The Rainaldi Quartet (2 page)

The Beethoven under our belts, I went into the kitchen to refill the carafe with wine and bring out a plate of biscuits. When I returned, Rainaldi was in the middle of a scurrilous joke about viola players. It seemed somewhat tactless, but he made due allowance for the fact that Father Arrighi played the viola by telling the joke very slowly.

‘More wine?' I said.

Rainaldi reached for his glass, but stopped suddenly. ‘I almost forgot,' he said. ‘What about something stronger?'

He went across to his violin case and bent down, opening a plastic carrier bag he'd brought with him and lifting out a bottle of malt whisky.

‘I brought this back from England.'

‘You've been to England?' I said. ‘When?'

‘Last week.'

‘You never said.'

‘It was an impulse decision.'

‘A holiday?' Father Arrighi asked.

‘Not exactly,' Rainaldi said vaguely. ‘More a sort of quest.'

‘A quest?' I said. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Fetch some glasses, Gianni.'

‘What sort of quest?' I said when I'd dug out some glasses from a cupboard and Rainaldi had filled them with whisky.

‘I can't say,' Rainaldi replied, enjoying the air of mystery he was creating around himself.

‘Why not?' Guastafeste asked.

Rainaldi waved a hand in the air. ‘It's too soon. I'll tell you another time.' He raised his glass to his lips and sampled the whisky. ‘Not bad. Not bad at all. Now, what are we going to play next? I fancy Smetana. What do you think, Gianni?'

‘Well, I'm not sure. What about Dvo
ák?'

Rainaldi turned to Father Arrighi. ‘Father?'

‘Dvo
ák for me too.'

‘Antonio?'

Guastafeste shrugged. ‘Dvo
ák's fine with me.'

‘Okay,' said Rainaldi. ‘Smetana it is then.'

*   *   *

Guastafeste stayed on after Rainaldi and Father Arrighi had left. He packed away his cello while I folded up the music stands and sorted through the quartet parts. My own violin I left out on top of the piano, the slackened bow next to it, ready for my practice in the morning. When I'd finished, with the music neatly stacked on the table, I went to the French windows and stepped out on to the terrace. It was cool outside, but not unpleasantly so. The warmth of the day lingers for a long time in summer. I could smell the scent of lavender and jasmine from the garden.

Guastafeste came out behind me and we sat in the chairs at the garden table, drinking more of the bottle of whisky Rainaldi had left behind, and talking intermittently. I'd known Guastafeste since he was a child. We were comfortable with each other, sitting there in the semi-darkness, watching the insects dancing in the light from the French windows.

‘I'd better be going,' Guastafeste said eventually, but he made no move to get up.

A heavy lethargy had settled over us, pinning us to our chairs so that we couldn't find the energy even to stand up. Then the piercing ring of the telephone broke through our torpor. I thought about ignoring it, but the bell kept going insistently, demanding to be answered. I dragged myself to my feet and went into the house. It was Clara, Rainaldi's wife.

‘Is Tomaso still there?' she said.

‘No, he left about…' I checked my watch and was astonished to see how late it had got ‘… about an hour ago.'

‘He hasn't come home. I'm worried, Gianni.'

‘Maybe he stopped off at his workshop,' I said.

‘I've rung there. There was no answer. What if he's had an accident, crashed the car?'

‘Calm yourself, Clara,' I said reassuringly, though my stomach was feeling suddenly unsettled. Rainaldi
had
had rather a lot to drink. ‘Antonio's still here. I'll get him to check and we'll call you back. Okay?'

Guastafeste was at my shoulder. He understood immediately what had happened. He called the control room at the
Questura.

‘No reports of any accidents,' he said, replacing the receiver.

I rang Clara back and told her.

‘Then where is he?' she said. ‘He's never been this late.'

‘Did he say he was going anywhere on his way home?'

‘Where would he go? He always comes straight home. Something's happened to him, I know it.'

‘Now, Clara…'

‘He could be in a ditch somewhere.' Her voice was rising, becoming more agitated. ‘Who would notice him? It's just a country road out where you live, Gianni. He could be seriously injured, bleeding to death. Oh God, where
is
he?'

‘Clara, stop imagining the worst.'

‘What else am I to imagine? He hasn't come home. He always calls if he's going to be late.'

‘Listen,' I said. ‘We'll go and look for him, if it will put your mind at rest, all right?'

‘Would you, Gianni? That's so kind.'

‘He might have simply broken down, or got a flat tyre. Stop worrying, Clara. I'll call you later.'

I put down the phone. Guastafeste was slipping on his jacket, folding his tie and stowing it away in a pocket.

‘I'll do it, it's on my way home anyway. You don't need to come with me,' he said.

‘No, I'll feel better if I do. Two pairs of eyes are better than one. I'd only worry if I stayed here.'

