxieties.

The morning after he told me his vile nonsense, I found Dad asleep in his armchair, still clutching the empty whisky glass on his lap. Mum’s alleged affair was never to be mentioned again in the remaining seven months of his life. I now wonder if, in the opaque jumble of neurosis and dementia that clouded his brain, he’d projected onto his dead wife the delusion of his mother’s infidelity. I don’t remember how we spent the rest of the day; I expect it would mostly have been filled with efforts to get his life in some kind of order. I did, though, try searching through drawers and cupboards for the diary he’d mentioned. Had it ever existed, it was now lost in the chaos of blunt pencils, flat batteries and tattered magazine clippings that were the material correlative of his mental organisation.

Resuming now after a break for fresh air (around the house and along part of a track calling itself “Mushroom Walk”), I should mention Beethoven’s most significant delusion; his idea that the “van” in his name — relic of Flemish ancestry — was equivalent to the German nobiliary particle, “von”. It certainly smoothed his way up the Viennese social scale. Beethoven’s sometime friend Anton Schindler wrote, “the little word ‘van’… exercised a magic power… [Without it,] neither his genius nor his works of art would have won for him the favoured position he had enjoyed in aristocratic circles.” It was only when approaching fifty, and very hard of hearing, that Ludwig’s van ran out of gas, his widowed sister-in-law Johanna van Beethoven having sought to regain custody of her twelve-year-old son Karl. She applied to a court reserved for the nobility, assuming Beethoven could provide proof of aristocratic status. He had to admit there was none, and the case was tossed ignominiously to a lower court. Beethoven, still refusing to believe he was not in every way the equal of his illustrious patrons, jotted in a conversation book, “My nature shows that I do not belong with this plebeian magistracy.”

A nurse came to assess Dad’s cognitive ability. Sitting close beside his armchair and speaking loudly — having pulled down her face mask — she went through a long questionnaire that exposed the fractures in his comprehension. He didn’t know his age, but could identify and draw a pentagon. He remembered the words to “Auld Lang Syne”, but not his sister’s name. The nurse found him charming, polite, intelligent — qualities easily coexistent with confusion. Looking at photographs around the room, and not always getting a clear answer from Dad, she asked me about his earlier life. I mentioned his work as an electrician, union activism and involvement in local politics, efforts on behalf of various charities. She smiled and said what a good person he was, and I suppose she was right. Still, I wonder if Dad’s utopian idealism, like Beethoven’s, was born from indignation more than love of humanity.

Uppermost in my mind was the thought that Mum was pushed, and this was how she’d come to be on the bedroom floor, struggling to get up, grasping at furniture until her heart gave out. Consistent with what I’d heard from her about Dad’s mood swings, it made sense of his inconsistent recollections and ominous omissions. He didn’t talk about Mum to the nurse, or to anyone else except for three occasions I can think of, between her death and his own. Apart from the bathetic fantasy affair, he told me to give her the simplest possible funeral (which I did, once the post mortem result came back), and another time he asked the social worker, Michael, if her pension was still being paid. That was the sum total of his public expressions about the woman he was married to for more than sixty years, and whose name — when he’d tried to write it on her bank card — he misspelled. Quantum physics asks us to imagine forms of matter existing simultaneously in contradictory states. One need only look at human affairs to see such things in effect. Yes, I agreed with the nurse — he was a good man.

She offered no diagnosis while he napped after the test; she said the results would be passed to the psychiatric team, an appointment made, then a verdict given. For the time being he retained the legal right to make poor choices. It might have been later the same day when I got a phone call from Michael, giving me the number for the homecare service. A woman came and heated a ready meal in the microwave; I got her name and thought she was to be the one Dad would always see, though she turned out to be first in an ever-changing succession of helpers, each with the same brisk, affable, inevitably impersonal manner, their acquaintance with every client being no longer than a taxi driver’s.

For the next couple of weeks my days at home in Durham were divided between online teaching and phone calls warning me that Dad’s attempts to remain independent could have consequences beyond the remit of homecare professionals. Warming plates in the toaster was a recurrent cause of concern. Then came the shock of hearing he’d been taken to hospital with covid, mixed feelings about his subsequent recovery, and relative peace while he became trapped in a bureaucratic argument of scholastic subtlety over who was responsible for finding a place to discharge him to. I’ve previously described how this was interrupted by my own spell of illness and a return to the empty house in Kenzie, barely changed since the night of Mum’s death apart from Dad’s squalid embellishments and the fug of central heating left at full blast.

My old notes also remind me that authors I was reading at the time included Cecil Gray, who wrote so penetratingly about his friends D.H. Lawrence and Peter Warlock. I left Gray’s Survey of Contemporary Music at home, but found an online scan earlier today, and was reminded of an amusingly vitriolic chapter on the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin who died in 1915 and in the following decade — to the time when Gray wrote — attained so dizzying a reputation that he was seriously seen by some as the greatest thing since Beethoven. Gray found explanation in a remark by Scriabin himself. “The public is particularly aroused by productions which have philosophic ideas as their basis.” Gray commented, “He might have added… it is also more easily taken in by them. Even then the statement needs emendation before it can be said to be entirely true. The public has no great love for philosophic ideas; it hates philosophers like Kant, Descartes or Spinoza almost as much as great artists; what it really likes is pseudo-philosophic ideas; artistic philosophers like Rousseau and Nietzsche, philosophic artists with a ‘message’ like Watts, Zola, and Scriabin.”

I see it was also while Dad was hospitalised that I read J.W.N. Sullivan’s third and final novel, A Holiday Task. It had the usual ingredients of classical music, trips to France, and Sullivan’s idée fixe of lost love regained, though told with a humour belying the writer’s deteriorating physical condition and imminent death from complications of sclerosis. Most memorable to me now is a seance where a piano piece by a fictional Russian composer transports an exotic Caucasian woman into a psychic trance. It turns out to be a hoax — the woman is from Nottingham — and I wonder if Sullivan had in mind Scriabin, much of whose music was influenced by the esoteric theosophical doctrines of the enigmatic Helena Blavatsky. After a well-received London performance of the tone poem Prometheus, Scriabin commented, “I am inclined to attribute the public enthusiasm… not so much to the musical side of the work as to its combination of music and mysticism.” Cecil Gray’s opinion was that, “in blatant coarseness and vulgarity Prometheus is only equalled by the 1812 Overture”, which would be a further way to explain its popularity. If not Scriabin, Sullivan could have had in mind another Russian, Thomas de Hartmann, master of music at the new-age institute where Katherine Mansfield spent her final weeks in the dubious care of George Gurdjieff. Being Slavic — or pretending to be — was in those days a good way to be taken more seriously than one might otherwise deserve. By the 1930s Sullivan appears to have realised it.

The preceding comment redounds ironically as I resume following lunch with a Russian cosmologist, Yuri Rostov; very old, rather charming, evidently deserving of highest respect. He was a dissident in the Brezhnev era, sent to a mental hospital where he went on hunger strike, eventually allowed to emigrate because, he told me with a wry smile, he didn’t know anything useful. Speaking of our research interests and finding some common ground, I asked if he’d heard of Peter Ouspensky’s theory of time as three-dimensional, like space. He hadn’t, and when I explained that Ouspensky was one of Gurdjieff’s earliest disciples — Sullivan and Mansfield attended his lectures in London — Yuri confirmed my presumption that the theory was worthless.

I return to thoughts of Dad in hospital, unable to receive visitors because of the pandemic, progressing inexorably without companion on what care professionals I consulted called the “dementia journey”. Hard to travel hopefully on that one-way trip. I sometimes reached him on the phone if a nurse was free to pick up the one in the ward, but he didn’t always seem to know which way to hold it, pressed buttons by mistake, could barely hear anyway. On lucky occasions, after much bellowing from me, synapses would stir and I could visualise at the other end a brow-twitch of recognition. “It’s you, Robbie? Hello, son.” Sometimes he would say he was unhappy, at others that his life was slipping away, the precise calibration of his depression dependent on drugs he didn’t know he was taking. He never asked about the world beyond the toilet that was as far as he walked, nor about people he once knew. When a consultant phoned to give me a health update, she said Dad was in good physical condition for his age. Eventual release, like death itself, was inevitable, and one could only hope the timing would be favourable.

I thought that whenever Dad was discharged I might bring him south of the border to a nursing home close enough — not too close — to my flat. But then as well as legal guardianship, which was still trundling through the Scottish court system, I’d have needed to start a similar rigmarole to obtain the English version. A situation as imponderable as differential calculus. Simpler, I decided, would be to find him a place in Kenzie where his unoccupied house could be my base for regular visits until needing to be sold to cover fees. At a likely cost of a thousand a week, that wouldn’t take long, and the small, ex-council terrace wasn’t going to raise much either. “In need of renovation” would be the estate agent’s euphemism for a property that had decayed in harmony with its residents. It was a plan, though, so while Dad remained safely detained I drove up to spend a weekend cleaning and tidying.

Latest of many paradoxes and conundrums since Mum’s death was the reminder on letting myself in — the place still looking so little different from the night it happened — that none of this was mine. Every useless hedge trimmer, broken cassette player, drawerful of sodding batteries — all still Dad’s. I had no right to dispose of anything; but if I couldn’t do what any rational being would wish, and take his junk to the council tip, there was always the temporary solution of stashing it out of sight. Dad had himself attempted something along those lines, making one of the bedrooms unusable though still painfully observable if you could get past the door. My measures needed to be more drastic — a domestic catharsis.

The loft, when I raised my head through its open hatch, looked to be in even worse disarray than the rooms below; yet when I heaved myself up and switched on the light Dad had installed at some healthier point in the distant past, I saw that in more recent years he must have been slinging objects from no more than half-way up the ladder, unable to get higher. The result resembled a lunar crater; a circular ridge of cardboard boxes, crumpled shopping bags, bits of wood, electric cables, plastic flower pots, fluffy boulders of expanded polystyrene. Beyond the most recent trace of impact lay detritus so archaic I actually recognised some items. School jotters stood aslant in fossilised tumble from a half-upturned suitcase I remembered seeing taken on holiday to Rothesay. Dad had stood watch over it while Mum and I roamed the steam ferry’s deck. There was the fishing rod he’d shown me how to use; and at the far end of the loft, shrunken by age to the little wooden thing it always was, the rocking horse he made for me when I was three or four. Climbing fully up and going to inspect, I could see how carefully he’d sawn and joined the parts, maybe replicating a pattern from a hobby magazine, or meticulously following a self-drawn plan.

I was to spend many days, over several visits, transforming the loft from aerial landfill to better ordered preparation for the subterranean kind where most relics would end up. It was in the course of this nest-building that I came across books and magazines I’d read when young, LP records I’d listened to. One was how I first heard Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto — the 1976 recording by Pollini and Böhm with the Vienna Philharmonic. The concerto opens with quiet piano chords that start on the downbeat, but in my teenage mind the first chord sounded like an upbeat. I misinterpreted it that same way, wrongly accented, every time I played the record; it was only later, when I saw the score, that I realised my mistake. Deciding to listen again, I brought down the record and retrieved Dad’s turntable from the wardrobe it had sat atop for as many decades as had passed since he graduated to CDs. Having set it up in the living room, I placed the needle on the disc; a gesture once so familiar and habitually delicate, now the indifferent prelude to charity-shop drop-off. After an initial bump and scratch I heard Pollini play the solo exactly as written and as I knew it should be: strong beats on the long opening chord and fourth short one. Then I moved the needle back and listened again, wondering if I could make myself hear what I’d formerly imagined — and in an effortless moment I was sixteen again. Repeating the experiment, I could flip the accents at will; an aural Necker cube or Escher staircase. It was uncanny.

Having thought longer since writing what’s above, I can relate it to what happened this evening. I’ve been hoping to meet the pianist Alphonse Berka since arriving here two days ago. Nearest I’ve come was hearing him a little while ago through a closed door, rehearsing parts of the Piano Sonata in A-flat, Opus 110. The second movement has a rhythmic ambiguity that comes to a head at the end, with a series of whole-bar chords separated by whole-bar rests. If Beethoven had chosen to write in 4/4 rather than 2/4, would the chords have been downbeats or upbeats? The riddle was discussed by musicologist Donald Tovey, whose 1931 book on the Beethoven sonatas I happened to find yesterday in what passes here for a library; a room whose chaotic shelving indicates how infrequently it’s expected to be used as anything other than quiet location for peaceful phone scrolling. Tovey’s detailed analysis need not be quoted, only what followed his insistence it was “no abstruse theory”:

It is an account of what reaches the only kind of listener to whom Beethoven has anything to say — the listener who believes his ears, waits for the end and accepts in due course the light which antecedents and sequels throw upon each other. It seems abstruse only because it has to contend with an abstruse modern prejudice. A modern cosmologist has finely observed that when Nature seems to conspire against the discovery of some expected principle, that conspiracy is in itself the obverse of a natural law. Thus the seeker for perpetual motion encounters the conspiracy known as the conservation of energy; and thus all attempts to measure the earth’s absolute drift through the ether showed a systematic failure which gave an important line of approach to the theory of relativity. And thus we may rest content with Beethoven’s final refusal to tell us where the main accent would have come if the bars of this movement had been twice as long and there had been only half the number of accents.

Standing outside the rehearsal room, reluctant to eavesdrop yet unable to resist, I stayed to hear the pianist complete the second movement and begin the third with its haunting imitation of vocal recitative — a passage that has generated so much comment, even the suggestion that it might be connected to an abandoned opera. The surprise was in the ensuing Arioso dolente, wordless but not without voice, there being the sudden unexpected addition of a soprano singing along with the melody. I can only hope they won’t be doing that in the actual performance.

Celia Carter

My memories of the so-called Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, which I visited in the autumn of 1922, remain perfectly vivid, even at a distance of so many years. One’s first impression of the Château du Prieuré, on being brought there by taxi from Fontainebleau, was of a sprawling, somewhat faded relic of the grand siècle, its grounds being assiduously remodelled by a small, industrious hive of disciples lured by the nectared promises of Mr Gurdjieff, the mystic sage whose acquaintance I was soon to make.

Curious as I was about this remarkable man — the subject of so much comment among London intellectuals despite being himself, it was said, gnomically taciturn almost to the point of total incoherence — it was nevertheless a more mundane matter, namely my work at New Age, that had given me reason to cross the Channel. The magazine’s long-standing editor, Mr Orage, had somewhat peremptorily thrown over his literary career in order to serve the higher cause — and financial needs — of the new institute. His successor had despatched me with papers needing to be signed by the runaway truth-seeker.

The woman who first received me at the chateau was in her early twenties, no older than myself, and as I soon found out, was part of the Russian contingent that made up about half of the institute’s members. Speaking in French, I was initially unable to make her understand who it was I sought. For me, his name rhymed with porridge; for her it was the Gallic orage. Having agreed on the latter, we went to find Monsieur Thunderstorm, who was hard at work in the cold outdoors like everyone else. His allotted task was the digging of a trench where he stood up to his knees with shovel in hand, still looking as philosophically preoccupied as when I used to see him in the Café Royal debating Nietzsche, social credit or the Irish question. Of more concern to him now, as soon as my escort left us, was whether I had cigarettes as well as documents in my satchel. Mr Orage looked grey and malnourished, as though he hadn’t eaten for a week, though he assured me everyone at the institute received adequate food.

Watching him furtively light up, I could but wonder that such a brilliant man, by no means young, had sacrificed comfortable office life to become a navvy, and not even a particularly good one, judging by what he’d achieved. “Wouldn’t you be better off inside?” I asked him.

“This is what Mr Gurdjieff wants me to do.”

“What’s it for, this hole?”

“I expect I’ll find out eventually.”

I already knew something of Gurdjieff’s “method”, and here it was in perfect illustration. If a man has a brain, let him use his hands — never mind to what end. Mr Orage cast glances around as he hurriedly puffed.

“Is it forbidden here?” I asked.

“You’re entirely free to smoke if you wish, Celia.” He stubbed and pocketed the cigarette for later, and looked sheepishly at me. “Mr Gurdjieff has told me not to.”

“Then I don’t know which of us is naughtier,” I teased.

He shook his head and smiled. “Some weaknesses are harder to conquer than others.”

Signing official papers with hands caked in soil was out of the question, even in surroundings as strange as these. Mr Orage said he would join me in the house in half an hour should I care to wait for him there, so I left him to complete his task, choosing an indirect route that would afford further inspection of the grounds. There was a second, far more modest house, that I suppose would formerly have been occupied by estate workers, and right now appeared to be a Russian enclave. On a table beside the building stood a metal samovar attended by a cluster of women speaking rapidly and spiritedly, while apart from this little crowd another two, older-looking than my mother, moved together in eurhythmic exercise, oblivious to anything around them.

Shortly afterwards I came upon a scattering of livestock pens. Ragged fowls pecked at grains; a solitary pig stared lugubriously. A man heaving a bucket bade me bonjour with an accent unmistakeably English. I soon learned that he was a doctor from Sussex, where his wife and children remained while he explored the fourth dimension of being. He’d go back in a month or so, he said, presumably once he’d gained enough higher wisdom from his hens. There were in fact almost as many English as there were Russians at the chateau; of other nationalities there were but few, and of French none at all. Unlike the gravitation of planets, the pull of Gurdjieff’s method was stronger, the further away from it one was — though the doctor was not at all disappointed to be living like a peasant. It was, he said, a test. Human life is a machine-like existence; mindless, habitual and without genuine spiritual energy. One must be liberated from that mechanical routine, first of all by having it replaced with a new one.

My impromptu tour brought me to a major project being undertaken — the construction of what I later learned was to be a hall for practising Gurdjieff’s ballet compositions. I had already had my first unwitting exposure to this important aspect of his method when I saw the two Russian women rehearsing; what I saw now was a frenzy of plank sawing and hammering around the incomplete wooden edifice, actually a disused air ministry hangar that had been brought in pieces and needed to be reconstructed, I assume through guesswork or transcendental intuition. Female labour outnumbered male, reflecting the institute’s general ratio — some of those perching on ladders looked as old as fifty. I doubt any had ever done such work before in their lives, yet everyone seemed eager to contribute. For the first time I began to wonder if there might after all be something useful in Gurdjieff’s idea of turning everything on its head, such was the impressive quantity of industry he’d created — though I could say nothing as to quality.

Reaching a courtyard I saw some unused stables and an open garage sheltering a large motor car, while not far off stood a tall shed from which could be heard the melodious commentary of several cows. I was now at a more recent wing supplementing the original chateau, and found the entrance to a big kitchen where vegetables were being boiled to oblivion by some Russian men who eyed me hungrily as if considering me a further ingredient. An empty dining room lay beyond, then I passed into the main house whose relative splendour I was better able to appreciate than when I had been briefly received there earlier. As I now know, the favourable rental terms Gurdjieff’s people had negotiated included the chateau’s furnishings, so that the material impression one got was of luxury and wealth, in marked contrast to the hardship of the inhabitants.

Mr Orage had said half an hour — I took that as a figure of speech rather than precise appointment. His concept of time, when I worked for him at the magazine, had always been flexible, and immersion in the fourth dimension could only have deformed it further. Guessing that everyone would be told to down tools whenever enough cabbage vapour had permeated the atmosphere, I savoured the luxe, calme et volupté of the vacated institute. The long hallway, hung with paintings, opened onto a series of rooms, one of them a library with exquisitely carved bookcases, while another was arranged for dining of a finer kind than anything the new wing might offer. What looked to be a billiard room, replete with cues and other paraphernalia on a wall rack, lacked only a table on which to play. Then a drawing room where a grand piano immediately caught my eye, its rosewood case polished to an immaculate gleam. On closer inspection I found it to be a Pleyel, well tuned and beautiful in tone. Who could object, were I to spend a few minutes reminding my fingers of old lessons?

I tapped out a mazurka by Chopin — music about as old as the instrument itself — until interrupted by the arrival of a man decidedly Russian in appearance, by which I mean that he actually reminded me somewhat of pictures of Lenin; shrewd-eyed, bald-headed, and with a small pointed beard and moustache. Once we had found German to be a language we both knew well, he asked me to continue playing, saying it kindly though also in a way that made me feel I was being assessed by an expert. I soon made a mistake and stopped, whereupon he asked about my education and tastes, whether I practised often, and if I had any particular ambition as an artist — all of which caused me to laugh and explain I’d played little since leaving school. This man, it turned out, was Thomas de Hartmann, one of Mr Gurdjieff’s closest associates, and a composer of distinction.

“Have you come to study the Work?” he asked me.

I didn’t know initially what he meant, but it was how everyone here spoke of Gurdjieff’s method. “I’m here to see Mr Orage.”

“Ah,” he said, with what struck me as a rolling of his small eyes. “Well, that makes a change. Most English visitors want to see Miss Mansfield.”

I hadn’t heard of Katherine Mansfield’s involvement in the institute, which would bring so much public attention subsequently. I was aware of her as a writer, and knew that she had first been published — one might almost say discovered — by Mr Orage, but that was before my time at the New Age. The recent strengthening of their friendship, and how it had brought them both to the Château du Prieuré, were quite unknown to me. “Perhaps Mr Orage will introduce me,” I said.

Mr de Hartmann nodded ambiguously. “If it is to happen, then it will happen. Have you been shown around the house?”

“Not yet. Mr Orage is meant to be here soon.”

“I shouldn’t wait — he’ll come when it’s time.”

I stood from the piano. “Might I ask you to play?”