‘You think something's really happened?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Maybe he went to a bar.' Guastafeste paused. ‘You don't think he's got another woman, do you?'

‘Tomaso? Good God, no. I can't see it, can you? Besides, even if he did, he wouldn't be stupid enough to call in on her when his wife was expecting him home.'

We drove into Cremona, along the quiet, isolated lanes between my house and the city – Guastafeste at the wheel while I scanned the ditches, the fields for any sign of Rainaldi's car. We reached the outskirts of the city, a scattering of houses along the edges of the road, then the urban sprawl closed in around us oppressively, shutting out the night sky. The buildings were mostly in darkness, their occupants long gone to bed. Occasionally a car came towards us, its headlights and engine noise a jarring intrusion in the deserted streets. There was no one about. No pedestrians, no drunks stumbling home, no stranded motorists waiting for a lift. Guastafeste pulled into the kerb just before a crossroads.

‘Where now?' he said.

‘Let's try his workshop, just in case.'

Rainaldi's workshop was in a scruffy side-street off the Corso Garibaldi, not one of the more fashionable areas for violin-making in the city, but then Rainaldi was not a fashionable luthier. The road outside was crammed with parked vehicles so we left our car fifty metres further on and walked back along the pavement. The workshop was on the ground floor of a three-storey building. It was set back from the street, accessed through an archway which led into a small paved courtyard. There were no lights on in either the courtyard or Rainaldi's workshop, just an eerie yellowish sheen over the stonework from the lamps out on the street.

‘He doesn't appear to be here,' Guastafeste said.

‘Then where on earth is he?'

‘Probably home by now. We'll call Clara again and find they're tucked up in bed together.'

‘You got your mobile?' I said. ‘Antonio?'

Guastafeste was peering in through the window of the workshop, his hands cupped around his eyes to cut out the reflections from the glass. He'd gone very still.

‘Antonio?' I said again. ‘Your phone.'

He didn't appear to hear me. He moved away from the window and headed for the archway.

‘I'll be right back.'

When he returned, moments later, he was carrying the torch he kept in his car. He shone the beam through the workshop window. Something about his manner alarmed me.

‘What is it?' I said. I stepped towards the window, but Guastafeste shifted his position slightly to block me. He clicked off his torch.

‘Antonio, what's the matter?' I said.

Guastafeste didn't reply. He went to the workshop door. He took out his handkerchief, wrapped it carefully around the door handle, then depressed the lever. The door was locked. Guastafeste took a pace backwards, lifted his leg and smashed the sole of his shoe into the door. The wood around the lock splintered and the door flew open with a bang. Guastafeste stepped over the threshold. I made a move to follow him but he motioned me back.

‘You'd better stay outside, Gianni.'

I stared at him, bewildered. ‘Why? What's happened?'

Guastafeste flicked on the light switch just inside the door. I caught a glimpse of a figure slumped over a workbench in the middle of the room before Guastafeste closed the door behind him, shutting out my view. I could have gone to the window and looked in, but I didn't want to see. I didn't want to know. There was a sickness in my stomach, a ghostly touch of premonition on my neck that made me shiver.

Guastafeste came back out into the courtyard, his mobile phone in his hand.

‘Go and wait in the car, Gianni.' He punched a number into the phone.

‘Tomaso…' I said.

Guastafeste touched my arm gently. ‘Go and wait in the car.'

2

The police were there in less than five minutes. The black and white patrol cars were first, their sirens blaring despite the time of night and lack of traffic, their rooftop lights flashing. They were followed by a couple of unmarked saloons containing plain-clothes detectives. They didn't trouble to find anywhere to park, just stopped in a line in the middle of the street. I saw Guastafeste come out through the archway to meet them, watched him confer for a while with his colleagues before they all turned and disappeared into the courtyard. Uniformed officers were already closing off the street, putting out plastic bollards, running red and white tapes between the buildings.

I felt numb. I knew Rainaldi was dead. Why else had Guastafeste sent me away except to spare me the trauma of seeing my friend's body? Yet, for the police to be there, and in such force, I knew there was more to it than a simple death.

I waited, staring down the street at the garish blue lights on top of the police cars, still illuminated but no longer flashing. One of the officers looked in my direction, saw me sitting in the car. He started to walk towards me, but at that moment Guastafeste came out from the courtyard and overtook him, saying something that made the officer turn back. Guastafeste kept on walking. He pulled open the car door and slid into the driver's seat next to me. He gazed out through the windscreen as if he couldn't bring himself to look at me.

‘How did he die?' I asked.

Guastafeste took hold of the steering wheel and gripped it hard, bowing his head and giving a low sigh.

‘I have to know,' I said.

Guastafeste lifted his head, still not looking at me. ‘He was stabbed in the back of the neck with a chisel.'

‘Dio!'
I felt my chest tighten. I was suddenly short of breath. I wound down the window to let in some air.