“Later, perhaps.” He gestured me to accompany him out to the hallway, and from there to an elegant salon with a second, smaller piano, and chairs arranged around the walls, leaving a wide uncarpeted space at the centre. “We rehearse our movements here every evening. We’ll use the new hall once that’s finished.”

I could now imagine the entire cycle of life here; rising early, labouring for hours on end until being served a meagre supper, then at night having to master Gurdjieff’s esoteric choreography. Redemption through suffering — it was like something out of Dostoevsky. Easy to see why it appealed to Russian emigrés and literary Russophiles.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Mr de Hartmann said, and as we ascended he spoke of the ballet, The Struggle of the Magicians, that the group planned to perform in Paris. It was, he insisted, entirely Mr Gurdjieff’s creation.

“The music is also his, not yours?”

“He sings what he wants, and I write it down. I’m his instrument. We all are.”

“And you’re content to be played?”

“By a man like Mr Gurdjieff? Of course. We’re not fools, I assure you. Mr Gurdjieff is no charlatan, but a genuine living prophet. I was with him in Saint Petersburg, the Caucasus, Constantinople — my wife also — enduring all sorts of hardships until eventually we could come here to help build the new community.”

On the first floor I saw a long corridor with closed doors along each side.

“That one is Mr Gurdjieff’s,” Hartmann said quietly, pointing.

“Is he in?”

“He’ll be arriving this evening. You’ll wait to meet him?”

“I’m to be collected at five.”

“Cancel that and stay here. Don’t miss the opportunity of a lifetime.” He indicated another door. “That’s Miss Mansfield’s room, though she also is not in.”

“She’s with Mr Gurdjieff?”

Mr de Hartmann shook his head. “At another place, by reason of her condition.” He told me of her advanced consumption, that we all now know was soon to end her life there at the institute.

“What are the rooms like?” I asked.

“Very fine, like the rest of the house.”

“Isn’t it odd, living so simply, surrounded by such splendour?”

“I think perhaps this is Mr Gurdjieff’s point. We’re reminded that these things are superficial, and we should not feel attached to them.”

I wondered where Katherine Mansfield preferred to spend her time, and was amazed when Mr de Hartmann told me she was at that very moment in the cowshed I had passed earlier, resting on Turkish carpets in the hayloft, warmed by the pungent vapour of the cattle beneath, soothed by colourful images that had been painted for her on the ceiling.

“Some sort of cure?” I asked incredulously.

“There is no cure.”

“Wouldn’t she be better in a sanatorium?”

“Mr Gurdjieff advised it, but this is her choice.”

There was another floor above, and an attic where Mr de Hartmann said I could be accommodated, but rather than see those, I was anxious to know if Mr Orage was ready to sign the papers, and when we came downstairs we did indeed find him waiting in the lobby, still with dirty marks on his trousers, though his hands looked clean. I went to a side table where an inkstand and blotter lay in readiness, extracted the documents from my satchel and spread them out for perusal, half listening to what the men said behind me in imperfect French.

“He’s supervising the children?”

“Until my turn. I could take her there.”

“If you wish. She’ll stay this evening.”

They spoke as if I weren’t present. Mr Orage came over, took the pen I offered, and began quickly putting his name to the various items I’d brought, barely inspecting any of them. One lengthy document required a signature on each page. “Can’t you just do it for me?” he asked.

“It’s a legal contract.”

“I know, but does any of it really matter?”

“About as much as your trench does, I suppose.”

He laughed. “Trenches are far more important, Celia.” Then a pause, as though caught by a sudden burst of insight. “Emptiness,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“So many words here, yet they add up to nothing. I dig a hole, a void, and it’s something. That’s why he makes me do it — and why you came. There are no accidents.”

I had always liked Mr Orage’s sense of irony and paradox, but there was no evidence of it here, instead a look of dazed rapture, his features flooded by revelation. Mr de Hartmann broke the spell, reminding him there was work to be done. The remaining signatures having been swiftly made, I gathered all the papers and soon found myself being gently urged towards the front entrance, where Mr Orage said he was going to the schoolroom and wished to take me there, while Mr de Hartmann’s next task was to help with a steam room that was being constructed.

Mr Orage led me to the house I had passed earlier, now without the crowd of tea-drinking women, and upon entering we went to a room where half a dozen children of varying ages wrote silently at individual desks under the desultory supervision of a young man sitting beside a blackboard reading a book. Responding to our arrival like a sentry caught dozing, he rose smartly to his feet, and Mr Orage tried telling him it was now time for arithmetic; a message I was able to convey more successfully on realising that the young man, whom Mr Orage addressed as Heinrich, was German.

Heinrich bowed and departed, and the children stared at me in curiosity — the latest item for them, I expect, in an endless succession of transient entertainments. I was never introduced to the class, nor they to me. Instead, stationing myself at the back of the room, I watched Mr Orage write various sums on the blackboard that was propped precariously on an easel fit for a junk yard. The desks were hardly better — everything had a makeshift appearance, matched by Mr Orage’s fragile skills in numeracy. The multiplications and divisions he set for the children to solve in their notebooks were simple enough to be done mentally, though when it came to providing answers, he had to work them out painstakingly in chalk, having posed at random what he’d blithely expected to find as easy as did his pupils.

While the tedious lesson continued I looked at the bent backs and lowered heads of the victims before me. What say had they, in their parents’ decision to come to the institute? What future lay before them? The youngest I estimated to be eight or nine, the oldest perhaps fourteen. At least for me there was the distraction of a window to my right, through which I could see part of the main house, and the movement of people industriously pursuing the work they had been set. All I had understood of Gurdjieff’s method thus far was that it consisted of confusing people out of their machine-like habit of existence — but into what? Mr Orage was meanwhile running out of chalk, having expended so much on calculation. He said in my direction, “I wonder if Miss Carter would like to give a lesson?”

It could hardly be worse than what I had already witnessed, so I agreed to step forward. “What would you like me to do?” I asked Mr Orage.

“Whatever you wish.”

The children’s faces reminded me of a bank holiday visit to the London Zoo — I was the monkey. I told them, “I’d like you to draw something for me.”

Mr Orage intervened. “I’m not sure we have enough blank paper and crayons to hand.”

“Can’t they do it in ink, in their notebooks?”

“I suppose…”

Had I pretended it to be a command from Mr Gurdjieff there would have been no hesitation. “Children,” I said brightly, “I’d like you to draw something happy.”

“Isn’t that rather vague?” Mr Orage murmured beside me.

“The vaguer the better.”

They were just embarking on this project when a commotion was heard outside; the tooting of a car horn, the grunt of its engine and a raising of voices. Mr Orage went to the window. “He’s here early.”

I too went to look and saw alighting from the distant vehicle a large man in a black coat and fur hat, accompanied by a younger woman.

“Is that Mr Gurdjieff?” I asked, and Mr Orage confirmed it. The pair walked towards the house and out of our view, leaving me wondering if the elegant woman were his wife or lover, though Mr Orage offered a different opinion.

“I expect he’s brought a potential sponsor. Only the richest get to ride in his car.”

I turned to see how the children were getting along with their drawings. Walking behind each in turn I saw the various images of happiness that were emerging. A smiling face, a bunch of flowers, a dog — or was it a lion? Everyone appeared content to draw in silence, so Mr Orage and I moved to the back of the room where we continued speaking quietly to one another. He would need to do some more arithmetic with them until his hour was up, after which we could go back to the house and perhaps speak with Mr Gurdjieff. I asked if I might also be introduced to Katherine Mansfield.

“Certainly,” he said.

“I’m afraid I’ve never read her work.”

“Then just don’t pretend to her that you have.”

I knew that her short stories were admired for their satirical acumen, however Mr Orage said she was now on a different path. She had first learned of Gurdjieff’s teachings from attending lectures in London with Orage and another writer, John Sullivan. Those talks gave her a new perspective on art. As Mr Orage put it, an artist communicates not his vision of the world, but the attitude which results in his vision; not his dream, but his dream-state. What Katherine now sought, he said, was a more creative attitude to life itself, which her art could then express.

The children finished drawing and were duly praised by me for their efforts, then Mr Orage drilled the class on multiplication tables. He was well enough trained on most, but at times lagged behind his pupils’ collective chant, waiting for them to prompt him. Eventually after this dreary exercise there arrived the next person assigned to teach the unfortunate children — a Russian lady who was to give them a singing lesson. Mr Orage and I made good our escape, and at my request headed for the cowshed.

On the way there Mr Orage told me about the Russian lady — who was in fact Mr de Hartmann’s wife, an operatic soprano — and also Heinrich Behring, the German man we had met. Mr Orage described him as an aspiring writer, which I took to mean an unpublished one. We arrived at the shed and Orage entered while I waited, but he quickly emerged again, shaking his head. “She must be working somewhere.” I had imagined a listless invalid, yet Mr Orage portrayed for me a different creature, always determined to play her part, no matter how it taxed her strength. It was when we entered the main house by way of the kitchen that we found her standing at a bench chopping onions; a small woman, her hair wrapped in a scarf, looking quite unlike photographs published after her death that must have been taken when younger and healthier. The Katherine I met was thin, pale and clearly ill, her skin almost transparent, though her dark eyes were full of life. I could see she must have been quite beautiful before phthisis took hold of her, and I was immediately charmed. Still, for all that I had heard of the bacillus being only weakly contagious, I was careful not to stand too near to her.

I asked what she was preparing, thinking it a supplement to the concoction I’d smelled earlier. It transpired that those gentlemen I’d seen were in fact attempting to create some sort of alcohol. “We do have strange ways here,” Katherine said laughing, “But some rules of the common world still apply, and cookery is left to those who know how.” Her voice was deep, rich, almost bell-like. She declined my offer of help and continued peeling and slicing while Mr Orage explained why I had come, and on learning of my work at the magazine, Katherine wanted to hear news of people she thought I might know. In all of her movements there was something very precise, orderly and controlled. I sensed that she was lonely, and had chosen to be so.

Asked by her what I had seen so far, I described my encounter with Mr de Hartmann and learned that Katherine was a musician too. “I might try giving cello lessons to the children, if we can find some suitable instruments.”

Orage said, “I’m sure Mr Gurdjieff would manage. Did you know he’s back?”

“So soon?” she said, then to me, “He has a couple of restaurants in Montmartre that keep him busy most of the day. We usually see him only at night.”

Everything I have since learned about the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man has confirmed for me that what Gurdjieff called “the material question” — making money — was the one metaphysical enigma he had solved perfectly.

“Are you hoping to see him next?” she asked me.

“If I may.”

Mr Orage said he’d go and enquire, leaving the two of us alone. Katherine continued quizzing me about possible mutual acquaintances, though few of the people she mentioned were in my circle, which in those days was small.

“How about John Sullivan?” she asked. “Is he writing anything for New Age?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m sure you’ll come across him, he crops up everywhere. He was here not long ago.”

“Mr Orage said the three of you attended lectures in London.”

“We did. Sullivan’s a brilliant scientist though a tiresome man. Be on your guard if he shows up at the office and catches you alone. Do you know Dorothy Brett?”

I sensed that in all this talk of London people what she mainly sought was gossip, possibly one of the few pleasures of her former existence that she truly missed. Since I was so feeble a source, she let the subject drop.

“Are you impressed by what you’ve seen so far? Tempted to join?”

“I wouldn’t have the strength.”

“One day this is how everyone will live — a far better world. For the present it’s a tiny vessel in a great sea.”

Orage returned and told us that Mr Gurdjieff would be pleased to see me in the evening as long as I was willing to do some work before then.

Katherine laughed. “Your strength is to be tested, Celia. Shall we start with these vegetables?” She passed me a knife, and when Mr Orage informed us he had to go back outside to his trench, asked him, “Still not finished?”

“Mr Gurdjieff wants it filled in.” And with that he left us to peel and chop.

We worked side by side in silence for a minute or two until Katherine suddenly gave a cough and brought the back of her fist to her mouth, knife in hand. There was an ominous pause as she stood with her head bowed, stomach pressed against the bench, and I wondered if a greater spasm were about to erupt. I reached to touch her shoulder, her breathing became normal, and she said she was perfectly alright. “Everything is a test. Nothing is chance. That’s what we learn here.”

I wanted to know more about Gurdjieff’s teachings, so Katherine told me about his greatest principle, the law of octaves. The universe, she said, was filled with vibrations moving and multiplying — a sort of melody, though music itself was merely the imitation of a cosmic harmony that Gurdjieff called the ray of creation. “It comes through the stars and planets, through organic life, through us. At one end everything, at the other nothing.”

Gurdjieff’s theory sounded like his method — designed to confuse. “How did he learn about these rays and octaves?”

“Visitors ask him that all the time — especially English ones. They want to hear about some ancient school of Buddhism or Hinduism that will make it all official and fit for the British Museum. The question annoys him — so don’t ask it when you see him.”

“Where’s he from, exactly?”

“Don’t ask that either.”

“He is Russian, though, isn’t he?”

Katherine shook her head. “His Russian is very bad, apparently. And his English is almost non-existent, of course, though he speaks French well enough. I think his first language was Persian or perhaps Greek, but it’s another question best not raised. In fact, don’t ask anything. Only watch and listen.”

At this point Heinrich Behring entered, pausing so as not to interrupt Katherine, then after greeting us both with a stiff head-nod he announced in German that I was respectfully asked to accompany him. I took leave of Katherine, hoping we’d see each other again later.

“I’m sure of it,” she said warmly.

The two of us exited and Heinrich explained we were to assist at the steam room currently under construction, planned as a sort of Turkish bath. We walked quite far across the estate, towards a forested area where the rugged parkland rose sharply to a ridge against which stood a big wooden shed, its tall doors open and people busily going in and out pushing wheelbarrows. On entering I found a scene worthy of a Yorkshire coalfield. The shed, an old tool store, adjoined a cellar built into the ridge, the far end of which had been broken open so that further space could be dug out. Bare chested men were heaving pickaxes and shovels while women held lanterns illuminating the scene, and persons of either sex transported the spoil away.

“What are we to do?” I asked Heinrich.

“We make sure the lamps remain lit.”

“Is that all?”

“It’s what Mr Gurdjieff has instructed.”

It was disappointing to learn that my role in excavation was to be even less than had been my involvement in education. Two large paraffin lamps hung from a ceiling beam, and it was to these, I assumed, that my attention was meant to be directed. Having no urge to carry out a task so pointless, I instead stationed myself near the ladies, one of whom — English, in her forties perhaps, and named Viola — proved eager to talk.

“Isn’t it simply marvellous, what sufficient strength of will can achieve!”

I could do nothing but agree.

“And are you visiting long, my dear?”

My answer dismayed her.

“Oh, but one really does need time to appreciate the remarkable things being done here. Why, I’ve discovered an entirely different woman. In myself, you know.”

Previously she was a childless widow, subject to bouts of melancholy. Now she was the reincarnation of a seventeenth-century princess. “Have you ever felt you had a previous life, Celia?”

“I can’t say I have.”

“It’s far more common that one might think. Almost a universal condition, I suspect, though Lord knows how many nerve doctors failed adequately to explain the peculiar things I experienced over a number of years. My cousin Yvette recommended Dr Hyle — have you heard of him? He believed my dreams were a result of childhood trauma, which was utter nonsense. Then Yvette suggested her friend in Paris, Dr Olivier, who was hardly better. All they can think of is the sex instinct, these modern doctors. Nor did it help when Crowley’s people tried hypnotising me. Things went better at the electric clinic in Bagnolet, the Orphelinat — it used to be an orphanage, you know. That was where I had the first indication, yet it was only once I came here that the complete truth emerged. And what did it take in the end? Simply the correct movement.”

Heinrich joined us, still keeping a watchful eye on the ceiling lamps while barrows of dirt rolled to and fro. Viola greeted him in French, to which he responded politely, so it was in this language that conversation continued. Wishing to bring him into our topic, I asked if he was aware of a prior existence.

“I think more of what is to come — the fourth body.”

The pair of them, standing either side of me, then entered into debate over the exact meaning of the term. It was hard to tell whether the chief difficulty lay in the concept itself or the language used to discuss it, though I sensed the four-body theory to be somewhat like the ray of creation. It was not even clear if four were the correct number.

“I’m sure Mr Gurdjieff has said seven,” Viola insisted.

“That’s something else.”

We were saved from further argument by shouts from the furthest chamber — it seemed the miners had encountered impenetrable rock within the earth. There were calls for better light, and the ladies rushed with their lanterns to assist. Heinrich held me back.

“I’m sure it’ll take dynamite in the end,” he said, reverting to German.

“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”

“When Mr Gurdjieff determines a course of action he will stop at nothing.”

I asked Heinrich what had made him join the community, and he said it was seeing Gurdjieff lecture in Berlin the previous year — a spellbinding experience. “You’ll understand as soon as you meet him. It’s in his eyes.” The penetrating gaze had made Heinrich realise he should give up his office job at once and follow the master, who was seeking a suitable home for the institute. When Gurdjieff and his disciples settled in France soon after, Heinrich joined them. It was a conversion as sudden and complete as Mr Orage’s, though at least Heinrich was young and free enough to afford such folly. I frankly put to him what was widely said, and he must have heard — that Gurdjieff was a mountebank preying on gullible people, and the institute was simply a business enterprise. Heinrich was unperturbed.

“All of this costs money, and Mr Gurdjieff knows how to raise it. The people who most object to his requests for donations are those most able to afford it. They expect something for nothing. Why should a man give away freely what he spent years learning?”

I wondered what value should be placed on the ray of creation. “Surely his theories are contradicted by modern science?”

“Not at all,” Heinrich said firmly. “They stand beside it. Scientists deal with the physical and chemical properties of matter — but there are also the cosmic and psychic aspects to consider. In many ways, western science is just beginning to catch up with eastern wisdom. We were recently visited by a friend of Miss Mansfield’s, John Sullivan…”

“I’ve heard.”

“He knows a lot about physics, and was very excited by Mr Gurdjieff’s law of three.”

This was a principle that Katherine had not got as far as explaining to me, but which Heinrich now did, or at least tried to. He said there were three universal forces: active, passive and neutral — a triad chord in the cosmic harmony, directing all human activity.

“Science knew of it in electricity, which can be positive, negative or neutral. And now Einstein has found it in gravity, according to what Mr Sullivan told me. We spoke a great deal, especially after he mentioned Beethoven and I said I was writing a novel about him.”

My work at New Age had taught me that one should never ask writers about their projects, since the likelihood is that once started they will never stop — especially if, like Heinrich, they are writers of the aspirational variety. I pointed towards the excavation area and made a comment about the lamps that was insufficient to put him off.

“I thought very long about my novel. Should it be about Beethoven’s love affairs, his family troubles? His deafness, his music? All of those, of course, but really it should be about his psychic and cosmic dimensions, since those are greatest. When I spoke with Mr Sullivan he said, why not call it The Law of Octaves?”

“And will you?”

“I don’t know. But the law will be there, it has to be, since it is in all things.”

“Have you asked Miss Mansfield for advice? I’m sure she could help.”

Heinrich lowered his chin, almost blushing. “She promised to look at some of my writing, though I shall have to revise and improve it first.”

Behind us at the entrance to the shed there was a commotion of voices as new people arrived. Turning, I saw Mr de Hartmann come in, followed by the man I immediately recognised from my earlier glimpse — Gurdjieff himself — handsome, swarthy, heavily moustachioed, most likely bald beneath his astrakhan hat, looking like a stern Cossack warrior as he strode through, not registering my presence at all. He went straight to the chamber where the exposed rock face was being tapped with hammers and pickaxes, and gruffly called a halt to the futile effort. I could see but barely hear him as he addressed the work party, apparently with Mr de Hartmann acting as interpreter, the musician gesticulating expressively while Gurdjieff stood beside him, almost immobile. His face in the lamplight had an oily sheen, like the polished features of an icon. Then suddenly everyone laughed — he must have cracked a joke. People began exiting the chamber, going past Heinrich and myself, back outside.

“We’re returning to the house,” Heinrich said softly, taking my arm and leading me into the procession that fragmented as we all made our way across the park at varying paces, with Gurdjieff and Hartmann far behind. After a long silence, Heinrich said to me, “You don’t have a husband?”

“No.”

“Are you engaged?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t true.

“You don’t wear a ring.”

“It’s not always the custom in England.”

“I never knew that.”

I thought it best to revive an earlier topic. “Do you think Viola really was a princess in a former life?”

He told me he’d asked Gurdjieff that very question — and the answer was negative. Viola was dead without realising, and had to learn it for herself, so that she could attain higher life. The princess was a necessary illusion.

I asked, “Do you think you might have illusions too, that only others can see?”

He flinched. “About my writing talent, perhaps?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You doubt me, though.”

“I have no reason to.”

“So did Mr Sullivan, I could tell. I expect he made Miss Mansfield doubt also, the two being so close.”

“I got the impression she dislikes him.”

“Ha!” Heinrich sneered. “Not from what I saw.”

After this I preferred silence once more, and felt relieved to arrive at the house where there was a good deal of activity. Heinrich, leaving me to go up to his room, crossed with several ladies hurrying downstairs in loose-fitting trousers, who ran past me and along the hallway to the large salon I’d seen earlier. Following them there, I found Mr Orage and another man wheeling the piano across the floor, while other residents adjusted curtains and furniture. Stationing myself near the entrance, watching what looked like a well-practised drill, I was joined by Katherine who explained what everyone except myself already understood. The room was being made ready for ballet.

“We normally practise at night,” she said. “Mr Gurdjieff must have decided to alter the routine.” I told her about the excavation problem — was that the reason for the change? She shook her head. “He made the instruction before going to see how the bath house was progressing. Perhaps this performance will be in honour of his guest.”

For a moment I thought she meant me, then blushed at my conceitedness, remembering the woman I’d seen alighting from the car. I asked Katherine who she was.

“I don’t know. Rich widow, I imagine. Will you join us in the movements?”

“I wouldn’t know how.”

“He’ll show you.”

“I’m no dancer.”

“This isn’t dance — at least, not in any ordinary sense. It’s a rite. Have you heard of the whirling dervishes?”

“Of course.”

“They spin like stars and planets. It brings them closer to God. Our movements are like that.”

“You twirl?”

“No, but the principle is the same.”

Katherine looked even thinner without the apron and work clothes I’d seen her in earlier. She now wore a green woollen sweater and had a small gold watch on a chain round her neck. When I asked her the time I was pleased to discover there would not be long to wait before my taxi came. I would be spared from dancing. Heinrich walked silently past us into the room, and once he was beyond earshot I told Katherine what I’d learned of his vocation.

“Behring? A writer?” she said with surprise.

“He told me you promised to read his novel.”

“Really? I don’t recall.”

Others were passing us, many in what appeared to be homemade costumes fashioned from bedsheets. The disciples were then forming themselves in orderly rows like soldiers summoned for parade.

Katherine said, “If Heinrich Behring thinks he needs someone like me to judge his novel’s worth, it only shows he’s no writer at all. To be a good artist means knowing good from bad, without having to be told.”

That seemed harsh. What she said next surprised me.

“I’m not a good artist. I’ve been too passive in my writing, too selective and resentful. If people liked my work it was only because I reinforced their own passivity. Since coming here, I’ve changed.” It was the new direction Mr Orage had mentioned. “My attitude has widened. I have an idea for a story — I might tell you later when there’s time.”

She then stepped forward and took her place at the end of a row, ready to dance. Hartmann marched in, went straight to the piano and without a word began beating a rhythmic tune that sounded like an oriental folk song, crudely modal to my ear, sparsely harmonised, a far cry from everything the Russian virtuoso must have been trained in. The primitive melody prompted no motion among the troupe — it was some sort of overture or prelude. I felt a presence, turned and saw Gurdjieff standing near, smiling at me.

“You to learn?” he said in broken English, gesturing towards the assembled dancers, inviting me to participate.

“I must leave shortly.”

“Leave why?”

I didn’t quite know how to respond to the question, made in such a disarmingly simple way. “It’ll soon be time for my taxi to arrive.”

“Time?” He shrugged. “Here all time.” Heinrich had been right about Gurdjieff’s eyes, which were transfixing. He directed them at the piano. “Dance of Waking.”

It must have been the name of the piece, presumably composed by Gurdjieff himself, or remembered from his travels.

“No wake?” he said to me.

“No, but thank you.”

He then walked to the head of the room, bowed to the company, and the melody changed. Everyone began stamping gently — even Katherine who looked far too ill for it — then stepping left and right, forward and back, in a way they’d been taught. Next their arms and hands were involved — strange gestures unlike any ballet I’d ever seen in a theatre. Heads too, jerking this way and that, matching the music exactly. I felt myself mimicking the dance inwardly, in imagination, and thought how difficult it would be to co-ordinate so many movements simultaneously. In a way it really did resemble the multiple orbits of stars and planets — a complicated harmony of the spheres.

Mr Orage was twisting and writhing with the rest. There was no opportunity for me to say goodbye, nor need. I went back to the front hallway, collected my satchel, and sat waiting while the atavistic jangle of the piano and the heavy tread of feet continued. Then eventually my taxi came, and I never saw any of those people again. History records what happened to some of them. Katherine Mansfield was overjoyed when her sceptical husband finally agreed to visit her at the institute, only for her to die in his arms. Orage and Hartmann remained loyal to Gurdjieff, who lived to a great though uncertain age, his date of birth as mysterious as his country of origin. As for Heinrich Behring, I suppose Katherine was right — I have no idea what became of him.

Coyle

Old books rediscovered while tidying Dad’s house. Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, The Secret Agent — neatly inscribed by my teenage hand and long forgotten. I thought I would become a novelist; the great themes were clear in my young head, needing only to be worked out through the lives of characters yet to be imagined in a plot whose setting I’d eventually get round to choosing. Naturally I would be a philosophical writer, producing works in the “novel of ideas” genre, still fashionable then, when Aldous Huxley and Thomas Mann were among my favourite authors. What happened? I became a lecturer in a world that doesn’t want to be lectured.

Adolescent passions come to mind as I think of the glimpse caught today of the elusive soprano, Claudia Bren-Klauer. I gather she and her pianist companion Alphonse Berka have been here at Axtoun House only intermittently, pulled away by engagements elsewhere. When I saw the pair standing in the lobby as I came downstairs this afternoon I hoped it might be my chance to speak with Berka about his forthcoming performance, but by catching the eye of the elegant diva it seems I committed some kind of faux pas, since both of them froze, silent and immobile, transmitting to me in an instant that any attempt at further interaction would be like touching a museum exhibit. On reaching the bottom of the stairs I quickly turned and walked away from them along the passage feeling curiously unsettled. Reflecting on it now, I find analogy in a couple of beloved literary works uncovered during my domestic archaeology.

E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short story, “The Sandman”, features a beautiful, uncommunicative, strangely impassive woman called Olimpia who turns out to be a mechanical doll. The singer has something of that automatism. I think also of Goethe’s Elective Affinities, whose characters amuse themselves by creating tableaux vivants, posing in imitation of famous paintings. The static musicians in the lobby could have been rehearsing for a Renaissance altarpiece — all I lacked was knowledge of the artwork that would explain their haughty demeanour.

What the fictional examples share is uncanniness, the sensation that disturbed me as I made my way to the common room where I found Yuri Rostov alone, dozing in a leather chair with a small table at his side bearing a jug of iced water, a partly consumed bottle of Scotch and two empty shot glasses. Yuri stirred and squinted at me, looking bleary rather than intoxicated — the sort of alcoholic who never gets drunk — then a smile and nod were his invitation for me to place myself on the neighbouring chair, after which he stiffly reached to grasp and tilt the bottle, filling both glasses, one of which I was obliged to lift and clink against his own, wondering if it had already been used by the last person to have wandered in.

“Cheers, my friend,” he said.

“Isn’t it a bit early for this?”

“Never too early.”

I wanted to ask him about Donald Tovey’s comparison of Beethoven’s music with cosmology and relativity; but since I couldn’t remember the exact quote, I could offer only vague thoughts. Every moment in music is shaped by antecedents and sequels. Can a similar situation arise in physics?

“Certainly,” said Yuri, who then spoke of Newtonian determinism, a topic with which I and any of my students who bother to turn up are perfectly familiar. Wind the universal clock and the orbit of every planet, the motion of every atom, is inexorably fixed — in which case one could speak of any moment as cause of any other.

“Didn’t quantum theory overturn that view?”

Yuri nodded. “Random decay of atomic nuclei. No hidden variables.” Effortlessly traversing the frontier of my own knowledge of the subject, Yuri held forth about electrons, radiation, Feynman, other names I didn’t recognise, and suggested the arrow of time could be reversed; history need not be a one-way street. I struggled to follow, but gather that just as every number can have both a positive and negative square root, so there are equations with solutions representing opposite directions of time. Anti-matter is matter in reverse, or something like that. There could be all sorts of particles or waves reaching us unnoticed from the future.

Was Tovey’s playful analogy therefore unwittingly prophetic? Was Henri Bergson right to compare time to an unfolding score? Mention of the latter drew scorn.

“Bergson? Is philosopher not physicist.”

I paraphrase from memory, and to continue further might simply have to make things up since what he told me went completely over my head. When I used to dream of being a novelist this wasn’t what I had in mind.

“Interference of advance and retard potential. Null result of partridge experiment [?]. Cue CD case more complicate. At micro-level possible overlap of past and future, very short timescale order of [a formula that sounded like E = mc³ but must have been something else].”

“Reminiscent of Bergsonian multiplicity — though his wasn’t a mathematical theory, of course.”

“Then not theory, only poetry.”

Bergson’s Nobel Prize was in literature, so Yuri may have had a point, however rather than pursue it he refilled his empty glass and insisted on replenishing mine, from which I’d barely sipped.

“Don’t know if true, but is said experiment done here.”

“Partridges?”

“Irradiate thorium. When military occupy. Nineteen fifties, sixties maybe.”

I’m really sure that’s what he said, and no amount of googling has helped me make sense of it since. I thought the old photos in the lobby of people in uniform were from when Axtoun House was requisitioned in the Second World War. If the place subsequently became a nuclear playground I can see why the management would prefer to gloss over that part of its story. Yuri did his best to explain the experiment he wasn’t sure ever took place, and which I wouldn’t have understood even if it did.

“Some radioactive samples heavily shield, others expose to sky.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Relax, my friend. Thorium not very harmful.”

Strange to be bonding over the possibility of getting cancer from contaminated air or virus from an unwashed glass. “I hope the army cleaned up afterwards.”

“Was bunker here, under house. Fill completely with concrete.”

I started fact-checking as soon as I came back to my room and haven’t found any corroboration for the old boy’s yarn. I suspect his liquid hobby left him vulnerable to bar-room leg-pull from a fellow scientist with a sense of humour and not enough cash to buy the next round. The only reason I’m recording any of it is to get to the next, more clearly remembered part of our conversation. I mentioned seeing the pianist.

Yuri scowled. “Berka?”

“I’ve been hoping to speak with him.”

“Good luck.”

Not just me getting the cold shoulder, then. I asked if Yuri knew much about him.

“Only what he and his friend choose to make known.”

“And what’s that?”

A shrug told me the answer was not very much, like the result of my internet searches. For professional concert musicians they keep a strangely low profile.

Yuri leaned towards me in his chair — I thought for a moment his heavy-lidded expression indicated imminent dormancy, instead it was a gesture of complicity. “I think he is fraud.”

“But I heard him play.”

“I mean his name, way he speak.”

Apparently Berka asked Yuri a question about mobile phones — could they be used to send signals other than the normal ones? Yuri wasn’t sure of the pianist’s gist but got the impression it was about fear of harmful rays.

“Anything to do with the thorium experiment?” I asked, and still wonder. Yuri thinks not; he was more struck by Berka’s evasiveness in response to some harmless questioning about his origin and native language. Yuri suspects phoney accent as artistic career move — the Stokowski effect. But then why the online reticence? The maestro might be trying to foster an air of mystery. Maybe just a bit odd. A latter-day Glenn Gould, perhaps? Then there’s the singer, of course. Lover, sister, automaton — who knows?

We were interrupted by the warden entering to inform Yuri it was “time”, without specifying what for. He slowly got to his feet, pointed to the whisky bottle and told me to keep it for later; an instruction equally enigmatic. I watched them both depart, pondered whether the alcohol was Yuri’s to give or mine to receive, and finally carried it to my room where it remains untouched, its ownership a mystery. Good stuff, too — my father would have loved it.

In anticipation of Dad’s release from hospital I sussed out care homes around Kenzie. All had vacancies, thanks to the pandemic. I couldn’t visit any because of quarantine regulations, but was able to chat by video link to managers happy to show me what my father could expect if ever he emerged. There were reviews on the web — Tripadvisor for the senile — voicing praise or condemnation and giving no real help at all. Like most things in life it would be a matter of pot luck; and given what I knew of Dad’s mental state, he wouldn’t notice anyway. Narrowing the criteria to price and distance left a gratifyingly short list of one; Deuchar Court, less than half an hour’s walk from Dad’s house.

Ironic that for my father to be sent “home” would instead mean going to “a home”, the indefinite article making a definite difference. While learning German as a teenager I discovered parallel subtleties there. Home is Heim, but heimlich means secret; unheimlich is eerie or uncanny. Home is where things are kept secure; to be unhomed is unsettling. Or as the philosopher Schelling put it, unheimlich denotes the emergence of a latency best kept hidden. The Scots phrase “ca’ canny” means to go slowly, take things easy. Uncanniness quickens the pulse. Freud’s analysis of the condition centred on a close reading of “The Sandman”, where a young boy is terrified of a fairy-tale creature said to pluck out the eyes of naughty children who don’t go to bed on time. Caught spying on his father late at night he’s threatened with such mutilation, and as an adult becomes fascinated by the enigmatic Olimpia. Her secret is exposed when he sees her dismantled and without eyes — a horror that unhinges him.

In 1810 Hoffmann reviewed Beethoven’s recently published Fifth Symphony and highlighted a strange feature of the opening. We nowadays hear the first eight notes as dramatically proclaiming the dark key of C minor — but that’s only because we know what comes next. As Hoffmann remarked, anyone listening for the first time without prior knowledge would interpret the initial fortissimo as establishing the bright key of E-flat major; it’s not until bar seven that the true tonality is revealed. Another surprise happens in the third movement when the cellos and basses make faltering attempts to restart the fugato theme of the trio. “To some it may seem like a joke,” Hoffmann commented, “but in this reviewer it produces an unsettling [unheimliches] feeling.” Earlier composers had expressed emotions, evoked scenes; Beethoven was doing more. His music, Hoffmann declared, “pulls the levers of horror, fear, dread, pain, and awakens the infinite longing that is the essence of Romanticism.”

Hoffmann’s delight wasn’t shared by the composer C.F. Zelter, who wrote to Goethe that Beethoven must feel a “secret horror” (heimliches Grauen) at his own works, which were like “children whose father might be a woman, or whose mother might be a man.” Continuing in the same psychosexual vein, Zelter said many people formerly antagonistic to Beethoven’s works were now seized with a passion for them, “like devotees of Grecian love”. The danger of such passion, Zelter wrote, was already shown clearly enough in Elective Affinities.

I recall the impact Goethe’s novel made on me as a teenager; also the mixture of emotions on rediscovering my old copy in a pile of paperbacks hidden behind a stack of cardboard boxes Dad must have thought would be useful one day or was somehow afraid to throw out. The book’s biographical background was an erotic triangle. Goethe, married and in his late fifties, fell in love (whatever that means in this context) with a teenager named Minna Herzlieb. Competing for her affections was Zacharias Werner, in his thirties and known for works such as the turgid masonic drama, The Templars in Cyprus. Minna wisely evaded the amorous attentions of both; Goethe’s libidinous compass needle swung to the woman who engineered his meeting with Beethoven that precipitated the exchange with Zelter. Werner eventually abandoned theatre and became a Catholic preacher. Minna married and lived out her life in quiet unhappiness, and has gone down in literary history as model for the ill-fated Ottilie in Elective Affinities. Staying with an aunt in the country, Ottilie receives the attentions of the aunt’s husband, while the aunt finds herself drawn to another visitor, an army captain. The hosts make love together while thinking of their more attractive guests, and when the aunt’s husband returns after a long spell away and sees for the first time the baby born from this spiritual adultery he’s struck by an uncanny resemblance. The child has the captain’s face and Ottilie’s eyes. Tragedy follows.

I had my first extended conversation with Deborah Shaw yesterday, more substantial than the brief pleasantries we’ve exchanged hitherto. She mentioned walks she’s been taking, and this morning messaged asking if I’d like to join her. I wasn’t sure whether to interpret it as tentative romantic overture or response to my confessed lack of exercise, but accepted the invitation and accompanied her on a stroll that turned out to be more of a hike, taking us up a forest track she assured me wasn’t too arduous. I mentioned my heart condition and she told me about her cancer diagnosis — we agreed that if one of us died the other would carry the corpse back.

When we spoke last night it was about professional interests, and since she’s a psychotherapist I got on to Freud’s interpretation of Hoffmann’s story. She couldn’t remember the details; I reminded her of the horrible climax when the hero, recovered from his shock over the eyeless Olimpia, is with his new love on a high tower, looking at the surrounding scenery through a telescope. He mistakenly brings into view his companion beside him, sees her as a wooden doll and again goes mad, plummeting to his death with the final words, “pretty eyes”. The story’s unconscious symbolism — ocular enucleation as castration — was clear to Freud, though Deborah felt it said more about the dehumanising effect of male gaze. Agalmatophilia is close kin of necrophilia, apparently.

The forest walk felt the sort of thing one does out of a sense that being among “nature” is somehow beneficial, though we could have conversed more easily if we weren’t forever swatting flies. Deborah asked if I knew who’d nominated me for the fellowship — I hadn’t thought about it. The director’s flattering email and my own vanity were enough to satisfy me that subsidised leisure with full board and lodgings was mine by right. The idea that some people actually apply to come here, or even pay their own way, never crossed my mind; nor that the privilege I’ve been taking for granted might have been bestowed by some secret panel or recommended by a former recipient. What I’ve been treating as a nice break suddenly feels like admission to the Académie Goncourt or Order of the Garter. Well, Rotary Club perhaps. Deborah suspects her own good fortune to be thanks to a well-connected client. My Plato book got a mention in the invite, but also the documentary contribution that seemed incongruous, being such a minor achievement — as though someone happened to notice me on TV while channel-hopping and thought, “He’ll do.”

She’s divorced, like me. I can’t remember how it came up, felt natural enough in the conversational flow. It was certainly Deborah who introduced it, which could indicate romantic subtext, unless the hypothesis itself were not further evidence of vanity. Of course I’m not interested — I’ve been happily celibate long enough. No sweeter freedom than to be liberated from an inconvenient instinct. Intellectual collaboration does appeal, though; it’s what the Hyle Centre expects. Transcending disciplinary boundaries and all that. Plato and the talking cure. Bergson and the power of laughter. I’m sure I can come up with something.

And now I have. I told Deborah my idea today when we took another walk. Different route, flatter this time, which I preferred. The theme: Beethoven and hypnotherapy. Thought of it last night after a bit of online research.

Beethoven’s physical health and medical treatments have been plumbed in depth by numerous commentators, mostly seeking an explanation for his deafness. Chief suspects have been auditory nerve damage or bone disorder — maybe otosclerosis or Paget’s disease. Chronic lead poisoning — perhaps from additives in white wine — and tertiary syphilis have also been proposed; the former from hair analysis, the latter from rumoured prescriptions of mercury. Frequent bouts of diarrhoea point to an inflammatory condition such as ulcerative colitis or sarcoidosis, and if linked to an underlying immune disorder like lupus then this too might have provoked hearing loss. Throw in childhood smallpox, typhoid, close contact with tuberculosis, possible asthma, eye problems, rheumatism, gout and finally the liver disease that killed him, and it’s a wonder that Beethoven lasted as long as he did. What isn’t surprising is the substantial number of doctors Beethoven consulted, of special interest being one whose iatric methodology drew inspiration from Schelling’s Naturphilosophie.

“Iatric?” said Deborah. She would have preferred to follow up the topic of my father, but first we go back to 1801, when Beethoven wrote to a close friend in Bonn describing worsening tinnitus and high-frequency impairment over the previous three years, “caused by the condition of my belly, which as you know has always been wretched.” Beethoven had been prescribed almond oil and thermal baths. “My belly improved, but my deafness remained.” Another doctor had offered “an infusion for the ear,” which didn’t help either. The friend in Bonn, Franz Wegeler, was himself a physician, and replied suggesting other herbal remedies which had little effect. A few months later Beethoven wrote again, having heard of a new treatment offered by someone Wegeler knew. “People speak wonders of galvanism, what do you say to that? A doctor told me he saw a deaf and dumb child regain hearing in Berlin, and a man who was deaf for seven years also regained his hearing — I’ve heard your Schmidt is trying it.” As well as electrotherapy there was another miracle giving Beethoven hope: “a dear magical girl who loves me and whom I love.” Maybe she was the dedicatee of the Moonlight Sonata, maybe not. In any case she proved as disappointing as the electrical cure, though Beethoven retained Schmidt as personal physician for the next seven years, the esteemed doctor’s most helpful recommendation being to get plenty of fresh air in the quiet countryside — stimulus for much great music. When Schmidt died in 1809, Beethoven turned to Schmidt’s colleague Johann Malfatti, who had studied in Italy under Galvani before moving to Vienna.

Subscribing to Schelling’s holistic philosophy of nature, Malfatti believed health depended on a correct balance of body and spirit; a view shared within an intellectual circle Beethoven got to know. It included physician Ignaz Troxler — founder of “biosophy” — and artist Ludwig Schnorr, who drew Beethoven’s portrait in 1810. Another of Malfatti’s friends was Friedrich Schlegel, who proposed India as the place from which civilisation was brought to Europe by an “Aryan tribe” (arischen Stamm). That might explain how Malfatti later came to believe in “the mystic organon of mathesis” — a putative Brahman wisdom based on numbers and hieroglyphs — and why Beethoven copied extracts from Indian literature into his commonplace book. Malfatti was also drawn to Franz Mesmer’s theory of animal magnetism, which had little to do with Galvani’s animal electricity or even with magnets, but was a healing force supposedly able to induce states of somnambulism and clairvoyance through the laying on of hands. We know that Beethoven was willing to be galvanised if it could save his hearing. Might he also have been mesmerised?

I was quite excited when the thought occurred to me last night; Deborah today was intrigued but sceptical, saying — half-jokingly, I think — that she hadn’t thought of me as a fringe theorist. It somehow took us back to Dad; his pseudo-philosophy and enthusiasm for ufology, conspiracies, parapsychology, in the days when he still at least had half his wits. His hospital discharge came suddenly, moved one afternoon to another NHS unit in Glasgow from which I got a call saying he would be transferred to Deuchar Court by the end of that week. All he’d possessed in hospital during the preceding four months was whatever had gone with him in the ambulance, which I guessed to be his soiled underpants and snotty dressing gown, rotting in a locker by now or gone to the incinerator. The person at the rehabilitation unit said they’d given him a set of clothes but he’d need his own at Deuchar Court, and when I phoned there I was given further advice. Toothbrush, shaving equipment, personal items, photographs and so on. Anything that would help him feel at home.

Once he was installed I drove to Kenzie, stopping first at his house where I rifled through wardrobes, filling a bag with random clothes, then got to Deuchar Court in time for my visiting slot. Regulations meant I first had to do a covid test and wait for twenty minutes, chatting with the jovial, large-bosomed care nurse who’d administered it. She’d met the newcomer, my Dad, and of course found him “lovely”, adding that the lady residents were always pleased when a man arrived, the gender ratio being so heavily skewed. Once the test showed negative she took me into the main part of the building, both of us masked and aproned, past residents seated silently or tottering with Zimmer frames, to a door she knocked and opened.

Dad stared at me from where he sat hunched in an orthopaedic armchair at the opposite corner of the room, looking smaller and thinner than I could ever have imagined, half-smiling as if puzzled by an unexpected gift. My mask made me harder to recognise. “Here’s Robbie,” the care nurse said loudly and cheerfully, and Dad’s head tilted in response. In a normal voice she told me where the buzzer was, in case I needed help, otherwise she’d be back in half an hour when our time was up. Then when she’d left us, I went and sat beside Dad on the edge of the high bed, took off my mask and made small-talk he mostly couldn’t hear, and to which he demonstrated little urge to respond. I’d felt such anger and hatred in the days following Mum’s death; now there was only pity, seeing him shrunken, withered, defeated. His liver-spotted hand resting on the arm of the chair looked abnormally large in relation to his thin limbs. The polo shirt they’d put on him hung like a sack. The clothes I’d brought were useless — I’d need to buy him new ones. All I took from the bag were the other items I’d managed to fit in. I offered him a shortbread biscuit; he slowly scooped two from the packet then retracted his arm to its position on the chair where the biscuits stayed fixed in his clawlike grip. The room was clean and looked freshly decorated — I wondered who’d been last to die in it. Going to deposit toiletries in the simple en-suite, I commented loudly on how neat everything was, aware that beneath my positive exclamations lay pain at the way his life had turned. If I’d ever had a kid and sent them to university, the dorm-room move-in might have had something of this bittersweet mix of hope and anxiety, fondness and sorrow, though in different ratios. My chief wish was that there’d be no trouble, he’d do his time quietly, be placid in a way that could be interpreted as contentment — and not live too long.

To his left in the corner where he sat was a narrow, full-length window with a pleasant view of the lawn and trees outside. A sparrow alighted on the ledge — Dad noticed and observed the bird with the same unfocused fascination he formerly applied to prices on supermarket shelves. Then with an abrupt jerk of his wrist he threw the biscuits, vainly wishing to feed or hit the creature that immediately flew away as the shortbread hit the glass whose existence he’d forgotten and fell crumbled on the carpet. Half an hour, it transpired, was more time than we needed. Before leaving him I asked if there was anything in particular that he’d like me to bring next time. His steel tape measure, he said. God knows why.

It was while heading back with Deborah earlier today that I casually raised the subject of pianist and singer. Had Deborah spoken with them?

“Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering. They seem a bit… stand-offish.”

“I wouldn’t have said so.”

“Where are they from?”

As I mull over the conversation I get the sense that this was where Deborah began to be evasive. They were from some place she couldn’t remember. Or she didn’t know. Foreign, anyway, not that it should matter, of course. And so talented. She remarked how performers able to command a large audience can sometimes be difficult on an interpersonal basis, and mentioned a guitarist she dated years ago — I wasn’t terribly interested and don’t remember what she said about him.

I’ve been learning more about Beethoven’s doctor, Malfatti, whose contacts widened during the Congress of Vienna when he treated high-ranking visitors. The king of Prussia was sympathetic to mesmerism, and Malfatti was invited to inspect research there. Beethoven also did well, receiving gifts from visiting dignitaries, and cash he put into bank shares. A senior member of the Prussian legation requested music for a drama, and it led to Beethoven’s only composition for glass harmonica, an instrument closely associated with mesmerism. Musical vibrations were thought to assist the movement of magnetic fluid, and the ethereal tone of the glass harmonica was considered especially effective, perhaps even dangerous. In Hoffmann’s “The Sandman”, Olimpia’s singing voice is compared to it.

Austria was less tolerant of mesmerism than Prussia, so Malfatti and his circle had to exercise caution. When the painter Schnorr began practising as a healer after attending sessions with Schlegel, he operated in semi-secrecy while continuing to work as an artist. In 1825, trying to cure a woman of nervous coughing, and presumably not having a glass harmonica to hand, Schnorr asked a friend to play soothing piano music. The piece was Schubert’s German Dance, Opus 33 number 7, and the pianist was Schubert himself. Beethoven would surely have known such seances took place, and would certainly have been aware of the curative claims of Magnetiseurs. Is it conceivable that he was never at least offered such treatment? In 1817 Beethoven wrote to a friend complaining about a “wily” Italian doctor whom he suspected of “ulterior motives”. He probably meant Malfatti’s assistant, Bertolini, who claimed long after Beethoven’s death to have been intermediary in an abortive music commission. Bertolini also said he’d destroyed all his documents relating to Beethoven, which some have taken as sufficient evidence that he treated the composer for syphilis. It’s equally strong evidence that the treatment was mesmerism; in other words no evidence at all.

Mention now of a solitary walk along the riverside path while trying to set my mind back properly on Bergson. Too many distractions in the past few days. Lectures on subjects I’ve had no interest in, attended out of politeness. Chit-chat over bad sherry with software engineers and conceptual artists. Rostov’s shaggy-dog stories (or are they?), Deborah’s non-flirtation (or isn’t it?). The trouble with this place is too much going on; every conversation a possible collaboration, presentation, journal article. Trying to combine disparate areas of expertise is like mixing paint — and things are getting brown. I had an honest talk with myself beside the river. The thought that crossed my mind when I first got the invite was that I might use time here to do some creative writing. Always the dream, even when side-tracked by an academic career now nearing the departmental farewell whip-round and bottle of bubbly stage. Philosopher-novelists are plentiful enough — Sartre was the first name that came into my head while watching a dragonfly. Widen it to drama, verse, anything with a story, and cases are endless. Plato, Cicero, Boethius… The dragonfly flew off and I moved on.

Closest to creative writing that I’ve managed — though not close enough — has been this long, frequently interrupted conversation with myself that isn’t memoir or diary, is certainly not philosophy, and might be called creative only to the extent that it’s a manifestation of subjectivity. If it had all been made up, rather than a true account, would it then be a novel? And if that were the case, what other kind of subjectivity would it manifest?

A figure seen ahead, standing knee-deep in the slow current of a broad stretch of the river. Realising he must be an angler, I approached quietly, though insufficiently so to remain unnoticed. He glanced round over his shoulder as I came level, and I nodded hello, expecting no further interaction. Instead, disregarding the red fishing float drifting at the end of his line, he held my gaze and to my surprise said warmly, “Are you Professor Coyle?” What followed once he’d pulled in his bait and stepped clear of the water was a conversation from which I gathered he’s one of the Hyle Centre’s sponsors, here on a short visit. Looked to be in his early forties; said his name, which I quickly forgot. Think he’s Dutch. Flattery at being recognised turned to doubt — is he keeping tabs on guests to make sure donations are to a good enough cause? When asked how my work was going, I spoke only about Bergson; a pleasant, cordial chat that came to a graceful end without awkwardness, as if by mutual telepathy, or more likely signalled by the unobtrusive body language of a businessman skilled at parcelling time. Fishing resumed and I continued my stroll, aware that I’d learned nothing substantial about him while my own brain had been picked like a back pocket in a train station. I began wondering if he might be the head-hunter who spotted me on TV, reason why I’m here. Or if he’d been briefed by the director, warden, subwarden — whoever actually calls the shots in this place. I’ll google him as soon as I can work out who he is. Meanwhile I’m feeling like a schoolboy caught staring out of the window. I should be getting on with the next chapter of Bergson — instead I’m writing this.

Easy enough to bring Dad’s story to an end. I made three visits to him at Deuchar Court, stopping over each time at the house I grew up in, and that he’d never see again. I found his steel tape measure and took it to him; I think he’d forgotten he asked for it. A clock to hang on his wall, more photographs, a radio to fiddle with, Lidl leaflets to peruse. And smaller clothes, of course. He showed little interest in anything that lapped onto the shoreline of his comprehension. Impossible to say if it was dementia worsening so rapidly, or depressive withdrawal. His key worker Alison assured me he was doing well, eating properly and gradually putting on weight, and he now had a functioning hearing aid, or at any rate a visible one, lodged above his ear. I wondered when I’d be able to take him out of Deuchar Court, at first for fresh air in the garden, then at some point a short drive to remind him where he used to live, and where I continued my excavation of old books and records, letters and cards never thrown away, holiday photographs, Mum’s jewellery and ornaments, Dad’s broken watches and tool sets. Half a century’s worth of household sedimentation.

My third trip was for a review meeting with Alison and the social worker Michael; a formal procedure done in an informal atmosphere over tea and biscuits. Dad’s medication protocol took up much of the time, confirming either how ill he was, or how right he’d been when I’d tried to take him to the other place, a couple of days after Mum’s death, and he’d sworn to God he’d never let himself be made a prisoner, doped up to the eyeballs. We finished the meeting and Michael came with me to see Dad, who asked him about Mum’s pension, and asked me to do something about his hearing aid. I don’t remember much else about the occasion, which was the last time I ever saw him. I woke the following week to a voicemail requesting me to call back, not guessing for a moment what it meant. He’d died in his sleep. I drove back up, collected his things, went through procedures I knew well enough from Mum’s death seven months previously, and gave him the same send-off, watched over video link, this time with no tears, only acceptance.

Was writing about Dad a creative approach to the problem of “Beethoven and philosophy”? Original, certainly — but appropriate? Nothing has been answered, the questions barely formulated. Nor has recording my family’s disaster served any potential novelistic purpose; having set down the truth of it, I see only how small a story ours was, how typical, hellish for those who lived it but undeserving of fictional magnification. Well then, if I’m ever to write a novel, wouldn’t Beethoven be the ideal subject? I’ve done enough research, for heaven’s sake. Think about it.

I’ve thought. Principal argument both for and against: the hundreds of literary and dramatic portrayals already in existence. Early example was a short story the young Richard Wagner published in 1841. It followed biographical novellas by J.P. Lyser and Ernst Ortlepp, and a three-act verse drama by Sigismund Wiese that appeared just nine years after Beethoven’s death. For the first fiction of any substance, claim could be made for part of a book published in 1835 by Bettina von Arnim. Purporting to contain her correspondence with Goethe from years earlier, it was more creative than that, almost an epistolary novel. Her letter about meeting Beethoven presented a character we know well and that she helped create — the wild genius receiving inspiration like a lightning rod. “Music is the electric soil in which the spirit lives, thinks, invents,” she had him say. “Philosophy is the precipitation of its electric spirit… The electric excites the spirit to musical, fluent, streaming production. I am of electric nature…” I doubt he ever actually said that — though if he did, perhaps he got more out of galvanism than we realise.

Stick to Beethoven as philosophical problem. Leave fiction to others.

Ludwig

The attic room, dusty and unused, except by the occasional fluttering bird nesting outside on the eaves. And by Ludwig. A dormer window looks out across Bonn’s rooftops, past the glittering Rhine specked with white sails of barges, to the hills and forests that stretch to the horizon. The world is somewhere over there, just beyond view.

Trunks and chests, some sealed but most of them vulnerable to inspection and dismissal; musty coffins of a former generation’s attire. When you push your finger through the dust it makes a little road you could drive along and escape this place forever. The cities of the schoolroom, list them or be whipped. Paris, Berlin, Rome. Are you paying attention, Ludwig?

Push your finger along a violin string and the note changes, sounds funny. Father was not amused. Breeches pulled down for a thrashing to make him ashamed of those glissandi he dared find amusing. When Ludwig first performed in public, in Cologne a few years ago, Father insisted the most important thing was that everyone think he truly was as young as he looked. Mozart had set the mark at five or six, so that became Ludwig’s age — but was it really? He didn’t know then, and still isn’t sure. If Father was right, by now he must be eight or nine. His fingers weren’t made for counting.

A brass telescope, dented but with an antique gleam, perched on a pedestal mount and aimed at an anonymous point in the sky, a blurry patch of cloud. Swing it down and there are roof-tiles made large, chimneys, the white swoop of a bird, almost like being one yourself, following the wind over the river, bare-armed men in a log-laden boat, you can see them, insects alive with work, and if your father was one of those tiny men you’d squash him under your thumb like a hard-cased bug. Or Weiss, the schoolmaster, man who knows how to multiply and divide though you never will, Ludwig, you’re an imbecile, go over there and stand at the side of the room and if you move a muscle I’ll box your ears.

Glad to be out of there — Ludwig never liked school anyway. Or the other boys. They teased him because his skin was darker than theirs — here comes the Spaniard, the little gypsy, play us a tune and tell our fortune. He doesn’t know why his skin is dark, Father says it’s because he’s lazy like an ape, mother says it comes from their first-born, the other Ludwig, the one who died so quickly and left a stain on the next who took his name. Baby Ludwig is in heaven, and only a swarthy ape remains on earth to represent him.

The attic is where Ludwig always comes when he has any chance to be alone, when there are no lessons or chores, when his absence is as unnoticed as presence would be. Often he brings his violin, though not today — his new music teacher says keyboard is to be the priority. While playing, Ludwig sometimes thinks he notices the other one behind his shoulder, just out of view — the other Ludwig, the pale one who should have lived instead of him.

When you wake in the middle of the night there are shadows on the walls that look like ghosts. His father has warned about ones who eat children for breakfast, and Ludwig knows those monsters are as real as Paris or Rome; no, more real than that, because Ludwig will never go to Paris or Rome, never feel their invisible streets beneath his feet, but the spectre who stalks Bonn could be lying in wait behind the tavern where Ludwig is sent most evenings to fetch his carousing father. Every time, the same red and laughing faces surrounding him. But never again the well-dressed gentleman who was there one night and told Ludwig quietly that there were good people watching him, people who cared. Ludwig swings the tube and catches sight of an open window, pauses, sees a maid come to it, shaking crumbs from a tablecloth, broad shouldered and stern, disappearing like the moon behind a cloud.

It was not long after the stranger spoke to him that Herr Neefe first called on the Beethovens. Father bowed, mother touched her hair and ordered the maid around, complaining to herself about their lack of preparation for visitors, and the quiet young man became Ludwig’s teacher there and then. Father kept saying how pleased and honoured he, a mere servant of the electoral court, should feel to be shown such favour; how gratifying that proper tuition would now be given to a gifted but unruly boy more interested in making up tunes of his own than following a score. Herr Neefe listened patiently and replied that composition would be an indispensable part of the curriculum as soon as the basics were mastered, and Father looked at Ludwig with a sneer of satisfaction. “You see! This gentleman knows how music must be taught.”

In the first lesson Ludwig discovered that Father had instructed badly; he held the violin bow too heavily, kept his fingers too straight at the keyboard. Herr Neefe took Ludwig’s hand and gently curved it to the correct shape, a lunar crescent. He said people long ago considered music equivalent to astronomy, which is why there are seven notes in the major scale, matching the celestial spheres that give us our week. Common folk aren’t aware of such mysteries, he said, but to initiates they are well known.

Herr Neefe studied in a big city called Leipzig, where a great man named Sebastian Bach once lived. Ludwig had never heard of him, but in the second lesson was given one of Bach’s preludes, a simple little thing made out of arpeggios, far easier than anything Father made him learn. As he played, Ludwig could feel the air of a place he’d never known before, a place better than Bonn. It was something to do with the harmony, like floating suddenly away from his mother’s commands, his father’s shouts, like sweeping a telescope and finding everything is within your grasp if only you know where to aim. Ludwig didn’t understand how the little piece could do this when it was only a lot of arpeggios. Herr Neefe said the greatest things are often the simplest, and pointed out individual notes in the score: C, C-sharp, D, E-flat… all twelve of the chromatic scale, like months of the year, Earth’s revolution in space.

“You see, Ludwig? This little prelude is the whole universe, made easy enough for a child to play. Count the notes of the figure Bach uses to construct the entire piece: eight of them, played twice in each measure, four beats to the bar. Those are very neat numbers, don’t you think?”

Herr Neefe likes numbers. He is a methodical, orderly man who believes everything must be done correctly, not in the way of schoolmaster Weiss, but because everything is a performance before God.

“See how many times we get C as the bottom note of the repeating figure,” he said, tapping the page. “Sixteen. Do you understand the pattern now? No? Then count how many times the figure appears in total.” Ludwig couldn’t keep up with the arithmetic. “Here, it ends at bar 32, when we’ve heard it 64 times. Even if your brain can’t count, your soul knows how.”

Ludwig points the telescope at a cloud, sees its ragged edge and wonders if he can ever become a good musician when he’s so bad with numbers. Herr Neefe says the world is full of people who can listen to Bach’s prelude and feel nothing, just as they can look at a starry sky or mountain peak and be unmoved. These are the people who provide artists with a living; because art, for them, is a necessary ornament, like good food and tableware. But there are also some connoisseurs, and among them a few initiates, and among those one or two geniuses, as Bach was. And one day, Herr Neefe says, if you are very, very good, then perhaps you too will be like Bach. Only then will your true audience be revealed to you.

Ludwig loves the attic because it’s quiet. To be free from noise: that would be a lovely thing. But then he hears a scraping on the wooden steps beyond the closed door; he recoils instinctively, wondering who is going to come in and thrash him. When the door opens he sees Caecilia, the landlord’s daughter, who asks, “What are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

She enters and closes the door. “I was coming along the street and realised somebody must be up here — I saw the telescope moving. Were you spying?”

“No,” he says firmly.

“I’m only teasing,” she says with a laugh, then stalks round the attic like a cat in search of prey. At one point she considers lifting a framed picture, but the weight of dust on it deters her. She turns. “Why do you always want to be alone?”

“I don’t. I’m usually with the others.”

“Only because you have to be. Don’t you like people, Ludwig?”

“I don’t know.”

“I like people.” She goes to the window and looks across the rooftops. “I love them. When I grow up and marry I want to spend my whole life entertaining, don’t you think that would be most wonderful? And to have little babies? Why, I think I should burst with happiness.”

Ludwig says nothing.

“And look at you, sitting in dirt, whatever will your mother say? I’m sure you’re avoiding some task she’s given you.”

“What about you?”

“I came to find who was creeping around in my attic.”

“Anyone’s allowed here.”

“Only if I say so.” She looks down at him with folded arms. “Why aren’t you practising your music?”

“Don’t want to.”

“If you make a mistake in chapel you’ll get a hiding, I know what a temper your father has.” She must notice the look on Ludwig’s face, the fear, because she quickly mellows. “Don’t go bubbling, mon petit. I honestly don’t mind your being here, it’s only that it’s so… so strange, the way you behave. You really are the queerest sort, you know.” Ludwig gets to his feet, wiping pale powdered plaster from his breeches, and Caecilia gives a shrill laugh. “That’s so funny! So terribly funny!”

“What is?”

“The way you make those clouds fly, like a little chimney-sweep.” Then just as suddenly, she stops laughing, looks him up and down, and says, “Do you think I’m beautiful?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not? Either a girl is beautiful or she isn’t. Which am I?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I simply do, that’s all. A girl’s entitled to know these things.”

“I think you’re beautiful, Caecilia.”

“You do? That’s splendid. I like you so much, cher Louis. Why, who knows, perhaps one day we’ll be married. Ha ha!”

The thought of it turns his stomach. She’d make him entertain all day long.

“I’m never going to get married,” he says.

“What a ridiculous notion — who’s going to look after you in your old age, if you don’t have a wife and children? It’s so amusing, what small children say. But you don’t understand a thing, do you?”

“I’m not a small child.”

“Oh, simply because you go marching off to court in your little frock coat, don’t go thinking you’re grown up already. You can play music like an adult but there’s more to life than that. Why, I’ll guarantee you don’t even know how babies are made.”

This is as puzzling as a philosophy lesson. “How are they made?”

“Inside a woman, that’s how. A seed is put there by a fairy, and it turns into a baby.”

“Where does the seed come from?’

“From heaven, that’s what the maid told me. Only sometimes the seed’s bad, and instead of a bright and healthy baby there comes a little dark ugly one.”

This is an explanation for his condition that he’s never heard before. “How does the baby get out?”

“By magic.”

“Does the fairy make it happen?”

“They make everything happen. Even falling in love. You do believe in fairies, don’t you, mon petit?”

“Of course.”

“Really and truly? Even though we never see them?”

“But I have seen one, Caecilia.”

“Where?”

“At the palace, singing a tune.”

They were in the theatre, rehearsing a play for the Elector. Ludwig struck the harmonies of the figured bass while on the stage a teenage boy stood beside an older man — a magician and his sprite. Ludwig couldn’t quite follow the words even though they were in plain German, until they reached the song the fairy was to sing. Your father lies beneath the waves; his bones are coral and his eyes are pearls. Ludwig filled out the melody with chords and runs, and imagined his own father, drowned in a sea of ale.

Caecilia comes close and speaks in a low voice. “Was it a beautiful fairy?”

“Very.”

“And did it make you fall in love?”

Ludwig doesn’t know; he was too busy playing the keyboard, getting the progressions right, because if he made any false ones he’d spoil the whole performance and God would be very unhappy with him. If word got back to Father it would be even worse. “I don’t think I fell in love.”

“Then it couldn’t have been a real fairy.”

Yet the boy was as lovely as one, stretching his thin, bare arms into the air where they swayed like reeds in a current. “He was pretending, but the song was real.”

Caecilia looks puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

“He was a boy, not a fairy, but it was a fairy’s song. The magic was in the song.”

She cocks her head with bemusement. “I see, so now you’re under a spell? In that case you have to fall in love, mon cher Louis, you simply and absolutely must.” She steps back and twirls. “Whom do you love?”

Ludwig tries to summon up a vision but there is only blackness. “No one.”

“Ha! You’re such a silly little boy.” She steps on something that makes her look down at her shoe, perhaps a nail has jabbed her; she twists her foot this way and that, pointing her toe, so that soon it seems more like a display of her ankle for the benefit of the boy she no longer appears to notice. She reaches down to the hem of her long smock and lifts it, raises her petticoat also, and begins to inspect her shin, the side of her calf, as though they too have been affected by the unknown irritation. Still she slides the hem higher, lost in silent concentration, absorbed in her solitary quandary, until eventually she reaches the midpoint of her leg. She stops there, and for a moment shows him her bare knee, all of it, without a shred of embarrassment. Ludwig can’t understand why she’s doing this, it’s completely mysterious, like hearing words in a foreign language, but he senses that she’s trying to cast a spell on him. What he’s seeing ought to make him laugh, but it doesn’t, there’s something terribly serious about her exposed knee, as solemn as the Mass they sing in chapel, as holy as the Virgin’s tears. It’s almost the same feeling he had when watching the fairy wave his arms, only this time there’s no music.

She lets her dress fall and stares at him accusingly. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Then she goes out, back downstairs, her shoes clattering, fading on the wooden steps while Ludwig returns to the telescope, pointing it at the clock on the church tower. A celestial circle he can’t encompass; a secret law of octaves.

Coyle

Heavy rain has been boosting lecture attendance, and though Graham Vinyer’s musings yesterday were at times almost as soporific as the muffled downpour outside, his discussion of Tsar Alexander’s foreign policy did prompt me to mention to him afterwards that the Tsar once met Beethoven, the composer having been presented to the Russian ruler by Count Razumovsky at Archduke Rudolph’s palace in Vienna. Graham had heard of the Razumovsky Quartets and Archduke Trio, so wondered if the Emperor Concerto was written for the Tsar, which of course wasn’t the case. Nor does the concerto have anything to do with Napoleon, who was planning his ill-fated invasion of Russia when the piece had its Vienna premiere. The event included tableaux vivants inspired by Goethe’s Elective Affinities — costumed actors imitating paintings by Raphael and Poussin. The German poet Theodor Körner saw the show and wrote, “The pictures offered a glorious treat; a new pianoforte concerto by Beethoven failed.” A year later, Körner donned the black uniform of the paramilitary Lützow Freikorps and was killed in action against the French, having failed to complete an opera libretto for Beethoven.

We were in the common room, alone until the subwarden shuffled in to check the refreshment table at the far end, and Graham said, sotto voce, “Here she comes — Grace Poole.” I think I got the joke. Still don’t know what she’s really called. Graham hadn’t been aware of my Beethoven interest; I mentioned to him the handful of semi-relevant books I serendipitously spotted in the disordered library, and with an almost complacent smile he assured me a catalogue exists under cover of the Official Secrets Act. I thought he was joking again, until he revealed to me that the military inventoried Axtoun House’s entire contents while based here. It seems that amid futile enumeration of worthless china and threadbare rugs lies valuable information — and Graham has digital access to the entire hoard. Of course he had to go through all sorts of hoops to get it, and can’t share data willy-nilly, but said that if he spots anything potentially useful to me, he’ll let me know. I interpret this as one-upmanship rather than genuine offer of assistance, but we’ll see.

The Emperor Concerto’s nickname — coined by some unknown nineteenth-century music lover — is as misleading as the Moonlight Sonata’s, for which blame can be put on the hero of Ludwig Rellstab’s novella Theodor. If Beethoven wanted the world to know what, if anything, his music represented, he could have said. Art reveals by way of concealment — a determinate negation illustrated by Goethe’s comment on Elective Affinities, “I have put many things in it, and hidden much.” At one point in Goethe’s novel, a new house is begun, personal mementoes deposited in the foundations, and a mason expresses satisfaction that everything will be built over. So with all art — we see the last paint added to the canvas, material surface as relic of submerged process.

Graham had spoken in his lecture about a secretive movement similar to freemasonry, but with wood rather than stone as symbolic basis. They were called the Carbonari — charcoal burners — and their ceremonies alluded to forests, tree-cutting, crucifixion. They claimed ancient origin, though as Graham said, the organisation’s beginnings remain as obscure as QAnon’s today, and possibly as fictitious. Still, they grew in number to many thousands, and were able to launch an uprising against Austrian hegemony in Italy.

Again there’s a Beethoven link. After premiering the Archduke Trio at a charity concert in 1814, Beethoven was approached by nineteen-year-old law student Anton Schindler, keen to make his acquaintance. History’s next view of Schindler, a few months later, was his involvement in unrest at Vienna University by supporters of the Carbonari.

The subwarden shuffled out again. If she’s Grace Poole, who’s the mad woman in the attic?

Beethoven’s masonic connections were extensive; his lifelong friend Franz Wegeler, for instance, was an active lodge member. Wegeler’s memoir tells us when he and Beethoven first met, not how. Wegeler was a seventeen-year-old medical student in Bonn, Beethoven was twelve, and due to a confusion lasting well into adulthood, would have thought himself only ten. What brought them together? Perhaps it was some occasion arranged by Beethoven’s music teacher and Wegeler’s university professor, both of whom were members of the Bonn Illuminati. Approved by the liberal-minded Emperor Joseph II and dedicated to Enlightenment values, the organisation was later forcibly disbanded when fear of revolution caused progressive Josephinist policies to be revoked.

Graham’s assumption was that by writing about Beethoven I meant a novel. Were it not that the plethora of pre-existing attempts already gave sufficient argument against, others could easily be adduced. The true subject is greater than any possible imitation. Should the intention be immanent critique rather than didactic discourse, there would have to be a mutual inter-relation of form and content, in a manner I can’t imagine. Anyway, I don’t know how to write a novel. Graham said there are thousands of love stories, but that doesn’t stop people writing new ones, which to my mind only strengthens the case for not adding to the pile. I got on to J.W.N. Sullivan, whom he’d never heard of, and could see the historian’s eyes opacify as the shutters of academic specialism came down and our conversation drew to a natural close.

Tempting now to mention last night with Deb, after we got through all that whisky. Safer to record the interaction I’ve just had with Caroline Hines, in unusually talkative mood when I bumped into her downstairs. She suggested I join her for coffee, which turned out to mean progress report in her office. Caroline looked particularly elegant, I might even say attractive, and smelled expensive as she inclined towards me from the other side of her monumental desk. I told her how I’ve been getting on with Bergson, and after listening patiently she demonstrated complete incomprehension by asking how it connected with my two-minute TV documentary appearance.

“It doesn’t, really,” I said.

“Oh.” Face of a six-year-old told the party bags have run out.

A journal paper on epistemology got me on to a programme whose late-night audience must have numbered few neither drunk nor asleep, but presumably included whoever it was that thought to invite me to the Hyle Centre.

She said, “I only ask because your name came up in another context.”

“About encyclopaedias?”

“A friend saw your article.”

No doubt the Dutchman I met, or some other big fish who accidentally noticed the documentary, awake though not necessarily sober.

“I think your article mentioned some Frenchman’s theory of everything,” she said.

It took me a moment to guess whom she might have meant. “Jean-Bernard Rosier?”

“I don’t recall.”

A mere footnote in the article — all I know is the little I got from Alan Crouch, and it could well be apocryphal. As for Schindler, we’ll never know for sure if he genuinely supported the Carbonari, but following the riot at the university he fled to his home province of Moravia where he was arrested and detained for several weeks, then sent back to Vienna. Hearing of his adventure, Beethoven was eager to speak with the young radical, and summoned him to a private room at a tavern Schindler later recalled as being frequented by “Josephinists of the first water”.

Schindler was active in a nationalistic student society whose rules included strict linguistic purism — there was a fine for using non-German words. Is it coincidental that Beethoven began writing musical terms in German rather than Italian? He even sought to rename the pianoforte: options included Tastenflügel, Hammerflügel and Beethoven’s preferred choice, Hammerklavier, which he wanted on the printed scores of all his subsequent piano works, though the word never caught on, persisting only as nickname for the longest and most difficult of his sonatas, begun in 1817.

In October of that year a few hundred German youths assembled for a festival in Thuringia that was overshadowed by what happened at the end after most had departed. Beside one of the festival bonfires, a student read a list of despised authors, and bundles of paper were thrown onto the flames representing their books. Most notable of the condemned writers was August von Kotzebue, whose close ties with Russia had aroused suspicion. Though the event was little more than a drunken student prank — a cane, corset and wig were inexplicably incinerated — it caused public outrage, and when Kotzebue was later murdered by a student who’d witnessed the mock book burning, repressive new laws were passed, restricting the press and increasing police surveillance.

It brings us to events Graham spoke about in his lecture yesterday. In 1820 the Carbonari attempted an uprising in Italy, while in Greece a similar group fomented rebellion against Turkish rule, leading to a war that was at its height three years later, when Beethoven — at work on the Ninth Symphony — sent a curious note to Schindler.

Samothracian!

Don’t bestir yourself to come here until perchance a hatti-sherif has been issued. Meanwhile you don’t warrant the golden rope. My swift-sailing frigate, the well-born Frau Schnapps, will enquire after your health every two or three days. Farewell — and bring no one.

I’ve no idea what was meant by the golden rope, but a hatti-sherif was an Ottoman decree, and “Frau Schnapps” referred to Beethoven’s housekeeper, who perhaps liked a tipple as much as he did. Schindler later claimed the salutation referred to the Samothracian mysteries — Beethoven was acknowledging a fellow initiate in the secrets of musical art. Surely more likely than ancient history was an allusion to current affairs. A legion of German volunteers had recently sailed to aid the Greek cause. Was Schindler tempted to enlist? On another occasion Beethoven addressed him as, “Most excellent ragamuffin of Epirus and not less of Brundusium etc.” Epirus was scene of a major campaign, and Brundusium — Brindisi — was suitable departure point for philhellenes travelling via Italy.

Plans were laid in England to send a volunteer force headed by William Parry, coincidental namesake of an arctic explorer much in the news. It might help explain a particularly cryptic message Beethoven sent Schindler.

Samothracian ragamuffin!

You were instructed yesterday that you should go to the South Pole while we were to go to the North Pole, as Captain Parry has already evened out the small difference.

One Parry going north, the other south — the latter taking Lord Byron to join the struggle. As well as making arcane puns about the war, Beethoven was considering a revised version of The Ruins of Athens, an allegory bemoaning Ottoman rule whose original text had been by the ill-fated Kotzebue. A friend wrote in Beethoven’s conversation book, “You are a revolutionary? A Carbanaro?” Yet for all his seditious tomfoolery in what was effectively a police state, Beethoven was left unmolested. He was, after all, a famous eccentric — and his principal patron was the Emperor’s brother.

Deb has just texted and wants to speak.

I called. We’ve spoken.

It wasn’t what I expected. Alphonse Berka would like me to write a programme note for his recital.

“Couldn’t he have asked me that himself?” I asked Deb.

“You know what he’s like,” she said.

“No, I don’t — I’ve hardly seen him and we’ve barely exchanged a word.”

“That’s what he’s like.”

“About last night…”

“Forget it.”

Berka’s going to play two Beethoven sonatas — the Waldstein and Opus 110. He knows about my project.

“How did he find that out?”

She said, “From me, of course.”

“You talked to him about me?”

“Only small-talk about your research. You’re not cross, are you?”

“Of course not.”

But I am — at the thought of Deborah and that aloof pianist gossiping together. Why couldn’t she have come and spoken to me in person? Tiredness — flimsy excuse. She’s avoiding me, and at the same time asking a favour that’s not even for herself. Manipulation, that’s what it is. Never mind the rain — I’m taking a walk.

Taken — very wet.

Now pour some whisky — what’s left of it — and try to think what to say about the Waldstein Sonata. Maybe mention Adorno’s childhood impression of knights in a forest. The perils of visualisation, the infinite possibilities of interpretation. Schindler asked Beethoven the “key” to two other sonatas, both with moto perpetuo finales, and was told, “Just read Shakespeare’s Tempest.” The name stuck to one, the other became Appassionata. Neither has any clear connection to Shakespeare — Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny said the finale of the Tempest Sonata was inspired by a galloping horse. He also claimed the opening of the Fifth Symphony came from a yellowhammer, rather different from Schindler’s version, “Thus fate knocks at the door.” The more we insist on answers, the further we get from questions we should ask instead.

Deborah called back a moment ago, telling me something I suppose I might have guessed. Claudia and Alphonse — not their real names. Refuses to say more — says she can’t — though it’s surely easy enough to fill the blanks. Dissident, neurodivergent or narcissistic, sufficiently talented to be allowed whatever identity they choose. The programme note for Alphonse suddenly feels like delicate therapeutic treatment with potential risk. Who’s his handler if he goes crazy on me?

Now an email from Graham.

Item 140363/H/97. Corr. in German. 1923 var. dates. H. Behring. (Something about Beethoven?)

Schindler

1860

Is it history or fiction? This is what the rabble dare ask him: is he a biographer or a novelist? The insult and effrontery of it! They say to him, how can we be sure of what you’ve gathered, the names and recollections, how can we separate fact from fiction? And Anton Schindler tells them: music is truth.

Piles are a bother again. Growing old is a slow, painful and above all humiliating acquaintance with mortality; art is spirit but life — after sixty-five years of it — is blood and filth and decay. In the privy, Anton Schindler reads again the widow’s letter. Thinks of putting it to good use.

The widow claims she has information, documents, a great secret harboured for decades. A secret about Beethoven. He’s heard plenty of those. Since publishing his biography of the Master nearly twenty years ago, he’s become a magnet for fools and cranks, fantasists and attention-seekers who would claim, on the basis of the slenderest acquaintance, that they were intimate with the great composer.

L’ami de Beethoven. After the first edition came out and the royalties streamed in, Schindler went to Paris, working with all his heart to make the Master’s compositions better known, sacrificing himself, tirelessly visiting every musician of note, attending every tedious salon, making his message heard — and for what? For glory? For social advancement, personal gain? To try and sell more copies of his book? No — for art. And his reward was to be ridiculed, pilloried, scorned. The scurrilous Heine described him in a newspaper article as having a terrible white cravat and the physiognomy of an undertaker — as if one’s personal appearance were of any importance whatsoever! Schindler removes himself from the privy, the widow’s letter folded in his pocket, notices the sunshine. He’ll take a walk later.

Wretched Heine. Claimed it was printed on Schindler’s vising cards, L’ami de Beethoven, as if he could ever need such an introduction, as if the world did not immediately associate his name with the Master’s! After so many years, the hack’s vitriol still stains. “Frenchmen wondered how the great composer could have put up with such a stupid, boring friend. They forgot Beethoven was deaf.”

They can laugh, damn them. That story about the calling cards, Schindler has heard it so often he realises it’s become a matter of historical record, will probably end up on his gravestone. The Master, too, was mocked by the crowd, thought ridiculous for wearing dirty clothes, singing loudly to himself, unable to hear his own tuneless voice. Martyrdom. Piles.

The new edition of the biography is nearly ready for the press, completely revised, considerably expanded, and now this foolish old woman has written to him, insisting she has evidence he can’t ignore. If Schindler doesn’t follow it up, others might. That confounded American journalist for a start, who’s taken it upon himself to write a biography of his own, worming away in the Prussian Royal Library, thumbing through the very letters and jottings that Schindler saved for the world but can no longer consult.

This new breed, they think biography is simply about collecting facts — a form of science. Human experiences must be counted up like parts of a steam engine or coins in a bank vault, weighed and assessed, evaluated and solved. The American says he’ll write only about Beethoven’s life, not seek to interpret and understand the music, as Schindler has done, instead merely chronicle the history of composition and publication, performance and reception. Enumerate everything, in other words, except what really matters.

Music these days is in such an appalling state anyway. Mendelssohn and his absurd Bach-worship, why such a fuss over that cerebral stuff? Because it’s science, of course. And every performer a virtuoso, Liszt to blame, Schindler feels almost ashamed to have been the one who presented the wonder-child to Beethoven for approval, and look where he ended up, hammering out the Master’s symphonies in tasteless piano arrangements. Gone is the age of the connoisseur; performing now is about pleasing plebeian crowds in oversized halls, maximising the number of notes per second and minimising the expressive differences between them. It’s about the elimination of error, not the discovery of truth. Schindler goes to his desk, sits angrily and brings the widow’s letter from his pocket once more. An Englishwoman living in Paris, writing in French.

Some papers in my possession may be of interest to you, having a connection to the great composer with whose name your own is so intimately bound. They concern an opera that Beethoven considered writing, and a certain nobleman who was party to negotiations. Perhaps you met this person, so that were I to refer to the nature of his associations, you would take my meaning. If not, it would suggest that Beethoven kept his involvement hidden even from you, his closest friend.

Stupid old bag! Her ominous secrecy the ridiculous coquetry of a geriatric; the simultaneous flattery and insult of her rhetorical cadence a dropped handkerchief he is commanded to lift. He’ll crush her conjectures as easily as her notepaper — so easy for her to point out the supposed omission of the only topic in the Master’s career she happens to know anything about. Nobleman? Beethoven knew plenty, and if Schindler had recorded every acquaintance, every abortive opera project, he would have needed ten times as much ink, wasting it over irrelevancies. The biographer’s task is to select and interpret, not gorge himself on whatever scrap might come his way. Impossible that she should have anything of genuine significance.

He calls for the maid, asks about shirts.

They can carp and criticise, the withered crones and smug young journalists who think themselves experts on a man they never met, making slanderous insinuations that Schindler was not the closest of the Master’s companions or most diligent preserver of his relics. That anyone should even doubt him! The American, Thayer, impertinently suggests some weakness of recollection, inadequacy of chronology. If so, what of it? A lapse here and there, a minor embellishment. The goal of biography is truth, not facts.

In 1823 I was briefly employed in the household of a retired colonel for whom I acted both as governess to his young ward and as scribe, he being unable to write on account of a battle wound. Sadly, he soon departed this life in circumstances deemed at the time to have been accidental, though in light of subsequent knowledge I have found considerable cause to doubt that conclusion, reached hastily and without proper investigation.

Spurious nonsense. The maid comes back to report on the state of his linen. Something about her has always disgusted him; the perspiration on her face, a certain odour. Losing her would be too inconvenient. But he doesn’t like to be reminded of the reality, the impurity of another’s skin; prefers life as idea rather than perpetually inadequate performance. In his servant’s blithe insolence he sees the embodiment of all he has fought against, the vile ordinariness of whatever has not been touched and perfected by art. She’s telling him how she prefers to remove common stains. Wine, coffee, blood. He is repelled by such minutiae.

Immediately following the Colonel’s death, his friend Baron Adeling — who was visiting at the time — ordered the deceased’s private rooms to be secured. Though unwell myself, the swiftness and urgency of the command struck me as suspicious, my anxiety being that the Baron hoped to find and destroy the Colonel’s will, and thus rob his ward, Thomas, of his rightful inheritance.

An all-too-familiar drama — parasites lured by the rich smell of death. Breuning, Holz, the pseudo-brother Johann and his stupid wife, all rifling the apartment after Beethoven died, thinking only of bank shares meant to secure the ungrateful nephew’s prosperity. It was left to the composer’s one true friend to rescue whatever he could for future generations.

Such was my affection for the vulnerable child, and so great my determination to ensure his welfare, that I contemplated an act some might call reprehensible if not criminal, though I shall let God be the judge. Knowing as I did, the room where the Colonel kept his most secret papers, I resolved to enter and search, despite my weak condition, and remove whatever I could before my imminent departure.

She calls it criminal? Sanctimonious termagant. Let no one call Schindler a thief. When the time comes, he will stand before the Creator without fear. The rest of them gone already, of course; most recently Holz. Still time to say a few more words about that swine in the new edition. Certainly there were secrets, though none some dry old woman could know.

Alas I had no opportunity to bid farewell to Thomas; but with the assistance of a brave servant who knew the extent of the Baron’s brutishness, I was able to secure a large quantity of papers that I carefully hid unread in my travelling trunk. Once safely back in Edinburgh, I told no one — not even my own dear parents — what I had experienced, nor what I had done. Yet on surreptitiously examining my stolen hoard, my heart sank, for I failed to discover the Colonel’s will, nor any information relating to Thomas’s origins, on which I had speculated a great deal. My act of theft had yielded only a mass of writings, mostly in German, which the Colonel spoke fluently, but of which I was ignorant.

It’s lies Schindler despises, distortions and malicious inferences of the sort that people like Holz put about and the American will doubtless promulgate, for what more can one expect of a journalist? In Thayer’s tawdry volume, should it ever appear, there will be no respectful omissions, no consideration for personal privacy or plain decency, since that is not the way of the press. No, there will be sensation, revelation, headline, noise. Beethoven was a miser and an alcoholic, he bullied his nephew to the point of attempted suicide. What will Thayer say about the Immortal Beloved? It’ll fill half his book, most likely; the public have a greater appetite for love affairs and gossip than for the infinite mystery of art. A chimney-sweep can fall in love but can he pen the Ninth Symphony? Leeches like Thayer make no such distinction, all they want is a good story — yet it is Schindler who is attacked!

Expecting the Colonel’s death to be reported in the press, I saw however no word of it. Afraid to make known my removal of his papers, and powerless to offer help to the orphaned child who was my chief concern, I made discreet enquiries to official authorities, hoping to learn more. My letters were answered in only the most cursory and unhelpful of terms, if at all. More than a year passed, almost two, until I read that the Colonel’s unoccupied house and surrounding land had been put up for sale.

A profiteer, Schindler’s been called. And how much did he receive from the King in exchange for the manuscripts he preserved? A mere two thousand thalers, plus another four hundred per year for life, a veritable pittance. Thus do the guardians of truth suffer, while others make themselves a fortune and grow old heaped with medals and honours. Schindler’s other reward — to be pestered by nonentities like this hag, claiming some great new discovery.

To be swift, I shall pass over several years during which I became wife to one whose abundant talents would fill countless pages, were I to enumerate them properly. Our home was in Paris, and though no children came to fill it, our lives were in every other sense complete. To put it simply, we had found in each other a perfect equal.

A matched pair of nincompoops, in other words.

I told my husband about the Colonel’s papers, which I still possessed, as afraid to destroy as I was regretful of ever taking them. Knowing barely more German than I, my husband was unable to cast further light on what they contained, and as it was by now almost ten years since the Colonel had died leaving Thomas to an unknown fate, we returned the papers into their box and out of our minds.

A further decade passed, during which my husband’s dealings increasingly took him to parts of Prussia and Bavaria, and he became fully conversant in German. It occurred to him to look again at the Colonel’s papers, and though most were beyond adequate comprehension, there were some that aroused curiosity.

The papers, he realised, covered divers topics in various hands. There were personal letters, summaries of news reports, military memoranda, passages copied from books — things written over many years. It was impossible to say which, if any, were the Colonel’s own contributions, made before injury to his hand. I knew he had been a translator at the Vienna Congress, and had assisted a German regiment against Napoleon, so my husband supposed many of the documents to date from those times, and wondered if there might be any of special importance. This led to his spending long hours poring over the papers, in poor light and with a magnifying glass, far into the night in his study, where I would sometimes find him next morning, asleep in his chair.

A picture of married life — how fortunate for Schindler to have avoided such tedium. Instead his existence has been one of monastic devotion to the very highest cause. Orchestra director, writer, teacher. His legacy is his readers, his pupils, the smooth-skinned boys he coached and made into men of art. With unswerving loyalty and devotion he has served the Master he loved. And even Beethoven mistreated him! The one whose feet he kissed, whose home he shared, the man he fetched groceries for, the man whose unclean undergarments he had to look at!

You can imagine how uneasy I became at my husband’s lucubrations, certain they must be injurious to his health. He ignored my pleas and warnings, saying he had uncovered fragments of a larger picture he was determined to see in full. The Colonel, he said, had been involved with a secret lodge whose leaders occupied the very highest ranks of continental society. I was reminded then of what the Colonel had told me about some terrible international plot, whose subsequent failure ever to come to pass or be exposed had convinced me of its unreality. Surely my husband was being fooled by the same misinformation, rumour and false intelligence that had so disturbed the unfortunate Colonel. Here again was reason for abandoning further investigation — though my husband was not to be persuaded, and his studies actually intensified, even at the cost of other more important work he ought to have carried out. To the Colonel’s archive my husband added his own notes, transcripts and translations.

As a consequence of such excessive industry, my husband began experiencing bouts of dizziness and even fainting. I insisted he consult a physician, though when eventually he did, he was told the problem was only a mild weakness of his lungs that could be remedied by outdoor exercise. Preferring that advice to my own, he took to roaming the streets of Paris and its environs, alone and for many hours, until one day he failed to return. Desperate enquiries at last yielded the awful truth — he had been found dead at a roadside, apparently run over, though no witness ever came forth to explain precisely what happened. It was assumed he had collapsed and fallen beneath the wheels of a cart whose driver chose to flee rather than be held responsible.

The maid interrupts with another infernal triviality before Schindler continues to re-read, knowing perfectly well how the fantasy continues.

Left widowed and childless, far from the country of my birth, I wondered how best to use the small fortune my late husband had amassed, which was far greater than my own needs. I decided to found an orphanage in his name — a more fitting memorial than the accursed papers that broke his health, which I put away, unable to look at them. Another fifteen years have passed — I am told I may not see many more. My principle business is securing the future of the orphanage, to which end I recently met with a new and generous benefactor, to whom I happened to mention — in the course of a long conversation — some of what I have told you here. This kind gentleman asked if he might see the papers I had kept locked away for so long; a request I should certainly have refused, were it not for my indebtedness to him, so I permitted him not only to look, but also to borrow a portion of the items. A few days later, he reported with excitement that within those papers lay several concerning Beethoven — and one possibly in the composer’s own hand.

My husband had never mentioned that to me, having perhaps failed to notice it in the course of his labours, or else judging Beethoven simply less illustrious than the princes and ministers of state whose intrigues and affairs he found more fascinating. A quite different view was taken by my benefactor, who said Beethoven’s involvement with such people showed him in an entirely new manner, and justified close examination of the entire haul.

Schindler understands exactly what the witch means — the tang of scandal is nauseatingly obvious. It was not only tyranny and patronage the old aristocracy indulged in, though Beethoven distanced himself from their debauchery. Jesus and Socrates were his models. Except that sometimes he chose his friends badly.

The Colonel had told me of masonic brotherhoods — some virtuous, others sinister — and my late husband had thought there was written proof. That opinion was now vindicated, with Beethoven being implicated in organisations of both kinds. There was no mention of such activities in your excellent biography, and since you have now advertised the intention to publish a further edition, I feel sure you will wish to consider this new information.

The meddlesome fishwife will have opportunity soon enough to see what he has already written on the subject. Yes, Schindler himself sometimes associated with the wrong sort, though he was but a callow student when there was that demonstration in Vienna. A few hats knocked off, windows broken, perhaps a bloody nose or two. Nobody killed, for heaven’s sake. Schindler’s Italian friends at the university were a little hot-headed, that’s all — and if Austria had listened to their calls for independence back then it would have saved so much trouble since. Even if some of those friends really were Carbonarists, there was little sinister about their lodges — not like those maniacs later in France. Still, it was convenient that a teaching appointment came up in Moravia — Schindler would have gone anyway, regardless of the arrests in Vienna. And when he was questioned by police there, he was able to give a full account of himself — it was only the loss of some registration documents and official permits that led to his being locked up for a few weeks, perhaps a month or two. Once back in Vienna, all he wanted was to become a lawyer and make music, though he was painted as some sort of revolutionary. Absolute lies of course.

The most obscure documents in the archive can be understood as fragments from a masonic drama: The Assassins, or Everything is Allowed. Set in the time of the Crusades, it was to feature guardians of a magic elixir said to bring immortality or death to whoever consumed it. The Colonel once dictated a similar story to me, purported as truth. Had he been misled by a work of fiction, or was the drama based on fact? Perhaps if I had taken more of his papers we would know the answer, and could also judge the veracity of notes jumbled with the text, speaking of an ancient idol of yellow glass whose reputed custodians included Baltic pagans, Teutonic knights, and more recently the Queen of Westphalia — the Tugendbund revolt and Maubreuil affair having supposedly been efforts to wrest it.

This cracked church-bell in a skirt is the one who’s confused, juxtaposing the heroism of German patriots with the exploits of a French adventurer. The Master had great respect for the old Teutonic order, less for the modern form he served in Bonn. Schindler remembers how warmly Beethoven would speak of the Fatherland, cut to pieces by petty rulers, yet destined to reunite itself, bound by soil and spirit.

The little of The Assassins that can be reconstructed from the portion I took has raised new questions for me about the ill-fated Colonel. In his confusion of fantasy with reality, did he see his ward as the holy prince of the drama? What of the heroine, the prince’s mother, who knowingly drinks poison intended for her son? As I look back on my time in the Colonel’s employ, across a distance of almost forty years, I see it recast as an allegory whose meaning remains elusive.

Forty years — nearly as long as the distance separating Schindler from his first meeting with the Master. Yet everything still vivid, with not a single error or lacuna, the recollection as perfect in his mind as the music stored in his fingers. Damn them all, the doubters and attackers, and this bothersome widow, the genuine purpose of whose letter could have been stated in a sentence or two, rather than near the end of so much verbiage.

One page bears musical notation, most difficult to read, but showing what appear to be melodic ideas for The Assassins. Seeking an expert opinion, my benefactor has made contact with a German composer in Paris whom I believe you know, Mr Richard Wagner, who confirmed the handwriting as Beethoven’s.

Thus does knavery reveal itself. Of course Schindler knows Wagner — they met twenty years ago in Paris, at Schlesinger’s publishing house, when Wagner was trying to decide if he was to be a composer or writer — a question still not satisfactorily answered. Wagner thinks himself an artist of the future, yet those of his innovations that are not abominations were already foreshadowed in purer form by the Master, whose grasp of tonality and subtlety of orchestration were infinitely superior. Is it to be contended that in choosing knights of old for operatic heroes, Beethoven was prophetic of Tannhäuser and Lohengrin? It smacks of fakery. Wagner is a self-publicist who will do anything to raise himself higher than his modest talent alone could justify. He was happy enough, two decades ago, to accept the friendship and support of Jews like Schlesinger, Meyerbeer, and of course the wretched Heine. Then when he finally did express himself on the corrupting influence of Hebraic taste, he still cowered behind a pseudonym, letting the article run with an editorial disclaimer saying it was published purely in the interests of free speech. It was only another area where the Master anticipated him, another fact to be put straight in the new edition. Beethoven was perfectly frank in his hatred of the sons of Israel. He saw how they seized every new trend and profited from the most lucrative. Oh yes, Schindler remembers the Master’s views quite clearly — though times have changed, of course. Why, some of Schindler’s best friends are Jewish. As also, he suspects, was the late husband of the woman whose true motive is shrewdly held back until her final page.

How strange and remarkable, that in my haste to preserve anything of the Colonel’s that might have helped young Thomas, I inadvertently took a scrap of paper that now, after so many years, can benefit other orphans instead. Yet as well as monetary worth, I know that Beethoven’s jotting has a higher value, so that rather than take it directly to a dealer or auction house, I feel I should offer it first to persons better able to appreciate its significance — among whom must surely be counted the composer’s biographer.

The stiletto felicitation of a blackmailer. “Biographer” is singular, but no reason to suppose the widow has not already sent the same information to the American, or anyone else intending to enter a field where Schindler alone has right to stand. How many worthless hacks have thrown out a so-called life of the Master, replete with inaccuracies of the most elementary kind? Wegeler and Ries could at least count themselves acquaintances of Beethoven, even if their patchwork reminiscences served mainly to cement a few doubtful legends and petty grievances. It was the French translation of their book that brought Schindler to Schlesinger’s office in Paris, only to learn that the upstart Wagner was thinking of writing a novel about Beethoven. Was Wagner now planning a biography, having failed to win over the French to his operas? Damn this impertinent virago with all her mischief. She may very well have read Schindler’s “excellent” book, but it would doubtless have been in the English translation by Moscheles — another wily Semite, whose self-serving addenda Schindler will rebut in the new German edition.

My benefactor’s assistant will be travelling to Frankfurt soon to conduct business there, and would be able to call on you in Bockenheim. I very much hope that you will receive him. He will be carrying part of the dramatic text of The Assassins, though not the precious page of music that remains in my care. So that you may know the latter’s contents, I enclose a fair copy of Mr Wagner’s interpretation.

A separate page of musical sketches that could be by anyone, mere motifs, nothing more. The widow’s words deserve to be ignored, yet can not be. Alone later at the dinner table, Schindler’s appetite is disturbed by the letter’s lingering air of distaste. He pushes his plate away, calls for the maid and wants to slap her impertinent face. Women are of two kinds; on the one hand, his late mother, beloved sisters, and others of that exemplary stamp. And then the rest, with their lies and promises. The Master knew it well enough, having to deal with two sisters-in-law; one a thief, the other a common tart who did well to find a husband as sybaritic as herself.

He should have torn the letter up by now — instead he reads for a fourth or fifth time, discerning in every pen stroke a latent threat. The widow’s script is neat, elegant, educated. She is someone old and isolated like himself, survivor in a world overrun by Philistines, a person who worked hard for others and now feels the end approaching. Affairs must be put in order.

It is almost a fortnight later when a note arrives from the assistant she mentioned, saying he would be honoured to be received any day that week. Schindler replies that tomorrow afternoon would be convenient — he wants to have done with this confounded business as soon as possible. The Frenchman arrives punctually next day and is shown in by the maid. About thirty years old, neatly dressed, with receding brown hair and goatee beard, the only feature distinguishing him from a thousand other commercial clerks is a black patch across his right eye. In his native language he offers broad remarks quite unrelated to the matter in hand, until eventually Schindler grows restless, and not only because of the irritation in his anus. They need to discuss the widow’s papers, Schindler reminds the visitor. And what about the drama he was meant to bring?

“Drama?” the assistant replies.

“The Assassins.”

It takes him a moment to respond. “Ah.” As if the preceding banalities have pushed the topic entirely from the brainless fellow’s skull.

“She said you would show me part of it.”

“She did? Well, there appears to have been some miscommunication.”

Schindler never cared to see it anyway — abstruse relic of an unknown wordsmith. He’s annoyed all the same. “How much is she seeking?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“For the sketch, of course! The page supposedly written by Beethoven.” Hard to believe the lack is really of information and not common sense.

The assistant nods thoughtfully. “I respect your directness, sir. To be honest, I’m not used to conducting affairs in quite so forthright a manner.”

“Then how much does she want?”

“It’s not entirely simple.”

“She’s had offers?” Schindler tries to read the assistant’s face and can’t tell if he’s seeing the wilful impassiveness of a seasoned negotiator or the vacant stare of a buffoon.

“At this moment I prefer not to say,” is the eventual reply. “But please allow me to ask what exactly she has told you about it. The sketch, I mean, that is allegedly by Beethoven.”

Schindler tells him about the fair copy. Was that another miscommunication, he wonders?

“May I see it?” the assistant asks.

“There is no need.” Not, at least, if there is anything at all authentic about this man, which Schindler has begun to doubt. Is he truly the person the widow said would visit, or someone interfering for reasons of his own? The conversation circles for a few more minutes until patience is finally exhausted. “Let me be even more direct than I already have been,” Schindler declares. “You strike me as having surprisingly little knowledge of the mission you were sent on. Explain yourself, or our meeting must end.”

The assistant’s face reddens slightly, and he adjusts his eye patch. “Very well, sir. I hoped I might be able to settle things by way of some tacit understanding, but I see that I shall have to be more candid than I would have wished. I admit that my presence here is not for whatever reason you were given. What I am about to tell you, I ask that you share with no one. The woman who wrote to you is my mother. She is not of sound mind.”

“Good Lord.” Schindler is genuinely surprised, though on reflection need not have been. Fools beget their own kind.

“Please don’t ask for more — it is too private and too painful. My mother’s fantasies and obsessions have led to so many problems.”

“The orphanage…?”

“There is none.”

“The house where she was governess? The Colonel?”

“She mentioned those? I assume them to be fictional too.”

“Her husband, then? Surely he must have been real, unless you yourself are not.”

The widow’s son nods mournfully. “I never knew him. Cholera, not long after I was born. Sir, please spare me from having to speak too much of a condition that brings shame and anguish. My mother’s mind is sick — that is all you need know. For her sake, and mine and my sister’s, I try to limit the damage she causes. I’ve come here to ask that you give me back whatever she sent you.

“There is no page by Beethoven?” Schindler asks.

“Of course not.”

“She never spoke with Wagner?”

The son laughs bitterly. “She said that? The fertility of her imagination still has capacity to surprise me. You’ll give me her letter, then?”

Schindler is too bemused to give it a second thought. He rises stiffly from his chair. “Excuse me while I fetch it.”

Returning from his study shortly after, he sees the son standing at the window, looking out at something or other with his one eye. Give him the damned letter and get him out of here. He goes and hands him the envelope.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Now I think you should leave.”

“Of course.”

Schindler has the maid show him out. It’s only later while working at his desk that he notices he still has a part of the widow’s letter that he forgot to put back inside the envelope — the page of music.

Schindler is about to tear it up, then relents. One never knows what use can come from even the most modest of items. If there’s any prospect at all of embarrassing Richard Wagner some day, this rubbish could be worth keeping.

The widow’s son slips from Schindler’s mind until later that week when he chances upon a newspaper report. Misadventure of a commercial traveller. Frenchman fallen from train. Found dead near Vilbel. It has to be him, Schindler thinks, reading the victim’s age and appearance, and the testimony of fellow passengers who understood him to have been a Parisian businessman. Why no mention of the eye patch? Then Schindler realises that the dead man could not possibly have been the person he met, for this one got on at Friedberg. He was travelling towards Schindler’s town, not away from it.

Beethoven and Philosophy

Why didn’t he think of it before? So much easier since Robert decided to use third person. Looking back through what he wrote — about Beethoven, his father, everything — he realised how much difficulty had stemmed from inconvenient choice of pronoun. Now he’s more comfortable, speaking of himself as character in his own narrative as he asks the philosophical question: what is a musical work?

Take for instance the Piano Trio in D major, Opus 70 No. 1. The thing itself is not a particular performance or recording, not an actual sound — those are representations, interpretations, instances, embodiments. Nor can it be the printed score in all its various editions, or even one in Beethoven’s hand, or a copyist’s, riddled with ambiguity, forever open to misreading, re-reading, revision. Musicologists and auction houses can legislate on an autograph or urtext but that doesn’t answer the question of existence, of ontology. What does it mean for the work to be — or not to be? The slow movement reminded Carl Czerny of Hamlet, hence the nickname Ghost Trio that is an inseparable part of its being — or non-being.

Characteristic of ghosts and spectres is that unlike spirit they are considered perceivable as quasi-entities localisable in space and time; an immaterial pseudo-presence that is the posthumous trace of body, thought, will. They are phenomena — appearances — though the spectre is no mere spectrum or trick of the light; it’s supposed to be somehow real, whatever that would mean. But ghosts don’t actually exist, of course. They’re ideas, Robert writes, concepts.

Is the Ghost Trio a concept? Certainly there can be a conception of it — Robert could run through it in his head if he chose. Yet there is always a difference between concept and what is conceived. We can have concepts of fear or love — they’re not the same as being afraid or in love. The Ghost Trio is not the hearing, thinking, reading or playing of it. We have the historical fact of its writing — there was a time when it did not exist. Yet who shall say when it is no more? Perhaps it died when it left the composer’s ability to alter it, or was born orphaned to a world that owns it, commodity of alienated labour.

Pointless to treat it as autonomous pattern of sonic frequencies, semiotic code of differences and repetitions speaking only to itself. Relevant is that it emerged contemporaneously with Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Choral Fantasia, a sonata for cello, another trio — and numerous works by other people. The history not only of the composer but of the world itself is reflected in the work, and it is in the quality of reflection that we begin to seek the quality of art.

E.T.A Hoffmann reviewed the D major trio in 1813 and found it less dark (düster) than many of Beethoven’s compositions, imbued with “cheerful warmth”. In the middle movement Hoffmann discerned “a gentle, soul-soothing melancholy” and a murmuring reminiscent of aeolian harp or glass harmonica. A quarter of a century later, Carl Czerny found the movement geisterlich (ghastly/ghostly), and was reminded of the opening scene of Hamlet, where Horatio is horrified/harrowed by the dead king’s spectral likeness.

It horrors mee with feare and wonder. (First Quarto).

It harrows me with fear and wonder. (Modern version).

Robert broke off to get some fresh air. Not much rain in the last couple of days, the weather predicted to remain fine, so he decided to risk his footwear and blood pressure on a route he hadn’t tried before, rising gently away from the house to a wooded area that gradually grew denser, wilder. There the track narrowed, still dry enough and firm, while tiny insects swarmed in sap-scented air, picked out by sunlight filtering through high branches. Exhilarating to be alone there, he writes, free of the Hyle Centre’s implicit atmosphere of competitiveness and aroma of status anxiety, hence a tinge of disappointment on becoming aware of a figure some distance ahead, partially visible amid the forest, soon becoming recognisable as Jagoda Borkowska, plump professor of nanoparticles and stooping forager of wild food. She was uphill from the path, earnestly bent in search of anything edible, and Robert wondered if he should pass below without disturbing her, quite sure neither of them was in the mood for idle chat. She happened to turn, perhaps having heard movement, straightened and looked down toward him, wiping her forehead with the back of a gloved hand. Feeling obliged to acknowledge, Robert called hello.

“Going further?” she called back.

“Yes.”

“You won’t get far.”

“Why not?”

“Landslip. Didn’t you see the sign?”

“No.”

“There’s a sign. You didn’t see?”

“No.”

“You won’t get far.”

She turned to resume gathering and plucking, and after contemplating for the briefest of intervals the proud spectacle of her Gore-Tex rump, Robert continued along the track, wondering if he would encounter any evidence of the minor disaster she’d made such a song and dance about. He would have noticed had there been a sign — she was probably remembering one that had since been taken away, no longer needed.

In ten or twelve minutes he came to it; a confusion of splintered timber barring his way, where a section of the hillside had slid like ice from a roof, bringing trees and soil, turning root systems from horizontal to vertical, smothering the path and the slope beyond. She was right after all — but did he really have to retrace his steps, walk past her again and get a booster shot of Schadenfreude? Never mind his shoes, he could clean those later — it was only some recumbent trunks and churned turf he need negotiate. A glance uphill to his left and down to the right convinced him that ascent was the better option, so he began picking his way over the debris, stepping where possible on firm wood. A slip could mean a broken ankle, emergency phone call — was there a strong enough signal? Best not check right now — concentrate instead on maintaining a steady footing.

Stepping past scarred earth where a felled fir’s lifeless under-structure jutted forlornly skyward, a patch of dull red cloth caught Robert’s eye; an old rag protruding from excavated soil. He didn’t consider investigating, then began to notice other items disinterred by the upheaval; relics older than the toppled trees no longer concealing them. There might once have been some kind of midden here, Victorian landfill, though why in so inaccessible a place? Buried treasure was Robert’s next thought; less likely but more romantic, enough to make him rise further, picking his way carefully, spotting scraps of rotted paper, an old hammer, a filthy button — and a bone. It looked like the broken end of a small limb, surely an animal’s, though darker notions followed; first of murderous brigands, then a threat more recent and frightening — the radiation experiments Rostov spoke of. This rubbish might be contaminated, discarded according to lax Cold-War standards and forgotten about, yet still emitting invisible rays or toxic gases. Robert stopped dead, turned and slowly retraced his steps towards where he’d first caught sight of the detritus. The filthy red rag, edged with yellow, had been somebody’s clothing — military attire, perhaps. The brass button another part of it. A hammer from the workshop, mutton bone from squaddies’ broth — or nuclear casualty. Surely if any of this trash were genuinely dangerous someone would have taken action by now. Rostov’s tale was a fantasy, Robert reminded himself, present unease simply a consequence of being alone in an unfamiliar place. Stepping on something sharp and loose he pulled his foot clear and saw, half unburied, a small dirty block of wood like a cracked brick, rusted iron nails driven into it, points exposed where it had split; an ancient brown thing that had been hiding quietly until thrown into daylight. Radiation sickness no, tetanus maybe. Best go back after all.

Jagoda was still in search of whatever she was looking for. Robert hoped to escape notice, but his footfalls betrayed him again.

“You saw,” she confirmed.

“Quite a state. You’re sure about the sign?”

“Of course.”

He got all the way to the house without spotting it, hopelessly inconspicuous or entirely non-existent. Yuri was dozing alone in the common room without the company of any liquid that might make him wish to stir, so Robert went to his room — having taken a moment to remember which was now his, following all that fuss over plumbing.

Back to the Ghost Trio. Strindberg almost named a play after it, Robert writes, though chose Ghost Sonata, apparently thinking of the piano work Schindler had linked with The Tempest and Czerny with a horse. Strindberg’s Swedish title Spöksonaten is rarely rendered Spook Sonata for fear it will look silly — but are ghosts and spectres any less laughable?

A text from Caroline Hines. It can wait.

In 1807 Beethoven wrote an overture for Heinrich von Collin’s verse drama Coriolan, about the Roman general who also featured in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. E.T.A. Hoffmann admired the music but thought Beethoven’s romantischer Genius better suited to Hamlet or Macbeth. In fact Collin began a version of Macbeth and Beethoven jotted an idea for it alongside sketches for the D major piano trio, leading to a suggestion in the 1870s that the “ghost” movement was actually connected with Scottish witches — whose chant in Collin’s version is “Huhuhuhu!” Beethoven also considered setting Collin’s Bradamante, but like every other opera project except Fidelio, never saw it through.

Rather than the spurious spectrality of the Ghost Trio, Robert writes, there is in all of Beethoven’s mature music an awareness of afterlife. Beethoven supposedly claimed the Hammerklavier Sonata would still be played fifty years hence (according to a pianist who said he heard it from someone at the publisher’s), but whatever Beethoven’s hopes for posterity, he could never have imagined the fate of Für Elise, the Moonlight Sonata or any other of his works that have been deconstructed as ringtones, TV themes, lift music. Who has not first encountered the Fifth Symphony as parody or quotation? For Robert it might have been ELO’s cover of Roll Over Beethoven; the Sixth Symphony was an advert for Tweed by Lentheric (“Everything you wear says something about the kind of woman you are.”) Haunted by memes, music becomes re-distanced by pseudo-aura, precognised as always already other than itself.

Now it’s a WhatsApp message from Graham Vinyer — further gems from the Axtoun digital archive. First was Vinyer’s email reporting “something about Beethoven” in the document inventory, then a hushed conversation in the photocopier room telling Robert it might be possible to dig out the item itself from gigabytes of scanned microfiche, though it was needle-in-haystack stuff and highly naughty you understand — the air of subterfuge simply rendering all the more ridiculous Vinyer’s pose as would-be conspirator and self-styled guardian of national secrets. Relocating the digidrama to the encrypted security of WhatsApp, Vinyer next reported his discovery that a century ago, Mrs Gwendoline Hyle had been exchanging letters with one Heinrich Behring in handwritten German almost as incomprehensible to Vinyer as to the anonymous MoD clerical assistant who’d made out nothing more than the frequently mentioned name Beethoven. Why Robert should give a damn about a couple of longdead music-loving pen-friends, one of whom happened to be wife of a semi-notable doctor, has since proved beyond the comprehension of Graham Vinyer, whose latest update says with affected nonchalance, Might have found more. Speak at dinner? The appointment quickly quashed, however, and Robert’s mental reply deleted, when he reads Caroline’s text and finds he’s invited to dine privately tonight with her and some guests. Well, well — another quality control exercise for the board. Glad he brought something smart to wear, just in case.

Robert tries to remember when he first heard the Ghost Trio. It would have been in Kenzie, in his early teens, on the radio. Certainly before he watched Samuel Beckett’s television play Ghost Trio, which he thinks of finding on YouTube — and there it is, the first time he’s seen it since 1977. A bare and featureless grey room where a man sits silently bent over something on his lap, face not visible, only tangled white hair. Robert knows the man holds a small portable cassette player, apparent source of excerpts to be heard from the middle movement of the piano trio. Rain falls outside, and when the man goes to open the door he finds a small boy standing there. The child looks up at him, slowly shakes his head, then turns and walks away into darkness. Is the child a ghost? Futile to ask what the play means, or the music in it, as if either were some coded message requiring only the mechanical ingenuity of an Enigma machine to unlock it. Yet in Robert’s mind the white-haired man is his father, the empty room is what became of the house that had been his home.

Robert spent many hours there, over several visits, shifting and hiding Joe Coyle’s clutter, only for the effort to prove wasted when Joe quietly died and everything could be disposed of. Having taken a few mementoes — very few — Robert left the rest to a clearance firm who charged him a couple of thousand to take the whole lot away, then once he got the call that the job was finished, drove up from Durham to see what remained of his parents’ exenterated property, now his own to sell. The walls and carpets showed outlines of vanished furniture, like shadows of Hiroshima victims. In the bedroom upstairs, Robert stood looking at the discoloured rectangle where his mother had lain, unable to get up. Yes, better to say it in third person, Robert writes. As if all of it happened to someone else.

He needs to come up with a programme note for the two piano sonatas Alphonse will play. Opus 53 is a ready-made story thanks to Count Waldstein. Opus 110 is harder, with no nickname to fall back on. Beethoven, aged fifty, was in poor health and in need of money — there were medical and legal bills to pay, his teenage nephew’s boarding school fees, while a setting of the Catholic Mass for Archduke Rudolph remained unfinished, the Ninth Symphony barely started, and inflation ate at his savings. Negotiating semi-honestly with several publishers simultaneously, he promised one of them three piano sonatas. The first, Opus 109, was soon finished. The other two took longer, and turned out to be his last.

A reviewer at the time saw Opus 110 as the heartfelt outpouring of a man stricken by deafness, looking back on happier times. The first movement was “the lament of the lonely one, full of tenderest expressions of wistfulness.” The second was “strangely wild”, its main theme unexpectedly interweaving a drinking song the reviewer saw as scornful comment on everyday trivialities and low pleasures Beethoven had risen above. What the reviewer didn’t spot was the main theme’s similarity to another folk song, “Our little cat had kittens”, that Beethoven had recently set as a joke. The final movement juxtaposes passages in the style of Sebastian Bach with a wordless recitative and “song of lamentation” — the melody Robert heard Claudia sing — reminiscent of Bach’s son, Emanuel. The sense of sacred oratorio was not lost on the reviewer, Adolf Marx, who compared the movement with a painting by Correggio of Mary Magdalene. Ironic nickname for Opus 110: Holy Ghost Sonata.

Afternoon coffee in the common room — refreshment taken from the unattended table to the window bay where Yuri was now awake and standing with a young lady recently arrived whose first description of herself to Robert was, “I stitch things together.” She left to resume fabricating in the art barn, then in a low voice so as not to be overheard by the half dozen others present, Robert asked Yuri about the landslip. Had he heard? Might it be hazardous? The physicist shrugged and said that given the complicated history of Axtoun House, of which he knew little more than rumour, it was probably best to avoid touching any strange object found in the surrounding area.

“I kicked something with my foot — a block of wood with nails in it. Could there be contamination on my shoe?”

Yuri smiled. “Maybe we check with Geiger counter. But thorium not too dangerous. Unless they use for reactor, I suppose, and make other isotopes.”

“Might they have done that?”

“What I’m told was different.”

“Particles from the future?”

“In manner of speaking.”

Robert had guessed the strange experiment a hoax, now he wondered if it was a cover story. “Can we be sure they cleaned up whatever they were doing?”

“Can be sure of nothing. So relax, my friend.”

Robert moved closer, almost whispering. “I found out something about… two people who aren’t here.”

Yuri looked momentarily puzzled by what he had — or possibly hadn’t — heard. “You found?”

“Not their real names.”

“Names?”

Graham Vinyer entered and was approaching, bringing with him his own atmosphere of secrecy, greeting both men with pleasantries sufficiently redundant to make Yuri soon excuse himself. Robert would have done the same, had he not owed Vinyer a reply to his earlier message. “Something in the archive?” Robert said cheerfully.

“Let’s talk after dinner.”

“Can’t manage, I’m afraid. How about now?”

“Not here. Fancy a stroll?”

Conditions beyond the window remained benign. “Just round the house.”

“Of course.”

It was not until they were outside that Vinyer became more expansive. “I’m sorry I have to be furtive. I hope it doesn’t appear ridiculous.”

“Not at all.”

“Only I had to sign all sorts of clearance forms and don’t want to get in any trouble.”

“Perfectly understandable.”

They embarked on Star Circuit, a route from which you could allegedly get a good view of the night sky free of urban light pollution, perhaps even see the northern lights on occasion, though Robert had only ever traversed the path in daylight. “More about that fellow Behring?” he asked, feigning interest.

“All a bit of a mess. The archive, I mean.”

“Good old Ministry of Defence.”

“Well, it was the 1960s. Card indexes and so forth.”

“Somebody digitised it, though?”

“Not very well, I’m afraid. Pre-millennium, I assume.”

What Vinyer’s treasure chest apparently amounted to was a flash drive crammed with a vast and varied assortment of files, many of a defunct type accessible only to an IT expert or determined twelve-year-old, few of which could be of any possible significance to modern humanity. The historian’s virtual delving and hyperbolic secrecy were, Robert supposed, attempted compensation for some kind of personal deficiency, emotional or physical. They reached “Observatory (site of)”.

“I was able to find a letter,” Vinyer said as they stood on a circle of concrete reputedly offering best opportunity of witnessing the infinite, weather permitting.

“About Beethoven?”

“I think it’s mostly about someone called Martha.” The sweetheart or relative of one or other character in Vinyer’s private narrative of dead souls. “I know I shouldn’t, but I could email you the letter. Since you’d understand it.”

“You want me to translate for you?”

Vinyer looked suddenly deflated — had Robert allowed impatience to become too clearly visible, or had the historian been struck by the inconsequence of his own idea?

“I mean, it might be relevant. I’m not sure, but I think they’re discussing something they’re writing together. A novel or play.”

“Mrs Hyle and this man Behring?”

“Yes.”

“About Beethoven?”

“Possibly.”

“You realise it would be one among hundreds or thousands in existence.”

“Well, never mind.”

Point taken, Star Circuit abbreviated. Back to the Holy Ghost Sonata, though for God’s sake don’t call it that in the programme note, Robert writes. He’s also thought of a suitably ironic nickname for Vinyer that came to mind just now while relating what occurred outside, but it’s best left unsaid.

When Beethoven offered three piano sonatas to the publisher Schlesinger in the spring of 1820 he wasn’t exactly hard up. His annuity was comparable to the salary of a chief court musician; royalties brought his income close to a senior civil servant’s. But Vienna was an expensive place to live, and the economy was a mess. There were two currencies, coin and paper florins with different values. Gold was safer — Beethoven asked Schlesinger for 40 ducats per sonata, worth 180 florins in coin. That was more than his housekeeper earned in a year.

The greatest insight into Beethoven’s day-to-day life in this period comes from his conversation books, since as well as enabling people to communicate with him without shouting, they were a handy place where Beethoven could jot personal memoranda, shopping lists, newspaper items, musical fragments or anything else he felt an urge to record. Beethoven probably got through a few hundred conversation books by the end of his life, of which Schindler took as many as he could, eventually selling 137 to the Prussian Royal Library. It was not until the 1970s that scholars realised many of the entries in Schindler’s handwriting were insertions made after Beethoven’s death. Part of Schindler’s aim may have been to exaggerate his closeness to Beethoven when there were other men far closer.

One was Franz Oliva, a bank employee and capable linguist sixteen years younger than Beethoven. How they met isn’t clear, but it would have been around the time when the thirty-nine-year-old composer was working on the Emperor Concerto. Soon after, Beethoven dedicated a set of piano variations to Oliva — an honour that Schindler would never receive. Its theme was to become one of Beethoven’s best-known tunes, remodelled as a Turkish march for The Ruins of Athens. When Dr Malfatti recommended spa treatment at Teplitz, Beethoven took Oliva there with him. They quarrelled, and Oliva left two days before Beethoven, but the following year they discussed going to England together. Again they fell out, more seriously, and Beethoven went alone to Teplitz, where his letter to the Immortal Beloved has attracted infinitely more attention than whatever went on with Oliva. Most tantalising is the thought that the Piano Sonata Opus 81a, “Farewell, Absence, Return”, dedicated to Beethoven’s paymaster Archduke Rudolph, was written at a time when Oliva must have meant more to him personally.

According to Schindler’s biography, Oliva emigrated to Russia in 1817, never to return. Schindler must have known this was untrue — Oliva came back from there in 1819 and quickly re-established himself as Beethoven’s closest companion, as the conversation books make clear. On a November Saturday we find them lunching together — Oliva reports advice from a neighbouring diner about horseradish as a cure for deafness, and asks Beethoven about progress on the Missa Solemnis and Diabelli Variations, both coming along slowly. A few days later, Oliva advised Beethoven about securing a loan — he could use one of his bank shares as security and repay it later with earnings from the Mass. On the evening of December 16th, Oliva was at Beethoven’s latest residence to celebrate the composer’s birthday. Oliva had helped him find the apartment and was supervising installation of a new stove.

The conversation books for 1820 are replete with monetary calculations, mostly by Oliva who had better numeracy than Beethoven. We see them shopping together — Oliva writes that a hat they’re looking at costs 16 florins, then at the market informs Beethoven white pepper is healthier than black. In March 1820, Beethoven sat for a now-famous portrait showing him holding the manuscript of the Missa Solemnis, pencil in hand. In fact he may have been writing to himself in his conversation book, letting off steam about the ongoing guardianship proceedings. Oliva thought the finished portrait a fine likeness; it was commissioned by Beethoven’s friends, Franz and Antonie Brentano — the latter a leading Immortal Beloved contender.

In April Beethoven made plans to rent a summer house at Mödling, a few miles south of Vienna. Oliva saw to the arrangements, and in the midst of a conversation about transport and bedding (cotton sheets 10 florins, silk 18 florins), commented on a “new little piece” that he suggested could form part of a sonata for the publisher Schlesinger. If we’ve anyone to thank for Beethoven’s last piano sonatas, apart from Beethoven himself, then perhaps it’s Oliva, since Beethoven wrote to Schlesinger the following week making his offer of three. He went to Mödling at the start of May, and Oliva was a frequent visitor during the following four months. Beethoven also made regular trips back to Vienna, sometimes spending the night at Oliva’s apartment. By mid-September he’d finished the first sonata for Schlesinger, the “little piece” having become its first movement.

In October Beethoven made enquiries about a house and vineyard for sale in Mödling, telling the seller he was acting on behalf of a “friend”. Who the friend was, or whether he even existed, is unknown — the conversation book that might have told us is lost. Soon after, Oliva went back to Russia for good. In 1854 a Beethoven scholar went looking for him in Saint Petersburg and was told he’d died from cholera six years earlier. All his correspondence had been destroyed in a fire.

None of that could go in Robert’s programme note, however — and soon it was time for dinner, the arrangement being that Frieda Delgado would escort him to the venue. “It’s in the Club Room,” she said as they made their way from her office to a part of the ground floor that was new to him.

“Whose club?”

“Just a name. There’s no club.”

They came to a narrow flight of carpeted steps leading downwards.

“It’s a cellar?”

“Not exactly.”

At the bottom they passed an unoccupied seating area with red plush upholstery incongruously resembling a 1970s discotheque, silent and deserted.

“Yuri Rostov told me the basement levels were filled in after the military moved out.”

“Only some.”

Their destination was a door at the far end that Frieda pushed open to reveal a small, tastefully minimalist dining room where Caroline Hines was seated at a candle-lit glass-topped table with two other people, one of whom Robert quickly recognised as the Dutch sponsor. Frieda urged Robert inside and departed; the guests rose and Caroline did the introductions, first names only. The Dutchman was Martin (or Marten, Maarten — making it even harder for Robert to try googling after). His female companion Linda (Lynda? Linder?) was around the same age, late thirties or early forties, and sounded American but could have been from anywhere. At no point would it be made clear exactly why Robert was invited, making all the more transparent the procedural nature of the event. This was effectively an interview for the residency they’d already given him, just to make sure he merited it.

Asking his interrogators anything about themselves was out of the question, so Robert wasn’t destined to discover whatever personal or professional relationship existed between Martin and Linda, nor how they had attained the comfortable affluence they effortlessly exuded during the following two hours. In fact, reporting now on the curious dinner party last night, Robert realises how little can be said about any of it. Most memorable was the main course, brochet aux girolles, about which Caroline indirectly warned him as they first sat down, saying, “You do eat fish, don’t you?” Confirmation of how well briefed she was, and prelude to what the waiting staff brought after the starter: baked pike, courtesy of the Dutchman who explained how he caught it. The slain creature had mercifully been chopped beyond recognition, the grey-white steaks on each diner’s plate giving an aquatic impression vague enough not to be revolting. More recognisable were the accompanying mushrooms, though it was not until Robert had tasted several that he learned they’d been provided by Jagoda Borkowska. That the last fourteen hours since then have not been interrupted by vomiting, diarrhoea or death seems a minor miracle.

Amid general chit-chat about food, leisure, holiday destinations and other trivia anyone could peruse in a magazine at the dentist, Robert was gently probed about his research. Previous conversation with Caroline taught him to exercise caution; ample wine supplied a counterbalancing urge to expatiate. He began with his Bergson book, scheduled for autumn next year, where in order to give a personal touch, the introduction will describe an incident from Robert’s own childhood. Lying in bed one morning, aged about ten and looking up at the white ceiling, he saw a tiny dark dot he took to be a stain, then noticed it slowly moving. Young Robbie watched the creature for some time before realising it was getting no closer to where he’d been convinced it was heading. It was a stationary mark after all, its motion a trick of the eye. This, he told his dinner companions, was the first time he became dimly aware of what he would later know as the problem of epistemic immediacy; and sensing that Linda was the only person who understood or was interested in what he was saying, he addressed chiefly to her the insight that came in his teens when he remembered the phantom spider and wondered at what speed he’d imagined it moving. It looked slow — but how slow? All he could do was guess a number — there was nothing to which the perception could be compared, no means of calibrating it. Later he would read Bergson and find similar thoughts expressed more elegantly. What if the passage of time is like the dot on the ceiling? Martin interrupted, half-remembering Heraclitus. The point, said Robert, is that there is no flow — we only think there is.

Caroline glanced at her watch, possibly hoping to refute him or simply change the subject, then after a lengthy detour from philosophy the conversation turned, as he suspected it might, to the short TV appearance that had propelled him to where he now sat eating crème brûlée. Caroline again asked about the crazy eighteenth-century Frenchman whose name she couldn’t remember, and Robert reported the little he knew about his theories that supposedly anticipated modern science. Linda asked the source of what might well have been internet flim-flam, so Robert told her the information came from Alan Crouch, emeritus professor of modern history, and Caroline echoed the name as if committing it to some creaking mental Rolodex. This is how it works, Robert thought sadly. Next it’ll be Professor Crouch getting invited, then whoever Crouch should happen to mention over some locally slaughtered wildlife. An endless chain of random associations.

Terminus of the event was a manoeuvre as carefully choreographed as had been the beginning, Frieda Delgado arriving to escort Robert back to his room at what must have been pre-planned chucking-out time. There, tipsy and aware he should go to bed, he poured some whisky and checked his emails. Vinyer was pleased to report that books by J.W.N. Sullivan were after all listed in the Axtoun House collection — Robert’s failure to spot any in the library might be because they were stored elsewhere. That Vinyer alone would know the existence of a second library struck Robert as depressingly characteristic. Attached to the email was a file the historian said was a letter he’d found. Robert expected it to be part of the German correspondence Vinyer had been so unnecessarily excited about; instead what opened on screen was in English.

Dear Mrs Sullivan,

Regarding your letter to Dr Hyle dated 20th of October last, I regret to inform you that the doctor died three years ago, and Axtoun House is now in different hands. It was nevertheless interesting to learn that your late husband may have visited here, and possibly worked with Dr Hyle on an unusual psychiatric case. Moreover, when your letter was passed to me I was struck to discover that you were acquainted with a writer I also chanced to meet, not long before she died, and you will appreciate what a deep impression she left. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say she has influenced the subsequent course of my life.

I should be curious to know more about the case you say your late husband investigated. A large quantity of Dr Hyle’s files do remain here, though I believe them to be in poor order, with no one assigned to handle them, all of us being so hard pressed with other work. However, should you be willing to share your late husband’s notes with me, they might give sufficient clues for discovering whatever Dr Hyle recorded of the affair. Of course this would fall outside my normal duties, and might even cause me some difficulty, were my superiors to find out. Yet I should be most willing to do it as a matter of personal interest between ourselves, if we can conduct arrangements discreetly.

Rather than send anything by post, it would be better if documents could be delivered by hand. I have no opportunity to be in Surrey, however a friend will be in Woking next week, and I wonder if you might be willing to meet him there? He’s a frightfully nice chap who works in the Cabinet Office, presently dealing with Civil List pensions, I believe. He’ll be at the railway station around three o’clock on Tuesday, easy to spot, wearing an eye patch.

Do please accept my sincere condolences on the loss of your husband, and I hope that through this endeavour, as well as consolation and enlightenment, you might also find some more tangible profit at what is undoubtedly a time of need.

Vinyer must have searched for the name Sullivan and assumed the dead man who visited Axtoun House was the same one who wrote the books; a charming possibility if also rather slim, and certainly less compelling than the prospect of a good night’s sleep. Yet before Robert could shut down and turn in, he was disturbed by a knock at his door, a quiet female voice beyond. Thinking it must be Deborah, he went to open and was surprised to see Claudia looking more than usually troubled, disdainfully holding a key card as though it had just lost her a poker match.

“Is no work.”

Had she been trying to enter his room in a state of confusion? No, he realised she was gesturing along the corridor, and on stepping out, saw her indicating the door to the neighbouring suite.

“You’re looking for Baozhai?” he said, and Claudia’s brow furrowed. “You do know that’s Baozhai’s room?”

She contradicted with a head flick, setting her voluminous dark hair in motion. “Is for me. Card no work.”

A coherent explanation assembled itself. Baozhai’s fellowship had ended, or she’d fallen victim to the Hyle Centre’s penchant for shuffling souls around. Either way, Robert had a new neighbour, and the sooner she was safely in her room, the better. Going to the recalcitrant door together, he took from her the problematic card and unlocked effortlessly.

“You might have been holding it the wrong way.”

“Good night.”

Robert expected to be woken by scale practice but this morning hasn’t noticed any sound from next door, nor saw her at breakfast where he sat with Rostov and told him Vinyer’s suggestion that Axtoun House might have been visited by J.W.N. Sullivan. It would be a curious coincidence.

“But what mean coincidence, my friend?”

Now he looks at a letter Beethoven wrote near the end of 1820, grumbling about complicated publishing negotiations over the unfinished Missa Solemnis, calling the whole thing a “morass” he’s been led into by a “weak cardinal”, Archduke Rudolph. Money wasn’t his only issue: Oliva’s departure for Russia coincided with a marked decline in Beethoven’s health. At the start of 1821 he was seriously ill with rheumatic fever. In March — still owing two sonatas to Schlesinger — he wrote that he’d been laid up for weeks. Next was jaundice, and in September he was advised to have treatment at a spa near Vienna. While being driven back, Beethoven dozed in the carriage and dreamt about journeying to distant lands, and about his friend Tobias Haslinger, to whom he wrote afterwards with a characteristic disregard for punctuation that English translators generally tidy up, though Robert doesn’t.

I dreamt I travelled very far to Syria no less to India no less — back again to Arabia no less, finally I came even to Jerusalem no wonder the holy city raised thoughts of the holy books, when now too the name Tobias came to me, and how naturally came to mind as well our little Toby and his tobifying.

In Hebrew legend a man was blinded by birds, and God sent an angel in disguise to take the man’s son Tobias on a journey leading to a cure for the father and a bride for the son. The cure — burnt fish entrails — also exorcised the bride of a demon that had killed her previous husbands. Regardless of whether any of that was in Beethoven’s mind while he slept, the dream gave him a musical canon on the name Tobias which went out of his head as soon as he woke. Driving next day in the same carriage, the canon came back to him and he wrote it out. Beethoven ended the letter by playfully advising Tobias, “sing every day the Epistles of Saint Paul, go every Sunday to Father Werner who will tell you about the little book that will bring you straight to heaven.” Werner was the erstwhile author of The Templars in Cyprus, former love rival of Goethe, now Catholic preacher.

Robert is interrupted by a knock — not Claudia this time. He’s still a bit dazed as he now describes finding Alphonse at the threshold telling him in a hushed and urgent tone, “We need to talk.” Once inside, Alphonse seemed calmer though no less strange. “You were with Claudia last night.” Said with a mild Yorkshire accent.

“She was locked out of her room.” Still trying to compute the accent. Yuri knew all along.

“You went in with her.”

“No.”

“But she told you, didn’t she?”

“Told what?”

Alphonse wasn’t angry, but concerned. “Mind if I sit?”

Facts soon presented. Musical career interrupted by mental-health problems — hers, not his. Time in a psychiatric hospital. The singer’s young son taken into care. Alphonse explaining, “We’d already been invited here — under our other names.” New identities generously accepted as indulgence to groundless fears, acknowledgement of special need. “Keep this to yourself. For her sake.”

“Of course. Who else knows?”

“The management. Some delegates.”

“Deborah Shaw?”

“Never mind.”

“Deb asked me to write a programme note for your recital.”

“She did?”

A further twist — what’s she up to? Robert asked if a note was still needed, Alphonse agreed, and so they got to talking about Opus 110, Claudia’s troubles no longer mentioned, pianist and philosopher debating music from different directions while circling the more awkward issue like planets round an invisible star. Cordial parting to end a bizarre encounter, leaving Robert to ponder a situation so odd you couldn’t make it up. A sense of confusion to be utilised as precondition of artistic appreciation or intellectual insight — and never mind about the woman next door.

In January 1822 Beethoven finished the last two piano sonatas, and by his own account had been ill virtually the whole time he’d been writing them. He planned to dedicate Opus 110 to Antonie Brentano, but her name didn’t appear on Schlesinger’s printed score. Had it done so, the sonata might have come to be heard as memory of a hypothetical love affair — Antonie as Beethoven’s Magdalene. Opus 111, dedicated to the ever-useful Archduke Rudolph, has only two movements, the second slow. Schlesinger hesitated to pay, asking where the finale was. While Beethoven haggled, a new commission came in from Prince Nikolai Galitzin in Saint Petersburg, for three string quartets.

With Oliva gone, Beethoven was increasingly reliant on brother Johann, retired from pharmacy and living in Vienna with his wife Therese’s extended family while also owning a country estate and indulging in conspicuous displays of wealth. Johann’s handwriting occurs frequently in the conversation books, Therese’s only occasionally. At first she addressed Beethoven with the familiar du, then after what was presumably a telling-off, referred to him in respectful third person.

Opinion of Johann is illustrated by a curious entry from April 1823, when a stranger approached Beethoven in a coffee house, initially to share thoughts about deafness and possible treatments. In fleeting comments written between whatever they could hear of each others’ voices, there’s mention of galvanism and a remedy with fir twigs that the stranger has found in an ancient book he’s acquired. Giving his name as Sandra and proclaiming himself a fellow German, it seems he was a travelling supplier of medical goods during the war against Napoleon, possibly venturing as far as England. Johann bought a large amount of stock from him that he then sold on to the enemy at great profit, laying the foundation of his fortune. Sandra’s contempt for Johann’s dodgy dealings draws agreement from Beethoven, who says his brother’s lack of intellect and morality is proved well enough by his marriage. After taking Beethoven’s address so he can send him the fir-twig recipe, Sandra disappears entirely from recorded history.

The other person Beethoven now had to lean on was Schindler, whom he called a “miserable scoundrel” in a letter to his brother. Johann and Schindler hated each other, the former trying to persuade Beethoven to get rid of the latter, the latter taking revenge by publicising Therese’s failings. Her teenage daughter had been born out of wedlock, and now Therese was caught having an extra-marital affair. “For shame, is there no spark of manhood in you?!!!!!” Beethoven wrote angrily to Johann, calling Therese and her daughter Fat Lout and Bastard.

This was when the Ninth Symphony was being written; and in Berlin, Schlesinger was preparing to launch a new weekly music magazine with Adolf Marx as editor. Marx’s review of Opus 110, comparing it to Correggio’s painting, appeared on March 10th 1824. The following week Marx reviewed Opus 111 in the guise of an unreliable narrator, saying Beethoven might have been a second Mozart if he weren’t so fond of breaking rules simply for the sake of it. His earlier sonata in C-sharp minor had no opening allegro (could Beethoven not think of one?); his latest is without a finale. The narrator meets a pianist who explains that Opus 111 is a magnificent allegory; its first movement depicts Beethoven’s life, the second his death. The narrator interrupts, “Steady on, Yorick! Hold your horses — Beethoven’s still alive.” True, the pianist says, but Beethoven has already experienced death, and that is what he expresses.

It’s some hours after writing this that Robert goes to Deborah’s room, knocks on her door and calls out quietly when asked who’s there. She opens and he sees she’s in night attire; he suggests they should speak tomorrow but she invites him inside.

“I forgive you,” he says.

“What for?”

Robert explains what he knows of Alphonse’s deception and her own.

“This makes no sense.”

“I think so too.”

“He wrote me a note, asking me to speak with you.”

“That’s not what he claims.”

“I don’t believe you, Robert.”

“You think I’m the liar?”

Reconsidering it now, a few days later, he concedes he must be — for isn’t everyone? All that differs between people is the kind and extent of deception. This is what he thinks as he turns and sees still asleep beside him the woman who has become part of his life so unexpectedly. Vision of new possibilities stretching infinitely ahead, parallels converging to a point. All that was resisted is now embraced.

She stirs, sighs, still with her back to him, so that for a moment he thinks she might have opened her eyes, but when he gently touches her shoulder there’s no response. He withdraws his hand, needs the toilet, doesn’t want to disturb her. Today he’ll begin work properly, though still can’t be sure exactly what form it will now take — novelistic essay or essayistic novel. The truth of art is not propositional or factual, but instead liminal, spectral. Hence what Robert writes will have to be a kind of ghost story, and because ghosts don’t exist it will be a lie, and by proclaiming itself as such, paradoxical. Its theme will be the inescapably mediated way Beethoven’s music is received, its Being qua Being forever inaccessible, presented instead through semblance: as performance or meme, as story or picture, as succession of emotions, always as “as”, an unavoidable as-as-ination. Robert has a title and a single rule — there will be no rules. Everything is allowed.

Focus on Beethoven’s final years: the Missa Solemnis premiered in Saint Petersburg, the Ninth Symphony in Vienna four weeks later. The latter was meant to be dedicated to Tsar Alexander but he died before the score could be published. Czerny claimed Beethoven felt the choral finale was a mistake, Schindler denied it. Who’s to be believed? That the “Ode to Joy” would be recruited without irony by regimes as different as Nazi Germany and the European Union might tend to support Czerny’s version.

She stirs again, turning in half sleep so that now he sees her unconscious face. Beauty is overrated. And love? While Beethoven worked on the Late Quartets a new young man entered as successor to Oliva — civil servant and amateur violinist Karl Holz, whose surname, meaning wood, prompted many puns, including Beethoven’s observation that it was of neutral gender. Holz’s closeness to Beethoven naturally annoyed Schindler, who refused to be ejected from a final circle that also included Stephan von Breuning, friend since childhood, soon to be Beethoven’s executor. Did he know the end was coming? What sort of modulation should one look out for? The writer Ludwig Rellstab visited and found Beethoven yellow and sickly, yet still willing to discuss opera ideas. Rellstab attended a performance of the String Quartet in E-flat, Opus 127 — played through twice in a crowded room in a pub — and found it incomprehensible. When Beethoven asked afterwards what he thought of it, Rellstab wrote that he’d been profoundly moved, omitting to say it was by sadness.

We come to artworks like visitors to a building, Robert thinks, seeing only the most superficial features — a picture to be liked or disliked that hangs over wallpaper covering brick. What of this bedroom’s architecture and structure, the history of those who’ve occupied it? The suite’s official name must be recent, no older than the Hyle Centre. Privately, he’s told, it’s known as the Colonel’s apartment, after someone who died here.

By the summer of 1826 Beethoven had written most of his Late Quartets, and twenty-year-old nephew Karl van Beethoven was a struggling polytechnic student expressing suicidal thoughts. Holz was assigned to keep watch, but Karl escaped, bought a pair of flintlocks and went to a beauty spot near Vienna where he tried to shoot himself in the head. Flinching involuntarily, his first shot missed completely, the second only wounding him. Suicide was a crime; Karl told police that his uncle had driven him to the attempt, and for Beethoven it was the ultimate betrayal. Broken, wishing to avoid further scrutiny and disgrace, Beethoven finally accepted Johann’s long-standing offer to stay at his estate, going with Karl as soon as he was released from hospital. It was there that Beethoven completed what he guessed would be his last quartet, Opus 135, and as further capitulation penned a new finale for Opus 130, replacing a fugue that had left even his admirers puzzled.

It is in the foundations of an artwork that truthfulness lies buried — as Goethe’s mason said in Elective Affinities. Yet truth leaks out like vapour or spirit, unable to be contained by the material substance we mistake for its image. What is most essential in art is whatever is most resistant to explanation, Robert thinks, and sees her wake.

“Darling.”

He strokes her cheek, moves closer to kiss her, feels the warmth of her body. She rolls, gets out of bed and walks naked to the bathroom where she leaves the door open but is out of his view while urinating. He expects her to come back after the flush; instead he next hears the drumming of the shower whose note changes as she enters its flow. He should have gone to pee sooner, will wait for her to finish. Lying on his back, he stares at the ceiling. That dot when he was a child.

Beethoven returned to Vienna in December 1826 a sick man with less than five months left to live. There was to be no more music. Composer Anselm Hüttenbrenner said he and Therese were the only ones present at the last moment; Johann claimed he was the one there, holding the dying man in his arms — a secular Pietà. Next day a frantic search for share certificates was solved by Holz who knew the secret compartment where they’d been placed with the Immortal Beloved letter. The shares were worth about seven and a half thousand florins, and there was another thousand or so in cash. Stephan von Breuning secured Beethoven’s relics but didn’t live to see them auctioned a few months later. Buyers were looking for new music, not souvenirs, and there was little of significance. The autograph score of the Fifth Symphony went for six florins — less than the price of a pair of boots. Good that Schindler saved what he did.

Therese died in November 1828. She was only 41, but had wisely prepared for death, secretly making a will that ensured her daughter inherited half of Johann’s estate. When Johann died in 1848, Karl inherited the rest, adding to what his other uncle had already left him — a fortune he would never have enjoyed had his aim been better.

Cash from selling the house in Kenzie has been squatting like a toad in Robert’s bank account. Maybe it’s time he retired. He sees her come out wrapped in a towel; she offers little response to the comment he makes, passing her into the bathroom whose door he prefers to close. Why did Beethoven never produce a successor to Fidelio? A clue lies in the Missa Solemnis, whose most dramatic moment — an evocation of recent war — so offended some contemporary commentators that Schindler suggested it should be omitted altogether. Between the sacred oratorios of Handel and the mystic operas of Wagner, the masonic flummery of The Magic Flute provided a mid-point of sorts, but historical circumstances did not permit creation of the kind of musical drama that would most have suited Beethoven’s temperament. Hence the contradictions of his mature music. He lived at the right time for symphonies, the wrong time for opera. Naive historicism has been notably compared to a game-playing automaton worked by trickery; but in this case, Robert thinks while washing himself, naive reasoning might be as good as any. He emerges to find her already dressed in the jeans and blouse she wore yesterday, standing with something clenched in her left hand, and in her right the phone she scrolls with a free fingertip.

“My God,” she says. “Rostov’s dead.”

“What? He can’t be.” A pause. “You’re joking, aren’t you?” It would be in character.

“Went in his sleep,” she says without lifting gaze or finger from screen.

“I’m shocked.”

“He was old.”

Still waiting for her to admit she’s kidding. “What’ll happen now?”

She shrugs. “They’ll have to find someone else.”

“I mean, to him. Yuri.”

She turns and looks at him, as if puzzled anyone should ask. “He’s dead. There’s nothing left to happen.”

It must be true — Yuri’s dead. Never saw that one coming. Robert barely notices his lover’s movements, only senses an air of impatience, as if mortality were an inconvenience she could do without.

“Let’s get on with it.”

It takes a moment for him to understand what she means, seeing her go to the door.

“Right now?”

“Why not? You said you wanted.”

“I thought after breakfast.”

“No time like the present.” She slides the phone into her back pocket and raises the key that’s in her other hand as if it were a magic wand or dog treat. “Come on, Robert. Time to see the old library.”

When he first slept in this bedroom and she told him the door was to storage space, he’d assumed she meant no more than a cupboard. It was only after mentioning to her yesterday Vinyer’s comment about a second library, that she explained and promised to show him. Now she’s turning the lock, and when the door opens it releases a musty scent from the dark space beyond. She steps inside and switches on a light whose weak yellow glow sufficiently shows how neglected and untidy the place is, exactly as she described.

“No chance of finding anything here,” he says.

“You never know. Go on, have a rummage.”

She stays near the entrance while he moves forward and inspects grimy wall cabinets, half-open crates, a narrow gallery running all round the room with an upper tier of bookcases. What could have been superb is now a junk heap. It reminds him of the loft in Kenzie — hide everything away and forget about it. His phone chimes and he brings it from his pocket. Vinyer. Ignore it.

“Can you get something for me?” She points towards the far end of the room where he sees a metal door, near it a ladder giving access to the upper level. “See those jars? Could you bring me one? Would look nice in the kitchen.”

Antique pots arranged on the gallery — no way he’d walk up there, but could reach from the ladder. Slowly making his way over to it he pauses at a crate full of straw, maybe something fragile in there. Good that he can now start work properly, do it differently. Was it fair to describe his father as he did? Do the dead have feelings? He picks at the straw, uncovers nothing.

“The one at the end, if you can manage.”

“Alright.”

Beethoven didn’t speak about his father — what did he want to forget? In the entirety of his papers, his biographer Thayer uncovered just one reference expressing filial emotion, on an unfinished manuscript copy of a cantata by Emanuel Bach that Beethoven must have held on to from youth until the end of his life. Written down by my dear father.

“Bring it when your ready.”

Robert turns and sees she’s gone back through the open doorway to get on with something in her room. Another message comes on his phone, this time from Alphonse. Stay there. What does that mean? Must have been intended for someone else — Robert will message back once he’s finished here.

Beethoven thought of writing a fugue on the name Bach. Tribute to father or son? He would have learned Emanuel’s keyboard studies as a child, and taught them as an adult, so certainly knew the great Fantasia in C minor, to whose melodic line someone had the audacity to fit a paraphrase of Hamlet’s soliloquy — Sein oder Nichtsein — an affront the composer treated with praiseworthy magnanimity. Imitations of recitative in Emanuel Bach, as in Beethoven, heighten meaning through avoidance of concrete expression. Robert goes to the ladder and tests its first step, wanting to make sure it’ll hold his weight. Muscular stiffness and proprioceptive uncertainty match his age; he’s unused to physical exertion these days. Poor Yuri, can it really be true?

Proust memorably said of Flaubert that in his use of certain tenses, pronouns and prepositions he renewed humanity’s knowledge as much as Kant did with his categories. Robert would like to say something similar of Beethoven, regardless of how many times it may have been said already, or in how many ways. The most interesting philosophical questions are those easiest to pose yet hardest to formulate, and the music of Beethoven is of that kind. It’s no wonder that Adorno was never able to finish a book on the subject. To call any such effort complete would be submission to failure; to leave incomplete is to accept failure of higher order. Robert takes another step, steadying himself with one arm while reaching with the other to grasp at eye level the wooden gallery’s edge.

Goethe’s aphorism: beauty can never clarify itself. Inscription from the Temple of Isis that Beethoven kept on his desk: no mortal has lifted my veil. All that is clear is appearance; Being cannot be un-secreted because there is no secret. A movement in the doorway, she must be re-entering, though he doesn’t turn for fear of losing balance, instead lifts himself further so he can see over the ledge to the lidded jars, the nearest of which is within reach.

“Will this do?” he calls back, sliding the jar towards him and raising the lid to check if anything’s inside. Strong-scented powder.

“Yes.”

She sounds different. Dizzy, he swings. Sees a face of wood. Forgets everything. In his mind, as he faints, a question without answer. What’s her name?